The Little Things
((For @nebulous-rain. I’m your secret santa! Before you look at this, I need to clarify some things: I made this nearly days after I got your request, so I didn’t know that you were restarting your @ask-twoyearsafter. Therfore, I made this fic out of this one post where kingthur said that he missed his senses since he was dead. I’m putting this under the cut because it is looooong.))
Divine sat in his chair, barely moving, listening and watching his children with his usual neutral face. Rain was noisily arranging the Christmas decorations, while constantly distracting herself by sniffing those scented candles. Ekla was in the kitchen making cookie dough, murmuring the steps of the recipe out loud. August was outside in the snow, flailing her limbs awkwardly while on the ground.
Christmas was getting closer, along with the breaking point of the kids’ excitement levels. Divine had already bought presents for them, as is tradition, but has kept them in a friend’s house since he knew they’d try hunting them in his own home. He damn near went with the idea to bury them underground, until he saw Ekla digging holes in the backyard.
The front door cracked open. August entered, shivering. “Hooo! That was fun, but I’m ready for the fire! I can’t stop shaking!”
Divine couldn’t help but frown.
“Let me finish the stockings, first!” Rain said before sniffing a green candle.
“Yeah uh, try not to get high off of those things.” August joked.
“You know that’s impossible! And I can’t help it! Christmas candles have the best scents that make you feel all warm and fuzzy inside!” Rain gushed.
“That still sounds like getting high.” Said August.
Divine started to look...sad.
“Cookie dough is incubating in the fridge, now! Nobody eat the dough!” Ekla ordered as she left the kitchen.
“Oh, you don’t have to worry about us! Worry about yourself giving into temptation!” Rain teased.
Divine sighed.
Ekla turned to look at him, reading his face. “Ok Mr. Grumpy. What’s turned you into a Scrooge?”
Divine looked confused for a moment. “A what?”
“Oh, uh, Ebenezer Scrooge from the classic story A Christmas Carol. He’s often used as a reference for someone who’s cranky during Christmas. That and the Grinch.” Rain explained.
“Oh, not cranky. Just....sad.” The deceased king explained.
“Sad? What’s wrong?” August asked, coming close to him.
Divine hesitated. It was always odd to show such vulnerability to the ones he was supposed to be strong towards. “...In truth, I envy all of you.” Everyone went quiet. “It seems like winter, specifically Christmas, is the time when everyone enjoys the new senses that comes along with the sharp change in seasons. I know I should take pride in the fact that I can still feel the love that this celebration is truly about, but...you all get to feel the extras that come with this supposed tradition. August can feel the snow and fire, Ekla can smell and taste her sweets, Rain can enjoy a good night’s sleep, and huff candles apparently...those things.”
August stares at the floor while Rain stared at the candle in her hand. They both felt guilty. Here they were lost in their own world while Divine wasn’t able to join in the little things in life.
Ekla sighed audibly, “Geez, twist my arm, will ya?” She sat down on the floor, cross-legged. “Ok, come in.”
Divine blinked. “Come...where?”
“Possess me!” The rabbit girl pointed to herself. “I’ll let you sense everything through me for today! I’ll even allow you to play in the snow outside! I need to let the dough harden in the fridge for an hour anyway.”
“Er...alright?” Divine stood up from his chair and crouch next to her. Ekla relaxed her body as best she could and closed her eyes. The king broke down his form into a mist and phased into the living shell. He opened his eyes. No, her eyes. He looked down. He saw his...her legs crossed. He uncrossed them and put his hands on the floor to push himself up. He stopped for a moment, taking in the texture of the floor that accompanied the pressure onto his skin.
“Yeah, yeah, nice floor. Come on! Don’t you want to go outside?” Ekla spoke from within.
“R-right. I am just...taking this all in.” He stood up slowly. “Gods. I feel heavy.”
“I’m not THAT heavy!”
“Hey, when you’ve been floating around with mass made from energy instead of numerous cells and matter for eons, it can be jarring to suddenly carry your own weight again! It is like when you haven’t lifted weights in a while and the 50 lbs you used to lift with ease is suddenly impossible to budge...Thought this feels like a 5 lbs weight.”
“Ok, Weaksauce.” Ekla teased. Divine made his way to the front door. “Wait!! I need to wear a coat and boots and gloves!!” Ekla stopped him.
“Oh, yes. My apologies.” Divine forgot that with a body now, he could make himself and Ekla perish from the cold. He went over to the closet and slipped on Ekla’s winter layers. He flexed his fingers inside the gloves for a moment, feeling the strange yet cozy fabric. He opened the door. He gasped as he felt the sudden sting of the winter air. While the clothes protected him from the worst of it, the frigid air still hit his face with full force. He inhaled, exhaled, inhaled, exhaled, filling up the lungs with this icy mist and letting it escape his mouth like cigar smoke.
