Replaceable Parts: Chapter 5

A/N: This chapter was Beta’s by Dai!

My usual beta is sick, so please wish them a swift recovery over the Generic Winter Holidays!

And yes, This Is Canon

Chapter Five: Happy Generic Winter Holiday

The next day, Penny and I were ambushed in the Beacon dorms.

I’d let my guard down, they came in on all sides, dressed in red and carrying—

I caught Ruby’s wrist, looking down at the wrapped box in surprise.

“Happy Generic Winter Holiday!” everyone shouted.

Penny squeaked, hands clapping rapidly. Teams RWBY, JNPR, and SSSN less two crowded around us with presents in hand.

I let go of Penny, using a finger to clean out my ear. “I’m sorry, what?”

“Happy Generic Winter Holiday!” Ruby repeated. She held out her present towards me. “The pins were so nice, but then I realized I didn’t have a reason to give anything back, but then I was like who needs a reason I don’t need a reason and it was just—”

Yang leaned over. “What my sis is saying, is that y’all showed up too late for the holiday, so we thought we’d have a late HGWH to make up for it!”

“Generic…winter holiday?” I asked.

Weiss sighed, but she did so around a smile. “I told you we shouldn’t have done a surprise party.” Slowly the entire group started towards one of the dorms. For a moment, I stood like a rock in the tide.

But then Penny moved so I had to follow.

“Why not?” Blake nudged her teammate. “Because people are still upset about it in Atlas?”

“No one is upset.” Weiss crossed her hands. “Some of the older families simply feel that the name is…in poor taste.”

“How could it be in poor taste?” Yang laughed. “Mantle came up with the name.”

“That’s exactly why,” Weiss replied.

At roughly that point, I’d accepted that I was in some kind of fever dream. Maybe a Christmas episode? School for fighting monsters was definitely something that happened a lot in fiction back on Earth. Maybe something had spilled over, infecting reality.

Penny clasped her hands together. “I’ve never celebrated a Generic Winter Holiday before!”

Or maybe I was having a stroke.

Ruby gasped. “Really? Never?” I felt several pairs of eyes land on me.

“Penny’s had a somewhat sheltered upbringing.” I held up my hands. “Not by my choice. God, I’m the only reason she’s allowed out on campus so far ahead of the festival.”

“And what about you?” Yang asked. “Did Atlas steele your Generic Winter Holidays tool?”

I pinched my nose. “I’ve celebrated a few…Generic Winter Holidays. Rarely when it’s this warm out, though.” Brockton was far enough north that the winters were cold.

“Yeah, Vale’s just the best like that.” Yang pulled out a bag of something that looked suspiciously like candy corn, and tossed one into her mouth. “On Patch there’s almost always snow.”

“Ey, Yang!” A beacon boy waved as we passed. “Didn’t you forget? Generic Winter Holiday was months ago.”

“Nah. We’re doing a late one for all the exchange students!” Yang pointed finger guns at him. “Your team’s welcome to join, hot stuff.”

“Oh, nice! HGWH!”

“HGWH!” Ruby waved back so fast her arm blurred.

“HGWH…” I murmured.

“What traditions do you usually follow for Generic Winter Holiday?” Penny asked. “I have read that most people in the Kingdom of Mantle lost their traditions, though historically Ule was the most popular.”

“In Vale we live up to the spirit of the holiday,” Blake replied. “No matter what your personal practices are, they’re welcome here.”

It would have been a nice thought, if those yellow eyes hadn’t been drilling into me.

“I brought Patch’s very own candied acorns!” Yang held out her bag. “Wanna try some?”

“Oh, no thank you!” Penny waved her hands. “Sweets do not agree with me.”

“Sure.” I held out a hand before anyone followed up on that. “I’ve never had one before.”

“Sweet, you’ll love ‘em.” Yang grinned. “Even if they—”

“Are a little corny?” I swiped a handful from the bag when she gaped at me. They weren’t really like candy corn, a bit more rounded at the base, even if the orange was almost exactly the same shade. I ate one. “Sweet.”

