CoffeeEmporer
TMF Poster
- Joined
- Apr 19, 2007
- Messages
- 78
- Points
- 6
Happy Seasonal Western Non-Denominational Holiday of your Choice!
Radio silence having finally been broken, I wanted to do something special for the holidays. I realized I never wrote a story for this delightful, wintery time of year (weather conditions permitting of course) and decided to challenge myself to craft one.
It's fairly short, which makes sense given the protagonist, but none the less I bring it to you with all the festive dressings and a giant virtual bow.
Enjoy dear readers, and many blessings upon you.
--------------------------------------------------------------
All was not well in the land of Christmas.
Tensions had been mounting for months between the Elvin League and the Frosty Folk. While before they had been a light simmer, they had now grown to a rolling boil due to encroachment of the latter, having become desperate in their need for more land. The machinery put in place by the Council of Elders, lead by that grand titan St. Nicholas, ensured that the holiday season would not be hindered by the embargos each nation had placed on each other. And as always, Santa’s workshop and all lands that fell under the banner of the North Pole had remained neutral. All treaties remained in place, but that was little comfort for those that walked the lands in between. The writing was most definitely on the wall: War was coming.
Sugarcane was one of those people who could see the coming storm up close and personal. The elf had been a lot of things over the span of her 400 years of life: child, sister, toymaker, explorer, historian, thief, and most recently a merchant. The Grand Ice Strait had proved her home these past years as she wheeled and dealed between all the creatures of the North. Things had been getting a little too toasty lately between her idiot people and those ice-bound nincompoops, so the of bulk her clientele had been the Animal Kingdom as of late, with the occasional Legend she happened to come across. But even those had been harder and harder to come by lately. Sugercane knew that soon it was going to be dangerous to even travel the Strait, despite it being neutral territory.
The tiny elf let loose a long sigh as her sled slowly moved along the hard ice road. A new line of work was probably going to be needed soon, regardless if war broke out. It was a shame, but she had to admit that even the thrills of merchant work were starting to lose their luster. She had been in this game for nearly 50 years, and the tingle in her toes that signaled her usual restlessness was beginning to greet her every morning as she woke.
Sugercane continued to muse to herself as her wooden horses pulled her wares onward toward the North Pole. Deep in her thoughts she remained for a good, long while. So long, in fact, that she did not notice the snow and ice she traveled upon begin to move on its own accord.
**************
“Now, what do we have here?”
If Sugercane did not have a length of tinsel binding her arms, legs, feet, hands and mouth, she probably would have said something that would have been neither holly nor jolly. Instead, all she could manage was a series of intense grunts and hard glances to the figure standing before her. Though the Frosty Folk could be hard to distinguish at times, the one that had jumped her introduced this being as Grand Snowflake Frost.
“I picked her up during one of our patrols along the Strait. She seemed to be carrying a sled full of supplies. Her destination is supposedly the North Pole,” Private Powder reported. The two Frosty Folk had the smell of a scouting party about them, Sugarcane thought. Everything from their rigid stances to their wispy bodies spoke volumes about their intentions for being this far west of their kingdom. Even the igloo itself that they had constructed: bare and unobtrusive. Sugercane knew that if the Frosty Folk Army wasn’t already sending troops this way, then they were readying themselves to do such.
“And why on earth do you suspect otherwise private?”
“She’s an elf, and more than likely a spy at that! I say we should bring her back to HQ and begin interrogation immediately!”
“On what evidence soldier? What shred of proof do you happen to have aside from her simply being an elf?”
“Well…”
“In fact, aside from exposing the position of our Center of Operations to a potential civilian and wasting my time with this nonsense, what else have you managed to accomplish while on your patrol today?”
Private Powder was suddenly very silent.
“That’s what I thought. Eager to please and not a lick of brains about you, eh greenhorn?”
Private Powder remained silent, its frosty features contorting in what Sugercane readily knew to be a look of embarrassment.
“I asked you a question soldier!”
“YES GRAND SNOWFLAKE FROST!”
