Alaska [Valentine topic for Adults]

[Dimitri Mikhail Zolnerowich]

But darling, trust me, trust me
He's no valentine
Though he said he would be mine
His heart is in Alaska all the time


For years, there had only ever been a valentines dance for the students. This time, some of the adults had gotten together to organise a modest little party for the school staff and any other adults who felt like joining. The Three Broomsticks had been decorated in red, pink, white hues with flashes of gold and silver.. It was not a bad job, but Dimitri had to admit it was a bit pink for his tastes.
He was wearing a set of dress robes he hadn't worn in a long, long time. They were probably horribly out of date, but he didn't attend parties often, so buying new dress robes had seemed useless to him. Besides, he could go for old fashioned, classic, stylish? However, at the moment it was painfully obvious that he hadn't gone to parties in ages - he was too early. The invitation had said eight pm and Dim was there - eight pm sharp. He obviously did not know or had forgotten about being fashionably late. The room was still empty (apart from the band setting things up for when people did arrive in, say, fifteen minutes), and he was sitting at the bar, cross legged and toying with a beer mat, waiting in a way that would almost appear patient, but really, he was thinking.

About what, you might ask? Well - about a lot of things. Primarily, though? About his date. Oh yes - Dimitri had a date.
It was Devin Pucket.
He hadn't exactly asked her, nor had she really asked him.. It had sort of happened, they were about the same age and they got along pretty well, nothing definite had been said and yet they'd wound up somehow deciding to meet up and be on a sort of date sort of thing.
How did he feel about this? Dim wasn't sure. He liked Devin, he truly did, but he wasn't very good at date-type-sort-of-things, really. Oh well.. Thinking about it wasn't going to help him, he was just going to have to go with it as it happened. Along with the unavoidable nerves, he found he was actually looking forward to it.

[devin pucket]

It had really come to a shock to her that Dimitri and her had even been on the subject of this little, mixer, party, thing. Then suddenly, they were going together. As a date. It was an awkward start to whatever they would subsequently have together or whatever. Not that she was exactly complaining. Dim was after all quite a fair looking man. And it naturally made sense for the two of them to go.

She was now staring now at her reflection in the long mirror in her small office adjacent bedroom. Fastening a barrette in her hair, Devin sighed and smoothed out the skirt of her dress. She was ready …. she hoped. With another little sigh, she grabbed a warm travel cloak with a hood and pulled it around her dainty frame. The door to the office clicked shut behind her then locked as Devin stepped into the corridor.

They’d agreed to meet at the party so as to avoid awkward conversations on the walk down to Hogsmead. The ground was spotted with icy cold puddles, which Devin avoided carefully. These were a pair of her favorite dress shoes and she preferred not to ruin them. Honestly she preferred not to ruin any of her shoes, thus her usual use of magical assistance. Though even being a wizard at charms, (no pun intended) one could never be too sure. Therefor she moved carefully along the slippery grounds.

Trotting along, Devinity made her way to the three broomsticks pub. Madam Rosmerta had helped with some of the decorations and had neatly hung a little cherub embellished banner across the doorway reading “Happy Valentine’s Day!” Normally Devin didn’t see the point in going over the top for a loved one on one specific day. She believed it was better to show your love for people as often as it was possible. However, the rest of the staff had come together to make this a special event and Dim had even bothered to go with her. So Devin was going to just have to deal with the hype of the holiday.

Pulling open the door she shook off her hood. It hadn’t really rained on the way down here, but she stayed warmer. Pealing it off her shoulders she hung it on a tall slender coat rack near the door. Her hand gently went to her hair to smooth it out and then down her dress to pull out the creases. Devin looked up to scan the room. And there he was. Sitting alone as she expected. Wearing…..dated robes. But she liked the vintage old fashioned look and welcomed his traditionalism. A few steps took her across to him. Though the few steps felt like miles and her heart was picking up speed a little. She was plenty nervous having not been on a proper date before. She fought around with what to say and eventually just cleared her throat and smiled, feeling her face get uncomfortably and unnecessarily hot. ”Uh… Dimitri? Hi.”

