After a long multi hour flight that she slept through the majority of, Savannah finally reunited with Katerina at the Sheremetyevo airport in Moscow. Katerina noticed that her (Girlfriend? Work wife? Friend with benefits? It was hard to label exact what their relationship was anymore) was barefoot as she walked from her plane and into the terminal.
"What happened?" Katerina asked after giving her a kiss on the cheek.
"Sheena had a cold and destroyed my shoes" Savannah said, pouting a little bit in a way Katerina found adorable.
"Sheena? That insufferable little golden dragon?"
"Yep, Regina's familiar. They were nice shoes too. Manolo Blahniks. You know, the black ones with the chunky heels?"
Savannah reached into her luggage and pulled out a pair of what used to be designer footwear, now burned and melted beyond recognition. She gave a feminine sigh of defeat.
Katerina gave a smile that was so small that it was imperceptible to most people, but to Savannah, she may as well have been grinning from ear to ear.
"You poor thing. I didn't get to wear shoes until I was ten."
"Probably a lie. It's no big deal, anyway. Regina offered to reimburse me for the shoes, but I told her that it was fine. She's American and on a high school teacher's salary. It's a miracle that she can afford to pay her electric bill."
"Surely the Sorceress Supreme can afford a small bag of fennel seeds and dove eggs. Any schmuck can perform the Orb of Helios spell."
"Maybe she thinks having a miniature floating star follow you around wherever you go would kind of defeat the purpose of the whole secret protector of reality thing."
"Meh. I find the concept of peanut butter or why you use purple eye shadow weirder than anything to do with the paranormal."
The two enigmatic women held hands as they walked to the parking lot and off to a nice hotel where they could get reacquainted.
As Katerina drove, it began to snow. Since it was Russia during Christmastime, nobody paid much mind of it.
**
"Aww, Kylie, you shouldn't have!"
Aziza smiled from ear to ear as she delicately removed the vibrant blue and green colored wrapping paper from the cardboard box and removed the lid. She gasped at what was inside.
"Praise be! I've always wanted a pair of Heelys!" screamed the young sorceress in jubilation.
"I know you have! Don't you remember when you told me?"
"I'm so sorry, it must have slipped my mind. I've just been so busy. And my goodness, you even got the right size!"
"They were the only pair of size 3.5 Heelys I could fine. The lady at the bazaar thought I was buying them for a little kid" tittered the blonde expatriate.
"I'll never understand it. The Great Change gave me the body of a supermodel, but my feet are as tiny as my ten year old sister. Inanna has a strange sense of humor."
"Well, you're still the sexiest woman in the world to me."
Aziza gazed at Kylie for a moment. She looked so happy. So innocent. So sweet natured.
Aziza began to wonder if her little experiment in rehabilitating the woman who had terrorized her version of Earth was finally starting to pay off.
"I got you a little something else too. Just a little thing. It's a snow globe."
Aziza looked inside the box and found the strange diorama tucked into the corner. She picked it up and saw a quaint American village in miniature with several Christmas carolers singing in the middle of the town square. Aziza shook it, and a snow blizzard began to form.
"Cute."
"I thought so too. It reminds me of Glendale a little bit."
Kylie and Aziza watched the fake snow fall to the bottom of the globe, and just before the final bit touched the fake ground, Aziza felt something very wrong. She spun around and gazed out the window of the guesthouse she was living in.
In her normally sweltering Arabian town, it began to snow for real.