Turning the Christmas tunes I’d abandoned earlier back on, I made it all the way down the long, empty stretch of road I’d be readying to turn on any minute now, when I cracked.
It started with a tiny giggle of a laugh and grew from there. Before I knew it, I was cackling my ass off, swiping at my eyes desperately as tears streamed down my cheeks.
At that point, I couldn’t tell if I was laugh-crying, or cry-laughing. My emotions were scrambled, one giant, jumbled up mess.
Once I’d safely returned to the cabin, I put my groceries away, dumping my Bigfoot wine to clean out the bottles and fill them with the discounted Halloween colored lights I’d nabbed at the store, and set them on the small windowsill over the sink.
Another giggle left me, eyeing the winter wonderland of snow covered sex furniture. Everything felt funny to me in this moment.
Grabbing a piece of chocolate cake, a big glass of almond milk, and a few pieces of ready to eat oven roasted chicken breast, I sat down in Mom’s reading nook chair, laptop set up on the TV tray and the first DVD set and ready to go. I’d opted for a slew of horror movies, to go with my current mood.
Huddling in my This is boo sheet throw, tiny little ghosts littering the purple material protesting along with the funny saying strewn throughout agreeing with me on this, I took my first bite of chicken and hit play.
“And so it begins,” I whispered, as my night of Christmas-y horror began.
Chapter 6
Bels & Ded
“If you hadn’t started screaming like that, we could have given them the slip much earlier,” Bels grumbled.
Rubbing his hands over his person protectively, Ded muttered defensively, “She was touching me everywhere.” Lower, he added, “She told me I had to take off my clothes.” A shudder that had a hint of a shiver to it wracked his tall frame.
Bels dutifully ignored the look that came over his friend’s face, like Ded was recalling the prompt from the law officer and the Elkfen might have actually enjoyed their rough handlings.
“Your shift was brilliant,” Bels thought to compliment. “I wouldn't have thought of that.”
“Would have been better if you’d made us invisible right off,” Ded muttered petulantly. “Would have saved me the trouble of running around with clothes tatters stuck to me. It’s hard to get about shifted and tangled in garments like that.” The large male’s fur lifted like it was standing on end, chills erupting across his thick hide.
“You know it doesn’t work like that,” Bels said on a huff. Brushing the last of the tinsel from his person, sat huddled where they hunkered down to study their quarry, he rolled his eyes. “It’s for emergencies only, and it only works for so long.”
“Long enough,” Ded mumbled under his breath. Watching the woman coming into view, putting up bottles with little purple and orange lights in them up on the sill, that wasn’t very Christmas-like, not at all. But did that make her naughty?
“See.” Bels lifted a finger and pointed. “She imbibes! Evidence!”
“A lot of people do on the holidays, do they not?” Ded shook his head, his antlers rattling the branches over his head. “She didn’t endanger others by driving while imbibing. She’s alone, by herself.” Scowling as he thought it over, he observed, “Did she not seem sad to you, do you think? Troubled? Is she not in need of a miracle, not a... a…” He still couldn’t say it.
“It’s a miracle,” if it works, Bels silently tacked on, “and she’d be a part of it.”
“Why could she see through our glamour but the others couldn’t?” Ded’s brow crinkled, his fur puffing as it wrinkled.
Bels needed to get Ded in on this, and fast. They truly only had so much time. He had no idea it would be this hard to convince the dull witted male, long as they’d been friends and much as he valued him as an acquaintance he’d come to tolerate and readily available asset, though Ded was more a friend to Shnikel than him, he just needed something, an ‘in’.
And then it hit the Elf, like an avalanche of snow over his head. “It’s because, like I said, she’s the… uh, she’s not a potential Snowmaiden, she’s the Snowmaiden! Like the prophecy!” he quietly exclaimed, right as a clump of snow dumped on him from Ded’s antler rustling. “Ack! Argh!”
“Prophecy? What prophecy?” Ded’s face screwed up. He knew he wasn’t the brightest of his herd, but he’d paid attention during tales tellings. What was this specifically prophesized female?
“It’s from Elf lore, you wouldn’t know it. No need when you really only leave Hinter for The Flight, if you’re lucky,” Bels bluffed.
“Your scent is stronger,” Ded commented, once more frowning as his gaze darted from the house to the Elf. Hinter Elves were inherently good, he’d grown up being told, but Bels wasn’t always as good as he should be…
“I’m nervous,” Bels told him, and he wasn’t lying.
Ded waffled. “You’re sure it’s her? She’s the one?” His hooves moved silently as he shifted in the thick snow.
“Did you see anyone else that could see through our glamour?” Bels’ eyebrows shot up.
“Well… no.” Ded’s brow wrinkled mightily, thick folds of skin bunching on his forehead as it pinched.
Bels clapped his hands together and began to rub them vigorously. “Good. Perfect. It’s settled then. She’s the one.”
“What do we do now?” Ded asked, eyeing the funny looking bench a few feet off from the sofa blocking them from view. Who put their furniture outside like that? Was this a strange human custom? Why had others not done so as she with the plushy furniture? Perhaps this was his sign she was different from the rest, a hint at her being the one.
He’d liked the way she’d smelled, the bright blue of her hair with the dark colored strands beneath the pop of color sprouting from her head. It was very festive, and he’d yet to see it on anyone else they’d encountered. Maybe that was another sign? “What do you suppose that thing is for?” Ded asked, cocking his head to study the odd contraption covered in plastic they’d unearthed.
“You don’t know what it is?” Bels asked with a hint of amusement.
“Of course I don’t. Why would I inquire if I did?”
“I have heard of them, though this is my first sighting.” Bels was not about to admit this was also his first venture into the human world and he was as confused as Ded at first as to the use of the item, but after studying it, he’d figured it out. Bels was super smart like that. “It is absent of its outing house, but clearly that is a pooping stool.”
“A pooping stool,” Ded murmured, then glanced to the house again to eye the faint light coming from it. He marveled at the idea of a stool to assist in such a natural chore.
“What else would the round hole be for and grips to assure you do not slip? A place to assume optimum relieving position and rest your head as you labor to expel waste at your leisure.”
“Ooooh,” Ded mumbled, though he still had questions. Many questions. “But do they not sit upright as they… uhm, expel?” Ded felt scandalized speaking of such things. It felt forbidden, naughty. He never would have amongst his herd. In his current form he preferred to squat. Did they not have a squatting stool? Or was human anatomy so different it required this strange contraption to avoid a blockage of some kind. So strange… Humans fascinated him so much. Ded wanted to know more. The strange woman in the house, The Snowmaiden, especially, had funny thoughts racing through his Elkfen brain. Shaking them off as a funny idea popped into his head, his skin flushed beneath his fur at the strange tingling in his groin. He certainly hadn’t felt anything like that for a doe of his own kind. His hooves shuffled in the snow as he shifted from hoof to hoof. Swallowing past the saliva filling his mouth at the memory of the way she smelled, like raspberry licorice ropes with the sweet cream filling inside them and the snow she’d been tromping through. And when she’d been startled… there was a spiciness to her aroma. A funny noise filled his chest, causing Bels to glance at him suddenly with wide eyes.