The Venetian Chronicles: Santa Claus

The Venetian Chronicles: Santa Claus
(The camera clicks on showing a booth at the Horned God, directly ahead is a man in his late 60’s who resembles George R.R. Martin with a thicker, whiter  beard, . He is wearing a plaid shirt with suspenders and a pair khaki slacks. As the camera focuses the waitress can be heard taking his order.)
Man: Tea and if you still make it a little bit of the short bread, please.
Yuuko: This is Council envoy Yuuko Shirakawa, agent of the dragon, and historian for the archives in Dublin Ireland. As part of the Chronicles initiative, I am interviewing active agents from the 21st century so that future generations may better understand the context in which events are taking place. This session is being recorded on December 5th 2017  in London England, at the Horned God.
Yuuko: Could you please state your full name, date of birth, affiliation and rank.
Santa Claus: People have many names for me, but to tell you the truth I have none beyond those, I guess if you had to call me something other than Santa Claus, you would call me Nicholas Laplander, as that is the name I chose for myself. There is no exact record of my birth but based on what I can remember it was sometime around 343 of the common era, I think it was in the winter. I’m not currently affiliated with any faction, I have no rank and I plan to stay that way.
Yukko: Can you tell us about your family?
Santa Claus: my forebears were the Norse god Odin, and the Templar Grandmaster Saint Nicholas of Myra. I am currently married to a women named Anwyn, she is anima endowed like many of your friends, During her mortal life she was a Welsh noblewomen, from around the year 410. She fled Wales after her father lost a power struggle with a neighboring clan, her powers awakened shortly their after. I meet her in tavern in what is now Norway, she was traveling north with a band of Templar warriors looking for the lost cities of the North. Many adventures later I asked her to marry me, she accepted and has been Mrs. Claus ever since. Outside of her and the memories of my forebears, I have no “biological” family, but the Elves that are drawn to the fragments of Odin are much like family to me as are the reindeer and of course the children of the world.
Yuuko: Where did you grow up?
Santa Claus: I awakened, I think 2, maybe 3 days after the battle of Lapland, I think, springing forth from the void is a disorienting thing as you can imagine (laughs to self). So the short answer to your question is northern Europe, and Lapland in particular.
Yuuko: How would you describe your childhood?
Santa Claus: For the first few years of my life I wandered the lands of northern Europe, more or less picking up where Saint Nicholas had left off, I remembered his life and what he had been doing prior to the battle, but I couldn't quite bring myself to continue the work of the order. The Things I remembered from Odin were more practical, but they felt more Alien to me, being able to dodge arrows, disarm thieves, and wield a sword are all useful skills when traveling across the outskirts of civilization, but at the same time they were unnerving to me when I would use them I would become uncontrollably angry and then unbearably sad afterwards. my dreams were plagued by memories of battles that he or rather I had participated in. The discipline that Nicholas had learned in the monastery though help me learn to control my emotions and the powers I had inherited from both. Nicholas's memories were less disturbing than Odin's, I remember his parents, his time at the monastery and his adventures with the Templar. Whenever he was in battle he didn't feel the same kind of blood lust that Odin felt, for him it was more a chore, something he had to do and was able to distance himself from, being able to channel that feeling helped me much in my early years. The one thing from his memories that stood out the most to me were the little acts of kindness he had performed throughout his life, the sharing of food with beggars, inviting wanderers to share his fire, and the “little miracles” he had performed for children with his anima, these memories invoked a more comforting feeling, and I sought to emulate these same acts of kindness, and I guess that's where it all started. (A waitress places a cup of tea and plate of cookies next to Santa) Oh, thank you dear.
Yuuko: How were you first introduced to the secret world?
Santa Claus: I guess you would say I was born into it (laughs out loud), but seriously after my formation my anima began attracting cryptids, one of “my” earliest memories is of being attacked by trolls in Lapland. I was also ambushed by Phoenician raiders and an Illuminati hedge witch. It was only when I arrived in Constantinople, that Templar began to help me make sense of things, and even then that went south when they discovered I had fragments of a god with in me. As for Nicholas he was recruited into the Templar by the church through his study of the occult while he was at the monastery and Odin is a bit hazier, I remember bits and pieces from that time but I still can't make sense off it.
Yuuko: Did you have any contact (either directly or indirectly) with your society before your powers awakened?
Santa Claus: Yes, in the sense that Nicholas had already come into contact with them before I formed. I first came into contact with the Templar after a magi in Constantinople who had studied under Nicholas recognized his anima, the order was…divided on how to handle me and the conflict around it ultimately caused me to decide to remain neutral, but that is a story for another day.
Yuuko: A lot of people are a little confused on your relationship to St. Nicholas, would you care to clarify?
Santa Claus: Put simply I was created from the remnants of his anima, Saint Nicholas of Myra was a Templar Grandmaster who slayed the norse god odin and in the process they destroyed each other. The destruction of their respective anima forms was so complete that even the Bees were not able to put them back together and when they attempted to do so, the end result was me.
Yuuko: In the past some have criticized you for giving toy weapons, and violent video games to children, would you like to respond to these criticisms.
