For Mikleo, this holiday was the start of a prestigious new career.

Born from a snowdrop flower (like most snow fairies of his kind), he'd spent the first hundred years of his life dutifully helping his fellow winter spirits tend to the various chores of the season: blanketing the world in white and ice, casting spells of sleep upon plants and hibernating animals; kissing each petal and leaf and damp wet nose and wishing them all restful, sweet dreams until spring's loud trumpets sounded another year of toil.

Upon his hundredth birthday, he was allowed to apply to Saint Nicholas' academy to earn the chance to be a Christmas elf. His entry exam and interview went swimmingly, and soon, he was attending his first day of classes – it seemed like no time at all until he was receiving his certification before an excited crowd, and being pulled into a tearful embrace by his proud mother. First in his class, a sterling record and unblemished GPA. As was expected.

What Mikleo didn't expect was to get stuck on toy line duty. Yes, he was a newbie – some of his new coworkers had been here for a millennium or more. But he had a degree, and his course advisors had written him such glowing letters of recommendation: extolling his dutifulness, his impressive magical potential, his fine eye for details, his nimble wings and feet and hands. Mikleo was so sure that he would be tasked with reconnaissance work: making maps of new housing projects and home interiors, or studying human anthropological trends to determine projected gift-crafting needs. His uncle had been a pioneer on these fronts – the basics of his protocols had brought the factory into the twenty-first century. If they just allowed Mikleo to work alongside him in the library and research labs, he was sure that even more glorious improvements could be made.

But no, it was all about seniority here. Mikleo sullenly put the finishing touches on yet another princess doll, blessed it with just a touch of magic, and packed it away – only for the next project to come clattering down the line. Mikleo sighed and started to get to work, but then a voice came into his earpiece.

"Hey newbie. Get down to the foreman's office, there's someone from upstairs who wants to talk to you."

Someone from upstairs? The only person Mikleo knew in the upper floors of the factory was Uncle Michael, and he was usually engrossed in lab work or out in the field. Curiously, Mikleo made his way down to the head office, and came face-to-face with a living legend.

"Oh, you're just as adorable as I'd imagined," cooed Grand Elf Lailah.

She reached out to pinch Mikleo's round cheeks. He wondered, somewhat bitterly, when his body would decide it was time for him to get a more mature-looking form. Even after a hundred years, he still resembled the human children that used to frolic on the snowbanks he created. It was a little humbling to face someone like Lailah, looking like this – more than a little humbling. It was said that Lailah was one of the first elves Saint Nicholas had in his employ, and she had seen more trials than Mikleo could even imagine. Why on earth was she here to see him?

"It's—it's an honor to meet you," Mikleo managed to get out around Lailah continuing to marvel at the roundness of his cheeks.

"Yes, yes, splendidly round," Lailah continued to babble. "I daresay Nicholas himself has competition-"

Lailah finally paused and came back to herself, with Mikleo's cheeks pinched and stretched in her fingers. She "ahemed" and released them, giving them one last fond pat before she collected herself.

"Now Mikleo," she said. "I've seen your course records, and I think we might be frittering away some of your potential with you cooped up in this factory all day. Might I ask if you're interested in helping us with the year's home scouting missions?"

Mikleo's face lit up like the glittering trees that lined the factory's halls.

Now this, this was more along the lines of what Mikleo had dreamed of when he applied to the academy.

His wings buzzed like a hummingbird's as he flitted from window to window, peeping in each one, judging what would be the best entry point for the year's coming gift drop. He'd already well surpassed his assigned homes for the day – this home was from next week's list, and was marked with some sort of strange reference symbol. Mikleo would look up the meaning of the symbol later; he was just doing a quick preliminary survey of the building today, and would do a proper mapping of the whole thing tomorrow.

The place was gigantic. Mikleo phased through a window and began to wander the halls. The humans who lived here were clearly wealthy, but hadn't made much effort in decorating; the whole home was quite Spartan in appearance. It was hard to believe the notes that a child lived here. Mikleo came upon a massive library, and his heart flipped. He'd already gone above and beyond his assignments today. He was fully glamoured, and so no humans should be able to see him. If he just went in to see what kind of collection they had here—

Mikleo heard a gasp as he entered the room, and his eyes fell upon the human child reading in the armchair by the fireplace. The human child who was staring right at him, mouth agape.

Uncle Michael's contributions to the mapping system the factory used were numerous, but his system of reference symbols was perhaps once of the most appreciated. It had symbols for nearly any sort of note imaginable: for loud dogs, for cramped hallways, for collections of scary clown dolls. Mikleo had studied and memorized all of them – or so he thought. The symbol that Mikleo did not recognize had become quite rare in the recent years. Had Mikleo looked up the meaning, he might have gone in with more caution:

Spiritually-sensitive resident. Glamours no use.

