Story: 25 Days of Femslash (all chapters)

          The flame in the lantern flickered dully, sputtering and licking high in its final death spasms. Shizune thought briefly of getting up to refill the well with oil, but her tired limbs had long ago lost feeling. By the time she had carefully maneuvered herself out of her current kneeling position and retrieved the oil, the lantern would have died out, leaving her in darkness anyway. It was some ridiculous hour of the night anyway, she should take the dying lantern as a sign that she should sleep but she rarely slept these days. Rarely ate, rarely did anything but wait. She was in an eternal state of waiting, waiting for the woman she loved to wake or for her to take her last labored breath and leave her forever, waiting for someone to realize just how much she was neglecting herself and pull her away from Tsunade’s bedside, waiting for own hope and dread to die out as time passed.

          So she entertained her mind with philosophical meanderings that she never would have had the time to bother with had Tsunade been awake. Well that’s how it’d been for the last few… weeks? The first week after the battle against the Pains, she’d been in a hospital recovering from her apparent death but the lack of supplies and trained medical ninja had allowed her a ridiculously early release. When she’d first come to Tsunade’s bedside, there was always someone else there, a medical ninja, a few of the older generation she was close with, one of Naruto’s friends, and an ANBU seemed to station themselves in the room. There was never much chatter, just solemn silence as everyone waited and watched for some sign of consciousness in the fifth hokage. As the days became weeks, and the weeks became a month, people trickled out. First the older ninja, then the younger ones as they were needed for the reconstruction, ambassador missions to other villages, recon on other villages and other official business, then the medical ninja gave up as Shizune was the best of them all and wouldn’t leave, didn’t sleep much and rarely allowed another person to lay a finger on her Tsunade. She’d taken care of her when they were broke on the road and constantly drunk, why should now be any different. She’d been a little surprised when even the ANBU began to leave gaps in the shift changes, but not when they stopped showing up all together. The message was clear to her, it had been too long for anyone to expect the Hokage to do anything but die a slow death while Shizune watched so they left her alone to grieve and come to terms with the inevitable.

          They failed to understand that Tsunade was the living embodiment of the Will of Fire. It had been her birthright, passed down through the generations of her family. She lived with the belief that if she was stubborn enough about something and threw enough of her will at it, it would change. She simply couldn’t die at this moment when her village was so torn and crushed and she was fighting against her own body to return to them. Her breath still came in shallow rasps, her heart still pumped slowly, her circulatory system worked through the glucose and fluids she was fed intravenously, after everyone had given up on her, had consigned her to a horrible slow death. It was hard to see the Will of Fire within her when she looked so old and fragile, hard to remember its power when it wasn’t stirring you to a cause. Shizune had spent most of her life in the presence of that will, been warmed by the fire of Tsunade’s heart for far too long for her to ever forget its power.

          She’d bumped along with Tsunade in her tour of the Land of Fire for over a decade, sometimes living lavishly but mostly camping out in seedy inns with good gambling parlors. At first it hadn’t bothered her, she was getting fantastic training as a medical ninja and spent so much time on her training that she didn’t notice exactly what kind of bed she was collapsing on at night, or what her mentor was up to while she was working. It had only taken her a year or so to complete the training Tsunade had set up so she began to notice the fact that they never had money, or if they did it was quickly swallowed up by a slot machine. She’d tried to stop the gambling for a few months, but Tsunade would just leave her behind and skip town to go gamble until she caught back up with her. She’d only needed to be left three times before she gave up on changing that habit but she could whine about the drinking all she wanted without too much of a consequence. Sure Tsunade would be snippy but after a week or two, she would come around and be pleasant and she never lost as much gambling. Though she was deeply miserable, would often mope for days in an inn until they got kicked out of the inn they were staying in after running out of money, then she would allow Shizune to figure out their next move.

          Shizune could never figure out why Tsunade was so defeated while sober, but figured that asking would only make her mentor begin drinking again, so she never broached the subject. When it was her responsibility to find their lodgings, the attendant would simply find an abandoned shack or homey cave and set up a living space there. She enjoyed playing house that way, cleaning up the place, cooking meals, serving tea. Her favorite part of those days were the times between her chores when she would lie on a futon with a forlorn Tsunade and be pulled into a tight embrace. It was a rare occurrence, but there was something comforting about being surrounded by a strong woman at her lowest, something that pleased her about being the strong core for once. They never stayed in Shizune’s choice for long because they usually ran out of food and had to move onto the next town, which meant Tsunade began drinking again.

          The drinking did give Shizune some experience she would have never had otherwise. Tsunade was just as lecherous as Jiraya on some points, in fact there were quite a few parallels that no one with any sense bothered bringing up between the two, but the blonde had a more tactful approach as she would often send Shizune on some ridiculous errand and take her chosen partner back to the inn for an hour, have her fun, then send them on their way. Sake sometimes muddled the order of the chore and the sex, so sometimes Shizune would be in the room when her mentor came crashing into the room with either some young girl enamored with Tsunade’s silver tongue or a middle aged man obsessed with her bust with an order to go acquire some rare but obtainable herb or fish. She usually just sat outside looking lost until the person left and she would return to run Tsunade a bath and make her tea. From Tsunade’s conquests she learned just about all the shapes and sizes people could come in, but she found the one she liked most was Tsunade’s own. A perfect balance of hard strength and feminine softness matched with an over the top personality. The sex usually made her cuddly too, which made the habit tolerable.

          All the years, all the ups and downs, the high times and low ones had taught Shizune just what Tsunade could accomplish through sheer will power. She’d also learned a bit of what she herself could do with her own will as she’d eventually worked up the courage to bed Tsunade properly. It was all that infectious Will of Fire that had been warming and burning her for years that was keeping Tsunade alive, because if she wasn’t alive the Fire would fizzle out and Konoha would be left without its most important piece of iconography and it too would sputter out. Somewhere the Fifth knew this and she was hanging on to life for as long as it took for the village to find a new hokage, a new champion, a new bearer to the Will.

          So Shizune knelt next to her on a worn out cushion, watching carefully the slow raspy breaths of her lover and master as she fought to retain that Will, that life while the Leaf Village rebuilt its self with a more useful form of the Fire. She sat by the Fire, and she hoped and prayed that one day Tsunade would  wake and embrace her and that the Fire would burn hot around her the way it had for years until this horrible incident. Across the room the lantern gave up its fight for fuel and went out with a final indignant puff of smoke. The brunette carefully maneuvered herself out of her dead legged kneel and onto her side, feeling all of her muscles cramp at once. She stretched them out as she rolled onto Tsunade’s futon and laid her head on the Hokage’s shoulder. She could feel and hear her exhalations now, so the light was not needed. For the first time in days, Shizune allowed herself to sleep.

          The next morning she felt something stirring lightly under her, a few breathy exhalations and some patting. She squinted in the bright morning light down on Tsunade’s chest and raised herself, feeling more angry muscles in her neck and shoulders. “Uhg, Shizune.” It was a croak. “Get this stuff, why are you are you crying? Useless girl, you’re making it hard to breath.” Despite the protest, she felt a hand alight on her shoulder and rub it comfortingly. “I’ll always come back. You know that.” Then she quit talking and she kept breathing and rubbing Shizune until someone heard the sobs and thought that she had died. Then Kakashi had come running to witness Shizune making a fool of herself. No one cared though. How could they when the Will of Fire had just woken up and was ready to inspire hearts and minds.

          It took her a few weeks to get the strength to be able to hold her transformation jutsu for a long period of time, but she spent most of it in her home reviewing the power struggle and then sending out paperwork, making plans for the long term reconstruction and beginning the preparation of what was shaping to be a war. All the while Shizune was at her side, faithful, loyal, loving. Always there to help her to her feet, offer some form of break, tea, food, and occasionally sake when she was tired and weak. The younger woman would force her to her feet to essentially carry her around the garden in her pajamas so that she would exercise her atrophied muscles every few hours, and it was often agony for her. But Shizune would forge on, humming and nuzzling her as they walked. Tsunade knew that the girl had spent just as much time inactive as she had, so the pain was just as real for Shizune, but she had the infectious Will of Fire pushing her on. Shizune pushed herself too hard, determined to be her only assistant now. She made tea and food, filed the paperwork, got brushes and ink and scrolls when needed. She even did the errands she used to leave to runners and still basically carried Tsunade through her walks. It was unreal to watch the girl attempt to make up all the time they had lost. She truly was unrivaled in her dedication, and that Tsunade chalked up to the effect she had on people. The will became iron and eventually steel and she relied on them as much as they relied on her for strength and guidance.

          With Shizune by her side Tsunade was sure that Konoha would recover well. They were all standing by the Fire. The Will of Fire that warmed them and strengthened all of the citizens who worked endlessly to restore the village.      

Winter had come to Republic City in full force. The leaves had fallen and been raked leaving bare limbs standing on the trees, the grass had died and left little stiff corpses in the park, the ponds and lakes had frozen over, and the buildings had closed and shuttered doors and windows. This was Lin’s favorite season, the chill curbed most elaborate crimes, pickpockets, and muggers which meant she spent most of her time organizing indoor security for city events. The beat cops were grumpy because of the long night shifts in the cold, but they never bothered her much anyway. Lin enjoyed the bitter winds, the harsh morning chill, the habit of people to bundle themselves up in garments she’d never be able to wear but enjoyed looking out, she loved it all.

This year however, her favorite part of winter would be Kya returning. Her old friend had sent her a letter months ago declaring her intention. She’d also told her to keep it quiet from her family. Lin had complied readily. It was hard to explain to Tenzin why his sister felt the need to spend a few weeks every year crashing on her couch. Well they told him it was her couch.

The ship she was traveling on would arrive within a few hours, so Lin had taken up a beat on the dock, moving one of her cops to the nearby warehousing district. By the time Kya showed up, her shift would have ended and she would be free to take her out. She passed those hours entertaining herself with her thoughts of the evening to come. She scolded herself routinely for acting like a smitten teenager, but couldn’t keep the excitement from her step when she caught sight of that brown skin and those blue water tribe clothes.

Kya seemed just as happy to see her though; as she practically sprinted up to her once she’d caught sight of her. They embraced and Kya drew back with a hand on Lin’s face. “I missed you so much Lin.” The chief of police smiled back at her.

“Maybe you wouldn’t miss me so much if you stayed here.” She suggested. At this point it had become a joke between them, Lin would try and convince Kya to stay and Kya would attempt to make her go. It always ended in a stalemate because they had already expressed the best arguments and neither was moved. They were both content to see each other like this for a few weeks, and then Kya would spend a few days on Airbender Island before setting off to go climb a mountain or swim in a river. “I thought we could spend the rest of the evening in, go out to your favorite earth nation food place for dinner, then go for a walk. I love the park at this time of year.”

Kya took Lin’s arm as they began walking away. “That sounds lovely. I was hoping to get here in spring this year, but the black cicadas were being released in the fire nation and that only happens every ten years and I missed the last one because I was at the blooming of the jade tulips in the earth kingdom. The black cicadas only live for a few weeks and the life cycle is so unique I just had to document it.” She paused to rifle through her bag. “I brought my notes; you just have to see them.”

Lin smiled at her. “I’ll see them at the house. I can’t wait to hear about how you spent the rest of the year. You swam with the polar bear dogs right, and the lion seals?”

“Of course, though I don’t think anything is better than the Republic City Park during the first snowfall of winter.” She shot Lin a sly look.

“You’re pulling my leg, I couldn’t be that dumb. Your flattery will only get you so far.”

“You’ll never believe me unless you see the rest of the wonders of the world. You really should come with, then come back and see that the best sight is really the park in the snow.”

“If that was the case, you would stay here all year.”

“Not so, the park isn’t snowy all year, just in the winter. I get to take in lesser sights then come back and get awed every few years.”

“You’re ridiculous, you know that?”

“I try.”

They arrived at Lin’s house in short order. Lin started the fire in the hearth while Kya changed out of her traveling clothes into something more casual. She came out in a thick blue fur dress with a shimmery pattern dancing around the bodice and skirts, it had one of those water tribe sleeveless designs. “Stunning as always.” Lin looked up.

“I’ll make tea while you change out of your uniform, if you have clothes other than your uniform.” Kya offered.

“Sounds good, I haven’t changed my kitchen around since you left. I might be awhile. I don’t think I’ve worn anything but this and my dress uniform since the last time we went out.” Kya couldn’t decide if it was a joke or the truth so she made her way to the kitchen silently and grabbed the kettle.

The tea was nearly cool when Lin emerged in a maroon blazer, white button down and a brown pair of trousers. She looked almost bashful as she came around the corner. “Charming. You look like a stable boy. In a good way.” She stepped close to Lin and wrapped her arms around her. Lin tilted her head and pushed their lips together.

The kiss was soft and careful, exploring. The broke apart and kissed again, more forcefully this time. Lin led Kya to her bed, where they fell in a heap, groping and kissing. They undressed each other, spending a few hours reacquainting themselves with the other’s body until Kya spared a glance at the clock. “We might want to get dressed, Iroh’s closes soon.” She giggled as Lin released a nipple from her mouth.

“Yeah, that’s a good idea.” The chief of police stood and began sorting through the pile of clothing they’d shed. She tossed Kya her bra and dress, and then began rewrapping her own breasts while the Waterbender snickered.

“You’re so old fashioned. Even my mom wears a bra now.”

“She misses you, so does your dad.”

“I know, but that was a bad segway. I spend time with my parents and Tenzin, and I go visit Bumi when he isn’t deployed. I come spend two weeks with you, don’t feel guilty. You miss me just as much as they do.” Kya retorted as she pulled her dress on.

“I love you.” Lin had stopped buttoning her shirt and stood with her hands by her sides. Kya stopped messing with her hair and came over to her. They joined hands and kissed again.

“I love you too. I love my family too. You’re not making me choose. Now get off that stupid guilt inducing high horse and let’s go have dinner. I’ve been craving the pan fried seafood medley for months.”

Dinner was as perfect as Lin had imagined. Kya was radiant, she told Lin of most of her interesting stories from that year. Starting with the water tribe festivals, a few earth kingdom parades, the cicadas in the fire nation, she eventually moved on to Bumi, who had a few more of his ridiculous stories to share. They were still laughing over those before the debate over the check began. They eventually decided that Lin would settle it, but Kya would get the next one as always. Kya hadn’t gotten a bill in years but the argument sustained her. Kya covered the generous tip because the service was fantastic and the food even better.

They walked out with Kya wrapped around Lin’s arm. Clouds had moved in over the starry sky and the temperature had dropped. The park was stunning, nearly empty and bitter cold. Just the way they liked it. On a normal night, Lin could patrol the entire walking path of the park in thirty minutes, on a leisurely stroll with Kya it would take an entire hour more, but she enjoyed it so much more. It happened that they were fifteen minutes into the walk when the white flakes began falling from the sky in lazy circles.

“I didn’t know waterbenders could summon snow.” Lin smiled, as her arm wound around Kya.

“The amount of effort it takes to bend weather is exhausting. I only did it once, on Airbender Island and then I was unconscious for two weeks.” Lin looked surprised. “I made mistakes too, not as legendary as accidentally creating an earthquake or trapping myself in an ice ball for a hundred years, but I had my share of mishaps.”

“Well are you actually able to sense weather then?”

“What would give you that idea?”

“While I have seismic sense and Tenzin said he could feel it when the air currents changed suddenly, so I thought maybe you had some kind of connection to the water in the air.”

“It’s like bending sand for me. I know it’s there but it’s just too small to hold onto, so no I can’t sense weather.”

“Then how did you know that it was going to be the first snowfall tonight?”

“I didn’t. It was a coincidence. Those happen.”

“I’m a detective, they don’t exist. You set this up.”

“You’re being ridiculous.”

The storm layed fairly heavily in the next half hour, but that only encouraged them to stay longer and watch the snow pile up on the trees. They sat down on a large rock with Kya nearly in Lin’s lap, and continued to enjoy the cold and the white sights. The drifts over the frozen lake were Lin’s favorite part because they changed all the time. It was her version of watching the forms of clouds for shapes, but less childish. The giggled and argued over the snowy shapes until the wind blew out the park lanterns and they returned to the house.

They took the long way even then, enjoying the feel of the snow on paved streets, taking in the sites. Kya was less impressed by the simple streets than the stylized park, but Lin enjoyed it so she came along and commented on the street lamps and on the way the snow piled on the monuments. Lin was always at her most playful and spirited in the winter, even more so when it was snowing. It made her happy to see her usually stand offish-what, friend, lover, girlfriend, so enthusiastic.

