Shida sighed again.

“You know what? I changed my mind. Shut your face again, Doodle,” she said, before also stepping out of the car, briefly walking around it to help Chak get out, only briefly seeing the angered elf wave his fist at her while making unheard comments that probably weren’t all too nice.

Once she had gotten the Cali out, she put her hands on her shoulders and looked into the red-glowing eyes.

“Listen, Chak, I don’t know what’s going on, but I’m going to need your help here,” she said quietly and brought her face very close to that of the princess. “So…please…try to ignore this weird magic stuff and come back to us, alright? I don’t want a Rudolf. I want my friend. I need my friend. Can you do that?”

Chak’s glazed eyes flash independently from her new nose, sharpening in focus and blinking rapidly.

“I’ll do my best, Sanda- Shida! Shida. I’m Chak. Chakalat- Chak-” she said before rubbing her eyes with her lower limbs and shaking her head, “Chakalata’Motaas. Runaway Princess of the Cali people. Yes, I can do that. And I’ll always be your friend.”

At first, Shida’s face lit up in excitement after hearing her friend seemingly snap out of it, and she was about to pull her into a hug, however…something still seemed wrong about this. Her tone just…still wasn’t quite right. It seemed almost robotic, even if it was hidden between a vague layer of jollyness.

Slowly, the feline exhaled. This would have to do for now.

“I’ll fix you, Chak,” she said, pulling the princess’ head even closer and putting her own forehead against it. “I promise. They won’t get you. Not while I have anything to say about it.”

Then she stood up and turned towards the house, where at the end of a long walkway, the front door was already opened, with happy embraces taking place all over the place.

Mary still looked uncomfortable when presented with the warm welcome of her folks. Then again, she had also just left them standing there while going ahead, so Shida’s sympathy-well was kind of bottomed out at this point.

“Let’s go,” she said, the command immediately registering to both her companions as if it was law, even if she didn’t even speak it as an order.

On her way, she took a few deep breaths…and got her gameface back on.

“Santa’s here!” she exclaimed loudly and took the sack over from Chak as she approached the door, swinging it over her own back. “Sorry to keep you waiting! All the toys in the world are quite heavy to carry, even for a short way!”

She laughed loudly. At this point, she just let her mouth do the talking. She had no real idea what she was even saying, but at least it seemed to work.

“Let me make it up to you,” she then added and, before fully thinking about it, she stuffed her hand into the barely opened sack, before pulling out what looked like a gift-wrapped bottle, that was heavier than the entire thing once she held it in her hand, neatly packed into dark-green paper with red dots across it and tied up with golden band. Instinctively, she held it out to the large man wrapped in a horrible sweater, who she assumed to be their host from now on.

“Well whad’ya know!” the man huffed in merriment before partially unwrapping the gift, “Ha-haa! I was just running out of this! Thank you-uh Santa! Mary, you didn’t tell us that you- Mary?”

From her vantage point, Mary happened to see directly into the sack as Shida dug into it.

Her face was almost reminiscent of the doctor at the hospital upon the realization. However, instead of screaming or running away, she mouthed in a whisper that only Shida could pick up.

“Oh… my god… Santa’s real… and she’s a Cat-girl…”

“Mary?” her presumed mother spoke up, seeming to shock her back in the moment.

“What? Oh, right. Yes these are my… well I… you see we met up outside of town and both happen to be working on parade business so I invited them over. I hope that’s okay?” she recovered.

“Of course it is! They are all just adorable! I’m so glad you’ve made some good friends!” her mother replied, giving Mary another hug, though the word ‘good’ felt like it had some weight to it.

“Aww, thanks mom! Is it okay if they hang out in the basement while we’re here? They have a lot of rehearsing to do and could really use a private space.” Mary requested.

Her mother placed a hand on her chest as if about to cry.

“Anything for Christmas sweetheart!” she accepted before turning back into the house, “Dagon! Mary’s here!”

