A/N: This one took forever, but not because I spent two months staring at a blank screen this time. I wrote this chapter, then read through it, and immediately hated the entire thing. So much that I felt compelled to put the entire thing aside and let it marinate for about a week before I could even begin to tackle what was wrong with it. I don't think I have ever edited anything as much as I edited this. I'm still not 100% satisfied with it, but I'm also tired of wrestling with it.

I hope everyone is having a good day. Enjoy.


Chapter 7: Earth Stood Hard as Iron

Bernard had given up corralling the elves back toward their stations. He stood in a copse of fir trees and made sure he was well out of sight while he watched the wood elves practice. Unlike the younger elves, he was not interested in winners or losers or treating the practice like a medieval tournament. In fact, should the question had been put to him, he would deny any knowledge of why he was there at all, let alone why he felt the need to do so in secret.

Lydia stood in the middle of the clearing with a sword in her hands. Gilrohir stood before her. Each fighter held their swords to their chest and swiped downward in salute. Gilrohir stood at the ready, patiently waiting for Lydia to make her move. Bernard watched her as she put her shoulders back, rolled the sword over her wrist, and advanced.

Everything about her had changed. Her clothes, her posture, her gait, the way she wore her hair. The sight of the points on her ears or the sound of her new name on the lips of the wood elves were like a stab wound to him. The century and a half that had passed between her last breath and the day she stood before him in his bedroom might as well have been an eternity for all that he could reconcile the girl he remembered and the elf maiden standing in the clearing clad in chainmail. The Lydia of today was very real. Her voice was the same. She knew things only she could know and said things in that unique way only she could say them. He took refuge in her hybrid accent and gentle Victorian diction until he heard her speak a language he didn't understand or recognize. The look on her new friends' faces at the realization that he did not understand was just one more brick in the wall between them, a clear sign that so much more than time had separated them. He often thought perhaps this was a dream, that Lydia was still gone, that there weren't really wood elves, that their routine remained undisturbed, that there was not some great gaping hole in his memory where his early childhood was supposed to be. But every day he woke, and they were still there, the wood elves, the hole, and Lydia. Did he wish it was a dream? Did he wish she was still gone, to sacrifice her return to save himself from the insanity which faced him now every morning?

CLANG!

The swords slammed together and echoed through the clearing. The match was clearly not meant to be fun. Gilrohir blocked Lydia's offense and charged forward. She deflected his advances competently but never once took back the offensive position. For a few seconds, their blades locked, Gilrohir's coming so close to her face that it was inches away from her eyes. Then Gilrohir leaned back, used the blade lock for leverage, and kicked Lydia in the chest, sending her flying to the ground. Bernard started forward and barely stopped himself from running out onto the field. Gilrohir leaped. Lydia barely deflected the blow in time, and Gilrohir somersaulted over her. He barked an order at her, and she got to her feet.

This went on for several minutes. Bernard admitted to himself that he did not know much about it, but Lydia did not look incompetent to him. Certainly he would not have lasted five seconds against Gilrohir's merciless attacks, let alone five minutes. Yet Gilrohir seemed frustrated that she had not bested him yet. He barked at her endlessly in Elvish at her failure to defeat him. Bernard watched Lydia for any sign that she had become upset or angry at his treatment of her, but she had remained stone-faced under both the sweat in her eyes and the barrage of what Bernard imagined must have been dreadful insults.

The surge of emotion within him at her stoicism was definitely not one of pride.

Bernard felt a nudge at his side. Donder had wandered up beside him and was nose-deep in his satchel.

"Hey! There's nothing in there for you."

The creature whined at him pathetically. Bernard groaned.

"Oh alright," he said. "Don't look at me like that."

He reached in and pulled out his emergency banana. As he began to peel it, Donder snatched the entire thing out of his hands and began munching on it, peel and all.

"I guess you needed that more than I did," groused Bernard. He scratched Donder behind her fuzzy ears, and she chattered happily.

"Shhh! We're incognito."

Donder quieted obligingly.

"What do you think?" wondered Bernard as he patted the reindeer's flank. "Think he can say anything without yelling it?"

The reindeer had no answer for him. As soon as the banana had disappeared, she raised her head and sniffed the air. After a final sniff at Bernard's satchel to confirm he had no more bananas concealed about his person, she cantered off toward the horses.