{Word Count} 503
{Tags} Adults!! And… Dim. XP!
{Clothes} Click!
{Comments} Oh this is going to be fun!

[/justify]

[Dimitri Mikhail Zolnerowich]

If anyone had been surprised by their sudden.. date-ness, it was Dimitri. Funny how you can't really explicitly ask or say anything and still end up as each other's date by the end of the midterm-teachers-meeting, go figure! He wasn't quite so sure what to think of it. Dimitri may be very single and very inexperienced on this specific subarea of 'relationships' (despite having been engaged!), but that didn't mean he was completely stupid. He knew that people fell in love and he knew what it was supposed to be like, even if he hadn't quite experienced it himself. The question now was, though, did Devin like him in such a way? More importantly: did he feel about her like that? Dimitri wasn't sure. He could say for sure that he liked her, just not if he liked her enough like that.
Although it was unusual and confusing, Dimitri had to admit he definitely liked this arrangement, though. They got along well and besides.. this meant Dimitri didn't have to sit alone all evening. (Not that he was a wallflower, oh no, he just wouldn't even have gone and would've ended up reading in bed or something.) Maybe he was thinking too much about this. Maybe he should just loosen up and have an evening of fun. He could have fun, he knew how to, he wasn't completely boring. A little, but not completely.

Admittedly, Dim was glad they had arranged to meet at the Three Broomsticks. Picking her up and walking her there would really have turned it into a date and Dimitri wasn't sure if he'd be comfortable in a situation like that. Worse yet, he wasn't sure why he wouldn't be comfortable in a situation like that. It wasn't Devin, because he did like her and he hadn't felt uncomfortable around her before, so it had to be him - something had to be wrong with him. He couldn't help it; somehow the idea of someone being so close to him, physically and mentally, as required in a good, proper, working, loving relationship - it scared him out of his wits.
So good, they were meeting at the party. He was far too early, but that was okay - at least that meant he wasn't late. Dimitri hated being late.
While waiting, he kept glancing at the door. Dimitri didn't particularly want to seem desperate or anything, though, so as people started arriving, he got himself a drink, chatted with some of the other staff and adults who had arrived - and still his eyes kept wandering back to the door to check. It wasn't incredibly crowded yet as Devin arrived and it was just Dim's luck that Everius Virill (who had arranged the snacks and drinks) had been chatting endlessly about business in magical catering and how the upcoming war was bad for business because it was either making less and less people marry or the weddings were less grande. For that reason, he hadn't seen her come in, nor did he see Devin approach.

Dim's eyes lit up as she cleared her throat and he found her next to him, though. "Hey!" he responded, before realising he was completely ignoring Everius - not that that was his fault. Devin simply looked nice. It was quite a change from her usual choice of clothing. Not that she didn't look nice in her usual clothes, of course. Everius, this is Devin - a close colleague of mine, he said, smiling a little and hoping to Merlin, Nimue and Mordred that he wasn't blushing. "Devin, this is Everius Virill - he catered for the party." 'And nearly bored me out of my mind,' he thought to himself, but didn't say it, that would be more than impolite. Besides, Everius had been keeping him company as he was waiting, that was nice enough.
Everius was a middle-aged man with no special features about him, it seemed. He appeared to be the epitome of mediocre, nothing stood out about him, and even his robes were not particularly festive. He had, however, the gift of the gab, and as soon as Dimitri had introduced his colleague (and date), he started a conversation with her (or, rather, a monologue) how difficult it had to be as a young person in an environment of distinguished professors and yadayadayada.. This gave Dimitri, quiet and sipping his drink, a few moments to find his calm back and look at Devin. She really did look nice. Rather very nice. He suddenly felt stupid about not buying other dress robes. These were hopeless and it wasn't as though he couldn't afford them, he could. He should've, definitely should've.
"..don't you agree, Dimitri?" He blinked, not having paid attention to what Everius was saying, he had probably been staring at Devin, too - that was a little rude of him. Smiling weakly, he blushed a little. "Oh, I don't know, but I can agree that my colleague looks lovely tonight," he quietly said, raking a hand through his hair and feeling very, very stupid. Why did he keep calling her colleague? Couldn't he just call her Devin? That would hardly be too familiar.. or would it?

