A/N: Hello! Itazu here! This is my story titled The Christmas Cookies, my first short story for about two months! I think it's a lot better than the second part of my Harvest Festival Entries (it seems the contest came to a sudden end, so that second piece of writing, thankfully, wasn't judged). It's hard to write a short story now after NaNoWriMo, but I tried and, for the contest that I've entered it in, I think I did okay. The limit was 2000 words, but I couldn't make it any shorter! I need the descriptions in here and I can't cut the story down any more, it's only 550 words more than that and that's okay, surely? Anyways, I'm sure that no one's interested in my personal thoughts--though you could just stop reading this--so I'll stop now and stop wasting story-reading time. Please comment and critique! And, most of all, enjoy!

---

Natalia’s hands caressed the fine and sharp pieces of china. Tears slipped out of her eyes as she grieved. Her porcelain figurines, representing the Twelve Days of Christmas, were broken.

She stood up slowly and collected each shard, placing them in a bag to be thrown out. They were useless now.

---

When Brock arrived home from the bakery, he found Natalia curled into a ball in front of the radio, listening to a telling of Noël. It was so like her to listen to something so juvenile. But that’s why he loved her. That’s why he had invited her to live with him. And he was sure that she loved him back, due to the fact that she accepted, despite the face that he was only working and making minimum-wage. Despite the fact that if she had lived with a rich man, without loving him, she would still have a family and would still be the heiress to her family’s fortune.

Because Brock loved her so much, he saw immediately that something was wrong.

“Natalia?” he said softly, sitting down beside her and touching her shoulders with his gentle baker’s hands. “What’s wrong?”

Natalia wiped her face of the tears she knew were streaming down her cheeks. She felt embarrassed and guilty. She was sure that crying wouldn’t make Brock any happier about what she planned to tell him. How she hoped he’d understand.

“My porcelain figurines…they’re broken,” she whispered, her voice cracking.

“Broken?” Brock repeated.

Natalia nodded. “Broken…shattered…ruined…destroyed…they’re gone.” Brock hugged her, pressing his lips to her chestnut hair.

“I’ll save up some money and I’ll replace then,” he vowed. “I’ll have them just in time for the twelfth day. Don’t worry—”

“No,” Natalia cut him off. “Those were gifts from my parents—my only memory of them. I…I think I should end it.” Brock’s arms tightened around her. “I know that with you, I won’t get all the finery I used to, Brock, and that’s okay. I love you. My parents should accept that.”

“Exactly! They’ll do it in their own time!” he said. “Just stay—please.”

“I’m coming back!” Natalia said quickly, wrapping her arms around Brock and resting her cheek on his chest. “I can’t stay away long. But my parents…if they’re not pushed, I don’t think they’ll ever accept you. I don’t think they’ll ever accept or understand this. I have to go, Brock.”

Brock sighed. He knew that she wasn’t leaving forever but it felt like it to him. He understood what she wanted to do and could see that it was important to her, so he wouldn’t bother her about it anymore. “When are you leaving?”

Natalia hesitated and hugged him tighter. “Tomorrow.”

---

Natalia left bright and early the following morning. It would take her two days to get to her parents’ mansion and she’d be staying there for a week. Brock would expect her back by Christmas.

“I love you,” she told him, just before leaving.

“You are coming back, right?” he made sure.

“Of course I am,” Natalia laughed. “As I’ve said, I could never not come back to you.”

“Good,” Brock said, kissing her forehead. “Because there is no point if you’re not here.”

Natalia gasped. “Brock! There is always a point to living! Don’t you dare suggest that—” Brock’s lips pressed against hers, unyielding and urgent. She returned the kiss, not knowing how she’d live without him for twelve days. When they separated, they were both breathless as they stared dotingly into each other’s eyes.

The sound of the taxi’s horn honking startled them both. The driver was getting impatient.

“I love you,” Natalia said again, pecking Brock on the lips once more.

“I love you too,” Brock replied. He helped her into the taxi and watched as it sped away. When it was out of sight, he headed back into his tiny home to do what he did best.

---

“Have you finished with him?” Natalia’s mom, Cecilia, asked, ecstasy in her voice.

Natalia dropped her bags on the floor. She looked around the hall, taking it in. She had forgotten how large the mansion was, so used to living in her miniscule home with Brock for nearly two years. Her parents had hurried into the hall to see her, surprising her that they even cared that she was home. But her mother’s question took away the surprise, turning her emotions to anger.

“No,” she replied darkly. Cecilia sighed.