"..are you an angel?" asked the human child, quietly. A boy, who looked just about the same age Mikleo looked to be.

Mikleo felt frozen in place, unable to think of what to do next. Of course he had been trained for situations where he was spotted, but learning it in theory was so much easier than remembering it in practice, and—

"You're just as pretty as one," the boy continued. He scooted over in his chair, and fixed Mikleo with a pleading look, one that seemed so…starved. "Can you sit and read with me? If you're not too busy?"

What Mikleo did remember from training was that they were to keep human interaction to a minimum. It just posed too much of a risk, and they couldn't risk getting attached and showing favoritism, and…but Mikleo's heart ached so at the forlorn look of this boy, alone in this huge room, in this too-big house. Hesitantly, Mikleo fluttered over, and touched down on the arm of the chair where the boy sat. The boy stared up at him adoringly.

"I sometimes see people like you around," the boy said. "But none of them have ever been so pretty."

The boy smiled wide. It was more dazzling than the northern lights above the Pole's white plains, and burned into his heart far more keenly.

"My name's Sorey. What's yours?"

Mikleo hesitated, but he was defenseless in the face of that smile.

"Mikleo. My name is Mikleo."

Mikleo awoke from his dreams to the gentle chimes of his cuckoo clock, and stretched out underneath the covers. The lingering dream-memory of Sorey's sweet smile left him with a particular kind of warm, wonderful heartache.

It had been years since that day. Even though they were only able to meet in person once a year during Mikleo's scouting missions, he and Sorey had nurtured a deep friendship. Mikleo would hurry through his assignments, then rush to Sorey's house for a few too-short hours. They would read together in front of the fireplace, curled up together underneath a blanket, enjoying tea and cookies Mikleo had brought with him straight from the factory's kitchens – a delicacy few humans could ever boast to have experienced. Mikleo would tell Sorey of all the places he visited on his exploratory missions, would tell him about the silly things Grand Elf Lailah would have her normin familiars do to keep them on their toes in the off-season. Sorey seemed to hang on every word, just as his little fingers clung to Mikleo's hand, silently pleading with him to stay an hour, two hours more.

They couldn't risk having letters delivered, nor could Mikleo simply visit as he pleased – some years, when it was so painful to leave Sorey's side that his heart ached for weeks after, he missed the freedom he possessed as a simple snow fairy. If he was still just a snow fairy, he could stay with Sorey through the winter months. He could trace little messages on the window in frost for him to wake to in the mornings, he could dance with him in whirling gusts of snow. He could kiss his cheeks until they glowed red with the chill from his lips, and send him off to school flushed and laughing, and with the promise that he'd be there to greet him when he returned. Mikleo was pained to know that Sorey had no one in his life to offer him such comforts in his place.

Mikleo had finally grown out of his childish stature and his chubby cheeks (much to Lailah's lingering despair) – he seemed to grow and age alongside Sorey, which warmed his heart with a kind of secret, strange feeling. Even if he was only able to see Sorey once a year, even if Sorey was a human and he was a fairy, he was at least able to share something with him.

But, the time of year for scouting had already passed, and their too-brief meeting had already come and gone. Today was December twenty-fourth, and it was all hands on deck time for the factory. Mikleo rolled out of bed and creaked over to where he'd laid out his dress uniform for this most special of days – a fur-trimmed hooded red jacket, with a pine-green plaid bow to be looped around the neck, coupled with a large golden bell. White trousers and knee-high fur-trimmed tan boots completed the ensemble. It had looked obnoxiously cute on him when he had his more childish appearance, and now just looked somewhat ridiculous. Some of his coworkers could pull off the look, but he was pretty sure he'd never be one of them, no matter how much his physical age progressed.

Mikleo had just finished fastening the wide belt around his waist when he heard a knock on his door. He blinked, and headed over to answer it – most people weren't awake at this hour, preferring to get as much sleep as they could before "doomsday" at the factory. Lailah greeted him when he opened the door. She looked resplendent and dazzling in her own dress uniform; and topped it with a fur-lined red cloak that spilled out for several feet behind her (Mikleo could spot some normin roaming underneath it, arguing amongst themselves), and a sparkling snowflake headdress.

"Mikleo," she said. She smiled at him softly. "I happen to have a special mission for you, tonight. Straight from Nicholas himself."

