Oh look, a quest! Round two (now with results!)

[Grumblesnakes]

Congratulations! You made it out of the toybox! You are now in Nerissa’s bedroom, a huge room lavishly decorated in pink and white and gold. Shocking, I know, but the dominant theme is princess. A dainty girl in a pink princess gown sits at a white and gold dressing table, adjusting her lovely golden curls until they are absolutely perfect. Or at least she was, right up until her toybox flew open and a tiny magical pony presented itself to her as her birthday present. (Or, you know, escaped from a hellish nightmare box and had the awful luck to draw her attention…) “Eeeeeeeee!” squeals Princess Nerissa. Her baby blue eyes light up, and in an instant she’s pouncing eagerly upon her best new toy, her favorite present, her very own tiny living pony.

Lucky you. You’re in the clutches of the girl responsible for all those broken, battered toys. And you’re in for some rough treatment. Nerissa will play with you until you become just another discarded piece of junk. Round two is your torture. Have fun. It can be quick, if you like. Or it can take an eternity. You have free rein to control Nerissa, with the following constraints: she will eventually break you, the more viciously and thoroughly the better. And when she does? Well, you’ve already escaped her toybox once. Once you’re thoroughly broken and no longer fun, she will toss you in the trash. Stop once you hit the garbage.

You have 48 hours from the time this hits the boards, because I’m probably going to need that long to judge it after. The story’s the key. Character development, depth, creativity. As always, if you have questions ask them in cbox, OOC board, or PM me. I'll add questions that are asked here in case I've made any egregious oversights or worded something poorly and confused everyone. Have fun, my pretties. See you in the trash can.

• Can we leave Nerissa's room and can we include torturous animals/items?
  Yes, to both.
  
• So the touch thing from round one still works for inanimate objects?
  Hmm. Not exactly, no. The other toys can be conscious, but cannot move themselves. They are under Nerissa's control just like any normal toy. But if you want to emotionally torture them too by making them aware of what she's making them do, I am fine with that. (:<
  
• Is Nerissa aware that her toy is moving? or is it like toy story? Also can she take other toys out of her toy box?
  Okay. Nerissa can do whatever she wants with her other toys. And good point. Once she gets you in her clutches, you lose your ability to control yourself just like the other toys do. Good questions! Thank you for making me clarify!
  
• Can we still talk?
  You can communicate with the other toys. You cannot communicate with Nerissa.
  
• If Nerissa leaves the room can the horses move again?
  Let's go with yes. With the constraint that she will not leave them an exit to escape from.
  
• Other toys too?
  Sure. Same condition as the toybox though. Physical contact wakes them, and the door opening knocks them back out.
  

[Ephrelle]

Her jump is successful, and for one thrilling moment Ephrelle feels entirely weightless as she soars through the air.

Her tiny plastic body prepares instinctively for the perfect landing after such a perfectly executed jump. But...there is nowhere to land. She has cleared the edge of the toy box and reached the empty air, but the world outside the dark box is huge, and the ground is miles (or three feet) below her minuscule purple body.

In the time it takes for her eyes to adjust to the brightness of the room she has already fallen most of the way to the ground. Ephrelle has time only to see and endless sea of white rushing up from below before she hits the ground.

I'm dead, she thinks, this is what death is. Death is like landing on an enormous white cloud and flying back upwards. Death is painless, and only tickles softly on her plastic sides as she bounces upward and lands on the cloud again, and again, smaller bounces each time. Death is a high pitched squeal and a blur of pink and gold. Death is hands...wait.

She isn't dead.

She might not be breathing anymore, but Ephrelle is not certain she's breathed at all since she woke up. She's not entirely sure she even has lungs: she certainly can't feel her heartbeat anymore despite her knowledge that it must be racing. What she can feel is the warm sensation of a child's hand around her mid-section. The hand is the same size as the one that punched a hole through the dollhouse roof, and Ephrelle is awash in the realization that this must be the 'She' that Doc McStuffins had warned her about.

"A Pony!" screams the girl, her voice shrill enough to make Ephrelle wince and shake her head. "My own pony!!! All mine!!! Ahhh!!!"

For several long seconds, Ephrelle's world is a shaking blur as Nerissa runs in circles around the room, shrieking and holding her new purple pony up in the air. Perhaps this won't be so bad, the filly thinks; Nerissa seems excited to have her, and maybe they can be friends. Ephrelle has always been good at making friends.

"Hello?" she says tentatively. Nothing happens, and the world is still spinning as Nerissa runs around the room. "Hello!" She shouts, much louder this time. She needs to make sure Nerissa hears her, "Hello! please stop shaking me! Please, could you be quiet?" Ephrelle pleads loudly, "My ears hurt and I'm dizzy."

"NEIGH! NEIGH! NEIGH!" shouts Nerissa, and Ephelle is gripped even tighter, both by Nerissa's sweaty little hands and by a feeling of panic. The child doesn't understand her. Nothing she says is making any sense to the gigantic monster that has control of her. Breathe, Ephrelle tells herself, Breathe.

'I have no lungs', her inner voice shouts back in a panic.

The world rushes by in a blaze of pink as Nerissa suddenly darts across the room, but at least she isn't spinning in circles anymore. For a moment, Ephrelle thinks she is about to be put back in the toybox (is it wrong to feel relieved?) but Nerissa stops before she reaches it. The girl tucks Ephrelle beneath her arm, but she can see with one eye that Nerissa is kneeling down and pulling something away from the wall.

Ephrelle is placed down in front of a large doll house. No, not a dollhouse. It's pink, like the dollhouse in the toybox, but this is a stable. Actually, it's a very nice stable, and when Nerissa shouts that "This is your home!" Ephrelle is trusting enough to think that perhaps she is not doomed after all. But then Nerissa says something about "Meet your neighbors!" and Ephrelle is shoved into three stalls and smacked into three things that she has no time to identify save their colors - red, green, and black.

