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“Santa? Santa! There you are!”
Claus winced at the sound of his wife’s voice. “Get me that manuscript as soon as you can,” he muttered to Boris, and then he turned to face the approaching woman, making a shooing motion behind his back.
Elven women were small, but a force to be reckoned with, in Boris’ experience. Unfortunately, there was nowhere for him to hide in the middle of a clearing, and he doubted the tiny, white-haired woman in a bright red dress would let him go without—
“Boris!” she cooed, her severe expression relaxing into an adoration rivalling any member of ARMY in the presence of someone from BTS. Not that Boris knew that. “You’re back! How was your trip? Is the book ready yet? You’re torturing me with the wait, you know. I have nothing to distract me from Santa skipping meals and getting himself into snowstorms when he’s not dressed appropriately.” She emphasized the last two words and cast her husband a sharp glare before returning her smile to Boris. “Why don’t you come to dinner tonight? We can—”
“Now, now, Molly, he’ll never finish the book if you keep pestering him,” Claus intervened, making the shooing motion behind his back again.
“Thank you for the invitation, Mrs. Claus, but I’m brimming with ideas, and I need to write them down before I forget them.”
It was the usual excuse Boris gave her, swapping the words here or there to keep it fresh, and it always worked.
“Of course. Go write,” she said, her voice peaches and cream. Then she turned her attention to her husband, and her gray eyes hardened. “And as for you.”
Boris hurried away as she berated Claus for not putting on his snowsuit before conjuring the snowstorm, reprimanded him for missing lunch again, and then moved smoothly into a heartfelt expression of worry for his health, and what would he do if he didn’t have her?
Claus still hadn’t gotten a word in edgewise when Boris entered the forest and the trees blocked the couple from view.
She was right. Everybody knew Claus was nothing without her. Left to his own devices, he would invent himself right into the ground, neglecting food, sleep, and all concern for his physical needs.
The North Pole was as busy as ever when Boris exited the aboveground dome into the underground city. He kept his eyes on the ice and cobblestone street so he didn’t accidentally run over any elves, dodging in and out of sleds, sleighs, snowmobiles, skis, and skates until he reached the ladder on the outskirts. Then he climbed to the surface again, emerging into the Arctic freeze most of the world’s population of snow witches and warlocks called home. The wind cut like a knife through the air, stinging his cheeks and whipping his long blonde hair around his face as he traversed the field of white. Thick blankets of snow covered the rolling hills he passed on either side and froze his feet in his sneakers.
It felt so good.
He pulled one hand from his jeans pocket and caught the snow in his fist, halting the wind and suspending the flakes in the air. Opening his hand with a simple twirl made a flurry of white lift from one hill, revealing a door made of ice. A flick of the wrist, and it opened to an entryway of glistening blues and whites. He let his hand fall to his side, and the snow and wind resumed its path as he headed inside.
Ceiling, walls, floor, all made of ice. Furniture made of ice. Decorations made of ice.
He sighed, and his breath fogged in the air. Silence.
Perfect.
He went to his office and sat down, setting the bookmark next to his mouse pad. Time to write. He just needed to finish the last chapter, and then it would be off to his editor. And Mrs. Claus, of course, for an advance reading.
The phone rang as he opened his laptop. He sighed again, this time in annoyance. Caller ID said it was Crystal.
He sent it to voicemail and silenced his phone.
Time passed to the music of keys clacking and mouse clicking. He’d always been a perfectionist with his writing. It had to be the right word, the right phrasing, especially with the last chapter. This tied the entire book up in a bow, and he wanted it to look like a professional gift-wrapping job, not a child learning how to tie their shoelaces. The content wasn’t the issue. The style was the issue. And he had a reputation to uphold if he wanted anybody to read his next book, whatever that may be.
He usually had an idea by now.
“Done.”
He sat back in his chair, exhaling his relief as his blue eyes scanned the final lines for the umpteenth time. Yes. That was exactly what he wanted. Hopefully, it was what his editor wanted, too. He zipped the file, attached it to the email he’d prepared a week ago, and pressed the send button. Then he checked his phone. Multiple missed calls and texts from Crystal, who he almost wished he’d never met at that last office party, but then, he wouldn’t have met Lily if it weren’t for her cousin’s misguided matchmaking.
The phone lit up with another call. An unknown number.
“Hello?”
“Um…hi, Boris. This is Lily.”
She sounded as awkward and shy on the phone as she’d been when he met her in person. After her explosive reaction to him cutting a door in her snow globe, of course.
“Oh, yes, hello. Sorry, I must have forgotten to program your number into my phone. Have you decided?”
