Best Wishes of the Season

By Gabi-hime ([email protected])

A/N: Just a little Christmas gift from me to you. Written for Guardian1 but sent with well wishes for everyone who wanted a little Freya/Amarant for the holidays.

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The air was warm and dry, almost too dry, with a wind that could score your bones and flake your flesh. They had sheltered in a wide bowl in the rock that left plenty of room for pitched tents and the small campfire that they kept more for the light, more for the tradition of the thing than for the heat or comfort. You didn't pitch camp without lighting a campfire, even if the sun would fry eggs on the rocks when it rose a few hours later. It was the principle of the thing.

Plus it gave whoever was on the third watch of the night something motile to stare into after all the others had finally gone to bed. The fire was not particularly good company, but at least it was something, and although it made her night-blind to whatever lurked beyond the edge of the bowl, that was infinitely more preferable to staring off sightless and alone in the dark, on this night in particular.

It was really all wrong, the heat and the dryness. Even in the desert it was supposed to get chill at night, but the very rocks themselves seemed to have stored enough dry heat to keep the air uncomfortable until the sun rose in the wee hours to begin the process all over again. It was not weather that suited her native wear, and once everyone else had turned in she had slipped out of the raincoat and shoulder guards, and had curled up around her lance in her undershirt and pantaloons. She was sitting the last watch of the night and damn if she wasn't going to be comfortable while doing it.

It was all wrong, the heat and the dryness, all wrong for her. By all rights she should be home, where the rain came down endless on every night, in every moment, except tonight. The same Yule Night was spread over Palace Burmecia as blanketed the Western Continent, but she was sure that the snow fell silent tonight in the realm of eternal rain. There were likely no excited faces pressed against the windows tonight in the ruined castle city, watching the seasonal gift that always descended one night a year and one night only, and had for centuries. The snow fell whether there was someone to watch it or not.

She was missing the Yule Snow.

She was missing the Yule Snow and she couldn't even make a cup of tea for solace because it was too damn hot for tea.

"Whatcha wish for?" his voice came sudden, rough and rude and quite interrupted her holiday reminiscing. He was sitting, crouched, at the bare edge of her vision, hands busy with an oil cloth over the claws in his lap. He had taken the first watch. By all rights he should be asleep, not amiably chatting away with her while she sulked over a Yule Snow that simply would not come down. Well, perhaps his chatting wasn't exactly amiable, but a three word exchange that did not involve the words 'damn,' 'fuck,' 'idiot,' 'rat,' or 'woman' or some sweet combination of the before mentioned had to be a new record between the two of them. Perhaps it was his Yule gift. Tidings of the Season -- Fuck You, Freya Crescent, you damn idiot woman (the 'rat' part of the dialogue being implicitly understood between them, of course). It's Dragon, and fuck you right back, Amarant Coral. Happy Yule. When you care enough to send the very best, send the best Burmecian diplomacy, as represented by the finest specimen of the royal dragoons that could be scraped together. It was hot. It was too hot.

She let her talons beat out the harmony line of her favorite carol on the butt of her partisan before shaking her head, "I didn't know you made wishes on the Yule Star. I suppose you learn something knew every day."

He grunted and didn't look up, "I didn't say I made wishes on the Yule Star. That's for children and idiots, but it seemed like something you would do."

She let her moss green eyes roll skyward, questing for the moon, or patience, or perhaps the very Yule Star itself, "Why thank you, Coral. You always know just what to say to make a girl feel better."

"Nghm. I didn't mean it that way, but take it however you want, rat princess. I know you wished, so what did you wish for?"

She did wish. She had wished, at least. She had sent a wish to the Yule Star every year for as long as she could remember, crossing her fingers and curling her tail around her left leg for extra luck, a strange and very personal tradition. Some years it had been for a new practice lance, and one year it had been for a coat in the colors of House Crescent, but that had been so unfortunately ugly when she'd gotten it the following morning that not even she could bear to wear it and it had been forced immediately into the corner of her closet, underneath dancing skirts that never saw the light of day. These last years her wish had been tied up in one thing and one thing alone.

