Christmas Cookies
Well Moon got her wish, though not exactly how she had been hoping. Nonetheless the overall outcome wasn't anything to complain too much about. It had actually been rather fun. Maybe we should start from the beginning.
Moon sat staring out her bedroom window. She watched as the bright Alolan sun blazed on and warmed plants, people, and pokemon alike. Normally this wouldn't be anything out of the ordinary. However, it was the middle of December, in fact it was less than a week until Christmas. Now for anyone from Alola this still wasn't strange but Moon wasn't from Alola, she was from Kanto.
Moon sighed as the continued to watch the sun, only looking away when it began to burn her eyes. There was no denying that Moon absolutely loved Alola. This was her home where she had amazing friends and memories and she would never give any of that up for all the pokemon in the world but it didn't change the fact that she wasn't going to have a white Christmas, At least not in Iki town.
She could always go to Mount Lanakila if she wanted to see the snow but that wasn't exactly the ideal location to celebrate the holidays. It just wasn't the same as having a white Christmas at home. She still didn't understand how the weather in Alola worked. On one island there could be people swimming in the ocean all year round and then you go to battle the pokemon league and your faced with sleet and snow.
Moon was pulled from her thoughts when she heard banging on her front door. Knowing her mother was out and Professor Kukui didn't even bother knocking before entering her home any more she got up to see who it was.
When Moon got downstairs the incessant banging was still going nonstop. It wasn't until she was reaching her hand out to turn the doorknob did the knocking stop and someone's cry of pain replace it. Moon smirked knowing exactly who was at her door.
She pulled the door open to reveal Hau rubbing his head while giving a 'what did I do?' look to Gladion who shook his head at him. Moon was about to greet them when Lillie pushed the both of them aside so she could greet Moon herself. "Hi Moon."
"Hey Lillie, what are you guys doing here?" she questioned.
"We're here to take you back to Aether. We're we're all going to bake Christmas cookies." She told her matter of factly.
Moon raised an eyebrow. "We are?" she questioned, not having actually heard anyone ask her if she wanted to.
"Yes, we are." Lillie said in her tone that said she was not up for discussing the topic any further. Moon shrugged her shoulders in acceptance, it's not as if she was doing anything around here other than moping. At least her friends might be able to take her mind off of her old home during the holidays.
"Well what are we waiting for? Let's go then." Moon grabbed Primarina and Null's pokeballs and then followed the others to where the ride pager charizards were waiting and got on with Gladion while Lillie slid on behind Hau, not having a pager of her own.
The ride to Aether was short as the charizards seemed to be able to go speeds even Hau would be jealous of and they arrived at Aether in ten minutes flat.
When they got off the pokemon were given some beans and then flew off away from the manmade island.
"You and Hau go get everything set up in the kitchen, I'll go with Moon to let her pokemon out with the others in the observatory." Lillie nodded at her brother and dragged Hau off to the kitchen to get started. She shook her head at her friends and followed Gladion to the elevator where they went up to the observation deck.
Upon arrival Gladion's Silvally pranced Forward to greet them. After being sure to get enough attention from the two trainers he sat down and waited expectantly for Moon to release her pokemon so they could play. Moon smiled at the synthetic pokemon and let Primarina and Null out of their pokeballs.
The two looked around, quickly recognizing where they were and went to greet Gladion quickly before running off with Silvally.
Moon and Gladion watched them run off into the grassy play area where the rest of Gladion's pokemon, Hau's Raichu, and some of the rehabilitated pokemon were playing and instantly joined in their fun. They smiled before walking off and getting back on the elevator to take them back to the ground floor. Gladion then led Moon out of the paradise and to their home in the back. Upon entering they were greeted by Wicke as she walked by and continued on their way to the kitchen.
When they reached the kitchen, Lillie was pointing back and forth as Hau moved the ingredients, pans, and cookie cutters around their work space.
"What have we gotten ourselves into?" Moon questioned Gladion as the pair stared wide eyed as Lillie started lecturing Hau because he put the eggs on the wrong side of the flour.
"Trouble." Was his one word answer as he moved to swap the two ingredients before his little sister bit the green haired boy's head off. "There everything is in the right place; now can you calm down. This was your idea and it's supposed to be fun. You look like you were about to commit murder over where the eggs were." Gladion gave her a pointed look and she deflated slightly. Lillie turned to Hau and apologetic look on her face. "I'm sorry, I just want this to be perfect. I haven't made Christmas cookies in years and I used to really love it."
Hau laughed it off and forgave her and everyone put their attention back on the baking. Almost everyone anyway. Moon had been right in her assumption that being with her friends would distract her but after hearing how baking cookies was something Lillie had done growing up her train of thought took a one-way trip right back to Kanto.
Moon was sucked back into her thoughts and failed to notice she had yet to move while the other three occupants of the room were each getting a large bowl to make the dough. They, on the other hand, did notice her odd behavior.
"Hello? Earth to Moon!" Hau shouted and waved a hand in front of her face. Moon snapped her head up to look at him and blinked a few times making her look like a Hoothoot. "Sorry what?"
"Where were you?" Hau asked.
"What are you talking about? I haven't left the room." She told him, looking at him as if he were the one spacing out.
