Page 9 of Velveteen vs. The Consequences of Her Actions

“Yes,” said Aurora. “Even if she doesn’t choose to stay, we’ll benefit from having her for the time we have. It should be long enough to shore up a few walls, repair a few defenses. But mark me: I want her. I want her strength, and I want her anger. If you love me, do what you can to acquire them.”

Lucy nodded. “Yes, ma’am,” she said, and watched as Aurora dissolved into light. Then, smiling, she turned and started down the hill into Santa’s Village. She had work to do.

* * *

The Snow Queen walked in the House of Mirrors, and she walked there all alone.

Frost followed her footsteps—not her husband, but the cold that shared his name. It drew delicate designs across the floor, filigree and ferns and beautiful patterns that dissolved unseen. The Snow Queen never looked back. Her eyes were all for the mirrors around her, filled with pictures of lives she had never lived, choices she had never made. In some of them, another woman wore the mantle of Snow Queen, a woman who had taken the position when she had melted, or made the choice to thaw. In others, she walked with her son at her side, a son who had never been born in this reality. In most, as in the present moment, she walked alone.

She stopped in front of a dead mirror, its surface clouded over so that it cast no reflection. Placing her fingertips gently against the surface of the glass (which immediately began to freeze, for she was the Snow Queen, after all), she bowed her head, and wept until her tears were done. Then she straightened, turned, and walked away.

She never looked back. There was nothing there for her to see.

VELVETEEN vs. Global Warming

Time ran differently in the Winter. At least, Velveteen thought time ran differently; it was hard to say, because she no longer had anything to compare it to. Unlike Jack Frost and the Snow Queen (and Jackie, missing Jackie, deserter Jackie, where are you), Velveteen was still considered a trainee by the season: she never got to go back into the Calendar Country, where days followed each other in a linear progression from now to then, and didn’t look back. She had to stay in Winter until her term was over and she moved on to Spring.

Winter, where the days and nights melted together, sometimes interrupting each other in the middle of what should have been an afternoon or an evening. Winter, where Santa’s Village was always buzzing with preparations for Christmas, even when it should have been the middle of July. Winter, where it was sometimes mild and sometimes fierce, but never really warm. Maybe that was for the best. Velveteen hadn’t started melting yet—not even when she was summoned to Santa’s cottage and forced to stand near his ever-burning hearth—but she didn’t trust that to mean she would never melt at all. Being made of snow was weird.

Velveteen trudged toward the center of the Village, two snow reindeer following her, dragging a sled loaded down with logs cut from the heart of the deepest forest in the season. Everything smelled like pitch and pine. She had raised an army of snow beavers to chew through the trees, calling them out of the substance of the snowdrifts around her. That was one thing about the way Winter had twisted her powers: she no longer needed to make the things she animated. As long as she was surrounded by snow, she could convince it that it really wanted to belong to her. It would reshape itself from there, answering her command as eagerly as any doll or teddy bear.

Not that the dolls and teddy bears of the North Pole were very eager to answer when she called. She had snuck into the Workshop more than once, waving her hands and begging the toys to come to her. None of them had so much as twitched. Winter had given her new strengths, but it had stolen the old ones, and it was impossible for her not to resent that.

There was a lot to resent, here in the cold.

Frozen through, more snow than skin, Velveteen walked through Santa’s Village, and the creatures she had created followed close behind her. Elves and penguins peeked out the windows of their homes, but none of them moved to greet her, or did anything that might attract her attention. They had already learned, some of them the hard way, that the newest Spirit of the Season was not inclined to thaw.

Santa was more hopeful, or maybe he was just more powerful; sometimes the two were essentially one and the same. He was waiting outside his cottage with his hands on his hips, waiting for her to return. When she came around the curve, her reindeer behind her, he smiled, mustache twitching upward, and let loose a volley of his classic “Ho, ho, ho” laughter.

Velveteen scowled at him. Santa sighed.

“If you’re not careful, your face is going to freeze that way,” he said, letting his hands fall away from his hips. “Did you have any trouble?”

“My face already froze this way,” said Velveteen. “No trouble. There were some big scary wolves in the forest, but I made bigger, scarier ones, and they backed off. Where do you want the lumber?”

“Vel—”

“I can leave it here, or I can deliver it straight to the Workshop. Whatever works best for you.” Velveteen went still and simply looked at Santa Claus, waiting for him to tell her where to go. One advantage of her new, frozen form: she no longer seemed to need to breathe when she didn’t want to. As a consequence, she could stand motionless for hours at a time. It was like being stared at by a particularly unfriendly statue, and no one—not even Santa—found that comfortable.

The snow reindeer were just as motionless as their mistress. After bearing up under their icy stares for almost a minute, Santa sighed again, and said, “Take them to the back of the Workshop. The elves will know what to do with them.”

“As you like,” said Velveteen. She turned and began walking away. Her reindeer followed her.

Santa watched them go, and said nothing.

There was nothing left for him to say. He knew she wouldn’t listen.

* * *

As we explore the nature and protean origins of the Seasonal Lands, it is perhaps most important that we consider their relationship to human belief—and more, to superhuman belief. Save in the cases of aliens or super-powered animals or heroes who were born in the Seasonal Lands themselves, superhumans are still humans. Their beliefs, their hopes and dreams and fantasies, all still feed into the great wellspring that shapes reality. Why are the keepers of the Seasonal Lands essentially superheroes? Maybe because everyone, even those who are responsible for protecting mankind, dreams of being protected.

But because of the nature of the Seasonal Lands, they lack a certain…flexibility in their heroes. Truth has often been called stranger than fiction: well, reality is stranger than the holidays it dreams of. Heroes affiliated with the Summer will have powers related to sunshine and green, growing things. Thanks to the placement of the 4th of July and other such independence-related holidays, the trappings of American patriotism have also become connected with the Summer heroes, who may shoot fireworks from their hands, or be able to run a perfect barbeque.

Spring heroes celebrate Easter and newly-sprouting flowers and the healing of the world. Autumn heroes celebrate harvest and the turning of the leaves and Halloween, which spreads its skeleton fingers over all. Winter…

Winter celebrates the freeze, in all its forms. There is generosity in Winter, but only for Santa Claus. Everything else is about the cold.

* * *