Nativity Revisited

On a bone chilling, windy winter's night in Mobius, one of the city's churches was setting up quite an event, planned months in advance, into action. Ever since the first of October, this church had spent every day building an uncanny recreation of the city of Bethlehem. Now on this night, just a few days before Christmas, it was time to bring everyone involved together, and act out the night of the Nativity.

“Now remember everyone, we’re here to give our visitors as authentic an experience as we possibly can! So I want you all to remember our number one rule! Stay in character! So with that in mind, get to your stations, and have fun!” a bubbly middle-aged panda bustled off into the recreation of Bethlehem, with all her volunteers following closely behind.
These volunteers ranged from all sorts of different species, and this large and dedicated group of volunteers included three girls all wearing brown tunics and headdresses that hid their hair.

“Boy, she’s a stickler.” The eldest of the trio was an eighteen year old green fox girl named Samie, who was discontent with her outfit and simply couldn’t stop tugging on the back of her brown headdress, wishing more than anything she could simply take it off. “I dunno about you, but I’m gonna try and make the best of things, in my own way of course.” Samie snickered.

“C’mon Samie!” a blue cat named Eclipse, who happened to be only one year younger than Samie said, “Don’t ruin it for everyone, we spent months helping build this thing! For once, be someone other than you.”

“I am who I am!” Samie exclaimed back, “Besides, I’m not gonna do anything bad, I’m just gonna needle at people a little bit. Besides, maybe I can get my boyfriend to get a little jealous, there’s bound to be a bunch of cute guys walking through here tonight.” She said that while simultaneously winking at a handsome young squirrel who was working in the reed and pen shop.

“You’re hopeless.” Eclipse shook her head and walked past Samie, and took her place by the styrofoam well she had been assigned to work by.

“Looks like she’s a stickler too. Who knew?” Samie said jokingly, looking down at her youngest friend beside her.

“I think she just wants to make sure we do this right.” Kumi was a fifteen year old coyote who by nature was very quiet and very timid, and from the beginning she had been hesitant to participate in this recreation of Bethlehem. But after a lot of persuasion from Eclipse, she was finally convinced to join in.

“We can do this right,” Samie said, “But that doesn’t mean we can’t stretch the rules a little bit.” With a sneaky grin, Samie scurried off to the well with Eclipse, while Kumi headed over to the back of the bakery where she would just play with a ball of dough and pretend to work, and of course try to keep away from the brick oven and the candles around her.

“You think Kumi’ll be ok in the bakery? There’s a lotta fire in there.” Eclipse said worriedly.

“Ahh, she’ll be fine,” Samie replied dismissively, “Besides, the whole city has torches lit everywhere. If anything, you should be worried about me.”

Eclipse gave her a weird look, “Why you?”

“Because I’m gonna have a hard time having fun while staying in character.” Samie snickered.

“Samie!” Eclipse was about to unload on her friend, but then a bunch of men dressed as Roman soldiers came stomping in, and then the loud pounding of a wooden spear against the floor of a tower was heard signaling the night had officially begun, “People are coming, you better behave!”

“No promises.” Samie smirked and placed a jug on her head, and started acting out her character of a woman fetching water.

As the night wore on, Samie seemed to be doing a good job staying in character, as she and Eclipse were taught to do as “women at the well”, she complained and groaned about an imaginary husband who just wouldn’t help her fetch water from the well for the friends staying at their home, and people loved to strike up conversations with the two pretty girls, some even trying to break them out of character by asking them some tough questions, but they were able to parry each question with an appropriate response. But after a while…Samie got bored with saying the same things over and over, and decided that she was gonna mix things up a little bit on her own terms.

“Goodness, I am just exhausted; this must be my fifth trip to the well tonight!” Eclipse exclaimed loudly, as walkers-by marveled at how real it all seemed.

But then Samie saw a handsome hedgehog walking by and decided to adlib her script, “Indeed, my husband isn’t even worth the trouble I go through,” Samie flashed the hedgehog a flirtatious smile, “Perhaps you could be my new husband?”

Eclipse’s eyes widened in horror, that was so not part of the plan. Luckily however, the hedgehog merely smiled and walked away to the olive shop. “Samie, cut it out!” Eclipse hissed under her breath, “You gotta stick with the script!”

Samie merely rolled her eyes and looked around for the next handsome boy to mess with, but then her attention was directed to the bakery, where something seemed out of the ordinary, “Hey, check out the creeps at the bakery.”

Eclipse looked and saw a bunch of bratty pre-teens harassing Kumi at the bakery, “What’s going on?”

“Hey girl, you gonna make some bread or are you gonna just play with that same ball of dough?!”