Weiss opened the door to team RWBY’s dorm. “I had a traditional Ule censor shipped in.” She preened as Penny ‘ooh’-ed over the intricate brass brasier. “It was no trouble.”

“And I brought…” Ruby reached behind her back. “A snowman!” Her snowman was small enough to sit comfortably in her cupped hands. It was two balls of paper mâché stacked on top of each other, with a bit of glitter and face drawn in black marker.

“How adorable! May I hold him?” Penny asked.

“Sure thing!”

RWBY had reorganized their dorm slightly. Books and school materials had been shoved out of the way, and the upper bunk beds were repurposed to hold presents and other strange things that I could only assume were related to Generic Winter Holiday.

Ah, I thought. I’d been infected.

All of this because I’d bought some enameled pins for the girls.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t find an actual Mistral wreath,” Pyrrha said. “They’re harder to get on this half of the continent…especially out of season.”

“Don’t apologize, Pyr.” Yang tossed back another hat-trick of candied acorns. “It’s the thought that counts.”

“Well if it’s the thought that counts, I think I’m ready to eat!” Nora shouted.

At her side, Lie Ren smiled fondly. “We traveled quite often, but Generic Winter Holidays were always the best, because many towns had communal meals.” He pulled a covered tray off one of the desks. “I made our favorite desert.”

“Now that’s what I’m talking about!” Yang pulled off the lid. “…These are pancakes.”

Ren nodded solemnly. “Every day is Generic Winter Holiday.”

“HGWH!” The blond one, Jaune, burst into the room with a big sack over his back. “I have the Holiday Cheer! Please, take one, take one!”

“Coal!” Ruby cheered.

“Can’t wait to light it on fire later.” Yang grinned at her lump of coal with concerning intensity.

Neptune had scrounged up some incense for Weiss’s censor. I allowed my own lump of coal to be sacrificed to light it. I guess something that burned for so long without using any dust would be just another trinket on remnant.

“For Vacuo, you just bring yourself to Generic Winter Holiday.” Sun grinned, hands planted on his hips.

Neptune groaned. “You’re just saying that.”

“Who’s gonna prove me wrong?”

“Not helping your case, dude.”

Blake laughed, softly, before pulling out a pair of gold rods, each a little thinner than a pinky. “We sometimes have these.” She tapped them against each other, softly, and a gentle chime echoed through the room.

“What a pleasant sound!” Penny smiled. “Where do they come from?”

“Hmm? I picked them up from a shop in Vale.”

“How nice!” Penny clapped her hands. “But I meant to ask which tradition—”

“What about you, Tay!” Yang physically bulled her way into the middle of the conversation. “What did you usually do?”

I raised an eyebrow as Blake slipped to the side without another word, before answering. “We’d need a tree.”

Yang saluted. “Coming right up, Boss!”

“Wait, that’s—”

Yang jumped out the window of the dorm.

I lowered my hand, turning to the rest of the room. “Is she always like this?”

“Yeah…” Ruby patted me on the shoulder. “You get used to it.”

“I hope she doesn’t just rip a tree out of the ground,” I said.

Ren leaned over, looking out the window. “I believe she’s heading towards the Emerald Forest.”

I frowned. “Isn’t there a cliff?”

“There is,” Ren replied.

“Does someone want to help her?” I looked around the room. “No? Hah, well…if we wanna do this right, we have to move all the presents outside.”

“And then what, Sister Taylor?” Penny asked.

“We put them all under the tree.” I paused, looking over at Jaune. “Actually, put them in that sack, then you can jump down from the window and put the presents all under the tree. You’ll be Sandy Claws.”

“What’s Sandy Claws do?” he asked.

I smiled. “He puts presents for everyone under the tree.”

And that’s how I ended up celebrating Generic Winter Holiday in Vale.

Yes, Yang did return with a tree she’d ripped out of the ground.

 ~  ~ *

HGWH is treated like a team name. Guess how it’s pronounced.