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What happens next? Smut! Smut happens, because of course.\n\nNo actual sex, just kink. Spanking, light bondage, mild choking, monsterfuckery, references to a nondescript winter holiday. All characters are of age, yadda yadda, full text below. I hope you all enjoy it!", "description_bbcode_parsed": "Three scoundrels in a generic fantasy setting run afoul of a dreaded krampus when their holiday shenanigans get out of hand. What happens next? Smut! Smut happens, because of course.

No actual sex, just kink. Spanking, light bondage, mild choking, monsterfuckery, references to a nondescript winter holiday. All characters are of age, yadda yadda, full text below. I hope you all enjoy it!", "writing": "The Yuladrottinn\n\n\nKaril awoke in a dark and foul-smelling place. That wasn’t shocking in its own right. What unnerved her was that it wasn’t the dark and foul-smelling place in which she’d laid down to sleep. There was a foot in her face as well, which she didn’t remember being there before, and the ground was jostling beneath her.\n\nAll of this added up to cause for alarm. She shoved the foot away and received a kick to the boob for her trouble. She meant to retaliate in kind, but one of her legs was asleep and the other was trapped under something hairy. Left with few other options, she flailed her arms in an attempt to hit something, anything, preferably in the face.\n\n“Karil, Karil… Karil! Damn it, calm down. You’re about to hit me in the balls, and Mirrikaz already did that twice.” The voice, drained of its usual playfulness, belonged to Okunam. He too had little to offer in the ‘where are we’ and ‘the fuck is going on’ departments. One of his horns was stuck in what felt like a big blanket. He too was unfamiliar with this particular variety of stench, though it conjured images of an old barn filled with unwashed drunks. “I think it’s just the three of us. And I think we’re on a ship.”\n\nMirrikaz let loose a high-pitched growl of annoyance and tried gnawing at the confines of whatever it was that held them. She thought it tasted of pants. Were they inside a colossal pair of pants? The implications of that felt troubling. “Th’suit wachat haiin, on-negk siwich’a! Otu-Karil wen, Otu-Okunam wen, adsh i taw th’on!” She ordinarily wouldn’t swear quite so heavily, but being trapped in giant pants was plenty bad enough before someone pushed her foot away like an unwanted fish.\n\nIt had been just the three of them for as many years now. Each separated now and then to take care of some urgent personal business, or for an extraplanar booty call, but they always drifted back together. Some unseen tide refused to let them part company, and even should they wish to, it felt like tempting fate. This wasn’t even the worst of their shared predicaments yet, though that possibility remained very much on the table.\n\nKaril was elfkin, born in the low marshes with a dagger in her little elf baby hand. No fair green-tinted complexion for her, no rich medley of coppers, browns, and reds. Her skin was the muted, pale blue-gray of her ancestors from the distant west. Her long, restless hair was so white that she sometimes washed it with ashes to be better unseen at night. And if anyone could call her vain, it was due to the exceptional length and fine taper of her ears. Those ears could utterly get it.\n\nBeneath, atop, and beside her all at once was the faun Okunam. Russet brown curls danced over the greenest, softest eyes ever to wink. His horns were short and finely ridged, but pointy enough to threaten pillows and make certain romantic acts more dangerous than they might have been absent head-mounted stabbies. He was most proud of his shiny hooves, black just like his mother’s, but his furry deer rump and powerful legs drew the most attention. Everyone either met him already a butt person, or parted ways a zealous convert.\n\nThen, well, Mirrikaz. Mirrikaz was a goblin, in body and in spirit, a celadon green creature of limitless enthusiasm. Like most goblinkin, her hair was deep brown and tangled enough to snap a comb. The features of her face suggested innocence that wasn’t really there, from the size of her eyes to her button nose. And, in defiance of the stereotypes, which cast goblins as gaunt with spike noses and bowed legs, she was the classic aikhur iw’on ke. Roughly, accounting for cultural norms and the finer points of translation, a thick little shortstack with sharp teeth.\n\nInseparable though they may have been, this level of closeness was grating for all three. The jostling, which they first speculated may have come from a ship, a cart, or a god stomping the ground really hard, made more sense once it was ascertained that they all rode in a bag. A great big sack, on which even Okunam wasn’t in the right headspace to comment.\n\nBetween Mirrikaz tearing at the thick cloth with her teeth, Okunam spearing it with his horns, and Karil slashing at it with a short, broad boot knife, progress seemed imminent. But whatever parting or tear they managed to open in the bag healed quickly of its own accord. The threads wriggled wormlike, seeking each other out to rejoin with a squicky sound. \n\nIn addition to being a bit vile, this proved exhausting; every successful attack let in more bitterly cold air, accompanied by a puff of snow. Solid upper body exercise aside, nobody kept at it for long. Their time felt better spent going over what they knew thus far.\n\nThey were in a bag. They were outdoors, and it was snoring. It didn’t take long to exhaust what they knew so far. Then came the speculation.\n\n“Slavers?” asked Karil, brow knotted up in worry.\n\nOkunam stretched his cervine legs as well as he could in the cramped quarters. “I doubt it. Hope not, anyway. What did they do, just walk in and bag us in the Parrot?”\n\n“Well I don’t know of that many people who scoop folk up and carry them off into the cold.”\n\n“Maybe the navy is recruiting again?”\n\nThat was an unpleasant thought. “Me, sure. But you can’t even stand up on a barge with your hooves, and Mirrikaz is…”\n\n“She’s Mirrikaz,” offered Okunam.\n\n“Right. Yeah, exactly.”\n\nAs if on cue, the compact little gobbo grunted. “Thui ang o-so egkel arrungalir o-ne. O sheju’lioth’oba Kirrampas wen! Borz ag chio she’bar, she’haunn, wod Kirrampas wen.”\n\nOkunam and Karil waited for her to finish, but gained not a lot from her input. He spoke first. “Does anybody have their gear? Anything they were carrying?”\n\nKaril checked the numerous places in which there may or may not be a blade tucked away at any given time. “Just my sleeping knife. Everything I went to bed in. Looks like I have my pouch and purse too. How about you?”\n\n“Ashau th’urrumag bur! Teme o ne ne-shouk.”\n\n“I think Mirrikaz had her jug.” At the inn, where they were all meant to be still, the goblin had taken a liking to a clay jug full of who knows what and begun to drag it around. “I’ve got my lyre. Fell asleep strumming it. And, uh, one pouch on my belt.”\n\nTheir odds of escape did not appreciably rise with the list of held items. Before heads could further level, though, Mirrikaz decided to make her meaning known through the ancient tactic of slow shouting. “Kirr-AM-pas wen! Kirr. Am. Pas!”\n\nWell then. A krampus. Child-taker, thief-flayer, long-tongue. Winterskulk, bag-bearer, frozenhoof. The yuladrottinn, fucking Yule Lord. None of them had been entirely sure, as of about an hour ago, that they even still existed. Guardians of tradition, shepherds of righteous conduct, wardens of the feast. Real sumbitches by reputation.\n\n“I thought they were supposed to take snot-nosed brats who won’t eat their barley,” said Karil. “We didn’t keep Highwinter when I was a sprout. But some of my friends did, and they were petrified of the damn things.”\n\nOkunam spat reflexively, then instantly regretted it as there was nowhere for his spit to go, so it kinda settled on his chin. “I’m talking out my glorious buck ass here, but I remember hearing that they take anyone who desecrates a feast. Especially Highwinter, but I don’t know, maybe they just come out more this time of year.”\n\n“So we’re just accepting that they’re real, then? That a krampus is a thing, an honest, legitimate yuladrottinn?”\n\nThe whole bag quaked. Something that felt like a tree bumped against Karil’s non-asleep leg and she recoiled startled.\n\nOkunam grunted. “You have to admit, there’s some pretty damn compelling evidence to that effect.”\n\n“Oneng otegk haii. Kirrampas wen je, yogkeli hayyan, ne urm karabag rio-”\n\nFurther conversation was cut off by the abrupt arrival of torchlight. Also the abrupt arrival of the ground, which met them all less than gently. Mirrikaz rolled to the side like a green sausage, while Karil and Okunam sprawled and tumbled over one another. It reminded both more than a little bit of the time they’d given into temptation in the quiet of a freshly cleared mine shaft, atop a bed of coins. But while that had been awkward, as impromptu adrenaline-fueled mine shaft dickings go, this time they held onto each other for life itself.\n\nThe three semi-professional semi-adventurers found themselves in a cavern with wet stone walls and frosted puddles of water all around. Blazing torches rested in crude, twisted metal fixtures punched directly into rock. No one torch put off much light, but there were quite a few, and they’d been spaced so as to decently illuminate the area.\n\nPiles of random, uncategorized items towered everywhere. There were saddles and wood carving tools, lacy gowns with amethyst trim and pieces of armor. A variety of spears and axes leaned against crates of food, between which bolts of sail canvas were jammed. If there was any pattern to the distribution, or to the nature of objects arrayed in heaps like those which accumulated on the floor of a recently divorced dad, the three couldn’t detect it.\n\nMore or less everything seemed to be here, just not in any orderly or accessible way. Were one to spend a full week digging through the towers of junk and jewels alike, they would come away wanting for nothing ever again.\n\n“Lords of the air and sea…” Okunam exclaimed, “we’ve been kidnapped by a hoarder.”\n\n“Also a demon.”\n\n“Yes, that too.” \n\n“Yuing th’o ne kurrikarraz shvei olog zeiir. Ka o ne-barrangba thum…”\n\nThat was when He chose to appear. Stepping out of the shadows, one moment invisible and the next unavoidable, He moved with a grace that defied his size. The yuladrottinn looked very much like what had been described to most any child in the Empire. A towering creature, long of leg and arm, with a slender but wiry chest and a slight pot belly. His hooves were wholly unlike Okunam’s, being akin to those of a war horse but staggering in size. The horns were a poor match as well; His spiraled out to the sides and seemed to split somewhere in the middle, starting as two distinctly and ending as four.\n\nThe thing, beast, demon, whatever, was at once both dazzling and terrible to look at. His muscles had muscles on them, but the overall impression was one of lean sinew rather than bulging bulk. His eyes, one red and one green, shone with an eerie light. Looking a bit like a cat, a bit like a ram, and a bit like nothing else of this world, He cut a figure that would have been a nightmare to describe to an artist.\n\nWhile the three were well accustomed to sleeping in their clothes, as fit the demands and unpredictability of adventuring, the krampus preferred to dress down. That is, He wore only a tattered vest covered in chimes which danced but made no sound, and an austere black loincloth. He probably could have done away with the latter, as His absolute world-ender of a unit actually hung lower than the loincloth’s fringe. As frightened and disoriented as they surely were, the three struggled not to stare at it. It wasn’t every day a guy, gal, or gob got a peek at something like that.\n\nKaril kept her eyes on Him, but whispered to her comrades in that way which is better described as a weird, hissing yell. “What do we do? Rush it?”\n\n“Shuikat sheur oun o-ogkbaiil? Aiir ae o-ne, ne-riktalu onneng.”\n\nOkunam held up a hand for peace. “I don’t have a weapon. Mirrikaz doesn’t either, unless it’s hidden… somewhere.” He too spoke to his comrades with a half-tilted head while his eyes stayed fixed on the thing before them. “Let me try something.”\n\nKaril could see brilliantly in the dark. It hardly made a difference to her eyes whether something was bathed in midday sun or lit by just a single failing candle, except that things seen in low light looked quite gray. But the shadows behind, around, and sometimes underneath the yuladrottinn proved hard to pierce. “And if that doesn’t work, I’m shanking him in the dickhole.”\n\n“That’s fine by–damn it, Karil, really? The dickhole? Was that a necessary thing to… okay, you know what, nevermind, it’s fine. I’ll give the signal and you shank wherever and whatever.”\n\nOut came the lyre, strapped as it was with a richly embroidered sling around Okunam’s shoulder. He never knew when it was going to be Barding Time. It came up more often than anyone, himself included, expected. So it was best, he figured, to keep the instrument close at hand. The first few notes he plucked were aimless, drifting, but he decided quick enough on a song.\n\nThe Ballad of Lady Ouhr’s Balls was a remarkably pretty one. The lyrics were… well, they didn’t play well with every audience. But the tune was gorgeous, a sweet and lilting piece which flowed from his fingertips with grace. Ease. Effortless style. He took that lovely piece of music and seduced it, wrapping it around his will so that every keening high and purring low ought to give a shark chills.\n\n“Hey there, beautiful,” he cooed as he played. “I think we started off on the wrong note. C’mere, why don’t you tell me all about it? Awww yih, you big, handsome winter bear. Come rest your head on my lap and lemme stroke your hair. Er, fur.”\n\nThe krampus gave no outward sign of being moved. Not even when Okunam cast Him the handsomest smile in his whole repertoire. If He liked the song at all, or if He had any idea what a lyre was, or why this was happening, Okunam couldn’t tell.\n\n“Hmm… okay then. That usually works. But you do you.” The speed with which Okunam reached into his pouch, fished out a red ball with a chalky texture, and raised it high above his head was nothing short of electric. “FLASHBOMB, BITCH! Whatchaaaaa!” He closed his eyes and threw it down about halfway between his hooves and the big guy’s. At once, the room was filled with such astonishing light that a portal opening up momentarily into the celestial planes couldn’t have done better. He rushed forward at the fastest pace his powerful legs allowed, his head leveled and horns aimed right at the krampus’ midsection. \n\nIt probably would have been a nasty wound, too, if Okunam had managed to avoid slipping on an ice puddle and wrenching unexpectedly to the right. That gave the krampus all the opening He needed to backhand Okunam in the chest and send the faun reeling.\n\nKaril rocked on her knees, covering her face with both hands. The knife clattered somewhere off in those horrible shadows. “Fffffffffff… my eyes, Okunam! What in the actual hells was that? I have, ugh, shit, really sensitive eyes!” Opening and closing them rapidly, she felt around on the ground for any sign of her weapon. “You were supposed to give me the godsdamned signal! Ooowwwww…”\n\nOkunam skittered to stand, but in his heart he knew that this plan was probably not about to bounce back. “I yelled and threw the flashbomb. That was the signal.”\n\nMirrikaz peeked out from behind her arms, which she’d crossed over her face the instant she saw what was happening. Eager to salvage the attack and save her friends, she picked a small, smooth stone off the ground and hurled it at the enemy’s chest. Her aim was utterly true. It was just the force of her arm which sucked, causing the rock to bounce off harmlessly. “Siwich’on. Ong egka badrurrain shvi ne-oud Karrampas wen je, chau yirlid o Otu-Okunam wen.” She shrugged and decided to give peace a chance.\n\nThe yuladrottinn curled up His lips in a malicious facsimile of a smile. It was His turn. He snatched Okunam by the leg, causing him to tumble all over again, and dragged him off toward uncertain doom.\n\n— Being only a few distressing minutes thereafter. —\n\nNone of the three, and certainly not the three collectively, were strangers to spots both sticky and unforeseen. Where this one fell on the stickiness scale was still to be determined, but its unplanned score was through the roof.\n\nThe beast had spikes driven into His cavern wall from which manacles dangled in a row. They were in good repair and neither squeaky nor rusty, which seemed like a positive until the implication of frequent use dumped all over that silver lining. Okunam and Karil warranted no adjustment to theirs, which shared a wall spike in common. He stood comfortably with gently sagging shoulders and she stood on her tiptoes to remain grounded. Mirrikaz’ hands were chained in front of her no higher than her belly, though to accomplish this the Yule Lord was forced to stand her on a barrel. \n\nTorture felt pretty likely, which was a bummer. But at least their eyes were uncovered and they weren’t gagged with anything. Weird torture folk who lived in caves almost always stuffed a dirty-ass gag in your mouth and blindfolded you. It wasn’t quite hospitality, but neither was it unwelcome. None of that had been terribly surprising, which spoke volumes about what passed for normality among this lot.\n\nThe krampus let them simmer in their nerves for a while. Where He went and what He was up to, they didn’t know. Enough time elapsed for them to hazard whispers about escape, plus the nearest approximation of a whisper to which Mirrikaz could aspire. All plans pursuant stopped around the same place, which was being chained to a wall and lacking any clear means of remedying that.\n\nWhen He’d returned, shit got weird. He strode straight over on those nightmare hooves to Okunam. Okunam tried to look back, but all he got for his trouble was his face mashed against the cold stone wall. Long, powerful, unnaturally limber fingers traveled down the back of his trousers, and the faun liked this development little to not at all. Less still did he like it when they were dragged down with enough force to rip the seams. \n\nOkunam gasped, because, well, what the hell else was he going to do? The remains of half his sum defenses against nakedness lay gathered around his knees. If they bent the same way a human’s did, the split trousers might have slumped right off, but instead they came to rest there. He had enough experience in getting his clothes literally ripped off to know that the outcome tended sharply toward extremes of good and bad. This one had plenty of the hallmarks of bad. His balls retreated from the cold air and his hips retreated from the frosty wall, leaving the dappled rump of legend stuck out.\n\nKaril snarled. The irons on her wrists clanked and rattled from a struggle. When that didn’t work, she leapt to plant both booted feet against the wall for leverage. It would be unfair to say that she made no progress. It would be much more unfair, however, to say that this maneuver worked as intended, because oh sweet goodness it did not.\n\nThe dread yuladrottinn gripped her fine wolf breeches and pulled her back beyond the reach of her legs. Her arms, being rather noodly and a poor rival to iron, stretched out to their fullest extent. And so she hung suspended like that while breeches and underwear alike climbed ever deeper up her rear. \n\n“Kick his lights out, Karil!” Okunam sounded a lot more in control than his bottomless state suggested.\n\n“Working on it.” This was the opposite of dignified. Sensing opportunity, however, and not because Okunam told her to, she lashed out with kicks fit to crack bone. One made contact to elicit a mournful howl from the krampus. The rest just gave her the sensation of being split in half by her own clothing. \n\n“You got this, you got this, you, oh, oh… ow.”\n\nYes, ow. The krampus hoisted Karil’s hindquarters up high with an outstretched arm. It tipped her forward, and as breeches and loiner together split, she was poured out of them like wine from a decanter. Any liquid, really. The fabric finally tore altogether; she swung back down to skid on her tiptoes, bared to the boots.\n\nBoth half naked scrappers shouted encouragement to Mirrikaz. Bite Him, they said. Pee on Him, they said. Lick his hand if he tries to grab your face, they said. And though Mirrikaz maybe should have done these things, or at least tried to, she opted to lean forward with her butt presented for ease of disrobing. To her credit, her own muck-tinged trousers were merely dragged down to her ankles, rather than ripped off. \n\nSo stood three bareassed adventurers chained to a wall. That almost never made it into the great songs of valor. Pantslessness felt closely aligned with defeat, especially given the prospect of frostbite where they could very least afford it. \n\nKaril’s feet again departed the ground, to the sound of much swearing. The manacles leapt from her wrists as though chucked with force the instant the krampus touched them with an outstretched finger. All that held her now was a furred arm of titanic strength, under which she’d been tucked like a doll.\n\nThe krampus carried her backwards so that she couldn’t see where they were headed. Karil pushed against the might of His arm with all of her own to no particular effect. “Let. Me. Go!” she cried, as it cost her nothing to try. But He was not at all so inclined. \n\nHe carried her to a crimson high-backed chair set between two torches, the one which looked like a petty tyrant’s throne. Karil had noted it before this all went south. South-er. Its seat was covered in furs, and where there must have once been armrests, there was now a matching set of splintered faults in the wood. Ripped clean off, nails and all. The yuladrottinn sat; before Karil could find something sharp with which to gouge Him, he had her perched on his knee.\n\n“LeT mE gAzE uPoN yOuR sInS.” So the thing could talk. His voice sounded like the calving of glaciers mixed with the uprooting of old trees.