HAPPY HOLIDAYS FROM ALL OF US AT DC2K!
THANKS TO EVERYONE FOR MAKING OUR INAUGURAL YEAR A SUCCESSFUL ONE. CHECK OUT THESE TANTALIZING TALES BELOW FOR A SPECIAL HOLIDAY TREAT FROM THE WRITERS AT DC2K!
BY TRAVIS HILTZ
|
Adam Strange was a long way from home. Generally that didn’t bother him, but lately, his wife Alanna found him standing in the bubble-encased viewing balcony, leaning on the molded plastic railing, staring off into space.
She would join him and they would talk, but generally he would just shrug. Being the champion of the planet Rann, many of her attempts to talk to her husband would be interrupted by some alien menace or natural disaster. From their brief conversations and observing her beloved spouse’s moods, Alanna had formed a vague idea, but need someone to help her work out the best way to go about it. |
Her father, Sardath, was chief scientist of the Rannian ruling council. She knew that the odds of getting him to leave his laboratory were slim, so, using her flight-pack went to visit him.
Sardath’s laboratory was a large white plastic dome. Most of it’s sparse furniture, diverse banks of equipment and work stations were also all made of white plastic, with only the rare bit of color.
Rann’s lead scientific researcher was thin and bald, as dry and functional as a textbook. He wore a white ankle-length robe, high-collared and immaculate. He also wore a visor of green plastic.
A skylight irised open, allowing Alanna to enter her father’s sanctuary. Once she had touched down, she then waited several minutes for her father to notice her arrival and look up from his research.
“Hello Father,” she said, with a loud throat –clearing noise to attract his attention.
“Hmmm…?” He murmured quietly, glancing up. “Ah, daughter.”
He gave her a brief nod and an even briefer smile in greeting and returned to his work.
She pushed a button and a plastic podium rose from the floor.
“I’m concerned about Adam,” She said, sitting.
“Have there been issues with the Zeta capacitor?” Her father asked, referring to a device they had been experimenting with in order to keep Adam Strange on his adopted planet for longer periods of time.
“No, nothing like that,” Alanna sighed. “He just seems…listless, and a bit sad…”
“Well, his emotional well being is your domain,” Sardath frowned. “I merely assist when science and logic are required…”
“It’s…difficult to explain. Adam never really gets ‘homesick’. He’s happy here on Rann, but back on Earth it is approaching a time of year when there is this holiday celebration. Its called Christmas.”
She then attempted to explain Christmas to her scientist father, sharing the stories and things that her husband had told her.
Sardath just grew more confused, the longer she talked.
“So, you say that it is a day of remembrance of the birth of this…demi-god, and that a bearded man uses flying quadrupeds to bring gifts to the younglings of Earth, but it is more a spiritual celebration and to remind the Earthlings of it there is a green creature that dresses up as the bearded man and attempts to steal the gifts…?”
Sardath shook his head and frowned.
“Yes, I don’t fully understand it either,” Alanna shrugged. “But, what I believe is the important part is that to celebrate, family units gather together for a communal meal, and that is what I believe Adam is missing. It was an important event for his family.”
“Well, I can adjust the zeta capacitor and he can return to Earth, if he wishes.” Sardath suggested.
“No, what I was thinking, that instead we could recreate this Christmas here, on Rann?” Alanna explained. “I thought we could arrange something for him here.”
“Such as?’ Sardath asked, guardedly.
“I am planning a meal, replicating some of the holiday foodstuffs with Rannian equivalents, you’ll join us, as well as a few other friends, we will exchange gifts and let Adam teach us about his traditions…it’ll be fun.”
Her father looked skeptical, but in his dry and subdued own way did love his daughter and understood this meant a lot to her, as well as to his son in law.
“What do you need me to do?” He asked.
“I need to find a Christmas tree,” Alanna replied.
“A tree? Plant life is sparse on Rann, you should know that.”
