Work Text:
It was winter once more, and it was Rem’s turn to clear the snow away from the entrance. One fact to know about Rem- he absolutely abhorred the cold. Ragna and Enkrid were outside too, though for a different purpose (training, of course). What a way to add insult to injury, Rem pouted to himself. He had to shovel snow, and on top of that, the lazy dog got to train with the captain too?
Then a brilliant thought struck. A simple way to get petty vengeance.
At that point, Ragna and Enkrid had momentarily stopped sparring, and Ragna was saying something about the other’s stance.
Rem bent down and shaped some snow into a ball, managing to ignore the cold in favor of seeing the eventual expression on Ragna’s face. With the same ease he had when handling his axes, Rem swung his arm back and threw.
~*~
A snowball slammed into the back of Ragna’s head, cutting him off midsentence, and he immediately turned around to look for the culprit. Oh, who was he kidding, of course it was Rem.
Said barbarian was snickering away like he’d just heard the funniest joke ever, leaning casually against his shovel. Ragna grit his teeth.
It. Was. On.
And by every god Audin prayed to, he was going to take Rem down.
Ragna lobbed a snowball back in retaliation, but it missed, making Rem laugh even harder. Ragna growled and leapt at him, and before long they were scuffling in the snow. Somewhere in the scuffle, Ragna grabbed a handful of half-melted snow and stuffed it down the back of Rem’s cuirass. The other jolted like he’d been shocked, backhanding Ragna across the face almost on instinct.
~*~
Ragna, that bastard. Rem scowled, a fine shiver starting to set in as the cold seemed to cling to his bones. The lazy swordsman was now nursing a bruised cheek and glaring at him with equal ferocity.
In a blink they were both hurling snowballs at each other with reckless abandon, having forgotten their weapons entirely at the moment.
Meanwhile, Enkrid just watched with his usual faint exhaustion. As long as they weren’t killing each other, it was fine, he thought to himself. It was foolish trying to stop them anyway. Enkrid settled back to watch, leaning against the cabin wall. Perhaps he could learn something from their brawl as well.
~*~
Audin glanced out the cabin window and was greeted by a sight that failed to surprise him. Rem and Ragna were going at it again, alternating between throwing snowballs at each other and attempting to lop the other’s head off with their respective weapons.
He exhaled slowly, murmuring a prayer for patience and guidance as he emerged from the warmth of the cabin into the fierce cold of winter. After exchanging a brief greeting with a tired-looking Enkrid, he continued on his way.
“Brothers,” Audin called. Both men ignored him. “Brothers!” he called out again, resolutely approaching the flurry of limbs and bared teeth. He held out his hands, ready to restrain either one or both of them. “Senseless violence solves nothi-”
A stray snowball flew and hit him square in the face. The two instantly froze.
~*~
Rem looked up at their giant of a squad member and for a split second felt nervous. It was rare for Audin’s golden eyes to be open, and they were open now, sparking with something approaching annoyance even as his mouth stayed in its serene smile.
Without a word, Audin scooped up a good amount of the snow Rem had shoveled earlier that day and dumped it over their heads.
That did nothing to cool (ha) their tempers, and the brawl resumed, now with three participants instead of two.
Enkrid continued to watch, eyes deadpan as ever.
Unfortunately that was when Sachsen decided to return from his business in town. Out of pure happenstance one of Audin’s gargantuan, snowman-sized snowballs landed right on his head. Layers of powdery snow coated his hair and shoulders, fine bits of it sticking to his face.
Sachsen staggered for a moment before whirling around, his furious eyes the only thing disrupting his usual impassive expression.
Three participants became four as Sachsen returned fire with terrifying speed and accuracy.
It was a full on war at that point, and Enkrid pinched the bridge of his nose. As long as they weren’t killing each other, he repeated to himself, desperation starting to leak into the thought. They’d be fine, they were grown men, not- his thought was interrupted as Rem yanked on Ragna’s bangs and Ragna pulled Rem’s hair in return as Audin tried to forcibly shove them apart. Someone tumbled to the ground and the others went down with him in a heap. Enkrid sighed again. They weren’t children, despite the evidence that sometimes proved otherwise.
Wait, now that he thought about it, Sachsen was nowhere to be seen.
