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“Urgh, it’s SO COLD!” The small hell fairy began to shiver, being from a place of such intense heat made adapting to cold weather tough to say the least. Even some extra pieces of fluff on both of her hands wasn’t able to stop it, so the red stripes and blue stars with a jester hat fairy continued to mope and freeze.
Still, she wasn’t alone, as a much more wrapped up fairy came floating around her with a small little ringing. A big white hat, with a little fluff on top to make it fit more in the season of giving, and a mostly white dress/coat with a pink bow (on her hat and dress!) “Why don’t you use your torch, Clownpiece?” The gloved spring fairy floated on down, carrying a basket of goodies.
“I had it taken away.” The jester hatted Clownpiece just waved her arms around in annoyance, to prove that she was torchless. “After waving it around that green shrine maiden’s face, I had it taken off me until I could get a stupid tree!” She pouted, her annoyance clearly evident by just her whole demeanor.
“A tree, for Christmas? What would a Hell Fairy know about that?”
“Exactly! I tried to tell that to her, but the Shrine Maiden wouldn’t budge!” Now a crossed arms pout, if she was trying to be angry, it was ending up cuter than anything else. She really didn’t want to ask for help, not from this fairy she didn’t even know was able to think about anything but spring, but what choice did she have. Grumbling and mumbling, it at least kept the curious fairy’s attention on her. “I feel foolish for asking but… can… you… please help… me?”
“Of course!” Lily White didn’t seem to mind that Clownpiece was forcing those words out, as she began to flutter along. “I know where there’s some cool trees, follow me!” So, Clownpiece began to fly along behind her, her sense of pride bruised but not completely destroyed. In that case, she’d just have to race Lily to the trees!
As it turns out, racing someone to a destination that only they knew about wasn’t the wisest idea, as Clownpiece ended up getting slightly lost. It was interesting looking over Gensokyo as it was covered with snow, if not a bit lackluster in her eyes. From what she understood, it was an important part of life, but it was just… boring. Outside of celebrating the new year, which she really didn’t keep track of, outside of when the grownups started to get ready.
It was just an endless landscape of pure whiteness. Due to most youkai not celebrating this holiday, as Clownpiece knew it was more western so not really aligning with what most youkai believed, there weren't even many lights or decorations to help mix up the feeling. Dead trees, or pure whiteness. Well, at least it was pure in a good sense, unlike those lame moon people.
She got sidetracked, lost in her own thoughts as she was examining the area, but Lily was nice enough to help her out. “Hey, this way!” Spreading her arms, and spreading a small amount of pink danmaku in sheer excitement, the fairy herald of spring began to sing. “You’re almost there, unlike all those dead trees, you’re bound to see some great ones here!”
So, Clownpiece followed Lily and it was clear that despite the endless snow, there was a bit of life still remaining. The trees who leaves hadn’t completely left it just yet. It was quite the pretty sight in this context, more like nature itself giving a nice cozy blanket to the earth itself with the trees being the heads popping out. Still, really wasn’t that impressive since all of the leaves were covered by the snow, it’s like someone had drawn a wonderful picture and then a toddler had gone and slapped white paint all over it!
Regardless, rushing to the forest, there was only one thing left on the jester’s mind! “Heck yeah, now I can get my torch back!” So, the two fairies began to cheer, glad that their long and arduous adventure was now complete! Until the jester stopped cheering and just stared at the trees, the other fairy was just unaware of the confusion. “Hey. How do we get these trees to the Shrine?”
“Eh?” Suddenly, Lily stopped cheering as well, now looking confused herself! “What would a shrine need with a tree for Christmas?” Lily spoke up, as Clownpiece just shrugged in response. “There’s some small trees being sold by someone but I don’t really have money so…” Her voice trailed off, as she got her hat and jingled it about. There wasn’t really anywhere to keep some money.
Clownpiece however, did the same and got out a small little purse. “Urgh, Reimu’s really making me spend my pocket money for my torch back.”
“Reimu gives out pocket money?”
“Ha! No, Reimu doesn’t have money to give out! It’s from Master, she comes by every so often and gives me some pocket money!” The jester’s voice was full of glee, even despite the fact it wasn’t that much and that she was being forced to spend it on something as lame as a tree.
With that though, Clownpiece was now following Lily once again. This trip was shorter and seemed to take them somewhere… extremely concerning. For most of the trip, the scenery was the same. Snow covering the world, or maybe some rocks or something that snow just fell off. Nothing unusual there, until they started to pass over sunflowers. She could SEE the Sunflowers. Granted, they weren’t doing too great, but the lack of snow tipped her off, it was like a place in Gensokyo had just refused to move on from summer.
