Author's Notes: And another entry for the 12 Days of Christmas Prompt, hosted graciously by Emo Cowboy & therainydaykids! This time, the theme is Snow/Blizzard. Thanks to Lucy Kay for suggesting that I try finishing and posting this! Hopefully it turned out alright. There's some light hints of slash at the end, so if that's not something you're terribly comfortable with, at least you've received a fair warning, right?

White Out

Angela DeSilva's eyes snapped open in time with her disgruntled snort, the blurry green glow of her digital clock causing her to squint in the darkness, emitting a low whine against the small puddle of drool on her pillow. She'd been so warm, so cozy, so... comfortable...

4:26 in the morning? Fantastic. Wait-

She stiffened as she heard the careful, measured steps beneath the howling of the ferocious December blizzard outside - the slow shuffles and scrapes, designed not to rouse suspicion, designed to let the dreamers dream.

Not, however, designed for nurses who had become absurdly light sleepers through years of discipline.

Her heart sped up, her pulse beginning to race her body and mind into a fully awakened state. Working to keep her breathing quiet and even, Angela fought back the urge to ask who was there, trying to discreetly slide her glasses off the nightstand to get a better look at the shadowy figure-

"Sorry, dear," it whispered in her mother's voice, causing Angela to cry out and bolt upright, heart threatening to pound out of her chest. The silhouette of the equally-startled Veronica DeSilva did much the same, hand flying over her bosom in shock.

"Mom?!" Angela muttered incredulously, clicking on the lamp by her bedside and casting a dim, yellowish pool of light across a small bit of their flat. Sliding her glasses on, her mother came into much sharper focus: Long, auburn hair stuffed under a fluffy black ushanka; thick white gloves covering her hands; slender body hidden by an elegant, yet heavy black coat and a long, black wool dress.

She couldn't seriously be...

Watching her mother heave an apologetic sigh as she draped a fluffy white scarf about her neck, Angela cocked her head to the side and folded her arms across her snug gray sweater. "Uhh... you are aware that there's a blizzard going on outside, Mom?"

Shaking her head and rolling her eyes, Veronica pulled the scarf away from her freshly-lipsticked mouth to speak, plucked eyebrows furrowed slightly: "I'd noticed, yes."

Squinting in confusion, Angela nodded slowly as the storm raged on outside. Good lord, she could feel the chill trying to pulse through the walls and leach her body heat away! "Yeah. And I'm pretty sure the phone didn't ring. So..."

The scarf was pulled back from her mouth once more, not bothering to conceal her impatience. "I've got urgent business to attend to. You know as well as I do that we need to be on-call at all times, Angela..."

"I work in a medical profession!" Angela pointed out in disbelief, throwing her hands up, unable to hold her incredulity back anymore. "What in the world could the trade industry need at this hour?! Is Ennio whining about the blizzard Lillie warned us all about or something?"

"Angela!" Veronica snapped, pulling on heavy fur boots. Her voice was somewhat muffled by the scarf as she admonished her daughter, who was simply sighing in disgust: "You know very well that my duties as Guildmistress extend far beyond our trade policy, now can you please let it go?!"

Nostrils flaring, she let her brief flare of temper cool down, her pink cheeks fading back to their normal pale state as she examined herself, taking a nonverbal inventory on her woolen fingers. "Hmm... am I missing something...?"

"Your mind?" Angela quipped dryly, adjusting her glasses before folding her arms over her chest once more.

Eyes narrowing, Veronica let out a loud huff. Where on earth had that young lady gotten all this sass...? It certainly wasn't from her, by any means. Marian, no doubt, she thought exasperatedly, eyes glancing skyward as if beseeching Gaia for some more patience on her three hours of sleep. Heaven knows she'd tried with this girl. "Go back to sleep, dear. You're a bit cranky... besides," she assured her unimpressed daughter, adjusting her gloves a little, "I won't be long. I just need to head to Highland Farm to speak with Mr. Weiss."

Mouth working soundlessly, Angela simply resigned herself to shaking her head in frustration at her mother's antics. "Yeah, at this time of... okay." Holding her hands up in surrender, she shrugged. Maybe becoming an orphan would actually be a total hoot, why not? The crazy lady dressed in fashionable layers seemed to think so. "You... you know what? Okay, sure. Do whatever you have to do at Johnny's farm, in a blizzard, at four-thirty in the morning. I'm sure he'll love that. I'll just give Marian a call and tell him to be prepared!"

Heaving another heavy sigh, Veronica clucked her tongue condescendingly. She didn't care what her daughter had to say anymore. "Angela, when you become Guildmistress... I hope you'll understand the extent of our duties."

"Hope springs eternal," Angela snapped back irritably, flopping back down into bed and fluffing her pillows with a series of rough punches as she heard her mother briskly clomp across the flat, and downstairs. The muffled sound of wind bellowed briefly into the guild as the door was yanked open forcefully.