Santa Claus: (rolls eyes) I have been getting this criticism for centuries now, I could go into a long lecture about the psychology of play and how violence is more closely associated with violent behaviors modeled by the adults in the child's life but then we would be here all day, so instead I would like to say to those criticisms, rather than ask if it is right to give a child a toy weapon, perhaps we should be asking what it says about society that children want them...and maybe those who are doing the criticizing can stand to loosen up a bit. (reaching over to pat Yuuko's hand) Sorry to fly off the handle like that, I know you are only trying to get an accurate portrait and you are doing a wonderful job so far.
Yuuko: It's long been reported that you live at the north pole, has global warming affected your operation at all?
Santa Claus: It's true a portion of my operation is based in the arctic, in particular most of the workshop is built around the ruins of the city of Murias, though as the polar ice caps shrink we have had to move more and more of our operation into Niflheim where there is more solid ground and that comes with its own challenges. However as the caps thaw we may be able to gain access to the ruins of the other lost cities of the north and depending on what we find, we may be able to move our operations back to this plane of reality.
Yuuko: Can you tell us what a normal day looks like for you?
Santa Claus: My day to day life isn't very exciting but most days go like this. I wake up around 8:00am, I have breakfast with Anwyn and then catch up on the news for about half an hour before making my way to the workshop. There, Zeeker (the elf who is currently director of operations), goes over the list of things that need to get done for that day, most of it is pretty boring, renegotiating supply chains, overseeing equipment upgrades, talking with R&D about upcoming products, this takes up most of the morning, and then I go home and have lunch with Anwyn. The afternoon, is spent with human resources and production, examining our staffing levels and planning how many temps we will need to bring on as we ramp up production for the year, after that I go out and speak with our head vet about the status of the herd and our trainer about how everyone is performing. Then finally I head over to production and check out supply levels, and check in with the staff to make sure everything's running smoothly and to place orders with outside vendors for any supplies we may need. I try to be done with all of this by about 7:30pm at which point I head home to join Anwyn for dinner and whatever show we are binge watching that week.
Yuuko: You sound like a busy man, do you ever rest?
Santa Claus: I do from time to time, mostly during the spring and summer months, but you know how things go, your on vacation a text comes in and soon you are working again. These damn phones are both the best and worst thing to ever happened to civilization (laughs to self)
Yuuko: The Swoboda Film has achieved cult status among many conspiracy theorist, could you explain exactly what happened that fateful Christmas eve.
Santa Claus: 1973 was the first year Neeka (our current head of field operations) was in charge of operations in North America and it was absolute chaos (gently laughing). She came to field operations from public relations after completing a masters in logistics and was learning as she went, but she ultimately got us through that year (the first of many miracles she would pull off). Anyway, Iowa took longer than usual due to an error in our shipping manifest (the famous list) that had to be corrected on the fly, so when I got to Nebraska I was trying to make up for lost time, the western US is always much harder than the east due to the low population density so I was trying to get that lost time back so I would have a buffer when I started in Kansas. When I came down that chimney I was all business, I checked the manifest dropped off the cargo, shoved some of Mrs. Swoboda's gingerbread in my pocket and turned to go back up the chimney. It was only when I was leaving that I noticed the trip wire and the camera, I considered taking the film with me, but I simply didn't have time and so I let clay have the tape, and that is the story behind the infamous Swoboda Film.
Yuuko: Has your work for your society ever brought you into contact with anyone who would be considered historically significant (world leaders, celebrities, scientist and engineers.)
Santa Claus: All the time, I have come into contact, with famous musicians, scientist, actors, artist, and known most of them since they were children. One of the things I like the most about being immortal is the perspective it grants you on human nature, you meet some children and you can tell that they are destined to change the world in some way...now whether those changes are good things or bad things depends a lot on the child.
Yuuko: Have you ever seen an event reported in the media and known that it was a lie and if so can you tell us what really happened?
Santa Claus: All the time, you could fill entire libraries with the things I have seen that didn't happen the way they were reported. I think my favorites though would be the disinformation campaign put together by the council to cover up my existence, if only because it lets me walk around in public, I am getting a little tired of seeing that old spy magazine article in my feed though.
Yuuko: What was the last event you can remember that shook both the secret world and the mundane equally?
Santa Claus: (sighs)....the bomb in Kaidan is the one that immediately comes to mind, though the election of Donald Trump in America also seems to have upset both worlds equally.
Yuuko: Have you ever participated in an event considered historically important to the mundane world and if so was it on behalf of your society?
Santa Claus: Not directly no, I have been in a few historical places, primarily battlefields in different wars, refugee camps, different hospitals during epidemics. Sadly I don't think I changed much in those situations, I was able to offer comfort but that was about it.
Yuuko: I am sorry to end on a down note, but it seems appropriate to ask with current state of the world. Could you please explain how you handle war?
Santa Claus: As best as I can, I make it a point to visit places where people are in need the most, I bring water, food, medicine and of course the creature comforts we all take for granted. It may not be much but sometimes, a soccer ball or stuffed reindeer can be a life preserver for those children undergoing the unthinkable.
Yuuko: Thank you for taking the time to speak with us Santa. I am sorry again about ending on a sad note.
Santa Claus: (reaching over to hug Yuuko) You don't have to be sorry my dear, it's important that these things get recorded for posterity. Do be sure to take your parents to see the nutcracker when you are in Pairs, it’s absolutely stunning this year, and send my love to Connar and Tuk as well. Now if you'll excuse me I must get back to Lula, she thinks I am in the bathroom.
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