[devin pucket]

Smiling. Devin was always smiling when Dimitri was around. And tonight was no exception. Of course she smiled even wider as he seemed so excited to see her. The man he was talking to was hardly something she was paying any attention to. But it was polite to say hello. Nodding to the man she tried to say a hello back but the bland cook dove right into a little speech about... Well she wasn't really sure. Devin was especially fantastic at faking her interest in a conversation and was smiling at the man now and nodding in all the right places, only glancing over at Dimitri once or twice.

She did happened to notice how he looked at her. He was staring a little. But Devin didn't mind. When Everius addressed Dimirti even Devin startled a little. Looking to Dim she blinked a few times trying to figure out what the man had been saying. Just in case he happened to ask her a question or something. Dimitri covered it up with a very polite comment about how she looked. "Oh, gosh. I really didn't do much..." She was blushing. Definitely. Her cheeks felt warm. That was so embarrassing she hated blushing. Brushing back a bit of hair she looked at Everius who had noted her good looks, then gone on to talk about some....tartlet or something.....

Noticing the conversation going south, she certainly didn't want to continue talking to him and Dimirti didn't seem all that interested, Devin decided it was time to move things along... with out Everius. "Oh... Mr. Virill.... I think that woman over there has a question about the pudding you've put out.. Gosh she does not look happy.." As the man scooted away to solve the problem, Devin put her hands on Dimitri and pushed him away a little. "Go go.. before he can come back to find us again."

She followed him over to the corner of the room a little where there was a table littered with little pink heart decorations and things. "He was painfully dull. She laughed and smiled sitting down to the table and picking at the little heart shaped glittery things. "Anyway... Hi! Um... I hope you didn't have to wait long for me. It's a little nasty outside..." Smiling at him she took a moment to breath and look him over before looking out at the room to get a peek at who else had shown up. Not anyone interesting. Well, aside from Dimitri of course. She thought he was very interesting. In an odd sort of way. A neat organized, sort of way. Like Dimirti knew how he liked things... and Devin loved that. She was much the same way. Looking down she noticed she'd absent mindedly sorted all the little decorative confetti pieces by color and shape on the table. Holding her hands she smiled and looked back up at him laughing a little.

[Dimitri Mikhail Zolnerowich]

He was glad to see her smiling - it made him smile himself, and it made her look even more beautiful, really. (Had he just thought that? Maybe he had.) As Everius kept chattering to her, he caught her eyes once or twice and smiled at her over the rim of his glass. He blushed a little deeper when she did and flashed her a smile, not quite sure what to say, especially not with Virill there, and maybe not even if they had been alone. He wasn't very good at this, he suddenly realised again, and the insight overwhelmed him for a second, along with Devin's sudden action to get Everius out of the way. He blinked (rather adorably, I might add) to chase the thoughts from his head as she gently pushed him and pulled him along a little - and her words made him chuckle. "Ah, I feel mean now," he commented softly, grinning a little, though, eyes twinkling. "Poor sod, he really did try to have a conversation with us.." he muttered, voice trailing away, but stil smiling faintly. As sorry as he felt for Everius, he was pretty glad to have Devin to himself, to be honest.