Enkrid glanced around and there was a sudden flash of white in the corner of his vision. Rem’s enraged shout signalled who the target had been. Another flash of white and a snowball smacked Ragna in the face. Tracking the direction the snowballs had come from, Enkrid stepped back from the cabin wall, finding Sachsen on the roof with a stockpile of snowball ammunition by his side. How he got up there was a mystery, but he had his ways, presumably.
Sachsen hefted another snowball, landing a bullseye on Audin this time, and the attention of all three was now directed at the wildcat on the roof. Coming to a silent agreement, the three below momentarily set aside their grudges as they dashed towards the cabin to get their revenge as Sachsen continued his volley of snow projectiles. Right as they reached the cabin, however, the wildcat got up and was gone in a flash.
The temporary alliance folded almost immediately after Sachsen disappeared, and everyone was at each other’s throats once more. Rem held a flailing Ragna down as he took vengeance for the snow dumped down his cuirass earlier in the fight by dumping melting snow down Ragna’s cuirass in turn. Meanwhile, Audin was busy rolling a giant snowball - the largest he’d made yet - in their direction.
Kreise emerged from the cabin moments later, muttering something about a scheduled deal. He didn’t make it a single step before getting caught in the crossfire, one snowball hitting his chest and another hitting his face.
To add to the unfortunate situation, Audin lost control of the giant snowball right at that moment, and it rolled, gaining speed as Kreise grimaced and brushed the snow off himself. He didn’t notice the snowball rapidly gaining speed and size as it approached him until it was too late to dodge.
Kreise went down in a heap of snow, falling through the door he hadn’t properly closed yet, getting snow in the entrance and also all over Esther who had been watching the chaos unfold from inside. Esther shook the snow out of her fur and growled with her hackles raised. The idiots in the madmen squad were going to face her wrath, she thought as she darted out, stepping over Kreise’s prone body as she did so.
~*~
Rem yelped as sharp teeth dug into his arm, forcing him to drop the snowball he’d just made.
“Get off of me!” he hissed to no avail. Esther clung firmly to his arm, and the others took that opportunity to pelt both him and the panther with more snowballs.
Enkrid finally took that as a sign to step in. While he could somewhat trust his madmen not to kill each other, Esther was an entirely different story. She was a wild animal, after all. Who knew what she would do?
Right as he got to the scene, however, he became the accidental target of the snowballs being pelted at Rem. The cold was startling, and even Enkrid’s patience wore thin. Perhaps a combination of the inexplicable weariness he’d felt all morning coupled with the cold from the snowballs and just a hundred other little things from the past couple of days.
Ah dammit.
Four participants became five.
~*~
Andrew accidentally slept in. Perhaps it was due to the sun rising later and later as winter crept on. In any case, it was a good day for training. The air was cold and crisp in a way he enjoyed, and his breath fogged in the air as he exhaled. Perhaps he’d ask for Enkrid’s guidance if he wasn’t training with the madmen already.
He arrived at the madman squad’s cabin and was greeted with what could only be called pandemonium.
Enkrid and four of the madmen were tussling in the snow (snow that was rapidly melting with all the tussling), and Kreise, the only madman not involved, was grumpily watching the chaos from the cabin doorstep with a blanket pathetically wrapped around his wet uniform.
Just what had happened…?
All of a sudden he was dragged behind a snow fort he hadn’t noticed yet.
“What-”
“Shh!” Rem hushed, crouched by his side. “You’re gonna give yourself away,”
“From what?”
Rem ignored his question entirely in favor of ordering him to start throwing snowballs indiscriminately. And who was he to refuse? Andrew had grown a lot as a soldier, but Rem had an aura about him intense enough to make him automatically agree.
He would soon come to regret that decision.
~*~
Mac was later dragged into the ordeal while looking for Andrew.
Henri, having initially sought out Enkrid to teach him some scavenging tips, sat on the sidelines with Kreise.
Torres and Finn later joined in voluntarily- Torres after being egged on by Rem, and Finn just for the fun of it.
And so the chaos continued for a time, the rest of the camp giving the mini war a wide berth.
~*~
All fighting halted as Shinar suddenly appeared in the middle of the chaos.
Her face was frozen in a neutral expression, but the vein in her forehead was a telling sign of her anger.
“Shoveling duty for the next two weeks for everyone involved in this foolishness,” she said in a tone that brooked no argument. Her words rang in the silence. “You have made your bed, now you must lie in it.”
~*~
The next day, Rem and Ragna were both down with colds. Though they were free from their shoveling duty punishment for the moment, perhaps the misery of being sick was arguably worse.