AN: I don't own Aveyond. This fic was written for a Secret Santa project at the Amaranth Games forums. And no, I don't know for certain if they celebrate Christmas in Aia, but Mel shows up in the freebie game Stargazer Christmas and in it she says "I love Christmas!" which indicates that she knows what it is in her world. Okay, maybe that's a feeble justification, but hey, it's just a story.
"Darkling's First Christmas"
By EsmeAmelia
Yemite had never seen her mistress so stressed out, not even when she had been trying to escape her destiny to rule the world. The Queen of Thais was running up and down the palace halls, shouting at the servants, sweating into her gown. "What is it, mistress?" Yemite tried asking several times, but Mel simply ignored her. Finally the darkling decided to go to her mistress's husband to find out what was going on.
"Your Highness," Yemite said as she flew into the throne room, where King Edward was standing on a ladder and hanging up a dark green garland, "what is going on with the queen?"
"Hmm?" replied Edward, not looking up from the garland.
Yemite rolled her eyes – humans were so slow at times. "My mistress has been in a tizzy all day – I was asking what's going on."
"CHRISTMAS is what's going on!" Mel shouted from the floor, nearly causing her husband to stumble off the ladder.
Yemite cocked her head as she flew back down to the queen. "Oh, that human holiday? Is that all?"
Mel gritted her teeth. "For your information, it's a BIG DEAL. We're throwing a big party tomorrow and all our friends are coming, practically the whole kingdom's coming, Edward's parents are coming . . ."
"I still don't see what all the fuss is about."
Mel's breath was coming out in huffs. "Well of COURSE you don't – darklings don't even celebrate Christmas, do they? Look, when you've got in-laws who already don't like you coming over and expecting a perfect royal Christmas celebration, then we can talk." With that, she went dashing back out of the throne room, yelling something about cranberries to one of the servants.
From the ladder, Edward cocked his head down at the darkling. "Er . . . she'll probably calm down once our friends get here."
"Oh?" asked Yemite. "Are they coming today?"
"Yeah," said Edward. "They arrive today, then the party's tomorrow night. Let's just hope my parents don't decide to come here a day early."
Yemite grinned at the idea. Maybe this Christmas thing was more interesting than she thought.
. . .
That evening, Yemite joined the king and queen in the palace's entrance hall to greet their guests. Even though the guests arriving now were old friends and the king's parents weren't due to arrive until tomorrow, Mel was still fidgeting and pacing around. There really must be more to this Christmas thing than Yemite thought.
"Lady Stella of Naylith, Your Majesties!" a guard suddenly announced, his voice booming around the hall.
The instant he finished announcing, the butterfly woman came flying in and practically tackled Mel into a hug. "Mel!" she shouted in her high voice. "Merry Chirstmas!"
"Merry Christmas, Stella," Mel said in a muffled voice, carefully wrapping her arms around her friend so as not to disturb her wings.
"I've got you a present, but I'm not telling you what it is."
"Same here."
Presents? People gave presents at this human holiday? Would Yemite be expected to give her mistress a present?
Stella had barely gotten to hug Edward and wish him Merry Christmas before the guard's voice came booming again. "Mr. Galahad Teomes and Mrs. Te'ijal Ravenfoot!" he shouted.
Oooh, the vampire couple! Yemite liked them. She flew up to greet them as they entered, snow dotted in their hair. "Fellow dark ones!" she shouted. "How is the Underworld faring?"
"Dark, cold, and full of demon spawn," mumbled Galahad, trying to avert his eyes away from the darkling.
"Why Galahad, you say such nice things about our home," Te'ijal said with a grin, showing her fangs. "Ah, Mel! Edward! So nice of you to invite us!"
Mel backed out of the hug with Stella to greet the couple. "Glad you could come."
"The pleasure is all ours," said Te'ijal. "We haven't been to a royal Thais Christmas party since Rhen Pendragon was queen."
Edward blushed a little, as he tended to do when his ancestors were mentioned. "By the way, do you need more sunscreen?"
"I think the jug you sent us should suffice for now," said Galahad.
"Master Ulf and Lady Yvette of Harakauna!"
