Surrounded by the shredded remnants of the Krampus’ office, I sat and wrote out all my thoughts and feelings. As I expressed my regret to Jenny that I hadn’t appreciated her enough, I hadn’t built in enough time for her, I hadn’t seen her suffering, I realized that five thousand words might not be enough to even cover it all. But it would be a start.

  Each page I finished was stacked neatly by my side, as Bastion and Jackal sorted through the rubble of the room to find me more blank sheets to work on next.

  Tears welled up in my eyes as I thought about how we’d treated her through her developing sentience. How we’d skipped from one problem to the next and never considered how it all affected her – that she might be feeling lonely and unseen, or that her curiosity was always given the back seat whenever we felt we had priorities that should overshadow her own.

  “That’s enough,” Jenny’s voice cut through my attention, and I put down the raven feather quill, my hand stiff and sore.

  She sat perched on the side of the Krampus’ cracked desk, her nekokin body the same as it had appeared on Earth. Her tail twitched nervously.

  “I’m sorry, Jenny,” I said, feeling my lips wobble. “I never really considered things from your perspective before. How hard things must be for you…”

  “I hope you’re not mad at me,” Jenny said. “I just… had to do it.”

  Bastion and Jackal crossed their arms and leaned against the wall, watching us.

  “I’m not mad… Although please don’t do this again. I… I’d rather talk things out with you properly than have to figure out what you need without your input.”

  Jenny looked around the ruined room and picked up a stray shortbread cookie, crumbling it in her hand.

  “I thought you would like these. You didn’t like them.”

  “It’s not your fault,” I said, grasping her hand. Her cat-like fur was soft under my touch. It was odd, having her here with us physically instead of as a disembodied voice. “Besides, this is your first Christmas. I should have been showing you what Christmas was all about. It wasn’t your job to… to make all this.”

  “I’ll patch it all out. I can delete the whole Christmas patch and revert things to a backup,” Jenny offered. “The snow won’t happen again, and it doesn’t have to impact the ecosystem – although some of these creatures are sentient now.”

  This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  “They’ve got to remain then. Maybe this workshop can be repurposed into something new, something useful.”

  Jenny nodded, but still looked glum.

  “What’s wrong, Jenny?” I asked. “What do you need?”

  “I need… you. I don’t understand how things work. How relationships work. I heard what you said to the Krampus and I… can you tell me why things don’t work with me and James? I thought I could have something with him like you have with your partners, since I know so much about him, but it never seems to be enough – even when I do exactly what he says.”

  I pulled her into a hug. Her fingers gripped my shoulder, evidence of the genuine pain and confusion she was feeling.

  “Because James is a moron, Jenny,” I said, and Bastion snorted. “He doesn’t even know what he wants half the time, and so much of the information you have on him is outdated. He wrote a lot of the stuff you’ve read when he was a teenager, grappling with things that were really hard for him at the time – and while that is a part of him, he’s in his twenties now, not his teens. He’s a different person. And while those stories are a part of both of you, you’ve both become different people.”

  “Do you think we aren’t compatible?” Jenny asked, sniffing. “That I should look elsewhere for companionship?”

  “Maybe,” Emma shrugged. “You could work on things with James if you wanted to, or you could find someone else. Or you could keep working on yourself and growing in other ways. Whatever you choose, I’ll be there for you as a friend and I promise I’ll try to be a much better one from now on, okay?”

  Jenny let go and stood tall, looking back at Bastion and Jackal. “Should we go home then?”

  It took a little while to say goodbye to the Krampus and the goblins, but they seemed hopeful as they negotiated new terms of employment next to the burning effigies of Santa. The real Santa remained in a death grip with Krampina, as they strangled each other, blind to their surroundings.

  “I’ll patch them out when I get back,” Jenny promised. “They haven’t developed sentience, and they are unlikely to before we return.”

  We hi-jacked Santa’s sleigh on Jenny’s insistence, and let the reindeer lead us through the woods, detouring to pick up a very surprised Brick, Bruiser and Blade on the way.

  “You came to save me!” I beamed at the feliskin, who rubbed his pink nose in abashment. “I knew you liked me!”

  “Consider my debt paid, and we’ll call it even,” he said cagily, before perching himself on the back of the sleigh to hitch a ride to town.

  When we finally returned to the bakery, Jenny closed her eyes, and we watched the world glimmer as she installed a new patch. The decorations on the trees in the forest shimmered out of existence, and the sleigh we had travelled on despawned with a pop. The bakery windows shone once again, all trace of blood and violence wiped clean, and the shortbread cookies that had been scattered across our shop floor blinked into nothing, leaving no crumb behind.

  Jenny followed us inside, looking curiously around the bakery as though seeing it from a new vantage point and followed us through the Nexus.

  “You’re back!” James exclaimed, throwing his laptop to the side. “Thank God, I was struggling to get past a hundred words!”

  “I should have known you’d figure things out on your own,” Nightfall greeted me with a kiss, smiling down at me in amusement. “I have the upgrade budget ready for review, if you’d like to see it.”

  “Later,” Jenny said, hooking her arm through mine. “Emma said we could watch Hallmark Christmas movies, and she’d show me what real gingerbread tastes like.”