Starship pilot who, by some quirk of interstellar travel, has never experienced a New Year until now.
The door chirped, and Winona looked up. Her desk was strewn with paperwork for the upcoming transit, navigation charts, NOTSMs, and all the various ephemera of piloting a spaceship.
Her bed wasn’t in much better shape.
“Enter,” she called, and Gina poked her head through.
“Burning the midnight oil, ‘Nona?”
Winona glanced at the clock.
“I guess? I only got up a few hours ago.”
Gina raised her eyebrows, and Winona sighed.
“I was on shift, Gina, it wasn’t anything exciting.”
“Well I could’ve told you that.”
The smirk on Gina’s face had no right to be that adorable. Annoying. Whatever.
“Can I help you with something, or did you just come here to make fun of me?”
“Oh! Right, yes! I was gonna ask if you were coming to the party.”
“Party?”
“For new years.”
“New years?”
“...yes?”
“Is that today?”
Now the smirk featured a quizzical raised eyebrow. Impossible.
“Of course it’s today! It’s the only day that it can be! It comes after the 31st. Is this all news to you?”
Winona scratched her head, then glanced at the clock on her tablet. Sure enough, by the Terran calendar it was December 31st.
“I didn’t know there were parties.”
“How could you... what kind of boring ships were you working on?”
“Look, I don’t see how this is that big a deal. The calendar barely even makes sense out here, we’re lightyears from Sol.”
“Are you telling me you’ve never been to a new year’s party?”
“I...”
Now that was a good question. Winona was about twenty-six, so in theory she should’ve been to one, right? Well, probably kids didn’t go to many parties, so that was... maybe fourteen potential new years?
She grabbed her tablet and started flipping through her transit logs.
“You’re joking.”
Winona held up a single finger, not wanting to lose her train of thought. 3411, 3412, 3413...
“Looks like no.”
“What.”
“You know how messy calendars get around transits. We try to vaguely keep track of Earth’s calendar, so sometimes we skip days.”
“I’ve been on ships for half my life, I know about leap-days! But I’ve still been to half a dozen new years eve parties.”
“Well, I haven’t.”
“Right, well. Now the party isn’t optional.”
Gina grabbed her arm and started dragging her towards the door.
“Wait, at least let me get changed...”
“Your flight suit is cute, come ON we’re gonna miss it!”
The next hour was a whirlwind of new traditions. Apparently everyone had to dip soba in champagne or something. Rudy had printed out some terrible “glasses” that had the current year in them, which was a trick since there were no zeros or other convincing places to put the lenses.
The most important one, apparently, was becoming _extremely _inebriated. Winona didn’t have more than a glass or two, since she had a piloting shift coming up. But the bubbles still tickled going down her throat.
With her head buzzing pleasantly, Gina grabbed her right before the final countdown. From the way she swayed, her libations had been a lot more generous.
“Ten!”
“Nine!”
“Eight!”
“There’s one last new years tradition we should try,” Gina whispered.
“Seven!”
“Six!”
“Five!”
“What’s that?” Winona asked.
“Four!”
“Three!”
“Two!”
“This.”
“One!”
“Happy New Year!”
And then Gina grabbed a very surprised Winona and kissed her senseless.
Some of these traditions were pretty alright.