“You ok there?” Ekla checked on him.
“So...cold!” He nearly wheezed.
“If it’s too much, we can go back-”
“No! Heavens no! This is....!” He slowly picked up the snow from the ground with his gloved hands. He could still feel some of the freezing wetness through the gloves! It’s such a shock, yet it is incredible!
PLAT!! He yelped in surprise when he felt something smack his back. He whipped around to see Rain dressed in her own coat with her usual mischievous smile. “How about your first snowball fight?” She challenged.
Oh right. That game where the kids threw balled-up snow at each other. So how should he...? He grabbed a clod of snow and threw it at Rain. It scattered as she ran off. “Uh...” He felt embarrassed.
Ekla nearly face-palmed inside her mind. “Seriously? You just form a ball with the snow, grandpa! It’ll stick!”
Divine scooped up some more snow and patted it into a ball...and then got smacked by another snowball.
“Oh woooow! Great focus there Your Majesty!” Rain teased.
“Oh my God, if you don’t do this right, I’m taking over!!” Ekla tore at her ears.
His scowl looked unfriendly, but it was a look of determination and focus. “Need I remind you that you are dealing with someone who as fought countless battles? I’ve got this, now.” Divine growled. He locked on the running target and with a powerful swing, the ball pelted Rain in the shoulder. Rain squawked and dodged behind a tree. “Lucky shot!” She shouted.
Divine balled up another one and waited like a crouched lion for her to poke her head out again.
“No weapon summoning, by the way.” Ekla said. “This is just a silly game, not a battle to the death.”
“This is coming from someone who gloats about killing fictional characters in her video games?” Divine quipped. ZIP! He dodged a snowball just in the nick of time.
“Find cover, find cover!” Ekla commanded frantically. Divine darted over to the side of the house. While hiding, he made a few more “ammo.” He peered over the corner and waited, charging potential energy into the snowball in his hand. A horn poked out from behind the tree. SHOOM!!! Right as Rain’s eye followed the horn, it got covered by the “bullet.” She squealed. “Watch it!!! You almost blinded me!!”
“Move cover! Get closer!” Ekla hissed. Way ahead of her, Divine took advantage Rain’s stunned status to speed over behind another tree. Indignant, Rain jumped out from behind her tree and charged in his direction. Divine popped out. Both launched their snowballs. Divine’s hit Rain in the collar bone area. Rain’s hit Divine square on the forehead. He shouted in surprise from the new icy shock on his face.
They went on for a good 45 minutes until it shifted into a snow angel lesson. “Come oooon, you’ve seen us do this multiple times!” Rain groaned, her hands on her hips.
“I know it is simple. It is just...” Divine cringed.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Grinch! I thought we were trying to live a little!” Ekla criticized. “Need I remind you that you’re in MY body and therefore, you look like me now? No one’s gonna judge if they see ME trying to make a snow angel!”
Ok, she had a point. Divine carefully laid down in the snow and flapped his limbs up and down against the powder. Rain snickered. Divine glared at her. “I’m sorry!” Rain said, “It’s just that I’m not used to seeing Ekla doing a fun activity with such an unenthusiastic expression!”
Divine stood up and looked at what he made. “Not bad!” Ekla complimented.
“Er, I forgot that I’m wearing your ears. I believe I made a disgraceful halo.” Divine dismissed the compliment.
“Then it’s a Snow Bunny Angel! Let’s call it that!” Rain piped up.
Ekla suddenly gasped, “OH CRAP!! How much time has passed?!”
“....50 minutes?” Divine calculated.
“Ok,” she breathed, “there’s still time before I need to make the cookies! Why don’t we experience the warmth of the fire?”
Divine nodded. “Let’s go back inside.” He instructed to Rain.
“Awwww!” She whined, despite the fact that her teeth were starting to chatter.
Once inside, everyone saw that August was curled up by the fireplace, which was now lit. “Oh hi. I just started the fire. On my own.” She said with obvious passive-aggressiveness.
Divine and Rain shed their winter clothes. Rain sat before the fireplace, nearly bumping August out of the way. “Aaaaaaah! Come on, Divine! It’s perfect!”
Divine walked over and sat down. He shivered and quietly gasped as the sudden, strong heat shock took over the lingering cold in his body. He sighed, putting his hands out. Gods, this felt so good! And the smell of the wood! It’s exquisite! A tiny smile curled up on his lips. His eyelids drooped, wanting to close and take in the heat and smell, but the dancing flames and snapping wood enticed him to keep watching.
