AN: Spoilers for Snow Mountain Syndrome abound. Partially AU (most probably). Tell me if FF net formating messes with this.

As this raises as many questions as it answers, a companion piece may be forthcoming.

Leave a review behind if you like it, and have fun reading!

- Cytrus

Her mouth opened, air escaped her lungs and her composure crumbled. And then, her effervescent laughter cut through the silence.

Tsuruya paid no heed to any bemused looks she might be receiving, did not notice the snowflakes she involuntarily swallowed and did not care for the white wisps of air continuously emerging from her mouth. Because once she started laughing, the whole world was lost to her. And if there was one situation in which Tsuruya felt no need to put up facades, it was when she was on her own territory, surrounded with friends equally as out of the ordinary as she was.

"Underlings… regroup!"

Equally, or even more. Because Haruhi Suzumiya – the non-conformist leader of the SOS Brigade, did not play second fiddle to anyone. The few unfortunate souls heinous enough to attempt supplanting her would meet a most dreadful fate. Tsuruya, for one, would not risk her integrity

"Hurry minions! Do not waste the precious seconds of your commander's life!"

One of the aforementioned minions went by the cryptic alias of "Kyon". Tsuruya was not one to pry into the lives of her acquaintances needlessly, but for all her good intentions she couldn't entirely discard the compelling curiosity nagging her brain. What infamy could drive a young man far enough to prevent even his own classmates from knowing his name?

This shady fellow was currently looking at her with an expression choke-full of guilt, convinced he was leaving her burdened, and it took her all not to burst out laughing – once again. Her restraint wasn't for his sake, however. She was merely about to bid them farewell, which was contradictory with having her respiratory ways otherwise occupied.

"Be careful, Kyon-kun! Don't get lost!" Little Sister shouted from next to her, blissfully unaware of her brother's complete lack of executive ability in terms of affecting the course taken.

"Have a lot of fun-n! Let me know if you stumble across Big Foot!" Tsuruya added to it, her inscrutable smile hiding whether she was halfway serious or entirely joking.

"You heard Tsuruya-san! Meeting the unexpected, overcoming your weakness, defeating the insurmountable in the quest for the hidden truth! That alone is the goal of the SOS Brigade!" Haruhi vivaciously shared her own interpretation of Tsuruya's words.

What echoed her was a disgruntled sigh of the supposed delinquent Kyon. The rest of the brigade, namely Mikuru Asahina, Itsuki Koizumi and Yuki Nagato, were indulging in, respectively, tremulous nodding, dazzling smiles and ice-cold staring. Tsuruya didn't need to see these expressions to know they were there; she expected them to appear by custom. All in all, as no clear-cut resistance had been set up, the group could be described as 'willing', if not 'enthusiastic'.

"We will achieve those goals or die trying! In the name of the Brigade!" Haruhi went on unabashedly, and wrapped everything up with a brisk "Else heads will roll! Understood!?"

Which was just too much, and Tsuruya's resolve fell apart.

She remembered to keep shaking her hand furiously in a gesture that, with a lot of good will on the other side, could possibly be taken as waving goodbye. But her eyes, filled with tears of mirth, did not follow the retreating backs of the still-unofficial association members. Rather, they were partaking in a wild ride between the skies and snow-covered earth, in tune with Tsuruya's violently bouncing head.

Trembling with constant laughter was – she deemed – the best medicine against the cold, especially on chilly days like this. To her utter amazement, however, not everyone was ready to recognize that fact. She could even wager it was, appallingly, a minority view!

Little Sister, on the other hand, was acting like any exemplary fifth-grader would; that is, quite unlike those nefarious high-school students you see in TV shows. She remained relatively calm, eyeing Tsuruya furtively. And no, she wasn't gawking.

As was becoming of a relative of Kyon's, the young girl was an open-minded and accepting persona. As eccentric as the green-haired girl was, Little Sister did not question her behavior. Moreover, she felt an unsure smile of her own slowly creeping on her face. She was relieved that Tsuruya did not act reserved in her company like other older girls often would.

