It took almost half an hour to get situated, as a few cases required first aid. Arrow suffered a mild concussion but insisted he was fine. Mika used a glittering red ribbon to secure an ice pack to his noggin just in case. To return the favour, Arrow carefully applied several Spongebob Band-Aids to Mika's arm where Kurda had clawed him in self-defence. Seba had seemingly fractured his pinky finger in the struggle and it was sticking out at an odd angle so Larten constructed a splint using more ribbon and a candy cane. Seba thought it was the tastiest darn medical apparatus he'd ever experienced. And he'd experienced plenty. And Kurda had lost about half an inch of hair to Mika's scissors which nobody would've noticed in a million years, but it was an astronomical deal to him. Using even more ribbon, Harkat built him a fresh new weave to hide the damage. It was actually quite spectacular, until-
"He's shedding glitter in the dough!" Mika yelped "This is such a hazard, Harkat. I can't believe you allowed this."
"It was the… only way to… get him to stop… caterwauling." Harkat glared. "I did what… I had to. And at least… he's not eating… the dough."
"It doesn't give you worms. That's an urban myth." Mika replied through a full mouth.
"I'm on fleek. The fleekest fleek to ever fleek." Kurda sighed happily, holding up a frying pan like a mirror.
"Okay Beyonce, these cookies are not going to cut themselves. Make haste." Larten directed, handing Kurda a tree-shaped cookie cutter. Kurda took one look at the cutter and affixed Larten with a withering gaze. "Oh for Charna's sake! What is your problem now?!" the orange-haired vampire exclaimed. The death stare intensified. Larten caught on. "Of course, silly me. You make the star cookies because you're the star."
Kurda grinned and accepted the cutter graciously.
"If you're the star, why aren't you sitting at the top of the tree?" Mika snickered. Kurda furrowed his perfect brows thoughtfully as though he thought this might be a reasonable idea.
But his thoughts were interrupted by a loud BANG, a series of uneven footsteps coming from the hallway, and a loud voice calling out-
"LAAAAARTEN? Where is my sexy little elf?"
Larten's eyes went heart-shaped, and then she appeared in the doorway – covered in snow and lugging a set of Louis Vuitton suitcases… Arra Sails. You see, Arra stays away from the mountain most of the time because she believes things like Netflix and microwaves defile the vampire way of life and blah blah blah. But even the toughest of vampires can't turn down a fresh set of LV. Especially when they were last year's gift from her sexy little elf.
"They got back together?" Arrow grunted as Larten rushed to embrace her.
"They broke… up?" Harkat inquired in confusion.
"She's alive?" said Mika, looking into the camera like he was on The Office again.
"You're right." Paris sniffed. "By all accounts it doesn't make sense."
"Our lives do not follow any discernable plotline and the continuity is next to nothing." Seba declared.
"How do we even get wi-fi inside a mountain?" Kurda added.
"I'm still waiting for answers about those credit cards." Said Mika.
"Welcome, welcome!" Larten blustered, picking up Arra's suitcases and pulling out a chair for her to sit on. "Sorry for the mess! Sprinkles up to the elbows, ribbon every which way, the east water closet is clogged and our fourth wall is broken! I must say, I was not expecting you for the holidays!"
"I was in the area." She shrugged and removed her hood, out of which fell at least 6 pounds of snow.
"Not in the cookies!" Kurda wailed, whipping his pan of dough stars out of the way of the avalanche – and accidentally launching them onto the floor.
"FIVE SECOND RULE!" Mika and Arrow hollered simultaneously.
"HOES… DON'T… DO… IT." Harkat screeched, holding up a sassy little grey hand. The two princes ruefully halted their advance on the fallen dough, thinking it best not to push the little person any farther. His eyes were already buggier than usual and he was brandishing a marble rolling pin.
"So do you still have Darren?" Arra asked, noticing a certain youthful absence.
"Of course we still have him, he is just busy at the moment. I think he is wrapping presents." Larten explained with bold-faced inaccuracy.
