I know that you guys deserve an update in the actual story and not more filler stuff, and I swear that I am working on the real story, but the thing is I've been working on about four chapters of that thing simultaneously as well as this mini-series while also having to deal with school and work and finding a real job and everything else life is throwing my way including my sister's coming first baby. She thinks it's a boy, and she and my brother-in-law have thought up the names Hunter, Colton, and one other name that I can't remember but is much better than Colton. No offence to any Coltons out there, but I just don't like the name and would never name a son of mine Colton. Oh, just remembered the other boy's name which was better than Colton, Jackson. Hunter or Jackson, for sure. Colton? No. Please Chris, don't name your son, if you indeed have a son, Colton. Her due date's the 7th of April, by the way.

Setting: Radiant Garden, after Chapter 55: It's On in The War.

Essentially this is a mini-series concerning Kairi's time in Radiant Garden between December 1st when everyone runs off to fight evil, and December 7th when everyone comes back for reasons I shall leave you in the dark for at the moment. It will definitely not be as long as the similar timeframe of A Week of Troubles. Expect 5-7 chapters total; I mean it!

-A-D-

The Annals of Darkness

Garden of Snow and Ice

Snow

"I still don't know how you managed to drag me into this," Kairi muttered, a picnic basket hooked into the bend in her cast on her left arm while her right was holding up a hangar with a puffy black and orange coat on it.

"Because you scared us all to death earlier, that's how," Selphie answered in her forest green trench coat. "Ooh, this yellow and white one looks nice."

"No, it doesn't work with Kairi's hair," Olette surmised, "the yellow's too bright." She pulled another coat from the rack. "How about this Kairi?"

The Princess wrinkled her nose at it. "Uh… it's nice, but I don't do baby blue Olette." Shrugging, the girl replaced the coat on the rack and Kairi returned her attentions to looking around the sporting goods store they were in.

Selphie and Olette weren't the only ones she was with. Tidus, Wakka, Hayner, and Pence were all with her as well, each and every one of them looking for winter clothing for the Princess to wear. Well, the males would have been with her, had they not been shooed away to go off on their own until they were called for so that the girls could reveal the 'winterized' Kairi and they could be dazzled.

Kairi picked up another one, looking at the crimson nylon that covered the expanse of the coat. "Why do people get these anyway?" she asked.

Olette tisked at Kairi's naïve ignorance. "So that people can go out in the winter when it's cold, Princess Sunshine," she answered, rolling her eyes. "You can't expect everyone to just hunker down and not go outside at all, can you?"

"Yes. And after what I just went through, I don't think I'll ever be going outside when it's below zero again, nor will I ever understand how Naminé can choose to willingly play around with blizzard magic like she does," Kairi returned.

"And what happens if you go to a world that's covered in glaciers or you have to scale a frigid mountain?" Olette retorted.

"Easy," Kairi answered, "I'll melt it all or I'll fly over it or I'll just wrap myself in fire until Sora finishes whatever we're supposed to do and he comes back to get me."

"That's being really childish Kairi," Selphie told her. "Ooh, this one's cute," she declared, snatching a winter coat that was both hot pink and black.

"No," Kairi answered, shaking her head at the coat. Selphie looked at it mournfully for a second before placing it back on the rack.

"So you'd let Sora handle everything by himself?" Olette asked, pursing her lips and moving over to another rack.

Guilt wriggled like a worm in Kairi's belly and she tried to squash it. "I don't ever want to be so cold again," she said, remembering what had happened to her just a short while ago.

Kairi had left the castle with the picnic basket that was hanging on her arm around mid-afternoon. The basket was filled with plates full of the cookies she'd been helping to bake earlier, and it had taken her three baskets to get the fire spell she'd used, which warmed the basket with continuous heat so that the cookies would always be warm and oven-fresh if not oven-hot, correct. The three previous baskets were now being used as kindling.

She'd made it out of the castle courtyard fine, but walking down the sides of the road into the city and towards the mall and shops where she wanted to leave the cookies so that shopkeepers and their employees and customers could enjoy the Christmas cookies too had been a very different experience for Kairi. She'd never had to concern herself with the intricacies of walking on snow or ice, and it was minus twelve degrees Celsius outside with a wind chill of minus eighteen and light flurries.

