Snow fell on the Nowhere Islands.

It fell from a nearly-clear evening sky in great flakes that crowded out the stars. It fell on the darkened houses of Tazmily Village and on the forest, and it coated the grey battlements of Osohe Castle with white. The Claymen stirred in their storage berths as Corva frosted over, and the factory town's new houses lit their stoves against the cold.

At the glowing heart of the Pig King's capital, Fassad watched the blizzard take its toll on the construction below. As snow covered the metal and slickened the plywood, the night-shift workers let themselves be distracted, and the revelers of New Pork City stopped in their tracks to stare into the sky. Good. Better, this way, that they should see the Empire Porky Building as their beacon; better that they should see it standing against the storm.

"It's lovely, isn't it?" came the voice behind him, the voice of his gravel-mouthed child King. "I always did love the first snowfall. You know what that means, doesn't it?"

"The approaching solstice, Your Highness?" replied Fassad, turning away from the window and the city street far below.

"It means Christmas is coming!" the King crowed, spider-walker scuttling a step closer. "Isn't that wonderful? ... And why don't you call me 'Porky,' Fassad? We're friends, after all, and isn't this the season of friendship?"

"... I imagine so, Porky." Perhaps, in human terms, that was how their relationship could best be described -- and regardless, he was in no position to irritate the King. "You will forgive me if I am not familiar with your holidays, I hope?"

"Heh heh... of course you wouldn't know Christmas, would you? It's the best day of the year! There are presents, and lights, and as many cookies as you can eat -- oh, Christmas is a precious thing. I suppose you islanders' solstice celebrations will have to do, but once we have our city finished, we should have Christmas in grand style!"

"Mmm," replied Fassad. "And how would you propose to do that?"

"Oh, we can light up the Empire Porky Building, bring the robots out for games, change the menu in Beauty and Tasty -- and gifts! ... It'll be like the last really good Christmas at home. Did I ever tell you about that one, Fassad?"

"I'm afraid not." Perhaps he had, but the stories had long ago begun to blur together -- all of them about some idyllic childhood life, unspoiled until the arrival of the Friends. Strange, he thought, how thousands of years of time could condense down to the few years the King had never really left.

"Then I've got to tell you! It was the Christmas that Dad finally told me there wasn't a Santa Claus..."

Porky wasn't sure he'd ever seen anything as beautiful as the living room that night. The only light in the room came from the string of lights around the Christmas tree, reflecting in crazy colors off the silver tinsel, and the angel at the top glowing a soft white. At the foot of the tree were the presents -- great big piles of presents in shiny paper and bows, more presents than he'd ever imagined. Everything glittered, just a little soft around the edges, like a dream or a movie on TV. And he'd helped!

He'd cried after Daddy told him about Santa, but when Daddy had asked him to help Santa come for Picky, Porky had to say yes. What could be cooler than playing Santa? He'd spent weeks helping with it: watching TV with Picky to see which commercials he liked best, helping Mommy remember which toys they were when they went shopping, spending all day with Mommy watching the Christmas movies and wrapping gifts... Porky'd been Santa, and it had even been fun! And now it was Christmas Eve, and Daddy'd let him stay up to finish decorating the tree and putting the presents out!

"Well, hello there, Santa!" Daddy was standing in the doorway, smiling in that way he only did at this time of year, when he started talking about Christmas bonuses and office parties. (Porky guessed it had been a pretty big bonus this year, and a pretty good party, because otherwise he'd have lost his patience by now.) "Look at all that tinsel!"

"Yep!" said Porky, his chest about to explode with pride. "I hung all the little tinsel things, and I brought out all the gifts, and I plugged in the lights for Mommy, and I found Picky just the Action Man he wants, and the car tracks, and the roaring dinosaur, and..."

"Slow down, sport!" Dad chuckled. "You did a great job. C'mon over here, and I'll let you have a sip of my eggnog?" He held up his cup, and Porky was halfway across the living room before Mommy looked out of the kitchen and glowered.

