Alright, here it is! The Christmas Special! Everything is canon to the story, though it isn't necessary for the story. Plus some fun, non-canon Christmas-themed art at the end.
This slots in between Chapter 16 and Chapter 17 of Volume 2.
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On the third day of the journey to Muspellar, Vayra awoke to a couple loud crashes, then a cheer. The ship’s bell tolled once, but someone immediately dampened it. It must have been a mistake.
Rubbing her eyes, Vayra sat up and groaned. Her arms were tired from loading and firing the pistol over and over again, and her ears ached from the consistent (not constant) banging.
Either way, it had been a long few days, and she had been hoping to catch a little more sleep.
‘I don’t think they’ll let us,’ Phasoné said.
Vayra rubbed her eyes again and stood up, then yawned and stretched as best as she could under the low roof of the officers’ quarters. As soon as her fingers brushed the wooden roof, her stomach dropped. A bell had been tolling. “Is something wrong? Do you sense anything that—”
‘Or you could listen,’ Phasoné said.
Vayra stopped moving. Aside from the rushing winds of the Stream, groaning and creaking wood, and faintly fluttering gossamyr sails, she heard nothing. Even her Streamrunning mask’s candles had gone out—there would be no fizzling from them.
Nothing, though? Not even footsteps?
Vayra pushed aside the curtain that sectioned off her small chamber from the rest of the officers’ quarters, her heart pounding, then crept out to the main deck. Along the way, she re-lit the candles in her mask with a lantern. The thin air of the Stream wasn’t as disastrous to her body as it had been the first couple journeys along the Stream, but she still wasn’t completely used to it yet.
She burst out onto the main deck, hands raised and breathing quickly—a cycling pattern conducive to combat.
The deck was crowded with sailors and minor officers, but they all stood still and silent. They were looking over her head, at someone on the quarterdeck. Nobody seemed worried or concerned. In fact, most of them had some sort of smile.
At least, they had been looking up. The moment she emerged, everyone turned to stare at her. She offered a shy wave, then lowered her arms and took a step away from the door, so she could see what they were all looking at.
Captain Pels and most of the higher-ranking officers stood on the quarterdeck, but Pels stood at the very front railing, holding a clear, crystal glass willed with an enamel-coloured liquid. He was holding it like he had been making a toast, and his mouth was even open, as though she’d caught him mid-sentence.
“Whoops,” Vayra whispered. “Nothing’s going wrong…”
Pels cleared his throat. “According to the Decathe season-cycle, it’s now Irrenber twenty-second. Might be summer on Thronehome, but back in Tavelle, there’ll be heaps of snow everywhere. They’ll be mumming and wassailing, and plenty of drinking and feasting.”
Vayra’s eyes widened. She’d lost count of what day it would have been if she was still on Decathe, until now. Irrenber twenty-second. That was the winter solstice, and it’d be cause for plenty of celebration.
She rose up onto her tip-toes, looking for Bremi in the crowd of sailors. He stood near the back, poised on the railing and clinging to the ratlines. His mouth hung open, its edges curled up into a massive grin, and his eyes glimmered.
“Hence why we brought aboard those ten casks of ‘nog!” Pels called.
Vayra’s eyes widened. Fawlchicken-milk, better known to some as eggnog. She’d never had a chance to try any, but everyone who could afford it drank it on the winter solstice.
Mr. Kertogg pushed to the front of the crowd, sputtering and brushing out his red coat. “Captain Pels! Eggnog? Really?” The elven Redmarine threw his arms down. “Never once has eggnog been served to the crew of a ship in the Royal Velaydian Navy, and—”
“Untrue,” Mr. Tressdott countered, sprinting up beside his elven companion. “The carpenters tell me they do this every year.” He cleared his throat, then nudged the elf’s leg. “We’ve just never heard of it, ‘cause they’ve never gone blabbing ‘bout it.”
Pels tipped his hat at the two fuming marines, then looked up and addressed the entire crew. “We’ve rationed the ‘nog out,” he said, calling to the entire crew. “When your watch for the day is over, head to the galley and drink your fill!”
The crew cheered, waving around their hats or simply raising a fist. Their reaction, Vayra suspected, meant the eggnog was fully-grogged—made with a heavy dose of rum.
Pels glanced down at Vayra, then said, “I expect a day of practice with your pistol before you can join the festivities.” Then, he lifted his mask up and took a sip from his glass. “In eight hours, when the first watch is over, I expect to hear singing and all-around merry-making!”
[https://static.wixstatic.com/media/f3a882_2bcdeab6626a49c1bc2fa21d230a67c6~mv2.png/v1/fill/w_560,h_281,al_c,lg_1,q_85,enc_auto/ship%20better.png]
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Vayra spent the rest of the day anticipating the celebrations. She worked for two watches in a row, waiting for the “workday”—that was what she had taken to calling it—of the crew she was most familiar with to end. It lined up with the schedules of Bremi and Glade perfectly.
The rest of the day, she practiced loading and firing the pistol, until she managed to blast another empty rum bottle off the railing. Then, she helped the boatswain repair and grease a spool of ropes, and worked with some of the carpenters to fashion a divider in the cargo hold—to store barrels of Stream water and keep them separate from the rest of the food.
Then, she tended to Orlas, the ship’s cat. It took a few hours, but finally, with another scrap of bacon, she convinced the tabby to approach her. While Orlas ate from her hand, Vayra tried grooming her fur with a makeshift wooden comb that she’d been using on her own hair, but the cat scampered away before Vayra could get a grip.
When the second watch began to gather in the galley after their shift, Vayra joined them. She lingered at the end of the line with Glade, who looked just as confused as the Redmarines had. After a few seconds of standing side-by-side, he asked, “Have you ever tried eggnog?”
