Friday, December 13, 2019

Mystic Christmas Prologue Part 2

The story picks back up at around the same time with Tomte yelling out his sauna suggestion. The rest of the students are baffled by this choice, and Yule asks if he means the thing everyone thinks about when you say the word sauna. Krampus thinks he is, but he also questions doing a sauna at the Santa Sendoff Ceremony. Ded however prompts Tomte to go on.

Tomte apparently has regained enough of his memories to say that his home world held saunas as sacred places, which is the connection he’s using to relate it to Christmas. He also starts going into a rant about how great saunas are. Blood circulation improvement! Improvement against cold sensitivity! Fatigue recovery and other health benefits!

Tomte starts stepping towards Ded as he babbles about other sauna things. A dry sauna that works better after a cold bath. A loyly sauna using steam from water poured onto a sauna stone. Also you could go into one after covering yourself in salt. He pesters Ded to go with him to one since Ded’s complained about back pain lately, and Ded tells him to stop getting any closer while comparing his pushiness to White Ded.

Girl A decided to support the idea since she’s starting to feel like going to one. Krampus agrees saying he likes that sensation of sweating it out and having a coffee milk afterwards. Wolf B mentions there are some beastmen who aren’t suited to saunas, but he likes them. Yule says it sucks for animals that can’t regulate their temperatures, but beastmen like them find saunas charming.

Tomte asks the room at large if they want to go, and pretty much everyone says they do. Ded says it’s pretty good for a random idea and totally the sort of thing Tomte would come up with. He notes that freshening up before the main event would help everyone do their best for the big night. He’s about to say more when Tomte guesses if he’s going to say it’s still not enough to work as a program.

Tomte says he doesn’t think it’ll be a problem, saying saunas have three principles to them just like Santas do. Yule asks about them in surprise, so Tomte talks about how saunas have three things that you need to do them properly. Those would be the sauna itself, the cold bath, and the air bath. When you heat up in a sauna, you take a cold bath afterwards to bring it back down and rest. That’s when your body feels right, and Tomte hopes everyone can experience it. And with so many people around they’ll need an appropriately big facility.

Tomte also adds that some people think there’s merit in having a mixed hot and cold bath to adjust your autonomic nerves. Ded admits that doing all this would make things into a big to-do thing. About the only thing left for it would be appointing someone to be in charge, and he asks if Tomte can do it if they choose to go with saunas.

Tomte agrees to do it if saunas are chosen, and he mentions being really excited at the idea of looking after so many people. Yule says it’s an exciting idea and would never have come up with it himself. Krampus is quiet, which Yule notices and tries to ask about.

Some time later, Ded says that everyone agrees to do the sauna. Tomte is chosen to be the executive head, and Ded tells him to contact the school cohosting so they can get things ready. Tomte confidently agrees, so Ded says the other members should wait for Tomte’s instructions. Ded ends the meeting there and leaves, though before he goes out the door he tells Tomte to come to his office later so he can be punished for falling asleep during the meeting.

Time skips again as Krampus talks to Tomte and asks if he’s really going to lead the planning committee. Tomte confirms it and asks what’s wrong as he compares Krampus’s expression to someone challenging the enemy’s top brass. Krampus says anyone would look serious in that situation, but anyways he points out Tomte is busiest during the prepping for Christmas. Tomte doesn’t answer.

Yule finds Krampus making a point of asking this to be odd, but he refrains from saying so out loud. He does wonder why that would come up though. Krampus starts thanking Tomte for making it so that he can relax before heading off on Christmas night. He then points out that Tomte has to be tired to be sleeping while standing, and that planning the saunas on top of all that is pushing it too hard.

Tomte apologizes and says he can’t let go of looking after people. He swears as the Santa School’s good kid top breeder to take care of everyone’s physical and mental health. He regards making everyone into healthy good children as his personal mission.

Krampus thinks on that and is about to say something else when some popping sounds interrupt, surprising him and Yule. The classroom door opens as Christmas Evils pop in as they were the ones to make that noise. Krampus asks them about it, and Yule says it’s unusual for them to not be playing in Ded’s office. Tomte agrees and asks what they’re doing.

