Christmas has finally arrived for Animalia. There were a few major events in Lyre/Animalia and its colonies.
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The largest event was the Christmas Feast and present distribution. Per usual, the Great Snow war was halted for this. Of course, the newest (bimbo) members were more focused on the "hunky" reindeer Animalians distributing the presents. Of course, there were minor amusing things going on. The best case of this was Lena's parents sitting with King Andrew I's "dynasty", as the unofficial name for the "sub-prides". What made it funny was how Lena's dad was both looking and feeling rather small, and her mom was occasionally giggling dazedly every now and then.
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The second largest event was the Christmas program at the (newly named) Animalia Opera House. While there were the usual Christmas carols, nativity scene, and Mannheim Steamroller songs, the newest addition was a series of dances taken out of the Nutcracker suite and performed more for their multicultural settings, specifically "Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy", "Chinese Dance", "Arabian Dance", "Russian Dance", "Dance of the Flutes" and "Waltz of the Flowers".
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Another thing going on was a new Christmas special, this time inspired by "When Worlds Collide...", but it still had the overall theme of how important it is to always try new things. In it, Merlin makes a journey through time to the 21st century to pick up some stuff from Diagon Alley and Hogsmeade (a tip of the hat to the Harry Potter series) and returns to celebrate Christmas, which was unofficially part of Dongzhi, in Japan with Hide and the others.
King Arthur and Tokugawa Ieyasu were playing Go (or, more accurately, Ieyasu was teaching Arthur how to play Go) when he saw Merlin sit down at their table. "I've been meaning to ask you," he said to Merlin as he contemplated his next move, "Are you the only wizard there is in the West, or are there other wizards?"
"There are six of us in the Order of the Istari." answered Merlin, matter of factly, "The greatest, and leader, of our order is Saruman, the White; Beneath him is Gandalf the Grey, and beneath him is me, Merlin the Black. There are also the two Blue Wizards..." he drifted off for a moment or two before continuing, "but I can't quite remember their names."
"And who is left?" asked Arthur.
"Well, that would be Radagast, the Brown." answered Merlin.
"Is he a great wizard or is he... more like you?" asked Ieyasu.
"...I believe he's a very great wizard..." answered Merlin, "... in his own way. He's a gentle soul who prefers the company of animals to people."
Elsewhere, Tokichiro and Lancelot were playing Wizard's Shogi (an adaptation of Wizard's Chess), and Hide was watching as the two of them "battled each other to a standstill.". At that point, a young girl stepped up and said that her father, a well-known toymaker in London, was missing.
"How did your father get lost?" asked Tokichiro.
"I didn't lose him. He was taken by a giant, blue man with red eyes." answered the girl.
"Red eyes?" asked Hide, suddenly interested. "Did he wield a greatsword in one hand?"
"I don't know, but he was missing his right arm just below the shoulder." replied the girl.
"Magara Naotaka." said Hide, grimly.
"What?! He's back?!" gasped Tokichiro, drawing both Nobunaga and Ieyasu's attention.
When Hide, Tokichiro, William, Hanzo, Merlin, Arthur, and Abe no Seimei went to investigate the old battlefield at Anegawa, sure enough, there was Naotaka, alongside the revenant of his brother, Naosumi, and the girl's father, who was imprisoned in a block of magical ice up to his neck. While fighting both at the same time was difficult, Merlin and Seimei were able to blast Naotaka with fire magic, thereby keeping things relatively even. After Naosumi's revenant was killed, again, and Naotaka was forced to his knees, Tokichiro then used the White Spirit Stone to purify him, causing his "giant, blue man" form to crumble, revealing his true form, before he had been turned into a yokai by the spirit stones. As thanks, he revealed that what had brought him and his brother back: a "black spirit stone clutched in a four-fingered hand", before traveling on. This freed the girl's father from the magical ice, though he was still left with a bad cold.
After Hide and Tokichiro delivered their report, Merlin gave his own two cents.
"Hmmm..." he said, puffing on a pipe, "Sauron's up to something, but what would he want with a toymaker?"
"The 'four-fingered hand' is associated with Sauron?" asked Ieyasu, intrigued.
"Indeed," replied Merlin, "He has four fingers on one of his hands because Isildur cut one of those fingers off, the one wearing the One Ring at the time."
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There was still the classy Christmas party at Fennec Hall and the "spicy" one at the Meat Market, but both were considered somewhat harder to get into than the family friendly one at the Animalia Great Hall.