Elves Like Us

Me-Yo and GR!O got into the best parties, ongame or off, dressed to dazzle and always sporting the latest grooves, but after they crossed the line at Becky Bermuda's and went too far, they would never be invited out again.

"Look at these toy people," Me-Yo said, "it's disgusting." She was neck to toe in spandex embroidered with eyeballs, a rainbow of irises that never blinked. Going up to the closest guest, she promptly spun on her heel and stove in their head.

GR!O might have sneered slightly. It was difficult to read his expression through the cloud of pink bees.

That weekend it was Becky Bermuda's turn to host at her chalet. This was a party not a panic, where random acts of violence were encouraged, and it caused no small reaction to see an otherwise respected member of the circuit so summarily slain without so much as a chance to defend themselves. To everyone's surprise and temporary relief, it was not a person at all but a cricket -temporary, because Me-Yo didn't stop there.

The bloodbath that ensued was no great loss to society but of greater concern for Bermuda's finances, which after this would be in slow recovery: it wasn't cheap to put on a cricket show, especially when the last thing anyone wanted was to see artificial bodies slaughtered for no discernible reason than pique.

It might have been a complete loss had not elves intervened.

The pair descended through the skylight, wielding personal smoke deployment devices that attacked Me-Yo and GR!O's higher functions and disabled them entirely. Within seconds of their dramatic entry, the elves had put a stop to the cricket rampage.

First crickets, thought Becky Bermuda from her saferoom, emerging once assured by the uninvited pair that the danger had passed, and now elves: I'll never live down this disgrace.

The elves were quite ordinary. Attired in checkerboard cloaks and pleated spider-silk nappies, the only thing the otherwise two plain-looking men had going for them were the inlaid smoke deployers running along their green-and-white sleeves.

"Mistaken identity," explained the taller one, assisting his partner in sewing up Me-Yo and GR!O, totally inert like the crickets they had so remorselessly assaulted. In moments the velour bodybags were sealed and whisked away through the skylight.

"They crashed my party," Bermuda said, "and I invited them! Who do they think they are?"

"Elves, like us."

Repressing a shudder at the bodies lain about, the tall one said, "Instead of the crickets they really are, yes." Enmity between elves and crickets was no secret, the former despising all false forms, holding them to be blasphemous and venal; the Church of ELF -Eurhythmic Love Forever- loved to dance, but hated posers.

"The worst case of elf-loathing," said the second, "we've ever seen."

"The worst my chalet has ever seen," Bermuda said. One look at the carnage confirmed that her reputation would be a long time recovering. They might be artificial corpses, but recycling them was going to cost a fortune, and the friends and relatives who sent them so confident of their safety would forgive her only once she had been made equally to suffer such a dire loss of face.

Me-Yo and GR!O owed her big this time. If she had anything left after this, Bermuda would spare no expense tracking them down, wherever the real ones might be keeping themselves, and bill them for every last broken item -including her heart.