\n\n“How about you fuck yourself all the way inside out instead?” Karil’s lip quivered. She despised that. But whatever He had in store for her, she wasn’t going to take it like a wuss. \n\nWrong answer, evidently. He gripped her chin. Through mechanics which Karil could not understand, the drawing of long, clawlike digits forced her mouth open.\n\nShe regarded Him with hatred. Sheer, scathing, visceral loathing. “I fhaid, ‘ow abou’ uu vuck uurthelv all teh inthide ou’!”\n\nHe in turn regarded her like an uncooperative lockbox to be breached. Because the situation could always get worse, he opened his mouth too, and the tongue of hells spilled out. It was long and forking, but thick as a wolf’s and capable of wriggling a full arm’s length out. Karil fought to turn her head until she tasted it. Until she gagged on it. And there, at the end of that monstrous appendage, she beheld in his mismatched eyes the glow of a dying flame. \n\nHis voice rumbled fully formed in her mind. It made her head hurt like a crusher of a hangover. It echoed in her, as if her skull were a vast empty space. YoUr SiNs ArE kNoWn To Me. I cAlL yOu… ThIeF.\n\n— Being the day prior, in the establishment which is called The Shitting Parrot —\n\nThough Karil chided herself for it, she couldn’t deny that she enjoyed her time at the inn. Being a brooding loner was fine for a while, until it got lonely and really, really dangerous. She’d begrudgingly linked up with Okunam, then despite her best efforts, caught friendship out on the road. Taking on Mirrikaz was something she’d done even more begrudgingly, especially since Mirrikaz was naked and riding a pig at their first meeting for reasons not yet explained. Then her condition worsened and she caught something not unlike family. \n\nThe wild was her home. The dark places of the map, its encroaching shadows and tightly held secrets. She belonged there and, like a whale to air, could only stay away for so long. Cities, far as she was concerned, were as much the wild as forests and lakes and mountains and all that. Substitute cobblestones and gutters for treetops and brush. The wild was where things were wild. Wild creatures, wild weather, wild people, wild tales. \n\nBut it was nice, much as she may pretend otherwise, to let her guard down now and then. Places like this one, with warm fires crackling and food that wasn’t soaked or full of larvae, were growing on her in recent years. Growing up barefoot and bruised, she bragged she’d never be caught dead in a posh, swanky spot like this, somewhere with non-poisonous water and few to no feral vampires. Alas, here she sat again, sipping something at least very similar to wine, in the comforting, decadent environs of The Shitting Parrot.\n\nThe Shitting Parrot was not, of course, the inn’s proper name. Its doors first opened some sixty years ago under the sign of The Nesting Phoenix. And what a sign it was! Carved by master carpenters and painted in loving detail, it displayed a firebird rampant, its red-tinted plumes heating an egg of fine white enamel. There was a whole Imperial Remaire coin’s worth of gold hammered into the thing, which inevitably led to an adventurer stealing it to trade for tail. \n\nSubsequent signs were of successively poorer quality, each worse than the last, which had without fail been stolen or smashed. The proprietor took to painting them herself on whatever bit of suitable wood she could find. And, though none doubted her business acumen or skill in brewing, she was a piss awful artist of uncommon anti-talent. Thus came its present iteration, and there was in any realm or plane of being not a priest so charitable, nor a soul so kind, nor bat so blind as to see on it anything other than a parrot dropping a legendary deuce. The resemblance was just uncanny. \n\nNot that priests or the very kind were among The Shitting Parrot’s regular patrons. There was only the occasional bat, which tasted alright in stew but added little of substance. Instead, the inn’s clientele were mostly humble skeeves, plus or minus a few luckless adventurers.\n\nThe food was actually pretty good, assuming one’s standards were suitably lowered to the realities of a nomadic life. Thick stews, crusty flatbreads, young cheeses, unsuspicious sausages, and filling pies, everything a poor traveler could want. All for a price that light purses could handle without shriveling like a ballsack in cold water. There were baths available, and beds too, four or fewer patrons to a mattress per local custom. Inexpensive company could be bought by the hour, though inexpensive company necessitated pricey salves and poultices. Soldier’s crotch was tricky to cure. \n\nBest of all were the drinks. There were bitter beers and sweet ales, pear ciders that fizzed and honeycups that lingered on the tongue. Discerning customers could enjoy wine, which came in red, dark red, or slightly darker red. This time of year, people often liked theirs spiced and served hot, with bits of dried fruit floating in it. \n\nPatrons gambled in all manner of ways, from simple dice tossing and coin flicking to labyrinthine card games dreamed up by the great coastal wizards. Plenty of other games risked nothing at all but bragging rights and, perhaps, mild embarrassment at an exceptionally bad play. Just now, Karil fell thrall to the spectacle of three master players at a game of relics. They concluded each turn by flipping over a tiny sand timer, forbidding the long, silent pauses for which the game was notorious. Played like this, with the board in a constant state of flux, it was riveting.\n\nFurthermore, the Parrot had a pull to it, a vortex of poor influence. Many who arrived at the Parrot were decent people who, by happenstance, needed a place to eat, rest, or stay a spell. Regulars could always spot them by the rigid discomfort with which they carried themselves, the darting glances and frequent apologies. Gradually, though, and with infrequent exceptions, these decent types let the fun seep through like a blood stain until they too became regulars. \n\nCome Highwinter, and the feast which bore its name, the Parrot proved itself a uniquely merry place as well. Merry in ways that had nothing to do with intoxicants or a romp behind the troughs. Nearly pious in its celebration of seasonal goodwill. Random acts of charity broke out and spread like a fire through rotted woods. Fights grew less common, resolved more quickly, and seldom came to weapons. The dearth of wildness made Karil uncomfortable and grumpy.\n\nShe couldn’t fault the gathering of gifts, though. On this and every year, during this and every Highwinter season, the inn’s lurkers gathered up whatever items they could spare to send away. Where, Karil didn’t even know. Maybe someplace awful like the Black City, or someplace slightly less so but still achingly troubled like Ban Drejn Khot. There, the items would be given as gifts to those in need; anything not so claimed was sold, its proceeds used to fund an extravagant banquet right there in the streets. \n\nIt was a nice tradition, Karil thought, even if it piqued her jealousy now and then. No such expedition of gift-giving ever found her as a girl, ducking behind the nearest tree or gravestone for safety at the sound of footsteps. Most elfkin did okay, but she learned from a young age that she was born decidedly the wrong kind of elfkin, a crime for which she’d never fully been pardoned. And so, when she saw the gifts piled high enough to scrape rafters, no small part of her read into that an opportunity to right past wrongs in her own favor.\n\nThere were oh so many presents, ranging in quality from nigh worthless to the stuff of envy. Even so, only one gift in particular caught Karil’s eyes. An ex lover once accused those eyes of wandering; this was simply not true. They fixed themselves, precisely and promptly, upon the item of greatest value in view. True as a compass. There, between wool stockings dyed a festive vomit green and a plush horse stuffed with something soft, was an authentic treasure. \n\nA Nuyrish silver necklace. A fucking real one, not one of the cheap imitations one saw everywhere on stylish necks. Strands of silver as fine as spider silk wound together in painstaking braids around aquamarine beads no larger than a teardrop. There were a couple white copper patches where it looked like the necklace had broken or been cut, but otherwise it looked to be a nearly perfect specimen. Only someone with Karil’s experience in the misappropriation of valuables would have noticed the flaw. \n\nIt was in Karil’s hand before she even realized she’d taken it. Sensuously smooth and lightweight, with a pleasing glimmer that made her bite her lip. Hhnnnggg. She wondered what series of events could possibly have led it to wash up here. On consideration, it wasn’t much of a mystery; someone unaware of the necklace’s worth must have either traded it to settle a tab or donated it in a haze of holiday spirit. \n\nSomeone was watching her. Someone had to be. There was a piece of no-shit Nuyrish craftsmanship here, just sitting unattended with a bunch of junk. It had to be a lazy trap, or a test of character, or a prank, or… or a stroke of astonishing luck finally come Karil’s way.\n\nShe scanned the room and saw not a single person looking her way. Not obviously, at least, and she fancied herself attuned to such things. Dipping a fingertip into an abandoned cup, she drew a little glyph on the table in wine. Four sides inner, six sides outer, three circled runes here, here, and here, and an eye in the middle. \n\nKaril waited impatiently for the doodled eye to flash. It didn’t. Simple magic, true, and imprecise, but it was a good sign that she had nobody’s attention. With a gesture meant to emulate wiping away dirt, she slipped the necklace into a secret pocket sewn into her sleeve. She was so thrilled at her find that she nearly forgot to wipe away the glyph.\n\nHonor nagged her into replacing the necklace with something of approximately equal worth. Approximate in much the same sense that a crown of flowers is equal to a crown of kings, or that a horse trough is equal to a lake. She took a small, charred wooden totem from her belt pouch, imbued with an enchantment of minor hand warming. Everyone loved magic items! In any case, she figured that warm hands would be far more enjoyable, maybe infinitely more, to the types of nitwit commoners who celebrated silly holidays. What use would they have for priceless jewelry? Who among them would even recognize it for what it was? They’d probably pawn it for goat feed or try to eat it, whatever commoners did in this godsforsaken asshole of the world. If anything, she was doing them a kindness.\n\n“Good Highwinter, t’souli!” slurred a human girl deep in her cups. She clapped a friendly hand on Karil’s shoulder, belched, and took a long swig from her cup. “Father Highwinter bless your generous soul.”\n\nKaril meant to tell the girl that she was confused. Probably something about the propriety of touching stab-happy elves without an invitation. Then it dawned on her that she’d meant the totem. She’d seen Karil slip it into the gift pile and took it for an act of sincere charity.\n\n“I… thank you. Good Highwinter to you too or, yes, that.” Karil had rarely blushed so hard in her life. An unfamiliar sensation stole over her. It was a desire to have done something other than what she had, but for reasons that were strictly moral? A feeling similar to stomach pain but stemming directly from choices that were rational. Practical. She realized that this must be guilt and vowed to think on it all later, when her heart wasn’t racing from the thrill of thievery.\n\nExcusing herself with the necessary niceties, Karil made her way to the hall’s periphery, where the windows still allowed some cold air in through countless infinitesimal cracks. She needed to cool off. Leaning against the wall with her arms crossed over her chest, she shifted again and again as if set upon by ants just to feel that precious, gorgeous thing in its hiding place. Why did stealing make her somewhat horny? She resolved, as ever, not to follow that question to any extent whatsoever. \n\nKaril was elated. She felt awful. Her heart was racing with excitement. Her gut was tightening with unease. She felt invulnerable, and small, and brilliant, and craven. So many rabbits ran through her head, and she hadn’t the first idea which one to chase. Only when she spotted Mirrikaz did she dare move again. The goblin looked like she’d gotten undressed, then redressed in a hurry. She also dragged a jug of something she more than likely shouldn’t have. Karil took a few steps forward, gesturing in greeting, but promptly lost her pig-riding friend in the crowd.\n\nA very blessed and good fucking Highwinter to her own self, then. Hooray.\n\n— Being again the present time, in the cavern where there lives a wicked thing. —\n\nKaril sputtered. Memories of the day before mingled unchecked with all others, and before she saw to catching her breath, she focused on the integrity of her thoughts. Her vision swam, and she feared she may pass out. “What…” Her throat burned, and she coughed. “What… what… was… was…”\n\nBeing manhandled with frighteningly scant effort brought her right around to her senses. In an instant, she faced the ground, her right arm dangling and her left pinned in an inescapable grip. She reckoned his lap was just underneath her hips. Or, to wit, she was laid belly-down across it. Clarity shone through her fear like the sun’s rays through storm-black cloud. There wasn’t all that much He could do in this pose, except for something brazenly ridiculous.\n\n“Are you, shit, wow, are you about to spank me? Really?” She laughed almost sincerely. “Yeah. Right. You’re a krampus. That’s what you hairy cumstains do, isn’t it? I can’t believe it.”\n\nIn flickering torchlight, the blued steel tone of her skin didn’t look one bit dull. The krampus’ fingers brushed it and she clenched hard enough to form a diamond out of coal. Though they were terribly faint and narrow as fine thread, four or more scars spanned both cheeks. Karil was sleek and willowy as elfkin were but for the here-and-there exception. Her bottom, however, was toned to athletic splendor through the rigors of roguery. The longer this preliminary show of stroking and examination dragged on, the harder she tried not to flinch, and the more she did.\n\n“Do you think I’m afraid of you?” asked Karil through chattering teeth. The cold was just partly to blame. Being pinned like this made her feel everything under the stars except in control. She remembered the stolen necklace and felt it in precisely the right place. Small comfort. “Do you think I haven’t been over a knee? Worse? You leather-smelling, goat-cat-looking pissgargle, you have no idea.” Summoning up some uncommonly bold defiance, she raised her hips to show him just where he could waste her time. “Try me. Just try m-OH GODS FUCK, WHY!”\n\nThe krampus’ hand fell like a shooting star. It slapped the elf where she sat, and would not soon sit again, with spit-flinging force. Karil bucked hard, scrambling to get away and finding no purchase. She recognized her own shocked cry, but not the frame of mind from which it came. Certainly not the sensation which followed, as sharp pain echoed until it was a dull throb.\n\n“RePeNt, ThIef.” Nothing should sound that way. No living thing, nor dead thing, nor once-dead thing, nor thing imagined nor thing repressed in the darkest recess of memory, should sound that way. It was the feeling of a skinned knee, transplanted directly onto the heart.\n\nKaril meant to tell him to do something rude, but didn’t get the words out. He slapped her quivering cheeks again and again at a tempo she couldn’t quite predict. Heat rose fast, from stinging to burning in the span of a single regret. \n\nNot since she was a girl of forty at the mercy of her mother’s dreaded mixing spoon did the prospect of a spanking elicit fear. Not much of anything but annoyance or mild arousal, depending on the context. Now the fear coursed through her. Fear of not being able to stop this and not knowing when it would end. Fear of being afraid. Fear of letting on that she was afraid.\n\nThat great wood slat of a palm made her eat her words. It simmered them in a crow and boot leather marinade and forced them back down her throat, where she wished they’d stayed.\n\n“RePeNt, ThIeF.”\n\nA deep purple blush rose in Karil’s cheeks. In all four of them, to be precise, and far darker where they were lower. Red blood under heated blue-gray flesh, combining to mimic the colors of first nightshade and then violet. What reaction was she supposed to have? Flippant wasn’t an option. Dignified might not be for long. With her lip held firmly between her teeth and eyes clenched shut to keep from crying, she shut herself up like a vault.\n\nHe had to stop telling her to repent. It was getting old. Worse yet, it was sinking in. But as neither did what the other wished they would, Karil’s protective coat of self control wore thin. She kept her legs held diligently together, but kicked them out each time a loathsome spank fell too near her limit. The motion turned repetitive and violent. Each time she bucked, her confidence in a smooth return diminished. Swiveling her hips from side to side helped less than none. In any case, in those few moments during which she managed to inconvenience Him, he retaliated against the defenseless backs of her thighs. Damn, did that ever bring back memories.\n\n“I’m sorry, okay? I’m sorry!” Where that came from, Karil didn’t know. Nor did she know if she meant it, or if she could mean it.\n\n“ThE tHiEf LiEs,” came the reply of the yuladrottinn. And when he stopped his hammering, Karil sensed no relief in it. Rather, it felt in her gut and all her other innards like the start of something she would not recall fondly years on.\n\nThe Yule Lord, whose bag might hold the sea and sky, whose red eye was said to watch the soul and whose green eye was said to scry past, present, and future all at once, drew something from beside his throne. Karil didn’t have to look back to know what it was, but she did anyway and instantly wished she hadn't. In His hand was a bundle of birch switches bound tight in coarse twine. It was frightfully long, both too wide and too narrow, and every switch therein was trimmed smooth.\n\n“No. No. I said I was sorry. Alright? I said it. That’s it; I’m sorry and that’s the end. It has to be.” A tear ran down her face, contorted as it was in a look of pain and dread. “Please.” \n\nIt was not the end. It was not the dawning of the end. It was not a vantage point from which the end might be observed, or the herald of some hopeful end to be. Instead, it was fire. It was remorse given form. It was jellyfish stings and pricked fingertips, a drink sipped much too hot and a lover’s rebuke taken straight away to heart. \n\nThe birch bundle drew streaks of royal purple across her skin. Beneath those weals, which rose in rows like fresh-tilled earth, darkened a mottling of color which tilted red. The lashes fell and fell. Sometimes they landed with a snap, sometimes with a sound like kicking a wicker basket. Sometimes they hissed on the way down, sometimes they struck in silence like a rogue in the wee hours. \n\nKaril fought desperately to push herself free. She pounded her fist against the throne and twisted whichever way she could. A cry rose behind sealed lips and clenched jaws until she sounded like a note held long, long, oh so long on the fiddle. She saw a flash of snowfall white behind her eyelids for as long as she could keep them closed. Thereafter, she saw through a veil of tears. \n\nShe didn’t know exactly when she went limp. It was around the same time she stopped giving half a damn about the noises she was making. Her body was exhausted, her mind more so. Only once she felt herself reduced to something like the translucent pulps which sometimes washed up on shore did her ordeal end.\n\nPerhaps a minute later and just as likely ten, Karil knelt beside her comrades. The whole of her backside was painted a vibrant shade of suck, and she held her hands with fingers laced together at the back of her head. The crying stopped and started again at deliriously random intervals. The wrist irons dangled above her head, unused; whatever bonds were henceforth required, they fettered her spirit instead.\n\nIt was Okunam’s turn next. It felt good at first to be out of those shackles, though his gladness was muted by those things heard and seen, fearful things of which he was assured. Eager to learn from the mistakes of others, he didn’t bother putting up a fight on his way to the throne. His practiced nonchalance held out all the way until that serpentine fucker of a tongue was so many inches down his throat. Then he choked and half-swallowed like a new kobold bride whose delusions of deepthroating grandeur were being unkindly dispelled at the end of a proper dragon dong. \n\nYoUr SiNs ArE kNoWn To Me. I cAlL yOu… FeAsT-fOuLeR.\n\n— Being the day prior, in the establishment which is called The Shitting Parrot —\n\nPlaces like the Shitting Parrot were good news for people like Okunam. On the road, people might attack him and often did. One knight rode up to him just to spit on him from horseback, then rode off again. Necromancers, necrophiles, kleptophiles, kleptomaniacs, pyromaniacs, pyromancers; the world was mostly a parade of shit for adventurers.\n\nAt inns and their ilk, though? A ruggedly handsome – yet, he fancied, playfully boyish – bard with a bag of stories to tell and a songbook long as a pike was practically royalty. Strangers shared their deepest, most personal secrets, even when he asked them emphatically not to, and solicited his advice. Those loose with their coin could think of no better use thereof than to give it to him. If the Archon herself wanted to trudge down here from the Black City, through the muck and mud and shit and booby traps, she wouldn’t get half the greeting warranted by some charming rando with shining hooves and a pleasant voice.