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Nicolas took a deep breath as he looked at the four women; “I suppose I’ll have to tell you the events that led up to our fight.. Krampus was a good man, up until the end. He had suffered more than most throughout his life. Spending a good chunk of it alone. When he finally did find some happiness..”

“I’ve told Skye before that Krampus wasn’t like the other Fae, and he was nothing like the humans. While no one really said anything or bothered him, most Fae avoided my brother, and humans feared him. Aside from a handful of Fae, no one really interacted with my brother but Maevis and me. Humans could be cruel, but for the occasional human child. The young ones recognized the kindness in him.”

“Are the stories about him taking children true?” Shasta asked, not realizing the insensitivity of the question.

Peggy grabbed the tip of her ear, and yanked hard enough to aggravate Shasta as she said; “Where be yer manners?! Stuck in a hairball somewhere?!”

Nicolas smiled softly at the surly servant; “It’s alright, Peggy, but thank you for your consideration.”

After Peggy released her, Shasta flattened her ears lightly; “Sorry, it just kinda slipped out.”

Nic assured her that it was fine, then continued; “They’re half-true. My brother took in orphans with a woman along the boarder of Alcon and Ruscovic, near the edge of the Highlands in the north. I met her a few times before the battle with Lord Herod, but didn’t learn what had happened until right after..”

“Ya don’t have ta tell us if ye don’t want to, Nic. We won’t think badly about ya for it,” Skye stated as she watched her wee friend struggling to keep his composure.

.....

Nicolas shook his head; “No, it needs to be said. And you might hear something, or learn something that might come in handy later..”

“Krampus loved Amelia, even if he never said it out loud. You could tell by the way that he talked about her.. She was born an albino, and shunned by the villagers near her. Krampus lived in a cave around a mile from her home. He told me that a few of the younger men had chased her to near his cave, and he found them before they could violate her..”

As the four women scrunched their faces in disgust and anger, Nicolas continued; “She took in children that had been abandoned, and worked a large field by herself to make ends meet. After Krampus had saved her, she invited him back to her small house for a meal.”

“The look on my brother’s face when he told me about her.. I hadn’t seen him so happy in decades. She didn’t cower from him, or walk on eggshells around him. She just treated him like a person..”

“She sounds lovely, and I like her name,” Skye commented with a soft smile.

Nicolas grinned sincerely, then went on with his tale; “The children took quite a bit longer to warm up to him, until he brought me over to meet them. They didn’t believe that Krampus was my brother, or that he helped make many of the toys that I delivered.”

“Like me Da’s favorite from when he was a bairn,” Skye commented enthusiastically.

Nicolas chuckled as he replied; “Aye, like that one. He was amazing at it, and faster than any elf or sprite I had ever seen. Even with staying in a cave for three months out of the year, he still had enough time to make nearly a quarter of the toys himself.”

“That’s amazing!” Shasta called out instinctively.

“I thought he made the toys in the north?” Peggy commented.

Nicolas nodded in the positive; “Aye, that’s where he spent the rest of the year. Most think that I live at the North Pole, but it was Krampus. He has an ice castle about three days flight away from the Old Capital. It’s hard to get to, but it’s one of the most beautiful places in the world.”

“Maybe we can go there someday?” Skye mentioned, earning enthusiastic nods from Shasta and Peggy.

Maevis shook her head in the negative; “Skye might be able to go there some day, but I doubt that anyone else could make it. And she’d have to have Zazzy take her. There’s an ice bridge that we collapsed, after.. Usually, only the Ice Elves can get across.”

Nicolas’ demeanor grew remorseful as he focused on the story again; “Nothing lives that far north except for polar bears, the Ice Elves, and penguins. I didn’t want anyone going into my brother’s home at first, but I gave it to the Ice Elves about forty years ago. They make toys for the Kringles in return for living there.”

“Anyways, after Krampus met Amelia, they became inseparable. So much so that Titania wanted to meet her. The day that they were leaving, Amelia was dropping children off at houses that she trusted when...”

Everyone waited quietly and patiently for Nicolas to collect himself before he continued; “Apparently, someone had seen Amelia and Krampus together in the woods foraging. Nearly the entire village showed up at her home while my brother was meeting a friend to get tickets for a ship. A few of the older children that she had taken care of accompanied the villagers..”

“The lads had been caught stealing from the others multiple times, so she had kicked them out. They were seventeen, so they were more than old enough to take care of themselves. They just didn’t want to..”

Nicolas took a slow, calming breath; “They said that Amelia had summoned a demon, and that she was going to use it to attack the village.. For all of the years that they had ridiculed and shunned her. It was a flat-out lie, of course, but the villagers didn’t care.”

“Amelia took in any child, including bastards and disabled kids. The parents had left them outside to die, to hide their so-called shame. She couldn’t have children of her own, and despised anyone who abandoned a child.”

Skye’s expression radiated anger; “I dinna blame her. They knew where she lived! They coulda just taken their child TO her. Not just left’em ta die! What the fuck is Wrong with humans?”

