#orangebells

T’was the night before Christmas, soon Santa would fly And a party raged in the castle in the sky

Sir Lawrence had thrown a magnificent ball, Saying “Celebrate Christmas; come one, come all!”

The fortress was filled with seasonal glee, As a choir of farfetch’d sang out of key.

The ball was so lavish, the food was so fine, The music was lovely and the drinks were divine.

So nothing seemed quite so much out of whack As when Lawrence came in with a huge burlap sack.

It dragged on the ground, leaving wide trails of ash In the big fancy ballroom, this was no more than trash!

“My guests,” he called in a voice that rang clear, “The time for the raffle is finally here!”

With a flourish, the bag was torn at the seam And Lawrence looked over the crowd so agleam.

“The way this will work,” he proceeded to say, “Is I’ll pick four names, all throughout the day.”

“Every four hours, 'til midnight tonight. Then the raffle is over; it's gone-- out of sight!”

“Now without further ado, let us begin!” And without hesitation, Lawrence dug in.

He drew out a present, tied up with a bow. Then he started unwrapping it... really quite slow.

Beneath the paper was another wrapped box. And inside that-- a pair of red socks.

But he unrolled the socks, and pulled from inside. A big envelope, majestic and wide.

And picking up scissors, golden and fine He cut open the letter, counting to nine.

As he reached number ten, he yanked out a card Held it over his head, and said "That was hard."

"But not half as hard as what will come next: When I read outloud this here printed text."

"For the name of the winner-- first name on the list Is none other than Bianca: oh,  what a twist!"

He scanned the crowd with his bright piercing eyes. “Bianca, my dear—come claim your prize!”

Maybe region hopping isn't the best way to get anywhere in Barry's quest for pokemon league conquest, but he can't really help himself. Half way to one town, he'll hear about some faraway land-- and off he goes, because why walk another mile of the same route when you can fly two hundred miles across the ocean and see something completely different?

The subject this time had been a volcano, and a popular sort of harvesting-- soot collecting, or something like that? But Barry was having a hard time seeing anything between the trainers which seemed to get a kick out of jumping out at him from the dust covered bushes and the constant fall of soot which was only made worse by the piling snow.

By the time he found shelter in a house, to say that Barry's hair was a mess would have been a grave understatement. The old man who lived there excused himself. Something about warning the other trainers, is what the issue had been, so maybe it would have been best for Barry to tell him not to because A.) he was an old man and B.) at the rate things were grinding themselves out, he'd no doubt be stranded outside.

However, the blond had been far too preoccupied with picking out the bits from his hair and becoming entirely engrossed with the glass blowing equipment in the house. If the guy wanted to be a good samaritan, it was no skin off the trainer's pale, scrawny back.

He said he would return soon, anyhow.

But soon turned out to be thirty minutes, and thirty minutes turned into two hours, and soon Barry found himself gazing out the window with worry as the grey-hued snow gathered itself up tot he window sill. 

But, soft! what light through yonder window breaks?