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Nemurin closed his eyes and took a deep breath of the cinnamon and firewood scented air that lingered in his house, and wiped the snow off his paws on the magic doormat that immediately cleaned and dried his soft feet after a long walk outside. He didn’t particularly mind the cold, but stepping into a warm, cozy house after spending hours exploring the winter landscape was truly one of the best feelings imaginable, and filled the fluffy dream dragon with a sense of festivity that truly only comes around this time of the year.

He immediately headed to the kitchen to grab some hot cocoa, which already waited for him on the counter, just as warm as it was when he first prepared it for later. Turns out that having magical powers wasn’t only useful for traversing between dimensions and befriending alien beings, but it also had some rather practical everyday uses! Indeed, there was never a time that a single cup of hot cocoa went cold in this household. After fetching it, Nem walked over to his fireplace to admire the warm, enchanting light of the flames, sitting down on the couch in front of it to make himself comfortable.

Though there were many to pick from, the Winterfruit Celebration was probably Nem’s favorite holiday of them all, which he kept being reassured of every year when the time came to celebrate it. It was held annually, always five days after the first snow of the winter had fallen, because the residents of the dragon’s small village knew that this was the time that their famous winterfruit was ready to bloom.

What warranted this celebration was that this very special plant could only be grown in exactly this part of the world, roughly within the borders of this small little settlement at the foot of a great big mountain. Maybe it was because of the odd temperatures that occurred at random parts of the year, or the soil makeup that was combined with the humidity in the air or- as the legend said- there really was some sort of a magical spell on the village, either way, the residents were very proud of their fruit, which they insisted was the tastiest in the world.

Even Nem had one sitting in a large pot outside of his front door, which he checked excitedly each time he got home to see if it had bloomed yet. The plant itself was quite thin, with a curly green leafy stem that waved upwards into a single large red bud at the end, and it looked exactly like that for 364 days of the year. But exactly five days after the first snow, that bud would finally burst, revealing the most strikingly beautiful red flower in the world, with a single crimson colored fruit inside, resembling a closed pine cone in shape. This was the winterfruit, the star of the town’s winter celebration.

The holiday itself consisted of all sorts of fun and games, and above all else of course, eating! A contest was held every year to see who could create the best dessert out of the fruit, the winner of which was eaten by the townsfolk in a cheerful feast. Although Nem had never won first prize before, he was certain that if he just kept experimenting, something eventually would capture the attention of the judges.

The Winterfruit Celebration also had its many superstitions and legends around it, the most notable of which were the Winterfruit Bugs, who every year picked a home to visit, and during the late hours of the night would transform some object in the house into cake. Although many had claimed to have had this happen to them, there were also a bunch of fake cake objects every year, so nobody- except for those who were hit- really believed in the story.

It was already dark outside, and Nemurin was quite tired from his walk, so he decided to call it a day early, and go to bed before his fireplace went cold. After finishing his hot cocoa, he made his way to his bedroom, tucked himself in underneath the heavy, warm sheets, and closed his eyes. In the span of just a few seconds, he was already fast asleep, dreaming about sweets, snowy streets and yummy treats made of winterfruit.

In the late, late hours of the night, Nem’s house suddenly lit up in a faint, colorful glow, as dozens, if not hundreds of tiny little creatures made their way in through the keyhole, the chimney and many other tiny secret entrances that only these mischievous little guys knew about. They were tiny, glowing bugs, their hard candy shells shining in all colors of the rainbow. There were quite a few of them, but their wings were so quiet that they barely made any noise, so the sleeping dragon didn’t even suspect what was going on.

The bugs communicated with each other quietly, talking about how they would prank whoever lived in this house, and giggling in advance about how upset they would be when they found out that some belonging of theirs had been turned into cake. After a bit of searching and exploring the small house, they finally settled on a cup, the very same cup that Nem had used that evening to drink his hot cocoa. They swarmed around it, expelling some sort of strange, glowing dust around it for a few seconds, and when they were done, the cup had been turned into a soft, spongy cake with colorful buttercream on the outside that resembled the original pattern printed on it.

