...*Sylph quietly leaves this here and disappears again*
x x x
Drabble Collection 5 - Halloween Edition
x x x
"You're looking much improved, dear boy!"
Chase caught himself gaping and conscientiously shut his mouth before his surprise visitor took it as invitation to make some joke about fish or frogs catching flies...or some weird fairy culture equivalent. He only opened it again when his thoughts were sorted coherently enough to ask, "Al, what're you doing?" And, because he might not get the explanation he wanted unless he was perfectly clear, "What are you wearing?"
The redheaded fairy had foregone his customary attempts at imitating "modern fashions" as well as his renaissance reminiscent clothing. Instead he sported a gentlemanly red coat, a black hat-like some older precursor to a baseball cap, Chase thought-that his mess of red hair sprang out from under in strange angles, black boots, and white...trousers. The young man mused that he couldn't think of them as "pants" since there seemed a British air about the whole ensemble. There was even a small horn and riding crop tucked into the fairy's belt.
"Mm? Oh, this?" Al cast an eye down at himself. "Well, as I've rather comfortably settled into the name Todhunter, I thought it would be appropriate to dress so. The season here is roughly the time of Samhain. Recently I've found the traditions of foolery and play more palatable than devoting to remembrance of the long dead."
"Saw-what now?" Chase muttered, though he wasn't really looking for an explanation. He'd long since grown used to letting Alastor's slips of history and fairy trivia pass with little or no remark. This time, however, he had the feeling that only half of it was zooming by over head and the rest of it was with grabbing reach. Well, the big giveaway there was the mention of the season.
The fairy had accosted him as he was passing through Ehmead Hill, the hill a riot of flaming red and orange leaves turning to muddy brown. An insistent chill was starting to creep in on him now that he'd stopped moving, forcing him to pull the collar of his patched coat in closer. Mellie had given it to him when he first started walking around everywhere with his fingers tucked under his arms. Now there was frost on the grass some mornings, and it wouldn't be long before the worn out coat was fighting a losing battle.
"So, wait, you're in that get up because it's about time for Halloween?"
"Ah." It was just a tiny noise of understated enlightenment. Alastor blinked and said nothing for a second. Chase allowed himself a small smirk; catching Al off balance one way or another always counted as a win even if he wasn't sure how he'd done it. "Yes," Al finally replied smoothly while trying to mask his fumble, "quite right, that is what most of you call it now. From All Hallow's Eve and all that."
"Uh huh," Chase was still grinning. "Right. So what does 'Saw-win' have to do with your first visit in months? You sorta disappeared after it became obvious the aer wasn't actually going to smother me to death." Actually, the fairy had on a few sporadic occasions returned to check in on him, but the last time had been three months prior.
A bright smile returned to Al's face, this one of the variety Chase hated. He liked the one that knew Al was covering up for making an ass out of himself, and the rare genuine one when Al was relieved about something, but this was his version of a shit eating grin. It was accompanied by a flamboyant twist of Al's wrist that ended stretched out in Chase's direction in offering. Some luridly orange thing was dangling from his fingers by a black wire. It was-was that a plastic pumpkin?!
It fucking is! Chase groaned and simply buried his face in one hand. He could still see the leering black grin painted on the damn thing in his mind. After the better part of a year on Terca Lumireis it was jarringly out of place to the sensibilities.
"I simply thought you might appreciate a nostalgic gesture of your home world's traditions."
"One, I haven't even gone trick or treating since Haley decided she'd rather go to Halloween parties with her friends," which meant he didn't have to be the responsible one walking her from door step to door step anymore, "And two; if you dare say it I'm gonna punch you in the mouth."
Al didn't say anything. And with his face covered Chase couldn't see his reaction if there was any (though that damned grin was probably still on his face). But then there was a crinkling noise, and it wasn't hard for his mind to supply an image of someone rummaging through a container of plastic wrapped candy. Looking up, he did indeed see Al digging through his plastic jack o' lantern.
Finding whatever he'd been searching for, the red head again held out a bite sized piece wrapped in brown, wide eyes somehow combining innocence and mockery. "Snickers?"
"Goddamn you," Chase swore even as he accepted the semi-peace offering. "You better have more of those."
x x x
"Let me guess," Chase managed not to laugh, but only just. "You're a lion tamer this year, huh."
"Evidently," Al confirmed, and looked none too happy about it. Perhaps because he'd shown up lugging a wooden stool around, a prop that Arcas and Mellie had inquired after with curiosity and a hint of concern. They didn't have all that much proof supporting the sanity their new son's employer after all.
"Okay, okay, one more guess," Chase no longer was in danger of laughing in Al's face, but his own grin said it all. "Sybelle's making you wear it, isn't she?" The fact that Al sulkily refused to answer was good as gold. There were times when Chase couldn't help but think that the boss of his boss was possibly one of the best people he'd met since life turned on its ear.
"So this 'Hallow's Eve' you called it?" Mellie Lyall questioned, giving her husband a light slap on the shoulder as his own shoulders had begun to roll in quiet laughter. His laughter never was quiet for more than a few chuckles. "How exactly do you celebrate in your world?"
"Weeell," Chase drew out his answer, still grinning at Al, "Al's doing it right now. Where" and when, "I grew up, people usually dressed up in costumes and had a good time. People decorate their houses like haunted mansions and then kids in costumes go door to door and ask them for candy. Doesn't seem like something that old and senile Alastor would be into, but here ya go!"
