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dragonmuse · 1 year

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if the smit gate is still open would LOVE to request some eddy/stede getting busy, I love them so much

(you got it! so this includes something I've wanted to touch on for a while. Eddy and Stede discuss words for Eddy's genitals in the middle of this.)

“Shhhhh,” Stede attempted to say while giggling. “Darling, if we get caught this is going to be very embarrassing.”

“We won’t get caught,” Eddy said earnestly, also repressing a laugh. “Who’s going to catch us?”

They were backstage on a quiet Monday morning. No one was due in for hours and they had really just come by to do some paperwork, but as often happened, Stede’s mood had shifted to align with Eddy’s and she was in a very giddy space. Probably the extra cup of coffee with breakfast and just a general good brain day. Now they were smuggling in behind the thick red curtains after a swat at Eddy’s ass had her dragging Stede into the shadows.

“I only meant to tease,” Stede kissed her neck.

“Too bad. I play for keeps Mr. Teach-Bonnet.”

“I know, I know, Mx. Teach-Bonnet. What kind of keeps would you like?”

“I don’t know,” she licked her lips. “It’s a stage. Put on a good show for me.”

“I can do that.”

Stede didn’t take off her shirt, only slid his hands under it, rucking it up. Her bralette today was lacy and he didn’t shove that out of the way either, just set his mouth on her nipple, using the sheer fabric against her as he raised a peak.

“Ooooh,” she balanced on her good leg and wrapped the other behind his calves, drawing him in closer. The wall held her up, but it felt like the curtain in front of them was doing the work, a soft hammock of fabric enveloping her as Stede drove her slowly out of her mind.

One of Stede’s hands caught her under the thigh, steadying her even as he worked at her other nipple. She bucked against him, head tipping back and her hands claws on his shoulders. Then he dropped, gracefully, to his knees. There was one worshipping kiss to her stomach, then his hands were on her waistband, skimming down her loose pants. He didn’t take off her underwear either, the demon. He just leaned in and licked her right through them.

“Fuuuuck,” her head almost cracked against the wall. “Stede...please love...”

“Please what?” Stede glanced up at her with a grin. “What can I do for you? Do you want me to suck your cock or should I...”

Eddy glanced down at him, waiting for the end of the sentence. It didn’t come. He was eyeing her speculative. Tentative.

“What?” She sighed. “Are you having a seizure or something?”

“No I...I was thinking. About something and I’m not sure how you’ll feel about it and I’m not sure it’s the time to ask.”

“I will strangle you with my thighs,” Eddy groaned. “Why now?”

“It’s germane.”

“It’s germane,” she repeated flatly. “It’s germane to you sucking my cock?”

“It’s germane to the other option.”

“Fine. What.” The earlier heat was starting to ebb which was extremely annoying.

“It’s only if you want it, but I was thinking,” Stede’s hands moved to cup ass, kneading a little. Some of the annoyance leached away. “That we never talked about what you might want to call all the bits of yourself these days. If you had any particular feelings about it.”

“Cock is a cock,” Eddy shrugged. “Giving it a cute name isn’t going to change that. Not sure I want to.”

“All right, I figured that because you use the word yourself, but,” Stede squeezed her ass again and damn that felt good. Maybe she could get herself off while he was yakking and idly groping her like he was determining the ripeness of a cantaloupe. “We could...”

The unspoken idea finally arrived in her head.

“But it’s not.”

“Why not?” Stede asked gently. “If we decide it is, why not?”

“I-” Eddy stared down at him. “But...”

“We don’t have to, honey. We can go on using all the same words we did before. I just thought you might want it and hadn’t gotten around to asking yet.”

“I hadn’t thought...” but she had. A little. In the privacy of her own mind where anything was allowed. But Stede was right, of course. Who elses business was it? They could do whatever they liked. There were no laws here.

“Can we try it and I can see if I like it?”

“Of course. If you don’t, we’ll go right back.”

Eddy took a deep breath, expelled it, then she reached out to sink her fingers into his hair.

“Stede?”

“Mm?”

“Lick my pussy.”

He didn’t hesitate to shoved down her underwear. The angle was bad, she was hobbled by her clothes and he had to hold far too much of her weight to maintain it for very long. But he tongued her open so expertly, Eddy was beyond caring almost immediately.

“Oh God, oh God,” she rocked against him.

When he pulled away, she almost strangled him.

“I may have taken one of the lube sachests from the bathroom,” he panted. “Can I fuck your pussy?”

And that was so goddamn dirty for some reason that Eddy could’ve practically come from hearing it. She got both feet on the ground so she could turn around and bend over, practically tripping over her own pants.

“If you don’t, I might actually cry,” she groaned.

He didn’t mess around, sliding into her seconds later, so wet with lube, there was an audible wet thwack. She cried out into her arms and he pulled her tight to him.

“Oh, fuck,” she moaned. “Please... baby, oh god fuck me hard. Make me scream.”

Stede groaned, put his forehead to her shoulder and then he moved, short staccato thrusts that made her whine and claw up the wall half trying to get away half pushing herself harder against him. The wet slap of sound echoed over the stage. He reached around, palming her cock in time to his thrusts so all she had to do was keep herself upright. Surprisingly demanding at the moment.

“You’re so tight, so wet,” Stede murmured into her ear. “I love fucking your pussy, gorgeous girl.”

Eddy wailed and came in a body wracking shake that he held her through. Wrung out, she propped herself against the wall, aware of the hot throbbing length of him still inside of her. She clenched around him, grinning as he grunted in pleasure.

“Go on.” she encouraged.

“Not to twitchy, baby girl?”

“Nah," she could've melted into the floor with that, "go ahead.”

Stede didn’t take much longer and she loved how he came with the smallest whimper as if it hurt him to come to an end. Then he kissed her shoulder, over and over until he slipped from her.

“What do you think?” He asked, staying where he was so she could keep her hiding her face.

“I don’t know about all the time. Doesn’t really work day to day. But uh. Yes. During sex,” she decided.