“No idea,” Maevis and Shasta said at the same time.

Peggy swallowed a bite of the ice cream that she had made, then asked; “What about Changlings? Did they not take the bairns?”

Nicolas shook his head; “They can’t handle the extreme cold up there in the middle of winter, so those abandoned don’t have much of a chance. Amelia was a blessing to those children and their parents. She didn’t ask for anything, or bother anyone, and they killed her for it..”

As Nicolas’ eyes started to shimmer in the light from unshead tears, he swallowed hard before he continued; “They chased her to her house, locked her inside, and set it on fire. When Krampus came back and found her, he lost it.. He murdered all of the villagers except for the children that he and Amelia had saved...Even the other children.”

The four women gasped in horror as Nicolas began to talk again; “I didn’t know what had happened when I came to ask for his help with Lord Herod. He was in his castle making toys like normal, and I didn’t see any of the children the first time I was there after the tragedy. After the victory over Herod, he returned to the north, and raised the children to be warriors.”

“A few decades after the battle, I started to hear rumors of a monster named Krampus that would kidnap naughty children. At first, he wasn’t taking bad kids, but ones he saw as abused or abandoned. Once the curse took root, he started..”

Nicolas cleared his throat; “A young girl had caught him, and saved a pair of siblings by offering herself in their stead. Since she was a noble’s daughter, her father had sent a small army to take her back.. Krampus killed them all, and sent their heads back as a message.”

“Why did he take her? I can’t imagine that she was neglected,” Shasta commented as her tail swayed.

“Initially I think it was because she had offered herself up to him. When I met her father and saw a picture of her: she looked like Amelia. Even in her painting, there was a loneliness to her. Due to her father, she was akin to a beautiful bird in a cage. She was his only child, and had lost her mother during childbirth..”

“Wait, how did he get his hands on her? Why would she defend other children?” Shasta asked with a confused expression.

Nic grinned at her; “How do you think? She was a teenager: she snuck out..”

Seeing Peggy put a couple drops of whiskey into his thimble, Nicolas paused, then kept going after he had downed it; “The lord did love his daughter, even if it was smothering to her. She often went for rides by herself in a pasture that her father had cordoned off for her. She would ride to the far end, tie off the horse, then sneak into the city. That’s how she came across Krampus and the children.”

Shasta nodded, satisfied with the explanation right as Skye asked; “Did he take her then?”

“She told me after that he had started to, but turned back and left her outside of the pasture. He visited her a handful of times over a couple of weeks.. She had befriended Krampus..”

Nicolas flashed a small smile before it had vanished; “Everything was fine until her father had announced her engagement to a man thirty years older than her. She was thirteen, and would marry on her sixteenth birthday.”

“...That’s just gross! And to force a child into that!” Shasta stated with her ears bent back in anger.

Nicolas nodded; “Whitney thought the same thing, and asked my brother to save her. He agreed, and took her north..”

Skye quirked an eyebrow; “What did Tiberius think of all of this?”

Maevis slumped slightly; “He was gone by then, dear.. Nicolas had to come find me to help him with his brother.”

Skye flashed her a sympathetic expression; “Sorry, Mae.”

“Tis fine, dear. He had a good life, even if it seemed far too short to me,” Maevis replied.

Nicolas cleared his throat; “I found Maevis in Warrick Forest, and asked her to help me. I knew something was wrong after I got the Star from him. He just seemed...different. Colder..”

After Nic shook his head, he refocused; “After I had completed the Yuletide delivery, I went to Krampus’ castle to give him the Star back. That was when I saw the children, and learned that the curse he had been infected with by the Dark magic jewel that Herod had festered. It fed off of his hatred for humans, and turned him evil.”

“Instead of the children being like family to him, they became his servants. Working day and night to make toys, and maintain the castle. When the toys turned out poorly, he punished them. From walking in the snow without shoes on, to whipping them for standing up for themselves.”

“That’s terrible,” Peggy gasped.

“Aye.. The Krampus I knew and loved was gone, and only a monster remained in his place. That was when I went off to find Maevis. We learned from Celestia that the Northern Star wasn’t responsible for his change, and that my theory about Herod’s jewel was correct.”

“What is the Star exactly? Is it like the Ethereal Spear?” Shasta inquired.

Maevis perked up; “It’s exactly like the Spear, but at the opposite end of the spectrum. Where the Spear exudes Dark and Ether magic, the Celestial Key, or Northern Star as we call it, emits light magic. It also affects the Elemental traits, like Water and Earth. It can essentially connects to the traits that use the positive energies in the universe, whereas the Spear uses the negative.”

Nicolas nodded, then continued; “We tried to use the Star to purify him, but Krampus had embraced the Dark magic by then. He refused to be helped, then attacked us. He said that humans didn’t deserve good things such as toys, or to even live. He said that he was going to take over the Fae by killing Titania and Celestia, then have the Fae turn on the humans world-wide. We had no choice but to fight..”