It took two hours to return to the house, and though she wouldn’t admit it to Lin, Kya was freezing. The dress was thick, but was meant more for warmer climates like the earth kingdom’s summer ball than a three hour stroll through the snow. The chief of police was either entirely unaffected by the cold, or very good at hiding it. When they returned, Kya made a beeline for the smoldering hearth while Lin said she was going to change out of her clothes into something she could sleep in. The water bender thought about slipping off her dress and changing into a warm pair of leggings but decided against it. That could wait; right now she was enjoying the fire.

Lin came back and draped a blanket over her shoulders. “You’re an idiot. You could have told me you were cold, we would have come back. I can look at this place covered in snow any time in winter.”

“You like doing it with me. You like doing everything with me and you don’t get a lot of time to do it. Don’t give me that look, it’s true and it’s not some self-sacrificing bullshit, I like doing things with you too. Right now I just want to take a long hot bath with you, and then we can see how warm your bed is together, and do some physical exams together, then sleep together and have breakfast together.” Lin smirked.

“Sounds great.”

Rainbow Dash was making mental notes to kill or maim Pinkie Pie with every glimpse she got of the library. The HearthsWarming Eve party was really cool, for HearthsWarming party anyway. The games weren’t the dumb pin the tail on the pegasis, or the even worse snowpony building contest, instead the party pony had hidden ornaments all over the place and the goal was to find them and decorate the tree. There was a list of the fifty two ornaments near the tree and a spot to put your name if you found one. The pony who found the most would get the mystery gift that was tucked under the tree. Apple Jack had provided two barrels of hard cider for the occasion so the drinks were amazing, Pinkie herself had baked the cakes and pastries so the food was perfect.

No, the problem was the decorations. There was mistletoe everywhere, tacked to windows, hanging from the ceiling every few feet, over every chair, in bunches over the food tables and the barrels of cider. It was too much; Pinkie’s intention was to get every pony here to trade a kiss. She glowered.

The party pony bounced over to her. “Hiya Dashie! How’dya like the party? Found any decorations? I can give you a hint but don’t tell Sweetie because she’s found twelve already! Tried the food and the cider? Scoots really likes it, she hasn’t left the snacks table all night. You don’t look happy.”

Rainbow shook the glare from her features. “Everything’s great Pinkie. What’s with all the mistletoe?”

“Oh nothing, I just wanted ponies to get closer.”

“You mean you wanted to get closer with ponies, specifically FlutterShy.”

Pinkie grimaced. “Is it really that obvious?”

“Only to me Pinks.” Rainbow Dash laid a hoof on her shoulder. “’Shy won’t notice a thing until you tell her.”

“Yeah but if I ask her out or if she likes me, she’ll feel obligated to go out with me or say yes and I don’t want that. I want her to like me all on her own. She has to ask.”

“So what, you’re gunna trap her under a plant and kiss her until she realizes she loves you?”

“Is that not a good plan?” Pinkie looked stricken.

“Well it’s a good way to show her how you feel, but FlutterShy doesn’t respond well to public displays.”

“Oh, Rainbow what am I gunna do!” The party pony wailed, tears starting in her eyes.

The cyan pony shrugged. “I don’t know Pinks. ‘Shy’s a tough nut to crack. I’ll see if I can help you out.” ‘If I ever get to her.’ She thought with a glance up at the ‘decorations’.

It took Rainbow Dash ten minutes to cross to the snack table without kissing anyone. It wasn’t that she was shy, but that she was saving her kisses for a special somepony and she wasn’t going to waste them under a mistletoe even with that somepony. She was carefully loading a plate with pastries when she heard the clip-clop-clop of Applejack’s steps approaching her. She spun from under the mistletoe to come to face to face with the farm pony. “Heya Rainbow Dash! You like the party so far?” Apple Jack asked around her blush.

“I haven’t been here long, just got to the snacks. How’s the cider doing? We don’t need to get more do we?”

“Ah, no still got a barrel and a half. Should be fine for the rest of the night.” The orange pony adjusted her hat nervously. “The decorations are sure strange. Ah’m not quite sure Pinkie Pie was in her right mind when she put ‘em up. It’s just strange for folks to be kissin’ so much like this.” She sent a glance over her shoulder where at least ten pairs of ponies were exchanging nervous pecks or kissing deeply. “Ah didn’t know Derpy was that well acquainted with Dr. Whooves anywho.”

Rainbow smiled a little at her. “I didn’t know you were so bashful, AJ.” She teased before putting the plate into her mouth to pick her way to a table to sit down. A few moments after she sat, FlutterShy appeared with three glasses of cider on a tray. She settled into the chair opposite Rainbow. “Hey, ‘Shy. How’s the party?”

“Oh, just fine. I haven’t seen Twilight or Rarity in ages; it’s so strange because they arrived together. Apple Jack seems out of sorts, don’t you think? She almost gave me a heart attack by sneaking up on me. This mistletoe was a strange choice in decoration and Pinkie won’t tell me why she picked it, though she sure seems to be avoiding it herself.”

The element of loyalty smiled at her friend. “You’re not dumb; you know exactly why she picked mistletoe. I’ll bet you’ve been trying to steer her under one all night.”

“I would never be so forward!” FlutterShy exclaimed before covering her mouth with her hoof. “Oh, dear.” Rainbow grinned. “I don’t think she like me like that Rainbow Dash. She’s just so excitable; she’d never like somepony boring like me.”

“She doesn’t think you’re boring, that’s for sure. She likes you ‘Shy. The ball is in your court, serve or forfeit.” AJ slipped into a chair before FlutterShy could reply, so they all took a sip of the cider.

AJ and Rainbow struck up a conversation until FlutterShy slid out of the chair to make her way to the party pony. “She’s goin’ for it.” The farm pony commented as they watched the element of kindness approach Pinkie Pie. “Think that they’ll finally get together?”

“We’ll know on Hearts and Hooves day. If they are, Pinkie will plan a ridiculous and embarrassing heart.” Rainbow answered with a shrug. “Speaking of going for it, how come you’ve been sneaking up on ponies all night?”

Apple Jack turned red. “Ah, well Rainbow, Ah was tryin’ tah cover up tryin’ tah steal a kiss from you.” The pegasus grinned.

“You don’t need a mistletoe for that AJ.” She put a hoof over AJ’s. “You just need to ask politely.”

At that point a flustered and unkempt Rarity fell into a seat. “I’ve been kissing so many ponies, these decorations really are not proper. I think I’ll need to have a word with Pinkie after the party. You girls have been getting friendly. Have you seen Twilight dears?”

The cyan and orange pony both hid smirks. “Not as much of her as you’ve seen yerself Rarity.” Apple Jack replied slyly.

          The pristine white pony turned absolutely red before burying her head in her hooves. “Were we that obvious?” She asked sheepily.

          “I’m the element of honesty. I can see the truth.” AJ said neutrally.

          “Yeah totally, Rare. Even ‘Shy knows what’s going on.” Dashie cut in.

          Just then Twilight Sparkle trotted over. “Oh, there you are Rarity! I’ve been looking-“She began theatrically.

          “They know dear.” Rarity snapped at her. “Drop the act.” Twilight’s face fell and she dropped into the seat next to Rarity.

          “Oh. Well then. Can I ask you guys to keep this from Spike? He’s-“

          “He’s what, Twilight? Where have you been anyway? I got cupcakes for everyone then you disappeared and no one knew where you were so I had to eat all the cupcakes.” The purple dragon waddled up. “I’m not feeling so good now. I think I’m gunna go upstairs and take a nap.”

Marceline the Vampire Queen floated lazily around Princess Bonnibel Bubblegum’s bedroom, waiting for her to return from the latest set of candy kingdom business that had interrupted them. Marceline had been stuck on a song for a while; she wanted to write it but just couldn’t get it to sound right. Finn, Jake, BMO, LSP, and Lady Rainacorn had tried to help her with it, but to no avail. So she’d come to Bonni. She’d hummed the melody and strummed a few bars on the bass for the princess and watched Bonnibel spring into action over a keyboard. They’d finished the song, now they were just waiting to do a final mix and set equalizers. PB returned and sat down in front of the portable sound board she’d constructed years ago.

“Marceline, Finn and Jake’s Christmas Sweater party is coming up and I was thinking about asking them to have it here.” Bubblegum said as she worked with the knobs.

“Okay, sounds cool. You could get a bigger screen then they can and make better food. That’ll be cool.” Marceline responded distractedly. “Hmm I think that part sounds empty, run it back and try to add something deep because the bass is really hot there.”

“What about this?” PB hit a button and the speakers kicked out a hard kick drum rhythm. “I’ll slow it down to match the rest.”

“Perfect.” They listened on.

“Well I was wondering if you remember much about Christmas, because I want to decorate with the lights and the shiny metal stuff, but there aren’t any books on Christmas decorating.” The pink princess confessed finally.

“Sure I remember a little. I’ll come over tomorrow night with some lights and ornaments, the stuff isn’t hard to find. I have a bunch of it because I thought I could make a stage show for tours and stuff. Thanks for the help with the song.”

“No problem. It was fun. See you tomorrow, then.” Marceline gathered up her bass and was beginning to float out the window when she turned.

“I could use some low quality red for the road, if you don’t mind.” She proposed sheepishly.

“You can pull it off of some of my old clothes. I’m a little tired and I have a busy day tomorrow, we both know that it’s never for the road with you anymore.” Bonnibel smiled at her though, walking toward the window. “If you’re still hungry, maybe tomorrow I was planning to draw up a sketch of how we want to decorate the ball room.”

Marceline grinned at her. “Sounds great BubBubs.” She floated to the closet and grabbed a shirt before flying out of the window.

The next night Marceline returned with three cardboard boxes. She flew in to Bubblegum’s room and sat them down before sinking onto the bed to wait for her princess to discover her. She didn’t have to wait long because the Guardians always alerted their ruler of her presence within a few minutes, so she was just getting comfy.

“You’re a little earlier than I expected, but we can get to work. What did you bring?”

Marceline floated up and pointed at the boxes. “Bottom one is full of lights and extra bulbs. Middle one has tinsel and some weird ball things. Top one has pictures of angels and trees and families and stuff.”

“You were going to use these for a stage show?” Bubblegum questioned as she rifled through the top box.

“No, those were just with the other stuff. I kept ‘em in case something like this ever came up.”

 “Alright!” PB exclaimed as she pulled a sketch book from a pocket. “I drew up a sketch of the basic area we have to work with.” She flipped it open to the ball room. “I left out the fourth wall because I figured the screen would take most of it up.”

Marceline came near and peered over her shoulder. “Usually Christmas stuff is hung where walls meet, but I was thinking we could make like light silhouettes of all of us on one wall and use the tinsel to fill in the details like Ice King’s beard.” She pulled a pencil from her pocket and began sketching in the rough idea on the left hand wall. “The other wall, I’m not sure about. I was thinking like the Land of Ooo, but that might be hard. You have anything in mind?”

Bubblegum quirked her eyebrows. “You’ve put a lot of thought into this. I don’t know what to do with any of it. You want to start laying an outline on the wall? We could use sugar ink so we have something to lay the lights on.”

“Let’s go. Bring the sketch book.” Marceline moved out of the room and started heading for the ballroom. “Where do we get the sugar?”

“It’s already in there, with some paintbrushes. There’s a couple different colors, so we can differentiate between the light strings and tinsel, and whatever else.”

The ballroom was completely clear, the windows curtained and the decorations pulled from the walls with a drop cloth on the floor. Bonnibel had set up a table with four different colors of ink on it and two sets of brushes with different sizes. She floated to the middle of the room and looked at the space, consulting the sketch. “Maybe we should block out all of them first. Use different colors for people close together. I can help.” Bubblegum whistled and a miniature version of The Marrow flew in. “I spent a few weeks coming up with a dwarf marrow for indoor or delicate work.” She stepped on to the bird. “I’ll get Jake, Ice King, Lady Rainacorn, and you. You get Finn, me, LSP, and BMO.”

Marceline nodded and floated up to the wall, beginning to lay down the outline. Dawn was beginning to light the sky when they finally stepped down and looked at the outline of Ooo they’d finished. “So we hang the lights tomorrow?” Marceline asked.

“Yeah. Hopefully it’ll be quicker. Would you mind asking Finn if he’s okay with having the party here?”

“We’re this far and you still haven’t asked Finn?”

“He always says yes anyway.”

“Okay, I’ll ask.” The Vampire Queen floated out of the castle through the window.

The next night she showed up through the same window, trusting that the princess had moved the boxes into the ballroom. She had assumed correctly, and the princess had a few of the candy citizens starting to hang up the lights on the map of Ooo. She joined in and helped Scruffy with his strands.

Princess Bubblegum came in and ordered the rest of the citizens out. She and Marceline decorated the rest of the land of Ooo and then moved onto the other wall. The two of them finished the walls and moved onto stringing the tinsel on the lights.

“Finn said he was okay with it. He can’t wait. Jake’s still bringing snacks.”

“That’s great. Thanks for asking for me. Thanks for all of this really. This has turned out a lot better than I thought when I came up with the idea. You really came through for me.”

“No problem, Princess. I had fun doing it.”

“Oh, well I was going to pay you back with a kiss, but if it’s no problem.”

Marceline flew over to her. “No it was horrible, I didn’t enjoy anything. The kiss should be with tongue.” She swooped Bubblegum off of her feet and pecked her on the lips. “I’ve been waiting to do that for hours.”

“C’mon Claire, we have leave now or we’ll be late.” Gretchen called from the door, jingling her keys for emphasis. “I told your dad we’d be there at two. It’s one forty and we still have a fifteen minute drive.” The blonde swept out of the bedroom of their flat wearing a simple black dress, still fiddling with her hair as she worked to put it up into scattered bun. “You look fine, shoes are by the door. The necklace is perfect.” The brunette said as Claire opened her mouth.

“I was going to say I’m ready, but those things are nice to know.” Claire responded as she slipped her wedges on. “You look good too. I like where you’ve been going with the androgynous angle lately. You look good in slacks and blazer.” She rose and pecked Gretchen on the lips. “I love you.” She grabbed the taller woman’s hand and led her out of the house. “Do you remember who else is showing up? I think Peter said he and Emma couldn’t make it. My mom and Lyle, with his girlfriend and her boyfriend are all showing. Gabriel said he’d try but Noah was sick. Matt and his family said yes.”

“You’re right; it’s us, your dad, his old primatech crush, Gabriel, Naoh, your family and co, and the Parkmans.” Gretchen counted off. “Hiro and Ando are trying to set up a skype call.” Claire sat in the passenger seat while Gretchen started the car. “Gabriel and Noah showed up early with the Parkmans to help your dad with the food.”
          “How do you know?”

“I told them to. Your dad has made some progress since the divorce but no one trusts him with a whole feast.” Claire shot her wife a small grin.

“I’m amused by your instinct of self-preservation.”

“Not all of us are immune to sickness and disease, plus one of the few pleasures of the flesh you enjoy is a sense of taste. I don’t want a burned ham messing up a perfect Christmas.” The brunette took Claire’s hand. “I’ve been thinking about how strange it is that our vision of a perfect Christmas includes Gabriel eight years after he cut your head open.”

“Sylar cut my head open. Gabriel is a man that has done horrible things and is looking to repent for them. He counsels special people like us now to prevent what happened to him. He didn’t want to become what he did; he was pushed by my dad.” Claire responded tensely.

“Sorry, it was a slip.”

“Don’t apologize, I will. Conditioned response.” The blonde sighed. “It is surreal after all of the strange things that happened; we still want to get together every year.”

“It’s our version of normalcy really, your lives were all so strange when you were together for those four years that it’s comforting to get meet up once a year and see how normal you’ve all managed to become. Each year everyone has steeped further into regular society. Mortgages, car payments, jobs, therapy, those are all normal things you couldn’t have had before you jumped off that Ferris Wheel because you were too busy hiding the regeneration and trying to save the world and each other, usually from one of the other people like you.”

“I like it when you talk dirty to me, Miss Criminal Psychoanaylist.” Claire flirted playfully.

“Usually I’m on the other side of the law, Detective.” Gretchen giggled. They flexed their fingers around one another. “Beyond jokes, you’ve become a family. We’ve become a family.”

They arrived at Noah Bennet’s house with at one fifty-eight without incident but as soon as they had clambered out of the car two small forms bolted out of the house howling. “Noah, Matty how many times have I told you not run out of the house?” A beleaguered voice called out from the house. Lyle Bennet poked his head out the door as the boys collided with Claire and Gretchen.

“I missed you so much, Claire and Gretchen! Matty did too, but he doesn’t talk with words much.” The older boy grimaced as his younger counterpart gushed.

“We missed you too boys, but we’d better get back inside before Mother Lyle has a heart attack.” Claire teased, aiming her statement at her brother. Lyle grumbled but disappeared from the door way.

