Ah, there she was! The most beautiful girl on the planet, at least according to Caedes - and given that he’s sharpening his executioner’s axe loudly on a grindstone half a foot behind me as I write this, I’m not greatly inclined to dispute him.
“Oh, don’t mind me,” he said, “I just feel a sudden and inexplicable urge to begin cleaning my collection of spiked flails and torture implements.”
Yes, there she was, the most beautiful girl in the world - so beautiful, that I don’t dare give you a full description of her, lest you fall instantly and irrevocably in love with her.
“Good,” said Caedes approvingly. The Author, wiping the sweat from his rubbery skin, proceeded to provide a highly partial explanation.
Caedes’ girlfriend was a thin, mousy woman, with brown hair and warm brown eyes, dressed in a cosy orange sweater with a matching muffler. She was sitting outside a cafe, drinking coffee and reading Which Witch?. The horrified cafe employees were watching her through the window.
Yaaroghkh was intensely familiar with the sacred work she held in her hand, but even had he not been he could tell it was a deeply engrossing book from her all but complete immersion in it, to the exclusion of all else. She had not noticed Caedes or Yaaroghkh as they stood all alone staring at her on the empty street, and did not notice either as they walked across the road towards her, their shoes crunching on the snow underfoot. Nor did she notice them as they entered the cafe courtyard until Caedes walked up right behind her, and breathed heavily on her neck.
She leapt three feet in the air, yelping, and then turned at lightning speed to deliver a hammer blow to Caedes’ neck. He caught it effortlessly, laughing, and as she realised who it was burst into laughter herself, drawing him into a hug. “Oh gosh, you startled me. Sit down, sit down. I’ve been so worried about you. Who’s your friend?”
Caedes motioned to Yaaroghkh. “This is Yaaroghkh Yeserakir. He’s one of Santa’s elves.”
Yaaroghkh suddenly felt intensely nervous. The girl bent down to examine him, wiping a loose strand of hair from her eyes. Her eyes went wide as she took in Yaaroghkh’s form - his unfathomable geometries, his alveolate flesh, and…
“Awww, is that a tiny Christmas sweater? And that little pointed cap - it’s so cute. What a little darling.” She said, squeezing his cheeks. Yaaroghkh blushed.
Caedes snorted. “Yaaroghkh, this is Cindy. My partner, confidante, and accomplice.”
“Accomplice? Please, you’ll make me sound like I’m complicit in some crime,” she said, winking. “Now, I’d love to hear what the two of you have been up to, but before that, Caedes, you’ll want a black coffee?”
Caedes nodded, prompting her to shake her head and utter a mock-disapproving tut-tut.
“And you, Yaaroghkh - I bet you’re a hot chocolate person,” she said, addressing the aeons-old monstrosity as if he were a child. He beamed, and nodded his head enthusiastically.
She went inside to order the drinks, as the cafe employees stared, horror-struck, at the two still outside. At least she was wearing a sweater, but the man who just hugged her and was carefully sweeping the snow off a chair was wearing only a thin suit. It was in the teens out; what did these people think they were doing?
Cindy procured the drinks, and returned to the table, sitting back down in her seat. She looked wryly at her beloved. “So, I’d ask what you’ve been doing for the past three days - and why you missed out on our date yesterday -”
Yaaroghkh felt a flutter of panic in his chest.
“- but I’ve heard the news. Been busy, have you - by all accounts, you’re a good month ahead of schedule.” And she looked at Caedes meaningfully. The latter spluttered, spitting out his coffee.
“Listen, I can explain-”
“Hmmm, yes, explanations,” she said apathetically, pulling out a file from a messenger bag. She flipped through it idly, her gaze flickering between the notes on the pages and the panicked expression on her boyfriend’s face. “I am rather curious as to why, exactly, you decided to wreak chaos among no less than six corporations over the last two days, driving their arrogant Young Masters and Mistresses mad over…Christmas.”
She glanced over at Yaaroghkh, and her smile could have frozen ice. “Perhaps you could be the one to give me an explanation, our little friend from the north pole?”
The eldritch horror felt himself break into a cold sweat, and exerted a great force of will to pull himself together. Whatever might happen, she wasn’t his girlfriend-
“Especially given the rumours I’ve heard from my dear cousin Miranda about a seventh, unreported assault on the investment giant Das Gleiche,” she continued, cheerily sipping at her coffee.
Yaaroghkh folded.
“Wait- don’t blame him- it’s all my fault. I’ll tell you everything,” he growled, the perturbation clear in his voice.
Then she burst into laughter, nearly rolling off her cheer. “Oh man, you guys should see the expressions on your face. Priceless.”
Caedes collapsed, shaking his head. “You really got me there.”
“Deserved, for blowing on my neck earlier. You know how I feel about my Ibbotson. No,” she continued, wiping a tear of laughter from her eye, “how could I be mad at you for being ahead of schedule - especially when you did so in such a way as to utterly erase any idea that I’m connected to you.”
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Yaaroghkh, by this point in the conversation, was utterly flabbergasted. That they were both aware of his disconcertment, and entirely unsympathetic, did not help. The pair just laughed for a moment, occasionally sipping at their coffee, but finally Caedes took mercy on him.
“It’s as I said when I introduced you: she’s my partner, confidante, and accomplice. Yaaroghkh, may I introduce you to Cindy - the mayor’s daughter.”
