Christmas was quiet. Four of us at the table. It felt almost more like a double date than a family dinner.

Yes, it had got to that point. Sneaking hand touches under the table. Stupid and childish, perhaps, and I knew I shouldn’t let myself be with her. I couldn’t help it. I wondered if Thruor was going through the same thoughts about Mike.

Mike could look after himself most of the time. So could Kanesha. And we could protect them the rest, but the difference was that as far as I knew nobody was trying to seduce Thruor into marriage.

I thought that anyone who tried wouldn’t be marrying anyone ever again, one way or another. Maybe that was how I needed to be, but I wasn’t her. I wasn’t her in dress, in attitude, and I didn’t have a pack of loyal sisters behind me.

Christmas and gifts – I bought Kanesha a necklace and she bought me a couple of DVDs of movies I’d never managed to see. Normality that I knew would not, could not, last. It was a harsher winter than normal, too, the temperature plunging below freezing, the city turning into an icebox. People didn’t know how to deal with it. Homeless people were dying of hypothermia – although fortunately not that many of them. The community center had people sleeping on the floor.

The thought of winter chilled and excited me all at the same time. Chilled because it was the language used to describe Ragnarok. Excited because…well…first of all, I hadn’t seen a fire giant since the temperature dropped.

And I felt quite comfortable in it. And no school meant I didn’t have to anything other than look after myself and keep my eyes open for danger. Still, nobody tried anything on Christmas day. Or until New Years. It was almost as if they were considering it a truce.

Or maybe too busy putting coal in people’s stockings, in the case of the fairies. I wondered if Santa was a fairy. He was, after all, supposed to be accompanied by elves. Woodcrafting elves, making cool toys.

It was a great image even if you knew Santa was just people’s parents. Or was he? I wasn’t about to deny the potential truth behind any myth. That truth was there in the core of it.

The day after Christmas, we walked through the cold, wrapped up against it. “I’m wondering if Santa’s a fairy.”

Kanesha laughed. “I suppose he could be.”

“If the gods are real and angels and demons, why not Santa?”

“And the tooth fairy.” She grinned. “Or more likely that’s a metaphor. Fairies and children, and when you lose a tooth you lose a bit of your childhood.”

I considered that. “Fairies taking children. They always give them back when they turn into adults, or so I’m told.”

“And they’re never right. Changelings. But I haven’t heard of it literally happening.”

I thought of some of the kids on the street. Maybe it was all metaphors. And real. Both at the same time. But for now, I was enjoying the brief period of peace.