Christmas was usually a pretty lonely time for Sorey. He had a Christmas birthday, and that came with general suckiness of never really having a special day for himself. His mother had died around this time of year when he was a kid, and the lingering memories of watching her slowly fade away to illness were tangled up in the blur of colored Christmas lights and the crooning of the same sentimental songs on the radio. His father had gotten even more distant after all that. Sorey squinted and thought back – gosh, he couldn't remember the last time he spent Christmas-slash-his-birthday with anyone at all. He always gave the housekeepers and his personal assistants the day off; they deserved it. They didn't get paid to keep him company.

Sorey was well-read enough to realize that all this should have been enough to turn him into the subject of a Dickensian moral tale, but the holiday didn't fill him with anger, or bitterness. Just loneliness, and a particular kind of warm, wonderful heartache – because about a month before Christmas, Mikleo would still come to visit him after doing his scouting runs. That too-short day was the brightest spot of his whole year. He imagined it was much the way Christmas was supposed to feel like to normal people.

Sorey had always been able to see…things. Some marvelous, some terrifying. (Mikleo was usually in the former category, except the times when he argued with Sorey about something in a book or journal.) When he was very young, he'd wished so hard that his sight would be taken from him – maybe then he'd stop getting teased at school, and maybe then the dark things that lurked at the edges of the forest would stop calling to him. In retrospect, he now knew that having his other-sight blinded wouldn't have helped the teasing, as he would have still been an incorrigible nerd and bookworm. And even if it would have stopped him from seeing the terrors that lurked about, it also would have blinded him to seeing Mikleo on that fateful afternoon. Sorey would face a hundred dark things if it meant he could see Mikleo for even an hour more, even a minute more.

He glanced at the clock. He'd be eighteen in about ten minutes. He wondered if he'd really been wishing for the same thing in his letters to Santa for ten years. He knew they were getting read – he got the books he listed on there as a postscript, after all. After two years of the letters, he'd determined to stay awake and plead his case to Santa in person – it was only right and proper for what he was asking, Sorey reasoned. Santa looked so surprised when Sorey ambushed him as he appeared in the library fireplace, and seemed to listen to Sorey's request with a thoughtful look on his face…but then he just patted Sorey's head and told him to hurry off to bed. Undaunted, Sorey continued to ask, and ask, and ask. Year after year after year, ambush after ambush after ambush. This year was and would be no different.

The library's grandfather clock chimed the hour, and Sorey adjusted the blanket around his shoulders as he got up from his favorite old chair. He had a special tray of cookies from the local bakery that Santa seemed to enjoy last year, and was ready to hand it over and plead his case once more. He was nothing if not persistent. He didn't have anything else going on tonight, after all.

The fireplace twinkled with magic, but it was different than it always was – the magic billowed out of the fireplace and swirled around Sorey, embracing him with a pair of familiar arms. Sorey was helpless but to return the hug, and felt himself leaning into it, breathing in a scent that was so sweet. He hadn't smelled it in…well, about a month now.

"Sorey. Happy birthday. Merry Christmas."

Sorey could scarcely believe his ears. Nor his eyes, as he pulled back from the hug just enough to see Mikleo there in his arms, smiling up at him. He especially couldn't rely on his eyes when they started blurring with tears at the sight.

"Sorey," Mikleo said, his own voice wobbling with emotion. He wiped at Sorey's lashes with a gentle thumb. "Shh, don't cry. I—Lailah told me that the council reviewed your requests, and—and they finally told me what you wished for all these years, and they approved me to-"

Sorey let out a sob, and kissed Mikleo's soft lips, over and over, just as electric and sweet as it had been that first time when Sorey was fifteen and desperate to stop Mikleo from leaving him again. Mikleo's hand came up to cup at the back of his neck, and held him in place for a longer, deeper kiss. Sorey scooped him up and backed them both up until he felt his armchair behind him, and sat down heavily; wrapping his blanket around the both of them, clutching Mikleo close to him, never planning on letting him go.

Watching the scene through the observation mirrors in the factory's main flight tower, Lailah sighed happily, dabbing at her eyes with her hankie.

"Oh, I do always love a Christmas romance," she said mistily. She squinted at the mirror again, and let out a little gasp. She turned red, and covered her eyes with her hands – but peeped just a bit through her fingers. "Oh my! Mikleo, you do still have those round cheeks after all…"

Were you to enter Saint Nicholas' office, you would find cabinets of saved letters from children and adults across the world, from across the centuries. There were hundreds – thousands of these cabinets, all lovingly crafted and cared for by Saint Nicholas himself.

Under Sorey's name, the letters were all the same, ever since that fateful meeting.

It was a simple request:

Dear Santa,

Please let me spend every day with Mikleo, forever.

Love,

Sorey

P.S.: And maybe a renewal subscription to Archaeology Monthly would be nice, too.