[Please read the description below. Thanks!]

“No. Absolutely not,” I said. “We are not going to—”

Hold up.

Hello everyone, it is I! The narrator! And I’ll be taking the reigns for this special episode. Sorry Zii, but you have no power here.

“Damn. What’s wrong with my storytelling?”

Nothing, nothing, but I need to provide some context which you don’t really know about. Get used to it. This’ll be happening quite a lot.

“Fine, go a head. Stupid omniscient narrators…”

Thank you~

Now, let’s continue. And uh, rewind, yeah?

<the “very creative” rewind>

The interweb is an interesting thing. Like what you humans know as the internet, it connects the species of the STC interplanally. It has similar functions, including platforms to upload videos and blogs. One such Ovalean does exactly that. Elbon—

“Yo, narrator, they already know about Elbony. Why’re you introducing chars not yet in the story?”

Well, this is a bonus episode? It’s going to have all of the main cast!

“Seriously ? So we have to deal with that pesky—”

Ah-ah-ah. No spoilers~ The audience can find out for themselves.

“Well, stop wasting time on unnecessary introductions. Like you said, they can find out th emselves.”

Fine, fine. Honestly. Can’t even let the story be now, can you? I have to keep on italicizing these side conversations!

“Wel p.”

Ugh. Now, as I was saying.

If you remember our friend from the previous chapter, Elbony Rakshire, you should know she’s a popular blogger. Her logs consist of her touring certain planets and reporting about them. Earth, while quarantined from the rest of the STC thanks to reasons I cannot disclose, is no exception.

While she was doing so, she found out about an interesting holiday humans call “Christmas”. Excited about this fascinating holiday she’d never heard of, she returned to Thei’Kar to try celebrating with her friends.

“Just for the record, we are not friends.”

Stop interrupting! Can’t you see I’m narrating here? Now shush!

“Sorry, sor ry. Jeeeez.”

I said shush!

“And I said I’m sorry.”

You know what? I’m just going to ignore you from now on. Perhaps that’ll work.

“Wow. Tha nks.”

Thei’Kar is also a fascinating planet, and while it doesn’t snow there, it does get quite… freezing.

“Ugh, stupid ice…” the blogger muttered, stepping out of the ship. Now, Ovaleans are considered quite elegant creatures, although you’d never guess it from how Elbony stumbled across the docking platform. She was lugging behind her an unusually ginormous pine tree along with boxes of… bizarre, to say the least, decorations.

A kind-looking Karier came out of the house in front, noticing her. His light bronze hair had been put into an updo, and he was fumbling with the zipper of a jacket. Tatsiun’s usual smile wasn’t on his face, though, replaced with one of confusion and concern.

“Elbony, do you need any help? We discussed landing so openly here. Is something wrong?”

“Nothing like that! Help me bring this inside, and I’ll explain.”

He sighed, relieved as his eyes brightened with a smile. “Alright then.”

The Ovalean flopped onto the couch after they’d finished dragging everything inside.

“Welcome back,” came a drawled-out voice with a posh accent.

“Good to see you too, Morritsko.”

In front of her was a Karier who, by the way he presented himself, clearly had the status of a Guard or maybe even higher. His mutations were as evident as the gems in his skin, sparkling with a superior power. He carried about him an aura demanding attention, the jewelry in his trimmed second pair of ears and blonde and purple hair only adding to the effect.

“I take it your trip was successful?”

“What gave it away?”

He raised an eyebrow in response, glancing at the foreign objects before making eye contact again.

“Oh. Right.”

“What even are those?” Zii jumped in, eyeing the festive decorations suspiciously.

“I’ll tell you when Tatsy gets back.”

As if summoned by her words, the Bird joined them from the kitchen, carrying a tray of tea and biscuits. He set them down on the coffee table before taking a seat.

“So, what’s going on?” he prompted.

“Well, okay, listen up. I just got back from Earth and found out that during this time of year*, they celebrate something called Christmas**. It sounded fun, so I thought we should try it! Some of the must have things are a ‘Christmas tree’, aka a pine tree, lights, and ornaments! But since we don’t have any, I stopped by Ally’s*** to pick up the supplies.”

“I’m interrupting he re because the narrator always forgets the translation notes.

“*Because Thei’Kar and Earth have different calendars and planet orbits, while also being in different planar time zones, ‘during this time of year’ references to our December equivalent of you humans’ calendar system.

“**Thanks to English being so different from the common interplanar tongue, ‘Christmas’ actually got qui te lost in the translation. If a direct translation was provided, it’d probably be Romanized as some random gibberish you wouldn’t understand. As such, all English terms are kept the same for the purpose of being comprehensible.

“***Elbony’s referring to a popular store in the Materialistic Plane. It’s colloquially known as Ally’s, but the actual store name is ‘All-You-Can-Get-Human-Goods’. How original, am I right? As the name suggests, it’s a store that provides human goods as accurately as possible. Since Earth is quarantined from the rest of the STC and has been for the past millennia, people aren’t actually entirely sure about human cultures and items. You have a few things that we don’t, and Ally’s is where we can find them. …I’m not complimenting you, by the way. That is all for now.”

“You risked us being found for that?” Morritsko asked, his tone dripping with amusement.

“No. Absolutely not,” Zii added. “We are not going to attempt a stupid human tradition for fun. Go return those things, and take the ship away before we get caught by the authorities.”

“Oi! I thought it’d be fun since everyone’s been in such a bad mood lately! (And also cause the author’s bonus story has no substance otherwise—)”

The Rat was about to argue but immediately stopped when she noticed Tatsy open his mouth.

“Well, I think it could be fun and something to try out. She already got everything, anyway, so it’d be a waste to not enjoy, right? (Although, please don’t break the fourth wall. The audience will be very confused. The narrating hassle’s enough to deal with already.)”

Zii crossed her arms, grumbling something about how “This is a terrible idea, and we’re all going to die, but fiiiiine. All in the name of Christmas or some shit—”

“I have no preference either way. Do as you please.”

And with Morritsko’s (sorta) approval, the crew set off decorating. Well, some of them at least. It’d be more accurate to say Elbony and Tatsy set off decorating, while Zii flew the ship to a more discreet location, and Morritsko just sat there drinking his tea and reading a book.

Nevertheless, though, by nightfall, the entire house had been glorified with pure Christmas joy! Halls had been decked with ornaments and bells; presents had been wrapped and placed under a fully lit tree; multicolored lights hung from the walls and ceiling; and they even got a functioning fake snow machine! If you ignored the unnatural giant size of the tree, the fact that the ornaments consisted of what were probably living creatures at some point, the high probability of presents being weapons of mass destruction at worst or what looks like a giant leech at best, and the very obvious clown faced Santa Clause in the living room, that is.

Despite the house looking more prepared for Halloween than this joyous wintry holiday, paired with the meal being the only functional festive part, the atmosphere was still merry and bright. In fact, it had even spread to the more exasperated of the crew, what with Zii looking forward to Tatsy’s homemade feast and Morritsko finding himself fascinated by the “snow”. Yes, it seemed like there would be quite a bit of holiday cheer after all!

“And of course, as expected, our dear narrator spoke much too soon.”