Chapter 36 — Comfy, Cozy, Christmas Days & the Identity of the Christian Spy is Unmasked
The Christmas elves gathered in the drawing rooms, the parlors, round the fire, in the dining hall, lost in the throes of their latest hobby. No room was safe from their fever for collectible Peter trading cards. An industrious elf— no one knew who— had crafted and slipped booster packs under their pillows in the night and the following morning a frenzy was born. Their unhealthy obsession over Peter now came in gambling form. Gotta glom ‘em all! They traded and swapped and showed off their favorites. All were candid photos of Peter— Peter 360°-no-scoping penguins, Peter baking cookies, Peter in his chevalier uniform, Peter feeding the reindeer, Peter sleeping in bed, Peter changing clothes, Peter scratching his fanny while no one was watching. There were rumors of a Japanese card of Peter taking a bath, too lewd for a North Pole release— but no one had ever confirmed its existence.
“Is that a holographic? Nice!”
“No way! You’ve got first edition hypothermic Peter? That one’s super rare!”
“PSA 10 mint cowboy hat Peter?! There are only two of those in the whole world!”
When Santa walked by trapper keepers briskly shut. Silence dominated the room, and fake non-Peter related conversations about things like… Legos and… hair care routines were painstakingly squeezed out until she was gone. Then they resumed, and girls with unopened packs were questioned about where and how they got them.
A daily routine had been firmly established. Yuzuka and Peter would ride out to the arctic sea and practice blasting holes into penguins. As Peter’s muscle memory improved, he became an expert at unjamming and reloading his ridiculously lengthy rifle. After a while he could disassemble and clean the soot out of the barrel blindfolded with the speed of an autistic Alabama bred military fanatic. The telescopic sight, which Peter was forbidden to look through— as that was not how 360°-no-scoping was done—was always dialed to its maximum magnification, rendering it all but useless. Yuzuka explained the higher the number was, the more stopping power the bullets had. Peter knew that was wrong, for how could the focus of glass lenses magically affect the speed and velocity of lead?But he chose not to correct her. After the incident in the baths Yuzuka was more prone to blushing and stuttering when they met, but after the blood lust hit her she would return to her normal tomboyish self— bouncing up and down and cheering for headshots with complete disregard to her ladyhood.
With Yukina he advanced from the basics of sledging to advanced placement sledging. Like an Eskimo Evel Knievel he jumped off progressively steeper and larger ramps and sailed over ever-widening crevasses. She taught him the ins and outs of drifting the reindeer around corners like they do in illegal reindeer street races through Tokyo. In no time he was popping wheelies on the wheel-less sledge and shamelessly showboating. Together they raced across the North Pole for hours until Peter’s eyelashes were so crusted with snow he couldn’t see.
In the kitchen he and Yuika pounded back mugs of hot buttered rum until they couldn’t walk straight— which is perfectly legal, as there is no drinking age in the North Pole. Each day they made a traditional Christmas dish together, and Peter wondered why on Earth there were so many recipes that he had never eaten. Maple syrup glazed figgy pudding, swirly chocolate bûche de Noël, roasted penguin à l’orange, chestnuts soaked in a vanilla sugar syrup until candied. Yechdel, that soulless bureaucratic elf, interrupted one of their cookoofs and asked how this was training Peter for the coming apocalypse.
“You can’t bloody well fight on an empty stomach, now can you?”
And one day Yuika showed off to Peter the prototype for the gingerbread dragon. He fit in her palm, an adorable pokémon-like creature with hard candy horns and buttercream aposematisms across its wings and back. The baby beast was docile and looked at Peter with large treefrog-like eyes. It hiccuped little fireballs and Yuika said the next one would be one hundred times larger.
Late at night, in Yuina’s cyberpunk dungeon of endless downloads, he and she button-mashed through the co-op campaign of DeathBlood. They shouted the filthiest swears they could think of at the television, chugging black cherry tall boys of extra-caffeinated Kidney Stone Fuel, and at every gore-splattered and insulting You Are Dead screen they rethought their strategy for the level and then went through it again. When questioned about the lengthy video game breaks Yuina explained, “I’m developing his military strategy skills through virtual simulations.”
“Yeah, that,” Peter said.
At the assembly line of Christmas toys Peter watched as dollhouse furniture rolled down a conveyor-belt: little French chairs, tiny coffee tables, and miniature beds with petite pillows and blankets. He took an armful of these dollhouse furnishings, and when he dropped off the food delivery for the mouse kingdom in his bedroom he presented them with the mouse-sized home décor. The mouse girls took the food and the furniture and carried them off without so much as a thank you. It was a lot to carry and they were focused on getting the job done quickly. Only Squee greeted Peter warmly, stuck around when all the others had left, and looked up into her colossal human boyfriend’s eyes. He felt so lucky that such an adorable girl was attracted to him. When all was carried away and they were alone Peter kissed the tip of his finger and brought it to Squee’s face, which she smooched. What a shame that due to their size difference this was as intimate as they could get. Peter wanted to hug her again and give her a real kiss, and maybe even give her mouse ears a sensuous fondling.