She's shoved through the open door of a final stall and while her head and legs bump painfully against the walls, at least Nerissa has let go of her. The ground beneath her is hard plastic and she's unable to move, lying prone on the molded yellow straw. She cannot see anything, but the sounds of Nerissa rustling through something is loud and clear. Her hand appears through the stall door and Ephrelle prepares to be grabbed again, but instead a handful of real grass is shoved through the door.

"Eat this! I got some in case I got a pony and my wish came true!" She pushes the grass farther in, which pins Ephrelle to the far wall of the stall. "I have to go to the bathroom now, but I'll be back soon! Eat up!" Nerissa's hand fiddles with the stable and then the stall door swings shut. The girl pulls away from the stable, and Ephrelle can feel the sound of her footsteps growing quieter, and then the slam of the bedroom door closing.

For nearly five minutes, Ephrelle remains perfectly still.

She is in shock, though she doesn't quite have the vocabulary to put the feeling to words. The filly desperately wants this to be a dream, but every time she squeezes her eyes shut, she reopens them to see the pink and white walls of the stable around her.

After a while she stands up, wincing as the dried ends of the grass presses against her purple sides.
She walks to the stall door and sticks her head out, trying to determine exactly how bad her predicament is. There is another stall to her left and two across a wide aisle from her. To the left of the stall beside her is simply a solid wall - it is a four stall stable.

In the stall directly opposite hers she can see another horse. "Hello?" she says cautiously. The horse, a Breyer Secretariat, shakes its head and sinks behind the stall door, presumably laying down so she can no longer see it. Something green in the stall next to Secretariat catches her eye, and Ephrelle turns her head to see a brontosaurus sticking its very long neck out of the stall. It reaches across the aisle to the stall opposite it without making a single noise, and pulls open the door with its teeth. As the door slides open, something emerges.

At first she does not recognize it as a horse, not with everything he is wearing. But he is black and horse-shaped, and the metal armor he is wearing scrapes again the sides of the stall as he squeezes out. "Thanks Bro," says the armored horse, walking across the aisle to butt his head gently against the brontosaurus' neck. "Get yourself out and let's do this." The dinosaur nods mutely and mouths at the latch on its own door until it opens (Ephrelle watches in wonder, unsure how it is so efficient with its teeth).

"Let's go," says the armored horse. "It's now or..." His voices fades out as he spots Ephrelle through the stall door. He seems confused (though it's hard to tell with his face armor), and Ephrelle takes a step back, stumbling as she catches her huge legs in the straw. "How'd you get caught, cutie?" he asks, and Ephrelle blushes despite herself. She is about to answer when the bedroom door slams open, and the black horse and the dinosaur behind him suddenly freeze.

Footsteps thunder toward them and Ephrelle is pulled through the still closed stall door. She does not fit, of course, but the snap of the door breaks before she does, though a third of her mane is caught in the latch and ripped out as Nerissa pulls her out of the stable. The pain is still strangely dull, like the impact of the car into her side earlier. She knows she is in pain, but with no nervous system, she cannot quite feel it.

"It's time for a race!" Nerissa crows, and Ephrelle could have sworn she saw panic flash across the faces of her three stable mates. "Let's race new Pony against...hmm...Black Knight. Yeah. That's good."

Nerissa moves Ephrelle so that she's holding her in her left hand and picks up the armored horse in her other. That must be Black Knight, Ephrelle realizes. She's not sure how they are going to race when neither of them can move, but it quickly becomes clear that they don't need to. Nerissa crawls on her hands and knees around the room, cheering them on. She puts her entirely weight on each plastic horse when she crawls forward, and every time she does so, Ephrelle can feel her plastic legs bend in a new direction. Black Night seems far sturdier, and Ephrelle's envy of his ease in the situation turns sour quickly. Did he know this was going to happen? Had he meant to put her off balance by flirting earlier? Of course he had; he wanted her to suffer so he could win.

Ephrelle cannot say she is surprised when her leg breaks. The body weight of a ten-year-old is no small thing. What does surprise her is that it's not just one leg that breaks, but two of them. Both of her forelegs cave at the knee, buckling into the hollow cavity of her purple body and leaving her with two stubs. Nerissa stumbles in her crawling, and Ephrelle can hear her gasping even as she struggles to process her own pain.

Her legs are broken. In the real world, she'd be dead. There is no use for an Amazon with broken legs, and there is no way she'd make it to the healing waters of the Falls without being able to walk. She would be panther food, a weak link in the food chain.

It seems that she is the weak link in the chain for Nerissa as well. "No!!!!" shouts the girl, "No!! I just got you! You can't break yet! Stupid pony!"

The world suddenly goes flying by as Ephrelle is somersaulted through the air, tossed by Nerissa. She hits a bright pink wall and falls to the ground, only to be picked up and thrown into the opposite wall. Her right ear breaks off with the second wall hit. Nerissa picks her up and she is ready to be tossed again, but instead her mane is grabbed with one hand and her tail with the other. Nerissa pulls them both as hand as she can, screaming as she repeatedly slams Ephrelle into the carpet.

"Stupid pony. Stupid stupid pony. You're weak and slow and broken and you make. Me. So. Mad." Each of the final words is accentuated with an especially hard slam, and then with one final swing, Ephrelle is flung into the wall. Nerissa then runs from the room, screaming something about defective toys.

A long time passes.

Ephrelle does not move.

She doesn't even try.

Both of her ears have now broken off, and her right hind leg has also caved into her side from the repeated slamming. Most of her silver and green mane and tail are on the floor when she'd been slammed. Her head has twisted all the way around on her body so that she's looking at her own rump, but she remains entirely prone. She does not want to move, and even if she wanted to, she doubts she could. When the bedroom door creaks open she does not bother to open her eyes, and so the teeth of Nerissa's puppy are an unwelcome surprise as they pierce her purple body. She is chomped on only once before Nerissa returns to the room, presumably having been following the puppy closely.