"Traitor," whispered Bernard after her.

Bernard was not fond of the horses. They were tall and haughty and muscular. They stamped their feet at him and tossed their long, shining manes in the wind, and in spite of all their negative qualities, the elf-girls just loved them. All told, the horses reminded him entirely too much of Gilrohir. He had watched enough to be able to pick out Lydia's horse. It was broad-chested and grey-haired, with feathering at its hooves. He often saw her brushing it down and muttering to it almost lovingly.

I am not jealous of a horse, Bernard thought.

Lydia must have sensed his presence, or perhaps she heard his conversation with the fickle reindeer, or maybe wood elves had a dog-like sense of smell. In any case, she hesitated for a moment in the match and turned to look in his direction, but by the time her eyes looked on where he stood, he had disappeared.


Gilrohir's leg swept under hers. The next thing she knew, she was flat on her back in the snow with Gilrohir's blade at her throat.

"You are not focused!"

"There was something in the trees," she said lamely.

Gilrohir scanned the treeline.

"There is nothing there."

She wanted very badly to say whatever it was must no longer be there but knew it was pointless.

"Pick up your weapon."

Orëna stepped forward. She took Gilrohir by the arm, and he allowed her to lead him away. Lydia pretended she couldn't hear them.

"Would you like to settle down? Truly, I invite you to relax."

"Orëna," snarled Gilrohir.

"You are too hard on her."

"She must be prepared."

"For what? He is obviously not here or anywhere near this place," insisted Orëna. She dropped her voice to a whisper. "They don't even remember him."

"Then where is he?" demanded Gilrohir.

"Maybe he's dead."

Gilrohir's face was suddenly inches from hers as he pierced her eyes with his own.

"Until we know for certain, until his lifeless body lays before us, we must assume he is still out there."

Orëna blinked at him.

"Is your plan to kill your protege before anyone else has a chance to?"

Gilrohir ground his teeth.

"Would you like to take over, Orëna?"

"I would love to. Maybe I'll throw in a few of my mother's moves to make things interesting," said Orëna snidely.

Gilrohir gave her a sharp glare but said nothing as he wandered away to correct the techniques of another sparring pair. Orëna trotted over to where Lydia stood staring into the trees.

"What'd you see?"

Lydia shook her head.

"An animal moving about, I suppose."

Orëna stared at her with an impressively raised eyebrow.

"Really?"

"One of the reindeer, perhaps?" said Lydia. She pointed toward the paddock. "Look, there's one now with the horses."

The eyebrow sneered at her, but the half-dwarven lady attached did not respond to the obvious attempt at obfuscation.

"Come on," said Orëna. "I bought you a few minutes respite."

They sparred for a few minutes until Lydia caught Orëna with a sharp blow to the jaw that took her off guard long enough for Lydia to pin her.

"You shouldn't hold back like that, Orëna," said Lydia, helping her to her feet.

"Actually I wasn't," said Orëna, rubbing her jaw. "This smarts quite a bit. You're pretty fierce when you're not distracted by a barking instructor. Or your dream boy hiding behind the evergreens. How's that going, anyway?"

"If you must know, it's not."

"No? I was afraid of that."

Lydia shrugged. "We've been busy."

"Come now."

Lydia shooked her head.

"Perhaps we weren't as close as I thought," she said as much to herself as to her companion.

"Bull."

Lydia shrugged again, but said no more, not even to ask Orëna how she was so certain of anything where she and Bernard were concerned. She had seen Orëna and Quinton speaking together. Orëna grunted.

"All right then, don't tell me."

"He's coming to terms with all of this."

"Don't go making excuses."

Lydia jammed her sword into the ground and leaned on it until her forehead rested on the pommel. Orëna crept over and tapped the top of her head. Lydia looked up wearily to find Orëna beaming at her.

"What?" said Lydia irritably.

"You never told me you're a hero around here."

Lydia sighed heavily.

"I couldn't remember. And I'm not. I was young and foolish and unarmed. I was thrown off the roof of my own house. It was hardly the stuff of epic tales."

"Aye, but you've got some might in you. And neither Gilrohir nor Lady Varda put it there. You grab that boy by the ear and tell him off proper. And stop letting Gilrohir make you think you're not good enough for the ranks. Now come on. Let's try it again."


