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The Perk, Saturday Afternoon

Well... the island was up to its old festive shit again. Sparkle wrinkled his nose as he sat himself at a table at the Perk, a gingerbread latte with far too much whipped cream (almost enough whipped cream) in his hand as he squinted out the window to watch the tinsel coming down. It was kind of pretty, sure, but Sparkle knew damn well that 'kind of pretty' would just keep on into 'aggressively festive,' or else something horrible would hit the island and try to kill them all, or... shit, he'd be invited to someone's holiday meal or something.

He sighed, took a sip of his latte, and shook his head.

"Should've stayed at the resort world," he muttered. "Humbug."

At least once he got his phone plugged in at a spare outlet - not so much with the AC powerpoints in Atton's reality - he got a text with a photo of Krogan babies in it. Awwww.

[OOC: Open! Sparkle returneth!]

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Need a not-date for a few events later this month; don't know exactly when yet. You want to visit?

Karina could've started with hello, sure, but that'd be lame.

Hey.

With an invite like that, I'll be the most not-date date you'll never have. Gimme deets when you know, I'll make time.

Hopefully they could give him some distance from the holiday cheer here, as an added bonus.

How goes it?

After realizing that the long, silvery things coming from the sky weren't actually harmful, and just, like, shiny piece of plastic or something (man, and it was going to be a nightmare to clean up, he imagined!), Prompto couldn't think of how cool it would be to try to take some shot of it on various things around the island. It was a little tricky, what with it falling everywhere and on him, too, but it was nothing the strategic use of an umbrella couldn't help.

But he'd gotten some really good shots (and a lot of really, really bad ones, but he wasn't going to talk about those), so he figured he deserved a nice little warm-up and headed over to the Perk, taking a second to try to pull all the string of tinsel out of his oh-so-carefully sculpted hair and toss them in the trash before ordering his drink.

"Man," he said, to no one in particular, as he managed to somehow still find moretinsel after running a cautious hand through it, "this stuff is nuts."

After work Breq stopped by, wiping tinsel off her clothes as she entered. She ordered a cup of tea, and when she saw Sparkle she smiled and nodded in his direction. That kind of greeting had almost become a habit now, thanks to some practice.

Sparkle glanced up at that statement, and then laughed.

"Oh, we have not yet begun to December yet," he intoned, lifting his drink toward Prompto with a grin. "The tinsel's just shiny, it gets weirder from here."

Sparkle smiled back, raising his drink in a sort of greeting-slash-toast and nodding hello.

"Hey, Breq," he said. "Good day for a warm drink, huh?"

"It is," Breq said approaching his table. "Although it won't help with the tinsel. How are you?"

"All-in-all? Pretty relaxed, actually," Sparkle decided, smiling faintly. "Just got back from a week's vacation, kind of an overdue one, I think. And of course I came back to tinsel."

Of. Course.

"You?"

A photo was sent to Sparkle's phone. It was a bit blurry and showed the open mouth of a sandworm, and looked like it had been taken uncomfortably close to it. The photo was followed by five rainbows.

"Not bad," she said. "Nothing exciting has happened, apart from a friend here inviting me to visit his home. Where did you go?"

Prompto, who was starting to feel like he'd never get little shiny strands of silver out of his hair by now, but, hey, at least it was probably a look he could live with, could only look over with a worried expression.

"Weirder how?" he asked, although, not soon after it left his mouth, he held up a hand and closed his eyes as if to shut out any forthcoming information. "Wait. No. Better question. Do I want to know?"

Sparkle might have blinked and leaned away from his phone for a second as he opened the message with the photo and figured out what he was looking at.

... He did blink and relax a little at the rainbows, though.

Hey, Hania! That's quite the view!

"Atton's reality," Sparkle replied. "A resort on a water planet, so mostly we spent the time eating seafood and staring at fish." He laughed a little. "It was actually pretty nice."

He'd do it again in a heartbeat.

"Where's your friend from?"

"Most of it is harmless and dumb," Sparkle offered, shrugging and grinning. "Like, little presents and stupid sweaters... it'll be something every day right up until Christmas."

Unless disaster stepped in halfway to interrupt the flow. Which it had done in years gone by. But no sense worrying the kid, right?

Well, that didn't sound too bad, really.

"Christmas?" Prompto's head tilted. "That's the thing where you fight people in the store over toys, right?"

...his education on Christmas thus far has been...unique.

"Uh... something like that," Sparkle replied, looking at Prompto thoughtfully. "It's a gift-giving holiday, inevitable crazy over the gotta-have-it toy of the year aside. Not from around here, huh?"

"Not even a little!" Prompto stated, with a proud little squaring of his shoulders. "Bona fide alien from another planet, one that no one's ever even heard of! Which, I mean, is fair, I guess. I'd never heard of Earth before, either, so it kinda balances out, I guess."

"And here I just come from the wilds of Canada," Sparkle mused.

Because sure, Toronto counted as 'wilds.'

"Well, welcome to Earth, spaceman. Here thar be Christmas."

You'll love it. The blogs will go absolutely mad when they can't place you.

It'd be great! She was looking forward to it.

