Silver Umbrellas

Twenty-One-- Cabin Fever

"I have a challenge for all of you," Tino announced jovially the morning of the twentieth of December. The day before had been a day for putting more mud on the house, and shortly after that the two children had taken consecutive "showers" to wash off the dirt. Now they were in a state of relative cleanliness, but Yao's cough was starting to become more prominent though he tried to hide it from everyone.

"Vhat is it?" Lili inquired, looking up at him from where she was rebraiding Alice's red-brown hair.

"It's December twentieth, which means Christmas is only a few days away," he explained. "I think we need to put up some decorations, don't you? Let's be a little more festive!"

"What would we make the decorations out of?" Alice asked, taking care not to move her head too much to make it easier for Lili.

"We've got plenty of paper here, and scissors. We can at least make some paper snowflakes and put them around." Santa Clause smiled at the vision in his head, though they lacked the tape to stick the snowflakes everywhere. Still, they could make do without it.

"... How do you make-- cough cough-- those?" Yao asked after a few seconds of silence. Alice shot him a worried look, but he stubbornly pretended not to have seen it.

"I'll show you," Tino offered, taking out the scissors and grabbing a sheet of paper. He started to fold the page carefully, his deft fingers having no trouble with remembering where to crease because it was almost like muscle memory. When it was all folded up, Tino handed Yao the scissors and started to explain how to cut the paper so it would create any sort of pattern he would want after opening the paper back up.

Meanwhile, Liechtenstein finished Oregon's braid and tied it off with her half of the purple ribbon, then let it fall against the child's spine. "All done."

"Thank you~" Alice said gratefully, falling backward so her head was in Liechtenstein's lap. "Lili?"

"Hm?" she replied, smiling down at the much younger girl.

"Do you have any brothers or sisters?"

Finland tried not to flinch at the thought of facing Switzerland's inevitable wrath when Alice asked Lili that (not that Finland wasn't a force to be reckoned with, of course).

"Oh, I do. His name is Vash, and he's the nation of Svitzerland. He's my big bruder," Liechtenstein explained sweetly.

"Is he in Norway, too?"

"He is, and I'm very excited to see him again vhen ve leave here," Lili added. "You have a lot of siblings, don't you. Are you excited to see them, too?"

"Heehee~ Yup!" Alice replied. "I miss them... But I made bracelets for all of them! It took a long time, but I did it. And then, when we get there, I'm gonna give them all their bracelets and it's going to be awesome."

'You sound like Mr. Prussia a little bit' Lili laughed mentally, but only beamed at Alice. "That sounds like a vonderful plan, Alice."

"Wǒ zuò dàole!" China declared when he held up his unfolded snowflake up proudly. It was full of triangles and diamonds, and the center had been snipped out so a hexagon sat in the middle of the pattern. (I did it!)

"That's a really good one!" Finland praised honestly. "Let's make another one!"

"I wanna make one!" Alice announced, sitting up quickly and crawling on her knees to the coffee table. She plopped herself down on her rear beside Yao and looked excitedly at the little discarded bits of paper that had been sacrificed to make the snowflake. "When is it my turn?"