Rising Shards

I couldn’t help but smile as I watched Stella try to teach Zeta how to use an eggbeater. Zeta panicked as soon as she turned the mixer on after putting the spinning whisk deals near the cookie mix.

“Zeta, you have to actually dip it into the mix if we want this stirred.” Stella said.

“I just!” Zeta stammered. “I don’t wanna make a mess.”

“It’s OK if we make a mess,” Stella said. “A mess is usually part of the fun.” She elbowed me. “Usually, Zeta only gets to ball them, but I’ve been in a teaching mood with her as of late. Has she told you how much she screamed when she tried driving?”  

“Stella, don’t say embarrassing stuff in front of Oka!” Zeta whined.

“You’re doing a good job of that on your own.” Stella said.

“I think it’s cute,” I said.

While I wasn’t feeling fully festive, any time with Zeta and her family was nice for me. Visiting her place to bake cookies was an incredibly cozy way to spend an afternoon. I got to portion out the chunks of dough, and it hit me I’d genuinely never had the chance to make cookies before in my life.

Stella put the sheet into the oven. “Now, I’m not fully used to this one yet, so we do have to keep an eye on it, so they don’t get burned. But we have plenty of dough so one batch getting burnt isn’t the end of the world.”

Zeta clasped her fists, her eyes sparkling. “Can we get the mobile out next?”

“Is it too early?” I asked. “I don’t want to mess with any Faleur traditions at all or make you do things out of order.”

“Oh no, it is the perfect time for this.” Stella said.

The Faleur sisters slid out a few boxes with Safe Silver decorations inside. Stella carefully pulled out a hanging mobile, a bunch of silvery beams tied together with thin cables. In its current state, it looked like a pile of junk, a mess of jumbled parts.

“Do either of you want untangling duty?” Stella asked. “The pain of trying to get these into a functioning display is a big part of the holiday, Oka."

“I…don’t want to break it,” I said, my voice a bit soft.

“We can try it together,” Zeta said.

At Tesata, the hanging mobile of Safe Silver was deemed an unwanted indulgence, so the only time I got to see it was on video tapes.

“If it’s too much, don’t push it,” Zeta said, reading my expression. “Forcing yourself to like Safe Silver might bring back a lot of bad memories.”

“I guess,” I said. “But…when I’m here, or when I’m with you, it’s alright.”

I wish I could bring Zeta with to every Safe Silver thing with my family. Maybe I could ask Berin for that. But for now, it made sense to me to try and enjoy the holiday traditions with her.

“Should we put a movie on while we work?” Stella asked. “The Terrific Silver is always good.”

“We can’t watch that until it's actually Safe Silver!” Zeta said. “Sorry, Oka. I mean, if you really want to, we can watch that.”

“I just said I don’t want to mess with your family traditions!” I said.

“Maybe we can put a lesser Safe Silver special on,” Stella said. “Something that’s good background noise.”

Stella decided on an old comedy movie about a guy walking around a big city in winter who seemed to be in constant distress. I wasn’t paying too much attention, but it seemed kinda funny. Zeta and I did our best to untangle the cables and metal things (needing Stella for a few of them) until we had a decent looking Safe Silver display. Stella hung it from a hook on the ceiling, and I felt a glimmer of the nice warmness about this holiday when I looked at the glittery, glistening, mostly silver display in front of us.

“What does Safe Silver mean to you two?” I asked. “When I grew up—and this isn’t me having super bad memories, don’t worry—they just told us a lot that it celebrated Cani too much.”

“Well, we are Cani, so I think it’s more than right to celebrate ourselves,” Stella said.

“I agree,” I said. “Again, I’m OK.” I hoped I wasn’t saying this solely because I didn’t want to worry them. Zeta would be there for me if I had a big breakdown about this. I felt alright, though.

“While it’s definitely pretty commercialized nowadays,” Stella said. “I treat it as a celebration of family. Which until recently was just this goof.” She ruffled Zeta’s hair. “But the house is a bit fuller this year. And also a totally different house.”

“I’m all about the presents,” Zeta said, earning a Lillia-esque glare from her sister. “Well, partially about the presents! It’s about family for me too. This is my first Safe Silver as a Cani. Or with my fangs in. I don’t know what I’m trying to say. The holiday started because of a family, so it’s, yeah, it’s family.”

The legend of Safe Silver was a family of Cani were escaping dangerous void nodes, barely surviving as they traveled through worlds that fell apart. When hope seemed lost, they made it here, to the stable world we live in, with their only possessions a silvery drink the youngest child of the family (called the wintry queen despite technically being a princess?) picked up along the way. They had a big meal to celebrate their newfound safety. They were said to be one of the first Cani families if not the first to arrive here, so the holiday celebrating the Silver Family was important to Cani.

As we put ornaments on the hanging mobile, we chatted a bit about the traditions the Faleurs had for the holiday itself, like the big meal the day before, the little display of the first family, that sort of thing.

“There is an art to hanging these,” Stella said, gently placing an ornament that immediately fell off.

“I’ve always wanted to do this,” I confessed.

“I hope you get to lots this year then,” Zeta said. “One here, then one with Berin, maybe more!”

I wouldn’t be surprised if the Kilanders had a mobile they had set up by staff or something. But it would be nice to do this with Berin.