"Well then. Onwards to our destiny, my accomplice?" Tsuruya asked, now staring in the direction where her friends had disappeared. She was eager to start making the most out of this day. "Do we get building that extra-large snowman, or what?"

Little Sister was all for the idea and, with a single gleeful cry, the small girl ran off in search of strategically positioned snow piles. How much more attractive this activity was compared to learning how to ski via Haruhi's very own educational method Tsuruya could only guess. Or maybe she would refrain from guessing – she disliked thinking about her colleagues badly.

While some would consider snowman building a petty activity, Tsuruya didn't mind participating. To her, who approached all tasks with the same focus and diligence, it provided an opportunity to have some fun and a challenge different from everyday affairs. Not to mention, it was a valid reason to separate herself from the rest of the group. On this very day, Tsuruya needed one of those.

"Over here, Tsuruya-san!" Little Sister called her urgently to the construction site.

Tsuruya spun around and followed the tiny voice. The snow crunched happily under her feet, in accord with her carefree skip. Wind circled the clearing, not fierce but indefatigable, raising her hair to wave as sunlight streamed lazily across it. She liked the effect – a bit of vanity was good for the health.

She was mid-distance to her friend when her heart stopped beating.

It didn't hurt. The sensation was not unlike a shiver, the way it traveled along her body leaving goose bumps behind. But it was also different. Because she felt warm rather than cold, and because this feeling extended beyond her flesh. It trickled down her hair and coated her in the warmth until every fiber of her being became vivified; then even further – piercing the air around her, spinning it, rearranging it to its liking up to meters away from her.

Tsuruya did not miss a single step in the time it took for the feeling to engulf her completely and integrate itself into her perception enough to become indistinguishable from her natural senses.

Neither did her smile disappear.

Looking back, she had thought it disturbing when she first entered this state. It could be disconcerting – the quiet which filled your being when your heart was not beating, blood no longer traveled through your body and your lungs did not actually function; when the only use you had for oxygen was as a part of the medium for your speech. But as thinking about it was likely the worst part of the deal, Tsuruya didn't allow her thoughts to needlessly linger.

"You'll have to wait a bit, my dear fellows-sa," she whispered into the air "What's all this rush about, anyway?"

The air forcefully shifted against her skin in response. It calmed immediately after and nothing more was forthcoming. Tsuruya sometimes wondered whether what she and the "fellows" shared was closer to an uneasy partnership or a simple fight for dominance.

She approached Little Sister without further interruption, throwing a small laugh her way.

"Oookay! Let's get working!" she cheered.

And without procrastination, they acted accordingly. Tsuruya plunged her hands into the white mass surrounding them, forming a perfectly round snowball with a combination of fluid movements. She added more snow and soon the sphere grew larger and larger.

Little Sister shadowed her movements with only barely less aptitude, and equally as much spirit. Tsuruya slowed her work enough to give the youngster some pointers and their work went steadily forward.

While Little Sister stopped periodically to curl and uncurl her numb fingers, the cold had yet to penetrate Tsuruya's first-quality gloves. Not that she would feel any of it with the extraordinary warmth still coursing through her veins.

"Hey, Little Sis', are you happy these days-sa?"

Tsuruya knew how to engage in small talk, had to know as the heir of her family. But that did not mean she allowed herself to do so purposelessly. For the first time in years, she found herself in territory alien to her, and in dire need of guidance. Inexplicably, she felt the opinion of an 11-year-old held more weight in the matter than the appraisals of world-renowned specialists she could contact on a daily basis. Her case was beyond their comprehension – they were worse beginners than she was.

But Little Sister couldn't see this question as anything but innocuous. The young girl looked up from her work, a snowball of near-perfect shape laying before her, and answered the quarry with a smile of her own.

"Yep! It's a lot of fun playing with Tsuruya-san and the others!" she raised her hands into the air and waved them rapidly to show how fun it was exactly "I've never been to a mountain mansion before."