“All right,” Stede was clearly pleased with himself and she let him have it. He should be pleased. That had been hot as hell. “I love you.”

“I love you too,” she turned to him, pressing her forehead to his. “You want to go rinse out your mouth, I’ll clean the curtain.”

“...that’s probably wise,” he conceded.

They did get to the paperwork eventually. Well. Stede did. Eddy spaced out for the most part. He didn’t call her back, humming his atonal hum instead, lulling her in the quiet.

#leda house and the kraken verse #ficlet #babygirl and goldenboy #stede teach bonnet #eddy teach bonnet

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vvatchword · 1 year

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Ch. 26: From on High

Dr. Lamb’s first speech came that afternoon without preparation at all. She had just stepped outside the office to stretch her legs when a shout went up down the street. Down the block came a vanguard of children shouting insults and throwing rocks; just behind the children, a group of overall-clad workmen surrounded by Sinclairs wielding shotguns; far behind marched a shifting, shivering horde of disgruntled humanity. Men, women, children, all ages, in washed-out clothing that flapped loosely on their limbs, sometimes holding brooms or pokers or chair legs.

The rumble was like that of thunder.

Soon the group had swallowed up her street, as well as the line that crushed itself against her building.

“I’m very sorry; what’s going on?” Dr. Lamb called out into the crowd.

“They’re knocking down our apartment!” a man in black called back. “They’re knocking it down and they’re not paying us back for the leases or nothing!”

“Perhaps I can help,” she said, holding her door open for an entering janitor. “When are they going down?”

“This minute! Now!”

She stepped off her stoop. “I will be back directly. All of you will be seen to.”

The line outside her door stared mutely; no doubt they hadn’t heard her.

Some watched, wondering.

She stepped out into the crowd and it swept her down the block. A group of young men blocked up the space around her without saying a word; she was aware of their eyes, although she never caught them looking at her.

She was never jostled. She was never touched.

In this way, she pushed toward the front of the line, where a square opened organically into a bare patch of raw stone and dumped cement. Men with saws and sledgehammers were arguing with a throng of inhabitants clustered outside one of the Drop’s most cherished rarities—a professionally-built building once used as a flophouse for the construction crews of years past, long since converted to a tenement. Its front door had already been removed from its hinges.

Dr. Lamb broke through the head of the throng, lifting her arms and her voice.

“Quiet, please!” she called out.

Perhaps because she was a woman, perhaps because she reminded one strongly of Sunday school teachers, perhaps because she stood out—prim and proper in a pencil skirt down to her calves, a high collar, pale and lavender and gray against the yellow, the black, the earth—the different sides settled.

The Sinclairs alone moved; although they kept the muzzles down, they slowly lifted their shotguns against their shoulders.

“I come unarmed,” said Dr. Lamb to the Sinclairs, “and am but a single woman. Do you mean to solve your problems with violence instead of reason?”

The crowd muttered, but the Sinclairs burst into laughter.

“This ain’t your place, sister,” said the Sinclair captain, who wore a peaked cap with a brass star. “Why don’t you head back and yak at those hobos instead of bothering honest workers?”

“Violence here would no doubt stretch to the place where I ‘yak,’” said Dr. Lamb. “This is purely self-interest. Please, allow me to help.”

The crowd shifted around behind her. Were the edges of it beginning to press inward?

“We don’t need no help,” said the captain. “Get outta here.”

“I am told you are tearing down this building,” said Dr. Lamb. “This would impact well over a hundred citizens. Who has made this decision?”

“Sinclair Solutions,” said a worker whose nametag read, “Mitchell.” “Take it up with them.”

“Sinclair Solutions owns this site?”

“Well, yeah,” Mitchell said. “What don’t they own down here?”

From the side streets swaggered more brown-jackets, rifles in their arms. Dr. Lamb saw them.

Dr. Lamb did not express anything other than unsurprised indifference.

“It seems strange that the company would not give these people notice,” she said.

Mitchell shrugged. “Not uncommon down here, ma’am.”

She blinked and stood back. “I beg your pardon?”

“Not uncommon to build or take down a building without letting anyone know,” he said. “Happens all the time.”

“You would throw whole families on the street. Working families, no less.”

“Just doing my job, ma’am.”

Brown-jackets were slipping through the crowd toward her.

Dr. Lamb lifted her voice. “Part of our ‘job’ is understanding and defending the philosophy. And by the philosophy, this is the behavior of a tyrant.”

Silence fell on the square. A brown-jacket had just begun to reach for her out of the crowd. He recoiled.

“This is the behavior of a tyrant!” she said, a woman—a schoolmarm—shining white. “You have every right to defend yourselves.”

The acoustics of the square had been accidental; now they flung up Dr. Lamb’s voice like an end-time trumpet. The crowd had been building up as she spoke. It trembled, edged forward. Too late did the brownjacks and the sledgehammers realize that it was perhaps 300 strong and still growing.

The captain’s jaw tightened. “All right. You had your chat. We’ve got work to do. You get your scum out of the way so we can get it done.”

But Dr. Lamb no longer addressed him. She turned her back on him and faced the crowd shivering but feet away. It seemed suddenly that she towered above them; they shrank, small and earthy and crawling, staring up with eyes like hunted animals.

“You have worked fairly for your bread, have you not?” Dr. Lamb called out. “You have paid for your housing? Your children’s educations? You have signed the papers they asked for? And once they are done with you, they throw you aside; they will find others who will pay because they must. And you have paid and you have paid and you have paid! Where are your returns? Do you not deserve them as much as Sinclair? Are you not as much a man as he?”

The rumble went up. The Sinclair captain’s shotgun shivered; in a moment he might snap it to eye level; in a moment she might lose her head before an army.

Her army. An army he could see trembling at the brink.

“The philosophy should speak for every man,” Dr. Lamb said. “Not merely the strongest. There is strength in variety and death in monoculture.” She whirled on the Sinclairs. “You—shotguns! Take this back to Augustus Sinclair: without these people, the Drop will never heal, and by extension, the whole of Rapture lies dying of a seeping wound.”