"Gross!" she says, shoving the puppy away and picking up Ephrelle by one of her few remaining tail hairs. "now you're all slimy. Ew. Double Ew. There's like germs and stuff and I have to wash my hands."

Still holding Ephrelle by the tail, Nerissa walks out of the bedroom. She drops the battered and broken plastic pony into the glittery pink wastebasket on the way out. Ephrelle lands on a dirty Kleenex, face-to-chest with a headless Ken doll, and wishes for death.

[Shannisoran]

Having finally managed to catch his balance, Shan lifts his pale, blocky head and glances around. He sees immediately that he is in some sort of room. One splashed in various shades of pink, white, and gold. He might have been curious had fear not still pounded through him. If he had a heart, it would have been thumping rapidly within his chest. A sudden screech threatens to deafen him, causing him to flinch and nearly tumble back into the hellish box. His gaze catches upon a girl with head full of blond ringlets and a garishly bright frilly pink dress. A girl who happens to be making the godawful noise currently assaulting his ears.

With his choices limited to jumping back into the box full of broken toys, or jumping to the floor and making a run for it, he chooses what any sane horse would. He jumps and runs. Or rather, he jumps, bounces, stumbles, then runs. Not realizing how light and bouncy plastic is, he takes the leap of faith and winds up tumbling head over heel for several feet before he finally manages to regain his equilibrium. Back on his rather clumsy feet, he dashes for the open door. Behind him, he can hear the girl’s angry protest. NO pony. Her voice reminds him of the beastly doll’s. Perhaps slightly less nasal, but no less high pitched or irritating. Not to mention particularly shrill.

He can taste freedom as he closes in on the door, hope rising in his chest. Only a few more feet and he would be out. He would be free (or so he would like to believe). But alas it is not to be. With only scant feet left, she pounds up behind him, chubby hand closing over his small body, squeezing him tightly. As soon as her hand falls upon him, he finds himself suddenly unable to move. His body is frozen in that last position, legs stretched out in a long stride (well, as long as a toy pony’s stride can be). He panics, attempting to thrash, kick, bite, anything really. His body simply will not obey his instructions. Instead he finds himself at the mercy of a spoiled girl-child, bent on having her way.

Bad pony, she says, plopping down onto the pink and white rug, satisfaction in her limpid blue gaze. She turns him this way and that, studying him from every angle. She pulls on his teal and purple striped mane and tail, separating the strands before curling them around her plump fingers. With Shan still clutched in her hand, she suddenly pops up, running over to her toy box so that she can dig through it with the other hand. She comes up with a small brush and a delighted grin on her lips. She proceeds to jerk the pale pink brush through his stringy hair, pulling out several strands as she does. It is then he realizes how fortunate it is that plastic is not nearly as sensitive as skin. Though he can feel the tugging and pulling of the brush, he cannot seem to feel the sharp pain of strands being removed from scalp. Thank the gods for small favors.

She proceeds to play with him for at least an hour, pulling out Barbies to ride him, hold him, and pet him. Then various other animals (a pig, a dog, a couple of tiny plastic cows, even a rather large chicken) and a dainty red barn to make a rather odd looking barnyard. He might not have known what a farm was before today, but he does know that chickens should not be larger than horses, and they most definitely should not be larger than barns. All the while she is making some sort of noise. Singing, or using oddly pitched voices to make conversation between the Barbies and animals. At one point she devolves into an argument with herself as she shakes Shan and a doll at one another alternately.

You are a naughty pony! You ran away. I saw you hanging out with Jessi!

No, I’m a good pony. You weren’t paying attention to me. I was lonely!

I petted you and petted you! You’re a filthy liar.

Well, you’re a tramp!

Shan is thoroughly confused by this conversation. It seems as though she is pretending he is having this conversation. But he would never say any of those things! He doesn’t even know what a tramp is! He will certainly have to find out if he ever gets out of this though.

At long last he thinks the torture might finally be over as a feminine voice echoes through the doorway. Nerissa, come on. We’re going to go shopping! Dropping Shan to the floor, Nerissa let’s out that same ear-shattering screech before scrambling to her feet. The door slams shut behind her as she leaves the room.

As soon as the door shuts, he finds himself suddenly able to move. With a huge sigh of relief, he clamors to his feet, careful to avoid touching any of the Barbie dolls surrounding him. He remembers too well his previous encounter with them. Darting to the door, he closely inspects the entire length of it. He kneels down, peering through the narrow crack left at the bottom of the door. To his dismay, he finds it much too narrow for him to fit through. Climbing back to his feet, he pushes and kicks against the solid door, to no avail. Finally giving up on the endeavor, he turns to investigate the rest of the room. He slides into every nook and cranny he can find, hoping against hope that he might find a way out. All for naught. The window is much too high for him to even have a hope of reaching. He’s pretty sure there are not enough Legos in the world to reach that high. Nevertheless he continues to search doggedly until he hears a door slam in the distance.

Stiffening, Shannisoran’s gaze darts to the closed door. A high pitched voice rings out from the corridor beyond and fear hits the plastic colt like a blow. Glancing around wildly, his dark gaze catches upon the lace covered gold and white bed. Darting for it, he slips under the edge of the bed just as the door opens. To his horror, he finds himself frozen once again. Nerissa chooses that moment to utter a questioning Pony?

Pony, where’d you go?

If Shan could move, he would be cowering under the farthest corner of the bed. Instead, he can only stand where he is, near the edge of the bed, fear quaking in his non-existent heart. Before long, Nerissa lifts the bed skirt to peer into the dark depths where Shan’s not so secret hiding place is. Her blue eyes lighting up, she reaches out to grab him as she exclaims There you are pony! How’d you get under the bed? Silly Belle.

