Chapter 29 — In Which Santa’s Reindeer Magick Themselves into Reindeer Girls
Ominous storm clouds approached. A dark and foreboding snowfall, gargantuan in size, swallowed up the stars and lights of the aurora. No alarm bells went off in Peter’s head at the sight of this vanishing of the sky, because if you haven’t noticed by now, he’s kind of an idiot. But to Peter’s credit, this approaching storm neared in perfect silence. There was no rumble of distant thunder, no cry in the winter winds. So to him it seemed as though they were just normal clouds, and he went about his duties like a good little boy.
As Yukina guided the reindeer, two at a time, from the snowy wilderness into the stables, Peter hefted a bag of alfalfa hay and oats up onto his shoulder, only for the bag to explode and the contents of the food to spill all over the snow. Cursing to himself, he got down on his knees and scooped the feed into the torn bag. As he did, he found within the animal feed fragments of demolished gingerbread houses, and he was a little culture shocked to think the reindeer were being fed cookies and candies. He could only collect half of it, and then he carried it against his gut and walked like a pregnant lady to the stables.
“Storms coming.” Yukina had a reindeer licking salt off her palm. “Get inside the workshop quick or you’ll get lost out here.”
Peter looked over his shoulder back at the workshop. It was a bright beacon of Victorian architecture no more than a few minutes away by foot. He could probably sprint to the front door in thirty seconds. The idea of somehow getting lost between here and there seemed like Yukina was insulting his intelligence.
“I’ll finish feeding the reindeer and meet you there.”
“Really?” Yukina spread a heavy blanket over a reindeer’s back and buckled it around the neck. “Just let me put the blankets on them then.”
“I can do that,” Peter said. “It’ll just take a few seconds.”
“Really?” Yukina seemed exhausted and was relieved at Peter’s offer, but still hesitated.
“You’ve had a hard day. I can do it.”
It began snowing. Peter went back outside with an empty sack and set to work scooping the rest of the spilled feed up with his gloved hands. As he carried the remains back to the stables a frigid wind picked up and slammed against his face, but he leaned into it and marched on. In the gloom of the stables, with each pen occupied by an individual reindeer, Peter set about dumping the feed into troughs. The trough itself was shaped like an old locomotive, and it slowly went around the stable on a track, going from pen to pen. Each apartment bore the reindeer’s name on a golden plaque, and it didn’t take Peter long to notice a pattern: Didadudedo, Nanenoninu, Kekikukako, Tutotatite, Bobubabibe, Lalelilolu, Shisasosesu, Aiueo…
“What the fuck are these names?” Peter thought aloud to himself.
He went into each one, took down the blanket and slipped it over the docile animal’s back. When he came to Zazhizuzezo’s pen he hesitated for a moment and looked into the reindeer’s eyes, wondering if she remembered him at all, or if she would attack once he entered her pen. Like a huge coward, he slowly opened the pen door and silently teased a single foot into the reindeer’s apartment. Zazhizuzezo looked at Peter but did not move. Feeling safe enough to close the door behind him, Peter tiptoed over to the blanket when the beast sneezed and shook its head. Peter jumped and shouted, “Oh my god!” which spooked the animal and made it jerk away. With trembling hands, Peter gave Zazhizuzezo her blanket, talking into her twitching ears, “Yeah, you’re not so bad anymore, are you? You’re not going to run me over again, right?”
He breathed a sigh of relieve when he got out of Zazhizuzezo’s pen. In the far corner of the stables, he came across the final reindeer:Rurirorera. Her pen was smaller than the others, and removed from the light of the lanterns. A draft blew in from some ancient wooden boards, making it one of the colder apartments too. The wind beat the stable door open and shut. Peter looked to the entrance and saw the snow was even thicker now, and it had gotten even darker outside. He reached for Rurirorera’s blanket but saw that there was only empty space where it should have been. He searched the walls of the pen for a blanket, then searched the floor, but couldn’t find anything. The door kept clanging open and shut in the furious wind. Sensing that he was running out of time Peter took off his jacket and threw it over the reindeer.
“It’ll have to do, Ruri… Ruriro...rera— Rurirorera.”
