AN- Merry Christmas! For Smash King's contest, I grappled with a few ideas before setting upon one about one of the simplest joys of Christmas, decorating the tree with whatever ornaments you and your siblings made from popsicle sticks or something in Kindergarten. Well, and a few other things, but mostly that. So, thank you, enjoy, keep in mind I do not own anything apart from my own ideas, and have a happy holiday! –Twilight Joltik
Ornamental Apathy
By Twilight Joltik
Rain poured down the windows, leaving shimmering tracks. Snow would have been a lot more fitting for the time of year, but the rain was nice all the same. With a sigh, Ness threw open the windows to the room he had shared with Pikachu for such a long time, letting the downpour hit the carpet with a gentle thud. If his mother was there, she'd have chastised him for letting the carpet get soiled. Ness still liked the feel the damp air brought to the room, so he pushed the negative stigma he had left over from doing so in his youth aside. He was alone after all, with no one to tell him to keep things in order.
The PSI user sat back on the bed and gazed out into the grey sky, searching for some inkling of yuletide spirit in himself and in the flashes of lightning. Tomorrow, or as it was better known, Christmas had always been among Ness's favorite days of the year, one where everything shone bright with love and goodwill. The mansion, it was covered with all the lovely hallmarks of the holiday season: shimmering strings of light, wreaths of greenery and red ribbon, sweets made with love by whomever happened to want to use the kitchen, and boxes covered in wrapping paper, topped by silky white ribbon. It looked like Christmas, and perhaps it felt like it to the other Smashers, but Ness was complacent about the whole thing.
Had he simply grown out of getting excited for Christmas? He had always secretly feared the day would come, but he'd assured himself it was impossible. The chill that December brought with it carried some arcane joy, smiles and cheer and hot chocolate by the fireplace. Why didn't Ness care for that anymore? Sure, the idea still appealed to him, but he hadn't bothered to even help decorate the tree this year, his favorite thing to do. In Onett, with his mother and Tracey, they had always hung the ornaments from their plastic tree with carols blasting from a tired out cassette tape in their stereo while smiling as they came across ornaments they remembered from years past. A cotton-ball snowman he had made in school in first grade, the little palm tree they had bought while on vacation, the angel that sat on top that looked as if it had seen better days, considering it had belonged to Ness's grandmother, each of them was a fond memory they could laugh at. Even when he'd left home and became a tenant of the Smash Mansion, he'd still enjoyed helping decorate the tree with whatever him and his friends could muster together. When had that magic vanished? Ness didn't want to lose it, but he couldn't find it in him to care much.
Water hit the floor even harder, and his yellow roommate started to stir in his sleep. Absentmindedly, Ness found his hand running over the Pokémon's soft fur. His presence made things feel a bit less hollow, much as his dog King's presence had always reassured him back home. When at home, Ness had always loved Christmas, never felt this unenthusiastic about it. What was different this year, what made him unable to look forward to the magical morning that would rise tomorrow?
Pikachu muttered something sleepily: "Pika Pi," or as Ness heard it "Master Red". Ah, that was the problem, wasn't it? So many of Ness's friends weren't present this year, no wonder he felt hollow. Red, Pikachu's proper owner, he had left without a word a few months ago. Lucas, that brave boy Ness had been one of the few able to reach out to, he had vanished as well without so much as a goodbye. Even Nana and Popo, the twin climbers who had been Ness's friends for years, they had left for some reason. The Christmases of years past, where they would fight over who would get to put the first ornament on the tree and who would get the last of Peach's sugar cookies, they had left with his friends.
The yellow rodent Pokémon's thoughts started to spin away into small cries. Ness could feel a nightmare starting to eat away at his friend's mind, so he shook Pikachu awake before it could settle into his mind further. Eyes shooting open, Pikachu looked at Ness for a confused moment before curling up closer to the psychic and resuming a series of deep, slow breaths. A short muter of "Pika, Pikachu," came from the Pokémon: "Thank you, Ness-Master," coupled with a slight smile. He returned the smile: if anything, he was grateful his powers could make sleep easier for the little Pokémon. As the grey sky seemed to grow even darker, Ness decided he'd close his eyes as well, as the dark sky's haze was starting to be echoed in his own mind. Apathy for a holiday your friends and family weren't there to experience, perhaps it could be cured with sleep…
A knock at the door made the heaviness of sleep vanish from Ness's body. "Come in!" he called, pushing off of his bed and walking to the door. Pulling it open, Ness's eyes met the artificial ones of a young blue robot, who gave an uneasy smile as he held up a slightly beat up cardboard box from which strings of gold tinsel and pearly beads peeked out.
