A Tale of Kris Kringle [Original - PG-13] - Amortentia

Posts : 174 Join date : 2011-05-15 Age : 29

Fic Title: A Tale of Kris Kringle
Author: Amortentia
Fandom: Original/Christmas Marathon Fic
Format: Novel
Genre: Fantasy/Action Adventure/Christmas
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 3,049
Warnings:
Characters: Lady Sirena, Kris Kringle
Status: Not Finished
Summary: The Lady Sirena hates all things winter and merry and has made it her goal to rid the world of all ice and laughter that she herself cannot hold. The one thing she did not expect was the valiant efforts of Kris Kringle to get in her way. This story tells the original tale of Kris Kringle that has long been forgotten.

Table of Contents
Chapter I
Chapter II

Posts : 174 Join date : 2011-05-15 Age : 29

Chapter I

A long time ago, back when the world was a smaller place, and magic had not yet fled from man’s incessant doubts, the land was all centered on what we now call the North Pole. It was a place of magic and mirth, snow and ice, glittering pure white for ages on end. The folks that inhabited it, the Elves they were called, lived in a time of joy and adventure, with never ending feasting and dance. However, these were not the Elves that we think of now in the North Pole; in fact these Elves would be insulted to ever be compared with the short, green clothed, pointy-hatted toy makers that come to the mind of most men when they hear the word. No, indeed; these Elves were tall and fair, elegant yet hearty. Perhaps the only real similarity between the Elves of the Old Age and the Elves of now were their quick, easy smiles and their love of all things winter and merry.

There was one Elf however, who grew dark and distant. Lady Sirena she was called and she lived on the edge of the community, rarely coming out of her little wooden hut, strange enough in these parts where homes and palaces were generally made of ice and crystals. She hated the cold, and she hated the snow, and most of all she hated the constant laughter and music that flowed on the wind towards her solitude. Day by day and month by month she grew ever more secluded, until some of the Crystal Elves (as they were called for their glimmering homes) even forgot she was there. She never left the house, except on occasional trips further out away from the others, sometimes lasting for multiple days. Most of the other Elves who bothered enough to remember Sirena came to think nothing of her odd disappearances, counting them off to the strange wanderings of a lonely young woman, to the folly of their own indifference. She pored over ancient books, some dark of nature and best left forgotten, that even now would strike fear into the heart of even the Elf or Man of stoutest heart. She dreamed of a land with no more ice and no more cold, a land of heat and grass below. But what started as blissful daydreams as a child of grassy hills and sprouting flowers, turned to anger and hate for the beauty of ice she could no longer see, and soon she only craved to destroy that which separated her from her dream world.

An obsessive desire to rid the world of ice almost led to the undoing of the entire world, and the death of many of the Crystal Elves before their time. In fact, she very well might have succeeded if it had not been for the valiant efforts of a single Elf and the few companions whom he trusted to follow him. But alas, I believe we’re getting ahead of ourselves, and we must go back to the very beginning of this tale.

His name was Kris Kringle, though he mostly goes by other names now, and has aged quite a bit from the height of his powers. You might know him as Santa Claus, or Saint Nick, and the image of a plump old man, laughing jollily; white beard striking against his bright red suit may be the image that’s filling your mind. I can tell you, he looked quite different in the time he saved the World from breaking. One of the tallest of the Elves, which is saying something considering the others were by no means short, Kris had raven black hair and striking blue eye, that pierced the beholder. Strong and lean, he was not quick to temper, but passionate and fiery in a way that many other Elves found uncomfortable, and when his anger was aroused, it was something frightening to behold.

Contrary to Sirena, he loved all things winter and all things ice, delighting in the cold, fresh air. From a young age he loved to explore, wandering the glaciers for miles and miles, admiring their proud beauty. He delight in conversing with the many animals, from penguins to reindeer to the birds that flew overhead. Often times the animals would accompany him on his journeys, bringing him news of the happenings from around the world that excited him so. When the time came where he had to enter school, he never forgot about the friends he’d made among the animals, and not a day went past where he did not visit their old places of adventure, no matter how late, to check up on the latest news.

The same passion and excitement he felt towards the land he put into his studies, soaking up the ancient tales of Elves from the past, reading any book he possibly could; nothing could sate his desire to learn more. The more he discovered about the world, the more Kris reveled in it: the magic, the wonder, he could not ignore it.

