maskormenacelogs | another intro, yeeeeah

WHO: Kristoff Bjorgman and OPEN
WHERE: Outside of Residence #005
WHEN: Thursday, February 13th
WHAT: Kristoff's unsure about going into this house. In fact, he is massively put-off by this entire thing. Hello housemates, neighbors, and any other passers-by.
WARNINGS: nah man.

When Kristoff had turned away from the massive doors of Arendelle's castle, he'd heard Sven snort and whine in protest behind him. He'd ignored it in favor of walking determinedly away from the whole situation, and now... Now he was here, and Sven wasn't. He'd been suddenly surrounded by utterly unfamiliar spaces and people, and he must've asked fifteen times about his reindeer. Maybe the idea was that, if he knew that one thing, had something familiar, this would somehow make a lot more sense.

But he still didn't know where Sven was, and this still didn't make any sense. He'd been deposited in front of a house, odd in construction, and wasn't exactly sure about going in. They said he could, that he was supposed to live there, but it was still an uncomfortable action to take. It wasn't his house, and nobody had invited him so much as they'd shoved him at it, and... This whole thing was just too much! Everything here was boxy and paved-over, the street so open and the land so flat, the people too pushy.

He'd been too overwhelmed to be able to hold on to anything very valuable about this, if there was anything. Outside of the house, with nowhere else to go, he rubbed a hand over his face and sat down heavily on the front lawn. The things that they'd given him were set down next to him, along with his mittens, and he began to wait.

He wasn't sure what he was waiting on, but something had to make sense eventually, right?

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

It seemed quite simple to Nelson, but it was true that where he was from a person could afford to pick and choose where they wanted to be rather than select a career (or trade) by pure necessity. Not quite so during the Depression, no, but Nelson hadn't had to worry about work himself much at the time after he'd enlisted.

Still, he listened to Kristoff with perplexed concern, wondering what all kind of skills someone like him could have. Things more suited to the wilderness, obviously.

"What about something in survival skills? Uh-- you know, precisely that sort of independent living, swimming and climbing and tying knots. Things anyone can stand to know," he offered after another moment of thought. "At least as a start."

"Survival skills. Right." He couldn't disagree that they were things people ought to know; it was already why he hadn't considered them marketable. He was about to ask how they might be traits worth selling, exactly, but he paused to look out of the open window. It was still the odd image of the smooth street lined with boxy houses and clipped grass. How wide did it all stretch? When did the buildings taper off, and where did the mountains begin?

"You're all in these houses, and the land's so flat..." He started, the bluster gone out of him for the most part. What's left is a general tone of questioning with a dash of gruff pouting. "Does anybody need anything like that here? And... They said something about work. They did. It's on the paper. Just-- I really like what I do, you know? Why'd they have to get rid of it?"

The geography of Florida was not something Nelson was well-versed in himself, although he knew some things (there were swamps?) (hurricanes?) abstractly. The clean-cut town of Heropa wasn't anything like the deep woods, but that didn't have to mean much.

"Well, swimming, maybe, if you can do that," he murmured, momentarily distracted in thought. Then he shook his head. "There wouldn't be the same sort of need for... cutting ice out here, probably, it is very warm. Compared to what you're used to. But--"

He gestured as if to indicate the paper in question. "Well, what are you supposed to be doing?"

"Oh. I... Um. Hang on."

Kristoff moved back to the entrance of the kitchen where he'd left his things, and he pulled the folder from among his folded clothes. He returned and held it out for Nelson to take, small frown in place with his eyes diverted elsewhere, as sheepish as he'd let his demeanor get in front of a stranger. He could get by pretty well, so far as reading went. He could read signs on shopfronts easily and write all of the names of the people who bought ice from him, those sorts of things, but the information presented in the folder was a daunting wall of text. He'd glanced over it. He knew that they knew too much about him before having talked to him. They knew his full name and his age, but beyond that...

"I'm some kind of driver? I don't know what it is. I don't really... Um. I mean, I didn't really sit down to work through all of that, you know?"

Accepting the folder, Nelson continued to look at Kristoff for another moment or two, still trying to mull out a solution, before he opened the folder to read it. Then, after going over the first half of the first page, he looks back over at Kristoff over the edge of the folder.

"Well, if you haven't read it all the way through yet--" He began, looking back at the paper for reference and assuming that Kristoff just hadn't bothered instead of assuming that reading the paper might have been challenging. "It's an ice resurfacer. So in some way you might at least still be near the ice, even if it's indoors. You drive it over an ice rink to smooth down the surface."

It seemed fitting, Nelson supposed, although he wasn't surprised Kristoff didn't understand at first. If he can from the arctic, obviously there would have no need for ice rinks; if he skated at all it would probably just be on an actual frozen body of water.

"Uh... is that any clearer?"

"Sure."

The answer wasn't as affirmative as he attempted to make it sound. It was a little clearer. He knew that he was going to be around ice, which is something that he knows about. Even if he didn't get how it was going to be indoors, he could get why making it look nice might be a thing. That was part of it, right? Anyway, if it was ice, he could learn it. No problem.

Anyway... Kristoff let out a long breath and dropped back into one of the chairs at the kitchen table, seemingly done with the momentary panic if still a little confused. He scrubbed a hand over his face and remembered that there was food. That was still good. He looked over everything and smiled, lingering doubt and just enough apology making their way onto his face. "Um... Thanks, anyway. I just-- I wasn't prepared for any of this. It's kinda from out of nowhere."

Progress. Nelson smiled, as encouragingly as he could, pleased that Kristoff seemed to have somewhat taken to the situation now. Had grown more satisfied with it, at least. Nelson couldn't fault him, really, for any difficulty -- he himself had a great deal of trouble when he'd first arrived.

"I don't blame you," he said, nodding once and offering one of the plates of food to Kristoff. "It's a lot to take in all at once. And none of it sat right with me in the beginning either. I don't like being away from home in the least."

That wasn't entirely true, there were things about being here -- or back in the City -- Nelson had grown to appreciate, things he couldn't have back home. But all the same, he was a man who appreciated the simple things, and the familiar things, and home was still home even if it wasn't perfect.

"It does get easier, though," he added. "And there are some good things. Even if you never stop wanting to go back."

"Thanks," Kristoff muttered again as the food was presented. He didn't know what to say apart from that, though. He just nodded in acknowledgement because it was the easiest thing to do. He couldn't say whether it would get easier, but he could easily imagine his desire to return never abating. He wondered, briefly, how far the thought extended. Even when he had the mountain back, and Sven and the family... Well, that still left Arenelle, didn't it? Would the want to go back always be tucked away in the back of his mind, no matter how long he left it alone there?

He started to eat quietly, content to sit through the motions of doing something easy and effortlessly familiar. He let his mind wander and let it stop again. He'd almost finished his plate when he spoke up again. "How long have you been here?"

The silence as they ate wasn't necessarily uncomfortable to Nelson, who -- social as he was -- tended to take some relief in moments that offered an easy respite to conversation, particularly with someone who wasn't an old, close friend. Eating was one such example, but it only lasted so long.

Nelson took a slow sip of his coffee before answering, in part because it was hard to think about, and in part because he actually had to do the math. "A few weeks, here. Altogether it's been over a year since I've been home," he finally said, knowing it wasn't necessarily a reassurance. "Some people come and go much more quickly than that."

another intro, yeeeeah

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