'Twas the night before Christmas on a parahuman Earth,
When the capes were all sleeping, brooding, or worse.
The stockings were hung, the Christmas bells rung,
While Endbringers simmered and Kill Orders swung.
High over the bay, slicing through the clouds.
Floated Sleigh Prime, Santa, and one sulking elf.
"Behold, Operator! The gift Drifter and I have been preparing for you. The first ever Sleigh Prime! Isn't it festive? Isn't it magnificent? Ordis is sure even the Lotus would approve of this allocation of resources!" the Cephalon shouted over the wind, voice blaring from mounted speakers.
The main body was classic sleigh shape: high curling runners, tall back, low front, just enough room for two up front and a ridiculous amount of cargo in the back. It was painted a deep, rich red, but every edge was trimmed in Orokin gold—thin filigree lines crawling along the rails and sides like etched circuitry.
Instead of wooden runners, the bottom had smooth, curved metal skids humming softly as they hovered. As it flew, those skids glowed faint blue and left a trail of golden sparks in the air, like falling tinsel.
Five Duviri kaithe's galloped through the sky in front, hooves kicking up curls of golden light. The lead kaithe had a bright red light strapped to its nose, glowing like the imitation of Rudolph it was.
Drifter stood at the reins, long coat swapped for a deep red, fur-lined Santa suit. It fit annoyingly well, in the way that said "custom made" instead of "cheap costume." A fluffy fake white beard was strapped over his usual scruff, and a pair of Christmas-themed aviator goggles covered his eyes.
"It's perfect, Ordis. The kid loves it, despite what his face says," Drifter responded.
If the delighted glitchy squeals that came over the comms were any indication, Ordis believed him.
Next to Drifter, sitting stiffly in the front seat, the Operator sulked in an elf outfit. Green tunic. Pointy hat. Little jingling bells everywhere that chimed with every tiny movement. All of it attached to the same unblinking, void-touched stare from pure white glowing eyes that had made Grineer fear a child more than they feared warframes.
"This is humiliating," the Operator muttered, loud enough to carry over the wind.
"You look adorable," Drifter said over his shoulder, genuinely delighted at seeing his younger self in something so stupid. "Embrace the bit, kid. 'Tis the season to be jolly, and we are supposed to be the jolliest of all."
Lights appeared ahead. A commercial jet, big and slow compared to the sleigh, cutting through the clouds on its way to somewhere irrelevant.
Drifter's grin sharpened. He flicked the reins and the kaithe's surged forward. "Watch this."
"Oh Void," the Operator cursed as the sleigh arced toward it.
He knew exactly what Drifter was planning and wanted no part of it. For all his age and trauma, he was still as prone to whimsy as any child his biological age, and so he'd worn a lot of outfits and gone through a great many phases. Some that made Ordis' sensors bleed. Others that had made his siblings stare in awe at his sheer… what did people in this time call it? Drip. But the thought of being seen like this—in his real body, in this elf costume—made him want to crawl into a hole or just disappear into Void mode.
Regardless of his embarrassment, Drifter pulled up alongside the plane like it was a car on a highway. The lead kaith's red nose glowed brightly as they came level with one row of windows.
Inside, a little girl sat between her parents, chin propped on her fist, zoned out and staring at nothing.
Until she saw them.
Her eyes went huge. Her mouth dropped open. She crawled over her parents and slapped both hands on the glass so hard her mom jumped.
Drifter let go of the reins, waved with both hands, and shouted over the wind even though she couldn't hear him. "HO HO HO! Merry Christmas!"
The Operator lifted a reluctant hand and wiggled his fingers in what technically counted as a wave.
The girl bounced in her seat, tugging on her dad's sleeve and pointing like her life depended on it. Her parents gave the kind of polite "sure, honey" nod adults gave when they wanted to acknowledge their children without truly engaging with them.
Seeing the parents weren't going to look twice, Drifter whined like he wasn't a grown man and hauled the sleigh away, banking back toward the city.
"Okay," the Operator admitted as they broke through the cloud layer and the bay spread out beneath them in lights and dark water, "that was pretty fun."
Seeing the kid's face had made dressing like this feel just a little more worth it to the Operator.
"That's the spirit, little elf," Drifter cheered. "Now it's time to cut the joyride and deliver presents."
He pulled up and flicked his wrist. A holographic interface flickered to life in front of him—two lists, side by side. One glowing gold with white lettering labeled Nice, the other black with dark red letters titled Naughty. Names scrolled past with faces, alignment tags, and little naughtiness-versus-niceness bars.
