CANONICITY: Canon until contradicted by main story.
DATE: 2021 December 25 (two months before the Thunder Horse Inferno)
The last six years had brought some rather seismic changes to how Alice Takehara experienced Christmas.
The Christmas of 2015 had been somber at best for everyone everywhere. The Firestorms, as they were then starting to be called, had ended hardly four months earlier, and it seemed that everybody had an empty chair at their Yuletide feast. But Alice, then in her first year of high school, had survived one of Japan’s worst train crashes in history that summer, and so her family’s Christmas gathering had celebrated her continued existence and her bonus of awesome new magical powers.
Or at least, that’s what she’d been told. She’d been out fighting crime that night.
She managed to attend the next year, barely, slipping in right as the turkey came out of the oven and hiding her bruised knuckles as they said grace. With Hina in the US for the holidays and Ai visiting her mom, Alice couldn’t ditch the festivities to continue their investigation into the new Flame cult that had been rising in influence all year. By then, her family knew one of her secret identities, but not the other. Only her fellow Radiances knew both, and she’d missed them terribly.
2017 had been their first Christmas as five. Alice hadn’t been on speaking terms with her parents, so Hina had invited her and the others down to her grandparents’ place in Nagasaki, where the newly blue-eyed girl had insisted the warmer weather would be more tolerable for Amane’s shattered body. The real reason, the one that went unspoken, was that they’d needed to put some space between them and the cult. None of them would say it out loud until Amane broke down sobbing from Ai’s gift. Alice wept too, and then they all shared cathartic tears, and things were better after that.
2018 had been their first Christmas as celebrities. The world was still reeling from the Vaetna’s apocalyptic intervention in the Middle East, but consumerism marched on, which meant they’d been unbelievably busy. Ai had a seasonal album, Amane was finally well enough to handle the spotlight for short periods, Hina was juggling photoshoots between hunting down the last of Sugawara’s loyalists, and Yuuka was coming into a passion for ecology to fill the void left by the all-consuming search for her friend.
Alice mostly remembered it as her first Christmas with the tail. She’d eaten so much sponsored KFC that it had caused one of the hosts to puke on air, and that had been before she inhaled an entire turkey in front of the Prime Minister at the ritzy reception dinner for Japan’s elite. Humiliating.
The following year had seen them much better prepared for the onslaught of lucrative sponsors and TV appearances. She didn’t make anybody throw up, which was an improvement, and she’d shared a very uninhibited rebound-relief-revelry night with Hina and a bottle of champagne in a phenomenally expensive hotel in Osaka. The grueling churn of commercial stardom had its perks.
By last year, they’d become sufficiently used to and worn down by their new lifestyle that they’d elected to take the night off. Ai had finally managed to burn herself out; Yuuka was especially crabby from exams and had gone with Hina to blow off steam by wrecking a private flamebearer black-bagging operation in Korea. That had left Alice with Amane for a quiet night of binging Mobile Suit Gundam 00—with running commentary from Ebi. They’d been interrupted by a visitor of Christmas past.
Six Christmases gone since fire fell from the sky. Five since she’d donned the mantle. Four Christmases since they’d gone to war with the largest magical military in the world and won. Three since she’d embarrassed herself on national television, and two since the last time she’d shared a bed with her best friend. One Christmas since she’d come face-to-face with one of the Vaetna.
Thanks to the immutable arrow of time—Yuuka’s unique and impossible ability notwithstanding—Christmas had come every December for quite a few years before this point and, barring a disaster much bigger than the ones the world had recently weathered or a significant shift in the global metaculture, would continue to arrive regularly for quite a few years hence.
Today was Christmas day, and Alice was full of dread. You see, Hina had been very good this year, and Alice had wanted to reward her adorably, obnoxiously touchy-feely teammate-slash-best friend, so her Christmas gift had been a guarantee of some quality time together today, away from work, just the two of them—unless Ai wanted to join, which she didn’t and never had. Hina got to pick the activity, and Alice had breathed a sigh of relief that the first word out of her mouth had been “shopping!” rather than a request to be beaten within an inch of her life. The “activities” that followed the latter were pretty amazing, Alice could at least admit that, but she had resolved to put those days behind her. Thankfully, Hina seemed to have gotten the memo, so shopping it was, and shopping was better.
