"Oh, that's cute," Ocean said incredulously, "Knowing her, she's probably just hiding around here somewhere." Ocean stuffed the note in her pocket. "Well, let's go check the music room, maybe your flute is there."
"But I'm sure I didn't leave it there." said Felicity.
"No," said Ocean thoughtfully, "but if Elissa is the one behind what happened in the kitchen this morning, I wouldn't put it past her to hide your flute on you."
"That makes sense." Felicity agreed. "After all, she stole an important book out of the library, and got in trouble with Yoda for that."
"Oh, wow, this I gotta hear. What happened?" Ocean asked.
As they made their way to the music room, Felicity explained that situation, then asked, "Do you think she vandalized Shmi's workshop too?"
Ocean shrugged. "I don't know. That seems extreme, even for her. But I can't think of anyone else who could have. No one else has been causing trouble lately, have they?"
"No. But I can't imagine her doing something this bad, not after all she did to help around here," said Felicity, "even if she was not always that nice.""
When they reached the music room, Ocean opened the door, turned on the lights, and gasped.
"What's wrong?" Felicity asked.
"Oh, no." Ocean said in dismay.
"What?" Felicity asked again.
"More vandalism." Ocean replied grimly.
Scattered sheet music and music books littered the floor. The piano bench was toppled, chairs were upended. But worst of all, the body of a violin was lying to one side, near some strings. The neck of the instrument was broken off, and so was the bridge. The tuning pegs were missing.
Ocean described what she saw as she took it all in.
"What about my flute?" Felicity asked anxiously.
"I don't see it yet, but that doesn't mean it isn't here." Ocean replied. "It's going to take a fine time trying to get this mess sorted out."
She moved toward the piano, one of the few things that didn't appear to be damaged. Ocean opened the top of the piano and examined inside. "Oh, mystery solved, Felicity, somebody thought it was a brilliant idea to shove your flute into the piano."
"What!" Felicity exclaimed. "If it broken?"
"It doesn't appear to be," Ocean replied, retrieving it from the inside of the piano. But she grimaced when examining it. "At least, I hope not. We're gonna need a lot of flute oil to get this gum mess out of it."
"What gum mess?" Felicity looked anxious.
"There's a gob of chewing gum stopping up the foot joint, and some stuck into the blow hole as well."
"Eww!" Felicity squealed in anger and disgust.
Then, of all people to walk in, it just happened to be Sheev.
He was going to try to relax by playing his violin, but all he found in the room where it was stored along with some other things, was the case, bow, rozen and tuning fork.
So the other and only logical place it must be is in the music room. Sheev knew this made no sense. He didn't remember leaving it there, and certainly not left without being safely shut in its case.
He gaped at the disarray of the music room, and uttered a gasp of shock at the state of his violin.
Ocean looked helplessly back at him.
"Elissa will have a job fixing this." said Sheev grimly. "That violin was a gift from my mother.."
Ocean frowned. "Elissa's made herself scarce since all of this happened." She held up the note. "Maybe our newcomers can - " then she got an idea. "I'll bet Phantom could help with the instruments!" with that, she hurried out of the music room, leaving Sheev and Felicity to hope for the best.
It took a short while, but Ocean eventually found Phantom's room. Her knocking startled him from his blissful reverie.
He stood up quickly, and made his way cautiously to the door.
"Oh good, I found you." Ocean said smiling.
"Ocean?"
"Yes. You're known to design and make and fix things, right? Would that include musical instruments?"
"Yes, I've attempted things like that, who needs help?"
"Felicity's flute is all gummed up, and Emperor Sheev's violin is broken. They are in the music room. I'll show you the way."
"I'll do my best." said Phantom.
"The flute isn't actually broken from what I can see, it's just that a bunch of chewing gum has been stuck into it." said Ocean.
Phantom grimaced in disgust. "Eww, gross!"
Ocean chuckled at his reaction, and continued. "The violin has been dismantled into its various pieces."
So it was agreed that the violin should be the first priority. Phantom and Ocean collected every bit of it they could find, and took it to a storage room where there were plenty of tools and supplies for making repairs to things. They got Phantom set up in there to work, and Ocean found a long narrow stick she could use to clean Felicity's flute. Luckily, the flute case had also been recovered, along with the tiny bottle of oil. So while Phantom worked on the violin, Ocean worked the gum out of the flute using the oil and the stick.