The presented smile on Mary’s face grew but hardened in place as a stunningly handsome man dressed head to toe in a satan black business suit stepped out from a living room.

“There’s my business partner and beloved fiance!” he warmly welcomed in an impossibly rich voice before taking her into his arms and kissing Mary’s cheek.

His dark eyes glance at the other colorful visitors, especially liking who he sees holding the sack.

“Ahh, wonderful. It’s oh so lovely seeing people embrace the holiday spirit.” he added with a respectful nod, keeping an arm at Mary’s hip.

“Christmas spirit.” the mother playfully scolded.

“But of course…” Dagon replied with a dark chuckle before focusing on his fiance, “Honey there’s something we must discuss. Mind accompanying me into the kitchen for a moment?”

“Oh.. uhm.. Sure. Mom, could you show my friends here to the basement?”

“Right away! Come along now, kick off the snow before you track it in.” her mother directed before leading the trio through parts of the house. If the outside was decorated to a splendorous degree, the interior was just outright sickeningly decorated. They passed by more than two fully decorated trees before the stairway down into the basement was even within reach.

“Just down there. Feel free to anything behind the bar and if you use the pool table I ask that everything is placed back where it was.” the mother said before turning back towards what must have been the kitchen.

“Uh…thanks,” Shida said, but momentarily waited, her ear flicking in the direction of the kitchen, where muffled voices could still be heard. With everything that was going on, she didn’t appreciate conversations happening behind closed doors, so it would probably be prudent to at least see exactly what Mary was spilling there, now that her fiance had pulled her aside.

Maybe she had only feigned the oblivious airhead before, after all, she was apparently in some sort of business, and quite successfully so. And besides that, she also knew that crackpot Officer from earlier.

This all might still be a trap, even if it seemed somewhat unlikely. Better safe than sorry.

“Thank you, Ma’am!” Chak said in a wave before starting to walk down the steps first.

Doodle trailed right behind her humming out an upbeat song, dancing a bit with his arms in merry swings.

Once down, Chak looked around at the less decorated space. A bit confused she peeked back up past the others and back into the basement. Although it could be explained by quirky design, she noticed that the basement had absolutely no common aesthetic to the first floor. As in, in every conceivable way. Different building materials, paint schemes, and all the decorations looked far cheaper in construction and all placed to be appreciated at very specific angles.

Perhaps the space being underground and out of sight had something to do with it, but if Chak didn’t know better she would assume this was a completely different property altogether. Yet the upstairs still seemed to exist, with the muffled voices of their hosts still audibly chatting away,

“I… think I like it much better down here…” Chak mumbled as she passed by a strange table with corner holes and… green fuzzy fabric?

As Shida waited atop the stairs while trying to listen in on the private conversation, she noted that, despite her finer hearing, the voices coming out of the kitchen were way too loud. Despite their voices sounding mostly calm, those two must’ve basically been screaming at each other in the kitchen for her to be able to hear them so clearly.

She was used to humans being quite loud, but this was honestly ridiculous, as it almost sounded like they were talking right next to her, just slightly muffled, as if a piece of fabric was spanned out in between them.

At least it made things easier for her.

“-ave you been getting any of my calls?” Dagon asked, “You had me worried, darling. Didn’t even know if you made it to town or not.”

“Oh uh, no. I guess I just missed them. I hardly even checked my phone all day. See I got a bit lost and ran into an old friend. So, you know, I’ve been a bit distracted.” Mary replied in a simultaneously dismissive and nervous tone.

“Ah, I see… Darling I’m sorry but, you got lost on the one road coming into town?” Dagon said in concern and skepticism.

“Yes. I mean… There was a lot of snow and you know, there’s trail roads.” the woman defended.

“Why would you take- never the matter. So, what friend did you meet with?” the fiance moved on.

Mary released a disbelieving scoff, as if she was just accused of murder.

