The Reindeer Who Got Everything He Wanted

The reindeer who would name himself Blight still thought of himself as nothing when he ran from his brother's body. He had no name anymore he'd forfeited that right the moment his hooves touched Riven's chest. He was just "Riven's twin" fleeing into the forest, the brown-furred shadow of someone better, the nameless murderer whose red nose spelled out his crime to the stars.

The search party's lanterns flickered like accusing eyes through the trees. He ran harder, his brown coat soaked with sweat and snow, his red nose flashing erratically in the darkness. Behind him, he could hear them calling, not his name, never his name. They called for Riven.

"Riven! Where are you?"

But Riven was at the bottom of a cliff, white coat stained red, and the nameless twin's hooves still tingled from the push.

He ran south, away from the North Pole, away from everything he'd ever wanted and just destroyed his chance of having. The irony wasn't lost on him he'd killed the only reindeer who could have navigated him out of this mess. Even in escape, he was getting lost, running in circles, his nose blinking uselessly at the stars he couldn't read.

It was three days into his exile when he chose his new name. He'd caught his reflection in a frozen pond wild-eyed, foam-flecked, unrecognizable and the word came unbidden:

"Blight."

A disease. A rot. Something that kills what it touches.

"I am Blight," he said to his reflection, and even the ice seemed to crack in response.

By the fifth day, Blight had stopped trying to find his way. He simply ran, eating bark when hunger struck, drinking from streams that all looked the same. His reflection in the water showed a reindeer he didn't recognize the brown coat matted and dark, nose flashing "S-O-S" over and over though he'd never learned what those letters meant.

The news reached him through the migration paths, whispered by caribou who'd heard from reindeer who'd heard from elves. Riven's body had been found. The marks of struggle were clear. The Big Man had held a memorial service, had spoken of trust betrayed and gifts wasted. And on that foggy Christmas Eve, Santa had flown without a special navigator, making it work through determination and teamwork, proving that no one not even Riven was irreplaceable.

"Should have been me," Blight muttered to the wind. "I practiced. I trained. I WANTED it."

But wanting and deserving were different things, and the forest seemed to whisper this truth through every rustling leaf.

Winter became spring, spring became summer, but Blight couldn't feel the seasons change. He was stuck in that moment on the cliff, pushing his brother over and over in his mind. Sometimes he tried to take it back, imagining his hooves pulling instead of pushing. Sometimes he justified it, listing all the times Riven had refused the honor Blight would have killed for had killed for.

The madness came slowly, then all at once.

It started with seeing Riven in every white birch tree, every patch of snow that lingered in shadow. Then came the voice not Riven's voice, but his own, narrating his crime in third person:

"Blight pushed his brother. Blight was jealous. Blight got what he wanted. Blight got nothing at all."

He tried to argue with the voice, but how do you argue with yourself? How do you win a debate when both sides know exactly what you did?

Other reindeer began reporting sightings of a crazed caribou in the deep forest, running in perfect circles, nose blinking messages no one could decode. Parents used him as a cautionary tale: "Don't wander too far, or you'll end up like the Circling Stag, forever lost, forever searching for something he'll never find."

They didn't know he was searching for absolution. Or maybe just searching for Riven, to apologize, to explain, to be pushed off a cliff in return.

Years passed or maybe days, or maybe centuries. Time moves differently when you're running in circles. Blight's brown coat grew so matted with dirt and madness it looked black. His antlers, once his pride, became gnarled and twisted from crashing through branches in his endless flight from himself.

He died running.

A harsh winter, no food for weeks, the final circle smaller than all the others. His legs gave out first, then his heart, but his nose kept blinking for three days after, spelling out "S-O-R-R-Y" to the snow and stars and no one.

The forest buried him in leaves and time. End of story.

Except it wasn't.

Death, Blight discovered, was just another circle to run.

He woke if ghosts can wake as something new and terrible. His coat, brown in life, had turned black as the cliff's shadow. His nose still glowed red, but now it was the red of guilt rather than magic, spelling out his confession to anyone who could read the code. He could fly now the bitter irony of gaining in death what he'd killed for in life but his flight patterns were the same endless circles, larger now, encompassing whole forests, whole territories, but circles nonetheless.

The first time he encountered Christmas Eve as a ghost, Blight tried to help. He saw Santa's sleigh struggling through fog and attempted to guide it, but his presence made the reindeer team panic. His black form against the night was nearly invisible except for that guilty red nose, and his circular flight pattern would have led them into the ocean.

"Riven!" he called out to the white ghost he could sometimes glimpse flying alongside the sleigh. "Brother, please! Let me help! Let me make it right!"

But Riven couldn't hear him, or wouldn't. The white ghost with the steady glow continued his eternal attempt to guide from beyond, while Blight could only circle, contaminating every good intention with the poison of his crime.

He became a different kind of Christmas spirit the ghost of jealousy, of ambition corrupted, of getting everything you thought you wanted and discovering it's nothing at all. Children who glimpsed him from their windows on Christmas Eve didn't see a magical reindeer but a warning, a shadow with a guilty red light, forever circling their houses like doubt circles their dreams.

Other ghosts avoided him. Even in the spectral realm, Blight was alone. He'd see gatherings of Christmas spirits, old toys given consciousness by children's love, the ghosts of Christmas trees still smelling of pine, even Riven sometimes, white and pure and purposeful but when he approached, they scattered like fog before wind.

"I just wanted to be special," he would tell the empty air. "I just wanted to matter."

The air never answered that he had mattered to Riven, who'd loved him despite everything. That he'd been special the only reindeer Riven would have trusted enough to get close to that cliff's edge. That he'd had everything and thrown it off a cliff for the chance at something that was never meant to be his.

Professor Barnabas Ravenwood encountered both brothers' spirits during a particularly intense investigation:

"The entity designated 'Blight' represents a peculiarly instructive form of haunting the ghost who achieved their goal through terrible means, only to find the achievement hollow. Unlike his brother Riven, who seeks to fulfill his purpose despite death, Blight seems trapped in a loop of regret.

The black coloration is unique among Christmas spirits, suggesting a fundamental corruption of Christmas magic itself. The circular flight pattern appears to be both voluntary and involuntary he chooses to run but cannot choose to stop. Most disturbing is the nose, which continues to flash his confession even centuries after the crime, as if guilt itself has become luminous.

There is no peace for Blight, and perhaps that is the most Christmas lesson of all: that some gifts, once refused, cannot be reclaimed, and some crimes, once committed, become their own eternal punishment."

To this day, on foggy Christmas nights, you might see two ghosts around Santa's sleigh one white, flying steady and true, trying to guide from beyond death's veil. The other black as coal, circling frantically, nose blinking apologies that will never be enough, trying to help but only making things worse.

Blight got everything he wanted. He can fly. His nose glows. He's part of Christmas forever.

And it's the worst punishment imaginable to have what you killed for and know you destroyed the only thing that could have made it worthwhile: the brother who would have been proud to see you fly, if only you'd earned it honestly.

The ghost of Blight continues his endless circles, a dark star orbiting the bright Christmas he can never touch, forever lost though he finally knows exactly where he is: in a hell of his own making, decorated with everything he thought he wanted, lit by the guilty glow of what he did to get it.