The timer in the kitchen shocked him and Ekla out of the trance. “Shit! I need to go to the kitchen! Let me take over!...Oh wait, do you want to use my senses while baking?”
Divine lit up at the thought. “Oh, yes! It’s not often that I get to smell what I’m baking, let alone experience the textures of the dough!”
“Well let’s go already! The recipe is next to the stove! We just need to roll out the dough, and make the icing!”
Divine made his way to the kitchen and skimmed the recipe. “It’s in the fridge, right?”
“Yep! In the giant glass bowl!”
Divine took the bowl out and removed the cling wrap. He tried to get a whiff of the dough. He could smell the hint of butter and vanilla extract. How lovely! He nearly melted until Ekla literally snapped him back to reality. He rolled out the dough and brought out the cookie cutters. He lined the baking tray with parchment paper, and lined the cut cookies onto it, taking a bit of time to admire the look and feel of the dough for a bit. With oven mitted hands, he inserted the tray into the oven. He shivered again from the heat shock of the oven. With a beep of the oven buttons, the cookies were now left to the fate of time.
“There we go!” Ekla piped. “Want to go back to the fire?”
“If we must.” Divine said, closing his eyes.
“Don’t play unimpressed! I can feel your excitement.” Ekla teased.
While Divine sat in front of the fire, Rain and August approached him with arms full of different colored candles.
“You’ve said that you wanted to smell the candles, right?” August brought up. Well, here’s your chance! This one’s Eucalyptus!” She showed him a green candle, “It’s said to be the most Christmas-y smell.”
“And here’s Cinnamon!” Rain nearly clocked him in the face with her light brown candle.
Divine gently sniffed each one. Cranberries, apple pie, pine needles, sugar cookie, firewood even floral candle they had in the bathroom. In his opinion, they all smelled great, but there was this...artificial...chemical air to them, especially when he compared the firewood-scented candle to the actual burning wood in front of him.
The timer beeps. “Ah! Get the cookies!” Ekla barely got through her sentence; Divine reacted faster than anticipated. He opened the oven door and nearly grabbed the tray until Ekla screamed at him to get the oven mitts. Right, he can experience the pain from burns now.
“Gods! I can smell them as well!” Divine nearly gasped, pulling the cookies out with now gloved hands. “These smell much better than the cookie candle!”
“Ohohoho wait ‘til you taste them!” Ekla grinned like a Cheshire cat. “Unfortunately, you can’t yet. They’re not done. We gotta wait for them to cool and put on the icing.”
Divine took the cookies off of the tray with a spatula and placed them on the cooling rack. “Speaking of which, we need to make the icing! It’s on the backside of the cookie recipe.” Ekla pointed out.
After reading the recipe and getting the ingredients, Divine went to town with the electric mixer on the butter and powdered sugar. Gods, was it always this noisy? Then again, he’s currently equipped with larger ears. He divided the icing batter into several sections to give them each a specific color with food dye. He retrieved the piping bags and filled each one with the different colors. He checked the time. They still had 11 minutes until the cookies cooled down.
“Ugh, screw it! Let’s just take a free pan and fan the cookies like they did in those baking competitions.” Ekla bounced on her soul feet. Divine shrugged and tried it out, gently touching the cookies after each 10th fanning. It took three tries until the cookies were cool enough to pipe the icing onto them. Ekla watched through Divine’s eyes, admiring his skilled pipe work, even thinking about taking muscle memory notes on how to do this herself.
“Now we can’t just hand out these cookies willy-nilly without a taste test. Riiiiight?” Ekla enticed. Divine picked up a Santa shaped cookie. He took his sweet time, admiring the lingering warmth, the rough texture from the sugar, the smell...
“Eat it already!! I’m drooling here!!” Ekla ruined the moment.
“Alright!!” Divine nearly shouted. He snapped at the cookie. “!!!” It was delectably sweet! It all was. He was so lost in the flavor that he didn’t notice the other kids snatching handfuls of the fresh sweets.
“Good, right?....Right?” Ekla asked Divine.
A tear trickled down his cheek against his wishes. “These little things....” he whispered. “These little things, I....” He covered his face with his free hand. Rain and August rushed to his side. “Divine, are you ok?” August asked.
“I truly missed them all...” He silently sobs. “I don’t know what else to say...”
Rain and August’s faces dropped. They surrounded him with a hug. Ekla was even hugging his soul from within the consciousness. He hugged them back, cookie and all. It all felt so warm. He could hold onto them all forever if he could.
He sniffs, “I want to experience this again. When Christmas comes around. Please. Let that be my gift.”
“Of course.” Ekla smiles.
