(no subject)

[average-adam.livejournal.com]

Date: December 8, 1999
Status: Public
Setting: The lobby
Summary: Adam sets up the Manor's Christmas tree



After a quick trip home, Adam returned to Tadfield Manor with an oft taped cardboard box tucked under one arm. His eyes sparkled as he stepped into the lobby and found that the gardener had remembered to bring in a tree for him. Pepper had insisted that it be a live tree, which was fine with Adam, and putting the box down, he tugged it to a place of honor in the lobby not far from an electrical outlet.

He opened the box and almost reverentially began to pull out the baubles within: two strings of multi-coloured fairy lights, a bit of plaster imprinted with his tiny hand and strung on a bit of red ribbon, a pipe cleaner reindeer that he'd made in primary school, a sparkly bluebird with wire in its feet to grasp the branches, a painted soldier on a wooden clothespin, a snowflake that his grandmother had crocheted, and his favorite, a perfect, blown-glass globe with the words "Peace on Earth, 1991". Adam wound the lights around the tree and hung his six ornaments on it carefully.

Reaching into the box one final time, he pulled out the angel that had graced his treetop since he was born. It was an unusual angel in that it did not have ornate, flowing robes in a variety of rich materials. Nor did it have long hair, a glowing halo, golden wings, or a simpering expression. It wasn't even a girl. No, this angel was male, dressed in simple white cotton robes, with plain white, feathery wings and something sparkling in the painted blue eyes that bespoke compassion and love, but intelligence, too. Adam didn't know where it came from, but he loved it as much as a teenage boy is allowed to love a doll-like thing, which is quite a lot, so long as no one knows about it. He gave it a fond smile and fetched a chair to stand on. With an air of gravity, he placed the angel gently atop the tree before climbing down and plugging in the lights.

Stepping back to appraise his work, Adam found it good. Then he replaced the chair and went searching behind the Metatron's desk for some office supplies. After some thought, he wrote,

Tadfield Manor Christmas Tree:

This tree is for all of us staying at the Manor. Please feel free to add your own ornaments from home. Any presents left beneath will be delivered to their recipients on Christmas morning.

Happy Christmas!
Adam

Leaning his sign up by the base of the tree, Adam picked up his now empty Christmas box and headed upstairs to his room humming "O Holy Night".

Comments

[dangeroushabits.livejournal.com]

"This is stupid," John muttered, fingering the peculiar little item he'd brought with him as he eyed the strange (and in some cases disturbingly symbolic) collection of oddities that already adorned the thing.

He had walked past the tree without pausing several times before noticing the sign, and had shaken his head at Adam's overly-trusting nature. With the mixed assortment of Beings who occupied the Manor, and anyone able to wander in and out, who knew what might get left under the tree in the guise of an innocent gift?

It was that thought more than anything that had inspired him to dig out a handful of tools and mementoes and cobble them together into the ornament (well, more of an amulet really, but it could pass for an ornament if not examined too closely) that he now carefully suspended in an inconspicuous spot low and toward the back of the tree.

Two feathers--one a faintly shimmering white, one midnight-black--were lashed together in the middle, forming an extended X. Both were a little dry and fragile now, having been picked up as an afterthought fifteen years before, but he had preserved them carefully; he wasn't likely to get his hands on another like the black one, and the white one, as far as he knew, was now the only one of its kind that still existed.

Suspended under them by its rawhide drawtrings was a small leather sack containing a variety of small semi-precious gemstones, dried herbs, and a few less pleasant items, all carefully chosen for their complementary protective properties.

The drawstrings also threaded through a piece of origami in the shape of a five-pointed star. The paper was shiny gold, but only on one side; John had put two pieces together back-to-back so that no white would show. Written on the plain side of one sheet, folded safely away where no one would see, were several names (some belonging to beings who inhabited the Manor, and others who were elsewhere...one very far away) and a number of esoteric runes and diagrams. All pertained to matters of peace, prosperity and good fortune, the sorts of things one wished one's friends around this time of year.

He stood back from the tree and eyed the glimmering object with a dissatisfied grimace. Why he was even bothering with such a paltry thing in a place chock-full of beings whose power so thoroughly eclipsed his own small talents he had no idea.

Still...it couldn't hurt. Right?

Under the tree he set a very old, slightly dusty bottle of wine with a bow tied around its neck and a tag marked with two names. Almost the last drop of Brendan Finn's grand collection, the rest having been drunk to Brendan's memory or traded away for other needed things in a pinch. It was a wrench, letting it go, but hell...he had nobody to share it with, and considering the price the old boy had been prepared to pay for the stuff, he'd have wanted someone to enjoy it who would appreciate what they were drinking.

Wondering idly what else might turn up on or under the tree before Christmas Eve, John wandered off to the bar in search of some holiday cheer, or failing that, a properly soggy state of depression.