But shopping at the pet store was arguably worse.
—
“Alice, Alice, check it out!”
Hina held up the collar. It was cheap, low-grade pink polyester with that rough, ribbed pattern that rose and fell under your finger as it circumnavigated the loop. The buckle was similarly cheap, a squeeze-to-separate black plastic that came together with a satisfying click in Hina’s hands.
“It’s…a collar. Lower your voice.”
Alice was very aware of the eyes on them. A young woman carrying some type of small, fluffy terrier in one arm had been browsing at the end of the aisle and trying to ignore the two superhumans; she’d hurried elsewhere when Hina’s voice had hit the familiar peak of raspy joy that showed up whenever she was at play. Similarly, Alice kept noticing the shop attendant in the center of the store glancing at them. You couldn’t just tune these things out, unless you were Hina.
“Of course it’s a collar!” Hina’s slender hands danced around the circumference. She undid the clasp and raised the collar to her neck, looking at Alice with genuine curiosity. “Do y’think it’d look…good?”
She had complied with the request to lower her voice by adjusting down to a throaty purr. Alice rolled her eyes. That worked on some people, not her.
“Pink has never been your color.”
Hina blinked her big, blue eyes at Alice, who was entirely right; Hina’s current outfit—a black turtleneck and fishnets covered by denim overall shorts—contained no shades of red at all. It was ironic, really; for all Hina liked being splattered in blood, reds and pinks had just never quite worked for her. Hina frowned at the collar.
“Hm, yeah.”
She put it back on the rack, grabbed an adjacent one that was black in color and identical in all other respects, and held it up suggestively, as one might a piece of lingerie or an especially expensive cut of wagyu A5. Alice didn’t even attempt to match the energy.
“Too fragile for you. You’d crush the buckle if you got too excited with the squeeze.” She waved her hand down the whole rainbow of collars. “Same goes for all of these. You need a good, steel buckle.”
Hina danced down the aisle, following the gesture. She’d already put back the black collar and was almost pirouetting as she spun to look at the shelves on opposite sides. Always weightless, always reveling. The jingle of the shop’s front door caused her to slam to a halt mid-spin, aborting out of the maneuver by blatantly violating conservation of momentum. Alice tutted.
“Hina! Mind your ripple! You know better—”
“Ferret!”
“—you know what, not worth it.”
Alice exhaled a long-suffering sigh, shaking her head at the way her teammate had leapt clean over the aisle and disappeared toward the front of the store in a jubilant frenzy. She walked to the end of the aisle and confirmed that Hina was indeed off to harass the would-be customer, a young man with a beautiful white ferret on his shoulder. He was looking both overwhelmed at Hina’s sudden appearance and—no blame on him, in Alice’s estimation—a little enraptured at her feral beauty. She had that effect on people, with the lustrous reddish tones of her hair and the face of a model. But her stunning good looks were, as always, waylaid by her nature; she had eyes not for the human, but for his shoulder-jockeying pet, whose albino-red eyes were locked in a staring contest with the sapphires, a silent war waged just above the rim of her sunglasses. Alice swore that if her teammate was about to fight for dominance with a fucking ferret—
Hina’s hand flickered forward and booped it on the nose; she burst out laughing at the ferret’s look of pure indignance. Alice’s temper vented off the heat it had been building in a relieved snort as she relaxed and let her awareness widen out again. A mix of combat training and celebrity instinct prompted her to half-turn and check behind her, where the woman with the terrier was standing at a comfortable distance and warily staring at the thick, heavy third limb coming out of her backside. Alice threw on her normal, friendly smile—not the “I just spent an hour in the makeup chair and need to get returns on that time” smile, her “ignore the giant tail and the fact that I could flatten this entire city, I’m friendly” smile—turning to hide the silhouette of its bulk behind her legs and skirt.
