a very subconscious christmas

	Snowflakes fell silently onto a quietly shuffling village, gracing the wooden buildings with a soft, white outline. The cherry trees were in deep slumber, their branches encased in blankets of ice. The roads were slick with a thin sheet of frost, folks slipping and sliding across them in the morning hustle. If you asked almost anyone in that chilly, mid-morning market, they’d tell you it was winter.
	One girl, however, looked at the softly falling snow and did not feel the wonder and whimsy that everyone around her seemed to feel. Instead, she watched as a flake fell onto her hand and crooked her head, as if to let the bemused questions spill forth from her ears. This cold thing that turned to liquid in her hand, what was it? Never had she seen such a thing before.
	“These cold things on my head, falling like ashes in the land of dead! But soot they are not, nor do I rot. There is no red to be found-- no lava, no fire; it’s white all around! I have left the former Hell, wandered far to the place where humans dwell. A town! But what, but what... is this white I have found?”
	Her wispy voice carried its whimsy into the ears every passerby in the market, and some of them even turned their heads, thinking they heard a whisper on the wind. None was there for them to find, and the idea they’d heard anyone at all soon left their minds, busybodies too busy with their morning business in the snow.
	Save for one. A small tot with a mess of short, black hair, carried in his mother’s robe like a kangaroo’s pouch. He giggled and laughed at the girl waxing whimsy in the white powder, amused by her silly words and funny yellow dress, adorned with roses. His mother was in a busy hurry, however, and began away from the crowded spot in the snowy market. The little boy reached out toward the lone girl, but his tiny arms were much too short.
	Her curious eyes found their way from the snow to the child, and she soon found herself rosy cheeked and flustered. He had taken notice of her. It was a thing that seemed so simple and natural for ordinary people, but this girl was so used to being passed over and instantly forgotten, like a pebble sitting on the side of the road. She reached her hand toward him as he was taken away, and saw him follow her with his eyes.
	She thought a moment, about the white powder all around. And she couldn’t help but think about many things at once, as her mind was as messy as her lightly-colored hair. So she thought about other things that were white, like hairy dogs, and fuzzy bunnies, and sticky rice candy. Eventually, she reasoned that the white flakes falling from the sky must be falling for a special reason, and perhaps that same reason was why that small boy had not passed her over. Or maybe she only thought she thinks the things she thunk, and maybe she merely decided to follow him on a whim.
	The girl followed the boy and his mother to a stand that overlooked a field. The field housed many little piles of snow, jutting upward from the ground. People who came to the stand would hand the man little slips of paper and coins, and he would guide them to a pile of snow. He would then reach inside, and, to the girl’s shock, would pull a small tree from the powder.
	“A field of green, a field unseen! It lacks birds and it lacks bees, but if I listen with my nose, I can hear the scent of trees!” She sniffed the air vigorously. “Green pine flowers, covered by white powder. But why?” And so she came closer to the man to find out why.
	He referred to the evergreen as a ‘Christmas tree,’ a strange and foreign term that made little sense to the girl. She didn’t know what a ‘Christmas’ was, so she looked for it in the tree, sticking her head between the branches and looking around. Finding no such thing, she thought that maybe ‘Christmas’ was the slips of paper the man was collecting. So she reached inside his pocket and removed a leather packet full of them-- but they were plainly paper and nothing more, so she discarded them in the snow.
	Next the boy and his mother visited a man with a stand housing colorful rolls, like paper scrolls. They were shiny, with colors of red and gold, blue and silver, and green and white. The girl came near and listened close, her curiosity in conjunction with the paper’s true function. ‘Wrapping paper,’ it was decreed.
	Now the girl had heard of wraps before, like those on mummies and corpses. But the wraps of the dead were most oft white and splotched with red; these shiny wrappings would be so much nicer, she reasoned, and took some in their stead. But as she gripped the loose paper, it came unwound, and as she pulled it merely followed her around. She thought a moment, unsure how to transport it, and realized there was naught to do but be wrapped herself. So she spun in place until she was covered by several layers of red and gold; and hurried after the boy, paper crinkling with each movement.
