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Ozpin
suddenly snapped awake. He had no idea what disturbed him, but he thought it
might have been the prospect of meeting the ghost Ironwood had warned him
about. He checked his clock and noticed that it was half past midnight. The
ghost was supposed to arrive at one, so Ozpin decided to concentrate his
efforts on waiting for the ghost just to see if it would actually show.
He lay
still in bed, listening to his clock tick. As time went by, as the ticking went
on, he became more and more nervous, fearing both that apparition would show
and that Ironwood would be wrong. When the great church bell down the street
chimed at a quarter to, Ozpin swallowed hard unsure if he could withstand the
pressure of waiting for the ghost. He reached next to his bed and grabbed his
cane. He pulled it into bed with him ready for any trouble that might befall
him.
His
breathing grew heavier and faster as the clock ticked on. Finally, the great
church bell chimed at the hour. “One o’ clock!” said Ozpin forcefully. He
looked around at the curtains surrounding his bed. “And nothing else,” he said,
relaxing. But just as he closed his eyes and settled into his bed, the curtains
at the end of his bed were drawn apart by some magic or spell, and standing
there at the end of the bed was a woman with a stake of holly in her hand,
stretched toward the end of the bed.
The
woman in question appeared to be middle aged with light blonde hair tied back
in a bun. Her eyes were bright green over which she wore thin, ovular glasses.
She wore a white, long-sleeved, pleated blouse with a wide keyhole neckline and
a black high-waisted pencil skirt with bronze buttons. Though Ozpin couldn’t
see them, she also wore a set of black boots with bronze heels, and she had
donned a black cape with a purple lining. The cut of the cape was stylized to
end in flames and arrows.
Ozpin
gulped. “Are you the spirit whose coming was foretold to me?”
“I
am,” said the woman in a soft but serious voice.
“Might
I inquire more precisely as to what or who you are?”
“I am
the Ghost of Christmas Past.”
“Long
past?”
“No; your
past.”
“What business brought you here?”
“You
welfare.”
“A
night’s interrupted sleep is hardly conducive to my welfare,” bit Ozpin.
“Your
reclamation, then. Take heed. Rise, and walk with me,” she said, pointing the
stake of holly at him. Some force tinted violet lifted Ozpin from his bed and
dropped him next to the ghost.
“Where
are we going?” he asked, bewildered from the experience of levitating from his
bed.
As if
to answer his question, the same violet force opened his window and the ghost
looked outside.
“But,
I am mortal,” argued Ozpin. “And liable to fall.”
“Worry
not,” said the spirit. “Bear but a touch of my Semblance and you shall be
upheld.”
As the
spirit spoke, the two of them were lifted up and out through the window. They
were lowered to the ground where the night’s mist cleared and Ozpin found
himself standing in open country next to a road.
He
turned about and laid eyes on an old, red brick schoolhouse. “Good heavens!”
“Do
you know this place?” asked the spirit.
“Know
it?! I was a boy here!” Ozpin was suddenly aware of a thousand odors, each one
connected to a thousand thoughts, and hopes, and joys, and cares long, long
forgotten.
“Your
lip is trembling,” said the ghost. “And what is that on your cheek?”
“It is
nothing,” bit Ozpin, wiping his face with his sleeve. “Lead me where you
would.”
The Ghost
led him along a road that travelled up to the schoolhouse. “Do you remember
this road?”
“Remember
it? I could walk it blindfold.”
“How
strange then to have forgotten it for so many years.”
Ozpin
said nothing, but he felt the sting of the Spirit’s words. But then, the sting
was forgotten when joy surged up in his heart as laid eyes upon the faces of
several young boys. One in particular caught his attention. “Why! There’s Leo,
my best friend! Hello, Leo!”
But
the boy did not acknowledge Ozpin.
“These
are but shadows of the things that have been,” explained the Spirit. “They can
neither see nor hear you. But, can you tell me, why it is that all these boys
look so excited?”
“They’re
going home for Christmas,” answered Ozpin somberly.
“But
the school is not quite deserted. A neglected child, neglected by his friends,
is left there still.”
Ozpin
knew immediately the boy of whom the spirit spoke and he couldn’t stop a few
tears from cascading from his eyes.
The
spirit led Ozpin into the schoolhouse where upon entering a class, a single boy
with white hair and a white shirt with a black tie and blue vest was sitting at
the far end of the room in front of the fireplace, reading. Ozpin stepped
closer and found his strength leave him. He was forced to sit at a desk,
holding back his tears, as he muttered, “Poor, poor boy.”
Ozpin
then dried his eyes with the cuff of his sleeve. “I wish,” he began, but he
didn’t say what he wished. “It’s too late now.”
“What’s
the matter?” asked the Ghost.
“Nothing.
It’s just, there were two young Faunus at my store front this afternoon singing
a Christmas carol. I should’ve given them something. That’s all.”
