Awen was sitting comfortably on a cushion she'd placed on the Beaver's floor. The ship had just about everything someone might want, but it did lack a large sitting area. Because of that, they tended to turn the kitchen into their lounge whenever it wasn't time to eat.

That meant pushing the table aside (there were clever hooks on the wall and eyelets on the table so that it could hang there, and the legs folded inwards and locked into place as well) and spreading the chairs out so that everyone had a place to sit.

They had some other seats as well. Lounge chairs and little sofas that were usually pressed up to the sides and out of the way, but which were brought out when it was time for them to sit back and relax.

At the moment, Awen had eschewed any proper seating and had instead found herself plopped onto a cushion with her back to the wall. Her pose and the mere fact that she was sitting on the floor of all things would have driven her mother spare. It was half the reason she was doing it.

"Let me get this straight," Amaryllis said. "You have a celebration every year, a sort of festival..."

"Not quite," Broccoli said.

Awen looked over her friends. It made her feel warm inside to know that she'd gone from none to this many. Sometimes she didn't get Broccoli's enthusiasm for meeting new people--why go out of her way to meet new people when she could stay indoors and mind her own business instead?--but other times... she got it.

Amaryllis was huddled up in a big blanket, and next to her Caprica was sitting on one of their dining chairs, easily manipulating a pair of crochet needles and making... something out of it. A sweater, maybe?

Calamity was doing something to his bow strings in the kitchen area, and their newest friend, Desiree, was brushing her tails out.

Broccoli, of course, sat in the middle of the room, cocooned in a layer of blankets and looking like a frumpy lump of quilts with just her face sticking out. It was a bit chilly. The air outside was cold enough to see one's breath in, and the big bay windows on the far end of the room weren't quite able to keep the chill out.

Awen was sitting next to the small magical heater, the warmth of it splashing across her one side so that she was half toasty and half chilly. It was nice.

She glanced at Broccoli, then pulled her eyes away. It was hard to really look at her best friend sometimes. Broccoli might not have realized it, or maybe she did and she was just willfully ignorant about it, but she was... cute. Very cute.

Right now, with just her face peeking out of the blankets, her big puffy cheeks looked extra puffy and pinchable, and the way her little button nose twitched at the end was impossibly attention-grabbing. Then there were her ears. She'd let them flop down around her face, like a furry scarf, and the tips of them were wiggling about every time Broccoli spoke.

"So," Broccoli continued. She'd been explaining some sort of celebration they had where she was from. Awen often wondered if everyone from Broccoli's homeland was like her. If that was the case, then... then life just wasn't fair. "Halloween is... old, I guess? I can't remember its actual origins, but it started way, way long ago, before I was ever around. I guess there was a bunch of meaning to it, but now it's mostly an excuse to dress up and eat candy."

"I like this celebration," Caprica said.

"You just want an excuse to gorge yourself on sweets," Amaryllis said.

"Yes, and?" Caprica shot back. Her needles continued to click and clack. "I also like the idea of dressing up. It's not like a ball, right? This sounds less formal than that."

"Huh? No, it's not like a ball at all," Broccoli said. "I mean, I guess there are maskerades?"

"Ah,those are quite fun," Caprica said.

The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

"I find them daft," Amaryllis replied. "You can tell who someone is based on their feathering, a little mask won't hide anything, and pretending not to know feels foolish."

Awen held back a giggle. She'd been to a few masked balls before, never by choice, but she generally enjoyed them more than the non-masked ones. They had been an excuse for others to act as someone other than themselves, and for her to be herself, if only for an evening.

It was funny, seeing the attitude of her friends. They all came from such strange cultural backgrounds. Broccoli more than the rest, of course. Hers was a world apart. But that didn't mean that the others didn't have their own quirks.

"We have costume balls," Desiree said as she continued to swipe a brush through her tail. She paused to tug some hair out of the bristles. "They're quite amusing. The more far fetched and creative the dress, the more accolades the dress receives. Of course it's forbidden to hide one's tails, or make it seem as though you have more than what you truly have."

"That sounds more like Halloween," Broccoli said. Her head popped fully out of the blankets and hear ears sprang back up above her head, as if they were spring-loaded. "But Halloween is all about being a bit spooky."

"Spooky?" Amaryllis asked.

"Like... ghosts, and monsters, skulls and creepy things," Broccoli said.

"Why would anyone want anything to do with ghosts," Amaryllis asked. "They're both foolish and have a strong aversion to the living. All they deserve is a sharp zap to send them off to a real afterlife."

"No, not like that," Broccoli said. "Ghosts aren't real."

"I beg to differ."

"I mean, they're not real back home," Broccoli clarified. Then she paused. "Or maybe they're just shy? Anyway! We dress up as creepy things and try to scare each other. It's quite a lot of fun! Kids go from house to house, and they get candy."

Caprica tilted her head a little. "I don't see how those two things fit together."

"Ah, well... me neither, but it's still fun?" Broccoli tried. "It was one of my top ten favourite holidays! We couldn't afford nice pre-made costumes, but my dad and mom and I would make some things together anyway, and then I'd get free candy! It was great!"

Awen smiled fondly. "What kind of costumes?" she asked shyly. She wished that she was louder. Amaryllis had a voice that boomed and carried most of the time, and Caprica and Calamity could both hold their own. Even Desiree, with her very flowery way of speaking had a way of grabbing people's attention. By contrast, Awen found it hard to speak up most of the time.

"Oh! All sorts of things!" Broccoli said. Awen might not speak loud, but Broccoli listened hard. "I remember dressing as a princess! My mom was a princess too! And so was my dad. He, uh, didn't look good, but that was half the fun! And we did robots once, with cardboard and aluminum foil and these long flexible tubes."

"This whole thing is sounding less like a holiday and more like an excuse to look like fools," Amaryllis said.

"Exactly!" Broccoli cheered. "I never dressed as a bird. Oh! But we did do cats one year! My mom likes musicals."

Calamity half-turned from his spot in the kitchen. "What, you went around with cat ears and a tail?"

"Yeah!"

"That's racist."

"Ah!" Broccoli said. Her cheeks warmed up, and then she pouted. "But cat people aren't real!"

Calamity blinked. "What do nya mean, we're not real?"

Awen pressed a hand over her mouth to stifle some giggles as Broccoli wiggled her arms about and tried to explain herself. Calamity continued to grill her, though it was obvious that his outrage was more teasing than anything.

This was nice. Awen thought that she might just be the luckiest girl on Dirt sometimes, for having found friends this good.

***