Lydia would confess only to herself that she was going through the motions of routine only to distract herself from how lost she felt. The elves at the Pole had seemed happy at her return, which surprised her, as she would have assumed that most of them had forgotten her by now. Their happy reception warmed her. But the novelty of the wood elves had soon overtaken their collective thoughts, and the world of her birth had kept moving in her absence at a rate which accelerated so constantly she doubted she would ever catch up. The elves of the Pole remained cordial and friendly, and the wood elves as they had ever been. The two groups were bonding magnificently, all things considered. Amidst the upheaval, she felt as though she had just arrived at the train station to find the door locked behind her, the attendants gone home, and the last train having long since departed.

Not that she begrudged the elves their quick camaraderie. The only downside Lydia could see the rapidly established harmony between the elves was that the rumor mill seemed to churn out news faster than ever, particularly when it came to her and the Head Elf. She felt grateful to the Clauses when she realized they had not participated in the gossiping.

Yet despite how welcoming they had been, she found herself avoiding the man as much as her still very Victorian manners would allow. She willed herself to ignore his confused and slightly hurt expression whenever she declined his invitation to sit and talk. She knew she was a fool for shunning an obvious and open extension of friendship. Yet in this matter neither logic nor etiquette prevailed, and given the choice between ignoring her apprehensions and her loneliness, she chose solitude.

That is until one night, while all the others engaged in after dinner chat, Lydia stood alone on a balcony, watching the village below. She stayed very close to the wall, away from the edge, and looked out onto the blanket of snow that glittered beneath the cold, distant light of the stars.. Her elven eyes easily spotted Bernard on the ground as he walked alone on the icy street. A polar bear in a constable's helmet stopped traffic so he could cross the road, and he waved a 'thank you' without a word.

"Whatcha lookin' at?"

Lydia's shriek startled them both. The sight of the bearded man in red did little to calm her thundering heart. She took several breaths and tried to regain her composure as he stared at her.

"I am so sorry," she said.

"I didn't mean to scare you."

"No, I-I know. I'm sorry. The last time a man dressed like that approached me this high up, it did not end well. I should go inside."

"No, stay. We might catch the aurora. I'll keep my distance over here."

He stood at the other end of the balcony, keeping a close but theatrically casual eye on her as he drummed rhythmically on the low balcony wall. In order to avoid making eye contact, Lydia looked out on the city. Suddenly she realized with merciless clarity how high up they were and backed away from the ledge and pressed herself against the wall.

"You okay?"

She gave him a nervous smile.

"I don't care very much for heights, I suppose."

"Can't say I blame you there," said Santa. "Want to go inside?"

Lydia sighed then let out an exasperated groan.

"No. This is ridiculous. I am truly very sorry. Not only for screaming in your face, but for the way I have been acting toward you. I know you're not...him. It's not fair to judge you based on the actions of that man, but please understand it's difficult for me to trust a man in your position."

He raised a pair of bushy white eyebrows.

"Wow. It's a sad day when you can't trust Santa. All jokes aside, that was really, really messed up. I'm very sorry that happened to you. And you don't have to apologize. I'm glad you care enough about Bernard to not blindly trust me. And I shouldn't have snuck up on you like that. Geez, I know I should be focused on the whole Lost City of the Elves thing, but I'm still trying to wrap my brain around the Evil-Drunk-Santa thing."

Lydia felt some of the tension within her begin to relax.

"Do you know anything of your predecessors?" she asked. Lydia bit her lip and took a chance.

"No," he admitted. "The guy before me fell off the roof of my house."

He stopped suddenly, looking as though the penny that had just dropped had hit him in the face.

"Go on," said Lydia.

"That's all I know," he confessed. "Except what you and Bernard and Quinton told me. I don't even know the guy's name. I never thought to ask. Sorry. It would have saved you a lot of trouble."

Lydia shook her head.

"It's not that. I always hoped that my Uncle William would take over. I would have liked to talk to Bernard, ask him about it, but I think he's avoiding me."

Santa's brow furrowed.

"Hmm. I'm gonna have to have a talk with him."

When Lydia didn't say anything, he looked across the doorway to find her staring at him with a mix of probing concern and low-simmering displeasure. One look at her tense jaw and intensely piercing eyes and he knew immediately he had said something wrong.

He put his mittened hands up in surrender.

