Quote:
It was like any other light, winter snow. It was chilly and clouds hung in the sky but if you looked up you could swear you could still see the stars. The snow falls gently and coats the ground in a light layer--but these aren't normal snowflakes. Mixed in with the regular snow, crystalized snowflakes seem to be falling. These are roughly the size of a quarter and are light and hollow. They are fragile, like glass, but glisten like a fine cut gem. No one can explain this anomaly, but these small snowflakes won't melt. And they are all over Destiny City. You can find them gently falling to the ground, or lying in the fresh fallen snow. They don't seem evil--but they do make for some cute keepsakes!
A long time ago, Gigi had collected snowglobes. They’d played a tune. She’d treasured them.
A long time ago, Gigi had met a strange fairy-like woman, in deep snow, dancing. She didn’t remember the details. Only that she was beautiful.
Gigi had believed in magic, then. Gentle, benign magic that swirled through the winter night and faded with the dawn. It had been a long time ago. On nights like this, though, with snow falling soft and light, like someone had shaken the globe of the world, with no youma looming and no Negaverse agents threatening, it didn’t seem quite so far away.
It was a pretty night, and cutting through the park was still the fastest way home, even if she wasn’t strictly planning on powering up or doing any real patrolling. She was just quietly on alert, on edge in a way that she’d never been as a kid. Maybe her mother was right, and it was too much coffee. Maybe her asteroid was right, and she was too much coffee. But she was committed to that now, it was written into her starseed, and she’d promised herself she’d fight. She’d heard that there were some weird things going down – the flower festival was in the news, and then her little cousin got sick from a wild rabbit bite. When she’d heard ‘snowflakes that won’t melt’, suspicion ran deep.
It wasn’t like she needed to look far. Another flurry brought the tiny crystalline flakes right to her, landing on her shoulder, catching in her curls. It wasn’t every snowflake, most melted cold and wet against her warm skin, beautiful and gone between breaths. But the ones that stayed were truly something from her cousin’s Disney films. Small as coins, holding their form in icy precision, and lingering.
She pulled a pair from her hair, gently, and felt the fragile crystal break, one little arm that fell to the ground when she got it loose. Even broken, it was clear that the two snowflakes were different, their patterns not matching up at all. She could lay one on top of the other, and they still didn’t stick together or melt away. She held them gently in her palm as she wandered along the snowy, starlit path, stopping at intervals to pick up a few more here, another one there. They were like glass Christmas tree ornaments, just falling from the sky. She almost wondered if she should collect a few for Arian – they would make lovely jewellery.
If she didn’t know about the Negaverse, she might have picked it for some shop’s holiday marketing stunt. As a senshi, it made more sense that agents of Chaos were sending them. But just looking at them, collecting them, she couldn’t seem to believe that there was anything sinister in the tiny things. The snowflakes certainly didn’t seem natural, but Chaos didn’t have a monopoly on the strange. There were worlds and worlds out there beyond the falling snow, and Cosmos, and who knew what else.
Gigi cupped her snowflakes in her palm, letting the normal snow fall and melt all around them. Another late crystalline gem landed beside them, and she shifted her other hand to stop it falling further. To keep it safe. Each one was a treasure.
Maybe it was okay to believe in some kind of magic that wasn’t tied to war and stars.
And if they disappeared into nothing, if they brought destruction, if they brought despair… at least, right now, they were beautiful.
(587 words)
