The villains were filing, the heroes were telling fairy stories, and the clock ticked on. The elf had recruited the Doll; and the next child on his list, after checking it twice, was not far from a place where they had been before.

The home of their next target lay betwixt and between the restaurant where they’d met Cindy, and the university district bordering Das Gleiche. It was a pleasant area, but uncommonly old - even for the City of Tombstones - with narrow townhouses bordering one upon the other. In spite of their age this perhaps the best maintained part of the city Yaaroghkh had seen yet; the off-white paint and light yellow bordering on the buildings were still there, if faded, and there were no overt cracks or rot on the houses he saw.

There were a half dozen steps leading up to the door, which had been painted red recently. A wreath had been carved in the centre of the door, and the recess painted green. Yaaroghkh admired the handiwork for a moment, then rang the doorbell. Caedes bounced with anticipation beside him - the last man he’d introduced him to had been an immortal, so he couldn’t wait to see who they’d meet now.

There was the muffled sound of footsteps and cries of ‘coming, coming!’, and the door swung open to reveal a portly, middle-aged gentleman. He must have been nearing his late forties or early fifties, although with cultivators apparent age meant nothing; though he was putting on weight around his midriff, it was clear he had been active in his youth, and there was still decent muscle on his body.

His blue eyes sparkled with mirth, and while he had a rather large bald spot in the middle of his blond hair he had not bothered to try to hide it. Caedes could sense no qi from the man, but after the Doll he wasn’t going to doubt anyone.

He gazed down at the elf for a moment, thunderstruck, and then burst into a frenzy of excitement. “Hahah, I knew it! I always knew elves were real. Come in, come in, let me treat you to fruitcake.”

And before either of the two could even say a word he had danced back into the house, dancing and laughing. Left with no choice the pair followed mutely, making sure to close the door behind them.

If the outside of the house had looked cramped the inside made it clear that that was precisely the case. You could tell that the gentleman was no slob - every surface was clean, and there was no dirt, grime, or mould to be seen - but the entire lower floor of the house was nonetheless completely chaotic. Papers and books littered every conceivable surface, from the chairs and tables to the stoves and even the inside of cupboards. That the man was evidently some sort of musician did not help matters, for unless is a flautist or an expert in the kazoo an instrument takes up rather a lot of space.

Perhaps the only surfaces on the lower floor which weren’t the resting place of notes or notemakers were an old-fashioned fireplace, where obviously no papers could be kept, and a chair in front of it. This, Yaaroghkh was delighted to see, was a wingback; precisely the same sort as Santa’s throne. (There was, however, a small table beside the chair, which had seven books balanced atop it precariously.)

The room's decoration was, well, slightly eclectic. The walls were painted peach blossom pink, the furniture was all done in the craftsman style, and there was a large cuckoo clock shaped like a gingerbread house in the middle of the kitchen. The sitting room had a number of snowmen decorations sitting over the lintel.

The man danced over this mess gleefully, managing to procure from hidden and secret spots enough plates and forks to give the both of them cake (the cake itself he pulled out of a cello case). Unlike the Doll, he did not wait till they were finished eating, but kept interrupting the meal with a childish glee.

“Oh, I always knew elves were real. Wait - does this mean the wonderful treasures are real, too?”

“The what?” Caedes asked, but before they could get too off topic Yaaroghkh redirected the conversation.

“Do we have the pleasure of speaking to Claireholm Dundas, conductor of the Miracle Street Symphony Orchestra?”

“You do,” Claireholm said, still bouncing up and down like Christmas had come (and, to be fair, it had). “How can I help you? I don’t know any magic, but I’ll do my best.”

“You don’t know…magic?” Caedes got out, shocked.

“I always knew magic existed, but though I’ve had a wonderful life, there have never been any wonders in it.”

Claireholm’s choice of terms was strange, to say the least, but Caedes thought he had figured out the gist. “You’re… not a cultivator?”

Claireholm’s brow wrinkled in confusion. “A cultivator? I tend my garden carefully - you can see it out the window; it’s enjoying a good snooze right now - but I don’t see what caring for the soil and all that lives on it has to do with anything.”

“Everything,” Yaaroghkh said bluntly, but Caedes continued, waving his arms to enwrap the room in stupefaction.

“So if you’re not a cultivator, what are all these notes for? Are they all for music?”

Here Claireholm brightened. “Oh, not at all! No, most of these are for my magnum opus - a rewrite of Snegurochka.”

“Wait, hold on just a moment-” Caedes was saying, but unfortunately he’d started Claireholm on his favourite subject, and nothing would stop him now.

“I’ve wanted to rewrite the story ever since I was first a child; it was one of my only desires, other than getting to see real magic, and now that I’ve done the second I will surely do the first. It’s not the tragic end of the story that’s objectionable, but the nature of that tragic end: the poor Little Snow Girl wants to feel love, yet when that very love she longed for finally comes and warms her heart, she melts.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

“Nor is there any sudden reversal, as in all good fairy tales, or even a dénouement. She is neither reborn from the fires of love like a phoenix nor, like the Little Mermaid, does her death through love occasion the genesis of a soul. The message of the story is clear: we are by nature cold, and should we seek to warm ourselves it will but cause our death.

“I always felt the story ran entirely contrary to the Spirit of Christmas. I can only imagine the caustic, cynical man who first came up with the tale, producing his sick notes from the underground as he sat and skulked in his cave.”

“Hmm. Close enough - he was a vodyanoy,” Yaaroghkh offered helpfully. Caedes was still stupefied into silence.

“Are you here about my story?” Claireholm asked hopefully.