Frost simply shook its head, turning toward the captive civilian that had been dumped in its lap. It looked at the elf for a few long moments, its frozen eyes surveying the tinsel bound 3ft woman. It wasn’t quite sure how to handle this private’s mistake, turning over the possible outcomes of this situation with the keen intellect that allowed it to rise to the ranks of Grand Snowflake. It took in Sugercane’s features: Her long purple hair stuffed into a green hat, her shimmering amber eyes burning with fury at them, and the petite frame clad in traveler’s gear comprised mainly of thick coats and sturdy boots. It was when it noticed her candy colored red and white stockings that the answer to the dilemma arrived in its mind.
“Private, don’t think for a moment that you won’t be pulling double duty on construction detail when we get back to headquarters. However, since I need to ensure the safety of our position, we must guarantee that this elf knows nothing.”
Grand Snowflake Frost then turned to the now attentive soldier and barked out an order.
“Retrieve the Snow-Globe.”
**************
Sugercane had held many positions in her days. Despite what some would call a very “diversified work history”, being bound in a giant glass sphere in nothing but her knickers was definitely a first. With her arms and legs stretched out like an “X”, the tinsel that held her fast previously had been replaced with something the elf had never seen before. It incased her limbs like ice, but was barely lukewarm. Her attempts to free herself, however, revealed its strength and durability to be akin to rock. Outside the clear crystal ball, the snowy figures stared in. Sugercane could tell they were talking, but whatever material her prison was made of also proved to be effective sound proofing as well. A fact that did not stop the newly un-gagged elf from unleashing a slew of curses that would surely make even the most grizzled elf soldier blush.
It was about halfway through Sugarcane’s dictionary of insults something abruptly began to happen to her prison. It slowly started to rotate, moving the bound elf along with it. It reminded Sugarcane a lot like the old gyro-spheres she used make when she studied toy design. It wasn’t until her feet were pointed to the sky and her head toward the earth that she noticed something else within the giant crystal sphere. At first she mistook it for snow, for they appeared white and powdery like the fresh storms that came with the new year. It wasn’t until one of them graced her left thigh as they fell to the earth that she soon realized that it wasn’t snow at all.
They were in fact feathers.
With a quickness that nearly made her queasy, the sphere rotated back into its original position. Though slightly dizzy, her senses still picked up a small crackle of magic course through the prison that held her. The feathers began to float down once again, except for this time they seemed to be imbued with a life of their own, for as they fell they begin to tickle every exposed inch of elfin flesh they could find. They results were almost instantaneous.
“NOHOHHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHHAHAHAHAHAHA!”
Sugercane pulled frantically against the restraints that held her fast, seeking to protect herself in any way possible from the magically imbued feathers. Yet the strange material would not yield, allowing the implements of her torment to run free across the exposed parts of her body.
“HAHAHAHAAHAHAHAA HEHEHEHE HEHEHEHE AHAHAHAHAHA AHAHAHAHA HEHEEHHEEHAHA AHAHAHAHA HOHOHOOHOHOH HEHEHE EAHAHA HEHEHEHEHEH HOHOHOHOH HIHIHIHIHIH HAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!”
Every iota of the fluffy white plumage descended in a graceful dance along the lines of the purple haired elf’s body, never ceasing its ticklish work as they fell toward the bottom of the globe. They teased the creases of her neck, traced the smooth hollows of her underarms, sashayed along her tender ribs, and caressed her tiny, taunt belly. Every movement of the feathers mimicked the behavior of the snowy weather that they resembled: Unerring and unyielding as they gently covered Sugercane in layer after layer of ticklish affection.
“NOHOHOHHOHOHAHAHAHAHA NOHOHOHOHOHOHOT THEHEHEHHEHEARE! NOHOHOHOHOHOHOT THEHEHEHEEHEHEHHAAHAHAHAHAHAH KNEHEEHEHEHEHS!”
Sugercane, by even elf standards, was extremely ticklish. It was how she immediately recognized this particular tinge of magic. Though she was no enchantress by any means, she knew enough of the art to get by. This little spell was typically used for pranks or jokes, an almost childlike bit of magic that even the most inept practitioner could cast. Sugercane had been the victim of it several times before in her youth. She would have been impressed with the Frosty Folks ingenuity, if it wasn’t for the fact that even her candy colored apparel was absolutely useless against the light touch of the arcane plumage.