"First stop: good kids," he decided. "Then war criminals."
The Operator sighed again, but a grin tugged at the corner of his mouth.
Well, he thought, at least the night won't be boring.
Through snug Brockton streets where the snow muffled sound,
Lay a house where the numbers never quite settled down.
Little Dinah on the sofa, fighting sleep with all her might,
'Cause her power swore Santa would come tonight.
Stockings by the fireplace, cookies on a plate,
One hundred out of one hundred he wouldn't make her wait.
And high above the rooftop, sleigh runners skimming frost,
Santa and little elf drop in from the top.
The first stop on the Nice list was a cozy two-story house in one of Brockton Bay's better neighborhoods. Lights in the windows. Plastic reindeer on the lawn. Just enough Christmas decorations to say "we care" without tipping into "we have a problem."
And, most importantly to Drifter, a chimney.
Sleigh Prime drifted down onto the roof with barely a whisper, hover-skids humming softly as the kaithe's snorted and stamped at empty air.
Drifter stood, hands on his Santa-belt, and peered over the sleigh's side at the brick chimney like he'd just discovered an argon crystal cache.
"There it is," he breathed. "A proper entrance."
The Operator followed his gaze, expression flat.
"You know we can just void dash straight into the living room, right?" he said. "In and out. No problem."
Drifter waved a dismissive hand, offended at the mere suggestion. "Blasphemy. Santa uses the chimney. That's the rule."
"That's a story."
"That's tradition," Drifter shot back. "We're doing it properly at least once."
He hauled the big red sack of presents over his shoulder—it really did look like the classic Santa bag, just… heavier, with the faint jingle and stomped over to the chimney.
The Operator folded his arms and watched.
Drifter crouched at the edge, peered down the shaft, then swung one leg in like this was absolutely going to work.
"How tight can it—oh, that's snug," he muttered as his shoulders hit brick.
"You're going to get stuck," the Operator warned.
Drifter wriggled anyway. Bricks scraped cloth and under-armor. The sack bumped after him, catching on the rim.
"I am not going to get stu—" The bag snagged fully. "...okay. I might be slightly—" He tried to reverse and the sack didn't move an inch. "—wedged."
The Operator stared at the half-Santa sticking out of the roof like a ridiculous chimney ornament.
"…Ho ho help?" Drifter asked with a weak little chuckle.
The Operator pinched the bridge of his nose. "You are an embarrassment."
He stepped up onto the sleigh rail, took one casual step into empty air, and dissolved into a shimmer of Void light.
A heartbeat later he reappeared in the dark living room below, boots sinking into carpet without a sound. Drifter was left grunting on the roof.
The house was exactly the kind of cozy middle-class Christmas humans in this era seemed to aim for. Tree by the front window, lights off but still faintly glowing from the street. Stockings on the mantle. A few wrapped presents already tucked under the branches. A plate of cookies and a glass of milk on the coffee table beside a handwritten note in big, careful kid letters.
He was halfway through reading the first line when Drifter phased out of the wall like nothing was wrong, stumbling a step as he reassembled.
"See?" Drifter said, dusting imaginary soot off his Santa coat with the hand not dragging the sack. "Perfect chimney entry."
"You got stuck," the Operator reminded him.
"I committed to the bit. There's a difference."
Drifter turned to admire the tree and immediately clipped a side table with the sack. A ceramic snowman and a scented candle skidded toward the edge.
The Operator flicked a hand and caught them with a tiny pulse of power, settling them back in place before they could fall.
"We're supposed to be doing this quietly," he hissed. "Are you trying to wake everyone up?"
"It was an accident," Drifter whispered back, which was not actually quieter. His gaze snagged on the cookies and milk. He drifted toward them like he was on rails. "Ooooh. These look good."
His hand came up.
The Operator caught his wrist before he could grab one. "Those are clearly for Santa."
Drifter looked down at his own outfit, then at the Operator's jingling elf hat, then back at the plate.
"…Yeah," he said, like this was the most obvious thing in the world. "That'd be me. Don't worry, the Elf Union requires I share with you."
He tried to inch forward. The Operator's grip tightened.
"We are uninvited guests in their home," the Operator said, deadly serious in a green tunic with bells. "We should leave as little evidence as possible."
"But cookies and milk are literally the two things the story says I'm allowed to take."
