Magic gone wrong (25)

This is my contribution to “The 25+ lines of Dialog – Story Contest!” (Hence the “25” in the title.)

“All rise! The High Court of the North Pole Elves resumes its session.” Elynea, the defendant in this trial, and all the spectators rose, and when the judge, an elderly, white-haired elf, had positioned himself behind his desk, everyone sat down again.

“Defendant, tell us what happened on this blessed, um, I mean cursed day.” The male elves in the courtroom chuckled.

Elynea, a tall, slender and very beautiful female elf with long ebony black hair and snow-white skin stood up, trying to get her trembling hands under control, before she started speaking. “For centuries, Santa Claus delivered all the presents using his sleigh pulled by reindeer. However, a recent quantitative assessment of our resources showed that our assets were not being used efficiently. That’s why we launched a flagship project to showcase how cutting-edge spell technology can facilitate strategic and proactive improvements to our mission critical operations.”

“I wonder if it was really such a great idea of Santa Claus to send disguised elves to human business schools,” the judge mumbled before asking her to continue.

“At the newly formed Advanced Spell Research Lab, our research wizards have developed a method which utilizes vectored apparition spells combined with normalized transformation tensor magic. This enables us to send any Christmas gift to any location in the world, without having to resort to obsolete means of transportation.” In her opinion, sleighs were sooo twentieth century.

The judge rolled his eyes and mumbled again. “No, that was definitely not a good idea.” Aloud, he asked, “What were you trying to accomplish with those spells?”

“In our workshops at the North Pole, we make all the Christmas presents for all the humans around the world. Then the presents are wrapped and loaded in Santa Claus’ sleigh and then delivered,” Elynea tried to explain, but was interrupted by the judge.

“Yes, we all know that! Our whole lives have revolved around Christmas for centuries. Just get to the point!” The judge was getting impatient.

“I am sorry, your honor. We wanted to streamline our operations by replacing manual gift wrapping and delivery via sleigh using advanced elven magic. Once a gift is ready, it is magically wrapped and immediately appears in the recipient’s home. As a flagship project, we chose female clothing because of its variety,” the young elf explained, but didn’t mention the real reason: she loved human fashion and had hoped to get her hands on the latest designs.

“But it ended in a, um, disaster,” the judge stated. “What went wrong?”

“At first everything worked perfectly, the apparition spell was calibrated to female clothing and delivered the presents from our workshop to the selected destination. But then the spectral furnace, which powers our spells, overheated and caused ALL female clothing in the area to be gift wrapped and delivered as gifts to the human world. Not just the new clothes from the workshop.” With horror, she recalled that moment, when her clothes (a brand-new minidress from a famous designer with a plunging neckline she had accidentally “found” in the workshop) were magically stripped away, and she stood naked in front of her team while giving a presentation.

“I think we all remember that,” the judge said. He very fondly remembered this moment, when all females in his court were suddenly naked. Angry shouting came from one half of the spectators in the courtroom; the other half cheered. “Silence, or I will have the courtroom cleared!” the judge shouted.

“And what was the reason for this malfunction?” the judge asked after order was restored.

“No conclusive evidence was found as to what caused the furnace to overheat,” she replied.

In the back of the courtroom, a technician (3rd class) for magic machinery smiled when Elynea said that the furnace overheated for unknown reasons. “This will teach her to interfere with things we have always done in our own way,” he whispered to his neighbor, a technician (2nd class).

Suddenly, a loud “poof” sound rang out and the shrieking voice of a young elf woman pierced the courtroom. Everyone turned, to see a suddenly naked, buxom elf trying to cover her breasts and pussy. “Silence!” the judge’s voice boomed through the commotion in the courtroom. “What is going on here?”

“Um, this may be a side effect of that powerful spell, which has left some residual traces in the vicinity of its unplanned release,” Elynea said. She was clearly feeling very uneasy. “I am afraid it will happen on a regular basis, that randomly selected female elves are magically stripped of their clothing, which is then sent as a Christmas present to an equally random female human.” While she explained this, a very pretty and very naked elf dashed out of the courtroom.

“Did you investigate what happened with all those unexpected, random presents?” the judge asked. “Revealing the inner workings of Santa Claus’ workshop at the North Pole to humans might have serious consequences,” he scolded her.

“Yes, your honor, we did investigate and found that the humans affected luckily didn’t draw the right conclusions. But it did cause some confusion among those families.” The judge grinned. He could imagine that human females receiving elven clothing as a present might ask their partners some serious questions. Especially considering the notoriously skimpy and revealing nature of the typical clothing worn by female elves.

“Ok, but the important question is: how long will this continue?” The judge asked.

“Well, maybe two or three …” The last word was inaudible.

“Two or three – what? Weeks, months?”

“No, um, two or three years,” the unhappy elf answered. Loud and angry shouting came from the female elves present in the courtroom. The male elves sounded much less agitated.

“Is it possible to stop this?” the judge wanted to know.

“I am afraid not, your honor.” She hesitated. “It will probably happen three or four times each day. Until the spell wears off.”

“The court has heard enough. I will now announce the verdict,” the judge said loudly. Turning to Elynea, he told her to stand up.

“The court believes that the punishment should be commensurate with the crime. Therefore, I have decided that your punishment will be as follows:
The defendant has forfeited the right to wear any clothing until all side effects of the unlawful release of said magic, caused by the defendant herself, have completely disappeared. The punishment shall take effect immediately. This session is closed.”

“No!” Elynea cried out. The spectators in the courtroom cheered loudly, and the soon to be naked elf looked in dread at the two guards who approached her to take away her clothes.