Zithra’s gaze blinked to Shida and to the weapon in her hand. There was clear conflict in his crazed eyes, but what it was sourced from was uncertain. From his chest started a melodic thrumming as he swayed in a light side to side pace, anger and frustration building up.
“Mean one… termites in my smile… tender sweetness… crocodile… thirty nine and a half foot pole.” he garbled in half sung words that were laced with venom, then in a spike of rage he bent down and ripped his poorly sewn back sock free and threw it harmlessly at the women, “It’s too tight! Too tight! Head not on quite right! Wrong wrong WRONG!” He screeched, seeming to struggle at making his advance, as if his mind was tugging him into two different directions.
His tail cracked at the walls and floor in a tantrum-like fit, seeming to make himself even more furious.
“Rrrrahh! That’s the one thing I hate! All the noise, noise, noise, noise!” He recited in a mad ramble.
-Naughty-
Zithra’s eyes widened once more, but this time it was of stressed terror.
“No! No more noise! I’ll be poise! No more noise! I’ll be poise! No more- rrrrahAHAHHHH” falling to his knees the Manarain clutched the sides of his head as black fluid began to leak out from his plumes.
Chak wished to know what to do, trying to force her mind to come up with any other solution than the immediately merciful one.
Then, she remembered something.
“Shida… you read this story… in the basement. The green monster who tried to ‘steal’ Christmas. How did it end again? What exactly happened?” she questioned as she walked next to her friend, “His heart grew. But it was a metaphor. Hearts are a Terran symbol of compassion. His heart needs to grow again.” Then on a gamble she started to move toward the screeching menace.
Stepping around the severed head, the Princess limped up and took hold of the thrashing Zithra.
Immediately the Manarian twitched in repulsion and bit down hard into the disguised Cali’s shoulder. A dark red spread around the cartoonishly wide closed maw, staining the pink turtleneck sweater even more than it already was.
Wincing and gritting her teeth, Chak only held the man tighter.
“It’s okay Zithra… you’re okay.” She whispered, “Let us take the noise away… alright? We can do that for you. We got you.”
Zithra’s body twisted and spasmed in protest, his muffled screeching saying nonsense as whatever plagued him attacked him relentlessly. His clawed tail curled up to grab at the woman, but stopped short inches from her back.
He then let out a drawn pleading moan, as his tail limply clattered to the hardwood floor.
“Shida and I promised each other that we’d leave this place together, and we will. No matter what it takes.. But that doesn’t mean we have to leave you behind either.” Chak assured tenderly, “You’re not alone. We’re here for you Zithra. We came back for you. Please… let us take you back.”
The screeches and moans devolved into whimpering as the rest of his body gives up, however the maddening pain is still clear as ever on his face.
“That’s right. Let’s get you out of here.” the Cali reassured him.
The nose of the dismembered head then started to flicker as it’s face began to twitch in rage.
Immediately, the decapitated skull was eviscerated by another round of heavy metal being blown through it at super sonic speeds. Staring at it for a moment longer to make sure the movement had ceased, Shida let her weapon sink down for a second, letting out a long, drawn out sigh of relief.
Taking one hand off her weapon, she briefly wiped a bit of sweat from her brow. She had only been a fraction of a second away from blowing the manarian’s head off just as she had just done with ol’ Rudolphs, had he not relented the moment that he did.
She took a few more deep breaths to calm herself, before looking around.
“Yeah, let’s get him out of here,” she then finally confirmed, looking at Chak in a warm mixture of admiration for her courage and utter terror at her foolishness. Still, she gave the princess a warm smile as she moved to a relatively free wall.
Seeing as she was currently clad in ‘good magic’ all over, she didn’t bother with taking out any specific item as she began to concentrate on encouraging the opposing forces at work here to separate from one another, as the ‘good magic’ eagerly wanted to leave this dreary place.
As she could feel the tingling of something beginning to happen underneath her hand, the entire replica of the Light’s house began to slightly tremble, and ominous droning sound filling the air along with it.