"They're for the idea of Santa, not a Void hobo in a crappy beard."
"Excuse you, this suit is tailored, and I am the King of—"
A soft noise cut through their whisper-argument.
The rustle of a blanket. The faint squeak of couch springs.
Both of them froze.
On the couch, a small lump under a patterned throw blanket shifted, then sat up. Messy brown hair. Sleep-creased face. A kid in Christmas pajamas blinked at them through the half-dark, eyes trying to make sense of red coat, green tunic, and glowing white eyes.
She stared at them.
They stared back.
There was a long, silent heartbeat where both Tenno realized they absolutely should have gone into Void mode first.
Her gaze went from fake beard to elf hat to sack of presents and back again. Her mouth dropped open.
"I knew it," she whispered, voice catching with awe as she pushed the blanket off her lap. "I knew it, I knew it, I knew it."
Drifter recovered first.
He straightened up, puffed out his chest, and dropped into the kind of deep, booming voice people paid mall Santas good money for.
"Ho, ho, ho," he rumbled, softer than usual but still big. "You should be asleep, little one."
The girl slid off the couch, blanket still wrapped around her shoulders like a cape. She padded closer, bare feet silent on the carpet, eyes locked on Drifter's face.
"My power said there was a one-hundred-percent chance I'd meet Santa tonight," she said, full of wonder—but there was a crisp certainty under it that made both immortal boy and man go very still. "It's never one hundred percent."
Drifter's eyes flicked to the Operator.
Parahuman? that look asked.
The Operator's tiny frown deepened. He dipped his chin in the smallest of nods.
Yeah.
He opened his mouth to suggest they leave—her parents could be capes, could be PRT, could just be scared adults with guns. Two strangers in costumes standing over their daughter was not going to go over well.
But before he could say anything, Drifter gently pulled his arm out of the Operator's grip and turned fully toward the girl.
"Smart power," Drifter said. "Looks like it was right."
She smiled at that. "I thought maybe it meant a mall Santa, or a dream," she admitted. "But you're actually here. And you brought a cute elf."
She giggled at the last part, glancing at the Operator's hat and jingling bells, then looked past them to the coffee table.
"There was an eighty-three-percent chance you'd eat the cookies before I woke up," she added seriously. "So I wanted to be down here first."
The Operator hummed under his breath. "Eighty-three, huh," he echoed. "You really are a cape."
"Yeah," she confirmed, like she was talking about the weather. "It went down a little when Mom stayed up to wrap things, but then back up when I made dad convince her to finish it tomorrow."
The house creaked overhead—old wood taking someone's weight. Dinah flinched, just a little, but her eyes never left Drifter. She was staring like she wanted to burn him into long-term memory.
"Are you really Santa?" she asked, quieter now. "Not just… someone dressed up?"
Drifter actually hesitated.
For half a second, you could see the conflict on his face: tell the truth and crush that look… or lie and keep the naive wonder in her eyes alive.
He picked the hidden third option.
He dropped to one knee so they were closer to eye level, stroked his fake beard like a wise old sage, and smiled.
"If you ask your power," he said gently, "what does it say?"
She went still again. You could almost see the question forming behind her eyes.
"Is this the real Santa?" she whispered, mostly to herself.
Her lips moved as she counted along to something only she could hear. "Ninety-nine point…" She blinked. "No. One hundred percent," she breathed, sounding genuinely surprised. "It says one hundred."
"Well," Drifter said, spreading his hands. "There you go."
Her face lit up like someone had switched on a tree inside her chest.
The Operator watched, some of the tension leaking out of his shoulders from trying to hold in a laugh. It figured that to a power that saw probabilities, Drifter in a Santa suit with a sleigh and a planet-wide present route probably qualified as "Santa" more than the storybook version ever could.
"Santa," the Operator said pointedly to remind Drifter of their true goal here, "don't you have something to give her?"
Dinah's head snapped toward him. "Really?" she asked, hope blooming all over her face.
"Of course," the Operator said with a smirk. "You're on the Nice list, after all."
Drifter let out a low chuckle at the Operator finally playing along.
"You're right, Elf," he said as he reached into the sack without looking, fingers brushing past a dozen shapes before closing on one. He pulled out a neatly wrapped box with Dinah's name already written on the tag in looping gold script. "This one's yours—for being a very good girl this year."
She took it like it was the most precious thing in the world and hugged it to her chest.
