Disclaimer: I don't own anyone or anything aside from a few original characters. Though there are a couple of lines from We Are Family by Keke Palmer.
Warnings: same as in previous chapters, I guess.
MERRY (not quite where I am but close enough) CHRISTMAS!
And the appropriate salutations for everyone who doesn't celebrate Christmas, of course.
Sorry I haven't updated recently, I've just been really stressed out. And I took a seasonal position at a retail store with my hours constantly changing, so…yeah.
Anyway, I realized that the bonus chapters, omakes, or whatever you want to call them that I had in the original, I had completely forgotten in this. For those of you who've read the original, you know that there was a chapter where the people trapped on Tenrou got gifts from missed birthdays and other gift-giving holidays, even though none of them aged.
So here's a Christmas chapter!
No, Laxus' Exceed egg will not be in this. I decided not to include her in this story for various reasons.
Also, note that this does not take place during the Games where I left off. It's out of time.
Enjoy!
Makarov Dreyar looked around contently at his children (or grandkids, since many of them called him gramps).
Kinana, he was happy to see, had finally found her place, and was kissing her fiancé under one of the many mistletoe that Mirajane had set up.
Asuna and Kirito were under another, with Sinon holding Yui in her lap by the fire as the two ate sugar cookies and listened to a Christmas story that Levy was reading. Bisca, Alzack, and Asuka were with them.
Jellal was doing his best to evade Meredy's attempts to get an oblivious Erza, who was eating a piece of strawberry cake, under the mistletoe, which was as hilarious as it was concerning. Who knew the pinkette was so creative?
He made a note not to get on her bad side.
Cana had initiated a drinking game with heavily spiked eggnog, which luckily made the participants sleepy enough that even in their inebriated states they shouldn't do much damage.
Mirajane and Rin were putting the finishing touches on the Christmas feast, something that Asuna had been helping with until Kirito pulled her aside for a moment.
Lucy and Laxus were in the library, snuggling up in an armchair under a warm blanket, Gajeel was poking at Levy as the girl tried to finish telling the story (which caused her audience to giggle, especially Yui, who was reminded of their date at the library where Levy had been the guest storyteller), Macao and Wakaba were gazing around at the 'youngsters' and reminiscing about their younger days…
'First…' the Third and now Sixth guild master of Fairy Tail thought to himself, eyes tearing up slightly. 'You would be so proud…'
The Strauss siblings cried tears of joy as they each received their main gift.
A necklace for Mirajane with a female figure, one half having a halo and angel wing while the other had a horn and devil wing.
Lisanna a charm bracelet with some of her most used Takeover forms and a few other charms.
Elfman a black sweatband to go on his wrist with the Fairy Tail emblem embroidered in white.
All of them contained a lacrima that would store their most precious memories, and were enchanted to be near-indestructible and booby-trapped so that no one but them could take them off.
To the elder siblings, who had blamed themselves for Lisanna's death for years, and Lisanna, who had found herself trapped in a world without her real siblings, her memories growing more and more blurry as the years passed…
Such a gift was priceless.
Juvia almost cried when Gray opened one of his gifts to find a wrist cuff that acted as a sort of caster magic version of Requip…
Meaning that her beloved wouldn't have any trouble finding clothes after he stripped.
There would be no reason for her to bring them back to him…
Wait, no.
He would still want those clothes back, wouldn't he? The Water mage imagined he spent a lot on clothes.
And this way her seemingly never-ending stream of love rivals wouldn't have as many chances of seeing him naked, either!
Meanwhile, she could plan dates for the two of them, imagining herself wearing the new outfits and jewelry (mostly in blue, white, and silver colors) that she had received.
Raven hummed thoughtfully, using her telekinetic abilities to pass out her gifts.
"Eh?" she heard after a moment, and turned to find Rin staring at his gift in confusion.
The purple-haired girl withheld a smirk when he yelped.
His hands shook as he touched his ears, finding them to be round again like they had been before his demon half had been awakened, instead of sharper like they had been. His teeth had also shrunk in length.
Rin shifted slightly in his seat, oddly relieved to feel that his tail was still there.
"For infiltration missions." She said, causing her fellow half-demon to jump. She didn't comment, instead looking at him with a blank expression. "The bracelet is enchanted. Just take it off if you want to go back to normal."
And with that, she gracefully walked away, leaving Rin to stare at her in wonder. And gratitude.
She could deny it all she wanted, but he knew that the bracelet wasn't just so he would have an easier time when he needed to blend in.
No. She knew that he went through bouts of shame about his demon heritage (not that her and Charlotte didn't occasionally).
He smiled slightly to himself, a song lyric running through his mind.
'Cause we come from everywhere…searching for ones who care…somehow we found it here…we found us a home…'
More than a few people backed away from Cana slowly as she cackled at her last gift.
Oh, she absolutely loved the alcohol everyone but the minors had given her, but the last one?
