Chapter 46 — The Elves Steal Peter Away to Partake in an Illegal Snapdragon’s Party
Within the dark chamber a dozen beautiful elves were gathered around a table, and they looked at Peter with much surprise and wonder, and began adjusting their blonde bangs, fixing their military uniforms and the amount of cleavage on display, reapplying lip gloss and checking their teeth for snowy white perfection. Peter sat down beside the elf who had torn his arm out of its socket dragging him here. The door was shut and bolted with many locks. It was very quiet, and the hushed voices among the girls made him think that perhaps they were going to begin smoking something illegal.
“Do we have fire extinguishers this time?”
An elf held up and patted a shiny red canister.
Another elf handed him a glass bottle stuffed full of pine needles. He held it up and looked at the carbonation within rising through the bottled Christmas tree. She explained it was just sugar water, and the pine needles contained yeast, so it fermented and carbonated naturally. Be careful with this recipe, kids, some pine needles are toxic. Peter took a sip. It tasted like a tree.
Peter’s phone rang. Once again, it was the Snow Witch.
“Are you—? Ffffff…” He jammed his phone to mute and crammed it into his pocket.
Across the table the elves sprinkled an assortment of dried fruits: raisins, figs, plums, cassis, apricots, and pears, along with candied chestnuts, walnuts, and pistachios. As these snacks were scattered, they chanted with mad anticipation, “Snapdragon, snapdragon, snapdragon…” like an arcane incantation. Yuya then opened a bottle of brandy and drizzled the fragrant liquor across the fruits and nuts. Peter watched with a pang of regret as the fine wine went to waste.
The candles were extinguished, and darkness fell upon the coven of blondes. Although blind, he felt the elves pressing around him. Their delicate breathing like a ghost of their presense. Suddenly the table was aflame, and all the beautiful elven girls reappeared in the spectral blue light. Their otherworldly cuteness was enhanced by the phantasmagoric display of alcoholic fire. The game started— playfully plucking desserts from the flames with their bare fingers and flinging the burning snacks into their mouths. Between gulps they sang out in hushed voices:
Here she comes with flaming bowl,
Don’t she mean to take her toll,
Snip! Snap! Dragon!
Take care you don’t take too much,
Be not greedy in your clutch,
Snip! Snap! Dragon!
With her blue and lapping tongue
Many of you will be stung,
Snip! Snap! Dragon!
For she snaps at all that comes
Snatching at her feast of plums,
Snip! Snap! Dragon!
But old Christmas makes her come,
Though she looks so fee! fa! fum!
Snip! Snap! Dragon!
Don’t ‘ee fear her, but be bold—
Out she goes, her flames are cold,
Snip! Snap! Dragon!
With the conclusion of the strange song, the burning fruits and nuts were gobbled up, and the flames died away. Hey, what gives? This isn’t a game at all! It’s only a rhyme that’s said while eating a fiery dessert. But how did the girls snatch and pop the flaming fruits into their mouths without horribly burning their fingers or tongues? What manner of confectionary demonry was this? He would soon find out, as they prepared the next round, spreading more fruits and nuts across the burnt table and spilling more brandy wine atop it all.
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Suddenly the table burst with licking blue flames, and the chant began again, with elven girls snatching away at the fruits. Peter reached in and grabbed a fiery chestnut, which was hot but not painful. For a moment he felt like a mage holding a fireball between his fingers, and by the time the treat reached his lips, the flames had extinguished. The girls cheered and complimented his Snapdragon skills. Is there anything more adorable than an elf girl savoring every moment of her dessert? The way she politely munch, munch, munches, and “mmmmm!”s with delight, the involuntary flits and flutters of her eyes as she loses herself in culinary bliss. Such divine sweetness! Such fiery, caramelized ecstasy!
“Oh this is better than sex!” one elf said.
“As if you know how that feels, you virgin!”
“Takes one to know one!”
The accused and accuser blushed and fell silent. Peter saw their embarrassment in the way they demurely chewed with downcast eyes.