The bird lady flew through the door in her moopie form before transforming into her human form right in front of the royal couple while the Orc came lumbering up behind her.
"Master and Lady?" Mel exclaimed. "Wait, are you two . . ."
"Oh!" shouted Ulf. "No, no, nothing like that."
"Though it would be interesting if we were." Yvette tilted her head in Ulf's direction as if suggesting the possibility, and Ulf looked like he would be blushing if Orcs were capable of blushing.
As the large group of friends filled each other in on how their lives had been going since the last time they saw each other, Yemite noticed that her mistress seemed to be calming down a bit. She also noticed that they talked a lot about presents, acting sly about what they were giving and trying to guess what they were getting. It seemed that presents were an important part of this holiday – more important than Yemite would have guessed.
"Their Royal Highnesses, King William and Queen Gwyneth!"
"WHAT?" Mel shouted almost as loudly as the guard.
"I thought they weren't coming until tomorrow!" Edward exclaimed.
"It's not my fault, sir," said the guard. "I just do the announcing."
With that, Edward's parents came striding into the room, causing the group to immediately freeze.
"Hello, Mother," Edward said in a formal voice. "Hello, Father. Merry Christmas!"
"Merry Christmas, son," said William, glancing around at the others. "I see you still keep company with these . . . odd people."
"They're my friends," Edward insisted.
"Oh Galahad," Te'ijal whispered, "I'm sure you would still like to take a nibble at the old king."
"Absolutely not!" Galahad muttered back.
Gwyneth gulped briefly glancing at the vampires as if they would eat her if Edward gave them permission. "Yes Edward, of course they are your friends." She turned her attention to Mel. "Mel, darling, you must stand up straighter. That's not how a queen carries herself."
"I carry myself just fine, thank you," said Mel. "Besides, no one in Thais cares if the queen stands up perfectly straight or not."
William and Gwyneth gasped in unison. "Edward," William snapped, "hasn't your wife learned manners yet?"
"I knew this would happen if he married a commoner," said Gwyneth, rapidly fanning herself.
"What?" asked Mel. "You were worried that his commoner wife wouldn't stand up straight enough?"
"Your Highnesses," Stella interjected, "Edward and Mel have been doing a great job ruling the kingdom. I don't think standing up straight really matters."
"And what would a Naylithian know about proper posture?" retorted Gwyenth. "Your people just fly all over the place!"
Yemite couldn't help but snicker at how amusingly shallow Edward's parents were. So typical of humans to worry about insignificant matters. "Mistress," she whispered, "why don't you use your magic on them? Surely they'll respect you better if you throw some fireballs at them."
"Tempting," Mel whispered back, "but no."
The darkling shrugged. "Just a suggestion, mistress." She never understood why humans always ignored the most obvious solutions.
. . .
That evening, after the guests had retreated to their rooms, Yemite found her mistress on the floor of one of the sitting rooms, painstakingly wrapping gift after gift in nauseatingly festive paper that had pictures of snowflakes and candy canes on it.
"Mistress, shouldn't the servants be doing that?" the darkling asked.
Mel shrugged as she pressed a bow down on the gift she had just finished wrapping. "I like doing it myself. It helps calm me down – especially when there are annoying in-laws over."
Yemite smirked as she sat next to the queen. "You know, mistress, if you had only agreed to embrace your destiny, you wouldn't have to worry about those in-laws."
Mel managed a tiny smile. "Yeah, that's true." She sighed as she started wrapping up another box. "I usually love Christmas, but this year it's just so . . . so . . ."
"Stressful?" Yemite inserted.
"Yeah." She growled when she realized she had cut the paper too short to wrap around the entire box. "AUGH, see? I can't even pay attention when wrapping presents!"
Yemite quickly flew up to her mistress, and started rubbing her back. "Don't worry, mistress. Just fix it with magic."
The queen's teeth were ground as she reached for her magic staff, which was leaning on a chair behind her. "I hate using magic for trivial stuff," she muttered, but nevertheless she pointed the staff at the paper to magically make it bigger. "Last Christmas was so much simpler back in Harakauna. Even the Christmas before that was simpler – and we spent that one questing for the Orb of Light." She sighed again. "Then of course there were all those Christmases when I was a thief . . ."