But as much as Kris grew in his feelings of love towards the world of light, Sirena grew darker and darker. Now she never came into the main town at all, but watched from her window with hate in her heart, forehead tight and eyebrows furrowed as she watched the other Elves go about their content lives in anger. She began to leave for months at a time, always in secret in the blackest of nights, taken hidden paths that were long forgotten and lead to strange, dark places that had once been abandoned. It wasn’t long before she’d forsaken her wooden house on the edge of the Crystal Palaces for the dark, stony passages of the old fortresses of Evil, long left alone, and faded from the memory of all but the oldest and most serious Elves; Evil had been driven out long ago from this land, but none realized that smoke now rose from the towers again. Had anyone been as watchful of her as Sirena was towards the Crystal Elves, they would have begun to see strange visitors, hooded and cloaked in all black, entering her new palace. The forest around her grew dark and dangerous, and yet the Elves lived on ignorant, none venturing this far from their merry lives—not even Kris Kringle.

For you see, as time continued on, and the young boy grew into a young man, his studies of magic and history began to take all his time, and his friendships with the other Elves were blossoming, and he no longer had time to frolic with the animals in the Great Ice Plains. While Kris pored over his books, and recited ancient poems, and debated topics amongst his friends, the animals cleared out the area Sirena now inhabited, whispers and rumors reaching far and wide, though not quite back to where the Crystal Elves lived. Nothing more than rumors and whispers ever escaped, and those animals brave enough to venture inside what they now called the Dark Circle—named for the ring around the Stone Fortress that was now dark and filled with hate and strange creatures—never returned. Soon no one would approach anywhere near it at all, though many wondered exactly what it was that dwelled inside.

Now Sirena watched from the heights of her tower, bitterness and rage ever growing as she huddled in converse with the criminals and wretches of society, those who wanted revenge on the Elves for living peaceful lives of bliss and merriness, rejecting them from their society. While the Elves dances in ignorance, Sirena gathered powerful allies, old and ancient enemies that were long ago assumed defeated. She gathered her servants secretly, and sent her black crows out far and wide, always watching, always listening, gathering information while waiting for the perfect moment to strike. Dark spiders and bears grew in numbers, forcing the good animals out of their homes as their power grew, a mockery of the good animals. The Dark Circle grew wider until soon it was just called the Dark Forest, a whole new woods with new dark animals and species thriving, looked on by fear by the pure animals living in the outer reaches of the Forest, as far away from the darkness as possible. Soon word reached the very same animals that Kris Kringle once played with, word of the spreading darkness, the horror, the fear of what lay inside. They gave their distant cousins shelter and shared their food, comforting them in the loss of their home, while they sent out those closet to Kris to find him, and warn him. But Kris seldom left the icy walls of the Crystal Palaces any longer, to engulfed in the world he had made himself.

When word finally did come to the Crystal Elves, it was all too late. Too late to stop the evil surge of magic that would overcome the gentle-hearted folk living merrily in the snow. But I do believe I’m getting ahead of myself, again.

WC: 1,510

Posts : 174 Join date : 2011-05-15 Age : 29

Chapter II

Emilia walked lightly over the snow, breathing the air in deeply. She paused for a second, breathing in again. She had often walked this trail, her person favorite, taking her past the Great Ice Plains and the Frozen Waterfalls, so she knew the crisp, fresh smell well. But today something seemed different, the air was almost stale. It felt wrong. But then the wind picked up again, and it all felt right again, as she brushed her fiery red hair out of her face. She began walking again, and soon forgot about the staleness of the air as she whistled a happy tune. There was nothing she loved more than wandering through the forests and ice plains, admiring the glaciers, watching the animals prance around, carefree. She cared little for learning the boring histories and lessons of school, and rarely showed up; she’d rather be out playing in the snow, then inside sitting by a fire. On the rare occasional where she could be found in the classroom, she was always staring out the window, watching the snow fall lazily to the ground, dreaming of running free through the stone, not being safe and warm indoors. While she loved the glittering city and the merry parties as much as the next Elf, she always felt the confinement of the walls, and craved to leave and explore whenever she was not otherwise occupied.

Emilia climbed over the icy edge of a ridge, digging her shoes into the footholds that had been made over time by her boots; she came here a lot. She stood at the top of the ridge, looking across the landscape, red hair blowing in the wind behind her, like a red ribbon left out in the wind. The frozen plains lay before, and right along the horizon, the sea, glaciers rising out of its depths. Directly below, after a long incline bottomed out, lay an igloo Emilia had made herself. It was impossible to see with the naked eye unless you were looking for it, hidden under a ridge made by the cliff further down. When she was a little girl, it was a small, single room, more of a cave than anything else, but over the years she had added on more and more until it was her own mini palace, secluded into the Icy Mountains. She often came here to be alone; she knew she was strange, that most elves preferred the company of other Elves over being solitary, and it wasn’t that she didn’t enjoy their company, she simply preferred her own, and the ringing quiet that filled her soul out among the snow and ice.