-Naughty-
The feeling encompassed everything around, no less palpable and clear than any spoken word would’ve been.
At first, Shida just got angry. She had had it up to here with that stupid, binary logic of this place. However, much like it had happened for Chak earlier, something suddenly came to her.
An annoyingly catchy tune, playing somewhere in the back of her mind.
“[...] he’s making a list. And checking it twice. He’s gonna find out who’s naughty or nice. [...]”
At first she just dismissed it annoyedly, but then, as the tingling under her hands increased, and the trembling of the room intensified, she started to think about it.
She wasn’t going to kid herself, she wouldn’t have been able to do what Chak had just done. To put all of her trust into someone they had basically just met like that? No. She didn’t have the capacity for it. Yet Chak didn’t even hesitate. Putting all of herself out there and very realistically risking her own life, just to only so much as comfort the man.
Yet she was supposed to be naughty?
And Zithra, on the other hand. He had stopped his attack. Despite the maddening magic and the intense pain he was clearly under, he had stopped. Not only that, he had stayed behind here while Chak had escaped, despite the effect this place had on him. And even before all that, he had protected the children, putting their safety before his own. And all that while being a manarian.
Yet he was supposed to be naughty?
“You’re wrong,” she firmly announced, vocal words breaking out of her without her even thinking about saying them aloud. “I don’t know what messed up operations you run here, but there’s no way these two are on the naughty list. Something must be wrong. We…we need to check it again. Check for mistakes. The list is off this year. These two are mine. They have to be.”
Chak dragged Zithra up, surprised by how lightweight he was. Then Again, perhaps she shouldn’t be, remembering how feathery light Jamie was.
In far too much untrusted pain to be of much help, all the Manarian could do was continue to bite down on the disguised Cali and let her drag him through to hopeful safety.
Chak hoisted the larger Zithra up next to Shida and looked up at her past an obscuring green ear plume.
“For now you’re Santa, and it’s your list to check twice.” Chak agreed through seething teeth as she bore the intense discomfort of the Manarian fangs digging into her, “Help pull us through?” she requested.
At this point, Shida’s hands had already sunken into the wall as it began to ripple and wave like liquid, but she managed to quickly pull one of them out and wrap it around Chak and Zithra, just as the pull of the magic began to yank her through the solid material and back into her proper dimension.
They slightly tumbled out of the other side, leaving her grasp, however for a second, Shida felt something hold onto her, as she herself was about to fall out of the wall back in the ‘living world’. A strong grasp held her back for only a moment, causing her to be the last to come back out despite being the first to enter, however it let go of her almost as soon as she had fully noticed it, and the portal closed behind them with no issue, leaving Shida to suspiciously stare at the now once again inconspicuous piece of empty wall space.
“See? You’re in a better place now… Feel better?” Chak asked the still clinging Manarian.
“Hahhhh…” Zithra gasped as he finally released her and fell down to the floor, “Quiet… it’s so quiet…” he cried in exhaustion.
Chak let him be as she cupped her hand over the deep bite mark on her shoulder, her magically gifted tank of adrenaline finally running out. Her shaking legs held her up just long enough to fall back on the now solid wall and slide down leaving a bloody streak.
“Holy jingling bells… you did it!” Doodle’s voice said as he ran to the center of the room, which was darn near sparkling clean.
Immediately, Shida had her weapon raised at the elf.
“Identify yourself. I don’t care how,” she ordered forcefully, and the elf recoiled slightly from her yell. If this was Doodle, shooting him would have no real effect anyway. Still she would like to avoid it if it was really him.
“Whoa-whoa! Got it boss, uhhhmmm… uh… well… there’s something I've been meaning to say to you. For once in my long service to Santa… I’ve never appreciated my stature more when closely following behind. Usually it’s quite the bummer, but with you leading the charge- “he snapped his fingers causing a sparkling aviator shades to appear over his eyes, “-my elfy heart’s grown three sizes!” he snapped his hands again, but other than flavorful sparks of glitter he just made finger guns in her direction.
