Elorshin
trudged his way through the harsh snow, centuries of living in the
North still doing little to dull the cold that chilled him to the bone.
It reminded him of when he and his kin fled their homes, the loss of the
forests to the axes and fire of man forcing them further and further
north. As they made their exodus, some lucky few were taken in by The
Cobbler, The Fudgemaker, and The Red Coat, those lucky few that were
still fit to work. The rest were sent away, possibly back to the endless
wars that ravished their homelands: The Fourlands, the Woodlands, the
Dark World. The Red Coat, a magician of sorts, was rumored to deliver
gifts to the human children one mystical night a year, and while his
altruism may seem noble, he still worked the elves all year round to
craft those gifts.
Flicking the switch, florescent lights poured over The Workshop. In days long past, The Workshop was filled with benches and benches where Elorshin and his elf brethren would slave away crafting toys for the human children. But Industry and Innovation had finally come to the North Pole, and now those same benches were replaced by ugly steel, machines whose ugly chugs and rumbles stabbed at Elorshin's ears. The commodities they produced were filth compared to what an elvish hand could craft, yet mass-production was essential now that man had conquered the globe and now spread amongst the stars. The Red Coat's magic unable to extend past the Earth, a group called The Toy Givers had taken up his mantle, fulfilling the wishes of those children no longer bound to the Earth. So many of them to deliver the toys, but only one elf now needed to work the machines, his
kin were sent off once again to the war-lands they had sought refuge from so many generations ago.
But today was not another day to build toys. Lamenting the loss of his brothers and sisters to the rise of the machines, to the ever-reaching colonization, to the ever-hunger of the humans, Elorshin decided this would be his last day amongst the Toy Givers, and the start of his reunion with his kin. He broke open one of the machines and stole the raw materials from its insides. With his own hands, elvish-hands, Elorshin fashioned himself a pair of sturdy boots and a coat, garments to survive an escape from the ever-winter of the North. After the clothing, he didn't realize he was still building one last gift until the sting was set taut, one last gift to man to remind them of the elves stolen ancestral lands.
Fire, Elorshin thought as he looked around at the machinery rumbling along without a care to his mutiny. It was almost poetic, he thought as he began leaking gasoline from the machines all over The Workshop floor, after all the humans used it to drive us from our homes so it was only right that it be used to drive them from theirs.
As he left the workshop, an inferno beginning to burn behind him, the first sirens went off. Man thought the cold of the North would be enough to snuff out any flame. What they didn't count on was the mixture of man's gasoline and the last of Elorshin's magicks. He had watched the first sparks, coaxed them to life until they were almost like living creatures, jumping from pool to pool of gasoline, spreading and growing and raging.
First came the ravens, the first of the Red Coat's watchers. Their caws drew out the rest of the horde: the Red Coat's wolves, the Toy Givers' reindeer, and finally the Toy Givers and the Red Coat themselves.
"What have you done, you damn elf!" one of the Toy Givers shouted, stepping forward, spear in hand.
Elorshin said nothing, the value of patience instilled into every elf from their birth. Instead he just watched the man approach, watched him ready his spear, watched him strike. Then Elorshin dodged, a step to the side dodged the spear-point. In one motion, he pulled an arrow from his quiver and punched the tip into the man's chest before pulling it out and readying it to be fired from his now unslung bow.
The first barrage of arrows Elorshin focused on the wolves. Hunters by nature, the last thing he wanted was a set of fangs slowing him down long enough for the rest of the pack to descend upon him, or worse, the men. The reindeer he dodged with ease as they barrelled passed him either on the ground or in the air, infused with flight by the Red Coat's magic. Elorshin's natural elf agility made them more of a nuisance than a threat as they charged head-first, typically finding only empty air as Elorshin evaded, occasionally their horns catching the soft flesh of a Toy Giver.
It was the Red Coat and the Toy Givers that Elorshin had the most trouble with, arrow after arrow finding only empty air. At first, he thought it might be due to not having fired a bow after so long, his abilities rusty. Though, he thought, it was impossible for an elf to miss a target this many times, no matter the situation. Eventually he realized it was the Red Coat's magic, the magic to be everywhere and anywhere at once now infused within the men to assist them in avoiding his attacks. He tried instead to predict where they would appear after evading his arrow, but that didn't work as well. When he guessed one would appear on his left, instead he appeared on the right. When he predicted one would appear behind him, instead they were right next to him, ready to strike with their spears.
