The Sunshine has Eyes and They're Staring (Pasha)

Aiden limped through the town. He hadn't been at the school nearly long enough to know it yet - hah, he hadn't even been there long enough to know how to find the room he'd been assigned again - but he couldn't stay there. Not with the heat and the people and the stares. There was just too much, and too much centred on him. He didn't deal well with attention, and lately it had been even worse.

Out in the city, things were at least spread out more. There were people but they did their own thing. They had places to go, places to be. They didn't have time to watch him, much less care. It was still too hot, much too hot, and even if he was wearing a lighter grey hoodie the extra fabric didn't help with temperatures. He couldn't deal with the alternative, though, so he sweated and swallowed against a dry throat and tried to stay in the shade.

Somewhere in the city, lost but not yet fully aware of it because he wasn't trying to turn around yet, he leaned against a wall that felt at least a little cooler than everything else. People occasionally passed him by, many dressed in long sleeves and full pants as well without even thinking about sweating, but in his little sliver of shadow he seemed unnoticed.

Of course, it might have just been that he was more occupied with his dizziness than paranoia. Overheating and dehydration had that effect. Aiden felt like he wasn't melting so much as vaporizing, a little bit of moisture at a time.

@"Horus"

Little bits of moisture, just wisping away into the atmosphere and leaving him less and less and less. He kind of wanted to draw that somehow, but he didn't have the energy to go back and get a sketchbook or even a sheet of looseleaf. To be honest, he didn't have the energy to stand up.

There was a voice. Aiden had roughly zero idea what the guy was saying, some........enormous guy chewing out words that may or may not have been in english. He thought he got the point, though. He wasn't supposed to be leaning on this wall.

"Sorry, he said, and pushed away from the wall. He staggered but caught himself, wincing against the magnified lurching in his head and trying to get his senses realigned. "I was just looking for some shade." Not that there was much, but it was a little bit better that the full sun. He rubbed some of the sweat from the side of his face. It just took a bit of care to make sure he didn't knock himself over in the process.

All right, which partially shaded bit of wall didn't have giant intimidating guardians lurking about? Ideally not very far, because he wasn't sure he could walk very far.

Aiden had almost steeled himself to moving onwards when the accented giant started talking again. It was a little easier to understand him this time, whether by chance or practice, but Aiden still wasn't sure if he had heard correctly. He could go inside? And sit down?

He had been hoping for either of those things. What were the odds of being offered both together? They probably depended on just how pathetic and miserable he looked. He'd been trying to keep everything locked down inside and all, but the harder it got to walk the harder it had become to keep a lid on his misery.

He didn't have the energy to try to restrain what relief he had the energy to feel. "Thank you" was enough of a drain on his remaining stamina. Did he really get an escape from even some of the heat? Really and truly? Somewhere in the back of his mind, a little piece of him danced as he moved to follow the stranger. It was just too bad that that wasn't enough to throw any snow around. It still felt a bit cooler already, though whether it was in his head, a product of having nearly escaped, or somehow actually real was far beyond his ability to determine.

If it weren't for the heat, Aiden would have bolted when the stranger opened the door, if not when the stranger opened his mouth. He still managed to hesitate. Creaking metal doors didn't seem to bode well...

but there was air that wasn't hot coming out and Aiden managed to pick up his pace until he was inside. His old runners slipped a little on the floor, but his balance was still good enough to keep him upright and anyway it was cold! Cold cold cold cold. He made it to a table rather than just oozing onto the floor in overwhelming relief, and spread himself across it instead. He pressed every bit of skin he could against the ice-

Wait, the table was ice?

Eh, that explained why it was cold. It wasn't like he could really argue about things being unexpectedly frozen, especially with his current intersection of relief and exhaustion. He left the oddity for later and made sure he couldn't get any more of his face against the table, and sighed in relief.

"Thank you," he said, voice slightly muddled since the table and relief both interfered with his jaw. It was almost like he could feel his body temperature creeping down from whatever it had been to something comfortable, something that wouldn't melt snow instantly.

@"Horus"

The door closed with a rather final clunk, but Aiden was floating in the land of "could live here forever and never move again." He'd start thinking about horrible plots and horror stories and whatnot later, and might apply the worries retroactively - but for now, he just tried to suck all the cold in to replace the heat. He stopped sweating, his breath eased, and eventually he had recovered enough to answer his rescuer.

What had he been doing there? Oh, right. "I was just looking around," he said, faintly and almost dreamily. His cheek didn't seem to be moving right. Oh, he was frozen to the table. There had been too much sweat on his skin, apparently. The cold didn't bother him in the slightest, but it was hard to talk when his face was literally frozen down. He started trying to peel it off without sacrificing too much skin-to-cold area. Rescuer sounded grumpy, but he didn't seem to be doing anything other than grumping.

There, his face was free. Still stiff, and it felt like there was still a bit of ice stuck to his skin, but he could move again. "Not much else to do right now, and I thought there might be fewer people out here than back there."

@"Horus"