A Partridge in a Pear Tree

It's Christmas time and that usually means joy, cheer and lot of meetings to wrap up the end of the year. Seychelles usually doesn't mind these since her economy is quite small so her meetings with countries didn't last that long. Today is the general world meeting and it's usually the longest one on her agenda.

She's makes it a point to not be late or she tries very hard not to be anyway. She's just barely made it, a bit winded since she ran the entire way. But Germany is just making his way to the podium and the room is still filled with noise. This means the meeting hasn't been called to order yet.

Yes, she's on time.

Seychelles doesn't intend to make a spectacle of herself so she hurries to the chair where her colourful flag rest. She sits her folder down first and pulls out her chair.

Oh.

She glances up and around at the room. No one seems to notice her and nothing seems out of the ordinary…except for one small addition. There's a little white box with a carefully made red bow sitting in her seat. It was wonderfully concealed under the table since neither of her neighbours seems to know what it is and how it got there.

She sits quickly, keeping the box under the table in her lap. Who could have done such a thing? The country smiles warmly as she feels the weight. It's rather heavy for such a small box, not too heavy, just heavier than the box itself.

Maybe it is from one of the African nations? Or England? Or France? Please God, not France. For good measure, she glances in his direction. The Frenchmen appears busy reviewing notes as Germany begins to speak.

Since people's attention is currently distracted, Seychelles takes the opportunity to open the little box.

There's a large muffin inside, so big that whoever did this barely got all of it to fit in the box. The smell of spices is strong and she guesses that it must be gingerbread. It's befitting for the season. She replaces the top as coffee starts to be distributed. This is great, she thinks. She can try the muffin with a nice cup of coffee.

When her coffee is given, Seychelles takes the lid off again, pinching a piece off the top of the muffin to sample.

"Mmm," she mutters to herself and marvels at the ingenuity of her 'secret Santa'. The gingerbread muffin had been accent with pear chucks. Pears are one of her favourite fruit.

"Oh," she breathes as she looks at the inside of the top. Seychelles hasn't noticed until now that there is writing in it. Her eyes widen in surprise as she reads to delicate script and then she stiffs a chuckle. Very clever, whoever this person is.

It reads, "On the first day of Christmas, my true love gave to me…"