The not-legit stuff I wanted to write ~ Sentinel/Indigo/ShadowSong

Indigo - A Very Zoe (Christmas) Chroma's Day

HEY LOOK ANOTHER CHRISTMAS-Y NOT-LEGIT.

Indigo's world doesn't have Christmas--they have Chroma's Day. It's basically the same thing--families and friends will get together, gifts will be exchanged--except it's a day that celebrates Colour, and instead of santa, 'Colour fairies' will come during the night to leave the good children gifts. The whole thing has been commercialised a fair bit, but the spirit of it still there.

...Especially when you throw Zoe into the mix.

*+*+*+*

When Zoe opened the door to Athira's room and dragged a sack three times the size of her body in behind her on Chroma's eve, Athira knew she wasn't going to finish the book she was currently halfway through reading tonight.

Athira reached for her bookmark and slipped it between the pages of her book. "Zo, what are you doing?"

Zoe raised a confused eyebrow. "What do you mean what am I doing?" She finished dragging the sack through the door, stuck her head into the hallway outside, and then quickly shut the door behind her. She then turned to Athira with a hand on her hip. "We talked about this like, two weeks ago."

"You tend to say a lot of things. 'Two weeks ago' is a lot of content to sift through."

"Chroma's Day!" said Zoe, throwing her hands in the air and bouncing over to kneel on the end of Athira's bed. "Remember? I said that it'd be cool if we could do something for the kids, like throw a party or something at the base, and then you said 'why don't we just slip in through the windows and leave them stuff while we're at it'."

"I was kidding."

Zoe pointed a finger towards Athira. "I asked if you were kidding when you said it, and you said you weren't."

"I believe my exact words were 'Me? Joking about something so serious? Never' before Shift came into the room and asked if we wanted milkshakes."

Zoe scooted a little further forward, leaning forward and putting her hands on Athira's knees. "And you would neeeeever lie to me, would you, Thira?"

"Absolutely not, so you can believe me that whatever you've cooked up, I'm out."

For some reason, Zoe's smile only doubled at that as she bounced off the bed and over to the sack she'd left lying on the floor.

"Okay, so!" said Zoe, pulling the mouth of the sack wide open to reveal a bunch of boxes Athira couldn't quite make out. "The plan is, we're gonna deliver all of these tonight. Kione helped me come up with a list of a bunch of kids whose parents don't meet the pigment level required to sustain basic living, but they're pretty spread out so we're gonna have to be pretty efficient to get them all delivered tonight before the sun comes up."

Athira reached out a tendril of Black, intending to pick up one of the boxes inside the sack to examine it, but Zoe smacked it away with a Yellow-lit hand.

"Hey, no!" said Zoe, still swiping at the air where the tendril had been, even after Athira pulled it back. "If you wanna look, you get your butt out of bed and pick it up like everyone else! I don't want your Black breaking them!"

With a scowl, Athira stretched her legs out of bed and shuffled over towards the sack. With a quick show of hands to prove to Zoe that she wasn't about to break things, Athira reached out and grabbed one of the things inside the sack.

It was the board game, 'Rainbows'.

Athira's heart got stuck in her throat. How many nights had she, Zoe, Raph, and Miela spent playing this? It seemed like forever ago, but even now, she remembered how to throw the receptacles to intercept Raph's straight-lined throws, how to read Miela's expression, how to lure Zoe onto her team with the promise of teamwork. The flicker of contentment whether she won or lost.