Atnas
I didn’t mean it. Honest.
They say never to make decisions when you’re angry; but considering there’s not a moment in the past year where I haven’t been angry, I figured an exception could be made.
Why wouldn’t I be miffed? Three-hundred years in the service just to get canned—pension revoked, pointy shoes confiscated, jingle bells ceremonially muted. Truly it was the walk of shame.
The Big Man caught me skimming toys off the other elves’ lines and just like that I’d been handed my notice. ‘Freeloader’ they called me. Where to go. What to do. For a time I considered heading south and trying my luck at blending in, but vestiges of that Will Ferrell movie began to stir in my head and suddenly moderate (s)elf respect turned me against the idea. I could not, I would not end up like that. I’m not an object of amusement—I’m an elven being!
Why do I gotta’ pay the price? It was Bauble who asked if I’d retrieve a few nutcrackers for her. I got ’em off Tinsel’s line, then Mistletoe’s line, then Bob’s. Little did I know none of the aforementioned had given the green light for this. Bauble had been falling behind off and on all year, and she’d been threatened with the dreaded pink slip (yes they still have those in the North Pole; I know—dreams crushed, childhood ruined). She told me all these elves had consented to help her by donating a few wares to the cause. And I could give a very detailed explanation of her sins, but why do that when I could just consolidate it—she lied.
She lied and I got caught. Then she gave me the puppy eyes, so I wound up taking the full rap like the sucker I was. Yep, I’m the freeloader. Me. Employee of the Month 1859 through 1940. Not a deadline missed, and I tell you I was a legend. But that’s over, so...I’m not bitter. I’m still sugar sweet. Sweet as a candy cane. Whoops, it broke. Ignore that.
But onto my regrets. I almost forgot. Two weeks ago Christmas whirred around, as it is wont to do, so I decided to play a little trick on Santa. See, I’d heard of this...special mirror known to invert the personality of the subject and thence materialize said personality. The elves all knew of this mirror, informally nicknamed Rorrim. Nobody really knows where it came from. Legend has it that a thousand years ago a group of elves accidentally messed up building...something and their mistakes culminated in Rorrim. To which I reply, how in the South Pole do you even manage that? That takes some talent in itself. But no matter, it exists, and it’s kind of a taboo among the elves due to its inherently dark nature. Fortunately we have a system. We throw a sheet with happy snowmen faces over it to hide the evil aura seeping from its pores. Problem solved.
But I, being a genius, removed the sheet, and swapped Santa’s normal mirror with Rorrim. Banal revenge, blah, blah. I didn’t think it would be that big of a deal. I mean, Santa’s antithesis is already rumored to exist. Krampus anyone? But Rorrim put something of a darker spin on it. The thing that stepped out of the mirror looked like a scrawny, leathered Santa, who wore chains like a Christmas tree wears garland and whose eyes were much, much redder than my comfort zone could tolerate. He scrambled off, jacking Santa’s sleigh and leaving all the presents behind in the snow. It didn’t take long for us to realize: what’s the opposite of someone who gives?
Someone who takes.
And this wasn’t just a ‘bad kids get punished’ sort of deal. Anti-Claus was bent on punishing everyone, naughty or nice. Like Santa, he made a list and he did indeed check it twice, but this was more in the vein of...the death list from Kill Bill. You DID NOT want your name getting checked off of that list.
Beside himself, Santa rushed to check the coordinates of his sleigh. You see, there’s a tracker installed near the backup motor, in the case of something like this happening—well, not this specifically, just a sleighjacking in general. I’d...be highly concerned if it was the former. Anyways, Santa got the coordinates and it turns out Atnas (yes I just called him that) had yet to reach any houses. He was flying over a field, so Santa hit the emergency eject button and changed his course if you catch my drift. Yes there’s an emergency eject button in Santa’s office that’s synced with the sleigh. I think it’s in case terrorists hijack it—I don’t know; the man’s thought of everything.
So Atnas fell—but he didn’t die. That would’ve been too easy. No, it wasn’t two hours before a breaking news report came to our attention. A strange figure had been spotted wandering along the outskirts of a forest in Iceland.
I’d like to pretend I acted all cool......but honestly I had a practical aneurysm over the prospect of this thing actually killing someone because, yeah, it would kind of totally be my fault. We needed a way to subdue him. But how?
How did we resolve this giant pickle, you might ask. Well, I could tell you that we dispatched a whole elven militia complete with Glock 17s and full drone warfare to perform reconnaissance and terminate Atnas. But honestly Clumsy Klaus just snagged his toe on the mirror and it tipped over and broke. Apparently that’s all you needed to do to kill a Rorrim creation.
That’s it?
WHY DIDN’T I THINK OF THAT?!?!?!
Maybe I deserve to be fired.
So yeah. Moral of the story. Stay away from anything that seeps evil aura: even if it’s covered with a pleasantly inviting snowman sheet.
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Notes: And yes Rorrim has been done before, I think multiple places but I could be wrong. When I was younger I saw the “My Babysitter’s a Vampire” take (having looked it up--a tad different; I think it was just a vengeful spirit in the mirror that possessed people and made everyone it possessed bad regardless; I don’t think it turned you opposite or materialized anything) and I and my friend(s?) consequently paired a similar take with Santa Claus...for some reason. I once did a picture of Santa looking into a mirror and seeing his evil reflection. I...don’t know what became of this drawing, but it was pretty cool.