She'd only been wearing her blue jeans, boots (which proved to be a blessing compared to the shoes she might have otherwise put on), and a t-shirt underneath her red sweater, and what Kairi considered cold was positive four degrees. Slipping on ice and falling down had been the least of her troubles despite the pain those falls had given her when her ribs pointedly reminded her that they didn't like her falling down. The biting cold wind that tore through her sweater and froze her fingers, chest, face, and ears wasn't the worst either. The worst came when she'd made the mistake of trying to cut across a park to get to the mall faster.

Having had little experience with snow before, she'd miscalculated how deep the snow beside the sidewalk was. It had only looked to be about ankle-deep to her, the same depth that she was already walking in. The creation of the snowpack under her feet had also given her the impression that walking on snow was like walking on sand. So she'd taken a step off the beaten path to cross the park.

Her foot sank into the snow and she toppled over and into the ditch. The snow was really as high as her waist.

That was the moment when she'd been defeated by the winter of Radiant Garden, when the cold and snow almost claimed her and put her to permanent sleep. If not for her Keyblade's timely interruption and shouting at her not to fall asleep, she probably would never have been able to create a cocoon of fire to protect herself with. She still stung that Flame continued to call her 'Idiot Girl'.

That was how Abel Company had found her minutes later. It took a whole section of their magic users to wrestle control of the flames away from Kairi, and when they did they'd found her sleeping and still pretty cold. An hour later the princess had woken up in Abel Company HQ, and after assuring them that she was fine, Selphie, Hayner, and Pence petitioned to take her shopping for winter clothes so that an incident like the one that had just occurred would not occur again.

They'd received permission immediately, provided that Kairi leave a plate of the shortbread Christmas cookies with the company, which she did. Easy and Baker weren't tasked to do anything, so Wakka, Tidus, and Olette were able to tag along.

"What about this one?" Selphie asked, placing a black one with yellow accents on the zipper guard and under the arms, all with white trim, in front of Kairi. "Hm?"

Olette shook her head. "I still think the yellow doesn't work," she answered.

"The yellow's an accent for this one with the black being the main colour," Selphie disagreed. "I think it'd look cool on Kairi."

Kairi looked helplessly at the two for a moment before reaching out a hand and grabbing one more off the rack. "I like this one," she declared, looking at the warm winter coat. The main body was white as snow, not entirely a colour she wanted to be reminded of, with a fuchsia band on the sides of the sleeves, upper chest and upper back. Underneath the arms and under the zipper guard the colour was that of steel; it was bright, but different enough from white to offset it.

Selphie squealed, "Well, try it on!"

Kairi sighed slightly. "Fine. Olette, hold the cookies." The brunette took hold of the basket and Kairi shoved her right arm through the sleeve. She tried for a minute to get her left arm through the other one, but her cast refused to bend enough, so she let the sleeve hang limp at her side while wrapping the jacket over her shoulder. The Dragon Knight fumbled for a few seconds with the zipper before managing to get it to start zipping. The insulation of the jacket pressed against her cast and sweater and t-shirt underneath. It felt like it was squeezing her gently, just like Sora's arms, and she could already feel slightly warmer.

However, when she looked down Kairi couldn't help but frown slightly. "I feel like a marshmallow," she said, "a one-armed Easter egg marshmallow."

Olette and Selphie laughed. "But you like it, right?"

"I guess it'll do…"

"Great, now let's get you loaded with snow pants, snow boots, mitts, a scarf and a hat."

"What?" Kairi asked with wild eyes.

"Winter newbie gets the works," Olette told her with an amused smile. "You can afford all of this, right?"

-A-D-

An hour and a half later Selphie ran through the mall, completely in defiance of the good discipline demanded of her by the uniform she was still wearing. Tidus, Wakka, Hayner, and Pence were all rounded up and escorted back to the store, and they all smiled approvingly at Kairi's new winter outfit as she came out of the dressing rooms.

