Rachel shuffled in her sleep… her pyjamas irritated her, caught up around her chest, and she shook them and shuffled around, unknowingly easing her nude form into view. Waking bleary eyed and confused, the distant rising sun felt brighter than it should’ve been… The softness of her pillow was gone, replaced by a powder she couldn’t understand and as she sat upright she realised she wasn’t in the cabin anymore…
“D-did I sleepwalk out here?” She said to herself with a gasp, rolling over in confusion and running her hand though her hair as she looked back at her footprints trailing away behind her. She had walked out over the thickly frozen lake; the fluffy layer of snow above it looked pristine and sparkled under the northern-light lit sky.
And yet Rachel came to the realisation that she wasn’t cold. She knew she should be, that out here, barefoot and dressed in nothing but her pyjamas, kneeling in the snow, she should be frozen… but she felt fine…
The sudden sound of sleigh bells caused her to turn around alarmed, spotting a sleigh travelling at speed across the frozen ground. She tried to cover her nudity to protect her modesty from the approaching figure but her pyjamas seemed impossible and tightly tangled, leaving her only making her situation worse. As the figure drew closer Rachel could only gasp out again… thundering over the snow pulling the sleigh was no horse, it was a woman, totally nude and…
Rachel’s eyes bulged, she wasn’t sure what she was… somewhere between a reindeer and a woman, the nude figure’s skin was mottled and brown like the coat of a deer and proud antlers stood atop her head. She was prancing, her head held high and proud even as her face seemed to carry a sense of embarrassment and Rachel noted that she was bound to the sleigh, in tack and straps across her body.
The figure in the sleigh drew the reindeer girl to a stop as they reached Rachel, who retreated slightly, nervous of her own exposure.
“W-w-who… who are you?” Rachel asked confused, “Am I dreaming?”
The figure smiled down at her, her beautiful blonde hair catching the light beneath her red hat as she laughed a playful giggle. “Well… You’re somewhere between dreaming and awake…” She said with a smile as she leant back in the sleigh, Rachel’s eyes glanced to the reindeer girl who was giving her a look of pity…
“The magic stops anyone from seeing me; so that I can pass like a fleeting dream… delivering my gifts... but someone like you… in the right situation… in the right dream state… well… here I am!”
Rachel gasped again, “Are you … Santa? But… Santa’s a fat man… he’s… he’s not real!”
The girl in the sleigh giggled again, “Oh, sweetie, there is no ‘Santa Claus’… every country on earth has a different belief of what the Christmas spirit looks like… I just happen to be one of them…”
Rachel sat stunned and confused, too in awe to say anything as the girl in the sleigh swung her boot covered foot over the side. “The magic is keeping you warm, and… well… there is another thing…”
“I uh… another thing?” Rachel asked, suddenly feeling a sense of unease as the reindeer girl shuffled her feet through the snow more urgently.
“Once someone sees me... well, I can’t exactly let them go back…” The girl in red said, her eyes fixing to Rachel’s in a way that felt hypnotic and the brunette could only stare back as nervous energy engulfed her. She knew she should escape but she couldn’t find the energy to move… “Chrissy was the last person that saw me… She used to be an attorney in New York… can you believe that? But one night, sleepwalking… she woke up just like you have… and, well… look at her now! … Such a good girl!”
The reindeer girl whimpered and looked at Rachel sadly.
“And I do need another to help her pull…”