They’d just closed the door when Gabriel appeared from the kitchen wearing an apron and smiling broadly. Gretchen and the man embraced while Claire greeted him. “Claire, Gretchen, just on time. We weren’t expecting you for another hour, so you’ll have to play with the boys and Lyle. Everyone else is helping out in the kitchen, Janice has pie recipes.”

“My dad sent you to greet me? What kind of disaster is he managing in there?” The blonde peeked over the man’s shoulder but he dipped and captured her attention.

“We locked him in the closet hours ago. He almost scorched my potatoes and he wouldn’t leave so we had to restrain him. He’ll probably be very grumpy at dinner.” He smiled charmingly and turned his attention to Matty and Noah. “Now gremlins, why don’t you show your aunts what you’ve been working on with Lyle all morning?” Turning to Claire he said. “They won’t let anyone see it, even Lyle is tight lipped.”

The boys chirped an agreement and each seized a hand and began pulling Gretchen along, which forced Claire to follow. They tracked up the stairs to the room that had toys strewn about, to find a lego and Lincoln log reconstruction of the night at the carnival Claire had jumped. “My dad says it’s the most important part of our history, because it was the beginning of our record.” Matty Parkman piped up. “We built it by hand because I couldn’t get the kinex to be accurate enough.” Claire swallowed. “Next we were going to do all of us together. Noah has a really good memory and fine motor control so we were gunna do life size. Lyle has been helping a lot, with structural analysis. He’s a good engineer.”

“That’s really great guys.” Gretchen exclaimed, embracing Claire from behind. “Let’s get started. I can draw out a basic outline and then we can show the rest of the family after dinner.”

Tatsuki rose from her bed grumpily, taking time to stretch before moving to her closet to dress. While she pulled on her clothes she ran through her list of homework and study plans to make sure she’d done all of her homework the previous night. She decided that she had as she finished buttoning her shirt and after a quick glance in the mirror she grabbed her school bag and left her room. She greeted her mother with her usual grumble, was chided by her father for being impolite, then ate her breakfast with indifference. “Thanks, mom it was great.” She commented while finishing her tea.

“You say that every morning Tatsuki.” Her mother responded.

“It’s great every morning.” She shrugged. “I want to get to school early, in case Inoue shows up so I can catch her up on what she’s missed.”

“You say that every morning too!” One of her brothers snickered.

“I guess I’m just predictable.” She replied with an imperious glare before she straightened herself and headed for the genkan. “I have practice tonight, so I won’t be home for dinner, could you put some aside for when I come home?”

“Sure sweetie.”

The teen shambled to school, thoughts on all of the material she would be catching Orihime up on. It was near the end of December, Orihime had left in September with Ichigo, Sado and Ishida, again. No one was worried, they never were, didn’t seem to care that three teenagers regularly disappeared from the world and neglected all of their responsibilities. Ichigo ad Ishida both had parents, so there was no excuse for them but Sado and Orihime were orphans so they flew under the radiar, which was unacceptable. If anything were to happen to them, no one would care or notice. No one but her.

Habitually she stopped by Orihime’s apartment, knocked on the door, checked the lights and then turned back down the stairs. She headed to school with a sigh. No return yet. She arrived at the school and sat in the grass under her favorite tree and watched all of the students stream in. She waited until the last straggling groups strayed through the gate before abandoning hope and heading to class. None of the missing teens showed up through the school day and on her way back home from karate, she checked Inoue’s apartment again. Still empty. They didn’t return the next day or week, or the week after that and the winter break started without Inoue returning.

Tatsuki woke early on the twenty fifth to her phone vibrating across her study desk she rose sleepily and flipped it open. The message on the screen stopped her heart. Tatsuki-chan! I’ve got so much to tell you about my trip, come by my apartment today please. She dressed in seconds and sprinted to Orihime’s building in the predawn light. When she bounded up the steps, the lights were on. Her heart leapt back to life and she choked for a second on her own emotion before she mastered herself and knocked on the door. Orihime opened the door and popped her head into the crack with a wide smile. “Tatsuki-chan! I wasn’t expecting you so early! I was just cleaning; I was going to shower and change. I guess it can’t be helped, come on in!” She pushed the door open wide.

“I could come back later, if you want to finish cleaning.” Tatsuki almost stuttered over the words, feeling like an idiot for running over here like a neglected puppy.

“No, you’re here already and I don’t want to waste any time.” Orihime gushed, grabbing Tatsuki’s hand and pulling her into a hug. The raven haired tomboy returned the hug and felt her whole body shudder. She bit back a sob but the other girl had felt it and dropped her head into Tatsuki’s neck and rubbed her back soothingly.

“I missed you too!” Tatsuki whimpered. “I missed you so much and no one ever tells me when you’re going to drop out of my life! And what the hell is this about coming back on Christmas! That’s a couple’s holiday. It’s like I’m your wife or something.” She couldn’t understand how she could be crying and angry at the same time, but it was happening. She pulled back from Orihime and crossed her arms. “Why’re you back?” She rubbed her eyes.

“To be with you. I didn’t know the human world date, it’s kind of fate that I would come back a couples holiday to see you. It’s funny really.” Orihime brushed her hands through her hair. “I bought a sweater last year, as a joke. I was going to put it on and cook normal food and tell you Tatsuki. I was going to tell you something I’ve always been way to cowardly to admit to anyone, that I like you Tatsuki.” The tomboy bit her lip and looked away.

“What kind of sweater?” She asked.

“I can show you!” Orihime scurried off before the she could stop her. She only waited for a few moments before Inoue returned with a blanket wrapped around her. “You have to promise not to laugh!” She demanded.

“I promise.” Tatsuki responded. The busty girl dropped the blanket and revealed a red felt sweater with two now white pom poms attached to the spots where a woman’s nipples would be. The most impressive feature of the sweater was the plunging v neckline that exposed her cleavage and came down to a point just below her breasts. The tomboy contained her laugh for a few seconds before she had to turn away. “That thing is ridiculous! There isn’t anything remotely sexy about that!” She remarked. Orihime looked away.

“You don’t like it?” She pouted.

“No, No, No! I love it. I just think that it’s funny!” Tatsuki tried to save herself but Orihime had begun to turn away. She caught her hand. “No, don’t be angry! I didn’t mean it that way! You look great, but it’s just too over the top. You don’t need to show off yourself to get attention, your personality will get you so much farther. I missed you so much. Let’s not waste time, tell me about your trip.”

It was cold and miserable in the mountains; despite the Fire Nation having some of the best military equipment they had never quite grasped how to properly insulate against extreme cold and snowy conditions. The result was usually massive losses in any snowy climate, which is why the armies never stuck around after decimating the South Pole and failing the invasions on the North. It also meant that Azula, Mai, and Ty Lee were shivering their way through a bitter blizzard in a spacious officer tent. The winds disturbed the walls of the tent, and but the ice and snow had failed to penetrate it so far. The fire bender had to continually re light the lamps because they kept getting blown out.

          Azula was furious, and as usual May and Ty Lee were soaking up her anger in silence. It hadn’t been their fault the blizzard had rolled in while they were crossing the mountains into the earth kingdom; it wasn’t their fault that the Avatar was so elusive. It wasn’t their fault Zuko had failed. All three of them knew that, but Azula was never rational when she was angry so she kept spitting curses at both girls and sending fire balls to the lanterns and they flinched and took the barbs. Mai didn’t care, and Ty Lee knew that Azula would get tired and go to sleep soon.

          The princess did stop but it was with a sly grin on her face. Mai slipped a hand into Ty Lee’s for support and squeezed. “Ty Lee!” Azula said sweetly. “Remember the last time you and May had a little alone time?” Ty Lee bit her lip and nodded while squeezing hard onto May’s hand. Alone time was the princess’s code for, you two are going to have sex while I watch and dictate what goes on. “Fantastic. Kiss Mai, gently.” The acrobat complied, laying her lips against Mai’s; the knife expert allowed the kiss but didn’t respond. “May deepen it, hands on Ty Lee’s shoulders.” May opened her mouth and slid her tongue into Ty Lee’s mouth, gripping her shoulders to pull them together. Ty Lee responded with a soft whimper. “Push her down onto the floor.” The girl allowed herself to be laid out on her back. “Embrace her Ty Lee, Mai pull back and look into her eyes. Pull her shirt off.” The orders were followed, Ty Lee hissed when her bare back hit the cold ground. “Feel her breasts, tease, and cup them. No sounds from you Ty Lee.” The girl bit her lips harder as she felt Mai’s dexterous fingers press into her flesh and knead her. She turned her face away from Azula. “Look at me.” She turned back as Mai slipped a nipple into her mouth unbidden. The knife expert flicked her tongue across the turgid surface before withdrawing her mouth again and tracing soft kisses across the sensitive flesh of her breasts. The other nipple popped in, though Mai was far more aggressive this time, nipping at it before swathing her tongue of it soothingly. Ty Lee whimpered in the back of her throat discontentedly. She wasn’t sure if Azula was still giving orders or just enjoying the show because most of her focus was on following the orders she’d been given and how hard Mai was making it to follow those orders. She watched through hazy eyes as Azula reoriented her body and slipped a hand under the waistband of her breeches. Her attention was drawn back to Mai as she released the other nipple and nuzzled her way down Ty Lee’s midriff. She slipped her fingers into her friend’s hair, splaying her legs wantonly. She felt cold fingers hook into the waistband of her trousers and under garments. Her other hand moved to cover her mouth as she lifted her hips, allowing the last of her clothing to be slid free of her body.

          Mai’s lips landed on her thighs, not gently either. The other girl opened her mouth, nipping at her thighs roughly as she moved in toward her center. Her attempts to close her thighs around Mai’s head were met with harder discouraging bites; she struggled to relax completely while the nips continued. She focused on Azula again, the princess had pulled an entire leg from her trousers in an undignified manner and was fast at work between her legs with a hand. Mai nuzzled her vulva teasingly, opening her up for the cold air. She squirmed, her legs trembling and teeth clenching around her hand. The dispassionate girl laid a long lick on her outer lips, her deathly chilled hand snaking up to hold Ty Lee’s thighs apart. The next lick was slow and passed her outer lips, touching the moistened inner flesh for a few brief instants. She spared a glance at Azula before determining the Princess too far gone to care about the orders she had given.

          Mai sat up, forcing Ty Lee to balance between two pairs of shoulders. “Look at me Ty Lee.” She used the deep tone of her voice to her advantage and Ty Lee snapped her attention to her face. “Perfect.” She purred. “All your attention on my eyes, no closing them or looking away, if you do, I’m going to assume that you don’t want this, and I’ll stop and go help Azula. Do you understand?” The acrobat nodded gravely, struggling to see over her breasts. She adjusted her shoulders to balance comfortably and hold her head up. Mai shifted her grip, wrapping her arms firmly around Ty Lee. She flattened her tongue and gave the other girl a lick from her perineum to the base of her hooded clitoris. She felt the shudder and saw Ty Lee’s jaw clamp, her pupils widened then contracted, a quick blink. This was going to be fun. She spared a quick flick over the girl’s clit and watched her neck muscles flex. Mai busied herself with a few long languid licks over Ty Lee’s vagina, then traced the very edge of her weeping opening, and finally spiraled the tip inside of her core. She felt the sheen of sweat on the acrobat’s skin, watched as her face tightened, and restrained her as the girl thrust her hips up into Mai’s face, her eyes unwavering from their focal point.

          Ty Lee hooked a knee around her neck and began to plead quietly. “Please, a finger! I need it.” Mai smirked and unwrapped one of her arms from Ty Lee’s thighs and dropped it below her body. She butterfly flicked her tongue across the girl’s now prominent clit and thrust two stiff fingers into her center. The acrobat shivered with pleasure and let out a soft sound of surrender. She blinked and flicked her eyes away for an instant before returning them to Mai’s. “I want it. Please don’t stop.” She begged. Mai shrugged and closed her lips around the nub of her clitoris and suckled gently. Her fingers withdrew and thrust in again, this time with her fingers undulating. Ty Lee moaned low in her throat, her hips thrust again and Mai set a fast and hard pace in her, her teeth scraping on the acrobat’s clit with each cycle.

          This pattern soon pushed Ty Lee into orgasm, a surprisingly short and quiet set of spasms that left her slumped down and panting, eyes screwed shut. Mai disentangled herself from the girl’s legs and brushed a kiss over her lips.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        

It was a beautiful winter day; snow had recently fallen in that hard icy way that created a hard packed layer with ice over top. The mid-day sun sent scattered beams of light over the layer of snow, creating a glittering pristine land scape. The boughs of the evergreens hung low to the ground with the weight of their icy burdens. Bundled expertly against the cold, Merida was able to take in all of this as she rode into the valley that would take her to the tower. Her horse strode easily through the encumbering snow, so the ride was easy, relaxing almost, if it hadn’t been for her self-assigned and totally important mission of the day.

She’d climb that tower today, there had to be someone in there. She’d seen an old hag entering, heard a girl’s voice inside. Her mother had told her all of the old tales, she knew there was bound to be a princess locked away. She’d saved her dessert from dinner and filched a few more hot sweet rolls so she would have gifts to give the princess when she saved her. Merida wasn’t a prince, so she wasn’t sure just what she was supposed to do with her after she saved her, but she was certain her father would figure something out. I mean you don’t just let princess’s stay locked up in a tower all their lives. Unless she was Merida’s sister, a younger one to groom to take over the throne if she failed, that seemed like a plan that her mother would come up with. It didn’t matter just yet; she’d cross that bridge when she came to it. Her immediate focus had to be climbing the tower to the top window.

The first day she’d found the tower, the bottom door hadn’t been locked so she slipped right in and explored. She’d summarily come to a much larger and locked door that presumably led to her princess. She couldn’t open it, though and the hag had come back so she’d had to slip out of the window and had left defeated. The next time she’d found the door locked, the only option was to climb the tower to the balcony. She’d spent most of the summer scrambling up cliffs and bare tree trunks, accumulating many tears in her dresses, cuts, bruises, sprains, and most of all lots of splinters. She determined that she couldn’t make a grappling hook and it was extremely hard to shoot a rope on an arrow with any real force so it came down to her climbing ability. She was confident now that she could indeed climb the tower now; the thing was made of brick so she would simply have to climb bare foot. It was an easy task to contemplate, she could see her best starting position and then also see the path she would take, how to mount the balcony. All she had to hope was that the hag was not there to spoil her plans.

Rapunzel felt that something was wrong. Her mother had been very strange recently, since the spring really, she never seemed to leave for very long and always seemed suspicious of something. Today she was being extremely manic, demanding to know who she was seeing, what she knew of life outside of the tower. She knew nothing, was seeing no one and certainly wasn’t planning to do anything of the sort. Her mother knew what was best for her, that was a fact she couldn’t dispute and certainly wasn’t going to try. Despite her misgivings her mother had left in a huff and promised to be back with food soon.

The girl had come into the clearing then, the girl in the green dress with the red hair. The odd girl had called out, but she’d just huddled on the far side of the room. Her mother would be furious to find that she had talked to some other person, so she’d hidden. It hadn’t been long after the girl disappeared that she’d heard it. The light tapping, the grunts, and it ascended up the tower in a curling pattern, she was sure it was headed for the balcony. She needed to stop it; her mother would never forgive her if something found its way into her room. She grabbed one of her least favorite cups, it was metal so it would hurt and hopefully knock the burglar off of her home. She went out onto the balcony and watched the stone face for the signs of her intruder. She heard the sounds, the grunts that were high pitched, and the loud exhalations of breath, occasionally she heard a high pitched voice muttering encouragements. She wasn’t quite sure but it sounded like a girl, and to climb the tower her fingers would have to be small, her fingers were small. The intruder could be a girl her age; she could be a friend climbing the tower. Just as this occurred to her a fuzzy red mop of hair popped into her view followed by the rest of the girl. It was the girl from earlier. She was dumb struck.

The girl raised her head and caught a look at her, a grin breaking out on her sweaty face. “Princess! I knew I’d find ye! I’ll be up in just a few moments to save you!” She called.

“Oh, no, I’m not a princess. I don’t need saving, this is my house!”

“That’s just what they want you to think! I’ve heard the tales, old haggy mother, locked in a tower, missing princess kidnapped as a baby. You’ve been kidnapped and you need saving. I’ll take you to my father and he can figure out where you rule!” Merida crowed as she continued up the tower.

“That’s ridiculous, please dismount my tower and go home. My mother will be home soon and she doesn’t like visitors!”

“Anti-social old haggy mother sounds suspicious!”

“Stop insinuating those things, my mother loves me and I’m happy here!” She threw the cup hard at the fuzzy hair, and watched as it sailed harmlessly past her. The girl looked up and scowled.