And that is how he received the most ridiculous name in the world: Belle. Chattering happily, Nerissa proceeds to get ready for bed. Setting Shan on her dressing table, she dons a nightgown that is easily as frilly as the hideous dress she had been wearing just moments ago. She then binds her gold ringlets into tails on each side of her head before grabbing that same pale pink brush and pulling it through Shan’s multi-hued locks.

It is then that the girl’s mother comes in, saying, Time for bed Nerissa. With only a token protest, Nerissa climbs into bed, taking Shan with her. After tucking her into the large four-poster bed, her mother quickly picks up the various toys scattered across the floor before turning out the light and leaving. Unbeknownst to him, this is how Shan will be spending the next several nights.

The next few days continue on in a similar fashion, though rather than going shopping, the girl leaves for an activity she refers to as ‘school.’ On the fourth day, Nerissa determines that she is going to bring Shan to something called ‘Show and Tell’. This sets off a whole new host of horrors for Shan. He is unceremoniously dumped into a bag and jostled about in the most unsettling fashion before being left to languish for what must have been ages. The bag, unfortunately, is tightly closed, leaving him no avenue of escape. Finally, Nerissa opens the bag and retrieves him, only to present him to a large horde of boy and girl children much like herself.

As the children ooo and ahhh over their nifty toys, one girl asks Nerissa if she could see Shan. No! Nerissa exclaims in no uncertain terms.

Mrs. Silverstein, Nerissa won’t share! the girl whines as she moves to tug at the adult female’s sleeve.

But Belle is my pony, Nerissa pouts, large tears forming in her eyes. She’s brand new, and Claire will wreck her!

Now Nerissa, Mrs. Silverstein admonishes. You know that sharing is expected. You shouldn’t have brought Belle if you didn’t want to share.

With a sniff and a large (fake) tear, Nerissa reluctantly hands Shan over to Claire. For a moment at least. She quickly reaches out to take Shan back. This prompts a tug of war between the two girls, with the poor plastic colt in the middle. In the end, Mrs. Silverstein takes Shan away from both girls, inducing a fit of hysterics from Nerissa. With a no-nonsense attitude, the woman tucks him into a dark drawer, where he remains stuck for the remainder of the day.

Later that evening, after Shan has been returned to Nerissa and she has gone home, she is still pouting. In a fit of pique, she grabs a scissors and proceeds to chop off every last chunk of his hair. There, now Claire will never want you again, she says, her tone petulant.

Then, as though she just realized what she had done, she tosses him across the room with a gasp. He bounces several feet across wood and carpet before coming to rest on his side on that blasted pink and white carpet. With a wail, Nerissa dissolves into sobs. She goes to bed without him that night. Her mother leaves him where he had landed on the floor after Nerissa protests, He's been naughty. He needs to stay there and think about it.

The next day as she exits the room, she leaves the door standing wide open. Just before stepping out, she turns back to give Shan an inscrutable glance. Shan perks up, gaze latched onto the wide open door. Hope begins to rise in his chest once again. He smiles as he scrambles to his feet, fully prepared to make a mad dash. In a moment, that hope bursts like a popped balloon as a large, wet nose pushes its way into the room. A gigantic (relatively speaking), slobbering Pug enters the room, causing Shan to make a beeline for the bed. Unfortunately the squat little Pug is quicker. The dog snags him in its mouth before shaking its head viciously. When the Pug has finished shaking him, Shan is decidedly woozy. He isn’t sure he could stand, even if the dog put him down.  Of course, he does not. Put him down, that is.

Instead the slobbering beast trots proudly out of the room, new toy clamped in his jaws. Once downstairs, he flops onto the floor before chewing vigorously and persistently on Shan. Groaning, Shan struggles weakly, but finds himself unable to escape. After what seems an eternity, the dog grabs the well chewed pony and scurries through the kitchen and out the dog door before digging a hole in the back yard. With a happy grunt, the dog buries him in the shallow grave. Darkness surrounds Shan as he is covered by dirt.

It takes the tri-colored colt many long hours to dig out of his doggy dug grave. When he finally breaks free, the sun is rising over the distant horizon, staining the sky in brilliant hues of pink and gold. Too bloody reminiscent of the demon child’s bedroom. Exhaustion overwhelming him, Shan collapses to his side. He lay there until the sun is high in the sky. Eventually, he finds the strength to climb to his feet. Turning away from the house, he begins the walk through the grass as quickly as he can. He doesn’t know where he is going, and he doesn’t care. As long as it is far, far away from here

He doesn’t hear the loud rumbling noise at first, as tired as he is. As the sound gets nearer however, he does notice it. Unfortunately, by then, it’s too late. Looking up, he sees that the loud, beastly thing is nearly upon him. He takes off at a full sprint, running as fast as his stubby legs can carry him. But not fast enough. The deafening machine is upon him, catching him up in sharp, wicked blades. He smacks loudly against the green stained roof before being spit unceremoniously out the side, much worse for the wear. One leg has been thoroughly mangled, two are missing large chunks, and the third, miraculously, seems to be intact. He realizes suddenly that he’s missing his nose. And though he doesn’t realize it yet, he is missing an ear as well as a large chunk of his left buttock. If he could have laughed, he would have. How he is still alive, he has no idea.

He can hear masculine cursing coming from behind him, though the sound is odd and slightly garbled, as though coming through a speaker. The angry voice is followed by a high pitched wailing. Nerissa. He’d recognize her anywhere.

She picks him up, still sobbing as she collects each piece that had been sliced off. A large man hovers over them, his face darkened by anger. Nerissa sobs harder. You wrecked her daddy. She was perfect and you wrecked her.

We’ll get a new one, he says, face softening at her distress. Just don’t leave it outside next time, OK? That immediately brightens Nerissa’s cherubic face. Promise? she asks.

Of course, says her father. With a satisfied, knowing smirk, Nerissa marches into the kitchen and tosses Shan into the garbage.