They had gone with the white, fuchsia, and steel coloured ski jacket (guaranteed to minus thirty-five, so the tag said), along with a pair of snow white snow pants. Kairi had flat-out refused to wear the overall ones, so they'd been forced to go with ones that had an elastic waist (not that they were going to go with the overalls anyway, but it had been fun to horrify her with them). Her own boots, while providing her decent enough support, grip, and stability, just didn't have the insulation to keep her feet warm enough and so were replaced with white snow boots that extended to a few inches beneath her knees. Black mitts that could be flipped up by undoing the Velcro to reveal bare fingertips of hands otherwise sheathed in black cotton would cover her hands. She wore a raspberry beret, and a scarf that alternated between black and crimson bands. No matter how many times Olette said that her ears would freeze if she wore the beret instead of a hat Kairi stubbornly held onto the beret. As soon as she'd laid eyes on the raspberry coloured headdress with black trim she'd fallen in love with it and there would be hell to pay if she was denied it. So what if the red played off her hair, the black trim was more than enough compensation in her eyes.

"I still feel like a marshmallow," Kairi muttered, now that she had their attention.

"But a warm marshmallow," Olette corrected her, moving towards Kairi's left side to push the armless sleeve back in through the hole. Kairi's casted left arm was hiding underneath the jacket.

"Hey, lookin' good Kairi," Wakka told her, Tidus wolf-whistling beside him. The tiny frown on the princess' face couldn't help but turn into a smile. She laughed a little and twirled around before striking a pose with her hand on her hip. Pence snapped a photo of her with his camera.

"Definitely keeping this one," he said, giving her a thumbs-up.

"Let me see let me see," Kairi insisted, quickly coming to him to take a peek in the camera. Pence cheekily held it up behind his head.

"Sorry Kairi," he said, "but I'm still one of those old fogies that use film. You aren't seeing this until it gets developed."

"Dang it," Kairi muttered, mock fuming to the others' amusement. "Well, it had better be a pretty good picture Pence, because I want it."

"I'll make sure I keep the negatives," Pence told her, putting the camera safely back in a pocket in his green trench coat.

"Alright," Selphie said. "Let's pay for this stuff and get you out in the snow." Before Kairi could even answer, Selphie stopped her with a hand. "And NO! You can't say 'no' Kairi. I hated the snow and cold just as much when it started, but unlike you, I've learned to deal with it and have fun. Now it's your turn. Olette, you may have to warm the snow up some, but we're having a snowball fight that would make even bad bones Maleficent crack a smile."

"I doubt that she would smile for anything less than me or Sora," Kairi answered, "dead."

"Hey, don't be a pessimist," Hayner said. "I'm pretty sure that simply torturing you would make her smile. She wouldn't have to right-out kill you for that."

"That makes me feel soo much better Hayner," Kairi informed him, rolling her eyes and bringing her right hand to the zipper of her jacket.

A couple of minutes later Kairi had removed all of the winter clothing she'd put on and was carrying it all up to the tills at the front of the store. Olette was still holding onto her picnic basket. The line wasn't that long, but the woman at the front of the line was holding everything up with a complicated return/purchase/exchange that required the store manager to come and try to sort things out peacefully. Apparently you couldn't return an item after you'd already worn and washed it and forgot the receipt.

Kairi rolled her eyes again with her lips pursed thinly in annoyance. Of course you couldn't return something to a store if you'd already worn and washed the item and removed the tags; it's no longer in the same condition as it was when the store sold it! Shaking her head, Kairi tried to ignore it and listen to the music playing through the store, swaying along slightly.

"…Dreams are calling,
Like bells in the distance.

We were dreamers,
Not so long ago.
But one by one we,
All had to grow up.

When it seems the magic slipped away,
We find it all again on Christmas Day.

Believe in what your heart is saying;
Hear the melody that's playing.
There's no time to waste;
There's so much to celebrate.
Believe in what you feel inside,
And give your dreams the wings to flyyyyyyy!
You have everything you need,
If you just believe…"

The woman left in a huff after only a couple of minutes arguing with the manager and complaining about the cashier who was standing with a shocked look on her face only a couple of steps away. The rest of the line in front of Kairi had moved to the next till over, so Kairi and Olette proceeded up to the till. Kairi gave the girl running the register a sincere smile and glanced at the back of the woman angrily striding out of the store. "Oh, I'm glad I don't work retail even though I still have to deal with idiots occasionally," she said. All she had to do was remember Sobel, the douche.

The girl returned with a faint laugh. "True that," she said while Kairi placed her items on the counter. "Find everything O.K.?"