Busy. Tired. You?

"Thanks," Prompto grinned faintly. "Your holidays are weird."

Soccer moms, punching soccer moms, Sparkle!

"Where's Canada?"

Busy. Less tired, though. Just got back from a trip with Atton. Shoved little fishies at him until he wanted to puke, it was great.

... Something like that, anyway.

"North," Sparkle replied. "This world, and north enough to be cold, anyway."

Well. Depended on where in Canada. And summertime in Toronto was disgustingly hot.

"I won't even try to defend our holidays, though," he added. "The only one I like is Halloween. I'm gonna be so sick of Christmas that by the time Boxing Day rolls around I'm gonna just want to burn the damn tree."

He did not intend to get a tree. Details.

"A place called Hyrule," Breq said. "I'm not sure if you've met Sidon. Tall and fishlike? He invited a group of friends before, and now we're planning another visit."

"Oh, yeah, I've met him," Sparkle replied with a grin. "Nice enough guy. Little bit lost in a clothing store."

Being largely naked and all.

"Well, I hope you all have a great time. It must be an interesting place."

Since it was the sort of place that someone like Sidon could come from.

Sparkle got a pink heart and two birthday cakes in reply. And then a spoon.

Hania had discovered emojis.

"Halloween's the one with the candy, right?" Prompto asked. "I was here for that one! I don't think I'd trust anyone who didn't like a holiday that involved candy, but now what's Boxing Day Another fighting one?"

And what did it have to do with trees?

He had...so many questions, Sparkle. So. Many.

Well, just for that, Sparkle was going to send a spoon, three kitty cats, and an octopus right on back.

Because Hania plus emojis was a darn delight.

"Halloween is the one with candy," Sparkle confirmed. "And Boxing Day is like Canadian Black Friday. But probably with less trampling and definitely with more discount holiday chocolate, thus making it the superior post-holiday shopping spree."

He paused.

"In Canada."

More discounted holiday chocolate did sound like a point in Boxing Day's favor, and it also seemed to have a more fitting name than Christmas, too, in Prompto's estimation, since he was very much under the impression that these shopping sprees involved an awful lot of hitting people.

"Would you say," he mused, "more or less punching of soccer moms?"

Sparkle paused for a moment, considering.

"I'm gonna go... less...? If only 'cause soccer moms don't do much soccer momming in the middle of winter."

There was a long pause.

"Soccer moms?"

Prompto shrugged. "My Circle of Life class pretty much made it sound like soccer moms were, like, the big boss battle bad guy in the Master Mode dungeon crawl that is Christmas shopping," he explained, because, of course, putting it into video game terms somehow made it slightly easier for him to understand.

"I wasn't going to punch any soccer moms, though," he added, because it was important that people knew he wasn't that kind of guy. "And, really, for that class, I'm mostly just glad that it was just punching them."

Sparkle gave a slow blink.

"I mean," he said, "I just do all my shopping online. No soccer mom punching required."

He was starting to have a picture painted, here, about one of Fandom's crazier classes.

"See, that makes sense!" Prompto said. "Why would anyone want to put up with that? Your holidays are weird, man."

Prompto. One of the biggest festivals of your world involved moogles and chocobos and a giant crow hawking salmon and fries. Pot. Kettle. Black, yo.

"I mean, Black Friday and Boxing Day aren't really holidays," he pointed out. And then paused and amended, "though they are holiday-adjacent. And the actual holidays are kinda strange, I guess. Sure."

"So...." Prompto said after a moment of considering that and deciding it was all confusing enough as it is, "how does all these silvery little strings," pulling yet another one from his hair and shaking it slightly before it made its way into the bin, "work into the holiday?"

"I think they're meant to represent icicles or something? Because it's a winter holiday," Sparkle explained. "So people get right into the whole winter theme. Snowflakes everywhere, they'll cut down a tree and drag that inside and light it up. This stuff," he pulled a strand of tinsel from his own hair, "gets draped over the branches. Wander around the businesses on the island long enough and sooner or later somebody will probably have a decorated tree up in preparation for Christmas already."

"Icicles?" Prompto considered the small pile of tinsel he'd deposited in the trash. "I guess I can kind of see that. What other stuff do they use to decorate the trees? That...actually might be kind of interesting to see."

"Glittery lights, colourful balls, toys, I guess," Sparkle replied, shrugging. "And a big star on the top, or an angel, I guess that depends on whose tree it is. It's usually really pretty, though. Turn the room lights off and turn the tree lights on, you know?"

Even though Prompto was picturing more of a deciduous tree than the traditional evergreen at that point, it was pretty clear he was still a little impressed with the idea by the faint smile on his face. "That does sound really pretty," he admitted. "I bet a lot of people decorate them to kind of, like, you know, reflect who they are and what they like and stuff?"

Prompto already imagining a tree all decked out in controllers and guns? Uhhhh, obviously

"Sure they can," Sparkle agreed, grinning. "Some people do themed trees up. Some people just pick, like, colour schems they like, they're kind of just limited by what the branches can hold, you know?"

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The Perk, Saturday Afternoon

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