With a smile on her face, Emilia slid down the hill like a slide, letting out a wild, ecstatic whoop as she went, delighted, green eyes sparkling. She rolled gracefully back to her feet at the bottom, spinning around once, mouth open, tongue out to catch the falling snowflakes, laughing all the way. Emilia stepped lightly into the igloo, dropping her bag that was strapped onto her back onto the ground by the entrance. The walls sparkled, welcoming her home, ice glittering. She sprang into the next room, which she fondly called the Library, and curled up on the ground, picking up one of the many books scattered across the floor, and starting to read. As she read the Lay of Bertonia, an elf maiden who had fought her way out of the dungeons of the Darkness itself in the ages past, she dreamed of having an adventure of her own, escaping the dull, perfectness of the Crystal City. In her mind’s eye, she saw epic battles playing out with her at the forefront, leading the troops to victory, and the crowds cheering her home on their return.

Her reverie was shattered as she heard a sharp yelp from above the ridge, and then the sound of a body tumbling down the cliff. She frowned and leaped up from her comfortable, sprawling position, and ran for the entrance, quiet as a gentle breeze among an empty plain, barely a hiss heard from her shoes sliding on the ice. She peeked out of the igloo slowly, and then cried out in surprise at what she saw, running towards it quickly. A huddled gray body against the white snow lay still at the bottom of the cliff. She approached cautiously, making sure not to scare it, but she found the wolf unconscious when she neared it, one of its legs bent at an unnatural angle, paw stuffed underneath its fallen body. A splash of red on the white snow caught her eye, and she winced when she saw a deep gash behind its ear. She needed to more him inside, where it was warm and she had the necessary supplies to care for him properly. She looked back towards the igloo, but the distance looked greater with the thought of dragging the wolf inside, despite the fact that he was relatively small, no bigger than an average house dog, she still wasn’t strong enough to carry him, and she worried dragging him would only injure him more. But it had to be done, she couldn’t just leave him out in the cold, he needed warmth and comfort.

She quickly bent down and began brushing a layer of snow off the ice. It would be easier to drag him, and less painful on the wolf’s wounds, if she could slide him to the igloo as easily as possibly. She tried to do it as quickly as possible, but it still took longer than she wished, and she glanced nervously at the unconscious wolf all the while. When it was finally nice and slick, or as slick as it would be with gentle snowflakes still falling to the ground, she gently placed her arms on either side of his midriff, trying to keep any part of her body from bumping into his injured paw and wound. It was slow work, and once or twice the wolf let out a heartbreaking whimper, but it never woke up, which made her work easier.

When she finally got him inside, she placed him in the central room, the warmest of all, and ran for the box of medical supplies she kept in one of her supply rooms. She gently put her wolf’s head into her lap and began cleaning the deep gash behind his ear, probably received from a stray piece of ice on his tumble down the ridge side. When she was done cleaning the wound, she wrapped a bandage around it, and moved on to its leg, which she placed a splint and bandage to hold it in place. She stroked his matted, wet fur, gently, before gently placing his head back on the ground and heading back outside to throw snow back over the now clear trail straight towards her igloo. When she was finished she headed back indoors, grabbed her book, and sat back down near the wolf, attempting to read though she was distracted by wondering about the wolf and what he was doing this far out on the plains; they rarely strayed from the woods. She found herself frowning thoughtfully at the wolf more than paying attention to the words in her book.

It was getting dark, and Emilia was just starting to light the candles when the wolf stirred. Emilia whipped around and went to its side; the wolf stretched its paws and whimpered when the broken one moved.

“Gentle, my friend, you seem to have broken something in your fall.”

The wolf slowly opened its eyes, yellow iris’ shining. It looked up in surprise. Emilia flashed a smile.

“Welcome back to the light,” she teased. “You had quite the fall.”

The wolf groaned, but gave her a smile of its own, sharp canines clearly visible, though non-threatening.

“Yes, I can feel that.” He gave another wince as he lifted his head and felt the gash on his head more clearly. “Thank you, kind elf-maiden, but I really must be on my way,” he said, and attempted to rise, but fell back to the ground in pain, unable to stand up on his wounded leg, and too weak to rise on just three.

“Don’t be stupid,” Emilia said surprised, “you must stay here. You’re not strong enough to get up on your own, let alone travel to wherever it is you’re going. Where are you going?”

“I’m afraid my injuries are of no consequence. I am on a mission of great importance to both my pack and the other animals of the forest, not to mention your own people.”

He tried to rise again, but Emilia gently pushed him back down.

“Whatever mission you’re on is going to have to wait until you’ve recovered. A storm is coming, I can feel it in the air, and you’re in no condition to be struggling through a storm. I can send whatever message needs sending.”

“It’s not a message. It’s a warning.”

Emilia’s head snapped up. Memories of the stale air flooding back into her mind.

“What do you mean a warning?”

“Darkness is coming, soon all will fall as war engulfs the land.”

The wolf’s eyes rolled back, and he fell back unconscious, while Emilia stared down at him in shock and confusion.

WC: 1,539

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