Published December 12, 2016
Though humans saw them as reindeer, in the North Pole, they looked just like ordinary people. Well, maybe with the exception of the horns sprouting from their heads and the fact that they didn’t need to wear coats or scarves to protect them from the cold.
At the moment, a crowd of people stood at the take-off area in the North Pole, watching the night sky, waiting. The stars shimmered brightly in the darkness. Lamp posts glowed in the streets of Northtown, the city of the reindeer. Doors were decorated with wreaths and bells to welcome the Sleigh’s return.
At the front of the crowd, a mother stood, one hand upon each of her two sons’ shoulders. One boy was slightly taller than the other, with a round body and eyes that shone the color of his father’s reindeer nose. The other boy had a medium build and jagged black hair like his mother. His eyes were a dark, purplish-black. A woman wearing a turtleneck sweater strolled up to the family.
“Any word yet, Clarice?” she asked the mother.
“No, not yet, Crystal,” Clarice said. “They’re taking longer than usual.”
“A delay, maybe? Master Claus might have had trouble climbing through some chimneys,” Crystal suggested with a smile.
“Don’t let the Master hear you say that,” warned Clarice. “It’s not his fault he’s...overweight. The humans demand it.”
“I guess,” Crystal said with a shrug.
“Mom, I’m bored,” the chubby boy suddenly whined. “Can we go back inside?”
“A little longer, Robbie.” Clarice patted Robbie’s shoulder. “Daddy will be home soon.”
She glanced at her other son. Tag stood silently next to Robbie, watching the black sky. He felt Clarice’s eyes on him and looked up.
“Ready to meet your father?” Clarice asked him hopefully.
“No,” Tag said shortly and turned his gaze back towards the sky.
Clarice sighed.
Tag’s arrival had been...unexpected. A year after they’d had Robbie, Tag came along. He had been quiet since he was a child and, as the years went by, more frustrating. He never hung out with the Northtown kids but rather with the Darkwood gangs. Northtown and Darkwood had always been rivals. During the reindeer transformation test, Clarice found that Tag’s nose was not a brilliant red like Robbie’s and Rudolph’s, but a sinister dark purple instead. The people of Northtown always regarded Tag with looks of suspicion and fear.
A bell suddenly broke through the crisp night air, ringing in Clarice’s ears. She squeezed each of her sons’ shoulders and looked up at the sky with the rest of the crowd.
“He’s coming,” she whispered. “They’re home.”
Slowly, shapes began to form in the distance, speeding closer and closer to Northtown. As the sleigh drew nearer, she made out reindeer horns and heard the jingling of bells strapped to the reins.
“Mom, where’s the red nose?” Robbie asked, staring up his mother in confusion.
Clarice squinted. The usual red glow of her husband’s nose was missing. Her heart began to beat rapidly.
The reindeer broke away from their reins and landed in the soft white snow. Slowly, their back hooves began to shape themselves into feet, the front hooves into hands. Their bodies grew a little smaller and took the form of human torsos. Their noses shrank back to create human faces, the skin tone changing to match that of the human. One by one, reindeer morphed into the familiar people of Northtown. But one face was missing.
“Mom, where’s Daddy?” Robbie asked again. Clarice didn’t answer. Annoyed that he was being ignored, Robbie shouted, “I want Daddy!”
Clarice noticed that all the people back from the Christmas journey had guarded, wary looks. A few bore scratches on their arms and bruises on their faces. Clarice’s heartbeat quickened.
She hurried towards one of the men back from the journey. He saw her coming and shifted nervously on his feet.
“Where’s Rudolph?” she asked, her eyes searching the man’s face. He looked away.
“Clarice,” a familiar deep voice sounded behind her. She froze, then slowly turned.
“M-Master Claus,” she greeted him. His red hat was flopped to one side and his face was flushed as red as his clothes. “Do you know where Rudolph is?”
Santa Claus stared at Clarice for a moment. Then he slowly reached for his hat and took it off, revealing a sea of white hair. He held it before him and looked down at the snowy ground.
“Rudolph,” he said gently, “is gone.”
“Gone?” Clarice repeated. “What do you mean?”
Santa looked up and his eyes met hers. He swallowed.
“There was a fight on the way back. Darkwoods intercepted us, took us by surprise.” Claus looked away. “Rudolph led us bravely.”
“No,” Clarice whispered. She searched her Master’s face.
“No,” she repeated when she found no sign of a lie. “This...he can’t...but….” The tears flowed freely and she slumped onto the ground in defeat.
Tag watched his mother kneeling on the ground, sobbing. Wish I’d been there, he thought wistfully. He glanced at his watch. I could have taken care of Father a lot quicker than that….
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140,788 Literary Works • 673,688 Reviews
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...Rudolph the Reindeer fanfic?
...****, sure. Why not? I'm on board.
You know I honestly kind of scanned through this and looked at your profile image and was all "man this is gonna suuuuck lol" But it didn't, actually? I mean, I have absolutely no context to what's going on, but dat imagery yo. Mmmmhmm! It was actually kind of funny, the image I had in my head was this super dark, foreboding forest and whipping wind that was all sad; and yet I had this kind of goofy smile on my face as I was reading it, 'cos the concept's just so crazy. And then I had to re-read it because okay Rudolph the reindeer fanfic I guess this exists.
