Molly vs Kringle

“You cannot take my authority from me without challenge,” he said.  He showed me his teeth.  “This is Winter, after all.”
“I’ll deliver the rest of my things in Chicago before you do,” I said instantly.  “And beat you back here!”
“Hah!” he roared.  “Done!”
He waited for nothing else, seizing the reins of his team and slashing them across the dire beasts’ haunches, sending the team leaping into the air.
“Go!” I shouted to the Unicorn, conveying my Will in the word, and the beast leapt toward the area of greatest density of deliveries still in progress.
I shrieked and drew my Sword (not really a sword, per se, long story) from empty air, and drove forward in a howl of cold and snow and shadow.  I howled my desire and urgency to Winter, drove my sleigh toward them, Sword flashing, sending them hurtling faster about their errands in sheer terror, filling the night with eerie cries.
Meanwhile, Kringle’s sled zoomed through the night sky.  I could hear every time he took off from a new stop—when the air boomed and split as the sled broke the sound barrier on its way into the shadows.
I may have left a few welts and bruises on some of my people while I, ah, encouraged them.  Because while I was on a Christmas mission, I was still working with Winter.  I moved fast.  I was very nearly in several places at once, in fact, the Unicorn and I moved so swiftly, bending the flow of time as best I knew how.  But I was new to temporal magic and the holiday delivery business alike, and Kringle had become immortal on it.
He beat me back to the spot on Michigan avenue by fifty feet, laughing heartily as the unicorn came plunging to a panting, quivering stop parallel to his own exhausted team.
“Close enough,” he boomed.  “Close enough, my Lady.”  And he bowed from the waist.  “Be thou welcome to spread cheer on this night, and on such nights to come.”

Microfiction #6, The Good People