Chapter 4: The Night In Question

He helped Mary into the sleigh while the elves organised the presents in the back and the reindeer in the front. The changeover point at the equator promised that they were ready – he traded the eight reindeer for six white kangaroos when it started to get hot then changed back for the trip home. The run would be as usual, he had decided. All the presents would be delivered as they usually were. His favourite gift, however, would be saved for last. He wanted to be able to linger over it, rather than have to rush off to make another delivery the instant it was done.

At last, he set the reindeer down in the sanctuary, the bells on the harness waking everyone – the reindeer's hooves making only a soft clatter upon the cobbled courtyard.

"Toto and Muta," he announced removing their letter from his pocket as the three friends stared at him in wonder. "Now, normally I only give Christmas wishes to those who have been good throughout the year, but you two didn't actually ask anything for yourselves," he said, looking from the crow on the pillar beside him to the cat who was as comparatively fat as he was.

"The Baron has been good," Mary said, reading purposefully from the good list in the sleigh. They had this sort of planned out, and the two spirits smiled at each other. "However, I can't see a letter from him anywhere here," she added.

"Excuse me," the Baron said, breaking from his surprise-induced stupor. "But might I ask what is going on?" the cat lord queried, as politely as possible.

"Of course Baron," Santa said, kneeling down to speak to the one-and-a-half-foot-high statuette. "Your friends wrote to me, asking for your happiness this Christmas."

"But I am perfectly satisfied with my life as it is," the Baron said, touched though confused by the actions of his friends.

"Satisfied, my lad, is not the same as happy. Take this letter, for instance. A young lad wrote to me, asking that I take the sadness away from his auntie. When I sent my elf Pumpernickel to investigate, he found a perfectly content, smiling young woman who delighted in spending time with her friends. That didn't mean that she wasn't sad and lonely underneath it all," the wise old man said sombrely, brushing a few errant snowflakes off his knee.

"I understand sir," the Baron answered with bowed head, holding his top hat over his chest as he silently wished happiness to all for Christmas day.

"I know you do, lad. You're lonely as well, plain as the beard on my face. You messed up too," he said, stroking the combed white mass that flowed from his chin as his eyes twinkled with a different light at the feline.

"What? How?" Baron panicked, shocked by the towering figure's words even more than his presence.

"You kept yourself lonely because you believed that you had been forgotten. You never once tried to find out if you were remembered, so you never found out that your memory was treasured, that the thought of you left a feeling of loneliness in the heart of another. Your friends, and hers, were caring enough to alert me, and I have some magic on Christmas Eve. It's time to fix it, Baron, climb aboard."

The old man was almost angry with the Baron, but still his heart was good, his nature tender, and his words soft. He stood and waited patiently for the doll to climb into the sleigh.

The Baron hesitated a moment, afraid for only the second time in his life. The first time had been when Haru had screamed in terror, and he had feared for her life. Now he feared for his own. If he climbed aboard that sleigh, he would probably never see Toto or Muta again, but there was hope in his heart. He didn't know what the hope was for, only that he had to believe in this, because if he didn't, he wasn't sure what there was left to believe in.

He climbed aboard.