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> > Once upon a December: The Elf Zebulon (formerly of the North Pole) enlisted the aid of Magweed and Griffin in a quest to save Christmas from being canceled by the Queene of Faerie. To do so, they merely had to convince the Queene's council of advisers not to vote to recall all of the magic necessary for Santa to make his traditional gift giving trip around the world.
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> > Of course, if this were an easy task, then the story would probably be done by now...
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> > "You slimy, loathsome, noxious, frog-faced rat!" a trussed-up Zebulon sputtered as he was tossed out the stone gateway face first. He was rolled up in what appeared to be a moldy carpet, and his hat was pulled down over his eyes (and as much of his long nose as it could cover.) "Your mother was a mangy bugbear!"
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> > "Heh... Merry Frickin' Christmas to you too, elfie" the goblin guard sneered as he brushed his hands. "Flatter me all you like, but the king is done with ya, and you ain't gettin' back in." The huge brass door to the underground kingdom slammed shut behind him with a reverberating groan.
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> > "So... I take it the king isn't accepting a visit from Magweed?" Griffin noted mildly from the mountain path where he and his sister were left waiting for their elfin guide's return. "Or is this part of the ceremonial arrangements you said were necessary to "grease the wheels"?"
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> > The little man tried to blow the pom-pom from his hat away from his mouth as he lay bound, face up. "The diplomatic approach hit a bit of a snag" he admitted miserably.
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> > The Fairy Princess Magweed left her feathered brother and went to help unroll Zebulon from the rug. "Goblins are like that" she sympathized. In truth, she hadn't been eager to go underground to deal with their leader at all, and Griffin had been especially hostile to the idea. The fact that they had tried at all was a testament to how desperate things were becoming.
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> > After their arrival at the North Pole, Zebulon had led them from the stables to the main workshop building... a nondescript little garage sized structure with an exterior basement door. Griffin's biting comments about it quickly died out as the little elf took them through the basement and into the bowels of the factory itself. Carved almost completely out of ice, the structure stretched for miles underground, glowing softly from light refracting through the ornate walls and even from the moonlight shining down through the ice above. Ice sculptures and murals decorated every surface, and at one point narwhals swam alongside the passageway as the arctic ocean wrapped around the lower levels of the facility. Still, they only managed to catch glimpses here and there of the massive preparations underway for Christmas Eve, being forced to hide in the empty tank of a Zamboni driven by an old friend of Zebulon's in order to avoid being spotted by a supervisor. Finally, however, they reached the carved ice shipping gate to the Mythlands itself. From there, Zebulon had been able to send them to each of the fairy realms that was ruled by a member who sat on the Queene's council... or at least, he sent them to the ones likely to vote for isolation from the mortal realm, which would mean the cancellation of Santa's Christmas operations.
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> > They had seemed to make some early progress, as Queen Upsie of Turvy was delighted to host a visiting dignitary like Magweed, and had rushed the young girl to a formal tea party with all the niceties that could be arranged. She was a very friendly lady indeed, although Maggie had found it hard to drink much of anything while sideways to the ground, while Zebulon had to keep one hand on his hat and the other on the lower (upper?) edge of his tunic because of his seat on the ceiling. Griff just dug all of his claws into the couch that he was sprawled upon and insisted that it was second nature to Griffins to be at odd angles to gravity, though Maggie thought he looked a little green around the beak as the room kept shifting "like something Escher threw up" (as Zebulon later described it.) In any event, Queen Upsie was enthralled by Magweed's description of the mortal realm, confessing that they rarely had visitors come to Turvy and that in hindsight she had no idea why anyone would want to sever ties with such a fascinatingly backwards world such as Earth. Thanking her, they were on their way (with Magweed's promise to visit again as soon as she was able to secure adequate doses of Dramamine), confident that they could count on one changed vote on the matter. Provided, Zebulon cautioned, that Upsie wasn't left to think about it for too long... Politically, she was something of a renowned flip-flopper.
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> > However, their progress towards shifting the council's vote quickly wound down. Prof. Arrington of the Royal Academy of Centaurs assured them that he was very, very concerned about the good little boys and girls of the mortal realm and what would happen to them without Christmas, but that he really thought the best thing to do was to stay the course and re-examine the policy in a few decades after there had been time to commission a proper study on the matter. Count Ludwig Von Waffleton of Pixie was concerned about the illicit sugar trade coming in from the mortal realms, and the affects the insidious substance was having on the virtuous youth of his lands. The Spirit of the Kleeghorn Mountain Range granted them an audience, but claimed to be too hard of hearing to make out what such tiny visitors had to say. And now there were the Goblins...
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> > "It's like these people are purposefully avoiding listening to us!" Zebulon grumbled as he adjusted his tunic and reset his hat.
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> > "You'd almost think that chatting with Magweed was treasonous or something" Griffin suggested sarcastically.
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> > The elf scowled. "It's not that. Fairy political types are always looking long-term... The Queene's reaction to Maggie marks her as a legitimate Princess among these people... if she hadn't been concerned about Maggie at all, then they wouldn't give the girl a second thought. But if even the Queene is worried about her, then they know it wouldn't be prudent to take sides against her unless absolutely necessary." He began pacing. "So if they're going this far to avoid hearing us out, risking offending someone that makes the Queene all ruffled, then it's because they're appeasing somebody else. Or more likely, they've already been bought. But by who?"