\n\nThere was a good crowd tonight, too. An appreciative one. Maybe even a tipsy one. The Parrot was a guilty pleasure, sure, but what a pleasure it was. He struck up a dance in the corner, melding fluidly from there into one conversation then another. He worked a hand of cards for a player who needed to go pee, earning the lucky bastard a handful and skimming a modest cut for himself. He lifted his cup of brown ale high, toasting nothing in particular with no one special.\n\nSomething bumped into Okunam like the wrong end of an ox. The blow sent him stumbling forward, spilling his drink and planting his hand right in an old man’s lukewarm bowl of beans. Okunam apologized on instinct, but the old man didn’t seem to care at all and went right on eating. Gross, but alrighty.\n\nIt wasn’t easy looking tough while flicking beans off one’s hand onto the floor. But damn if the faun didn’t give it his best shot. He narrowed down the list of assailants to the towering minotaur whose butt jutted out like a ham at shoulder level. This put a real damper on Okunam’s plan to throw down, as he felt confident the big oaf could wad him into a ball of bard with his head shoved up his own ass. Future ballad material noted.\n\nThe minotaur turned around. He must have felt a stare, because Okunam sure as hells didn’t say anything. One of his eyes was missing, replaced by a facsimile of walrus ivory with a steel piercing in it. Eye piercing, nice touch. “Yeah?” he grunted.\n\nOkunam waggled his fingers in an awkward wave. “You spilled my drink.” He barely heard himself. “Which is fine. We’re fine. You’re fine.”\n\nThe minotaur continued listening, as though there must be more to this complaint to justify its airing. When there wasn’t, he looked unsure of what to do with this information. It suggested no obvious course of action. “Yeah?”\n\n“You, uh, you did indeed. I’m pretty sure.” What was Okunam hoping for, exactly? An apology? A punch? One or the other felt more likely than both. Both would be weird. He swallowed hard with no clear picture of where this interaction was headed.\n\nThe minotaur nodded sagely, considering this information. He must not have been compelled to act on it, because he turned back around quite casually to strike up a conversation with a bright-eyed elfkin twink. That felt like the end of the exchange. \n\nAll the same, Okunam flushed with anger. He wanted to lash out and assert himself, his dignity, his manhood as it was. A hundred vicious, cutting remarks well tailored to the lout at hand jockied in his head for the chance to land him in trouble. That was the chief function of his thoughts, after all: translating intrusive impulses into good stories. But the few replies which reached the finish line, where they ought to come spilling out of his mouth like so much drakefire, arrived limp and toothless. And so he sulked away to snark another day.\n\nHe drained what remained in his cup and ordered another, clacking too large a coin on the bar just to see the pink-haired fae girl behind it flash him a smile. It lifted his mood a bit. So did the taste of beer brewed with a note of sour cherry. In short order he was happy enough to find a seat without looking all mopey. Thanks to his long ears, he’d been born with a tragically potent mope.\n\nAt a table in the corner sat a human between the ages of twenty and eighty – Okunam never could tell – with a mustache like a pair of horse tails. He wore an expensive-looking tunic that was surely brand new, a telltale sign of recent fortune. Nobody sat with him, but he wasn’t conspicuously covered in shit or oozing anything that Okunam could see, so the faun approached and pulled away a chair.\n\nIt was pulled back straight away. Okunam looked down and saw a pair of filthy boots resting in it, one over the other. “I’d like to have this seat” he said.\n\n“And I’d like you not to” replied the man in a gray, neutral tone.\n\nConceding the point with a muted sneer, Okunam grabbed the third and final chair at the table. It was filled with a backpack, undead scalps hanging off it in a band, the whole thing reeking of bacon grease and ass. “Huh. This yours?”\n\n“Perceptive one, aren’t you?” The walrus-looking son of a bitch took hold of the chair’s nearest leg and pulled it closer. “It’s mine. And if it’s all the same to you, or if it isn’t, I want to keep it where I can see it.”\n\nOkunam forced himself to smile. He leaned over the table, resting his cup without letting go, and eyed the glass of sapphire blue liqueur making his new friend cranky. He didn’t know what it was, but any liquid that color was either pricey or poisonous. “Don’t mind me saying so, but it looks to me like you’ve had some luck recently.”\n\nThe man squinted. He had his suspicions, but the opportunity to brag must have been irresistible. “Luck had nothing to do with it, not that it’s any concern of yours.” He proceeded to regale Okunam with an utterly preposterous tale of valor, one in which he apparently took a break in the middle of killing three, maybe four hundred ghouls to bed a pair of elementals, who’d proclaimed him the best lover they’d ever known. Somehow this ended in treasure. Okunam deduced that the man had probably wandered into a cavern, put down five or six ghouls, possibly rubbed one out to ease the battle jitters, and claimed an inflated reward.\n\nOkunam drifted in and out, wondering in a hypothetical sense what sort of elemental might be the most sexually compatible with human junk, while the story wound down. The man appeared both self-satisfied and a tad surprised to hear for the first time of his own exploits. \n\n“Marvelous,” Okunam sighed, “truly marvelous.” He pointed to the glass. “If anyone here’s earned a drink, well… would you let me fill you up?”\n\n“I… I beg your-”\n\n“Your drink, I mean. Would you let me fill up your drink.” Okunam flicked his wedge of a tail and scuffed at the floor with a hoof. “Come on, what are you having?”\n\nThe man seemed to want to say something terribly snide. Instead, he chose civility and coated it with a veneer of understated cockbaggery. “Oh, I wouldn’t want to impose. It’s, well, how should one say, it’s very expensive. Very. Expensive.” He sipped at it with puckered lips, sounding like nothing if not a dolphin breaking wind. “Distile of sweetgrass and blue borage, old enough to marry.”\n\nOkunam waved away the objection like an odor. “No, please, it’s the least I can do for a hero.” He spun about, moving briskly toward the bar and the overtipped fae girl. Within him burned one thought, which ignited the dry underbrush of his mind and heated his bones. One thought, one passion, one mission, one aim.\n\nI. Will. Fuck that man’s drink.\n\nWhy that of all things seemed the best option, he couldn’t say. That it even occurred to him at all should have prompted some solemn introspection. But now that he had the idea in hand, no matter how it may bite him, he couldn’t let it go. He belonged to it more than the reverse. He emptied his cup, then took a mostly full one from an old lizardman sound asleep on a pillow of bread. That he emptied too. It tasted of courage, as well as a note of reptile.\n\nHow much would he have to bribe the fae to let him in back? Would it cost less to simply buy a glass of the stuff, scurry away to some unseen corner, and put his dick in it? Could he keep his money, seduce the fae, make her fall madly in love with him, then make her an accomplice, all while the man still wished to drink? For that matter, he had a flashbomb on his person; he could draw attention away from him, risking only a small fire, and slip in back under cover of distraction.\n\nOr he could just walk right back there like he owned the place without anyone noticing or caring. That worked surprisingly well. It was, after all, a busy night. But still. Did this place just get robbed all the time?\n\nMost of the casks, kegs, bottles, and skins were nondescript enough to be almost identical. Not whatsoever like those things, however, was the ostentatious amphora in front. Frosted terracotta, banded and stoppered with purple hardwood, gilt in an ivy leaf pattern, with the distiller’s name and various pretentious details etched in flawless calligraphy.\n\nOkunam was glad he hadn’t even inquired about the cost of a glass, as he really didn’t want to wet himself rocking back and forth in the fetal position. Before him was a work of art, inside of which was a work of way more precious art with the added attribute of getting one absolutely pitched off one’s ass. He was a little afraid to touch it. When the stopper didn’t want to depart the neck, he had a brief yet horrifying vision of the whole thing tipping over and spilling. He assumed that this would get him instantly dragged off through a fiery split in the world to a plane of suffering. But lo, it came loose with a satisfying tlunk. \n\nLikewise loose a moment later was his deer dong. He glanced at it, then at the amphora, and wondered about the ergonomics of his plan. Was that crowdpleaser of a cock too thick to slip down the neck? For that matter, was it long enough to then dip into the distile? This was the first time he’d needed to consider the latter, and the second or third he’d thought about the former.\n\nNo matter. This was no mere act of vengeance. It was a righteous calling. And while he was theoretically willing to come away from this dead, he wasn’t about to walk away with an undipped penis, because honor or priorities or whatnot.\n\nHere goes. With his trousers shuffled down around his legs, he positioned himself carefully. He braced his hooves against the wall and gripped a standing cask, lowering himself slowly. It took some grappling to push his meaty, flared tip into the neck, during which his gripping arm began to shake. This forced him to rest the weight of his hips against the amphora’s banded rim and plant both hands on the floor. Little by little, wishing for even a mere bird’s sneeze of lube, he sank.\n\nIn this fantastically dignified pose, Okunam huffed and panted. He’d failed to consider what might happen if he got stuck. Or if he cracked his pelvis, because shit, the whole affair was proving really uncomfortable. But like he imagined it would be to have given birth, with perhaps a less than perfect notion of what that entailed, pain gave way to a glow of satisfaction when he made it. Reached, breached, dunked.\n\nAnother thing he’d failed to consider was that strong drink might not be an ideal substance in which to submerge his penis, but learning swept in on celestial wings. How long should he do this? How long should anyone do this? Was this an act of righteous indignation, or actually a somewhat petty and silly thing to do? Naturally, as he swiveled his hips and groaned against the burn, he landed on that first one, because the other option made him sad. \n\nPutting one’s junk in an unholy expensive beverage to exact vengeance was not an exact science. Okunam resolved to count to twenty, then pull out like the damn sheepskin just broke. He swayed and gyrated, pumping his hips, until at the count of fifteen he felt thoroughly confident that the drink was as cocked as it ever would be.\n\nTo his delight and more than mild relief, extracting himself wasn’t all that difficult. His flare cleared the amphora with a slight fup like the sound of a bottle being uncorked, which he found impossibly funny. In hindsight, maybe alcohol played a larger role in the formation of this plan than he’d assumed. He sought and found a bar cloth on which to dry himself off. The whole room now smelled pleasantly of the distile, and he wondered if the aroma might give him away. It wasn’t his policy to go around reeking of evidence. But what was he to do about it now?\n\nNot much was more exciting than walking away from the scene of some mischief with no one the wiser. It was a shame, really, that he couldn’t both get away with his elicit acts and invite praise at the brilliance of having gotten away with them. The Okunam who returned to the bustle and laughter of the great hall was a happier one than that which embarked on that great quest. But was he a better man for it? \n\nYes. Yes, clearly. That was awesome. There were chairs open now, thanks to a pickup game of whittlebone forming in the courtyard. He took the one he fancied and, with all due gravitas, unslung the lyre from his shoulder. Just one full bar into The River of Jade, a two-headed wolfkin girl in a very flattering bodice so happened to fall into his lap. Left head nuzzled submissively under his chin, while right head said something viciously lewd in his floppy long ear and nipped its end with barely restrained aggression. A strapping half-orc lad with bronze patina skin that glistened in the hall’s lights parked his tight butt on the table in front of them, four full cups in hand. Seriously, bards. This shit just happened. \n\nStrumming along with half-lidded eyes, the cords dancing under his fingertips, Okunam saw a server carrying a glass of blue close to her chest. Spilling even a drop would be shameful, and there was scant room to maneuver. Could it be? She deposited it at the annoying man’s table. Hells, yes. She was on her way off when he flagged her back; burying his face in her outer skirt, he blew his nose wetly and twice. Either she was a gifted actress, or this genuinely didn’t faze her any, because she looked well pleased when she left with a substantial coin.\n\nAll the same, Okunam savored the sense of having done something indisputably noble and meaningful when he watched the man sip. The man smacked his lips, tasting subtle notes of something he didn’t quite expect. With the wolfkin girl(s) warming his knee and the half-orc stud massaging his shoulders, Okunam drank deeply of life, and of all the good things in it.\n\n— Being again the present time, in the cavern where there lives a wicked thing. —\n\nOkunam regained his powers of speech quickly. He had more practice than he cared to think much on when it came to people trying to choke him. As for his mind, he didn’t need to wait for it to settle, as it was never all that settled to begin with. \n\n“Look, krampusthing, I-ccckkkgh!” Talking ached, good to know. He lowered his voice and tried under the least amenable circumstances to look charming. “I’m not the elf. She’s brave. Feisty. Even–maybe most of all–when she shouldn’t be. I, on the other hand, know full well that I fucked up. And I want to tell you, from the depths of this big, thundering faun heart, that I am sorry.” He paused a beat. “So I hope we can be reasonable and forego that bundle thing, because damn, that sounded about as fun as barebacking a troll.”\n\nFor the second time that evening, the faun’s preternatural charisma got him nowhere. Nowhere, that is, except stretched over the knee of an eldritch horror with a weird holiday kink and a tongue like a spool of animated rope.\n\nMuch like Karil’s had, Okunam’s spanking got off to an absolutely shittastic start. Any key differences lay in the recipients; chief among them was that, while Karil was apparently well schooled in the act of having her ass beaten raw, he was a novice. Worse than a novice, a pretender. He’d received more than a few firm slaps on the rear from dommy mommies and bear-bodied bravos. He’d even liked them plenty at the time. But while his badly undisciplined youth situated him well for a career in adventure, it left him lacking in the sense of… well, discipline. And unlike Karil, who stoically accepted the consequences of chronic thieving, he managed to talk his one date with the cane down to a ‘firm, edifying roll in the hay’, where he promised to learn the error of his ways.\n\nOkunam’s supple, round faun flanks, furred the color of late autumn leaves with white dappling all the way down to his knees, were unprepared. They were unprepared to flatten and bounce under the withering force of the krampus’ palm. Moreover, they were unprepared to redden quick as a sausage on the fire, or to swell like the same.\n\nHe was never at a loss for things to say, not even now. Trouble was, he couldn’t say them what with all the bleating and frantic yips of pain. That was a shame, as some of the words were rather witty and also he sounded like a mountain troll hatefucking a bagpipe.\n\nThe occasional bit of begging made it through. Not that it did him any good. The well-defined curves of his buttocks proved an irresistible target, most of all where they were widest. Free of any inhibitions where crying was concerned, he teared up in a fraction of the time as Karil and wouldn’t have bet against bawling in the very near future. \n\nOkunam splayed his legs frantically, treading water without any water to tread. When that became too tiring, he kicked in a wild, erratic way which only accentuated the spankability of his behind. Funny, never before had that seemed like a negative trait. Not knowing what to do with his hands, he gripped a beveled ridge in the throne’s woodwork and held on like it was the boarding rail of an airship already in flight. \n\nStill the yuladrottinn spanked. And spanked, and spanked, and spanked. The impact of His mighty ham of a hand invariably left two impressions. The first was akin to a flashbomb in Okunam’s brain. The second was another dawn-pink handprint upon many; collectively they flushed a rich, warm scarlet. \n\nIt was the birch, though, which truly taught Okunam a lesson. It stung like hellfire. He’d literally gone down on a succubus still hot from the infernal planes, and indeed, this was hellfire. He imagined nothing else felt like this, and if anything else should dare to, it too ought to be outlawed forever by edict of every king on the dirt and every god in the outer groves.\n\nThe imprints of individual switches were clearly visible on the tender pale skin beneath his fur. They framed larger and less perfectly defined blotches, each pinker at the edges and redder in the middle. These splendid markings crisscrossed his flanks, connecting white spots in a constellation of suffering.\n\nThat birch switches hurt like all the motherfuckers, though, wasn’t the lesson. The lesson was that he felt powerless. At a complete loss. Swept away, silenced, taken in hand, and every other thing he habitually took for granted not being. His sense of self, or rather of self-satisfaction, blurred behind an ever thickening fog which billowed over his thoughts and refused him passage through. All that, and his cock was hard as timber. Now there was a bit of insight with which he hadn’t a clue what to do.\n\nBawling was, indeed, inevitable. It broke free in a noisy torrent. And as he doubted the Yule Lord would believe his sorries and forgive-mes, Okunam spared them both the spectacle. It would end when it ended; there was fuck all he could do about it. Limp and out of breath, with bloodshot eyes that held back nothing, he surrendered. \n\nThe birching ended, and he barely noticed, and then he was stood back against the cave wall with winter air nipping at his monumental wood. Kneeling wasn’t a fan’s forte. All of this happened, presumably in just that order, but Okunam perceived it from a great distance. Everything hurt. He felt free but didn’t know what from. He was swollen and throbbing, front and back alike. All terribly overwhelming. There would be no snappy retort to this, least of all with newly raised questions in pursuit. He thought it was good, or something like good, something close enough as to be indistinguishable in warmth.\n\nAnd so it was that neither elf nor faun so much as glanced Mirrikaz’s way when her turn came. They huddled in mental fortresses at the bottom of a mental sea. She, on the contrary, ventured out of hers to take the fresh, clean air. \n\nWhen the ancient yuladrottinn seized her, she twisted and flailed until she somehow turned it into a one-sided hug. She nibbled on His elbow, and when He slapped her naked gobbo ass to warn her off, she nibbled that much harder. She perched her own self on His lap, unforced, and opened her mouth wide to share her secrets. Honestly, she would have told Him outright what she’d done, but thought it for the best He learn this way.\n\nYoUr SiNs ArE kNoWn To Me. I cAlL yOu… TaTtLeTaLe.\n\n— Being the day prior, in the establishment which is called The Shitting Parrot —\n\nMirrikaz didn’t know why she was being ushered out of the The Scratching Post. To the best of her knowledge, she’d broken no rule and violated no custom. A pair of feline humanoids watched from a high hammock with silver smoking pipes in their mouths. A tall, bald, bearded human followed close behind her, and while he wasn’t restraining her, he jabbed her between the shoulders with a leather cosh whenever she slowed to stare at something. Someone called after her in Imperial with an unfriendly tone. “Ksjdhbfihsbdfhb!”\n\nThere was quite a lot to stare at. Everything here was beautiful and smelled like cake. Mirrikaz loved cake. She paused to touch a dwarf boy’s silk pants. Jab! She paused again to admire a beautifully androgynous naga with magnificent, shimmering scales and long black hair bound up in ribbon. Jab! Unacceptable. Mirrikaz spun around and tried to bite the cosh, only to receive a poke to the forehead. Embarrassed, she continued on toward the front door.\n\n“Padal-ass?” she asked of her jabber in broken Imperial. Her big yellow eyes sometimes got her what she wanted. A lot of humans found them cute.\n\n“Lsakhjdfbpojsd,” he answered, shaking his head. No jab came this time, though, perhaps because of the cuteness of her eyes.\n\nShe switched back to her native Litli. “Well, then, can you at least tell me why I’m being escorted out of your establishment? Or where, nearby, I might be more warmly welcomed?”\n\nHe didn’t understand. “Shjdb? Jsdjhfusg. UIjs ksdj kjsdhbfshubd.” Useless.\n\nIt never felt good to be kicked out of someplace so pretty and nice. All goblins, at least all the goblins she knew, were achingly familiar with the experience. Proprietors were all too happy to accept their money until someone respectable complained. Or until a tallkin shot them a dirty look, or got themselves bitten. Then, almost invariably, they were shown the door.