Music was my soul

--

I used to celebrate a little holiday called “Christmas”. It was a fun time of the year where loved ones shared presents and had fun together and we all believed in someone who gave us presents overnight (some say it's Odin but you didn't hear that from me). That holiday made you feel alive, filling you with emotions and warmth.

However, the word “alive” may not be the best word to use. After all, even when you're sort of dead, you can feel all sorts of things. Such as blood lust, but that's another story. Even among the dead, Christmas invoked some sort of happy feeling in us. For the rest of us, that holiday invoked a feeling of panic and worry as to what to get someone for the holidays.

This year, someone (I think a hidden adventurer who wanted to give us some cheer, I suppose) had the bright idea of giving each of us a random person to give a gift to for Christmas. I was secretly hoping to get my dear Trentini as the recipient but it seemed this sneaky adventurer knew better and gave me someone else instead.

To be honest, I was a bit surprised when I was given Eremes as the recipient. I thought that the event would involve us giving a gift to someone on the same floor as us. Guess that just added some “fun” to the element but that meant I had to figure out some kind of present to give to someone I hardly knew.

At first I had to spend a couple of days wondering what to get that assassin cross. He was a hard person to please. Cold and distant, he hardly told anyone anything and I could hardly get any information out of the two floor mates I visited, Howard and Seyren, as they knew almost nothing themselves. I had some regrets visiting that crazy whitesmith but that's another story. . .

Later, I confided with Trentini as to what to get Eremes and she had a wonderful suggestion. There were a few problems, however, but I had planned to work on fixing those problems.

Two days before Christmas, I had requested to give my gift on the day after as it would be extremely problematic. Luckily I was allowed to do this. After all, I did promise I would give the gift, but I absolutely could not do it until the day after Christmas. And if I revealed why I had to, it would ruin the surprise.

One day before Christmas, I asked my dear Trentini to keep Flamel busy for about an hour while I sneaked into his little area full of potions and odd experiments. Flamel had all sorts of concoctions, some of which were effective and the rest weren't.

The area seemed quite a bit disorganized, though I imagined it had a kind of order to it that only Flamel would know of as it was his living space. The worn-out table contained numerous papers scattered about, the writings of which made no sense to me. There were many wooden racks hung upon the walls that contained potions of all sorts of potions contained in a myriad of shapes and sizes. Some of the liquids even gave off a soft glow to them. It reminded me of a crystal I once saw in another land that was filled with snow that covered glowing gems.

When I examined the potion bottles in detail, I was lucky to see many were labeled with the creator's handwriting. Some were clear as to what they did, such as “antidote to dead poison” while others were more obscure, like “glistening coat”. What was a glistening coat?

Soon I found what I was hoping Flamel would have; a bottle labeled with “sleep tonic”. Quickly removing the label and then pocketing the bottle, I moved around a few of the other bottles and replaced one bottle's label with the sleeping tonic. Hopefully Flamel wouldn't notice. . .

Finally Christmas day arrived and most of us traded gifts. It turned out a few people would have to give their gifts the next day as well. I had gotten a lovely bag of various instruments from Howard. There was a bit of a mess when he presented them in a malfunctioning mechanic gear. Unfortunately I didn't really have any time to examine the instruments more closely.

After the gift giving, Trentini and I invited Flamel over for afternoon tea. We made a few, ah, preparations before he got here, such as putting some spoonfuls of the tonic in the tea. Just to make sure, we put it in the pot itself. Of course, we had ours ways of avoiding ingesting any of it. We also set out some cookies we found off of some dead adventurer, in case Flamel wanted something to eat.

There was a nice little table we used whenever we wanted to eat or just have something nice to drink together. We always kept it nice and tidy, keeping it in the best of shape we could. The pot of tea, along with three porcelain teacups and a small plate of crunchy cookies were laid out in an orderly circle on the table. There were three pillows on the floor in front of the cups. Since the table was so small, we couldn't really sit in chairs, plus the pillows were nice and comfy, if a bit worn.

Flamel arrived at the specified time we asked him to come at. Trentini and I greeted him warmly, welcoming him to our little corner of the labs. We led the creator, unaware of our plans, to his seat. After making sure he was comfortable, Trentini and I took our seats.

The three of us made a bit of small talk about some minor events in the lab, such as some clone going crazy, a dumb adventurer trying his luck at survival, random sightings of Wolfchev and more. Every so often we would nibble on a cookie, noting how hard it was. Probably a bit stale, yet it still retained a sweet taste that coated the tongue.

Then Trentini and I held out our teacups.

Flamel followed suit, all three of us sharing a smile. Then we proceeded to drink.

Or at least Flamel did. Trentini and I simply held the cup to our lips, being careful that the liquid didn't stain our lips. We made small motions, small sounds that indicated we were drinking as well.

Then the creator fell over backwards, sound asleep.

Trentini and I smiled to each other before we dragged Flamel to a room.

The next day, I told Eremes to meet me somewhere private, yet close to his room. The assassin cross was, of course, a little skeptical, but I assured him it was nothing bad.

It took a few moments but Trentini and I managed to bring up Eremes's gift with little problems and no one to watch except Eremes himself. Of course, the assassin cross looked incredibly surprised, maybe flustered too.

After all, who wouldn't be when they were presented with someone, specifically Flamel, completely naked and tied up with glossy yellow ribbon. The ribbon wrapped around the creator's torso, neck, mouth, ending with a bow on his crotch that covered everything nicely. His hands were bound tightly behind him so he couldn't free himself, handcuffs in place as a bonus. Eremes couldn't help but stare.

I coughed slightly before I explained.

“Merry Christmas, Eremes,” I said, bowing with a flourish. “I do hope you'll enjoy your present. Unfortunately there is little I know about you so I had to ponder for awhile in order to find you a lovely gift. With everything that was happening, I decided to give you free reign of Flamel, whether it be for revenge or otherwise.

“If this gift doesn't please you,” I continued while motioning to the creator, who was struggling a bit under Trentini's grip, “then I do have something else I could give you instead.”