Azure's Christmas at Beacon
Like the summery said, this is a fun story. It won't have an effect on the plot of the stories and is meant to be a fun get away. Please enjoy.
"What do you mean you don't celebrate Christmas?" Silvia asks loudly. I looked over from my comic and shrugged.
"After so long of being, well me, it's not something I do."
"It's not something you…. do?" She says. Man she sounds just absolutely confused. I look over at Matt on the bed next to mine.
"You confused by this?"
"I'd say I'm more shocked in all honesty." He says coolly. Man what a tool. I mean, cool dude.
"Yeah. I can really tell. You totally are an easily understood and read person."
"Whatever. At least I'm not the looser who doesn't celebrate Christmas." He growls and gets up, heading to the door.
"Hey! Maybe I'm Jewish!" I shout.
"Are you?"
"Well...no."
"Then shut up." He says and walks out. I again look to Silvia who's grabbing a jacket and zipping it up.
"Wow. Where are you headed?"
"We," she points to the two of us. "Are going Christmas shopping."
"You know, I don't really fe-" before I can even finish my sentence I am violently yanked from my warm comfortable bed and into the hallway, where I am dragged, dragged I tell you, all the way to Vale. "Now that you've got me here in the span of a paragraph-"
"Excuse me?"
"Nothing ignore that. What do you want from me?"
"Alright so Matt and I already got gifts for each other, now it's time you return the favor. I'll be doing the same elsewhere for you." She says and walk away. Uh. This is really weird. I feel like I was pushed into a Christmas special for a tv show, where instead of doing what's normally done in the show the main character has to care about a stupid holiday that's been beyond commercialized by the big companies…. I mean. Ho ho ho. Let's go find some gifts for my friends.
Now I don't know Matt that well, other than he's grumpy, the anti hero type, has an older brother that's also grumpy, is a faunes, comes from a people called the Marked Men, may be at war with Silvia's people (but she doesn't know so shhhhh), likes his bow and arrow and axe, is fast, hates killing, and that's about it. Now you may be saying, hey that's a lot of stuff you know. He seems like a fairly well rounded and developed character, and to that I'd say, why are you calling him a character, also, how does any of that help me buy him a gift? It doesn't that's how. Or does it? I dunno honestly. Inspiration doesn't strike until I come upon a decorative weapons shop. I love weapons! I should get something for me!
"Now Azure we both know you should get something for Matt." A voice in my head says.
"Shut up Conscience! Where were you when I was killing people!" I tell it. Apparently out loud because a lady gives me a weird look. After an awkward wave I slip inside the shop. Knowing my stupid Conscience is right I look around for a nice weapon for Matt. Something cool. After a few moments of walking around the store I find a cool looking arrow. White lining and what not. Very snazzy. I wave to the clerk who nods and walks over. And ten minutes later has rung me up and sent me on my way.
Now! For Silvia! She says she can do magic, maybe I'll get her a fun magic trick. Like a joke gift. Nah, that doesn't feel right. I should get her something real.
Walking down the street I look into the shop windows, trying to see things that catch my eye. I don't see much until I come upon a sparkling necklace. It had a bright purple center piece, with small blue ones dotting the edges, all that hung on a pendant attached to a silver decorative chain. Man that must cost a ton. But guess who's loaded! Seto Kaiba you say? That's an odd reference, I feel like there's more relevant ones to make but we can stick with it whatever. Yes Seto Kaiba is rich? But so am I. But probably only for the plot of this story. I mean what? Okay in reality it's because of he kind of life I've lead. For a long time I was poor. Living on the street. But since I'm good as fuck I got money fast. And lots of it. It helps that I only buy chocolate and comic books. Oh and ammo.
Anyway I head into the store and go up the the shop clerk.
"Hello young sir. Can I help you?" The clerk asks with a bright smile.
"Yup. I'd like to get the necklace in the window please." The clerk stops and stares at me in surprise.
"Sir. That's several thousand Lien. Are you sure?"
"Yeah." Another weird look from the clerk. "I'm sure. I have the money." The clerk hesitates and then nods running around and carefully getting it. They come back and ring me up. I toss them the cards and they pick it up, their eyebrows raising when it checks out.
