Krampusnacht...

"Are you going out tonight?"

"Eh."

"But you should. I mean you have a duty, right?"

"Eh. They've forgotten me."

"Maybe it's time you remind them?"

"Eh."

"You could team up with him and make a whole evening of it?"

"Eh, he's gotten too comfortable with the costumes and the parades and the kitsch. He's always wanted to have a little of what Nick has and so this works for him. Drunken revelry."

"Maybe if you went out a few times you could get a parade too?"

"You think I want a parade? I don't want a parade. I had a job. I was important. I was feared. A parade..."

"But the parades make some people remember again, that could be good, you used to be remembered."

"Remembered as what? Do you remember what they turned me into? They told stories about me forcing women to weave. To be good homemakers. That I would take my revenge if they hadn't done their chores. They turned me into a judgemental hausfrau. I don't want that to be my legacy. So...eh."

"But, if you go out tonight and show them again who you really are, then maybe it won't be?"

"Eh. Or maybe they will give credit to a storm. Or to an act of god. Their god. Not the gods of old. They won't pay attention to who was taken, they will just rationalize it away."

"But if you don't try..."

"Eh. I'm tired. I'm tired of trying. I'm tired of watching the world cling to rotten men. I'm tired of them being given opportunity after opportunity to turn, and they cling instead. If I did have an obsession with spinning maybe I would make them all spin threads until their hands bled. Just to make them feel something."

"I still think you should go out. Try at least."

"Even you."

"Even me what?"

"Even you have forgotten. Tonight is his night. Tomorrow night is mine. You don't even remember. You have turned me into a "Female Krampus" instead of giving me my own name."

"That's not fair. You often would go with him, in days of old."

"I didn't go with him. I provided the storm that would allow him to move. I did that. I didn't go with him. I didn't ride his coattails. I provide the wind and the snow and the storm. But did he ever go with me on my night? Did he offer his chains in help? No he did not. He worried I might turn on him in the middle of the hunt. See him for what he is and forget what he means to all of us."

"I am sorry. I did not mean to bring offense."

"Go. Leave me alone. See to the hounds. I'm tired."

"I will go. But please consider it. Frau Perchta, the world could use the wild hunt again."

"eh."