“There must be something,” Alanna said. “It is one of the main symbols of Christmas. I need something that looks like this…”
“She took a thin device from her belt and pressed a button. A hologram of Christmas tree appeared with a scrawl of Rannian script next to it.
“Hmmm…interesting,” Sardath said, peering intently at the image, his scientific curiosity overriding his skepticism over his daughter’s plan. “There might be something…”
He tapped a control on his workbench and a much larger hologram, of the slowly rotating planet Rann, appeared, just above their heads.
Sardath raised his hand, adjusting the globe with a few gestures.
“Let me see…here, in the eastern hemisphere, just beyond the mountains…there.”
He pointed and a small patch lit up green.
“What is it?” Alanna asked.
“Following the wars, a great deal of Rann’s ecosystem was devastated.” Her father explained. “This area surrounded by the Korsak deposits in the mountains only absorbed minimal levels of radiation. It has resulted in some plant species mutation. You may find your Christmas tree there.”
“A forest on Rann,” Alanna breathed. “Will the inhabitants mind?”
“The area is designated as an conservation zone. There is just an observer outpost there, cataloguing and gathering seeds and cuttings for possible re-forestation projects.” The elder scientist said. “I will contact them about your visit.”
“Thank you father,” Alanna said, leaning in to give him a quick kiss on his cheek.
Sardath found this Earth custom off putting, but gave his daughter an awkward pat on the shoulder in return.
“I told Adam I would be running some errands, as I want this to be a surprise.” She said, slipping her flight pack back on. “There is a list of gift ideas on the pad. I’ll leave it for you to look over.”
“Good luck with your tree search,” Sardath said, as she flew off. He then tapped at the device and scrolled through the list.
“Socks and underwear…?” He mused. “That sounds a practical, non-frivolous gift.”
# # # # #
Alanna flew back to her home, quietly helped her self to an air-car and made her way to the forest preserve.
The forest was a splash of green in the middle of a vast, barren desert. The mountains created a natural barrier that encircled it.
The observation post was perched high upon one of the mountain peaks. A transparent dome slid open to allow her to land.
An older balding man in a brown body suit that struggled to contain his paunch, upon arrival, greeted her. He too wore a visor similar to her father’s, but made of clear plastic. A trimmer middle-aged man in a red bodysuit followed him.
“Supervisor Jul,” She said, nodding in greeting. “I hope my visit is not an intrusion.”
“Not at all,” The older man replied. “Whatever we can do to assist your illustrious parent in his researches, we are proud to do. This is my deputy observer, Ander.”
“Thank you, I just plan on scouting the preserve, looking to find a particular species of tree. I hope to take a sample with me, if I find one.”
“That should be no problem.” Jul nodded.
“We would advise caution,” Ander said, before a scowl from his supervisor silenced him.
“Is there a problem?” Alanna asked, puzzled and a bit concerned.
“No, a couple of our teams, unused to the wilderness got disoriented while taking samples and there have been some concerns over wildlife. Nothing to be concerned about.”
Their expressions were not entirely convincing, but Alanna had faced worse then getting lost in the woods, so was soon soaring over the oasis of wilderness in the middle of the imposing mountains.
Forrest was putting it lightly. It was a dense jungle, crammed into an area of a few square miles, a mad conglomeration of plants, trees, bushes and vines. The observers had attempted to cut some paths, but the plants had made every effort to erase them.
Alanna spotted a clearing, barely large enough for two people to stand in, unless they were very friendly with each other, and took out a mini scanner. With it held out in front of her, Alanna squeezed her way along the path, hoping its computerized assistance would help the search go quicker. She noted a couple trees that had potential.
She soon found the new experience of walking through the wilderness a bit unnerving. Like most Rannians, she was used to the vast, barren stretches and the mammoth cities, but this was different. It was too quiet, the surrounding plants seemed to muffle and absorb any sound, so when there was one loud enough to get her attention, Alanna nearly jumped in startlement.
She strolled around for nearly an hour and found several trees that came close to what she was looking for, but nothing that quite matched what Adam had described.
