Riven The Reindeer

The North Pole Reindeer Academy's archives contain many stories they'd rather forget. This is one of them.

Riven was born during a particularly spectacular aurora borealis, his coat pure white as arctic snow, except for his nose, which glowed like an ember from the moment he drew his first breath. His twin brother, born moments later, possessed ordinary brown fur and the same distinctive nasal luminescence, though his light flickered uncertainly, like a candle in the wind.

From the beginning, the differences were stark. While his brown-furred twin would get lost walking from the barn to the feeding trough, Riven could navigate through blizzards blindfolded. When the Northern Lights danced, Riven's nose would pulse in perfect harmony, creating patterns that senior reindeer called "navigation magic." His twin's nose would flash erratically, often leading him in circles until Riven came to guide him home.

"You're too kind to him," the other calves would tell Riven, watching him rescue his twin from yet another snowbank.

"He's my brother," Riven would reply simply, his white coat shimmering in the moonlight. "We look after each other."

But looking after wasn't the same as looking up to, and his twin's gratitude was poisoned by resentment.

The annual Sleigh Team Trials dominated reindeer culture. Every December, the Big Man himself would assess candidates for his elite flying team. Most reindeer devoted their lives to training for selection. Riven, however, preferred exploring the vast tundra, mapping uncharted territories, discovering hidden valleys where the aurora touched the earth.

"You're wasting your gifts!" his twin would insist, practicing his takeoffs and inevitably crashing. "With that white coat and that nose, you're marked for greatness!"

"I'm marked for whatever I choose," Riven would reply gently. "But listen, brother, if there's ever a real emergency, if Christmas itself is truly threatened, of course I'll help. I promise you that."

"But why wait for an emergency? Why not join the team now?"

"Because pulling a sleigh on a schedule isn't my calling. But I'll always be here if truly needed. You have my word."

His twin's brown eyes would narrow at these words, though he'd quickly look away. A promise to help in an emergency was still a threat to his ambitions.

Every year, the Big Man would approach Riven personally, drawn by that magnificent white coat and reliable red nose.

"Riven, my boy, you're a natural. The team could use someone with your gifts."

"Thank you, sir, but I prefer my freedom. However," Riven would always add, "if there's ever a true crisis, if Christmas is genuinely at risk, you need only call. I'll come immediately."

The Big Man would nod, then glance at Riven's twin, who would be standing nearby, having just flown backwards into a weather vane. "Good to know we have reserves," he'd mutter.

The twin trained obsessively, but no amount of practice could overcome his fundamental lack of direction. He memorized every route but couldn't follow them. He studied weather patterns but couldn't read them. His brown coat, so ordinary among the hundreds of other brown-coated reindeer, made him invisible despite his glowing nose.

"It's not fair," he'd whisper to himself at night. "I work twice as hard as Riven. I want it more. Why should he have that white coat, that perfect nose, that natural talent?"

The answer came to him slowly, poisonously: Riven shouldn't have them. Not if he wasn't going to use them properly.

The Christmas Eve that changed everything arrived shrouded in the thickest fog anyone had ever seen. Visibility was absolute zero. The Big Man's lead navigator had fallen ill, and the backup team was stumped.

"This is it!" Riven's twin thought, his nose blinking excitedly. "The emergency Riven promised to help with!"

But then a darker thought struck: If Riven helped tonight, if he saved Christmas with that perfect nose and stunning white coat, he'd be a hero. They'd beg him to join permanently. And even if he refused, he'd always be the one they really wanted, the one who saved Christmas that foggy night. His brown-furred twin would forever be just that, the lesser twin.

"Riven!" the Big Man was calling. "Riven, we need you! This is the emergency you promised to help with!"

The twin intercepted him. "Sir, I'll find him! I know exactly where he goes to think!"

For once, he wasn't lying. He did know where Riven went, the cliff overlooking the northern valleys, where the aurora borealis danced closest to earth.

Riven stood at the cliff's edge, his white form almost invisible against the snow except for his steadily glowing nose. He turned when he heard approaching hoofsteps, his face already set with determination.

"Brother! Is it time? Has the emergency call come?"

"Yes," his twin said quietly. "It's time."

"Then I should hurry back. They'll need "

"They'll need someone who truly wants the job," his twin interrupted. "Someone who's dreamed of it, worked for it, sacrificed for it."

Riven's red nose flickered in confusion. "But I promised "

"Promises," his twin said, moving closer, "are only kept by those still around to keep them."