“That wasn’t very nice, princess!”

“Stop calling me that, my name is Rapunzel.”
          “Sounds Princessy to me.” Rapunzel made an indignant noise and stalked back into her room. She looked around for a weapon, something she could throw that had a lot of weight. She was looking for a long time and she felt fingers close on her shoulders. She gasped and grabbed a frying pan, spinning around. “What are ya doin’?” Merida caught the pan with one hand. “This is a nice place ya’ve got here, but I’m sure the castle you’re supposed to have is much better.”

“I’m not a kidnapped princess! Stop this and get out!” She could feel her hair beginning to stir in her anger.

“That’s nice hair you’ve got there! My name’s Merida! I live in the kingdom over the bluff. I’m a princess and ooohh, I brought you snacks!” The girl grabbed the quiver from her back and began pulling a bundle out of it. “I wasn’t sure what you liked, so I just brought all of the sweets my mom gives me and some sweet rolls.” She presented the bundle with flourish. Rapunzel took it hesitantly and opened it. “I hope they’re still warm!”

“They are.” She said quietly. “Thank you Merida. Let’s eat them together.” Rapunzel sat down suddenly. Merida followed her down and shook her head at the offered sweet roll.

“You don’t have to share, I get enough of these at home.” Merida said. Rapunzel leaned forward and pecked her on the cheek. Merida sat stunned while Rapunzel dug into the sweets.

Nanase Oten was seated on her usual stool in the corner of Murphs’ basement, Murphs to her left behind his drums and Amber across from Murphs in her corner with her sketch pad. They were all staring at Tom who was standing in the center of the room, one leg propped up on his amp while he pumped out the last few licks of “Carol of the Bells” by August Burns Red. He finished with flourish, pulling his hand back from the final slide to thrust his fist into the air with the beat he was keeping in his head. He went back to the fret board for the last notes, his head in violent motion. The last note he let linger while he straightened and stretched. He flipped his sweaty hair out of his eyes and looked around. “What do you guys think?”

“It’s great. I’ve never heard Christmas carols played like that, where did you hear it?” Amber was the first to respond.

“Youtube, I was looking for Metal Christmas songs and found August Burns Red’s Christmas Album and some another band called Trans-Siberian Orchestra. I didn’t like ‘em much though, too orchestral. I spent a few weeks learning it in secret, which Alex made very hard!” He sent a look over at Murphs who blushed and waved innocently. “I thought that we could all learn it and a few others, because my mom is having a Christmas party for a few of her old band mates, they’re coming up from Spain and it’s a big deal. I wanted to show them what I’ve learned, and Nay and Alex I want them to meet you and I can’t impress them alone.” He was twiddling with his fingers nervously. “So what do you say?”

Murphs agreed almost instantly while Nay thought for a moment. “Is Amber invited?” She asked, receiving a nod from Tom.

“Yeah, you can invite other people too, I’ve already invited Charlie. Mark and Steve are invited too.”

“How many songs?”

“Three, Frosty the Snowman, Rudolph the Red nosed Raindeer, and that one.”

“Those are all kiddie songs, there’s no way!”
          “We can listen to the album and pick a few, I’ll let you and Murphs chose.”

“Okay, you have your laptop now?” Nay consented, putting her guitar into the stand next to her stool. “We can listen to the album and then pick songs. I’ll learn some of the tabs tonight. How long until the party?”

“Three weeks to the day, I was going to tell you guys earlier, in like November, but it took a while to learn this song, because I was trying to surprise you guys so I’d dazzle you into agreeing. Alex kept showing up unannounced, convinced that I was hiding something from him.”
          “You were hiding something! I thought you were writing me a song. I wasn’t that wrong.”

“Point is that we can learn the songs in a few days and spend some time practicing together before the party.” Nay interrupted. “Go get the laptop.” Tom rushed upstairs to his bag, and apparently ran into Kelly in the living room. She heard Kelly’s voice drift down through the floor boards, and smirked as Tom stammered responses. Amber caught her gaze with apparent amusement.

Murphs looked peeved and stood. “Kelly, leave Tom alone! He doesn’t know about your perverted life style and doesn’t want to.” He shouted as he walked up the stairs.

“I’m more interested in yours!” Kelly shot back. Amber let out a small giggle before returning to her sketch book. An argument was beginning in the living room, so Nay crossed the room and sat down next to Amber.

“What’cha drawing? Is it more pictures of me?” She asked jokingly.

“No, my narcissistic one. I was drawing Tom, because I’m challenging myself to draw tattoos and he’s the best candidate. I taught myself to draw piercings by using him as a model.” Amber answered.

“Really does he know?”

“I imagine because I spend my weekends staring at him and he’s seen the book.” Nay snuggled closer and gave her a kiss, which Amber returned. Nay brushed the book to the side and sat on Amber’s lap. Amber embraced her and kissed her again, this time with tongue.

“I was getting jealous. You used to stare at me like that.”

“That’s beginning to lose its humor Nay, I was terrified that’d you’d look in my sketch book or notice those stares.”
          “Well I noticed those stares, but I thought it was something else. I only looked in the sketch book once. There was no reason to be terrified because here we are.” Nay nuzzled her. “Now I’m thinking that you should draw me with piercings, snake bites, a labret, and that weird neck thing Tom has. A whole bunch of them.”

Amber looked up at her incredulously. “You mean that? Why?”

“I want to know what they’d look like on me, because I think that they’d be hot, but I can’t see it without them being there but you can draw me very well and you can do piercings now. So if they look hot in the drawing, then they’ll be hot on me.” Nay answered.

“I think you’d look great with snake bites.” Amber said simply. Nay dropped her forehead onto Amber’s and kissed her gently.

“I love you.”

“Me too.” Tom and Murphs came tramping back down the stairs. Murphs look angry and he was aggressively leading Tom by the hand. Tom had his bag clutched to his chest and was looking flustered and sheepish.

“How did she figure it out? I mean it’s not obvious at all! No one told her!” Murphs was muttering to himself.

“It’s not a big deal, she didn’t freak. She was just curious.” Tom said. “She’s not gunna blab. It doesn’t really matter, Alex drop it.”

“I’m not gunna drop, it’s none of her business. How I do what I do is my business, it’s not like I ever asked her how she and her girlfriends did it. She’s just so infurating!” Murph steamed. Tom opened the laptop and turned it on, set it on his amp and walked over to Murphs. He hugged him.

“It’s flattering how upset you are, really. She’s your sister; she was going to find out.”

“She shouldn’t have asked you like that. Not when anyone could hear.” Murphs muttered as Tom kissed his neck.

Nay stood up. “Alright, August Burns Red.” She announced heading toward the laptop.

“Yeah, that’s right.” Murphs broke away from Tom, who followed.

          Korra couldn’t believe that she’d gotten Asami. She had to buy a present for Asami. It was Bolin’s fault, and stupid Mako’s, they’d played the ‘my family used to do this card’ and then she and Asami had given in. They’d agreed to exchange gifts, but in a secret way, they couldn’t reveal who bought what. Each person had drawn a name out of a sock because no one had a hat on hand and she’d pulled Asami! She was a great friend, and secretly Korra had a crush on her, which was made this a disaster. Korra didn’t know how to buy a good ‘we’re best friends’ present without also conveying ‘I have a crush on you and calculated this present to show you how much I care’. She sighed in exasperation for nearly the hundredth time since she’d begun the shopping expedition.

          “This isn’t hard Korra; Asami will love anything you get her.” Jinorra complained from her left side. “We’ve been out for three hours. Dad’s going to come looking for us!”

          “This situation is far more complicated than you know Jinorra!” She snapped back. “What makes you think she’ll like my present so much?”

          “She loves you.” Jinorra shrugged. “I mean my mom loves everything my dad gets her for her birthday even though most of it is weird stuff that she doesn’t even want. Like old Airbender stuff, relics. He’s entrusted her with half of our culture because he can’t buy presents. She loves everything, because he gave it to her.”
          “Wai-Wait, Wait! The part where she loves me, go back to that. You can’t possibly know that!”

          “You have to see it too; I mean she looks at you the way she used to look at Mako when she thought no one could see. It’s a weird look, but it makes her eyes all bright and her face gets all crumpled, like when a Lemur doesn’t get his treat. He can see it but doesn’t get it.”

          “She’s frowning at me Jinorra.”

          “It’s the frown of love Korra.”
          “She’s not going to know it was from me anyway.”

          “Yes she will, she’ll know because Mako would have done something like get a piece of jewelry and Bolin would get her tickets for a mover because she loves those. You on the other hand will spend hours out here looking for something perfect. The problem is, you’ve found so many perfect things but you’re afraid she’ll know that you love her.”

          “I don’t-“

          “You do, you look at her like Chief Beifong looks at my dad.”

          “You’re way too perceptive for a kid your age.” Korra scowled. “So do I get her a perfect gift?”

          “Are you ready to tell her you love her? Or do you want to be in limbo for longer?”

          “I don’t know, it was so easy with Mako because well, I wouldn’t be the lesbian avatar with him. I’d be the avatar with the pro bending boyfriend, now the detective boyfriend. I don’t want her to deal with hate crimes or people turning away from future industries because we’re together. I don’t want her to hate me for loving her. I really don’t.”

          “She already loves you too Korra.”

          “Yeah but she can at least ignore it because she thinks I don’t like her back. If we both confess, there really is nothing holding her back.”

          “But that’s a good thing.”

          “Yeah, I guess. C’mon kid, I found the perfect present an hour ago. Let’s go pick it out and go back to the Island. Your dad is going to give me an earful already.”

xxxxMeanwhilexxxxx

          “You think that Korra and Asami have figured out that this is a plan to get them together yet?” Mako asked his brother as he came in the door.

          “No way, its secret. They won’t know until they open their presents. Its genius.” Bolin answered from the kitchen. “Even if they do, they have to confront us about our dead parents. No way they’ll do that and even if they did they would still be doing it together so they’d have to admit there’s something between them.”

          “Totally foolproof?” Mako questioned, hanging his coat. “What’s for dinner?”

          “I made noodles!” Bolin crowed brandishing it out of the kitchen door. “Special for you with that miso sauce you like.”

          “Thanks Bolin.”

          “Welcome.”

xxxxxA few days laterxxx

          Asami was losing her damn mind over Bolin and Mako’s little request. It would have been fine, but she’d pulled Korra’s name out of the damn sock after she pulled her own. Stupid brothers and their dumb dead parents, providing a perfect opportunity to out herself to Korra and the whole world. This was unreal, of all people to crush on, why the female avatar. She’d spent a few weeks after returning to Republic City toying around with Lin, but the Chief had rebuked her after a few steamy kisses offering some excuse about the age difference between the two of them. As though she was an idiot, she’d seen the way Lin and Kya had taken advantage of all the space everyone was willing to give Lin when they’d gone to the South Pole last year, it was clear the two of them had some kind of long standing relationship. So she was forced to confront her feelings for the avatar.

          She’d done something stupid. She’d made a damn present, and as soon as Korra saw it she would know just how much Asami liked her. She glared at the box. “I can’t believe myself.” She muttered as she picked it up and prepared to leave the house. It was an engagement necklace. She’d carved it out of whale bone she’d broken off of a water tribe spear and used red lace as the collar portion. This was ludicrous; you don’t ask an avatar out on a date with a proposal for marriage. “Why not be direct, it’s already going to be obvious what you want with any other present. Don’t be a coward Asami.”

These days it was hard to find something to laugh at. Things with Mista J had gotten so dark that not even the best gags would make him laugh, he would roll his eyes and turn back to his desk with a broody expression. He only laughed when B-man was around, and even that seemed fake to her. She’d gotten so sad over it that she’d stopped trying to make him laugh. She’d given up and went back to mooning over girly things in her room. She’d put on her face paint and costume and roll around on her bed with a magazine for hours until the Joker yelled an order at her. She always complied, always did her absolute best hoping to surprise him with something so well done that he’d smile at her. It never happened though. After weeks of behaving in this manner, always sequestered away and never happy, despite her chipper attitude, Harley was tired and sad. She didn’t want to laugh, she wanted to cry.

Red had picked up on it, from the way she acted at the door or when they ran into each other while Harley was doing errands, her friend had known something was wrong. So she’d broken into the hideout and all but kidnapped Harley. After tossing her into the convertible and jumping down afterwards she heard something she’d missed, something she’d craved like no other thing. A snicker. It was laughter, mirth. Even if it was just Poison Ivy being her usual derisive self, mocking the security in the Joker’s hideout, it was laughter. She’d spent a few nights with Red that were full of fun, they talked and gossiped, and had tickle fights and over and over Red laughed, mostly at her. But she still laughed and that sound alone filled Harley with happiness. She’d gone back to Joker eventually, but she’d come back to Ivy when things started to get to her again.

Most of these occasions were during the bitter Gotham cold snaps, when snow lay on the ground in great piles and most criminals would rather huddle inside then bother a heist. Harley thought it was just fine because Red was crabby in the cold. She hated it. The sun wasn’t present for very long and it was always weak when it was so she was tired. Every plant outside died and she felt their pain. Winter was a hard season for a plant hybrid. It seemed weird to be happy when your friend was angry, but Red was much easier to entertain when she was grumpy because she found some ironic humor in everything. She was always smirking or grinning wryly at some offhand remark Harley had made. Occasionally Harley would feel the need to be mischievous and do something less pleasing.

Once Harley had concealed a snow ball as she walked into the house, meeting Red in the kitchen with a kiss and very unpleasant impact to the back of her head. Harley would never forget the look she got as she pulled away, eyes hard but the rest of the face adoring. She hadn’t liked Ivy’s retaliation during her shower that morning, but she’d enjoyed the cackles Red was emitting as she tossed snowballs at her. They pranked each other for days until an incident involving an ice ball had caused a cease fire. So they’d agreed to do outdoor winter activities. Harley had pushed for building snowmen in the park. Ivy couldn’t think of anything else so they’d gone with that after sleding, ice skating, hot chocolate and all of the other activities Harley had thought of. Snowmen were the only thing left and both were determined to do something amazing.

“I was thinkin’ that we’d do Batman wrapped up in a bunch of vines on the ground. The snow is perfect for it.”

“That’s not really a snow man, Harley.”

“It’s a snowBATman. It’s even cooler!” Harley shot back.

“Well, alright. We’d better get started.”

After about two hours, Harley understood two things about snowBATmen, they were very hard to build and they made you very cold and wet. They had a sort of man looking block with points on top of its smaller rectangular upper protrusion surrounded by lumpy snow pillars. Ivy scowled at it angrily. “This is ridiculous. Its snow, I should be able to bend and twist it to my will with no problems. I can create a miracle anti venom, I can communicate with plants, I’m solar powered and I can’t build a snowman!” She growled.

“Aw, Red don’t take it personally, snowBATmen are hard to build. Its just the material. Our hands are frozen stiff. Let’s go home and try again tomorrow.”

Poison Ivy didn’t like the idea of spending another afternoon getting cold and wet, but she wasn’t going to devastate Harley like that, she’d said they’d make a snowman after all. “Alright, we can get a warm bath together. I like the sound of that.”

Harley was equally pleased by that idea and spent the whole ride back to the hideout snuggled up against her side. By this point Ivy was quite adept at driving with one hand due to her current occupation as a super criminal and the fact that Harley had no compunction about curling up against or on another human being at the most inopportune of moments. Once they reached the hideout, Harley ran inside, stripping off clothes as bounded up the stairs. By the time mounted the top of the stairs she could hear Harley turning the knobs to regulate the water temperature. She took her time disrobing, opened the curtains over her bed to let in the wane sunlight, and pulled an outfit out of her dresser. She walked into the bathroom and set the clothing on the toilet. Harley was dipping her toes in the water experimentally. Ivy came up from behind her and hugged her around the waist. Harley started before leaning into her. “Red, you scared me.” She chuckled and gave Harley a kiss.

Johanna had come to hate this time of year. Summers in the old District Four were simply one long endless rain storm with the occasional thunderstorm or hurricane to break it up. Most of the people here were natives, it really wasn’t a bad location and after the fall of the capitol they were allowed to keep what they caught or sell it at their own whims, so they’d come to love or at least live with the constant downpour during the height of the fishing season. She’d never admitted it to anyone, absolutely refused to, but the rain still skived her out. The thunderstorms made it worse, wet and electricity together was just too much for her. She could handle baths and showers now, it had been iffy at first after a few false starts had ended with her in a ball on the bathroom floor, but Annie had simply plopped into the tub with her one day and she’d managed to scrub most of the dirt off of herself. It had only taken a few months for her to manage a shower solo, as long as there was no thunder. Some days she even swam with Annie and Little Fyn, though it was never for long. But going outside in the rain or thunder was out of the question. Summer usually saw her wrapped in blankets cowering in her bedroom. Little Fyn was helpful during the rain, coming in with books or paper and crayons, demanding she read or draw something. Other times he’d pulled her into the living room to his mother’s soothing box on its loudest setting to drown out the sound of the rain.