The mischievous bugs, satisfied with their work, then went off to hide in the many cracks, nooks and crannies of Nem’s house, waiting for the morning when their target would discover what they had done. Oh, how much fun was it going to be to see him panic upon discovering what had happened to his favorite cup! The winterfruit bugs simply couldn’t wait.

As predicted, the dream dragon got up early in the morning, and before all else, he headed out to the kitchen to make himself some hot cocoa to start things the right way. Although he didn’t have much to do that day, it still seemed wrong to start it without some warm, sugary beverage, so as soon as he stepped outside of his bedroom, he snapped his fingers to magically transfer some delicious, steaming cocoa into his favorite mug.

There didn’t seem to be anything out of the ordinary at first; the magic sparkles appeared around the cup just like all the other times, and that delicious, sweet, chocolatey smell immediately spread all over the kitchen, making the dragon’s mouth water. When he reached to pick it up however… The entire cup suddenly fell apart, leaving nothing but a soggy mess in Nemurin’s hand as he tried to process what in the world was happening.

It took a few seconds, but when it finally dawned on him, a wide smile spanned across the dragon’s face: His cup had somehow been turned into cake during the night! And what better surprise could he have encountered in the morning than some delicious sponge cake dipped in hot cocoa? Nem grabbed his new, soggy cake mug- or whatever remained of it on the table- and began stuffing it into his mouth, enjoying the taste of his surprise breakfast treat.

But of course, this was not the reaction that the winterfruit bugs were expecting. Instead of panicking and rushing outside to tell everyone about his unfortunate encounter, wreaking havoc in the town, the “victim” of their prank seemed to look at the transformation as more of a blessing than a curse, gobbling up the cake with such enthusiasm that the bugs themselves felt like they were going hungry. They quietly communicated with each other: What should they do? For all the many centuries they had been pulling these pranks, no one had ever reacted in such a way before…

There were really two ways this could have ended; the bugs could have accepted defeat and that their mean prank had backfired in the most wholesome way possible, or they could make an exception and prank the resident of this particular home twice! Such a thing had never happened before, but the winterfruit bugs were not ones to accept defeat so easily… So after a bit of heated discussion, they decided to stay another night, and up the ante a little bit. Maybe this silly dragon wouldn’t be so delighted if he found out that over half of all his belongings had been turned into cake!

So the bugs waited in their little cracks all day, watching the cheerful dragon go about his day having no idea about his uninvited guests, and about the grandiose prank they were planning to pull on him during the night. It probably did cross his mind that whatever happened in the morning was caused by the winterfruit bugs… But why wasn’t he reacting to it with panic like everybody else until then?

The day went by fast, and as soon as the dream dragon went to bed and closed his eyes, the impatient bugs swarmed right out of hiding, eager to teach their oblivious target a lesson. They had set their tiny little eyes on many objects lying around in Nem’s house, and this time, they weren’t gonna try to be so subtle.

They split into groups, swarming different corners of the house as they scrambled to transform all the objects that they wanted before the sunrise. They started with a couple of small things: They turned all the plates in Nem’s cupboard into giant, flat chocolate chip cookies, his soap into a bar of butter, and they transformed all the decorative flowers sitting in small pots on the windowsill into lollipops sticking out of dirt that was made of chocolate cake. They even found the poor dragon’s purse, and decided to turn all the coins inside into chocolate coins, and the paper bills into edible paper, keeping the same print on them, but ensuring that they wouldn’t be accepted as legal tender anywhere… Maybe except for a hungry mouth.