Smudged with dirt, a tear in her blue tights and bits of leaves and twigs in her hair, Alanna was starting to understand, as Rann’s suns began to set, why that green creature was motivated to halt Christmas. She tripped over a root and went stumbling through a curtain of vines and branches, biting back a curse.
And there it was, in the center of a small clearing, the tree she’d been looking for, a perfect Christmas tree.
It stood well over two meters tall, was full, lush and green. Instead of leaves it was covered in a multitude of shiny green bristles. It was even decorated! It had thin bands of small, pulsing lights, criss-crossed on it like a bandolier and there was a fist-sized silver sphere at the top.
“Perfect…!” She breathed. “Adam will be so pleased when he sees this. It’s just like he described…!”
She tapped her small electronic scanner to mark her position and then prepared to summon her air-car, so she could transport the tree home.
Suddenly, something jostled her elbow and she had to scramble to keep from dropping her scanner. Alanna glanced round; she was still alone, as far as she could tell. With the coming of twilight, she looked up to the emerging stars to get her bearings, then back at the tree. Her forehead wrinkled in annoyed puzzlement as she saw the coordinates were off.
“That can’t be right…?” She muttered. “The star chart and the grid-map for the preserve aren’t matching up…?”
She tapped at her device, only to have something brush her arm, startling her into hitting the wrong button.
“What is going on…?” She said, her tone drifting from angry to anxious.
Why weren’t the coordinates matching? She used the tree’s position on the grid and the star charts and unless the stars had moved, there wasn’t anything different in the clearing except…
Alanna spun quickly just as two pine needle covered appendages reached out for her. She dodged one and slapped away the other.
The tree…! It had moved, confusing her efforts and was now attacking her. It wasn’t just a mere decorative plant, but a hostile sentient being!
“I am Hoh-grat!” It announced in a booming, yet bristly sounding voice. Whatever mouth it had seemed to be buried beneath all the pine needles.
“What…?” Alanna said, finding it difficult to listen to the creature, while trying to fight it off.
“Pay attention mammal!” The tree grumbled, stomping towards her on a pair of stubby stump-like legs. “Do you expect me to just constantly repeat my name?”
Alanna flung up both hands, slapping back the grasping limbs, stumbled back a few steps and fumbled to draw her ray gun from her belt. She held her arm straight, pointing it at the alien tree creature.
“Stop or I will fire!” She announced, hoping she sounded less frightened then she felt.
The decorative silvery sphere at the top of the tree slid open and she realized it was an eye or some kind of scanning device.
The pine needle tentacles lashed out again. Alanna fired off two quick shots, clipping one arm, missing the other and drawing sparks off a nearby rock.
She stepped out of reach, and took another bead at Hoh-grat. Just past the tree she caught a glint of light reflected off metal.
“A buried hull of a craft…?” Alanna breathed, glancing from the chunk of metal to the menacing tree creature. “You’re not a mutated plant, you…came here…did you crash?”
“Do not pretend concern!” Hoh-grat snapped, lunging forward. “I have been forced to cower amongst these…comatose beings, while mammals hunted me, seeking to torture me, like they do the others…!”
Alanna stepped back and lowered her ray gun, realizing that bizarre as he was Hoh-grat wasn’t an invader or a monster, but rather stranded and scared. Crashing in one of the few areas of Rann with other trees, he’d become convinced the bipeds were imprisoning the natural inhabitants. That he’d landed in some kind of prison.
“No, no wait…!” She exclaimed, holstering her gun and holding up her hands in a calming gesture, while continuing to dodge his flailing limbs. “I don’t wish to harm you.”
“Lies! I have seen the acts of your fellows! Dismemberment! Poisoning! “
Fear had turned to concern and pity. Alanna realized the alien was lashing out in panic. It was alone on a planet it perceived as hostile to it, surrounded by beings it didn’t understand. It was…in a situation awfully similar to that of when her husband, Adam Strange had first arrived on Rann.