A ragged cheer rose up, then swelled high, and hands waved hats. The edges of the crowd bunched up around her, swallowed her up, then crept step by shuddering step, hundreds upon hundreds of feet, shod and unshod, the herd lowering its horns before the lions.

The Sinclair captain met Dr. Lamb’s eyes. He lowered his shotgun. He flicked his hand back over his shoulder. Slowly, the group of workmen and their brownjacks backed away across the square, eyes on the crowd, as it lifted up a deep rumble of discontent.

Dr. Lamb followed their retreat—slowly, enveloped by the crowd, tall, straight-backed, untouchable, shining. She and the Sinclair captain kept their eyes locked on the entire slog down the street toward the train station.

It was he who, red-faced, would stand before his boss and say, without reserve: “Sir, there is something unnatural about that woman.”

It was she who would watch them depart by train, then walk back to her white building, the crowd leaping around her. The young tossed their hats and shook her hand; the older inclined their heads and doffed their caps. She nodded to those whose hands she shook, but no expression passed her face; later, those who had met her would describe her visage as everything from noble to proud to world-weary.

She stepped into her office for the one o’clock appointment.

The letter arrived at Dr. Lamb's Family Consultation Center by special courier early that evening. Dr. Lamb had just set her files aside for the secretary. A line still wound out the door, quiet lined faces staring through the glass; most of them would remain overnight, waiting for openings in her schedule. She had not put up bars, even when the plumber had suggested it.

"No," she had said. "It would say we did not have faith in our own cause."

"It would stop a Sinclair from torching the place," he had said, but never brought it up again.

The letter was two pages long. The first piece of paper was printed with the city council's letterhead, crowned by a chain motif clenched between two straining fists.

She scanned it, hand clenching in her lap, digging one nail into her palm at a time. She set the page down.

The second page was from Andrew Ryan.

Her brow knotted. For a moment only her eyes moved. She must have finished at some point, for she sat staring, unmoving, for a few minutes.

Then her brow smoothed. Her lips loosed. She leaned back. She took both pages, folded them neatly, tucked them back in their envelope.

The secretary poked her head around the corner. She was a homely girl, stout, missing her right leg below the knee. Her face was white. Her eyes lit on the envelope, its neatly torn slit.

“What did they say?” she asked.

Dr. Lamb met her eyes. Pinching it between thumb and index finger, she dropped it in the wastebasket.

“It is nothing worth worrying about,” she said. “I will see you tomorrow.”

Dr. Lamb stepped through the front door, a bag of groceries in one arm. Almost as soon as she did, Eleanor bowled into her.

“Eleanor,” she said, “what did I tell you about…”

“Mum!” said Eleanor, flapping up a newspaper. “Do you know Johnny Topside?”

“I… Eleanor, do not change the topic,” she said. “Remember, exce…”

“Excessive-emotion-clouds-logic-yes-I-know-but-do-you-know-Johnny-Topside?” Eleanor jumped up, held the newspaper straight out.

Dr. Lamb frowned, took it out of her hand. It was a full-page ad. A man, frowning, staring down as if in thought; his stance wide open, like someone poised for a fight; cigarette clamped between index and middle fingers, a stream of smoke floating up; jacket flared open, thumb smearing something dark from his lip. Behind him, the slouching humps of Neptune’s Bounty.

“It’s Always Time for Nico-Time!” said the copy.

“That’s Johnny Topside,” said Eleanor, and stared at her expectantly.

Dr. Lamb lowered the paper, squinting down at her daughter like she had just been given a toad.

“Why are you showing me this picture?” she asked slowly.

“Do you know him?” asked Eleanor. “Did you meet him in Japan?”

“Of course not,” said Dr. Lamb. “Why, he was probably…” She looked at the ad again. “He might have only been in his teens at that time. Oh, Eleanor. We were at war, and Japan was not a friendly place to outsiders. Why on Earth would you ask such a thing?”

Eleanor’s smile fell. “I just… I just thought…”

“Did he give an interview?” Dr. Lamb paled. “Is Ryan trying to connect us?” She flipped the paper closed, glanced over the front page.

“N-no,” Eleanor said, twisting her hands. “I just thought maybe you…”

She leaned against the wall, took her glasses off, rubbed her forehead. “Oh, Eleanor. I…”

For a moment, both of them stood very quietly. Far away, a minute hand ticked. Dr. Lamb pushed the heel of her hand into one eye, then the other.

No, no, she could not. She would not.

She took a deep and shuddering breath.

“Today was very difficult for me, Eleanor,” she said at last. “I know better than to give in to emotional excess.”

“It’s okay,” Eleanor said solemnly, wrapping her arms around Dr. Lamb’s legs. “You’re only human.”

Dr. Lamb laughed. It was a colorless fluttering sound. Eleanor gazed up and laughed with her as loudly as she could.

UPRISING: BLACK SCRAPBOOK HUB

#bioshock #bioshock 2 #sofia lamb #eleanor lamb #augustus sinclair #although only mentioned #vvatchword #uprising #fanfiction #Lions may walk with lions but the cape buffalo outnumbers them 20 to 1 and can loft them into low earth orbit #I debated posting a progress chapter but Lamb's bits are the hardest ones #sometimes if I post them I start seeing issues more clearly #anyway it's a first draft and subject to change #trying to pretend you're a smart person is very difficult as it turns out #one of my favorite bits about this story is how Sinclair's and Lamb's stories never directly touch but influence each other #they only ever impact each other through other people

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dracocheesecake · 1 year

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Baby Kai Headcanons:

Because I drank too much coffee and have a bit of baby fever so you know what? Why not make headcanons of Kai as a calf? He wasn't always the Supreme Warlord of all China, after all.

A very chubby, very fluffy baby. Khaltmaa was very proud of her fat fluffy son.

Also very demanding. If he wanted attention you had to drop everything- everything- and tend to him, or you wouldn't get to sleep that night. Little guy had a pair of lungs in him and he would scream at any given opportunity. Bingwen had to learn this the hard way: many sleepless nights followed.

Only ever wanted momma to give him kissies- if daddy did it he would scrunch up his little face and grunt until he stopped.