Sitting down opposite her, he crossed his legs and exhaled with a smile, a little more relaxed now that there wasn't an audience to watch them interact. "He was," he admitted with a slight chuckle. "Not on purpose, though."
He smiled a little wider at her words. "Oh, not so long at all," he assured her (although he had been a whopping thirty minutes early) and then added, a little quieter: "It was worth the wait, anyway." Following her gaze to the rest of the guests for a moment, he wondered what had prompted the school to organise a Valentines Ball for the adults as well. He probably wouldn't have gone if it wasn't for Devin, anyway. Would many people show up?
Looking back at Devin, he found himself thinking 'who cares about other people' and he smiled faintly to himself. Devin was nice, she was so different from Emily - organised and kind and not at all pushy. Emily had always had the upper hand in their relationship (if it can be even called that), Devin seemed to give him the space he so desperately needed as he was figuring out what she meant to him.
"So, are you a secret party animal when no one's looking?" he joked as he sipped his drink. Of course she wasn't (or, at least, he didn't expect her to be) and neither was he - but hey, maybe she'd surprise him.

[devin pucket]

Devin had glanced entirely around the room and back again before smiling at Dimirti. That was an odd question. Divinity Pucket was definitely not a party animal. "Me?" She said it with a bit of a laugh. "No...Not anymore. I went through that whole, I'm young and fresh into life and... I need to party thing. But I very swiftly realized that was not my cup of tea."

She was really hoping she didn't sound horrible. However without explanation she felt that sounded more slutty and inappropriate than it really was. Quickly blushing she shook her head and looked at him. wide eyes. "Oh Gosh that sounds really awful. I mean...after I graduated I was kind of lonely so I tried to fill the void by making new friends. Obviously university parties aren't good places to make life long friends. And they are highly unsanitary places. Oh! I never did anything bad or anything!" She felt she was making it worse but suddenly couldn't stop talking. "Except once I was pretty well drunk because I'd realized that none of them were actually my friends. I still went home alone and still felt all alone....So I hit the fan." She helf up her left arm. "They said I was attempting to do the... hustle or something on top of a dining table.... Crashed right through the bay window." Her arm had one long ghostly white scar running down the length of her already milky forearm. "I scared the hell out of my mum. Told her I'd had my 'dark mark' removed. She almost had a heart attack. Needless to say I've not drank since. Scared me out of it. I'm simply not tough enough to be a party animal." She laughed nervously and stared at him, once again picking at the decorations on the table.

Glancing again around the room, Devin hoped she hadn't just mucked everything up. There was some low music, but mostly all that could be heard was idle chatter between older professors and the sound of her pounding heart. Occasionally there would be a little laughter but mostly people were just catching up of talking politics. Neither was something Devin was even remotely interested in. But that food table!! She could talk about it for hours. Nothing has a place card or label of any sort and it wasn't at all symmetrical or at the very least organized by type, country of origin, and/or based on the nutritional value of the dish. In all honesty, it made her uneasy to look at it. "You know Dimitri.... I'm most certain you and I are the youngest people here." She was half heartedly trying to change the subject. "Well...Aside from that cocktail waitress with the...strangely perfect hair bow and very neatly pressed dress. I think she graduated last year." Devin turned to look back at Dimitri as she nervously fiddled with her hands.

[Dimitri Mikhail Zolnerowich]

Dimitri found himself a little relieved as Devin admitted to not being that much of a party girl. Okay, maybe he was just a bit boring, because if there was one thing he wanted to keep out of, it was trouble (and parties, generally, meant trouble - at least in Dimitri's book). He was more of a 'sit at home and read a book' sort of person. In fact, Dimitri had never been drunk (only tipsy once, back in France when he was younger) and he wasn't planning on getting drunk, either. Perhaps Devin had gone through the whole 'I'm young and fresh into live and I need to party' phase, but Dimitri had skipped that part of puberty altogether.
"Oh good," he said and then realised he'd said that out loud. "I mean - neither am I." He smiled faintly as Devin felt the need to elaborate. She didn't need to, he didn't expect her to have turned into some sort of femme fatale (not that she couldn't have been, because she was certainly attractive enough but- oh, you know what I mean). Dimitri just let her ramble on, smiling faintly (because he had to admit he was a little amused, but not mockingly so), only wincing as she showed the scar. "Ouch." Though his wince was short-lived as Devin telling of how she'd fooled her mother was, despite everything, a little funny to say the least. (If he ignored that he currently had a student with a Dark Mark who wanted it removed. He just had to make sure not to think of that, ban it from his mind for the rest of the evening, as well as the thought of how his mother would've reacted had Dimitri had a Dark Mark - removed or not. Not thinking was the key.) When she stopped talking and plucked at the (admittedly garishly pink) tablecloth, Dim just smiled a little wider. "Well, at least you've lived. I guess we all do stuff we regret later." (No thinking. No thinking, that was the key.)