“I bet she can’t make bread, she knows she’d get burned!”

“Why don’t you call the Roman guards to stop us?!”

“Ok, that’s it. Come on Eclipse, I’ve got an idea.” Samie got a nod from the cat girl, and the two abandoned their posts in order to come to their friend’s defense. “Goodness, such horrible things you are saying!”

“Yes, tempting a visit from the Roman soldiers, how unwise of you!” Eclipse added.

“What are you two talking about, none of this is real! You’re just people in costumes!” a boy spat.

“Oh, my Lord!” Samie flung her head back and plugged her nose, “You boys reek of camel!”

“What?! No we don’t!”

“Oh yes, we definitely sense the unmistakable stench of camel, you must have travelled a long distance to get to Bethlehem!” Eclipse exclaimed, “I would most definitely suggest that you head over to the perfumer’s shop, she will surely take care of your horrific body odor!”

“You…just you wait! We’ll be back!” the juveniles ran off in a huff.

“Are you ok Kumi?” Eclipse asked quietly so as not to attract any more attention from the guests.

Kumi nodded shyly without looking at her two friends, “I wanna go home.” she whimpered.

Samie and Eclipse looked at each other sadly, “Samie, can you handle yourself for a few minutes? I’m gonna take her out of the city and talk to her.” Eclipse said.

Samie nodded and allowed her friend to sneak Kumi out the back, “I guess I’ll have to teach those brats a lesson.”

Eclipse snuck Kumi out the cast entrance by the olive shop to talk to her, “One thing I’ve learned over the years doing this, is that not everyone shows up just to enjoy what we do here. Kids like that, they happen. They’ll try to mess with your head, break your character just for laughs, or even attack you because they don’t have any real Christmas spirit, but you gotta stay strong, because what we’re doing here is important.” Eclipse said to her younger friend, who was quietly walking beside her.

“I know it is.” Kumi sighed, “But I’m not used to it like you and Samie.”

“I know the feeling.” Eclipse placed her hands on the coyote’s shoulders, “Let me tell you something I learned when I first started doing this…we put all this together so we can instill the Christmas spirit into people, so they can see exactly what Christmas is all about. Just knowing that we can accomplish that, it makes dealing with all the hassle worthwhile.”

Kumi looked up into Eclipse’s eyes and relinquished a small smile, “Ok Eclipse, I’ll try.”

“Good. Now come on, I know just where you should work.” Eclipse led Kumi by the hand back into the city, “I think you’d do great in the stable, our Mary and Joseph could use someone to take care of them, and it’ll really give you a taste of what this is all about.” Just when they were about to get to the door to the inn, Eclipse’s eyes widened in horror, “Oh God, Samie why?!

Samie was using discreetly using her ionkinesis to make small jolts of plasma shoot out of the torches lit all over the city, torturing and terrifying the brats who had harassed Kumi earlier, not to mention any guests who happened to be near the torches. “Now this is my idea of fun.” She snickered to herself.

Eclipse hurried over and practically tackled the fox to the ground, much to the shock of all the bystanders, “Are you crazy?! What if you hit someone?!”

“I was just trying to get back at those brats for messing with Kumi!” Samie shoved Eclipse off of her and dusted off her tunic.

“That does it.” Eclipse grabbed Samie by the arm and dragged her towards the stable with Kumi nervously following. “You two need a dose of Christmas spirit! Hopefully before Janet realizes what’s going on and sends us out of the city! That panda doesn’t appreciate it when we mess up on purpose.”

Despite Samie’s constant protesting and resistance, Eclipse managed to wrestle Samie into the stable, “Now let me go before I…” Samie’s eyes drifted over to the stable area, where a young couple and their child, not even three weeks old, were sitting in a stable with three young hedgehog girls who were standing behind them in bright and glittery angel costumes. “Whoa…”

Kumi’s jaw had dropped slightly at the incredibly serene scene, and she almost involuntarily walked over to the koala girl and sugar glider acting as Mary and Joseph, “He’s so cute…” she murmured to herself, as she admired the glider/koala hybrid that had just opened his eyes to look up at her.

“See Samie? That’s what Christmas is all about, remember? That’s where Christmas spirit comes from, from the remembrance of that joyous day when Christ was born.” Eclipse explained.

“So long story short, you want me to behave myself because you want everyone else to see this.” Samie said knowingly, crossing her arms over her chest with a smirk on her face.

“You’ve done this for years, you know how important this all is, is behaving really such a horrible thing to ask for?” Eclipse asked.

As Samie watched Kumi interact with the small child portraying baby Jesus in the manger, she couldn’t help but relinquish a sincere smile. “I guess not.”