After the tiny stuff, the bugs decided to take one step further and turn some larger items into candy as well. They went for the large bookcase covering one of the house’s walls and turned it into hard chocolate, and all the books on it into slabs of toffee with the books’ titles still imprinted on them. The fireplace got turned into a giant hearth of honeycomb, dripping with sweet honey which made it infinitely more delicious, but also completely useless. They worked their magic on the water supply to make sure only melted chocolate could run from the taps- yes, even the toilet- and to further ensure they could never be washed again, the threads in every one of Nemurin’s clothes were turned into colorful cotton candy.

To be extra mean, they also turned Nem’s toothpaste inside the tube into candy paste; now he couldn’t even clean his teeth if he were to start devouring all the transformed objects in his house! They were initially going to transform all the food in their target’s fridge into sweets as well… But as they came to find out, that would have been entirely redundant, as Nemurin had nothing BUT sweets in there. Perhaps his infinitely sweet tooth was the reason he wasn’t that upset in the first place… But now he WAS going to be, when he found out that his walking stick, umbrella, and all the handles of the tools in his shed had turned into candy canes. That would certainly show him!

Now all that would have already been enough to upset pretty much anyone in the world, but just to be extra sure, the bugs decided to pull one last prank on their target. Although the sun was already starting to rise by then, they still quickly rushed into the dragon’s room, and super quietly started circling his bed, pouring their magical dust all over it. The whole process only took seconds, and when the dust had all fallen down and disappeared, Nemurin was left snoring on a massive block of sponge cake, covered by a large pancake for his blanket, and his head resting on a marshmallow pillow.

Now that the swarm of winterfruit bugs was entirely sure that the dragon would lose his mind when he discovered the absolute chaos unfolding in his house, they calmed down somewhat, and retreated into their hiding spots, anxiously waiting for the morning to see their target’s reaction. They had to wait for quite a long time, as apparently Nem had a very sweet dream that he didn’t really seem to wanna wake up from, (or maybe the sponge cake mattress ended up being a little bit too comfortable) but into the early hours of the afternoon, he finally opened his eyes.

“Oh, what the…” Nem murmured as he reached down, and instead of his usual, soft blanket, he felt something more akin to a pancake on his fluffy hands. He looked down, and indeed, a massive pancake was covering him, and underneath him lay a mattress made of sponge cake… That explained why he had such a sweet dream that night, but how could this happen??? Even if the incident with the mug last morning was the act of the fabled winterfruit bugs, according to the legend, they only visited once per year, and even then, they only transformed one object. A strange surprise… But a welcome one, Nemurin thought.

As he headed out to the kitchen however, he noticed that his bed was far from the only thing that had been “tampered with” that night. Looking around, he admired all the items all around his house that had been turned to candy, cake and all sorts of other delicious treats in the most creative ways possible… He couldn’t believe his eyes!

The excited dragon spent all day exploring his house, feeling like he was on an easter egg hunt as he discovered more and more things that had been transformed overnight. He decided to eat one of his favorite books for breakfast, served on his new cookie plate topped with some soap in the form of butter, and giggled as the fire he’d started in his fireplace had slowly started melting the bricks, spreading a delicious, sweet smell all around the room. What a magical Winterfruit Celebration he had this year! Whether this was caused by the bugs or not, he sure was going to remember it for years to come.

Needless to say though, the bugs were absolutely fuming now. This dragon either had really good anger management skills, or he simply did not care that all his valued possessions had been turned into edible candy… But the little critters were not ones to give up. If their plan A and plan B didn’t work, that just meant they had to resort to more… Radical means to get the reaction that they wanted!

Clearly, transforming just some of Nem’s stuff into food wasn’t enough, so the clear logical next step was to transform everything that he owned. When the unsuspecting dragon went to sleep once again with a full stomach on his brand new sponge cage bed, the bugs flew outside of the house this time, circling it and straining hard to get enough magical powder out of their system to coat the entire building in it. It would have been a truly spectacular sight to see the rainbow colored sparkling rain fall down on Nemurin’s house, but since all the residents were already inside, tired after preparing for the festival all day, still no one was the wiser about what was unfolding.

