Vuxten looked around at the clearing.

Snow covered bushes. Check.

Snow covered trees. Check.

Trail left by the sleigh. Check.

Knee high snow. Check.

A single solitary lamp post still burning white. Check.

Wait? What?

Vuxten moved closer, his armor's visor still slightly glitchy and not editing out the snow. He looked it up and down. Dull steel, slightly rough, with a four sided lamp on top with a single bulb burning.

"Why is this here?" Vuxten asked, slowly turning and looking around.

--unknown-- 471 said.

"And what is going on?" Vuxten asked. "First, we get cryo-cracked. Then there's children outside playing when it is literally colder than outer space. Then we get attacked by a weird looking goat thing. Then almost run over by a Treana'ad, a Rigellian, and a little Terran girl in pajamas."

Nothing answered but the snow.

--maybe know-- 471 said.

Vuxten stared up. The stars were unfamiliar.

"Can you run an astronomy check? Maybe we can see some of the stars that are guidepoints for astrogation," Vuxten said.

--running-- 471 answered. --might not work--

"It's stars," Vuxten said. "Basic armor..."

Lines started connecting various stars. Only instead of pointing out waypoint stars designs appeared in the lines. Vuxten frowned as the lines finished connecting, showing a starscape full of patterns.

A drum. A striped bar with one curved end. Berries and leaves. A crude approximation of a tree with lines, sparkles, and a large sparkling star on it. A beast like the ones that had been pulling the sleigh. A cookie.

"What?" Vuxten asked.

--uh oh-- 471 said. --think I know where are--

"Where?" Vuxten asked.

Before 471 could answer the bushes pulled aside and a Terran woman stepped into the clearing.

"You have indeed traveled far," the woman said.

Vuxten stared. She was wearing light blue shimmering cloth edged with silver for a dress, sparkling and shining jewelry of silver and diamond. She wore long gloves trimmed with fur, the same with her mid-thigh boots. Despite the cloth she showed an amazing amount of alabaster skin. Her blond hair was held back by a tiara and her face held an unearthly beauty that was inhuman in its perfection. She stared at him with cold, clear blue eyes that reminded Vuxten of ice. On one hand she bore a single ring, a strangely familiar complex intertwining of shining silverish-blue metal and in that hand she held tightly to a wand.

His meme generator tossed up an image just a split second before he recognized what she was.

A short elf dressed in strips of cloth, showing off her breasts and buttocks, was leaning forward yelling at a microphone held out from the first person POV. The caption underneath read: "We are a proud and noble people!" - says elf partially dressed as a stripper.

--elf-- 471 warned.

Vuxten just nodded, watching as the woman walked toward him, stopping just outside the well-defined circle of light cast by the lantern.

The female elf waved her wand to bring attention to the snow around her.

"Mortal world, turned to ice," she whispered, frost seeping from her parted lips. "This be immortal paradise."

Vuxten tried to speak but found his tongue cleaved to the top of his mouth.

"And who have we here?" the elf saked. "Who stands before me without fear?"

Vuxten stayed silent.

"A raggedy-man or a wind up toy?" the elf wondered. "Or perhaps a glitter-man wanting to be a real boy?"

Vuxten stared at her as she stepped forward ever more slightly, her toes pushing a slight bulge of snow into the circle of light.

"Or someone who strives for something just out of reach?" the elf said, flicking the wand. "With magic and will I compel you to speak."

The thin ray of silvery-white shot from the wand, hit the circle of light Vuxten was standing in, and detonated with a flash.

The elf woman stepped back slightly, frowning.

"Little raggedy-man wind-up toy," she spat. "Step from that light and speak before you begin to annoy."

--nuh-uh-- 471 said.

Lifting his chin slightly, Vuxten just stared.

One thing he'd seen from the Immortals like Daxin and Menhit was that a cold, silent stare could be far more effective than any speech or words could be.

"I offer you no rewards or Anatolia's Delight," the elf woman said, lowering her arm and the wand. The ring gleamed in the light shed by the lamp above Vuxten's head. "No succor do I hold out to allow you to withstand winter's bite."