"I didn't mean it like that. God, that is messed up. I can't believe Bernard never told me about that. When I said I'm going to talk to him, I mean I'm going to talk to him."

"I'm sorry. Again," said Lydia burying her face in her hands. "You don't need to do that. What's between Bernard and I-"

"You don't need to keep apologizing. And look, if my Head Elf is being an idiot, then that is definitely my business."

Lydia did not argue, nor did she agree. Instead, she fell silent in her acquiescence and turned her troubled gaze out onto the village below. Snow began to fall.

"So were you close to your uncle?"

"Yes," said Lydia, pulled out of her thoughts. "He was my father's older brother. After my parents and sisters died, he took me in. He raised me. Everyone called him an eccentric, but he was so kind and warm and loving. He must be gone by now. It's as though while I was in Elbereth, my memories were away. Being back here, everything is flooding back to me, and suddenly, I miss him."

Lydia brought her hand to her face, surprised to find the tears there.

"I don't know why I'm telling you this."

"It's the suit," he said. "Dress like this, people tell you everything. By the way, I've been thinking. If it would make you more comfortable, given the circumstances, you can call me Scott."

"Scott?"

"It's my name. My real name. Scott Calvin."

"I see, Mr. Calvin."

"No, no, don't call me that. Just Scott. Or Santa. Or whatever, but no Mister. Okay?"

Lydia felt herself begin to smile. "I will try. Thank you."

The pair fell silent for a moment. Lydia ventured away from the wall a few steps and looked out over the balcony again.

"Things seem all right here," said Lydia. "The village seems so alive and cheerful. It seems you've done well with the place."

Santa made an ostentatious gesture of humility and in his humor, was completely blindsided by Lydia's next question.

"Is he happy? Bernard? Before I came back, was he happy?"

He pondered that for a few moments.

"Well," he began. "As happy as Bernard can be on a day to day basis. Tell me, was he always so…."

He struggled for the right word.

"Obstinate?" offered Lydia.

"Grouchy."

Lydia suddenly found herself laughing. As their laughter faded, she let herself drift away to the past.

"Whenever he could get away, he'd seem content, but always there was a flicker of worry in his eyes. I hoped things would be better after we got rid of that awful man, but things went so badly. And now I'm afraid I've made him unhappy again."

Her brief moment of cheerfulness abandoned her.

"Hey, I've known Bernard for over ten years, and I'm pretty sure if you got him to stop being grumpy completely, his head would cave in."

Lydia smiled in spite of herself.

"You love him, don't you?" asked Santa.
"Yes, I do."

"I'll talk to him. If you were as nice as a human as you are as an elf, he's got no business ignoring you, even if you are a zombie.

He began to walk back inside but suddenly stuck his head out the doorway once more.

"Speaking of, if you could try not to throw Curtis off this balcony, I would really appreciate it."

As he disappeared back inside, Lydia put her hand to her face once more. Beneath the salty patina of dried tear tracks, she felt herself smiling for the first time in weeks. It did not last long, as it was soon swallowed by the discontent she still carried. Yet she felt that some of her worry had left her now. The Pole at least was in good hands.


"I still don't fully understand any of this Christmas thing or how it relates to Hollin," said Orëna, tossing a children's picture book onto the ornate gold desk in front of her.

She leaned her chair onto its back legs and put her massive booted feet on top of the desk, crossing them at the ankles. In the chair next to her sat Elrodan. Behind him, Gilrohir stood ramrod straight with his hands clasped behind his back. Lydia stood behind Orëna with her hands resting on the back of her chair. Santa sat behind his desk. His wife was to his left, and to his right, nearest the window were Quinton and Curtis. Quinton leaned back against the wall with his arms crossed, but Curtis stood at attention, trying desperately to look important. Santa himself had called the meeting, hoping to establish a greater presence in the ongoing conversation between the two groups of elves and to figure out what the wood elves intended to do next.

"I don't know about Hollin," said Santa. "But Christmas itself is pretty easily explained. Sort of."

"I think I understand about all spiritual aspect," said Elrodan. "Tell me again how you're involved."

"Well, gift-giving is customary for the holiday," said Carol.

"The good kids get toys and the bad kids get coal," said Curtis. "And the list-"

"Coal?!" said Orëna suddenly. Her mouth dropped downward into a frown. "Coal is a punishment?"