Worse than the rain was Finnick’s birthday. Every year they celebrated it, he would’ve been thirty this year. Annie understood that Finnick was dead, she was sure of that, but for Little Fyn’s sake they pretended. They showed him pictures, most of them were computer generated with aging software used to make him look older than the twenty four he’d died at, every year on the boy’s birthday there was a present from daddy for him, usually it was some kind of fishing supply, rod, line, hooks, a trident, net, or harpoon were common. They told him that his dad was working with President Paylor to help the people and couldn’t come home. There were letters based around current events sent from all of the old districts that ‘Finnick’ sent. She was certain that it was the work of some of the surviving victors from the hunger games. The lie was livable every other day of the year, but Finnick’s birthday resulted in a shopping trip to buy him gifts, then a walk to the train station to mail it out to the old capitol. For the past two years a huge storm had kicked up on his birthday but Little Fyn and Annie had bundled her up and drug her out into the storm. The first year she’d managed to pick out a gift before lightning had struck a nearby building and she’d quite simply collapsed screaming. The residents were used to Anne’s fits, even Little Fyn was able to deal with those, so she’d found herself embraced by half a dozen children all whispering reassuring things. The kids had actually escorted them home, and then stayed with Johanna until the rest of her family had come back from the train station. Last year she’d managed to stave off the panic attack until they’d gotten home again.

This year it was a hurricane, whipping in off the coast without much of a break. The weather walls would take most of the beating but it would still be a nasty storm on the streets. She stared glumly out the window at the darkening clouds. “Annie we’d better get going!” She called. “The storm is picking up; I think I want to get Finnick another necklace this year.”

“Jo! I wanna make him one!” Little Fyn called back.

“I’ve talked to both of you about yelling in the house.” Annie scolded as she walked into Johanna’s room. The widow hugged her and allowed herself to be pulled into a kiss. “Little Fyn has been working on his scrimshaw all year and he doesn’t think his mockingjay is good enough.” Loud footsteps echoed down the hall as the boy came rushing to them. Annie nestled into Johanna, glancing up questioningly as she felt her trembling.

“We have to go now! I want to send him the fish I caught, the one we had perpersevied.” The little boy burst into the room, looking a picture of his father, blonde curly hair, perfect mouth, sea green eyes.

“Preserved, Fynny.” Johanna corrected. “We can do that. Your dad would like that.” Annie nodded in agreement. “I think that’ll be perfect, a good gift from all three of us.”

The boy looked up at them and they could see the question dancing across his face. “What is it?”

“If daddy is busy, and you’re married, shouldn’t we be with him?”

“Yes, honey we would be, if it weren’t for the violence in the old capitol. There are some people who don’t like President Paylor, and they are trying to stop the changes she’s making to Panem. She needs people like your dad and Katniss to stop those people and to convince them she is helping everyone. Your dad travels so much with her that it would be hard for us to be with him and we would be in danger. He doesn’t want that.”

“So why is Jo here?” The boy queried. “It’s like I have two mommies.”

This time Johanna cut in. “Your mom and I need someone to take care of us. We’re lucky because we can take care of one another. Since your dad left, we’ve become close. Your dad is perfectly okay with that.”

“Okay, let’s go. We can pack up the fish and send it off before they stop running the postal trains.”

Annie rose from her bed, turning to pull Johanna up behind her.

Jo had earned the nickname Grinch her first year in Eureka when she’d made a show of dumping all of the presents Vincent had sent her under the guise of Santa into the street in front of a snow plow. The next few years, she’d simply reinforced it by undecorating her house after a few spirited elementary schoolers had programed a few drones to do it for her, refusing any invitations to Christmas parties, stonewalling further attempts to give her gifts, mocking secret santas and arresting a few teenagers for attempting to start a snowball fight. She’d heard a few creative parents had replaced her with the Grinch in the Dr. Seuss book. The old Sheriff had delighted in reminding her of the day Jo stole Christmas whenever she was disagreeing with her. It had taken some creative methods of black mail and personal threats to stop Jack from hearing that particular story.

These days she was simply one of the few of the Eureka citizens that didn’t decorate her house to look like a high tech air strip, didn’t spend thousands on ridiculous toys for children they barely knew and refused to participate in the parties and secret Santas. When speaking of good cheer and peace among men, people left Jo out and she liked it that way.

Claudia’s conversations with Zane had told her that much, but no one had ever gotten a reason out of the former deputy. Her tryst with Douglas Fargo the year before had spawned most of her correspondence with the citizens of Eureka. Most of it was Zane, they were both great hackers, shared a last name, and were generally interested in the same things. She’d had a few conversations with Kevin, a few more with Fargo, but then Holly Martin had stolen his interest. Her close contact with Zane meant close contact with Jo as well.

Claudia liked Jo, she’d even come to Eureka a few times to hang out with them when Artie pushed her out of the Warehouse to have Artie time. This development about the day Jo stole Christmas was deeply disturbing, so she used the vacation time she normally would have devoted to her brother to go see Jo and spread the Christmas cheer into the head of GD security’s life.

She’d spent a day loading up a car with a little mini tree, a few decorations, presents, and some DVDs of funny Christmas movies. She simply couldn’t abide a Grinch in her life, well at least not two, Artie would be a tough nut to crack and that could wait until next year. She absent mindedly informed Zane that she was coming for a visit, he was surprised but pleased because he was unaware of her master plan.

The drive to Eureka was always long and boring, that’s generally how things were compared to work. Getting into Eureka was pretty interesting, the traffic monitoring drones and countless unexplained experiments going on were always exciting. In town a lot of the scientists were pushy and rude, but not enough to truly annoy her. They were all excellent drivers though, which she attributed to the number of vehicles they lost to scientific disasters.

Arriving at Zane and Jo’s house she sprinted up the stairs, Santa cap riding low over her eyes in a red velvet vest. Zane popped the door open as she reached the threshold. He greeted her with a one armed hug and smile. “Jo’s out doing security stuff, her and Carter have been at it for a few hours.” He explained. “Probably not coming home until the early morning hours.”

“That’s great. I have some things in the car. Some things that match my hat that we can string around the living room and make surprise Jo with.”
          “No, No, no my lady, I’ve tried that, greater men have tried that route Claudia. Have you ever seen an exhausted woman fill a car with Christmas ornaments and then vaporize the whole car? She did that to my car the first Christmas after I moved in.”

“Well you see, Mr. Donovan. You are not a cute redhead with magical powers of pouting and sadness. Also I can flatter much better than you. It’ll be fine. It’s not a lot, I promise.” She sprinted to the car to grab all of the boxes before Zane would say no definitively. He shook his head and looked peeved for a second before following her to the car.
          “She’s gunna kill you!” He called as she opened the hatchback and pulled a stack of boxes. She handed them to Zane before retrieving the potted mini tree.

“No she won’t. She loves me.”

“She loves me too and she still trashed my car.”

“Loves me more.”

They argued the whole way into the house, and continued as they began hanging the decorations. The bickering eventually faded out and they began discussing childhood Christmases, or how they would have liked to have had them. “I used to imagine that we’d be decorating and then my dad would come strolling in and kiss my mom and ruffle my hair and put the star on the tree.”

“I used to imagine that my parents would actually be there when my brother and I exchanged gifts.”
          “I imagine that my brothers are going to invite me back to our parent’s house and that we’ll all be together and they’ll give me the perfect gifts like I used to give them.” Jo said from the door, her hand perched on her hip.

Both Donovans shot up guiltily. “Hi, babe.” Zane said weakly. Jo frowned.
          “So you invite Claudia, decorate our living room with mediocrity and then expect me to come home and be totally happy with it.” She asked.

“No, you were supposed to be happy I was here. And able to look past the evils of Christmas, and then we were totally supposed to get into a three way make out session and then you would love Christmas.” Claudia piped up. “It was all my idea.”

“Well let’s finish decorating. Getting Claudia for Christmas is a pretty good gift, and I see Planes, Trains, and Cars in that box. We can look into that make out session in a few hours, but I promise that you won’t enjoy the following event half as much as I will.” Jo grinned wolfishly.

“You truly are a mean one, Mrs. Grinch.”

“Lisbeth, you’re being ridiculous! My parents are going to love you. My mother has been bugging to meet you since you came to visit last winter.” Miriam Wu mumbled as she arched into Lisbeth Salander’s mouth.

“No, I’m being realistic.” Lisbeth replied stubbornly around the breast in her mouth.

“I work at sex toy shop, I spent my early adult years in a punk rock band and I came home with a new woman every week, all of them full of holes, tattoos and empty aspirations. Now I’m bringing home a Swedish hero who defended her brain damaged mother from her abusive father, braved years of mistreatment in a mental institution, was systematically abused by her legal guardian for two months, managed to combat three false murder charges and solve two of those murders nearly by herself, and managed to make a few million while doing it. My parents will love you.” Mimi sighed.

The smaller woman sat up and brushed her hair back from her eyes, making a mental note to get it cut again. “You can’t have told them all that.” She protested.

“Of course not, but that’s your character.” The other woman smiled at her.

“All they’re going to see is a small anorexic woman with a few fewer holes than the others.” Lisbeth looked away. “They’ll hate me.”

“Since when do you care?” Mimi asked. Lisbeth stood up moodily and retrieved her dented and dirty cigarette case from her pants. She moved over to the window and opened it, settling herself in the sill despite the deathly winter chill. She lit a cigarette and took a few puffs.

“You’re close to your parents, if they don’t like me it will put a wedge between us.” She replied a few minutes later.

“My parents respect my decisions, if it comes to that. It won’t, they’ll love you.”

“Why do I have to come anyway?”

“Family tradition. Christmas dinner I bring home a new friend and my family assumes I’m going to bring them the next Christmas. You will be the first one to make it to two Christmases next year when we announce our engagement.”

“Is your family even Christian?”

“Nope, but we are French and Christmas is a national holiday so we gather and eat and drink. I promise that you’ll have fun.”

“I still don’t like it.” Lisbeth flicked her butt out the window and grabbed another fag from the case. She lit it and took two long drags. “I’m not bring home to meet the family material. I thought we were more than friends anyway.”

“We are, but my family assumes that about all of my friends now. You’ll be the first one that they’re correct about.” Mimi stood and joined her on the sill, albeit with a blanket drawn around her. “I promise that they’ll love you. Please come, I want them to meet you and you to meet them. You’ll love them, and they’ll love you.”

Lisbeth scowled at her but nodded. “I’ll go.”

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

This had been a mistake, she was certain of it now. She’d had inklings of it before but now she was absolutely certain. Mimi was dressed in her stunning but appropriate manner. A black dress with a full bodice that covered her shoulders, and came up to the black with crimson and silver accessories choker and ran down full sleeves that had lace floral prints on them in violet. The waist was belted and the skirt brushed her shins, but just barely. Paired with her thigh high stiletto heel spikey boots and punk inspired up do it was quite stunning. Lisbeth had resisted the urge to outfit herself with every pointy piece of clothing in wardrobe and had gone with a new pair of black jeans, frayed at the hem, but not too much, and an old but still wearable tee with her leather jacket over top and a pair of black steel toes. She’d cut her hair short again, mostly to avoid having to cut it again, so she’d simply swept it out of her face and gelled it in place. Mimi wasn’t taking any chances and kept a tight grip on Lisbeth’s hands as they walked up the street to the house. “Now remember, my entire family speaks English just fine, if you want to talk them. Your English is pretty good so you should be able to carry on a conversation. But if you don’t want to talk, just say ‘Je ne pais francais, Je pais une sweede. It’s not correct French, which will shut them up and get them to leave you alone.”

Lisbeth nodded. “Where should we meet up if we get separated?”

“The entrance to the living room. It’s really distinctive and I’ll be able to spot you from anywhere in the house. I’ll try to stick close to you so one of my creepy cousins doesn’t try to pick you up. I don’t want you breaking an arms, but I totally understand if its unavoidable, no one taught them the meaning of the word no.” She turned to face Lisbeth and leaned down to kiss her. Lisbeth begrudgingly rose herself on her tip toes to meet Mimi’s lips. They held the kiss for a long moment before breaking apart and simply embracing.

“I won’t break any arms. I’ll tell them what I did to Bjurman, that’ll shut them up.” Lisbeth promised, rising again to kiss Mimi. “I could tell that story at the table.”

“They’ve all heard it before. We watched the trial, well I did and everyone else caught most of the details. I don’t think they’ve put it together that you are the girl from the trial. It’s going to be quite a shock for them, I imagine.” Mimi confessed. “I don’t think they’ll openly disapprove of you once they figure that out.”
          Lisbeth actually smiled at her. “We’d better get inside. It’s cold and late. Dinner should be served soon.” With her gut cramping into knots from anxiety, Lisbeth allowed herself to be lead into the Wu household.

It was her first Christmas in prison. It was the worse Christmas of her life and not just because she was in prison. She probably wouldn’t have cared much that she was in prison for Christmas; it was only the first of quite a few after all, but for the damn cookies. Mendoza had made little cookies to celebrate the holiday. Of course it was prison food cookies but she’d cut them into little gingerbread men and star shapes. Even that wouldn’t have bothered her, except that it reminded her of Piper. It was bad enough that the blonde had gotten herself locked into solitary and possibly transferred after playing the sexuality square dance with her for a few weeks, but did she really have to go popping up into every aspect of Alex’s life.

They’d been together over Christmas ten years ago, and Piper always got a hankering for cookies when it snowed. They’d gotten four inches on Christmas morning that year and Piper had rolled Alex out of bed to make cookies with her. They’d started with cookie cutter sugar cookies, Christmas trees, snowmen, little hearts, and reindeer, but had moved onto chocolate chip and eventually oatmeal raisin by midafternoon. Piper had impressed her with her ability to eat the entire last batch while the current batch was baking. By the time the oatmeal raisin cookies were in the oven, Piper was nearly full but practically vibrating with all the sugar she had consumed. They had a few dough balls left over so the blonde had drug her into the bedroom, bowl in hand.

She’d insisted on rubbing the dough onto Alex’s lips, the tip of her nose, all around her nipples and then leaving a trail of dough balls down her abdomen. Piper had kissed her way up and down Alex’s body, avoiding the cookie bits for as long as possible, only pulling one into her mouth when she couldn’t avoid it without Alex abandoning her for the shower. She picked up all of the balls, and then licked her lips clean and finally settling the matter of her nipples with Alex’s chest heaving. She kissed her way back down the drug dealer’s body then. They’d burned the last batch of cookies; Piper blamed Alex for being so vocal, claiming that she couldn’t hear the timer beeping away. Alex had argued that she’d never even set it in her perverted rush. They’d argued about it for weeks playfully.

Now Mendoza had delivered her a plate of memories when she was just dying to forget. She rested her chin in her palm and picked up the cookie she bit into it forlornly. Nicks sat down beside her and noticed the long look. “Vause you okay? That cookie offering you insult? I’ll bite off its head.” She offered playfully.

“No I’ll eat it myself.” Alex sighed.

“Morello’s boycotting the cookies, says they’re just a scheme to keep Red out of the kitchen. Better eat it quick.”

Alex started ignoring her then, and Morello when she sat, Yoga too when she finally showed to dinner. She munched on the cookie and thought of Piper, alone in a cell or in solitary. She probably didn’t know it was Christmas; she’d been gone for two weeks. Knowing Heely, she’d be in solitary until after New Year’s. The thought sickened her. Piper had her moments, but no human being deserved to be locked away for any length of time, much less an entire month. She couldn’t help her guilt. Piper had tried to come to her, to ask her for help and she’d turned her away.

She’d been angry, she had a right to be after that stupid radio fiasco, but she was certain that if she’d listened to Piper, she wouldn’t be in solitary or in another building. That was the worst part; she’d condemned Piper to some horrible but unknown fate. Most people didn’t get transferred over holidays; they waited in solitary for a hearing from the prison board. That probably meant Piper was in solitary right now, driving herself insane. She wouldn’t be sane enough to explain anything to the prison board, she’d get transferred and Alex would never know when. It didn’t matter anyway, it wasn’t like her knowing where Piper was or when that changed would help her or Piper. It would just make her feel a little more in control.

