A Red Queen Christmas Special

The Great Christmas Gingerbread House-Off

With the Barrow brothers now gone from the house and likely bullying Cal in a forest somewhere, Gisa only had to make one adjustment to the teams.

Julian and Sara made up one, and Davidson and Carmadon made up a second. Evangeline and Elane were a third, Maven and Thomas were a forth, Kilorn and Cameron were a fifth, and Missus Barrow and Farley were a sixth. (Shade had initially wanted to be Diana's partner, but the daughter-in-law knew that he would only hold her back from winning.) Bree and Tramy would've been partners, but they were gone. Gisa was supposed to partner with Shade, and Mare would've partnered with Cal, but both of the boys were gone.

That left Gisa with Mare.

The youngest Barrow sighed, knowing that she had no chance of winning with her sister.

Mare was equally disappointed that she didn't get to make a gingerbread house with her boy toy.

Cal had arrived at the house that morning with a literal blueprint of his future gingerbread house. It may have been messily sketched on a piece of notebook paper, but it had all of the details. He had even been planning to ask Mister Barrow if he could borrow the power drill to make windows, and there were supposed to be gingerbread versions of Mare and Cal outside of the house. Gingerbread Cal was going to have a frosted black leather jacket.

Cal was the kind of man who wasn't afraid to go all-out making gingerbread houses with his girl. Mare had told Gisa that in her opinion, it was a total turn-on.

But now, over the holiday music that filtered through the kitchen, both of the Barrow sisters sulked as they looked on at the scene.

The team members, all of whom wore some sort of holiday-themed sweater, scattered about the kitchen, threatening to make it burst at the seams. Kilorn had already dropped a sheet of gingerbread, and most of the counters were smeared with some degree of frosting. While some teams, like that of Julian and Sara, were working at a methodical, easy-going pace, other teams were competing to see who could finish first. By that, Gisa was most thinking about Maven, who glared at Farley from the kitchen island.

On the center kitchen island rested everything that one might need to construct a gingerbread house. Pre-baked sheets of gingerbread stacked one on top of the other, a dozen bags of frosting were scattered across the marble, and bowls and bowls of gumdrops and chocolates and sprinkles waited here and there. Two sheets of freshly-baked gingerbread men and women were at the island's center, courtesy of Ruth and Farley, who had a bit of a mess going.

While most of the teams were either working at their designated kitchen counter spaces or the breakfast table by the windows, Ruth and Diana were buzzing about the kitchen, running between their half-finished masterpiece of a gingerbread house and the beginnings of Christmas Eve dinner. Along with gingerbread men, Ruth Barrow was in the midst of tossing pie crusts and stirring batter. Farley was chopping carrots and celery like one had never seen.

Gisa supposed that there were real-life applications for being a Scarlet Street Fighter.

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Even though he wasn't technically cooking anything, Kilorn was proud to wear his "Kiss The Cook" apron as he and Cameron Cole worked on their second gingerbread house.

For breaking the first one, along with the Christmas tree, Kilorn was currently in hot water with the family that he lived with. Gisa had even muttered something about taking away his bedroom and putting him under the stairs, just like Mare had wanted.

Still, at the counter with his girlfriend, Kilorn was having a good time.

"How did the gingerbread man treat his injured leg?"