Even SHE knew what was so terrifying about this place as she began to shiver not because of the cold for once. “H-Hey, you sure you’re going to the right place?” Despite her clearly panicked voice, the herald of spring did not stop her momentum. With no other options other than to give up her precious wand for the holidays, Clownpiece followed along.
In this trapped field of summer, hummed a youkai feared by all that knew her name. Of course, Clownpiece reasoned to herself that Lily just didn’t know how to remember names, so that’s why she wasn’t fearing what really should be feared. Right outside of a small cottage laid multiple trees, all for sale in surprisingly articulate pottery. Obviously, they weren’t massive trees, but really they didn’t need to be. Humans wouldn’t be able to put the star at the top of the tree in that case! “Hey, Yuuka! I’ve got a friend who wants to buy a tree!”
Nevermind. Lily did know this demon’s name, and it was now looking at the pair of them. Short green hair, and an almost cute resting face was merely a disguise for what hid under the mask. “Oh, is that so?” She wandered over, before looking at Clownpiece and smirking a little, causing the hell fairy to freeze in place. “Buying a tree, huh? And torchless too, I may add. So, did a prank of yours burst into flames and you finally got punished by the shrine maiden?”
“U-Urgh.” Clownpiece let out an annoyed grunt, trying to come up with a comeback that wasn’t just a sad and pathetic ‘no you’ eventually just giving up and nodding. “Y-Yeah. What’s the cheapest tree you’ve got?” She turned away and pouted, not wanting to look at the smug grin Yuuka had, and the mix of fear she felt around her. Yuuka Kamazi didn’t seem to mind, if her soft giggle was anything to go off.
“Hmm, seems like you’re not really interested in a tree, but honestly, that place being able to get one is enough of something to smile about. Very well, I’ll show you my cheaper collections.” With Yuuka’s calm words, they now walked through this collection of trees. The lack of snow here at least was a good indicator of what they were actually going to get, even if it was clear the trees varied widely, though Clownpiece couldn’t help but notice a lot of them were surprisingly cheap to begin with.
Eventually, they got to the cheapest trees, which Clownpiece’s pocket money was enough for. Of course, the cheapest tree was a little bit sad, so she decided to instead win technically and get only the third cheapest one, pointing at it with gusto! “That one, please! We’re only small so we can’t take a big tree up!” Clownpiece was rather smug about her excuse to save some pocket money, as she dropped a bunch of money in Yuuka’s arms. “I can’t do numbers very well.” She may not be comfortable with most things about Yuuka, but she feared mathematics even more.
“Very well.” Yuuka, for her part, simply took out some glasses and started counting the contents placed in her hands. The only reason it wasn’t an awkward silence was because Lily instead filled the air with some nice humming, that Clownpiece couldn’t help but be charmed by. Even if it was only a tiny bit. Eventually, Yuuka took what she was owed, and gave the rest back to Clownpiece. “There you go, and a bit of change left over, good for you.”
“Well, whatever.” Clownpiece turned away, embarrassed now that she was being talked to like this. “Anyway, we’ll take that- oh.” She didn’t quite get to contest Yuuka simply picking up the tree and hauling it to the Shrine herself, faster than she could react. “W-Wait-”
“Oh, yeah. They’re apparently really heavy, so Yuuka also brings them to your doorstep! You paid extra for shipping, she says usually.” Lily chirped up rather cheerfully, beginning to fly back to where Clownpiece’s residency was.
“Urgh, ripoff…” Clownpiece could only mumble that, in fear that Yuuka would hear it, zip all the way back and use her as fertilizer. Still, Lily didn’t seem to hear it either, as she was already almost out of eyesight range. A head start, Lily would surely need it.
With that said, it was a surprisingly quick trip back to the shrine, as the pair of fairies were excited to see their new tree. They got to the shrine, as Yuuka placed it down just as they got there. Clearly doing it for dramatic effect, as she smiled. “Very well. I can only provide the tree itself, you’ll have to get decorations. Have a nice New Years and Winter Festival.” She gave a smile, and flew off. Not sticking around for too long herself, only smiling and heading off. Seems she knew staying any longer could cause the Shrine Maiden to want to kick her out.
Regardless, now they had… a rather plain looking blue spruce tree. (According to the words on the pot.) Lily though, wasn’t deterred. “I’ll go get some decorations!" She happily zoomed off, and while Clownpiece didn’t object to her wishes… she knew that it’d just be spring pink petals. So, Clownpiece began to run off and get some decorations as well!