Control was important to her. It always had been since she’d found out about her dad being a total loser. She’d gotten into trafficking because of the amount of control it gave her over her own life. The money and requisite travel made her master of her fate, the girls she pulled into bed made her feel like a goddess. Her relationship with Piper from its very inception had been an exercise in control, even to naming her in the trial to show the girl that had broken her heart that she still had some pull over her fate. Then she’d methodically seduced her in prison. She was a controlling and manipulative person, but she’d never thought she’d let Piper break her heart again. She was supposed to be the master mind here, she was supposed to enjoy the relationship and then cut it off when things got to real. But Piper had forced her hand and she’d broken ties to soon, and then out of some last ditch effort to maintain her tenuous grasp of her power, she’d shut Piper off when it mattered and now she had no control. She didn’t know anything, and she was certain she never would. It was like waiting for Piper’s tongue to descend on her and lick the last traces of cookie dough off of her so that she could finally be released from the submission she’d been forced into by her own actions.

Alex raised the cookie to her eye level once again and frowned at it. She cursed Mendoza and Piper one last time before fitting the cookie into her mouth with a final ludicrous thought. Let that be the end of my memories of Piper, a damned Christmas cookie.

Christine couldn’t believe what she was doing, but she was determined to make her first time with Veronica special. There wasn’t much room for special in the Brotherhood of Steel, especially when your relationship was frowned on by over half of the organization including both her parents and Father Elijah. Veronica loved tinkering with gadgets, but she also spent some time looking up the old world culture to understand the origin of some of those gadgets. Last year she’d found a green string of wire with some sockets for small bulbs, it had taken a few days for Christine to find the strange contraption in the data bases but she’d learned that colored bulbs were usually screwed into the sockets and the wire strung around homes to decorate it for a gift giving holiday. She’d shared that much with Veronica, and then set about setting up a plan.

She’d bribed a few of the younger knights to look for the bulbs that might fit the sockets on the wire with a promise of a few extra rounds for their pistols. A few months later she’d ended up with quite a few bulbs for her string of lights, so many that she had a few back up sets. She quickly learned that the lights were wired in series so she needed many of her spares as she was beginning to test the string. It had a few wiring issues that caused surges that blew many of the bulbs early on, she fixed them over time, at times enlisting the help of other scribes that worked with Veronica as she had almost no skill with anything beyond basic repair. It took her a few months more to get the lights operational, then a few weeks to find a space small and out of the way enough for her to string up the lights.

In the year that had passed, Veronica had become increasingly interested in Christmas and the lore surrounding it. Christine would listen to her prattle on about Santa Claus, a ridiculous idea even in the old world, reindeer that flew, preposterous, and decorating houses with strings of light. She was especially exicted about decorating as Veronica had an obsession with pretty things that she was never allowed to express in the utilitarian world they lived in. She paid special attention when the brunnete  talked about the lights and how they were strung to highlight the borders of the houses in a flattering way. Many people used strings of different colors to draw the eye around their house in equal parts. Most of it was hard to make sense of through description alone, and she often despaired because she had only one short string of lights and that would certainly not impress Veronica the way a whole house would. Christine had never even seen a house much less knew how to build a small one in an out of the way place, plus she wouldn’t be able to string it with lights.

Nearly defeated, she’d chosen a closet and cleared it out over time, reorganizing nearby closets to fit the supplies that this one had held. Within a few months most forgot the old closet and used the new system. She rerouted other supply rooms to further isolate that portion of the bunker so that in the coming months it would be deserted for her plan to woo Veronica. She sneakily looked up patterns of decoration but quickly grew disheartened because the lack of pictures and the fact that the few resources she had were nearly useless the black and white state that showed no color, barely showcased the positions of the lights. Eventually she settled to wrap the lights on the shelves that she’d shoved up against the walls of the closet, she’d made sort of a nest of old bedding in the center, between the shelves. She’d uncovered another old string of lights by paying off younger children to look for them. By the time she deemed the closet ready for presentation, the whole thing was luminescent with brightly colored bulbs twinkling a soft multi colored glow about the small space. She was certain Veronica would love it.

Getting Veronica to the love nest was a complicated procedure. The date she’d taken Veronica on that night consisted as usual of her hacking a work terminal to show a prewar film from a holo recovered years ago, dinner she’d snuck from the mess with a few helpful companions, and then a final walk around the bunker. She’d tricked Veronica into coming into the nearly abandoned section of the bunker by taking a wrong turn and doubling back incorrectly. The other girl was more interested in the conversation and too busy taking advantage of the deserted passageways to sneak small kisses. Soon they were backed up into a wall, hands roving over soft flesh as they met breathlessly. Christine gently freed Veronica’s hair from the hood and swept her fingers through the soft tresses, the girl whimpered into her mouth as she tugged. Christine felt a hand slip under her waistband eagerly. She pulled back with a smile. Veronica looked utterly confused for a few seconds before blushing with an apology on her lips. The bald girl kissed her gently before she could utter them.

Wordlessly she led Veronica to the closet. She made her close her eyes, covering them for good measure with the other girl’s hood. She opened the door and pulled Veronica carefully inside. She flicked the switch to bring the in closet power online. The lights flickered to life, casting the warm soft glow about the room. She removed Veronica’s hood and watched the girl’s face light up with comprehension. They kissed again, this time hands clawing to remove clothes before tumbling down in a nearly unclothed heap on top of the bedding. Christine did not resist as Veronica climbed over her, hands capturing her wrists and moving them above her head. She kept them there even as Veronica’s hands released them and moved to cup her breasts. The brunette let her lips sear against Christine’s cold skin, capturing a nipple between her lips and nipping at her. Christine thrashed weakly, her lips clamped together. Veronica slid her palms lower, one hand deftly spreading Christine for her purposes while the other entered her stiffly. The soft cry the scribe gave her was nearly heartbreaking in its purity. Christine cracked an eye and looked up at Veronica, still frozen in place. The girl leaned down to kiss her first love gently, an apology in the kiss, and found the other girl thrusting her hips up just as their torsos met.

Seven of Nine was at an impasse in her socialization lessons. It was not the first, nor would it be the last despite her attempts to keep an open mind during them and see the applications in social and work sessions around Voyager during her duty and leisure shifts. Many of her impasses occurred at celebratory events, namely holidays. This lesson centered on the Christian earth tradition known as Christmas. The Doctor had introduced it as an opportunity to show affection for other crew members, which Seven had immediately misunderstood. The EMH had spent a few pensive moments trying to convey that Christmas was not a mass orgy that with a decorated tree in the center of the room before telling her to forget the first part of the lesson. He’d given her a quick and dirty history on the holiday, encouraging her to do more in depth research as she pleased, that had told her it was a gift giving holiday centered on community and family. He’d explained that people often gave gifts to others that they needed or wanted but would not because they saw such things as frivolity. Seven had not understood, the replicators provided all that someone could want or need on Voyager so what was the point of the holiday? The Doctor had tried to explain that at times you would anticipate someone’s wants and then provide that person that want before he knew he wanted it. That had only confused her, why would a person show inclinations toward an item they did not want. The time for the lesson had run out before he could appropriately explain the topic so he’d advised her to ask around about the holiday.

She’d ignored his advice for a few days while she compiled a data base of information about Christmas. Most of it was about the cultural shift around the holiday toward more material gains then toward the former collectivity. She didn’t understand, almost everyone had everything they could want or need on Earth so why would they need more things, things that they didn’t know they wanted in the first place. After brooding over it for a few days she tried to devise a list of crewmembers to ask. Commander Tuvoc would be a good candidate if she were looking for an observer’s opinion on the holiday. She’d had a short conversation that had revealed he found the custom mystifying but he’d grown used to its practice among human crew members. Next she’d tried Naomi Wildman, but the child had a skewed view due to her restricted replicator use. Naomi saw it as a time to acquire materials she would not have access to as she was dependent on the adults to replicate her things and the only adult beholden to her was her mother. Naomi did not actually have access to the things she wanted. Seven considered the population of Earth against those that had ready replicator use; she estimated that eighty to ninety percent of the population did in fact have replicator use. No explanation there.

Her next stop had been B’Lanna Torres. Torres had at first looked puzzled, and then brushed her off with a shrug. “Never gave it much thought.” Seven had persisted with her questions whenever she could find time to pester the engineer, which resulted in one of the lieutenants ‘promises’ to seal her in a Jeffries tube. B’Lanna had expressed her displeasure with the ex-drone to Tom, which had sparked a conversation and eventual debate with Harry Kim. The two had apparently come to a similar impasse. After the two had a near blow out over the greedy nature of humans and the possible gain gift giving could give the whole crew was abuzz with the issue.

This eventually caught the Captain’s attention and it took her only a few hours to find the source of the debate. Seven of Nine found herself in the Captain’s ready room halfway through alpha shift. She sat in her chair looking officious, as though she was barely aware of the absurdity of what she was about to discuss. “I hear you’ve been trying to discover the meaning of Christmas.” She remarked, leaning forward in her chair to place her clasped hands on the desk.

“There is no true meaning to the word, it is simply an association. I am merely curious about the purpose of gift giving in a society with very little need.” Seven replied icily.

The Captain allowed her grin to break out across her face. “It doesn’t have a purpose; it is merely a kindness as plain as saying hello.”

“I have received many answers, but that is not one that people can explain? Why would useless items be kind?”

“Well, what matters is not the item given, or even if the recipient likes the item, it’s the thought that counts.”

“Explain.”

“Seven when you see a crew member struggling to lift a heavy object, most would move to help them or ask if they need help. Very few would wait until the crewmember fails or asks for help themselves. Why is this?
          “Courtesy, to perform as a cohesive unit.”

“Courtesy is correct. Now why are we so impressed by courtesy?” The question was clearly rhetorical. “Thought. The fact that you paid enough attention to anticipate the need. Gift giving is very similar. You notice that Tom Paris had a little more stubble then usual half way through his duty shift and replicate a new razor for him. He could have done it himself, but by doing that for him you show that you have noticed that something is different and sought to correct it. On holidays such as Christmas, you look for more impressive gifts to give. A new valve cover for Harry’s oboe, a hair band for Naomi, a spoon for Neelix. The most impressive gifts become the home made ones because you saw the need and spent time to make one yourself.”

“Logically meals could be gifts if you saw a hungry crew member and decided to make food for them.”

“Yes that’s true, and that would be a good gift anywhere but a starship.” Janeway replied gently.

Seven took a moment to think. “I could not make Henry a new valve cover.”

“No, but you could replicate a few of them for him for when he needs one. You could write a song that he would like to play. You could offer to sing it for him.” Janeway suggested. “No gift is better than another.”

“Why did you know the answer, but none of the other crewmembers could grasp it?” Seven was clearly done with the current subject and more interested the surrounding facts.

“That question is a little simpler to answer. As an officer I’ve spent my entire career anticipating needs in my duties, of the people below and above me. I see that an engineer needs a differently configured tricorder, so I hand it to them and put the other one away. I see someone on my team struggling while one is completely bored; I put them together so the bored one has the duty of explaining the process to the nervous one and monitoring the other person’s work. Every officer has to give gifts to her subordinates’ everyday but most see only duty. The person won’t remember the exact circumstance, but they will remember that officer going out of their way to be helpful, to assure that they were comfortable or at ease. That will build report with the team or crew that officer works with. That’s the guide to command, know your subordinates and let them know you know. As a human captain I’ve seen how this applies across the board. My crew is built out of people anticipating each other’s needs, at the top I try to help and make impressions where I can. The other species don’t see the relation as well as humans so many that have been in command longer simply overlook it. The summary of it is that, gifts are physical reminders that you think of another person enough to see and help them meet their needs.”

Seven nodded and asked to be dismissed. She was already reorganizing her schedule to get access to the ready room to spend some time tinkering with the replicator there. The captain often complained about the coffee. She couldn’t make gifts, but she could improve people’s lives without a replicator.

Sai opened the door to her apartment. It was dark and quiet, like always. She flicked on the light and carefully hung her bag and coat on the hook, removing her shoes. She gave the dust gathering on her fingers a displeased look. Her apartment was becoming dark, quiet, and dirty. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d cleaned it, it must have been months. She couldn’t bring herself to contemplate it; she’d never cleaned the place. It was Kaede who cleaned; it had been their apartment until just a few weeks ago. She hadn’t spent much time here in the last three months. She’d spent nearly twenty hours a day at the hospital at her dying girlfriend’s bedside.

She stepped past the genkan and made her way to the kitchen; she knew that there was at least tea. She filled the kettle and set it on the stove to boil. She settled down at the table, staring at the empty cup with a tea bag sitting in it. She was alone, again. She’d lost another loved one to the hospital. She hated those places of disease and death. They brought her only despair. She could feel tears start in her eyes, the sting of them. She rubbed them away. She wouldn’t cry, not now. She hadn’t cried since Kaede’s death, she wasn’t going to start now. She’d had to be strong, to face her parents with sharp disapproval in their eyes as they’d come to collect her things. All of her things, her clothes, her hair and tooth brushes, even Blanche. She’d had to hold all of their friends as they cried at her bedside, not even giving her own emotions a thought. She’d tried her hardest to be strong for Kaede too, to be the anchor. Kaede had only a little life left and it didn’t seem fair to waste all of it weeping on her. She’d tried to talk to her as normal, to sit at her bedside reading and chatting with her, but most of the time she was hiding her tears behind the book. A few times she had crawled in bed with Kaede and snuggled into her frail and failing body, sobbing on her chest while the brunette stroked her short hair.

She hadn’t been strong for Kaede; she would be a pillar of ice for everyone else. She pushed her emotions away the way she had when Rin fell ill. She did her best outside of the apartment, but within its walls all she could see was Kaede’s colors dancing around. Even without her or her possessions, there was still the fact that she’d decorated the place, had breathed life into the still space. Here she allowed herself to feel the sadness and grief she was able to push away everywhere else. Kaede had called this melting the ice. Only she had been able to do it, to warm the frozen heart of the Ice Queen. Here she was nothing but a puddle.

The kettle shrilled, and she popped the whistle cap. She poured the water into the cup and let the bag steep. She thought of taking a bath, but dismissed the idea. She would take one tomorrow in the morning before- nothing really. She’d pulled out of the layer competition season when Kaede was diagnosed and had no will to enter now. She had enough money to live the rest of her life in comfort, but was planning on reentering next season. As it stood, she spent most of her days outside of the apartment, just spending time with other people. They made a point to invite her out to quiet place, restaurants to make sure she was eating; springs to be sure she was bathing and shops to make sure she was financially secure. She often ended up staying over at her friend’s houses because it was late and she didn’t have the will to insist that she would be fine at home. Tomorrow she hadn’t made any plans. She could go out to a café, watch some layer or anime, and maybe even a book store. She sipped her tea experimentally.

She realized she didn’t want to do any of those things. She wanted to lay on her futon and cry. She wanted to snuggle and laugh with Kaede, she wanted to be pulled into a soft bosom and nestled until she finally thawed enough for her emotions to show. She didn’t want to eat or read because that meant constructing her towers of ice so expertly even she couldn’t see or feel the emotions choking her heart. She was full of pain and sadness that wouldn’t melt away. The worst part was the people that swirled around her constantly badgering her with empty good intent. They asked her if she was okay. She wasn’t. If she needed anything? Kaede, a hug. If she was getting along? Just fine, but I feel so empty. How are you feeling? Horrible. There is nothing you can do. Just leave me alone. Kill me. I don’t want to be alone. I’ve spent so much time mourning, just let me die. I’m a curse. I kill the things I love. I freeze them and they’re no good anymore like freezer burnt food. I don’t deserve friends because I just kill them all. Leave me alone before you die to.

She was crying now. Sobbing hysterically. Kaede would have come and hugged her. Led her from the table to the futon. They would have laid down. Kaede would have melted her ice, held her close and just let her melt. Let her become a puddle in her arms and then form her back up with her hugs and kisses. They would laugh about it; talk about her troubles, about Rin, about Kaede’s death, how everyone around her was clueless. Kaede was dead. Sai wanted to die too. No one would miss her. Not much. She bit her lip and stood from the table to retreat to the bedroom.

Soul Society was beginning to bore Yoruichi, truth be told it had been much more interesting before the war. It wasn’t that there wasn’t anything happening, quite the contrary. The place was busier than she had seen it in her entire life before, the problem was her role in the current battles. Most of the time she didn’t have one, occasionally she would spot a battle going badly and rush into help her allies. Mostly, they were able to handle the enemies and she’d quickly discovered that any enemy they could handle was barely worthy of her notice. So she spent a lot of time either wandering around in cat form or training with Soi Fon. Training was entertainment, but Soi Fon was often busy with the war going on around them, so that left Yoruichi to wander on roof tops observing the goings on.

