A Very Frosty Christmas
"Where have you been?" Gnicole the gnome cried out in relief as her husband, Gnorman, came through the tunnel entrance. "I've been so worried about you!" She ran to him, her gnarly bare feet brushing up dust of the dirt floor and threw her arms around him, or mostly around him, as there were now wings protruding from his back. "Gnick saw you being lifted, we thought it was another raid of the giants, but when you didn't come right back, we had no idea what had happened, Gnick and I were so worried!" She said in one rushed breath.
Gnorman wrapped his arms around his wife, and placed his potato like head on her hairy shoulder. She smelled intoxicatingly of moldy roots and damp fertilizer, he breathed in deeply. After a moment, she pulled back and stared at him. "Gnorman, why are you gold?"
With a deep sigh, Gnorman began to recount his journey.
"Gnick saw correctly, my dear, I was lifted by the giants, but it was not a raid, as you have assumed. I was taken prisoner." Gnicole gasped, her knotted fingers flew to her mouth. Gnorman shrugged, "Fitting punishment for my crime, perhaps. I did, after all, attack one of the giants. Bit him as they were stealing our super." Gnorman stripped off the netty skirt that had been part of his prison uniform.
"But, where did they take you?" Gnicole asked, anxious and astonished.
Gnorman sighed deeply, and shuddered. "Inside," he said quietly.
Gnicole let out a cry of fright, and her fingers flew to her mouth once again. She sunk onto the dirt floor, almost in a faint. "Inside..?" she repeated quietly. "But Gnorman, that is where-"
"Yes. Yes it is." Gnorman sat down beside his wife, pulled his foot up to his mouth and began to lick, the gold fading with the motion. "They are odd, those giants," he reflected, as he contemplated a stubborn fleck of gold on one grime encrusted toenail.
"Odd?" Gnicole asked, coming back to herself a bit.
"They have a tree in there," he chewed on the toenail, the fleck of gold coming off on his tongue, picking it out of his mouth, he examined it closely before flicking it away.
"A…a tree?"
Gnorman nodded gravely. "It is their prison. I was at the top, in solitary confinement. They've placed colored glass balls all over it, and woven lights into it; I rather thought it was a security system. Although I was frozen stiff, couldn't twitch a hair." He glanced over to Gnicole who was staring at him, her mouth hung open in her wonder. He shrugged his shoulders as if his back itched; the protruding wings stirred the air slightly as they bobbed side to side. "Luv, give us a hand with this, would you?"
Gnicole blinked and it was a moment before she understood. Positioning herself at his back, she began to tug on the wings. "What else did you see? What does it look like in there?" she prompted eagerly.
Gnorman thought a moment. His gaze drifted over the dirt walls and floor of his grotto as he thought back to his prison surroundings. "Oddly shaped and padded rocks that the giants sat upon. And a horrible screeching sound filled the air one night. Ow!" The cry of pain came as Gnicole's tugging resulted in one half of one wing ripping from his skin, patches of hair clung to the sticky edge. Spots of bald, pinkish skin dotted his back.
"Sorry dear," Gnicole ran her fingertips over the bald spots soothingly. "But they really are on here quite firmly. What is their purpose?"
Gnorman shrugged, the freed half wing flapped limply. "I couldn't say, part of the prison uniform," he pointed to the netty skirt he removed that lay off in the corner where he'd abandoned it.
Gnicole began to tug on the bottom half of the lose wing, and Gnorman started licking off the gold from his other foot. They worked silently for a few moments before Gnicole said out of the blue, "Gnick saw a new man in the garden yesterday," the wing came off with a final tug, Gnorman gritted his teeth and grunted. "He was worm hunting and saw the New Man. He told me so when he brought me half of the worm for my dinner."
Gnorman had his pinkie toe between his teeth and stopped his chewing to wonder just how much time Gnick had spent in the grotto during his captivity.