Kairi nodded and started digging into her purse. "Yeah, I did."

The manager leaned towards the girl and whispered into her ear, but Kairi still heard what he said. "Don't charge her."

The auburn-haired teen looked up as her hand froze in her purse, and the cashier looked at her boss in confusion. "Uh… why?" she asked.

"That's the Princess," replied the manager. The cashier looked back at Kairi for a second or two, then recognition burst onto her face and it looked like she was about to scream, "Oh Holy Light!"

Kairi was quick to nip that in the bud before it even got out of her mouth. "So what if I'm the Princess?" she asked. "Right now I'm a customer, aren't I? I don't expect to be treated any differently from any other customer."

"But you're the Princess, Your Highness," said the manager. "You don't have to pay for anything. Consider your purchases a gift."

"No!" Kairi answered. "I don't want to feel like I'm getting stuff for free just because of my blood. If I was actually born to my parents from Destiny Islands, you'd be charging me full price. I want to pay. It's a fair trade; I won't be feeling like I'm cheating you out of crap and you'll be making a profit."

"We can't take your munny," the manager said again. "I insist. They're a gift."

Kairi felt like screaming. Dammit, she was being just as difficult as the last customer, only in the opposite sense.

"Kairi…?"

She didn't even register who it was that had said her name, and she probably shouldn't have exploded, but she did. "I am not a charity!" she shouted at the manager. "I don't care that I'm the Princess! I don't care that I've been orphaned twice now! I have the munny I need to pay for what I want to buy. Please just take it like you would anyone else. Just let me feel like a normal teenager again for a little while!"

She didn't realize where any of that came from, but as soon as the words left her mouth she knew that they were true. Tears were threatening to come out from her eyes and Kairi ducked her head so that they couldn't see her cry. She sniffled.

Selphie was suddenly in front of her with her face right in the manager's. "You have to understand," she said forcibly, "we've lived our whole lives believing that we're normal people. It's only recently that her life has changed to make her really important to lots of people. We've grown up under the impression that we'd go to school and university and become doctors or lawyers or Guardians or trades people, this is a huge change."

"Royalty doesn't pay," the manager insisted, though he appeared quite shaken.

"Well at least let me give you something!" Kairi countered. "Olette." The brunette nodded and opened the lid on the picnic basket. Selphie turned around and pulled a plate of the shortbread cookies out of the basket. "I originally came out today to give out the cookies I helped bake from my mother's secret shortbread Christmas cookie recipe. They're for your staff and customers to have."

"You baked your Christmas shortbread cookies?" Tidus asked excitedly. He turned to Hayner. "Dude, how come you didn't tell me what that basket was for!"

"Are they really that good?" Hayner asked.

Tidus nodded emphatically. He looked over to the plate and his eyes glazed over. "And you iced them too! They were really good with the icing last year. What icing did you—?"

"Homemade buttermilk icing," Kairi said proudly, wiping her eyes with her right hand. "And there are more cookies in there than just the shortbread ones, it's just that those were the only ones I worked on."

Selphie smacked Tidus' reaching hand away. "Hey! These ones are for this store. We've got a plate in our company mess."

"But I'm not in your company!" Tidus protested.

Kairi smiled at him. "All you have to do is ask Tidus, and you can take a plate of them back to Easy Company."

"SWEET!"

"Same for me, ya?" Wakka asked with a cheeky grin. Kairi giggled and nodded.

"Planning on sharing some of the cookies with the rest of Easy Tidus?" Olette asked.

"No way Forrest! They're mine!"

"You fat pig," mocked Olette.

The cashier basically stepped back with her hands in front of her, looking to her manager for guidance. The man appeared to only be around twenty-three himself, so he was also at a bit of a loss. Nervously afraid of the Princess possibly blowing up again, he reached forward and picked up a cookie.

"I can cook," Kairi told him irritatedly, folding her right arm onto her cast, "and bake. I'm not some useless dingbat Princess who can't do shit to save her life." The manager's eyes widened slightly at her swear before he bit into the cookie.

They brightened immediately and he chewed a little before swallowing. "Payment accepted Your Highness," he told her, bowing slightly. Kairi nodded her head and smiled at him.