OOC: I apologize for the novel.

[Speck]

The pink-coated room was abnormally quiet. Nerissa could be seen casually scrawling across a picture with her favorite magenta crayon. She paid little attention to keeping it inside the lines instead she simply scribbled across the thin tan paper with hard strokes. Occasionally the stout girl would wiggle her chubby hands into a red, plastic bag and pull out a few pieces of round candy. The candy sat in between her fingers for just a moment before she shoved it deeply down her throat. The sound of teeth crunching and gulping were the only things that disrupted the silence until a shy thud broke ground behind the girl. Like a vulture to prey Nerissa turned her head, and her eyes keenly set onto a remarkably small plastic pony. Nerissa’s eyes grew large and round as she stared at the new toy, and before excitement could burst through her loins she hopped off her lace covered stool and scrambled over to the toy. Speck managed to escape the toybox with little trouble. She paid no mind to the candy covered Barbie dolls as soon as she slipped through the lids crack. The toybox had a latch attached to the center of it, and when Speck pulled her body fully free she accidentally caught her hoof in the lower part of the latch. While she attempted to break free her body flung itself forward and she fell to the hardwood floor. Normally the impact of the fall would take Speck’s breath away, but instead of the usual broken bones and blood her plastic body simply bounced. Nerissa spotted the pony bounce, and she thought that she saw the pony shift its head as well. This “imagined” movement only furthered Nerissa excitement as she latched her fat filled fingers around the pony’s waist. ”EEEEEEEEE”, she screeched while she pumped her arms. Speck’s hair flung around wildly with each forceful movement. The tiny filly tried her best to break free of her captor’s grasp, but she failed miserably. Speck’s muscles did not listen to her mind. They had betrayed her. The plump girl waddled back to her coloring spot with the pony in her hand. She plopped Speck down on the table and proceeded to move her around as if she was running across the magenta-colored ground. ”Dum. Dum. Dum. Horsey run, run, run”, Nerissa giggled. ”Now horsey, I name you Pinky.”, She spoke directly into Speck’s face. Speck found the new name to be quite odd. She figured that the large, brutish monster was not that intelligent even though it had already claimed control over her body. ”Hmm….”, Nerissa moaned while she twisted the pony’s body around so she could get a better idea of it’s color. ”You ugly, we fix you, Pinky”, She spoke more cheerfully this time and even lifted her tone at the very end of the sentence so that it squeaked. ”Pinky, stay!”, The girl demanded. She laid Speck onto her side and scuttled out of the room without another word. Speck felt her entire body relax as the spell wore off. ”Witch!” She yelled toward the door that the little girl had just run out of. Speck thought she had won the game when she escaped the toybox, but clearly there was another boss battle to be had. She needed to break free from the thick waisted witch. Speck began to assess the bedroom. She noted the toys that were thrown around the room. Several had missing pieces or busted seams. Others had candy stuck to their fur or hair just like the Barbie dolls. It was truly a horrendous place. Nerissa skipped back into the room before her pony could even step from its spot. In one hand she carried an assortment of markers, and in another she carried a mangled doll that shared similar yet skinnier characteristics to the girl. ”Okay Pinky, Kristin and I will fix you right up.” Nerissa placed one of the permanent pink markers into the dolls hands. She maneuvered the doll so that it sat in front of Speck and with her own motions Nerissa manipulated the dolls hand and marker to stroke Speck’s orange body. The streaks of pink were scattered across the pony’s belly. Once Speck’s two sides were sufficiently covered in marker Nerissa took her full body in her hand and colored the edges of her cheek and nose. ”Much better, Pinky, you are beautiful!”, The girl tossed the pony up in the air and caught it in her now smudged, pink hands. She kissed Speck right on her lips. The thick saliva covered Speck’s tiny face, and a string of it remained drooping down her cheek as the girl retreated backwards and placed Speck on the table. A blissful aroma overtook the room. The young girl had been focusing on her pink creation when the smell of cookies came with a gust of conditioned air through the vent. Speck barely detected the smell with the scent of permanent marker still hanging heavily on her nostrils. Nerissa leapt forward and snatched her new prized pony before she exited the room. The journey to the kitchen was a bumpy one. Nerissa would skip and toss Speck into the air and then proceed to barely catch her on the way down. Speck felt as if she was growing sick with the rapid movements. She was sure that if her belly were not full of air she would have expelled her previous days meal within seconds. ”Don’t touch that!” Nerissa’s mom yelled when the little girl reached the kitchen. She hung onto her pony with one hand and with the other attempted to grab a piece of gently rolled cookie doe. ”BUT MOMMMMMMMMMMMM. IM HUNGRY!!!” The little girl wailed. She stomped her feet on the tiled floor which caused a loud thump thump to echo throughout the room. ”Nerissa, you know you have to wait. Now don’t touch anything I have to run to the bathroom…” ,the mother warned her child and watched her with a keen eye as she scuttled backward toward the bathroom. As soon as Nerissa’s mother was out of site the plump girl shoved a raw clump of cookie doe into her mouth. She gnawed on the fatty goodness before swallowing with one large gulp. Nerissa then set her eyes on the oven. She walked over to the door and stared bright eyed at the cookies baking within. They looked fairly done. Nerissa reached upward and flung the oven door down. She reached her free hand into the oven and grabbed a single cookie. It was small. Nerissa frowned at the size of the dessert and then looked at her other hand that was holding tightly onto Speck. She twisted her lips for a moment before she placed Speck down on the cookie sheet and grabbed another cookie with her now second free hand. ”Nerissa get out of there!” Her mother had returned from the bathroom quicker than expected. Nerissa backed away from the oven and shoved the two cookies in her mouth before she ran to her room in order to avoid a scolding. Nerissa’s mother shook her head and smiled to herself before she bent down and without looking closed the oven door. The heat became unbearable instantaneously. Speck could now move, but her plastic body began to melt onto the cookie sheet. Her hair singed, and she could feel every bit of her give into the fire. It was a level of excruciating pain that Speck could never have dreamed of. She felt a scream burst from her squeaky lungs before all fell silent and dark. The melting plastic smell came quick, and the fire came quicker. Nerissa’s mom barely noted the change in scent before flames erupted from the oven. Panic clearly overtook her as she scrambled to the cabinet under the sink. Her hands pulled out a shiny red canister. She fiddled with the knobs before a thick, white cloud of mist poured over the now ruined oven. Nerissa clambered back out of her room. ”NOOOO PINKY!!”, She yelled upon seeing the billowing smoke pour over the kitchen. ”Pinky?” her mother responded. ”Yes, PINKY! She is in the oven. I forgot.” Nerissa’s lower lip pushed forward. Her mother placed one of her hands on top of her head and then she opened the oven door to an even thicker stream of smoke. She wafted her hand through the smoke before she placed an oven mit on and pulled out the cookie sheet. Melted to the bottom of she sheet was a charcoal, pink, orange colored pool of plastic. ”Well it looks like Pinky isn’t here anymore. Maybe she’ll turn up tomorrow. If not by then I will help you look for her.” Her mother reassured her daughter while she placed the cookie sheet down and stepped in front of it. Nerissa hesitantly nodded, and with a heavy frown shuffled out of the kitchen. ”My my…” Mother mumbled. She took the cookie sheet in hand and walked over to the trash can. ”I do hope the toy store still has that toy she wanted…” She said as she scrapped off Speck’s remnants and poured them into the trashcan along with charred chocolate chip cookies. speck tiny daughter of brennen and bother