Shida sighed.
“Shut your face, Doodle,” she ordered, and the head of the elf was nearly whipped to the side with how violently his mouth closed on its own. Yep, this was him alright.
Slightly relaxing, she allowed her weapon to sink down, before she began to hurry over towards Chak, getting to her knees besides her.
“Let me see that,” she said as she tried to slightly pull Chak’s hand to the side in order to inspect the wound. As Chak hesitantly complied, her hands seemingly only unwillingly moving aside as they would much rather keep pressure up on the pain, Shida looked at her with twinkling admiration in her eyes. She had really pulled through here. To suffer such a wound willingly, well, she had only seen something like that one time before. “Does it hurt a lot?”
“Oh… very much.” Chak nodded with a trembling smile, “But unless Manarians are secretly venomous, I don’t think it’s too bad.” the princess said, trying to ease the feline’s fears as she leaned her head against the wall with a soft thump.
Shida quickly rummaged through her pockets, pulling out the small sack of disguise powder after a moment of searching and pressing it into Chak’s hand. While what she said was true right now, who knows how much worse the situation might be should she turn back into a Cali at the wrong time.
Then Shida exhaled slowly, putting a hand onto Chak’s uninjured shoulder while looking at the disguised woman’s face intently. Blinking slowly, she spoke up.
“Chak,” she said, her tone obscure and unreadable. “Do you remember what we talked about the first night we spent here?”
The Princess’s eyes opened in thought, her recollection muddied by her adrenaline crash.
“I… remember… something about that night.” she softly smiled as her cheeks flushed, “But… I recall the pictures, telling you how much I trust you… among other things… What are you referring to exactly?”
“Okay, you remember,” Shida said with a nod before letting out another huffing exhale, as her grip on Chak’s healthy shoulder tightened slightly, her eyes closing for a moment. Then, they opened back up, looking directly into Chak’s, as she stated, “Well: Screw all that. If and when we make it out of here, I’m going to rock that five-foot world of yours.”
With that, she stood up again, walking over towards the wall with the previously demolished shelves.
Even through her disguise, there was a glimmer in Chak’s red irises. The effects of her exhaustion dampening in the following moments.
“Oh… okay…” she uttered with far more breath than voice. Finding a surge of strength from somewhere in her, she dragged herself up into a standing position, keeping a bracing hand on the wall.
In the meantime, Shida had made it to her destination of all the many, many useless books that were stacked up on the shelves of the Lights. Completely beyond caring at this point, she pulled one of them out from the stack and flipped through it until she found a page that was blank on one side, heedlessly ripping it out of the tome and putting it down on the table blank-side up.
Then, reaching an open hand out behind her, she ordered,
“Doodle, I need a pen.”
With a snap of his fingers a twinkling golden inked quill appeared in his hand before holding it up for his Santa to use.
“Hmem-mmh!” he loyally presented in a stifled hum.
Taking the item with an annoyed sigh at its antiquity, Shida began to write. As fancy as she could, she scribbled a bit “NICE” on top of the page, underlining it with a thick swirl.
Then, she made two dashes underneath it, figuring that “Santa” was likely not supposed to go on the list.
“Chakalata’Motaas” she wrote next to the first one. However, for the second one, she slightly paused.
“You got a full name there, Zithra?” she asked the now almost unconscious looking Manarian still huddled up on the floor of the room.
“...Zithra Blake.” he said in an almost euphoric daze, “I’ve been called a lot of things… but that’s what I call myself… after her…” he informed as she rolled onto his back and wings, spreading all his limbs out as if he was about to make the king of invisible snow angels.
As he answered, Chak blinked in sudden confusion, one of her hands reached up to her chest and rubbed it as if searching for something.
“I feel… strange…” she whispered, “Good strange…?” she clarified, still unsure of what was occurring.
