RWBY Through Worlds (End)

BC127: Talk

When the three ladies came back inside, no one was sure what to say.

But Shine briskly told the kids to gather around and she'd tell the story--complete with using the figurines to help her.

The kids, and Esmeralda, were eager enough for this entertainment. Everyone else decided not to interrupt it.

They tried not to look at Raven, so as not to embarrass her more, but the effect was more to make her feel they were too awkward to even meet her eyes.

Shine was a good storyteller usually, as the others knew.

Oscar and Ruby at least weren't feeling too uncomfortable to enjoy the tale.

"All right," she said, picking up the figurine of Mary. "This story really begins in the very beginning. When Man fell from grace and was cast out of Eden (which means Delight). God had meant for man to live forever in Delight and without hardship, as long as man did one simple thing: Not eat of the forbidden fruit which would give him knowledge of good and evil. Man wanted to be like God, so he ate the fruit, after the serpent, the devil, had deceived the woman. But it was a lie, because the fruit did not make them gods. They were already like God--they were in God's image. But it did give them knowledge of good and evil. They did not realize that they already knew what was good, because they knew God, so only gaining the knowledge of evil could not possibly help them. Evil only existed because the devil had already sinned and fallen from grace himself. So you might say knowing evil was really knowing the ways of the devil. And Man became like the devil, full of pride, and arrogance, and greed, wishing to usurp God's position."

The kids' eyes were huge.

"Much like the Grimm," Shine added, to punctuate the meaning.

Esmeralda covered her mouth.

"Man let himself be influenced by sin, and so sin claimed Man's whole being," Shine went on. "Though he lived for hundreds of years after that, he died inside on that day. Sin is death. No one can truly feel alive who is caught in sin. God punished them further by sending them out of the Garden of Eden. He also cursed them with hard work and pain in childbirth and inequality between the man and the woman. But he made another promise to the woman: That the devil and her would have hatred and strife between them, and he would bruise her child's heel, but her child would bruise his head. A head wound is worse than a heel wound, so God was saying that the serpent would hurt him, but would suffer worse for it in the end. This was the prophecy that Jesus would one day defeat the devil."

The kids nodded.

Shine held up an angel. "So, after about 4,000 years or so, after many generations of God's promises being continued on through His chosen people, and through the people who trusted Him, even when the world turned its back on Him, He preserved one bloodline, through His servant King David, who would have the Christ, as we call Him. And He said He would be born of woman who had never been with a man, so that He would not have the sins of Adam passed down to Him, but He would be human and still subject to being tempted and being weak, like a human being. God Himself would make the child at the right time. And so He sent a messenger, an angel, to a young woman named Mary, who was engaged to another man named Joseph, to tell her she would have Jesus, also called Emmanuel (which means "God With Us"). Mary knew that people would not believe her if she told them this story, but she told the angel, 'Let it be with me as you have said,' because she was faithful to the Lord. She was brave. That was why she was chosen. But she didn't even know exactly who Jesus would be."

They blinked.

"Jesus would be the king of kings." Shine held him up. "The Lord of lords, and the God of gods. Yet God prophesied that He would be born in the lowliest of cities, Bethlehem, where David was from. And so He was. Joseph was from Bethlehem...but at first he thought Mary had cheated on him, and he was not going to marry her, but God sent another angel to him to tell him the truth. And then he took her and they returned to Bethlehem for a census. There, she had the baby."