“A friend, Dagon!” she said indignantly.

There was then an uncomfortably long pause.

“Alright… apologies, I’m being too pushy. Anyways, I’ve just got back some concerns with going over budget and I thought we could sit down and try to work it out before it bites our behinds. This Holiday parade is important to me, and I’m worried that-” Dagon corrected, his tone livening up a bit with a rich chuckle.

“Oh right! Sandra was just touching base with me on that eariler! I think I know what we can do to mitigate costs with a few of the more ‘showy’ floats.” Mary said, matching his tone.

There was another long pause.

“Sweetheart… I thought you weren’t checking your phone? Is everything alright?”

“I’m sorry I’m not perfect Dagon!” Mary sigh-snapped, “I’m just… thinking about things okay!? I’ve had a weird day!”

Sheesh. There was a lot to unpack there. But that really didn’t and probably shouldn’t involve Shida, therefore she decided to high-tail it into the basement, seeing as apparently no trap was planned against them here.

Hurrying down the steps after closing the door behind her, Shida glanced around at the mismatched room for a second.

One of the main things her eyes landed on was a large shelf with rows and rows of very samey looking books, each of which had some variant of the word ‘Christmas’ in its title. The books looked old and were quite thick, with yellowing pages and slowly withering covers.

As obsessed as these people appeared to be…maybe that was a place to start.

“Doodle, you can speak again, but keep comments and opinions to a minimum,” she commanded while gently taking one of the old tomes off the shelf, titled ‘A Christmas Carol’. “I want info out of you, not fluff, got it?”

Then she moved to sit down, ready for a long session of skimming considering the book’s size and thickness. However, as she opened it, she was surprised to find the page’s font to be ridiculously large, to the point that almost only one or two full sentences fit on every single page, which was even further restricted by the sheer amount of pictures and decorative fanciness that surrounded the pages.

She had expected something like that in a kid’s book, but not in an old, dusty tome like this. Well, maybe the other books would be more professional. At least this one would not take too long to read.

“Let’s see what this Christmas thing is all about,” she thought, her eyes digging into the words.

“Once upon a time of all the good days in the year, -ugh, couldn’t they get to the point?- upon a Christmas eve, old Scrooge…”

Poking around the bar, Chak curiously looked over the small decorations and bottles of liquor. Most of which had completely blank labels, and the few that did were poorly printed and didn’t match the quality of the bottles themselves.

She listened to Shida tell the story of an old man suffering from visions of paranormal entities showing him his past, present, and a grim future probably to pass if he didn’t change his greedy mindset. However near the ending, she got a bit distracted as she grabbed something from the wall. A paper planetary calendar of sorts.

However as she flipped through it, confusion and a dread came over her. To such of an extent that the invasive effect slowly settling root in her mind took a bit of a back seat. As the feline wrapped up the story, the Cali walked on over with the calendar in her claws.

“You’re a natural story-teller, boss!” Doodle complimented, “I especially liked the voices you chose for the ghosts!”

Shida slammed the book shut and sighed, moments away from just tossing it to the side before she remembered that it wasn’t hers and she should probably respect her host’s property. Then she listened up.

“Voices?” she asked, not even fully aware that she had even read aloud at all. “I did voices?”

However, since time was tight, she didn’t wait for an answer before standing up and picking the next book from the shelf while putting the first one back where she found it. Hopefully this one would have more useful info. And this time, she would make sure to just read it quietly to herself.

However, opening it, she immediately saw the same, fancy yet wasteful page layout, immediately making her roll her eyes.

Chak opened her mouth to speak, but seeing the focus on Shida’s face caused her to decide to wait. At first she awaited in silence, perking up a bit as her friend started to mindlessly mumble utterances as she read. Then about a third of the way into the story the feline’s voice started to fully read aloud. It was very droning at first, but as she went along a bit enthusiasm was gradually injected. By the end, Chak was enraptured by the story being told, her earlier dread all but forgotten about.

