Prompt 8: Memorable Event
A million tiny stinging pinches on the tip of each finger. That was Santa's waking thought, the sensation of feeling returning to his fingertips, followed by the ache around his wrists, but he couldn't move his arms to ease the pressure. His arms were tied behind his back. Also, he couldn't see.
Not Santa's best morning. His breath was hot against the bag or hat pulled down over his head. A bag, he decided, loosely secured around his neck. Suddenly aware, he realized he was totally wrong about the bag -- it was far, far too tight around his head and the air was too thin and too hot to breath at all.
He was jostled and rocked on the hard floor. He was in the back of a wagon, and by its frantic rhythm, he knew it was going too fast on the uneven and rock-cluttered road. The sound of angry shouting told him that no one was happy about it.
He tried rolling off his side, relieve some pressure off his hands, which were now entirely consumed by the million prickling thorns of being half-asleep, but the floor beneath him abruptly jumped, tossing him into the air and returning with a hard smack on the right corner of his forehead. On impact, his neck craned backward painfully at the same time his chest and knees slammed into the hard wood.
Santa let out a thick, numb moan. He was no longer worried about his hands. The floor, the smelly wooden floor of the wagon, was wet against his cheek. A warm wetness. When the wagon dragged to a stop, the motion pulled his body forward, dragging his face away from the pooling liquid.
Something heavy landed on the wagon floor next to his head. A moment later, two hands pushed him onto his back. That made his neck feel much better. Fingers dug at his neck and then pulled back the bag, revealing Santa's face to fresh air -- lovely, pure, cool. As he gasped to fill his lungs, his eyes full of torchlight, a dark, ashen face pushed itself down over his until their noses nearly met.
"Greetings, Santa Claus," the dwarf said. His skin literally smelled like coal. "Hope you enjoyed a taste of somberium, a gift of the Dwarvonians." He pulled his face back and displayed a long-toothed grin that implied he would enjoy putting a dagger in Santa's eye, if he had the time.
But he didn't have the chance. Instead, an arrow put out the dwarf's eye. A second grew out of his chest and his body felt flat to the bed of the wagon next to Santa. He couldn’t turn his head to see, but all the air in his nose started to smell like iron. He remembered the sight of the rescuing sleigh sliding like a shadow through the morning sky above where he laid.
Mr. Donaldson's fingertips tingled. The Dwarvonians. The memory was hundreds of years old, but it had never been lost. He rubbed his fingers together, feeling.