"Would you like it wrapped sir?" Wrapped? Oh like with paper.
"Uh. Do you have purple Paper? With like cute designs or something?" The clerk nods and turns around picking up a purple paper covered in different small Grimm wearing Santa hats. That's amazing. Seriously who even thinks of these things. "I love it. Please wrap it."
Twenty minutes later I'm finally leaving the store. The guy got a call on the company phone and it was some old lady, and you know old people, they talk foooorrreeever (unless they're dead. Ha I'm just kidding). I'm holding the small box tightly in my hand as I was back to where I'm to meet Silvia. I arrive and look around. Frowning slightly. She wasn't here. Ohhh, maybe our little trip will have turned into a rescue mission! It's a Christmas miracle! I check my belt, alright thirty knives. Not to bad. And I do have my gun so that's also good. I'm about to start running when I hear a voice.
"Don't do whatever you're about to do." It says.
"Hey Conscience, I don't want to hear it! You're like four years to late." I shout at it. Honestly I should stop shouting out loud.
"Who are you talking to?" The voice says. Oh. It's behind me. I turn slowly and see Silvia holding a small bag.
"Uhhh. No one. I see you got something, you ready to go then?" I ask her. Silvia nods and another thirty minutes of traveling fly by as we re-arrive at Beacon. We're just walking through the entrance when she finally speaks up.
"I still don't get it Azure, do you not celebrate any holidays?" She asks in a small voice. I sigh and slow down.
"For me, holidays were the perfect time to catch an unsuspecting family man off guard. Sitting in his bedroom or study, his family in the next room, they never see it coming. I didn't celebrate holidays because I was doing my job. They made my job easier." I tell her. She covers her mouth slowly in horror and looks away. "You do though? Doesn't your village have like their own magic gods?"
"They do yeah. But after I left I picked up a few traditions. One I especially liked was this one. It was so innocent, so loving. I picked it up fast. And this is the first year I have people to really get gifts for." She says looking up to me and smiling. I give her the smallest of smiles back.
The next week is a blur of classes and me not paying attention to those classes. So really it's just another week. A boring ass week as well, but at the end we get our spring break… what's that? Winter? Uh. Okay then. We get our winter break. Which means noooo school for summer!- yes I know it's not summer… it's a song…. don't ruin this for me okay! Jeez I'm sorry where was I?
Right. No school! Yes it's amazing and glorious, and in three days time it'll be Christmas. I won't lie, I'm rather pumped. Apparently Matt also got me a present because another gift appeared under the tree two nights ago with my name on it. What a nice fellow. The next few days consist of Silvia dragging the two of us around to do her favorite Christmas things, decorate (we put lights on the statue), sing Christmas Carols, and a snowball fight. Now that was intense. There was heavy uses of semblances and extreme fighting. Spoiler, I won. Okay it was a snowball fight, no one won, instead we went inside and had hot chocolate. Which was fun. So yeah. Anyway after that last one we decided to- what's that? You want me to describe more of the fight? You're kidding right? That's way too much. So I'm not going to!
"Night guys." Silvia calls to us as she lays down. Matt grunts and nods and I shoot her a half salute. I fall asleep pretty quickly and have one weird ass dream.
In it the world has fallen into a war, started by a man named Alaska, in an attempt to stop him, a kid named Obsidian comes to me get me to help kill him. Unfortunately it doesn't go super well, and I die (that's when I knew it was a dream) and I pass my legacy onto the kid. Though he's kinda fuckin it up so maybe I should come back to life.
When I wake up, I can smell the tree. Which isn't a new smell at this point, but it's so very Christmas I thought I'd mention it. So I did. I sit up and find Silvia sitting on the floor next to the tree eating pancakes, Matts on his bed doing the same thing.
"Why didn't you guys wake me up?" I ask.
"We tried. But you said something about the moon crashing into the ocean." Matt says. Uh why would that even happen?
"Alright fair enough. Where'd you get the pancakes?" Silvia grunts and I look over. Her mouth is full but she points to a portable stove. "Ah you made them, can I have some?" She nods and gets up, and starts cooking.