\n\nOnce, Mirrikaz had tried to pass for an elf through the elaborate use of stilts, body paint, and perfumes that smelled like apples. Mirrikaz loved apples. The ruse was uncovered immediately, though a pretty fun party ensued anyway. Most of the time, though, she had to remain vigilant, alert to every unfriendly glance and suspicious whisper. \n\nOutside, the evening was cold. The door shut behind her without slamming, which she took to be somewhat polite. Tallkin usually slammed. Looking down at the flat, smooth stick in her hands, she sighed. At least nobody had tried to take it away from her.\n\n“Mirrikaz! Sjihsdhib.” A familiar voice called out to her from the square, where a healthy fire was burning in a brazier. Friend Okunam approached with lyre unslung. She assumed he’d been entertaining the others huddled nearby.\n\nHer ears drooping, she held her stick aloft for Friend Okunam to see. “Padal-ass!”\n\n“Asdkj? Akbn Mirrikaz, lskdjf sjk sjdhbhsd dpiojr.” His tone was warm, and he smiled. Friend Okunam had a pretty smile. He was a pretty man, with warm fur on his lower half and soft skin on his upper half. These features, among others, made her want to follow him around and bite his leg sometimes. In an affectionate way, that is, not for food or out of agitation. Bites formed part of a complex and expressive language, the nuances of which were often lost on tallkin.\n\n“Padal-ass.”\n\n“Akjapdsjh? Sisdjhb fkj. Dkjnkjd, Mirrikaz.” He clapped his hands, and she followed along in a state of rapt attention.\n\nBefore long, though the crowds of tallkin moving in all directions made it seem longer, the two arrived at the door of a place which smelled like all the food in the world. Above the door hung a sign with an impressive painting on it, a phoenix nesting on a sweet little egg. Mirrikaz thought the painting was rather good and wondered who she might ask about keeping it. She loved eggs. \n\nFriend Karil was already inside, studying two other tallkin playing some kind of game at a table. She smiled like she did when she wanted to smile more but didn’t want anyone to think she was weak. Friend Karil was smart, as tallkin go, but she seemed to think that feeling feelings, or even looking like she might have felt a feeling before, made her weak, and that wasn’t an especially smart thing to think. Mirrikaz renewed her vow to help her overcome that.\n\nThe new place, which she quickly identified as an inn by the overwhelming smell of all things brewed and the magnificent smell of all things cooked, was as crowded a place as she’d seen in some time. People were having fun everywhere, and nothing was on fire that wasn’t supposed to be. Mirrikaz loved it when nothing was on fire that wasn’t supposed to be.\n\nIt was hard to see above tallkin waists in the crowd, though, and soon she and Friend Okunam got separated. Not a problem; she knew they wouldn’t leave town without her, and there was plenty of excitement to explore down here at this level. Spying a brown bug on the floor, she stooped to eat it and forgot what she’d been thinking about before. With entirely new thoughts in her head, she set out to find what there was to be found.\n\nMirrikaz was a bit shy about the fact that she couldn’t speak Imperial. Not yet, at least. She believed her Friends were going to help her with that, but whenever they’d tried before, she’d gotten bored and bitten something, or started spinning around in circles to become dizzy and screaming as loud as she could. \n\nThe itch still had her. The itch often had her, and it was downright intolerable lately. She looked around for beautiful people and saw nothing but; everyone was so, so very beautiful. So she looked around for big people and saw nothing but; everyone was so tall it made her stomach swim. These were good hunting grounds, and not only because the floor had bugs.\n\nMirrikaz wasn’t a bad flirt, all things considered. She’d learned to make her eyes extra big and pretty, though she couldn’t make them extra yellow, and all the parts of her that were round seemed to get a lot of attention. Her dating success back home had been lacklustre, on account of her wavy hair and short, unsharp nose, but tallkin didn’t mind either.\n\nLikewise, scratching the itch was easier in some locales than others, but she got the job done. Some places didn’t seem familiar with the concept at all, and some had elevated it to an art form, with special parlors just for getting that itch scratched. \n\nHere, though, the sheer number of people all around – be they prospective new Friends or something else – sent lightning through her nerves. She flinched when people spoke to her, even though she couldn’t understand what they were saying. She grew restless when she sat too long in one seat, and when she sat in a seat that already had a person in it, they weren’t always polite.\n\nIt was a relief, then, when a feline tallkin who smelled like incense offered to let her drink from his cup. They talked for a while. Well, he talked in his language, and she in hers, and they laughed at what felt like the right times. Their eyes spent a lot of time on each other. Hers were the shade of yellow her people called amshe lurra batang, amber full of morning light. His were the shade of blue that people called blue, and their pupils were sometimes vertical and at other times round. Mirrikaz loved variable pupil shape.\n\nThey flirted. They touched hands, pretending it was an accident and then dropping the pretense altogether. She said in Litli, “I have to admit, I didn’t think I’d meet someone here so, so, uh… what do I even call it? You’re a good listener. And you have pretty, furry hands; it’s important for guys to have pretty hands, don’t you think? Whether or not there’s fur on them.”\n\n“Opijdpsbdojsbodgfoshjgdf,” he replied in something that wasn’t Litli. But damn if it didn’t feel like a connection. She took him by the pretty, furry hand and, while he was mid-sentence, tugged for him to follow her. All the way out to the stable.\n\nThere were lots of rooms for fucking. People also fucked in rooms where they shouldn’t, but nobody acted like they minded too much. Mirrikaz liked fucking, from time to time, and with the right person, but she was shy and tiny. Scratching the itch, on the other hand, required special places with more privacy. Stables worked well, as did chapels, fields, meadows, beside streams, on boats, in cellars, in dungeons, in towers, et cetera. \n\nShe pulled the pretty feline, whose name she thought might have a Sh in it, down to sit on a bale of hay. There were only a few horses here tonight; most of the beautiful people who drank and ate and fucked in the inn with a painting of a phoenix and a delicious egg outside were probably poor, like her. Like Friend Okunam and Friend Karil. Poor people didn’t usually have horses. Once he was comfortably seated, he opened his mouth to purr something in low, sultry tones.\n\n“IJnfihbdfhj.” It was probably something really seductive. \n\nMirrikaz untied her rope belt and set it down carefully so as not to harm the many bone, metal, glass, and amber charms on it. The pretty feline licked his lips. Flashing him her best smile, which showed off the sharpness of her teeth, she made a show of lowering the road-stained blue trousers she could never quite keep clean. Only a skimpy little undergarment wrap remained, and she ritually untied it at the corners, waiting for him to drool. He smiled but didn’t react much to that. Eh. Would’ve absolutely killed on another goblinkin. Goblinkin loved ritual undergarment knot untying.\n\nMirrikaz retrieved the flat stick from its tuckaway place, clasped in the twisted fibers of her belt. With only breeze below the waist, she approached him. He tried to kiss her, which was weird, but she pushed her hand against his mouth and pushed it away… seductively? Now was the moment. The itch which had plagued her night and day was about to be relieved. Taking a deep breath, she climbed up onto the bale next to him and slowly, delicately, artfully draped herself across his lap.\n\nFollowed by nothing. Why nothing? Looking back over her shoulder at him, she lifted her butt and gave it a cute lil’ wiggle. All cockiness aside, she knew the power of a feminine goblin derriere. She waited, chuffed, wiggled again, and mimed to him what she wanted. This entailed slapping the back of one hand with the other’s palm. He didn’t know the term barrangba. Few tallkin did, but it was worth a shot. He didn’t know the command ne-ag barrangba un, or the almost desperately adorable plea ne goung th’oinle barrangbeg. Miming again didn’t help.\n\nOh! She remembered then to hand him the flat stick, which made his look of confusion even worse. “Padal-ass!” she explained with newfound vigor.\n\n“Psjnfih. OJnfjindshjif? Ijifd, odfojijdfi…” Poor guy was clearly doing his best to communicate, making inscrutable hand gestures of his own.\n\nIn frustration-tinged Litli, “For fuckssake, man, just spank me already! Barrangba! Fckin’ spanking. Pleeeeeaaaase.” More than cake, or variable pupil shape, or most things in the world, Mirrikaz loved being spanked.\n\nRealization dawned on the feline’s face, though it wasn’t accompanied by a corresponding look of confidence. He took the flat stick, the padal as she heard a similar object called at The Rose’s Thorns in Yunmicataq, and held it aloft. Good, good. Then, with maximum care but minimum correctness, he stuck it between the emerald cheeks of her ass. Like a candle in a cake.\n\n“...dikosjdfjofidh?”\n\nThat was the last straw. Mirrikaz shuffled off the confused feline’s lap, retrieved her stick, and let out a cry of long-simmering frustration finally bubbling over. She marched off toward the inn, remembered that she needed to put her pants back on, returned, did so without making eye contact, and stormed off a second time.\n\nAn hour or so later, she was in a dour mood. Friend Okunam had done something very bad to some poor person’s drink, she’d gleaned over cheese. Friend Karil had stolen the prettiest thing from the pile of pretty things for poor people; Mirrikaz saw its outline in the secret pocket and knew right away what had happened. Friend Okunam often pulled pranks, and Friend Karil often took things that didn’t belong to her. Sometimes Mirrikaz helped with both. But tonight, her itch still badly unscratched, she was in no frame of mind to humor their shenanigans.\n\nTo that end, she’d put some coins down on the bar where a fae lady who smelled like fancy soap was working. Why was it that she could communicate ‘give me all the alcohol this amount of coin will buy’, but not ‘hit my ass until it changes color, use this fucking stick I just put in your hand, don’t stick it in my butt like a bookmark’? Was one concept really so much more complicated than the other.\n\nIt came to be that the amount of alcohol corresponding to that number of coins was kind of a lot. With visible effort, the fae handed over a jug of something that smelled strongly of pears. A whole jug. And as Mirrikaz dragged the jug with her to and fro, feeling sorry for herself and wondering why there weren’t any clouds in the ocean and then right back to feeling sorry for herself, she became drunk. And as she became drunk, she grew mischievous. And when she got mischievous, she tended to work magic.\n\nThere were in these parts, it was said, beasts called kirrampas. Called all sorts of things, really. And they could, it was said, be summoned on feast days, and especially in the season of Highwinter, to chasten those whose festive spirit was lacking. It was a simple summoning. These were minor spirits in the grand scheme of things, more stern than vicious. And they carried, it was said, great bundles of birch rods, for which Mirrikaz could think of no use other than itch scratching. Other than barrangba. \n\nShe took a half-eaten apple from one table, a lit candle from its neighbor, and some nut shells from the floor underneath. A pinch of sweet spices from behind the counter when the fae wasn’t looking, and a charred bit of wood from near the fireplace. Drunk, magical, itching, and dragging her jug along the floor, she went off to see if she recalled the ritual properly.\n\n— Being again the present time, in the cavern where there lives a wicked thing. —\n\nMirrikaz loved having her throat swabbed by a ginormous monster tongue while she straddled a whole butcher’s window worth of monster meat. In her own defense, she offered naught but a coy flick of her ears. Their fine points tipped downward from on plane with her eyes. All things taken, the effect was noticeably kittenlike. \n\nMirrikaz needed very little urging to position herself over Big Fuckin’ Daddy Kirrampas’ knee. The sole difficulty lay in managing the immense difference in their sizes. With a look of invested curiosity on her face, and the corners of her lips turned up in a faint smile, she tried resting on her knees and elbows with her bottom high in the air. This was ergonomically challenging for long-limbed feast guardians. Luckily, they were anything but shy in making their wishes known. In an instant, and to the unexpected music of excited squealing, he pulled her by both legs in a single grip to the edge of his lap. There her legs were free to hang down. In order to preempt any effort to wriggle off, He rested His hand beneath her shoulders. It reached from one to the other barely taking fingers into account.\n\n“Uing te teii-on th’oum. Igkeskaan… o-ne shuik a gan, er-tarrubeshk gil? Ne-ag BARRANGBA un!” \n\nHis interactions with the others led the yuladrottinn to suppose this one would be no better. Even that she may take her punishment in a yowling, childlike way befitting her stature. Her exceedingly attentive observations of those interactions, though, led her to suppose that she may have bitten off more of the horse than she could swallow. Both were, in their own ways, pleasantly surprised. \n\nThe smooth skin and ample cheeks of Mirrikaz’s backside took well to correction. Only when He’d warmed her a bit did the krampus see that it had freckles of the faintest tan. No wall-runner or hoof-pounder here; this was a girl of generous proportions, and her flesh rippled accordingly under His blows.\n\nThe very first spank elicited a long, keening howl. It floated upward in tone until it too became a squeal of… indecipherable type. She awarded Him performative ouches and sharp, dramatic gasps for a few more. Perhaps twenty, thirty, fifty. The command of numbers was not among Mirrikaz’s talents. Following those, she answered with a coo or a merry little hum. Often with a wiggle of her ass as well. It wasn’t that the kirrampas wasn’t skilled, or that his ministrations didn’t hurt; he was, very, and they did, wonderfully. It was just that the sensations within dwarfed those without and pulled her focus inside. \n\nGoblinkin complexions did not redden. Their blood ran an oceanic blue, of course, and so Mirrikaz’s heated rear end simply darkened, keeping its ordinary shade but cast in ever expanding shadows. She closed her eyes, taking pleasure in the shallowness of her breath. Now and then she tried to push herself up, but His whopper of a hand held her down, and soon she tried to push herself up because she wished to be held down. She kept her legs bent when they weren’t kicking; even when they were, they kicked delicately and at the tail end of a squirm. Her toes curled and uncurled in ceaseless alternation. In time, the only sound which escaped her lips was a breathy, throaty ah! in time with His spanks. \n\nThe krampus expected her to react much differently to the birch. He was right in this; she ground her hips against him in a most unusual way the instant he took it in hand. Holding one of her knuckles in her mouth, she opened her eyes just to roll them back in her head. The birch welted her nicely. Small tracks of soft ivy green arose from each stroke. These blossomed into full weals between strokes. Weals in turn met and merged, turning a scandalous viridian in the process. All the while, she knitted up her brow and let out berry-sweet whimpers. Her ears splayed back to conceal their points in the waves of her hair. And she too, in time, surrendered.\n\nHer surrender looked nothing like despair. Not one tiny bit like bowing to a sense of impotent shame. It was a peaceful sort. Mirrikaz felt at ease, the delicious pain in her flesh driving her further into a place of tranquility. She signaled her arrival at the point of genuine satisfaction with a dumb, goofy grin and a trickle of drool, her marigold eyes staring placidly at nothing. The yuladrottinn applied one last stroke, which hissed and popped and left behind a lovely memento. And just like that, her itch was truly, masterfully scratched. Mirrikaz loved having her itch scratched. \n\nThe goblin was a heap of goop. She couldn’t walk without stumbling. Her kinda-sorta tormentor carried her like his sack of errant brats back to the barrel, which she sprawled across and promptly fell off. Close enough.\n\nHis task discharged, the krampus sank into a pile of grain bags. It wasn’t every season that His stamina was tried. Glaring with those crossbow bolt eyes at the three contrite souls before Him– well, two contrite and one looking like she might be close to getting off–He savored the sense of justice served. The same sense which warmed Him in the bitterest of winters and got His creaky old bones out of bed when summoned. \n\nIf being kidnapped, stripped in the cold, chained up in a cave, and spanked like the castle’s least favorite whipping boy didn’t put the holiday spirit into them, nothing would. At the very least, Father Highwinter would be pleased to see his feast protected from rascality. Ahhh… three asses roasting in a grimy cave. Just like something out of a sappy painting. Bless this season and its joys. \n\n– Being a conspicuously half-assed epilogue, three days thereafter, just outside the establishment which is called The Shitting Parrot –\n\nNot in all of recent memory had there been a Highwinter haul so grand. It took a team of six strong drunks to load up two carts with the Parrot’s gifts, and still they had to be tied down. If ever there was a good day to be a destitute peasant sucking down a miasma of disease in the war-torn hellscape of home, hiding from bandit raids in a latrine and eating tree bark bread cooked over a crackling fire lit with abandoned toys… well, by the lords of midnight and dawn, by all the gods, this would be it. This one would kick all the ass.\n\nBlind Geoff and Orri’zaulthung the Chickenpuncher volunteered to make the delivery, by virtue of being passed out when everyone else said they didn’t want to. Blind Geoff was to lead the way, but the problems with this were numerous and reared up quickly, so it was decided that the carts should be tied together to form some kind of humongous jolly supercart, because straight fuck roads. Two oxen pulled each half of the supercart, and some enterprising soul had the foresight to lash a great big mast and sail up front as well, because land ship?\n\nThere was little faith that the supercart landship would reach its destination in the legendary shithole that was Tiugh ain Breach, but they’d all be damned if it didn’t reach some destination. And there were probably mud-caked yokels and orphans and such there too. Everywhere one found yokels and orphans. After a couple of false starts, the drivers were getting visibly antsy, and Orri’zaulthung was liable to go haul off on a chicken. With much fanfare, the horde of Highwater gifts lurched off in the general direction of Tiugh ain Breach.\n\nApproaching from the north, a gust of snow rolling at their backs, came three figures inbound. The tallest of them, one of those blueish marshland elves by her look, waved her arms to the drivers and shouted for them to tarry. \n\nWhat business an elf, a faun, and some kind of little… shortstack frog devil thing had on the road in these conditions was anyone’s guess. Well, not theirs. They probably knew. It was anyone else’s guess. But it very likely had something to do with the bulging rucksacks they each shouldered.\n\nOh, what treasures these three latecomers bore! The elf had tucked away a dozen warm shirts, as many thick cloaks, and thirty-five bars of fancy soap plus another that looked to have been bitten in half. Could be by the shortstack frog devil thing. She said she’d sold something awfully keen to buy it all, as if anyone gave a fistfull of cold puke where she got the money or why. Nice gesture, though, to be sure.\n\nThe faun presented two amphorae of something he said was liquor, with a name that sounded expensive and pretentious. Give it to the orphans, he said. You find the saddest, filthiest, diseased-est little orphans you can, he said, and get them drunk off their bony asses. And you wish them a blessed Highwinter too, he said, and give them all a big hug. You hug every pustule-ridden drunken orphan in town, he said, and got a polite nod back. \n\nThe shortstack frog devil thing, who spoke some kind of foreign gibberish, offered up a whole wheel of smoked cheese nearly as big as her torso. That, it was unanimously agreed by everyone who hadn’t wandered inside by this point, was the tits. Just the absolute tits. She also offered up a flat stick called a padalass, which everyone agreed was a little weird but maybe generous anyway, and tried to bite one of the oxen.\n\nThose three cold and weary travelers, each walking funny and half frozen stiff, ventured inside with smiles the size of the moon. And who could blame them? In a hundred-hundred arrowshot around, these must be the most festive spirits ever to light a Highwinter log. The goodwill radiating off them could have cooked a goose with all the trimmings. How, folk asked, could anyone take the goodness of the season so unreservedly into their own hearts? Were they inexplicably kind, or stupid, or both, or was it instead a hex placed on them by some jolly old Highwinter witch with her nethers all stuffed with mistletoe? \n\nNone knew. Frankly nobody was that interested in the answer. But damn if those three weren’t the finest company in a crow’s age. Free to overflowing with tales, songs, and tricks to delight and amaze. And in return, what did they ask? Nothing, not a pig’s pube. Nothing except, come to think of it, a couple pillows each on which to sit. \n", "writing_bbcode_parsed": "The Yuladrottinn


