A Green Christmas

“They’re lights.”

“They’re beautiful!” Lila declares, snatching the wired lights away from Unika.

“They seem dangerous.”

“Kai!”

Malakai looks up from his spot on a nearby couch, dark hair ruffled by the pillow he was napping on. He eyes the Christmas lights in Lila’s hands and raises one eyebrow at his girl.

“They don’t seem particularly practical, love.”

Lila sniffs indignantly. “No sense of culture.”

“In case you didn’t notice, Pyrondia doesn’t quite have electricity everywhere. Just the medic buildings really.”

She looks around the room, face falling a bit as she realizes he’s right. “I guess I won’t be putting up any lights then.”

“Where did you even get these?” Unika asks, taking them from her.

“My mom sent them a little while ago.”

Lila’s been in Pyrondia for what feels like forever now. Her grandmother is getting older, and she needs the help running the Phoenix complex. She hasn’t had much time to miss home. But it’s Christmas now. And Pyrondia does Christmas a lot differently.

“No tree either, I assume,” she says sullenly, sitting down on the couch next to Malakai, who shifts his legs to prop them up on her lap.

“Tree?” Unika echoes.

“A Christmas tree, to decorate the house. You know, lights, ornaments. Presents?”

“We have the presents. Not the tree.” Unika looks out the window. “We do have the Christmas festival, though.”

Malakai nods. “You’ll enjoy that, princess. It’ll have all the foods you can eat.”

He looks at her eagerly, but Lila’s smile doesn’t reach her eyes, falling just short on her cheeks, a little forced. Unika doesn’t seem to notice, but he does, and the dip between her eyebrows worries him. That expression is never a good one on Lila. It normally leads to late night flying over the ocean. Or something burning.

“She’s homesick,” he tells Unika when they leave the Phoenix complex an hour later, each headed home.

“Lila’s been homesick since the second she stepped foot in Pyrondia.”

“This is different. She’s got like a droopiness around her eyes.”

Unika laughs lightly. “A droopiness? Kai, you’re just a little over worried with Lila all the time. Give her some time. She’ll adjust.”

She waves and turns right to head towards her house, and Malakai continues on his street to his own, the door creaking open familiarly and the light of his lantern dancing in welcome. It’s cold out, the snow layering the street in white coats that he knows Lila will spend hours admiring. Where she lived back home, snow wasn’t common even during the winter. Florida’s green Christmas, she called it. Malakai wonders if she misses the warmth that he— that Pyrondia cannot provide and drops his coat on the table by the corner.

His home is empty compared to Lila’s room in the Phoenix complex. Hers is full with a large bed, wooden desk covered in books and her wardrobe. The floor has a warm purple rug that Lila prefers to sit on, curled up by the fire with her eyes entranced by the dancing stars outside her window and a content smile on her face. Malakai has watched that scene too many times, drinking it up like a man dying of thirst. He misses that smile. Outside his window, snow flurries fall to the ground, the light from the festival dwindling as it closes for the night. He tries to imagine what Lila described, a Christmas tree decorated and surrounded by gifts. There has to be something he can do.

#

Lila is tired of waking up cold. It happens a few times a night at least, where she’ll sit up in the dark, hands reaching for another blanket from the stack on her night stand, nose frozen. Her fireplace roars, sparks flying from her snapping fingers to feed the fire, but there’s only so much heat it can give. She’s been trying to get her grandmother to install electricity in the Phoenix complex, like the Council Hall and medic buildings have in the capitol city of Dian, but the woman is old-fashioned. Even the fact that the Serpentine family was installing it wouldn’t budge her.

“A white Christmas is not all it’s cracked up to be,” Lila mutters to herself as she wraps a blanket around her shoulders and shuffles off her bed to the fireside.

She’s sick of the snow, wet and crunchy under her boots, sick of the frigid winds. When she first got here last winter, it had felt like a magical wonderland, enhancing the awe she felt for Pyrondia. Now it just makes her realize how far she is away from home. In Florida, the sun shone year-round and Lila visited the beach on a whim, even during December. Her Christmas morning was slightly chilled at most, the heaviest coat she wore a light cardigan. The oceans around Pyrondia are freezing this time of year and her coat feels like they shaved four sheep just for one piece of clothing.

Her balcony’s glass doors are shut tightly, but Lila can swear she feels like cold air leaking in, and she gets up to draw the curtains, cutting off the moonlight. She pauses with her hand on the thick fabric, staring at the lawn of the Phoenix complex below, covered in white and silver snow. She sees a dark figure moving, dragging something large and black behind it. The figure pauses, one arm moving up to get a better grip. In that movement, Lila knows who it is.

“Kai?” She pushes the glass door open, her hatred of the cold forgotten. “What are you doing?”

He drops whatever it is he’s dragging, and she can’t see his face but she imagines the red flush spreading on his cheeks, eyes losing their smug gleam for just a second. “Princess, what are you doing awake?”

“I sensed a thief.”

“Hm, I’ll have to keep an eye out then.” Malakai glances around, his wide grin visible even from here.

“Well, we wouldn’t want you getting hurt,” she says back, leaning against the railing of her balcony. “Can I come down?”

“No!” He shakes his head adamantly, and she strains to try and see what it was he was pulling along with him. “I mean, I’ll come up. So you don’t get cold. Go back inside.”

Lila raises an eyebrow but doesn’t hesitate to hurry back inside to the warmth of her room, sitting on the rug and tucking her feet underneath her. Malakai makes it up into the balcony and stomps his feet to dislodge the snow before coming in, shedding his coat on a nearby chair and closing the glass doors behind him. Lila focuses her eyes on the fire instead of him, but she can see his figure out of the corner of her eye coming to sit next to her.

“You look like a cocooned butterfly,” he teases, poking at her two blankets.

