Quote:
Prompt 1 (Diamond Dust): This time of year, snow is common. What’s uncommon is the single, strange snowfall where each snowflake that fell glistened like tiny diamonds. For the most part, the snow seems fairly normal—it’s cold, wet, and melts just like any other snow, it just also happens to look like tiny little gems are falling from the sky. Depending on who you’re with, it’s either incredibly strange, or incredibly romantic.
When the snow is coming down at its strongest, crystalized snowflakes trickle down with the rest of the snow. 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. There doesn’t seem to be anything particularly magical about them, but they are beautiful and make pretty keepsakes.
When the snow is coming down at its strongest, crystalized snowflakes trickle down with the rest of the snow. 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. There doesn’t seem to be anything particularly magical about them, but they are beautiful and make pretty keepsakes.
Having Huanxi and Dewey at home was, overall, an unspeakably good thing, in Liánlí’s opinion. For one thing, the house had too much space for just one person and one dog, even with Liánlí reserving one of the bedrooms to use as his studio. If not for the fact that Ming-er had such an important point to make to his parents about his ability to provide for himself and Qiye—and if not for the fact that Qi-jie probably preferred having privacy for being intimate with hir husband—Liánlí might have offered to let them move in, had Huanxi and then Dewey not shown up, in need of somewhere to go. Likewise, I would’ve offered to Hayden if not for Hayden renewing the lease on his apartment right before Liánlí had looked to move.
One of the precious few downsides of having Huanxi and Dewey around, though, was trying to keep holiday presents hidden, so the two of them could get a surprise when they eventually opened said presents. Liánlí had already invested in some good bundles of seed packets, based on some of the things they’d expressed interest in planting in their garden, and stashed those gifts in a back-corner of the basement. Seemed a good place to hide things, since: A., while it had come with an already carpeted floor, the basement currently wasn’t in use for anything besides existing (which Liánlí planned to change……at some point. maybe. in theory.), so there wasn’t much reason to go down there, as opposed to closets and cupboards that Dewey and Huanxi might have plenty of reason to rifle through; and B., with some careful arranging of the other bits and bobs stashed down there, Liánlí had managed to make the gifts more or less blend in with the scenery, so they’d be less likely to attract attention if Dewey and Huanxi did have cause to venture into the basement.
Some seeds to plant was a good, solid gift idea—but Liánlí also wanted to find something more personal for each of them. Something to help them feel like part of the family, when they eventually had a “nobody here is really actively Christian, but nobody has work today either, so why not spend the day with people we love” brunch and holiday gifts. He had ideas for gifts to give both Dewey and Huanxi, and thankfully, “I need to run over to my music store and then pick up a couple things for dinner” worked great as an explanation for running into town to get said presents. Dewey’s had come first, since they weren’t quite as heavy, thus easier to carry on the walk through town: he’d expressed an interest in puzzles, so Liánlí had gone to a couple different places to find some of the adult-oriented puzzles with over a thousand pieces and some peaceful pastoral scenes that seemed right up Dewey’s alley.
Exiting the last shop that had had one of said puzzles, Liánlí briefly considered not going for Huanxi’s gift. For one thing, he’d need to move quickly to sneak it down to the basement when he got home. For another, more important thing, though, it seemed to have started snowing, and not exactly lightly.
……Emphasis, apparently, on “seemed.” As some of the flakes hit his jacket, they made too solid a sound for normal snow, which briefly made Liánlí consider hail? But, on the other hand, the snowflakes didn’t feel big enough for that. Moreover, as he started up Cherry Street—toward the music store he frequented less often, but that had what he wanted to get for Huanxi, waiting right in the window for Liánlí to buy it—the snowflakes fell with a lilting drift like normal snowflakes, one that made “The Dance of the Sugar-Plum Fairy” play in Liánlí’s head. They looked like little gemstones, and the ones that landed on Liánlí’s shoulders didn’t seem to melt—but aside from that, they seemed more or less normal.
Call it “Destiny City” normal, maybe.
That the snowflakes didn’t melt, however, gave Liánlí an idea. Paused at a crosswalk, he took his empty water bottle out of the bag he’d stashed it in. Cracking it back open, Liánlí started collecting the gem-like snowflakes. He hoped they’d continue not melting when he got them home, because cute little things like this seemed like they could fit into one of Qiye’s crafting projects, maybe. He was getting ready for the light to change when a stray glance to his right brought a familiar, blue ponytail into Liánlí’s sights—familiar from some of the clubs around Destiny City, associated in Liánlí’s brain with a DJ whose sets he always enjoyed.
Veering away from the crosswalk, toward the bearer of said hair, Liánlí called out to them, “……Yukio?”
If it wasn’t Yukio, no big deal, and he’d apologize for the mistake. If it was, though, then it’d be great to see him. Liánlí hadn’t gotten out to the clubs in town……pretty much since Huanxi had arrived in town, between patrolling together and helping show Huanxi around Earth. So, it had been a while since Liánlí seen most of the people he knew from the club scene at all.
tatterpixie