If he wasn't swaddled and Bingwen was writing at the time, he would try to "help"- basically stick his little hooves into the ink and splatter it everywhere while screaming. Bingwen called this his "artistic period" and often joked that his son would soon surpass him in the literary arts.

Was always getting out of his clothes. Before he was able to walk, though, it was easier for his parents to get them back on him.

Only time he was really calm was when he was either passed out or eating.

Was usually a very grouchy, grumpy baby, too. Bingwen would spend most of his time with him trying to get him to smile or giggle, with limited results.

Between the two parents Khaltmaa was actually more experienced with babies- in her home herd she had had several young relatives, and often helped to care for them; Bingwen, on the other hand, had no prior experience with calves, and the first couple of weeks he was really panicking- Khaltmaa had to help him a lot at first until he relaxed.

Baby Kai had a tendency to try to eat everything- nothing was safe from him. Bingwen had to start keeping everything on shelves because of his tiny calf's voraciousness.

When Kai was an adult, his parents would often embarrass him with various stories from this period of his youth- one of their favorites being the time they found two month old Kai outside, having already devoured half of the lawn and working on the other half.

Khaltmaa took him to have his hair cutting ceremony when he was three. She took Bingwen and her son and traveled back to her herd and they cut his hair to symbolize his transition from calfhood to childhood- he liked the yogurt he was given, but cried when they cut his mane- poor baby didn't know what was going on, only that all of these strange yaks were murmuring well wishes at him, touching his head with a wooden knife, and then cutting off all of his hair, save for a tuft- until he realized the ceremony was for him. Khaltmaa, before her death, still had the khadag.

#kung fu panda #general kai #kai #ocs #headcanons #baby kai baby kai baby kai #his parents are definitely the types to whip out baby pictures every chance they get they love to embarrass their son #AU where oogway actually got to meet them and Kai's parents gush over their warlord son and tell all of the embarrassing baby stories

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mellowpremiumvictoria · 2 years

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Specialty of Yak Chews from Mellow Premium

What’s the most appalling thing you felt while giving your dog chew? The odour of the chew, of course! They smell like rotting meat. And if you are a vegan with a pet who loves to chew, this can be a stressful situation for you.

Well, thanks to brands like Mellow Premium, vegan pet owners need not worry about stinking smells and messy carpets.

Yak dog chew, which has taken the dog treat market by storm, is an odour-free and mess-free chew with no meat in it. This chew is made of yak milk. The milk is dried and turned into hard cheese, which is then cut into rectangular chunks to make chews.

Specialty of Mellow Premium

Mellow Premium is one of the brands that understand dogs better. That’s why they manufacture chews that are easy on your pet’s digestive system and promote oral health.

So when your pet chews this treat, he or she will cease to have the typical smelly breath that most dogs have. This is because the chew helps to remove plague from your pet’s teeth and cleanses the mouth. No plague, no smell. Your pet would boast of a fresh mouth.

Specialty of Yak chews

Yak chews are available through several brands, but when you buy them from Mellow Premium, you can assure yourselves of the highest and the purest quality. The chews are 100 percent organic and natural. They contain no added flavors and other artificial ingredients.

Do you know your dog hardly cares about the flavor or color of a treat? All he or she wants is to chew!

That’s the reason Mellow Premium has done away with redundant ingredients and focused only on the main ones, which is yak milk. This has made yak chews safe for dogs.

About yak milk

Yak is a cow-like animal that resides in the Himalayas. Immediately after calving, yaks produce blood-tinted milk. This pink-colored milk is super high in protein. Locals call this milk “beastings.” As the calves grow older, yak produces creamy white milk.

Locals use this milk to produce butter and cheese. Yak milk is good for human consumption too. It is also seen that locals give hard cheese blocks to their pet dogs to chew. This gave manufacturers of dog food an idea to produce yak chews for pets.

Nutrition value

Energy content, protein content, and the amount of unsaturated fatty acids in yak milk are higher than that of cow milk. As per a study article in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, yak milk contains conjugated linoleic acids, which delay the onset of heart disease, diabetes, and cancer. Also, milk contains vitamins and is rich in phosphorus and calcium.

When you give your dog a yak chew, remember that you are giving him/her a powerhouse of nutrition. Shop at https://mellowpremium.com/.

#yak dog chew #yak chews safe for dogs

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hawberries · 2 years

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real quick before the year of the ox is over, anyone want some cows

[image is eight drawings of cows arranged on a pink background; a fluffy highland, a placid grey yak, a tawny oxen, a white cow grazing, and little calves in black, skewbald, brindle, and brown.]

#one day i'll have sticker sheets for every animal in the chinese zodiac and then i'll be the avatar #cows #critters!#gallery

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col-life23 · 4 years

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Army Hands Over 13 Yaks, 4 Calves To China That Crossed Over LAC Amid Border Row The yaks and calves had come from across the Line of Actual Control Itanagar: In a humane gesture, Indian Army handed over yaks and calves that strayed across the Line of Actual Control in Arunachal Pradesh to China, said the Eastern Command, Indian Army on Monday.

#India China Row #Indian Army Eastern Command #Line of Actual Control (LAC)#Yaks and calves

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newsoutbursts · 4 years

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#India China Row #Indian Army Eastern Command #Line of Actual Control (LAC)#Yaks and calves

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furtheradvofsanta · 3 years

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Santa Letter 2020

Every year, Santa Claus writes a letter to my nephew, and somehow every year I manage to find a copy. If you’ve been wondering what Santa and crew have been up to in quarantine, well, here you go. Bonus: Jack Frost and Frosty the Snowman go hunting for a yeti.

Santa’s Workshop

Beyond the Riphean Mountains

Beyond the North Wind

True North Pole

December 21, 2020

My dearest [name],

What a strange year this has been. I hope you and your family are doing well, or as well as possible at least. I don’t know how much you remember your five Christmases before this one, but they weren’t much like this sixth one, and I hope the seventh and beyond won’t be much like this one either! At least this year I am definitely writing to you from home and not the Moon, where the mail takes so long to travel from (and where I guess they print in blue ink!), but I’ve been at home so long now, I honestly wouldn’t mind a quick little hop to the Moon, or anywhere, if I were allowed.