Tsuruya nodded her head energetically and let out another of her famous laughs. After all, she had expected a similar response. Even if it didn't exactly answer her question, anything else coming from this young child would have been troubling. Temporarily satisfied, Tsuruya decided to wait before pushing further.

The silence that fell between them was a comfortable one as they went on enlarging their respective snowballs. They started walking and rolling the orbs around. Tsuruya noted that the snowfall was becoming slightly more intense. The weather forecast had mentioned this possibility, alongside assurances that it would not last long or be dangerous.

"Then-n" Tsuruya decided it was fine to try once more "if there was one thing in the world you could change, anything is fine, what would it be?"

Truth be told, she did not think Little Sister would answer immediately.

"I would make Kyon-kun smile more!" the girl cried firmly "Kyon-kun has so much fun with his high-school friends, but he never seems to smile! He is so" and she took great care to pronounce the word correctly "melancholic!"

Tsuruya would be glad to mention that escaping from jail after having committed innumerable and abominable crimes, and then hiding under a ridiculous nickname like "Kyon" could do such things to people. Only there were other, more attractive alternatives.

"He's too taken up thinking about Haru-nyan to smile-sa?" Tsuruya snickered snidely. Or maybe it were thoughts of Mikuru that busied him so? Come to think of it, he paid more attention to Yuki-chi than anyone else did. Of course, she couldn't discount Itsuki-kun as a possibility...

Little Sister overlooked the older girl's giggling, a trait she was quickly becoming used to. But she wasn't quite ready to let the topic drop. Tsuruya was a matchlessly charming person, full of the unexpected and astonishing quirks. Even after the short time the two had spent together, Little Sister was beginning to see the older girl as an authority of sorts. It was no wonder, then, that she wanted to know how that person herself would answer the question.

"What would you change, Tsuruya-san?"

Tsuruya quieted promptly, green hair still obscuring her face as she straightened her slightly arched back. The luminous strips slowly revealed a neutral, if not contemplative expression. Internally, Tsuruya smirked at herself for barely concealing her surprise.

"Well, a toughie one from you, no?" she unabashedly called her own question "tough". Her brilliant smile returned to her face.

Another tremor shook the air surrounding her, more needful, more demanding than the last. Tsuruya had not expected it, but she nodded her head slightly, thankful for the distraction.

"Tell ya what, Little Sis-sa" she began with her typical verve "I'll go get some sticks for the snow fellow we're making, and I'll come back with an answer ready for you," and with a wide grin "That's fine with you, isn't it?"

And she was gone, barely waiting for an affirmative response from her interlocutor. She skipped happily towards the nearby forest. The snow became deeper the further away she got from Little Sister, and she was sure some of it would eventually end up in her shoes due to her feet constantly sinking beneath the white mass. However, the all-pervading warmth still with her yet again forestalled any cold from reaching her.

"As you fellows want it, I guess," Tsuruya mouthed irately into the air "but don't go to me complaining about the results later. Feh, never thought you would be so impatient, with what you claim yourselves to be."

And then she was at the edge of the forest, with her back turned to where Little Sister was waiting for her. From the distance, it would look as if she was contemplating which sticks to choose. That was fine.

Tsuruya let her eyelids drop and darkness slowly envelop her; it did more than obscure her eyesight – even the diminutive amounts of light she would normally detect through closed eyes disappeared, followed soon after by the sense of wind on her skin and the smell of trees. In mere seconds, Tsuruya found herself in perfect nothingness.

She allowed the memories of her friends to come to her, their faces flashing in her mind one by one, guiding her subconsciousness.

crunch

The sound was akin to an avalanche as it broke the uncanny tranquility. It repeated over and over, soon joined by shuffling of feet and vague words.

Tsuruya opened her eyes.

