VELVETEEN vs. Santa Claus #3
The lights overhead shifted and danced, and the sound of feet on hard-packed snow drifted through the clear air.
Feet; paws; hooves, sharp and slicing through the frosted crust like so many icy knives.
Finally, the sound of a sleigh, skating over the snow on polished runners, like a whisper of oncoming pain.
Santa Claus straightened. Beside him, Mrs. Claus did the same.
The Snow Queen, who had never slumped, stood proud and tall and waiting, eyes narrowed as she watched the horizon.
Only Jack Frost allowed himself the momentary respite of closed eyes and bowed shoulders, accepting what this meant, what this had always meant. She was coming. The heart of Winter had looked at her and found her sufficient…and what had been taken would not be returned.
When he opened his eyes, the first of the snow beasts was cresting over the hill and beginning its descent into the village.
Great white stags with antlers of ice; hopping white rabbits with brown pine cone tails.
It was a miraculous sight, enough to steal even the most hardened soul’s breath away.
The procession went on for what seemed like hours, with great snow bears and towering snow moose following their smaller brethren out of the trees.
Finally, just as the wonder was beginning to wear off, four vast snow reindeer appeared.
They were crowned with antlers made of evergreen boughs, and their breath left no heat trails in the air.
They were pulling a sleigh made of vine-worked ice and snow, and sitting in that sleigh was a woman, as white as the snow that surrounded her, dressed in green holly and brown bark and spreading mistletoe.
She was beautiful. She was terrible. She was familiar, and she was strange.
Santa stepped forward. He was their emissary, after all, and had been for centuries, ever since he had stepped up and taken the mantle of Winter as his own.
“Hello, my dear,” he said. “You’re looking well. I’m glad to see you made it through the Winter unscathed, and can now begin your term of service.”
“I’m made of snow, you asshole,” Velveteen replied. “If this is what you consider ‘unscathed,’ I’m glad as fuck you never had kids. What the fuck?”
“Language, please,” chided Mrs. Claus. She fell back a step when Velveteen turned her icy glare on the older woman. Voice smaller now, she said, “We have to think of the children. They look on Winter as a place of wonder and delight.”
“Your ‘place of wonder and delight’ just tried to freeze me to death,” said Velveteen.
She stood. Two of her snowmen hurried to help her down from the sleigh.
When she stepped onto the surface of the snow, her feet left no impressions; it was as if she weighed as little as the wind.
She stalked forward, and although she was stomping, she left no tracks behind her.
Pointing her index finger at Santa Claus, she snarled, “I said I’d serve you.
I didn’t say I’d die for you. You cheated. ”
“No, my dear, I didn’t,” said Santa. There was genuine regret in his voice. Velveteen was just too upset to hear it. “You never asked me what service would entail.”
“Would you have told me if I’d asked?”
Santa said nothing. His silence was more than answer enough.
Velveteen shook her head, disgusted. “Great. Swell. Swell and great and dandy. Where’s Jackie?” She turned to Jack Frost and the Snow Queen. “Shouldn’t she be here to celebrate finally getting me all the way into the Winter? Maybe she can explain why I shouldn’t call the whole thing off right now.”
“Jackie isn’t here,” said Jack Frost. “She would distract you from fulfilling your duties to the season. You’re too close, and we want you to make your choice fairly. You don’t have friends in Spring or Autumn, after all.”
“So you sent away the only person I’m not seriously pissed off at, because you thought it would make the choice more fair?
Wow. You’re not just assholes, you’re stupid assholes.
When you talk to Jackie next, tell her it’s your fault I’m probably not going to choose you.
” Velveteen turned back to Santa Claus, still glaring.
“All right. I’m here. I’ve met your precious Aurora, and she’s told me that the only way out is forward.
So tell me what to do. I am in your service. Put me to work.”
“I had hoped that you might resent us less for asking you to keep your word,” said Santa, slowly.
“If you wanted me to resent you less, you should have warned me,” Velveteen replied. “What do you want me to do?”
Santa sighed. “Is this how things are going to be between us?”
“Let me check and see if I’m still made of snow,” said Velveteen. She looked down at one dead white arm, and then back up at Santa Claus. “Yup. This is how things are going to be.”