He followed Devin's look around the room and realised they were the only ones not talking shop. The Herbology professor was obviously complaining the past exams with the Charms teacher, Virill had found Perkamentus to chat to.. No one was actually socialising in a Valentinesy way, apart from them. They were socialising in a Valentinesy way, weren't they? Dimitri wasn't much of an expert when it came to stuff like that, but at least they weren't talking about work and they were sitting together away from the rest. Did that qualify as Valentinesy?

"You know Dimitri.... I'm most certain you and I are the youngest people here." He looked up, he'd been thinking to himself and had been pulled from his thoughts when she spoke. "Hm? Oh, yes, I suppose." He followed her nod at the cocktail waitress (who he hadn't noticed before - honestly, he doubted his masculinity sometimes). "And it's not particularly festive, is it?" he asked. It was more of a rhetorical question, really - but all others were just chatting. It might as well have been a Friday-afternoon post-staff-meeting moment. The only difference was that people were dressed up a little and they were in the Three Broomsticks, rather than in the Staff Room.
Dimitri glanced at Devin. "Fancy going somewhere else?" Not that he wasn't having a nice evening here.. he just thought he could be having a nicer night with Devin elsewhere. (Also without giving their colleagues something to gossip about.)

[devin pucket]

Their conversation was spiraling quickly. Oh this was such a bad idea. She'd thought since they were around the same age and he was so handsome and charming... It seemed a shame that to viable souls and bodies be so alone on such a romantic night. Even though she really didn't consider it to be any more romantic than any other night. But it just seemed like the nice right thing to do. Soon they'd be talking about essays and tips on how to get the students to respect you. Devin had a decent handle on that. The boys typically did what she asked because she was pretty and though she obviously didn't intend for things to work that way, she really couldn't help it. The girls on the other hand....Well it was a mix some girls found her to be fake and ridiculous. Others, mostly the younger ones, found her inspirational as a young witch who was doing so well for herself. However, it was the darker students, the Slytherins mainly, that mostly scared her. She was all for a class of Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws, but some students just gave her the chills.

She needed to save this conversation and fast. If she was going to have any luck of any sort and not leave Dimitri thinking she was psychotic or a total dud, she needed to do something and do it now. And just as she opened her mouth to make a ridiculous comment on filing essays (which was exactly not what she wanted to talk about) Dimitri proposed they go somewhere else. "I'd love to!" It blurted out before she could really think about it and she blushed a little before grabbing her cloak and her clutch.

"Any... ideas? I've nev- " I've never really been out with anyone. Was what she was going to say. "I mean... It's been awhile since I did any exploring." Shut up shut up!!! Glancing around the room once more she swallowed and tried to just smile politely at him. "After you?" Her eyes blinked a few times as they fell back on him and she held back the urge to give up and run away.

[Dimitri Mikhail Zolnerowich]

Dimitri had never really been one for valentine celebrations. In fact, he'd never celebrated it before moving to the UK, really. They had Восьмое марта in Russia, International Women's Day, but that was more to celebrate women and the accomplishments they have made to society. It was a very, well.. soviet kind of holiday. Not that that was a bad thing, necessarily, but it was more a Mother's Day sort of thing than Valentine's Day and it was a little dated (it hadn't really been celebrated publicly since the 1940s).
Even after Dimitri had come to Britain he'd not really understood the idea of Valentine's Day. Oh, it was nice to celebrate love and all that - but wasn't it a little silly to tell someone you cared about them by sending them a card with words on it that someone else had thought of? Still, he supposed it was nice to let others know they were appreciated. The entire consumerist spectacle just.. annoyed him a little. Maybe that was just because he had grown up in a socialist-communist country (and yet in an aristocratic family who had been focused on showing off wealth)? It was a confusing combination and he tended to try not to dwell on it.

