“♪It’s Christmas time, again, It's time to be nice to the people you can’t stand-♪” Timothy sang softly under his breath. No matter if you called it Christmas, Hanukkah, Winter solstice, Yuletide or any of a dozen other names it always meant the same thing.

Family Drama.

Timothy let out a deep sigh. That wasn’t strictly fair, but he still felt it. Sure he was a wizard but he still couldn’t pull a living pine tree out of his ass. He had hoped the lovingly carved and dyed essence dirt sculpture would do the trick. Ma and Jenney stridently disagreed.

He winced at a particularly high pitched complaint as it sailed past. Try to do people a favor… “Alright! Alright! I get it, you're not happy about my stand in. Please for the love of all that’s good and holy just tell me what you do want? If I can manage it I don’t mind helping out. But I’m about done, christmas or no, with complaints without a proposed solution!”

“Timothy John Mason, don’t you take that tone with me! You know how I feel about fake trees. They ignore the spirit of the season in exchange for commercialism!”

Jenney nodded along. “It needs to be evergreen. A renewal of the new to the old. A powerful symbol that you can’t replace with a rock!”

“Again, do you have a better idea?” Timothy grit his teeth in annoyance. You would think he would know better. Since when did it ever work out to try and fix problems before he was asked. People were never grateful, just full of complaints that it wasn’t done how they would have done it.

“It needs to be a living plant. Just find something in the jungle that looks close to correct and go with that!”

“Great, the scrying pools right there, let me know when you have something you can both agree to.”

Snickering Timothy made his escape in a hurry. Like those two were going to agree on a substitute. At least the yelling would be at each other and not him. He really needed to work on the sound barrier. A snail shell, it was as close to a conch shell as he was going to get, for the absorption base and a direction rune to specify a thin layer in a hollow sphere around him. When used against Bensen he had fixed it to immediately dump the sound back out in the direction from which it came.

The problem was he couldn’t, in good conscience, use it himself. It would block out the alarm drum as well as angry family members. Responsibility was a bitch.

So far he hadn’t managed to use a specific rune for a sound. They were rather carefully designed to work on either a liquid or a solid. Sound did not appear to count in either category. He was supremely tempted to just say ‘fuck it’ as the argument kicked off again over his head. Sometimes that bitch was more heinous than others.

At least he had some other sticks in the fire that should bring happiness to the residents down below during this festive season. Even if it was festive at a temperature hot enough to cook an egg on the bunker roofs.

He picked up the two part teddy bear mold he had had to drop to deal with… that, earlier. It was a pretty good likeness to the toys he used to have if he did say so. He called it his compost bear… just not in public. Plant matter of any kind could be shredded through a shovel and dumped into the mold. Activate the specific joiner carved into the base of the mold, give it a few good shakes. Maybe add a bit more plant matter and bam. Soft, squishy, lovable teddy bear. It wouldn’t last too long… The plant fibers were prone to tearing with rough use. But it also wasn’t hard to just make a new one from the same mold.

The problem was in the distribution. He had asked Jason to drop by earlier, and after dealing with his mother and sister he was beginning to really doubt that decision.

Knock! Knock!

He sighed, too late now. He walked over and removed the bar, letting Jason in before rebarring it. Jason looked at him questionly for a second, then a loud angry shout echoed down the ladder well.

“Ah, my condolences.” Jason muttered even as he winced at the shrill tones. “How long has that been going on?”

“I don’t want to talk about it.” Timothy shuddered, “I want you to do something for me.” He walked over to grab the teddy bear mold, and explained its use.

“That's great! A few presents to brighten up the place. Looks like you have it all figured out, what do you need me for?”

Timothy sighed again, “I need you to be the correct amount of grinch.”

Jason did a double take, “I beg your pardon?”

“Haaaa, I need you to make and sell these toys to parents for Christmas. If you give them away then parents won’t feel like they did anything for their kids. You charge too much and you might start a riot. I have a unicorn, a teddy bear, a pony and a kinda sub par lion. Damn mane just doesn’t look right.”

Jason opened his mouth, closed it, then did it again a few times. “Your fish impersonation is impressive Jason, but it doesn’t solve the problem. No I don’t know how much is the right price, no I am not going to make any suggestions. Yes you can keep any profits.” Timothy quickly stuffed the moulds into individual padded sacks before tying them together and placing the resultant mess around his still speechless brother's shoulders. He carefully pushed him to the door, unbarred it, shoved him out, then rebarred it.

That went rather well!

“Asshole Timothy! Why do I have to be the bad guy?” Jason had finally found his voice. He knew it was too good to last.

“You don’t, but you do have the only molds. If you don’t use them… well I am not above mentioning I gave them to you! Have fun little brother.”

Timothy activated his proto sound absorber, carefully aimed at his brother's location. Poor Jason couldn’t even hear himself talk for a bit. Shocking abuse of power and all that. He waited a bit then peeked through the spy hole. The coast was clear! He deactivated the tool and moved back over to his work desk smiling.

Right up until another screech echoed down the ladder.