[Syl]

The instant the plane is out of the box, it begins to fall.  One moment the wind is blowing through her mane and freedom is just within her grasp and then suddenly the world is disappearing out from under her.  Her mouth twists in a scream, but nothing comes out - she’s too terrified.  The ground rushes towards her and she struggles to free herself from the plane.  As scared as she is, she still knows that she doesn’t want to be underneath it when it hits.  

It’s all over in a second.  She hits the ground with an audible thump and lies there, stunned.  The plane lies only a few inches away.  Somehow, she’s still alive.  

She’s left no time to think about this surprise however, as, seconds later, an earsplitting shriek threatens to deafen her.  “Eeeeeeeee!  A pony!”  Something large and slightly sticky closes over her body and suddenly she’s lifted back into the air.  Syl tries to struggle against it (something tells her this is not a good place to be), but quickly discovers that she’s unable to move.  Her body has just stopped responding all together.

The thing lifts her higher and higher, until it stops with a sudden jerk.  Then it turns her around.  There, in front of her, is a face.  A massive, pink, fleshy face, with two bright blue eyes that are staring at her with a terrifying intensity.  “A pony!  My very own pony!”  Oh God.  She’s in hell.

The thing holding her (which she abruptly realizes is a hand) begins to move, and suddenly she’s spinning very fast through the air.  “Pooooonyyyyyyyyyyyy!”  Round and round she goes, until the face collapses towards the floor taking her with it.  As she falls, Syl manages to catch a better glimpse of the creature.  It’s a girl - a human girl.  Except it’s absolutely enormous.  Bloody hell, she really has been turned into a toy.  This has to be a dream.

The girl stands up again, and lifts Syl back towards her face.  The blue eyes peer intently at her once again.  “I’m going to call you … Bubblegum!”  As the girl talks, little droplets of spit fly out of her mouth and land on Syl.  Oh God she wishes she could move her body.  “Come on Bubblegum!  You can live in my castle!”  She’s on the move again, being carried through the air towards a massive white, pink and gold thing that’s lying on the floor.  The closer she gets, the more she’s able to wrap her head around what she’s seeing.  Three white towers, all attached together, rise out of a pale pink base.  Each is topped with a pointed roof of pink and gold.  As she gets even closer, she can see that each tower is crammed full of things - every little room is stuffed with even more pink and gold.

She’s suddenly slammed onto the ground in front of the castle with jarring force.  Dull pain floods her legs, accompanied by a strong sense of foreboding.  She has a feeling that things are only going to get worse from here on out.  “Here Bubblegum, this is Princess Nessy!”  A plastic doll (also adorned in pink and gold) is slammed down in front of her.  The doll isn’t moving, but Syl thinks she sees fear in its eyes.  “She’s going to be your rider!  But first you need a hair cut!”  The girl grabs a massive pair of scissors from a nearby table and brings them up to Syl’s face.  “Snip!  Snip!  You’re going to be soooo pretty!”  The scissors jab down towards Syl’s head and she feels a sharp, blinding pain in her ear.  If she had been able to move, she would’ve screamed.  “Whoopsies!  Sorry Bubblegum!”  The scissors fall away and the girl skips off to another part of the room, her back to Syl and the doll.  Syl takes the opportunity - who knows how many she’s going to get?!  “Hey!  How do we get out of here?!”  She tries to whisper at the doll in front of her, but the doll stays silent and still.  

Thud, thud!  Too late!  The girl has returned and is pulling something out of a little box.  “Here I’ll fix you!”  She opens a little packet, and puts a pink strip of something up to Syl’s face.  “It’s Sleeping Beauty!  She’s my favourite!”  Then she squashes the strip down over Syl’s throbbing ear, where it sticks.  “Now Nessy can ride you!”  The girl picks up the doll and slams it down on Syl’s back, jamming one of it’s high-heeled feet right into Syl’s spine.  The doll is clearly not made to go on a pony of Syl’s size, so the girl begins fiddling with the doll’s legs.  She wrenches them apart and forces them down Syl’s sides, the shoes dragging painfully against Syl’s plastic skin and leaving scratch marks in the purple paint.  “Yayy!  Time for a ride Nessy!  Let’s go to the mountain!”  She begins slamming Syl into the floor, moving forward ever so slowly, one inch at a time.  Pain shoots through Syl’s legs every time she hits the ground.  The girl keeps them moving forward until they reach a plastic rock with a tower sticking out of it.  “Oh no!  A dragon!”  From behind the tower the girl picks up a big green plastic dragon with her other hand.  “But Bubblegum and Princess Nessy will save the day!”  She slams Syl into the dragon, sending ‘Princess Nessy’ flying and putting even more scratches in Syl’s paint.  She slams Syl into the dragon over and over until, “hooray!”  The girl throws the dragon against the wall.  “Bubblegum saves the day!”