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> > "What about the Queene herself?" Maggie asked.
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> > "Not her style. If this is what she wanted, then she'd just do it... no need to hear from a committee..." Zebulon noted shrewdly. "Which means somebody else came to her wanting this, and she tasked them with getting this thing through committee if they really wanted it done. That's the whole purpose of committees... to make sure that the people who want something want it bad enough to jump through endless hoops in order to get approval for it first... It separates the ones you actually have to deal with from the ones who will eventually go away and leave you alone."
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> > "So who would want to cancel Christmas enough to go through all the trouble?" Griffin asked.
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> > Zebulon swiveled about as his pacing grew faster. "Someone pretty powerful. Someone who could grant these politicians whatever they... want." He stopped cold and his eyes went wide. "Someone who could grant wishes."
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> > "Wishes?" Magweed asked.
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> > "We're going back to the North Pole!" Zebulon exclaimed excitedly.
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> > "What?" Griffin blinked. "Why?"
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> > "To make the jump to the person who's really behind all of this!"
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> > "Urrrrf! Griffin noted, struggling under the heavy oak-backed mirror. "Why am I lugging this thing outside? And won't somebody miss it?"
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> > "We'll get it back to the guest room before anyone notices it's gone..." Zebulon assured him as he held open the door to the cabin.
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> > "It's not right to be inside other people's homes without asking" Maggie insisted sullenly as they crept back out into the snow. "And it's definitely not right to take their things without asking."
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> > "We're not taking it... just borrowing it" the elf insisted. "And Santa and his wife always leave their home open to visitors. Not that they ever have any, but still... It's why those candles are lit in the windows. Old tradition." The crept over the hillside and just out of sight of the North Pole settlement. "Here... this is good. Put it down, face up."
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> > With a grunt and a heave, Griffin angled his wings to allow the huge mirror to slide off his back and into the snow. "This is why Griffins don't do manual labor" he insisted. "Now what?"
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> > Zebulon looked up into the sky, and then down into the mirror. "Perfect!" he exclaimed. "Now we jump."
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> > "Jump?" Maggie asked. "Jump where?"
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> > "There" the elf replied, pointing straight up. "Up there, to the North Star. That's where we'll find the one behind all this."
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> > Griffin looked dubiously at the tiny man. "I don't think you have the legs for that."
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> > "Well, not if we go up..." the elf noted matter-of-factly. "But if we jump down, then there's no problem. Hence the mirror." He caught the blank looks of the twins. "It's a Faerie mirror... and you're dreaming. The North Star is right there in the center of it. You can pass through it just fine, trust me."
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> > "You want us to jump... into outer space" the feathered boy checked.
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> > "It will work!"
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> > "Into outer space."
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> > "Mother was an astronaut" Magweed offered for consideration.
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> > "Mother used a spaceship to fly between planets!" the boy argued. "Do you have any idea how far away the North Star is? It's really far!"
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> > "That's science... This is magic" Zebulon countered. "Besides, it's a dream. Trust me, this is how it's done. We just jump and let gravity do the rest..."
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> > "You want us to plummet all the way through space?" the feathered beast choked.
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> > "It'll be just like flying..." the elf suggested.
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> > "No...it'll be just like falling, which is the exact opposite of flying!"
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> > "Wait... Hold on here..." Zebulon insisted, his eyes narrowing. He looked closely at the hyperventilating mythical creature. "Griffin... are... are you afraid of heights?"
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> > The boy's feathers ruffled alarmingly. "What? That... that's laughable! I'm not afraid! Why would I be afraid? I have wings!" He proudly thrust them out from his body to emphasize this point.
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> > "How often do you have that dream where you're standing on the edge of the cliff?"
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> > "That's a very common dream for Griffins to have..." he argued, his talons shrinking a bit, the shine fading from his coat. "I'm sure I couldn't even count the number..."
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> > "But how many times have you actually leaped off that cliff and started flying?" the elf challenged.
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> > "I... That's not... There have been plenty of..." He choked into silence. "I've been working up to it, that's all. I am a Griffin at heart..." The feathers and fur fell away from his body, and a scrawny 11 year old boy in his pajamas was left standing in the circle they left in the snow. "I really am. I really am."
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> > Maggie reached out and took his hand... In doing so her own became frail and twisted. "I know you are" she assured him.
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> > "Oh dear..." Zebulon swallowed, looking back and forth between the two of them. "You're beginning to come out of your dreams... We're running out of time. If we're going to go, we have to go now."
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> > Magweed nodded. "Griff?" she asked softly.
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> > The boy swallowed hard. "I... We came to save Christmas, didn't we?" he asked, squeezing his sister's hand. He set his jaw. "Griffins don't back down from a quest."
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> > "Right then" the elf said, taking a deep breath. The children each took one of Zebulon's hands as they circled the mirror, looking down into the inky black sky above and the pinpoint of light that was their target. "To save Christmas."
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> > And then they leaped.
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