Bonus: Christmas story

I actually wrote this for my mom for Christmas to show what I was writing about, introduce the premise and characters. But I'll share it with you awesome patrons. I hope you like it. Obviously, this takes place in the past compared to current story events, during the time Inaris was mostly in Blue Valley City.

Snow laid on the peaks and slopes of the Central Mountains, and the landscape around them was covered with a thin dusting of white. The city sitting beside the mountain range had melted most of it off its roofs, but there were still hints of white on them, and smoke rose from many chimneys. Winter had arrived in this region of the continent, and in my opinion, it looked good.

As we drew closer to the large fortress nestling into the side of the mountains, I noticed that someone had decorated for Christmas. The sight was surreal, and I blinked to make sure I wasn’t imagining things. But the wreaths of evergreen twigs, candles, garlands, and overall red-and-gold color scheme didn’t leave me much doubt. I searched my magically improved memory, but I knew there were no local holidays with this sort of tradition. Was this why Mother had called me home? I shook my head and waited for the airship carrying me and my companions to finish its approach.

Quickly, the flying vessel sat down on the flat rooftop of one of the buildings, and I disembarked, followed by Tenira and Lei. Neither of them seemed as surprised as I might have thought, so perhaps this wasn’t the first time they saw something like this.

Well, I guess we all have our ways of dealing with our different lives, different worlds.I mentally shrugged and refocused on coming back.

Mother looked more cheerful than usual as she greeted me atop the palace rooftop. “Welcome back, Inaris! Do you like what I’ve done with the place?”

I swept my gaze across the Imperial Palace for a moment. I had the feeling the defensive walls weren’t supposed to hold garlands and Christmas baubles. Not to mention the magical lights painting the courtyards. Even if they did give it a storybook feeling. Mother clearly decorated her home to suit the holiday spirit she was feeling, no matter that this was a magical world that didn’t even know the holiday. Well, you could do that when you were Empress.

“It looks really nice,” I answered honestly.

“I may have done a bit more than usual this year,” she said, still smiling. “But since it will be the first time you and Al are back from your soul journeys, and you’ll actually know what it means …”

My expression darkened at that thought, although I tried not to let my reaction show. Of course, I was glad that the ‘soul journeys’ our family went through had brought my mother and little brother to the same world as me.

But still. It had been more than half a year now that I was back. And while for whatever strange reason governed the passage of time between worlds, it may only have seemed like I was in a coma for a few days here, my soul journey encompassed most of my life for me. After all, I had the bad luck of not remembering anything that happened before. Only my life on Earth, up until the day I’d woken up here; in a different body, under a different name, somehow speaking another language, but with no recollection of my supposed original life here.

I shook my head to clear it of those thoughts. “Are we actually going to have a celebration? I didn’t bring any gifts.”

Mother laughed. “No need. We’ll celebrate it privately, only our family and close friends, and no one needs to give gifts.”

I raised an eyebrow, but nodded. If she wanted to do this, I wasn’t going to ruin things for her. “Alright. Just let me get my things put away, and I’ll go see what’s up.”

I got that done quickly. Back in my room, I only spent a minute to make sure I looked presentable, before I headed out again. The enhanced hearing my cultivation brought let me pinpoint the room I wanted easily. It was just off the corridor reserved for immediate family. A few guards stood watch outside, and opened the door for me. I nodded at them. I’d become pretty used to their presence by now, but the thought of celebrating Christmas with soldiers standing guard outside was still strange. Of course, I was a princess now, and political assassinations enough of a danger that I didn’t mind it.

Alaster caught me when I was barely through the door. He was forming a colorful ribbon of light from his hand, but stopped it when I entered to put new, smaller ones all over me. I endured his prank for a moment, shaking my head at his laughter. It was good to see him acting more like a mischievous twelve-year-old again, rather than a grumpy teenager.

But I could see my reflection in the dark windows, and I looked ridiculous. So I undid Al’s efforts with a small application of my own magic, and dodged his follow-up attempt.

Somehow, my friends had beaten me here. Lei was doing something at one of the windows, probably more decorations, while Tenira was talking to a servant, concerning the small buffet laid out on a table at one side of the large room. It looked like we even had something approaching Christmas cookies. I listened in for a few seconds before getting bored and turning my attention to the real star of the decorations, the Christmas tree.

I didn’t know if it was actually a fir tree, but it looked similar enough, with green needles on its branches. Its top brushed the ceiling, and it was festooned with ornaments. To the side, there were a few crates with what looked like old decorations, and my little sister. Xiaodan was decorating the tree with all the enthusiasm and artistic sensibility of an eight-year-old.

I walked closer, noting that the decorations looked even more imbalanced as the angle changed, and tried not to grimace. We could still change that.Then I looked at Xiaodan’s glowing face and reconsidered. Who cared if it didn’t look perfect, so long as she had fun?

I stood there for half a minute before she noticed my presence. When she did, she dropped the wooden star she was holding and charged me. “Big Sister Nari!”

I dropped lower so she could hug me more easily. “Hey, Xiaodan. I’m back. How are you?”

“I’m great!” she declared, finally letting go of me. She grinned. “Christmas is great! All lights and color and fun. And we don’t have to share this holiday with anyone, like the others.”