The flute was first to become playable again, and Felicity was overjoyed to hear Ocean test it out by playing a series of random notes and trilling the keys. Soon, Felicity and her flute, now nicely cleaned, were reunited once again. She spent time in her room playing her flute while Ocean started trying to pick things up in the music room.
Shmi was too upset to rest, yet she didn't want to go anywhere near her workshop. So she took a walk about the compound. She met up with Drake, who had just unpacked and was looking for something to do.
"Hi, there," he greeted her. "I am Drake. And you're...?"
"My name is Shmi, and I'm happy to meet you, Drake." she said politely.
"Thank you." he said. "I heard your workshop has been vandalized. I'm here with a few friends to help with the job of fixing things up."
"I really appreciate that, and hope you can. It's a complete disaster." she despaired.
Soon, they were joined by Micah, then Nadine and finally Ringo. Shmi continued on with them and they kept her company with their amiable chit-chat until they turned into the section where Shmi's workshop was.
"I'll leave you to it, then," she said, "I can't bear to look in there right now."
"That's all right, we understand." replied Micah.
"There should be a collection of pictures for you to work from in one of the cabinets in there. At least, I hope those weren't destroyed too." said Shmi.
The group of elves made their way very carefully into the workshop, stepping around or gently moving to the side what bits and pieces were strewn about the floor..
Once Shmi thanked them and wished them the best of luck, she went on her way, and Ringo shut the door to the workshop.
"Ugh, what a colossal mess." he said to the others.
They all agreed, but immediately started getting organized and planning how to tackle the job.
Shmi wandered around aimlessly until an angry shout caught her attention.
"What the freaking heck!?" it was Ocean, and her voice issued from down the hall at or near the training area. "I don't know where you are Elissa but you'll get it in the neck!"
Shmi quickened her pace, and soon met up with Ocean. "What's the matter?"
"It had to be her!" the elf fumed.
"What had to be her?" Shmi asked.
"Elissa! Know what she did? Disassembled all the light sabers and scattered them all over the floor!"
"Well, as long as she only disassembled and didn't actually destroy them, it's just a matter of putting them back together again," Shmi tried to reassure Ocean.
"Oh, that's not all! Come here and take a look at this!" Ocean turned around and headed back to the training area. She jabbed a finger in the direction of one light saber that had not even been touched. "She couldn't mess with my light saber because - " Ocean gestured angrily toward the note pinned just above.
Shmi read it.
-
'I couldn't bring myself to do anything with this light saber, after all, it is owned by an elf. Maybe next time you will all think before you are so hard on us.
Ocean'
"I did not write that drivel," Ocean ranted, "She set me up! Well maybe she can't disassemble that light saber, but I can!"
"Ocey, no!" Shmi reached out to stop her from running in to do just that.
"I'll show her and prove her wrong!"
"Not that way!" Shmi held fast to Ocean.
"Let me go!"
"Ocean, listen!"
There was a little more struggle from both women.
"Listen to me!" Shmi said.
"If it's mine anyway, why should it matter what I do with it?"
"Because!" Shmi said forcefully, "Ocean Elf, turn around and look at me. If what I say doesn't make sense, I'll let you go, but hear me out." She loosened her grip on the elf, who stopped struggling, subsided somewhat and turned to listen to Shmi.
"Because until all the other light sabers are reassembled or fixed or replaced, yours is literally the only one left.
"No kidding - " Ocean began sarcastically.
"Ocey, I'm not finished yet!" Shmi said to her.
The elf subsided again, but still looked ticked off.
"If you mess up this one, and Sheev happens to discover other people in need of revival...?" Shmi watched Ocean's expression turn to wide-eyed shock, then mellow as she understood the message. "You hadn't thought of that, had you?"
"No," the elf admitted. "Good point. Thanks.
"And anyone who sees this will know you are not behind it. We know you would never do something like that, and the writing doesn't even look like yours."
The elf sighed, trying to calm down.
"What's going on?" Ben came down the hall.
"The training area was hit, but I had nothing to do with that." said Ocean.
