Hey all1 There is a reference to a Holiday called Holi in here. It is celebrated in India and it is a holiday to banish demons. Special bon fires are lit and dyed powders of tons of colors are thrown at each other to ensure that no demon is within or can posses you.
Just a heads up. Enjoy!
Holidays at the Xavier Institute resembled an ant colony after it's been kicked over and the queen's been burned alive by a moody pre-teen with their parent's magnifying glass. Rogue loved the holidays, each and every one of them… she did, however, dread holidays at the institute. Sometime she questioned the sanity of teachers at the institute, in particular the sanity of the Professor.
It was the same very year…
In February, Valentine's day would roll around. Jean and Scott would make puppy dog eyes at each other and continue to insist, when asked that they were not dating. This tension led to several fights, of course. This was a source of great entertainment to the other students at the institute, most would abandon whatever else they where doing and gather around to watch two do go at it. Bobby, also known as Iceman, would commentate like a boxing announcer at a title fight. Jean was never happy with the audience, but she quickly learned that she couldn't escape them. Thanks to the thriving gossip network at the institute, the students had the Scott/Jean fight response time down under a minuet. The moment that there were even stirrings of a fight, text messages where sent and received in a flurry of activity matched only by two things: the response to a call to suit up and loosing at a game of Baiting the Wolverine. Once all the hubbub around Valentine's day died down it was on to the next holiday. Which Rogue was eternally grateful for, Valentine's day wasn't bad, but after eating enough candy hearts to sink the titanic one year, and then spending the next day throwing up enough partially digested candy heart to sink the titanic, she decided the holiday was a bust.
After Valentine's Day, late in February, was one of Rogue's favorite holidays. Mardi Gras. Not that Mardi Gras in New York was anything like it was south of the Mason Dixon line, but Rogue figured it was better than nothing. On the morning of Mardi Grad she'd don her dark clothes, put her make-up on… and then just to spice up the day add several strands of plastic beads that she wore only once a year. Needless to say there were some rumors about how exactly she got the beads and why she only wore them on Mardi Gras, but she let the students talk and neither confirmed or denied any of the rumors… just making the students more curious. Then, that night, she would make a delicious meal of spicy Cajun food like she remembered from home. After Remy LeBeau joined the institute the two would celebrate together, enjoying their favorite anti-holiday holiday.
So February would come and go with only a few incidents, Kurt putting love notes from Scott on all the boys' beds. Jean waking up the morning of Valentine's Day with Scott's name emblazoned across her forehead in red lipstick, her room covered in pictures of the one eyed leader of the X-men. No one ever claimed that prank, but rumors flew that Rogue, the master of pranks at the institute, had done it, though once again nothing was confirmed or denied by the Goth. Kitty "accidentally" phasing into the bathroom while Scott was getting dressed and much to his chagrin giving him a once over and then phasing out… only to later present him with a string of cheap plastic beads in a garish pink color.
Easter was relatively tame… if you could call Kurt and Kitty's surprise Easter egg hunt tame. Kurt dressed like an Easter Bunny running down the hall screaming that his eggs where missing and he need help to find them. The sight caused more than one person to fall to the floor laughing. His suit short sleeved and cut into shorts instead of pants. Leaving his bright blue furry arms and legs exposed to the world, not to mention his face. That wasn't the worst of it. The worst was that Kitty had managed to procure a lime green bunny suit, which classed horribly with Kurt. The Egg hunt was just as much of a fiasco. Kitty had filled the plastic eggs and hard boiled the real ones… then her and Kurt had hidden them. In places no one could get to.
Like: inside one of the walls, on the roof, inside one of Wolverine's boots, in the professors office, in glass beakers in Hank's lab…
Yeah… Easter was a blast.
Thanksgiving started out quiet… at least until Rogue convinced Kitty, Remy, Kurt, and surprisingly Hank to celebrate Holi on the day before thanksgiving. The Holi celebration was to be as traditional as they could make it. So fires where lit in all the fireplaces and special incenses was burned, which was strong enough to render Logan unconscious, and armed to the teeth with pouches of various colored powers the celebration began. It was almost a five hours before the chaos died down. Everyone was covered from head to toe in various colored splotches. Scott got hit in the face with bright red by Hank so he had no one he could complain to. Rogue drew a mustache in bright yellow on Logan's face, as he was still unconscious this was possible and as Kitty decided "Necessary, after all his boots were on." It was all in good fun, but the institute had taken a thrashing. Powder was everywhere, which lead the Professor to state that all holiday celebrations had to be prescheduled and to change the flooring in the halls so that they could be hosed down if this got this crazy again.
Rogue, hearing that all holidays had to be scheduled, proceeded to find all the odd holidays she could and present a schedule to the professor which included but was not limited to: The Day the Music Died Day, Disaster Day, Sleeping Day, What if Cats and Dogs Had Opposable Thumbs? Day, Snowman burning day, Panic Day, New Name Day, Talk Like a Pirate Day… and so on and so forth. The Professor was not as assumed as she was.
The year would always come to a slow close around Christmas… like everything that had happened in the 355 odd days that led to this moment were getting it down… making the year as grouchy and lethargic as Rogue that one morning that the coffee pot quit working (let's say atomic bombs had been more subtle and controlled then she was that morning). Still, Christmas brought out the best in everyone. Kurt would port around the room with mistletoe hitting on all the girls, Scott would try to reprimand him but he'd be to busy going his impression of Rudolph, turning bright red every time Jean looked at him. Rogue would receive random unmarked gifts, some she knew where from Remy, but other where a form of appeasement… hoping that she wouldn't kill them in the year to come. Finally a day or two before the actual holiday the school would empty out as everyone headed home to be with their families. With everyone gone it was quiet and still, which led Rogue to roll a tumbleweed down the hallway, whistling as made it's way toward the end of the hall, Wooh-oooh Wa-Wa-Wa… just to time kill.
Ah… The Holidays.
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