The push was swift and decisive. Riven's eyes widened in shock and hurt, not fear, but a deep, crushing sadness that his own brother could do this. Even as he fell, he called out, "The fog will clear by midnight! Tell them to wait!"

His twin watched the white form disappear into the mist, that red light spiraling down until darkness swallowed it. Then he carefully obscured the tracks and practiced his panic.

He burst into the Big Man's workshop, gasping dramatically. "Riven! He said he was coming to help, but he must have gotten lost in the fog! The cliff path, he knows it so well, but in this weather, we have to search!"

The search parties found nothing. The fog had hidden everything, and fresh snow covered what the fog didn't hide. By the time it cleared at midnight, exactly when Riven had predicted, all traces were gone except one.

A young elf, searching the bottom of the ravine, found a tuft of white fur caught on a jagged rock, and below it, far below, the still form of what had been the most naturally gifted reindeer ever born.

The news spread through the North Pole like wildfire. Riven was dead. Not lost, not missing, dead. And the marks on the cliff edge, once properly examined, told a story of struggle and pushing.

His twin heard the commotion from his stable. He saw the search parties returning with something wrapped in silver cloth. He watched the Big Man remove his hat and hold it to his chest. And he knew, they knew.

That night, while the North Pole mourned, the twin fled. He ran south through the tundra, his nose blinking erratically in panic, getting lost even in his escape but continuing anyway. By morning, he was gone, leaving only hoof prints that led in circles before disappearing at the tree line.

"Sir," the head elf said quietly to the Big Man, "it's Christmas Eve. The fog is still thick. Without Riven, without any navigator with a glowing nose..."

The Big Man stood at the window, watching the impenetrable wall of grey. "Riven said the fog would clear by midnight."

"But sir, that would mean starting hours late. The schedule"

"Then we adjust the schedule." The Big Man's voice was firm. "We'll use the traditional navigation team. We'll fly lower, go slower, take the routes we know by heart. And if Riven was right about the fog clearing, we'll make up time after midnight."

It was the most difficult Christmas flight in history. The team flew by memory and instinct, following railway lines and coastlines when they could see them. The Big Man himself stood at the front of the sleigh with a lantern, calling out obstacles. They delivered presents to some houses twice by accident and missed others entirely in the murk.

But at the stroke of midnight, just as Riven had predicted, the fog lifted like a curtain. The stars appeared, brilliant and clear, and the team flew faster than they ever had before, racing the dawn around the world.

"We made it," the Big Man said as they returned to the North Pole on Christmas morning, exhausted but victorious. "Not pretty, not perfect, but we made it."

From that night forward, things changed. The Big Man instituted multiple navigation teams, backup systems, and weather monitoring stations. He never again relied on a single special reindeer to save Christmas. "No one should be irreplaceable," he would say, though those who knew him best could hear the sadness in his voice.

But the North Pole remembers, and the dead don't rest when promises are broken through betrayal.

It started on foggy nights. Reindeer would report seeing a white figure standing in the mist, nose glowing steadily, looking toward the Big Man's workshop as if waiting for a call that never came. The ghost would manifest during emergencies, ready to help, unable to act, forever keeping a promise that death wouldn't let him fulfill.

On the foggiest Christmas Eves, the Big Man himself would sometimes see Riven's ghost flying alongside the sleigh, trying to guide them through the weather, his ethereal form passing through the reins he could never again hold. The white specter would stay with them until midnight, when the fog would clear, always at midnight now, as if Riven's prediction had become a promise the universe kept on his behalf.

Some say the twin still lives, somewhere in the far southern forests, driven mad by guilt. Travelers report seeing a reindeer with a frantically blinking red nose, running in endless circles, unable to find his way forward or back. They say he mutters constantly about white fur and cliff edges, about the brother who would have helped, who always would have helped, if only he'd been allowed to live.

Professor Barnabas Ravenwood documented the haunting:

"The entity called 'Riven' represents the cruelest kind of ghost, one prevented from fulfilling their purpose by murder. Most fascinating is that Riven doesn't seek revenge but completion. He appears during every emergency, ready to help, unable to act. He haunts not his murderer, who haunts himself quite effectively, but the broken promise itself, a soul trapped between willingness and inability.

As for Christmas that year, it succeeded through determination and teamwork rather than magical intervention. Sometimes the best memorial to those we've lost is to carry on without them, even when it would be easier to give up."

To this day, on foggy Christmas Eves, you can see a white reindeer flying alongside the Big Man's sleigh, nose glowing steadily, guiding from the other side of death. And somewhere in a distant forest, a nameless reindeer runs in eternal circles, forever lost in a guilt that even getting lost can't help him escape.