Feeling her eyes tearing up, her vision blurred and she felt a blow to her right shoulder. Unsure if she was letting emotion distort her thinking (an act her father constantly warned her against, while her husband said it was one of her best traits) Alanna rushed forward, dodging limbs and caught Hoh-grat in a hug.
“You’re going to be okay,” She said softly into its bristly torso. “ I promise! I know you are lost…and scared, but we can help you, if you let us.”
The alien pine tree froze, unsure how to deal with this attack or even if that was what it was.
“We were wrong and didn’t understand what you were.” Alanna continued, sensing with the ceasing of its attack, she was getting through to the alien. “You don’t have to hide or fight. Let me help you…!”
There were several tense moments and then she felt the piney limbs embracing her in return.
“I want to go home,” Hoh-grat said, in a quiet voice, drained of all hostility and anger.
# # # # #
Back at the home of Adam and Alanna Strange, there was a flash of light and Adam appeared in what he referred to as his ‘workshop’.
“See? It worked fine,” Adam said, looking around the room. “Don’t know why your father thought we should test…uh…where’d you go?”
He frowned thoughtfully, as he walked around the room.
“Impatient woman,” He muttered. “I was only gone a couple seconds….”
He took the hover disk up to the second floor and walked into a party.
“What the…?” He muttered.
There was a Christmas tree with presents piled around it. The dinning table was expanded to accommodate a dozen; rather then the regular two and people were milling about making small talk.
“Merry Christmas!” Alanna said, racing up to give him a hug.
“What…? But, how…did you do all this?” He asked, happy and confused in equal measure.
“Of course.” She smiled back. “Though, I had a little help.”
“Is that Ace Arn…?” Adam asked, looking over her shoulder at the gathering.
“Yes, and Adam Blake, my father, Prince Gayvin, and some of the neighbors. Carter and Shayera couldn’t make it, but sent a gift. John Stewart may come by later and Hal Jordan sent something called a ‘fruit cake’. He says it’s a foodstuff, but it looks more like a block of masonry…”
“Just like Grandma used to make!” Adam chuckled, keeping one hand around his wife’s shoulders as they went to join the crowd. “This is amazing…I have the best wife in the galaxy…did…uh…the tree move?”
“It’s both a decoration and another guest,” Alanna explained. “I’ll tell you about it later. Dinner will be ready soon. Would you like some Ekk Nog?”
Adam laughed and kissed her on the forehead.
“I would love some “Ekk Nog”,” He said. “So, who wants to sing carols?”
Sardath’s laboratory was a large white plastic dome. Most of it’s sparse furniture, diverse banks of equipment and work stations were also all made of white plastic, with only the rare bit of color.
Rann’s lead scientific researcher was thin and bald, as dry and functional as a textbook. He wore a white ankle-length robe, high-collared and immaculate. He also wore a visor of green plastic.
A skylight irised open, allowing Alanna to enter her father’s sanctuary. Once she had touched down, she then waited several minutes for her father to notice her arrival and look up from his research.
“Hello Father,” she said, with a loud throat –clearing noise to attract his attention.
“Hmmm…?” He murmured quietly, glancing up. “Ah, daughter.”
He gave her a brief nod and an even briefer smile in greeting and returned to his work.
She pushed a button and a plastic podium rose from the floor.
“I’m concerned about Adam,” She said, sitting.
“Have there been issues with the Zeta capacitor?” Her father asked, referring to a device they had been experimenting with in order to keep Adam Strange on his adopted planet for longer periods of time.
“No, nothing like that,” Alanna sighed. “He just seems…listless, and a bit sad…”
“Well, his emotional well being is your domain,” Sardath frowned. “I merely assist when science and logic are required…”
“It’s…difficult to explain. Adam never really gets ‘homesick’. He’s happy here on Rann, but back on Earth it is approaching a time of year when there is this holiday celebration. Its called Christmas.”
She then attempted to explain Christmas to her scientist father, sharing the stories and things that her husband had told her.