“Hello!”
In Japanese, of course. The woman flinched slightly, hefting her dog as though trying to shield it with her body.
“G—greetings.”
Alice winced internally and tried to turn up her smile’s brightness by a notch.
“Is something the matter?”
The woman shook her head.
“No, not at all, I—I’m so sorry, my friend is just such a huge fan, and I was wondering if…”
Alice sighed internally. Just a fan by proxy who had been wondering how to approach and been thrown off by the tail. Happened literally every day.
Literally every day.
—
“That was one of the nicer places in Ginza, to my knowledge. None of those were what you were looking for?”
“Nope!”
“Then what are you looking for?”
“I’ll know it when I see it!”
Alice sort of hated shopping with Hina for this precise reason. The girl just didn’t have an organized bone in her body, happily setting out on quests of purchase with no basic criteria or timetable.
“So how am I supposed to help you find ‘the perfect collar’ if I don’t know what you’re looking for?”
“Be eye candy? Keep the press off me, y’know.”
This banter was taking place at their second store of the outing. The first, Hina had played with the ferret for a few minutes, snapped a selfie with the terrier-girl while the dog growled at her, and then declared they needed to widen the scope of their search. This place was just next door.
Hina’s comment about the press was partially in jest, but also a matter of genuine practicality, the sort that shone through when she truly wanted to get something done, which made Alice feel better about being an accomplice to an otherwise very stupid quest. Be eye candy? Sure, Alice could do that; she attracted attention with her…distinctive appearance no matter what. Her tail was simply too massive to cover believably—today’s skirt, a long and slitted, ankle-length item in stylish grey, was stitched in such a way to accommodate its bulk, with an additional looping strap added over the top of the tail’s base to make up for the lack of a typical waist belt. That was the compromise all her clothes had to make, because the unsightly appendage could not be conveniently shunted “elsewhere,” into the spaces adjacent to reality; the risk was unacceptable.
Hina’s eyes, on the other hand, were manageable. Though immutable by magic and unmaskable even by the most sophisticated contact lenses Ai could craft, they could be dimmed by sunglasses, so Hina had accumulated a whole collection in the years since the hazel had been usurped by ultramarine. She passed for human at a glance, and though it only took the barest hop of logic to discern her identity based on her easygoing banter with the unmistakable lizard-tailed woman, it meant she was always the second to be noticed and was therefore mostly free to shop unharried for a short while. A time-tested strategy, at least until Hina acted out as she had in the last store.
By Alice’s estimation, they had maybe ten minutes before the first of the paparazzi would catch up to them—so doing pretty well, all things considered. Things were looking dire for Hina’s search here as well; she touched every collar, rubbing her fingers on the material and feeling the flex, and shook her head each time. She huffed as she put down the last, looking peeved. Alice snorted.
“So what happens now? We keep going from store to store until we find ‘the one?’”
“Mmm…yeah! Good plan, Alice.”
“Did you not have a plan before?”
But the hyenic girl was already sauntering back toward the front of the store. Alice followed in long, brisk steps, power-walking rather than jogging; her legs had gained a lot of muscle to compensate for the weight of the tail, but that didn’t cushion the impacts on her joints, so running hurt. Walking was more dignified anyway. She didn’t need Hina’s bouncy, explosive freedom of movement to communicate the power they both carried.
Case in point—as she pushed out the door and returned to the streets of Ginza, heads turned. Hina was already gathering attention due to how she was leaning against nothing—buried in her phone to search for the next stage of their quest, uncaring of the humans—but Alice’s confident stride and unique figure made some people outright stop walking and stare.
Hina didn’t give her the chance to address the crowd. She tossed her phone back into pocketspace, surveyed the people around them, tensed her legs, and jumped. It sent her fifteen meters almost straight up, barely horizontal enough to contact the facade at the apex of her trajectory, landing horizontally on the glass as though coming to a jogging stop—just on the wrong axis. Then she jumped again, propelling herself toward the skyline with far too much momentum for how little windup she had and the lack of counter-impact on the window she’d used as a launch pad. The third jump was even more bizarre, launching off of nothing at all.
