The days of late December had been cold this year, and the 23rd was proving to be no exception. Even when the sun was up it had not been that helpful. At this late hour the air was misty and rough; paws sank deeply into gloves if they knew what was good for them. Much better to be indoors, although a lingering chill still nagged at windows and outside walls, the invading elements kept at bay by warm fires, by hearty meals, and by thick clothing.

For some this was the last working day, and others had already clocked off, to relax and rest, and return refreshed for the new year. Yet others were in the mood for a grander sort of celebration, and the families of Uxibarae and Doodlebug had cooked up some big plans this year. A colourful invite had gone out to a great many furries across the land, bidding them a warm welcome to the Grand Floret Hotel for a magnificent party. It was to be a nice long weekend of shared holiday, with friends and feasts, presents and fun! Many such guests had arrived at the hotel during the day, meeting and greeting before settling in their rooms to a cosy night.

The clock struck eleven o'clock in the evening, and the operations of the hotel began to wind down. In a quiet room below ground, one bunny was unable to down tools and escape to the holiday he so richly needed. This was Quinten, a light brown lop-eared hare with dark brown eyes and dark brown hair, tied up so as not to get in his way while he worked. The room smelled of warmth from the low fire. A gentle flickering light from the oil lamp illuminated so many stuffed toys that he had completed; sat on the tables around him, a few on the shelves. Simple but effective shapes; a gazelle, a mouse, a cute stripy badger. Quinten was a local shopkeeper, a creator of costumes and clothing, and right now he was working on a job to provide a number of handmade plush toys to be gifts at the party.

While the world around him relaxed, Quin could not. He was tired, since he'd been at this since the morning. He was nervous, since he'd completed less than a third of his commitment and the deadline was fast approaching. Just a bout of illness at the wrong time had thrown his whole month out of order, and he'd been making up for it since then. A half-cup of coffee had grown cold, but he finished it off anyway, before freeing up his paws to get back to his sewing. One loop after another, tying together the patterns to form his latest creation - a fuzzy red house-cat with glasses and a tufty brown mohawk whose tag said 'Frank'. Most of him was to shape, and just needed stuffing. Twitchy paws reached over to grasp handfuls from the big box of floaty cotton.

Just a moment of distraction, that's all it took. Between the stress and the weariness, the bunny's soft paw nudged the oil lamp off the table, and into the box of stuffing. It went up so quickly, Quin's eyes alight with surprise he hastily tried to concoct a water spell. Only the third incantation worked, reducing the sudden fire to a wet, sticky smoulder. Gasping, he sat his head down on the desk and breathed out a deep sigh. Half of his box was no longer of any use, and that reduced his chances of finishing to a nice, fat zero.

A few deep breaths, as Quin lifted and shook himself back into life, ears twitching about as he forced himself calm again. An idea presented itself, not a tremendously good one, but with few options it would have to do. This was beyond simple mechanics, and he really needed the magical help that only a familiar spirit could provide.

It took him a while to prepare, making himself a summoning circle, getting a few spells ready on the side. Familiars, while they could be helpful companions, weren't always the easiest and most straightforward creatures to work with. Great for some things, but really not the best for specific tasks like this one. So easily distracted, and extremely difficult to pin down for repetitive tasks, but he shook his head and tugged on his ears. No use trying to talk himself out of it now, he definitely needed a hand.

The spell took half a minute to recant, words and sounds uttered into the air that grew cold and breezy as Quin spoke. A spot in the air above the summoning circle crackled with a twinkling and shiny light that eventually opened up into a colourful hole in the world. It linked this particular dimension with some far-off realm where chaotic, magical creatures would typically congregate. Around the hole, a soft purple light shone in a warm sphere, so as to stop any troubling spirits getting free. Calm, careful hands wavered in front of the hole, before the bunny dipped them in, trying to feel and search for a helpful spirit.

One seemed to find him, though, and Quin pulled his hands back suddenly. A soft, blurry head poked through the hole, followed by some little legs, and a long slinky body. The confused shape span with colours before settling on a chocolatey brown with patches of soft white, offset by black paws that touched the sphere. As the spirit-creature became real, deep green eyes looked up and out, whiskery face pressed against the invisible restraint of the summoning circle. He was a little pine marten, about a foot from head to the base of his tail, and a further foot to the tip of his warm, swishy tail. The familiar wore small glasses, and bore a black and cream stripe near the end of his tail. He sniffed, and he turned, and he examined the little weasel-ball that he seemed to be stuck inside. The hole between worlds disappeared, leaving behind this creature which to Quin's eyes seemed entirely indistinguishable from a feral mustelid. That is, until his eyes softened, and his mouth grinned, and he looked right into that bunny's face.

"Ah. Quin, is it? Hello there, did you want something?"

"Yeah. Uh. I need a bit of help. I have about a hundred and fifty plush toys to make by the 25th, which is only a day from now."

The weasel rolled himself into a fluffy sphere inside the confined ball, suspended in the air above the circle on the table, and he shook his head. "I'm a familiar. We're meant to do difficult magic. I'm not an errand boy helping you make money." Marten paws pressed against the circle, lit up by the force that kept him trapped. "Let me go, you've got the wrong number; call someone else."

"Ah well, was worth a try," said Quinten. Paws came to either side of the sphere, and then quickly forced it inwards, making it smaller. The little familiar-spirit was forced to squish a little, and then shuddered and squeaked.

"Hey, stop that! What're you up to? You can't-" His words disappeared, as Quin brought paws together, kneading and stretching and squashing the sphere until the familiar couldn't hold his shape, returning to a pliable and colourful form.