"Yes," Gnorman said, spitting out a gold speckled remnant of a toenail he'd torn off, "I saw the New Man as well. The Skinny One was with him. Haven't seen him in a while." Starting to work on his hands and arms, chewing and licking off the gold from his skin. "Caused a celebration Inside, he did."
"A celebration?" Gnicole asked, and moved her potato like head over his shoulder to look Gnorman in the eye. Gnorman noticed her breath smelled faintly of worm.
"Yes," Gnorman answered, pausing a moment in the licking of his left wrist. He shrugged again, this time purposely flapping the one wing still attached to his back, to return it to her attention. "How 'bout the other then?"
"Oh," Gnicole gave a start and settled herself once again behind him to begin tugging on the second wing. After a few quiet moments work, in which Gnicole was successful in removing the top half of the second wing, and Gnorman began to working to remove the gold on his right arm, Gnicole prompted, "What sort of celebration?"
"Ah, yes," Gnorman uttered and once again stopped his licking and gnawing to stare in contemplative thought. He shook his large head. "I've no idea, really. I thought perhaps a ceremony of succession. The New Man came Inside, seemed to look around a moment, then choose that Black Haired Boy…" He stopped speaking to contemplate his progress in removing the gold. "You know the one I mean?" he asked after a moment.
"Mmm humm," Gnoicle's distracted agreement came at the same time as a terrific tug and another bit of the second wing ripped away from his skin.
"'Ouch," Gnorman cried out, wondering if she was yanking just a bit too hard. He shot her a disgruntled look over his shoulder. Perhaps if it had been Gnick with these frightful things on his back, she would have found the patience to be gentler. His mother had been right, he should have married Gnancy, she wouldn't be ripping the skin off his body, would she?
"Well, I am sorry dear, but there's nothing else for it," Gnicole said with badly disguised animosity in her voice. Surely Gnick wouldn't have been so quick to anger after just arriving back home after two days absence. But then again, Gnick wouldn't have allowed himself to be captured by the giants, would he? "The Black Haired Boy then?" She prompted him back into his story.
"Yes," Gnorman picked up a handful of dirt from the grotto's floor and began to rub it into the skin of his upper arms. "As I said, the New Man seemed to have chosen the Black Haired Boy and they went off together. As the New Man never came back, but the boy did, I assumed the boy had taken the man's place."
"And the returning Skinny One, what did he do?"
"He seemed to stand guard. Very stiff and formal he was."
"He was always very stiff," Gnicole interjected, pulling the rest of the wing off Gnorman's back.
Gnorman sagged with relief. "Yes," he agreed when the pain had subsided, "And he must have made the announcement of the succession, because just before the Black Haired Boy came back Inside, the Skinny One said something, and several of the other giants began to throw food at him in celebration."
Gnicole tossed the wing aside, where it landed near the netty skirt in the corner of the grotto. She crawled around to face Gnorman, staring at him incredulously. "They throw food in celebration?"
"Yes," Gnorman confirmed. "It smelled like parsnips, but didn't look much like them," he added as an aside, then continued. "It was The Girl who hit him in the face. And it must have been quite an honor to do so, as she seemed very proud of herself, and the Two Alike Boys also took credit for it."
"I don't much care for parsnips, but I don't believe throwing them in celebration is putting them to good use," Gnicole said disapprovingly as she began to rub dirt onto Gnorman's face, removing the gold there.
"I quite agree my dear," Gnorman happened to love parsnips, and thought Gnicole should have remembered this.
As they worked to remove the rest of the gold on Gnoman's skin, they chatted quietly about what Gnorman had missed in the gnome gneighborhood during his captivity. Gnicole was careful not to mention Gnicks name, nor just how much time she had spent in his company.
It wasn't long before Gnorman tired of the chat and declared himself well enough de-golded. Weary from his adventure, Gnorman curled up into the corner of the grotto, pulled the netty skirt over him as a blanket and slept.
Gnicole waited a few minutes, and then stole quietly down the tunnel to find Gnick.
a/n: Many thanks to JeminiaMoon for being a wonderful beta! And many thanks to you as well for reading!