It’s real ice cream. The kind that comes in scoops. Not that there’s anything wrong with soft serve! Soft serve is a great treat. You can get it just about anywhere, and it’s pretty much the same everywhere, which means it’s always going to be there for you. A reliable dessert friend. And it’s no insult to a good friend to lose your head a little when there’s a concert in town, and the band’s playing spiced vanilla so rich and creamy, you have to eat it in little bites. Except you have to eat it in little bites already, because it’s hard-frozen, dessert strong against desert sun, which is just perfect, because slow is how you want to eat it. One lick at a time. One nibble at a time. Letting the sweet flavors melt in your mouth, savor every second of spice. And there’s no rush, because you bought it in a big waffle cone (scaled cone?) that’ll catch any errant drips as you make your way down to the crunchy goodness.

He’s not even had lunch yet. Illicit elevenses ice cream. Bought with his own money. Because he could.

The hollow fills with the tap-a-tap-tap of his heels on the cobbles, because the bench is too short to swing his legs about. He doesn’t know he’s smiling with his whole face, only that he’s so happy he could just burst. 

He’s on an Adventure. It’s really happening.

He’s sitting on a bench in Crevas. He’s at the real Festival of Lights. He’s got a fancy pouch slung over his shoulder, and if his hands weren’t full of ice cream he’d take out one of the coins and trace the engravings again. He looks up the left side of the plaza, giving the dancer a wide berth, and a family of Serigalamu walk right past him. And! He has antlers! And a little tail! It goes flicka-flick! He doesn’t quite know how! But he runs a hand over the unfamiliar horns sprouting from his curls, somehow both tough and fuzzy at the same time, and it’s all he can do not to giggle in wonder. He scans the plaza, and his eyes cross paths with a bare stomach before bouncing at once to her face. He can watch her face, she’s performing. She. A Nagi. Real. Standing right there. Dancing right there. Aaaaaaaand now he is going to look at the fountain while she shimmies on lower to the ground. How did they make it look like water was coiling up the central pillar like that? It was magic, right? Unless it wasn’t, which could be even more impressive! 

Crevas. The home of the Nagi. Shapes he had only seen on paper or - shamefully - a screen, moving. Laughing. Singing. Living. 

You know, when Yuki said they were coming here, already, he was worried it was going to be a lot harder? But he’s doing great. He looks from the fountain to the glassworks shop across the plaza, and he doesn’t stop for a moment on glowing white tresses or glittering top. See? Not a problem! He’s passed more Nagi than he can count today, and he didn’t stare at any of them. It’s a lot like summertime back home, come to think of it. Even if people wore less, people were people, and that was no call to treat them like some kind of creep.

The gathering crowd breaks into applause, and he peeks over The Nagi sways lower, and lower, until nearly half of her was lying parallel to the ground. And still she dances, as if the whole world had turned sideways and not her. Just imagine the skill it takes to dance like that, not to mention the strength, goodness. Of all the eyes in the plaza, her lidded gaze finds his. And at once he looks up at the ceiling, brow furrowing, as if he had been thinking about something else the whole time. You know. The sort of thing that people do all the time when they haven’t been staring. Perfectly normal and inconspicuous. 

Nicely done, Hazel. Now she thinks you were ogling her for goodness knows how long. Staring, and staring, like she was doing all this for [i]you.[/i] You couldn’t have just looked at her like a normal person, no, you had to act as guilty as humanly possibly. Face flushed and counting the ceiling tiles. Stupid. 

He should probably just leave. It’d be worse to stay.

Well. He still had a little ice cream left. He’ll leave in a bit.

(And it is awfully hard to maintain a grump in the presence of ice cream. The last bite especially, when it’s the perfect mix of crunchy cone and melty ice cream all in one big delicious burst! (Flicka-flick!))