Summary: Every year, thousands and thousands of frightened and lost kids come to me. Sometimes, I feel so sad like I would cry; and when that happens, snowflakes will always fall down from the blue sky. Alicia and Nanoha meet each other.
Little Christmas
By: Kida Luna
One Shot
Is it Christmas again?
I've never had the pleasure to meet neither the time nor the nights; therefore, things such as the passing of the calendar pages are unbeknownst to me. But there is something I know for sure.
The nearer the Christmas is, more are the children that in order to see me will come in, even if they aren't aware of this. They come to me without realizing their hearts, taking advantage of their sleeping minds, lure them to my kingdom.
Yes.
Every year, thousands and thousands of frightened and lost kids come to me.
Sometimes, I feel so sad like I would cry; and when that happens, snowflakes will always fall down from the blue sky.
"Are you new?"
"........."
"Ne, are you new here?"
"Um..."
"Why are you here?"
"I have a father, a mother and two older siblings." I see her swing both legs. "Everyone is building up their own lives, and I don't feel like I fit there anymore."
"So you're crying?"
"Um..."
"There's no reason for you to cry." She stretches out an arm and wipes her tears off. "I had a mother and a sister that looked so much like me, you know?"
"What happened to them?"
"Well... they're gone."
Right.
Only abandoned children live in myself. I open the doors of this village to them; here, where the snow covers everything and small and simple houses are scattered everywhere. Here, there is no hunger. Here, there is no coldness.
But... neither I can protect this kids from loneliness. That matter is beyond my boundaries.
-"Don't cry." I hear how she repeats. "It's Christmas, you just got here in time. I can tell you won't be here for such a long time." She smiles.
The little girl and I looked at the other one, who climbed up the white and high bench too, with her tiny feet not able to touch the snowy ground below either. She stays there, with her gaze fixed on myself, beholding my always blue sky and my always clear landscape.
"What's this place?" The smaller one asks, looking down to her knees. "I can't remember anything of this place."
"I also don't know how I get here." She meets her face to face, with burgundy eyes that laugh very deep inside of them, as if have finally found what were they looking for; something dear, in the middle of a nonsensical monotony. "But I promise to you we'll go back..."
"Where?"
"I don't know." She laughs.
In myself, days pass by over and over again, and will always remain like that until the children in Earth disappear. In the meanwhile, I'll open my arms to them. I will offer the shelter, though it depends on themselves to get back to the real world at the end.
Yesterday, they were lost and they walked through the snowstorm.
Today, they rest naively in my valley and suffer in silence.
Tomorrow... Tomorrow, they will leave behind a bit of their childishness, so they will understand that in order to be strong,is necessary to lose some things, as well as earning another ones.
"My name is Alicia. Alicia Testarossa." She takes the smaller hand.
"Nanoha." The brunette sobs while taking away the rest of her tears. "Takamachi... Nanoha."
"Nanoha, do you already know what you're gonna give this Christmas?"
Silence.
Hands still entwined, but the coppered and haired down girl denies slowly.I can feel the sadness inside every one of the inhabitants of my diminutive village.
Including Alicia's sadness, who's always smiling in the outside, while she cries in her hidden self. What a beautiful and never possible understood sight.
"Ne, wanna be my friend?"
Nanoha and I looked at her, but the tiny blonde ponytail-haired girl is only looking up at my blue sky. She swings her feet again, on the air, and her fingers fiddle with those she haven't let go of.
"If we're friends," continues in a very low voice, "you could give something to me. And I will also be able to make a gift for a special someone this Christmas. Hey, it shouldn't have to be something fancy, I'm ok even with a snowball, y'a know?"
Alicia laughs again.
And somehow, Nanoha finally realizes that no matter how marvellous a place is, it will never stop being somber sometimes.
For the first time, the brunette take a sight of all the kids that walk over the village. Some of them go in pairs, and they look rather fine and happy; another ones try to pair up with another child; and a few more just stay quiet above the white and high benches, with unfathomable eyes admiring the always blue sky or the always white snow.
I can hear this girl ask herself, in her mind, why the little blonde girl have come to her, among such millions of kids in the surroundings?
