Miles To Go Before I Sleep

Action And Reaction (G.o.F.T.E. Part 2)

Action and Reaction (G.o.F.T.E. Part II)

...

"Nicholas St. North," said one of the girls – Lleu if he remembered correctly – said with a scowl. "We need to talk."

Had that been one of his snow globes?

The man in question carefully set down his drink and his project, knowing he probably wasn't going to come out of this unscathed. Whatever he'd done to upset the three seasonal spirits, it was big. But none of that wouldn't stop him from being the hospitable person he was.

"Eggnog?" he offered, holding up the jug.

Clearly that had not been the right thing to do. Their disapproving frowns if anything became barely contained fury.

"Let's skip the talking and just kill him now," the elder woman, a plump woman dressed in shades of brown and orange said manically, pounding her fist into her hand.

"Ceres!" the one in white snapped. "We're not here to kill him!"

"Funny, if I recall correctly you said you would help me skin him alive."

North was suddenly very decidedly uncomfortable. "What is this about?" he decided to ask lest they get any bright ideas about what to do with him.

"Oh don't give me that," Ceres glared. "You know exactly what this is about."

No… no, he really didn't.

"Wait, I really think he doesn't know," Lleu said, watching North carefully.

Well, at least one of them had some sense.

"Eggnog, North," the one in white told him, hands on her hips. "This is about eggnog and underage drinking and how OUR little brother managed to get drunk and how we had to look after him and do you know how difficult it is to look after a winter spirit that wants to go fly to the sun! Because our little brother suffered because of your irresponsible habits of having eggnog around all the time! "

Ooooh. Well, that explained their rather adverse reaction to his offering.

"Because of you," Ceres cut in, "we had to deal with a drunken winter spirit." Her companions winced as if even the memory was painful.

North couldn't help it. The mental image of Jack's antics fuelled by alcohol was too much. He laughed. Another mistake.

"I don't think you understand," the other woman placed her hands on his desk and leaned towards him. "Do you have any idea what you've done? Do you have any inkling of what we've just been through?"

"Couldn't have been that bad," North waved her off. "Was only teeny bit and Jack was fine when he left here."

"He… he just admitted it wasn't an accident," gaped Lleu as she glared at him "I was prepared to let him off with a warning, but if that's the case we can't let this slide."

"Couldn't have been that bad?!" Ceres raged. "Couldn't have been that bad?! That boy is already a few eggs short of a dozen, he doesn't need your help making it worse! That boy who happens to be our adopted lil brother is only a child! And I swear if you end up hurting him because of your reckless decisions we will be back to make you wish you weren't immortal."

"He's not the only one 'a few eggs short of a dozen'," the other girl muttered. North really needed to figure out what her name was.

"You tell me how having him burn himself on me without even realising isn't 'that bad'," Lleu said threateningly. "Tell me how having him try to fly to space cause he 'heard it's nice this time of year' isn't 'that bad'! We had to hold him down until he found something more interesting to do. Have you ever tried to hold down a determined and struggling winter spirit?"

Okay, yeah, that was pretty bad.

"I think our friend North here needs to be punished. What do you think, May?"

Oh, that was her name.

May turned to her companion, face stern. "I agree."

"Ceres?"

"Most. Definitely."

Then they all turned and stalked out of the room. This… wasn't good.

"Oh, hey," Lleu's head popped back in through the doorway. "Could we get a snow globe? We have no way of getting out of this place."

North blinked. "How did you get the one that got you here?"

The summer seasonal suddenly looked rather uncomfortable as though remembering some past threat. "Ummm… that's not important. So can we or would you prefer we just stay here forever?"

"No, you can have one," North hastily reached into his coat and pulled out a globe for the summer spirit.

"Cheers," Lleu smiled (but not a pleasant one, mind you), easily snatching the globe out of the air. And then she was gone.

...

...

It wasn't until he entered the Workshop some hours later that North realised what his 'punishment' was. And he was fairly sure it was ten times worse than anything Jack could have done while drunk. As he watched the elves happily stagger around, hiccupping every now and then and drinking vast quantities of spiked eggnog as they pretty much destroyed the workshop, he silently vowed to never get on the seasonal sister spirits' bad sides ever again.