Karil awoke in a dark and foul-smelling place. That wasn’t shocking in its own right. What unnerved her was that it wasn’t the dark and foul-smelling place in which she’d laid down to sleep. There was a foot in her face as well, which she didn’t remember being there before, and the ground was jostling beneath her.

All of this added up to cause for alarm. She shoved the foot away and received a kick to the boob for her trouble. She meant to retaliate in kind, but one of her legs was asleep and the other was trapped under something hairy. Left with few other options, she flailed her arms in an attempt to hit something, anything, preferably in the face.

“Karil, Karil… Karil! Damn it, calm down. You’re about to hit me in the balls, and Mirrikaz already did that twice.” The voice, drained of its usual playfulness, belonged to Okunam. He too had little to offer in the ‘where are we’ and ‘the fuck is going on’ departments. One of his horns was stuck in what felt like a big blanket. He too was unfamiliar with this particular variety of stench, though it conjured images of an old barn filled with unwashed drunks. “I think it’s just the three of us. And I think we’re on a ship.”

Mirrikaz let loose a high-pitched growl of annoyance and tried gnawing at the confines of whatever it was that held them. She thought it tasted of pants. Were they inside a colossal pair of pants? The implications of that felt troubling. “Th’suit wachat haiin, on-negk siwich’a! Otu-Karil wen, Otu-Okunam wen, adsh i taw th’on!” She ordinarily wouldn’t swear quite so heavily, but being trapped in giant pants was plenty bad enough before someone pushed her foot away like an unwanted fish.

It had been just the three of them for as many years now. Each separated now and then to take care of some urgent personal business, or for an extraplanar booty call, but they always drifted back together. Some unseen tide refused to let them part company, and even should they wish to, it felt like tempting fate. This wasn’t even the worst of their shared predicaments yet, though that possibility remained very much on the table.

Karil was elfkin, born in the low marshes with a dagger in her little elf baby hand. No fair green-tinted complexion for her, no rich medley of coppers, browns, and reds. Her skin was the muted, pale blue-gray of her ancestors from the distant west. Her long, restless hair was so white that she sometimes washed it with ashes to be better unseen at night. And if anyone could call her vain, it was due to the exceptional length and fine taper of her ears. Those ears could utterly get it.

Beneath, atop, and beside her all at once was the faun Okunam. Russet brown curls danced over the greenest, softest eyes ever to wink. His horns were short and finely ridged, but pointy enough to threaten pillows and make certain romantic acts more dangerous than they might have been absent head-mounted stabbies. He was most proud of his shiny hooves, black just like his mother’s, but his furry deer rump and powerful legs drew the most attention. Everyone either met him already a butt person, or parted ways a zealous convert.

Then, well, Mirrikaz. Mirrikaz was a goblin, in body and in spirit, a celadon green creature of limitless enthusiasm. Like most goblinkin, her hair was deep brown and tangled enough to snap a comb. The features of her face suggested innocence that wasn’t really there, from the size of her eyes to her button nose. And, in defiance of the stereotypes, which cast goblins as gaunt with spike noses and bowed legs, she was the classic aikhur iw’on ke. Roughly, accounting for cultural norms and the finer points of translation, a thick little shortstack with sharp teeth.

Inseparable though they may have been, this level of closeness was grating for all three. The jostling, which they first speculated may have come from a ship, a cart, or a god stomping the ground really hard, made more sense once it was ascertained that they all rode in a bag. A great big sack, on which even Okunam wasn’t in the right headspace to comment.

Between Mirrikaz tearing at the thick cloth with her teeth, Okunam spearing it with his horns, and Karil slashing at it with a short, broad boot knife, progress seemed imminent. But whatever parting or tear they managed to open in the bag healed quickly of its own accord. The threads wriggled wormlike, seeking each other out to rejoin with a squicky sound.

In addition to being a bit vile, this proved exhausting; every successful attack let in more bitterly cold air, accompanied by a puff of snow. Solid upper body exercise aside, nobody kept at it for long. Their time felt better spent going over what they knew thus far.

They were in a bag. They were outdoors, and it was snoring. It didn’t take long to exhaust what they knew so far. Then came the speculation.

“Slavers?” asked Karil, brow knotted up in worry.

Okunam stretched his cervine legs as well as he could in the cramped quarters. “I doubt it. Hope not, anyway. What did they do, just walk in and bag us in the Parrot?”

“Well I don’t know of that many people who scoop folk up and carry them off into the cold.”

“Maybe the navy is recruiting again?”

That was an unpleasant thought. “Me, sure. But you can’t even stand up on a barge with your hooves, and Mirrikaz is…”

“She’s Mirrikaz,” offered Okunam.

“Right. Yeah, exactly.”

As if on cue, the compact little gobbo grunted. “Thui ang o-so egkel arrungalir o-ne. O sheju’lioth’oba Kirrampas wen! Borz ag chio she’bar, she’haunn, wod Kirrampas wen.”

Okunam and Karil waited for her to finish, but gained not a lot from her input. He spoke first. “Does anybody have their gear? Anything they were carrying?”

Karil checked the numerous places in which there may or may not be a blade tucked away at any given time. “Just my sleeping knife. Everything I went to bed in. Looks like I have my pouch and purse too. How about you?”

“Ashau th’urrumag bur! Teme o ne ne-shouk.”

“I think Mirrikaz had her jug.” At the inn, where they were all meant to be still, the goblin had taken a liking to a clay jug full of who knows what and begun to drag it around. “I’ve got my lyre. Fell asleep strumming it. And, uh, one pouch on my belt.”

Their odds of escape did not appreciably rise with the list of held items. Before heads could further level, though, Mirrikaz decided to make her meaning known through the ancient tactic of slow shouting. “Kirr-AM-pas wen! Kirr. Am. Pas!”

Well then. A krampus. Child-taker, thief-flayer, long-tongue. Winterskulk, bag-bearer, frozenhoof. The yuladrottinn, fucking Yule Lord. None of them had been entirely sure, as of about an hour ago, that they even still existed. Guardians of tradition, shepherds of righteous conduct, wardens of the feast. Real sumbitches by reputation.

“I thought they were supposed to take snot-nosed brats who won’t eat their barley,” said Karil. “We didn’t keep Highwinter when I was a sprout. But some of my friends did, and they were petrified of the damn things.”

Okunam spat reflexively, then instantly regretted it as there was nowhere for his spit to go, so it kinda settled on his chin. “I’m talking out my glorious buck ass here, but I remember hearing that they take anyone who desecrates a feast. Especially Highwinter, but I don’t know, maybe they just come out more this time of year.”

“So we’re just accepting that they’re real, then? That a krampus is a thing, an honest, legitimate yuladrottinn?”

The whole bag quaked. Something that felt like a tree bumped against Karil’s non-asleep leg and she recoiled startled.

Okunam grunted. “You have to admit, there’s some pretty damn compelling evidence to that effect.”

“Oneng otegk haii. Kirrampas wen je, yogkeli hayyan, ne urm karabag rio-”

Further conversation was cut off by the abrupt arrival of torchlight. Also the abrupt arrival of the ground, which met them all less than gently. Mirrikaz rolled to the side like a green sausage, while Karil and Okunam sprawled and tumbled over one another. It reminded both more than a little bit of the time they’d given into temptation in the quiet of a freshly cleared mine shaft, atop a bed of coins. But while that had been awkward, as impromptu adrenaline-fueled mine shaft dickings go, this time they held onto each other for life itself.

The three semi-professional semi-adventurers found themselves in a cavern with wet stone walls and frosted puddles of water all around. Blazing torches rested in crude, twisted metal fixtures punched directly into rock. No one torch put off much light, but there were quite a few, and they’d been spaced so as to decently illuminate the area.

Piles of random, uncategorized items towered everywhere. There were saddles and wood carving tools, lacy gowns with amethyst trim and pieces of armor. A variety of spears and axes leaned against crates of food, between which bolts of sail canvas were jammed. If there was any pattern to the distribution, or to the nature of objects arrayed in heaps like those which accumulated on the floor of a recently divorced dad, the three couldn’t detect it.

More or less everything seemed to be here, just not in any orderly or accessible way. Were one to spend a full week digging through the towers of junk and jewels alike, they would come away wanting for nothing ever again.

“Lords of the air and sea…” Okunam exclaimed, “we’ve been kidnapped by a hoarder.”

“Also a demon.”

“Yes, that too.”

“Yuing th’o ne kurrikarraz shvei olog zeiir. Ka o ne-barrangba thum…”

That was when He chose to appear. Stepping out of the shadows, one moment invisible and the next unavoidable, He moved with a grace that defied his size. The yuladrottinn looked very much like what had been described to most any child in the Empire. A towering creature, long of leg and arm, with a slender but wiry chest and a slight pot belly. His hooves were wholly unlike Okunam’s, being akin to those of a war horse but staggering in size. The horns were a poor match as well; His spiraled out to the sides and seemed to split somewhere in the middle, starting as two distinctly and ending as four.

The thing, beast, demon, whatever, was at once both dazzling and terrible to look at. His muscles had muscles on them, but the overall impression was one of lean sinew rather than bulging bulk. His eyes, one red and one green, shone with an eerie light. Looking a bit like a cat, a bit like a ram, and a bit like nothing else of this world, He cut a figure that would have been a nightmare to describe to an artist.

While the three were well accustomed to sleeping in their clothes, as fit the demands and unpredictability of adventuring, the krampus preferred to dress down. That is, He wore only a tattered vest covered in chimes which danced but made no sound, and an austere black loincloth. He probably could have done away with the latter, as His absolute world-ender of a unit actually hung lower than the loincloth’s fringe. As frightened and disoriented as they surely were, the three struggled not to stare at it. It wasn’t every day a guy, gal, or gob got a peek at something like that.

Karil kept her eyes on Him, but whispered to her comrades in that way which is better described as a weird, hissing yell. “What do we do? Rush it?”

“Shuikat sheur oun o-ogkbaiil? Aiir ae o-ne, ne-riktalu onneng.”

Okunam held up a hand for peace. “I don’t have a weapon. Mirrikaz doesn’t either, unless it’s hidden… somewhere.” He too spoke to his comrades with a half-tilted head while his eyes stayed fixed on the thing before them. “Let me try something.”

Karil could see brilliantly in the dark. It hardly made a difference to her eyes whether something was bathed in midday sun or lit by just a single failing candle, except that things seen in low light looked quite gray. But the shadows behind, around, and sometimes underneath the yuladrottinn proved hard to pierce. “And if that doesn’t work, I’m shanking him in the dickhole.”

“That’s fine by–damn it, Karil, really? The dickhole? Was that a necessary thing to… okay, you know what, nevermind, it’s fine. I’ll give the signal and you shank wherever and whatever.”

Out came the lyre, strapped as it was with a richly embroidered sling around Okunam’s shoulder. He never knew when it was going to be Barding Time. It came up more often than anyone, himself included, expected. So it was best, he figured, to keep the instrument close at hand. The first few notes he plucked were aimless, drifting, but he decided quick enough on a song.

The Ballad of Lady Ouhr’s Balls was a remarkably pretty one. The lyrics were… well, they didn’t play well with every audience. But the tune was gorgeous, a sweet and lilting piece which flowed from his fingertips with grace. Ease. Effortless style. He took that lovely piece of music and seduced it, wrapping it around his will so that every keening high and purring low ought to give a shark chills.

“Hey there, beautiful,” he cooed as he played. “I think we started off on the wrong note. C’mere, why don’t you tell me all about it? Awww yih, you big, handsome winter bear. Come rest your head on my lap and lemme stroke your hair. Er, fur.”

The krampus gave no outward sign of being moved. Not even when Okunam cast Him the handsomest smile in his whole repertoire. If He liked the song at all, or if He had any idea what a lyre was, or why this was happening, Okunam couldn’t tell.

“Hmm… okay then. That usually works. But you do you.” The speed with which Okunam reached into his pouch, fished out a red ball with a chalky texture, and raised it high above his head was nothing short of electric. “FLASHBOMB, BITCH! Whatchaaaaa!” He closed his eyes and threw it down about halfway between his hooves and the big guy’s. At once, the room was filled with such astonishing light that a portal opening up momentarily into the celestial planes couldn’t have done better. He rushed forward at the fastest pace his powerful legs allowed, his head leveled and horns aimed right at the krampus’ midsection.

It probably would have been a nasty wound, too, if Okunam had managed to avoid slipping on an ice puddle and wrenching unexpectedly to the right. That gave the krampus all the opening He needed to backhand Okunam in the chest and send the faun reeling.

Karil rocked on her knees, covering her face with both hands. The knife clattered somewhere off in those horrible shadows. “Fffffffffff… my eyes, Okunam! What in the actual hells was that? I have, ugh, shit, really sensitive eyes!” Opening and closing them rapidly, she felt around on the ground for any sign of her weapon. “You were supposed to give me the godsdamned signal! Ooowwwww…”

Okunam skittered to stand, but in his heart he knew that this plan was probably not about to bounce back. “I yelled and threw the flashbomb. That was the signal.”

Mirrikaz peeked out from behind her arms, which she’d crossed over her face the instant she saw what was happening. Eager to salvage the attack and save her friends, she picked a small, smooth stone off the ground and hurled it at the enemy’s chest. Her aim was utterly true. It was just the force of her arm which sucked, causing the rock to bounce off harmlessly. “Siwich’on. Ong egka badrurrain shvi ne-oud Karrampas wen je, chau yirlid o Otu-Okunam wen.” She shrugged and decided to give peace a chance.

The yuladrottinn curled up His lips in a malicious facsimile of a smile. It was His turn. He snatched Okunam by the leg, causing him to tumble all over again, and dragged him off toward uncertain doom.

— Being only a few distressing minutes thereafter. —

None of the three, and certainly not the three collectively, were strangers to spots both sticky and unforeseen. Where this one fell on the stickiness scale was still to be determined, but its unplanned score was through the roof.

The beast had spikes driven into His cavern wall from which manacles dangled in a row. They were in good repair and neither squeaky nor rusty, which seemed like a positive until the implication of frequent use dumped all over that silver lining. Okunam and Karil warranted no adjustment to theirs, which shared a wall spike in common. He stood comfortably with gently sagging shoulders and she stood on her tiptoes to remain grounded. Mirrikaz’ hands were chained in front of her no higher than her belly, though to accomplish this the Yule Lord was forced to stand her on a barrel.

Torture felt pretty likely, which was a bummer. But at least their eyes were uncovered and they weren’t gagged with anything. Weird torture folk who lived in caves almost always stuffed a dirty-ass gag in your mouth and blindfolded you. It wasn’t quite hospitality, but neither was it unwelcome. None of that had been terribly surprising, which spoke volumes about what passed for normality among this lot.

The krampus let them simmer in their nerves for a while. Where He went and what He was up to, they didn’t know. Enough time elapsed for them to hazard whispers about escape, plus the nearest approximation of a whisper to which Mirrikaz could aspire. All plans pursuant stopped around the same place, which was being chained to a wall and lacking any clear means of remedying that.

When He’d returned, shit got weird. He strode straight over on those nightmare hooves to Okunam. Okunam tried to look back, but all he got for his trouble was his face mashed against the cold stone wall. Long, powerful, unnaturally limber fingers traveled down the back of his trousers, and the faun liked this development little to not at all. Less still did he like it when they were dragged down with enough force to rip the seams.

Okunam gasped, because, well, what the hell else was he going to do? The remains of half his sum defenses against nakedness lay gathered around his knees. If they bent the same way a human’s did, the split trousers might have slumped right off, but instead they came to rest there. He had enough experience in getting his clothes literally ripped off to know that the outcome tended sharply toward extremes of good and bad. This one had plenty of the hallmarks of bad. His balls retreated from the cold air and his hips retreated from the frosty wall, leaving the dappled rump of legend stuck out.

Karil snarled. The irons on her wrists clanked and rattled from a struggle. When that didn’t work, she leapt to plant both booted feet against the wall for leverage. It would be unfair to say that she made no progress. It would be much more unfair, however, to say that this maneuver worked as intended, because oh sweet goodness it did not.

The dread yuladrottinn gripped her fine wolf breeches and pulled her back beyond the reach of her legs. Her arms, being rather noodly and a poor rival to iron, stretched out to their fullest extent. And so she hung suspended like that while breeches and underwear alike climbed ever deeper up her rear.

“Kick his lights out, Karil!” Okunam sounded a lot more in control than his bottomless state suggested.

“Working on it.” This was the opposite of dignified. Sensing opportunity, however, and not because Okunam told her to, she lashed out with kicks fit to crack bone. One made contact to elicit a mournful howl from the krampus. The rest just gave her the sensation of being split in half by her own clothing.

“You got this, you got this, you, oh, oh… ow.”

Yes, ow. The krampus hoisted Karil’s hindquarters up high with an outstretched arm. It tipped her forward, and as breeches and loiner together split, she was poured out of them like wine from a decanter. Any liquid, really. The fabric finally tore altogether; she swung back down to skid on her tiptoes, bared to the boots.

Both half naked scrappers shouted encouragement to Mirrikaz. Bite Him, they said. Pee on Him, they said. Lick his hand if he tries to grab your face, they said. And though Mirrikaz maybe should have done these things, or at least tried to, she opted to lean forward with her butt presented for ease of disrobing. To her credit, her own muck-tinged trousers were merely dragged down to her ankles, rather than ripped off.

So stood three bareassed adventurers chained to a wall. That almost never made it into the great songs of valor. Pantslessness felt closely aligned with defeat, especially given the prospect of frostbite where they could very least afford it.