And all of a sudden several puzzle pieces clicked in the mind of our adorable elf. Why Caedes was so insistent that he had no vendetta against the rich, but was acting on behalf of a friend; why he was so bizarrely well-informed on the politics and habits of inner city nobles, in spite of being a poor fence from the warehouse district; why he had access to safe houses with individuals who, putatively, had no connection to him; and why, on occasion, he showed a strange agitation as to his manner and way of life.
“And as I said to Matthew, all those nights ago: I have no vendetta against the rich…I’m simply acting on behalf of a friend.”
“Mmm. I would hardly call it a ‘vendetta.’ I have no grudge against those bastards, and certainly none against myself,” she murmured, not quite disapprovingly, as she sipped her coffee. “Some of them are merely…irresponsible…and need a slap on the wrist.”
She smirked as she saw Yaaroghkh scratching his head in his confusion, although it wasn’t a mean smirk. She leaned forward, her hair falling around her face. “You see, little elf, I’m using him.”
“Alas,” Caedes said, giving a mock sigh. “But it’s true, she’s been using me ever since she was a child. Well, to be fair, we use each other.”
Yaaroghkh gazed at the pair in disbelief. They did not look at each other the way people in utilitarian relationships did.
“Fascinating. So tell me, how did the two of you meet?”
Cindy squeezed Caedes’ hand with evident fondness. “Oh, it must have been well over sixteen years ago by now. We were both four: my father had taken me on a tour of the city’s orphanages to show me who the mayor was responsible for, and why it was so integral that he did his job properly. He had had me knit scarves, and handed them out to the children.”
Her smile grew slightly melancholic, as she peered into those long gone days. “You had such bright eyes then, as you accepted that scarf. I’d never seen anything quite like them.”
She took another sip of her coffee, then continued her story. “After that day, I thought no more of him, and we didn’t meet again for two years. When next we met I was practising my sword in the yard, when out of the trees fell a rather scruffy, injured child bawling his eyes out. He told me that the Dying Tiger Sect had slaughtered that orphanage I visited, so long ago, and asked me to seek justice.”
Yaaroghkh looked at Caedes in surprise. He hadn’t mentioned that in his story.
Cindy’s smile turned brittle, and a troubled look came into her eyes. “I took him and his story to my father…and father broke down. It was the first time I’d seen him that upset.”
“So did he seek justice?” Yaaroghkh asked, for Caedes had never told him what the outcome of his ill-begotten encounter with the Dying Tiger Sect had been.
The bitter smile remained. “No - and that was why he was so upset. The mayoralty of this city is not the highest office in the land: those are the Families and the Sects, who make their own decisions on policy and enforce them through the city council. Father could no more lodge a case against the Dying Tiger Sect than could Caedes, for the only difference between the two was that father already had the gun pressed to his temple, whereas they would need to find Caedes before they could shoot him. The best he could do for Caedes was give him some food and medicine, and sneak him out of the city.”
Yaaroghkh said nothing, for it was not the time to speak.
“I, however, was not satisfied. Before Caedes could leave I swore to him a pact, that if he would ever seek revenge I would do what I could from the office to aid him. Years later he returned, covered in dust and scars, and took me up on the offer.”
Yaaroghkh once more wondered what, exactly, Caedes had done in those years, to reverse the curse of having no spiritual root and turn him into the cultivator he was today.
“Of course,” she continued, “I’m a noble at heart, and while I kept my oath I took the opportunity to renegotiate the contract. Caedes, you see, could do what I could not - exact justice on the so-called nobles who had crippled the citizens I was sworn to protect, rather than raise them up. And I, for my part, had what Caedes could not get - information. So we struck a deal: he would act as my sword, and I as his eyes. Together I think we’ve done very well for ourselves.”
“I see…so when’d you begin dating?”
The two looked at each other, and shrugged. Or at least, Caedes shrugged.
“There’s several possible dates,” he observed, causing Cindy to bark a laugh.
“There was one formal first date. You’re just an incurable romantic sop, who insists on keeping every ‘first’ in our relationship as a formal festival, be it the first time we met after your return, the first time we danced, the first time we had dinner together…” She teased, making Caedes blush. He, however, was not to be daunted.
“You have to admit, though, that by the time we had that formal first date we were already in love… and that you know as little as I do when, amid those meetings, dances, and dinners - ostensibly conducted for the purposes of our contract - you fell for me.”
“Oh?” She arched an eyebrow. “You think I don’t know when I fell for you? No, I know precisely when; it’s you who were the dunce.”
Caedes raised his hands in surrender. Yaaroghkh felt bad about getting in the way of their flirting, but they’d reached a natural break in the conversation where he could steer it towards its proper end (recruiting her to help them save Christmas) and seized the chance.
“So will you help us save Christmas, then?” Yaaroghkh asked excitedly. Cindy smiled.
“No.”
Yaaroghkh’s expression fell, prompting another laugh from the girl. It tinkled as it fell in the quiet winter air.
“Gosh, he’s adorable. But no, no I can’t. I’ve been able to help Caedes for as long as I have because the Families and Sects have no idea of my affiliations, or even that I’m active in the administration - they think I’m just an idiosyncratic socialite. Destroying a corporation would ruin that, and harm whatever good I might do in future.”
Yaaroghkh’s opinion of her collapsed.
Then Cindy blinked, as she remembered something. She reached into her messenger bag, removing a tin decorated with snowmen and handing it to Caedes. “I nearly forgot - I baked some more Christmas cookies for you, dear.”
Yaaroghkh’s opinion of her soared.
Then she turned to the elf, and her eyes softened. “I’d love to help you, I really would. If there’s anything I can do behind the scenes, be assured that I will do so. But if you want people to fight alongside you - well, I’m afraid you’ll have to look elsewhere.”