"Da-ad!" I (not) whined. "It's just a party. Why can't I go?"

"Alcohol, generous numbers of idiots with more money than sense who also seem to think fourteen is a perfectly acceptable age to start dating, gambling, and even I know how long these things usually go." Dad paused. "Although..."

"It's every Christmas party since ever," I deadpanned. "Parties back at home in Singapore were exactly the same, don't deny it. And how often do you get to go to a party hosted by Queen Marie Antoinette?"

Dad sighed. "Alright. But I'm coming as well."

"I was counting on it."

Never let it be said that Christmas parties in 18th century France are ever boring. For one you have the sheer epicness that is the size of the dresses women are pretty much required to wear. Imagine at least twenty women, in high heels, inebriated, wearing dresses that are close to two metres wide. In one room. Yeah. Some lady falls over every other minute, which is just hilarious when about half the men scramble for a look at her knickers and the other half try to help the lady up, when most of the room is drunk.

Holy Minerva, I was pretty sure I was a bit tipsy as well. Eh. My dad wasn't in any position to complain: he was as bad.

Marie Antoinette had gone a bit crazy with the mistletoe. It was everywhere. And no-one gave a crap. The worse was the mistletoe right over the drinks table. I avoided the table at all costs if it looked like someone else was going to be there as well.

Alright, forget it, I'm going to just grab the wine and stick it in Hammerspace... would that work? Of course it would - hey was that lady next to my dad's hair on fire? Oh no.

Someone screamed when the lady finally realized her hair was on fire. "PUT IT OUT! PUT IT OUT!"

I created a giant bucket of water and dumped it on the lady, effectively putting out the fire.

And ruining her dress... and hair... and probably shoes. Oops. "Sorry, ma'am."

One screeching, irate lady later and me running to hide behind my dad later, it was decided that Sir Christopher's daughter, me, was not at fault for the obscenely expensive ruined dress because I was just doing what any other mage would do if she spotted something on fire: conjure a giant bucket of water and put it out.

"Christina," Dad decided, "you are never going to another 18th century Christmas party again."

For once, I couldn't argue.

A.N. In case you're wondering, this may come out slightly um... weird/stupid/reckless because Christina's a bit loopy from wine, though she's not drunk yet. I've drank before; strong wine does weird things to how you think even if you just take a little. And it's 1.20 in the afternoon as I write this which is pretty early for me, and I'm not really fully coherent yet, and I'm writing as a slightly tipsy character. This is about as close to me drunk-writing as you're going to get without me actually drinking.

Christina and her dad are in the 2006 movie Marie Antoinette, which was done in English, thus why everyone is speaking English.

For concerned readers, no, Christina's dad wasn't being a bad parent. At the time, water was so dirty no-one wanted to risk drinking that stuff, so everyone drank beer or wine. He was a bit surprised by how strong the wine was, and he's one of those unlucky sods that gets tipsy by the end of round one. As for Christina, it's either wine, or go thirsty.

Never let it be said that Christmas in Verde House is ever quiet. Mom invites every single guest that had chosen to stay in the last three years and whoever they liked over for the annual get-together, and us kids get to invite any of our former guests or descendants of guests over, and while Jules and I usually invited one or two, Alicia and Tony invariably invited every one in their class.

There's also any guests already in Verde House. Some years it's awesome. One year we had Saint Nick himself over at the time. Another year Jokul Frosti froze the lake nearly solid and we had it outside.

Other years, not so much. As it turns out, mildly psychotic war gods make horrible Christmas guests.

This year looked set to be another one of those bad years. Somehow I got dragged into an argument between a Medieval knight, a samurai, and some dragon-tamer guy out of a fantasy novel about swords. And then Tony joined in and a gladiator from Ancient Rome... Hades was going to have a few new subjects if this didn't clear up soon.

------------------

I staggered up to my room, closing the door behind me and collapsing on my bed. That went well. At least the five-way duel wasn't as bad as last year's.

I tightened the muscles in my neck, chest, back, then arms, then legs, checking for injuries I might have missed. Bruises, nothing else; they'd be gone by tomorrow.

"Xavier?" Tony called outside my door.

"Not now Tony," I groaned. "I'm kind of in bad shape. Thanks for starting that fight, by the way."

He came in anyway, hiding something behind his back. He plonked down on the bed next to me. "Merry Christmas, Xavier."

He held out a small, badly-wrapped box. I took it warily. One year he'd rigged a modified jack-in-the-box to throw pink glitter all over me. Another year he'd somehow spelled the box to turn me into a Dumbledore lookalike the moment I opened it. Needless to say, I was a bit leery of Christmas presents from my youngest cousin/surrogate annoying kid brother.

Wondering how many showers it'd take to get this one out, I ripped open the wrapping and opened the box.

"I knew you needed new guitar strings," Tony explained, trying to look nonchalant.

I smiled, nodding. Strings weren't exactly cheap, to a ten-year-old on a limited budget anyway, and the ones he'd gotten were pretty high-end. "Thanks, Tony. Merry Christmas."

Christmas in the Tudor court is always interesting. Especially when mistletoe is involved. It was worse than that party with Marie Antoinette, which I did not actually think was possible.

I got stuck with Xavier in one of the dances.

I knew we'd get trapped sooner or later. Thus why I was not surprised when the song ended and Culpepper looked over and laughed. "Xavier, you dog!"

"Wha - oh Hades," Xavier cursed, looking up. "Damn you, mistletoe."

He shrugged, turning back to me. "Nothing for it, then."

It took one false start for me to realize that the poor boy had no idea what he was doing. "Oh come on."

Before my temporary insanity in deciding to take control of this mess when I haven't even hugged a boy outside of my family fled I grabbed the front of his jacket and pressed my lips to his, instinctively tilting my head to the right and closing my eyes.

I pulled away. My face felt like it was on fire!

I turned and pretty much ran to my rooms.

A.N. As for those wondering why this never came up in-story, I kind of planned for this to happen after the story ended originally, but this was too good to pass up. Just treat it as Xavier had slightly more pressing things on his mind when the story finally swapped to his POV, and Christina had decided to forget about it because she thought it wouldn't be worth dwelling on it. People do that all the time; well I do at least. Merry Christmas!