Santa's wrists were broken.
It happened when the moonshadow glacier calved. A block from the thickest glacier in the world ripped away, fell, and smashed onto dry ground, ringing the earth like a cymbal.
Santa's Baublesmith Compound was only a quarter mile away and the seismic waves passed under it, rattling windows, tables, and elves.
But the problem started with Forsythia Girl. She was on the top shelf of the Greatest Toys Ever Made display case. A doll that actually came to life on the spring equinox and fell silent and immobile on the summer solstice.
She was also the heaviest toy and probably shouldn't have been on the top shelf.
The rumbling wall made her slump forward, then tumble right off her shelf. As she dropped past the shelf below hers, her hand wedged in the axle of Bartles the Airplane Bartles flew with the birds, perched in trees and sang with warbling notes--and was created one hundred and eighteen years ago. And once Bartles had shifted forward gravity favored momentum and the entire ancient shelf broke from the wall, toppling, and spilling toys such as the spinning top made from a diamond that could twist the fabric of time and space; the Maplewood walkie-talkie that allowed the user to speak to his or her future self.
When Santa heard the dowels and dovetails crack he ran forward with his hands up as if beseeching the shelf.
"No! No! No!" he bellowed. He caught the shelf's full weight on his hands but was leveled by the huge torrent of toys and woodwork.
"Will you be able to run the sleigh?" asked Druun the white skinned elf with gunmetal blue hair and huge eyes that looked like a jeweler had made multifacets on aquamarine gems.
"I can't. The reindeer are too wild. They run through the sky on the thoughts of bad men, for Alfar's sake. If it wasn't for the bells to sedate them they would take the reins in two different directions and split the sleigh."
"I can do it," said Druun, his enthusiasm almost straightening his perennially hunched elvish back.
"There are only two people who can survive the sleigh ride. Myself with my gnomish blood, and the Angel of Svalbard. Bonded to me in marriage."
"Mrs. Claus," answered Druun, his angled back bending lower. Even his leather smock creaked despondently.
And so on the strike of Christmas eve's midnight it was Mrs. Claus who was in the sleigh as it shot out as a light beam, the reindeer climbing up into the sky on the ample number of lying and conniving thoughts of men.
The sleigh ride is a bullwhip. A bucking and shaking monster.
Over cities Mrs. Claus wrenches the reindeer into circles and turns the sleigh over on its side. She watches the presents slide out of the side chute and tumble through the air, guided to their intended homes by enchantment.
But there were gifts that would not fall, could not fall. Refused to fall, in fact. These were the best presents that had to be hand delivered.
And she would. Down the chimney, through a window, or through a door as if she were a familiar guest.
It was at such a home where she was delivering a prized present that she was interrupted.
"Who the hell are you?"
She straightened quickly from the stoop she was in as she considerately placed the great gift.
Her eyes flared brightly.
A man whose body bulged with power and strength stood in the living room covered only in a pair of boxer briefs and the cider glow of the Christmas tree lights.
"I'm Mrs. Claus. Your daughter, Mira, has earned the honor of a special present from Santa this year."
She faced him openly, without guilt nor shyness. A candle of a woman, dressed in a red robe bordered in white fleece that swooped with her curves from the hooded top to the floor-dancing bottom hem. Her hands were soft in red velvet gloves and her feet and legs were covered in high boots made of the same.
Her hair were falls over her breasts and was a red so deep it was almost maroon.
"Mrs. Claus, huh?" he asked and walked toward her. "I doubt Santa Claus is married to someone so gorgeous. How long could you have been married? He's like three hundred. You don't even look thirty."
She stared at his broad chest and rippled abdomen, then answered: "True! We have only been married nine years. I was taken from my bed in Edinborough when I was a child by coddling elves and brought to the domed library in Svalbard. There I was raised to ensure that love and honesty survives in the world."
"Are you warm enough in this thing?" he asked, reaching out his hand and running it up and down her upper arm.
Her ice cave blue eyes closed and then opened to stare deep into his brown eyes.
"It is adequate." she responded.
His fingertips slid up, along her collarbone, down her chest through her deep cleavage, reversed back around and ended by weaving his fingers in with hers.
"Your fingertips are dirty, Mrs. Claus."
"Charcoal dust. The greatest gifts are created from the roughest materials. A lump of coal, a shred of tree bark, a pile of beetle wings."
He let go of her hand and it drifted over to land on his smooth chest. She slowly brushed down to his belly and slowly slid back up again.
"So many muscles," she said softly.
"I can't believe Mrs. Claus is here in my house," he confessed.
"Believe."
His hand cupped her delicate face, moved his thumb over the silk pillow of her bottom lip. And with their eyes locked together, she parted those lips and let her pink tongue wet his thumb. Then her pearly teeth appeared and tenderly nipped him.
"I think I need to kiss you," he rasped
"I think I need you to, too," she breathed.
They pressed together. His arms up around her shoulders. Her arms down around his back where her hands stroked and rubbed his skin.
Their lips swirled and swiped against each other's. Pulling off with moist smacks and then back together with mutual moans.
One of his hands reached up to the back of her head. He gripped her hood in his fist and yanked it back, rescuing her hair to shine like a dusk sunrising.
Now their tongues were touching with every pass of their lips.
A moan pounded with every kiss as he traipsed down her neck.
Three widely spaced brass buckles kept her robe closed in front. His hands nimbly detached them and pulled her robe open.
"Not a stitch on under this. Delicious," he said and pulled the robe down. She stripped her arms from the long sleeves and ignored the robe as it fell to the floor.
He took her hand, lifted it above her head and let her spin in place. A wide smile growing ever larger on her face, her eyes giggling.
He stopped her when she was facing away from him and snapped her in close to him. His chest pressed to the skin of her back. His hands skimming over her flat belly in circles.
"Here," she said and pulled the long hair from one side of her neck. His lips began softly sucking at that skin.
One hand rose and started squeezing her succulent breast. The pink nipple poked between his fingers.
