Santa was sitting in a gnarled wooden armchair, freezing his socks off and reading a book entitled "How to get rich quick! - Volume two, let's get illegal!". He had been sitting in the Library of Lomedor reading this book for about 30 minutes and he was only on page 3. The reason being of course, was some blooming idiot had to have sat on his glasses when he put them down to go to the toilet, and then when he came back they simply scarpered before he had time to get out a pen and put them on the naughty side of his list. But that wouldn't matter anyway, because the other day some little kid came up to him and mugged him, then when the poor man managed to regain consciousness the little demon had stolen his list! Now how did he know who to give presents to eh? It was either sit down for another flipping 364 days and rewrite it (which he couldn't do because the entirety of Arda were hellbent on setting him a deadline for when the presents had to be in by), or give every bleeding person on the planet a Christmas present!
His feet were resting on a small stool, and his elbows were awkwardly cramped up as the armchair he was sitting in was child-size. He hadn't expected the library to be so popular and ended up with the tiny seat right next to the door, which sprayed him with cold air every single time someone walked in. A couple of kids tried to sit on his lap about 10 minutes ago and the moment the little girl was comfortably perched beside him, she whipped off his belt in an instant and ran off giggling with the other little scallywag! Now Santa was, and still is for that matter, a big guy. His trousers were pretty big too which meant he gets a little bit extra padding when he's in Khelek Tundra (which seems to be all the time now as he's been banned from most other countries due to smuggling presents across the different borders). But when you're in the middle of the library, baggy trousers are the last thing you want. Especially with a librarian with her nose so high it was like someone was dangling her nose by a hook from the ceiling. So, he sat in such a way that his trousers refrained from sliding and slipping, which was needless to say very uncomfortable.
He wasn't having a particularly good day, and he was wondering if there would be any way to retire from the whole Christmas industry and live his life somewhere hot and dry, like the Lhachlith Volcano. Thinking about it, if he sold the reindeer and maybe the sleigh he'd end up a fair bit richer. But no, he had to stay noble to what is right. Giving is better than receiving, that's what he'd been taught as a child. So this was why Santa Claus himself was sitting rather grumpily in his tiny little armchair, with his trousers falling down and a bag of gold poorer, reading "How to get rich quick! - Volume two, let's get illegal!" waiting for something to happen which would change his life for the better. Hah. Like that would ever happen...
Robyn was staring at Santa in un-mitigated awe.
Santa was reading a book.
Robyn was staring at Santa in un-mitigated awe.
Santa was still reading a book.
This, of course, was a process that might have taken a while to rectify. Santa, supposedly, had much patience and Robyn was quite immune to the cold that came gushing through the door as she just froze there, staring at her biggest, bestest idol after Poppa and Momma bear. She was staring at Santa! And he had thoughtfully let other people use nicer and better chairs and was using one that didn't fit himself. It was almost more than she could take. She felt faint and wished she had a fan so she could fan herself like the... well, she was sure some interesting looking people did such things every once in a while. She couldn't recall who... but somebody. Yes, somebody did. Somebody at the height of fashionable society.
Robyn was pretty sure she didn't want to be at the height of fashionable society when it occurred to her that those at the height of fashionable society did not stare at their idols from behind semi-open doors. Or did they? In any she really had nothing to do than stare at him all day but other patrons had other ideas, and a particularly rude one pushed and shoved the necropolitan until she was inside. The door slammed shut. She continued staring at Santa in... well, the same expression as before.
Santa continued to read.
This was another process that might have taken yet another while to rectify, she being who she was and Santa being who he was but being who she was, Robyn was soon distracted by a child and a belt- or rather a belt and a child who was playing an awfully weird game that seemed to involve the said belt, a rather sharp stick and spoon/fork hybrid that wasn't a spoon... and wasn't a fork. She was sure there was a proper name for it, but Poppa bear had told her never to give names to things she had never seen before so she promptly christened it 'Foon' because she never listened to Poppa bear anyways.
Momma bear on the other hand...
Momma bear said to go play with other children her own age. She wasn't sure how old she was or how old the other child was but figured it was close enough. Closing her mouth (which had been hanging open for the past ten minutes as she stared at Santa) she ran off, her eyes still glued to her favorite, favorite, favoritest god-person thingy on all of (where did they live again?) (after Momma and Poppa Bear of course) and ran to go play with the girl and her weird game of pointy sticks.
But she'd be back! And she'd ask (gasp! The temerity!) if she were on the naughty or bad list and also (since she was not too sure if dead kids got gifts from Santa) whether or not she could steal from him and call it even since he hadn't given her a gift in the loooooongest time.