You've got to be joking...

A muted slamming noise later, Angela rolled her eyes in disbelief. Ms. Perfect was indeed gone. Oh, for shi-

Sitting back up, she swung her legs around to the side of the bed and leaned over to her bedside table, speed-dialing her boss.

"Okay, I know you're going to kill me," Angela said quickly, cutting Marian off as he began to lay into her for interrupting his beauty sleep at such an obscene hour, "but get this..."

A few moments of scandalized chatter later, Angela found herself cringing.

"...Wow. Seriously? ...That's gonna be awkward... eheheh."

Had anyone else been awake to witness the sight at the moment, those lucky residents of Oak Tree Town would've seen their beloved, graceful Guildmistress tromping her way desperately through the nasty blizzard like a fabulous sasquatch, arms pressed across her chest and white, even teeth chattering hard enough to bite a diamond in two.

Her skin stung with the numbing frost, and she winced as flecks of ice bounced off her face, only to subsequently be sucked into the powdery hazes and gusts of white - but she narrowed her eyes and trudged on, past the frozen Piedmont River, past the barren fields that would normally hold golden stalks of wheat. The paddy, a highly-prized commodity among the local farming competitions, was a thick slab of clear ice, solid enough to skate on, small and shallow enough to be relatively safe.

Right now, it played a cobbled-together, discordant song against the roaring wind, sleet and thankfully-small hailstones bouncing off the smooth surface and leaving little dents and cracks scattered about haphazardly.

Angela thought she was nuts, and Marian was most likely trying to figure out the best course of action to put a stop to the crazy woman's journey without having to remove his curlers and go outside himself. But they didn't know what she knew... Angela would, in time. When it came time for her to inherit Veronica's position, it would just... be. A good nurse knew she could be needed at any time. An exceptional Guildmistress just knew, deep in her soul, when she was required. The phone didn't ring, indeed. The phone doesn't know. Don't drag him into this, you silly girl.

And Johnny would understand, wouldn't he? After all, this was by no means her first visit at this hour...

The snow glowed a dull white in the intense flurries as her sore legs carried her up the mountainside, freezing and breaking out in hives even through her thick tights, dress, and long coat. Struggling to catch her breath, eyelashes and brows as flecked with the same frosty dust as her clothing, she found her steps sinking deeper and deeper into the drifts. Her lungs burned, and her heart worked at a madwoman's pace to keep her warm and moving. If she passed out in Johnny's doorway, she would only do so when the message was delivered and understood in full.

She had a job to do.

Leaning against a nearby, iced-over oak, Veronica felt an icy blast of relief crystallize in her body, blossoming out as a loud, relieved sigh: Johnny's house, warm and dark in the distance, stood sentinel in the bitter, stormy night. Highland Farm was right there. It didn't move, didn't suddenly roll up and scurry away to taunt her. It simply waited for her. Beckoning. Singing, like... like a mermaid. Such a sweet farm. I wonder if it's free for Sunday dinner with Angela? she thought in a completely rational manner, picturing her daughter and the house skipping gaily through a sunlit field of daisies. It was fine. Absolutely fine.

With a giddy, oxygen-starved laugh, she stumbled ever further up the mountain. More glacial gusts slapped her stinging cheeks, seeming to shock a new burst of energy back into her sore body and numbing the stitch in her side. With fresh vigor surging through her veins, she took off at a clumsy run, nearing and then breaking past her limits as her myriad, wildly uneven bootprints were quickly swept away behind her. Flapping about in the night as they were freed, a few heavy locks of auburn hair tumbled out from under the ushanka, now somewhat resembling a Holstein with the thick crusts of white snow patching across the black fur.

In her delirious excitement, Veronica pounded harder on the door than was perhaps necessary, even in the shrieking gales. Hopping in place to keep herself warm, she stumbled sideways against the house with a strange utterance that sounded like "Ba-huuu-huuuu." Icy moments blustered past in the darkness before warm light spilled from the windows and the slowly-opened doorway, a confused, wind-muffled yawn tumbling out with it.

She snapped her bleary eyes onto the young man with the suddenness of a motion-sensing turret gun, clearing her throat primly. "Today's the day!" Veronica informed him in a ragged, excited whisper that broke off with a hushed squeak, watching as the sleepy redhead yawned again, cocking his head curiously. "Okay, yes, that's right! Come to the coop, y... you..."

...Johnny wasn't a redhead, was he? Maybe he was. Maybe she was Johnny. Maybe when she next blinked, another Veronica would answer the door to receive the joyous news, and they would dance. Oh, how they would dance, spinning around and around and around forever. Much like her head, now that she thought about it.

"Hey-hey! What's up, Ronnie? Happy, like... Thurs... Thursday?"