“Well, let’s hope that that’s good enough for this thing,” Shida mumbled as she scribbled down ‘Zithra Blake’ onto the paper. Then she briefly paused. For a moment, she was wondering if she should just put down a bunch more names. Trying to take as much influence away from that thing as possible by declaring everyone to be her responsibility. However, a bad feeling in her gut stopped her. As much as she wanted to tear this all down, she felt like in this case, she had to respect the rules. She could only declare those as nice who she was convinced deserved it. Otherwise, her list would be just as void as she had declared Krampus’ to be. And who knew what might’ve happened if they both turned out to be wrong.
Then, she slowly skulked over towards the lying Zithra. With her hand outreached, she made the magic sack, that still was leaned against one wall of the room, bounce into her hand with magical enthusiasm.
“Well, Zithra Blake, it seems that you were a really good boy this year,” she announced, a hand reaching into the sack, as she felt emboldened by the influence of her magic after fulfilling another of Santa’s roles, for better or for worse. “Let’s see what ol’ Claws has got here for you.”
You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.
After fishing her fingers through nothing for a few seconds, something was magically passed into her hand. It was cold and smooth and had a strange form and a metallic spring to it.
She pulled her hand out and looked at the item the sack had decided to gift to the manarian at her behest.
They were…Earmuffs? Two large, blue, plastic cup shapes filled with thick, dampening fabric, connected together by thin metal rods that were covered by padding.
“I don’t think the noise was meant literally…” she mumbled, however, she still handed the item down to the man, who looked up to it with strangely big eyes.
Taking them as if they were made of hair-thin glass, he slowly looked them over and lifted his head off the floor to slip them on.
Suddenly his breathing staggered out as his chest convulsed.
Chak and Shida watched -in a bit of horror- as a cartoon-shaped heart imprint thrummed itself in and out of his chest cavity. It happened in three successions, growing bigger and bigger until upon its third rise, the heart dissipated as if it lost its integrity and spread like a wave. As it did so, the green that corrupted the Manarains fur faded back to its lavender-like purple, sparing stubborn green tips.
“Ooohhh, mannn…” he softly said in a drawn breath that was nearly caught in his throat from raw emotion, “Thank you… these are… perfect.” he said, having not even acknowledged his own transformation.
Shida breathed a bit lighter.
“Well, that was needlessly dramatic,” she mumbled looking down at the man, when suddenly, she noticed something on the gift she had just given him. On one side, a tiny piece of paper was seemingly stuck to it with the tiniest bit of glue. Leaning down, she picked it off of plastic exterior, holding it very carefully since she did not trust any strange pieces of paper at this point, the burn on her wrist reminding her of that.
There were just two words written on the tiny piece, spelled out in an almost beautiful, swirly handwriting, that was nothing like the one she had seen on the piece of the list she had gotten earlier.
“You’re welcome” it read. Somehow, the sight of the writing alone caused a deep, warm feeling to well up within Shida - which she didn’t trust at all. Quickly, she tossed the piece aside, deciding that she wanted nothing to do with that.
Instead, she turned over towards Doodle.
“You can talk again, by the way,” she informed him, before looking over at the stairs and asking, “So, what’s the status on the doubles upstairs? Are they still around giving these two a bad reputation?”
“Ah well boss, they did try to come down but the door held true! The mom of the house came asking questions about pipes. But- ahem- ‘Looks like everything’s all good! No leaks! A shelving screw came loose tho, books everywhere, easy clean up.’” he spoke using Shida’s own voice, “‘Yeah mom, we’re good. Just having a girl’s talk while we’re at it, be up soon!’” he added mimicking Mary’s voice, “Ahem- Last I heard the fake two said they had to step out for a bit. Don’t think they’ve come back yet.” he reported, hammering a salute to his forehead, “How’d I do?”
“Well, I guess I can allow it just this once,” Shida mumbled after shuddering at the imitation of her own voice for a moment. Then she glanced up and looked around confusedly. “Wait, where is Mary?”
