kh_drabble | Challenge [250]: Sugar and Spice, "Comfort and Joy"

Title: Comfort and Joy
Challenge: [250] Sugar and Spice
Word Count: 323
Notes: BBS (again) but completely nonspoilery. This one's heavy on the sugar, but it's the holidays and who doesn't want a little holiday sweetness? Plus, these three in Christmastown was too good to pass up.

For Terra, it wasn't the discovery of a world that was Christmas every day (even if it had come through a world that was Halloween every day), or the winter wonderland they'd stepped into when they arrived, or the validation of a long yet quietly held belief; it was the look on Aqua's face (good-humored acceptance with just enough chagrin to make it funny) when she found out she'd been wrong all those years ago. "After all," Santa himself reminded her, using her long ago argument with one very important word changed, "most reindeer can't travel between worlds."

For Aqua, it wasn't the cheerful beauty of Christmastown (who knew there could be so much color in one world?), or the restoration of a dormant childish belief; it was the relief in Terra's eyes when he stood before the jolly, impartial judge of Naughty and Nice and found out he was still in Santa's good books. "If darkness were reason enough to be on the Naughty list, we'd never have a very long Nice list at all, now would we?"

For Ven, it wasn't the new friends he'd made (he'd been expecting the elves to be cool, but who knew penguins were so much fun?) or the fun he'd had with them (notably, being clobbered in a snowball fight against those same penguins); it was the difference he saw in his friends when he came inside from the cold, shaking snow off his pants and excitedly describing the epic snowball war they'd just missed. Aqua was wearing an actual smile, not one of those small ones she was forever hiding behind her hand, and Terra mirrored it, standing as though a weight had been lifted off his shoulders. Something about this place - the lights, the laughter, the sheer joy that danced through the air - had changed them all for the better.

The peppermint hot cocoa they shared afterwards wasn't too bad either.