“It’s cold,” Lila replies miserably.

“Come on, princess. it’s not all that bad. The snow is beautiful.”

“The air is freezing so flying is impossible, I can’t sleep because I keep waking up to get more blankets, and I swear my nose is turning blue.”

Malakai leans forward to look at her face. “No, just a little pink.”

She sighs. “I’m sorry, I don’t mean to complain, it’s just…”

“You miss home.”

“Yeah. I do.”

She looks into the fire again, the flames dancing orange and yellow and red, and tries not to focus on the fact that Malakai is wrapping one arm around her, tucking her into his shoulder. He’s warm, very warm, and Lila feels a little better when he rests his cheek on her head.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers into her hair.

“You don’t have to be sorry.”

“You’re unhappy.”

“I’m homesick— there’s a difference, Kai.” Lila pulls the blanket over her shoulders tighter. “It doesn’t mean I’m unhappy. I just miss home.”

“You could go home…” he trails off.

“My grandma needs me here. I’m basically the only one she has left.”

Malakai pulls at the edges of the blanket, fingers brushing against her hand. “I just don’t want you to feel alone.”

“I’m not alone.” She looks up at him and admires the curves of his face. “I have you and Unika and my grandma.”

He hums in response and Lila listens to the crackle of the fire and the wind outside her window until she can close her eyes and imagine the swaying of palm trees and the warm air of home.

#

“She’s coming!” Unika hollers from the window, and Malakai dashes to the door, peering out.

Lila is, in fact, walking up the street, wearing a ridiculously oversized coat and scarf. Her grandmother walks beside her, silver hair matching the snow around them, talking quietly with a smile on her face. Lila may be homesick, but Mira adores her granddaughter. She’d do anything for her— and did.

“Kai, close the door before she sees you, idiot!”

He follows orders and steps back from it, glancing over his shoulder to make sure everything is perfect. “I think we’re ready.”

Unika jumps down from where she was looking out the window and tosses her head triumphantly. “Of course we are.”

Lila and her grandmother reach the door, and despite the fact that he knew she was almost there, the knock makes Malakai jump. Her smile when he opens is one of the most genuine he’s seen in weeks and that is all the warmth he needs right now.

“Merry Christmas!” Lila exclaims, wrapping her arms around Unika first and then him, her hands tight around his neck.

“Felisa Christmas,” he returns, and she scrunches her nose at the Pyrondian translation. “Hello, Mira.”

“Felisa Christmas, children,” the Phoenix leader says graciously, stepping inside.

It takes a second for Lila to notice. Her eyes focus on the back of Malakai’s house, where a huge canvas painting takes up half the wall. The painting is full of palm trees and green grass, houses built of concrete and people milling about sidewalks. His memory of her home, recreated as best as an artist could. In front of the painting is a small tree, it’s branches sticking up high, the trunk a woody grey. The leaves aren’t quite all there, some have fallen off onto the ground, but most are still green. He draped it in gold fabric and some of the lights Lila had shown them a few days go, sparkling gold in the light. Lila’s hand comes up to her mouth as she takes it in, and he sees tears well in her eyes, but her smile is unmistakable.

“You got me a tree?” She turns to look at him.

“I tried. I wasn’t sure what kind of-”

He grunts as Lila throws her arms around him, this hug far too tight to be a simple hello. “You got me a tree,” she repeats in a whisper.

“And a painting.”

She looks back at it, the grin so wide it practically splits her face in half. “It has palms! And is that my house?”

“Yes, I was trying to remember it as best as I could. I think the paint color is a little off but-”

“It’s perfect, Kai. I can’t believe you would do something like this!” She steps forward to look at the tree, running her fingers over the lights.

“Well, I’m just brilliant like that, princess.” He tries to make his tone light, but it’s heavy with emotion.

Unika jams her elbow into his side. “I helped.”

“Ow-she did.”

Lila gives her friend a hug. “Thank you.”

“Look under the tree,” Malakai says eagerly.

She bends over, and sees the singular present wrapped in brown paper with a red ribbon. “For me?”

Lila pulls it out, sitting cross legged by the decorated tree that barely comes up to her waist, more of a bush really, and tears the paper off. Malakai watches her, chewing on his cheek. He’s not sure what her reaction will be to what’s inside, and he tries to catch a glimpse of disappointment or anger in her face as she opens the box, but there’s nothing. Just a soft smile and teary eyes. She pulls out a golden compass, much like the one she first used to get to Pyrondia, which she broke.

“A compass,” she whispers, looking up. “But I can’t-”

Mira shakes her head. “I’ll be fine for one day, dear. The world won’t fall apart if Lila Laerson takes a day off.”

Lila beams, and turns her face to Malakai. “And you-”

“I’ll go with you. If you want.”

The look in her eyes is everything he needs today. “Malakai, I don’t even know what to say.”

“Don’t say anything!” Unika crows, and she pulls a green leaf out of her pocket with red berries. “I found my own tradition from your world to bring along.”

“What is that?” Malakai frowns.

Lila’s face is bright red. “That’s mistletoe.”

“You’re supposed to kiss under it.” Unika dangles the leaf over their heads. “Go on, lovebirds.”

Malakai snatches the leaf from her. “Go away, Unika.”

She laughs and saunters off, Mira close behind. Lila clutches the compass to her chest, her brown eyes warmer than any sun. He looks down at the now crushed leaf in his hand, and Lila takes it from him. She lifts it up over their heads, dark hair falling over her eyes.

“Well, it is tradition,” she whispers.

Malakai cups her face in his hands, and it can’t possibly be snowing outside because her skin is warm to the touch. “You know me, princess, I’m a sucker for tradition.”

“Shut up and kiss me.” Her smile is brilliant, and for once, Malakai doesn’t argue.