Everything began to transform, from the walls, the roof, to all objects inside the house and in the garden. Nothing was left untainted by the winterfruit bugs’ magical powers- except for the resident himself- and everything was turned into edible materials, protected by a magical layer so that nothing would go bad or be ruined, even if exposed to the elements outside. To finish it all off, the creatures spawned colorful light strips all over and inside the house, which would illuminate and proudly showcase their work for all to see, even when the electricity wasn’t working anymore thanks to all the wiring being made out of gummy candy cables. The bugs worked hard all night, but it was surely going to be worth it; this was their greatest creation yet, and surely, it was going to be the funniest freakout they would ever see from a prank target. Because there’s no way anyone would be happy to see literally all of their positions turned into sweets… Right?

Well, as impressive- and impressively inconvenient- the work of the winterfruit bugs was, they clearly didn’t know who they were dealing with. Because as soon as the sun came up and our sleepy protagonist opened his eyes, a wide smile spanned across his face and his eyes lit up with a childlike joy; yet another miracle had happened overnight!

Nem jumped straight out of bed, practically bouncing from excitement as he looked around to see all the delicious changes that were made once again to his house. He ran into all of his rooms, opened all his boxes, drawers, closets and cupboards, and even went outside to check on his garden and the shed, and realized that this time, absolutely NOTHING was spared! His house was now the biggest gingerbread house in the world, and all his belongings inside were edible, either sweets made to look like the real thing, or replaced by food that roughly had the same shape, size and consistency.

Looking out through the windows, he saw that they had become a little bit cloudy… But that wasn’t because of the frost, but because they were now made of transparent hardened sugar, which he tested by giving each of them a long lick. The floorboards he was walking on were now made of dark chocolate instead of wood, the wallpaper on his gingerbread walls was replaced by sugary decorations made of colorful buttercream, which were beautifully illuminated by the magical lights that somehow spawned all over his house overnight, since his old lightbulbs were all made of candied applies now, screwed into lamps made of ice cream cones.

Although there was no electricity or gas in the house, a pleasant warmth spread all around it thanks to the fireplace that still crackled in the living room, burning chocolate logs in the fireplace made of honeycombs. The bugs were certainly mean, but they weren’t evil, so they made sure that the fireplace would drip, but never fully melt, allowing it to be nice and warm all the time inside.

That was pretty much the only thing that they melt-proofed though, as Nem quickly realized that some of his belongings were actually turned into ice cream, and they were already dripping and melting onto the chocolate floor. His candles, which he loved to light in the evenings to read by, were dripping rapidly, having been turned into vanilla ice cream, so he quickly grabbed them to carry them to the fridge, which was filled with even more edible snow ice cream to keep everything inside nice and cool. Although the first couple of items fit just fine, the dragon soon struggled to find space in the small appliance, as cream cheese and stuffed animals made of mousse filled it up. He even had to stuff his beloved foot rest in there, as he realized it was already melting in front of the fireplace, made of layered parfait cake which could certainly not stand to be in a room temperature house.

After all this, the bugs thought that they could be fairly certain that poor Nem would be ripping his hair out in frustration and cursing at whoever did this to his beautiful house, but even though the dragon was clearly in a hurry to save his most perishable belongings, that massive smile that appeared on his face in the morning did not seem to fade even into the later hours of the day. After all, how could a sweet tooth such as him be mad when his world had been made so delicious all of a sudden?

One of the surprising consequences- Nem realized- of having all of your belongings turned into sweets, was realizing just how much junk you had that you didn’t even need. Every time that he stumbled upon something that had been transformed, his belly rumbled, and he was overcome by a strong desire to eat it. “Do I really need this? Am I going to miss it when it’s gone…?” And similar questions flooded his mind as he went through all his stuff, and more often than not, his decision was that he could probably eat the item in his hands with a clear conscience; sure, he might regret it later, but who has time to think about that when your mouth is full of sweets and your brain is on a sugar rush?