“Ah. Right!” Doodle hurried over and pointed behind the bar island, where a slumbering Mary had a chair pillow propped under her head and a journal held to her chest, “She woke up a few times, quite the hassle, but the sleep spell fully took hold eventually… I don’t know if I have magic glands, but they are sooooo sore right now…” he said with slumped shoulders.
Shida’s eyes narrowed at the sight of the journal the woman was clutching.
“Where did she get that?” she asked, pointing at the little booklet.
“Oh, I retrieved it when we were first trapped in Kampus’s… place. It had this sense of… importance there?” Chak informed as she staggered over, “I believe it’s her childhood journal. I glanced through it and from it I got the message that she grew up very sad. Her parents never listened to anything she had to say, and… well trapped her in how they wanted her to live. She wanted to leave so badly, I’m guessing that’s why she left this town for ‘the city’ when she could, although it didn’t log that far into her life. I was hoping to look into it further, but… not-Shida happened and then… well yeah.”
Doodle rubbed his chin before lifting a hand and looking up at Shida.
“Want me to swipe it, boss?” he offered.
Shida shook her head.
“Nah, let her have it. Maybe we should let her sleep it off. Might help with her ‘sparkler’ problem,” she mumbled while lifting her weapon again briefly inspecting it and harmlessly clearing a round out of the chamber before checking her magazine for how many she had left, clicking it back into place with a sigh when she saw that it was more than enough. “For now, let’s go take care of Kahc and Arhtiz up there, before they do any serious damage. People already think that you two are engaged.”
She pointed at Chak and Zithra to clarify who she was talking about.
“I figure a quick and easy end is the right thing for these creatures,” she then added as she loaded the chamber of her weapon again.
“Heh… Kahc…” Doodle snickered.
“Engaged…? Why? Gross…” Chak muttered as she checked her pulse pistol.
Zithra sat up and stood, seeming to be feeling invigorated.
“Ouch. But fair. So… can I get a cool gun too?” he asked the room, “A refreshed disguise might be necessary too if I’m going up there.”
“Moments ago you were thinking about turning me into your own personal reindeer…” Chak pointed out, “So at the very least say ‘Please, can I get a cool gun too?’, okay?”
“Uhm… fair… If you think it’s a good idea, please can I get a cool gun too? I am on the nice list now… and my hunting bow was burned in the watchtower so… really anything would be nice right now.” he replied.
“Oh! I can oblige with that!” Doodle announced before snapping his fingers. Upon the bar island appeared a red and white striped compound bow with a matching theme quiver of arrows, “Magic bow!”
His plumes perking up, Zithra picked the bow up and looked it over.
“Tacky… but magic is magic.” he shrugged.
“Wait… why would you even have access to that? I thought that was something only the sack could provide?” Chak asked Doodle.
“Well it’s mine. I may be a ‘Christmas’ elf but I’m still an elf. Archery is kinda our thing. Lord of the Rings said so!” he replied as he crossed his arms, “The disguise stuff is on the boss herself.”
“I literally gave it to Chak just moments ago,” Shida said, rolling her eyes, before looking at Zithra. “And sorry, we didn’t bring spare guns. Kinda didn’t expect to pick anyone up along the way when we jettisoned out of our ship. Though, if old movies are anything to go by…I mean I don’t really know the people that live here, but I wouldn’t be surprised if you managed to find a gun somewhere around here if the “Magic Bow” isn’t really doing the trick for you.”
She then waved them all along as she made her way towards the stairs, briefly glancing over at Chak to see that she was fiddling with the tiny sack containing the powder.
“Right! Right… mind is… elsewhere, uhm, here.” Chak stammered as she casted a bit of the powder over the Manarian.
Zithra’s form shifted to the usual looking human form. The differences being that his earmuffs altered to accommodate his new head and his spiky hair and beard was now Manarian-purple with brighter green highlights within them.
