A Halo Christmas [Halo Universe]

1

On the first day of Christmas, my true love sent to me, a partridge in a pear tree.

A knocking came from her door. Sitting up in her bed, hair all frizzed and tangled from sleep, Elyse stared at the door with narrowed, sleepy eyes. Her eyes slowly wandered to the clock that was resting on her desk that sat beside her bed and found it to be 3:56. Groaning, she fell back into her comfortable sheets, only to hear another knock. She glared at the door as she wiggled further into the bed and prayed that the person outside would just go away. It was too early for this.

Instead, the knocking continued and this time got a little louder. Sighing and rolling her eyes in frustration, Elyse rolled out of bed, landing on her hands and knees with a slight, stinging pain that helped her wake up. She grabbed her pajama pants (which had little pink frogs decorated along the legs with white bows on their heads) and struggled to get them on. Since she was wearing a tank top, she tried searching for her jacket but failed to find it before another series of knocking came from her door. Without thinking and certainly without relying upon her common sense, she ripped open the door and barked, "What?!"

To her surprise, T'ane was standing there with something in his hand. At first the only thing that she noticed was the look of surprise that flashed across his face. She thought it had been from her outburst, but soon realized that it was because of her bed head. Cursing, she fixed it the best that she could as her eyes took in other details -the snow that had yet to melt from his armor, the red stain on his hands, the bag that he had.

"Good morning!" he chirped in a way too happy tone for the morning.

Elyse's face fell and her lips pulled down into a frown. "T'ane, buddy, I'm sorry that I'm being rude, but it's almost four o'clock in the morning. Is something wrong?"

The Samgheili fidgeted. "Uh no."

"Then what's in the bag?"

To her surprise, he beamed and yanked out the contents of the bag. The first thing that hit her was the smell, and natural instinct caused her to cringe away. Then she noticed that in his hand was a small brown bird. Horror filled her as the Sangheili brandished the dead bird at her, mandibles pulled upwards in a Sangheili smile. "I brought you a present."

"T'ane..." she spluttered. She was talking behind her hands and her mouth was full of what felt like cotton. "It's a dead bird."

"I know! Just like the song from earlier!"

Her mind swam and her stomach suddenly made a strange noise, sending the remains of her meal from last night up in her throat. She lifted a shaking hand. "Uh, excuse me for a moment."

Elyse darted away, leaving a confused T'ane standing in her doorway, still holding up the partridge proudly. His head cocked to the side. "Was it something that I did?"

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