A loud voice suddenly calls out, coming from somewhere under the floor.  “Nerissa!  It’s time to go!”  The girl looks up from her toys towards her bedroom door.  “But muuuuum!”  A tentative hope springs up in Syl’s chest.  Is this it?  Is her torture finally over?  “No buts Nerissa!  It’s your birthday party!  We need to get going!”  The girl looks back at Syl and sighs heavily.  The little bud of hope in Syl grows even bigger.  Yes, it’s over!  Then the look on the girl’s face brightens.  Uh oh.  “You can come with me Bubblegum!  You can meet all my friends!”  Syl’s heart sinks.  This really is hell.  She would rather face the families of all of Elite’s victims at this point.

The girl (now revealed as Nerissa) rushes for the door and heads for a set of stairs.  When she reaches the top, she accidentally drops Syl.  Syl tumbles down the stairs, falling head over heels and hitting every single step on the way down.  When she hits the bottom she lies there, stunned.  Her body aches all over.  “Whoooopsies!”  The girl starts skipping down the stairs.  “NO TOOTSIE!  NO!”  Something warm and wet closes over her and sharp things begin digging into her sides.  It’s a dog.  A fat little black and tan dog.  And it’s apparently decided she’s a chew toy.  

The dog chows down, digging its teeth into her over and over and over.  Syl feels certain that she’s going to die.  It’s seems like an eternity before Nerissa finally makes it down the stairs and rips her from the dog’s mouth.  “BAD TOOTSIE!  BAD DOG!”  Syl is once again held up to Nerissa’s face.  “I’ll fix you Bubblegum!”  The girl is about to head back upstairs, when a woman’s head pokes through a nearby corner.  “Nerissa!  We need to go NOW!”  Nerissa looks between Syl and her mom, then sniffs sadly.  “I’ll fix you later.”  Then she skips towards the front door.  She speeds through the door, into the driveway, and through the open door of an already running SUV (not that Syl knows what it is), swinging Syl by her long tail.  She plonks herself down in a seat and is about to buckle herself in before, she suddenly yells.  “MUMMY I FORGOT MY CROWN!”  The woman, now seated up in the front of the car, groans loudly.  “Quickly Nerissa, quickly!”  The girl flies out of the seat, dropping Syl on the ground in the process.  She lands with a thud on the cement, falling slightly under the SUV.  She doesn’t even try to get up.  Her body is just too sore.

From her position on the ground, she can hear the woman in the car tapping her fingers.  Then the woman’s head pokes out of the car window.  “NERISSA! HURRY UP!”  Then the woman begins to back the car down the driveway.  Syl doesn’t realize what’s happening at first - the car above simply begins to move and an odd but horrible smell fills the air.  Then she notices that she’s in the path of the wheel.  And it’s too late for her to get out of the way.

She’d thought the dog had been bad.  She’d been wrong.  

As the wheel rolls over her, her body is filled with the worst pain that she’s ever experienced.  Her insides are slowly crushed and she can feel her neck give way under the extreme pressure.  When the wheel finally rolls away, she’s left in two pieces.  Her head has fallen off, her body is slightly flattened and her legs are cracked and lying at awkward angles.  She wishes she could die.

She’s in so much pain that she doesn’t notice Nerissa returning until the girl picks up the two pieces of her body and bursts into tears.  “MUMMY YOU BROKE HER!  YOU RAN HER OVER!”  The woman jumps out of the car to join them and Syl can just barely hear her muttering under her breath.  “Oh I don’t have time for this.”  The woman peers in at Syl’s broken body and sighs.  “I’m sorry princess, I really am.  We’ll buy you a new one after your party.  How about that?”  Nerissa sniffs and nods through her tears.  “Alright sweetie, go put her in the garbage and then come back and get buckled up.  We really need to go.”  The girl nods and then heads back into the house, taking Syl with her.  She heads straight to the kitchen and opens a cupboard directly under the sink.  She lifts Syl up to her eyes one last time.  “I’m sorry Bubblegum!”  The she tosses Syl into the trash.

As she hits the bottom of the bin (the impact softened only slightly by rotten food), Syl can hear Nerissa singing as she skips away.  “I’m going to get a new pony!  A poooonyyyyyy!”  

Can she please, please wake up now?

[Erebor]

We are at war. There will be scars.

He is falling, falling – and when he hits the ground, he can't move. He is facedown on his right side, eerily similar to how he had been in the toybox. But out here, outside the toybox, there is no movement. There isn't even speech. There is just – a voice?

"Eeeeeeeeeeeeee!" he hears the squeal of glee, and feels the thunder of some giant's immense footsteps. "Whoi's there?" he calls, but the thing doesn't answer. He can't see the creature at first, but it's no less terrifying when she does come into view. He's never seen anything like her – terrifyingly perfect, all gold and pink in a way that strikes him as incredibly unnatural.

He keeps himself from panic simply because it is his habit not to panic. She grabs him harshly around one of his front legs, crushing it in a way that no horse's leg should ever be crushed. The pain is unbearable, and even he , the born stoic, screams and screams. But there is no logic in this place, and so although he can feel the pain of being lifted by a leg, the leg doesn't move – it doesn't give way, it doesn't break. Oh but it should, it should.

