Divine Day | Fire Emblem Awakening (Holiday Shepherds Book 1)

Chapter 7: White Christmas

Robin: 21st December

True to Chrom's word, I was woken by the sound of the Shepherds crashing around the garrison just as dawn was breaking the next morning. The kitchen staff seemed to have anticipated this, as breakfast was already cooked when we reached the dining hall. My time spent in the lovely, warm room seemed to fly by. Before I knew it, I was fetching the gloves Chrom had given me out of my pockets and following him and the other Shepherds to the royal gardens.

The temperature seemed to have dropped to Regna Ferox standards in the night. It was so cold that our breath hung thickly in front of our faces, creating a pack of miniature ghosts that haunted the royal gardens in search of the best place to build snowmen.

There was plenty of snow about to do it. The light frosting of the previous night was now a thick coating, crunching under our boots. The sky tinted the white blankets with a hint of lilac as golden rays began to clamber sleepily from the horizon. Everything was still, save for the Shepherds and the occasional tweeting bird, but the world felt so alive. Nature had reclaimed her land, and we were the only people out here to enjoy it.

We finally found a large, relatively empty area of the gardens that everyone was satisfied with, and I began a snowman master class. I rolled ball after ball of snow until my gloves were soaked through and my hands were frozen. I retrieved numerous sticks, impaled snowmen with carrots, and pressed various objects into their faces to create wonky pairs of eyes.

Everyone moved about from creation to creation, and I worked with them all. I found that Sumia paid the most attention to detail and even made flower crowns for her favourites. Cordelia was the best at making the perfect-sized heads, and Stahl at making the best-sized bodies. Frederick was very good at finding twigs, and Lissa was good at finding anything else that might be of use to us. Lon'qu could roll snow for the longest before the cold bothered him, but Sully was a close second through determination alone. And Chrom...he spent more time with his arms around me than he did building anything, although he taught me a lot while I worked. He gave me advice for each step of creation and told me stories of previous snowmen he'd made. Many of them had been as a child with Emmeryn by his side.

Finally, as the sun climbed higher in the sky, our crafting finished. We had not set a target number of snowmen to complete. We just suddenly realised how many we had created and came to a quick halt. Now that I was looking at all the snow creatures staring back at me, I was starting to feel a bit daunted.

We gawped at the army of white lumps in shocked silence for a moment. Then a snowball whizzed through the air. I turned sharply to the side to see Lissa crouching down to make another.

They suddenly came flying from every direction, and a snowy warfare of huge proportions broke out.

While it started taking casualties both in the form of humans and snowmen, we fell into small teams with little verbal communication. Chrom and I naturally grouped together, quickly shaping snowballs and trying to cover each other's backs, but it was hard when we were laughing so much. We retreated towards the cluster of trees behind the snowmen as we threw them. Then, when there was a few seconds' lapse in the attack, Chrom pulled me behind the evergreens.

We stood hand in hand with our backs pressed up against the bark and laughed until we couldn't breathe.

I crouched down and started to make more snowballs with my free hand, but Chrom tightened his grip on the other. I looked up.

"I don't think the others know where we are yet," he said quietly, pulling me to my feet. "I want to show you something. Did you do any research on snow angels?"