The half-dwarven lady sputtered a moment indignantly before crossing her arms with an affronted growl.

"It's meant to be an incentive toward good behavior," offered Carol.

Orëna muttered something undecipherable about "diamonds" and "ingrates" but otherwise did not respond.

"So you're some kind of otherworldly childminder?" asked Elrodan.

"Leave it to humans to not be able to mind their children themselves," said Gilrohir. He made his way behind the chairs and shoved Orëna's feet off the desk.

Orëna glared at her commander.

"Leave it to a wood elf to make a snobbish comment like that," she said. "The race with the least experience in the matter."

"Elves don't have children often?" interjected Santa, before Gilrohir could voice whatever thought was behind his very grumpy expression.

"Makes sense to me," said Carol. "Think about it. If they reproduced as often as mortals, there'd be trillions of them in a matter of decades."

"But you're mortal," said Elrodan. "Aren't you? Were you granted immortality somehow?"

"No," said Quinton. "It's more a title that is passed from one man to the next with all the magic and responsibilities it entails."

"The others did not mention this before," said Orëna.

"There's a sort-of Clause that explains it," explained Quinton. Orëna and Elrodan shared a puzzled look and shrugged.

"That's Number One's department," said Santa. He turned to Quinton and Curtis. "Where is he anyway? He should be here."

"I don't know, sir," said Curtis.

Quinton shook his head and shrugged. He looked at Lydia, but her eyes were pointed toward the floor.

"I can do it, sir" said Curtis. Quinton shot him a glare that clearly said he would rather shoot Curtis out of a cannon than let him do Bernard's job.

"Is he often truant during important meetings?" asked Gilrohir haughtily

"No. He is not," said Santa firmly. He slapped his palms on his desk and got to his feet and grabbed his coat. "I'll be right back."

Seconds later he was out the door.


For someone who had committed such a professional faux pas, Bernard was surprisingly easy to find. Santa heard him before he saw him. The Head Elf stood on the factory floor, giving a sharp dressing down to a pair of elves, who by the abashed looks on their faces, had likely made some minor infraction entirely out of proportion to the rebuke they now received.

"Bernard!"

The two elves receiving the reprimand looked up at his approach, their relief obvious on their faces. Bernard did not look at him at all.

"It's okay, guys. Back to work. It's fine."

As the elves disappeared, he put a firm hand around Bernard's arm and pulled him away.

"You wanna lighten up?"

"Sir, I realize there has been an upheaval in the status quo, but that is no reason for us to fall behind schedule."

"You sound like Curtis."

Bernard frowned.

"There's no need to be nasty, Sir."

His boss glared at him sternly with icy blue eyes.

"There is when you skip out on meetings."

Bernard suddenly became very interested in the tips of his shoes. Santa carefully watched his Head Elf. He had never needed to reprimand him before. Mindful of his promise to Lydia, he took Bernard's arm once again and led him upstairs to a spot away from the activity downstairs.

"Okay, spill."

"Sir?"

"Don't 'sir' me. What's going on with you? Your girlfriend comes back from the dead and brings along all your long lost relatives, and you're acting like it's tax season. Why aren't you happier?"

"She's not my girlfriend."

"Uh-huh, yeah, sure. Curtis said you kept sneaking out to see her. Sounds like dating to me."

"We were staging a coup!"

"I've heard of stranger foundations for a relationship."

Bernard looked as though he very much wanted to run away. Santa suddenly realized that his Head Elf had been doing a lot of running away lately. But now, he had Bernard cornered, and flight was no longer an option. With fight and freeze his only remaining alternatives, Bernard stared silently at the floor. Scott sighed.

"This does explain a lot," he said, trying to keep his voice casual.

Bernard looked up.

"What do you mean?"

"Why you were so cranky the day I met you. I didn't realize it was the anniversary of the day she died. Same circumstances, new Santa, and all that. And I was giving you a hard time. If I'd known, Number One, I-"

"You couldn't have known. And I wouldn't have told you. Not then anyway."

"You didn't tell me. Why didn't you tell me?"

Bernard let out a cheerless laugh.

"Now there's a cheerful conversation. 'Hey Santa, did I ever tell you about that time one of the old Santas used to get drunk and use me as a punching bag? And then we tried to kick him out so he killed my girlfriend?'"