Sardath just grew more confused, the longer she talked.
“So, you say that it is a day of remembrance of the birth of this…demi-god, and that a bearded man uses flying quadrupeds to bring gifts to the younglings of Earth, but it is more a spiritual celebration and to remind the Earthlings of it there is a green creature that dresses up as the bearded man and attempts to steal the gifts…?”
Sardath shook his head and frowned.
“Yes, I don’t fully understand it either,” Alanna shrugged. “But, what I believe is the important part is that to celebrate, family units gather together for a communal meal, and that is what I believe Adam is missing. It was an important event for his family.”
“Well, I can adjust the zeta capacitor and he can return to Earth, if he wishes.” Sardath suggested.
“No, what I was thinking, that instead we could recreate this Christmas here, on Rann?” Alanna explained. “I thought we could arrange something for him here.”
“Such as?’ Sardath asked, guardedly.
“I am planning a meal, replicating some of the holiday foodstuffs with Rannian equivalents, you’ll join us, as well as a few other friends, we will exchange gifts and let Adam teach us about his traditions…it’ll be fun.”
Her father looked skeptical, but in his dry and subdued own way did love his daughter and understood this meant a lot to her, as well as to his son in law.
“What do you need me to do?” He asked.
“I need to find a Christmas tree,” Alanna replied.
“A tree? Plant life is sparse on Rann, you should know that.”
“There must be something,” Alanna said. “It is one of the main symbols of Christmas. I need something that looks like this…”
“She took a thin device from her belt and pressed a button. A hologram of Christmas tree appeared with a scrawl of Rannian script next to it.
“Hmmm…interesting,” Sardath said, peering intently at the image, his scientific curiosity overriding his skepticism over his daughter’s plan. “There might be something…”
He tapped a control on his workbench and a much larger hologram, of the slowly rotating planet Rann, appeared, just above their heads.
Sardath raised his hand, adjusting the globe with a few gestures.
“Let me see…here, in the eastern hemisphere, just beyond the mountains…there.”
He pointed and a small patch lit up green.
“What is it?” Alanna asked.
“Following the wars, a great deal of Rann’s ecosystem was devastated.” Her father explained. “This area surrounded by the Korsak deposits in the mountains only absorbed minimal levels of radiation. It has resulted in some plant species mutation. You may find your Christmas tree there.”
“A forest on Rann,” Alanna breathed. “Will the inhabitants mind?”
“The area is designated as an conservation zone. There is just an observer outpost there, cataloguing and gathering seeds and cuttings for possible re-forestation projects.” The elder scientist said. “I will contact them about your visit.”
“Thank you father,” Alanna said, leaning in to give him a quick kiss on his cheek.
Sardath found this Earth custom off putting, but gave his daughter an awkward pat on the shoulder in return.
“I told Adam I would be running some errands, as I want this to be a surprise.” She said, slipping her flight pack back on. “There is a list of gift ideas on the pad. I’ll leave it for you to look over.”
“Good luck with your tree search,” Sardath said, as she flew off. He then tapped at the device and scrolled through the list.
“Socks and underwear…?” He mused. “That sounds a practical, non-frivolous gift.”
# # # # #
Alanna flew back to her home, quietly helped her self to an air-car and made her way to the forest preserve.
The forest was a splash of green in the middle of a vast, barren desert. The mountains created a natural barrier that encircled it.
The observation post was perched high upon one of the mountain peaks. A transparent dome slid open to allow her to land.
An older balding man in a brown body suit that struggled to contain his paunch, upon arrival, greeted her. He too wore a visor similar to her father’s, but made of clear plastic. A trimmer middle-aged man in a red bodysuit followed him.
“Supervisor Jul,” She said, nodding in greeting. “I hope my visit is not an intrusion.”
“Not at all,” The older man replied. “Whatever we can do to assist your illustrious parent in his researches, we are proud to do. This is my deputy observer, Ander.”