Arrow after arrow fired and none of them finding their marks, every missed arrow fired gave the men one more opening to attack with their spears. Cut after cut, stab after stab, slowly they wore him down, his elfin agility no longer able to keep pace with the Red Coat's magic. Then came the last, the Red Coat in the end piercing his spear through Elorshin's chest and driving it out his back. Quick and sudden, combined with Elorshin's exhaustion, the elf fell to his knees without so much as a complaint, then onto his front, though never letting go of his bow. The Red Coat, without fear, turned his back to his opponent.
"What's the damage?" asked the Red Coat to one of the Toy Givers as Elorshin bled into the snow.
"The entire Workshop is gone," replied the other man as they stared into the flames now engulfing the building, "We still haven't completed the gifts for three of the space stations at this point with just a day left until delivery."
The two men stood in silence for a moment as Elorshin took the last of his breaths. The Red Coat snapped his fingers, "Find those elves, the ones we sold off as conscripts to the slaver heading back toward The Woodlands. Tell him we will buy them back."
With his last dying breath and hearing the Red Coat's words, Elorshin once again imagined the sounds and songs of this brethren at work released from the fear of war and battle, and he smiled as he drifted away.
Once again taken from Reddit/Writing Prompts: "We always thought that it was Santa and the Elves but what if it was The Elf and Santas?". This actually went a long way off from where I originally started, though I'm still pretty sure it went a lot better than it could have. One of the biggest differences was that in the original, the Red Coat died (no idea of the cause, just that he was gone) which would allow Elorshin to kill all of the Toy Givers and then take the sleigh to find his family. I did have some fun trying to remember in the books I've read and the places the elves live (Fourlands from Shannara, Woodlands from Lord of the Ring, and The Dark World from Thor 2). Plus came thinking about elf enslavement, cobbling shoes, making cookies, building toys. And the idea of having Ravens and Wolves, well since it's Christmas time, a lot of the prompts and stories on Reddit dealt with the connection between Santa Claus and Odin, which I also vaguely remember from Dresden Files. As you read in the prompt, I first needed to find a reason for many Santas and just one Elf and honestly Industrialization was the best that I could think of. Then the idea of needing more Santas to deliver to outer space because magic doesn't extend to outer space ... I always liked that idea, but I did need to cut it after that because it started to go off tangent from there to the point that it might've derailed the idea of the whole story. And yes, I know that Christmas was a couple days ago, but ... I'm lazy
Flicking the switch, florescent lights poured over The Workshop. In days long past, The Workshop was filled with benches and benches where Elorshin and his elf brethren would slave away crafting toys for the human children. But Industry and Innovation had finally come to the North Pole, and now those same benches were replaced by ugly steel, machines whose ugly chugs and rumbles stabbed at Elorshin's ears. The commodities they produced were filth compared to what an elvish hand could craft, yet mass-production was essential now that man had conquered the globe and now spread amongst the stars. The Red Coat's magic unable to extend past the Earth, a group called The Toy Givers had taken up his mantle, fulfilling the wishes of those children no longer bound to the Earth. So many of them to deliver the toys, but only one elf now needed to work the machines, his
kin were sent off once again to the war-lands they had sought refuge from so many generations ago.
But today was not another day to build toys. Lamenting the loss of his brothers and sisters to the rise of the machines, to the ever-reaching colonization, to the ever-hunger of the humans, Elorshin decided this would be his last day amongst the Toy Givers, and the start of his reunion with his kin. He broke open one of the machines and stole the raw materials from its insides. With his own hands, elvish-hands, Elorshin fashioned himself a pair of sturdy boots and a coat, garments to survive an escape from the ever-winter of the North. After the clothing, he didn't realize he was still building one last gift until the sting was set taut, one last gift to man to remind them of the elves stolen ancestral lands.
Fire, Elorshin thought as he looked around at the machinery rumbling along without a care to his mutiny. It was almost poetic, he thought as he began leaking gasoline from the machines all over The Workshop floor, after all the humans used it to drive us from our homes so it was only right that it be used to drive them from theirs.
As he left the workshop, an inferno beginning to burn behind him, the first sirens went off. Man thought the cold of the North would be enough to snuff out any flame. What they didn't count on was the mixture of man's gasoline and the last of Elorshin's magicks. He had watched the first sparks, coaxed them to life until they were almost like living creatures, jumping from pool to pool of gasoline, spreading and growing and raging.
