13680/Christmas Gifts OKAY

Christmas Gifts OKAY
Date of Scene:	29 December 2022
Location:	Diana's Office: Themysciran Embassy
Synopsis:	Diana and Cassie share Christmas gifts of the non-scarves and mittens variety!
Cast of Characters:	Diana Prince, Cassie Sandsmark

---

Diana Prince has posed:
It was that time of year again, and Diana had gotten everyone gifts. She tended to have a pattern though, and Cassie knew this. Though trees and Christianity in-general, obviously wasn't an Amazon 'thing', Diana did decorate the Embassy for the holiday, with bits of every holiday happening this month included in the decorations.

But as she was prone to say, this is about celebrating 'love and family' more than anything else, at least in this house.

The presents that were 'under the tree' tended to be clothing and essentials for getting through the winter, your standard affair of all the trendy shops around Manhattan, or other places Diana had been this year across the globe.

But the present that Diana generally kept here in the office, was something more personal for Cassie, in the past it had been poignant nick-nacks, so upon getting the invite to stop by the office, Diana was already sitting at her desk with a package on it wrapped up in blue and red wrapping paper.

Dressed casually, Diana has her 'reading glasses on', not that she actually needs them, a red sweater, and some black slacks and shoes. She'd been occupied all evening with phone calls and checking in with her vairous friends, before she'd asked Cassie to stop by.

And thusly, here she is, awaiting the arrival of her Wonderfriend, and littlest of sisters.

Cassie Sandsmark has posed:
Pft. It's a pagan Winter Solstice festival! They can leave the baby Jesus out, and no one will even know...

It's also just inescapable! The holidays are huge in the city, and especially in the posh neighborhood of the embassy, the decorations are everywhere. If you don't take some part, you'll look like a grinch, so there's really just no avoiding it. And Cassie herself, well, she's got her very NORMAL upbringing, and so of course, the Christmas ritual is a must! Not attending mass, mind you. The presents and stuff! And so she's been very aggressive in helping out with all of that, flying up decorations to hang, supplying plenty of strategically placed mistletoe (definitely one right over the kitchen entrance, wonder who that's meant to catch...), etc!

Thus, when summoned to the Princess' office, she appears in full holiday regalia. Yep, she's actually got a little Santas-helper kind of outfit on, and its definitely the costume-shop slightly more sexed-up than it should be version. Short skirt and low, nearly bare-shouldered top. White fuz around the skirt hem and bustline. Suspiciously also long black gloves and high black boots. And the Santa hat.

(It may actually be a replica of the Mean Girls Jingle Bell Rock outfit. Cassie has made Diana watch!)

"Ohhhh Diana... I have something for you." Yep, though summoned, she too comes bearing gift. And hers is, uh, kind of suspiciously cylinder shaped.

Diana Prince has posed:
With her laptop screen reflected in the lenses of her glasses, Diana is sending off a few e-mails when Cassie arrives in her festive attire. The computer is sent back to the desktop image of Cassie and Donna opening gifts from last year at this same time.

"Oh reall--" Diana stops talking when she sees CAssie's outfit, and it makes her just soften some, like she's just having to relent to it. "Well, don't you look like you're just filled with the Christmas spirit." She comments to her sister with a returning smile gracing her red painted lips.

Diana rises up from her desk, and reaches out to pick up the relatively small gift box from her desk. She steps around that desk, and moves to the sitting area where she motions for the sofa. "How many hearts are you trying to break this Holiday with that outfit?" She asks. "I assume it is going well on your various social media accounts?"

Diana lowers down on to the sofa's edge and then holds the gift up and out. "Here, Miss Santa." She says in a dry, teasing, tone of her voice, one Cassie will surely be quite familiar with.

Cassie Sandsmark has posed:
Cassie does a pose! Santa definitely never looked so good (and this was supposed to be a high school talent production in the movie, gosh!).

She grins wide, and takes a bouncy step forward, the hanging white puffball on the end of her hat swinging to and fro as she makes her swaying-hipped approach. "So much spirit! One of these days, I'm gonna organize a full musical..." In fact, she tried this year, like she has every year. But perhaps her Amazon sisters are not yet QUITE so accepting of this strange culture to take up her request. ONE DAY!