Slinging the quiver to his back he nodded and followed the two women up the stairs.
With a snap of Doodle’s fingers, the magic lock holding the door shut scattered into sprinkling sparkles.
As the group funneled out a voice spoke up from the kitchen.
“Dinner’s just about ready! Give it five more minutes!” Mary’s mother notified.
“Mom? Where’s Zithra and Chak?” Doodle called back in Mary’s voice.
“Out back I think, they wanted to see your father in his shed for something! Could you go get them for me?” the mother replied.
“Sure thing!” Doodle responded.
Quickly, everyone exited out of the front door and started to track around the side of the big house. The ‘shed’ turned out to be a fairly large car shop. The two big metal garage doors were shut, but lines of bright light leaked out of their bottoms showing that at least someone was in there.
Within sight, there was a white side door that could grant access as well.
“I’m gonna check ‘round back to see if there’s another door.” Zithra said as he picked up his pace and spit from the group, “Don’t want them to sneak out.”
“If fake-Shida, or… Asihs? Uhm, if she showed me anything, they seem to take injuries like we do. It took a hit to the head to stop her though.” Chak informed before the Manarian could get too far to not hear.
“You know, I’m not all that easy to knock down either,” Shida said and waited for a few seconds to allow the Manarian to get all the way around. Then, figuring that there was little chance of them ‘getting away’ at this point, she moved towards the door. Indicating for everyone else to be quiet, she lifted her fist and loudly knocked against the door.
“Uh…Mister Light? It’s Shida. I, uh, I fixed up the pipes and the shelf, and your wife told me that Dinner’s just about ready. Are you all just about done in there?” she shouted out, her rifle held in a ‘ready’ position behind the door so it could greet anyone and anything that might want to come through there.
The lights from within flick off, and after a few moments of silence there’s a response.
“Ah good! Yeah you can let her know I’ll be there in about ten minutes! Just gotta wrap up my project and clean up!” Mr. Light’s voice replied from deep inside the shop.
Doodle’s pointy ears wiggled and his brow scrunched. Looking to Shida he urgent points at his own mouth while shaking his head. He then mouthed the words ‘Not him’.
Shida nodded her head sideways.
Well, that was easy enough.
“Well, what’s the project? Y’all were gone so suddenly when I came back up, why, I might think you’re trying to keep me out of the fun. You’re that mad that I tried to talk our lovebirds out of dinner, are you?” she sweetly called back and started to reach for the handle.
Chak readied herself to follow, lifting her pistol up prepared for escalation.
Suddenly the grinding sounds of a garage door lifting up roared to life, but before it could get full clearance Dagon’s car scraped out and bolted for the driveway in a screeching dash. From out the window a rapid firing submachine gun peppered out at Shida specifically.
Expecting to get struck at least once as several bullets impacted the sides of the metal sheeting wall around her, a green streak flashed in front of her.
Collapsing into the snow from the dramatic leap, a riddled Doodle curled up and coughed up minty red blood.
Chak fired back as the vehicle fled, striking its rear back tire. Sparks exploded from under the car as metal met cement, but it persisted in its flight. Rushing out from the garage with his bow drawn, Zithra gauged his aim and let loose. The arrow soared and transformed into a beam of light akin to a shooting star as it guided itself down onto the car’s hood in a powerful impact. Out of control, the car careened directly into nearby woods.
Almost immediately two silhouetted occupants dive out and drag a third out from the back as they run for forest cover.
“The father’s still inside, unconscious!” Zithra updated before he started sprinting down the driveway in pursuit.
Shida gave the curled up elf a brief, pitiful look, before also taking up pursuit. Too bad his heroics in saving her life had also stopped her from returning fire. Her rifle was quite good at stopping things.
Instead she now tore down the driveway after their escapees, who inexplicably had Dagon’s car. Hopefully the man was alright. Either way, they would get the answer out of them. She wasn’t sure what exactly they intended to do by hiding, seeing as their tracks were still very clearly visible after they trudged through the deep snow, making it quite easy to follow them.