When Peter left the stable however, the workshop was gone. In its place there was only darkness and a fury of snow. The storm was so thick that the light of every window went hidden. It was at this moment Peter realized he fucked up big time. But although he couldn’t see the workshop, he knew where it still was. Just straight ahead. So he closed the stable doors, locked them shut, and then headed out into the dark of the storm.
To walk blindly into the wilderness is extremely dangerous, dear reader. For some reason humans are incapable of walking in a straight line without visual aide. It’s why lost hikers so often walk in circles, never to make any progress. So Peter took babysteps forward, to safeguard against any unwelcome curviture in his path. But that too was a mistake. For walking so slow and taking such small steps, blindly into the storm, made Peter think that he had traveled further than he truly had. And so when he failed to reach Santa’s workshop, he judged that he must have gone wildly off course. In fact, thanks to my omniscient narration, I can say that Peter was nearly within arms reach of the workshop. A few more steps and he would have been at the front door. But so thick was he snow he could not see it before him. And there in the warm light of the doorway stood Yukina, looking back into the cold snowy night. An elf with an armful of tinsel walked by and shouted, “Close the door, dumbass! It’s freezing!”
So Yukina said, “He’s probably fine,” and shut the door. Completely lost, Peter turned around, and with his head down against the freezing snow, retraced his footprints in the snow back to the stables.
Caked in snowflakes and frost, Peter shut the door and shivered. He took a brass lantern down from the wall and held his hands above it for warmth. The dark and drafty stables rattled in the wind. The reindeer clopped their hooves on the ground, chewed slowly, and hung their heads sleepily as if Peter weren’t there. He looked around for something more substantial to keep himself warm. Another blanket, a safe place to build a larger fire, a stove, anything at all. A fruitless search brought him back to Rurirorera, the runt reindeer, and his jacket draped down her spotted brown back. A part of him wanted to take his jacket back, but another part of him didn’t want to leave her naked in the cold. He resumed the search for her deer blanket, assuming it must be somewhere. As he hunted to and fro, he rubbed his frozen hands together, cupped his fingers over his mouth, and breathed warm air into them. But among the dark and the cold he could not find it.
Defeated, Peter walked over to Rurirorera and rested his face against her neck. She was quite warm. So he drew his arms around her and sunk his fingers into her fur. He felt the cold within his bones melt away. A part of him thought that maybe he could sleep like this, standing up and leaning into this cuddly reindeer.
Rurirorera lowered herself onto her knees, and Peter also knelt down with her. Then she laid down, covered herself over Peter, and rest her head on top of his chest.
“I guess we’ll just wait out the storm together,” Peter said.
“Peter!” a voice whispered.
Peter jumped up and looked about the darkened stables. The walls were decked in darkness. Shadows clouded the rafters and enshrouded the further regions.
“What are you doing?” the voice whispered.
“Hey!” Peter’s shout startled the reindeer. They all jumped back at his voice. “Who’s there?!”
“Right in front of you.”
Before him was nothing. Only the walls to the neighboring pen. A pair of antlers lifted up from the gate, but instead of a furry reindeer head, there came a pale and very human head. A pair of fuzzy animal ears poked out from her grey and tangled tresses. She stepped into the lantern light and leaned against the fencing. From her bare shoulders and collarbone, Peter got the hint that behind that wall she was completely nude. He looked down at the golden plaque.
“Ae...”
“Aiueo,” she corrected. “Why not spend the night in my pen? I’m much lovelier than that little runt, don’t you think?”
Dumbfounded, lost for words, and tongue-tied, he was drawn closer to the semi-reindeer woman. Without thinking he took out his phone and snapped a picture of Aiueo. She giggled, stepped back, and struck a pose like a swimsuit model, arms up in the air and arching her back. He looked her up and down and saw her legs were still that of a hooved animal— her knees bending backwards.
“I can still work with this,” Peter thought.
Oh my, Peter! First Santa, then elves, then a Snow Witch, then a mouse girl, and now reindeer girls? What won't you fall in love with? Does your lust have no limits? We will have to wait and see. For in the next chapter he will meet the most famous reindeer of all. Perhaps you've heard of her: the unfortunate reindeer with a distinctive nose.