Tales of the Ice Harpy from Glacia

It had been a fun night, with parties and drinking, but a little thing like an evening full of alcohol couldn't stop her from bounding out of bed.

Today was the first day of Windsol--well, for her anyway. Never mind that Kaeleer had celebrated it weeks ago.

It had been very difficult for her not to open the chest that had arrived with her honey-pear tree. But if she'd gone tearing into it then, she wouldn't have had anything to open on the thirteen nights of Windsol. So she'd been very, very good.

Mostly by dint of vanishing the chest and refusing to call it back in until this very morning.

Karla knelt in front of the open chest and took out a gift. Beneath the wrapping paper was a long mahogany box, with the Bernard's sigil carved into the lid. Bernard was the preeminent jeweler in Amdarh. He'd designed and crafted her wings, as well as Emma's earrings, Dinah's bracelet, and Triela's cufflinks. She was curious what someone could have gotten for her there.

Inside the box was a note, scripted in an elegant hand:

Dearest Karla,

Though you're still some time away from setting up your own Court, I assume you're already giving it a great deal of thought. To that end, I commissioned Bernard to create several possible designs for your future Rings of Honor. You don't have to chose any of them, of course, but I thought it might get you thinking about what, exactly, you would like for your rings.

Happy Windsol,

Uncle Saetan.

Under the note were five different rings, all made from white gold. All five were handsome, if rather austere in their design. And all five were much, much too large to fit on a male's finger.

[Post open!!! So, so open! Bwahahahaha]

The knock on the door hadn't surprised Karla; with people leaving for break and her messages yesterday, she was half-expecting more people to drop by. It was the person at the door who surprised her: Thaddeus, one of the males who worked at the post office.

"Special Delivery," he said, giving her a glower. "This here is for you." In his hands was a small, potted tree. Hanging from the boughs were delicate greenish-gold fruits Karla instantly recognized.

"Honey-pears!" she squealed, clapping her hands with delight. She reached out to take the tree, cradling the pot gently in her arms. "A real, live honey-pear tree! Thank you, Thaddeus!"

Thaddeus's scowl remained firmly fixed in place, even in the face of Karla's holiday cheer. "So's the rest of this," he said, jerking his thumb behind him. Confused, Karla stood on tiptoe to look over his shoulder...at a veritable mountain of boxes. They took up all of the hallway up to several feet behind him.

"Urm..." she said, eyes wide. She'd known she'd gone a little crazy on the online-jungle site, but she hadn't thought she'd bought this much...

Thaddeus didn't appear to be concerned about Karla's wide-eyed trepidation. He just began hoisting things up and bringing them into her room. The first load was a large cedar chest that could only have come from Kaeleer, but the rest were all small cardboard boxes in large plastic bags. By the time he was carrying in his third bag, Karla had gotten her act together and started her own haul.

Joy turned to befuddlement when she set her tree down next to her desk. Out of the branches fell a CD. Odd, and definitely not anything she'd ever ordered. "Thaddeus," she said, turning around with the CD, "I don't think this is mine." She glanced at the name on the boxes that Thaddeus had just dropped at her feet. "Nor is my name Lorna Glass. And I certainly don't live in Scranton, Ohio. Not all of these are mine."

It took them almost twenty minutes to find and sort her boxes from the three or four other shipments they had gotten caught up with, none of which belonged to Fandom residents. Eventually, Thaddeus was loaded back up with all of the misshipped boxes and sent on his way. He didn't appear any happier leaving than he had when he'd arrived.

"Wait!" Karla called, noticing a small box that had gotten lost behind her tree. "There's another--"

"Keep it!" Thaddeus snapped. "I'm off the clock!"

Shrugging, Karla opened the box. Inside were two books, Opening Atlantis and The Breath of God. How very odd. What was she going to do with two Turtledoves and a Partridge Family CD in her pear tree?

[Establishy!]