"I- I'm sorry if I'm bothering you, but my sister, she sent me some decorations from home for the Christmas tree." Mega Man explained with a sheepish grin. The robot bore a distant look, one filled with sorrow that never sat well with that time of year. "I'd hate to mess up all that work Rosalina did on ours, though, so could you maybe show me some closet I could store it in?"
Before he could offer the location of a storage closet, Ness felt a nudging at his feet. "Chu, Chu Pika Pikachu!" came an insistent cry: "You should go help him decorate!" Despite himself, Ness found an exasperated laugh coming from his lips. He could see where Pikachu's mind was heading, and he agreed with the idea.
Taking a few steps to the window, Ness threw the glass panes back into place, making the dark pool forming on the carpet stop growing in size. He'd worry about cleaning it up later, grab some towels and try to mend the damage before someone got onto him for his carelessness. "I have a better idea," Ness called back to the robot as he turned towards the doorway.
An aside glace to the box showed the ornaments within weren't at all like the golden glassy variety that covered the tree on this year. Assorted, seemingly random with nothing unifying them, it looked much like the fare that likely even today covered the tree in a lonely house in Onett. "It'd be a waste to just put them away until next year," Ness explained as he mindlessly followed the steps to the foyer, hearing a robot's and Pokémon's footsteps behind him. "So, what do you say we put them up?"
"I guess, but I don't want to ruin all the work the others did on the tree," muttered Mega Man, who cast a glance at the green, gold, and white towering tree that sat in the heart of the entrance hall. It looked lovely, like the kind one would find in a film, but also lifeless, no personal touches on its branches serving to distinguish it from any other tree.
Bending down to Pikachu, Ness gave his Pokémon friend a small request: "Go find something to play Christmas music, alright?" The smile Pikachu gave with his nod as he scampered off reassured Ness of his idea. He quickly turned to the robot, putting a hand on his unnaturally smooth and cold arm. "This is your first Christmas away from home, right?" he asked of Mega Man, who replied with a small nod.
"Yeah, but I'm sure Roll and Dr. Light are fine without me," he assured Ness with a small grin that seemed more artificial than anything else of his body.
"It's hard here, isn't it?" Ness blurted out. "All of us, fighting for something we don't care about, away from the people we care about, I mean."
Another nod came from Mega Man. "Yeah, it is," he agreed, setting the box of decorations next to the tree. "Especially this time of year, it just feels wrong to be away from home."
Vaguely, Ness recalled Red once saying something similar several years prior while gazing out of a frosted window. Red… was he with his family this year? Most likely, as that was almost surely the only thing that would have parted that boy with his love of battling. The words he'd used to reassure Red at that time has seemed shallow and paper-thin, even back then; some cry of "It's alright, it's still Christmas, right?" That didn't help Red, and it surely wouldn't help Mega Man, so Ness searched for something better.
His eyes flitted to the lovely angel topping the tree, its wings and arms outstretched to the heavens and a serene smile on its porcelain face. "I know it's tough, I'd rather be spending Christmas with my family too, Ness admitted. "Or, at very least, my best friends. Still, I have Pikachu, and you're my friend too, so we can find something here, right?"
The smile on the robot's face seemed as real as any a living Smasher had ever given, amplified by the strains of music that were shooting from the music player Pikachu had brought into the room. Picking a few decorations out of the box, Mega Man began to hang them on the tree, only pausing when reaching a red-framed ornament with a picture of a man that looked rather like Santa Claus wearing a fitting red hat and suit, a young blonde robot girl perched on his lap, an awed smile on her plastic face. He let out a small chuckle. "I remember when this was taken," Mega Man explained. "Roll, my little sister, she wanted to see Santa to give him her Christmas list, but Dr. Light couldn't find any places where she could see him, so he dressed up as him and convinced her he was Santa."