"Thank you, Santa," she said, earnest to the bone. Then, frowning a little in curiosity: "How do you know my name?"
"Santa knows everyone's name," Drifter lied smoothly. "Even the ones who ask very clever questions very late in the night."
Dinah "ooh'd" at that, satisfied with the answer despite it not explaining anything. She squeezed the box tighter, clearly itching to open it but too polite to do it before Christmas.
Figuring their job was done, Drifter and the Operator both started to shift, ready to ghost out before anyone came down but Dinah's voice snagged them in place.
"Um. Santa?" she blurted. "Do you… know if things are going to get bad in the future?"
The words tumbled out faster now, like they'd been waiting behind her teeth for weeks. "Sometimes my numbers are scary. Especially when the weird snake man appears. And I don't know how to make them stop or change them."
The fear in her eyes made the Christmas duo freeze, realizing she wasn't talking about some childish inconvenience.
Drifter's gaze softened. He reached out and gently ruffled her hair more.
"Things might get bad," he replied without joking or sugarcoating. "This world is… complicated. Dangerous. Sometimes very unfair." He let out a slow breath and then smiled brightly. "But don't worry. Santa and his elves are watching out for you, and for all the good boys and girls. You're not alone. That's about all I can say without getting a lump of coal myself."
Her shoulders loosened a little at that. Some of the tightness drained out of her face.
"My power says you're telling the truth," she whispered, eyes shining now for a different reason.
"Good power," Drifter complimented again, voice warm.
A door thumped open upstairs.
All three of them looked toward the ceiling at the same time. A more awake voice drifted faintly down the hallway.
"Dinah? Honey?"
That got her moving.
She spun toward the couch, then stalled halfway, torn between staying with Santa and pretending to sleep.
"Duty calls," Drifter said regretfully, pushing up to stand. "We've got a lot more houses to visit before morning. All the other nice kids are waiting too."
"Can I ask one more question?" she blurted. "Just one?"
The Operator tilted his head, listening for the parents. He could hear their slippers on hardwood, getting closer to the stairs.
"Make it quick," he warned, glancing between Drifter and Dinah.
Dinah swallowed, looked up at both of them, and whispered, "Will I see you again?"
Her eyes went unfocused for a beat.
Then she smiled with none of the earlier fear. "My power says… one hundred percent," she said.
Drifter laughed quietly. "Seems like you'll be a good girl next year too."
"Now, back to bed," the Operator added gently.
She nodded then launched herself at Drifter for a quick, fierce hug. He wrapped his arms around her and squeezed back just as tight, then let go.
Dinah scrambled back onto the couch, dove under the blanket, and flopped over with her new gift clutched to her chest. By the time her father's footsteps hit the top of the stairs, she had her eyes squeezed shut in the most exaggerated "totally asleep" pose either Tenno had ever seen.
"Come on," the Operator murmured.
They dissolved into flickers of Void light—reappearing an instant later on the roof beside Sleigh Prime, kaithe's snorting softly in the winter air.
Drifter and the Operator shared a quick, quiet smile before vanishing in twin bursts of Void light, just as the hallway switch clicked and warm yellow spilled into the Alcott home.
They reappeared on the roof, cold winter air biting pleasantly at their faces. Sleigh Prime hovered where they'd left it, humming softly, golden filigree catching the moonlight as the kaithe's stamped and snorted, eager to run again.
Drifter blew out a breath he hadn't realized he was holding. "She's a cute kid," he said, climbing back into the sleigh and gathering the reins.
"And dangerously, painfully naive," the Operator murmured, following after him. He adjusted his ridiculous elf hat, long pointy ears twitching, but there was the faintest curve at the corner of his mouth.
Drifter chuckled. "Best kind of kid," he replied. "Next house?"
The Operator glanced once at the chimney, then at the glowing lists drifting over Drifter's arm, and grumbled something that sounded suspiciously like agreement as he sat.
"Then onward we go, little elf!" Drifter crowed, yanking the reins with theatrical flair. "HOOOO HO HO!"
The kaithe's leapt, Sleigh Prime skimming up into the winter night, Brockton's lights shrinking to a glittering sprawl below.
And through a frosted window, if one happened to spy,
a girl watched the heavens, eyes bright and wide.
As her parents traded glances—half shock, half disbelief,
their child hugged her present with quiet, renewed belief.
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A/N: Here's a free side story as my Christmas gift. Please also ignore Christmas is over and enjoy!