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Jade stared upward at the diamond-encrusted sky with sparkles in her green eyes, watching as snowflakes fell from the overcast clouds above, landing on her lenses and quickly melting away. She ran a long, winterproofed sleeve over them, watching the liquid smudge behind the viewport of her optic nerve, the wind's whistling tune causing the pines and trees around her to rustle and shake. Everything was carpeted in a blanket of white, muffling the noise, sending animals into hibernation, a concept she was familiar with purely academically, never having experienced it in reality. Her tan skin and bright green jacket turned her into a beacon of copper-burnt light in the snowfall, while Rainbow Falls surged and churned near her, twisting and swirling across the forest, making its way to parts unknown.
Kanaya looked like a particularly amusing penguin as she shuffled over through the ankle-high winter weather, rocking herself back and forth to combat the stiffness of her six layers. When Jade turned around, breaking herself out of her temporary reverie, she was struck by the sight of her girlfriend's improper ambling, and stifled a small laugh.
Then, Rose hit Jade with a snowball. For her first time being struck by an icy projectile, Jade expected to hate it a lot more, but instead, it just bounced off of the hood of her jacket with a splat and she had to laugh it off.
It was only recently that the three of them had begun dating in earnest, after a long couple of months of soul searching, coming off the heels of a visit to meet Jade in person, over at her home in Hawaii. Rose had complained about the climate the entire time, Jade gently mocking her for her inability to handle the heat, and now that Jade was seeing snow for the first time in her life, it was Rose's turn to return the favor. A second snowball struck the side of Jade's head and she reeled comically back, about to double over in amused laughter. Kanaya finally got within an arms length, and Jade pulled her over, hugging Kanaya from behind with intent to use her as a Trollian shield against the onslaught of poorly made snowballs.
"What's the matter, Jade, darling? Can't handle the cold?" Rose yelled from over in the distance, a little way up an incline, depositing snowballs downrange with the ferocity of a machine gunner in the trenches. Kanaya, for what it was worth, made an excellent shield.
"Please watch your aim, Rose! I'm afraid you are catching me in the crossfire." Kanaya replied, all sharp and curt and articulate like she was every millisecond of every second of every day.
"All's fair in love and war, Kanaya!" Rose yelled back, laughing haughtily in her best villain voice. "None shall withstand the winter's ch-"
Then, a perfectly packed snowball exploded in Rose's face, causing her to slip onto her butt. She blinked, startled, while Jade packed snow into another geometrically coherent sphere, took careful aim, and used that rifle-firing arm of her to fastball the dissolving meteoroid towards Rose's snow-white hair, just adding more volume to it. Rose tried to get back up, and then slipped further, beginning to slide down the hill, rapidly gaining speed on a sled made of her own bright orange jacket and her body weight, carried down until a vaguely human-shaped ravine had been dragged into the accumulating snow, the tip of it arriving at Kanaya's boot-laced feet.
"Hi, Rose! Enjoy your trip?" Jade asked, peering over from underneath Kanaya's outstretched arm. The Jadeblood was by far the tallest of the trio, followed shortly thereafter by Jade, leaving Rose in the 4'11" dumps where she now lay, idly fiddling with her arms. Jade's buck-toothed grin was infectious, spreading over to Rose, and then to Kanaya, although they lacked the defining toothiness that made it a bucktoothed grin rather than just a standard, garden-issue grin.
"It was delightful," Rose said, and then splattered Jade's face with another snowball.
Closer to the squared-off, stately Lalonde Estate, a contemptuous snowman stood tall and mighty, his head yet to be assembled. They were close enough to the glass doors that Kanaya, ever the reticent vampiress, could sit indoors in her comfy cozy sweater and sip from a mug of hot chocolate while watching Jade and Rose perform their frostbound alchemy, transmuting loose flakes of frozen water into a series of spheres stacked on high. While Rose collected the snow, it was Jade that was doing the bulk of the excitable work, shaping it into ever-perfect-er spheres with her arms and hands. Jade seemed, from Kanaya's view, positively enamored with the stuff.
"We don't have anything like that where I'm from!" She had said, on her first viewing of the sky's own marshmallow fluff. Kanaya crossed a leg over the other leg, leaning back into the large, comfortable seat she had dragged over from the living room over to the glass door so that she could better watch (and, if need be, supervise, came the unspoken agreement between the three of them - satisfying Kanaya's omnipresent need to supervise) the two fool about in the snow like excited Burgandybloods.
Kanaya did not mind sitting and watching, either. Despite all of the strength and vampiric traits her caste provided into her young adulthood, her body temperature was low enough that staying in the snow for extended periods of time was inadvisable. Her layers of matched jackets, snow pants, and socks lay discarded by her feet, acting as a blanket upon the lowermost layer of fluffy, woolen Hanukkah socks. If she recalled her holidays correctly, they would be performing some of the human religious rituals tonight with Jade in tow, and Kanaya, for one, was quite excited. Even her sweater was dressed in blues, whites, and yellows, despite her common interpretation of the human-dominated holiday season as green and red. It wasn't much of a problem to Kanaya - she preferred this palette more.