Glad his visor hid any confusion or fear, Vuxten swallowed thickly. The ring had taken a minute for him to identify.

Lady Keena had handed Pete a handful of those very rings.

World Engine keys.

Vuxten swallowed. He'd seen what Lady Keena could do without World Engine keys. The thought of an elf, what might even be a rogue elf, in possession of a World Engine key made him cringe.

The elven woman stood there a long moment, snow drifting down around her, before she gave a slow, cruel smile.

"Your silence proclaims your strength," she said. "But of my will you do not have a tenth."

Her smiler got colder, crueler.

"The mortal world is trapped in ice," she said again. She turned and began walking away as she spoke. "And endless frozen day," She paused, just for a second, at the edge of the clearing, looking back at Vuxten and smiling. "The cold never bothered me anyway."

She vanished into the bushes and Vuxten heaved a sigh of relief. He'd seen what elves were capable of on Telkan.

--we in trouble-- 471 said.

"How bad?" Vuxten asked. He shivered slightly.

--p'thok bad-- 471 said. --trying to heat up reactor still cold--

"P'Thok? What does an ancient Treana'ad hero have to do with us?" Vuxten asked. He looked around carefully.

--he totally on purpose and not at all accidentally saved Christmas-- 471 answered. The green mantid put up an image of the sleigh that had almost run Vuxten over and highlighted the Treana'ad. --P'Thok--

"Wait. I saw that last year on AFN. That's a live action-cartoon-claymation holiday show," Vuxten said. He squinted at the picture. "It does look like him though."

--where he went we now are-- 471 guessed. There was a ping and 471 made a disgusted noise. --got readout on reactor-- he said. --know why it cold--

"Why?" Vuxten asked. He moved forward, stepping to the edge of the light. The Shade War made it so his reflexes wanted to keep him in the light.

An image of the inside of the reactor appeared. Where there should have been a tiny pearl of incandescent fire, held in place by rippling magnetic fields, touched by lasers, there was only a single thing.

A large intricate snowflake of ice that shed tiny bursts of ice crystals.

--reactor-- 471 said.

Vuxten frowned. "Are you sure?"

The reply was the standard formulae for jaw strength and walking speed.

"OK, OK, sorry," Vuxten said. He looked around. "Since she's the only person we've seen, we might want to follow her."

--remember: never run attracts attention of immortals-- 471 said.

"I'll remember," Vuxten said, stepping outside of the circle. He half expected to see something erupt up out of the snow.

The snow crunched and squeaked under his ice mired boots as he followed the direction of the elf woman.

"If she is a rogue, we've got to stop her or everyone's screwed," Vuxten said.

--yup yup-- 471 said. --maybe throw water or hot cocoa on her--

The meme had a tall skinny Terran with a goatee and wearing a green shirt throwing a bucket of water on a green woman with a long nose. The green woman just stared at him with 'really, bitch, you threw that on me?' as the caption.

He didn't get it.

The bushes slapped at his armor as he came out into another clearing and just stared.

There was an unfrozen pond in the middle, with a bunch of white birds with crowns on their heads paddling around. In a semi-circle around the far side of the pond was six inlaid and decorated stands, that had gutters running from under the platform on the stand to a scale. The scale simply read "Good/Bad" on it. On each platform was a white bird that was making honking noises at each other.

In front of the platforms was the elf, staring at Vuxten with her cold pale face remote and dispassionate.

Between Vuxten and the pond were strange statues made of snow. Each of them consisted of a large round ball, with a slightly smaller ball set on top, and the smallest ball on top. They had pieces of black rock for eyes, a line of small rocks for mouth markers. A carrot for a nose. Sticks with all the branches but the ones at the end broken off for arms.

The elf pointed at Vuxten.

"Kill him and his little green buddy too," the elf snarled. "Entering my aviary is something they'll rue!"

Vuxten went to snort at the fact the elf woman was ordering stacked balls of snow when the figures all turned, like they were on a lazy susan, to stare at him.

As one they opened those mouths, revealing icicle teeth and bluish-white flesh. They all roared, ice chips and frozen spittle erupting from their mouths. The lifted their arms and charged.