“Thank you, I just plan on scouting the preserve, looking to find a particular species of tree. I hope to take a sample with me, if I find one.”
“That should be no problem.” Jul nodded.
“We would advise caution,” Ander said, before a scowl from his supervisor silenced him.
“Is there a problem?” Alanna asked, puzzled and a bit concerned.
“No, a couple of our teams, unused to the wilderness got disoriented while taking samples and there have been some concerns over wildlife. Nothing to be concerned about.”
Their expressions were not entirely convincing, but Alanna had faced worse then getting lost in the woods, so was soon soaring over the oasis of wilderness in the middle of the imposing mountains.
Forrest was putting it lightly. It was a dense jungle, crammed into an area of a few square miles, a mad conglomeration of plants, trees, bushes and vines. The observers had attempted to cut some paths, but the plants had made every effort to erase them.
Alanna spotted a clearing, barely large enough for two people to stand in, unless they were very friendly with each other, and took out a mini scanner. With it held out in front of her, Alanna squeezed her way along the path, hoping its computerized assistance would help the search go quicker. She noted a couple trees that had potential.
She soon found the new experience of walking through the wilderness a bit unnerving. Like most Rannians, she was used to the vast, barren stretches and the mammoth cities, but this was different. It was too quiet, the surrounding plants seemed to muffle and absorb any sound, so when there was one loud enough to get her attention, Alanna nearly jumped in startlement.
She strolled around for nearly an hour and found several trees that came close to what she was looking for, but nothing that quite matched what Adam had described.
Smudged with dirt, a tear in her blue tights and bits of leaves and twigs in her hair, Alanna was starting to understand, as Rann’s suns began to set, why that green creature was motivated to halt Christmas. She tripped over a root and went stumbling through a curtain of vines and branches, biting back a curse.
And there it was, in the center of a small clearing, the tree she’d been looking for, a perfect Christmas tree.
It stood well over two meters tall, was full, lush and green. Instead of leaves it was covered in a multitude of shiny green bristles. It was even decorated! It had thin bands of small, pulsing lights, criss-crossed on it like a bandolier and there was a fist-sized silver sphere at the top.
“Perfect…!” She breathed. “Adam will be so pleased when he sees this. It’s just like he described…!”
She tapped her small electronic scanner to mark her position and then prepared to summon her air-car, so she could transport the tree home.
Suddenly, something jostled her elbow and she had to scramble to keep from dropping her scanner. Alanna glanced round; she was still alone, as far as she could tell. With the coming of twilight, she looked up to the emerging stars to get her bearings, then back at the tree. Her forehead wrinkled in annoyed puzzlement as she saw the coordinates were off.
“That can’t be right…?” She muttered. “The star chart and the grid-map for the preserve aren’t matching up…?”
She tapped at her device, only to have something brush her arm, startling her into hitting the wrong button.
“What is going on…?” She said, her tone drifting from angry to anxious.
Why weren’t the coordinates matching? She used the tree’s position on the grid and the star charts and unless the stars had moved, there wasn’t anything different in the clearing except…
Alanna spun quickly just as two pine needle covered appendages reached out for her. She dodged one and slapped away the other.
The tree…! It had moved, confusing her efforts and was now attacking her. It wasn’t just a mere decorative plant, but a hostile sentient being!
“I am Hoh-grat!” It announced in a booming, yet bristly sounding voice. Whatever mouth it had seemed to be buried beneath all the pine needles.
“What…?” Alanna said, finding it difficult to listen to the creature, while trying to fight it off.
“Pay attention mammal!” The tree grumbled, stomping towards her on a pair of stubby stump-like legs. “Do you expect me to just constantly repeat my name?”
Alanna flung up both hands, slapping back the grasping limbs, stumbled back a few steps and fumbled to draw her ray gun from her belt. She held her arm straight, pointing it at the alien tree creature.
“Stop or I will fire!” She announced, hoping she sounded less frightened then she felt.
The decorative silvery sphere at the top of the tree slid open and she realized it was an eye or some kind of scanning device.
