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Lizzie balanced precariously on a stool in one of the palace hallways. She held a thin metal hook in one hand, which she was trying to place on the bar that held her room's curtain up. She was decorating her family's wing of the Regalia palace for Christmas.
Just as she had gotten the hook to latch onto the rail, the stool beneath her decided it had had enough of her standing on it and gave up on life. Lizzie was sent careening off to the side, towards the stone ground that would absolutely hurt if she hit it. She closed her eyes, preparing for the sudden jolt of pain and the dull ache that would soon follow.
Smack! Lizzie slammed hard into something that was not the stone ground. It was furry, and a great deal warmer than she knew the stone was. Thin lines, scars, stood up behind matted fur. It was obviously him.
Lizzie ran her fingers through the fur underneath them, then moved off of the rat beneath her.
"Good morning, Ripred," she smiled slightly as he turned to look at her.
"...always expecting me to catch you when you fall. I'm not a bat." The sarcasm and fake annoyance was clear in his grumbled complaint.
Lizzie ran a hand over his ear before saying, "Thanks for catching me. Want to help me with the Christmas decorations?"
"If it will keep you from falling into me again."
Lizzie smiled brightly and picked up the wreath she'd planned on hanging up. "Thanks!"
She stretched up towards the hook and just barely caught the top edge of the wreath the way it was supposed to. The green and red looked really nice against the grayish-white of the spider silk curtain.
Lizzie picked up the bag of decorations she'd set off to the side before and pulled out a pile of garlands she planned to run along the wall.
"I'll put up the suction cup hooks, then you can string the garlands along them."
...
Lizzie laughed as Ripred flopped down on the floor in the living room her family used when they stayed at the palace. They had ended up decorating the entire palace after Luxa saw them and asked that they do so. Everything was nicely covered in red and green and silver and gold. She'd even set up a few little trees in her family's living room, delicate ornaments scattered across them.
Her decorations bag had slowly emptied as they went, but there were still a few things left. She pulled out a long string of red beads with a slight grin on her face. Lizzie crept towards Ripred, and carefully tossed the string at him, hoping it might catch him off guard. She wanted to see how he'd react to being decorated himself.
Luckily, he happened to be facing the complete opposite direction from her, and the beads descended in a red heap on top of him, spread out so that they caught on his fur and gave him a festive look. Seconds later he'd jumped up and analyzed the situation. Lizzie found herself with glitter splattered across her shirt not even a minute after her first attack.
"So that's how this is going to go." She said, before fishing out a few plastic ornaments and hooking them on Ripred's fur as fast as she could.
He returned with a tree skirt tossed over her like a poncho. The beads he had initially been covered in had been twisted across his legs and tail from the movement, which gave Lizzie the perfect opportunity to hook several candy canes on different parts of the string. Ripred stole several ornaments from the bag she'd discarded and caught them on her braid. It was quite obvious the two of the were enjoying the silly decorating that had formed from the leftover ornaments.
Tinsel flew through the air next, an explosion of silver and gold getting caught everywhere. Lizzie laughed and backed up for a moment, eyes traveling quickly around the room. If she was careful, she could probably get one of the paper crowns on his head before he got her with something else. After a moment, she ran.
The decorations continued to fly back and forth for the better part of an hour. When Lizzie ran out of things to use she found herself curled up against Ripred's side. They were both still covered in the leftover decorations, but were much too tired to try and take them off. Instead, Lizzie and Ripred fell asleep there on the floor.