Mrs. Claus

By Moe Lane

**Flaming
Feather**

Corporeal Forces: 1
Strength: 2
Agility: 2
Ethereal Forces: 4
Intelligence: 8
Precision: 8
Celestial Forces: 3
Will: 6
Perception: 6

Vessel: sweet, plump old lady/3

Skills: Dodge/3, Enchantment/6, Fighting/3, Knowledge (The Marches/3, Tsayadim/3), Move Silently/2, Small Weapon/6 (Knife), Tactics/3

Songs: Artifacts (Celestial/1), Draining (Celestial/1), Dreams (All/3), Entropy (Ethereal/6), Forbidding (Celestial/1), Light (Celestial/2), Might (Ethereal/2, Celestial/2), Shadows (Corporeal/1, Ethereal/1), Seals (Ethereal/1, Celestial/3), Shattering (Celestial/1), Shields (All/2)

Servants: elves/4 (Class/4)

They never pay attention to her, you understand. The Tsayadim, that is.

At first Mrs. Claus simply tried to discover why the Tsayadim hated HIM so greatly. HE isn't a bad person, despite all the nasty things that Hell's done to HIS legend: HE just likes to make toys and give them to good children. HE brings them toys, and they believe in HIM. When you consider all the sorts of things that kids could believe in - all sorts of nasty, horrible things - believing in HIM isn't a bad thing at all. Right?

Apparently not, from point of view of the Tsayadim. It never fails: every year, when belief in HIM is at its height, HE would go out with HIS sleigh and HIS sack of toys - knowing what would happen - and every year, HE wouldn't come back. A day or week later, though, there'd be a crash at the door ... and Mrs. Claus would silently come out to find HIS broken, mutilated body. That wasn't the worst part, though: the worst part would be nurturing the new HIM that would almost immediately pop into existence ... all the while knowing that HIS fate would invariably be the whip and the torch. HE would always rise to the challenge, always promising her that this year would be the year HE came back to her. HE never does.

Mrs. Claus is tired of burying her husband. So very, very tired.

The mistake that those sadistic murdering fanatics keep making is, of course, that they never think to attack her: after all, what's the fun in slaughtering HIM if there isn't someone to weep and wail at the sight of HIS corpse? She makes sure to give them a nice, histrionic show every year; she almost never sees them, but she knows that they're there. Every so often, she gets a glimpse of one as she goes back into her newly-lonely cottage.

And, every so often, a Tsayadim on solo patrol in the Marches or on Earth disappears, never to be seen again. This happens all the time, of course, and always in areas of high risk: his, her or its fellows will conduct a search, but it's a dangerous universe out there. These things happen, after all. There's never any evidence that would suggest a search of Mrs. Claus' cottage - the Tsayadim don't even realize that it has a basement. Basements, really - after all, the toys have to be made somewhere. They most assuredly are not aware that the lowest basement of all is her workshop, not HIS. Or that she has some truly special tools down there.

What happens to those lost Tsayadim?

Well, have you ever really looked at those angels that you find on top of Christmas trees? Probably not: after all, they're just ... well, dolls. Toys.

But, sometimes, if you find the right one, you just might notice that the expression on one seems just slightly off. That there may just be a hint, a suggestion, a whisper of pain carved onto its immobile face. That there's just the flicker of awareness in those painted eyes... But that's impossible, of course, so pour yourself another egg nog and forget about it. It's just holiday stress. It was merely your imagination running away from you. Perfectly understandable.

After all, 'tis the season.

**Flaming
Feather**

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