"You're a dirty liar, he's sulking in his room because his flight got cancelled and can't spend Christmas with his girlfriend and he's being a pansy about it." Arrow interrupted.
"And then we dropped a door on his face!" Kurda chipped in. "He has a concussion. He looks terrible."
Larten facepalmed in the mightiest way. Arra looked uncharacteristically concerned.
"The poor boy! What an awful day he's having! And you're all out here making cookies?" she gasped in horror.
"He will be fine." Said Larten with firm dismissiveness. "He is simply being a, what was the word, Arrow? Ah, a pansy. As in the flower. Because his emotions are delicate. Like a flower. Did I mention a pansy is a flower?"
"Stop trying to make slang happen. It's not gonna happen. Because you're bad at it." Kurda huffed under his breath.
"A real man isn't afraid to show his feelings, Larten!" Arra exclaimed. "Do you want him to become an emotionally-constipated old coot like you?"
"But he will be safer here! He is too young to be courting. What is his hurry to grow old and have his heart broken? The world is cold and cruel. He will not be hurt as long as he stays here where I- I mean, we can keep an eye on him. And I will have you know I do not suffer from constip-"
"You dropped a door on his face!" Arra protested. "I hardly call that safe."
"We didn't drop it, we Derek Morgan'd it." Mika clarified. "Not our fault he's dumb enough to do his sulking in the middle of the damn floor."
"Doors these days are weak!" Seba added loudly. "When I was your age, doors were strong as this very mountain! We built them from the sturdiest rocks and the skulls of our enemies! If one of those fell on you, you would be smashed flat upon impact. And that was how we knew they were high-quality doors! None of this splintering stick nonsense, oh n-"
Kurda crammed a cookie into Seba's mouth to halt his tirade, at least temporarily.
"ANYWAY." Said Arra, with a roll of her eyes. "Would someone care to explain to me why you essentially left him to die alone? Concussion patients should never be left unattended! Who taught you basic first aid?!"
"Seba. We covered broken legs, broken heads, and… broken legs." Larten replied swiftly. Seba meanwhile had finished his shut-up cookie and while nobody was looking, had stacked 3 kitchen chairs atop one another in an attempt to scale the fridge and access the mountain's supply of chocolate advent calendars.
"Concussions are the silent killer, Larten!" said Arra.
"I get like 3 a week." Arrow commented bemusedly.
"Bro." Mika facepalmed.
"I can't believe you're not on top of this. I know being paternal doesn't exactly come naturally to you, but this is bad." Arra continued. "Have you even checked within the past hour if he's still alive?"
"We're surprising him with Christmas!" Kurda explained as though Arra was missing the most basic concept in the universe. "He said he hated it and wants nothing to do with it whatsoever, so obviously shoving it down his throat is the only possible solution. Duh, Arra."
"This plan seemed way better before I heard it in those words." Paris mumbled.
"What's the point if he's dead?! By the black blood of Harnon Oan, you are the thickest bunch of men I have ever met!" Arra fumed, slamming her fists on the table causing Kurda to flinch dramatically and spill hot chocolate on Paris.
"Excuse me… I do not have… genitals. I am… no man." Harkat noted irritably.
"Then you should know better!" she shot back.
"If you are so intelligent and concerned and medically inclined, why have you not yet checked on the boy?" Larten boomed in frustration, clawing at his small crop of orange hair.
"Because I just got here and I'm cold and I'm not his mentor-father-thing!"
"Oh please. There is no fathering involved in my mentorship of the boy. I am an educator to keep him from dying by his own stupidity!"
"Then why are you so relieved that he's spending Christmas here after all?" Mika snuck in.
"Yeah Creps, you literally used the phrase 'the nest'." Arrow added.
Larten proceeded to scoff some incoherent explanation of his wording, but he was cut off by a sudden shout from the doorway and the haphazard group greeted their second surprise visitor of the day.
"Guys, stop yelling! You're making my head hurt. I can hear colours. And I'm seeing triple… Are you making cookies?"
Darren Shan, in all his bruised and beaten glory, came hobbling into the kitchen. And immediately slipped in the cookie dough Kurda had dropped.