That explanation brought a small smile to Ness's face as well as he grabbed another ornament from the box. It seemed to be a blue-tinted robotic stork, carrying a bag in his beak labeled "Rock". "Rock", that was Mega Man's proper name, wasn't it? "Was this from the year you were created?" Ness questioned.
An affirmative nod answered him as Mega Man produced a similar robotic stork tinted reddish pink, as did a small sigh. "I kind of wonder why she put these in here," mused the robot. "They're kind of silly looking and-"
Ness shrugged. "It's Christmas," he countered. "Isn't that what families do on Christmas: remember the past, even if it's silly?"
The robot storks were joined on the boughs by a small reindeer that looked as if nothing more than ancient strands of hot glue kept it together. "Yeah, I guess," agreed Mega Man. Ness gave a small smile as he saw the words emblazoned on the back of it with a black marker: "To Dr. Light, the best daddy ever", though a few words were misspelled.
The music played on as the two of them added the decorations to the tree. Eventually, much to their surprise, other Smashers joined them, adding their own decorations. Toon Link hung up a small sculpture of a seagull, Marth draped a purple cloth under the tree, Pac Man placed a yellow circle with a missing notch up next to one with a pink bow, and other Smashers added random contributions. By the time Mega Man's ornaments were all hung, the tree no longer looked grand as it had before, but like a hodgepodge of different stories. It looked better that way, in his opinion. Not like some default husk, but a bright beacon of a thousand different hopes.
Softly, a voice echoed behind him, one that made his hair stand on end. "Ness," Rosalina called. "You were the one who decided to alter the tree, were you not?"
"I-it was mine!" Mega Man lied, panic registering upon his features. "I'm so sorry, I just didn't want all these decorations my sister sent me to be stored away, I didn't mean to ruin your work, I-"
He was cut off by a quiet giggle from the blonde. "I like what you did with it," she admitted in her dream-like murmur. "It looks a lot more lively this way."
"It was actually Pikachu's idea," Ness admitted. "He thought it might help us get in the holiday spirit."
Ness turned to face Rosalina, but she had already gilded off, a plate of star-shaped cookies in hand which one of her Lumas ate from. He suddenly realized it had gotten very late from the heaviness pulling on his eyelids. "I'm gonna go to bed," Ness told his robot friend. "Merry Christmas, I'll see you in the morning!"
Smiling, Mega Man waved as Ness started back down the hall. "Thank you for helping me put them up!" he called back. "It kind of feels like bringing a little bit of home here, to see all of that on the tree, don't you think?"
He wouldn't be heard, but Ness gave a nod of agreement. Even if it was someone else's home he'd helped bring to life, it made him feel better somewhat. The apathy had all but vanished from his heart, and he found his pace quickening as he went down the hallway and back to his room. Only bothering to grab a towel for the almost dried pool on the carpet and his pajamas, Ness pulled the covers up over his head and tried to will himself to sleep. The next day would surely be even brighter than this one had been, and Ness couldn't wait to see what Christmas brought.
Much to his surprise, a different kind of apathy carried him through the next day. Though he was happy to see the joy gifts had brought to his friends' faces, particularly the grin Mega Man bore when unwrapping a gift from his older brother, Ness cared only for a handful of the gifts he received. The notes marked with a sunflower, a Poké Ball, and an eggplant, they were the only ones that managed to stir any inkling of wonder in Ness's mind, as they were the ones that reminded him what the previous day had taught him: comfort and family can be found in anything, even hastily written notes apologizing for absences he had once been torn up over.
AN- Christmas away from your home the people you love is sad. I can testify to that, considering I am writing this from a place far away from where I call my home. Even then, I can still gather comfort from other things, like silly jokes and memories that are dragged up in your mind by a random song or word. Luckily, I still got to help decorate my tree at home this year, and that's what gave me the inspiration to write this, especially after comparing it with a lavish one I encountered while travelling. In short, even though you groan when thinking of that one ornament you made when you were six, it is the very definition of Christmas. Well that, Jesus being born, and making people smile.
So, thank you for reading, and I wish you all a merry Christmas! –Twilight Joltik