"Maybe you were here physically but definitely not mentally. What's wrong?" Gladion asked in the soothing voice reserved only for her and his sister.
Moon tried to play it off as nothing but Lillie glared her into submission from behind Gladion before she could even think of opening her mouth. "It's really nothing, I'm just missing Kanto a little bit. When I was little we always had a white Christmas. I love Alola and I would never want to leave but the only place that gets snow here is Mount Lanakila."
Gladion stepped over to her and pulled her into a hug, she willingly leaned against him. "It's okay to miss your home Moon."
"But Alola's my home." She countered, pulling away just enough to shake her head at him.
"But so is Kanto." Lillie told her putting a hand on her best friend's shoulder. "You can have more than one home. Kanto is always going to be a part of you because that's where you came from. You have memories there, just like you do here."
Lillie joined their hug now and Hau followed soon after throwing himself at the group. Moon laughed. "Thanks guys, I needed that. Now let's make some cookies."
Lillie was the first to pull away and started directing everyone to their stations. "Okay guys we're making a lot of cookies so everyone put nine cups of flour in." What can you say? When Lillie makes cookies, she goes all the way with it.
Lillie put her flour in first then passed it down to Moon who passed it down to Gladion who passed it down to Hau who, had anyone looked just a moment longer they would have realized, had a mischievous look in his eyes as he started pouring the flour in.
Hau didn't act on anything right away. He was biding his time. It wasn't long before he found his opportunity. Lillie was struggling to pull the sugar out of the cabinet while Moon and Gladion watched as she refused help and climbed on top of the counter so she could reach the bag.
"Hey Gladion." Hau called. Gladion turned around and was met with a puff of white. Gladion froze in shock along with Moon and Lillie as Hau doubled over laughing. He was as white as an Alola vulpix and that was saying something since he was so pale naturally. A few seconds passed before Lillie and Moon joined Hau and were clutching their sides, Lillie having gotten off the counter and now moved over to lean against the table next to Hau.
Hau was just wiping the tears of mirth from his eyes when they widened comically as he caught sight of Gladion grabbing his own bowl of flour before flinging it. Hau reacted just soon enough to grab Lillie and pull her in front of him to take the hit in his place. She shrieked as she was now as white as her brother. Realizing what he had just done he took a tentative step back as his previous shield turned on him. "Now Lillie let's be rational about this." He tried as he raised his hands in defense.
Lillie wasn't hearing any of it as she grabbed one of the bowls of flour and dumped it on top of his head. Hau coughed and flour came out of his mouth. "Now was that really necessary?"
"Yes!" the blonde siblings shouted together.
At this point Moon was on the ground having lost her balance and was still laughing. The flour covered friends looked to her then back to each other and smirked. Moon had just started sitting herself up when she caught this look and tensed in alarm but had no chance of escape when three bags of flour were thrown over her.
Moon now sat in a pile of flour and resembled a snowman more than a girl. She smirked and looked to the three laughing people above her. "I hope you know, this means war." With that she let out a battle cry of her own and the real fight began.
Flour was flying everywhere with n end in sight. In fact, they didn't stop until Wicke came to see what all the commotion was and shouted at them. They tried to look repentant but failed miserably as they caught glimpses of each other and broke into laughter yet again. Wicke shook her head and left the room to go find a member of staff to help clean the mess up while the culprits went to clean up themselves.
"See Moon you got your white Christmas after all." Hau told her. The laughter calmed down and Moon smiled at her friends. "Yeah I guess I did."
Before anyone could share their shock that Hau had thought that whole thing out Wicke came back in and ordered them all out and to get cleaned up and warned them not to track flour through the house, not that that was a very realistic request seeing as they were wearing about three layers of the ingredient on them.
When they all made their way back down to the kitchen it was like their battle of epic proportions had never even happened and they even had new bags of flour waiting for them. "Okay now this time we are going to do this right and we are not going waste our ingredients this time." They all agreed and got down to work. The dough was made in no time and they set to work on rolling it out and choosing their cookies cutters.
They had Santa hats, Christmas trees, stars, stockings, ornaments, and various pokemon. When the shapes were cut out and no more dough could be salvaged they started putting the cookies in the oven. As the first batch came out and cooled another went in. Once the first batch was cooled they started decorating and the process continued. By the time the final batch was finished cooking they added them to the stacks of cooling racks and continued decorating.
Moon pushed her hair away from her eyes. "Do you always make so many cookies? We're half way through and we still have like twenty-five batches left."
"Well, no, but we have a lot of people to give them to now. There's the Kahuna's, the trial captains, the reformed team Skull, Hapu's grandmother, Wicke and the Aether staff and a whole bunch more and we can't forget about ourselves." At the end of her explanation she pointed to Hau who was munching on a cookie shaped like a litten head decorated with red icing.
"What can I say? They're almost as good as malasada."
When all the cookies were iced the four moved out of the hot kitchen and into the lounge where they dropped onto the sofas and soon fell asleep. When Wicke came in, cookie in hand, and snapped a couple picture of the friends. She was sure at least one of them would look back on this and laugh when she sent it out as a Christmas card from the siblings.
