Anima woke up to a familiar scene as the first rays of the morning sun illuminated the bedroom.
“’Nooow!”
“Phew, thank goodness it’s not raining. Rain would’ve made the top of the snow into super-slippery ice.”
“I like sippery!”
“It’s fun, but it’s really easy to fall. This one time, when I was little, I fell really hard. It hurt a lot.”
“Pain, pain, fye ’way!”
“Thank you! I feel much better now!”
Myuke and Marie were marveling at the beautiful white scenery outside. As it was still her first experience with snow, Marie was especially excited.
“I wanna ’nowball fight!”
“Sure, I’m down!”
“I wanna make ’nowman too!”
“We’ll make the best snowman this world has ever seen!”
Even though they’d played in the snow all morning the day before, their excitement hadn’t faded one bit. It was as if the day had never even happened.
Did I dream all of that?
Bram’s botched snowball throw had destroyed Myuke’s snowman, prompting a ferocious argument. If that had been nothing more than a dream, his brain had played an incredibly cruel joke on him. He still remembered just how frustrated it made him to watch his beloved daughters fight. That no longer mattered to him, though. A dream was a dream. There were no hurt feelings, and the girls hadn’t actually fought—that was the important thing.
He quietly got up, trying not to wake his sleeping wife, and moved toward the window.
“Is it snowy outside?” he asked, hoping to confirm that the fight had truly been a dream.
“Uh-huh! I wanna pay in the ’now ’gain!”
“Again”. She’d said “again”, which meant that she’d played in the snow the day before.
I guess it wasn’t a dream.
Anima lamented the death of his short-lived hope. The excitement Myuke had for having a snowball fight and building a snowman only existed because Bram wasn’t in the conversation. She likely didn’t want to be a party pooper and ruin Marie’s fun.
Anima shook his head to shoo those thoughts away. The fight was a thing of the past. He’d woken up to Myuke’s beautiful smile, so he thought that maybe her rage had faded into nothingness overnight. Perhaps Bram had gone through a similar change, he hoped, and would apologize to Myuke with a big hug as soon as she woke up.
“Daddy, do you remember that thing we talked about yesterday?” Myuke asked, interrupting his fantasies about his daughters hugging out their problems.
“Umm... That you want a fire rabbit stone?”
Myuke shook her head.
“No, I asked you to buy a bed. Did you forget already?”
“I remember. How could I forget? But... Do you really want that? There’s no need to get a second bed if it’s just to make my nights better. I sleep very well, even if the blanket doesn’t reach all the way around my back.” Their bed was small, but Anima loved sleeping with his family more than anything else in the world. His back never got cold, as his soul was warmed by the presence of the people he loved the most. He wouldn’t complain even if he were to fall off one night. “If you’re only doing this for me, then there’s no need. We can just get you that fire rabbit stone.”
Please, I’m begging you, say that you don’t want a bed.
He prayed to any and every deity he could think of while Myuke looked at the bed. Torn on the decision, she furrowed her eyebrows for a second before shaking her head and looking up at Anima. He could see in her eyes that she was fully determined to live with her choice.
“I want a new bed.”
“All right... When should we get it?”
He thought that maybe he could stall and give them time to make up. Myuke glanced out the window before she gave her answer.
“I don’t think it’ll rain today, but just to be safe, we should get it over with as soon as we can. Let’s go after we’re done with the morning chores.”
His idea was shot down instantly, leaving him on the ropes. Buying a bed was going to be the final nail in the coffin for sleeping together with everyone. Once bought, Myuke would use it even if she made up with Bram, lest she feel bad for wasting Anima’s time and money. His last chance was for Bram to come to his aid and somehow stifle Myuke’s rage.
“Bram is... still sleeping, I see.”
“Duh. She’s a slob; she’d sleep all day if she could.”
“I’m awake, m’kay?” Bram groaned from Luina’s bosom.
Glancing her way, Anima noticed that Luina was stroking her hair. Although silent about the quarrel itself, his wife was trying her best to calm Bram down.
“Oh, wow, you’re actually awake. That’s rare. Anyway, I hope it doesn’t rain today.”
“If you’re that worried about it, just go buy the bed already, m’kay?”
“Maybe I will. It’ll be the comfiest, most amazing bed you’ve ever seen. And I’m not gonna let you sleep in it even if you beg.”
“Never gonna happen, m’kay? Like I’d ever want to sleep with you. Just don’t get so caught up in getting back at me that you buy a bed that doesn’t fit through the door. If you do that, you’re gonna have to sleep in the hallway, m’kay?”
“I’m not that dumb!”
It was fortunate that they didn’t get into an intense mouth-off like yesterday, but sparks were flying between them. Disheartened, Myuke took Anima’s hand.
“Let’s go get breakfast ready.”
There was no need for her to ask Luina for the fire lizard stone; it already twinkled on her slender ring finger. She had asked for it the night before, just before they’d gone to bed.
“I help too!”
“I’m so proud of you, Marie. We can always rely on you. Can you come and be the taste tester for us?”
“Yaaay! I love tase tessing!” Marie cheered as if she had just been asked to perform her dream job. Lucky for her, the breakfast was guaranteed to be divine—they were going to reheat the previous night’s dinner. Anima and Myuke had helped with a couple things, but the bulk of the work had undoubtedly been done by Luina.
They went downstairs, prepared breakfast, and called everyone down to eat. Once they were done, Anima, Myuke, and Marie went outside to air out the laundry.
“Daddy, I wanna pay in the ’now!” Marie excitedly cheered, but Anima had to betray her hopes.
“Sorry, Marie, but I have to go into town with Myuke.”
“I wanna go too! I show my ’nowman to ev’yone!”
She wanted to show off her magnum opus, which, despite having been built a full day prior, hadn’t given in to the rays of the sun or the evening breeze. It still stood proudly in the garden.
“Your hands will get really cold if you carry it around all day.”
“And it’ll melt when we go into the store. I’ll play with you when we get home, so just stay here, okay?”
“Once your sister and I finish shopping, I’ll play with you girls all day!”
“Yaaay!”
Anima picked Marie up and they returned to the house. They went in through the kitchen, dropped Marie off in the dining room, changed into their outside clothes, and left the house through the front door.
Some patches of ground were visible through the myriad footprints in the snow in front of the door. While the sun was strong enough to melt parts of the thin layers of snow beneath the prints, the road to Garaat was still covered entirely in white. Nothing had changed from the day before.
“Lossa foo’pints!” Marie cheered, peeking out from behind Anima. She’d come to see them off.
“I think these are yours, Marie.”
“Must be. They’re very small and cute.”
Following shortly behind Marie, Luina and Bram also came to the front door. Bram was visibly restless, fidgeting from being near Myuke after all that happened between them, but that she’d come to see her off must have meant that she had something to say.
“I’m good at foo’pints!” Marie ran out into the snow, but her fresh footsteps didn’t stand out from the countless others already covering the entranceway, so she stopped and looked off into the distance with twinkling eyes. “I wanna pay there!”
She looked at the road, still covered in fresh, untouched snow. Anima wasn’t keen on letting her play out front, though, as the beautiful scenery of the nearby forest seemed as though it would be very inviting to a little girl like her.
“Let’s just stick to the garden, okay? I don’t want you to wander into the forest and get lost.”
“There’s scary people in fowest?”
Marie clutched Anima’s robe in fear, and he gently stroked her hair.