But it wasn’t just Nem who got a kick out of the transformed house. Over the course of the day, the dragon’s residence has turned into a sort of local attraction, with people from all over the town and beyond coming to see the biggest gingerbread house in the world. Needless to say, it turned into quite the spectacle, with people admiring the attention to detail with which this once ordinary house had been decorated to look just like a creation made of real gingerbread and candy.

Although nobody dared to have a taste to find out, but many observed by the smell and the texture of the walls, that it really was made of real food, which would only make it an even more impressive feat. On top of all that, people who lived close by knew that just the day before, there were absolutely no decorations on the house, nor were there any signs that works were about to be started on it… Which meant that the whole thing had to somehow be done all in one night! The more the people talked about it, the clearer it became that there probably was some kind of magic involved here, starting rumors about miracles and old legends around the Winterfruit Celebration… Including of course, the bugs, who were very happy to hear that people were finally acknowledging their existence! But were they finally satisfied with what they had achieved?

They certainly gave poor Nem a hard day, as he struggled to find, then preserve or eat all of his belongings that had been transformed, and didn’t even notice the huge crowd standing outside, which eventually slowly went home as the sun went down and yet another cold, windy night fell on the town. Thankfully, he managed to go through all of his inventory in the span of the day, and his fireplace gave enough heat to keep his gingerbread house warm, but once all was said and done, there was a disappointed frown on the dream dragon’s face.

Nemurin sat down on his marshmallow couch and stared at the fire in his honey fireplace as he contemplated all that had happened that day. He was sad, but not because his house had been transformed, not because of all the items he’d lost or accidentally eaten when he shouldn’t have, and not even because of the tummy ache that was slowly, but surely sneaking up on him after a long day of snacking… But because he realized that the Winterfruit Celebration was the very next day, and he hadn’t even started preparing his entry for the dessert competition! He had so many ideas in mind, but picking just one would take hours, and he certainly couldn’t finish preparing it before the contest started in the morning… If his new oven made of candy was even capable of baking a cake in this state.

“Well, I guess I’m not competing this year…” Nem murmured to himself with a disappointed sigh, as his eyes slowly began to shut. He stood up and tried to carry himself to the bedroom, but his heavy stomach made that more of a challenge than he’d originally thought, so after just a few steps in the living room, he lay down on the soft chocolate floor instead, immediately falling into a deep sleep.

Upon witnessing all that, the bugs began to converse with each other yet again. By all means, they got a freakout; it wasn’t a panic per se, but they certainly managed to turn their target’s life upside down, and got the whole town talking about their mischief too, on top of that! After seeing the dragon’s reaction however, they couldn’t help but feel something strange that they had never felt before… Like it was eating away at them, telling them that just maybe, they’d gone one step too far. The other creatures called it something like… Guilt? And although such things were far from the nature of such troublemakers, even they realized that just leaving things like this would be against the true spirit of the Winterfruit Celebration. And so, they decided to do something about it.

The winterfruit bugs came out one last time from their tiny little hiding spots, and began circling the only thing left untouched in the entire house: The resident himself. Ticklish, glowing powder coated Nemurin’s body in no time, who certainly would have been woken up by it if he wasn’t so exhausted by a long day of working and eating. The shower of magic dust covered him completely to the point where from the outside, he couldn’t even be seen anymore, but when the sparks and sprinkles finally settled, they revealed something truly magical underneath.

—

The next day, people were suspecting that something was up at Nemurin’s house; the dragon’s friends and neighbors found it quite strange that they hadn’t seen him in two days, and the fact that he had decorated his house so delicately before simply just disappearing was even more perplexing. The Winterfruit Celebration had already begun, and the submission deadline for the cake contest was about to close, and they knew just how much that meant to the sweet tooth dragon. Even though they hated to intrude on his privacy, genuine concern took precedence, so after they saw that their friend had still not come out of hiding in the morning, they decided to knock on the door. The winterfruit was missing from the plant in front of the door, so maybe he was just so lost in his work that he forgot the deadline was coming up!

