#clawing my way out of thr grave to maybe get at least one of these answered before the new year

[luminousrider]

“ Altena. ”  Their story is always an odd one, he thinks, no matter what he might wish it to be otherwise.  “ In Thracia, did you guys celebrate the Winter Festival? ”

Yet still, for this day, he can't tell if how he behaves around her is the normal sibling dynamic he strives for or if it nothing at all like that and merely just... his normal. Maybe Altena would know, having been raised with a brother herself, but...

No, he still doesn't have the patience to ask about that kind of thing. It's best to leave Arion out of it where he can help it. So he instead holds out his wrapped present box for her.

“ I got you a gift for it. Here. ”  Unwrapping the present would reveal a small music box. It's old, likely gotten second-hand, but it still plays. In the center of it is a tiny figure of a fairy that rotates along with the rotations of the handle, faux-dancing for as long as the melody chimes.  “ I don't know your tastes still, but... you seemed really happy with those fairy wings at the Ethereal Ball. So I tried to find something like it. ”

He could not give her the gift of wings. He could not give her the gift of fairy dust. He could not even give her the gift of flight, a thing she has already conquered.

He knows not what he can give her other than the reminder of a memory.

"The Winter Festival? Yeah. We did."

Altena wonders why Leif would even ask until he hands her a wrapped gift.

Oh.

She feels pretty guilty, not having gotten him anything. She hadn't expected anything from him either but here he is. Did he expect something from her too?

"I guess you must've celebrated it in Fiana, too," she comments as she unwraps the gift. When she peels off the paper, when she opens the delicately painted wooden box, confusion knits even deeper across her brow. It had been surprising enough to be given a gift from her brother but this particular gift?

It's girly and childish. Perhaps something she might have been given when she was a little girl. But Altena listens as she watches the tiny fairy twirling as Leif explains his thoughts and her face softens. A smile splits her face. The wings on the figure of the fairy are even the same color as the pair she donned at the Ethereal Ball.

He's given her something far more precious than a novelty music box. He's shown her that he, too, still remembers that night. She might not know if the moment they shared in the air meant as much to him as it did to her, but it clearly meant enough for him to go out of his way to give this to her.

"Leif..."

She throws her arms tightly around his shoulders and hugs him close. "Thank you. I love it."

Later on, when she returns to her dorm, Altena will display the music box on her dresser. It might look out of place in her otherwise spartan dorm room, but it brings a smile to her face each time she sees it. And it makes the perfect place to keep the friendship bracelet Patty made her.