Karil’s feet again departed the ground, to the sound of much swearing. The manacles leapt from her wrists as though chucked with force the instant the krampus touched them with an outstretched finger. All that held her now was a furred arm of titanic strength, under which she’d been tucked like a doll.

The krampus carried her backwards so that she couldn’t see where they were headed. Karil pushed against the might of His arm with all of her own to no particular effect. “Let. Me. Go!” she cried, as it cost her nothing to try. But He was not at all so inclined.

He carried her to a crimson high-backed chair set between two torches, the one which looked like a petty tyrant’s throne. Karil had noted it before this all went south. South-er. Its seat was covered in furs, and where there must have once been armrests, there was now a matching set of splintered faults in the wood. Ripped clean off, nails and all. The yuladrottinn sat; before Karil could find something sharp with which to gouge Him, he had her perched on his knee.

“LeT mE gAzE uPoN yOuR sInS.” So the thing could talk. His voice sounded like the calving of glaciers mixed with the uprooting of old trees.

“How about you fuck yourself all the way inside out instead?” Karil’s lip quivered. She despised that. But whatever He had in store for her, she wasn’t going to take it like a wuss.

Wrong answer, evidently. He gripped her chin. Through mechanics which Karil could not understand, the drawing of long, clawlike digits forced her mouth open.

She regarded Him with hatred. Sheer, scathing, visceral loathing. “I fhaid, ‘ow abou’ uu vuck uurthelv all teh inthide ou’!”

He in turn regarded her like an uncooperative lockbox to be breached. Because the situation could always get worse, he opened his mouth too, and the tongue of hells spilled out. It was long and forking, but thick as a wolf’s and capable of wriggling a full arm’s length out. Karil fought to turn her head until she tasted it. Until she gagged on it. And there, at the end of that monstrous appendage, she beheld in his mismatched eyes the glow of a dying flame.

His voice rumbled fully formed in her mind. It made her head hurt like a crusher of a hangover. It echoed in her, as if her skull were a vast empty space. YoUr SiNs ArE kNoWn To Me. I cAlL yOu… ThIeF.

— Being the day prior, in the establishment which is called The Shitting Parrot —

Though Karil chided herself for it, she couldn’t deny that she enjoyed her time at the inn. Being a brooding loner was fine for a while, until it got lonely and really, really dangerous. She’d begrudgingly linked up with Okunam, then despite her best efforts, caught friendship out on the road. Taking on Mirrikaz was something she’d done even more begrudgingly, especially since Mirrikaz was naked and riding a pig at their first meeting for reasons not yet explained. Then her condition worsened and she caught something not unlike family.

The wild was her home. The dark places of the map, its encroaching shadows and tightly held secrets. She belonged there and, like a whale to air, could only stay away for so long. Cities, far as she was concerned, were as much the wild as forests and lakes and mountains and all that. Substitute cobblestones and gutters for treetops and brush. The wild was where things were wild. Wild creatures, wild weather, wild people, wild tales.

But it was nice, much as she may pretend otherwise, to let her guard down now and then. Places like this one, with warm fires crackling and food that wasn’t soaked or full of larvae, were growing on her in recent years. Growing up barefoot and bruised, she bragged she’d never be caught dead in a posh, swanky spot like this, somewhere with non-poisonous water and few to no feral vampires. Alas, here she sat again, sipping something at least very similar to wine, in the comforting, decadent environs of The Shitting Parrot.

The Shitting Parrot was not, of course, the inn’s proper name. Its doors first opened some sixty years ago under the sign of The Nesting Phoenix. And what a sign it was! Carved by master carpenters and painted in loving detail, it displayed a firebird rampant, its red-tinted plumes heating an egg of fine white enamel. There was a whole Imperial Remaire coin’s worth of gold hammered into the thing, which inevitably led to an adventurer stealing it to trade for tail.

Subsequent signs were of successively poorer quality, each worse than the last, which had without fail been stolen or smashed. The proprietor took to painting them herself on whatever bit of suitable wood she could find. And, though none doubted her business acumen or skill in brewing, she was a piss awful artist of uncommon anti-talent. Thus came its present iteration, and there was in any realm or plane of being not a priest so charitable, nor a soul so kind, nor bat so blind as to see on it anything other than a parrot dropping a legendary deuce. The resemblance was just uncanny.

Not that priests or the very kind were among The Shitting Parrot’s regular patrons. There was only the occasional bat, which tasted alright in stew but added little of substance. Instead, the inn’s clientele were mostly humble skeeves, plus or minus a few luckless adventurers.

The food was actually pretty good, assuming one’s standards were suitably lowered to the realities of a nomadic life. Thick stews, crusty flatbreads, young cheeses, unsuspicious sausages, and filling pies, everything a poor traveler could want. All for a price that light purses could handle without shriveling like a ballsack in cold water. There were baths available, and beds too, four or fewer patrons to a mattress per local custom. Inexpensive company could be bought by the hour, though inexpensive company necessitated pricey salves and poultices. Soldier’s crotch was tricky to cure.

Best of all were the drinks. There were bitter beers and sweet ales, pear ciders that fizzed and honeycups that lingered on the tongue. Discerning customers could enjoy wine, which came in red, dark red, or slightly darker red. This time of year, people often liked theirs spiced and served hot, with bits of dried fruit floating in it.

Patrons gambled in all manner of ways, from simple dice tossing and coin flicking to labyrinthine card games dreamed up by the great coastal wizards. Plenty of other games risked nothing at all but bragging rights and, perhaps, mild embarrassment at an exceptionally bad play. Just now, Karil fell thrall to the spectacle of three master players at a game of relics. They concluded each turn by flipping over a tiny sand timer, forbidding the long, silent pauses for which the game was notorious. Played like this, with the board in a constant state of flux, it was riveting.

Furthermore, the Parrot had a pull to it, a vortex of poor influence. Many who arrived at the Parrot were decent people who, by happenstance, needed a place to eat, rest, or stay a spell. Regulars could always spot them by the rigid discomfort with which they carried themselves, the darting glances and frequent apologies. Gradually, though, and with infrequent exceptions, these decent types let the fun seep through like a blood stain until they too became regulars.

Come Highwinter, and the feast which bore its name, the Parrot proved itself a uniquely merry place as well. Merry in ways that had nothing to do with intoxicants or a romp behind the troughs. Nearly pious in its celebration of seasonal goodwill. Random acts of charity broke out and spread like a fire through rotted woods. Fights grew less common, resolved more quickly, and seldom came to weapons. The dearth of wildness made Karil uncomfortable and grumpy.

She couldn’t fault the gathering of gifts, though. On this and every year, during this and every Highwinter season, the inn’s lurkers gathered up whatever items they could spare to send away. Where, Karil didn’t even know. Maybe someplace awful like the Black City, or someplace slightly less so but still achingly troubled like Ban Drejn Khot. There, the items would be given as gifts to those in need; anything not so claimed was sold, its proceeds used to fund an extravagant banquet right there in the streets.

It was a nice tradition, Karil thought, even if it piqued her jealousy now and then. No such expedition of gift-giving ever found her as a girl, ducking behind the nearest tree or gravestone for safety at the sound of footsteps. Most elfkin did okay, but she learned from a young age that she was born decidedly the wrong kind of elfkin, a crime for which she’d never fully been pardoned. And so, when she saw the gifts piled high enough to scrape rafters, no small part of her read into that an opportunity to right past wrongs in her own favor.

There were oh so many presents, ranging in quality from nigh worthless to the stuff of envy. Even so, only one gift in particular caught Karil’s eyes. An ex lover once accused those eyes of wandering; this was simply not true. They fixed themselves, precisely and promptly, upon the item of greatest value in view. True as a compass. There, between wool stockings dyed a festive vomit green and a plush horse stuffed with something soft, was an authentic treasure.

A Nuyrish silver necklace. A fucking real one, not one of the cheap imitations one saw everywhere on stylish necks. Strands of silver as fine as spider silk wound together in painstaking braids around aquamarine beads no larger than a teardrop. There were a couple white copper patches where it looked like the necklace had broken or been cut, but otherwise it looked to be a nearly perfect specimen. Only someone with Karil’s experience in the misappropriation of valuables would have noticed the flaw.

It was in Karil’s hand before she even realized she’d taken it. Sensuously smooth and lightweight, with a pleasing glimmer that made her bite her lip. Hhnnnggg. She wondered what series of events could possibly have led it to wash up here. On consideration, it wasn’t much of a mystery; someone unaware of the necklace’s worth must have either traded it to settle a tab or donated it in a haze of holiday spirit.

Someone was watching her. Someone had to be. There was a piece of no-shit Nuyrish craftsmanship here, just sitting unattended with a bunch of junk. It had to be a lazy trap, or a test of character, or a prank, or… or a stroke of astonishing luck finally come Karil’s way.

She scanned the room and saw not a single person looking her way. Not obviously, at least, and she fancied herself attuned to such things. Dipping a fingertip into an abandoned cup, she drew a little glyph on the table in wine. Four sides inner, six sides outer, three circled runes here, here, and here, and an eye in the middle.

Karil waited impatiently for the doodled eye to flash. It didn’t. Simple magic, true, and imprecise, but it was a good sign that she had nobody’s attention. With a gesture meant to emulate wiping away dirt, she slipped the necklace into a secret pocket sewn into her sleeve. She was so thrilled at her find that she nearly forgot to wipe away the glyph.

Honor nagged her into replacing the necklace with something of approximately equal worth. Approximate in much the same sense that a crown of flowers is equal to a crown of kings, or that a horse trough is equal to a lake. She took a small, charred wooden totem from her belt pouch, imbued with an enchantment of minor hand warming. Everyone loved magic items! In any case, she figured that warm hands would be far more enjoyable, maybe infinitely more, to the types of nitwit commoners who celebrated silly holidays. What use would they have for priceless jewelry? Who among them would even recognize it for what it was? They’d probably pawn it for goat feed or try to eat it, whatever commoners did in this godsforsaken asshole of the world. If anything, she was doing them a kindness.

“Good Highwinter, t’souli!” slurred a human girl deep in her cups. She clapped a friendly hand on Karil’s shoulder, belched, and took a long swig from her cup. “Father Highwinter bless your generous soul.”

Karil meant to tell the girl that she was confused. Probably something about the propriety of touching stab-happy elves without an invitation. Then it dawned on her that she’d meant the totem. She’d seen Karil slip it into the gift pile and took it for an act of sincere charity.

“I… thank you. Good Highwinter to you too or, yes, that.” Karil had rarely blushed so hard in her life. An unfamiliar sensation stole over her. It was a desire to have done something other than what she had, but for reasons that were strictly moral? A feeling similar to stomach pain but stemming directly from choices that were rational. Practical. She realized that this must be guilt and vowed to think on it all later, when her heart wasn’t racing from the thrill of thievery.

Excusing herself with the necessary niceties, Karil made her way to the hall’s periphery, where the windows still allowed some cold air in through countless infinitesimal cracks. She needed to cool off. Leaning against the wall with her arms crossed over her chest, she shifted again and again as if set upon by ants just to feel that precious, gorgeous thing in its hiding place. Why did stealing make her somewhat horny? She resolved, as ever, not to follow that question to any extent whatsoever.

Karil was elated. She felt awful. Her heart was racing with excitement. Her gut was tightening with unease. She felt invulnerable, and small, and brilliant, and craven. So many rabbits ran through her head, and she hadn’t the first idea which one to chase. Only when she spotted Mirrikaz did she dare move again. The goblin looked like she’d gotten undressed, then redressed in a hurry. She also dragged a jug of something she more than likely shouldn’t have. Karil took a few steps forward, gesturing in greeting, but promptly lost her pig-riding friend in the crowd.

A very blessed and good fucking Highwinter to her own self, then. Hooray.

— Being again the present time, in the cavern where there lives a wicked thing. —

Karil sputtered. Memories of the day before mingled unchecked with all others, and before she saw to catching her breath, she focused on the integrity of her thoughts. Her vision swam, and she feared she may pass out. “What…” Her throat burned, and she coughed. “What… what… was… was…”

Being manhandled with frighteningly scant effort brought her right around to her senses. In an instant, she faced the ground, her right arm dangling and her left pinned in an inescapable grip. She reckoned his lap was just underneath her hips. Or, to wit, she was laid belly-down across it. Clarity shone through her fear like the sun’s rays through storm-black cloud. There wasn’t all that much He could do in this pose, except for something brazenly ridiculous.

“Are you, shit, wow, are you about to spank me? Really?” She laughed almost sincerely. “Yeah. Right. You’re a krampus. That’s what you hairy cumstains do, isn’t it? I can’t believe it.”

In flickering torchlight, the blued steel tone of her skin didn’t look one bit dull. The krampus’ fingers brushed it and she clenched hard enough to form a diamond out of coal. Though they were terribly faint and narrow as fine thread, four or more scars spanned both cheeks. Karil was sleek and willowy as elfkin were but for the here-and-there exception. Her bottom, however, was toned to athletic splendor through the rigors of roguery. The longer this preliminary show of stroking and examination dragged on, the harder she tried not to flinch, and the more she did.

“Do you think I’m afraid of you?” asked Karil through chattering teeth. The cold was just partly to blame. Being pinned like this made her feel everything under the stars except in control. She remembered the stolen necklace and felt it in precisely the right place. Small comfort. “Do you think I haven’t been over a knee? Worse? You leather-smelling, goat-cat-looking pissgargle, you have no idea.” Summoning up some uncommonly bold defiance, she raised her hips to show him just where he could waste her time. “Try me. Just try m-OH GODS FUCK, WHY!”

The krampus’ hand fell like a shooting star. It slapped the elf where she sat, and would not soon sit again, with spit-flinging force. Karil bucked hard, scrambling to get away and finding no purchase. She recognized her own shocked cry, but not the frame of mind from which it came. Certainly not the sensation which followed, as sharp pain echoed until it was a dull throb.

“RePeNt, ThIef.” Nothing should sound that way. No living thing, nor dead thing, nor once-dead thing, nor thing imagined nor thing repressed in the darkest recess of memory, should sound that way. It was the feeling of a skinned knee, transplanted directly onto the heart.

Karil meant to tell him to do something rude, but didn’t get the words out. He slapped her quivering cheeks again and again at a tempo she couldn’t quite predict. Heat rose fast, from stinging to burning in the span of a single regret.

Not since she was a girl of forty at the mercy of her mother’s dreaded mixing spoon did the prospect of a spanking elicit fear. Not much of anything but annoyance or mild arousal, depending on the context. Now the fear coursed through her. Fear of not being able to stop this and not knowing when it would end. Fear of being afraid. Fear of letting on that she was afraid.

That great wood slat of a palm made her eat her words. It simmered them in a crow and boot leather marinade and forced them back down her throat, where she wished they’d stayed.

“RePeNt, ThIeF.”

A deep purple blush rose in Karil’s cheeks. In all four of them, to be precise, and far darker where they were lower. Red blood under heated blue-gray flesh, combining to mimic the colors of first nightshade and then violet. What reaction was she supposed to have? Flippant wasn’t an option. Dignified might not be for long. With her lip held firmly between her teeth and eyes clenched shut to keep from crying, she shut herself up like a vault.

He had to stop telling her to repent. It was getting old. Worse yet, it was sinking in. But as neither did what the other wished they would, Karil’s protective coat of self control wore thin. She kept her legs held diligently together, but kicked them out each time a loathsome spank fell too near her limit. The motion turned repetitive and violent. Each time she bucked, her confidence in a smooth return diminished. Swiveling her hips from side to side helped less than none. In any case, in those few moments during which she managed to inconvenience Him, he retaliated against the defenseless backs of her thighs. Damn, did that ever bring back memories.

“I’m sorry, okay? I’m sorry!” Where that came from, Karil didn’t know. Nor did she know if she meant it, or if she could mean it.

“ThE tHiEf LiEs,” came the reply of the yuladrottinn. And when he stopped his hammering, Karil sensed no relief in it. Rather, it felt in her gut and all her other innards like the start of something she would not recall fondly years on.

The Yule Lord, whose bag might hold the sea and sky, whose red eye was said to watch the soul and whose green eye was said to scry past, present, and future all at once, drew something from beside his throne. Karil didn’t have to look back to know what it was, but she did anyway and instantly wished she hadn't. In His hand was a bundle of birch switches bound tight in coarse twine. It was frightfully long, both too wide and too narrow, and every switch therein was trimmed smooth.

“No. No. I said I was sorry. Alright? I said it. That’s it; I’m sorry and that’s the end. It has to be.” A tear ran down her face, contorted as it was in a look of pain and dread. “Please.”

It was not the end. It was not the dawning of the end. It was not a vantage point from which the end might be observed, or the herald of some hopeful end to be. Instead, it was fire. It was remorse given form. It was jellyfish stings and pricked fingertips, a drink sipped much too hot and a lover’s rebuke taken straight away to heart.

The birch bundle drew streaks of royal purple across her skin. Beneath those weals, which rose in rows like fresh-tilled earth, darkened a mottling of color which tilted red. The lashes fell and fell. Sometimes they landed with a snap, sometimes with a sound like kicking a wicker basket. Sometimes they hissed on the way down, sometimes they struck in silence like a rogue in the wee hours.

Karil fought desperately to push herself free. She pounded her fist against the throne and twisted whichever way she could. A cry rose behind sealed lips and clenched jaws until she sounded like a note held long, long, oh so long on the fiddle. She saw a flash of snowfall white behind her eyelids for as long as she could keep them closed. Thereafter, she saw through a veil of tears.

She didn’t know exactly when she went limp. It was around the same time she stopped giving half a damn about the noises she was making. Her body was exhausted, her mind more so. Only once she felt herself reduced to something like the translucent pulps which sometimes washed up on shore did her ordeal end.

Perhaps a minute later and just as likely ten, Karil knelt beside her comrades. The whole of her backside was painted a vibrant shade of suck, and she held her hands with fingers laced together at the back of her head. The crying stopped and started again at deliriously random intervals. The wrist irons dangled above her head, unused; whatever bonds were henceforth required, they fettered her spirit instead.

It was Okunam’s turn next. It felt good at first to be out of those shackles, though his gladness was muted by those things heard and seen, fearful things of which he was assured. Eager to learn from the mistakes of others, he didn’t bother putting up a fight on his way to the throne. His practiced nonchalance held out all the way until that serpentine fucker of a tongue was so many inches down his throat. Then he choked and half-swallowed like a new kobold bride whose delusions of deepthroating grandeur were being unkindly dispelled at the end of a proper dragon dong.

YoUr SiNs ArE kNoWn To Me. I cAlL yOu… FeAsT-fOuLeR.

— Being the day prior, in the establishment which is called The Shitting Parrot —

Places like the Shitting Parrot were good news for people like Okunam. On the road, people might attack him and often did. One knight rode up to him just to spit on him from horseback, then rode off again. Necromancers, necrophiles, kleptophiles, kleptomaniacs, pyromaniacs, pyromancers; the world was mostly a parade of shit for adventurers.

