Book Two, Chapter One

Chapter One

Painting, Justin thought to himself, is the most boring thing in the world.

This wasn't a new realization for him, but after six hours of painting one smile after another onto an endless stream of Janitor Jim dolls—Wielder of the Ultimop and Archenemy of Vaumettar the Pukelord—it seemed like a particularly relevant one.

All around him, the sound of paintbrushes made little sllp, sllp, sllp sounds, detectable only because of his sensitive cervine ears, as they brought the lifeless hunks of plastic into a childlike approximation of life. Down the conveyor belt they went, snatched up either by eager fleshy hands, or not-so-eager furred ones. One station painted Jim’s face, the next his hair, then his eyes, until finally they came to the end of the line, where Justin waited to give them their smiles. Their vapid, unchanging, overly-happy-for-absolutely-nothing smiles.

What am I doing in here? he thought, staring longingly out the factory window. He knew the answer to that, of course. He was helping make the toys. Making five billion gifts from scratch wasn’t the kind of operation that could be carried out in a month, even with Santa’s mysterious, godlike powers. It was a year-round gig, and one that required every bit of help the elves could get if they wanted to meet their quota. It was important work, too. On December 24th, these dolls would act as a shield, each one protecting a single precious light against the Krampus’ relentless onslaught of darkness and misery.

But that didn’t make painting them any less mind numbingly boring!

The elves went about their work with an almost unnatural gusto, snatching dolls off the line like each one was the last slice of cake at a birthday party. They found this kind of work invigorating, even if they did it day in and day out, week after week, month after month, for thousands of years. Justin was happy for them, but the fact remained that this was elf work. And even though he may have had long, pointed ears like them, Justin was the farthest thing from an elf.

He was a reindeer, and reindeer were born to fly.

“Just a couple more hours,” the small figure next to him said quietly. Justin turned to look at his Rider, an elf named Lena who had been roped into toy painting duty along with him. Lena was taking her toyshop imprisonment much better than he was—she was still an elf, even if she had chosen a different line of work—but he could read the same restlessness in her eyes that he felt deep in his bones. He was tired of being tethered to the ground. He wanted to take off, to feel the winds of Val Luminara in his fur as he careened through the sky!

“How much longer until flight training starts?” he asked under his breath.

“Three more days,” she answered. “Now stop complaining! This isn’t so bad.”

Flight training. Just the thought of it sent his heart racing. He knew that was like being excited for school to start, but it was what he’d been waiting for for eleven long, boring months. Flight training, of course, meant flying. A whole month of it, uninterrupted by toy painting, toy assembling, or any other type of toy-related monotony. Reindeer and their Riders were required to complete an obstacle course once a week to keep their skills sharp, but that barely took fifteen minutes, and then it was back to the toy mines. Justin desperately wanted—needed—more!

“Just be happy they only keep you in here for eight hours,” Lena said, painting ten smiles for each one that Justin managed. “The elves work for sixteen hour shifts, seven days a week.”

“Yeah, but you weirdos like that,” Justin pointed out.

Lena gave him a sharp look, but didn’t contradict him.

It was November 26th, two days until Thanksgiving. The Christmas season would begin on Black Friday, and then Justin would finally be free of these claustrophobic factories. Free of having to spend hours scrubbing paint out of his fur every night. Free of Janitor Jim, and his neverending quest to rid the world of filth and grime. Justin couldn’t help but smirk. Wind the clock back a year, and Black Friday had been the lowest point in the endless string of low points that had been his life. That was the day he had lost his job, and the threat of being evicted from his apartment had hung over him like a festively decorated Sword of Damocles. His one and only hope had been that one of his many job applications would be accepted, and he could begin his new career as a mold taster before rent came due in December.

That was when he had been given the Opportunity: a job ad from a delivery company looking for air couriers. Despite his crippling fear of heights, Justin had taken the risk, applied for the job, and been magically transported to Laetitia and transformed into a reindeer. Well, kind of. He still walked on two legs, had hands on the ends of his arms, and could talk…usually…except for when he turned into his full reindeer form, but he hardly ever…

Anyway, here he had been given a sacred duty by none other than Santa Claus himself: Defend the Light. Fight the Dark. Deliver the gifts. Protect the children.