Nose in the air, Al sniffed haughtily and in deliberate exaggeration. "I'll have you know that this tradition dates back far before your commercial era. It was originally for the sake of allowing spirits to walk on equal terms with humans without raising alarm."
Arcas snorted. "Don'tcha do that any time of the year?"
Alastor simply smiled and tapped a finger to his nose. "Ah, but the humans don't have to know that." His hands clapped together. "Splendid! It's a little too short notice to turn up costumes, but if you happen to have any apples and a large tub capable of holding water?"
"Oh," Mellie smiled softly, "finding a little something to dress up with shouldn't be all that hard. And dear, why don't you and Chase go fetch the apples bought the other day? And the laundry tub."
His foster mother was already making a beeline for the hallway closet before anyone else started moving. Before following the orders the house head (certainly it was Mellie and not her husband in charge) had given, Chase shot a look at Al. "Really? You're gonna have us bob for apples? I've never done this before, and I honestly think no one back home ever tried either."
Al's expression was sincerely appalled at the revelation. "Not once? My boy, I am obligated to inform you that you have been celebrating this holiday wrong."
x x x
"Al."
The response was garbled and unintelligible, and not entirely because it was in another language.
"Al."
More garbled gibberish, though louder this time.
"Al."
"Beidh an cailleach glas cas sinn i tulips..."
Whatever that meant, Chase had no clue unless it had something to do with flowers. Which didn't explain why Alastor was passed out in his bed with both arms wrapped around a pumpkin. He was back in his wannabe Shakespeare actor clothes though. An unusual addition was a black silk handkerchief pulled down around his neck. Leave your room for fifteen minutes to get breakfast, and you find a fairy sleeping in your bed.
Shaking his head with a sigh, Chase squatted next to his pack and fished out the canteen from one of the side pockets. With no remorse he stood and emptied the entire thing on Al's head.
The fairy bolted up spluttering, red hair flinging water around the room as he shook his head. Immediately he groaned and fell back onto the pillows with his arms flung over his eyes. He hissed, "Diabhal na leipreachán agus ni-ghini!"
"Al," Chase tried again, "Al, what are you doing in my bed?"
A bleary bloodshot eye peaked at him from under a silk sleeve. "...Where's your bed nao?" the fairy slurred.
"We're in Mantaic," Chase told him patiently. "Al... Tell me if I'm wrong, but are you drunk?"
"Noooo..." Al groaned and pressed his arms against his eyes more tightly. "Past that step now. Hung over."
"I didn't know you guys could get hungover." Then again, what did Chase now about fairies? Before he met Al, apparently everything he knew was dead wrong.
"You do if you sit at table with a team of leipreachán...pardon, leprechauns..."
Not much Chase could say to that. "Uh huh...and the giant gourd you've got there?"
Al didn't answer this time, but his head slowly turned and an arm lifted so he could peer down at the pumpkin still sitting next to him on the bed. It was a pretty nice one, when he was a kid he would have zeroed in on it in the pumpkin patch as prime carving material. "Beidh Verte dúnmharú dom," he muttered, and then just as slowly looked over in Chase's direction again. "May I interest you in an illicitly appropriated pumpkin?"
x x x
"Yer boss did what?" Mark laughed freely as he topped off Chase's mug with the pitcher.
Nodding his thanks, Chase accepted the refill and continued talking animatedly. "I have no idea what possessed them to do it, but he and his drinking buddies seriously broke into her garden and stole her pumpkins! And for some reason thought she'd never figure out it was them because they all covered their faces with masks. Except those were just handkerchiefs and did nothing to hide his hair!"
Both laughing, the conversation stalled until they'd calmed and Chase's mug was half empty again. Finally Mark gave his shoulder a comradely shove (a few more mugs and he'd start giving friendly shoves to other bar patrons and then Chase'd have to get them both out before the man got in some 'real men's quality time' with angry strangers), "So? What happened next? She get 'em back fer snatching her veggies?"
"Wish I knew. And pumpkins are fruits."
"Shit they are."
"No, I'm positive they are. And I've never met Verte, but from what I've heard she has less of a sense of humor than you have for picking fights you can win. If she wasn't pissed at Al then you might have a chance of giving Tison a black eye."
"Harsh. Real harsh."
"Ahem." Chase gave a guilty start at the peeved sounding cough, though Mark was blissfully clueless. He simply gave the greatswordsman a curious glance before scootching his chair around to see the man who'd approached their table.
"What're ye for?" he questioned the newcomer in a friendly manner. "Hey, is that pie ye've got there?"
"Pumpkin pie, to be precise," Alastor informed him amiably. He sounds like he's in a good mood, Chase noted nervously. "Sybelle made it, Chase lad. She wanted me to share with you."
"Really? She actually stay focused long enough to finish it?" Chase was already turning to see if the pastry had survived the whims of a fairy who normally got bored before recommended cooking times ran out. He had three seconds to see the gleam in Al's glasses before the pie was smashed into his face.
...It tasted good.
x x x
(And that should be an entry for each Halloween Chase has spent on Terca Lumireis. Sorry any Irish speakers, I relied on Google Translator, which I have an uncertain amount of faith in. Al actually tried to do something suitably festive each time, though it should be noted that he did so within a few days to within a few weeks of the actual day. And that Chase's fifth Halloween on Terca Lumireis probably falls somewhere over the course of FTaBV's events. Or not and I've done my calculations wrong. ...Ivanishgain)