Bright Lights and Ornaments

The first time Amphios woke up, he yawned, dragged the covers about himself tighter, and went back to sleep.

The second time Amphios woke up, it was 8 am. He was about to go immediately back to sleep again, when the reality of the date settled onto him like fresh snow. It was Christmas morning. With a pang of sadness he remembered Christmas in his cottage, where the bite of winter could seep through the hut. He'd start a small fire and make a stew of fish and potatoes that he'd been saving, and just enjoy the morning before going to see his family.

He yawned and dragged himself out of bed. Scratching his head and massaging where his horns met his head, he toddled out of the room with sleep still in his eyes.

It just didn't feel like christmas without fish and potato stew.

But he was happy all the same. Christmas with Ardos and Zen! What fun that would be! He'd gotten Ardos a gift and hid it carefully. He'd procured it from one of the haunted caverns left when pirates would hide their booty in the forest--a long bastard sword with a blade tempered and hard. He'd tested it by banging the flat of it against a rock, and all he'd gotten out of that was numb arms from the way the heavy blade shook his shoulders out of their sockets. He wasn't sure what it was made of exactly, but whatever it was was rad.

For Zen he'd been a little more stumped for what exactly she liked, but he'd compiled her a list of plants that could be found easily in the forest and their uses. Even the poisonous ones.

Especially the poisonous ones.

Really he was grateful to the both of them for letting him stay with them. He really had been up a creek without a paddle without his cottage, with the loss of it and all his things (his clothes, his plants, his camera, Mr. Bearington).

Amphy found himself in the main room of the apartment, then in the kitchen. He always wore tops and bottoms and socks to bed--not because he was still trying to hide his faun features, Ardos was already well acquainted with them--but because otherwise it was impossible for him to stand on a dining room chair and reach the way too sugary cereal that was kept one shelf too high for him to reach.

It was odd, he realized, that Ardos wasn't home. He'd been hoping to spend the morning together watching wholesome family Christmas films.

Like Krampus.

@Zeronos

Amphy poured himself a bowl of cereal before adding some milk and taking a big spoon to shove it in his mouth. He wondered, again, where Ardos would be. He didn't think he worked on Christmas, and he seemed excited to spend it with him, so--

The fauns ears perked up at the sound of a key sliding into a lock. He pushed away from the table, jaw still working to chew his small breakfast before the door open and he saw Ardos. He was ashamed to admit that the sight of Ardos still made him squirm a little in his chair, a mixture of excitement and just small bubbly happiness. Amphy stood from the chair and moved towards Ardos to give him a belated good morning hug and kiss, but paused at what he said.

"There isn't a tree yet."

A tree? Does that mean--

Admittedly the concept of it was a little on the distasteful side for Amphy--being a forest guardian, the idea of someone cutting down trees for any reason made him feel uncomfortable. But decorating trees had always been one of his favorite parts of Christmas, hanging ornaments on a tree in the middle of the forest and lighting it with fairies dancing around it. The thought of it made him squirm with excitement.

He supposed he could accept this chopping down of a tree just this once.

The faun waited excitedly for the tree, but the moment he saw the trunk, he knew something was wrong. The trunk was white and appeared almost striped like a zebra, not brown and rough like the big spruce trees he was used to seeing. So either he'd gotten a very sickly tree, or--

Oh.

No, nope.

The smell that filled his nose was not sappy and crisp, like the scent of pine needles.

That was.... a birch tree.

Ardos had gotten them a... birch tree. For a moment, Amphy considered telling his boyfriend that he'd gotten the completely wrong tree for their celebration, but he couldn't in good conscious tell him that he'd gotten the wrong tree. Knowing Ardos he would blame himself, apologize for being a terrible person and boyfriend, unable to deliver the authentic Christmas-morning-with-a-tree experience.

Amphy continued to smile. "It's lovely!" He said, hugging Ardos and kissing him. He'd wait to tell him until next Christmas, perhaps gently tell him to get a tree that had pine needles as opposed to one with leaves. Looking at the box of ornaments, he smiled in spite of the fact that he didn't know how they were going to actually decorate this.... tree.

"They're cute..." he said, honestly never seeing ornaments like these before. They looked fancy. "Lets stand the tree up straight, then we can decorate it and put the presents under it."