For her little Island of Varain, Luna Rainbow decided on a mixture for Christmas…

In the night of the 23th to the 24th, she and all the children of Varain waited until every each of their many creatures had been fallen asleep. Then they met in the middle of the Island and started to prepare a surprise for the morning of the 24th.  A very huge tree got decorated with candles and ornaments and bells and every other Christmas decoration one can think of. While some of the children tested the look of the tree by lighting the candles, others wrapped little presents for each critter (which mostly consisted of their favorite food) and arranged them under the pretty shining tree. When they were finished, it was deep dark and pretty cold around, morning not far away and they went to bed extremely tired and fell asleep at once.

On the Island under a black starry sky very different animals were sleeping and dreaming. From Pink Alberta, the huge griffon and Sparcla, the leagus of impressing size over the middle sized reyelkeers and awaja down to the tiny reyellittle or Rabannah, the flutter dragon baby. But where they all went in one opinion – although some thought friendly about it, while others burst out in laughing – was that one species really was so tiny that nothing went below, and those were the crenels. First there was only this one little stallion, Y’raasho, and one could almost forget about him (and mostly did), but since a few days ago four more crenels had arrived a lot of Varain creatures made fun of all of them because they were wearing the latest winter fashion of the stables they had come from. 

“Luna tried her best, I know”. A small sigh accompanied the whispered words which a little equine-like creature said to himself while turning around on his bed of moss in the corner of his hut. Y’raasho, the crenel stallion wasn’t able to sleep that night. It wasn’t really because of some excitement about the Christmas Day, it was because he couldn’t stop thinking about the stupidness of some creatures meaning to be something better than others only because of their size. Because of his intelligence and usually very happy moods this thoughts didn’t get him into depression, it was more kind of curious wondering. Of course most of the other critters couldn’t even think this thoughts that he could, but Y’raasho wasn’t vain at all of this, it was quite normal to him. He would have liked to talk about this with his new friends, but they were all asleep.

Suddenly the stallion held his move and listened carefully. Crenels are sharp of hearing and Y’raasho heard something that happened to be very far away, kind of coming from the middle of the isle. It didn’t sound very good… in fact, it sounded like something he had heard only once in his young life, and that had been when some empty goldberry-fields had been burned for the next plant-season. And now he even smelled a touch of smoke. 

Y’raasho quickly decided that no fields of whatever got burned in the middle of a starry one-before-christmas-night and woke up his friends. He informed them about his presumption that something was burning at the isle, which wasn’t supposed to and separated the group: “B’laze, you take M’istletoe and with the lights on your tail light the way over to the shaenels. Ask them to fly you two over to where Luna and the children are sleeping and wake them. This is probably the fastest way. Me and the girls try to make it to the Leagus Jungle, get Sparcla to take us to the fire to see whats going on and decide what to do.”

The two stallions did as they had been told and by the leading of S’ilences shining sha-haven winter festival decoration “Star of Bethlehem” she, N’icola and Y’raasho galloped their way through the grass and some Varain areas over to the Leagus Jungle. They found the fearless Sparcla sleeping right in front of the jungle and managed to wake the huge winged Leagus, which almost smashed them into the ground when angry and unfriendly jumping on its feet. By taking all his heart, Y’raasho was able to cling to Sparclas tail and made his way up over her back until he reached her ear, where he screamed in just one word: “Fire !!”

With her bit of intelligence Sparcla caught that this was an emergency and let Y’raasho explain the situation. Then – with some carefulness nobody had thought of her - she picked up the two crenel mares too and put them on her back. Then she took off in the air and flew over to where the shine of fire could be seen lighting the night sky by now. 

When they approached they saw the big beautifully decorated Christmas tree being a sea of flames… The nearby standing trees and wrapped presents underneath just began to catch the flames too. Sparcla was flying in circles around while Y’raasho tried to think of something they could do. “Water”, was the word that came back again and again in his thoughts and then he decided. “Let’s wake up every one on Varain’s Isle that is able to fly and have them bring water over here to pour over the flames and perhaps help to put out the fire!” Sparcla just nodded and at once turned around and flew over to the Lunar Dragons. After a short while they had involved the winged creatures of the Ever Realm, the herd of Reyelwings, the Reyelwings Dragon Flies, the Reyelwings Angel Pegasi, all the Zeemoodee, the feathered Awaja Birds, the Bragterfly Family and so on. Some just drank the water and spit it out over the fire, others were able to carry water-filled buckets, again others the children of Varain later on used for horseback riding and getting the water to the fire by this way. 

When Luna and the children arrived - after the shaenels hat brought the crenels over to wake them - all Varain Creatures were already working hard against the fire and the badest danger had almost been brought under control. The reason for the fire probably had been some candles which weren’t totally blown out after the testing of the Christmas lighting and by a little wind started to burn again or just had some sparks flown on the tree. A few hours more and they had gained the victory over the fire. 

When the morning came, the rising sun stretched her winterly but slightly warming light over a whole bunch of very dirty various creatures and children, which were sitting around a black burned-out tree, with a pretty tired but happy look on their faces. In the middle a blond and also dirty faced young woman went around and handed out Christmas presents (some kind of burned at the edges) to every one. 

When she had no more presents to give out she went on her knee, picked something and stand up again. Then she reached out her hands and on those there were standing four crenels on her left hand and one crenel on the other, which seemed a little ashamed because of all the eyes looking at them. 

“We all had great luck last night”, Luna spoke up loudly. “Some of us or all could have died if it wasn’t to this five little ones on my hands. We owe them a something and especially the caring thoughts of Y’raasho may have saved some of our lives. I know very well that a lot of you liked to make jokes of him and I hope that you have learned by now that there are some things that do not depend on size at all.”

Then she put a little kiss on the tiny stallions forehead, whispered: “Thank you Y’raasho!” and raised her hand where he was standing on. 

There Sparcla stood up and started to step her hoofs on the ground. All the others followed and the children clapped her hands. Surrounded by this big applause Y’raasho first would have loved to hide in some hole, but then grew a little bit and smiled proudly. With his little voice he asked for the favour to hear a Christmas carol by now to honour the day.

And with a not very melodical, but loud and happy “Silent Night”, sung by all habitants of the Varain Isle, Christmas Day had come.