As she twirls and steps about, the object in her hand continues to be conspicuous. Of course, it is wrapped, hiding any chance of an immediate glance. But really... how many objects could FIT in such a package as this? The shape is truly limiting. Perhaps, it could be a... flash light?!

Hmm, what else is long and round like that...

Then she hides it behind her back a moment, holding back both hands and puffing out her chest, grinning big again. "Oh, I'm getting some likes..."

But then, relenting, she turns and follows along beside Diana, hopping down to sit beside her. As the little box is held out, she reaches to snatch it, and offers hers out in turn, although as soon as Diana's hand surrounds the... baton? She keeps her grip rather than letting go for her to take it, and demands: "Guess first!"

Oh geez...

Diana Prince has posed:
All of this is absorbed with just a modest amount of visible amusement.

"Did Ferdi end up under your kissing plant trap?" Diana asks, teasingly of course. "Or have you been in to the spiked eggnog already?"

She just gives the young blonde a sly smile as she settles in beside her, then moves to exchange the gifts. When hers is held until the question answered, Diana just tilts her head to the side some, her hair tied back in a loose pony behind her shoulders, it sways to the side as she does this.

"Fine." She says, dropping her glasses-covered eyes to the cylinder that they're both holding now. She knows... she knows what the mischievous twenty-something is trying to get her to guess that it is, but she refuses, she REFUSES to sink to that level.

"Ahm...." Her lips purse together. "Golf balls?" She asks. "Did you get me a container of expensive golf balls? They come in tubes this size, do they not?" She inquires. "I have been meaning to up my 'golf game', as they say. Perhaps that could be a New Years resolution..."

She gives another little tug on the gift then, along with a grin. "Or is it a roll of cookies?" Now she's just grinning like that dorky way that she does, and a little laugh starts to rumble it's way out of her until it's bubbling free.

"Or is it a small telescope? Perhaps like a pirate of the Carribean might brandish upon approaching an island infested with haunted perils, and great treasure?" Now she's just getting in to that childlike wonder that is always on the back of her mind somewhere! Make it stop! Make the Diana-guesses stop!

Cassie Sandsmark has posed:
"I keep trying to catch him! He's elusive! I think he's on to me..." The fact that Cassie readily admits to this when asked may ALSO be an answer to the question about the eggnog...

And it turns out, Diana is on to her twice over. But then again, Diana is always on to her! It's one of her superpowers, isn't it? The Wisdom of Athena, O' Grey-Eyed Watcher. It is totally unfair and it ruins all of Cassie's best shenanigans!

And so, of course, she sits and waits as Diana guesses, looking increasing pouty with each elusive but equally inventive guess. "Oh some of those are actually pretty good ideas," she even admits, by the end. "Oughta write 'em down for next year..."

But yes, at some point, she has to stop the madness. "Alright, alright! You're not gonna get it. So just open it, already. And I'll do mine..." She is famously efficient with destroying wrapping paper.

Diana, when she gets to hers, will find no balls, nor any simiarly scandalous object. There's a box in there, and it says 'Zeroll' on it. Kind of confusing. If she turns it, though, the other side of the box does give a hint, and the object inside proves a match. It's an ice cream scoop. From the looks of it, not any kind of fancy mechanism to it, just a fairly solid single piece of metal, although if it has other secrets she might need to take it out to inspect it to discover them!

Diana Prince has posed:
The elder sister is left just grinning at Cassie finally getting her to stop right as she was asking if it was a container filled with the laughter of happy children... so yes, she was getting 'out there' with her guesses.

"Okay then..." She quietly states as she takes the present in to her lap and begins to open it up...

With Cassie doing her own, she'll find that inside the wrapping, within the box, is a white wood whistle, or is that a flute? It's about as long as Cassie's hand is from wrist to the tip of her middle finger, which might be a bit blurry on which it could classify as! It's somewhere between elegant and simplistic looking too, and if blown in to it'll make a melodically charming sound upon initial testing.

"An ice cream scooper?" Diana asks, holding it up. "Did you break the other one we had?" She asks, now looking over with some mild-level of concern strewn across her sculpted facial features.

She looks back to it then, and turns it around in her hands, her red painted nails contrasting against its surface quite nicely. "I mean, I love it, thank you." She says with a slight grin touching her lips. "I got a pint here in the refrigerator that this can have its maiden voyage on in fact..."