As she ran, she lifted her fingers to her mouth and let out a brief whistle.
From the side of the property, something shook itself loose from the deep snow and tore towards her at blinding speed, leaving a trail of sparkles in its wake, before welcomingly sliding along the ground in front of her feet. Allowing her to hop on, the flat, fancily colored board on wheels then sprung into the air, picking up speed with each moment that passed while she balanced on its rough, black surface and began to aim her weapon.
After getting out of the police station, she had needed a new ride, and the pallet truck was far too attention grabbing, so she had….”procured” this instead. And now, it was time to show these fools that you don’t mess with this Santa.
With Chak’s injuries there was no way she could keep up on foot. She knew that she had already done her part by taking out the mockery of Shida, but leaving her allies to fight alone wasn’t something she was willing to do. Especially with only Shida getting there first.
With a determined breath she recalled falling out of the hospital window, and took hold of that moment in her mind.
As she ran, her platform boots started to leak sparkles. Her leg motions shifted from running to something like skating as they lifted from the ground. Swiftly catching up to Zithra, she gifted his wings back by becoming them. Taking hold of his ‘Bat Boy’ jacket she scooped him up, finding her influence making him just as weightless as her.
“Whoa-wha- Oh heck yeah!” The man initially panicked, but quickly adjusted as he knocked another arrow.
A small red light started to flicker in front of Chak’s face, but with a snapping shake of her head it extinguished like a suffocated candle. Pulling above to Shida’s right, Chak’s face hardened with focused determination. In this moment she was the magic’s master, not the other way around.
More peppering shots from the trees wildly rained towards the group of pursuers. The two on the run seemed to split up, ‘Arhtiz’ carrying the extra body over his shoulder.
Zithra loosed another light arrow at his dopplegänger. It purposefully landed in front of him, before exploding into a flash-bang light effect. Arhtiz flailed onto his back, sending his hostage to roll away in the shallow snow.
Shots ringing out from the other direction made the two look around for only a moment, before Chak quickly averted her eyes as she saw her- although disguised- eviscerated self falling to the ground in a large, black splodge, as the hypersonic bullet tore through her guts. And like that, Kahc was no more.
Shida then brought her sleigh around, stopping dead after a moment and slinging thick snow all around her as she lost her momentum.
Her eyes were glued to the dead version of human Chak for a few moments longer, before she eagerly averted her eyes.
“Wow,” she mumbled as the others also came to a halt, descending towards the fallen yet alife foe and the unconscious hostage. “That was not fun.”
Deciding not to dwell on it, the feline then also turned over, slowly hovering towards the spot where the Zithra imitation had fallen.
Clutching its face the not-Zithra stood up in a stagger, chuckling darkly. As his laughs grew in intensity he blind fired his weapon in every-which direction. But before his vocals could escalate to manic, they were cut short from an arrow sinking into his neck. As a reactive hand lifted to it, his entire head and shoulders erupt in a flash.
As the afterimage faded from onlooker’s eyes, the remains of the body had crumpled to the ground in a smoldering heap.
Landing both herself and Zithra to the forest floor, Chak hurried to the overturned body of Dagon.
Pushing him over so that he faced the sky, she immediately noticed cuts all over his body. All creating an array of unknown symbols. Around the man’s head was a thick chain circlet with holly woven throughout each link.
Feeling for a pulse, she attempted to curse in relief to find one. With effort she yanked at the strange crown, but as though it was perfectly forged to snuggly fit around his brow and temples she was unable to remove it.
“He’s alive! But I need help!” she shouts back to the others as she carefully looks for any release or weakness in the chain.