"Aloysius, don't you dare! ... Porky, dearest, come back here and grab some cookies, then scurry up to bed? Christmas still won't come before you fall asleep!"

Normally Porky hated making a choice between Mommy and Daddy, but cookies were better than Daddy's funny-tasting eggnog, so he scampered on back to the kitchen. Frosted reindeer cookies in hand, he took one last look at the beautiful Christmas he'd made before he headed to bed. He couldn't wait to see Picky's face!

"... it was the first time in my life," said the King, "that I'd ever been given power over another. You can see, I trust, that it was the finest gift I'd ever received?" His voice was cold, consummately adult, in the way that always made Fassad shiver despite himself.

"Yes," he replied, "I believe I do." How could he not? That moment of power -- he'd felt it not long ago, the first time the citizens of Tazmily had danced to his tune. A fine present for a holiday, indeed.

A cruel grin crossed the King's face as he lapsed into his reverie, and Fassad chose that time to glance back onto the street. The construction work had ceased, replaced by frantic shoveling. Down the street, near Porky Park, someone had started a bonfire --

Bonfires, thought Fassad, and then he was helpless before the force of memory.

"Why do you think they do it, anyway? Do they know it's solstice?"

At Lydia's question, Locria forced his attention away from the bonfires in the valley far below. The humans had started lighting them at twilight, and now there was a ring around their distant, tiny castle, burning almost defiantly; if he listened closely, Locria swore he could hear chanting. "I don't know," he replied, with a shrug. "Maybe they're just cold."

"No -- they have to know, don't they?" said Phrygia, sleepy-eyed but voice as sharp as ever. "They don't do this any other night. I think it's their way of marking the solstice; they're probably trying to call the sun back or some silly thing like that."

Lydia looked aghast, his nose crinkling in that way Locria had somehow never managed to find irritating. "That's so strange! Don't they know it'll be back? It always is."

"Lydia, they're humans," replied Phrygia, as if that explained everything. "They barely live long enough to learn the rhythm of years, so of course they'd be afraid of the seasons! I'm amazed they know the solstice at all."

"Poor things," murmured Lydia, and Locria nodded along, distracted again by the bonfires. Humans really were sad little creatures, but there was something compelling about them, nonetheless. They had a kind of bright-eyed desperation, a hunger to banish fear and darkness, that Locria suspected Magypsies just couldn't understand.

But what need had he to worry about humans right now? The snow was deep, the stars were out, and the seven of them were together for another of their solstices. Locria could feel them as if they were himself: Aeolia and Doria, working on the evening meal in the warmth of Aeolia's kitchen; Ionia and Mixolydia, off building another snow-spire on another peak; Lydia and Phrygia near him, breathing in time with him, living in this shared moment.

"Poor things," Locria echoed belatedly, letting his smile grow. "Let's just leave them be."

Something ached in Fassad, and he had to remind himself of how long it had been since that solstice night. Centuries upon centuries had passed, centuries loaded with a thousand tiny slights, the betrayals and dismissals that had shown how quick his fellows were to wound him. Locria had been too delicate a creature, and it was better that he had been discarded. He was Fassad now, and Fassad knew better than to think one ever truly sheathed one's daggers.

Of course, that was what drew him to Porky -- that the King knew just as well what it was like to wound and be wounded. That shared indignity gave them a kinship, a friendship cemented in the knowledge that they had no purer motives and no illusions. They would both see their old friends and old lives burned, and that was enough to keep their knives from each other's throats.

Theirs was a true winter friendship: not snow-spires and bonfires and cooking, but a chill wind to scrub the world clean. Was that not a friendship to celebrate on the coldest day of the year?

"Happy solstice, then," he said to Porky, the King rousing from his own mental wanderings to watch him; Fassad's smile was as real as any Locria had ever given. "And Merry Christmas, and may we have a... productive new year."