“Let
us see another Christmas in this place,” said the Spirit, waving her stake of
holly.
The
years went by in an instant and Ozpin’s former self became much older along
with the room. Though the room grew darker, weaker, and dirtier, the boy had
grown into a fine young man with a presentable bearing. But, he was still alone
and pacing the classroom despairingly. Before she could arrive, Ozpin looked at
the door and in ran a young girl with long, white hair tied into a pony tail
and wearing a long, glittering dress with a color gradation from dark blue at
the shoulder to light blue at the hem. She bore a scar over her left eye. Upon
seeing the former Ozpin, she smiled.
“Dear
brother!” she said, running up to him and embracing him. “I have come to bring
you home!”
“Home,
Fan?” replied the young man.
“Yes,”
said the girl full of glee. “Home, forever and ever. Father is so much kinder
than he used to be. Home is like Heaven, now. He spoke so gently to me the
other night that I wasn’t afraid to ask him again if you could come home. And
he said yes. He sent me in a coach to bring you. And after that, you’ll never
have to come back here. Never ever! We’re going to be together all Christmas
long! Come on!” she said, pulling her brother from the room.
“Always
a delicate creature,” commented the Ghost. “Whom a breath might have withered.
But she had a large heart.”
“So
she did,” replied Ozpin. “I will not gainsay it, Spirit. God forbid.”
“She
died a woman and had children.”
“One
child!” corrected Ozpin.
“True.
Your nephew, Qrow.”
Ozpin
seemed uneasy for a moment. “Yes.”
“Come,”
said the Ghost. “There is still much to see.” The Ghost led Ozpin out of the schoolhouse
and into the street which had now become the thoroughfares of a city. Within
moments, the Ghost and Ozpin found themselves in front of a warehouse door. “Do
you recognize this place?” asked the Spirit.
“Recognize
it? I was an apprentice here.”
They
went in and saw a tall thin man with messy, green hair sitting behind a high
desk. His clothes were mildly disheveled, his glasses so thick they obscured
his eyes, and he kept sipping on a cup of coffee while writing in a ledger so
quickly his hand blurred across the page.
“Why,
it’s old Dr. Oozziwig!” exclaimed Ozpin. “Bless his heart. It’s Oozziwig alive
again.”
Oozziwig
laid down his pen and looked up at the clock, which pointed to the hour of
seven. He sipped from his coffee mug, sipped from a coffee mug hidden under the
desk, and then slurped from a thermos on the floor. Then he spoke in a quick,
staccato tone. “Yo ho, gentlemen!” he called into the other room. “Mr. Ozpin!
Mr. Wilkins!"
From a
side room stepped two, strapping young men. One was Ozpin’s former self now
with shaggy blonde hair, a white breastplate, and a black hoodie, while the
other had well trimmed blue hair, a red hoodie over a shirt and tie, and he
wore orange goggles on his forehead.
“Neptune
Wilkins, to be sure!” said Ozpin. “There he is. Looking smoother than a fresh
drawn skippy. He was very attached to me, he was.”
“I
find it more amazing that your hair went from white to blonde as you grew
older,” replied the Spirit. “And why the armor?”
“Oozziwig’s
business was renting and leasing huntsmen. We mostly worked the books, but we
had to slay our fair share of the Grimm, too.”
“Yo
ho, gentlemen!” said Oozziwig, zipping down from his desk. “No more work tonight.
It’s Christmas Eve. Yes, yes. It’s Christmas. The jolliest feast of the year.
Why, I could go into the history about why this night is so special, but having
been born in this country, you gentlemen are already well aware of it. So, get
the shutters on the windows, clear away the brick-or-brack, and prepare for the
arrival of our guests. There will be another time for the lecture.”
Ozpin
was amazed at how quickly his former self and Neptune moved. They charged into
the street with the shutters and had them up before one could say King Taijitu.
Then they went into the warehouse and cleared away all the crates of weapons,
armor, and Dust that littered the floor. They swept and watered, trimmed the
lamps, and heaped fuel into the fire. The warehouse was snug, warm, dry, and
had become the cheeriest ballroom in all of Vale.
Then a
group of men wearing red ties and glasses soldiered in, carrying great big
pieces of audio equipment and a turn table. One placed a large, novelty bear’s
head upon his shoulders and began spinning records.
In
short order then followed all the young men and women, huntsmen and huntresses,
old men and older women, and even one balding old man wearing an apron. He
couldn’t speak well, but he was very emphatic with his approval of the
ballroom. “Yoo-hoo-hoo-hoo!” he cheered.
It
didn’t take long for dancing to begin as twenty couples at once hit the floor
with hands half around and back again the other way, down the middle and up
again, round and round in various stages of affectionate grouping. There was
even an old couple always turning up in the wrong place.
There
were more dances, and there were forfeits, and more dances, and there was cake,
and there was negus, and there was a great piece of cold roast, and there was a
great piece of cold boiled, and there were mince-pies, and plenty of Strawberry
Sunrises.