"What were those like?" Yemite asked in an enthusiastic voice – she loved hearing about Mel's wickeder days.
Mel was staring into the fire that was dancing in the fireplace. "Well, the thieves would hold a small party and we'd give each other gifts and no one questioned where we'd gotten them." Despite the stress, she smiled dreamily as if reliving a cherished time. "And of course, we could take advantage of people's extra generosity. Sometimes I even managed to beg a hot meal out of people."
Yemite grinned at the thought as she kept rubbing the queen's back. "Do you miss being a thief?"
"No . . . I mean, not most parts of it. I've got a husband I love and friends who actually care about me and I can eat as much as I want and sleep in a soft bed . . . but I'm also a queen now." Mel's smile was gone. "So many expectations, so much responsibility . . ."
She trailed off, but the darkling's grin widened as she kept massaging her back. She had figured out what her mistress might like for a Christmas gift.
. . .
The next morning, the royals and the guests all gathered in the ballroom around the giant Christmas tree to exchange gifts. Yemite mainly sat and observed, though she felt rather touched when Mel and Edward gave her a container of candied monster eyeballs. In fact, she shrieked when she opened it, and the fact that Edward's parents made noises of disgust just made the moment even sweeter.
With the intense conversations going on, it was quite a while before Yemite could ask her mistress to meet her alone outside the ballroom, but she finally managed it, which resulted in more disgusted noises from the former king and queen.
"What is it, Yemite?" Mel asked once they were in the hall.
"Oh, I just wanted to give you your Christmas present in privacy, that's all," said the darkling, pulling a small wrapped box out of her pocket. "Here you go, mistress."
Mel unwrapped the gift with some caution, as if she thought it might explode when she opened it. In truth, Yemite had toyed with the idea of an exploding gift, but then she thought this was a much better idea.
Finally the queen threw down the wrap and opened the box, pulling out a small vial simply labelled "Slip into your in-laws' wine."
"What?" Mel exclaimed. "This isn't poison, is it?"
"Oh come on, don't be silly," said Yemite. "Of course it's not poison – it won't harm your in-laws at all. It's just for a little fun, that's all."
Mel didn't look convinced. "Er . . . thanks, but I still think I'll have Ulf take a look at it before I used it."
The darkling shrugged. "Go ahead, just remember to have the Orc look at it before Christmas dinner."
. . .
Thanks to Edward's parents, Christmas dinner quickly became awkward. Edward and Mel sat together at the head of the table, but of course William insisted on sitting next to Edward and Gwyneth insisted on sitting next to Mel, despite Mel's loud protests that she wanted Stella on her other side. Things got worse as the meal progressed, with the in-laws pestering Mel to sit up straight, keep her elbows on the table, not slurp her soup – then when she belched, Edward's parents looked at her as if she were missing a body part.
But finally the wine was served and everyone rose for the king's toast, with Yemite paying particular attention to Edward's parents.
"To a Merry Christmas!" Edward announced as everyone raised their glasses. "To friends and family and not living under a dark empire."
"Merry Christmas!" the others repeated, some louder than others.
Then William and Gwyneth sipped their wine . . .
It was barely a second before the previous king and queen started belching. Not once, not twice, but over and over.
"What . . . is . . . THIS?" William struggled to exclaim between belches.
"Oh," said Yemite, feigning innocence, "just my Christmas present to my mistress."
"WHAT?" Gwyneth shouted before belching again.
"A harmless belch potion," said Ulf. "Don't worry, I can whip up an antidote in a jiffy."
The other guests couldn't contain their laughter – not even Stella, and though Edward tried to keep a straight face he couldn't keep himself from snickering at his parents' predicament. However, it was Mel who laughed the hardest. She laughed so hard that her face turned red and her crown nearly slipped off, making her look very undignified for a queen, but that only made it more pleasant after all the stress she'd been through.
"GREAT present, Yemite!" she shouted.
Yemite grinned at her queen. This Christmas thing was more fun than she thought.
THE END