It had taken him a long time to come to terms with his new life, and an even longer time for Laetitia’s other residents to come to terms with him. After losing what he had thought was his dream job stocking shelves at a supermarket—Justin snorted in laughter, earning him a strange look from Lena—he had foolishly placed the blame for all of his misfortune on Christmas itself, convincing some very important deer that he was here to snuff out the Light and usher in the Dark age of Krampus.

It had taken Justin facing down Krampus by himself on Christmas Eve to finally convince them otherwise.

What had followed was a long, boring, yet still happy year of living in Val Luminara, preparing for next Christmas. And now, finally, it was almost here. In three more days—three agonizingly slow days—there would be nothing but blue skies and freedom for the next month.

“Hey, wait!” Lena exclaimed as he went to put a doll back on the conveyor belt. “That smile is crooked! You need to redo—”

Before she could finish, there came a sharp clink! from the nearby window. Justin turned to look, and his eyes widened when he saw the gleaming gold bell hovering just in front of his face on the other side of the glass.

His best friend, Lucas, stood out there on the streets, palming a basketball-sized jingle bell in one hand, a mocking grin stretched across his face.

“Justin,” Lena said slowly, “don’t even think about it! We still have two hours left before our shift—”

Too late. Justin was on his hooves and out the door before his paintbrush had even touched the floor. He found Lucas waiting for him, already hovering twenty feet in the air, his red flier’s jacket reflecting the midday sunlight.

“One ring!” he shouted down at him, holding the bell out challengingly. “One score! One chance! Are you up to it?”

“Where did you even find that?” Justin asked. He hadn’t seen one of those bells since the Reindeer Games ended the year before.

Lucas gave him a sly grin. “Does it matter? I saw you in there looking like you were one Janitor Jim doll away from pulling your own antlers out. So I said to myself, ‘Lucas, you handsome son of a buck, can you really leave your best friend to suffer like that all alone?’”

Justin folded his arms. “You must be bored out of your skull if you’re actually looking to get humiliated!”

Lucas laughed and extended his arm. He began to spin in midair, slowly at first, but rapidly picking up speed until he was nothing but a red, brown, and gold whirlwind twenty feet above the street. By now, several other elves and deer were poking their heads out into the streets, wondering what the commotion was. Several of them recognized Justin, and a chorus of eager murmurs began to spread up and down the street in anticipation of what was sure to be an exciting show.

Well, I have to give the crowd what they want, don’t I? Justin thought, his heart beginning to race inside his chest.

Lucas released the bell, his momentum sending it careening up into the sky at an incredible speed until there was nothing left to see but a faintly sparkling dot.

“Mightier deer than you have tried and failed to defeat the legend known as Lucas!” The darker furred reindeer shouted. “But if you think you’re up to the challenge, then feel free to—”

He promptly rocketed straight into the side of a nearby house, bouncing off the brick wall and landing in a heap on the cobblestone street below.

“…try.”

A chorus of sympathetic Oooohs rang through the village.

“Holy night!” Justin yelled, running over to kneel next to his friend. “Are you okay?”

“I meant to do that!” Lucas said. His head was swaying back and forth and his eyes refused to focus. “Just a…Just a little dizzy after that pitch. Gimme a minute and I’ll—”

“Take as many as you need!” Justin said, bending his knees.

“Hey, what are you—that’s not fair!”

Too late. With a laugh, Justin took to the sky!

The wind whipped through his fur as he streaked upwards. His blood felt like it had been lit on fire, and his smile stretched into a grin. Laetitia spread out below him, looking like a village plucked from a book of fairytales. Its cobblestone streets wound to and fro with childlike, whimsical aimlessness. Strings of lights shining in every imaginable hue lined the streets, draped across buildings, trees, streetlamps, and anything else that could support them in swirling displays of color. Beyond the city limits lay the country of Val Luminara; a forest of towering pine trees, each one a resplendent green and positively bursting with life, bordered on all sides by colossal, snow-capped mountains.