But you managed to pull off what quite a few stories I've been reading haven't been able to do; draw me into a world worth exploring. The (fucking bizarre) names of the people (I mean what? Tag? ****in' Clarice?), and the way they talk to one another--like, how the kids are actually kids and exist and need to be treated like real people, and the way they talk about Santa's weight, and the way Hello I'm Evil is introduced is just kinda great! It all implies this world and characters beyond just what I'm seeing here, as opposed to another story I read the other day that spent at least twice as much text establishing the plot, and I still didn't give a **** about the two main characters.
So... uh. Yeah! Nice. I was expecting this to be kind of like Angsty McEdgelord Rudolph, which it totally is (even if Rudolph apparently wasn't in it for very long), but it's got actual characters and a world that seems interesting! Keep it up, dude.
Hey NightKaizer, here for a Review Day review,
First Impressions: (You said I should read this first, before the second part, so figured I should listen.)
Positives:
Lol, I thought "Master Clause" was so funny. If you wanted it to be, then it worked great.
I love to see it when others use the method of isolation to further their point and make something seem a bit more important than the rest. It's important, and should be used more often, in my opinion.
Negatives:
There's my rendition, which I think will give you a good idea of what I mean. But it was just me typing my thoughts in the moment, so don't take it 100% seriously.
Overall:UBER original concept that I've definitely never seen used before. Good on that, and your delivery is pretty smooth and simple, making it easy to read.
I give it:
Hey there, NightKaizer! I'm going to review part 2 so I better have a quick read of part 1 first. The name sounds exciting!
Though humans saw them as reindeer, in the North Pole, they looked just like ordinary people.
Woah. So they're like centaurs but the other way around? Okay, my comparison was lame- they're nothing like centaurs. I think your imagination is awesome and you've done such a good job at describing them. I can imagine them perfectly, right down to that turtle-neck sweater.
“Ready to meet your father?” Clarice asked him hopefully.
I'm just wondering if he's somehow meeting his father for the first time, because that's what it sounds like. If he's not, maybe reword it to 'see your father again' or something similar.
“Mom, where’s the red nose?” Robbie asked, staring up his mother in confusion.
You did a great job of showing and not telling. This is a great example of that.
I LOVE THIS STORY you are so creative!!! I'm going straight to part 2.
Hi NightKaizer,
i think your title is very intriguing. As soon as I read it, I was lured in, and immediately wanted to read more. I also like how you started it off with a sort of summary/description. Sorry OreosAreLife, I took your first two points! Lol!
But anyway, the whole thing about the human reindeers, and the evil reindeers and the evil son is, well quite interesting, and different, I mean, you don't normally find an evil human reindeer in the movies! But it is good that you have based it on almost a dark side of Christmas.
It is very original.
maybe next time, you can make a more realistic story.
Overall though, this is a good story, keep making more,
ElegantEgt
Hey Hey?
How are you? Ready for a review?
So, first of all it took me a while to get into it. I was a bit confused. Human reindeers? What? And then I WAS BASICALLY OBVIOUSLY YES HUMAN REINDEERS.
And the son? He's evil? What's up with all these evil reeindeers? POOR CLARICE.
I don't know how much of a review this is or more a OMG I LOVE IT type of thing. haahahha. Hope you don't mind.
Mostly I just have questions about these people? Those pregnancy for reindeers is 222 days and reindeers can go running straight away? Or is just everything the same and they just get the ability to morph?
Also why do these Darkwoods hate santa? And the other reindeers?
If you did not see this from the beginning, I really really like this.
Love
Lau
Hey NightKaizer, it's Oreos here for a review!
First off, I think your title is intriguing. It made me want to read this. I like how you start off your story with a description. It makes everything make sense and fills the reader in on everything. I also like they way you make the reindeer humans, with a little modifications. I think it was clever how you did that! I also like the rivalry between the Northtown and Darkwood it really brings out the conflict. And the fact that you had Tag hang with them instead of the Northtown children was awesome. It really says something about him, that and the fact of his appearance. It made things clear on where he stood in the story. The ending just blew me away though. I was not expecting Tag to think what he thought. It was funny to me in a way, but also amazing how he could think that about his own Father. Overall think you did an incredible job writing this and I would love to read what comes next! Keep writing and I hope to read more of your work in the future!
Oreos
Hey NightKaizer, it's Oreos here for a review!
First off, I think your title is intriguing. It made me want to read this. I like how you start off your story with a description. It makes everything make sense and fills the reader in on everything. I also like they way you make the reindeer humans, with a little modifications. I think it was clever how you did that! I also like the rivalry between the Northtown and Darkwood it really brings out the conflict. And the fact that you had Tag hang with them instead of the Northtown children was awesome. It really says something about him, that and the fact of his appearance. It made things clear on where he stood in the story. The ending just blew me away though. I was not expecting Tag to think what he thought. It was funny to me in a way, but also amazing how he could think that about his own Father. Overall think you did an incredible job writing this and I would love to read what comes next! Keep writing and I hope to read more of your work in the future!
Oreos
Hey NightKaizer, it's Oreos here for a review!
First off, I think your title is intriguing. It made me want to read this. I like how you start off your story with a description. It makes everything make sense and fills the reader in on everything. I also like they way you make the reindeer humans, with a little modifications. I think it was clever how you did that! I also like the rivalry between the Northtown and Darkwood it really brings out the conflict. And the fact that you had Tag hang with them instead of the Northtown children was awesome. It really says something about him, that and the fact of his appearance. It made things clear on where he stood in the story. The ending just blew me away though. I was not expecting Tag to think what he thought. It was funny to me in a way, but also amazing how he could think that about his own Father. Overall think you did an incredible job writing this and I would love to read what comes next! Keep writing and I hope to read more of your work in the future!
Oreos