"That wouldn't have happened if we'd eaten it." Arrow mumbled.
"Get up, you are making a scene." Larten muttered as he rushed swiftly to help Darren back to his feet and half-carry him over to a chair.
"You guys argue loud as balls." Darren babbled. "Can I have a cookie dough? Hi Arra. Welcome to Christmas hell."
"You should not eat cookie dough. It will give you worms. Besides, I thought you were boycotting Christmas. Now drink your peppermint hot cocoa." As he often did, Larten toed the fine line of doting and mentoring.
"The worm thing isn't even true. Have as many cookies as you want, lil buddy." Said Mika, sliding the baking tray full of un-baked cookies over to Darren.
"He will get worms!" Larten wailed.
"Has he not been asking for a pet lately? What pet could be lower-maintenance than a worm?" Seba contributed.
"I was thinking like a bear cub… or a mountain goat." Darren mumbled.
"I do not think so, young man! You will lose interest in a week and I will be stuck looking after it. Bear cubs and mountain goats are for life, not just Christmas."
"But I'd love it and feed it and-" Darren began to object, but was cut off by a large and unidentifiable flying object suddenly colliding with the side of his head and promptly knocking him off his chair.
"It's the fucking partridge again!" Mika growled, whipping out his sword.
"Where were you storing that?!" Kurda wanted to know.
"That's not a partridge, that's an eagle. Actually, from this angle it look like a goose. Or maybe- I have no idea, let's just stick with partridge." Paris sighed as he watched it circle the room in no particular pattern as it prepared to divebomb the crowd again.
"It's an asshole." Arrow glared up at it, shaking a fist.
"Looks like you already have the pet thing covered." Arra commented dryly, holding a cookie tray over her head like a shield.
"That thing is not one of us. He snuck in with the Christmas tree." Said Larten with great irritability.
"Where's the Christmas tree?" Darren asked blearily from the floor.
"In the Hall of Princes, right where you left it." Larten affirmed.
"Can we open presents now? It's after midnight. I'm sorry I was a douchenozzle earlier. I don't hate Christmas. I love you guys. Now can someone please lift me off the floor? The ceiling is spinning."
"That's the fan, honey." Said Arra as she helped Larten lift the delirious young fellow back to his feet.
"No, the fan is still. The rest of the ceiling is spinning."
"Oh honey, no…"
"We went through all that trouble to cheer him up but all he needed was a partridge to the head. Typical." Mika grumbled.
"To the tree!" Larten declared.
"But the presents aren't wrapped, remember?" Kurda gasped in a very audible stage whisper. "We did too many shenanigans and Harkat redirected our energy to a different activity."
"He's clearly been reading parenting magazines." Arra snickered.
"YES… THEY… ARE!" came a great yell as Harkat skidded into the room. "Come on! Let's open them!"
"Damn Mulds, you are magical." Mika declared. "How'd you do that?"
"Very… quickly. I ran back… upstairs when Darren… came back to us… and finished it."
"One little person cannot accomplish more giftwrappery in 10 minutes than 6 fully grown vampires can in 2 hours. I demand to see the math on this!" Seba objected loudly.
"Seba, you taped ONE thing and spent the rest of the it giving us a history lesson. Be quiet." Mika snapped.
"And he threw hella punches. Don't forget the punches. You have the sharpest little fists. Did you know that?" Arrow mumbled, rubbing a bruise on his arm as they made their way down the long corridor from the kitchen to the Hall of Princes.
Seba thought about that for a moment, and replied:
"Yes, I did."
And then they stepped through the doorway into the hall, beneath the evergreen boughs that had carefully been placed on the archway by Mika and Arrow just days ago.
"There it is, Darren. Your perfect Christmas tree. It would not be here without you." Said Larten with a hint of warmth and maybe even half a smile.
"I don't see a tree." Said Darren, blinking repeatedly. "But when did we get a giant pyramid of rainbow lights?"
"That is the tree, sweetie…"
"Oh. I think I might have a concussion. It was a big door."
"You might, Darren." Sighed Larten, patting him on the back. "You just might."