Cassie Sandsmark has posed:
Another scrunched up, slightly pouty face! "First, look at the handle!" It's engraved with the stylized double-W. Obviously this place does a lot of gift business!

"And SECOND, It's not just a scooper! It's like, the best kind of scooper, apparently. I mean, what do I know, but I googled and that's what came up. It's not like, super fancy or expensive, I'm actually kinda surprised the best wasn't some crazy rich person version, but uh anyway..." She seems to have lost her train of thought. "Oh! Right. But yeah, aside from being like, one big solid piece. Well, it's not totally solid, there's like some... heat conductive fluid in the handle? So you hold it, and then when you angle it down to scoop, it like, tilts down and the heat helps melt and make the scoopin' easier..."

It sounds complex! But it's really just a scooper.

"I got another one for the kitchen," she adds. If that was specifically a Ferdinand gift, or if she had something else for him, she does not say.

Whilst correcting all of this scooper info, she spends time looking over her own gift. It definitely seems to puzzle her a little. "I'm not sure what it even... oh, there's holes. Like an ocarina?" She goes for the video game answer, and then gives it an experimental toot. Still, there's puzzlement in her expression.

Diana Prince has posed:
When the WW logo is pointed out, Diana strokes her thumb over it to feel the engraving in the metal. She smiles softly at it, her blurred reflection shining back at her before she looks to her right where Cassie is seated, tooting her little flute whistle.

"I love it." She says as she leans over, and puts her right arm around Cassie's shoulders to squeeze her in a side hug. "Lets try it out." She then says, rising up from her seat at the sofa and walking over to that little bar and drinks area at the front southern corner of her office a handful of paces away.

She glances back to her sister then, eyeing the flute, it makes her warmly express toward her. "There's more in the box, lift up the bottom." She explains while she goes to getting a couple of glass bowls of Salty Pimp from the BGIS store.

Sure enough, when Cassie lifts up the second half of the box covering within, she'll find something else. A palm sized figurine, of a ... Pegasus horse? It's wings are wrapped around its body, and its head is down, with one front leg bent up at the knee.

Diana walks back toward the sofa then, and offers Cassie her bowl. "It worked. Imagine that." She quips lightly before sitting down again, and staring over at the young woman beside her. She smiles, and explains...

"Do you remember the pathway we took to the cavern where I showed you my relic storage room, and the resting place of the original Jet fighter that I used so long ago?" Diana asks, scooping up a spoonful of ice cream that she hovers before her now.

"If you take that same path, crossing that bridge we stopped to tie our horses off at, and continue around it... You will come to a temple upon the mountain's peak... That is where you use that whistle.. to summon a member of the Pegasus family, should you ever be in need of their aid."

With that thrown out, Diana puts the spoon in her mouth, and does that face melty thing she does upon her taste buds lighting up.

Cassie Sandsmark has posed:
With a great beaming smile when her gift is declared something of a success, Cassie tilts lightly into the hug, Santa poofball swaying. "Yes! Testing is required!" Who's gonna turn down some Salty Pimpin' action?

But this gives her time to investigate the rest of her gift, which continues to puzzle. She pulls at the box, some little gauzy stuff packed in with it, to uncover and remove the little statuette. Placing it in her open palm, she holds it up to examine. "This is cute," she declares, definitely more initially impressed than with the flute, although at this point, more in the 'what girl doesn't like a pretty horse statue' sense than anything more than that.

"Told ya!" she calls back, to Di's success with the ice cream.

Still admiring the statue, her attention is slightly divided, so she answers the first question about that pass with a vague "mmm-hmmm," not quickly grasping any connection. A non-sequitur! Diana does like to ramble with her stories...

And then, double-take. "Wait, what? Did you say... summon one. Like, a REAL one?" She blinks a few times, plainly dumbfounded. And when she finally gets her wits together, she looks back with a silly grin. "That's totally amazing! I can't wait to go try. I mean. I guess I shouldn't just... like call one for fun. But maybe just to say hi? Kinda get some introductions out of the way before we're riding into battle or something..."

Cassie shakes her head, as if still in disbelief, and then finally sets her gifts carefully aside to take the offered bowl. "You know," she offers a moment later, around a spoonful of pim, "you really go hard with the gifts. Feelin' kinda one-upped over here. But it's also pretty awesome."

Pause. "Even better than the car."