The kaleidoscopic view bombarded her with a myriad of colors and perspectives. She saw from above, from below, from near and afar, from outside and, disturbingly, from within all things. She saw electricity, heat and sounds all traveling vividly, superimposed one upon the other. They fought jealously for her attention, each of them coming up front in turns, only to disappear in the background when another came. With time, the sight before her calmed, became so natural as to make her want to blink. But she knew this was no longer what her eyes saw.

"Who's the leader here, hmm!?" the scorching sound of Haruhi's displeased voice resounded across the hill "Shut up and listen to my directions!"

If she had had the physical ability to do so, Tsuruya would have burst out laughing at the mismatched clique venturing up the snowy mountain. Haruhi led them persistently forward, always remaining in a frontal position. Yuki was less than half a step behind the commander, however, and it was her path, marked with minute veering to left and right, that the brigade was actually following, even if they wouldn't dare admit that to Haruhi. Mikuru remained at the back of the group, frequently slipping and losing her balance, but determined not to slow the party down. Remaining by her side was the ever-reluctant Kyon, unwilling to lose the goddess of beauty from his sight, lest an emergency should befall her. And in the middle of the group, at a well-calculated distance from each of its members, stood Itsuki Koizumi, equally ready to intervene in case of trouble.

But the group was unaware of her scrutiny, and they marched forward as if nothing unusual was happening.

Tsuruya got to work with a single motion of her ethereal hand, forming an iridescent square around the group, and stretching it out to encompass the entire area. The radiant glow of the shape died down as it reached its new boundaries, and Tsuruya allowed it to disappear, satisfied.

She then proceeded to turn her awareness towards the heavens, demanding their cooperation. Their response came swiftly, and Tsuruya felt the atmosphere become momentarily heavier, the promise of a violent snowfall hanging in the air. Which left only one thing more to do.

Once more, she closed her otherworldly eyes and separated herself from everything on the outside. In the calm and darkness, she concentrated herself fully on a single task.

It required her best both in craftsmanship and imagination. She gave rise to floors, corridors and rooms with no more than a single thought, just as easily as she obliterated them in search for the perfect design. She tried her best to follow the incessant whispers flowing with advice into her mind, but this act of creation was far beyond anything she had attempted before, and devilishly precarious. For the most part, she went with the flow.

With an ounce of luck and two of effort the edifice was ready. Latching onto the image of its firm and stable walls, Tsuruya's mind went inside.

This part was no less laborious, but less risky and more artistic. She traced fantastic paintings on the walls, nursed candle flames and rocked the silken white curtains covering the windows. All the while, her chaperones urged her to finish the work faster, unappreciative of the details.

And after she was done with matter, she moved onto time, bending it to her will as easily as she had the walls of her construction.

When everything was accounted for, and the mansion in its entirety existed in her mind, she snapped her fingers. With this gesture and an incandescent flash, it was done.

She immediately felt dizzy. And what was this? This sensation on the edge of her awareness? Cold?

Tsuruya snapped her eyes open and realized she was lying face-first in a pile of snow. And she was growing more and more certain that it was indeed the familiar sensation of cold that had woken her up. If she had ever fallen asleep, that is.

The lying-in-a-freezing-substance-and-losing-body-heat situation was bad. But there were also upsides. She wordlessly admitted to herself that the sound of a beating heart, and the fact she felt she really shouldn't swallow any more snow, was rather comforting. A refreshingly mundane and human sensation.

She groggily pushed herself off the ground, attempting to stand up. It took more effort on her part than usually, but she managed it on her first try. This small success helped reassure her. She was aware her wobbly legs wouldn't provide as much support for her weight as would be desirable, but she would have to deal with it.

More importantly, she felt the remaining thousands of them escaping her body and streaking at crazy speeds in all directions. It was like literally letting off steam.

She was certain they would be back. It was more than an accident that made her and them stumble upon each other. As they had gone this far, they would have to see things through to the end together. For better or for worse, their goals were interlinked.

Still, she didn't mind being free of their company. Supernatural beings could be extremely tiring. She only regretted losing the internal heater. The cold was getting to her and an unpleasant shiver passed her body. She knocked the snow off her coat, and then clapped her hands in hopes of warming herself up.