And above it all hovered the portal. A swirling halo of lights, so vibrant and miraculous that they made the ones in the city below look like a cheap imitation. When Justin looked through the center of the shining ring, he could faintly make out the barren, icy wasteland of the North Pole hanging upside down on the other side, somehow both above and below him

Justin could remember only too well the day when he had first come through that beautiful ring of lights. Suddenly being sucked through his computer and spit back out a hundred thousand feet in the air would have been terrifying enough under normal circumstances, but his phobia of heights had made it the single most terrifying moment of his life. Not even his suicidal confrontation with the Krampus a year ago had filled him with such sanity-devouring fear.

Eventually, though, he had come to love the skies. Up here, he was home. Up here, he was free.

Above him, the bell finally began to run out of momentum and dip back toward the ground. Justin had to admit, Lucas could pitch like no other deer in Val Luminara. He was already five hundred feet above the city, and the bell was still just a vague sparkle in the distance. He did the calculations in his head as quickly as he could, then changed his angle of ascent to one that would—hopefully—let him intercept the bell before it reached the ground.

Flying, he was good at. One of the best in Laetitia, according to some, though he didn’t like to compare himself to others that way. But making course corrections and guiding him through rough winds was Lena’s job, as his Rider. She could have pointed him in just the right direction to let him catch that bell, letting him focus on getting there as fast as possible.

Unfortunately, he had left her behind with Janitor Jim.

The bell was picking up speed as it fell, so Justin did as well. He had never been able to explain how it was that reindeer flew. It strained his muscles the same way running did, but there wasn’t a particular part of his body that it seemed to come from. The harder he pushed himself, the faster he could go, and the more quickly he would tire out, but all he had to do to make it happen was think about it. And so he did, mentally willing himself to fly faster, faster, FASTER, until he was streaking across Laeticia like a bolt of fuzzy lightning.

“All right, you’ve had your fun. Time to let the pro take over!”

Justin jerked his head around to find Lucas flying a few feet behind him. The other reindeer put on an extra burst of speed, inching ahead of him.

“Why don’t you sit back and take notes?” Justin shot back, putting on enough speed to pull ahead of Lucas. “You might actually learn something!”

Lucas laughed and passed a couple feet in front of Justin. “You think you’re in a position to challenge me?”

Justin moved in front of Lucas. “It’s not a challenge if you can’t put up a challenge!”

“If you're as good as you say,” Lucas asked, “then why didn’t you catch the bell?”

Before Justin could respond, Lucas came to a sudden stop and blasted back the other way—just as the bell came streaking out of the sky and into his waiting hands!

“WHAT?” Justin yelled, spinning around and doing his best to reverse his trajectory back the way he’d come. He had let Lucas distract him so much that he’d completely overshot his target! Growling in frustration, he rapped his knuckles against the side of his head and rocketed off in pursuit.

Whooping in victory, Lucas streaked off across the forest, the bell trailing a beautiful jingling tune behind him. Justin let his energy build, picking up speed. The refreshingly cool breeze became a biting cold wind that stung his eyes, but he ignored it as he chased his best friend across Val Luminara. Lucas had experience on his side—he had already been a reindeer for three years when Justin first came through the portal—but Justin had him beat in terms of raw speed. Vixen had told him that she hadn’t seen a reindeer as naturally fast as him in centuries, and he knew that wasn’t a compliment that she gave lightly.

A glimmer of silver caught Justin’s eye, and he spotted a ring floating just below the treetops in the distance. The scoring ring! If Lucas got there first and put the bell through it, both would disappear and the game would be over! Justin gritted his teeth. He wasn’t going to let that happen—at least not with the bell in Lucas’ hands!