But before I tell you about what things have been like here at the North Pole as we have all been stuck at home, let me tell you about what happened at the beginning of the year, which I think will amuse you. You see, our good friend Jack Frost came to visit us after we had finished our rounds for Christmas. Along with him came his brother, whose name I have not mentioned before, because his name is in Russian, and is something of a big name for little eyes: МОРОЗКО. Some of those letters may not even look like letters to you, but I promise you, in Russian, they are. It means something like “Little Frost,” and he got the name from his grandfather, Grandfather Frost, so I suppose I will call him “Frostie,” which some have been known to call him.

When Jack and Frostie arrived at the workshop after the Christmas rush, it was obvious that Frostie was upset. Angry, even. This is fairly unusual for him, as he is usually the cooler head that prevails over Jack’s flights of fancy. Another thing you need to know about Frostie is that, well, he doesn’t have a body. Because of an accident that happened many years ago, he’s more like a ghost who lives in a hat. But whenever that hat is placed on something--a mannequin or doll, for instance--that thing comes alive with Frostie’s spirit. Because of his family’s power over the winter frost, the most common thing he uses for a body is a snowman. In fact, he’s pretty famous for his adventures that way.

One of his best-known adventures happened many years ago in the small town of Armonk, New York, where he played with the children there and raised Christmas spirits considerably. You might have heard about it. The people of that town celebrate this adventure every year with a parade in which Frostie is the guest of honor. Despite generally being a pretty modest young man, Frostie does love this parade and he attends every year. In most ways, 2019 was no different. But then something chanced to catch his eye.

As the parade was processing down Main Street toward the village square, Frostie happened to look over at a local storefront that was decorated for Christmas. What he saw was a snowy mountain scene populated by dolls fashioned to look like strange figures: mostly human-shaped but very large, with long white hair covering most of their bodies and only bits of blue skin peeking out at their faces, hands, and very large feet. You might have heard of the creatures depicted in this scene. In the snowy Himalayas, they call them the Migoi or the Mirka, but most people there and elsewhere call them the yeti. In English, the yeti is often called the Abominable Snowman, and an old friend of mine used to call them bumbles because he couldn’t say “abominable” very well.

America has its own fair share of large, hairy, human-like ape creatures that stalk through their woods. The most famous of these of course is the sasquatch, also known as Bigfoot, who lives in the Northwest states like Washington and Oregon, down into Northern California, but there’s also the Fouke Monster in Arkansas, the Skunk Ape in Florida, the Hillbilly Beast in Kentucky, and several others. The yeti is related to this, but lives way over in Asia, high in the Himalayas, the highest mountains in the world.

The yeti looks like a large ape that walks on two legs, almost eight feet tall, with long arms, a powerfully strong body, and a head with a flat nose, all covered in long red or black hair. While they often appear white, this is usually because their naturally dark fur is covered with snow and ice. They are clever hunters and can turn their feet around backwards so that their footprints look like they’re going the opposite direction, just to fool anyone trying to follow them. Their main hunting weapon is a magic rock that they carry under their left arm which always hits and stuns its target--which is usually a yak or a goat, unless a person is really unlucky. They normally live alone, but they talk to each other by making a whistling sound. Plus they smell really bad.

After the parade was over, Frostie decided to see if he could find any more Christmas yetis, so he let his hat take to the wind, and he flew all over the place. The more Frostie looked around, the more decorations he saw of these Abominable Snowmen. He saw ornaments, stuffed animals, dolls, tree toppers, and inflatables in people’s front yards. They were everywhere. And Frostie didn’t like it.

Do you know what the word “abominable” means? It’s not a very nice word. It means something so bad, so mean, so disgusting, that everyone who sees it immediately hates it. Frostie, who was often a snowman himself, didn’t want that to be the word everyone thought of when they thought of snowmen at Christmas. As he himself is a jolly, happy soul (usually), those are the kinds of words he would want to be used to describe snowmen.

(His brother Jack, of course, suggested that the real reason that Frostie was so upset is that he had become used to being the most famous snowman of all, and he didn’t like his spotlight being stolen. This, I think, was Jack teasing his brother, but who knows? There could be some truth to it.)

And so it was that when Jack and Frostie came to visit us after Christmas, Frostie let us know of his plan: he was going to go to the Himalayas, catch a yeti, and tell them to go back up into their mountain caves and leave Christmas to less abominable people! He wasn’t going to go alone, of course. Jack considers himself a big-time adventurer and thought catching one of the scariest monsters in the world would be a real feather in his cap. (Though knowing Jack as I do, I knew he would tell stories of bravely catching an abominable snowman even if he never saw one.) What’s more, the two brothers would be joined by their cousin, the Snow Maiden, whose duties for Grandfather Frost (the grandfather of Jack, Frostie, and the Snow Maiden who lives in a snowy estate in the forests of Russia) she had completed after the New Year, which is when Russian children get presents.

Frostie thought it would be a good family outing for the three cousins to travel together, since the two brothers are normally roaming the world and the Snow Maiden spends most of her time with Grandfather Frost. I think the Snow Maiden was more interested in the travels with her family than any chance of seeing (or smelling) a yeti. And, as I said, Jack was more interested in being able to boast about hunting a great monster than in saving the good name of snowmen everywhere.

But Frostie was still glad to have them along. Each one of them has a good amount of snow and ice magic on their own, but together the three of them should have been unstoppable, even in the face of giant hairy ape-men. As they were preparing for their trip, Jack even started singing a song that he made up (or so he says) about their expedition. I don’t remember all the words, but I do remember him singing this part over and over at the top of his lungs, until the words echoed through the reindeer stalls and frightened all the calves:

“Well, it’s cheer up, my lads!

Keep your hearts ever steady!

For the bonny brave Frost cousins

Go a-hunting for the yeti!”