Her lower limbs tapped in a clapping fashion as her uppers squeezed the item she recovered close to her chest.

“Are all Christmas stories so whimsical?” she asked the elf sitting down next to her on the floor.

“Uhh… no, a lot really miss the mark. But the ones that do capture that magic of Christmas to fill your heart? Ain't nothin’ like it!” Doodle replied

Shida once again slammed the book shut with a deep breath.

“At least we now know who Rudolf is, I guess…” she mumbled, reminiscing about the book’s contents. “Though it said nothing about a magic sack in here. Nor the fact that Rudolf isn’t just one reindeer.”

She didn’t even think much about it as she pulled out the next book. Despite the ridiculously large font, she was honestly surprised how fast she managed to fly through the books’ contents. It was like no time had passed at all while she read two whole stories.

Briefly she glanced down at Chak, ruminating on the whole Rudolf thing. Then her eyes caught something.

“What’cha got there, tiny?” she asked, while sitting back down with the new book in one hand. “You in the business of thieving now? Because I’m not gonna scold ya’, but you should probably hide it better than that.”

The Cali tilted her head not quite understanding what Shida was getting at. She looked behind her and around before noticing the very thing in her own grasp.

“Oh… I uhm… uhh…” she said as she looked over the item, trying to recall why she had it. The printed painting of snow forested landscapes on it was very pretty. Perhaps she just wanted her friend to appreciate it?

“Oh!” she chirped in a near shout, as the context came rushing back all at once, “Shida! Something is very wrong! Very, very wrong! This calendar… There's so much wrong with it. Look!” Standing up in a hurry, the Cali flipped through it at Shida’s side, “Every ‘month’ is labeled as ‘December’. December is one of the winter months of Earth, but it’s the last of eleven others that make up the entire year! It could be a gag or misprint or something but- look here,” she then pointed to the front showing the marked year being ‘20XX’ and then flipped it over to the bottom back corner, “It says ‘Made in China’, China was a country nation of Earth’s past. At least on my side. Regardless, this whole calendar is filled out with marks crossing out the daily cycles, but the current one prematurely stops at the 25th… six cycles from now. With all this magic being… real… I fear what will happen by the end of this calendar… and what it means for us.”

If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement.

Shida stared at the item, pondering, and trying to recall how much she knew about Earth. Well, at least Chak seemed to be somewhat normal right now, so that was a relief at least. However all of this was pretty concerning…

Her eyes darted over to the elf.

“Explain shi-...shi-..urgh, explain, crapbasket!” she demanded, and out of all the curses being denied to her, not being able to insult the strange being was by far the worst.

Doodle crossed his arms.

“Despite that being rude, I’m going to answer you instead of making a witty remark. Ahem- No clue.” he shrugged before something itched at his brain, “Well… With you as Santa this year I don’t really see Christmas being a success. I mean, the old boss was on his way here to find his chosen successor, some brat kid I think? You know, help the kid feel the magic of Christmas with a whole message about responsibility and traditional family values so he could perform a miracle to save the rest of the town’s Christmas spirit? Saving Christmas in its entirety. Pretty normal stuff ‘round here.” he explained before shrugging again, “But you put a stop to all that with your little stunt, so… I have no real purpose anymore now that I think about it.”

Shida’s ears flicked upwards.

“Wait, does that mean I can ditch this gig at any point?” she asked, suddenly interested in what the elf had to say. “Sounds like the old guy was already in the process of doing that, so what’s keeping me from doing the same? If I can just tell the sack to shove it and pick someone else, why are we not doing that right now?”

“I mean, you’re free to try! Every instance I can think of Santa has to, you know, bite it first. Not like, bite the sack, but you know.” Doodle made a cutting motion over his neck, “So if we get the kid to accidentally push you into traffic, or cause you to fall off a high roof... Something like that then maybe we can get somewhere. But your friend here would be inherited along with me and the magic. The last Santa planned on slipping on the frozen lake and sinking into the frozen depths when the kid would come up and mistakenly ‘spook’ him.”

