Chapter Awen's Halloween Special

Chapter Awen's Halloween Special

Awen was sitting comfortably on a cushion she'd placed on the Beaver's floor. The ship had just about everything someone might want, but it did lack a large sitting area. Because of that, they tended to turn the kitchen into their lounge whenever it wasn't time to eat.

That meant pushing the table aside (there were clever hooks on the wall and eyelets on the table so that it could hang there, and the legs folded inwards and locked into place as well) and spreading the chairs out so that everyone had a place to sit.

They had some other seats as well. Lounge chairs and little sofas that were usually pressed up to the sides and out of the way, but which were brought out when it was time for them to sit back and relax.

At the moment, Awen had eschewed any proper seating and had instead found herself plopped onto a cushion with her back to the wall. Her pose and the mere fact that she was sitting on the floor of all things would have driven her mother spare. It was half the reason she was doing it.

"Let me get this straight," Amaryllis said. "You have a celebration every year, a sort of festival..."

"Not quite," Broccoli said.

Awen looked over her friends. It made her feel warm inside to know that she'd gone from none to this many. Sometimes she didn't get Broccoli's enthusiasm for meeting new people--why go out of her way to meet new people when she could stay indoors and mind her own business instead?--but other times... she got it.

Amaryllis was huddled up in a big blanket, and next to her Caprica was sitting on one of their dining chairs, easily manipulating a pair of crochet needles and making... something out of it. A sweater, maybe?

Calamity was doing something to his bow strings in the kitchen area, and their newest friend, Desiree, was brushing her tails out.

Broccoli, of course, sat in the middle of the room, cocooned in a layer of blankets and looking like a frumpy lump of quilts with just her face sticking out. It was a bit chilly. The air outside was cold enough to see one's breath in, and the big bay windows on the far end of the room weren't quite able to keep the chill out.

Awen was sitting next to the small magical heater, the warmth of it splashing across her one side so that she was half toasty and half chilly. It was nice.

She glanced at Broccoli, then pulled her eyes away. It was hard to really look at her best friend sometimes. Broccoli might not have realized it, or maybe she did and she was just willfully ignorant about it, but she was... cute. Very cute.

Right now, with just her face peeking out of the blankets, her big puffy cheeks looked extra puffy and pinchable, and the way her little button nose twitched at the end was impossibly attention-grabbing. Then there were her ears. She'd let them flop down around her face, like a furry scarf, and the tips of them were wiggling about every time Broccoli spoke.

"So," Broccoli continued. She'd been explaining some sort of celebration they had where she was from. Awen often wondered if everyone from Broccoli's homeland was like her. If that was the case, then... then life just wasn't fair. "Halloween is... old, I guess? I can't remember its actual origins, but it started way, way long ago, before I was ever around. I guess there was a bunch of meaning to it, but now it's mostly an excuse to dress up and eat candy."

"I like this celebration," Caprica said.

"I mean, they're not real back home," Broccoli clarified. Then she paused. "Or maybe they're just shy? Anyway! We dress up as creepy things and try to scare each other. It's quite a lot of fun! Kids go from house to house, and they get candy."

Caprica tilted her head a little. "I don't see how those two things fit together."

"Ah, well... me neither, but it's still fun?" Broccoli tried. "It was one of my top ten favourite holidays! We couldn't afford nice pre-made costumes, but my dad and mom and I would make some things together anyway, and then I'd get free candy! It was great!"

Awen smiled fondly. "What kind of costumes?" she asked shyly. She wished that she was louder. Amaryllis had a voice that boomed and carried most of the time, and Caprica and Calamity could both hold their own. Even Desiree, with her very flowery way of speaking had a way of grabbing people's attention. By contrast, Awen found it hard to speak up most of the time.

"Oh! All sorts of things!" Broccoli said. Awen might not speak loud, but Broccoli listened hard. "I remember dressing as a princess! My mom was a princess too! And so was my dad. He, uh, didn't look good, but that was half the fun! And we did robots once, with cardboard and aluminum foil and these long flexible tubes."

"This whole thing is sounding less like a holiday and more like an excuse to look like fools," Amaryllis said.

"Exactly!" Broccoli cheered. "I never dressed as a bird. Oh! But we did do cats one year! My mom likes musicals."

Calamity half-turned from his spot in the kitchen. "What, you went around with cat ears and a tail?"

"Yeah!"

"That's racist."

"Ah!" Broccoli said. Her cheeks warmed up, and then she pouted. "But cat people aren't real!"

Calamity blinked. "What do nya mean, we're not real?"

Awen pressed a hand over her mouth to stifle some giggles as Broccoli wiggled her arms about and tried to explain herself. Calamity continued to grill her, though it was obvious that his outrage was more teasing than anything.

This was nice. Awen thought that she might just be the luckiest girl on Dirt sometimes, for having found friends this good.

***