And before we knew it, they were off. As quick as a wink, Jack and the Snow Maiden had whisked themselves up into invisible snowy winds and carried Frostie’s hat off with them. Fortunately, the same Christmas magic that lets me know when children are in danger or when they’re up to coal-worthy antics would warn me if anything went wrong for them on their trip that required a quick reindeer rescue. Frostie had told me not to worry, as he had once saved a city in Maryland from monsters that were a lot like yetis except much, much bigger. In that case, a local doctor had simply built a very, very large snowman body for Frostie to inhabit, which made scaring off the frost giants much easier. He said that if things got too scary, Jack could easily make him a similar body. I guess it was better than no plan at all, but I hoped they wouldn’t have to count on a giant snowman saving them.

As it turns out, they didn’t have to build a giant snowman. But that’s not to say there wasn’t any danger. In fact, only a few days after the Frost cousins had left for the mountains of Tibet, I had a dream in which I could see what they were up to. After failing to find a snowbeast for some time, the three cousins decided to find a place to rest. What they found was an old abandoned mill where the local people used to grind barley into flour. Since it was obvious no one had been there in a long time, the three built a fire and settled in to sleep.

In the darkest, quietest time of the night, they were all suddenly woken up by the sound of the mill door slamming shut! When they opened their eyes, they saw the giant, shaggy form of an angry yeti standing over them! “This is my hideout!” he growled in an angry voice. “What are you doing here? I’m going to eat you up!”

The three cousins were scared and didn’t know what to do. They had great power among them, but this yeti had caught them off-guard. There was no snow inside the mill for Frostie to use as a body, so the plan that had worked on the frost giants in Maryland wouldn’t work here. Jack decided to turn to his most powerful weapon: tall tales.

“It’s good that you’re here, Mister Yeti,” said Jack. “We’ve been looking all over for you. My brother and sister and I are all powerful frost giants from the land of Giants’ Home and we have taken on these puny human forms to come and see how this world’s snow and ice monsters are doing.” He stood up and walked around the yeti as if he were checking out a suit of clothes that he was considering buying. “You seem to be doing a very good job, very frightening. The stink is good, it reminds me of home. Your sweaty armpit rock is very intimidating as well. I’ll let the king of the giants know that he doesn’t have to worry about the ape-men of the Himalayas.”

Unfortunately, the yeti wasn’t buying Jack’s story any more than you might. He grabbed Jack by the back of his collar and lifted him up off the ground to look him straight in the eye. Jack did his best not to grimace when the sour milk smell of the yeti’s steamy breath puffed into his nostrils. “Show me,” said the yeti. “Show me that you are a giant. If you are so strong, you could crush me.” Jack couldn’t answer. “Why do you look so scared?”

So Frostie’s plan to make a big snowman hadn’t worked, and the yeti wasn’t convinced by Jack’s fibs. Fortunately there was still a third Frost cousin. The Snow Maiden cried out, just as the yeti was about to bop Jack one right on the head, “Wait! Mister Yeti, I know we have come into your hiding place and now you are going to eat us up. That is only fair. But I have one request. Where we come from, it is a custom before dying to cover our legs with oil before dying. That way we can run swiftly to Heaven. Will you allow us to do this?”

The yeti thought it over and decided he didn’t really care if his dinner tasted like oil or not, especially since he planned to gobble them up so fast that he wouldn’t even be able to taste anything. And so he agreed to let the cousins brush their legs with oil before he ate them up. But what he didn’t know was that the brush the Snow Maiden held up wasn’t a brush for rubbing oil on things: it was Jack’s magic paintbrush that he uses to paint frost crystals on windows and sparkling white icicles on tree branches.

The Snow Maiden ran the brush up and down her leg and said, “This is so wonderful. My legs feel like I could run anywhere, as fast as the wind. I could catch up to a yak without trying. I could leap from mountaintop to mountaintop.”

The yeti, who would have liked to be able to catch a yak without trying, grabbed the brush from the Snow Maiden’s hands. “Let me try that!” he growled. Soon he was rubbing the brush up and down his hideous hairy legs, just as he had seen the Snow Maiden do, all the way down to his furry, backwards feet. With each swipe of the brush, however, the yeti’s legs became more and more covered in ice thanks to the magic of the paintbrush. Before he even noticed what was happening, his legs were so frozen that he couldn’t move. Jack couldn’t believe the Snow Maiden, normally so polite, had pulled off a better trick than even he could think of, and with his own brush no less.

With the yeti frozen to the ground, the Frost cousins took their chance to escape. Jack, with one last flick of his brush, froze the yeti’s mouth closed so that he wouldn’t be able to whistle a warning to the others out there hiding among the mountain caves. The three Frosts disappeared into a flurry of snow, and that was the end of my dream. I did not dream about them again for a long time, so I figured that meant they were safe.

Meanwhile, it turns out that it was everywhere else that wasn’t safe! Suddenly, everywhere all over the world people were getting sick, and the only way to stay healthy was to stay inside or wear a mask if you had to go out. That was true everywhere, even here at the North Pole. You may have heard on TV that I can’t catch this sickness, which is true--I wouldn’t be able to deliver presents this year otherwise--but that’s not true for everyone who lives up here at the North Pole. And so we had to make sure everyone was safe.

My main apprentice, Pete, was very helpful in making sure that his brothers all washed their hands several times a day while singing the song “Saint Nicholas, Little Rascal” (a very popular song in the Netherlands) twice to make sure they were all the way clean. The animals couldn’t get sick, so Rupert didn’t have much to do besides his normal job, though he did make sure the werewolf in our stables always kept a mask over his snout. The elves in the workshop made special breathing devices that filtered out any sickness from the air. I told them they didn’t have to work and that I would make all the toys this year, but they said that toymakers are essential workers, and I couldn’t disagree. We can’t disappoint the children. This year has been bad enough.

The Krampus assured me that the beasts huddled up in our outbuilding of furry friends were enough like animals that they wouldn’t get sick any more than the reindeer would. That was good, because I couldn’t imagine trying to convince that big pile of monsters that they should stay six feet away from each other.