“That sounds… so morbid… I-is there really no other way?” Chak said, taking hold of Shida’s hand.

“Uhhhhhhhmmm…” Doodle drew out as he leaned back in thought, “I think some Santa’s in the past could pass the magic on to their kids? I don’t know, it's not like I question how rules work, I just do what I’m told.”

“So there are avenues to take that don’t involve death!” Chak pointed out in genuine frustration, “Who’s to say there’s not even more!?”

“Well… you- sorry, we got six days to figure it out I guess!” the elf figured.

Shida sighed and opened the book she still had in her hand.

“Time to study up, I guess,” she mumbled, and immediately groaned as she once again saw the ridiculous text on the page. “Seriously, are there no normal books around here?”

Flying through one sappy story after another, Shida at some point stopped caring about her seemingly blossoming narrator skills, as reading aloud didn’t seem to slow her down all that much, and it also seemed to somehow shut doodle up whenever she did it, as if her reading itself was hypnotic in some way. Too bad that the same seemed true for Chak most of the time.

Anyway, she began to get some idea about what Christmas seemed to be…even if there were big parts where she still felt like she was missing major context. For example, a guy named “Jesus” was often mentioned, but never elaborated upon, leading her to the conclusion that people were expected to go into these stories with prior knowledge to some degree.

Apparently he was born on Christmas though.

After what usually should’ve been hours of reading, but somehow felt like little more than a few minutes to her, her ear suddenly shot up at the sound of footsteps, second before the door atop the stairs was opened gingerly.

The gait of the human slowly trudging down the stairs indicated that something was heavily on his mind, and his apprehensive and solicitous expression matched it, as the large man in the black suit from earlier descended into view.

Seeing the scene below, he stopped for a moment, while Shida looked up at him, leaving her hand inside the book so she wouldn’t lose her place.

“Forgot we were down here?” she then asked, after he stood and stared for a moment too long for her taste, and she inspected him suspiciously. “Came to get something or are you here to ogle?”

The man blinked and shook his head as he chuckled to himself.

“I may have been eager to separate myself from the, uh… busy-ness up there. And to be quite honest the flashing lights give me migraines. And apologies for staring, whoever does your makeup and prosthetics is first rate. Very convincing. Do you mind if I take a breather down here for a short while?” he said, putting his hands down in his suit pockets.

Shida thought for a second, but then nodded her head invitingly.

“As long as you behave yourself. Watch out, apparently, I got a list for naughty people somewhere,” she joked, briefly lifting up the half-closed book before throwing it open again to continue where she had left off. “Not that it seems like anyone’s ever actually naughty in these…also I haven’t seen coal in…well I’ve only ever seen pictures of coal.”

Her nose buried in the book, her ears flicked for a second, as the bobble of her annoying hat fell onto them uncomfortably, kicking the fluffy thing away in the process.

The man barked a laugh as he made his way in and directly to the bar.

Chak’s eyes cracked dazily open, having at some point fallen asleep leaning up against another chair.

“Well, I think I’ll take my chances. Besides, coal is pretty useful. Well, not to me in particular maybe, but I’d take over another mass produced sweater that I’m never going to wear. Want anything? My first job was bartending, so I doubt you could surprise me.” Dagon offered.

“Neither of us should have alcohol for health reasons,” Shida informed casually, lifting her eyes from the pages for a second. “And the elf is banned from having any.”

She ignored the indignant look Doodle gave her at that as she scanned over the man once again.

“My boyfriend usually wears suits like that when he’s meeting with world leaders,” she commented after a second before her attention waned again. “For a setting like this, a sweater might be more fitting if you ask me. Unless you’re planning on inviting any Councilmen.”