What wasn’t part of his routine was spending time with Santa, unless they were dining together. Even then Santa ate quietly, always possessing a precise and firm grip on her table manners, and she would return to her work after draining her glass and saluting farewell. But one dark and sunless morning, as he was preparing to go out for target practice he met Santa at the door, donning her winter equipments.
“We’re skipping your normal lessons with Yuzuka and Yuika today,” Santa said. “It’s time I showed you something important.”
Gather round, children, for another romantic adventure! And what on Odin’s crusty ice cap could be more romantic than a midnight charge through a clear and cold moonlit snowscape. Just Peter, his girlfriend Santa Claus, and his girlfriend’s dozen body guards, armed to the teeth like a team of overzealous U.S. mercenaries ready to commit unspeakable war crimes on the nearest third world country. Whenever Santa steps out into the frigid wilderness of the North Pole, it is always in the company of fiercesome, adorable, pointy-eared musketeers. Nothing sets the mood quite like the sound of a dozen rifles being loaded as Peter inched his fingers towards grasping Santa’s vacant hand. No Harvey Lee Oswald could ever get a headshot off Santa, not with the supernaturally keen-sighted elves on the lookout— ready to neutralize any hostiles camouflaged and laying in wait to murder their solemn master. But there are very few assassins in the North Pole, so the radio chatter often sounded like this:
“Bravo, Bravo. This is Alpha. Suspicious penguin spotted at one o’clock. Prepare to engage. Over.”
“Copy that, Alpha. Eyes on enemy penguin. Covering Sierra Charlie. Over.”
“Bravo, Bravo. Penguin appears unarmed. Standing down. Over.”
“Copy that. Over.”
Several sledges were packed for the excursion. Yuzuka looked ready for a war— covered in ammo belts, an M249 SAW slung over her shoulder, and a customized adamantine-toothed chainsaw sword on her hip. The brave and busty Valkyrie was truly in her prime. Her spirit glowed like a newly forged blade at the thought of protecting Santa from the unforeseen predators that lurked out in the biting cold. Maybe if she were lucky Peter would get to witness her talents as a commander. Already she was daydreaming about suffering a nearly-fatal wound in some heroic act of self-sacrifice, culminating in her broken body wrapped tightly in Peter’s arms as medics stitched her back together.
“Is everyone ok?” she would choke out with a perfect dab of blood on her lip.
“Don’t talk. Save your energy,” Peter would say, tears in his eyes.
“Peter… hold my hand.”
And then their fingers would sensually interlace like lovers legs clinging to one another in bed. Oh how he would surely fall for Yuzuka in such dramatic whirlwind of valor and romance!
The other elves lifted hoods over their blonde heads, covered their infantry jackets with body armor, and clutched fully automatic M4 carbine assault rifles like soldiers about to embark on Operation Snow Storm. It was strange seeing cute girls dressed so acutely— a few with scarves that masked their adorable noses and lips with the visage of skulls.
Without saying a word, Santa tapped Peter on the shoulder and pointed up at the luminous moon, as if there were a story locked away under its white sands, and they could hear it softly shining down upon them if only they took a moment to stop and observe it. When Peter looked out over the miles of frozen air, he only saw reality— glacial mountains, snowy winds, darkness. Constellations and the moon like cold facts organized in the sky. Santa, even with her deep-set and responsible eyes, could grasp the intangible things that were beyond him. To her, everything was in the sky— all hopes and dreams, our futures, distant kingdoms, and also, sometimes… nothing. Absolutely nothing. There was something tragically heroic about Santa Claus casting her gaze up and out into all that emptiness.
Off into the distance, by an illuminated window of the workshop, Peter saw a dark and lonesome girl beckoning him to come near. He left Santa and the others behind to see what she wanted, and the closer he got to her the more it seemed like she wasn’t beckoning to him, but was tracing her finger across the condensation to make patterns.
They stood facing each other, Peter out in the cold, Jumeau within the glowing candlelight of the workshop, separated by a pane of glass. And through a trick of the light, Peter could see the creepy porcelain witch clear as day, but she could not see him. All she saw was her own terrifying, dead-eyed reflection in the glass, along with the crosses, chrismons, and ichthys— that’s the Jesus fish to you non-edumacated folk— she idly doodled.
Jumeau whispered to herself, “Please, Holy Spirit. Make me a real girl. A supple, perky, fleshy girl. With a squishy heart, and fingernails, and a juicy tongue, and tendons, and sinews, and all the other things the girls here have. Please, Holy Spirit. Pretty, pretty please, with sugar on top. Fill my marrowless bones with blood. I’ll kill whoever you want me to kill. Santa, Peter, Yumeka. Yesssss… You name it, they’re all dead. Slit their throats. Bash their brains in. Disembowel their bones. Violence, violence! Just make me a real girl, Holy Spirit. A girl with intestines, and bazongers out to here, and…”
During this insane prayer, Peter waved to Jumeau to get her attention, but she just kept damning herself more and more, and demonstrated her awful anatomical knowledge of humans. He held his face centimeters away from her glass eyes and waved both arms in the air, but still she kept going. Jumaeu doodled a decapitated Santa into the glass, a stick figure Jumeau gripping her severed head by the ponytail. Finally Peter knocked, and confronted this traitor of all things Christmas.