At inns and their ilk, though? A ruggedly handsome – yet, he fancied, playfully boyish – bard with a bag of stories to tell and a songbook long as a pike was practically royalty. Strangers shared their deepest, most personal secrets, even when he asked them emphatically not to, and solicited his advice. Those loose with their coin could think of no better use thereof than to give it to him. If the Archon herself wanted to trudge down here from the Black City, through the muck and mud and shit and booby traps, she wouldn’t get half the greeting warranted by some charming rando with shining hooves and a pleasant voice.

There was a good crowd tonight, too. An appreciative one. Maybe even a tipsy one. The Parrot was a guilty pleasure, sure, but what a pleasure it was. He struck up a dance in the corner, melding fluidly from there into one conversation then another. He worked a hand of cards for a player who needed to go pee, earning the lucky bastard a handful and skimming a modest cut for himself. He lifted his cup of brown ale high, toasting nothing in particular with no one special.

Something bumped into Okunam like the wrong end of an ox. The blow sent him stumbling forward, spilling his drink and planting his hand right in an old man’s lukewarm bowl of beans. Okunam apologized on instinct, but the old man didn’t seem to care at all and went right on eating. Gross, but alrighty.

It wasn’t easy looking tough while flicking beans off one’s hand onto the floor. But damn if the faun didn’t give it his best shot. He narrowed down the list of assailants to the towering minotaur whose butt jutted out like a ham at shoulder level. This put a real damper on Okunam’s plan to throw down, as he felt confident the big oaf could wad him into a ball of bard with his head shoved up his own ass. Future ballad material noted.

The minotaur turned around. He must have felt a stare, because Okunam sure as hells didn’t say anything. One of his eyes was missing, replaced by a facsimile of walrus ivory with a steel piercing in it. Eye piercing, nice touch. “Yeah?” he grunted.

Okunam waggled his fingers in an awkward wave. “You spilled my drink.” He barely heard himself. “Which is fine. We’re fine. You’re fine.”

The minotaur continued listening, as though there must be more to this complaint to justify its airing. When there wasn’t, he looked unsure of what to do with this information. It suggested no obvious course of action. “Yeah?”

“You, uh, you did indeed. I’m pretty sure.” What was Okunam hoping for, exactly? An apology? A punch? One or the other felt more likely than both. Both would be weird. He swallowed hard with no clear picture of where this interaction was headed.

The minotaur nodded sagely, considering this information. He must not have been compelled to act on it, because he turned back around quite casually to strike up a conversation with a bright-eyed elfkin twink. That felt like the end of the exchange.

All the same, Okunam flushed with anger. He wanted to lash out and assert himself, his dignity, his manhood as it was. A hundred vicious, cutting remarks well tailored to the lout at hand jockied in his head for the chance to land him in trouble. That was the chief function of his thoughts, after all: translating intrusive impulses into good stories. But the few replies which reached the finish line, where they ought to come spilling out of his mouth like so much drakefire, arrived limp and toothless. And so he sulked away to snark another day.

He drained what remained in his cup and ordered another, clacking too large a coin on the bar just to see the pink-haired fae girl behind it flash him a smile. It lifted his mood a bit. So did the taste of beer brewed with a note of sour cherry. In short order he was happy enough to find a seat without looking all mopey. Thanks to his long ears, he’d been born with a tragically potent mope.

At a table in the corner sat a human between the ages of twenty and eighty – Okunam never could tell – with a mustache like a pair of horse tails. He wore an expensive-looking tunic that was surely brand new, a telltale sign of recent fortune. Nobody sat with him, but he wasn’t conspicuously covered in shit or oozing anything that Okunam could see, so the faun approached and pulled away a chair.

It was pulled back straight away. Okunam looked down and saw a pair of filthy boots resting in it, one over the other. “I’d like to have this seat” he said.

“And I’d like you not to” replied the man in a gray, neutral tone.

Conceding the point with a muted sneer, Okunam grabbed the third and final chair at the table. It was filled with a backpack, undead scalps hanging off it in a band, the whole thing reeking of bacon grease and ass. “Huh. This yours?”

“Perceptive one, aren’t you?” The walrus-looking son of a bitch took hold of the chair’s nearest leg and pulled it closer. “It’s mine. And if it’s all the same to you, or if it isn’t, I want to keep it where I can see it.”

Okunam forced himself to smile. He leaned over the table, resting his cup without letting go, and eyed the glass of sapphire blue liqueur making his new friend cranky. He didn’t know what it was, but any liquid that color was either pricey or poisonous. “Don’t mind me saying so, but it looks to me like you’ve had some luck recently.”

The man squinted. He had his suspicions, but the opportunity to brag must have been irresistible. “Luck had nothing to do with it, not that it’s any concern of yours.” He proceeded to regale Okunam with an utterly preposterous tale of valor, one in which he apparently took a break in the middle of killing three, maybe four hundred ghouls to bed a pair of elementals, who’d proclaimed him the best lover they’d ever known. Somehow this ended in treasure. Okunam deduced that the man had probably wandered into a cavern, put down five or six ghouls, possibly rubbed one out to ease the battle jitters, and claimed an inflated reward.

Okunam drifted in and out, wondering in a hypothetical sense what sort of elemental might be the most sexually compatible with human junk, while the story wound down. The man appeared both self-satisfied and a tad surprised to hear for the first time of his own exploits.

“Marvelous,” Okunam sighed, “truly marvelous.” He pointed to the glass. “If anyone here’s earned a drink, well… would you let me fill you up?”

“I… I beg your-”

“Your drink, I mean. Would you let me fill up your drink.” Okunam flicked his wedge of a tail and scuffed at the floor with a hoof. “Come on, what are you having?”

The man seemed to want to say something terribly snide. Instead, he chose civility and coated it with a veneer of understated cockbaggery. “Oh, I wouldn’t want to impose. It’s, well, how should one say, it’s very expensive. Very. Expensive.” He sipped at it with puckered lips, sounding like nothing if not a dolphin breaking wind. “Distile of sweetgrass and blue borage, old enough to marry.”

Okunam waved away the objection like an odor. “No, please, it’s the least I can do for a hero.” He spun about, moving briskly toward the bar and the overtipped fae girl. Within him burned one thought, which ignited the dry underbrush of his mind and heated his bones. One thought, one passion, one mission, one aim.

I. Will. Fuck that man’s drink.

Why that of all things seemed the best option, he couldn’t say. That it even occurred to him at all should have prompted some solemn introspection. But now that he had the idea in hand, no matter how it may bite him, he couldn’t let it go. He belonged to it more than the reverse. He emptied his cup, then took a mostly full one from an old lizardman sound asleep on a pillow of bread. That he emptied too. It tasted of courage, as well as a note of reptile.

How much would he have to bribe the fae to let him in back? Would it cost less to simply buy a glass of the stuff, scurry away to some unseen corner, and put his dick in it? Could he keep his money, seduce the fae, make her fall madly in love with him, then make her an accomplice, all while the man still wished to drink? For that matter, he had a flashbomb on his person; he could draw attention away from him, risking only a small fire, and slip in back under cover of distraction.

Or he could just walk right back there like he owned the place without anyone noticing or caring. That worked surprisingly well. It was, after all, a busy night. But still. Did this place just get robbed all the time?

Most of the casks, kegs, bottles, and skins were nondescript enough to be almost identical. Not whatsoever like those things, however, was the ostentatious amphora in front. Frosted terracotta, banded and stoppered with purple hardwood, gilt in an ivy leaf pattern, with the distiller’s name and various pretentious details etched in flawless calligraphy.

Okunam was glad he hadn’t even inquired about the cost of a glass, as he really didn’t want to wet himself rocking back and forth in the fetal position. Before him was a work of art, inside of which was a work of way more precious art with the added attribute of getting one absolutely pitched off one’s ass. He was a little afraid to touch it. When the stopper didn’t want to depart the neck, he had a brief yet horrifying vision of the whole thing tipping over and spilling. He assumed that this would get him instantly dragged off through a fiery split in the world to a plane of suffering. But lo, it came loose with a satisfying tlunk.

Likewise loose a moment later was his deer dong. He glanced at it, then at the amphora, and wondered about the ergonomics of his plan. Was that crowdpleaser of a cock too thick to slip down the neck? For that matter, was it long enough to then dip into the distile? This was the first time he’d needed to consider the latter, and the second or third he’d thought about the former.

No matter. This was no mere act of vengeance. It was a righteous calling. And while he was theoretically willing to come away from this dead, he wasn’t about to walk away with an undipped penis, because honor or priorities or whatnot.

Here goes. With his trousers shuffled down around his legs, he positioned himself carefully. He braced his hooves against the wall and gripped a standing cask, lowering himself slowly. It took some grappling to push his meaty, flared tip into the neck, during which his gripping arm began to shake. This forced him to rest the weight of his hips against the amphora’s banded rim and plant both hands on the floor. Little by little, wishing for even a mere bird’s sneeze of lube, he sank.

In this fantastically dignified pose, Okunam huffed and panted. He’d failed to consider what might happen if he got stuck. Or if he cracked his pelvis, because shit, the whole affair was proving really uncomfortable. But like he imagined it would be to have given birth, with perhaps a less than perfect notion of what that entailed, pain gave way to a glow of satisfaction when he made it. Reached, breached, dunked.

Another thing he’d failed to consider was that strong drink might not be an ideal substance in which to submerge his penis, but learning swept in on celestial wings. How long should he do this? How long should anyone do this? Was this an act of righteous indignation, or actually a somewhat petty and silly thing to do? Naturally, as he swiveled his hips and groaned against the burn, he landed on that first one, because the other option made him sad.

Putting one’s junk in an unholy expensive beverage to exact vengeance was not an exact science. Okunam resolved to count to twenty, then pull out like the damn sheepskin just broke. He swayed and gyrated, pumping his hips, until at the count of fifteen he felt thoroughly confident that the drink was as cocked as it ever would be.

To his delight and more than mild relief, extracting himself wasn’t all that difficult. His flare cleared the amphora with a slight fup like the sound of a bottle being uncorked, which he found impossibly funny. In hindsight, maybe alcohol played a larger role in the formation of this plan than he’d assumed. He sought and found a bar cloth on which to dry himself off. The whole room now smelled pleasantly of the distile, and he wondered if the aroma might give him away. It wasn’t his policy to go around reeking of evidence. But what was he to do about it now?

Not much was more exciting than walking away from the scene of some mischief with no one the wiser. It was a shame, really, that he couldn’t both get away with his elicit acts and invite praise at the brilliance of having gotten away with them. The Okunam who returned to the bustle and laughter of the great hall was a happier one than that which embarked on that great quest. But was he a better man for it?

Yes. Yes, clearly. That was awesome. There were chairs open now, thanks to a pickup game of whittlebone forming in the courtyard. He took the one he fancied and, with all due gravitas, unslung the lyre from his shoulder. Just one full bar into The River of Jade, a two-headed wolfkin girl in a very flattering bodice so happened to fall into his lap. Left head nuzzled submissively under his chin, while right head said something viciously lewd in his floppy long ear and nipped its end with barely restrained aggression. A strapping half-orc lad with bronze patina skin that glistened in the hall’s lights parked his tight butt on the table in front of them, four full cups in hand. Seriously, bards. This shit just happened.

Strumming along with half-lidded eyes, the cords dancing under his fingertips, Okunam saw a server carrying a glass of blue close to her chest. Spilling even a drop would be shameful, and there was scant room to maneuver. Could it be? She deposited it at the annoying man’s table. Hells, yes. She was on her way off when he flagged her back; burying his face in her outer skirt, he blew his nose wetly and twice. Either she was a gifted actress, or this genuinely didn’t faze her any, because she looked well pleased when she left with a substantial coin.

All the same, Okunam savored the sense of having done something indisputably noble and meaningful when he watched the man sip. The man smacked his lips, tasting subtle notes of something he didn’t quite expect. With the wolfkin girl(s) warming his knee and the half-orc stud massaging his shoulders, Okunam drank deeply of life, and of all the good things in it.

— Being again the present time, in the cavern where there lives a wicked thing. —

Okunam regained his powers of speech quickly. He had more practice than he cared to think much on when it came to people trying to choke him. As for his mind, he didn’t need to wait for it to settle, as it was never all that settled to begin with.

“Look, krampusthing, I-ccckkkgh!” Talking ached, good to know. He lowered his voice and tried under the least amenable circumstances to look charming. “I’m not the elf. She’s brave. Feisty. Even–maybe most of all–when she shouldn’t be. I, on the other hand, know full well that I fucked up. And I want to tell you, from the depths of this big, thundering faun heart, that I am sorry.” He paused a beat. “So I hope we can be reasonable and forego that bundle thing, because damn, that sounded about as fun as barebacking a troll.”

For the second time that evening, the faun’s preternatural charisma got him nowhere. Nowhere, that is, except stretched over the knee of an eldritch horror with a weird holiday kink and a tongue like a spool of animated rope.

Much like Karil’s had, Okunam’s spanking got off to an absolutely shittastic start. Any key differences lay in the recipients; chief among them was that, while Karil was apparently well schooled in the act of having her ass beaten raw, he was a novice. Worse than a novice, a pretender. He’d received more than a few firm slaps on the rear from dommy mommies and bear-bodied bravos. He’d even liked them plenty at the time. But while his badly undisciplined youth situated him well for a career in adventure, it left him lacking in the sense of… well, discipline. And unlike Karil, who stoically accepted the consequences of chronic thieving, he managed to talk his one date with the cane down to a ‘firm, edifying roll in the hay’, where he promised to learn the error of his ways.

Okunam’s supple, round faun flanks, furred the color of late autumn leaves with white dappling all the way down to his knees, were unprepared. They were unprepared to flatten and bounce under the withering force of the krampus’ palm. Moreover, they were unprepared to redden quick as a sausage on the fire, or to swell like the same.

He was never at a loss for things to say, not even now. Trouble was, he couldn’t say them what with all the bleating and frantic yips of pain. That was a shame, as some of the words were rather witty and also he sounded like a mountain troll hatefucking a bagpipe.

The occasional bit of begging made it through. Not that it did him any good. The well-defined curves of his buttocks proved an irresistible target, most of all where they were widest. Free of any inhibitions where crying was concerned, he teared up in a fraction of the time as Karil and wouldn’t have bet against bawling in the very near future.

Okunam splayed his legs frantically, treading water without any water to tread. When that became too tiring, he kicked in a wild, erratic way which only accentuated the spankability of his behind. Funny, never before had that seemed like a negative trait. Not knowing what to do with his hands, he gripped a beveled ridge in the throne’s woodwork and held on like it was the boarding rail of an airship already in flight.

Still the yuladrottinn spanked. And spanked, and spanked, and spanked. The impact of His mighty ham of a hand invariably left two impressions. The first was akin to a flashbomb in Okunam’s brain. The second was another dawn-pink handprint upon many; collectively they flushed a rich, warm scarlet.

It was the birch, though, which truly taught Okunam a lesson. It stung like hellfire. He’d literally gone down on a succubus still hot from the infernal planes, and indeed, this was hellfire. He imagined nothing else felt like this, and if anything else should dare to, it too ought to be outlawed forever by edict of every king on the dirt and every god in the outer groves.

The imprints of individual switches were clearly visible on the tender pale skin beneath his fur. They framed larger and less perfectly defined blotches, each pinker at the edges and redder in the middle. These splendid markings crisscrossed his flanks, connecting white spots in a constellation of suffering.

That birch switches hurt like all the motherfuckers, though, wasn’t the lesson. The lesson was that he felt powerless. At a complete loss. Swept away, silenced, taken in hand, and every other thing he habitually took for granted not being. His sense of self, or rather of self-satisfaction, blurred behind an ever thickening fog which billowed over his thoughts and refused him passage through. All that, and his cock was hard as timber. Now there was a bit of insight with which he hadn’t a clue what to do.

Bawling was, indeed, inevitable. It broke free in a noisy torrent. And as he doubted the Yule Lord would believe his sorries and forgive-mes, Okunam spared them both the spectacle. It would end when it ended; there was fuck all he could do about it. Limp and out of breath, with bloodshot eyes that held back nothing, he surrendered.

The birching ended, and he barely noticed, and then he was stood back against the cave wall with winter air nipping at his monumental wood. Kneeling wasn’t a fan’s forte. All of this happened, presumably in just that order, but Okunam perceived it from a great distance. Everything hurt. He felt free but didn’t know what from. He was swollen and throbbing, front and back alike. All terribly overwhelming. There would be no snappy retort to this, least of all with newly raised questions in pursuit. He thought it was good, or something like good, something close enough as to be indistinguishable in warmth.

And so it was that neither elf nor faun so much as glanced Mirrikaz’s way when her turn came. They huddled in mental fortresses at the bottom of a mental sea. She, on the contrary, ventured out of hers to take the fresh, clean air.

When the ancient yuladrottinn seized her, she twisted and flailed until she somehow turned it into a one-sided hug. She nibbled on His elbow, and when He slapped her naked gobbo ass to warn her off, she nibbled that much harder. She perched her own self on His lap, unforced, and opened her mouth wide to share her secrets. Honestly, she would have told Him outright what she’d done, but thought it for the best He learn this way.

YoUr SiNs ArE kNoWn To Me. I cAlL yOu… TaTtLeTaLe.

— Being the day prior, in the establishment which is called The Shitting Parrot —

Mirrikaz didn’t know why she was being ushered out of the The Scratching Post. To the best of her knowledge, she’d broken no rule and violated no custom. A pair of feline humanoids watched from a high hammock with silver smoking pipes in their mouths. A tall, bald, bearded human followed close behind her, and while he wasn’t restraining her, he jabbed her between the shoulders with a leather cosh whenever she slowed to stare at something. Someone called after her in Imperial with an unfriendly tone. “Ksjdhbfihsbdfhb!”

There was quite a lot to stare at. Everything here was beautiful and smelled like cake. Mirrikaz loved cake. She paused to touch a dwarf boy’s silk pants. Jab! She paused again to admire a beautifully androgynous naga with magnificent, shimmering scales and long black hair bound up in ribbon. Jab! Unacceptable. Mirrikaz spun around and tried to bite the cosh, only to receive a poke to the forehead. Embarrassed, she continued on toward the front door.

“Padal-ass?” she asked of her jabber in broken Imperial. Her big yellow eyes sometimes got her what she wanted. A lot of humans found them cute.

“Lsakhjdfbpojsd,” he answered, shaking his head. No jab came this time, though, perhaps because of the cuteness of her eyes.

She switched back to her native Litli. “Well, then, can you at least tell me why I’m being escorted out of your establishment? Or where, nearby, I might be more warmly welcomed?”

He didn’t understand. “Shjdb? Jsdjhfusg. UIjs ksdj kjsdhbfshubd.” Useless.

It never felt good to be kicked out of someplace so pretty and nice. All goblins, at least all the goblins she knew, were achingly familiar with the experience. Proprietors were all too happy to accept their money until someone respectable complained. Or until a tallkin shot them a dirty look, or got themselves bitten. Then, almost invariably, they were shown the door.