Dagon’s thick and sharp eyebrows lifted up, rather impressed. He bent down and pulled out several bottles with metal cups.

“World leaders, huh? Man, I can only imagine the pressure.” he said as he poured parts of liquid into one of the metal cups, cracked in ice, and then topped it with the other cup to shake, “Sweaters are fine, it’s just… I mean you saw the ones Mary’s folks were weaning. It’s a bit much for me. I might be guaranteed a spot on your naughty list for saying so -and please don’t mention it in front of our gracious hosts- but, I’m just not a big Christmas guy. Never really was.” he then tilted the cups apart enough to drain the chilled liquid into a shallow round glass.

Shida chuckled briefly.

“I’m literally learning what Christmas is right here, right now,” she mused and waggled the book again, her eyes flying across the page. At least talking helped with keeping her from reading aloud. “I’d say you’re good. I don’t even know where that darn list is supposed to be, it always just says that ‘santa has it’...somehow. Can’t help but start to feel that it’s a bunch of hogwash at this point.”

Leaning over slightly and stretching her arm far out, she then briefly patted against Chak’s shoulder, while the Cali was still groggily glancing around.

“Wake up, sleepyhead. We’ve got company,” she informed, and decided that this book was already not worth investigating, closing it up and putting it to the side, while looking back at the many, many more that still remained with an exhausted exhale. Following a brief hunch, she turned over to Dagon again, while pointing at the shelf. “Any of these you can recommend me for better info? So far, it seemed like all of these expect you to have done your homework beforehand.”

Lowering his drink from his lips and maneuvered around the bar the man leaned up against an island. It was clear from his facial expression he didn’t quite believe her but was willing to humor.

“Ooooh boy… well… seems like you’ve read through most of the classics. But all this-” he motioned his drink hand over the whole array of books, “Is just corporate fluff and invention to sell you on the more marketable parts of the holiday. Even if some didn’t start that way, well, you’ve seen how boiled down these books are… standard fare these days I’m afraid. Not just books either, most things really. That very suit you’re wearing? Popularized by a soda company. If you want to learn about the strict religious origins of Christmas, just crack that one open for a read.” his gesturing hand fell on a thick, high quality book with bold eye-catching letters stating ‘The Holy Bible’, “But… little of it actually relates because a lot of the practices are derived from other other belief systems and- Uh… well I better quiet down before I land on the Super-Naughty list.” he darkly chuckled before taking another sip,”But if I was to be personally charitable. The ‘intended’ point is to be with friends and family, to exchange gifts to show appreciation and love. And to give to those less fortunate, because we are in this wild world together and supporting one another is something we do need to be reminded of.”

Doodle cleaned out one of his ears with his pinky as he rolled his eyes.

“Do I look like ‘corporate fluff’ to you?” he grumbled under his breath intentionally for no one to hear.

“Do you want an honest answer to that?” Shida, who had of course heard him anyway, asked in return, before turning back to Dagon to allow him to finish his thoughts. “Too bad none of that sounds all too helpful here. Guess these books won’t give me more than a vague idea either.”

She shoved the one she was holding back onto the shelf without taking a new one out, and then dropped back into the chair, her face in her hands.

“There’s gotta be a way to find out something useful…” she lamented silently, glancing out of her fingers to look at Chak worriedly. “If this shi-...stuff has really been going on forever, there’s gotta be some form of real documentation about it, right?”

“I would assume so!” Chak nodded as she rubbed her eye with a lower limb, “But with very real ‘magic’ at play, it might be tricky to find something reliable,” she pointed out “I believe Earth had a basic equivalent to the Net around this time. Maybe we can gain access to that?”

Still not buying the ‘act’ but still feeling like humoring these strange people, Dagon hummed and dug a rectangular screened device from his pocket.

“Would you like to borrow my phone? I got full bars, here let me just unlock it for ya…” he offered, tapping a code onto the screen and presenting it for either person to take.