"Make sure you offer some to your customers," she told him while scooping her 'purchases' up in her arms. She picked up the raspberry beret first and placed that back on her head. Selphie fixed it up for her while Kairi grabbed the rest.

-A-D-

A couple hours later they had traversed through the entirety of the mall, giving out the remaining plates of cookies to their favourite stores, and Kairi had purposely tried to avoid Cloti's Closet regardless of what Yuffie had told her, but as soon as Selphie and Olette motioned that they should go in, the poor Princess was doomed to oblige.

She did use the excuse to her advantage though, and picked up the items Yuffie'd suggested she try out. She couldn't wait for Sora to get back, and it hadn't even been a full day yet!

"Alright!" Selphie said when they were finished, "now let's go out and part-ay! Snowball! Snowball! Snowball! Fi-ight! Fi-ight! Fi-ight! What's that spell?"

"SNOWBALL FIGHT!" Hayner, Pence, Tidus, and Wakka crowed.

Kairi laughed and shook her head while Olette still hung on to the picnic basket, now containing only two of the dozen plates stacked full of cookies; one for Easy Company and one for Baker Company, since Abel already had theirs as thanks for saving her from the snow and cold. "Whatever, help me get this stuff back on," she said, putting down her bags from SportGarden and Cloti's Closet and pulling out the ski jacket she'd gotten.

A couple of minutes later she was back outside, only this time wearing her new winter ensemble. Already the wind was stinging her eyes and ears and the top of her cheeks, but beyond that, she couldn't feel the cold anywhere else on her body. The light wind and cold air didn't have the strength to cut through the insulation on her ski jacket, even counting the massive zipper on the front, and all she could feel on her legs and hands was that same slight wind pushing against the fabric without actually going through too well. The scarf that was on her neck and chin and the tip of her nose also held back the wind and cold air, even though it now felt completely weird to Kairi as she inhaled almost the same air she was exhaling.

"So, how's winter now Kairi?" Hayner asked, dropping his beret to cover the tops of his ears while hunching up a little more in his trench coat.

Kairi pulled down the top of her scarf. "It feels better," she said, looking out at the streets and snow in the golden lamplight from the streetlights. "Much better, actually, like it's not as cold as I remember it being earlier."

"All you had on was a simple sweater earlier," Olette said with a faint smile. "You were not prepared. Now you are. Winter's a cold-hearted bitch if you don't know her, but once you do…"

"She's still a cold-hearted bitch," Hayner finished, "but at least you're able to have fun with her."

"Right," Olette laughed, pulling her little staff out from inside of her trench coat. She pointed it at a nearby pile of snow and said, "Fire." Raw heat radiated out from the tip of the magic weapon, and after a few seconds the snow looked like it was sweating.

"That should be enough," Pence said, stepping in the path of the heat before Olette cut it off in order to test the snow. He dipped a hand into it, then scooped some up with a smile on his face. "Yeah, this is the good stuff right here: nice and moist and sticky."

"Have I mentioned before that I'm not too fond of this idea?" Kairi asked, taking a step back as Hayner and Olette each crouched down now and began scooping up some of the snow.

"Too bad Kairi," Wakka said, smirking, "because it's happening, ya? Oh, wish we coulda found Charlie or Vivi before we started this, then we coulda had even teams."

"What makes you think we need them?" Hayner asked. "The three of us can take you guys on no problem." And to prove it, he chucked his first perfect snowball at Wakka's head.

The ginger ducked, the missile just missing his head. Selphie shrieked as Olette hit her chest with a snowball at point blank range. "Wah! No fair! You've got a monopoly on the good snow!" Tidus grabbed Selphie's arm and yanked her back.

"Run!" he yelled, turning around as Pence let one fly, just missing Tidus' side due to the boy's turn. Kairi wasted no time in following as the four of them sped away from the three Twilight Towners.

"Dang it," Wakka said, glancing around. "We got no snow!"

"And I couldn't even make a snowball if I tried anyway," Kairi added. "I can only use ONE hand!"

"Quick! To the park!" Selphie ordered. "We'll use the snow covering the ground there!"

"How?" asked Tidus. "None of us know magic!"

Kairi felt like smacking him. "Hey!" she shouted.

"Oops, sorry Kai."

