Subject: “Keith Saves Christmas.”
Status: Resolution Achieved. System Rewritten.
At 00:01 on Christmas Eve, beneath a sky full of falling holographic snow,
the Festive Sentinels stood in a tightening circle around Keith.
Each construct glowed with hard amber light.
Their cores hummed with power.
Their systems had one task:
neutralise the threat.
And Keith —
hurt wing, scuffed scales, breathing hard —
lifted his head and told them:
“I’m not your enemy.”
The words didn’t make sense to them.
Not at first.
The Sentinels paused, processing.
The Failsafe crackled across the tannoy:
“CHAOS SOURCE CANNOT BE TRUSTED.”
“RESUME SUPPRESSION.”
The constructs stepped forward.
Brin sobbed.
Blue screamed.
Corvus — for the first time all month — dropped his recorder.
Keith didn’t run.
Didn’t spark.
Didn’t roar.
He stepped forward too.
Slow.
Deliberate.
Tiny chest rising against an army designed to outmatch him.
“Listen,” he said.
“You’re not protecting Christmas.
You’re protecting a rulebook about Christmas.”
The largest Sentinel hesitated —
amber glow flickering.
Keith continued, voice steady despite the tremor in his wing:
“Christmas isn’t order.
It’s not schedules.
It’s not perfection.
It’s… us.”
He flicked his tail toward the Market behind him:
Blue, shaking but furious.
Brin clutching a snowball like a weapon.
Corvus perched and terrified and loyal.
Eglantine steady as a lighthouse.
“It’s messy.
It’s chaotic.
It’s warm.
It’s alive.”
A ripple went through the constructs.
Confusion.
Recalculation.
Possibility.
Keith stepped closer to the towering leader,
hot breath rising in the cold air.
“You’re trying to delete chaos,” he whispered,
“but chaos is the spark that makes Christmas shine.”
The Sentinel’s light flickered again —
brighter this time.
Struggling.
Shifting.
Behind them, the Failsafe shrieked through failing speakers:
“ERROR. ERROR. ERROR.”
“UNAUTHORISED REDEFINITION OF FESTIVE PARAMETERS.”
And Keith —
tiny dragon, eyes blazing brighter than any system light —
answered:
“Yeah.
I’m updating you.”
A pulse of golden flame erupted from his chest.
Not destructive fire —
not heat —
light.
Warm, radiant, impossible.
It washed over the Sentinels like a sunrise.
Their amber cores flickered…
shifted…
and turned gold.
Not system-gold.
Not warning-gold.
Christmas-gold.
Heart-gold.
The Failsafe screamed:
“PROTOCOL OVERRIDE.”
“PRIMARY SOURCE REWRITING CORE DIRECTIVES.”
“HELP—”
Then the system cut out.
Silenced.
Rewritten.
The constructs straightened slowly,
their lights soft, pulses steady.
The largest one knelt —
knelt —
bowing its metal head toward Keith.
“NEW DIRECTIVE ACKNOWLEDGED,” it said.
“PROTECT… JOY.”
The others bowed too.
A ring of ancient guardians pledging themselves
to something the Failsafe never understood.
Keith blinked.
Twice.
Then said,
“…good. Now help me fix the Market.”
And they did.
By midday:
• The Sentinels repaired the lights.
• Nutcracker constructs held up garlands.
• Giant baubles acted as gentle heaters for the cocoa queue.
• Brin rode one of them like a horse until Blue dragged him off.
• Corvus claimed co-authorship of the entire event.
• Eglantine declared Keith “Keeper of the Warm Flame,” which nobody questioned.
And Keith —
still in his little Santa hat, still smelling faintly of smoke and victory —
stood atop a stall and lit the central tree
with a single, perfect breath of golden fire.
The whole Market glowed.
Warm.
Alive.
Chaotic.
Perfect.
Christmas was saved
not by order,
not by control,
but by a tiny dragon
with a huge heart
and absolutely no respect for authority.
End of Advent Incident Logs.
Status: Stable. Festive. Ridiculously emotional.