"Now that Azure's awake. Why don't we get to the gift part of Christmas." Matt says getting up and picking up a gift and tossing it to me, picking up one of his own as well and sitting down. He carefully removes the paper and uncovers a box holding a book. He picks it up carefully and flips through it.
"What's in it?" I ask.
"It's a book on weapons from hundreds of years ago." He says. He turns and looks at Silvia who smiles to him.
"Thought you might like learning about old weapons and such." She tells him and he smiles slightly.
"You'd be right about that. Thank you. What about you Azure hm?" I look down at the box in front of me, it's the one from Matt. I wonder what it is. I remove the paper and open the box inside of the paper. And uncover a…. stuffed blue dragon.
"Really?" I ask, a small laugh escaping. I look over at him and he has a slight smirk.
"Thought it was fitting." He said with a shrug. Silvia walks over and sets my pancakes down, taking a look inside the box and laughing.
"Amazing. I love it." She says with a laugh. She heads to the tree and scoops up the gift from Matt and opens it. She pulls out a book with a deck of cards. "A magic set?" She asks incredulously.
"Christmas brings out my humorous side." He says with a smile.
"Dude I didn't know you had a humorous side." I joke. "Hell I didn't know you could smile!" He growls at me and shakes his head. Silvia laughs and picks up the last gifts. Handing one to me and one to Matt. This is hers to me. I'm about to start opening it when I hear a gasp from Silvia. She was holding the necklace I'd gotten her, a look of shock on her face.
"Uh? What's wrong?" I ask, looking to Matt who also looks confused.
"How- how did you afford this?" She asks.
"Uh carefully?"
"You didn't steal it did you?" She asks suddenly stern.
"No no I didn't steal it." I say laughing. She sighs and looks back at it in awe. "So you like it?"
"I love it!" She breaths with a smile, examining it closer. I smile slightly, I wasn't sure. It was rather fancy, I look over to Matt who was examining his arrow.
"Why did both of you buy me gifts about weapons?" He asks. Silvia and I exchange glances and then look back at his bed, which is surrounded by weapon books, and pictures, and weapons all over his wall.
"No reason." We say in unison. Silvia looks over and sees my unopened gift.
"Azure open yours." She says, poking my leg slightly.
"Oh right." I unravel the bow on top and the paper falls away from it. Inside is a small old fashioned box. I open it and inside is a blur dust crystal. I frown slightly and look up to Silvia in confusion.
"It's something that's been passed down from generation to generation in my family. It's said to contain incredible power. It's never done anything and really just a crystal at this point. But I don't have family to pass it onto, and you don't have a family, so I thought I'd give it… to you." She tells me. I blink once and gently close the box and set it on the table next to me.
"Thanks Silvia." I stand go over to her. She gets up and shrugs.
"It's the least I cou-" instead of letting her continue speaking, I interrupt her with a hug like a proper gentleman. She seems to be taken aback but returns it slowly.
"Thanks." I whisper.
"You're welcome." She mutters back. We stand like that for a few moments, comfortable and warm. It's nice.
"Hey uh, guys?" Matt calls out and we both snap apart. We look over and he's sitting there very confused looking.
"Oh shit. Sorry man." I say and we go back to eating and talking.
Now this is the part in the story that it would slowly zoom out of the room, showing snow covering the window and the three of us laughing and playing in the room. Having the time of our lives, with lovely narration to go over that. So to simulate that I need you to imagine that happening. Thank you. Now for the narration.
For having not celebrated Christmas since I was seven years old it was really an amazing thing to have returned back to it after almost ten years. I didn't have traditions or a family, but I had friends, and that's what matters. Silvia is the real hero here, if it wasn't for her I'd never have done this. Which would've sucked. Because really it wasn't about the gifts, like Target wants to make you think it is, but about the people. That's what Christmas is about, so don't waste it by being all cynical. Run out into the streets and tell someone you love them, help a child find their dog, sing a song, and overall just have a jolly old Christmas Day. Or whatever. See you around. And Merry Christmas.