“Is it only me, or has all this very quickly turned from ‘wacky’ into ‘seriously messed up’ territory?” Shida asked as he passed by the smoldering rest of the Zithra clone and bent down next to Chak. Feeling along the strange crown, she quickly discovered that there wasn’t much to be done about it here. And seeing as, assuming that they could die, all the copies were decidedly dead at this point, she simply moved to pick up the man. Usually, she wouldn’t want to move someone in his condition, but in this case, she could hardly make things worse anymore. “Let’s get him somewhere where he can rest and we can try to figure out what to do here. Leaving him in this cold certainly isn’t going to do him any good.”
Touching his face, the man was already feeling like his temperature had started to drop, and so she made the executive decision to quickly whistle her sleigh over once more. The board happily jumped up and presented itself next to the man, while Shida carefully tried to bring him into an acceptable carrying position.
“At least the house should be clear now…” she added under her breath. Not that the place was her first choice, but it was closest. Also, those people were technically the closest thing Dagon had to a family around here…at least they had been until very recently. And since she didn’t want to bring him to the hospital like…this…it was probably their best option.
“You’re right.” Chak agreed as she pushed up to her feet, in a slight stagger she nearly toppled over if Zithra hadn’t caught her arm to support her.
“Woah, you okay?” he asked as she steadied.
“Yeah… I think I’m going to walk back though. Even Terran bodies get tired, it seems… and the magic… was hard to keep at bay.” she replied in a forced chuckled before brushing snow off her pants.
Shida looked at her worriedly, but Chak wasn’t the one in the most severe danger here. If only she could touch the darn sleigh…
“I’ll come back for you as soon as I can be sure he is safe,” Shida assured her when she finally had Dagon in a position where she could sensibly carry him around on the board. “Can you two look out for each other in the meantime…again?”
A bit of guilt pained her when she realized that she was leaving the two alone again so soon already, even after what had happened the last time.
“It’s not too far, here, I’ll carry ya.” Zithra said as he hooked the string of the bow to his shoulder and bent down in front of Chak.
“Okay… thank you.” Chak agreed wearily as she wrapped her arms around the Manarian’s neck.
Zithra then scooped up the Cali’s legs with his arms and fully picked her up in a piggy back. He looked to Shida and gave her a nod.
“Come back if you think it’s safe to leave him alone, but I’ll start running the two of us over. Shouldn’t be too long. Unless… you want to risk me jumping on the sleigh while she’s on me?” he said as he adjusted the woman on his back to a better grip.
“No!” Shida shouted out, perhaps a bit too eagerly, before clearing her throat and repeating more quietly. “No. Let’s not risk it.”
She readjusted for a moment, trying to keep herself under control.
“Be careful, though,” she then added after somewhat regaining her composure. “She’s a lousy backpack.” Her eyes then looked over at Chak. “If you reach the house before I make it back, the codeword will be the name of the woman you caught my boyfriend in bed with that one time,” she informed the princess before turning over to Zithra. “For you it will be the name of the scientist that finished the encoding a couple of millennia ago. Got it?”
“Pink fur gal… got it.” Chak nodded, not wanting to say the name aloud for anyone to possibly overhear.
“Uhhhm, yeah, yeah. Begins with S and ends with A. I remember.” Zithra agreed, having to mentally dig up knowledge that he hadn’t really thought about in quite a while, “And don’t worry, I carried a hiker with a broken leg for three miles to a ranger station once. He was hitting me the whole time, so I think I can handle this one.”
“At least you’re not as boney.” Chak whispered, giving Shida a knowing teasing wink.
Forgoing a quip about how she was emaciated by many years of sub-par gravity, Shida shook her head for a moment, as she lifted further into the air.
“You give me one as well,” she said, slowly beginning to feel like she really needed to go. “A codeword I mean.”
Chak considered it for a brief moment before deciding.
“The name of the ship the humans rode in on to save us from that ‘serpent’ ship. Now get going, I don’t like that thing on Dagon’s head. And be careful.” she farewelled.
Shida nodded and turned to fly out of there, the magic protecting her and her passenger as she left a sonic boom in her wake, reaching the Light estate again in no time at all.