An enchanted flask that could hold a never-ending amount of alcohol.
Perfect.
No more chugging directly from barrels!
Toph cackled as she opened her gift from Zuko.
She wasn't much of a reader, being both blind and impatient, but she was pretty sure she could manage to read a book of the history of the Earth Rumble VI (the Earth-bending tournament she'd been competing in for years), which had been translated into Braille.
The black-haired girl couldn't wait to find out what they'd written about her, the infamous Blind Bandit.
Oh, Sparky knew her well.
It was a lot better than the book of vegan recipes Aang had sent her.
Not only was she proudly a meat-eater, but she couldn't cook. What had Twinkle-Toes been thinking? Or drinking?
Ah well. She'd just put it in the guild hall's kitchen so Mirajane, Kinana, Asuna, and Rin could use it if they wanted.
'I don't know for sure if these will work for you…' Kozue projected towards Erik with a curious look in her large, hazel eyes. 'But they did for me when I tested them out.'
Curious despite himself, the former dark mage opened the bag to see a pair of black noise-canceling (or would it be noise isolating?) headphones.
"Huh." He grunted, prying apart the package and trying them on.
Comfortable, and…holy shit.
"Is this what silence is like?" he wondered aloud, but he couldn't even hear his own voice, just a muffled sound, like a normal person would hear when they were underwater.
The dragon slayer took them off, sending the telepathic mute a grateful glance, quirking his lips slightly in a semblance of a smile. 'Thanks.'
'You're welcome!' she said cheerfully, beaming as she went to go find Rin, knowing that Erik wasn't really fond of social interactions.
Natsu and Happy got a lot of gift cards, for the most part.
See, everyone had had the idea to get them food, but as they had no idea when the Tenrou Group would return, they didn't want the food to rot. So they got the pair gift cards to their favorite restaurants, which they made sure didn't have expiration dates.
They also got brand new fishing rods, which the pair were ecstatic about, wanting to try them as soon as possible.
Levy, bless her heart, looked like she was about to spontaneously combust as she stared, eyes glazed over, at the mountain of books in front of her.
"L-Lucy…" the blunette said shakily, reaching out blindly for something to ground her to reality. "Am I dreaming?"
Lucy beamed at her friend, taking her hand. "Nope! When I went to dust your books and make sure they weren't falling apart, I took note of which unfinished book series you had. And, well, seven years…it's no surprise that new books in those series came out!"
Levy whimpered.
So many glorious new books, and she hadn't even had to wait for them.
"And…" here Lucy pulled out a smaller gift from behind her back and handing it to her best friend.
Levy somehow managed to tear her eyes away from her personal heaven (quite a feat), and looked at it curiously. When she opened it, her squeal made all of the dragon slayer's cringe at how high it was. Except for Erik, who was luckily wearing his new headphones.
"Oh my god oh my god oh my god—" Levy chanted as she carefully picked up her new Gale-Force reading glasses, seeing the '180x' written in gold on the sides. "B-but…120x was still in development!"
Lucy grinned, satisfied at the Solid Script mage's reaction. "True. But it has been seven years."
Levy honest to god started drooling.
Now she would be able to read these wonderful books 180 times faster than normal! Her old pair were only 64x…
Wendy gasped as she opened her gift from Romeo—a silver necklace consisting of a heart-shaped pair of wings, which opened up to a tiny sketch of Grandineey, a miniature of the one that Reedus had painted from her based on her description of her foster mother.
It matched the silver bracelet from Lucy that, like Lisanna and her siblings' gifts, contained a lacrima so she could store and view her memories whenever she wanted.
"Is it…okay?" Romeo asked worriedly, rubbing the back of his head nervously. "I didn't want to—I mean, I just figured—"
"It's perfect!" Wendy assured him, uncharacteristically vehement as she pulled up her hair to put it on.
She was having a bit of trouble, though.
Of all the times to let her hair down from her pigtails.
Romeo coughed slightly, gently taking the chain from her and fastening it closed as she held her dark blue hair out of the way.
"I-it looks…nice." He said with a slight blush, glancing away for a moment.
Smiling, Wendy pecked his cheek, so quickly that he didn't see it coming.
The Rainbow Fire mage looked at the Sky Dragon Slayer in surprise, joy, and slight embarrassment.
That had been his first kiss from a girl, cheek or not.
And he didn't know it, but that was Wendy's first time kissing a boy, too.
The two young mages blushed heavily, carefully avoiding eye contact as they watched the others and made comments on what they were doing.
Both of them noticed that the other was blushing just as bad as they were, but neither commented.
They had potential, but they were twelve and thirteen.
There was no reason to rush things.
Please review! :)
I know, there wasn't much in the way of romance, here. Trying to write actual romance kind of stresses me out, so I didn't really want to do very many couple-y things. RoWen doesn't count because their parts are totally innocent.