Once we had made sure that everyone at the workshop was being careful and staying home, it was up to Mrs. Claus to make sure that everyone out in the village in the forest was being safe. Mrs. Claus and her two closest helpers, Holly and Ivy, who are both tree spirits like Mrs. Claus, went out into the thick forest of fir trees that surround the North Pole workshop. First they told all the other tree spirits that it would be best to just stay in their trees this year unless absolutely necessary.

Then they turned to the Mushroom People who make their homes underneath the fir trees, with their little red caps with white spots. They had come to live in our forest after being driven out of their homes by the Penny Bun Mushrooms in the War of the Mushrooms. They found it most comfortable to live under the shade of silver fir trees, and since we have more of those than anywhere else in the world, they live with us. When Mrs. Claus told them about how everyone was getting sick, they said they weren’t worried because their people were blessed with good luck, but that they would still stay inside anyway to help everyone else.

Then Mrs. Claus, Holly, and Ivy checked with the Moss People, the Mossmen and Mosswomen, who live with us to hide away from the wild hunters who try to catch them every year. The Moss People were all fine, tucked away inside their hollow log homes. Next, Mrs. Claus and her helpers checked with the timid Pinecone People, who can normally be found climbing over the rooftops during the Twelve Days of Christmas, and made them promise to stay home and not climb on any rooftops at all.

Holly and Ivy then ranged out deeper into the fir forest in an attempt to find Belsnickel, the woodsman of the North Pole, who keeps to himself at the best of times. They looked and looked and couldn’t find him, so we feel pretty confident that he’s keeping away from other people, which is pretty normal for him anyway. Don’t worry about him being lonely, though, as I’m sure he has no shortage of snowshoe hares, Arctic foxes, puffins, and snow buntings to keep him company.

I myself went to talk to the Valkyries, the warrior women who watch over the northern sky and whose armor twinkles in the distant light of the sun, creating what most people call the Northern Lights. I talked to their leader, whose name is Mist, as she hovered in the night sky above the Earth. Normally, the job of Valkyries is to select the bravest warriors from any battle who might be worthy to join the Hall of Heroes who spend their days training to fight a giant wolf who they know will one day try to eat the world. (Don’t worry, that wolf is chained up with the strongest chains ever built. They were made by the relatives of our workshop elves, so I know they’re of good quality and should last a long time.) Mist told me that because so many people were staying home this year, there were no battles for them to watch over. That meant they could stay home in the skies above the North Pole.

I went next to talk to the Great North Polar Bear, Callisto, and her son, Arcas. As they are bears, I knew they wouldn’t need to worry about a human sickness. I still wanted to check on them and make sure they were okay, because I didn’t want them to be lonely. I also asked them if they would do me the favor of keeping an eye on the entrance to the Star Land. You remember that Callisto and Arcas live up among the stars above the Pole to be a sign to the people so they can always find which way is north. Because they live in the stars, they are neighbors to the Star People of Star Land. I was not particularly worried that the Star Man or the Little Star would wander out of the Star Land and into the human world and get sick, but I knew that some of the little ones, the Star Boys and little angels who romp and play all over that starry land, might not be old enough to understand that they can’t play with or sing for little human girls and boys this year. Callisto promised that she would look out for any stray cherubs dancing down the light beams towards the Earth. I thanked her by promising her we would save her and Arcas an extra big portion of their favorite soda when they visited next.

Meanwhile, Mrs. Claus took one of the horses from the stables and rode out to the Riphean Mountains, which surround the North Pole and help keep unwanted visitors out. She rode to the court of King Lunicursor, the king of the griffins who live in the mountains, protecting their hoards of gold. Griffins, of course, are half eagle and half lion, so they can’t catch a human virus. We weren’t worried about the griffins, but rather about the one-eyed giants who also live in the Riphean Mountains and who are always trying to steal the griffins’ gold. Despite only having one eye and being larger and meaner than a normal human, we were worried that the Arimaspians, as they are called, would not care very much about their health or anyone else’s, and they might run down into human villages and spread sickness everywhere. They are definitely rude enough that they would never wear a mask or stay six feet away from someone, or even wash their hands or cover their mouths when they cough. Very rude.

Lunicursor, you will remember, is quite friendly with Mrs. Claus after the two of them flew to the Moon last year to stop the Mouse King with the legendary sword Crackatook. He was, of course, very happy to see Mrs. Claus, and he agreed to keep a close eye on the Arimaspians this year and try to keep them too busy to make war with their neighbors south of the mountains. Mrs. Claus and Lunicursor also agreed that the griffins’ job of flying across the world and finding homes for unwanted toys was more important than ever this year. This year has been lonely enough for some children. We want to make sure they get all the toys they can.

Beyond the peaks where the griffins guard their gold and the valleys were the Arimaspians pasture their horses lie the banks of the Eridanus River, the only river that leads up through the Riphean Mountains. Along its banks grow long rows of poplar trees that never stop weeping golden, sticky amber. The trees cry because they used to be human, the sisters of a young man who foolishly thought he could control the sun as if he were driving a sleigh. He was wrong, and he steered it too close to the Earth and burned a big part of it up, creating what we know now as the Sahara Desert. In the end, he lost control altogether, and his sisters were so sad after he fell from the sun and back to Earth that they turned into trees that have been crying ever since.

Swimming in the waters of the Eridanus are huge flocks of swans. Most of them used to be human; in fact, they were the people who lived at the North Pole before we did, when it was still spring all the time, before the cold came. When the people of the North Pole became old, they would dive into the waters of the Eridanus, and its magic turned them into swans. Also among them are many Swan Maidens, who can change between human form and swan form, but who are not originally from the North Pole. They are watched over by their brother, the Swan Knight, who rides a boat pulled by his sisters in their swan forms. I’ll have to tell you more about them another time.

Anyway, Mrs. Claus rode down from the mountains, sneaking through the valleys of the Arimaspians, and to the banks of the river. There she talked to the Swan Maidens and the Swan Knight and made them promise to stay along the banks of the river, or if they had to visit the human world, that they would stay in their swan forms. The Swan Maidens all promised to obey Mrs. Claus, and I hope they were being honest. Many of the Swan Maidens used to be princesses and are not used to doing what other people say, even when it’s for their own good.