The third and final sphere was deposited thusly on the snowman, while Rose ambled over to Kanaya, sliding the glass door open to let in a wave of cold air, along with a kiss on the forehead from Rose. "We're almost finished, dearest Kanaya. But, as I'm sure you're aware, proper accessorization is a necessity." Rose explained, wiping the snow off of her boots.
"Naturally." Kanaya responded with a smirk, taking a sip from her warm drink, feeling it fill her body with heat while Rose disappeared into the kitchen, re-appearing about a minute later with a small plastic bag, the tip of a carrot sticking out of the top. "Wait. Before you go."
"Yes, Kanaya?" Rose asked, turning around on her heel a little unsteadily, unused to pulling such elegant maneuvers in heavy winter clothes (it wasn't all the time you got a snowstorm like this!). Kanaya beckoned her over with a curled finger, and when Rose got close enough, she leaned up to kiss her on her forehead. Rose smiled a mysterious little smile and turned back around to traipse into the snow once more.
Kanaya watched with rapt attention, leaning into her palms as Jade grabbed the appropriate branches and broke them into shape, and Rose jammed a carrot into the snowman's face to crudely imitate an exaggerated olfactory bulb. Several dried fruits form a rudimentary mouth, with two bright green grapes inserted as eyes. Kanaya's own eyes narrowed when Jade inserted two sticks into the head of the snowman, and then widened when a bunch of pine needles begun to be expertly injected, beginning to form a crude, rough approximation of hair.
And then Rose threw one of Kanaya's scarves around the head of the snowman, and Kanaya gasped. They were making a -
Jade pressed her face up against the glass window, letting the suction flare her mouth out into a popped open smile. "We made a snowkanaya!"
The fireplace's crackling heat was warm and life-affirming, Kanaya doing the drink duty for today while Rose and Jade calmed down from their day in the snow. The couch was big enough for the three of them, and Kanaya looked absolutely marvelous, Rose observed, bringing over a tray with teacups and saucers and a kettle all set for them. Their cups already filled with the stuff (Jade, something fruity, Rose, something flowery, and Kanaya, something in between), Rose slipped her hands under the tray to steady it, helping Kanaya deposit the excess of superheated liquid onto the coffee table, and then patted the suddenly vacated space between her and Jade.
Kanaya, for some reason, looked a little shocked at the offer, but graciously and gracefully slipped herself in between the shorter girl and the much shorter girl. Jade leaned forward, depositing an amusing amount of sugar cubes into her tea, and stirring them with the cute little spoon until she was satisfied, and Rose watched Kanaya with a museum appraiser's eye while she inserted only a single sugar cube into her own drink. Rose took it plain, as she tended to do, the tea having cooled to just the right temperature to set her soul ablaze as it slid down into her throat sip by careful sip.
Or perhaps that warm, thumping feeling in her chest was getting to look at the two amazing women she had the pleasure of dating. More importantly, she had the pleasure of helping them enjoy a lovely, snowbound afternoon, and then later, they'd light the Hanukiah, and have a lovely time unwrapping presents. Rose reached over to grab the comforter from the arm of the couch and began to pull it into her lap, slowly threading the needle to ply it across everyone's legs without spilling any tea. Kanaya lifted her arms up and nudged it along with her elbows, Jade did the same, and then Rose kicked around a little to let it fall over their legs.
The room was filled only with the crackling of old firewood and the occasional louder slurps from Jade, who probably wasn't used to drinking tea out of teacups, if not unused to drinking tea at all. It was really more of a Rose and Kanaya thing, but Rose was determined to make it a Rose, Kanaya, and Jade thing yet. Jade finished first, Rose finished second, and then Kanaya finished her drink shortly thereafter, reaching her long arms around the two of them, giving them plenty of room to nestle into Kanaya's sides. Rose pulled the comforter up just a little more.
"Hey, guys?" Jade said, small and quiet. It was almost strange for Rose to hear Jade's voice like that - she was typically such a bombast, with a big, bold personality, that Rose was immediately struck with the possibility that something was wrong. Kanaya, however, responded before Rose could ask anything.
"Yes, Jade?"
"I love you guys. Like, for real." Jade spoke, announcing it to the warm air, and Kanaya hugged her a little closer. This time, Rose was the one to speak up.
"We love you too, Jade." She said with a warm, toothy smile: a rarity on the otherwise tight-lipped Rose Lalonde. She curled in a little closer, reaching out to hold Jade's hand over top of the blanket.
