Learning the Meaning of Christmas

[gredya]

[elfwarning]

"A book. A Saint Claws book." As soon as the bar produces it, Gredya takes it and one of the dolls over to a corner table and begins on her mission. But before long she's sighing. Back to the bar. "...and a dictionary."

Ugh. What even are some of these words? N-A-U-G-H-T-Y. Noggity?

Comments

[clayforthedevil]

Gredya!

Bahorel raises a hand in greeting as he walks over-- and then makes a face at the doll. "Those things. D'you know where they come from?"

Hello, Gredya! Congratulations on having the timing to not see Bahorel until after he's had time to clean up! A lot.

[gredya]

He still smells. Like fish. And soap. And the kind of soap his kind of person puts in his hair. Sorry, Bahorel, you're getting a disapproving wrinkly-nose face. But also a nodded greeting. Hey there, friend.

"When you kill one, more come." She considers him with a frown. "You are Christian? Are these...Santa's Little Helpers? They help Saint Claws?"

[farouche_bravoure]

Fantine has been trying to make herself concentrate on her reading all morning. It hasn't worked all that well, and she's happy to come down for a break.

She sees a woman--a strange-looking woman, but this is Milliways--clutching a doll and poring over a dictionary, looking frustrated. Fantine knows the feeling.

"Good day, madame," she says. "Are you trying to learn to read, too?"

[gredya]

A strange and wild-looking woman: but, sadly, maybe not so strange-looking to Fantine. The bare feet and ragged clothing, the gaunt frame, Fantine's probably seen that before. (But beautiful skin and hair and teeth, as clean and fine as a baby's.)

She frowns fiercely at Fantine. "I already read. ...But," she allows after a pause, "I forget many words."

[farouche_bravoure]

No, the signs of poverty are familiar enough, though not the combination of that and the perfect skin and teeth.

"I also forget," says Fantine. "What are you looking up?"

[gredya]

"Saint Claws. And his helpers. They care if you are...this word."

She taps it in the book with a finger. N-a-u-g-h-t-y. And then again in the dictionary: (especially of children) disobedient; badly behaved.

[farouche_bravoure]

"Oh!" Fantine peers at the word, which obligingly translates itself into French. Comprehension dawns, though she has to think for a moment to realize what 'Saint Claws' is. "Father Christmas has helpers?" She looks at the doll, and some of the odd things she's heard of round the Bar today start to make sense. "Is that--?"

[gredya]

Gredya is actually faintly relieved that this woman seems to be almost as much in the dark here as she is herself. See, not everyone automatically knows these things!

She tugs over the elf doll and passes it to Fantine. "I went home. I asked my friend. She says, they sound like Saint Claws's helper elfs. She doesn't know why they are here. Or how to make them go away. --If you kill one more come."

[clayforthedevil]

Wrinkly-nose back at you for suggesting he's a Christian, Gredya. "I was taught by priests, so no,I'm not Christian. But I know the stories." He picks up the doll and turns it around, critically. " In France it's Father Christmas,and he doesn't have elves like this. But I know he does in some stories."


...No killing them. Right. "What if you take them outside? Just leave them somewhere? Do they get back here on their own?"

[gredya]

Hey, Gredya's not judging, some of her best friends are Christians.

She considers his suggestion for a moment, then picks up the doll and gives it a deep and thorough sniff. "Burying them makes more come. But we will try. I will take this outside. You read here. Find out about the elfs. --I went home to ask my friend. She is from Virginia. She says Santa is Saint Claws and he has elfs like this. They make toys for him to give to children."

Her friend BJ, lucky woman, is from a time before the Elf on the Shelf (TM).

[clayforthedevil]

That's okay! Bahorel's opinions don't need agreement!

He salutes her. "It's a plan! I'll find out what I can for you."

The book's a neat little collection of legends, with very bright illustrations, from some time long after Bahorel's death. Reindeer? Sure. Elves? Why not.

"Sounds practically Norse", he says, to no one in particular. The North Pole? Close enough...

And there's the list, that makes sense at least--
--wait.

He scowls skeptically at the book.

He looks at the doll that's suddenly in front of him. He scowls harder.

[gredya]

Gredya leaves the elf doll stranded in the crook of a tree; if that one reappears in the bar she'll recognize its smell.

When she gets back, Bahorel is scowling at the book. Gredya nods: it makes her feel that way too. "You find something?"

[clayforthedevil]

"I will say, I hope I'm wrong!" Because if he's right, it will be deeply annoying. "Santa-- it's Pere Noel for us, but it's the same either way--he gives gifts to children o once a year. That's the story, anyway." Probably not necessary to get into familial deception for purposes of Fun and Tradition with Gredya right now. "But he only gives gifts to good children. It's a way to keep them behaved, you see. Be Nice, and Father Christmas brings you sweet almonds and toys; act up Naughty, and you get the switch. Hah, or shoved in a sack and taken to hell."

He had been a terrible child, and he'd never gone to Hell even once. The tales are cruel deception!

"Now when I'm from, people still called him a Saint, and he was a man to us, a holy man with magic, and sometimes other men, or demons, to help him." More or less. "But this book,it calls him jolly old elf, and says he has more elves to help him make toys and keep his list--his list of who's Naughty and Nice."

He glares at the doll again, and then looks over to Gredya. " I think they're his spies."

[farouche_bravoure]

At the word 'kill,' Fantine looks up, startled. But all she does is shake the elf a bit and say, to the elf, "Do you talk?"

The elf says nothing, but another one appears. "Oh, dear."

[not_the_second]

Well, Mr Segundus would never interrupt someone who is reading! But if Gredya happens to look up, he will offer a polite (and timid) smile and nod.

[gredya]

At first she glowers at him, but then she catches herself and tries for a less forbidding expression. "Do you know about Saint Claws?"

[gredya]

Oh come ON says Gredya's expression, plainly. You can't even shake them a little? Really? "...And if you shake one, more come," she adds. "I think if you do anything more come! There are too many!"

[gredya]

This mostly tallies with what she'd learned from her friend and made out from the book, but she looks surprised and deeply offended when Bahorel says spies. "Why. Why does he care. Why does he have elves come and watch. Does he even come here ever?"

[not_the_second]

"Saint Claws?" he echoes. "When and where was he from?"

[gredya]

"Also they call him Santa. Christians." Sigh, and she passes over the book, open to a picture of a jolly fat man surrounded by red-clad elves.

[not_the_second]

Mr. Segundus, who pre-dates Victorian imagery of red-clad Santas and elves, looks curiously at the picture. "Christians, you say?"

[gredya]

"He brings presents for their children. You don't know about it? Do you know about these?"

She taps the elf-doll...carefully. There's enough of the damn things without this one deciding to multiply.

[not_the_second]

"Oh! Um, yes, I suppose I've seen one or two in the library..." He trails off uncertainly. Goodness, but there are quite a lot of them around the place, aren't there. "What are they?"

[farouche_bravoure]

"What do they want?"

Fantine thinks. "Père Noël, he watches over you to see if you've been good throughout the year...I've been good," she tells the elves, glaring at them. They look very off-putting.

[gredya]

"They are Santa's Little Helpers," she says grimly. "That is what my friend thinks. I want them to go away. If you kill one, more come. There will be too many soon. Like mice if no one eats them."