Her eyes trailed the ground in search for suitable sticks. While the whole ordeal couldn't have taken more than a few seconds and she still had time, it would be nice to return to the company of Kyon's younger sister.

She ended up spending two whole minutes on finding the perfect specimens anyway. When she finally found two large enough, and with a large enough number of protrusions, she rushed back to her friend with all the speed she could muster and a relieved skip to her step. She had managed to collect herself enough not to need to fear tripping over her toes, for at least as long as she remained relatively careful.

She realized she had yet to formulate a reply to the question she had agreed on answering. It wasn't as easy as she had expected it to be, even after she had decided between truthful and convenient. But Little Sister had disclosed her views, and deserved to be satisfied in return.

The snowman awaited Tsuruya with numerous weird appurtenances sticking out of his body – Little Sister called them "shoes" and "buttons". Tsuruya laughed but did not comment as she helped her companion work on them. They used stones for the eyes and mouth, and Tsuruya's sticks for the arms of Mr. Snowy – as he was now officially to be called. When the two girls stood back and enjoyed the sight of the fruit of their labor, you would be hard pressed to tell which one of them was more proud. With an enthusiastic high-five, they declared the work to be finished.

"Tsuruya-san?" Little Sister began, catching the other's attention "What about my question?"

This time around, the green-haired teenager was better prepared and her huge grin only widened further.

"You see Sis', there are so many things to change, my head starts spinning just thinking about it" she moved her head accordingly, presenting a pained expression and earning a small laugh from Little Sister "But then, if you have a staircase, one with steeply steep steps, and people keep accidentally falling down that staircase… should that really be changed outright?" she paused and looked up at the clear, blue sky. If she was guessing correctly, Little Sister was giving her a look of incomprehension.

"What I mean is, we wanted a snowman, and what if the snowman had already been there? Everything already done would be an opportunity to act lost," Tsuruya looked down at her friend "And how to change everything… without changing a thing?"

She was planning on commenting further, but Little Sister's nonplussed expression made it impossible for her to do so.

"Bwahaha! Sorry, sorry Sis'! I'm babbling nonsensen, no direction whatsoever, aren't I?"

Tsuruya's sincere laugh was impeccable in its nature; one would have to be out of his mind to accuse her of vile intentions, whatever they might be.

But before her cheerful disposition could be passed onto her companion, Tsuruya flinched, jerked like a surprised animal and wrapped her arms around herself as another of those pesky shivers shook her frame.

The culprit behind this sudden action was a mischievous snowflake that had managed to slip behind her collar, freezing her to the core.

"No fair!" Tsuruya yelled out loud against this injustice of nature.

But her complaints were drowned out by Little Sister's uncontrolled laughter, and Tsuruya decided to let it pass. After all, when someone so close to her was lost in mirthful giggles, she herself couldn't remain unhappy for long.

For what seemed like forever, Mr. Snowy bore witness to the two girls laughing merrily.

This was fine, wasn't it? Tsuruya questioned herself. She was having the time of her life with a group of crazy people, each of them more unique than the one before. And she wanted it to last as long as possible. Even if it caused the delay of her other plans.

Maybe that was why it did not bother her as much as it should have when she felt a small tug at the back of her head, signifying her mansion grinding to a halt, then being torn completely apart.

"Told you it wouldn't work, fellows," she thought to herself, afraid of being overheard if she spoke.

Glancing surreptitiously at the still-laughing Little Sister, Tsuruya extended her arm and opened the palm of her hand, letting snowflakes fall onto it one by one. She turned her head to gaze at them intently.

After all, not far from where she was, a similarly insignificant snowflake had just outmaneuvered and stopped her.

But that was fine. Maybe it was not yet time to change, and risk, everything.

And with that thought, the forever-cheerful Tsuruya unhurriedly closed her palm and crushed the snowflakes within.

END