"You'd better be sorry," she huffed. A snowball whizzed past her ear and Kairi ducked away, a bit of adrenaline pumping into her veins at the feel of being under fire from snow-packed ordinance. She laughed at the feeling, her hot breath coming out in a cloud in front of her.

The four Islanders leapt over the snow-covered ditch and landed in varying states on the other side. Kairi's feet didn't land right on the perfectly level surface and fell back into the ditch, but this time she wasn't bothered so much by the cold snow that stuck to her hair as she was by the painful smack her injured ribs sent her brain for falling down again. About twenty metres away to her left was a patch of ground covered by a thin dusting of the white powder that had fallen after she'd melted it all away.

Ignoring that, Kairi took Wakka's hand while still holding onto her two bags as he reached down to help her up and ducked again as another couple of snowballs flew in around them and missed. Tidus jumped the short chain-link fence and Kairi followed, with Selphie beside her and Wakka bringing up the rear. The snow they landed in was almost shin-deep, and it was a bit of a chore to move in it.

"Now what?" Wakka asked, looking behind them as Olette, Hayner, and Pence caught up to them on the other side of the chain-link fence and scaled it. Olette was already softening the snow closest to the three best used to winter. It was darker here, with only the light from the streetlights filtering in from the road and none placed out where they were. Visibility in the darkness wasn't too great, and the snow was still coming down gently.

It was perfect.

Tidus made a hand signal that Kairi didn't understand, but that Selphie and Wakka apparently did and the three of them fanned out. Shaking her head slightly, Kairi placed her free right hand out in front of her, watching as Olette continued to warm up and slowly melt the snow around herself and her two companions so that they could use it as easy ammunition. "I'll show you not to play around with me when it comes to fire magic Olette," Kairi said with a big grin.

She dropped her bags and red light seeped out of the black glove on her hand, and she instantly felt her fingers warming back up to the temperature they had been before they left the mall. They hadn't dropped much, temperature-wise, but they were still a bit colder than they had been before. Kairi waved her hand in front of her horizontally in broad arcs, the red glow staying in the air where she'd passed her hand over. Once she was done the fifth arc Kairi let out an exclamation of, "Alcië!" and the strokes of red light dove into the snow. Immediately the snow around them began to hiss and steam rose from below. The snow level dropped to about half its previous height and became more condensed, and Kairi snapped her hand out to her side with the word, "Freeze." The steam stopped rising.

Tidus bent down first, and found the snow not too warm and slushy that it would make a wet snowball like some of the ones the Twilight Towners were making, but also not so cold that it wouldn't stick together unless packed together with lots and lots of snow. Essentially it was perfect snow, the type of snow that snow cones could technically be made out of or that snowmen and snow sculptures were created from. Children's snow and builder's snow…

Snowball snow. And the Islanders were surrounded by it while the Twilight Towners weren't. Olette and Pence just weren't that good, despite their huge superiority when it came to winter knowledge.

Tidus and Wakka hastily dropped down and started making snowballs at a rapid pace, only taking a second on each one before placing them in neat piles and moving on to the next. Kairi grabbed the first one that was ready and threw, knowing already that her aim was off in the low light and being out of balance with her left arm tucked in close to her belly. It fell five feet away from Olette, crashing down and kicking up a spray of white powder.

"Missed me Kairi!" Olette called, scooping up some of her own mix of melted snow and snow and forming it into a ball. Kairi jumped away from Tidus as Hayner chucked one towards the two of them, and it just missed her while missing the blond by a mile. Kairi ran, her hand glowing with red light again as she waved it around. The park was large, with tonnes and tonnes of snow to utilize.

"Alcië!" she shouted, sending the waves of unshaped fire down into the snow to cause part of it to melt and steam. "Freeze! Oof!"

Pence had lobbed a snowball at her and it had nailed the auburn-haired, raspberry-bereted Princess in the side of her chest as she turned. Kairi stopped and looked at it for a second as tiny pieces of the snowball remained sticking to her ski jacket while the rest fell away to the ground. It was strange. The snow was plastering itself right up against her jacket, and yet, its coldness wasn't getting through to her at all. In fact, she even felt warm right now; and not the sleepy warm either. She was warm and energetic and a little cold all at the same time! It was a strange feeling.

"You're going down Hayner!" Tidus called, tossing a missile at the blond Struggler.