The question of what he was up to was quickly answered, when the hare pressed the pliable mass into the cat toy that he had just recently been working on. In place of soft filler stuffing, the trapped spirit puffed out into the shape of the toy pattern. Then, Quin took up his needle and fastened up the back, producing what appeared to be a nice complete kitten toy.

Once sealed, the rabbit whispered a careful spell, and a deep change began to take place, as that soft plushie cat face pulled back into a shorter mustelid muzzle. Inside, the confinement spell melted away, and that spirit was compelled to seep into the furry fabric even more. Tall, perky cat ears pulled down to become smaller and rounder. That face became cuter as brown and white artificial fur swept over the reddish hues the toy previously had. Darkened black paws puffed out, little soft glasses formed in front of familiar green eyes that were now cast in a hard, glassy plastic.

It didn't take too long before the plushie was a soft replica of the familiar, a simple silly plush toy whose paws were soft and mittened, and whose tail was long and fluffy. Seams ran along tail, body and muzzle, and he looked at Quin with some confusion.

"Huh? Now you've made me into a plush toy, I guess you have one fewer to make, then? The answer is still no."

"I can bind you to the task, you know? Do I really have to do that, little familiar?"

The marten giggled, smugly. "And how do you plan to do that? I haven't told you my name, and you're certainly not getting it now."

Quin picked up his new pine marten plushie, lifting the tail to read the tag on it. "Well, it says here your name is Nall. That's right, isn't it?"

"Hey! That's cheating!"

"That's being a sore loser. Nall, help me with making plushies, that's your task and I'm binding you to it. C'mon, it won't take long, it's pretty easy compared to most of the stuff I bet you've been bound to over the years. It's the holiday season here and we're going to make lots of people happy. Half my filling got burned and I'm under pressure and out of options, I really wouldn't have bothered a spirit otherwise. We good?"

A soft felted collar grew in around Nall's neck, as the familiar spirit plushie became quite stuck in his current shape. Now he was committed to the task at hand, he mumbled and huffed with discontent. "Hah. Well, alright. Fair is fair, you've won me over. You want plush toys, right?" Before Quin could confirm, a large roll of soft white fur caught him around the feet, and began slowly winding around his legs and then up to his body, trapping him bit by bit.

"Hey, not me!"

"Hmm? I don't remember you saying anything like that at all," teased Nall with a big smile, and before too long Quin was surrounded in white.

The bolt of white faux fur smothered the hare from head to toe, curling about him in long loops that quickly pulled tight. The fur pulled tightly over his chest, winding around both of his arms separately, before coming together to cocoon his legs in that soft white fluff. Black felt made itself into gloves upon his hands and feet, tangling his fingers and toes into tight mitts. Quin's thoughts became slow, and it was harder to really comprehend what was going on. He tried to bring hands up and pull the fabrics off his body but the wrappings constricted his joints, forcing him to spread his arms wide, keeping him immobile and unable to break free. With one of Quin's sewing needles, Nall then proceeded to work along his 'master', helpfully sewing and sealing him in. The bright needle moved quickly in the plush marten's paw, thread seemingly spooling out of thin air as his prison of cloth was sealed shut. He took extra care to sew scraps of fur over both of the hare's long ears; covering them over. Two black buttons almost completed Quin's new face, pinned over where the bunny's eyes would be. The finishing touch was a soft black faux leather nose, snuggled and sewn into place over the end of the bunny's muzzle

"You're going to be a good plushie, just like I am. Not a bunny, though, they just remind me too much of food." Nall clambered up and whispered softly into Quin's ears, which he heard muffled through all the soft, snug fur. "If we're doing this together, you should be a stoat. Yes, a nice white ermine. Put everything else out of your mind, that's who you are now."

Quin could only muffle a complaint, trapped as he was inside his own fabric. Once Nall had started kneading him, he couldn't even try to speak. Stoat, he whispered, stoat stoat; the word and the thoughts were running amok in his mind, all vulnerable and already linked to his "obedient familiar" he had no defence against Nall's compulsive words. His whole body was shrinking now, down he went; little perky ears stood where big bunny ears no longer did, and Nall drew from Quin a long thin stoat tail tipped with black. The new stoat felt this new appendage wiggling with soft sensation, a part of his new self as much as his paws or his twitchy nose.

His firm bunny body was being gradually squished, and softened, everything that he was giving way to warm, floofy cotton that filled and spread into every part of his new weasel shape. His clothes had long since gone, wrapped and subsumed by the encroaching cotton, a thick filling of puffy stuffing replaced what had just been a living, breathing Quin. Soon enough, the hare was well and truly gone. He was longer and slinkier of body, thinner of legs and wider of neck; those two little button eyes started to glisten with life and energy. No longer a bunny even in thoughts, his mind had turned and re-shaped to match the desires and compulsion of his familiar.

Soon, a cute round stoat's face gazed up, very much a plushie in the same style as Nall, and now carrying very similar motivations. The two beeped noses, and Quin giggled softly.
"But now what?" wondered Nall, looking around at the little room, so different from down here on the floor. The table stood tall, and many different plushies shone in the small light.

"There's a whole hotel of people here," said the new Quin stoat.

"Oooh, brilliant!" said Nall, happily. "So much to do, so little time. This might be a fun assignment after all..."
Nall led the way, now he was in charge! But he still had a job to do, and now there were two magical plushies on the task, nothing could stop them! The clocks upstairs were ringing twelve, bringing in the new day which was Christmas Eve. Nall and Quin had much to do and only a day left to do it all...