Ozpin
smiled with glee to watch the party.
“Tis a
small matter,” said the Ghost, “to make these silly folks so happy.”
“Small?”
echoed Ozpin.
“Why?
Is it not? Oozziwig has spent but a few lien of your mortal money: three or four
hundred perhaps. Is that so that so deserving of praise?'
“It
isn't about the money,” said Ozpin, heated by the remark and speaking
unconsciously like his younger self. “He had the power to render us happy or
unhappy; to make our work light or small; a pleasure or a punishment. His power
was so remarkable, it was found in things so slight and insignificant that it
is impossible to add and count them. The happiness he gave us was no small fortune.”
The
Spirit grunted. “You look very happy,” said the Spirit, indicating his younger
self across the room.
“I
was.”
“How
come you didn’t join in?”
“Because
I couldn’t dance.”
“Ah,
but wasn’t there a Christmas where one could
make you?”
Ozpin
looked up at the front door where in stepped a beautiful young woman with long
red hair, wearing a bronze circlet on her head and a long, backless, scarlet
gown.
“Pyrrha…”
breathed Ozpin.
At the
young woman’s entrance, she garnered looks from dozens of admirers, but no one
approached her. The only one who didn’t flee from her was Ozpin’s former self,
and with a little bit of coaxing, she was able to lure him out into the open
and dance with him.
“And
what was so remarkable about her?” asked the Ghost. “She was beautiful, true,
but how fleeting beauty is.”
“She
was the greatest huntress of her generation. She was talented beyond them all.
She was loved and admired by all, but she was utterly lonely. When I met her, I
didn’t even know her name, thus I treated her like anyone else. She was taken
with my honesty.”
“There
was another Christmas that involved this young lady, I think.”
“Oh
no,” said Ozpin, turning to the Ghost. “Please. No!”
The
Ghost waved her bough of holly.
Ozpin
and the Ghost were transported to a scene that was merely a year later. Ozpin
saw himself, a man in his prime, sitting behind a desk. He didn’t have the
harsh rigid lines of age, but he had begun to show the signs of care and
avarice. There was an eager, greedy, restless motion in his eye that betrayed a
dark passion that had taken place.
Ozpin
was not alone as near him sat Pyrrha in a mourning dress. Tears sparkled in her
eyes. “It matters little,” she said. “To you, very little. Another idol has
replaced me. And if it can cheer and comfort you, as I would have, I have no
reason to grieve.”
“What
idol has replaced you?” rejoined Ozpin’s former self.
“A
plastic one,” she said in reference to a stack of lien.
“This
is the even-handed dealing of the world. There is nothing on which it is so
hard as poverty, and yet there is nothing it condemns so severely as the
pursuit of wealth.”
“You
fear the world too much,” she answered gently. “All your other hopes have
merged into the hope of being beyond the chance of its sordid reproach. I have
seen all your nobler aspirations die off one by one until the master passion greed
has engrossed you.”
“What
of it?” he retorted. “I have grown wiser. And I have not become changed toward
you, have I?”
“Our
proposal is an old one. It was made when we were both poor and content to be
so, until, in good season, we could improve our fortune by our industry. You
are changed. When you proposed, you were another man.”
“I was
a boy,” he said sternly.
“Your
own feeling tells you that you were not what you are,” she returned. “I am
still what I was, that which promised happiness when we were one in heart is
now fraught with misery now that we are two. How often and keenly I have
thought this, I cannot say, but it is damaging enough that I have thought it,
and because of it, I can release you.”
“Have
I ever sought release?”
“In
words, no. But in a changed nature, in an altered spirit, in another atmosphere
of life, another hope as its great end. In everything that made my love of any
value to you. If you met me today, you would not love me.
“I
would gladly think otherwise if I could. Gods know I would. When I have learned
a truth like this, I know how strong and irresistible it must be. But if you
were free today, I can’t even believe that you would choose a dowerless girl—you
who weigh everything by gain. And so, with a full heart, full of the love for
him you once were, I can release you,” she said, turning her head from him.
He was
about to speak, but with her head turned from him, she resumed.
“You
may have some pain in this. For a very, very brief time, but you will dismiss
the recollection of it, gladly, as an unprofitable dream from which you awoke.
May you be happy in the life you have chosen.” She then left.
“Spirit,”
said Ozpin, like a man beaten. “Show me no more. Why do you delight in
torturing me?”
“I
told you, these are shadows of the things that have been,” said the Ghost. “They
are what they are, do not blame me.”
“Remove
me! I cannot bear it.”
The Ghost waved her
bough of holly and purple light struck Ozpin. He was conscious of being
exhausted, and overcome by an irresistible drowsiness and finding himself in
his own bedroom. He barely had time to reel to bed before he sank into a heavy
sleep.
***
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