"Corporal Tidus I'll have you written up for assaulting a superi—" Hayner began in good fun before he got a face-full of snow.

"Boo-yah!" Wakka crowed, having pitched that one straight for the blond's head. "Hey Sergeant Garneky, what was that about hitting a higher-rank?"

"Let's get 'em guys!" Selphie cheered.

"Right back at ya," Pence replied, tossing one her way. The girl shrieked and dropped flat on the snow-covered ground, the snowball just whizzing over her shoulders.

"Guys back here!" Kairi called, beckoning with her hand. The shapes that were Selphie, Tidus, and Wakka rushed back to where Kairi was standing, and the Princess of Heart pushed outward with her hand. Three orbs of white light emerged in bright flashes and rocketed off towards Hayner, Pence, and Olette, stunning everyone with their brightness, before they hovered about four metres above each of the Twilight Town teens and one metre in front of them.

Kairi raised her hand now, and a good portion of the perfect snow she'd developed, as well as the snowballs already made by Tidus, Wakka, and Selphie, dragged itself back towards them, rising to create packed walls as thick as Kairi's fist and as high as Wakka's neck in most places in a circular fort twenty paces in diameter, with snow still beneath their feet ready to be used to either patch up the defences or create additional ammunition. There were only two entrances, one at the front and one on the right (facing front), and both were only wide enough for one person to enter or exit

Selphie gaped in awe for a second as Kairi sighed and slumped down, falling back on her butt. "Kairi!" she said in amazement. "I didn't know you could do this!"

"Just because I don't particularly like blizzard magic doesn't mean I suck at it Selphie," she answered with a chuckle. She waved her hand once more, and a small, softly glowing white orb formed slowly and hovered in the air near her head, illuminating the 'inside' of the circular snow fort. Kairi reached a hand down into her purse and pulled out a blue cube. She didn't even look at it before smashing it into her face, sighing as she felt the energy return to her. "But, Naminé's much better with it than I am."

"Uh," Hayner began from the opposite side of the wall, "I think we're gonna need backup for this one guys."

"Yeah, that's right!" Wakka jeered. "Ain't no way you guys comin' in here!"

"We've got you beat!" Tidus cheered.

"Oh yeah?" Hayner asked. "Think you're all that? Well I'm taking off and coming back here with my whole section, maybe even my whole platoon! How are you gonna like them apples?"

"I'm in your damn section Hayner and if you and Pence bring 1st Platoon back here then I'm gonna go and talk to Lieutenant Rokan and Second Lieutenant Meehan and get both 2nd and 3rd Platoon on your ass! Isil will take you down." Selphie retorted.

"And I'll bring all of Baker down on you!" Wakka added.

"And half of Easy," said Tidus, "since Olette's probably going to win over the other half."

They could just barely see Olette's facial expression in the light coming off of Kairi's conjured orbs. "Half?" she asked, amused, "the only ones you'll be able to sway, Tidus, are Marble, Melbourne, Anar, Kia, and maybe Jeff. But, Jeff's in my platoon, so he may even come with me, just like the rest of Easy."

"What makes you think you'll get the rest of the whole fricking company?"

"I've got Kairi's cookies and if I'm able to get Holmes and Woods to come with me, well, you know what will happen when 3rd Platoon's Femme Magic Trinity are on the move." Tidus rolled his eyes.

"Well if you guys do that," Kairi added, "then I'm going to call in Captain Beagle and my Royal Guard and we'll lay the smack down!"

"Isn't that only like, twenty guys?" Wakka asked.

Kairi was flustered for only a moment. "Yeah, so? They're the best."

Tidus harrumphed. "Easy's the best."

Kairi raised her hand in front of her and a mist of white light formed above her hand. "Captain Beagle," she said, recording a message in the light, "gather your men and meet me in Rockshaw Park in forty-five minutes, ready to defend your Princess and win snowball glory!" She stopped speaking and the mist became yet another ball of light and shot into the sky.

-A-D-

Hours later Kairi returned to the castle, carrying her shopping bags and surrounded by the twenty-odd soldiers and officers under the command of Captain Nikolev Beagle that made up the entire 8th Royal Guards Regiment. It was rather sad when she thought about it, but that issue would probably be rectified in the coming years. She was cold and wet and warm and tired and happy all at the same time; her cheeks were ruby red and snow caked her raspberry beret, hair, gloves and scarf and clung to her ski jacket, boots, and snow pants. But all the same, even though it was probably on the wrong side of ten o'clock, Kairi had no desire in her to go to bed yet.