Alice watched her go, leapfrogging over the city. So did the crowd, nearly all of whom had drawn their phones to record the sight; the locals around Lighthouse Tower were used to Hina’s hopping, but it was unusual in this part of town. It also wasn’t particularly mahou shoujo, so it fell to Alice to live up to type. She tugged a few invisible control threads in her mantle’s weave, picking out a good melange of settings: a low-impact traversal configuration, an outfit that didn’t show too much skin in the cold (purely cosmetic), and the medium-length transformation sequence animation, eight seconds. Radiance Opal allowed herself a small, quiet grin while the crowd was still focused on Hina, then tugged the initializer.
Glimmering lights and gemstone refractions filled the air, and then all eyes were on her. She shouted the familiar words.
“Houseki hikare!”
Shine like gemstones.
—
Hina still beat her there, of course. Alice touched down at the end of the block and dropped her mantle, hurrying down the street and into the store. She’d wanted to make a flashy exit, but it wouldn’t do to get swarmed with paparazzi at their new location. She found Hina staring into a fishtank.
“Woah.”
“You’re drooling.”
Hina wiped her mouth. “No.”
“Don’t eat the store’s fish, Hina.”
“But they have so many!” She pointed at the hundreds of small goldfish in the tank. “They won’t miss a couple. I mean, you’re hungry too, right? Riiiiiiight?”
For a terrible moment, Alice’s stomach agreed with Hina. She was hungry—she was always hungry—and the fish were perfectly bite-sized, and there were so many that a simple displacement right from the tank to her mouth would go unnoticed—that was how long it took her to master the impulse and start dragging her friend away from the fish tank.
With her other hand, she reached into her personal pocketspace and rooted around. This kind of situation was why she kept a lot of food in here; she felt past the mixed nuts and dried fruits, realized she was too far to the left when her hand grazed the instant noodles. At last, her hand brushed what she was looking for, and she pulled it into normal space, interrupting Hina’s theatrical keening by presenting the bag of jerky.
“No pet store fish. Dried fish.”
Hina’s eyes lit up at the convenience store delicacy. She freed herself from Alice’s grip and snatched the bag in the same blur of motion, and tore it open. This was tuna jerky, the pungent stuff Amane couldn’t stand but Alice and Hina both loved. Hina was already grabbing a handful of the salted meat to raise it to her mouth, but stopped before taking a bite. Blue eyes flicked to Alice’s face, then down at the fistful of flesh.
“You first.”
“I’m not hungry.” Alice waved at Hina’s greedy handful. “Go ahead.”
Hina shook her head. “I’m not eating if you don’t.”
“Weren’t you just about to steal some fish?” Alice lowered her voice; she really didn’t want to explain that to the old lady at the counter.
“‘S not about that.” Hina held out the ball of jerky to Alice. “You first. I know you’re hungry.”
“I’m fine, we only had breakfast an hour—”
Alice’s stomach betrayed her with a gurgle that needed no Hina-tier senses to pick up. Hina’s expression broke into a worried pout.
“Babe, you gotta eat.”
“I’m eating fine.”
“You don’t need to count the calories, ‘s not gonna make the tail any bigger. It hasn’t grown in four months.”
“It’s not about the tail.”
Hina let off on the puppy eyes, but Alice disliked the doubting, frustrated look even more.
“Uh huh. Like how Amane keeps ‘forgetting’ her stabilizer module? Or more like how Yuuka doesn’t have a grudge against the Vaetna. Or Ebi’s whole—”
“Enough,” Alice hissed, hackles rising. “Way too far, Hina.”
The sardonic worry vanished from Hina’s face, replaced by contrition, but the fistful of jerky didn’t move.
“Oh. Sorry. You should still eat.”
“…Fine.”
