It was midnight.

Black shadows danced across the glistening dark blue ice, cast by moon- and starlight filtered through the clear ice snow globe enclosing the house. The windows were open, the curtains fluttering slightly in a non-existent breeze.

Blue. Everything was blue. The snowflake-patterned curtains and bedspread, the light emanating from the open laptop screen, the leather gloves curling into the pillowcase.

Blue, and black. Short, straight black hair haloing the pale face deep in slumber against the blue. Black swallowing up the far side of the bed, hidden from the soft blue light of night. A black silhouette slipping from shadow to shadow, sliding smoothly across the glistening blue ice.

Brown.

He paused in a moonbeam, a stripe of brown fur tracing up his nose to the top of his masked face and spreading across his body. His black nose twitched; his white whiskers quivered. A soft sigh from the bed, a rustling of fabric, and silence. Lily had merely shifted in her sleep.

The raccoon dropped his paws to the floor and shuffled quietly toward the exit.

The ice-covered floor was no impediment to him. His sensitive footpads lined with fur gripped it easily as he traversed the hall toward the kitchen. On all sides, ice. Ice walls, ice ceiling. It didn’t bother him. His thick coat of fur helped, of course, but there was another reason the cold didn’t touch him. A reason Lily couldn’t know.

He scrambled up the chair and onto the table and the chilled Chinese food. Paper crinkled as he pulled an egg roll from its package. He put it between his teeth and descended to the floor, trundling now toward the living room.

Splashes of red and green colored the blue here, most prominent on the rather pitiful Christmas tree atop a faulty rocket launcher in the corner. Needles scattered across the floor made slipping a much greater possibility. Lily had sealed the hole in the floor with a thick layer of ice, though, so falling into that wasn’t a concern. Anymore. The mad scientist from next door had tripped and fallen into it twice before the impromptu Christmas in July celebration concluded.

The raccoon settled on the sofa, hind legs stuck out in front of him as he took the egg roll from his mouth and nibbled on an end, gazing all the while into the defunct fireplace.

Blue and black swirled together, creating a hazy fog and a grainy picture. Another ice-coated home, another sleeping person at the end of the glistening blue hall. A slim sheet of ice on the nightstand, a bookmark decorated with Frosty the snowman holding a lasso.

The raccoon’s black eyes shifted to purple.

Later on we’ll conspire as we dream by the fire…

Thousands of miles away, the lasso shot from the bookmark, wrapping around Boris’ neck and tightening. The raccoon watched as the snow warlock woke with a start, thrashing and struggling, strains of Winter Wonderland playing in his mind.

Sorry, Lily.