“GAHAHAHAHAHAHAH HEHEHEHE EHHAAHHAHAHA AHOIHIHIHIHIIHIH HEEHHEEHE HAAHAHAHAHAHAOHOHOHOHOHOHO HEHEHEHE OHOHOHOHOH HEHEHE HAAHAHAHAH EHHEEHEH HHHOHOHOHOOH HOHOOHOHOHO HEHEHEHEHEHE HAHAHAHAAHAH HEHEHEHEHOHOHOHO HAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAAHAH!”
Though it felt much longer to the victim contained within, it only took a few minutes for the feathers to finish their flight toward the ground. Sugercane was pleased for the chance to catch her breath, but soon realized that she was alone. Her snowy captors had departed, more than likely to begin preparations for a new scouting position. It would easily take them a few hours to ensure the security and set up shop before they would return to her, Sugercane guessed. Hanging here until then didn’t seem so bad; at least it would give her a break from the tickling.
It was then that the Snow-Globe began to rotate once more.
Driven by a frantic devotion to escape, Sugercane once again attempted to break free from the bonds that held her fast. Yet the same as before, she could nary move her limbs a single inch from their stalwart prisons. Soon her feet were pointing to the sky once again, the feathers moving downward as the magic that powered them slowly recharged.
The sphere flipped her right side once more, and a new blizzard of feathers descended on the ticklish elf.
**************
Grand Snowflake Frost smiled to itself as Private Powder trudged along, wrapping the materials for a new igloo around its body and slowly shaping the structure with its very being. The private was an idiot, but then again that’s why it had been assigned to Frost. All the new recruits needed field experience if things were going to turn hot with the Elvin League. The inability to tell a combatant from a civilian would ensure you’d wind up a puddle, and it was a mistake Frost was sure Powder would never make again.
Frost then thought of the young elf woman in their possession. The globe would ensure that if she did have any information, she would be more than happy to share it with them when they returned. But Frost was almost certain she didn’t. Being in the wrong place at the wrong time was all the little elf was guilty of. If pressed to admit it, however, they had needed an opportunity to field test their latest interrogation device. It seemed a win-win for all: Some experience for the new recruit and only a few good laughs for their captive. All fleshy creatures liked to laugh, he had always been told. When you really thought about it, it wasn’t so much of an interrogation than it was a gift.
Twas the season, after all.
Radio silence having finally been broken, I wanted to do something special for the holidays. I realized I never wrote a story for this delightful, wintery time of year (weather conditions permitting of course) and decided to challenge myself to craft one.
It's fairly short, which makes sense given the protagonist, but none the less I bring it to you with all the festive dressings and a giant virtual bow.
Enjoy dear readers, and many blessings upon you.
--------------------------------------------------------------
All was not well in the land of Christmas.
Tensions had been mounting for months between the Elvin League and the Frosty Folk. While before they had been a light simmer, they had now grown to a rolling boil due to encroachment of the latter, having become desperate in their need for more land. The machinery put in place by the Council of Elders, lead by that grand titan St. Nicholas, ensured that the holiday season would not be hindered by the embargos each nation had placed on each other. And as always, Santa’s workshop and all lands that fell under the banner of the North Pole had remained neutral. All treaties remained in place, but that was little comfort for those that walked the lands in between. The writing was most definitely on the wall: War was coming.
Sugarcane was one of those people who could see the coming storm up close and personal. The elf had been a lot of things over the span of her 400 years of life: child, sister, toymaker, explorer, historian, thief, and most recently a merchant. The Grand Ice Strait had proved her home these past years as she wheeled and dealed between all the creatures of the North. Things had been getting a little too toasty lately between her idiot people and those ice-bound nincompoops, so the of bulk her clientele had been the Animal Kingdom as of late, with the occasional Legend she happened to come across. But even those had been harder and harder to come by lately. Sugercane knew that soon it was going to be dangerous to even travel the Strait, despite it being neutral territory.
The tiny elf let loose a long sigh as her sled slowly moved along the hard ice road. A new line of work was probably going to be needed soon, regardless if war broke out. It was a shame, but she had to admit that even the thrills of merchant work were starting to lose their luster. She had been in this game for nearly 50 years, and the tingle in her toes that signaled her usual restlessness was beginning to greet her every morning as she woke.
