The Incredibly Marvelous Christmas Sweater

Disclaimer: I do not own the Saga of Darren Shan or it's characters.

Rory Hollis, Luez Blanche, and Rhoswen Evard belong to their respected creators.

Luez de Blanche had been up pretty early that morning especially since there was a lot of work that needed to be done that day. In fact he had just gotten back inside the warm cabin after spending a good amount of the dark early morning working on getting a Christmas tree. Chopping it down was the easy part, but what had taken most of his time was picking out the perfect one. After an hour or two of searching he managed to find one that suited his taste and knew would look rather impressive. He seemed pretty pleased with himself as he carried the tree back and placed it in the spacious living room. Stepping back a few feet he took a moment to admire the look of the large pine tree just standing in the corner of the room.

"Nice tree." said a voice behind him, and without looking behind him he knew it was Rhoswen Everard. It couldn't have been anyone else as at that moment Rory was probably still upstairs not making any noises at all. There was also the fact that every year Rhoswen managed to pop up at wherever they were staying. It was one of the good aspects of her psychic gift. By now Luez was no longer surprised by her sudden visits, but he didn't dare ruin the magic for Rory. It was always fun to watch her reaction to seeing her close friend during the holidays.

"It was the best one I could find." he told her "Do you think Rory will like it?" he asked and turned towards her. Rhoswen was standing in the doorway brushing small clumps of snow from her shoulders and hair. The snow was still coming down Luez noted to himself before he crossed the room and waited to help her with her coat and scarf. Rhoswen knew the Luez welcoming drill so she removed her scarf from around her neck and carelessly tossed it towards him. He caught it with a deft hand and hung it up on the nearby coat rack. Rhos then unbuttoned and slipped off her heavy winter coat which she handed over to him and he hung that up as well. Once she was free of her coat she took a step forward, but as soon as her high heel boot hit the wooden floor she looked down. She had nearly forgotten that she had trudged through quite a few feet of snow, and her shoes showed that as they were still covered in so much snow. She made a brief frown at the sight before she took a moment to remove her shoes.

"There...that should be the last of it," she said with a laugh "and as for the tree I'm sure Rory will love it. Speaking of which where is the little bugger?" ask asked as she looked around the open sitting room and seeing it bare of any presence besides Luez's.

"She's probably still sleeping upstairs." he told her with a smile as he had an idea of what would happen next. Without much of another word Rhoswen headed towards the staircase and bounded up the stairs in a flash. She crept down the small hallway that lead to the bedrooms of the cabin and headed straight for one of the doors. It was quite easy for her to pick out the right door at there was a wooden name plaque hanging on Rory's door that displayed her name.

Rhoswen turned the doorknob as slowly and quietly as she could and pushed the door forward. It opened noiselessly and with a grin she entered the room. As soon as she walked in she noticed how bright the room seemed to look. Even though there was quite a bit of overcast from the snow clouds, and the thick curtains there was still a good amount of light coming in through the windows. She wondered how Rory was able to remain asleep, but then again once the little bugger was asleep it took quite a bit to wake her up. Looking around she saw that Rory had gotten pretty comfortable in the room as her belongings were scattered around the room giving it a semi-lived in appearance. Rhoswen paused when she noticed a rather oversized sweater draped across a chair. Walking over to it she snatched it off the chair and held it up in front of her to get a good look at it.

It took her a moment to recognize the sweater and as she did a very mischievous smile crept onto her face. With the sweater in hand she made her way over to the side of the bed where Rory was buried deep under the layers of quilts she slept with. Rhoswen waited a moment or two before jumped onto the bed directly on top of Rory screaming at the top of her lungs.

"Rise and shine bugger! It's time to get up! Wake up! Wake up!"

Needless to say that woke Rory right up, but her first instinct was to try and kick and throw off whatever was on top of her. Her plan would have worked if she hadn't been curled up under so many blankets as the more she tried to move around the more she tangled her arms and legs until she was trapped. Rhoswen simply laughed as she watched her smaller friend struggle under the blanket uttering angry noises and curses. After a few minutes of laughing so loudly Rhoswen finally got off on Rory and sat down on the side of the bed. In not time Rory navigated her way out from her tangle of quilts, and once she was free she took deep breaths of fresh air.

"Rhos what the hell? You almost gave me a heart attack!" she complained glaring at her friend who sat there still laughing at her prank.

"Well it was about time you got up, you don't want to sleep the whole day away."

"Why is that exactly?"

"Luez found a tree." Rhoswen told her. That statement alone made Rory want to jump out of the bed and head down the stairs to see the tree, but before she could Rhoswen stopped her. "Hold on there, you can't just go running down there in your skivvies." She informed Rory who gave her a less than believable look. "Trust me on this." She said without any explanation.

"Fine I'll put something on." Rory said with a groan and edged over on the bed to get to her dresser.

"Oh no I have something already picked out for you." Rhoswen told her with a rather large smile that she did not like at all. Rory had opened her mouth to ask what exactly had been picked out for her when she saw Rhoswen pull out the red sweater from behind her back where she had been hiding it.

"No. Not that. Come on Rhos please…don't make me wear it." She tried pleading but it was easy to see from her friend's expression that she wasn't going to take no for an answer. Rory glanced towards the door and wondered if she could manage to make a dash to it before Rhoswen could strike, but it was futile as Rhoswen was already starting to loom over her. So she did the only thing she could think of she opened her mouth again and let out a loud scream.

A Christmas story that I started on in November, but didn't get around to finishing it. Even though it isn't Christmas I am still willing to work on it until it is completed.

Feel free to give feedback.