Please send him back to me, please let me find him, please let him be safe.

She hadn't wished this year. The heat had driven it out of her, the worry that had made her ache inside had long ago dulled to an inconstant throb, and there was no Yule Snow. The star was high above and perfectly visible, not hidden by heavy layers of deep gray clouds the way it was in Burmecia. Somehow it was easier to wish there, even when you couldn't see the star. Here it was all wrong – too hot and too dry and at her hand was a surly lump where she had had a graceful poet.

Where was his lance stowed tonight? For once, she did not care.

"What do all people wish for? A happy home, filled with family and friends, full of good cheer. And peace on earth of course," she remarked dryly.

"Nn. Yeah, that sounds like something you'd wish for," he grunted, approaching the fire so he could lay the claws close by it and melt the tallow fat that he had greased them with.

"Quite," she agreed, tail snaking out from around her left leg to flip in aggravation back and forth, perhaps a little too close to the embers at the edges of the fire circle, "And what did you wish for, a pipe and slippers and the pitter-patter of little feet? 'Tis the Season, you know."

He leaned forward, towards the fire, as if he might actually be cold. She knew this was ridiculous. He was burning hot all the time. You could feel it even through his bag when he slept. Not that she'd been checking.

"I don't have anything to wish for, ratty. I don't need anything."

"Oh yes, I can see how your life is utterly perfect and filled with joy. Come on Coral, there must be something that you wish for."

"I wish you had some sense."

"Why thank you, Coral, I'm flattered that you'd spend your Yule wish on me. How thoughtful. You truly are a prince," her tail flipped back again, this time stirring up some embers and she cursed like a Lindblum sailor new to port as the fragrant odor of burnt Burmecian filled the too-warm air.

"Careful, rat princess. If you let too many words like that slip out of your mouth, Father Yule might damn well pass you over."

"Coral, I am afraid that perhaps the mindless slaughter of countless and untold monsters might have put me on the 'Naughty' list this year. I don't believe Father Yule will be leaving me anything, but then, I somehow doubt that you'll be getting the autographed portrait of General Beatrix that you so wanted either."

He ignored her for some minutes, staring into the fire, watching the fat first melt and then sizzle on the dusky blue of his finger blades. When he spoke it was sudden and sharp. If a man could bruise words with his mouth as he forced them out, then Amarant Coral did.

"Not for that man. You sure you didn't wish for that man?"

She looked up at the sky again, night dark, with the warmth of the fire burned into her eyes and dancing against the heavens, and answered honestly, "No."

"What did you wish for?"

"Nothing."

"Good," his reply was short, terse, and not at all what she had expected, particularly because there was the hint of something else in it. Satisfaction?

"What?" her question came out unbidden, before she could stop herself.

He stood and shrugged, snagging his claws in one huge fist and turning his back to the fire so that it outlined him amber-red around the edges.

"If you don't wish for it, then maybe you don't really want it, rat princess."

There was a slight sound of rustling and something came singing over his left shoulder and right at her head. Her talons were up, lightning fast with the speed that comes from too many years attached to the safe end of a partisan. She plucked the thrown object out of the sky and turned it over in her hands.

It was a hard curl of peppermint candy.

He didn't turn to see if she'd caught it, but left one final remark for her hanging in the too-hot air.

"Happy Yule, Crescent. Maybe next year I'll have something to wish for, but I hope not."

Her laugh came like her question, unbidden and rang soft and low, and she sounded as she had years ago, her first Yule as a knight when Fratley had given her that awful yellow, green, and blue coat. He shrugged again and then ambled off, back to the tent that he shared with Steiner, and she let him go without a word.

After the fire burned down and she was sure that he was out of earshot, she curled her tail tightly around her left leg and leaned hard into her lance.

"Goddamned stupid lummox. I wish it was you."

*

FIN

Merry Christmas, Tami! 3