Sugercane continued to muse to herself as her wooden horses pulled her wares onward toward the North Pole. Deep in her thoughts she remained for a good, long while. So long, in fact, that she did not notice the snow and ice she traveled upon begin to move on its own accord.
**************
“Now, what do we have here?”
If Sugercane did not have a length of tinsel binding her arms, legs, feet, hands and mouth, she probably would have said something that would have been neither holly nor jolly. Instead, all she could manage was a series of intense grunts and hard glances to the figure standing before her. Though the Frosty Folk could be hard to distinguish at times, the one that had jumped her introduced this being as Grand Snowflake Frost.
“I picked her up during one of our patrols along the Strait. She seemed to be carrying a sled full of supplies. Her destination is supposedly the North Pole,” Private Powder reported. The two Frosty Folk had the smell of a scouting party about them, Sugarcane thought. Everything from their rigid stances to their wispy bodies spoke volumes about their intentions for being this far west of their kingdom. Even the igloo itself that they had constructed: bare and unobtrusive. Sugercane knew that if the Frosty Folk Army wasn’t already sending troops this way, then they were readying themselves to do such.
“And why on earth do you suspect otherwise private?”
“She’s an elf, and more than likely a spy at that! I say we should bring her back to HQ and begin interrogation immediately!”
“On what evidence soldier? What shred of proof do you happen to have aside from her simply being an elf?”
“Well…”
“In fact, aside from exposing the position of our Center of Operations to a potential civilian and wasting my time with this nonsense, what else have you managed to accomplish while on your patrol today?”
Private Powder was suddenly very silent.
“That’s what I thought. Eager to please and not a lick of brains about you, eh greenhorn?”
Private Powder remained silent, its frosty features contorting in what Sugercane readily knew to be a look of embarrassment.
“I asked you a question soldier!”
“YES GRAND SNOWFLAKE FROST!”
Frost simply shook its head, turning toward the captive civilian that had been dumped in its lap. It looked at the elf for a few long moments, its frozen eyes surveying the tinsel bound 3ft woman. It wasn’t quite sure how to handle this private’s mistake, turning over the possible outcomes of this situation with the keen intellect that allowed it to rise to the ranks of Grand Snowflake. It took in Sugercane’s features: Her long purple hair stuffed into a green hat, her shimmering amber eyes burning with fury at them, and the petite frame clad in traveler’s gear comprised mainly of thick coats and sturdy boots. It was when it noticed her candy colored red and white stockings that the answer to the dilemma arrived in its mind.
“Private, don’t think for a moment that you won’t be pulling double duty on construction detail when we get back to headquarters. However, since I need to ensure the safety of our position, we must guarantee that this elf knows nothing.”
Grand Snowflake Frost then turned to the now attentive soldier and barked out an order.
“Retrieve the Snow-Globe.”
**************
Sugercane had held many positions in her days. Despite what some would call a very “diversified work history”, being bound in a giant glass sphere in nothing but her knickers was definitely a first. With her arms and legs stretched out like an “X”, the tinsel that held her fast previously had been replaced with something the elf had never seen before. It incased her limbs like ice, but was barely lukewarm. Her attempts to free herself, however, revealed its strength and durability to be akin to rock. Outside the clear crystal ball, the snowy figures stared in. Sugercane could tell they were talking, but whatever material her prison was made of also proved to be effective sound proofing as well. A fact that did not stop the newly un-gagged elf from unleashing a slew of curses that would surely make even the most grizzled elf soldier blush.
It was about halfway through Sugarcane’s dictionary of insults something abruptly began to happen to her prison. It slowly started to rotate, moving the bound elf along with it. It reminded Sugarcane a lot like the old gyro-spheres she used make when she studied toy design. It wasn’t until her feet were pointed to the sky and her head toward the earth that she noticed something else within the giant crystal sphere. At first she mistook it for snow, for they appeared white and powdery like the fresh storms that came with the new year. It wasn’t until one of them graced her left thigh as they fell to the earth that she soon realized that it wasn’t snow at all.
They were in fact feathers.
With a quickness that nearly made her queasy, the sphere rotated back into its original position. Though slightly dizzy, her senses still picked up a small crackle of magic course through the prison that held her. The feathers began to float down once again, except for this time they seemed to be imbued with a life of their own, for as they fell they begin to tickle every exposed inch of elfin flesh they could find. They results were almost instantaneous.
“NOHOHHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHHAHAHAHAHAHA!”
Sugercane pulled frantically against the restraints that held her fast, seeking to protect herself in any way possible from the magically imbued feathers. Yet the strange material would not yield, allowing the implements of her torment to run free across the exposed parts of her body.
“HAHAHAHAAHAHAHAA HEHEHEHE HEHEHEHE AHAHAHAHAHA AHAHAHAHA HEHEEHHEEHAHA AHAHAHAHA HOHOHOOHOHOH HEHEHE EAHAHA HEHEHEHEHEH HOHOHOHOH HIHIHIHIHIH HAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!”
Every iota of the fluffy white plumage descended in a graceful dance along the lines of the purple haired elf’s body, never ceasing its ticklish work as they fell toward the bottom of the globe. They teased the creases of her neck, traced the smooth hollows of her underarms, sashayed along her tender ribs, and caressed her tiny, taunt belly. Every movement of the feathers mimicked the behavior of the snowy weather that they resembled: Unerring and unyielding as they gently covered Sugercane in layer after layer of ticklish affection.
“NOHOHOHHOHOHAHAHAHAHA NOHOHOHOHOHOHOT THEHEHEHHEHEARE! NOHOHOHOHOHOHOT THEHEHEHEEHEHEHHAAHAHAHAHAHAH KNEHEEHEHEHEHS!”
Sugercane, by even elf standards, was extremely ticklish. It was how she immediately recognized this particular tinge of magic. Though she was no enchantress by any means, she knew enough of the art to get by. This little spell was typically used for pranks or jokes, an almost childlike bit of magic that even the most inept practitioner could cast. Sugercane had been the victim of it several times before in her youth. She would have been impressed with the Frosty Folks ingenuity, if it wasn’t for the fact that even her candy colored apparel was absolutely useless against the light touch of the arcane plumage.
“GAHAHAHAHAHAHAH HEHEHEHE EHHAAHHAHAHA AHOIHIHIHIHIIHIH HEEHHEEHE HAAHAHAHAHAHAOHOHOHOHOHOHO HEHEHEHE OHOHOHOHOH HEHEHE HAAHAHAHAH EHHEEHEH HHHOHOHOHOOH HOHOOHOHOHO HEHEHEHEHEHE HAHAHAHAAHAH HEHEHEHEHOHOHOHO HAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAAHAH!”
Though it felt much longer to the victim contained within, it only took a few minutes for the feathers to finish their flight toward the ground. Sugercane was pleased for the chance to catch her breath, but soon realized that she was alone. Her snowy captors had departed, more than likely to begin preparations for a new scouting position. It would easily take them a few hours to ensure the security and set up shop before they would return to her, Sugercane guessed. Hanging here until then didn’t seem so bad; at least it would give her a break from the tickling.
It was then that the Snow-Globe began to rotate once more.
Driven by a frantic devotion to escape, Sugercane once again attempted to break free from the bonds that held her fast. Yet the same as before, she could nary move her limbs a single inch from their stalwart prisons. Soon her feet were pointing to the sky once again, the feathers moving downward as the magic that powered them slowly recharged.
The sphere flipped her right side once more, and a new blizzard of feathers descended on the ticklish elf.
**************
Grand Snowflake Frost smiled to itself as Private Powder trudged along, wrapping the materials for a new igloo around its body and slowly shaping the structure with its very being. The private was an idiot, but then again that’s why it had been assigned to Frost. All the new recruits needed field experience if things were going to turn hot with the Elvin League. The inability to tell a combatant from a civilian would ensure you’d wind up a puddle, and it was a mistake Frost was sure Powder would never make again.
Frost then thought of the young elf woman in their possession. The globe would ensure that if she did have any information, she would be more than happy to share it with them when they returned. But Frost was almost certain she didn’t. Being in the wrong place at the wrong time was all the little elf was guilty of. If pressed to admit it, however, they had needed an opportunity to field test their latest interrogation device. It seemed a win-win for all: Some experience for the new recruit and only a few good laughs for their captive. All fleshy creatures liked to laugh, he had always been told. When you really thought about it, it wasn’t so much of an interrogation than it was a gift.
Twas the season, after all.