“I… like virgins,” Peter said. “In fact, all guys do. They make the best girlfriends.”
One girl suddenly leaned into Peter’s ear and whispered, “I’m one too,” and into his other ear another whispered, “So am I.”
Peter exhaled and fanned himself comically, as though all these confessions of maidenhood were making him hot under the collar.
They played a third and fourth round of the game, with Peter occasionally checking his fingers to make sure they weren’t charred to the bone. Then in the middle of their gluttonous song, one of the elves waved her arms and hushed, cutting short their nursery rhyme. The room fell silent. The elf stood and tiptoed away from the firelight to the door, and placed her pointy ear against the wood. The party heard slow and deliberate footsteps approaching, the old architecture creaking and squeaking under the unwelcome visitor’s weight.
Afwoosh erupted! Yumi jumped back from the table, the sleeve of her uniform aflame, and she cried out, beating the fire with her hand as her chair clattered to the floor. She spun around and screamed in surprise as the fire blossomed larger and larger— her panicked arm waving only feeding the flames with more oxygen— not extinguishing it at all!
Someone grabbed a fire extinguisher and blasted it into the ceiling, filling the room with a hazy snowfall, but missing the fiery elf!
A voice cried out, “Take off your jacket!” and she furiously began unbuttoning her military uniform. But do you know how many buttons a hussar jacket has? Too many to count while you are burning alive!
Peter said, “Stop, drop, roll!” but the elf was too busy stripping to take heed of his advice.
With the flames now licking her ear, and about to catch her pretty blonde hair on fire, and with her not even a fraction of the way done with the jacket buttons, it was time to act!
Peter lunged over the fiery table and caught the burning elf in his arms, and then threw her down onto the floor and smothered her with his body. As the table flipped over and showered the room with flaming bits of caramelized treats, the door crashed open. A sentry elf beheld the madness and shouted, “Snapdragons?! Again?!” and bleeted into a policeman’s whistle, adding even more alarm to the chaos.
What followed was a mad stampede of feathery elven footsteps— a great crowded crush of shoulders and limbs and breasts as a dozen girls squeezed violently past the sentry and spilled out into the hall. Squees of disobedient joy and terror swirled around the disheveled patroller as she pinballed helplessly between the escaping fugitives. Her whistle wheezed weakly with each bruised rib. The smokey elf rolled atop Peter and smiled to see that her arm was extinguished, and then jumped up, pulling Peter to his feet, and they too dashed from the hazy, half-burnt room.
And they’re off! Down the hallway— caught red handed! Yuko in the lead with Yuka and Yuki close behind. Yume in fourth place looking positively giddy— and behind her Yuno, arms packed with bottles of contraband liquor, a trail of stolen candied chestnuts spilling behind her— and Yukari, the sentry elf, hot on their heels— arms swimming out for the nearest culprit! Will she catch them? And following up the rear, in dead last, to nobody’s surprise, it’s Peter and Yumi— hand in hand— romantic but terrible form for sprinting— Peter truly is dead weight in this race. If he were a horse he’d be off to the glue factory for sure!
One by one the rampaging blondes split up! Down they flew darkened stairways, split up into empty hallways, wedged against the ceiling like gravity-defying ninjas. Yukiko dove headfirst into a dumbwaiter and vanished up the miniature elevator shaft— don’t do that, children— as if they still build homes with those nowadays. Soon it was just Peter and the slightly singed Snapdragon victim Yumi together— can they escape?! She flung Peter and herself into a dusty closet and slammed the door. Together they squeezed against forgotten linens and each other. Yumi clasped her arms around Peter and buried his face into her unbuttoned blouse, and Peter breathed silently into her cleavage, neither resisting nor pressing deeper into her.
But the seven seconds of heaven was cut short! The door swung open with the sentry elf before them, the scorn of cold justice written across her pretty face. Peter’s closet buddy Yumi shrieked and took off, flinging her boy toy into the door frame and leaving him for dead. And so Peter was the slowest of the culprits, the only one who couldn’t escape. He raised his hands and said, “I surrender.”