“Well…I like the idea, but…I really don’t want to go to the North Pole.”
He could picture her chewing her lip nervously.
“You won’t have to. I can email you the contract and the manuscript, and then I can come down there to pick up whatever you come up with. We can talk via phone or email, or if needed, I can come down there to collaborate in person.”
“Your publisher would be okay with that?”
Well, since his publisher was Santa Claus, the business tycoon who held the unchallenged monopoly on all things North Pole, yes, he would be okay with that. Because the elf was also the only person decent enough to wield that much power and never turn into a tyrant, and if there was one thing he valued above all else, it was the happiness of others.
“Yes, although he would like to meet you.”
Silence.
“Lily?”
“Not…right now. Things are…complicated.”
He knew she was shy, but she was also very blunt, not mincing words when she decided to speak her mind. Her vague answer was unusual.
“Okay?” he said, the uncertainty ticking his voice up at the end to make the word sound like a question.
There was a pause before she spoke again. He wondered if someone else was with her. Pipaluk, Emma, and their kids were all rather loud, so it wasn’t any of them
“Um…well, let me try something,” she said in the same hesitant tone as before.
“Lily? Are you okay?”
This time, she responded immediately. “Look at the bookmark.”
“The bookmark?”
“Just…tell me if you see anything different about it.”
He furrowed his brow and looked at the bookmark, unsure of what to expect. The magic had been inactive when she gave it to him, preserved in ice but no longer connected to her. What could she do with a bookmark imbued with dead magic when she was thousands of miles away from it?
Frosty the snowman was twirling a lasso above his head.
Boris blinked and looked again. The image was the same.
“What…in the name of Jack Frost?”
“Do you see it?” she asked, a note of hope in her voice.
“If I’m supposed to see Frosty the snowman with a lasso, then yes, I see it. How…?”
“It worked!”
She laughed, the same musical sound of wind chimes coated in ice he’d heard when she was playing with the elf children. It made him relax.
“I don’t know how you did it, but this could make things much easier.” He picked the bookmark up. The magic hummed under his touch, very much alive. “If nothing else, this proves you have a vivid imagination, which my publisher will love. Why would you think to give Frosty a lasso?”
“I don’t know. It just kind of…came to me.”
There was that note of shyness again.
“Well, however you came up with it, it’s great. Actually, I showed this bookmark to my publisher, and I got an idea when I activated it. Instead of a free-for-all enchantment, what if we put a lock on it? So the reader can activate it when it’s convenient for them?”
“I was thinking about that, too,” she said, her voice lighting up with excitement. “And we can provide a key with each book for the non-magical readers.”
“That’s a good idea. I was wondering how to include them.”
The only way to tell time in a house buried under several feet of snow was by checking a clock, which Boris hadn’t done since he returned from his meeting with Claus, and he didn’t look now, either. In his bachelor life as a celebrated author, his time was his own, and he rarely bothered sticking to a schedule. So the length of his conversation with Lily didn’t matter. After they’d gotten past the initial difficulties of her magically and forcibly ejecting him from her yard, and after Pipaluk’s potion had revived her from the unconscious state she’d ended up in after overuse of her magic, they’d gotten along fairly well, and now, they really seemed to be hitting it off.
Not in the way Crystal wanted, though.
It wasn’t that Lily was unattractive. She was pretty, with a slender figure, short black hair, and icy blue eyes Boris’ friend Xavier would die for, but she was a bit young for him. And her temper wasn’t exactly a selling point. His nose still throbbed a little from the break she’d given him when she’d smashed a solid block of ice into his face. However, now that he had several thousand miles between them to prevent that from happening again, he could acknowledge she was interesting and easier to talk to than her cousin.
They ended the call, and he dismissed the mounting number of missed calls and texts from Crystal.
And then it came to him. His next book. A snow witch making her way in a non-magical society, navigating normalcy and warm weather. With a non-magical love interest for a change. His non-magical readers had been asking for representation in his stories, so this would make them happy and give him the opportunity to try something new. He’d have to do a lot of research, though, which meant he’d have to brave Lily’s presence again. But he’d rather face her than Crystal.
His readers would love it. Now, to get Mrs. Claus’ approval.5Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡD2ZhbEHP3D
Date of creation: 01/15/2025
Word count for this part: 1,853
Total word count for this chapter: 3,499
Author’s note: The prompt was to write a short story in the high sci-fantasy genre (blend of high fantasy and science fiction) with a maximum of 3,500 words using an image, the song Salt by Ava Max, and a lasso.5Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡwEyKS7Byz3