Luckily, Devin seemed as happy to leave as he was and he wasted not another second to shrug on his coat. "No, not any in particular?" he admitted with a bit of a shrug as he offered her his arm to lead her outside. No one would be able to say that Dimitri was without manners. Especially his mother had been very strict about etiquette. Holding open the door a little, he smiled slightly. "No, after you."
He'd, actually, never gone exploring. He'd just come here and worked. Dimitri had of course had free time in between class and grading and all that, but he'd never really gone exploring. He'd simply not thought of it. He didn't even go to Hogsmeade unless he needed supplies he could not just order by owlpost - he'd certainly never gone there for fun. This had been the first time. "Well," he said, once they were outside, their breath freezing into little clouds. "I've never gone exploring - are there things to explore here?" He felt a little silly asking, but he didn't really want to go inside again. Not unless Devin was cold, anyway. Dimitri rather liked the cold. True, he had lived here for years now and he wouldn't be able to withstand a Russian winter like he used to, but he could deal with low temperatures. "I don't go to Hogsmeade a lot, so.." He shrugged a little and smiled, glancing up at the sky. It was cloudy, obscuring the stars, and icy fog was rolling in from the woods beyong the village. "Unless you're cold, of course."

[devin pucket]

Devin tucked her cloak in tight as she stood next to him in the chill of the February evening. "I can take the cold. It's never really bothered me before." Looking around she tried to think of something to do. The bright side was that most people were spending their evening alone together so not a whole lot of people would be out and about for them to run into or get caught up with. Dimitri and Devin could actually be alone. But what could they possibly do that didn't involve sitting at a glitter littered table sipping over priced drinks.

Smiling she took his hand. "I have an idea. Come on. Pulling him along, Devin lead them across the street and down a little ways before letting go of his hand and darting behind a building and forming a snow ball in her hands. Just as Dimitri came around the corner he lobbed it at him, hitting him square in the chest. She grinned and turned away running down a snowy slope and into some trees. The snow wasn't quite as thick under their cover, but she was still glad for all the charms she put on her shoes and wardrobe. Not to mention her tights! Her little legs would have been Popsicles by now.

Coming out of the trees she looked back at Dimitri and smiled. "I think the ice might be thick enough here to skate on... Do you know how to ice skate?" She was standing at the edge of the lake. Just the other side of the lake. Not the side where students had already ruined the ice with spells and firecrackers or what ever else they could find.

[Dimitri Mikhail Zolnerowich]

Dimitri resisted the urge to put an arm around her. He wasn't sure if she'd like it.. and even if she would, he wasn't sure if he was sure of what he meant by that. Yes, Dimitri drastically overthinks things (he's practically a woman). "Good," he smiled. "Let me know if you get cold, though." He wasn't going to be cold anytime soon, he was pretty resilient. Although he hadn't been back home in many, many years, somehow you just don't really think an English (or Scottish) winter is cold when you've withstood temperatures of -40 in your childhood.
The streets were blissfully empty. Several cafés and restaurants were brightly lit and busy with chatter while most of the houses were dark and quiet - everyone seemed to have decided to go out. Dimitri wasn't really planning on going inside somewhere again, to be honest, not unless they could have some privacy.

