“Imagine how Rynold would react seeing all of these guys” I added as a huge wet nose was pushed into my chest as I laughed a little, scratching the snout of a massive reindeer in front of me. I was trying my best to keep myself from gagging or being slightly nauseated from the intense scent of the stables we were in.

“Oh, they would be furious” Viktoria added, sitting on the half-wall of the stable, “Most people don’t really want to visit here.”

“Why?”

“The smell mainly” she added with a shrug as she softly swung her feet, “I mean, there’s five dozen reindeer around here, all the hay, the fireplaces and everything does not make the best of air freshener.”

“So, who’s this one? Comet or Cupid?”

“Oh, those are titles” she added as she hopped off the wall, “This way” she added as she led me down a small hall, the stable was this massive maybe five or so story tall building with these hanging giant ornaments from the ceiling, some filled with crackling fire, others packed with carrots, hay or other foodstuff for the reindeer, all the ornaments ornately decorated as some of the reindeer flew about to get things from them. These massive candy cane pillars marked the wall rising up to the huge glass domed roof, large stalls looped around the multiple floors where all of the various reindeer were kept, the floors had this huge open section in the center where the ornaments passed by, matching candy-cane and gingerbread railing, marble floor with pastel toned chocolate stones underfoot, the walls and curved sections of the roofs of the pathways above looked like they were made of gingerbread, lanterns and sconces of colorful sugar glass floating about or hanging on the wall. She led me down this wide hallway that led to one of the other buildings of the expansive complex, there were a dozen or so very large black-white photos on the wall in ornate frames. “These are the original ones: Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Dunder and Blixem.”

“Who and who?” I asked for the last two

“Oh, they were auxiliary reindeer” she said, “Anyways, sense they passed, we have turned their names into a title instead, all of the reindeer have their own names and when they are lashed to the sleigh, the harness sections they get are titled after all of these guys” she added softly tapping the wall, “Donner and Blitzen came from the original two, it was some kind of typo or something between languages. There is another set too” she added motioning to the line below, “Racer and Pacer, Fearless and Peerless, Ready and Steady, Freckless and Speckless…these two sets would trade year by year, one year this team would pull and the next would be the first set.”

“What about Rudolph?” I asked, she laughed at that before pointing down the hall, where the hall branched off was a large golden reindeer statue with a glowing red ornament for its nose.

“He was an incredible reindeer according to Dad, incredibly sweet, the best trained reindeer ever among all of those things, but…we’re not sure why he was born with that nose, none of them have had it either. Blitzen was his dad, his mom was Jesta, there’s a lot of various other reindeer, we’ve named a lot after all of them made up for movies: Cupid had a calf named Arrow, there was another named Zoey, there’s also Chet, Blizzard, Snowcone, Shadrack, Leroy, Fabian, Chopper, Nixon…a lot.” She sighed with her hands in her jacket pockets.

“Do you have one?”

“Oh, no” she said as she stepped out of the hall as she took a small whistle out of her jacket’s breast pocket, made of gold and quite ornate as she blew it, I couldn’t hear the tone, but soon after there was a very…very loud sound. “Lesto!” she added as a door opened.

“B-b-b-bear” I sputtered as this giant polar bear bounded down the hall, as I faltered back a little, Viktoria just stood there with her hands in her pocket before just lifting her head a little and the bear flopped down in a sit as it skidded down the stone to stop right in front of her.

“This is Lesto, my familiar.” She added scratching the bear’s chin, “He can’t fly, but there is much more he can do”

“Italian? But, you’re Russian, no”

“Ukrainian" she corrected before sighing, "It was best fitting for him” she said with a shrug as she ruffed up Lesto’s ears, who just let her as he let his head rock side to side before trying to lick her, but she leaned back to avoid him before she softly pinched his nose and wiggled it making him reach up and softly bat at her hand and wrist. “Rynold probably would freak out at seeing all of the reindeer and other animals we have.”

“Without a doubt, they’d probably call you a prison warden, a slaver or something like that.”

“Most likely.” She added before giving a high five to a passing yeti, a good couple of feet taller than her, dressed in lederhosen with no shirt, but extremely thick and long white wiry fur, one arm loaded with a couple of haybales as they were walking towards the stables, face a strange mixture of humanoid, gorilla and maybe even something like a boar: what skin was exposed was a dark navy blue, face masses of wrinkles with a slightly pig like nose, giant tusks and small beady eyes with hair hanging over his face a bit. “Good seeing you, Tim” she added as the Yeti softly patted her head as we walked.