Ronin Warriors Fan Fiction ❯ Christmas Cookies ❯ Christmas Cookies ( One-Shot )

[ A - All Readers ]
A/N: The credit/blame for this falls squarely on my sister, who made her Christmas cookies Ule-style, pointed out the Ule-ness to me, and let loose the plot bunnies.

***

Mia walked through the door with her arms full and kicked it shut behind her. Working off one shoe with the other foot, she called out "Thanks so much for all the help you guys."

The guys in question had taken over the couch in some kind of teenage plague. There seemed to be an arguement going on over whether they'd watch Monster Rancher, or the Digimon Christmas episode.

"But it's 'A Very Digi Christmas'!" Kento whined. "It's like the only time Ken laughs, and we get to see Sora crush Tai's heart under her heel."

"Yeah, but this episode has Pixie, and she's way hotter than any of the Digimon girls," Cye informed him.

Mia eyed the freeloaders. "Sarcasm is so wasted on you."

Anubis entered the room with a candy cane in his mouth, and took a few of the bags from Mia. Carrying them into the kitchen, he asked her "So what's all this stuff for?"

"Christmas baking." Mia took on a somewhat frightening militant air. "Now either grab an apron or get out."

"Yes dear."

***

Several hours later, the savoury aromas had drawn the Ronins and Ule into the kitchen. Spread on the counter to cool were various cookies and bars, and even a fruitcake made for the sole purpose of saying they'd made one.

On the table sat several dozen plan sugar cookies. There were as many different colours of icing as could be made from food coloring, and what had to be the entire shelf of sprinkles.

Mia hurried across the room with a final batch of cookies. Following her a dejected Anubis threw a wilted plant into the trash. "Total waste of mistletoe.."

Mia unloaded the cookies and turned towards the teens, causing their 'fearless leader' to cower behind Rowen.

"Good, you showed up right on time. You can help me decorate the cookies."

Sage made a move towards the door. "No thanks, that's entirely too wholesome for me."

There was a blur of auburn hair and cornflower blue apron, then Mia was brandishing a wooden spoon sword-style mere inches from his throat. "This isn't an optional activity."

The blond stared for a moment, then put his hands up in surrender. "Yes ma'am. Show me where to start."

In a few moments Mia had a veritable cookie assembly line formed. She turned out picture-perfect, magazine quality cookies, and was most displeased when Anubis seemed more interested in eating the silver ball sprinkles. The Ronins were bickering and shoving each other - standard routine. Ule was all but ignored, quietly humming a Christmas song to himself while he decorated his cookies.

All was silent as they worked, until Mia nudged Anubis. "You're not supposed to eat those. They're bad for you."

Anubis paused with a hand to his mouth, then shrugged and ate them anyway. "I've lived this long, I don't think these things are going to kill me."

Rowen reached across the table to Cye and grabbed the blue sprinkles. "But I've always aten them."

"Well, then the unhealthiness must be how it makes one a skinny bookworm. That would explain a lot." For his comment, Ryo got a cookie thrown at his head.

They worked in silence, aside from Sage's coughing fit that sounded suspiciously like "Slave driver!" Around the time Cye was stealing the blue sprinkles back from Rowen (the boys had thought it amusing to use their armor colours), when Kento started complaining.

"We're out of orange sprinkles. Why'd you get such a tiny bottle?"

"Because that's all they had. People don't buy orange sprinkles," Mia said while carefully making a line of sprinkle-garland on a tree-shaped cookie.

"Well, people suck. Sage has the green and Ryo's got all the red, and Rowen and Cye get to kill each other over the blue. No fair." Kento sulked for a moment, then began eating his cookies.

As Mia berated him for this, Rowen kicked Cye under the table and took back the sprinkles.

"Jin..gle..bells...jin..gle..bells...jin..gle..all..the ..way..."

The group finally noticed Ule, who was being quietly cheered on by Anubis. Mia stared in unconcealed horror.

"Ule, let me define sugar cookies!" She snatched the sprinkle container away, and examined his cookies. All of which had been covered in an obscene amount of sprinkles, literally caked on the icing. The others could only laugh quietly as she panicked over the ruined cookies.

***

Kento crawled out of bed the next morning. They'd worked late into the night, until the cookies were all decorated. When they'd gone to bed, Mia had still been awake, dividing the cookies and bars up amongst some plastic plates she was covering with festive green and red ceran wrap. He was now looking forward to a sugary sweet breakfast.

His scream of horror echoed through the house when he entered the kitchen and discovered not a single cookie to be found.

Mia and the others rushed in, brought by his scream, which had now degenerated into hysterical sobs. "What is it?"

"The cookies - gone - we've been robbed!"

The rest of the Ronins also begin to look uneasy. "What do you mean, gone?" Sage snapped.

"They're just gone!"

"Well, of course they are." The smug smile on Mia's face was unnerving. "I gave them all to the homeless shelter and food shelf."

At this news, Kento fainted dead away in the middle of the floor.

Seeing the conscious Ronins' horrified looks, she elaborated. "You didn't think I was going to risk having such massive amounts of sugar in this house, did you?"

Anubis was giving her a stricken look. "All the cookies?"

Mia smiled. "Well, not quite all.."

Anubis looked incredibly relieved.

"...and I could probably be convinced to give them to you. Have you still got any mistletoe?"