Chapter Five Hundred and Sixty-Two - Year of the Bun

Showing off my wings to Caprica was fun.

Showing them off to Bastion was a mistake.

He took one look at them, then before I quite knew what was happening, I found myself running exercises to see if I could use them as more than pretty back-based decoration. I didn't want to do exercise, I wanted to have fun with my friends, but Bastion had me running laps of the Beaver's top deck instead.

Fortunately, I had an out. It was the New Year, and we had to party, and parties were hard work! I couldn't do one while all sweaty and tired.

Bastion said that being tired just meant that I was building up my stamina, and he reminded me that Cleaning magic meant that my sweat wouldn't stink.

I was seriously contemplating dropping Bastion from Super-Duper Best Friend to merely Super Best Friend. Caprica came to my rescue, and I was freed, enough so that I could get to work planning out the dinner I had wanted to have with the whole crew.

It wasn't anything too special. We had the local cuisine that Desiree and I had purchased in the city, as well as some tasty odds and ends saved up in the pantry, so we pulled out the table from the dining room downstairs and Awen helped us turn a few planks into a second, longer table to set all of the food on.

I convinced a few friends to help warm things up, and soon enough we were shifting meals from the kitchen up onto the deck and lining them up.

"So, is there like... a new years song, or something?" I asked.

"No?" Awen said. "Um, should there be?"

"I mean, I guess not," I said. "But there might have been."

"We have parades on New Years," Caprica said. "Which often include marching bands. So I suppose that that counts, though they're usually playing some variation of the national anthem or one of the marching songs, and while I do enjoy a good marching song they're not exactly... well, they're marches. They just don't sound right without the entire band and hundreds of soldiers in lockstep."

Bastion nodded along next to her. "Didn't you participate in the Army Marching Band?" he asked.

Caprica's cheeks took on a hint of redness. "Yes. As an extracurricular. It was noted that being part of any military-adjacent group like that was good for one's future career. That was... mostly a lie. Well, not entirely. It was a way for young adults to make contacts and friends who would later likely be in the Sylph military at a younger age, so that's useful, I suppose."

I nodded along. "I don't think we have what it takes to do a full marching band," I said.

Caprica cleared her throat. "No, of course not. I suppose I went off track. To answer your question about whether or not we have music specifically for New Years... no."

I couldn't help but giggle. "Alright then! What do people do for New Years, other than eat well and hang out?"

The answer came, not from the Beaver but from the city right next to us. A lone spell shot up and up, catching all of our attention, growing brighter as it went until it was like a little star caught in the waning hours of the evening.

With a flash and a bang, it burst into tiny motes of magic that spiraled away, then detonated with a brilliance to rival one of Amaryllis' spells.

"An attack?" Desiree asked.

"No, fireworks!" I cheered.

A moment later, a few more spells went up from different parts of the city, and even if they weren't quite as radiant as the first one, they were no less enthusiastic. I could start to make out cheers and then even music. People were singing something.

My friends and I ate up, chatted, and as the day darkened early, we watched Southerfell come alive. Those first few fireworks were soon followed by more and more people shooting spells up into the cloudy sky.

Two casters eventually started to compete for who could create the more dazzling show, one of them making big dragons and dancing images, while the other fired out balls of fire and big explosions that only grew bigger and louder as the evening went on.

"Drunken wizards," Amaryllis complained. She had a cup of wine held in her own talons. I didn't even know that we had wine on the Beaver. Apparently someone had brought some onboard for special occasions, and tonight counted, so most of the crew were drinking.

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Calamity had snuck out to buy beer as well, and he was sharing a drink with Oda and Clive and Bastion to one side.

I stuck to juice. Alcohol tasted way too bitter.

The city opened up with more fireworks, this time the more traditional sort. Tiny rockets that shot up and exploded with loud whumps and cracks and which left bright sparkling lights behind. Spells were still shooting out though, piercing the early night with bright lights.

Eventually, Calamity convinced us to try and join in on the fireworks. It was a much more fun use of magic than trying to blow up pirate ships... more or less, so I was happy to join in.

Amaryllis, of course, set the bar. She cast a complex spell that created a massive bolt of arcing lightning that somehow froze in place for a whole three seconds, revealing a huge tree of branching electrical arcs that reached high up into the sky.

She said that it was more visually impressive than it was dangerous. The magic was so spread out that it was quite weak, but it was very big and shiny.

Without being able to make stuff out of glass, Awen just cast some balls of light into the air, and Caprica did something similar with flare spells.

Bastion knew a few of those as well. They were a standard Sylph military thing, to signal things across an entire battlefield.

The scallywags knew some fireball spells and a few other little tricks, but they didn't have anything that stood out too much.

Maybe that was something we could work on? The Beaver stood up well in that last fight, but if everyone on the crew could fire off at least one particularly strong spell, then maybe we'd be even stronger? I'd have to see if Amaryllis could take some time off of her First Mate work to teach everyone something with a bit more kick.

I tried my own hand at creating a light show. I didn't have as much mana to burn as Amaryllis, or as many cool spells, but what I did have was good control of my Cleaning magic, and it did glow a little.

So I shot out a beam of Cleaning magic that was as long and narrow as I could make it, then I hesitated for a moment. I could shape the magic pretty well, but into what? My friends? No, that was cheesy, even for me. A dragon? Dragons were cool, objectively, but someone else had done that already.

So I settled on recreating the Beaver Cleaver in as much detail as I could, as large as I could. It wasn't all that far above, maybe five ship-lengths away or so, and it required so much focus that I had beads of sweat trickling down my forehead long before I was done, but when I finally cast, there was a big, glowing image of a ship that looked a little like the Beaver hovering like a ghost above us.

My friends cheered, and I let the spell go. It took a few long seconds for the raw mana to dissipate.

Calamity loaded up an arrow with some two dozen spells, donated by anyone who wanted to show off a little, then he fired it high overhead.

The arrow arced up, shrinking and vanishing into the blackness of the night. My eyes lost track of it until, distantly, a point of light bloomed out of nothing, sending dozens of spells flickering every which way.

The fireworks in the city only grew brighter, colours reflecting off the clouds that hung low over Southerfell.

I leaned on the railing and took it in. Soon, Orange was by my feet, curling her tail around my legs even as her eyes caught the sparkling lights. Thousands of people were celebrating. Families and friends and strangers, all welcoming the new year together. The air smelled like woodsmoke and cooking food. Was Happy magic a thing?

Someone pressed a warm mug into my hands. I looked over and Amaryllis nodded, trying very hard to pretend that she had not just done a nice thing. I smiled anyway.

"I think this year is going to be amazing," I said.

Awen leaned on the railing next to me. "Awa... a-as long as we stay together, it will be."

***

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