Chak accepted it happily.

“Thank you!” she said as she closely inspected it. She attempted to tap and scroll, but her claws didn’t seem to receive any sort of input response from the device, “Oh, uhm.. Uhhm…” she mumbled before trying her lower limb’s ‘skin’, finding more success, “Ah! There we go! Now… uhm… What’s a ‘Instant Gram’?” she asked, realizing the interface was completely foreign to her.

“Give it here,” Shida mumbled with a roll of her eyes and snatched the device out of Chak’s hand, since she had way more experience with using human gadgetry than the Cali did. Of course, it was still true that most of the symbols and specific applications on the device were foreign to her, however, she had a lot more success discerning what different symbols would ultimately mean.

Games were easy enough to distinguish. And so were messengers usually. That down there were contacts and calls. Using the process of elimination, she had ultimately brought it down to three possible applications.

“Which browser do you usually use,” she then asked the man casually to get past the last hurdle. “Wouldn’t want to accidently open any old tabs without your permission.”

“It’s fine, I always bookmark anything important and my go-to is FireFox. Just… don’t judge me on my previous searches, you know how the brain asks questions that must be answered in the middle of the night.” Dagon replied into his glass as he was about to finish his drink.

Shida nodded and pressed the correlating symbol, coming face to face with what basically had to be some form of search engine. Then, lifting her hand to the screen, she just kind of…stopped.

“What the hfil do I even search for?” she asked with a confused glance over at Chak. She was pretty sure that the buzz surrounding them on every angle was a good indicator that just looking for “Christmas” or “Santa” was probably going to lead to a dead end.

“Hmm… news articles? Search for top stories of previous months? Just so we can confirm or dismiss the calendar abnormality. If this place is repeating ‘December’ over and over, maybe there will be something to learn from other ‘Christmas’’.” she proposed.

Dagon furrowed his brow at that, looking like he was about to ask a question. But he didn’t seem to settle on what question to ask, or how to ask it, or even if the question should be directed at them. Turning away to set the glass back by the bar he started rubbing the side of his head.

Shida let out a breath through her teeth.

“Christmas parade…Christmas parade…Christmas parade…oh, would you look at that! More Christmas parade…Does anything interesting happen in this town?” she asked after scrolling through headline after headline about how big of a success the last parades had been and how good it was for the town. “At least this confirms the whole commerciality thing, I guess. Seems that’s how this place makes all its money. I’m feeling the holiday spirit indeed.”

“Yeah… from what I understand this town holds their parade every year.” Dagon said, leaning on the bar island again, “But… I wouldn’t really call them ‘profitable’. I mean, that’s why Mary and I were brought out here from the city. We’re here to glam it up and make it into more of a marketable event. Sorry, I-I lost the narrative here. What’s this really about?”

Chak leaned closer to Shida curiously.

“Does it give credit to the parade organizers?” she asked in a whisper.

“The town-council of Flakeville…I guess. Though if I had to guess, there’s a bunch of contractors that are getting left out here who do the actual work. That’s usually how it is,” she mumbled while her eyes scanned the page. “And this year, we seem to have one of them right here.”

She looked up at Dagon.

“The last guys we told ran off screaming,” she elaborated. “Not keen on repeating that to be honest. But in short…I don’t know, I guess we’re trying to save Christmas, but only since it’s determined to take us down with it, should it fail.”

Dagon’s mouth parted open a bit, giving the two a grimace-analytical look. It was like he was trying to decipher a joke or find the hidden context of what the feline just said.

“Save Christmas? I’m not certain as to how that would make people run and scream around here… And Christmas is a bit too big to ‘fail’…” he initially said before holding up a hand as if to reset himself, “Look, I’m pretty good at reading people and I can tell you all actually need help. I’m going to need something to understand what that ‘help’ should be. Tell it to me straight. First, what made people run and scream? Swear on my mother’s grave I’m not going to do that.”