"I didn't think you would, Hanima, what exactly happened in here? Oh stardust." Ben took in the condition of the area and the disassembled light sabers littering the floor.
"She tried to set me up!" the elf stormed.
Shmi put a hand on the elf's shoulder, but addressed Ben. "We think it was Elissa Baker, especially considering the note above Ocey's light saber, the only one untouched."
"She did that on purpose!" Ocean fumed. "Probably to get me tossed out of here!"
"And if that happened, she would probably hope you'd join up with her against us. Ben suspected.
"Well, I wouldn't!" Ocean spat.
Ben approached the elf and patted her gently on the back. "And we will never toss you out, Hanima dear, no matter what Elissa says or does, or wants." He watched the elf's agitation turn to relief. "Not even if you had done something to your light saber. We would try to find out what happened and be sure you had a damn good reason,"
"Or contact Santa we might, and ask him to put you on the naughty list," Yoda quipped, grinning up at Ocean.
This earned him a chuckle from the elf.
Ben grinned at Yoda, then continued to reassure the troubled elf. "Ocean dear, we wouldn't trade you for a hundred Elissas, or anyone else. Just you mind that."
The elf heaved a shaky sigh, saying, "Thanks."
"Any time, Elf." said Ben. "Now why don't we all go get a hot drink and try to unwind?"
"Sounds good to me." said Shmi.
The rest of the day was spent with everyone at the compound just killing time or fixing things up. Ringo and crew got a good number of Shmi's carvings repaired, but there were others that needed to be completely remade from scratch.
Phantom got Sheev's violin put back together, but what glue was used would have to set before the instrument could be strung.
All figures and violin were given a coat of special protective fire-proof substance that was clear in color and would also help keep them from re-breaking.
At some point, Santa answered his phone to a serious sounding Ben Kenobi.
"What seems to be the matter, Ben?" he asked.
"It's Elissa Baker. She was good at helping Felicity at first, but her swell-headed attitude caused a lot of friction here. She believed being a Christmas elf meant she should be allowed to do and say whatever she wanted. She checked out a library book that is not available for just anyone to sign out. And that is only the start of it all."
"Oh, dear, I had a sneaking feeling things might go haywire with her, but couldn't justify a redraw based on a gut feeling. Which book was it?"
"The Jedi code." Ben replied.
"I thought so."
"She coerced our librarian with threats of being put on the naughty list if she wouldn't let her sign it out." Ben continued, "But since then, she has completely disrupted life here in the compound. Gossip, lies, vandalism, rude behavior, and now she has run away to avoid the consequences."
Elissa wandered about, miserably killing time at various shops without buying anything. But it was a good way to keep warm, and the weather had been getting nastier as the day wore on.
Once in a while, she would meet someone who asked her if she needed some help. Apparently Elissa looked quite pitiful next to the happy or hurried shoppers.
There were even some kids who spotted her, and would come up to talk, and try to cheer her up. She put on a good show of cheer for them, not wanting to take up their time. And when they parted, she shed tears. The little kindnesses shown to her by strangers was appreciated, but at the same time, re-enforced the idea that she did nothing to deserve their concern. How could she tell curious and concerned little kids that she was sad because she knew she'd done several very nasty things? When they made something out of her being a cute little Christmas elf, she convicted herself over and over again for her superior attitude back at the compound. How she wished she could be anything, anyone else.
When the shops closed up, Elissa didn't wish to call attention to herself by hanging around and risking being noticed by security. So like it or not, she had to face the storm outside until she found shelter. She couldn't go back to the compound after all she had done.
She wandered aimlessly about, looking into this building, then that one, looking for places to take shelter between buildings, but realized it was no use. Lit up places meant there were people who would probably let her in, but then they would have all sorts of questions for her that she didn't want to answer. Darkened buildings would be perfect, but they were locked and secured.
The storm only became more fierce. The biting wind drove snow into her face, and though she was pretty much covered from head to toe, she just couldn't stay warm.
Finally, Elissa gave up, and leaned against an outside wall of a darkened building and cried and moaned in despair. She was sure she would die of hypothermia, so she huddled down by the wall, in prenatal position, and hoped freezing to death wouldn't be too drawn out and painful.