kitchen_maid | Christmas Party! Millitimed Vaguely to "Sometime Around Christmas"

Christmas Party! Millitimed Vaguely to "Sometime Around Christmas"

Anne and Amy have been very very busy over the last week or so, transforming their usually simple white room into the perfect place for a Christmas party.

There are garlands of holly and balsam strung around the room, leading away from the wreath between the windows (and there's a grumpy looking crow, perched in the middle of the wreath, trying to figure out how to get the red ribbon from around his neck). A Christmas tree, candles ablaze, stands in one corner, with presents tucked under its branches.

Welcome, dear friend, to Anne and Amy's Christmas party.

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Amy's blush might intensify a bit.

"Well, that's good," she says, and oh but her tea is suddenly interesting.

"And what do you think of him?"

He still sounds amused, but curious, too.

Well, that is the question, isn't it?

"I'm not entirely sure," she says. "I like him, I just . . . well, he's very sure of himself, isn't he? And that's good, and it's . . . well, I suppose it's to be expected, given that he's a king and all," and here there might be a note of teasing in her voice, ". . . it's just . . . I don't know, I guess he just seems very sure of me, too."

Caspian nods.

"All of these are good things, are they not?"

"Yes, so long as he isn't too sure of me, if that makes sense," she says.

Blushing more than ever, "I think I like him quite a bit."

"Good," Caspian says, firmly, "because if you didn't, I would have to run him off. And you know I can't be bothered to do that."

Amy gives him a look of mock disgust. "Well, really, then, what's the point of having an older brother if he can't be bothered to run off pernicious suitors and their mistletoe when you need him to?"

Caspian laughs.

"Well, no use at al--Wait."

He considers her words.

"Did you say mistletoe?"

There might be even more of a grin in his voice now, though he really is trying terribly hard to look forbidding.

Amy gives him a carefully innocent look.

"Did I? Hmmmmm. I have presents for you, you know."

Caspian will not be side-tracked.

"So He brought the mistletoe."

He looks at it thoughtfully.

"And I suppose he felt he had to test it out--in a manner of speaking."

Amy knows when she is not going to be able to change a subject.

A not terribly serious sigh, and something of a blush, and she nods. "I think that was his argument, yes."

Caspian grins.

"Well, as long as you don't mind, I don't," he says, "but I want you to know I'm going to be keeping my eye on him."

Both eyes, really.

"I wouldn't have it any other way," she says, with a smile. "And I do like him rather well, really."

"If you like him," Caspian replies in a tone that sounds as though All is Settled, "then that's that, really."

"That's that," she agrees, with a grin. "Except for the presents."

"It wouldn't do to forget those," he says, solemnly.

Except for that grin.

"Wait here," she says, and is gone to the tree, returning in a moment with her arms quite full.

There are four packages, one of which he will recognize, and three of which he will not.

"These," she says, depositing most of them in his lap, "are for you. Well, not all of them, exactly, but you'll have to do the opening. Gifts by proxy."

"Er," he says, staring at the packages. "Why am I opening them?"

"Because it will be easier for you than for their recipients."

There's a heavy, rectangular package (which is actually for Caspian), a book, entitled Of Phantasmorania, part history, part geography, part just general information. Amy has gone through it and scribbled notes in all the margins, ranging from the brief ("not, strictly speaking, remotely accurate) to the quite extensive (her own stories and memories of places and events).

The other two are both shapeless and squishy. The larger (which is quite large) contains a horse blanket, which Amy did not make, in dark red, with Caspian's name embroidered on one side and Kiseki's on the other, in gold. The smaller (which is quite small) also contains a horse blanket, which Amy did make. This one is purple in the way grape chewing gum is purple, and has the names in bright green, "Caspian" on the first side again, "Killer" on the other.

"Amy..."

He looks amazed, and his smile is very tender.

"Amy, these are lovely gifts."

She is gathered, quickly, into a hug.

"Thank you, my dear."

"Merry Christmas," she says, hugging him back.

"My Uncle Aurelious wrote the book. He can be a little long-winded, and he left out some of the more interesting parts of some of the stories, but I tried to fill them back in." She grins.

"Do you mean he can say more than qwa?" Caspian asks, grinning.

"Ever so much more, so long as he is writing. He's not much of a conversationalist, really, but he is a very very kind man, if excessively proud of his glossy black moustache."

A very little sister smile. "Should I open mine?"

Caspian laughs, and then nods.

"Oh, please do."

Her sisters are the sort of people who open things frustratingly neatly, saving the ribbon and carefully folding the paper. Amy is not. She opens presents quickly and with rather a lot of ripping. It's more fun, and far more efficient.

She looks at Caspian curiously, though, once she's opened it. "It's a bridle," she says, and very uncertainly, given it's a statement of the obvious.

Christmas Party! Millitimed Vaguely to "Sometime Around Christmas"

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