“Never had a chance.” She reminded herself that Glade wasn’t from Decathe; he had been born on Thronehome, and the Velaydian capital had been his home for most of his life. “Does Thronehome have a solstice festival?”
“Yes, but not for another half-year. The Order never participated, except to keep things civil if needed.” He paused, then scratched the back of his neck. “Technically, Order members are not supposed to drink alcohol. But then again, the wassailing and masks is more of an…outer world tradition.”
She nodded. “Well, no better time to try than now. You’ve already drank plenty of grog while on a ship.”
“There was no other choice.”
Vayra shrugged. “Right now, it’s either eggnog and rum or water and rum.”
“Come on, Mr. White hair!” Bremi snickered, slipping past with a wooden cup in-hand. It was full of eggnog. “Give it a try! You’ll love it—I mean, I love it, and I’ve never had any before. So…”
“Now, don’t drink too much,” Vayra hissed at her little brother. “You’ve never had a hangover before; it’s not fun.”
“I won’t! Just this one, I promise, alright sis?”
“Alright…”
By the time they reached the front of the line, the cook had to open up another cask of eggnog. As he worked to peel off the top of the cast, Vayra began to hear the crew laughing from the deck below, in the makeshift common area. Someone started pounding his boots against the ground, making a thudding beat, and a few others joined in. They began to sing a carol.
When Vayra reached the front of the line, the cook passed her a wooden cup. He sprinkled something on top of it, which could have been sawdust or nutmeg—she couldn’t tell, and she didn’t really want to know. It didn’t taste like much.
Glade took a glass hesitantly, too. He sniffed it then sipped it. His face cycled through a few expressions, then his eyes softened and he managed a bit of a smile. “Alright, then. I did mine. You try yours, since you have never had any.”
“Sis isn’t very good at holding liqueur,” Bremi called as he scampered off towards the common area. “Don’t expect much from her!”
Vayra rolled her eyes. “I can drink better than he can.” She sniffed the eggnog, but it smelled overwhelmingly like rum. A little bit of the brown powder sprinkled on top flew up her nose, and she began to cough. “Yep, definitely sawdust.” She took a sip, letting the sweet, rich liquid envelop her tongue. It was like cream, but a little bit thicker, and much, much sweeter. Almost like the Namola elixir.
Glade took a few more sips, then began to cough. “Sorry, sorry. Apologies. It…uh, hit me in the back of the throat…”
“Ah, the mighty disciple, humbled by sawdust and rum. And some ‘nog.” She began to walk, following Bremi towards the common area. The Decathan half-sea-shanty half-solstice-carol began to echo through the hold—something about wanting snow on the day of the solstice. When she heard Glade’s footsteps plodding along softly behind her, she added, “It is nice to hear you being something other than a flat plank of wood, though.”
“Flat plank of wood?”
Vayra snickered under her breath. “You don’t even have intonation when you talk, half the time.”
“I guess…being an Order disciple can preclude having a personality.”
Vayra rolled her eyes. “Doubt it. I just want to see you, the real you. Not the perfect disciple of Elder Eman-Fa.”
“I cannot just turn it off. It was how I was raised.”
They took a set of narrow stairs down to the lowest deck of the ship and walked towards the common area. At the center, the previous watch had set up a mop in the center. It still perched in its bucket, tilting slightly. A few smaller wooden shards, debris from the carpenters’ earlier work, had been bound to the broomstick with twine, like they were the branches of a small tree. A few lanterns hung from them, swaying with the roll of the ship. A solstice tree.
Vayra leaned against the side of the wall, listening to the crew stomping while singing carols. She didn’t know the words to many of them, and besides, she didn’t trust her singing voice to be any good. Maybe if she ever figured out how to bolster her throat with Arcara, she could help herself sing in tune. But that would take practice, and for something so…not useful, how could she spare the time?
‘I could sing for you,’ said Phasoné. ‘Just get us a little drunk, and I’ll do all the work while your mind is too busy sloshing around to resist me…’
“Or you’ll just embarrass us both,” Vayra muttered. “You’d still have to contend with my vocal cords.” She sighed, then leaned against the wall beside Glade. After a few seconds of watching the celebrations, she asked, “Do you think we’ll have any time to do anything but train? You know…ever? Is this my life now?”
At first, Glade looked like he was going to assure her, but then he only shrugged. She took that as a ‘yes’.
“Well, today, we have nothing else assigned. I’ve been up for sixteen hours, so what’s eight more? What do you say we just sit here and do nothing?”
Glade blew a puff of air out his nose, which made the candles in his mask flicker. “Yes, alright. I wouldn’t mind—I mean, I would not mind that.”
“Great!” Vayra sat down, leaning against the smooth side of a barrel. “Finish that drink, then tell me your favourite colour. And it better not be gray.”
He snorted, then said, “Some days, I wish it was. No, it is purple.”
“Purple?” Vayra paused to take a sip of her eggnog. “Mine’s always been blue.”
“A good choice. Like your eyes.”
“Like my eyes…”
“Alright, my turn.” A full smile crept onto his face. “Favourite food, then. Let’s do favourite foods…”
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And lastly, an image. It's AI generated, but I still liked it enough to share. No, Vayra probably wouldn't ever have a chance to wear something like this in the story, but I thought it was fun.
[https://static.wixstatic.com/media/f3a882_c66cc3a87f0c415d87efcf0feb09ebf1~mv2.png/v1/fill/w_678,h_1018,al_c,q_90,usm_0.66_1.00_0.01,enc_auto/Vayra.png]