Alice reached out and reluctantly picked a shred of dried tuna from the ball and put it in her mouth, chewing with purpose. She swallowed. The ball still didn’t move.
“More.”
“Hina, this is ridiculous.” Even as she protested, she was becoming aware of how hungry she actually was. Stupid tail. “You eat the jerky. I’ve got plenty of other food.”
At last, that got Hina to retract the accusatory ball of dried meat, but she didn’t begin eating. She stowed it in her pocketspace.
Hina was still happily gnawing on her rawhide stick when they arrived at the next store. She’d bought a round for the house, as it were—that meant a chew toy for everyone in the store, human and canine alike. Hers was a personable and even familiar brand of inhumanity, a man’s-best-friend enthusiasm and vivacity that made it easy to look at the fangs and impossible hue in her eyes and label them mere eccentricity. Alice knew better, but at least it left a positive impression.
Unfortunately, Hina still hadn’t found “the one,” and things weren’t looking much better here.
“Nope.”
“I rather think it fits you.” Alice munched on a granola bar, her concession to Hina’s increasingly loud insistence, as she held up the huge, spiked collar. “And heavier-duty than you’d find at a whips-and-chains sort of place.”
She wasn’t sure if the market even existed for dogs that big in Tokyo; most of the dogs she saw on the street were more…rat-like. Alice had a fondness for big, loyal dogs, like the one looking at her through the collar. Hina pouted.
“It’s fake leather.”
“Would this be the one if it were real leather? I still don’t understand your scoring system.”
“No, but it’s not adding points.” Hina surveyed the selection of other available colors. “And this is the best of what they have.”
“So we’re moving on?”
By now, the actual paparazzi had caught wind of their adventure. There had already been cameras out—real cameras, not just phones—when they’d touched down in front of this place, and while the store hadn’t yet been breached, Alice figured they’d need to leave through the back or blink away entirely so as to not get mobbed by the growing crowd at the front entrance.
“Not just yet. Didja read the sign when we came in?”
“Not in detail.”
“Then right this way.”
Bemused, Alice let Hina lead her toward the back of the store, where shelving gave way to terrariums. A lizard lay in the largest, sunning itself under a heat lamp. It was big, and white, and from the girth of its tail, Alice knew and resented where Hina was going with this.
“I see. Is this supposed to be me?”
“Yes, her name is Alice, and she’s the best…blue tegu? In all of Japan.”
Alice hadn’t missed Hina’s eyes darting to the sticker on the terrarium’s exterior. She shook her head, already running out of patience for this.
“Its name is Kei.”
“Whatever! She’s still the best!”
Hina blurred. Before Alice understood what was happening, she was holding the lizard in her arms. Her temper sparked.
“Hina, you can’t just—”
The air heated up around her—Kei snuggled against her in exactly the same way a cat would, seeking the warmth she emanated.
“See! She likes you!”
Her tail twitched in consternation; she resented being compared to an animal, especially when the similar traits were actively deleterious to her body image. As usual, Hina didn’t seem to understand that what she liked wasn’t what everybody liked. She tried again, more carefully this time.
“I don’t like being compared to a lizard.”
“You don’t like being compared to the cutest thing in the whole wide world? You are very cute, you know.”
The compliment did little to soothe the sting of the false comparison.
“Stop it.”
“Ally, I know you’re not taking care of yourself. When’s the last time you washed it?”
“I wash it in the bath; you know that, what with how you keep barging in. And that doesn’t even matter; it’s antimicrobial just because of how hot I run. Reptiles are vulnerable to fungal infections because they’re cold-blooded, and I am not a reptile.”
For demonstration, she allowed her rising indignance to manifest as heat. Kei snuggled closer into her chest, using her boobs as pillows. Alice was distantly proud of that, somewhere under the exasperation and resentment. Hina was a freak in all meanings of the word, so she didn’t yelp or flinch at the surge of localized heat.
“It still needs more than just soap! I keep telling you to see an actual vet, babe.”