She’d discovered that people watching was high entertainment decades ago when she’d found that humans often took in stray cats in their world. She’d seen all sorts of weirdoes, otaku, perverts, and generally strange people in her time among the humans. That was but a taste of the observable entertainment that could be found in Soul Society. That aspect of the place was not boring, the fact that she could wander into a lover’s quarrel without notice, observe some secret transaction, or even over hear a confession of love. These little secrets made her life among Soul Reapers much more interesting because she could see more clearly their lives and motivations.

Around Christmas time in the human world, Soul Reapers often threw parties with a guest list of about fifteen people. The custom was always for each person to tell a tale of some romantic gesture that had been made around this time in the past because most Soul Reapers celebrated the living holidays anyway. Most of these stories were completely made up, but on occasion there were a few that rang of truth. Her favorite activity during these times was to sneak into the parties and listen to the boasts and then try to decide which stories were fact and which were fiction. This was how she heard the tale of her great confession of love to Soi Fon.

The Captain of Squad Two had been goaded into attending a party with most of the other Captain’s; it was after all considered polite to honor the requests of your peers. She usually didn’t give much thought to courtesy anymore, but occasionally Soi Fon would make a concession to it. In truth, Soi Fon just liked to hear stories. It was a trait she certainly hadn’t lost in the hundred years they’d been apart. Romantic boastings were her favorite form of fiction. She always brought the stories back to Yoruichi to pick apart the character of the other captains. Her little bee had certainly become a wasp. After hearing eight of her companions bare their hearts, Soi Fon had finally ingested enough sake to loosen her tongue.

“I was kidnapped.” Soi Fon began as the jeers started around her. “Oh shut up, it’s not that story. It’s the true version of events. I was kidnapped a force so evil it cannot be named. This force stole me away to a faraway castle where I was stripped entirely of my clothes and abilities. I was sure that I was going to parish in that retched place with no one around. I felt so lonely and unloved.” The short woman paused to sip her sake for a long moment. “Little did I know that Yoruichi was aware of my disappearance and deeply concerned. She set out across the lands in search of my captors so she might save me. She journeyed long and hard before finding the foul place that I was a captive in. She spent weeks understanding the forces that blocked abilities. She snuck into me every few days as a servant. She came to me in what I assumed to be dreams to assure me that help was coming and I would soon be free. Yoruichi eventually unraveled the enchantments around the keep and came to me. She encouraged me to dress and fight my way out with her. I was convinced it was a trick. I would not go. Yoruichi spent days convincing me, she recounted our past together, I was unmoved so she stepped up her attempts soon she was spouting all of my favorite things, my ambitions, my reasoning, all of my painful secrets. She knew everything about me. At last she sat in front of me utterly defeated until she said to me ‘I know all of those things, and you know so much about me, but you don’t know is that I love you.” She kissed me then. I felt in it all of the sincerity she was trying to show in her affections. I understood that her attempts to free me were genuine. We escaped that foul place and returned here to Soul Society. I quickly informed the old captain that I simply had no time for her childish love games and confessions. I was busy being an adult with responsibilities. She left then, sulking.” The story was preposterous, but that was why Soi Fon told it. It made her pretentious image so much more believable. Yoruichi smirked as she padded off. The next few weeks, Yoruichi ‘sulked’ around Soul Society, spending much of her time around the Squad Two barracks. She teased the Captain, showing up naked, cuddling against her girlfriend with kisses and then abruptly moving away from her to presumably complete some other task. Soi Fon eventually grew tired of the endless tease and demanded to know why they couldn’t go to bed together. It was Christmas after all, shouldn’t they celebrate it. She’d nearly killed her when the cat woman had tossed a carefully calculated, ‘Oh, with your responsibilities, I just couldn’t take your time. Do excuse my sulking, Captain.’ over her shoulder. Soi had tackled her, ripped her clothes off and then taken her, roughly. Yoruichi loved every second of it.

She shouldn’t be happy here. She should be with Ron and her children. She should have been making dinner, Hugo would be worried. He and Rose were home for Christmas holiday and she’d told him she’d be back with the vegetables an hour ago. She’d gotten as far as getting the vegetables and had been starting back when she’d shown up. She came out of a side alley, fast and drug Hermione into it. Her long curly black hair was still wild and her eyes shone with insanity. Hermione breathed her name. She wasn’t scared. They kissed, just once but long and deep before the filthy creature led her back through the maze of old London streets to a dilapidated boarding house.

The room she was lead into was filthy and it reeked, the bed was covered with musty blankets, the whole place was covered in a layer of carbon dust from the poorly ventilated stove. Despite her hatred for it, her clandestine lover was enchanted by the place. She’d lived here for years, since the year Hugo was born. Hermione had seen more of the place than she would admit even to herself. Her lover took her coat and placed her basket by the door. She was almost fidgety. Hermione kissed her again. “Not in the mood for that. Something a little more cozy, like.” She gestured to the fetid bed. The Law Enforcement Magister frowned at her, but got only a hard stare in return. Hermione felt herself go weak, she brushed her hand over the scar on her arm as she felt it flare with slight tingling pain. The word was still there, unable to be healed by conventional magic; it also still bore a faint enchantment.

The woman ran a hand through her oily hair and advanced on the bed. Hermione swallowed, feeling her mouth go dry. She was standing at the edge of the bed, so a quick shove put her onto its surface. The bed embraced her with its filthy coverings and she felt strong arms around her, hugging her tightly. The scar on her arm tingled and she relaxed back into the body behind her. All of the nervousness in her evaporated in this woman’s embrace, she could feel her shallow breathing, the heat where their bodies met. It was quite cozy.

She snuggled against the frail body behind her, she felt lips against her neck and she craned her head to give her better access. She eventually turned around and embraced her, burying her face in the bodice of a filthy dress. “I shouldn’t be here. I should go.” She murmured. She felt bony fingers take purchase in her hair, her scar throbbed.

“Just for a little while.” The tone was an icy whisper. The arms tightened around her aggressively.

“I have a family. I haven’t told them about us. I can’t handle it anymore; I can’t lie to Ron anymore. He has to know. This has to be the last time.”

“No, love.” Her scar burned. “It won’t be the last time.” The whisper was gone, now her voice was a growl. The fingers found her scalp, digging sharp dirty nails into her. She whimpered.

“Please, don’t make me come anymore. Please, I know that you’ve cursed me somehow to love you. You won’t tell me, but it’s some dark spell that you’ve put on me. And the scar, the name. That’s magic to control me. I’m not fooled B-“

“Don’t you dare say it!” The woman shrilled in her ear, she felt the talons digging into her left shoulder, and she felt warm blood trailing down her skin. “Don’t you dare say that name! She is dead, I am not that woman.”
          “You are! You tortured my friend’s parents, you killed so many people! You tortured me for months in Malfoy Manor and in that time you managed somehow to make me fall in love with you. I know it was spite, for the things I said about Voldemort, about your love for him. You were going to make me fall in love with you out of some twisted scheme of revenge. You weren’t expecting to love me back; you weren’t expecting to lose the battle at Hogwarts. I wasn’t expecting you to come back. I saw Molly Weasley kill you. I saw it. You had a horcrux and you came back and then you came to me. At first, after I left that manor I couldn’t understand why I disarmed you instead of killing you. I hated you for all the things you’d done to me. In the months that followed I felt horrible, I felt like I was missing some part of my life. Then the battle happened and I was fighting you, but I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t kill you-“She broke off, the scar was searing hot, she could feel the flesh around it blistering. “When Molly did, I wanted to cry over your corpse. I kept your damned wand. I have it in a trunk in the house somewhere where Ron and my children will never find it. You resurfaced, after I had finally buried the possibility that I could have ever loved you, you came back and I felt it when I first looked at you across a street. I’ve been thinking about it. It has to be a curse. You engineered this! Why did you do it, you sick witch?”
          She had ripped her way out of the other witch’s embrace and rolled off the bed. She was standing with her back to the wall, screaming at her. The mad woman was looking at her with a mixture of shock and anger, maybe a little hurt under the other two. She was sitting up on the bed now. “I did it to show you how it feels to be manipulated by your feelings, to delude yourself into thinking that you are loved. I knew Voldemort didn’t love me, but I convinced myself that I could make him love me as much as I loved him. I was a Black, I was a pure blood. I was beautiful, how could he not. I was dedicated; he could see how wonderful I was. He loved me. I told myself those lies to get through my miserable existence. I couldn’t bear some little know-it-all to come mouthing off the dark of things to me as if I hadn’t found them myself, so I made you fall in love with me. I let you deal with a little inconvenient emotion, and then I came back to you. I’ve been distracting you for years from your idiot husband and spoiled children, and you haven’t said a word. Your conscience tells you too, but there is some inhibition deep within you stops you every time. I wonder who put it there.” She stopped to cackle. “All the time, so ready for me. Inviting a hand up your robes almost as soon as I got you alone. Always so cozy with the crazy.” She said through the laughter.

Hermione felt her heart clench at the conformation. “Release it!” She shouted. “Release me from this curse! You’ve had your fun, you foul creature!” The other woman only laughed and gestured to the door.

“Get out.”

Enraged, with blisters forming on her forearm, but unable to do anything but obey. Hermione left, with her coat and basket in hand. When she found herself willing to stop, the scar was still bright white. She wiped the tears from her eyes and looked down at it. When the wound had first been inflicted, it had clearly said mudblood, but over the course of the following months, it had morphed itself slowly. Everyone else said it was a shame to have such a slur on her arm, so she imagined that they still saw mudblood. Ever since the battle of Hogwarts it had been a name. She clenched her jaws as she looked down on it now, whispering the name she saw. “Bellatrix.”

Ziva David was mildly concerned for her friend Abby. She had sounded panicked over the phone, pleading for Ziva to come to her house immediately. She had assured the former Musaud agent that she was not in any physical danger. She had simply declared a ‘Christmas Emergency’ and demanded Ziva’s presence at her apartment. So she was actually obeying the American traffic laws on her way over to Abby’s apartment.

When she pulled in and shut off the car, the girl came sprinting out of her building. “Oh thank goodness you’re here Ziva! I was trying to wrap presents, I know that you’re Jewish, but I figured I should get you one and I did and I wrapped it but then I tried to wrap Tony’s! I just can’t do it Ziva, it refuses to be wrapped. I’m a master gift wrapper, I’ve won awards for my gift wrapping, but I just can’t get this one covered in paper and then out to the car. It’s strangely shaped. I need you to help me!” The lab tech fired off, her hands flying.

“You need me to help you wrap a present?”

“Yes, Tony’s.”

“You needed it done twelve days before Christmas?”

“I didn’t want to be late, I’m really excited.”

“You called me to your apartment in the middle of the night, twelve days from Christmas to help you wrap a present for one of our coworkers?”

“Yes.” Abby was fidgeting.

“You are lying Abigail.”

“No, I’m not.” Abby pleaded her voice breaking.

“Do you know what I do to liars?” Ziva narrowed her eyes.

“No!” Abby squeaked. Ziva looked her up and down. She was wearing normal around the house clothes, for Abby. She wore a simple black T-shirt with some band name scrawled across the front haphazardly, a pair of black pants with about a hundred little hooks and chains dangling off of them, and her usual elevator boots. No indication that she had been planning anything. The Israeli clicked her tongue while she thought. She hadn’t been planning any domming this week, and this was clearly Abby’s attempt to force her into the role.

“Well then come; let us see the gift we must wrap.” She took Abby by the hand, leading the girl back into her apartment. Abby was limp, not resisting but clearly not too enthused. She tracked behind Ziva silently, reluctantly. Abby had left the door to her apartment unlocked, so Ziva simply led her in.

Abby had indeed been wrapping presents, the excess paper was strewn around but the neatly wrapped presents were tucked into the corner. She spied the one with Tony’s name on it, it was very strangely shaped, but her friend had had no trouble expertly enshrouding it in the colored foil paper. She turned her gaze back on the lab tech, who flushed and quivered. Ziva clamped her jaws and fought the rush of blood she was feeling in her loins. She cursed Abby’s perfect submission internally before she turned her body full around. Abby physically shrank, her shoulders dropped and her knees bent.

“How many times have you lied to me tonight Abigail?” Ziva asked, her voice was soft but her tone was commanding. Abby shivered visibly. She looked down and away. Ziva put a finger under her chin and raised her face until their eyes met. “Answer me.”

          “At least ten, Ziva.” The lab tech admitted softly. The Israeli woman noted that she’d answered with her name at the end. They were somewhere between their two drastically different relationships. As a friend, her name would never have followed that sentence, but as a submissive she would have followed it with the Hebrew word for mistress, Maylailick. Abby had called her here in an attempt to force her into her Maylailick role that was clear. She herself was trapped, using her dominance over Abby to get the answers she wanted, but giving Abby none of the rewards of her submission. She was being unfair. Abby had manipulated her but she had accepted that when she’d taken Abby by the hand. She was going to let Abby squirm for a few moments as a punishment, but she would commit to the role of Maylailick after she’d had her fun.

          “Why should I stay here, if you’ve played a trick on me? Why do you want me here Abby?” She watched the Goth flinch at the use of her nickname. Abby was silent for a few long moments before she finally worked up the courage.

          “I want to be under you!” The Hebrew was garbled, but it was clear that Abby had been practicing.

          “Why should it matter what you want? I told you we were taking a break for two weeks. It has been only four days.” Ziva growled. Abby quailed silently. The lab tech did not respond well to physical punishment, she’d made that mistake with Abby only once. Ziva had found guilt to be a useful tool when dealing with her. A few short minutes of corner time would bring the girl back into easy submission. Now it was a liability, push too far with guilt and Abby would slip fully into her submissive role without command, forcing Ziva’s hand.

          “I know, I’m sorry.” Abby dropped her gaze to the floor.

          “My eyes, Abigail.” Her eyes swiveled back up instantly, full of hope. “You are sorry…” She trailed off.

          “Maylailick.” Abby answered readily.

          “Knees.” The order was obeyed wordlessly, Abby falling easily onto her knees. Her head came to rest on Ziva’s thigh instantly. Ziva brought her hand to rest on Abby’s head, fingers running through her hair. She cast a glance around the living room, looking for something to do. She sat on the couch and ordered Abby to clean the mess from wrapping her presents, then allowed the Goth to come lay across her lap. She kissed the girl, ordered her out of her clothes, and continued with her kisses, roving them around her body. She joined Abby on the floor, legs straight out with the lab tech between them.

          She ordered her into ‘handless kneel’, back straight, shoulders back with her hands clasped behind her back in a kneeling position. Ziva became devious then, kissing Abby, trailing little nips down her neck, capturing her nipple between her lips. Her hands roamed the Goth’s pale body, but she was stuck in that position. She was unable to respond except for her vocalizations. Soon she was squirming, not physically, but in her head. She could see Abby’s control faltering and flaring in the twitch of her muscles, the flares of light in her eyes. She was allowed to beg, but after their first week together Abby rarely bothered, because she usually just made herself hoarse.

          Ziva teased her that manner for the better part of an hour before finally giving into her own desire for Abby. She ordered her onto her back, and then climbed onto her. “Maylailick!” It was a gasp, directly into her lower lips as she laid her tongue onto Abby’s vulva.

Gabrielle’s thighs ached, her back had been cramping since noon and she was miserably cold. She tightened the blankets around her and gripped the horn of Argo’s saddle to warm her hands. Argo shambled forward under her with Xena carefully leading the way over the ice covered mountain pass. The warrior princess was humming softly to both her and Argo, looking utterly unperturbed by the cold with only a cloak around her shoulders. The blonde shivered, drawing Xena’s attention.

“You’re still cold? You want my cloak?” She asked with a worried frown. Gabrielle shook her head.

“I’m fine.” She insisted, keeping her response short so that her teeth wouldn’t chatter. She clamped her jaws as she turned back to the road.

“I can find a place for you to camp out. The snow isn’t too deep, we can clear a place and you can keep a fire going. There’s enough food to last you for a week. It shouldn’t take me more than a few days to deal with this mountain man and get back those kidnapped women.”

“What’ll you eat?”

“I can hunt. Leading Argo over stuff like this is a pain, so I’d be faster on my own.”

“What about getting the women back?”

“They’re all young; they should be able to walk. If not I’ll think of something. The logistics doesn’t matter, you’re miserable and I can fix that. We’ll pick a spot, spend an hour setting up camp and then I’ll head out.” Xena had stopped and was fully turned around now. Argo whickered around her bit with displeasure. Xena nuzzled the horse and murmured into her neck. “Argo isn’t happy on the road either.”

Gabrielle frowned. Xena was trying to get rid of her, she’d tried leaving her back in town but Gabrielle had insisted on coming with. She’d tried leaving her at the foot of the mountain, and now she was trying to get rid of her here. She couldn’t dispute her this time. She was miserable, Argo was having trouble on the icy paths, camping out for a few days would be preferable to spending that time on horseback. “Why are you trying to get rid of me?”