They knocked once; No answer. They knocked twice, three times, even four, but the dream dragon did not open the door, and there was not even the slightest bit of sound coming out of the gingerbread house. That’s when they decided to enter to investigate what was going on; since the door was one big slab of cracker now, it didn’t really have any locks on it, which meant that Nem’s friends could easily open it even without a key.

It took a little while for their eyes to adjust to the dim lighting inside, but when they did, they were greeted by the most magical sight. They could see how all the items in the house had been turned into sweets, decorated with beautiful, sugary ornaments and illuminated by the gentle light of the honey fireplace which spread the sweet smell of honey all over. The entire place was absolutely mouth watering to look at, but the true star of the show, which immediately captured everyone’s attention, was the massive, three storey white cream cake standing right in the middle of the living room, decorated by pieces of winterfruit.

This must have been the cake that Nem had been preparing for the competition! And looking at it, they could easily see why it took him so long, and why he had practically disappeared for days inside of his house making it; It was a masterpiece of confectionery architecture. Each of its three tiers seemed less like a cake and more like a tiered castle carved from the purest snow.

Although the structure was elegantly symmetric and smooth, it still seemed so breathtakingly complex, that it was hard to believe that they were indeed crafted by paws. Although very subtle, some seemed to find streaks of the dream dragon himself carefully crafted into the cake, with the miniature version of Nemurin’s paw prints pressed into the cake here and there, bits of cream all over the creation that resembled the dragon’s fluffy fur, a long, striped rope of fondant that looked suspiciously like his tail, and perhaps most tellingly, two small wings sculpted out of caramelized sugar that were attached to the back of the cake.

But of course, the creation couldn’t be complete without the bits of winterfruit either; fresh pieces were scattered all around the outside of the cake, looking like jewelry that glistened and reflected the colorful lights all around, making it a perfect candidate for the competition! Now everyone was sure that this was indeed Nem’s entry… But where was the dragon himself? The submission deadline was mere minutes away, and if he ran any more late, he would certainly miss it!

And so, Nem’s friends decided to do him a favor by picking the cake up, and with the highest bit of care, carrying it over to the town square where all the other cakes already stood in front of the judges. They waited for a while for him to turn up, but it seemed as though the ground had swallowed the dream dragon just a day before the celebration; as much as they wanted to wait for him, they just couldn’t hold it off any longer.

The judges meticulously examined each cake one by one, tasting them and evaluating them based on lots of criteria, but it was clear that everyone seemed to gravitate towards one contestant: The eye-catchingly elaborate dragon cake. Although opinions seemed to differ about different entries, everyone seemed to agree on how beautiful Nemurin’s cake was, how delicious the winterfruit tasted, and just how much effort was put into the masterpiece.

So when the time came to vote, it was no surprise that the dream dragon(‘s) cake won first prize, and not by a small margin! Although everyone was bummed that the creator himself had to miss the moment, the townsfolk made sure to give his work a proper celebration; once the winner was announced, everyone got a plate, and soon, the entire town was munching away at the delicious dessert. They made sure to put Nem’s award aside (the prestigious Golden Winterfruit award) for when he returned, and they could finally congratulate him for this achievement he’d been working towards his whole life.

But of course, none of them knew that Nemurin was not gone, but right there, among the crowd. He was on every plate, melting in the mouths of the festive fellows, and definitely enjoying all the attention he was getting. His heart swelled with pride each time someone complimented his taste or went in for seconds, and he wore his victory ribbon with pride until there was nothing left of the cake anymore. He wasn’t sure when or how he would respawn after the Winterfruit Celebration was over, but one thing was for sure: This had been the best holiday of his entire life!

Commissioned by:   Shadowdust