As the blurry figure melted into sharper focus, Veronica squinted hard, frowning in confusion. There, illuminated by the dim yellow light glowing from a nearby lamp, stood skinny, pale Fritz Geckler, wearing nothing more than smiley-face boxers. The biting, ferocious cold didn't seem to be bothering him in the least as he simply waited, scratching idly at his butt and yawning once more, lips smacking lazily.

"...There's nothing going on at your coop," Veronica murmured to herself, shaking her head to clear the frost off of her mind. She was at Highland Farm, wasn't she? She really wasn't set on going back. She couldn't have possibly taken the better part of an hour just crossing over the Piedmont to Greenhill Farm... The farm moved, she thought, deep despondency blossoming through her chest and her addled mind. Angela... I'm so sorry. There will be no Sunday dinner. Forgive me.

"Coop? Uhh, wa-ha-hayyyyy TMI, but the bathroom's down the-" Stopping, Fritz let the rusty gears turn for a moment, mouthing out the misinterpreted word a few times before whapping the heel of his hand to his temple. "Oh, yeah, that! Duh! Yo, Johnny!" Suddenly much more awake and alert, Fritz called out loudly for his fellow farmer, sending Veronica sagging against the doorway with a relieved sigh. "John-nayyy! Got a visitor, babe! Wakey-wakey, John-John! Johnny-Cakes, Johnny Hunter, J-"

"OKAY! Geez, I get it, my name's a riot..." Grumbling under his breath about the flurry of stupid nicknames, Johnny Weiss stumbled groggily into his living room, rubbing the sleep from his eyes and less than fully aware of his surroundings. He rubbed his bare arms and shivered. "Shut the door and come back to bed, will you? It's freez- GAH-HAAAHH!"

The blond farmer's complete nakedness and startled scream went unnoticed by the creepily-giggling Veronica as Johnny bolted back into his bedroom, swearing loudly and slamming the door. Sticking her head past Fritz as her consciousness started to melt away bit-by-bit, Veronica gripped tightly onto the door frame as though it were about to be wrenched into an all-consuming void. Something to address at the next Guild meeting. "Heeeere's Johnny! Come on the coop!" she chirped, voice absurdly bright and peppy, despite the circumstances. A tinkling giggle followed from her blue-tinted lips. "Uh-huh! It's the today... coop! The today coop. Yes! It's... fine. You are joyful. It... is, it's is i-it-"

And down she went like a sack of wet cement, flopping over into the snow with a thud just as a mortified Johnny returned, face burning while he tied his maroon bathrobe tightly over his tartan pajama pants.

"What the hell is wrong with - oh, you're fucking kidding me," he groaned as he turned to the kitchen, eyes catching the calendar hanging over his knife block. A cute little chicken's head, courtesy of Fritz, was scrawled around today's date. Next to it, the black kitty-cat clock with the swinging tail and eyes told him it was currently 5:39 A.M. Rounding on Veronica's unconscious form as Fritz dragged it in and hummed merrily, Johnny threw his hands outward in exasperation. "In a blizzard?! Fucking really?!"

"Yeah, seriously!" Fritz agreed, turning away to slam the door, and nudging a toe idly against Veronica's unconscious form. "Couldn't she get here at, like, six? It's supposed to totally stop by then... the hell's up with that, anyway?"

Cramming his bunny slippers on, Johnny rolled his eyes as he heard Veronica's delirious mumbling begin, muffled by the floor. "How the hell would I know? Ask Lillie! She's the meteorologist!" Still blushing furiously, he grabbed his plaid scarf, gloves, and newsboy cap from his beaten-up old armchair, wrapping and cramming and muttering. "You know... whatever. I'm gonna go name the goddamn chicken. I'll start breakfast when I get back."

As Fritz knelt down and began poking curiously at Veronica with his butt-scratching finger, Johnny stormed out to his coop, hearing his phone start jangling loudly. Marian, no doubt, most likely checking in at Angela's prompting.

Johnny hoped that when Angela took over the Guild - preferably sometime in the very near future - she would just let the eggs roll into his house and announce their own damn hatching.

Author's Notes Redux: I seriously don't get why Veronica does this in-game. Is this in her job description or something? If so, WHY? She lives clear across town from you. There are four other farms in the area. Does she do the same for Fritz, Georgio, Elise, and Eda? Probably not. How and why does she even know, anyway? Sheesh, you think she'd feed and brush my animals for me while she's farting around on my farm at the butt-crack of dawn. (Speaking of buttcracks, what can I say - I have a strange fondness for Fritz/Johnny. I used to seriously dislike Crono Jr., and now this happens.)

Feel free to leave a review (or death threats for the barrage of "Let It Go" puns), if you'd like! And thanks again to Lucy Kay, for introducing me to the phrase "Johnny Hunter." I hope I have used it well.