It seemed like no one was immune to the infectious spirit of the holiday season this year. Every town would always have their Grinches and Scrooges, but in Destiny City there seemed to be far less than others, at least for this particular Christmas. Maybe it was because of the rising fear and concern over the livelihood of the town: fear and desperation had a way of bringing people together. Or perhaps it was because in light of all the bad things that had been happening over the past year and a half, it was just easier to remember and be thankful for the good. It was likely a combination of a lot of different things, both the aforementioned reasons, good old-fashioned human compassion kicking in -- and, of course, the snow -- that was making the holiday season genuinely feel like a holiday season and not just another Twelve Days of Commercialism.

No one was untouched by the spirit. Not even Janice Fitzpatrick.

There was a lot of activity at Destiny City Mall, that was for certain. Shopping, obviously, but also charity: there was a small bit of floor space dedicated to large refrigerator boxes that were intended to be filled with donations of all sorts, from toys and clothes to canned food and toiletry items. Janice had entered the mall, pushing the door open with her back, and was walking a somewhat jagged, crowd-dodging line towards that area with a box of her own. It had a few toys she'd decided she could bear to part with, but it was mostly filled with clothes -- childhood items that no longer fit, girly things she could no longer stand to wear anymore; a prom dress that she had never, and would never intend to wear.

As much as she hoarded her stuff, this was stuff she could easily part with. It was taking up a great deal of space. Her wardrobe was somewhat enormous, half of it was junk she'd only used once or twice, if even that. It was wordlessly, unceremoniously all dropped to the floor next to all the other boxes; she didn't even acknowledge the words of gratitude from the representative and the security officer standing nearby. She just dropped the previously-her-things and left.

Janice was more relieved to be rid of the damn things than anything else. Or, at the very least, that was the story she was telling herself about this. Mission accomplished, now it was time to get out of here if she could manage to push her way through the crowds again. It seemed like Shopping Rush Hour was starting to pick up, and the sea of people was thickening by the minute. With an irritable huff she tried to swim through them, and in the process of doing so a familiar sight caught her eye, from a familiar window of a familiar storefront.

Imperium Greetings.

Those damned snowglobes.

She narrowed her eyes at the tiny images of the Moon Queen that were staring back at her from behind the display window. There was a festively-colored banner hanging over them, proclaiming OVER 200 GIVEN AWAY!! TODAY COULD BE YOUR LUCKY DAY! that she regarded with one of her classic scowls, but for once it wasn't because of her internal rantings about how capitalism was ruining Christmas and everything else people once held dear.

No, this time that wasn't the case at all... the fact of the matter was that, for some reason she could not explain, Janice desperately wanted one of those snowglobes. She had been trying to get one at every opportunity she had to come up here and take a ticket, and had lost every single time. And every single loss she faced violently deepened the pit in her stomach she had about them. It was starting to get unbearable. Normally so many losses would be tipping her off that maybe it wasn't worth the effort -- but with the prize in question, every loss just made her more determined to win. She entered the store.

And today was her lucky day.

When her number was slowly, but increasingly-ever-so-surely read out, her eyes darted over it in disbelief, the ticket caller had to read off her number again. But then she came to her senses, or at least to enough of them that she was able to walk up to the prize table and claim her proof of victory, which was wrapped in newspaper and gingerly placed into a little square box. She had won. She had finally won. It was enough that on her way home, several times, she practically had to smack herself so she wouldn't stop where she was walking and take it out.

That had to wait until she got home -- and when she was home, she thundered up the stairs, frantically threw off her coat, opened the box, tore off the newspaper and stared. And that was all she did for several, uncounted minutes -- just stare at it and marvel at how it was here in her room. Granted, it was only just the one, and that fact nagged at the back of her mind for just the moment, but she figured for now that didn't matter.

Slowly, carefully, as if afraid her fingerprints on the thing would tarnish it forever, she picked it up and flipped it over. Janice had heard people in the store talking about how it had turned out to secretly be a music box, and how lovely the song was, and she wanted to hear it for herself. When she finished winding it up and set it back down on her desk... it was the only thing in her room, practically the only thing in the world. Alarmingly enough, she almost didn't care about who it was slowly twirling in the little glass dome, catching handfuls of fake snow in her tiny frosted-glass hands. The song was... calming. Melancholy. The song would be stuck in her head for the rest of the night, it was everything she'd heard about it and more.

She hadn't heard, for example, that it wasn't nearly long enough.

Janice sat there with her head resting in her hands, pondering the sudden silence, feeling like she had lost something she didn't know she had with that final note fading into the air -- and that maybe, if she listened to it again... more closely this time... she might be able to find it again. Without another word to herself, she unfolded her arms and picked up the snowglobe again. And wound it up, and played it.

Over, and over and over.