The North Pole, Christmas Village:

Penny the Elf walks into Santa's office with a colorful holliday tin.

"Santa, this just arrived from someone named Aeshma." She says as she sets the festive tin on Santa's desk.

Santa smiles. "I think Aeshma has finally found the Christmas spirit."

Santa opens the tin and frowns.

"Fruitcake?" Asks Penny.

"Elfcake." Replies Santa.

Cold night in this part of town, 'cause it is December and we voted that the dark of the year needed to have some elements of winter. Nothing threatening, you only need a good coat to be really comfy. Still, dark of the year. You know in your brain that the days will get longer and the sun will be pounding down as hot as before in just a few more months, but your gut--your gut still things that banging some pots and pans and shouting might be a good thing come Solstice, just to make sure the dragon spits the sun out again.

Wait, that's eclipses. Never mind.

Up on the roof of the folly, leaning against Stone Bob, staring out over the town, looking up at the stars, thinking dark of the year thoughts.

Vampires walk very softly when they want to. Maybe I should get him a bell. "It's late," he says as softly as his footsteps. "You haven't been sleeping anyway, being up here isn't helping."

"Tossing and turning isn't going to help either, and it'll just keep you awake--though why you're here and not outing and abouting is a question that should be answered."

"If I said I was worried about you, would you believe me?"

I'll hug him for that in just a bit, but not yet. "Another year gone by. I've been reading my journals of all that's happened here. And as scary and as dangerous as some of it's been, I know there's nowhere else I'd rather be."

"And this is giving you insomnia?"

I look out at the darkness beyond the lights, to the world outside the realm of Sang Sacre. "I've been thinking--about other me's. Ones who don't get to live in a town where they do work they love and which they're loved for. Where the battles never stay won, where things don't get better and you have to be satisfied that at the end of the day you haven't gone down for the last time but you know you're going to have to do it all again tomorrow."

I tilt my head back so the tears don't trip off my chin. "Somewhere there's a me who knows her dreams fell in the face of reality a long time ago, where people say she's strong but all she wants is for it to be over one way or another so she can just stop fighting. She's won everything so far, but hers is a patient enemy who only retreats but is never fully defeated. Heroism is bending without breaking, not standing victorious on a clearly won battlefield. She's very tired, and I'm here with all my loved ones safe and strong and there's no fight before me that I know I can't win, and I don't think I deserve it."

His arms come around me, and I lean back against him, knowing that he can take my weight and then some. I only stand alone if I want to.

"That other you, wherever she is," he say finally, "thinks of you, but she doesn't begrudge you the battles you fight and win or the life you lead. Where do you think she gets her warrior's courage from, if not from you?"

Several minutes later, when I can finally stop crying, I accept the linen handkerchief he pulls out of that convenient pocket dimension that handles these sorts of things. Very useful in theaters, when you run out of kleenex halfway through the movie and you know you're going to need more.

I manage a smile that isn't too soggy. "Can I keep you?"

"If you must," he sighs. I lean up to kiss him, but when I start to lead him back downstairs, he doesn't cooperate. I come to a dead stop. OK, this better not be some damned Insta!Golem version of Bob who tells me unexpectedly mushy stuff but isn't interested in sex. He laughs at the look on my face. "When's the last time you and Old Stoneface here went flying?" He pats Stone Bob on the shoulder, and the gargoyle turns his head just a little, with an interested cock to his granite ear.

"It has been a while," I admit. The night may be cold, but it's perfectly clear, and the stars and moon are brilliant.

Bob shucks off his coat and puts it around my shoulders. "Go on, then. I'll have some mulled wine for you when you get back." He kissed me again and pushes me towards the gargoyle. "Fly for the ones who can't."

God, connie. Weeping.

Me too.

Me three. damn, connie. Powerful.

This is why I hate the holidays, even in Sang Sacre.The craz(ier) all come out. That's a relative statement in SS and why we like it here...but, Jeez. Everybody at work is still upset about the Santa thing, and there's still the same old everyday stuff, goblins making bogus confessions, and that whole urban legend about a devilbunny plotting to rule the world."But he is," the guy on the street said. "He won't be satisfied until we are all his minions."
"Hey...why don't you go home, sleep it off, and if the bunny knows where Jimmy Hoffa is, come on back."
He has the nerve to look at me like I'm the nut and says, "Promise?"
"Yeah," I say, smiling a little,(It doesn't do for women detectives to be big smilers...don't want a perp thinking he can investigate you) "You don't even need an appointment. How about that?" I feel the first flakes hit my hair...I grew up in the desert many miles from Sang Sacre so every flake feels like a miracle. "You got somewhere to be tonight? It's snowing, you know."
"If I give my freedom to Clovis, he will use his dread majesty to protect me."
"Yeah, well, ok. You take care of yourself." It's crazy, but at least he believes in something, I suppose. But it's a pink bunny. A magical overlord pink bunny...whatever these Clovisites are on, I wish I had it. But I try to imagine Ewan Mcgregor, a kilt, and some merengue instead of Bugs on amphetamines, myself. I give him a card. "Go here if Clovis doesn't come tonight."

Just in passing I'll note that my house/tea room is in Tangley Mews, 23.6 Non-Euclidian Square.

It's a wedge-shaped lot, and tucked into the spot where the Mews borders on Blackwood Parish, Victoria, and The Old Quarter; if I recall it correctly.

Okay, is it wrong of me to want to retcon the map?

Here's the thing. I've been looking at it from the perspective of trying map out how the city grew from it's beginnings to now, and it just seems to me that the current map is in error as to the location of the Old Quarter. It ought to be where The Medina is. Cities as old as Sang Sacre tended to be founded as close to water as possible, either river or sea, preferably both. If we assume that the Old Quarter is the oldest part of the city, then it ought to be at the mouth of the river. I could maybe see it if it were adjacent to the river, where Dalrymple is, except that then the Old Quarter wouldn't be on the Artery, which is ridiculous, because the Artery has always been the main road in Blood, and would naturally connect the oldest part of the city to the rest of the world. The current mapped location almost makes the Old Quarter practically a suburb.

Say the map was, in fact, wrong, then you could chart the growth of the city as:

• Old Quarter;
• Blackwood, Tangly Mews, Dalrymple;
• Central Trade Zone;
• Fong Sai Square, The Medina, Greenwood;
• Victoria, Dogtown, Little Saigon;
• Bresilico, Mission Hostileros, The Flats, Hy-Brasil;
• Van Dyke's Folly

Makes sense to me, DX. Can you rejigger the map? I don't have a copy of it.

Well, maybe we should get a little more input from some of the other residents before we do it. I mean, it COULD just have been a typo. OTOH, if you look on the back of the map, it says published by Aeshma McNally.