Stocking Stuffers From The Cast Of THE OUTSIDE
Everything Is True
Ada Hoffmann's author newsletter
Merry Christmas! It's whatever they do for a winter holiday in the Outside series (yes, I'm the author; yes, it's up to me; no, I haven't actually done this bit of worldbuilding) and everybody in the series has packed a stocking full of little gifts for you. Or, if you prefer, only your favorite character. What do you get? Read on.
Yasira gets distracted (by Science! in THE OUTSIDE, or by the complicated angst inside her own head in THE FALLEN) and forgets to make you a stocking until the last minute, then panics. You get everything she managed to find during a last-minute, hurried, overloaded holiday shopping trip. Random candy! Cute post-it notes! Bath bombs that were on sale! She looks embarrassed and apologetic and clearly wants to be in any other room while she watches you open them.
Tiv is thoughtful enough to buy her presents well in advance. She gets you your favorite treat (you know the one) because she remembers you talking about it months ago, plus cozy socks in your favorite color, and a pocket hand sanitizer in your favorite scent because, after all, we are in a pandemic. She adds a handwritten card sincerely thanking you for your friendship.
Akavi is above such things as Christmas shopping. He delegates that all to Elu. Also, he doesn't have friends. If you're his underling, he gets you something useful like a new gun holster. If you're Irimiru, he sucks up to you by printing out an exquisite vase of jewel-bright flowers which have razor edges and will cut anybody who touches them, because Irimiru finds that kind of thing hilarious. If you're his prisoner, he prints out your favorite candy and then points out to you that you aren't getting any of it this year on account of your failure to cooperate. Too bad!
Elu has a printer and is not afraid to use it. He looks in the files in his head and reminds himself of your favorite sweet treats and snacks, identifies the common factors between them, and then finds something exquisite to print which you've never had before, but which shares those common traits even more. He has a program he wrote a few years ago to streamline this process. Through a similar process, he gets you some nice jewelry. He reflexively apologizes as he hands the stocking over, just in case you don't like it, but the hopeful expression in his eyes says he knows you will.
Enga thinks holidays are stupid and is not afraid to tell you so. After some cajoling from Elu, she sulkily fills a stocking with the simplest items she can get away with. A bar of unscented soap, shoelaces, pencils, a gift card or two. There's also a few small cases of ammunition. JUST IN CASE, she says, already turning half-away from you before anybody's holiday spirits get too mushy. YOU NEVER KNOW.
Ev, you'd expect, would tell you that holidays are a lie, but this year she's tried to be creative. She hands you a stocking, which looks heavy with little gifts, and smiles mysteriously. You open the stocking and peek in. You don't see any presents. Instead the inside of the stocking is a dizzying wormhole. Festive red and green migraine spirals fill your head when you look down into it, and you hear a low mournful sound like the moan of the winter wind, coming from inside the stocking and inside your head and all around the room. You quickly push the stocking shut.
Ev looks hurt that you didn't like it. You explain as calmly possible that the stocking appeared to contain a portal to a cosmic horror dimension and this is not what you wanted for Christmas.
"It was a presents dimension," Ev corrects, before crossing her arms and sourly storming away.