unburden | and spin him to the ground

It's remarkably juvenile, stopping in the middle of a park to make a snowman. Rukia can't seem to help herself, called towards the cold and its familiarity — it's the first thing she ever remembers experiencing, a cold that rocked her down to the bone. Now, it wraps around her and makes her feel alive.

No, that's wrong. She is alive, if not by the strictest of definitions, then certainly in the wavering of her heart and whisper of her breath.

The city has been lonely ever since Ichigo left, and while Rukia recharges often by sitting on her own, too much isolation beyond that makes Rukia feel like she's crawling in her skin. Spending time with Spock serves her somewhat, but one friend shouldn't have to carry the full burden of the tension she holds on her shoulders, so Rukia keeps a careful distance. Her jobs help. Toy stores have been busy still, in spite of the snow. Too many restless kids, she supposes.

Without thinking, the snowman ends up being about twice Rukia's height, and only when she finishes by placing a cap on top of its head does she start to laugh, climbing down from her makeshift snow step stool and breaking it down with several kicks of her toes.

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For a moment, Lucian intends to decline, to say something about how he's far too old for such things. But then he thinks of a time, centuries ago, and of the child that could have been. Would he have built snowmen with that child? Lucian wonders.

These thoughts go through his head in the space of a moment, and Lucian nods, a fleeting but genuine smile appearing. "Very well," he says. "I didn't get your name. I'm Lucian."

"You don't have to, if you have better things to do," laughs Rukia, and not for the first time, she's struck by the quieter individuals in Darrow. A lot of people in the city seem busy with everyday activities, bustling around town and engaging with their close friends and family, but it's always the quiet and purposeful who catch Rukia's eye.

Partially because she thinks they're the ones with the best odds of making their way out of the city.

Partially because she simply misses the people from home. Misses Byakuya and Ichigo most of all.

"But I'm Rukia," she adds with a tilt of her head. "Are you a Darrow native? Or...?"

"I don't mind," Lucian assures her. "And no. I have been here only since November."

Her smile relaxes at the answer. "Good," she sighs with a nod. "Not that I have anything against the natives here in Darrow, but it's nice to be able to speak frankly about people coming in and out of the city. Some of the natives I've met don't react well to that turn of conversation."

"I have found the same to be true," Lucian replies. "Those I have spoken to seem very resistent to the idea that they have not been in this city their whole lives, though I am given to understand it was not even a year ago they all appeared, seemingly from nowhere. It's quite strange.

"I was here for that," Rukia nods, feeling that this information at least isn't the sort that should be kept secret or to a select few. If the majority of people ever want to be able to make it back home, or even want to reliably stay in the city without being removed like so many of the Darrow residents were, then the dissemination of knowledge seems to be the best bet for keeping one another safe. "It's as you said. At first, it was just a few of us, people who arrived remembering completely lives from other worlds, dimensions, homes... to an essentially vacant city, not capable of running itself in the slightest. Then, come summer, everyone else started to filter in with memories that conflicted with our own. It was pretty unnerving."

"I can imagine it would have been," Lucian says. "It seems to be so now, to me, and these so-called locals had been here for months before me. There is something unsettling about how they seem so utterly firm in their belief that they have never been elsewhere."

"Or adept at the lies," murmurs Rukia. To imagine that the majority of the population has been in some way deceived is easy, forgiving, the most optimistic turn to take. But knowing so little about the land itself, even after having been there for nearly a year, leaves Rukia far less willing to make assumptions.

"Or perhaps we're the ones living in a bit of delusion."

Lucian considers that a moment. "Perhaps," he agrees. "Though if that is the case, this is a group more uncannily skilled at deception than any I have ever seen."

It's not much to go off of, so Rukia eventually smiles, deciding to shrug the matter aside. Unlikely that she'll find any answers in snow drifts, unlikely that she'll stumble across them with an as of yet complete stranger.

"Maybe. What do I know, though? I'm a terrible liar," Rukia says with a slight shrug of her shoulders.

That much may be pretty true.

and spin him to the ground

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