"So you admit she's your girlfriend?"

Bernard groaned and buried his face in his hands.

"She's really pretty," said Santa in a sing-song voice. "She really likes you."

Bernard resurfaced and glared at his boss.

"Sir."

"She has a nice smile, too. You should see it some time," said he man pointedly. Bernard glowered at him.

"Are you done?"

"Sure, sure…." said Santa, nodding vigorously. He was able to control the urge for an impressive few seconds. "Bernard and Lydia...sitting in a tree…."

Bernard growled.

"K-I-S-S-"

"Don't give them ideas."

"Who?"

"The elves."

"We're all the way up here. They can't hear us."

"Have you seen our ears?"

"Point taken," conceded Scott.

Bernard crossed and uncrossed his arms a few times. His boss watched him fidget and grew serious again.

"She loves you."

Bernard froze. "I know."

"You do?"

"It's one of the last things she ever said to me," said Bernard quietly.

"Is that why you're avoiding her?"

Bernard did not answer.

"Did you say it back?"

"I don't want to talk about this."

The troubled elf paced back and forth.

"Bernard."

"I didn't get the chance! Okay? She died right after she said it."

Bernard leaned against the wall and pressed his fingers into his temples. He breathed heavily as though the simple act of it were painful.

"There was blood in her mouth. There was blood on the snow. She told me she loved me. Then she died. And now she's here. With a few dozen long lost relatives I never knew I had. How would you feel?"

"Shaken, I guess, admitted Scott. "But grateful too, I'd like to think. Why don't you go talk to her. Imagine how she must be feeling."

"I can't, can I?"

"What do you mean?"

"She's not the same as she was before."

"How do you know that?"

"I just know. She's not even human anymore."

"Neither are you. What's your point?"

Bernard groaned desperately and pulled at his hair. His boss leaped forward grabbed his hands, afraid he was going to yank it out.

"Cut that out. You'd look terrible bald. Now talk to me. Calmly."

Bernard pulled his hands out of his boss's grasp and held them clasped in front of him to keep them from wandering back to his hairline.

"I liked her the way she was. I didn't know her that long, but we got close. We were friends. And maybe more, I don't know. When he was here, I felt like it didn't matter what he did to me, as long as he didn't hurt the others. They matter, not me." Bernard met Scott's gaze. He turned away again and continued. "She made feel like I mattered. I tried to forget, but I couldn't. I couldn't even pretend, not to myself anyway. Out here, I can stay in that place. Part of me can still live in that time where she was young, and I felt young, and we had hope. And I barely recognize her. If I go in there, and she's changed so much that I can't find the person she was, it'll be like she never came back at all."

Scott stared at him. Never in the decade he had lived at the Pole had he ever seen his Head Elf so vulnerable.

"Look, I get it," he said. He thought better and shook his head. "Okay, I don't get it, but I can appreciate it. This has to be harder on you than anyone. Except her. You're hurting her. Forget about the person in there. Think about the Lydia you knew, the one before. Would you want to hurt her? Does she deserve that? And you will never know how much she's changed or what she's become if you don't talk to her."

Bernard frantically began looking for an exit again, but Scott grasped his shoulders, keeping him anchored where he stood. "Bernard, Bernard listen to me. I've talked to her. She wants to talk to you, to let you get to know her again. She still cares about you. And these people, the wood elves, they've come a long way just to see you. The least you can do is show up."

Bernard looked uncertain. He sighed.

"I don't know, sir."

"Do I need to make it an order?"

Bernard fixed him with a pitiable expression that would have melted the icy tundra outside, but the man was unmoved.

"Don't give me those big brown eyes. Did those eyes ever work on Lydia?"

"Not really," admitted Bernard.

"Didn't think so. Let's go."

With great reluctance and quite against his will, Bernard allowed himself to be steered toward his boss's office, long ago a place of such horror and where he would now at last confront the first of many ghosts.


A/N: I swear things are going to start happening soon. I felt the need to get inside Bernard's head a bit before they do, so here we are.

Chapter title from "In the Bleak Midwinter"

Italics indicate words spoken in Elvish. Unless I'm just emphasizing something.

(p.s. Every time I read "Enjoy" it sounds sarcastic. I...didn't mean it sarcastic. I really hope you're all having a nice day.)