Xena frowned back at her. “I’m not trying to get rid of you. I knew you wouldn’t be happy here.”

“You drag me places I won’t be happy all the time. This isn’t different, there’s a reason you don’t want me to go up there with you. I can fight, so you aren’t trying to protect me. What is it?” Xena sighed.

“I am trying to protect you.” She admitted. “I don’t mean it to be insulting; I know you can hold your own in anything we do. I don’t want you to see some of the things that I’ve seen; I can’t let you see what’s at the top of this mountain.”

“What’s up there? How do you know that it’s any different than what I’ve seen before?” Gabrielle shot back; she swung out of the saddle and landed in front of Xena.

“I made this man. I told him to pillage and rape and build a harem from a countryside when he was in my army. It was another life, and that seemed acceptable. I know what I’m going to find because I’ve seen his den before. It’ll be vile, he’ll be vile and I don’t want you to see that. I don’t want you to see just how horrible I was. I let this happen.”

“So I’m supposed to stay here so that you can save face?” Gabrielle asked, indignant. “I won’t do it. I’ve already seen parts of that other life you’ve left and it’s just a contrast between what I live with. I won’t think any less of you.”
          “I know you won’t think anything less of me, Gabrielle. I’m worried about myself. I can’t stand the thought of someone else knowing what I’ve been. I know you’ve seen parts, but that’s not the same as knowing the whole picture. You are my light, I can’t let you get sullied by the things I’ve done. I can’t let you become cold and calloused to these horrible things that I’ve done. I let you see the little ones and I’m distressed not by the things I’ve done, but by how you react to them. Every time I see horror on your face, I remember it. I can’t ever do anything that would make you look at me like that again. I can’t let you see what’s up here. I can’t let you be sullied by it. Please, stay here camp out. Don’t come with.”

Gabrielle pouted at her but took a step closer. Xena wrapped her arms around the girl and buried her face in her hair. She felt the bard hug her back. “I’m not happy about it. You know that I hate being left behind. I’ll stay here with Argo. Let’s make that camp site. It’s nearly dark. Stay with me for the night at least.”

Xena lead Argo off the path and into the woods a good bit and posted her on a tree. She and Gabrielle swept most of the snow out of a fair sized clearing. They set up a bedroll with a waterproof skin beneath it and then built a fire out of scraps of cloth and used the weak fire to dry some wood to build it up.

By the time they had the fire hot enough to heat the stew that they’d packed in a large water skin, it was dark. They ate and then cozied up on the bedroll. Xena hummed to Gabrielle as they snuggled so the blonde quickly dropped off to sleep.

Gabrielle woke up at first light the next morning and rolled over to find that Xena’s side of the bed had gone cold and the fire had burned to embers. She rose and donned her boots. She rekindled the fire and went to find more wood for the day.

Sometimes Nami was convinced that her crewmates were all imbeciles, like the time that Sanji left the pantry unlocked and Luffy ate all of their food, or the time that Zoro sliced one of the sails in half. Their current moronic action happened to be rooting out and lighting all of the candles on the ship and lighting them.

Wooden ship plus thousands of tiny fires had apparently seemed like a good idea. Luffy and Usopp were the most likely culprits but she was certain that Chopper and Zoro had helped. When she’d asked Luffy why he’d done it, he’d shrugged and said the ship was dark and cold. She was going to kill them one day, and it would probably be as a ghost haunting them because they’d killed her. It would serve them right, the stupid bastards. She’d saved the ship and the crew innumerable times from their careless idiocy.

They never thanked her, always brushed off her concern as naysaying. She was always the party pooper. We can’t go diving because Nami says no. Nami says no because half of the crew will instantly lose consciousness upon contact with the water. They knew those things, but it was always Nami’s fault they couldn’t have fun.

She paused in her internal rampage as spots swam in front of her eyes. She caught herself as she stumbled and sucked in air. She looked down at the room in front of her, still half covered in lit candles. This was only the second room she’d attempted and she was already nearly faint. She was going to kill Luffy and the rest of them.

Behind her someone came through the door. She leaned heavily on the post, gripping it to stop herself from whirling around and hitting that person. She was glad that she didn’t when she heard her voice.

“Navigator-san!” Robin exclaimed. “You’re blowing the candles out manually!” Her voice was full of concern. “You’ll kill yourself!”

“What other way is there?” Nami demanded. Nico Robin giggled a little bit at her before coming around to her side.

“I can use my power to wave away the flames. I won’t tire that way. You’ve practically killed yourself with just a room and a half. I’ve cleared most of the other decks already.” She accepted Robin’s hand on her shoulder and looked up at her friend.

“Thanks Robin. I’m gunna kill Luffy for this next time I see him.”
          “You can try, but I don’t think you’ll accomplish it. No one we’ve encountered has been able to, and not for lack of trying.” The taller woman laughed again. She crossed her arms and summoned a quite a few flapping hands to put out the flames of the candles.

“I don’t understand how they lit so many without anyone else noticing. I mean really, there were thousands of candles in our hold. It should have been impossible for them to have done this without anyone seeing.”

“Maybe it was a collaborative plan, with some members of the crew running misdirection while the others lit them all.”

“Why would they do that?”

“I’ve never played at understanding the minds of men, Nami-san.”

“Help me collect these?” Nami asked.

“That I will have to do by hand, my devil power will certainly crush the candles, and they’re still usable in their current state.”

“Okay.”

The two set about collecting the candles and tossing them into an empty barrel in the corner of the room. They worked in relative silence, occasionally making a remark about the unbelievable amount of effort that went into their crewmate’s latest prank.

“Are we the only two cleaning up this mess?” Nami asked.

“When I began, yes. The rest are on deck fishing for dinner.”

“I’m really going to kill them when I get up there. I’m going to shove Luffy into the ocean and he’ll be eaten.”

“I would advise against it.”

“Now you’re the logical one, Robin.”

“Perhaps not.”

“What makes you say that?”

“What if I told them that you and I would take care of the candles so that we would have a few hours alone below deck? Would that sound like a poorly made emotional decision?”

“Why would you do that?” Nami had stood up and was stretching her back. Robin had halted and was looking at the navigator. She crossed the room to stand next to her.

“So I could do this?” The devil fruit user leaned in, grasping her comrade’s chin. Nami didn’t flinch away, but leaned into the kiss. They kissed for a few long moments before Robin pulled away and looked with surprise onto Nami’s face. “I never expected to get this response.”

“I never expected you to be the one that kissed me.”

They smiled at one another and returned to the kissing. Nami leaned back against the support beam, bringing Robin with her. Her arms snaked around her friend’s shoulders, pulling them closer together. Robin pressed their bodies close together before pulling her lips back for a few seconds to get air. Nami deviated from her lips, tracking light kisses down her neck and nipping at her collarbone. Robin groaned appreciatively and craned her head back. Nami kissed her way back up Robin’s neck. The other woman whimpered as she nipped particularly hard at her pulse point, Nami held onto her as she tried to flinch away. The woman actually leaned back into her as Nami’s hands as they wandered to bottom. The redhead squeezed and felt Robin lean back into her farther. Robin buried her fingers in Nami’s hair and jerked her back to her mouth.

This time when their lips met, Robin was aggressive. The force of her kiss pushed Nami’s head back and left her nearly gasping when the dark haired woman finally broke the kiss. Robin picked Nami up and pinned her against the beam, grinding a thigh into her core. “I didn’t think that you would ever be so forward!” Nami gasped as she clutched Robin’s back.

Snow was rare in the Land of Fire, at least in Konoha. They had the same seasonal shifts as the rest of the continent, but they were far more mild than other countries. It snowed every few years in Konoha, but even then there was never much accumulation and often melted before the afternoon.

This year was clearly the exception. A series of storms over the last few weeks had dumped nearly two feet of snow on the ground. The temperature had stayed rather low, so the snow didn’t melt off right away. The first day the young children had been out on hastily constructed sleds; then as the snow accumulated the older children and teenagers had come out over the week. The beginning of the next week had brought many adults out into the deepening snow.

Sakura wanted to enjoy the rare weather, but she didn’t want to look like a child out frolicking in the snow. Most of her peers were busy training or doing missions these days so when she asked around, only Lee, Ten Ten and Ino were available. Lee and Ten Ten weren’t interested in enjoying the snow as much as using it to train. That left her with Ino.

She and Ino had grown closer during the time they spent training as medical ninja, they’d even grown friendly. Since Naruto returned, both of them had been pretty busy, so they hadn’t had much time to get together casually. Even when they did have a few hours where they could hang out, Ino often had plans with Shikamaru and Choji. Sometimes Sakura thought that Ino was avoiding her, but the two of them were so busy that she couldn’t confirm her doubts.

She was a little surprised when Ino agreed to come play in the snow with her, but really pleased. She spent a few hours digging through her clothes to find a cold weather outfit from one of her foreign missions. She pulled them out and beat the dust out of them before donning the thick woolen pants and large puffy jacket. When she walked outside to find Ino leaning on a building across the street and discovered that the girl was wearing similar cold weather gear.

She pulled on a hat and her gloves while she walked across the street to greet Ino. “Not many people are in the forest because the snow in there is all drifts.” Ino said. “We could go there and not be disturbed by the kids and the adults.”

“Okay.” Sakura wrapped her arm around Ino’s. “So what do you want to do?”

“I don’t know. This is the first time that we’ve had this much snow in Konoha. I don’t know what to do with it. I guess we could make snow angels or something.” Ino answered.

“This is only the second time I’ve seen more than four inches of snow in my life. I wonder how it is to live with the stuff. It must be beautiful all the time.”

“It might be, but I don’t think I’d want to. I like the winter flowers that we get, if we had snow all the time the flowers wouldn’t grow. I think that the life of the flower is much more beautiful than the cold white blight of snow.”

          “I guess you have a point. We can have both though.”
          “No, once snow freezes the plant it dies and no more grow until the next winter unless we get another gold snap. Though we get to see the flowers all the time, and it’s fairly late in the season, so the snow is a nice treat. I don’t think it’ll stick around long after this. The weather reports say that it’s supposed to heat back up.”
          “Good thing too, the stores and kiosks’ have been closed since the snow began. Old man Ichiraku spends a lot of time playing with the kids now. Yesterday he crafted a giant bowl of pork ramen with the help of a bunch of junior academy students in front of his shop. I think he’s going stir crazy.”

          “Doesn’t surprise me, he’s such a weird old man. He gets along with Naruto so well, don’t get me wrong, Naruto is really admirable, but he’s still pretty strange.”

          “Yeah, that’s just a mark of greatness. I mean look at Kakashi, he’s pretty strange too.” Sakura chuckled.

          “We could make snow sculptures like that though.”

          “What would we make?”

          “I don’t know. Something simple but elegant, like a dog or a cat.”

          Ino giggled at her, but didn’t make an unkind remark. They were nearly at the entrance of the forest, so the hubbub of the town was fading quickly. Inside the forest they could hear people moving around the trees and generally having fun, but there really weren’t that many. When they stepped into the forest, a snowball came flying at Ino’s face. Luckily Sakura pulled her out of the way, so it smashed into the ground behind them.

          “Hey!” Ino called. Lee poked his head up from behind a tree and Ten Ten dropped from the canopy of one of the larger trees.

          “Sorry, Ino!” The two of them called in unison.

          “We’re having a snowball fight! It’s fun, keeps us active and trains us to dodge and use improvised projectiles!” Rock Lee exclaimed.

Both medical ninja were taken aback. Both of their comrades were dressed in their normal clothes, but neither seemed to be showing any sign of cold fatigue. When questioned they laughed it off with a quick explanation that if they kept moving they wouldn’t get cold. It forced them to adapt to moving quietly in a snow covered environment.

          “We’ve learned a lot already. You want to join?”

          Sakura and Ino looked at one another before they grinned. “Sure.” Answered Ino.

          “But only if we get to be a team.”

          “Oh, that’s great! We can practice tactics as a unit now.” Lee agreed. Ten Ten shrugged.

          “Okay, I’m down for it.”

          Samus hadn’t celebrated human holidays for her entire life, she hadn’t lived with humans in her childhood and the Chozo didn’t really have holidays. It wasn’t until she began going to the Smash Bros Battle Arena that she spent a lot of time around humans, so the idea of holidays were foreign to her. The battle arena had introduced her to many people and customs that she hadn’t known about.

          Not many of the customs stuck in her mind beyond simple pleasantry, and fewer of the people did. She just wasn’t a social animal the way other people seemed to be. She was a mercenary; she spent most of her time alone in space killing things. Though one person had stuck in her mind.

          Princess Zelda, ruler of Hyrule, was etched into her brain. Her voice, mannerisms, even the way she looked was stuck into her head in ways that she’d never even imagined were possible. It wasn’t like she was a novice to sexual attraction or anything. She’d spent enough time watching porn vids to understand the basics of that; she’d even indulged her own hormones at space ports and bought a hooker or three for a few nights. This was something else entirely. It was unfamiliar to her.

          She couldn’t explain how it had happened. She remembered getting drunk and stumbling into a girl. She remembered getting escorted to that girl’s room and laying on a bed with her. She knew they talked about things she’d never told anyone before, and then she was pretty sure that the girl had kissed her.

          She’d woken up in the morning with a massive headache and the boy in the ridiculous green outfit pointing a sword at her. She’d disarmed him without much of a fuss and was about to throw him out the door when the girl from the night before had come hurrying to the room.

          It turned out to be Zelda and the boy turned out to be Link the Hero. She didn’t remember the details, but Zelda had left and Link had shown up to escort her back to Hyrule and had found Samus. He thought she’d kidnapped or harmed the Princess and pulled the sword. It was a misunderstanding. They invited Samus back to their kingdom and Samus had agreed.

          It was the first of many of her bad emotional decisions. When they returned Link disappeared on a horse and she and Zelda had gone to the castle. She’d spent a few weeks there with the Princess. They’d had more embarrassing discussions and Zelda wheedled information out of her that she wouldn’t have given up under the most grievous of tortures. They’d grown close and eventually Zelda had dragged her to a festival.

          She was completely perplexed by the idea of something happening on the same day every year to celebrate it. She didn’t really understand celebrating birthdays that much either. At first Zelda thought that the problem was that Samus was human, but she spent some time using the on board computer in Samus’s ship and learned that humans had holidays. She understood that it was a Chozo trait that Samus had picked up after that.

          Eventually Zelda had complied a list of common human holidays and was dead set that she and Samus would celebrate them together. She’d spent the summer months of Hyrule with Zelda, celebrating firework and eating holidays before she decided that she should go take a job so that she could maintain some of her contacts. With the travel time she was going to be gone for eight months. Zelda had made her promise to celebrate all of the holidays on her list. She’d promised.

          Zelda had spent the last few days she was in Hyrule programing the relative star dates into her ship’s computer and creating little surprises for her long the way. Mostly Samus sat with while she did it. They played board games, which was frustrating for Samus when they played chess because she would spend the better part of an hour devising a strategy only for Zelda to turn back to the board for a fraction of a second to move her piece into a position that destroyed her hopes. She couldn’t tear Zelda away from her project so she often brought her food from the kitchens and then carried her to the bed in the shuttle when she final collapsed from exhaustion after seventy straight hours of work. She never slept for more than five hours at time so she would often be back at work when Samus herself rolled out of bed.

          Some of the holidays were hard to celebrate on her own because winter holidays were mostly gift giving holidays. Thanksgiving resulted in her replicator refusing her rations for a day and then spitting out a fully cooked turkey with mashed potatoes. She spent two days going over the code Zelda had input to find how she’d done that. She landed on her destination and cleaned up the space pirate infestation before Christmas. She was nearly half way back when the ship started chiming Christmas carols at her, as well as popping a message every day for eight days with the location of a gift. She wondered at the Princess’s ingenuity for a few weeks after that. While she was still puzzling out Hanukah’s surprises Christmas had spit out another large dinner and another present. This one almost made her cry. It was a recording of Zelda humming an old Hylian lullaby.

          On New Year’s the computer display seemed to link up to a satellite and spent a few hours in standby, leaving her sitting in the cockpit of her ship staring at a black screen. When it finally flickered to life she saw Zelda’s face. Albeit it was through an old camera that the princess had undoubtedly scavenged from her ship. There was no sound so the Zelda just spoke slowly enough for Samus to read her lips. The transaction was only one way, but Zelda revealed her New Year’s Resolution. “To love you, forever.” The connection died shortly after that, but Samus was pleased with the limited interaction they had.

          She listened to the Lullaby every day for the remainder of her journey until she landed back in Hyrule shortly before Valentine’s Day.