“Magical girls shouldn’t need vets,” Alice angrily muttered as the heat faded. She knew she was in the wrong, and feeling like a petulant teen again hit her hard enough in the pride that it was taking the wind out of her sails. “Does this conversation have to happen here? In public? On Christmas?”
“The greatest gift is good health.”
Alice hated Hina’s ad-libbed proverbs and lessons. They were always delivered in impressions of some nonspecific mountaintop sage, and as somebody with relatives who actually spoke like that, she really didn’t need more of it in her life. “Can we shut up about this? Please?”
“Nope, we’re solving the problem. What ails you, babe? You keep twitching it.”
“I’m twitching it because you’re making me upset.” Alice contemplated releasing her aura again; Kei was starting to get squirmy without it. “There’s nothing wrong with it. Drop it.”
“There’s totally something wrong with it.” Suddenly Hina was next to her, leaning over and inspecting the scales. Fucking teleporters. “Lemme know if this hurts.”
Hina ran her hand down the underside of the tail, and Alice nearly jumped out of her skin. A tingling, itchy sensation sprawled over a particular area where Hina’s hand had passed, so weird and unpleasant that she lost control of her aura and emanated a pulse of heat. She caught it before it went to dangerous levels for Kei, then glared at Hina.
“What was that?”
“Something wrong.” Hina’s voice was smug. “It’s dry. Are you washing the underside?”
“Yes!” The odd sensation was still lingering, bouncing around her nerves under the scales, and panic was starting to set in. “That’s—tingly. In a bad way, like—” She twisted around, trying to get a look even though she knew it was impossible. She wasn’t flexible enough for that; Hina probably wasn’t flexible enough for that. “Don’t touch it again.”
“Don’t need to. My job here is done!”
“How do you mean? You’ve succeeded in harassing me about my bathing habits and convincing me I have some kind of nerve issue, was that your goal?”
“Babe, we’re at a pet store. One specializing in reptiles, if you haven’t noticed. In fact, I hear the ol’ shopkeep is a reptile vet.” Hina gently hoisted Kei out of Alice’s arms and slung the lizard under one arm. “You have a problem. Let’s solve it.”
Alice realized that she’d been caught in Hina’s trap and flinched, just barely, because she knew what her friend wanted her to do. She’d always hated bothering people on the job—and these days, her mere presence was enough of an ambient disruption for her to feel awkward, especially once the parade of cameras inevitably showed up. But she was a big girl, and Hina was right: there was a problem, and this was the right place to solve it, disregarding how Hina had led her here. So she raised her hand and called out.
“Shopkeeper!”
—
Alice’s problem, as it turned out, was indeed a lizard problem, and not a severe one or even a problem with her nerves at all. In fact, it was the kind of problem that could be solved with a soak in what were essentially just bath salts for reptiles. Twice a week for six weeks, the shopkeeper—ex-vet, as it turned out—recommended, and the skin underneath the scales would become less dry and the irritation would go away. He was fascinated by Alice’s description of the sensation; nobody’d ever been able to ask a lizard how it felt.
Of course, Alice was not a tegu. Her tail was more massive than those of even the largest lizards, more akin to a crocodile or enormous snake, so it was a hideously expensive thing to buy the appropriate bath salts in sufficient quantity for the full treatment. But money at the scale of most conventional storefronts was of no object to the Radiances, and pocketspaces made transporting a few jugs of liquid a breeze. Alice peeled off the big sticker with a picture of a lizard from the front first, though.
Hina didn’t find a collar that met her standards, in the end. She insisted that the whole expedition had not just been a ruse to get Alice in front of a vet and that she was indeed still on the hunt; to prove it, they’d continued the search for another three hours, combing through pet stores all around the city. They’d even let the paparazzi catch up at one point and acquiesced to some photos and some random questions about their opinions on current events; Alice had done the talking. Funny how she was more comfortable with twenty cameras in her face than she was asking for assistance in a store.
Then they’d escaped the cameras, heading straight up and alighting on a high rooftop.
