Nevermoor oneshots (book 2)

Every time

Ezra kept a diary.

It wasn't exactly to keep the track of his time every day. He wouldn't care to do that every day. Squall was too busy for that.
It was for every Christmas that he experienced. Of course, there was a big break of writing in it after he was kicked out of Nevermoor.
Being separated from his friends, who weren't alive anymore, trying to figure out how to have a brand new start in a totally different country, lot's of work. Things to do, that would keep him busy enough to not celebrate anything.
For normal people, that could have seemed sad, but there weren't really any "friends" that could worry about him. There was no need for that either way.

The 1st pages were filled with his 1st Christmas that he celebrated with people he saw as quite close family. Elodie and the others. Exactly the year he started his wundersmith training. The only reason why he got a diary, was because his first real friend - Elodie, had one. She described it as something that she could always rely on. It seemed quite weird and unusual, but he decided to try it. Writing about something every day wasn't as fun, but writing only about something that couldn't happen every day, was better.

There were about 10 more pages with memories of them. Time passes quickly. It slowly gets faster and faster. While you're a child, it feels like a day could last forever. But slowly, quite unnoticeably, it get's so much faster. At one point, you'll see that a week has passed in what seems like just a day, a year has passed in a month, as non-possible as it sounds, it's true. And it's sad. People leave, either you like it or not. Letting go was never meant to be easy.

Then there was a page that he had completely scrambled. What a time.. His last Christmas in Nevermoor. Such a bloody tragedy. He messed up for the last time.
How could it be the last, if he was still alive? People make mistakes. All of them do. Only dead people don't. It has never been seen as okay to make mistakes.

The next writing in it had been put in the diary after many years. Squall didn't celebrate Christmas, but he did watch other people, and how they liked to celebrate. For a while, he even thought that he hated Christmas, hated how happy people were. But that was only because of the fact, that he was lonely, although in high denial of it.

After quite some time of trying, he managed to get successful enough to be considered popular. Really well known in the Wintersea republic.
Of course, he was invited to some "business parties" for Christmas. He didn't want to seem much odd, so he attended them. Well, attended as Mr. Jones. It just felt safer to do so. After all, there might be someone who doesn't want him there for whatever reason. That would be odd, and somehow even a bit funny. What could a human do to him? There wasn't that much danger.

One Christmas, he visited Jupiter through the Gossamer line. Things really took quite a turn that time. He almost lost Morrigan! That would have been quite something. This Christmas was a lot of years later. The whole year was truly something. A really lifechanger. Well, at least for as long as possible.

Then there it was... The Christmas he experienced in his dream. His long, long dream of him and Henry. What a beautiful night that was..

Many more Christmas times in the dream. At least 9. In all of those, he experienced such happy moments. He even tried to bake a cake, go on a killing spree, build a snow house, make some extra rooms in his basement, especially for hiding and finding, and so much more. One thing did go wrong in those hallways.
That year, he passed out for what definitely wasn't much. Squall wasn't even sure of why that could have happened. It's not like he wasn't getting any sleep or food. That's 2 things that he shared with Henry.
Something seemed wrong, but Ezra let go of that feeling really quickly. He had to finish those bloody decorations. Just as he felt that he returned back in his body, he noticed that he had moved from where he originally was. He could hear Henry coming to the room, humming a slow, a little bit spooky Christmas song.

"There you are! Nice to see you down here, finally. How do you like the way it all looks?"
Squall had just finished putting up the last pieces on the Christmas tree.

"I can see very well that you're enjoying this Christmas decorating. It looks wonderful."
Henry said, walking closer to Ezra, giving him a light hug.
Oh, such great memories...

The next Christmas, the one after he woke up from his long dream. He had accepted the invitation that Morrigan gave him. Her, Jupiter and him, went to a cozy Caffè, and got some warm drinks and small snacks.

During this talk over coffee, Squall discovered that while he was living his long dream, the Hunt of Smoke and shadow were asleep too. Now there were one more wundersmith found. Morrigan was really excited, since she would be the one trying to teach the other, new wundersmith. Ezra felt quite thrilled too. Maybe this will be fine. Morrigan was smart enough to know what to do. After all, a lot of pressure was put on her when she was still certainly not an adult.
She knew enough, even though there would me much more to teach her.
That could be a new era of wundersmiths returning. The could be a chance, that he would be let back in Nevermoor. A hint of hope sparked in him. No one might have really noticed a small smirk that he kept on for the whole evening. At least no person that wasn't around him as much.

After that, they went to the big Christmas tree that was put up that year. Since Ezra hadn't exactly spent that much time with either Morrigan or Jupiter, he didn't bring any gifts. This year, he understood that gifts don't have to be that big.
He never really went visiting Nevermoor on Christmas, but this year he did. Jupiter and Morrigan could see him, Jack could most likely see him too. They watched the big Christmas fight. It really was impressive enough, knowing that neither of those people were wundersmiths.

Maybe Christmas was worth celebrating with other people too. Ezra felt like he was becoming too soft. Christmas was a time of miracles to happen. And maybe this change of heart towards celebrating with others was a miracle. He was more ready to let go of the fact that he'll never meet his wundersmith friends, just as Henry, ever again.
But Christmas was meant to be celebrated with friends, and he clearly had a few people that weren't against celebrating with him.

Happy Christmas!