LAND OF HOPE AND GLOOOOOOOOOORY

[Link Adlington]

Feet up on the table, head resting against the window, Link sat in the Mars Café, a cup of some sort of hot drink in front of him that he couldn't remember the name of. All he knew was that he didn't particularly care for it, and so he wasn't particularly bothered to finish it off.

The chair across from him was empty. The majority of the café seemed empty, to be perfectly honest. But Link didn't really mind. He was quite happy to be on his own.

The door to the cafe opened but Link didn't bother to look over, merely gazing out of the window at the dark sky outside. It must be closing time soon. He wondered if he'd be kicked out soon, or what the colony on Pluto was up to. Sometimes he wished he was there rather than here. But he would get over that pretty quickly when he was reminded that the teasing of his height wasn't quite as bad here. Link grinned at the thought as he shifted in his seat.

[Winter Bane]

Winter was in an awful mood. An awful, awful mood. He wanted to go back to earth, he missed Hogwarts, and he hated the fact he was supposed to go to school here for another year. If they'd just stayed at earth, he would've been done now. But now, there would be another year for him in this hell-hole, with uninteresting people and they didn't even have a decent cup of tea so he couldn't drown his sorrows in that either. Was 12 PM too early for alcohol?

The boy ordered a coffee, refusing to drink any more of the tea they had until they employed someone that could brew a decent cuppa.

He found one of the empty tables, put up his feet on the empty chair across from him and waited for his coffee to be brought over. His eyes scanned the room, it wasn't very full. Obviously people shared his thoughts about the tea being shit. His eyes settled on a boy that appeared to be staring out the window.

Normally Winter's eyes would've skipped him immediately, seeing as it wasn't really the type he went for. Too normal, too short. But for some reason, the boy intrigued him, he just couldn't put his finger on it. It wasn't until one of the waitresses brought him his coffee, and about five minutes of staring intently, Winter realized why he was so intrigued.

The boy's ears were pointy.

[Link Adlington]

Link's eyes flitted across the landscape as he mused, head still pressed against the window, when the light changed the reflection in the glass and he saw exactly who it was sitting it at the other table. He didn't know this guy, but for some reason, he seemed transfixed on Link.

For a moment, Link decided to pretend he hadn't noticed. If the guy wanted to talk to him, he'd talk to him. If he didn't, then he'd stop looking. Or maybe he was just imagining it. Feeling sort of uncomfortable, Link decided to stretch his hand out and move his mug to catch the reflection in there.

He was still looking. Feeling increasingly awkward, Link finally sucked in a breath and turned around to look at him, his stomach leaping a bit as he made eye contact. So he had been staring. He fought the urge to drop his gaze. "Can I help you?" he asked in the politest tone he could manage.

[Winter Bane]

Right, of course. Staring at someone so blatantly was not very subtle and would get you in trouble. Or well, trouble, it would get you caught. Which it did. Winter gave the boy a crooked smile as their eyes locked, fighting the urge to ignore him and pretend nothing ever happened. The waitress set his coffee on the table and walked off. Winter wrapped one hand around the mug and then answered the boy.

"I don't know. Does helping me entail telling me why your ears are pointy?" He asked flatly, not even trying to hide his curiosity now. He'd already been caught staring anyway. And he couldn't have the boy thinking that Winter may had actually been staring at him for some other reason than his ears. Which certainly never had been the case.

Because Winter didn't find the short boy at all kind of cute in a slightly odd way, nor did he briefly thought about the fact he would fit perfectly in his embrace during his few minutes staring. Those things hadn't happened, it were just the pointy ears, Winter told himself.

[Link Adlington]

Link narrowed his eyes and felt a blush creep over his cheeks, before he reached up to touch one of his ears lightly. "I don't know, can you tell me why yours are round? I've always wondered. Seems weird." He smiled a glittering smile as his face cooled back down, before giving a little tug on his ear and dropping his head back against the window, eyeing the guy again.

