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The last thing Wonwoo remembered was that he fell from a height of twenty thousand feet and hurtled towards earth at gaining speeds. That was before everything grew dark.
Now he couldn’t fathom why he’s still alive — although admittedly he’s more resilient than normal folk. Huddled before a merry fire, Wonwoo listened to the mellow tunes that Jisoo hummed. He kept glancing at him, in awe at how the Elf wove his magic around them, forming a protective enchantment with his voice.
Elves are awesome.
He’d only read about their kind before; now he’s in the company of one. While it’s a mystery how he came to be who-knows-how-far from home, Wonwoo was glad he didn’t end up crashing in the Arctic.
Or he could be dead — and Jisoo was Wonwoo’s dream of the afterlife. The only thing that made him discard that conclusion was his sleigh next to them, albeit a little worse for wear.
“We are safe now,” Jisoo said, recalling his attention. “And with safety, we have time.”
“Time?”
“For you to tell me about yourself,” the Elf smiled, eyes and mouth both. “Now that you are in my keeping, I wish to know about you. A pity you cannot say how you have come to be outside the borders of our kingdom; that alone should cause me to distrust you. But I perceive no ill-will from you, Wonwoo, try as I might.”
“Believe me, I mean no one harm.”
“I believe you,” Jisoo assured him. “My instincts all point towards helping you. And I will. All I ask is you hide nothing.”
“It’s difficult, you see, to explain when one is… uncertain of how things came to be,” Wonwoo attempted. “I really don’t remember how I got here — but I can tell you about myself. And I will. I do need your help and have no reason to hide anything.”
Jisoo smiled again, and Wonwoo thought he was breathtaking. He caught sight of the pointed leaf-like shape of Jisoo’s ear when the latter turned to tend the fire, and Wonwoo was reminded of how he was supposed to start talking about himself.
“Sorry,” Wonwoo muttered when Jisoo caught him staring. “It’s just… I’ve never seen an Elf before,” he explained, pulling off his (pointed) dark green knit cap to free a floofy mop of dark curls and reveal similarly pointed ears, “even though I’m one myself.”
“Are we kinsmen?” Jisoo gasped, delighted. He reached for the cap in Wonwoo’s hand, curious of the oddness of it.
Humoring him, Wonwoo handed it for inspection. “I don’t believe we are,” he admitted, “but it makes me wonder why I’ve always been the tallest elf in the workshop.”
“Oh, but we must be,” was the insistence. “Where is your home?”
“Off the north coast of Greenland?”
“Greenland? Do you mean Greenwood the Great?”
“No, just Greenland.”
Jisoo paused in contemplation. “Is this Greenland far?”
“I… I believe so, yes.”
Narrowing his eyes, the Elf spoke in a language Wonwoo didn’t understand. Jisoo tried again, this time differently, and was puzzled when the other “elf” continued frowning at him.
“No… I’m not from… Valinor,” he then guessed, barely making out that one word. “Was that what you’re trying to ask?”
Jisoo brightened. “But you understood! You must have been sent by the Valar from the West.”
“I didn’t — !” Wonwoo hissed, frantic. He sighed. “No, I’m not — I’m from the North Pole,” he said in resignation.
The Elf gasped again, this time alarmed. “The Northern Waste!”
“The. North. Pole.” Wonwoo gritted through his teeth.
This set Jisoo in defense, noting the stress in his tone. “Elven you may look, and beautiful as you are… yet you are stranger than I thought. Perhaps I ought to spare myself the trouble and release you from my keeping —”
“Jisoo, wait, don’t —”
Wonwoo made the mistake of grabbing Jisoo by the arm. A moment’s tussle ensued before he was pinned to the ground, a knife against his throat. Frozen, he was too afraid to even allow himself to gulp lest the blade cut into his skin.
“You cannot even fight back,” Jisoo marveled.
“I’m not built for fighting,” Wonwoo admitted. “I’ve got… strength to carry a sack of gifts for children and could climb chimneys up and down… but that’s it.”
“Our people once had a fair stranger come to them. He called himself Annatar, Lord of Gifts —”
“Seriously, you can’t be accusing me now of being Sauron —”
“You know his name —!”
Exasperated, Wonwoo leveled Jisoo with a gaze. “Look, children generally have no interest in rings of power. And I have no such thing with me, I swear. Search my sleigh, my knapsack is there and there’s zero enchantment — maybe way too much tinsel, I’ll admit — what are you doing?”
Instead of climbing off him, Jisoo leaned downwards, his face inching closer to Wonwoo’s by the second. “Perhaps there is none in your knapsack but there is, undoubtedly, much enchantment coming from you alone,” he said darkly before capturing Wonwoo’s lips in his.
Oh, what the hell.
Wonwoo may not be built for fighting but he certainly could hold against an Elf when it came to acting on desire. For a while, they kissed. Wonwoo hardly noticed where Jisoo’s knife went — he only realized it was gone after he rolled on top of him.
Wonwoo kissed him again, and they learned much about each other soon after.
“Why have you got a sleigh?” Jisoo asked later as they cuddled by the fire.
“In my world, there’s this feast called Christmas,” Wonwoo answered. “It’s my job to bring gifts to children from Jolly Old Saint Nick. He used to do all that by himself but since I’m tall enough to drive a sleigh —”
“What’s wrong?”
“My reindeer,” Wonwoo gasped. “We’ve got to find them, Jisoo.”
“If your deer are anything like ours then they should already be in the safekeeping of this forest.”
“Really?”
“Indeed.”
Wonwoo thought for a moment, then shrugged. “Ho-ho-ho, I suppose.”
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