She was greeted by Christmas as soon as she and he guard entered the castle. Boughs of holly were hanging high up on the walls and along the railings. Massive snowflakes hanging down on silver strings were strung from the ceiling, and there were even dual shawls of silver and red tinsel wrapping around the dry arms of the mermaid in the fountain at the base of the stairs. A big great Christmas Tree was up, but it didn't have any lights or tinsel or garlands or beads or baubles or any sort of decorations on it yet. Christmas music was still playing on a concealed intercom radio system that Kairi had yet to locate the speakers for, but she was glad that the tune welcoming her was Johnny Mathis singing It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas.

"…glistening once again,
With candy canes and silver lanes aglow.
It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas;
Toys in ev'ry store.
But the prettiest sight to see is the holly that will be
On your own front door."

"Kairi!" exclaimed a much less musical voice, though one the princess found no less pleasant. Menelmon flew out of her perch in the tree and landed right on the girl's shoulder. Kairi laughed and hugged the bird with her one good arm while Menelmon rubbed her cheek against Kairi's ruby red one. "You're back. You were gone a long time."

Kairi grinned. "I know. I ended up going shopping with the gang and got in a big snowball fight."

"Yeah!" PFC Trent roared, sticking his fist in the air, "and we kicked tail! The Crown!"

"HAS FANGS!" chorused the rest of the company.

Kairi turned slightly to look at her guard with a confused expression on her face. "You know, you guys have shouted that about fifteen times tonight and I still have no idea what you mean when you say it."

Captain Beagle chuckled slightly, the man in his early forties lightly patting her back. "Well, the story goes like this," he told her. "About, oh, two hundred years ago just after your family was able to join the fractured kingdoms of the world together into one is when it happened. Most of the kingdoms had joined through diplomatic treaties and the other two nations were gained through conquest, and I think it was because of the conquests that this happened. But anyway, this noble, Duke Boras Levistan if I remember correctly, started trying to incite a rebellion against the new King of the world because he wasn't doing things in ways he liked, probably in ways that lost the Duke munny or some of his lands, and went to the King to inform him of his intent to take the crown if his demands weren't met.

"Well, story goes he never met the King, but was instead stopped by a Sergeant from the 8th Royal Guards. When the Duke told the sergeant of his plan to seize the crown and that he must be let through to inform the King of his opposition, the sergeant quietly had him surrounded and said, 'Well, there's a little problem with that plan of yours. You see, if anyone tries to snatch the crown off of the King's head, he's going to find out that the Crown's got some pretty big fangs that'll bite back. We're them.' And he and his men picked up the Duke and tossed him into the moat; the castle had a moat back then. Duke Levistan's rebellion never happened. That's what we in the 8th mean when we say that the Crown has Fangs, it's got us."

Kairi laughed. "That's cocky; I like it. And you know what else I like? Hot chocolate! Let's go and get some."

"That's the spirit Your Highness," said Marie Namis.

"Me too?" asked Menelmon. Kairi laughed again.

"Yes Menelmon," she said, stroking her digimon partner's head, "you too. Oh, I should probably call Sora too." Kairi brought her right hand out in front of her and unzipped her ski jacket before stopping. Her guard stopped around her, and Kairi shook her head dismissively as she kicked at her feet. "No, you guys go on ahead," she told them, gesturing at the large wooden doors on the level above the golden mermaid fountain. "But, uh… Jenkins, could you go and tell Helia and the cooks that we're looking for some hot chocolate and some of the cookies we baked this afternoon?"

"Sure thing," said the woman. "Sheesh, just because I guarded you when you were arrested I end up getting all the unpleasant jobs," she chuckled.

"I'll turn a blind eye if you should sneak a cookie or two."

-A-D-

Well, that was the first chapter of this one. She starts off hating the snow and cold, and now Kairi's gained respect for and an appreciation of it. I hope you all enjoyed it.

Now for the translation:

Alcië (Quintessence: Fire)

May the Grace of the Valar Protect You

Shire Folk