Nanoha doesn't know. Alicia neither.
But I know.
As I said, children come to me. Despite at the end, I am not what their looking for nor what they need...
"Can I?" Alicia stops laughing and looks at her with surprise. "Nyahaha... can I be your friend?"
"Uhm," she nods happily, "have no idea how long I've waited for hearing those words."
"The 24th, we'll interchange gifts then. Do not worry," Nanoha smiles for the first time, "I'll make sure to give you a nice present."
"It's all right, you've already given me something nice. Now, I surely know that soon I will return to the place I belong."
"Will you... go?"
"Nobody can stay here forever, Nano-chan. This space is awesome, but it is not true. All of this is unreal; or maybe you, and I, and all of the other kids are the unreal ones."
That's true.
The melancholy, as well as the blitheness, it moves along with the cold breezes that go through the valley. Time doesn't recognize us here. And the children can be children as long as they wish.
Nevertheless, this is unreal.
Living here... means living nowhere.
"Will you go?"
"I have to."
"Then... why have you come 'til my bench?" She lets go of her hand and rise up her legs to hug them.
"Because you're going to be the strength that will help me to get out of here. I needed you, Nanoha. Today I knew it was you, and thanks to that, I am finally able to be free."
"Stay?"
"Can't.I can't..."
What is this? I'm crying. For so long I have seen similar and different episodes, totally opposite faces and alike voices, but it is always the same. If just the world could understand that every single hit an adult receives –because hits are so traitorous and painful-, will always be a double hit for a kid.
Grown-up people know how to walk properly. However, little ones doesn't know. They cry as the adults, with the difference that being seen while crying has never scared these children. Their small eyes, cannot see far beyond from the ingenuous and brilliant environment around of them.
Even their best efforts for getting on their feet again are so fragile, and also, are the strongest ones. A child has the hope to find something to hold onto, and even though they don't know what is that, it doesn't seem to affect them.
They're ingenuous.
Cruel, in such a naive way capable of hurting others. Especially, themselves.
"Come with me."
"Alicia..."
"Come with me, Nanoha." Red pupils shine and the smile grows wider. "If don't feel yourself ready, I'll be there anyway so please don't be afraid. I won't let you alone."
"You promise?"
"I promise." Alicia laughs. "But..."
"But?"
"In order to get out of here, we must grow up a little." I see the blonde girl close her eyes. "We need to be real, so we'll be able to stand up against the real blizzard that blows outside of the gates of this village."
"Grow up... you mean we stop being children?"
"No, nobody wishes for that." Denies while laughing. "Just grow up a little to be strong, but still keeping safe our childish age here inside," the red-eyed girl points out her heart, "so we can always keep on with no fear."
Alicia pats the smaller head. Laughs fill the space where they are then. Afterwards, the bench is left empty and they split up to their humble and tiny house.
The snowflakes cease their falling, and now are the sunbeams the ones which caress the firmament, taking away my own tears that will never stop raining down. Because crying, as smiling, is one of the few things that will forever remain with one self.
24th of December.
Is finally here? Christmas Eve. Even when the nights don't exist here, darkness begins to engulf the snow allocated at my outskirts. There, where the girls from a few days, have met each other again.
"Here. Nyahaha, it could have turned out better but..."
"Umm. It's perfect."
"I'm glad to know that."
"This is the mine. It's blue, as there outside the nights do exist, so if you ever feel sad or lonely, you'll always be able to look the blue sky through it. And that will make you happy."
Cobalt eyes behold the celestial little bird, tailored clumsily in wood by childish hands. A simple piece.
And the brunette covers this piece with her hands. "With this, I can be happy no matter how dark the nights will be", I listened to her thoughts.
Now it comes the chance for the burgundy eyes to admire her own gift.
"Alicia is already very strong." Nanoha explains suddenly. "But she is so prone to lose herself without anyone else noticing. That's why I made you a star; it's white, like the snow here. So white that there is no way its light won't bring you back."
"Then, I'll be able to find you wherever you are, right?" Her eyes get soften.