The pine needle tentacles lashed out again. Alanna fired off two quick shots, clipping one arm, missing the other and drawing sparks off a nearby rock.
She stepped out of reach, and took another bead at Hoh-grat. Just past the tree she caught a glint of light reflected off metal.
“A buried hull of a craft…?” Alanna breathed, glancing from the chunk of metal to the menacing tree creature. “You’re not a mutated plant, you…came here…did you crash?”
“Do not pretend concern!” Hoh-grat snapped, lunging forward. “I have been forced to cower amongst these…comatose beings, while mammals hunted me, seeking to torture me, like they do the others…!”
Alanna stepped back and lowered her ray gun, realizing that bizarre as he was Hoh-grat wasn’t an invader or a monster, but rather stranded and scared. Crashing in one of the few areas of Rann with other trees, he’d become convinced the bipeds were imprisoning the natural inhabitants. That he’d landed in some kind of prison.
“No, no wait…!” She exclaimed, holstering her gun and holding up her hands in a calming gesture, while continuing to dodge his flailing limbs. “I don’t wish to harm you.”
“Lies! I have seen the acts of your fellows! Dismemberment! Poisoning! “
Fear had turned to concern and pity. Alanna realized the alien was lashing out in panic. It was alone on a planet it perceived as hostile to it, surrounded by beings it didn’t understand. It was…in a situation awfully similar to that of when her husband, Adam Strange had first arrived on Rann.
Feeling her eyes tearing up, her vision blurred and she felt a blow to her right shoulder. Unsure if she was letting emotion distort her thinking (an act her father constantly warned her against, while her husband said it was one of her best traits) Alanna rushed forward, dodging limbs and caught Hoh-grat in a hug.
“You’re going to be okay,” She said softly into its bristly torso. “ I promise! I know you are lost…and scared, but we can help you, if you let us.”
The alien pine tree froze, unsure how to deal with this attack or even if that was what it was.
“We were wrong and didn’t understand what you were.” Alanna continued, sensing with the ceasing of its attack, she was getting through to the alien. “You don’t have to hide or fight. Let me help you…!”
There were several tense moments and then she felt the piney limbs embracing her in return.
“I want to go home,” Hoh-grat said, in a quiet voice, drained of all hostility and anger.
# # # # #
Back at the home of Adam and Alanna Strange, there was a flash of light and Adam appeared in what he referred to as his ‘workshop’.
“See? It worked fine,” Adam said, looking around the room. “Don’t know why your father thought we should test…uh…where’d you go?”
He frowned thoughtfully, as he walked around the room.
“Impatient woman,” He muttered. “I was only gone a couple seconds….”
He took the hover disk up to the second floor and walked into a party.
“What the…?” He muttered.
There was a Christmas tree with presents piled around it. The dinning table was expanded to accommodate a dozen; rather then the regular two and people were milling about making small talk.
“Merry Christmas!” Alanna said, racing up to give him a hug.
“What…? But, how…did you do all this?” He asked, happy and confused in equal measure.
“Of course.” She smiled back. “Though, I had a little help.”
“Is that Ace Arn…?” Adam asked, looking over her shoulder at the gathering.
“Yes, and Adam Blake, my father, Prince Gayvin, and some of the neighbors. Carter and Shayera couldn’t make it, but sent a gift. John Stewart may come by later and Hal Jordan sent something called a ‘fruit cake’. He says it’s a foodstuff, but it looks more like a block of masonry…”
“Just like Grandma used to make!” Adam chuckled, keeping one hand around his wife’s shoulders as they went to join the crowd. “This is amazing…I have the best wife in the galaxy…did…uh…the tree move?”
“It’s both a decoration and another guest,” Alanna explained. “I’ll tell you about it later. Dinner will be ready soon. Would you like some Ekk Nog?”
Adam laughed and kissed her on the forehead.
“I would love some “Ekk Nog”,” He said. “So, who wants to sing carols?”