“I wasn’t, but now I am,” said Yaaroghkh. “My brethren at Santa’s workshop would greatly appreciate a work of true art.”

(This was true. Every night Mrs. Claus read the elves a bedtime story, so they were always looking for more fairy tales.)

“But I came here at first for quite a different reason,” Yaaroghkh admitted regretfully, laying the matter of cosy elf snooze storytime to the side for the moment. He then proceeded to narrate the story of the assault on Santa’s workshop, the giving of the task, and the troubles he’d faced since then.

Claireholm’s face turned purple with rage as he heard about the indignities heaped upon Christmas and - unable to help himself - he interrupted once or twice to rage against the wickedness of Das Gleiche, and how traumatic the experience must have been for the innocent wee elves.

***

“For the last time - when a child asks for a pet, they mean something like a cat, dog, gerbil, lizard, fish, or pony. The highly poisonous and equally aggressive Spotted Snufflewump is not on the list of acceptable animals,” Nicholas explained patiently.

“Awwww,” said C’g-farak’mak.

“Awwww,” said the highly poisonous and equally aggressive Spotted Snufflewump.

***

“Have no fear - whatever I can do to help, I will do to my utmost,” Claireholm Dundas, conductor of the Miracle Street Symphony Orchestra, swore, before Yaaroghkh could even ask for his help or specify how he wanted him to help.

“Wait - but he’s not a cultivator! How can he help?” Caedes asked. The elf blinked lethargically.

“Cultivation works magic because it is magic; it turns the world upside down, only for us to find it rightside up again. Yet on Christmas the powers of Topsy-Turvydom are strongest, and who’s to say what magic might happen then?”

“He’s not wrong. I can’t help,” Claireholm said honestly, “leastways, not alone - but follow me for a while, and I’ll show you how I may.”

Once more he moved before they could say anything, tossing a peacoat and scarf over his cardigan and pushing out the door. He raced down the street, putting his flat cap on as he went, then raced back.

“I was about remind you,” Yaaroghkh politely said from outside the house, as the embarrassed Claireholm locked his front door.

“Ahem, ahem, apologies - I get excited on occasion,” he said, and then raced back down the street. The two followed him as he weaved between hotdog carts and dog walkers, giving quick greetings to the people he recognised and once or twice throwing out a blessing.

Finally he reached a low, squat building made of red brick, whose wooden signboard clearly identified it as the home of the Miracle Street Symphony Orchestra. Without so much as ‘by your leave’ he blustered into the building, leading - if that is the term, for he gave no directions - his two followers into the auditorium.

Due to the strange and inexplicable lateness of the conductor - usually a punctual man - the members of the orchestra were still tuning their instruments when he burst into the room. (Caedes was horrified to see that, of the one hundred members of the orchestra in the room, not one had the slightest bit of cultivation.)

They all brightened as they saw the one they called ‘Mr. Dundas’ enter, a few bursting into ear-to-ear grins. The First Violinist stood up and waved. “Ah, there you are-”

“No time, no time! A very important guest has come to visit,” he cried, as he dashed into the centre of the room, sweeping his hands grandiosely towards where Yaaroghkh and Caedes were ambling into the auditorium.

It was then that Caedes remembered how mortals reacted to Yaaroghkh, and he felt his heart skip a beat. He had no clue why Claireholm was fine - maybe he was already mad; he did compose fairy tales - but surely the members of his orchestra—

Their jaws dropped, their eyes bulged, and their faces froze. The First Violinist licked her lips nervously. “Is that- is that-”

“Yes,” Claireholm intoned solemnly, with all the pomp and ceremony of a priest invoking his god, "this…is a Christmas Elf."

Instantly, the room went wild. Caedes closed his eyes, praying that the five score people in the room would be able eventually to recover. And then he realised that they weren't screaming from insanity…they were whooping for joy.

“I always knew Mr. Dundas was right,” one young woman was saying, tears in her eyes. Elsewhere a pair of young men were hugging each other and dancing for joy, laughing and going, “they’re real, the elves are real.”

“We always knew it, sir,” the First Violinist said, trying to make it look like she wasn’t wiping a singular tear out of the corner of her eye. “We knew magic was real.”

Caedes stood there, shoulders dropped, slack jawed and staring. And it was then that he noticed something strange. Everyone in the Miracle Street Symphony Orchestra was uncommonly young - many looked to be his age, or only slightly older, and maybe a couple were older than Claireholm Dundas.

He would have asked Yaaroghkh if he knew what this was all about, but at that moment the elf was being swarmed by delighted classical musicians, who pumped his rugose arms in gratitude and gushed about how cute he was.

“It’s an old story,” a man who must have been in his early thirties said, as he buffed his kazoo. Caedes looked at the kazoo, and decided not to ask.

“An old story, and one we don’t have time to tell. The kids you see here all came with Dundas, after he broke with Snobinsky. The two were partners, back in the Sadsack Symphony, with old Dundas as the junior. It was an uneven partnership, maintained mostly through Dundas’ humility.”

“And yet I sense the story of its decline is relevant.”

The man with the kazoo opened his mouth to reveal the dark truth about Snobinsky, but before he could Claireholm raised his baton for quiet. All one hundred musicians stared at him, their hope and excitement emblazoned on their faces.

“My friends, I did not introduce this noble elf to you purely for the thrill of discovery - although discovery there’s been, and will be - but because he came to me to seek our help with a task. Christmas is in peril, and he has asked us to save it with the power of music.”

And as the one hundred totally normal people began to whoop and cheer, Caedes realised they were in deep horsetwaddle.