Vuxten pulled the chain sword free, thumbing it to life. The chain clattered as the engine roared, and Vuxten charged the snow creatures.

A single swipe exploded the middle section, but the expected blood, gore, guts and viscera didn't arrive, just a spray of snow. The creature roared in agony as it fell in two pieces.

Vuxten grabbed the chainsword in both hands, hacking as the snow creatures roared and charged. His armor started wailing temperature alarms, his arms, legs, hands and feet all felt frozen as he kept swinging the clattering roaring bar. With each chop he stepped forward, staring at his ultimate goal.

The elf.

With a kick the last snowman exploded and Vuxten stood at the edge of the pond, staring at the elf.

"Raggedy-man wind up toy," she spat. "Your victory won't bring you joy."

She snapped the wand and Vuxten hauled the chainsword around, parrying the magic, making the bright spot of energy explode with a flash on the inlaid and engraved warsteel.

His hand dropped reflexively to the stubber and realized that the ice had vanished as he pulled the weapon up and triggered a burst at the elf.

She laughed, jumping up and twirling in mid-air, firing blasts from her wand that exploded snow as ice below the surface detonated.

Vuxten kept moving to the side, firing the stubber with one hand, parrying the rogue elf's magic with his cutting bar.

His nerve-grafts burned with cold fire, his smart-link still offline, as he tried walking a burst of the anti-matter APERS shells into the elf, but she ducked underneath them and twirled. The slugs exploded in bursts of gold, green, and red sparks rather than the blue-white snap of antimatter. Vuxten noted that the Imperial eagle on the side was no longer burning white hot, but instead was green, red, silver, and gold that rippled, ebbed, and flowed.

A snap of the wand hit Vuxten's leg and it was suddenly covered in ice, alarms wailing inside the helmet.

Vuxten drove the pommel of the cutting bar into his thigh and the ice shattered.

The gave the elf woman time to flick two more bright lances of energy at him. One hit his shoulder pauldron, freezing his arm in place, the other hit him in the chest, driving the breath from his lungs and making his armor alarms gain more urgency.

--compensating-- 471 said. --hits are negative Kelvin what what what--

Vuxten managed to trigger a burst that sent the elf leaping into the air, somersaulting at the apex of her arc, bare thigh flashing in the moonlight. She landed behind one of the large fowl, which squawked. An ornately jeweled egg rolled down the gutter, onto the scale. The needle went "GOOD" and the bottom dropped out, the egg vanishing.

Gritting his teeth, Vuxten turned at the waist, leaning back slightly, as another flick of the wand froze his other leg from the hip joint down.

The burst missed, but forced the elf to jump out of the way, laughing gaily.

Vuxten tracked her, then let off the trigger, estimating her arc by eyeball.

The elf landed on a podium, her feet on either side of the bird, twirling the wand in an open hand, the glowing tip making a glowing fanblade circle around her palm.

"No more roomfulls of laughter," the elf giggled. "Not more strategic ice cream," she taunted.

Vuxten managed to trigger another burst, missing the bird, but forcing the elf to leap out of the way.

"I'll get all the things I'm after," The elf laughed as she dropped down, flicking more dollops of energy at Vuxten.

He took three more hits. Both legs now completely coated in ice. Ice coating his chest and one arm. Vuxten let go of the chainsword, letting it snap to his waist, and grabbed a grenade off his harness, smashing it against his chest to shatter the ice, the flicked the pin away with one armored thumb.

"And when I do, you'll..."

Vuxten hucked the grenade as the elf threw her head back in laughter.

The arrow went to "BAD" and the bottom dropped out.

"SCREEEEEEEEEEEAM!" The elf vanished as her voice changed to a wail.

The grenade dropped through the hole.

The scale shut.

Vuxten sagged in his armor for a long moment.

The only sound was the wind, the snowflakes, the honking, hissing, and gwarking of the birds, and the steady griddle sound of Vuxten's armor trying to shed the ice.

--buckle up buckaroo-- 471 said. --christmas isn't saved yet--

Vuxten nodded and started knocking the ice free.