Once, Mirrikaz had tried to pass for an elf through the elaborate use of stilts, body paint, and perfumes that smelled like apples. Mirrikaz loved apples. The ruse was uncovered immediately, though a pretty fun party ensued anyway. Most of the time, though, she had to remain vigilant, alert to every unfriendly glance and suspicious whisper.

Outside, the evening was cold. The door shut behind her without slamming, which she took to be somewhat polite. Tallkin usually slammed. Looking down at the flat, smooth stick in her hands, she sighed. At least nobody had tried to take it away from her.

“Mirrikaz! Sjihsdhib.” A familiar voice called out to her from the square, where a healthy fire was burning in a brazier. Friend Okunam approached with lyre unslung. She assumed he’d been entertaining the others huddled nearby.

Her ears drooping, she held her stick aloft for Friend Okunam to see. “Padal-ass!”

“Asdkj? Akbn Mirrikaz, lskdjf sjk sjdhbhsd dpiojr.” His tone was warm, and he smiled. Friend Okunam had a pretty smile. He was a pretty man, with warm fur on his lower half and soft skin on his upper half. These features, among others, made her want to follow him around and bite his leg sometimes. In an affectionate way, that is, not for food or out of agitation. Bites formed part of a complex and expressive language, the nuances of which were often lost on tallkin.

“Padal-ass.”

“Akjapdsjh? Sisdjhb fkj. Dkjnkjd, Mirrikaz.” He clapped his hands, and she followed along in a  state of rapt attention.

Before long, though the crowds of tallkin moving in all directions made it seem longer, the two arrived at the door of a place which smelled like all the food in the world. Above the door hung a sign with an impressive painting on it, a phoenix nesting on a sweet little egg. Mirrikaz thought the painting was rather good and wondered who she might ask about keeping it. She loved eggs.

Friend Karil was already inside, studying two other tallkin playing some kind of game at a table. She smiled like she did when she wanted to smile more but didn’t want anyone to think she was weak. Friend Karil was smart, as tallkin go, but she seemed to think that feeling feelings, or even looking like she might have felt a feeling before, made her weak, and that wasn’t an especially smart thing to think. Mirrikaz renewed her vow to help her overcome that.

The new place, which she quickly identified as an inn by the overwhelming smell of all things brewed and the magnificent smell of all things cooked, was as crowded a place as she’d seen in some time. People were having fun everywhere, and nothing was on fire that wasn’t supposed to be. Mirrikaz loved it when nothing was on fire that wasn’t supposed to be.

It was hard to see above tallkin waists in the crowd, though, and soon she and Friend Okunam got separated. Not a problem; she knew they wouldn’t leave town without her, and there was plenty of excitement to explore down here at this level. Spying a brown bug on the floor, she stooped to eat it and forgot what she’d been thinking about before. With entirely new thoughts in her head, she set out to find what there was to be found.

Mirrikaz was a bit shy about the fact that she couldn’t speak Imperial. Not yet, at least. She believed her Friends were going to help her with that, but whenever they’d tried before, she’d gotten bored and bitten something, or started spinning around in circles to become dizzy and screaming as loud as she could.

The itch still had her. The itch often had her, and it was downright intolerable lately. She looked around for beautiful people and saw nothing but; everyone was so, so very beautiful. So she looked around for big people and saw nothing but; everyone was so tall it made her stomach swim. These were good hunting grounds, and not only because the floor had bugs.

Mirrikaz wasn’t a bad flirt, all things considered. She’d learned to make her eyes extra big and pretty, though she couldn’t make them extra yellow, and all the parts of her that were round seemed to get a lot of attention. Her dating success back home had been lacklustre, on account of her wavy hair and short, unsharp nose, but tallkin didn’t mind either.

Likewise, scratching the itch was easier in some locales than others, but she got the job done. Some places didn’t seem familiar with the concept at all, and some had elevated it to an art form, with special parlors just for getting that itch scratched.

Here, though, the sheer number of people all around – be they prospective new Friends or something else – sent lightning through her nerves. She flinched when people spoke to her, even though she couldn’t understand what they were saying. She grew restless when she sat too long in one seat, and when she sat in a seat that already had a person in it, they weren’t always polite.

It was a relief, then, when a feline tallkin who smelled like incense offered to let her drink from his cup. They talked for a while. Well, he talked in his language, and she in hers, and they laughed at what felt like the right times. Their eyes spent a lot of time on each other. Hers were the shade of yellow her people called amshe lurra batang, amber full of morning light. His were the shade of blue that people called blue, and their pupils were sometimes vertical and at other times round. Mirrikaz loved variable pupil shape.

They flirted. They touched hands, pretending it was an accident and then dropping the pretense altogether.  She said in Litli, “I have to admit, I didn’t think I’d meet someone here so, so, uh… what do I even call it? You’re a good listener. And you have pretty, furry hands; it’s important for guys to have pretty hands, don’t you think? Whether or not there’s fur on them.”

“Opijdpsbdojsbodgfoshjgdf,” he replied in something that wasn’t Litli. But damn if it didn’t feel like a connection. She took him by the pretty, furry hand and, while he was mid-sentence, tugged for him to follow her. All the way out to the stable.

There were lots of rooms for fucking. People also fucked in rooms where they shouldn’t, but nobody acted like they minded too much. Mirrikaz liked fucking, from time to time, and with the right person, but she was shy and tiny. Scratching the itch, on the other hand, required special places with more privacy. Stables worked well, as did chapels, fields, meadows, beside streams, on boats, in cellars, in dungeons, in towers, et cetera.

She pulled the pretty feline, whose name she thought might have a Sh in it, down to sit on a bale of hay. There were only a few horses here tonight; most of the beautiful people who drank and ate and fucked in the inn with a painting of a phoenix and a delicious egg outside were probably poor, like her. Like Friend Okunam and Friend Karil. Poor people didn’t usually have horses. Once he was comfortably seated, he opened his mouth to purr something in low, sultry tones.

“IJnfihbdfhj.” It was probably something really seductive.

Mirrikaz untied her rope belt and set it down carefully so as not to harm the many bone, metal, glass, and amber charms on it. The pretty feline licked his lips. Flashing him her best smile, which showed off the sharpness of her teeth, she made a show of lowering the road-stained blue trousers she could never quite keep clean. Only a skimpy little undergarment wrap remained, and she ritually untied it at the corners, waiting for him to drool. He smiled but didn’t react much to that. Eh. Would’ve absolutely killed on another goblinkin. Goblinkin loved ritual undergarment knot untying.

Mirrikaz retrieved the flat stick from its tuckaway place, clasped in the twisted fibers of her belt. With only breeze below the waist, she approached him. He tried to kiss her, which was weird, but she pushed her hand against his mouth and pushed it away… seductively? Now was the moment. The itch which had plagued her night and day was about to be relieved. Taking a deep breath, she climbed up onto the bale next to him and slowly, delicately, artfully draped herself across his lap.

Followed by nothing. Why nothing? Looking back over her shoulder at him, she lifted her butt and gave it a cute lil’ wiggle. All cockiness aside, she knew the power of a feminine goblin derriere. She waited, chuffed, wiggled again, and mimed to him what she wanted. This entailed slapping the back of one hand with the other’s palm. He didn’t know the term barrangba. Few tallkin did, but it was worth a shot. He didn’t know the command ne-ag barrangba un, or the almost desperately adorable plea ne goung th’oinle barrangbeg. Miming again didn’t help.

Oh! She remembered then to hand him the flat stick, which made his look of confusion even worse. “Padal-ass!” she explained with newfound vigor.

“Psjnfih. OJnfjindshjif? Ijifd, odfojijdfi…” Poor guy was clearly doing his best to communicate, making inscrutable hand gestures of his own.

In frustration-tinged Litli, “For fuckssake, man, just spank me already! Barrangba! Fckin’ spanking. Pleeeeeaaaase.” More than cake, or variable pupil shape, or most things in the world, Mirrikaz loved being spanked.

Realization dawned on the feline’s face, though it wasn’t accompanied by a corresponding look of confidence. He took the flat stick, the padal as she heard a similar object called at The Rose’s Thorns in Yunmicataq, and held it aloft. Good, good. Then, with maximum care but minimum correctness, he stuck it between the emerald cheeks of her ass. Like a candle in a cake.

“...dikosjdfjofidh?”

That was the last straw. Mirrikaz shuffled off the confused feline’s lap, retrieved her stick, and let out a cry of long-simmering frustration finally bubbling over. She marched off toward the inn, remembered that she needed to put her pants back on, returned, did so without making eye contact, and stormed off a second time.

An hour or so later, she was in a dour mood. Friend Okunam had done something very bad to some poor person’s drink, she’d gleaned over cheese. Friend Karil had stolen the prettiest thing from the pile of pretty things for poor people; Mirrikaz saw its outline in the secret pocket and knew right away what had happened. Friend Okunam often pulled pranks, and Friend Karil often took things that didn’t belong to her. Sometimes Mirrikaz helped with both. But tonight, her itch still badly unscratched, she was in no frame of mind to humor their shenanigans.

To that end, she’d put some coins down on the bar where a fae lady who smelled like fancy soap was working. Why was it that she could communicate ‘give me all the alcohol this amount of coin will buy’, but not ‘hit my ass until it changes color, use this fucking stick I just put in your hand, don’t stick it in my butt like a bookmark’? Was one concept really so much more complicated than the other.

It came to be that the amount of alcohol corresponding to that number of coins was kind of a lot. With visible effort, the fae handed over a jug of something that smelled strongly of pears. A whole jug. And as Mirrikaz dragged the jug with her to and fro, feeling sorry for herself and wondering why there weren’t any clouds in the ocean and then right back to feeling sorry for herself, she became drunk. And as she became drunk, she grew mischievous. And when she got mischievous, she tended to work magic.

There were in these parts, it was said, beasts called kirrampas. Called all sorts of things, really. And they could, it was said, be summoned on feast days, and especially in the season of Highwinter, to chasten those whose festive spirit was lacking. It was a simple summoning. These were minor spirits in the grand scheme of things, more stern than vicious. And they carried, it was said, great bundles of birch rods, for which Mirrikaz could think of no use other than itch scratching. Other than barrangba.

She took a half-eaten apple from one table, a lit candle from its neighbor, and some nut shells from the floor underneath. A pinch of sweet spices from behind the counter when the fae wasn’t looking, and a charred bit of wood from near the fireplace. Drunk, magical, itching, and dragging her jug along the floor, she went off to see if she recalled the ritual properly.

— Being again the present time, in the cavern where there lives a wicked thing. —

Mirrikaz loved having her throat swabbed by a ginormous monster tongue while she straddled a whole butcher’s window worth of monster meat. In her own defense, she offered naught but a coy flick of her ears. Their fine points tipped downward from on plane with her eyes. All things taken, the effect was noticeably kittenlike.

Mirrikaz needed very little urging to position herself over Big Fuckin’ Daddy Kirrampas’ knee. The sole difficulty lay in managing the immense difference in their sizes. With a look of invested curiosity on her face, and the corners of her lips turned up in a faint smile, she tried resting on her knees and elbows with her bottom high in the air. This was ergonomically challenging for long-limbed feast guardians. Luckily, they were anything but shy in making their wishes known. In an instant, and to the unexpected music of excited squealing, he pulled her by both legs in a single grip to the edge of his lap. There her legs were free to hang down. In order to preempt any effort to wriggle off, He rested His hand beneath her shoulders. It reached from one to the other barely taking fingers into account.

“Uing te teii-on th’oum. Igkeskaan… o-ne shuik a gan, er-tarrubeshk gil? Ne-ag BARRANGBA un!”

His interactions with the others led the yuladrottinn to suppose this one would be no better. Even that she may take her punishment in a yowling, childlike way befitting her stature. Her exceedingly attentive observations of those interactions, though, led her to suppose that she may have bitten off more of the horse than she could swallow. Both were, in their own ways, pleasantly surprised.

The smooth skin and ample cheeks of Mirrikaz’s backside took well to correction. Only when He’d warmed her a bit did the krampus see that it had freckles of  the faintest tan. No wall-runner or hoof-pounder here; this was a girl of generous proportions, and her flesh rippled accordingly under His blows.

The very first spank elicited a long, keening howl. It floated upward in tone until it too became a squeal of… indecipherable type. She awarded Him performative ouches and sharp, dramatic gasps for a few more. Perhaps twenty, thirty, fifty. The command of numbers was not among Mirrikaz’s talents. Following those, she answered with a coo or a merry little hum. Often with a wiggle of her ass as well. It wasn’t that the kirrampas wasn’t skilled, or that his ministrations didn’t hurt; he was, very, and they did, wonderfully. It was just that the sensations within dwarfed those without and pulled her focus inside.

Goblinkin complexions did not redden. Their blood ran an oceanic blue, of course, and so Mirrikaz’s heated rear end simply darkened, keeping its ordinary shade but cast in ever expanding shadows. She closed her eyes, taking pleasure in the shallowness of her breath. Now and then she tried to push herself up, but His whopper of a hand held her down, and soon she tried to push herself up because she wished to be held down. She kept her legs bent when they weren’t kicking; even when they were, they kicked delicately and at the tail end of a squirm. Her toes curled and uncurled in ceaseless alternation. In time, the only sound which escaped her lips was a breathy, throaty ah! in time with His spanks.

The krampus expected her to react much differently to the birch. He was right in this; she ground her hips against him in a most unusual way the instant he took it in hand. Holding one of her knuckles in her mouth, she opened her eyes just to roll them back in her head. The birch welted her nicely. Small tracks of soft ivy green arose from each stroke. These blossomed into full weals between strokes. Weals in turn met and merged, turning a scandalous viridian in the process. All the while, she knitted up her brow and let out berry-sweet whimpers. Her ears splayed back to conceal their points in the waves of her hair. And she too, in time, surrendered.

Her surrender looked nothing like despair. Not one tiny bit like bowing to a sense of impotent shame. It was a peaceful sort. Mirrikaz felt at ease, the delicious pain in her flesh driving her further into a place of tranquility. She signaled her arrival at the point of genuine satisfaction with a dumb, goofy grin and a trickle of drool, her marigold eyes staring placidly at nothing. The yuladrottinn applied one last stroke, which hissed and popped and left behind a lovely memento. And just like that, her itch was truly, masterfully scratched. Mirrikaz loved having her itch scratched.

The goblin was a heap of goop. She couldn’t walk without stumbling. Her kinda-sorta tormentor carried her like his sack of errant brats back to the barrel, which she sprawled across and promptly fell off. Close enough.

His task discharged, the krampus sank into a pile of grain bags. It wasn’t every season that His stamina was tried. Glaring with those crossbow bolt eyes at the three contrite souls before Him– well, two contrite and one looking like she might be close to getting off–He savored the sense of justice served. The same sense which warmed Him in the bitterest of winters and got His creaky old bones out of bed when summoned.

If being kidnapped, stripped in the cold, chained up in a cave, and spanked like the castle’s least favorite whipping boy didn’t put the holiday spirit into them, nothing would. At the very least, Father Highwinter would be pleased to see his feast protected from rascality. Ahhh… three asses roasting in a grimy cave. Just like something out of a sappy painting. Bless this season and its joys.

– Being a conspicuously half-assed epilogue, three days thereafter, just outside the establishment which is called The Shitting Parrot –

Not in all of recent memory had there been a Highwinter haul so grand. It took a team of six strong drunks to load up two carts with the Parrot’s gifts, and still they had to be tied down. If ever there was a good day to be a destitute peasant sucking down a miasma of disease in the war-torn hellscape of home, hiding from bandit raids in a latrine and eating tree bark bread cooked over a crackling fire lit with abandoned toys… well, by the lords of midnight and dawn, by all the gods, this would be it. This one would kick all the ass.

Blind Geoff and Orri’zaulthung the Chickenpuncher volunteered to make the delivery, by virtue of being passed out when everyone else said they didn’t want to. Blind Geoff was to lead the way, but the problems with this were numerous and reared up quickly, so it was decided that the carts should be tied together to form some kind of humongous jolly supercart, because straight fuck roads. Two oxen pulled each half of the supercart, and some enterprising soul had the foresight to lash a great big mast and sail up front as well, because land ship?

There was little faith that the supercart landship would reach its destination in the legendary shithole that was Tiugh ain Breach, but they’d all be damned if it didn’t reach some destination. And there were probably mud-caked yokels and orphans and such there too. Everywhere one found yokels and orphans. After a couple of false starts, the drivers were getting visibly antsy, and Orri’zaulthung was liable to go haul off on a chicken. With much fanfare, the horde of Highwater gifts lurched off in the general direction of Tiugh ain Breach.

Approaching from the north, a gust of snow rolling at their backs, came three figures inbound. The tallest of them, one of those blueish marshland elves by her look, waved her arms to the drivers and shouted for them to tarry.

What business an elf, a faun, and some kind of little… shortstack frog devil thing had on the road in these conditions was anyone’s guess. Well, not theirs. They probably knew. It was anyone else’s guess. But it very likely had something to do with the bulging rucksacks they each shouldered.

Oh, what treasures these three latecomers bore! The elf had tucked away a dozen warm shirts, as many thick cloaks, and thirty-five bars of fancy soap plus another that looked to have been bitten in half. Could be by the shortstack frog devil thing. She said she’d sold something awfully keen to buy it all, as if anyone gave a fistfull of cold puke where she got the money or why. Nice gesture, though, to be sure.

The faun presented two amphorae of something he said was liquor, with a name that sounded expensive and pretentious. Give it to the orphans, he said. You find the saddest, filthiest, diseased-est little orphans you can, he said, and get them drunk off their bony asses. And you wish them a blessed Highwinter too, he said, and give them all a big hug. You hug every pustule-ridden drunken orphan in town, he said, and got a polite nod back.

The shortstack frog devil thing, who spoke some kind of foreign gibberish, offered up a whole wheel of smoked cheese nearly as big as her torso. That, it was unanimously agreed by everyone who hadn’t wandered inside by this point, was the tits. Just the absolute tits. She also offered up a flat stick called a padalass, which everyone agreed was a little weird but maybe generous anyway, and tried to bite one of the oxen.

Those three cold and weary travelers, each walking funny and half frozen stiff, ventured inside with smiles the size of the moon. And who could blame them? In a hundred-hundred arrowshot around, these must be the most festive spirits ever to light a Highwinter log. The goodwill radiating off them could have cooked a goose with all the trimmings. How, folk asked, could anyone take the goodness of the season so unreservedly into their own hearts? Were they inexplicably kind, or stupid, or both, or was it instead a hex placed on them by some jolly old Highwinter witch with her nethers all stuffed with mistletoe?

None knew. Frankly nobody was that interested in the answer. But damn if those three weren’t the finest company in a crow’s age. Free to overflowing with tales, songs, and tricks to delight and amaze. And in return, what did they ask? Nothing, not a pig’s pube. Nothing except, come to think of it, a couple pillows each on which to sit.
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