“…Thanks.” The admission of gratitude was awkward and muttered; unbefitting of a Radiance. Alice tried again. “Thank you for helping me, Hina.”
Predictably, Hina sprang forward and wrapped her in a big hug, nuzzling her neck, pure love. It tickled.
“Love you too! I just want you to take care of yourself. Don’t be like Ai.”
“I won’t.” Alice returned the hug. Her best friend’s dogged persistence could be frustrating, but it was also her most constant expression of affection; besides, Alice knew Hina was right about Ai. “You know, she could just make you a collar.”
“She hates Christmas. And you know that’s not the point, babe.” Hina purred against her chest; that was a mutation Alice had no complaints about. “I wanted to spend time with you.”
“Mm.” Alice was happy with that. “Your day-with-Alice-pass is almost up. Anything else you want to do?”
“Well, if we’d found the perfect collar, I would have wanted you to put it on me.”
“…Maybe the real collar is the friends we made along the way?”
Hina frowned against her neck. “Doesn’t quite have a Christmasy ring to it. But sure, you’re my collar. My leash. Thanks.” Alice wasn’t sure how to feel about the label, but as with everything that came from Hina, it was wrapped up in so much adoration that she wouldn’t contest it, not up here where it was just the two of them. One of Hina’s hands wandered down from Alice’s back to the base of her tail, scratching the scales with her claws, eliciting a twitch. “Can I help in the bath?”
“…You know what, sure.” Alice savored Hina’s purred response, then finally let the hug go. Hina separated from her with some reluctance, paused, and stole a kiss on the way out, smirking at the automatic blush and smile that invaded Alice’s face.
“I’m hungry,” The Sapphire Radiance declared.
The smile widened into a grin.
“I’m hungry, too. Have something in mind?”
“Feeling…festive. Remember that Chinese place we got takeout from last year? After Yuuka and I got back?”
“Sounds good. Shall we?”
“In a bit.” Hina looked out over the skyline, into the distance, where Tokyo’s endless sprawl faded against the purple mountains. “Wanna stay up here a little longer.”
“Fine by me.”
Neither of them were bothered by the cold December air, nor the winds howling above the city. Despite all the ways they weren’t “real” mahou shoujo, the Flame had at least given them that much. And besides—up here was where mahou shoujo should be, looking down on the lights of Tokyo from a rooftop.
“Merry Christmas, Hina.”
“Merry Christmas, babe.”
“…Don’t talk about our bathing habits in public.”
“I said I was sorry!”
—
Christmas is not a significant day to everybody, of course. For some, like Radiance Emerald or a certain person in a certain apartment in Bristol, Christmas is just another day of the year. For others, they may celebrate another festival of lights: Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Diwali—and of course Hikanome have their own, as does the Spire. But regardless of one’s denomination, belief in a God or the Flame or nothing at all, those darkest days of the year carry an energy, some amorphous and hard-to-pin-down festive spirit. It is a time to commemorate friendship and togetherness, to huddle together around the fire and eat and drink and defy the cold. It is a near-universal human phenomenon in those final months of the year.
So it should come as little surprise that in this age of magic, especially where people gather and celebrate in great masses, the festive spirit leaves its mark. Presents appear under trees; oil lamps burn days longer than they ought to; reindeer become restless, and there are reports that they may even luminesce. The jingling of bells heralds strange figures clad in red and white, the same colors that paranatural research labs across the world observe in higher quantities than usual. Things move in the snow.
One can only assume the Frozen Flame enjoys the season as much as humanity does.
Happy holidays and a bright new year.
Author’s Note:
Happy holidays! This was originally a patron-exclusive post, but it was made public at the end of Arc 2. Let me take this opportunity to say thank you for being a part of Sunspot for these first few months of its existence.
These side stories will often get more experimental and be less polished than main chapters, especially these first few where I’m still finding how I like to write them, where they’re going to fit into the timeline, and so on. It’ll probably get easier once we have a bit more of the main story and world to work within.
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