She actually had an idea right away, so she borrowed some unused empty bottles that the witch had left over, not really noticing they had cloth in them for some reason and zoomed right into the woods. Blasting through trees and dodging the branches, she wanted to keep an eye out. Admittedly, she was worried that her idea would just blend into the snow, but eventually she found what she was looking for. Three of them actually.
A red, blue and green Kedama. Little balls of fluff, that seemed to be alive in some way. Clownpiece had to sneak by, but it wasn’t too hard to sneak up on them. They seemed to be more focused on not feeling cold, so when Clownpiece got one, and put it in a bottle with some of the cloth, it wasn’t able to put up much of a fight! Still, the other two didn’t seem to like that, firing danmaku at her. “Tch, looks like I’ve just got a red one. Ah, well. You’re gonna be a wonderful decoration!"
Still, she had to try and get away, as the danmaku seemed to trap her and without her wand she didn’t actually know how to fight as well as usual. Plus, trying not to drop the important bottle meant that she was really on the backfoot… suddenly though, since she was more focused on dodging rather than the other two, they began to stop shooting. “H-Huh? H-Hey, what’s the deal?” Clownpiece placed a hand on her hip, trying to be cool but more so just looking silly.
The remaining members of the Kedama trio floated on over and seemed to gravitate towards the two other bottles. Clownpiece took a look, and noticed that the Kedema she had was now snuggled up and even slightly glowing a bit. “Oh… that witch sure has weird experiments. Well, okay, if you two wanna be warm, then hop in!” She grinned, placing the red one down and putting the other two in there as well.
Now, she had a red, blue and green set of glowing, cozy Kedema. She wasn’t quite sure why they were glowing, but no reason to question it. Instead she had to… rather slowly, take them back to the tree. “I guess even balls of fur have it rough this time of year, huh? Well, no worries here, just hibernate… or something if that’s what you do.” She was smug for barely winning a battle between common enemies. That’s for sure.
She eventually made her way back to the tree, which had many different pink petals, because of course it did, but also a Shrine Maiden putting up some decorations of her own. Well, not entirely her own, the green shrine maiden had come down to give Reimu some handdowns for potential tree. (As thanks, Clownpiece waved her wand in front of the other miko’s face and got punished as a result.) “Oh, hey, ‘Piece. Seems you actually got a tree, good job.” She seemed more relaxed than anything, not overly proud, maybe a bit annoyed, but more neutral than anything. “I suppose this means you’ll want your wand back.”
“Yup, I’m a fairy of her own word! First, I gotta put these three on a tree. Seems that they were cold, so they kind of just let themselves get in these weird bottles.”
“Well, at least finally you got a use out of some of Marisa’s junk. She leaves so much here you’d think she considers it a second home.” With some little hangers, the tree was impressively able to contain all three of the resting little fellas. “I’m not going to worry about the moral implications of this, or the magical implications of this.”
“I for one am willing to blame the witch.” Clownpiece happily replied, all three of them now hung up, and she was just digging through the box, letting herself hang them up, along with Lily and the Komaniu who was also there.
“Giving some spring to this tree… let it spring… let it spring~” Lily meanwhile was just focusing on her spring hyperfixation, which while valid in this time of year also wasn’t entirely appropriate. However she was also the only reason why Clownpiece was able to get her torch back so…
“Hey, do you want to put the star on the tree… you know…”
“Well, it feels more fitting if you do it, so you should do it!” Lily handed the star to the star of the show, who turned to her audience of three and just decided to play it cool.
“Well, okay, only because you asked.” Clownpiece replied, trying to be smug, and placed the star atop of the tree. She had no idea why they did it, but it was a cool thing to do! Then, she turned to Reimu with a grin, who only had one thing to say.
“Don’t burn down anything I own or brainwash anyone I care about, or else the time you’re not allowed to use this thing until the end of the month.” Clownpiece couldn’t help but gulp, but she understood the assignment well enough, as she turned to Lily with a smile. After a tense moment of waiting, Reimu returned out from the shrine, holding the mythical item that this whole adventure was for.
Now holding her trusty scepter in her hands, it was cause for celebration! Both of the fairies jumped for joy, hands waving and in the air grinning all the while. Then, they turned to each other to fulfill the main purpose of life! “Alright, let’s go play!” So, the two fairies rushed off, cheering as they did so. In a way, being around Lily was exciting. Because the moment winter began to fade, she’d be the first one to know, and that meant life would start blooming again for another wonderful year in Gensokyo.