Larrikin and the Christmas Pudding (short story)
Larrikin and the Christmas Pudding was a Crew of the Copper-Colored Cupids short story written by Lupan Evezan, being the fourth and penultimate of the Homeworld Holiday Vignettes.
Contents
Plot
Bibliophile-962 is organising a Christmas party of his own in the Cupid Homeworld. Having ordered some Christmas pudding from Baker-954, he asks Larrikin-1029 to go and collect it, interrupting his excited explanation of the game of snap-dragon. Running across the Mainland Cloud, he arrives at the building of the Department of Baked Goods, where Baker tells him to be careful with the dessert, as he hasn't got time to make another. Immediately after departing, Larrikin is nearly knocked over by Foreman-964, who's flown into a frenzy due to Philatel-426 “[stealing] all of [his] documents approving new construction”, and then causes Marksmanship-522 to crash his Fog Ship into a street sign while swerving to avoid him. After many other close calls, he finally makes his way, beaten and bruised but with the pudding intact, to the Department of Documentation's break room; there, he briefly thinks he's failed at the last minute when he accidentally drops the pudding into the snap-dragon bowl, only to learn, when Bibliophile returns from his errand collecting decorations from Celebration-665, that this is precisely where the pudding is meant to go in a traditional game of snap-dragon. Larrikin's glee is short-lived, however, when Bibliophile absently asks him to run back to the Department of Baked Goods' building to get the cranberry pie, which Bibliophile had forgotten to ask for the first time around.
Worldbuilding
Universes
- The story takes place in the Cupid Homeworld.
- Lord Thymon is seen attempting to use a “dark spell” to open some kind of portal to “another dimension”, where he almost accidentally sends the pudding.
Continuity
- The Cupids' discovery of Christmas traditions sets itself within the framework established by PROSE: The Frost King's Treasure with the “Festival of Giving” organised by Celebration-665.
- Baker-954 and the Department of Baked Goods debuted in the previous Homeworld Holiday Vignette, PROSE: Baker-954 and the Holiday Cookies. Baker would later appear in PROSE: Rifts Crisis Officially Over!.
- After losing his original Fog Ship in PROSE: Marksmanship-522 and the Multi-Dimensional Race, Marksmanship-522 had been shown to have acquired a new one in PROSE: Peace and Quiet — which is promptly destroyed here.
- Ally-1243 and Pessimist-242 make a cameo continuing the narrative of PROSE: Ally Builds a Snowman, with Ally trying to get Pessimist to go for another round of snowbound activities.
- During his own cameo, Conquest-932 is wearing black robes and making grandiloquent proclamations about destroying the Homeworld's morale, unspokenly setting the incident within the Triangular Society storyline introduced in COMIC: A Slight Misunderstanding.
- Yet another individual who almost destroys the pudding, very much on purpose, is “a small salamander yelling something about getting ‘revenge on all robots’”. The suggestion is that this is the shrunken Salamandyr who followed Marksmanship back to the Homeworld at the end of PROSE: Peace and Quiet.
Behind the scenes
Read online
The story can be read for free on the Crew of the Copper-Colored Cupids website.