	The boy and his mother went about on their day, making more stops in the snow. Candy, small toys and decorations, ingredients for what seemed to be some festive occasion. Determined to ascertain what the meaning of this ‘Christmas’ was, the girl followed them to and fro, examining the candy and tasting the decorations, but it eluded her still. Still, she hopped shortly after them, ever careful not to rip the wrapping paper, and watched them enter a small building. It was far from the market, and a little girl greeted them with excitement at the door. They shut the door after entering, nearly slamming it in the wrapped girl’s nose.
	Peering inside, she watched them set the tree in the corner of a room, stood by some metal contraption. And they covered it in decorative bells and knick-knacks and things until it appeared a myriad of color. No longer an evergreen, it had transformed into a very festive fern. The two children sat beneath it, looking happy with their work; the mother took her sack filled with the things she had traded paper slips for into another room, the shiny wrapping in hand.
	The girl quietly entered - as quietly as one could, making short hops - and sat beneath the tree, too, curious as to what was so special about it. The boy took notice of her again, smiling and touching her wrapping.
	“Are you one of Santa’s elves?” The small girl asked her. She shifted in her wrapping paper and shook her head.
	“When I woke from my bed in the former Hell, I heard the soft sound of bells. So I thought I would go and see what made such a tink, but the world had turned into an ice rink. Why is there a tree in your house? Is there some stench you hope the pine will douse?”
	The smaller girl looked at her and gave a long pause, but eventually answered, “the tree is for Santa Claus. For the tide of Yule, don’t you know it?”
	“I am no fool!” She answered with haste, but could make no sense of the little girl’s case. Was this Santa some evil spirit, come to haunt this place? Why, then, did the children look so cheerful when they should instead be fearful?
	“But I do not know of this Santa and his claws. Does he come to take small children in his paws? Like a prowling wolf on the hunt-- and this tree some sort of stunt? To ward him off?”
	The little girl tilted her head in perplexion, a stilted whimsy coming from the wrapped girl’s section. “He comes tonight bearing gifts like small toys,” she said, smiling toward the little boy. “Under the trees in our houses he leaves them, to fill children with joy.”
	And the lightly haired girl, wrapped in her shiny paper, had a sudden deep thought. Perchance this story the small girl had wrought was merely some superficial clot; a festive knot that tied a cheery cot ‘round their young and impressionable heads. Mayhap there no Santa, and this tree a silly superstition. But if not, she decided then and there to make it her mission: she would wait for this Santa in the night, and protect the children from the fearsome spirit’s fright.
	“Who are you talking to?” The mother poked her head from a door around the corner, the sound of paper and business just beyond. The little girl looked for her wrapped visitor, but she was simply gone.
	That night, long after the boy and his family had retired, the light-haired girl stood vigil by their fire. In the window she’d seen a vision of ice and snow most keen, tiny flakes touching down. And though the family slept snugly under their blankets, the girl could not help but frown. All this preparation for a hateful spirit, the festivity a clever ruse to hide how they fear it.
	A sudden clamor of thumps on the roof, like an animal beating its hoof. There came a noise like a jolly chuckle, and the girl grew tense as the bricks of the fireplace buckled. Something was coming down!
	She stared intently at the fireplace, but instead of some terrible demon, there was a white vapor with a jolly grace. A soft laughter echoed off the walls of the room, the voice shaking the house as it boomed. It swept under the tree and left shining wrapped boxes, a total of three; and it coiled around the girl and quickly unwound her wrapping paper. She blinked and the paper had been woven into a package in her hands, with a simple note at the top.

For Koishi, from Santa.

	She stripped away the shining paper, stuffing it into her pocket for later, and found a little green box inside. Lifting the lid, there inside lay hid a small silver bell. She took it between her fingers and give it a ring.
	When she opened her eyes, she was laying there in her bed, far below the earth. She stood up and stretched and yawned, and gave a look out the window-- not believing what lay beyond.
	Small flakes of ice touched down; everywhere she looked white covered the ground. The former Hell had been bequeathed its own tide of Yule, in the form of ice and sleet. And as the girl turned around, near her bed a silver bell she found. She picked it up and smiled and gave a ring, and thought to herself, maybe this ‘Christmas’ isn’t such a bad thing.