Skulduggery – Crow
Anton – Bear
Ghastly – Panda
Dexter – Wolf
Saracen – Weasel
Erskine – Snake
Solomon – Raven
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Chapter 41
Christmas day was lovely, starting with a call to Nadia and going on to everyone being delivered tea to their bedrooms by Skulduggery, letting them wake up slowly. That was ruined for Valkyrie when Snake came running into her room when she was halfway through her cup and jumped on her bed.
"It's Christmas!" He shouted, bouncing on the bed animatedly. "Come on, I want to do presents!"
Valkyrie laughed, finished her tea quickly and jumped onto him. They rolled around, fighting and trying to grab the other but Snake was simply far stronger than her and he rolled them up and she was over his shoulder, looking at his arse. He laughed like a maniac and ran down the hall banging on the walls, Valkyrie's laughing screams accompanying him.
Snake ran them downstairs, the others coming at a slower rate behind them.
They went to the big living room they always ended up at, where they had lovingly put up their tree. Just a few days earlier they had all gone out and have fun choosing one, cutting it down and trying to make it stand up straight. Then had been the fun of decorating it. They had normal baubles and a little angel, but the angel had been put upside down with her little pipe cleaner legs bent open to securely hang on two branches and an enthusiastic reindeer had been placed above her. She hadn't found out who did that yet, but she was almost certain it was Tanith.
There was toilet roll where someone had tepeed it at night, also unknown as to who, and they had put one of Skulduggery's hats at the top as a star, alongside cut out pictures of them all stabbed ominously onto the branches which were enhanced by the dagger, toothbrush, tinsel, way too many lights and a bunch of tea bags. It was a beautiful sight, and to make it better Valkyrie had already taken a picture, framed it and hung it on the tree for all to see.
Under it, though, was the best part.
The presents!
Valkyrie and Snake jumped at them and sat between their feet looking at it excitedly, waiting for the others to sit around. Fletcher popped in in a Santa hat and Valkyrie pushed him with her excitement, making him fall over to everyone's amusement. They had all placed the presents they had wrapped in a pile, leaving the separating for the day of – Valkyrie and Snake helped speed up the process by pushing the piles to the owners.
"Do we want to do person by person or all at once?" Crow asked, sitting on a sofa next to Bear. Panda would have sat like an adult too, but Tanith was on the floor and if Tanith were on the floor, Panda surely followed.
"All at once!" Tanith, Dexter, Erskine, Fletcher and Valkyrie demanded at once and started separating their presents, throwing or passing them to the person they were for depending on who they were for. It had taken some convincing to get Fletcher to participate after the Ball – he had left right near the start after a little argument with Crow, but it was settled now, mostly because Valkyrie forced them to talk.
When all the passing had been done, they sat with their piles of presents, each with nine. Under the tree were a few more from friends. Crow was the odd one out with just eight as Valkyrie planned a grand unveiling for his.
YOU ARE READING
Skulduggery Pleasant: Raising Cain
Fanfiction(This story is written as a fanfiction, but can be read as a story without having read any of the books.) Valkyrie Cain, the adoptive daughter of the Dead Men, has had a life full of love and magic. But as she gets older, times become scarier and sh...
