Ice cream! [i]"Viola! What kind do you like?"[/i] What kind does she like? She'd never thought of that. Where she came from, there was only one ice cream, made out of milk fresh from the cows in the farms. But here, the sign in front of the cart had about a dozen of them. She wondered if they have farms too around here, if the ice cream and its dozen of taste was made here or if it came from somewhere-

The ice cream attendant snapped his fingers. "Hey, kid? Are you gonna buy something?" His voice was more joking than unkind. He looked at Lyra, then at Zeke, and then he grinned. "Skipping class to be out with your boyfriend, eh? Man I shouldda done that when I was your age."

Unfortunately, Lyra's brain filtered through half of what he was saying. "Huh? Oh, sorry! We'll have the chocolate nuts one, and the," [i]vanilla? But might as well get something new[/i], "mint one?"

The ice cream seller rolled his eye. He took scoops of each flavour and set them on their cones. "Here you go, that'll be- oh, thank you." Lyra already had the money for it out of her pocket. He took it and handed the two ice creams, one brown dotted with more brown and another that's a light blue. "Enjoy. Oh, and nice music, there."

"Huh? Oh." The violin was still playing, all by itself. Was he listening? Did he not think it was strange that a violin was playing on its own? Back home people would definitely freak out if they see one. She supposed things are different here, so close to the academy. "Thank you," she mumbled.

Zeke was tugging at her hand. "Yes? Oh, and here's your ice cream." She handed the chocolate one with Zeke, then looked at his eyes. "Hmm, did you find something nice to photograph?"

[@Regitnui]