Beyond the banks of the Eridanus lies a snowy land that has been cursed to eternal winter where only horrible creatures like the Awgwas live, so there isn’t much good we could do there. The Awgwas are even ruder than the Arimaspians, and besides, they can turn invisible, so it’s not likely we’d find them if we wanted to. Once you get beyond that, you’ll find the Islands of Amber and the Island of Tin and Furthest Thule and other places that are well outside the influence of the North Pole. Hopefully those people will make good decisions for themselves.

And so you can see, from the Pole to the Workshop to the stables to the Krampus shelters to the village to the fir forest to the Northern Lights to the Star Land to the Riphean Mountains to the Riphean valleys to the banks of the Eridanus, we have done our best to keep everyone safe and inside this year. It has been a hard and lonely year, but we have done our best. We tried to focus on our work and making toys and getting ready for Christmas, but sometimes it can be hard to pay attention to work, and that’s okay too.

The good news is this: after many months of staying home and making sure all the creatures of the North Pole were doing the same, I finally had another dream about the Frost cousins. The three of them were standing on an icy peak near Mount Everest, the tallest mountain in the world, hoping from that high point they could spy a yeti. Of course, the wind and snow made it very hard to see anything, let alone a sneaky beast whose fur was crusted white with frost against blankets of snow. And while their attention was focused on what was down the mountain, they weren’t thinking about what was coming behind them!

Yes, it was a yeti! This one was even taller than the one who had tried to gobble them up at the mill. Fortunately they heard his large, backwards feet cracking through the snow behind them. When they whipped their heads around to see what had made the noise, they saw a yeti very different from the one they had encountered before. This one was not crusted over with snow, but rather his long, black fur appeared to be neatly combed. The look on his face was peaceful and welcoming, rather than snarling and hungry. And perhaps most strangely of all, he was wearing clothes! Even though they were ragged from age and use, the Frost cousins could tell that the yeti was wearing monk’s robes. With his magic rock tucked under his left arm, this unusual creature was dragging a large portion of meat behind him with his right arm.

Rather than threatening to eat the Frost cousins up, he asked if they would like to get out of the cold and join him for a meal. The way he asked was so polite, even sassy Jack didn’t bother pointing out that the Frost cousins never got cold. Instead, the polite Snow Maiden agreed that they would follow him. Frostie was nervous about following a yeti to his home, but he knew this was perhaps his best shot at telling an abominable snowman to leave Christmas to the jolly, happy snowmen.

This yeti, it turned out, lived in a small house near the peak of Everest. For many years he had lived there with a monk--a human monk--who was his friend, and who had taught the yeti how to be a monk himself. It turns out that many, many years ago, the monk had been keeping watch over the world one night, silently praying for good things for the people and animals of the world below him. In the winter moonlight, a yeti--this yeti, the one telling the story--tried to sneak up on him to gobble him up, as the yeti at the mill had tried to do to the Frost cousins.

Instead, the monk turned around and showed the yeti his peaceful, smiling face. The monk’s attitude was so loving and calm that the yeti forgot that he had meant to make a meal of him. With gentle words and loving gestures, the monk invited the yeti into his humble home, the very cabin where the yeti and the three cousins now sat. The yeti was a welcome guest here at the home of the monk. He had never felt so happy and accepted in his life, and soon he wondered why he had ever tried to hurt anyone.

The monk treated the yeti as if he were his brother--because, the monk said, all those who walk the Earth are his siblings--and as if he had lived in his home for years. The monk’s words were like seeds that he planted in the yeti’s heart, and those kind and gentle words blossomed into peace and love within the yeti. Soon the yeti would help the monk by getting food and firewood for the two of them, and the monk taught him his way of life. Although the monk had grown old and died many years ago, the yeti lived on, continuing to live in the style of peace and kindness the monk had taught him.

And that is how the Frost cousins had found him. The four joined together in happiness and warmth inside the monk’s cabin, enjoying the warm fire and the meal the yeti prepared for them. It was very good, in my opinion, that the cousins found someone so kind and helpful, because soon after they arrived in the yeti’s small house, the order went out that everyone needed to stay home or else get sick. That was, of course, back in the spring.

So Jack, Frostie, and the Snow Maiden have been living with the yeti monk for most of a year, eating yak for dinner and learning the ways of peace and kindness. My dream didn’t show me everything that has been going on with them for nine months, but I do know that now that he’s met this yeti, Frostie has changed his tune about yetis. He thinks that calling them abominable is very rude, and that while some of them are mean and cruel, others of them are more like adorable snowmen. And so he’s decided that it’s okay if some people decorate for Christmas while using yetis as long as they don’t forget to use regular snowmen, too. I think he’ll probably get his wish.

The extra good news is that a doctor just called me this week to tell me that they were making a medicine to help people fight the sickness that caused so much trouble this year. While they are still working on making enough for everyone to have some, they know how important Christmas is to so many people, so they wanted to make sure we got some at the North Pole so that we can make our rounds. As soon as it gets here, I’m going to fly the sleigh down to the Himalayas to find Jack, Frostie, and the Snow Maiden and take them back to Grandfather Frost in Russia so they can get ready to help him deliver gifts on New Year’s!

I will have to take my fastest reindeer, because we at the North Pole of course have our own work to do, and Christmas is coming soon! I will definitely be coming to see you, because I know you have been good this year, staying at home and wearing a mask when you go out! I wish there were more people who would follow your example, but there are a lot of names on the naughty list this year, I’m afraid, all because they are so angry about masks! Anyway, there’s plenty of coal to go around for people like that.

Have a merry Christmas, and here’s to a better year in 2021! Give my love to your mommy and daddy and all of your family. I will be there to visit soon!

Your friend,

Santa Claus

#christmas #santa claus #santa claus letter #santa claus letters #frosty the snowm #jack frost #snegurochka #yeti #prose

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