“Then why did you come?” she asked, melancholy.

“I want to stay for a week. I need to make sure you know where Brock and I stand. I need you to accept it. I don’t was to have to remember you by some elegant jewellery or toys or decorations,” Natalia explained. “My Twelve Days of Christmas figurines have been destroyed and that’s how I realized how much I missed you.”

Roger, her father, sighed. “Well, we can’t really say ‘no’ now, can we?” he said. After a moment of thought, he continued, “I’ll make you a deal. If you can somehow convince us that you truly love him…I may allow it. But for now, as your mother and I have assumed from the start, this is just a crush.”

“But I love—!” Natalia began to protest but stopped when her father held up his hand.

“We’ll see that for ourselves. Now, Alice, show Natalia to her room.”

Alice, one of the many maids, nodded. She lifted Natalia’s bags and took them upstairs. Natalia hadn’t expected to be able to stay with her parents to be as easy as it was. She could feel a smile coming on as the muscles around her mouth tightened. It would be easy to show them that she loved Brock. Her feelings for him were as vast as the sea.

“I love him,” she confirmed. “I love him more than my life.” With that, she skipped up the stairs after the maid.

---

“Miss Natalia?” Alice stood at the threshold, a small box in her hands.

“Yes?” Natalia replied. She had just finished putting her clothes away and was studying the room. It had her room when she still lived with her parents. She couldn’t find a change in it at all.

“You have a package.” Alice handed the small box to her carefully. Natalia studied the box, recognizing the handwriting of the address.

“Brock,” she muttered under her breath, ripping away the ribbon tied around it. In the box was a small piece of paper on top of an ornately icing-decorated cookie. Natalia picked up the piece of paper and read it:

‘On the first day of Christmas, my true love gave to me…’

Natalia then picked up the cookie, immediately knowing what it was. It was decorated as a partridge in a pear-tree.

---

“The girl’s not here a day yet and she’s already received three packages,” Cecilia told her friends at tea in the back garden. “They’re all from that dreadful Brock.”

“Well, what is she getting?” Anne asked, playing with her greying-blonde locks.

Cecilia sneered. “She’s getting cookies.”

“She’s getting cookies?” Larissa repeated. “Isn’t that a little childish and ignorant of him? Surely this Brock knows about the many flaws that could show on a woman by a single crystal of sugar?” She looked down at her round stomach, knowing that she did not actually practice what she preached.

Anne sighed. “Not to offend, but hasn’t Natalia always been slightly infantile? And it seems that she’s inherited good genes.” The two women eyed the skinny Cecilia enviously.

“Either way,” Cecilia said, flustered and trying to lean away from the topic they were getting into. “A girl of my Natalia’s class is not one to get cookies, it’s unacceptable.”

---

“Would you like one, Alice?” Natalia offered on the third day of her stay. Her gloomy spirit from earlier that morning after again failing to convince her father that she truly loved Brock was wiped clean at the sight of her newest package.

“Oh, no thank you, miss. I really couldn’t,” Alice replied, stepping backward toward the door.

“But I have five cookies! I don’t think I can eat all of them,” Natalia persisted. “They are the best you’ll ever have, I promise.”

Alice looked dreamily at the cookies, shaped and decorated as golden rings, that Natalia held carefully in her hands. She could feel her mouth watering. It had been so long since she had eaten a cookie due to the fact that servants only ever got porridge and soup along with many vegetables. An okay-balanced diet, really, but she knew that the sugar might bring some more colour to her cheeks. Eagerly, she nodded her head and took one.

---

“I’m still convinced it’s just a crush,” Roger stated to his co-workers at lunch in the basement. He puffed his cigar, making Os as he blew out the smoke.

“Was it her boy that sent those cookies?” Mortimer asked. “I’d say he’s a keeper if she can’t bake. They were good.”

“You had one?” Roger scoffed.

“She offered,” Mortimer protested.

Victor looked up at the ceiling. “I don’t know…a man that can bake? Can he claim to be a man at all?” He paused for a moment and looked down urgently to Roger. “What if it’s a she?”

“He’s not. We met him before Natalia ran off with him. Worked at the local bakery and delivered us the cakes we wanted for our bi-monthly social gatherings. The next think I knew, Natalia was asking if we could have him for dinner.” Roger took a long puff of his cigar. “I said no, of course, but that didn’t stop her. The next year they were gone and we were forced to disown her. I can’t have that kind of behaviour linked to me.”

“True,” Mortimer said. “So, why is she back in this house?”