"Um. You just have to stare at it and forget all the rest; then, my star will take you back with me. Alicia...?"
"I'm sorry," the blonde girl wipes her face off, "this is the best gift someone had ever given to me. I always wanted to give something... but I never imagined myself receiving such a tiny present, that I could always carry with me."
What is this? I'm crying again. The snowflakes are raining down from the sky again.
Alicia, the one who during all her stay here has only showed nonchalance and happiness, has finally burst into tears. But she keeps laughing, she is so used to laughing no matter what.
Whether it'll be a nice, void or fragile laugh.
"Don't cry, it's Christmas, remember? I don't like when you cry" the smaller child hugs her and pats her back.
"I know! It's just... It's just..."
"I'm your friend, Alicia." Nanoha eases her softly. "Although I like that you trust in myself to show you like this with me, I just wanna see you happy."
"Nanoha..."
"Nyahaha, yes?"
"Thank you. I think is time for us to depart." Alicia smiles.
I have made my snowy bushes bloom of candies, many of them, so my children won't go through hunger while they're outside, in the fierce snowstorm that bellows and attacks the mountains.
I see my girls hold firmly –with the clumsy but stubborn firmness of a child- their small bags over their shoulders. They go on, hands protected by blue and white mittens, and their Christmas gifts saved safely with them.
Those little feet finally crossed my gigantic gates covered in snow and ice, the gates that records the frontier between the place full with only days, and they place that has many days and many nights.
The doors will forever remain open, and children footprints will always create enter and exit roads one and over again.
Snowflakes fall down again on the village, as I always do when I say goodbye to one of my kids that will never come back. They have grown up a few centimeters and their hairs are barely a bit larger.
But the real growing up reflexes in their childish eyes and hearts, the hearts that lie on the outside while hiding in the safety of the inside.
Alicia and Nanoha will know again the nights and will meet face to face with the time too, the time that had been frozen in my dominions. I can't help but wondering if kids are strong enough to survive and stand up to the violent snowstorm.
The same storm that have danced around me all this years, so dangerous and different from the safe but temporal place I offer.
That is.
I am the Little Christmas, the village that exists when everything else has ceased its existence; the one which remains afar the time and the shadows, isolated. The one who cries snowflakes and gives away blue skies and white landscapes.
The nearer the Christmas is, more are the children that in order to see me will come in, even if they aren't aware of this. They come to me without realizing their hearts, taking advantage of their sleeping minds, lure them to my kingdom.
Yes.
Every year, thousands and thousands of frightened and lost kids come to me.
I watch them come, I watch them live in me and finally I watch them go away. I am the place which offers shelter for the children who doesn't have somewhere to go; it's in myself, where one day they will realize they have found what they needed to –whether they have it or not at that moment-, and also, they will realize that my existence is a fake.
I am not real.
I, who opened the doors to let them in, no matter how much sadness or happiness cause me to say this, will never closed them.
Because one day, they'll cross my gates for the second time.
And so, my children will finally go away...
"Alicia...? Alicia, have you seen that?"
"Umm."
"Shadows... a place. The wind and the snow make my gaze all blurry, what do you think it is?"
"Maybe... maybe is what we might call home, Nanoha."
"Home..."
"Let's go. We have to keep moving on... remember?"
The End.
Well, as Christmas is coming and I haven't posted here since a long, long time ago –also I don't wanna think up on another merry Christmas story-, here it is.
Beforehand, I apologize for any grammar or spelling mistakes, English is not my language so I'm poorly trying to fit this tale here.
Mentioned that, I have to say that the story is countered from the point of view of the village, Little Christmas; which would be a fantastic and unreal place where every kid who has anything or is lost, will arrive without even noticing it.
There, they can wander safely with no risks. The evil and tearing gusts of wind from the outside will never reach them; however, if they want to live a real life, they'll have to abandon the village one day.
This, of course, is metaphoric too. Because at the end, we're all children, no matter how different we look like on the exterior appearance =)
I give my greetings and nice holidays to all of you, also a Merry Christmas since I doubt posting something else before the end of the year, jeje.
Thanks for reading ^^
Kida Luna.