Raising Beast Cubs to Find a Husband-Chapter 99: (Xmas Special) The Whiteout and The Solstice

After the ball,

The carriage rattled through the streets of the capital, leaving the golden glow of the Palace behind.

Inside, the silence was heavy. Caspian sat with his eyes closed, his hand resting over his heart where the Star-Iron hummed its broken tune. Orion was asleep against his father’s arm, clutching a napkin he had saved from the chocolate fountain.

I looked out the window.

"Stop the carriage," I whispered.

"Primrose?" Caspian opened his eyes, alert. "What is wrong?"

"No," I said, pointing at the sky. "It’s the sky."

A single white flake drifted down. Then another. Then a thousand.

Within seconds, the world turned white. The wind howled, shaking the carriage. The temperature dropped so fast frost formed on the glass instantly.

The First Snow.

"The Whiteout," Caspian murmured, looking at the storm. "I have read about this. The surface winter. It stops armies."

The carriage driver knocked on the roof. "Mistress! We can’t make it to the city gates! The roads are freezing over! We have to seek shelter!"

I looked at Caspian. We had a map. We had a plan. We were supposed to leave tonight.

But looking at the swirling vortex of ice outside, I knew we wouldn’t make it five miles before freezing to death. The Fox Sanctuary was in the mountains. It would be suicide.

"We go back to the Daycare," I ordered the driver.

Caspian looked at me. "Primrose, the time..."

"We can’t travel in this," I said firmly. "And besides..."

I looked at a calendar hanging in the carriage (a promotional gift from the Happy Hooves Carriage Company).

Date: December 21st.

My heart gave a strange squeeze.

December.

Back on Earth—back in Seoul—this was the most magical time of the year. I remembered the streets of Myeongdong lit up with endless strings of lights. I remembered the smell of hotteok and roasted chestnuts. I remembered couples walking hand-in-hand, waiting for the First Snow because of that old superstition: if you watch the first snow with the one you love, your love will last forever.

The developers of Beastly B.A.D.S. hadn’t just created a fantasy holiday. They had copy-pasted Christmas, renamed it the Winter Solstice Festival, and slapped a fantasy filter on it.

"It’s the Solstice week," I whispered. "The end of the year."

Caspian looked at the sleeping Orion. A strange softness entered his eyes. He frowned, rubbing his temple as if trying to chase a fleeing thought.

"The Solstice," he repeated. "The festival of lights. Gifts. Trees brought indoors."

He looked at me, his teal eyes clouded with confusion.

"Primrose... before I was a King... in the Before..."

He hesitated. The Void was eating his memories, and it wasn’t just taking his time in the ocean. It was eating his origin.

"Did we have this?" Caspian asked, his voice strained. "In... in Korea? Was there a festival? With a... a man in a red suit?"

He couldn’t remember the name Christmas. He couldn’t remember Santa Claus. He only had the vague, phantom feeling of the holiday.

"Yes," I said softly, fighting back tears. "We called it Christmas. And it was beautiful."

"Christmas," Caspian tested the word. It sounded foreign on his tongue. He shook his head. "The word is gone. But the feeling... I remember the feeling. It was warm." 𝒇𝙧𝙚𝓮𝔀𝓮𝒃𝙣𝓸𝒗𝒆𝒍.𝙘𝒐𝒎

He looked at me.

"If we are trapped," Caspian said softly, "then let us make it count. I... I promised Orion a proper surface festival. And if I am to lose the memories of the Before... I want to replace them with new ones."

He thinks it might be his last one, I realized with a pang in my chest. And he’s scared he’ll forget who he really is.

I took his hand. It was cold, but my grip was warm.

"Okay," I said. "We go home. We celebrate. And the moment the storm breaks, we leave."

We burst into the daycare in a flurry of snow and shivering limbs.

The place was dark and quiet. The Warlords and cubs had already been dropped off at their respective estates (except for Jax and Finn, who were probably sleeping in the pantry).

I lit the fireplace with a snap of my fingers (and a fire-starter stone). The warmth flooded the room.

"Home," I sighed, shedding my heavy coat.

Caspian carried Orion to the sofa and tucked him in with a blanket. He stood there for a moment, watching his son sleep, brushing a stray lock of hair from the boy’s forehead.

Then he turned to me.

"I have a request," Caspian said formal.

"You’re a King, you can just ask," I smiled, moving to the kitchen to start hot cocoa.

"This festival," Caspian said, leaning against the doorframe. "I do not know the traditions anymore. My human memories are... fog. And in the Sunless City, we celebrate the Turning of the Tide with bioluminescent algae and silence."

He looked around the cozy, messy room.

"But here... it is different. It is loud. It is bright. Like Myeong... Myeong..."

"Myeongdong," I finished for him.

"Yes," he whispered, relieved I knew what he meant. "It is chaotic. There’s a tree. There are gifts. There’s way too much sugar."

"Good," Caspian nodded determinedly. "I want that. All of it."

He walked over to me. The grey veins on his neck were visible in the firelight, a ticking clock ticking down.

"I want to decorate," he stated. "I want to bake the cookies. I want to sing the songs, even if I am tone-deaf. I want Orion to remember this winter as the best winter of his life."

He paused, looking deep into my eyes.

"And I want to spend it with you. Before the snow melts."

My heart did a traitorous little flip.

"Okay," I whispered. "We’ll do it all. The tree, the lights, the feast. We’ll give you a Solstice—a Christmas—to remember."

The Next Morning

The storm raged outside, sealing us in.

But inside, the phone (magic crystal comms) was ringing off the hook.

BZZT.

"Tutor!" Rurik’s voice shouted from the crystal. "We are snowed in! Vali is trying to eat the snowflakes through the window! He says they taste like clouds!"

"Stay put, Rurik," I laughed. "The roads are blocked."

BZZT.

"Primrose," Bastion’s voice was calmer. "The weather reports indicate a three-day blizzard. It seems the Heavens have conspired to give us a holiday."

"Or a prison sentence," I joked. "How is Ellia?"

"She is... creating a list," Bastion sounded terrified. "A Solstice Wish List. It is three feet long. She is demanding a ’reindeer’."

BZZT.

"Primrose." Rajah’s voice. He sounded tired but relieved. "Arjun is asking if tigers are allowed to hibernate. I told him no. Now he is asking for a sled."

I looked at Caspian, who was currently trying to figure out how to hang a garland without strangling himself.

"Listen up, everyone!" I announced to the crystal, connecting all the lines.

"Since we are all stuck... I say we turn this blizzard into a party. Once the roads clear enough for travel within the city, everyone comes to the Daycare."

"For what?" Rurik asked.

"For Operation: Ultimate Solstice," I declared. "We have ten days until the New Year. We are going to fill them with so much holiday cheer you’ll be sick of it."

"Acceptable," Cassian chimed in. "I shall calculate the optimal gift-giving ratios."

I hung up.

I turned to Caspian. He had successfully draped tinsel over the bookshelf, but he had also draped it over Jax, who had just walked in yawning.

"Look," Caspian said proudly. "It is festive."

"I look like a sparkly bush," Jax deadpanned.

"A festive bush," Caspian corrected.

I laughed.

The blizzard howled outside, keeping the world—and the Void—at bay for just a little longer.

We had ten days. And we were going to make them magic.