Roger looked exasperatedly at his friend. “She’s my daughter, Mortimer. I love her, naturally.”

“Then, if you love her, why can’t you accept her feelings?” Victor asked. Roger stared at him without seeing him, suddenly deep in thought.

---

‘On the eleventh day of Christmas, my true love gave to me…’

“Eleven pipers piping,” Natalia finished off, holding one of the eleven cookies she had retrieved in the second box that she had received that day in her hand. It was, as all the cookies from Brock were, decorated extravagantly and gorgeously. From the slight aroma they gave off, she could tell that he had used his best ingredients to make them, probably spending most of his savings. And though Natalia was grateful, she would have liked to see him spending his money on himself instead of her, who was at her rich parents’ home—her rich parents’ mansion.

She had failed to convince her parents that her relationship with Brock was based on more than just a crush. It was her last day there; she’d be leaving in the morning. Though knowing this did not disappoint Natalia as much as she thought it would. Her soul yearned to return to Brock, causing her to be ecstatic for the next day to come.

A quiet knock on the door brought Natalia back into reality.

“Lady Cecilia and Lord Roger wish to see you in the dining hall,” Alice said, leaning up against the jamb. Natalia stood up and walked sprightly past the maid and dashed down the stairs to see her parents.

In the dining hall, they both stood in front of the table which was fabulously decorated for their Christmas dinner the following day. Natalia stayed at the threshold, not wanting to step any further, perhaps afraid of what they had to say despite the fact that she cared not. Whatever her parents said were irrelevant to how she truly felt about Brock. She hoped that they’d understand—that hope was not lost. She truly did miss her parents.

“Well, we’ve been talking to our friends,” Cecilia began, “And all of them have different opinions. Honestly, a man that sends you cookies? You can do much better. Though, as we all have said, you can be juvenile. And you seem so…so happy to get them…” Clearly she was confused. Cecilia, Natalia knew, would never understand how much Brock meant to her. She would never see how special it was that he’d replaced her figurines with something so cheap to her yet so meaningful to him and Natalia. Cecilia was a woman who liked jewellery or expensive things—a man giving a woman something like a diamond ring was romantic to her, not a symbolic and edible cookie.

“We’re taking your emotions into account, Natalia,” Roger said.

Natalia’s expression lightened. “You mean…?”

“I mean,” he continued. “That if you say you love him, we’ll believe you. The reason is that, as your parents, we love you.”

Tears welled in Natalia’s eyes as she hurried into the room and embraced her parents. Brock was being accepted, to some extent. And that made her happier than she’d ever been.

---

“Don’t forget to write, please,” Cecilia said as her daughter hauled her bags into the trunk of the taxi. “And don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”

Natalia giggled. “I think it’s too late to say that. But I’ll be good, don’t worry.”

“We’ll send money soon—I’m sure you need some to survive at least. I can’t imagine living on a baker’s salary.”

“There’s really no need, Mother, we’re fine.” She walked to the door and curled her fingers around the handle. “And, yes, I’ll write. I need something to do during the day; I might as well document my life for you.”

Cecilia laughed. “No, I don’t think so. I don’t have enough time to read it all, I don’t think.” Her expression suddenly grew sombre. “But I am going to miss you. You’re welcome to stay anytime. I’m glad that this…issue has been somewhat resolved.”

“Me too,” Natalia agreed. She hugged her mother and hopped into the cab.

“She’ll be back in no time,” Cecilia stated to Roger when she had walked to the front porch where he stood.

“I don’t know…” Roger said uncertainly.

Another taxi stopped behind the one Natalia had just gone into. Out of the other taxi stepped Brock, a large package in his hands.

“Natalia!” he called to her taxi, just as it pulled away. Brock thought that she hadn’t heard him, but she had. Her head snapped to look out the back window and her heart began to pound in excitement. She grabbed the driver’s shoulder to get his attention.

“Stop to car!” she nearly roared at him. The taxi came to a complete stop, sliding ever so slightly on the icy road. Natalia flew out the door, running to her true love. Brock held out his hands, offering her the large package. She took it, ripped off the ribbon and violently shrugged off the box, revealing twelve cookies.

“Twelve drummers drumming,” she said quietly. Brock had a wide smile stamped on his face. Natalia, placing the cookies in her coat pocked, took his grinning face between her hands and kissed him with all the love she could bring out.

“Why, Roger…she can’t truly be…I mean…?” Cecilia couldn’t find words for her shock.

“Yes, Cecilia,” Roger confirmed, unable to keep the smile from his face. “I think that Natalia was right. She is in love.”