“Very well then,” he said. “Follow me.” Santa turned to walk deeper into the village. Velveteen started after him, as behind her, the army of winter creatures crumbled back into the landscape, leaving nothing but branches and churned-up snow.
The Snow Queen waited until the pair was out of earshot before she said, “The girl is strong. She’ll be an asset, if she chooses to stay.”
“She’ll be a problem until she chooses to go,” said Mrs. Claus. She shook her head. “I’ve always liked that child, but I have a bad feeling about this. She isn’t choosing Winter the right way. She’s forcing Winter to choose her. That doesn’t sit well with me.”
“We’ve already paid enough,” said Jack, and there was a bleak viciousness in his voice that spoke to all the winds of all the world. “She had best choose us.”
Silence fell after that. It seemed that there was nothing else to say.
* * *
Santa and Velveteen stalked through the village without exchanging a word.
His feet left tracks; hers did not. Otherwise, there might as well have been no difference between them.
The elves and penguins who peeked out of their little houses to watch them pass made no effort to show themselves.
They had lived in Winter long enough to recognize a blizzard when they saw one coming.
At the edge of the village was a little house that hadn’t been there the day before.
It was made of pine branches and snow, and seemed rough-hewn, despite the smoothness of the walls and the way it fit into the landscape.
It looked old. Old as mountains; old as snowfall.
Santa stopped just outside the fence, which was made of piled-up stones held together by vines of frost.
“This is yours,” he said, looking to Velveteen. “Winter will keep it here for as long as you need it. Whatever you require will be found inside. We take care of our own.”
“And when I’m done here?” she asked.
“Then it goes back to the snow that made it, and is forgotten before the next turning of the Northern Lights.” He reached out and touched the fence.
“There have been other houses here, before yours. Jack Frost had a similar one when he first took his post. It’s a little isolated, true, but it should serve you well, if you allow it. ”
“It’s not my home.”
“It could be.” Santa looked at Velveteen, making no effort to conceal the pleading in his eyes. She glared back, defiant and cold, until he sighed, and shook his head, and said, “I’m sorry. This is how it’s always been done. I didn’t think that it would be so hard for you to face the trials.”
“I’ve been here a hundred times. You’ve never dumped me in the middle of a blizzard or allowed monsters to come out of the walls and try to kill me before.
” Velveteen held up one gleaming white hand.
“You’ve never turned me into snow. Of course this has been hard on me.
There’d have to be something seriously wrong with me if it had been easy. ”
“You were our friend before you became a supplicant here. I should have considered how that would impact you.”
“Would you have done things any differently if you had?”
“Yes,” said Santa Claus. He looked at her solemnly, all traces of his usual jolliness gone, and said, “I would have forbidden Jackie to befriend you. It was always going to be like this. Winter is not a tame country. It doesn’t exist solely for the joy of children, and that isn’t the role that you’re best suited to.
You were always going to find yourself alone in the cold.
The only thing I did wrong was allow you to see that Winter could be warm.
If I had managed your expectations better, we wouldn’t be standing here now. ”
Velveteen stared at him. “You’re not serious. You can’t be…you said I was always welcome here. You said you loved me.”
“I do love you, my dear; I do. It’s simply that I love Winter more. I’m sorry.” Santa offered her a small bow. “You’re one of us now, at least for a time. Try to rest up. Your service will begin in the morning.”
Then he turned and walked away, leaving Velveteen standing, staring, in front of her little pine bough house.
* * *
There was no furniture, but there was snow.
Velveteen waved a hand, and the snow formed itself into a bed, a chair, a table, even a knife and cutting board.
Did snow women eat? She didn’t know. She supposed she was going to find out sooner or later.
She had to still be alive: she wouldn’t have done the Winter any good as a dead thing like Marionette, who had never intended to become a villain, but who had killed a lot of people in her reality anyway, because an animus with no life force of their own couldn’t help it. So she probably ate something.
She found that she wasn’t looking forward to the idea of finding out what it was, exactly, that she ate, or how it was that her new body dealt with things like going to the bathroom.
There was probably some messed-up Winter magic involved.
“If I shit frost, I’m going to kill everyone in this stinking excuse for a metaphor,” she grumbled, and threw herself onto the bed, sending a soft powder of snow drifting up into the air.