His face burst into a smile when Devin started pulling him along and he laughed softly to himself as he skidded on the slippery cobbles for a moment before following. Devin's snowball took him by surprise and he pulled a bit of a face (though, really, he was hardly wet, his cloak was made for weather like this), then laughed and chased after her, easily moving over snow and icy patches alike - he was faster than he looked. Dodging trees, he ran through the undergrowth, not caring that he was definitely getting his clothes wet now. He didn't bother making a snowball. That would be too obvious. Dimitri would strike when Devin least expected!
Dim hadn't really been paying attention to the direction they'd been going in, but when the trees cleared and gave way to the lake, he had a sort of 'aha'-erlebnis, like he'd known where they'd been going all along. He slowed his running to a walk and strolled over to Devin with a smile on his face. He was catching his breath a little, but by no means tired, and his cheeks had reddened with the exercise and the frost biting into them. "Looks thick enough," he agreed, not at all afraid as he walked onto the frozen surface for a bit. He lifted a foot and brought it down on the ice with force, then walked a little further and did it again. One or two cracks went through the solid ice, but Dimitri could see the breaks were deep and not all the way through, as the surface remained unbroken. "Yep, definitely thick enough," he announced with a smile. He walked back to the edge as though he were walking on earth rather than ice and held out a hand to Devin to invite her on there.
"I could swear I read a spell to transfigure shoes into skates." He laughed. "I'm afraid it slipped my mind, will you do the honours?" He looked around the lake, still smiling. The water below the ice was so dark it was almost black and as the sky got darker and the moon rose, it was almost like a mirror. The sky and the ice were almost identical in colour, a stark contrast with the white snow separating the two.

[devin pucket]

Devin watched him as he moved onto the ice. She really hoped he didn't fall in. It would no doubt put a brutal and very cold end to what was a good beginning of a date. Did she just think of this as a date? How Silly! This wasn't a date!! Or... was it? It was an outing but she hadn't decided what this was exactly. Blinking a few times, she put the thoughts out of her head and carefully stepped over to him, and then holding onto his arm to catch her balance as she wobbled a little. "Oh... Sorry." She blushed a little and let go. " Yes I have a spell for that."

Pulling her wand from its tucked away pocket she gave it a fluidy little wave at his shoes. Devin's wand skills were much less flick and jab-ish and much more swishy and wavy. Everything she did was gentle and delicate. Giving a second wave at her shoes and no murmur as she was very good at speechless spells, she transfigured her own shoes into ice skates as well.

Of course by now we've realized Devin isn't entirely perfect and occasionally she has to have an imperfect moment. That moment was now. As her shoes transformed, Devin wobbled once more before falling right on her posterior. Luckily, Devin was a good sport about it and burst into laughter. "I guess I don't have my ice legs quite yet. I've only done this..... Twice? As a child with my father." She giggled once more before attempting to pick herself up from the cold, frozen surface of the glassy looking lake.

[Dimitri Mikhail Zolnerowich]

Dimitri smiled at Devin over his shoulder, not at all nervous about the ice. (Iain, however, might've been a different matter. He'd have been loud and excited as usual, but he's had a bit of an ice-diving incident in the past.) He held out his arm for her to hold onto and found himself smiling a little wider when she seemed to welcome the opportunity. Dimitri didn't blame her for feeling a little unsteady - and he certainly didn't mind!
He could feel himself get a few inches taller as irons manifested themselves under his boots and he had to adjust his weight a little - and as a result he was too late to catch Devin as she lost her footing. "Whoops." He chuckled a little as he saw she was alright (just a slight case of dented pride) and held out his hand to help her up. "You okay?" he asked as he pulled Devin back on her feet - skates.

Only twice? Then again, the UK didn't have that many winters like Russia. Not even Scotland had temperatures of minus forty, after all. "Well, we'll just have to practice more, right?" he suggested, not letting go of her hand even though she was standing fairly stable now.
"I sort of got bored on the ice." Dimitri laughed. "Not really, of course, but my uncle Pjotr would take me skating as soon as the lake near our home froze over," he added. Of course, he had left his home years ago and his uncle was, well, dead - but he was starting to accept that he also had fond memories of home. Not everything was black and white and despite everything, he had also had good times back in Russia.
Not that he was close to even forgiving his parents, but he was starting to learn to try and see things from their perspective. It didn't mean he agreed with them, but he could understand them a little better. A little.
No such thoughts now, though, and he playfully tugged on Devin's arm. "Ready?" He'd challenge her to a race, but perhaps starting slowly and together was a better idea at this point. Besides, their first meeting had started with a fall - better not repeat that.