Tanngrisnir walks in and says he brought them with him. He thanks everyone for their work at the meeting before offering them stew. Yule thanks him back and accepts the stew, which Tanngrisnir says is a white stew with salmon. Krampus is surprised that Tanngrisnir brought the Christmas Evils with him before also accepting the stew. Then he expresses surprise at how big the cuts of salmon are.

Tanngrisnir says that when he was done cooking it all together in the office kitchen, he saw the Evils playing train there. They were looking for Tomte but got lost, and Tomte pats them on the head. Time skips a little as the guys all eat, and Yule comments that stew with bread is the best. Tomte comments on liking thick foods but says milk porridge is good too.

Tanngrisnir comments on having heard that Tomte will be leading the main program for the Santa Sendoff Ceremony. Tomte comments on how quickly he heard about that and asks how he found that out. Tanngrisnir answers that Ded told him earlier when he passed by him a floor below.

Tomte remembers that he was supposed to go to Ded’s office to get his punishment, and Krampus says that sounds wrong out of context. Tomte doesn’t see what’s so wrong about it and says he likes it and will gladly take it for his own good. Krampus says he’s making it worse.

Anyways Tomte tells the Evils to come with him and says he’ll look after them along the way. Then he excuses himself. After he leaves, Tanngrisnir comments on how much Tomte likes looking after others and how busy he is before Christmas. Yule then tries to ask Tanngrisnir about Tomte.

Time skips a little, and Yule asks about the distinction between good children and bad children. Tanngrisnir says that presently, it’s Tomte’s job to figure that out. Good children get presents from Santa Claus while bad children get coal thrown at them by Black Santa, and the top class Santa Ded Moroz is the only one who can do both at the same time.

Krampus says that for them who can only do one or the other, things are done based on preliminary investigation. Yule asks if Tomte does that all by himself in surprise. Krampus figures that Yule never did know and says that’s why Tomte is so busy this time of year. Yule said he did think it was strange his list was all good kids but didn’t realize Tomte played a part in that.

Tanngrisnir says it’s hard for someone strong to continually hold on to everything, so the rest of them have to at least understand and complement each other. The current Santa system came together through lots of people working together, and he asks Yule and Krampus to remember that.

Scene shifts over to Ded’s office, and Ded says he’s looked over the list Tomte put together. He’s done well to categorize everyone right. Ded also comments that he thought there’s been no problems up until he saw the data. Tomte initially thinks he made a mistake somewhere, but Ded says he did his job perfectly as always.

Ded takes another look at the papers before mentioning that there are far too many bad children popping up. Tomte asks if there’s a cause for that, but Ded doesn’t answer. When prompted again, Ded says it’s fine if Tomte doesn’t have a guess as to why this is and was just asking.

Anyways, Ded says he’ll be looking into this situation and says he must be overthinking it. Tomte offers to help, but Ded laughs as he declines saying Tomte has enough going on. He’s got his breeder job, his good kid/bad kid investigations, the program planning, and then there’s the students going on the Christmas run itself.

Tomte still insists on wanting to help since he owes Ded. Ded is surprised by this, though before he says much else he talks out loud about White wanting to switch places and tries to argue against it at this point of the discussion. White Ded then asks about how Tomte is doing and comments on how he’s always looking after others.

Tomte apologizes for making him worry and says he’s fine. He also asks White to not get mad at Black as he says he’s just doing what he’s doing because he wants to. Not looking after people makes him anxious since he feels like it’ll cut off his connections to others. Ded goes quiet at that.

After a moment, Ded asks Tomte to listen to him. He assures him that they have a strong connection even if he can’t see it yet. He doesn’t need to be so desperate about this, so Ded advises him to relax and really consider what it is he wants to do. Tomte has to think about this, so Ded suggests he hand out presents this year since he’s never done it before.

Tomte starts talking about how he feels his role is to help and look after Santa Claus for helping him. He feels he’ll probably keep doing the background work since he doesn’t feel like becoming Santa. Ded seems sad for a bit but smiles as he apparently accepts it, and narration says he goes on to hug Tomte before ending the episode part.

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