"I'm an elf," he said, before realising how stupid that sounded. 'I'm an elf! Ehehehehe!' It wasn't like he'd never had to tell anyone before, was it? Or maybe he hadn't. Maybe other people had been polite enough not to ask. "I mean... I'm not... human. I'm not being pretentious," he assured him. This was where he hated being short. Stupidly short for an elf. They probably just thought he had some ear abnormality or something. Still, he'd wanted to know, he had his answer.

"That help?" he asked, the same polite tone from earlier creeping back into his voice, a smile playing at his lips.

[Winter Bane]

"You're an elf," Winter repeated when the boy finished talking. It indeed explained the pointy ears, though Winter only knew about elves from fairytailes, which were creatures with wings and dresses and he'd always imagined them being taller but he wasn't going to say that out loud because even he wasn't that rude. "No wings?" he asked, slightly disappointed. "Just the pointy ears?"

"I mean, they're nice and all that, but wings would've been a lot cooler. Then you'd have been able to fly you know. Though you're also able to do that with a broom I guess, but it'd be way more convenient to have wings," he pondered out loud.

He took a sip from his coffee, cursing as it wasn't quite as cool as he thought it would be. It burned his lip. He quickly set it back on the table and rubbed his lip pitifully. "You elves don't happen to have some kind of healing power either, do you?"

[Link Adlington]

"Wings?" Link said, raising his eyebrows incredulously. "No... I don't need wings. I don't think I could withstand the teasing. I wouldn't want to be called Fairy Boy or Cherub or something patronising," he added with a grin. "I'd never be able to kick it. My sister would lead them in the teasing."

Link smirked slightly as he continued, pointing out the pros of wings. He personally couldn't see them. "Yes, but knowing my luck I probably wouldn't be able to use them and then I'd look like an idiot. With wings. That don't work. Short is bad enough. Short and winged, nope."

The guy took a sip of his drink, but seemed to regret that choice as he burnt his lip. Link was about to check he was okay when he spoke and the boy scoffed. "No. And that's a pitiful reason to be healed, you big baby. Go order a cold drink." He blinked and looked around. They seemed to be the only two in here, and yet it was still weird that they were talking. "Besides, even if we did, I wouldn't be able to do it. Not until I was older, anyway."

[Winter Bane]

Winter snickered lightly. "Neh, I think you'd look quite dashing flying around, Fairy Boy" he said, before he realized that he wasn't supposed to flirt with this person so he really shouldn't have said that. Winter was so used to flirting with basically every boy he met, so it was quite hard not to. "And you'd save yourself quite a some of money on a broom, they're bloody expensive these days," he added quickly.

Winter refused to order a cool drink now. After a moment of hesitation, he picked up his drink, walked over to where the other boy was sitting and then sat down on the seat across from him. The only reason for this was because they were the only two people in the café, it made no sense for them to be shouting over the tables. They could just as well share one.

"So you don't have wings, no healing power. Is there anything useful that came with your pointy ears?" he asked, setting his cup down on the table. He found no reason to explain why he decided to come sit there, and if the boy wanted him to leave, well then he would. But maybe after dumping his hot coffee over his head, though he even doubted about that, because he wasn't sure he wanted to ruin the adorable look on the boy's face.

[Link Adlington]

Oh, how he regretted saying that. Link wrinkled his nose. "I'm not a fairy," he insisted. "They're vicious little sods and I'm well nice." They were vicious little sods. Many a time one had plunged their teeth into his arm. They left marks, too. Though they were better than doxies. Doxies could be lethal.

He thought that the guy might be leaving now, and turned himself back into his prior position, forehead pressed to the window, when the other boy was there again, sitting in front of him. He raised his eyebrows in question, before biting his lip, smirking at his words. "Oh yes, my supersonic hearing and the ability to impale people with them," Link replied sarcastically, trying to keep his face straight. "I don't know. Me and Merrill... for some reason we don't have your conventional elven magic. Which I mean might explain why I'm so... vertically challenged. They say we'll grow into it but for now we have to use this magic, like you boring humans."

He wondered why he was telling this guy this. This guy he didn't know. "You still haven't answered my question. Why are your ears round?"

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