"♫ Barukh atah Adonai, Eloheinu Melekh ha’olam, asher kid’shanu b'mitzvotav, v'tzivanu l'hadlik ner shel Hanukkah. ♫" Rose recited with a practiced voice, singing the prayer much in a way that a choir soloist would perform a song. It was sung impressively, low in pitch and absurdly melismatic, performed in exactly the way she had done so in her past years, either with Roxy or at Hebrew school or somewhere, something along those lines.
Kanaya, who had been dating Rose for two years, was able to read off the transliterated paper in time, with transliterations both in English and Alternian, but she didn't even attempt to sing it the way Rose did - she just let Rose go off once she was finished with the prayer, hooking an arm around Rose's waist, meeting Jade's arm just as she was considering doing the same thing. They both held onto Rose, feeling the vibrations of her voice traveling through her body and across their limbs and into them.
Jade didn't even bother keeping up with either of the two. She just held the little notecard of prayers and mouthed the words the best she could alongside Kanaya, and that was okay. She hooked her arm around Rose's waist, meeting Kanaya's arm just as the other girl was considering doing the same thing. She leaned over, kissed the top of Rose's head as she finished up, and then kissed Kanaya on the cheek, quickly receiving a matching set back from the two of them.
Flipping over to the second card, Rose continued. "♫ Barukh atah Adonai, Eloheinu Melekh ha’olam, She’ahsa neesim la’avotaynu bayamim haheim baz’man hazeh.♫" She chanted, in the same beautiful, practiced tone that she had been taking the entire time. Grabbing a lighter from the drawers, she flicked it on, admiring, for a moment, the soft blue flame emerging from the tip. She lit the center candle, before passing the lighter to Kanaya to return to the drawers, and then grabbed the candle, using it to light the other six. With each candle, she picked it up and held the bottom of it against another candle's flame for a moment, just to melt the wax and make it adhere better. It didn't take long for candlewax to begin dripping down onto the ostentatious metal tray that the Hanukiah was set upon.
"I, um, didn't get you any gifts... Sorry!" Jade half-spoke, half-mumbled, returning her little cards of prayer transliteration to Rose, who happily and calmly filed them away in the holiday drawer for later use. Kanaya quickly slipped away, and Rose pulled Jade into a loose, but comfortable sort of hug, warming the both of them up with her sweaterly embrace.
"Don't worry about it, Jade. I forgot to tell you all about the festivities until your plane had already landed." Rose said back, her face against Jade's shoulder. Although Jade couldn't see it, Kanaya gave Rose a wry smirk as she put a gift-wrapped box into Rose's hands and then re-appeared in Jade's periphery. Rose pulled away after giving Jade two good pats on the back with her free hand, and then pressed the gift into her palms. "Happy Hanukkah. Kanaya and I got you something good, so you should probably open it up as soon as possible."
Jade was flush with color and emotion, sniffling a little as she savagely ripped the wrapping paper away, opening up the box, revealing a bright white, fuzzy pair of earmuffs, complete with two big, fake dog ears stitched right to the top. "Oh!"
"It's not anything impressively magnanimous, but I did stitch the ears on myself."
"And I picked out the fur color!" Kanaya chimed in, reaching around to squeeze the two of them in a hug of her own. "We actually made it by hand believe it or not."
Jade laughed a little to herself, sliding the earmuffs over her ears, admiring the way they fit succinctly and snugly against her hair. "Thanks, you two." She finally answered, after a minute of thought, eyes closed, curling her head into the cradle of Kanaya's arm, feeling Rose's hug shield her from the little wisps of winter wind sneaking in through the air vents.
"Of course. Anything for my dearest Jade Harley." Rose responded with a thin, proud smile, reaching up to tousle Jade's hair.
The snow falling outside cushioned any noise from escape, and this late at the night, it piled in waves, forming knee-high cascades and hills and dunes preventing exit. But that was okay - they had a couch and cushions and blankets and extra chairs to pull into a construction of sorts, a latticework of seatery that formed an effective bed big enough for the three of them. It wasn't as if there weren't perfectly serviceable beds upstairs, but in the dying embers of a lovely fireplace fire, without a bed that was made to fit three, this seemed like both the most reasonable and, in Rose's eyes, most thematically appropriate option.
Two comforters this time, slathered across them in cake layers, with Kanaya having an extra blanket to cover her feet. The Jadeblood was curled protectively around both of them, her soft-yet-loud breathing filling the air while her chest rumbled with the stirrings of purrings. Rose had gotten used to the purrs by now, snuggled up tightly to Kanaya, and even Jade, who first felt ill-at-ease with the sound, took only about five minutes to convert into an enjoyer. She fell asleep last, only finding the peace required when she turned around to sandwich the smallest of them between them, soaking up the heat constantly radiating of Rose like a sun.
Jade let out a little snoring snort and rolled around a little, tangling her legs up in the first comforter. Rose made a small, quiet, private sound, and reached back, half-awake, to pull Jade close again.