Shida exchanged a long look with Chak, and even looked over at Doodle. However, it seemed that the magic had spoken, and she had the final say here.

She inhaled deeply and pinched the ridge in between her eyes. Then she let all the breath out at once.

“Oh, what the heck,” she said with a shake of her head and stood up, sauntering over to the man with quick steps, and glaring directly into his eyes.

“It took the other guys ages to get it, so I will make this quick,” she said, and grabbed Dagon’s arm tightly, pulling his sleeves back slightly so her fingers would make contact with his skin, where she then extended her claws so their sharp tips would start digging into his arm. Not enough to cause damage, but certainly more than enough to be felt. At the same time, she turned her ears around, making them as wide as possible as they faced the man, and her flat nostrils twitched as she took in the primate’s scent, before pulling her lips back to reveal her sharp and pointy teeth up close. “I know you’ve never seen an ‘alien’ before, but I’m not going to boil your skin or squash your brain or…steal your Christmas. All I want is to get rid of this stupid costume, have my friend go back to normal, and leave this crazy place so I can get back to my own life. Got that much?”

The man’s eyes shifted from scrunched confusion to a wide realization as the feline showed her very real features. Despite tensing up from an instinctual rising surge of fear, he remained in place listening to every word she spoke. His shocked gaze then fell on Chak, who had walked up behind Shida for him to get a close look as well. He could see every micromovement of their very real faces and bodies that no costume could ever hope to replicate.

“I… believe you.” he found himself saying, though not quite believing that he was saying it, “Wow… okay… Uhm… one moment please if you will allow it.” he twisted around and grabbed the bigger bottle he used for his drink, but this time he downed a gulp straight from the source.

His hair fell partially on his face, as he removed the bottle from his lips and set it down on the table. Brushing the hair back with his now bottleless hand he chuckled through the aftershock of the situation he was in right now.

“And um… Christmas… is a real thing? Like, Santa, magic bag and…” he asked as he looked down at the smug Doodle, “Elves… wow… Heh… my whole speech earlier must have made me appear so-dumb… Wow… Talk about a double-whammy… Wait! Was that why Mary was acting so… odd?”

At that, Shida had to shake her head in sympathy.

“I think that girl just has some issues,” she broke to the man, putting a hand onto his shoulder. “Maybe the stress is getting to her, I don’t know. Got nothing to do with us, however.”

“Right… okay… I hope you understand that this is a lot to take in.” he chuckled.

“You’re telling me,” Shida grumbled and crossed her arms, looking at Doodle with malice in her eyes. “I didn’t know what Christmas was until today.”

“Makes… sense. In the crazy current context I find myself living in.” Dagon mumbled as he slightly pushed the bottle further away, “Well I didn’t get to where I am now by not being a good problem solver. And part of my work in this town I’m already drowning in the marvelous abundant ‘Christmas Spirit’, so I’m at your service.”

The man then scratched at his short, immaculately groomed beard.

“First off, have you tested the limits to your magic? If you’re going to go galavanting around this town you’ll need to know what tools you have at your disposal. A way to disguise yourselves might prove to be a priority if you already have people running and screaming. Surely something like that would be useful for… Santa to have for the rest of the year.” he pointed out.

Shida scratched the side of her head.

“So far we only have floating, the sack thing, and some cold resistance,” she mumbled, before glancing at Doodle again. “Oh, and the fact that apparently, other ‘magic’ doesn’t work on me. At least that guy couldn’t weasel out of my grasp with his.”

She then looked at her hands. How would she even test something like that? She concentrated, but nothing happened. So far everything had happened subconsciously, so it probably wasn’t a matter of willpower or something like that.

However, there was another thing she had neglected to mention.

Glancing over at the sack, she tilted her head. Well, it was worth a try.

Even at the risk of looking like a complete idiot, she turned towards the item and cleared her throat.