Santa lowered himself into his chair with the heaviness of someone who had just aged three hundred years in three minutes. Jingleberry's cheerful expression faltered as he stepped inside, closing the office door behind him with a soft click that sounded far too final.
"I've been fired," Santa said simply. The words tasted like ash and disappointment.
Jingleberry's face went through a remarkable series of transformations—confusion, disbelief, then something that looked dangerously close to despair. "Fired? But sir, you're Santa. You can't be—"
"Reginald Frostbottom III just informed me that my 'outdated methodology' is a liability," Santa continued, each word feeling like it belonged to someone else entirely. "Effective immediately. Severance package pending. End of discussion."
The elf sank into the chair across from Santa's desk, his pointed ears drooping so low they nearly touched his shoulders. "This is madness. The elves, they need you. Christmas needs you. We can't—"
"You'll adapt," Santa said, and the words came out more gently than he felt. "You're resourceful. All of you are. Perhaps Reginald's efficiency metrics will work better than my old-fashioned methods." Even as he said it, he didn't believe a word.
Jingleberry stared at him with an expression that cut deeper than any firing notice could. "That's not what you believe. That's not what you've taught us to believe."
Santa stood and walked to the window again, his hands clasped behind his back. Outside, the Workshop hummed with activity—toy assembly lines, quality control stations, the great Christmas machine that had been his life's work. "What I believe no longer matters, Jingleberry. I'm tired. Three hundred years of Christmas. Three hundred years of believing I could make it work. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe it's time for someone else to carry that burden."
The silence that followed was the silence of something irreplaceable being let go. Jingleberry rose slowly, his usual brightness completely extinguished. "I'll inform the team about the transition," he said quietly, and left without another word.
Santa remained at the window, watching his former kingdom, already feeling the distance growing between himself and everything he'd ever known.
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