Letting out an exhilarated laugh, Justin felt his powers light up inside of him like a burning Christmas tree…in a good way. His body stretched and shifted, molding itself to become sleeker and swifter. His hands hardened into hooves just like the ones on his legs. His face stretched forward into a true deerlike snout. His clothes vanished in a burst of magic, ready to reappear and cover his naked furry butt the moment he changed back.

And Justin, now a fully-fledged reindeer, shot forward in a burst of speed that made what he’d been doing before look like a flying turtle.

“What th—” he heard Lucas blurt out just before the sheer force of Justin’s speed sent him spiraling uncontrollably away from the hoop. “CHEATERRRRR!”

Justin shifted back into his two-legged form, taking up a defensive position in front of the ring. Lucas still had the bell, but that wouldn’t do him any good if he couldn’t get it through the ring!

Fifty feet away, Lucas finally regained control of himself and came to a stop above the treetops. He saw Justin floating between him and the ring and narrowed his eyes.

“Bring it on, you son of a straggele,” Justin muttered, readying himself for the coming fight.

Lucas hovered in place for a minute, weighing his options—and then abruptly shot to the left! Justin fought the urge to chase after him. That would only leave the ring unguarded, and that was exactly what Lucas wanted. Instead, he revolved around the ring, like a planet circling the sun, keeping himself between it and Lucas as the other reindeer wheeled around at a reckless speed, weaving in between trees without even looking at them.

When it was obvious that Justin wasn’t going to abandon the ring, Lucas changed his tactics. Grasping the bell in both hands, he charged forward at top speed. Justin braced himself, waiting until the last second…

Lucas shot upwards, trying to fly over Justin. Justin reacted just in time, surging upwards as well and grabbing Lucas around his middle in a midair tackle. Lucas grunted, trying to force his way forward to the ring anyway, but Justin threw all of his power against him and the two of them went rolling chaotically through the air away from the ring.

“Let go of me and accept defeat like a man!” Lucas said, driving his elbow into Justin’s spine.

“How about you fight me like a reindeer?” Justin shot back. Keeping one arm around Lucas’ torso, he reached up and grabbed the other reindeer’s antler.

“Oh, cra—” Lucas managed to say before Justin thrust backward on it.

Santa’s reindeer were trained to fly in whatever direction their antlers were pulled in. It was how their Riders guided them without having to use reins like a common horse. It was an unspoken rule that nobody but could touch a reindeer’s antlers except their Rider, but it was an even more widely accepted rule that there were no rules in the Reindeer Games. As soon as Justin pushed on Lucas’ horns, Lucas instinctively shot backwards, crashing into a nearby tree hard enough to send the bell flying out of his hands. Moving fast, Justin planted his hooves against Lucas’ chest and thrust off of him, sending himself soaring through the air in pursuit of the bell.

“Hey, that’s my move!” Lucas yelled after him.

Time seemed to slow down as Justin closed in on the bell, and he caught a glimpse of his own reflection in its rounded golden exterior, wild eyed and grinning as victory came within his grasp. His fingers wrapped around it, and—

Lucas grabbed him by the ankles.

“That,” he yelled, “is mine!”

“Then take it!” Justin yelled back, raising the bell over his head and bringing it crashing down on Lucas’ skull. Lucas’ grip immediately went lax, and he mumbled incoherently—Justin thought he heard the word “baldershmammy” in there somewhere—as he floated half-conscious toward the ground.

With a fire roaring in his heart, Justin blasted toward the ring, raised the bell in one hand, and hurled it into the exact center of the spinning silver hoop. There was a flash of light, the sound of trumpets shook the air, and both the ring and bell vanished.

A few minutes later, with Lucas’ arm around his shoulders, the two of them descended back into Laetitia. Justin’s heart was still doing gleeful backflips after his victory. They were probably going to get into trouble once Vixen found out that they had ditched work to play Reindeer Games—not to mention that Lucas had probably stolen the bell in the first place—but for the moment, nothing could…

They landed in front of the toyshop where Justin had been working, and found Lena standing on the street talking to another elf.

The look she gave him snuffed his good mood like a candle in a blizzard.