First came the ravens, the first of the Red Coat's watchers. Their caws drew out the rest of the horde: the Red Coat's wolves, the Toy Givers' reindeer, and finally the Toy Givers and the Red Coat themselves.
"What have you done, you damn elf!" one of the Toy Givers shouted, stepping forward, spear in hand.
Elorshin said nothing, the value of patience instilled into every elf from their birth. Instead he just watched the man approach, watched him ready his spear, watched him strike. Then Elorshin dodged, a step to the side dodged the spear-point. In one motion, he pulled an arrow from his quiver and punched the tip into the man's chest before pulling it out and readying it to be fired from his now unslung bow.
The first barrage of arrows Elorshin focused on the wolves. Hunters by nature, the last thing he wanted was a set of fangs slowing him down long enough for the rest of the pack to descend upon him, or worse, the men. The reindeer he dodged with ease as they barrelled passed him either on the ground or in the air, infused with flight by the Red Coat's magic. Elorshin's natural elf agility made them more of a nuisance than a threat as they charged head-first, typically finding only empty air as Elorshin evaded, occasionally their horns catching the soft flesh of a Toy Giver.
It was the Red Coat and the Toy Givers that Elorshin had the most trouble with, arrow after arrow finding only empty air. At first, he thought it might be due to not having fired a bow after so long, his abilities rusty. Though, he thought, it was impossible for an elf to miss a target this many times, no matter the situation. Eventually he realized it was the Red Coat's magic, the magic to be everywhere and anywhere at once now infused within the men to assist them in avoiding his attacks. He tried instead to predict where they would appear after evading his arrow, but that didn't work as well. When he guessed one would appear on his left, instead he appeared on the right. When he predicted one would appear behind him, instead they were right next to him, ready to strike with their spears.
Arrow after arrow fired and none of them finding their marks, every missed arrow fired gave the men one more opening to attack with their spears. Cut after cut, stab after stab, slowly they wore him down, his elfin agility no longer able to keep pace with the Red Coat's magic. Then came the last, the Red Coat in the end piercing his spear through Elorshin's chest and driving it out his back. Quick and sudden, combined with Elorshin's exhaustion, the elf fell to his knees without so much as a complaint, then onto his front, though never letting go of his bow. The Red Coat, without fear, turned his back to his opponent.
"What's the damage?" asked the Red Coat to one of the Toy Givers as Elorshin bled into the snow.
"The entire Workshop is gone," replied the other man as they stared into the flames now engulfing the building, "We still haven't completed the gifts for three of the space stations at this point with just a day left until delivery."
The two men stood in silence for a moment as Elorshin took the last of his breaths. The Red Coat snapped his fingers, "Find those elves, the ones we sold off as conscripts to the slaver heading back toward The Woodlands. Tell him we will buy them back."
With his last dying breath and hearing the Red Coat's words, Elorshin once again imagined the sounds and songs of this brethren at work released from the fear of war and battle, and he smiled as he drifted away.
Once again taken from Reddit/Writing Prompts: "We always thought that it was Santa and the Elves but what if it was The Elf and Santas?". This actually went a long way off from where I originally started, though I'm still pretty sure it went a lot better than it could have. One of the biggest differences was that in the original, the Red Coat died (no idea of the cause, just that he was gone) which would allow Elorshin to kill all of the Toy Givers and then take the sleigh to find his family. I did have some fun trying to remember in the books I've read and the places the elves live (Fourlands from Shannara, Woodlands from Lord of the Ring, and The Dark World from Thor 2). Plus came thinking about elf enslavement, cobbling shoes, making cookies, building toys. And the idea of having Ravens and Wolves, well since it's Christmas time, a lot of the prompts and stories on Reddit dealt with the connection between Santa Claus and Odin, which I also vaguely remember from Dresden Files. As you read in the prompt, I first needed to find a reason for many Santas and just one Elf and honestly Industrialization was the best that I could think of. Then the idea of needing more Santas to deliver to outer space because magic doesn't extend to outer space ... I always liked that idea, but I did need to cut it after that because it started to go off tangent from there to the point that it might've derailed the idea of the whole story. And yes, I know that Christmas was a couple days ago, but ... I'm lazy
