A Christmas At Marelina's (RPG Story)

[Lil]

Edit By Lil: This was a story that was written some time back by a member her called herself Siberian Christmas, back in the old days of the RPG. Dalia belongs to me. Amoung the other characters mentioned, Gerard belongs to Lys Aranel, Maralina to C.S. Lois, Azar the Faun to Inkling, and Aidan to Madame Hwinny.


I was not initally intending on posting this, but a little birdie said that I ought to. This is a little story, a very little story, of a Christmas eve at Marelina's house, strictly from my perspective, which is a limited one, and from Ceraph's narrow range of interaction with fellow RPG characters.

Small, and hopefully sweet, I hope you enjoy it.

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Great cheers of admiration and excitement met the men as they came tramping in out of the dark and whirling snow into the warm firelight room, stamping the ice off their boots into puddles on the mat, swinging a hefty evergreen tree between them. Beck and Mizzle barked happily, getting in under everyone’s feet as people raced forward to help the two men off with their scarves and mittens, to set the tree upright and thrust steaming mugs of hot chocolate into the bitterly cold hands. Cheeks glowed, eyes sparkled. The room was in an uproar of laughter and talk.

“I rather like my new hand,” Ceraph remarked to Gerard, still stamping to warm up the quicker. “It gives me one less limb to get cold.”

Huddled over his own mug, Gerard scowled at him good-naturedly. Turning to Marelina, he called down the talk, “Is it a good tree?”

The young woman eyed the tree from all sides, and a moment’s hush took the room as everyone waited breathless to hear her verdict. Gerard and I are not about to go put it back,Ceraph mused. But finally Marelina nodded, thoroughly pleased. “It’s a very good tree, Gerard; the best I’ve seen in ages. Put it in the corner and the rest of us will go get the ornaments.”

Depositing their empty mugs on a nearby table, Ceraph and Gerard wrestled the tree into the designated corner, pushing other articles of furniture out of the way to make room. Above them, the sounds of the girls going through the storage room boomed and rattled.

Gerard stepped back. “It is a good tree,” he remarked.

“It is,” agree Ceraph. “I think we did none too badly, for all our blundering around in the dark.”

“Don’t tell Marelina.” Gerard held up his slashed forefinger and licked the little stream of blood off.

Ceraph winced. “That was what the swearing was all about. You didn’t tell me you had cut your finger off.”

“That was because I hadn’t,” the other replied, making consternated faces as he realized he had left blood on his lips. “Anyway, next time we go to get a tree, we’re doing it beforenightfall.”

“Ah,” said Ceraph, “I rather like the dark and the snow. Gives the wood a sort of romantic feel.”

“You are a very strange man,” Gerard assured him.

By that time Aidan was running back in with the baked apples in their steaming cinnamon sauce, and Marelina, Dalia, and Azar were tumbling back down the stairs laden with their boxes of ornaments. Gerard went to help them while Ceraph folded up a stray dish-towel for Aidan to use as a hot-pad.

Aidan glanced up as he put the dish on the towel with a little wry expression. “I wish I could have gone with you,” he remarked wistfully.

Ceraph ruffled his hair. “I wish you could have gone too,” he replied warmly. The boy’s bright blue eyes never ceased to remind him of clairvoyant skies, and the deep heart behind them. “But someone had to stay and take care of the women-folk. When I was your age, that was my job. I was an only child too.”

Together they watched Marelina open up all the boxes and arrange them near the tree. Azar was untwining a long chain of rather repulsive purple beads to hang as a garland round the tree, and Gerard was, with an expression not unlike that of a naughty boy, lining up the candles and getting ready to light them. Her baby strapped to her back, little Dalia was sitting cross-legged among the shiny Christmas balls, checking each one to be sure they had not broken.

Ceraph’s attention was drawn away by Aidan’s touch on his elbow. “Hmm?” he inquired, then said, “Oh!” as the other extended a little package toward him. “But,” he hesitated, “it isn’t quite Christmas yet.”

“It’s close enough,” said Aidan. “Please: open it.”

Quietly Ceraph sat down, taking the package in hand. Putting it between his knees he slowly undid the string and peeled back the dull brown paper. Inside was a little box, and inside the box, Ceraph found, on a bed of washed sheep’s wool, lay a beautiful red maple leaf caught in glass. It glittered and flashed, the firelight leaping off its facets in a hundred different ways. It had a gold thread, and little gold veins, and was altogether tiny and lovely. He could only stare, speechless, eyes watering at the sight.

“I wish I could have met her,” Aidan whispered.

Ceraph pulled his eyes away and reached up, drawing Aidan close to kiss his forehead. “Thank you,” he murmured, blinking back the tears.

Brandishing a burning candle, Gerard came striding over among the boxes like a giant among a rock quarry. He caught sight of Ceraph’s face and hastened his step, only to see the ornament in his palm. Ceraph saw the understanding flash through his eyes, and the smallest suggestion of a smile pulled at his lips. “It’s very beautiful,” he remarked.

Ceraph held it up to let it glimmer in the firelight. “It is that,” Marelina agreed, turning from her straightening the garland. The young man was then vaguely aware of the others’ faces turned to him, watching the firelight off the glass, off the gold, off his smile. Aidan stood by happily, giving himself a little wiggle as a dog will wiggle when it has done something very good.

Azar broke the silence. “Come hang it on the tree, Ceraph,” she called. “Come hang it on the tree where we can see it.”

He rose and went, slipping the golden thread over the prickly branch until it nestled between two of Gerard’s fierce little candles, burning, it seemed, with a light of its own. It was very small, but very valiant. Just like she was.

“Oh!” Dalia exclaimed after a pause. “The apples are going to go cold!”

They all pounced on the apples, the little space of solemnity quite forgotten. Azar stood on tip-hoof, stretching to put a sprig of mistletoe over Gerard and Marelina’s heads while Aidan hid from the sight. Beck and Mizzle set up barking. Someone—Ceraph never found out who—put a wreath on his head, and in a short while they were singing carols around baked apples.

Outside, the snow piled on the beaches, driving with in the wind around the steady column of smoke spilling from the chimney. Far down the lane, a horse snug in its stall whinnied a high-spirited, heart-felt Merry Christmas to the world.

Fin.

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