I winced a bit. “Well, Christmas is a family holiday, traditionally. So it makes sense that it’s mostly just our family, right?” I ruffled her hair. “Go on, keep decorating the tree. It’s looking really good already.”

“Okay!”

The next few minutes, I just hung around, watching what happened. Mother showed up with a few people I recognized. Of course, Yating made a beeline for Xiaodan and was soon ‘helping’ her decorate the tree. I grinned to myself, but I knew he didn’t get much time with their daughter, so I stepped away to give the two of them some space.

Tenira walked up to me shortly after, decidedly more dressed up than me. “Is this what you were expecting? Or are we missing some traditions?”

I shrugged. “Usually, there’s some religious stuff, but I wouldn’t expect Mother to include that, given the situation. This isn’t much like I’m used to, but it doesn’t matter.”

She gave me a concerned glance. “I hope you’re alright with all of this.”

“Sure.” I shrugged again. Tenira was my friend, but I didn’t feel like talking about it. This reminded me too much of my other life, what I still sometimes thought of as my ‘real’ family. I might have accepted that there was no going back and my place was here, but that didn’t mean I’d forgotten it.

She looked like she wanted to say something more, but at that moment Mother cleared her throat and everyone fell silent. I took the opportunity to take a few steps back as Mother opened the party and wished everyone a merry Christmas. I couldn’t help but snort. It still felt weird seeing her so uncharacteristically merry.

After that, the party really started. Al dragged me back into the center of the room. I dodged past a few of his friends, who seemed to be playing some sort of dice game. Then my gaze caught Yarani, who smiled at me. I felt a little surprised at her presence, then felt stupid for being surprised. She was basically my girlfriend, of course she was here. This wasn’t just immediate family, as everyone had brought close friends, as well.

Once I managed to extricate myself from Al, I spotted Kariva leaning against the wall. But by the time I’d made my way to her position, she was gone again, and I couldn’t find her anyway. Of course, if she didn’t want me to see her, there wasn’t much chance that I would. But I took a page from her book and leaned against the wall, watching everyone.

It didn’t look much like a Christmas celebration to me, maybe because few of the guests had any idea what that was like. Some of them were from the family and had gone through soul journeys of their own, but those were all to different worlds. Although it might just be the local culture, and the fact magic existed here. So, instead of Christmas carols, we had the popping noise of the younger ones throwing some sort of bubbles at each other for a game. I couldn’t figure out the rules through watching, but it looked a bit like dodge ball, where hitting other people, objects or decorations made you lose points. Well, Mother didn’t seem to mind.

I was just considering slinking away when Yarani joined me, cocking an eyebrow at me. “Are you not enjoying the party, Inaris?”

“Of course I am,” I replied, straightening up.

She regarded me for a moment later, before she took my hand. “Come on.”

I let her pull me a few meters away, to a side room that led into another part of the building. She left the door open so the noise filtered in, and I noticed with some amusement that someone had decorated here, as well, with green branches and colorful ribbons hanging from the ceiling and colorful lights on the walls.

“You should cheer up,” Yarani told me. She let go of my hand and started trailing it upward.

I couldn’t help myself, but smiled, caught her hand and backed her up against the wall. “Are you just trying to distract me and get me all to yourself?”

She smirked. “Your Mother told me about one other Christmas tradition, you know.”

I followed her gaze upwards and noticed that we were standing right under a bundle of twigs that seemed vaguely familiar.

“I’m not sure if those are actually mistletoe,” I pointed out.

Yarani raised an eyebrow. “So?”

“Nothing.” I leaned forward and finally kissed her.

When I broke the kiss, we were both breathing harder, and I felt a lot better about this party. This was one tradition I could definitely get behind, and I appreciated her effort to cheer me up.

Yarani turned, slipped an arm around my waist and leaned her head on my shoulder. We were quiet for a moment, just enjoying each other’s presence.

“You’re still a little tense,” she finally said. “What’s bothering you, Inaris? Is it that this is from your soul journey?”

I sighed. I could still hear the celebration, and even the conversations if I focused on it. But this was private enough and I knew we wouldn’t be bothered. So I quashed my hesitation and started talking. “I miss Earth, my old life. This was a major holiday there, and I always spent it with my family. I miss them. I guess I still haven’t really processed that I’ll never see them again.”

She tightened her grip just a little. After a moment, she replied, “I understand. Well, no, I don’t really have the context to understand it. But most people have to deal with some variation of this. You shouldn’t feel bad about missing your family.”

“I know.” I shook my head. “But you asked what’s bothering me.”

“Well,” she broke the hug and turned to look me in the eyes. “I just want to point out that it doesn’t mean you can’t move on. There’s nothing saying that you can’t enjoy the holiday this way just because it’s the first time you’re celebrating it here. Or that you can’t have two families. Because you definitely have a family here who loves you. And right now, I’m sure they’d be happy if you came back to the party.”

I couldn’t help but smile. “Thanks, Yarani. I think I needed to hear that.”

“Just doing my job,” she grinned.

I laughed and started walking back to the party. She was right. This might not be the Christmas I knew, but I could still enjoy spending time with people I liked. Plus, it would be a shame if I didn’t try some of those cookies.