"Let me go." he gasps out, but is ignored again. She dangles him in front of her face, so close that all he can see is one blue eye, distressing and huge as a malevolent moon. "PONY!" she screams, with the gleeful excitement of a spoiled brat. "Let me go!" he shouts, with all his strength. Again, he is ignored. She giggles, as though she's the most clever girl in the world. "Pretty pony!" her voice is no longer a scream, but still terrifyingly high-pitched. "Don't you understand you're hurting me?" despite it all he is trying to reason with her. And once again, he is entirely ignored. "Pony needs a name!" Everything she says sounds like it has an exclamation mark. "I will call you…" her face screws up as though she's thinking deeply, as though she's pondering impossible mysteries of the universe.

"Miss Pony McBerry Greenington!" she stumbles over the words a little bit, swinging him around wildly, still holding him by that same leg, as she says it. If he weren't so consumed by the pain no doubt he'd be hating the fact that he had been christened with a female name.

She swings him quickly down to her side, accidentally dropping him as she does so. He hits the floor with tremendous force, force that should be bone crushing – but isn't. He is terribly, impossibly entirely intact. And after the shock of the initial impact, the lack of pressure on his foreleg starts to sink in, and he starts to feel, for just a moment, blessedly better.

"MISS PONY!" the little girl shrieks, dropping to her knees beside him. She giggles and seizes him with a hand around his barrel. He can't breathe, and feels on the edge of passing out, but at least it's an improvement over the leg. Talking isn't an option this time, he can barely even seem to breathe. "ARE YOU OKAY?" she screams again. He wants to express to her the myriad of ways in which he is not okay, in which none of this is okay – but words are still not an option.

She giggles, and smiles. "Of course you are." she pats him on the head, almost gently. Almost. "Miss Pony is always okay." She strokes his mane with her free hand for a moment, and then her face seems to light up.

"PETUNIA!" she shrieks, and a moment later a harried looking older woman wearing some kind of white and black uniform hurries in. "Yes Miss Nerissa?" the woman's voice is subdued, the tones of a woman born and bred to be under someone else's heel. "Petunia." The girl greets dismissively. "We’re going to have a tea party. Get everything ready. And you know, they all like their tea extra hot." The girl says that last bit at the end with a strange, cold tone that he doesn't like at all. Petunia closes her eyes for just a moment, a flicker of sadness before duty (and possibly, fear of what happens if she doesn't obey) kicks in. The one called Petunia merely nods, and leaves the room.

"Well, Miss Pony. We need to make you proper welcome!" she claps her hands together in obvious glee. "But it'll take a bit for the tea. So before that it's time…to play!" She giggles and drops him, where he falls over entirely unceremoniously. He's on his side again, still unable to move. He hears her move behind him, toward the toybox, which he cannot see. He hears her muttering to herself quietly, hears her shifting the toys around, as though looking for some very specific ones. He shudders to think of the crashes he's hearing; she's clearly not being very gentle in her search.

Her face is looming over him again just a moment later, a terrible caricature of a smile. "Miss Pony! All the guests are here!" He can see then, clutched in her hands just as he'd been, some of the friends he'd made in the toybox. He recognizes the one-winged alicorn Samaine, rigid as he is in the girl's grasp, her eyes betraying that same deep sadness. It makes so much more sense now, why she'd be so sad. The twin dolls are there too, blue and pink and terrifying. And last, of course…

"Her Royal Highness, Princess Stabby Shooty PrettyHat!" Nerissa announces, dropping all the other toys in a heap next to Erebor as she raises the hand holding Prin, and only Prin. The cowboy-samurai woman hadn't been kidding when she'd said that Nerissa always called her by her full name. And she apparently wasn't kidding about being Nerissa's favorite. She was the only one not currently dumped in an ungainly pile.

"Your highness, there's a new friend in your kingdom." Nerissa carefully sits Prin down and busies herself with something around the room, talking to Prin as she goes. "Her name is Miss Pony McBerry Greenington, but you can just call her Miss Pony for short." The noise stops, and he can just see her. She seems to have a pile of other things in her arms, but he can't see them well enough from the floor to know what they are.

Nerissa sits down then, dumping the pile out next to her. "Well Your Highness, shall we welcome her as we welcome all our new guests?" she seems to be legitimately asking, but it's only a moment before she answers her own question. OF COURSE WE SHOULD!" she squeals with a giggle. "TOURNAMENT TIME!!!!"

Erebor doesn’t like the sound of that. He'd love to run, he'd love to hide, but nothing works.

Nerissa busies herself with something in the last pile she set down. "I'm so sorry, y'all." he's startled to recognize the voice as Prin's. She sounds broken in a way he never thought she could be. "No matter what I do to y'all, remember, it ain't me." He doesn't hesitate, responding immediately. "We can talk?" "Yup, we can. An' boy howdy do I wish we couldn't."

He's about to ask what she means when Nerissa finishes whatever she was setting up and grabs him roughly (again, around the foreleg, with the accompanying electric unbearable pain). He vaguely registers the fact that she's grabbed Prin too.

"Her Royal Highness, The Awesome Princess Stabby Shooty PrettyHat will now take on the newcomer Miss Pony McBerry Greenington in a fabulous welcoming tourney-mint!" Clearly the girl is a bit young to actually sound as prim and proper as she's trying to sound. Words like "tournament" just aren't quite coming out right yet.

She sets Erebor down roughly, with enough force that it should've fractured his legs. And yet they don't fracture – the impossible force shivers up through him. She presses down on his back then, and he sees that he's facing Prin.

Who is held in Nerissa's right hand, along with what he suddenly sees is a pair of nail clippers. Sharp nail clippers.

She always makes me win, Prin had said. Now he understands. He has no chance here, he is entirely under Nerissa's control. And he's going to end up like one of those toys from the toybox, deformed at her hand.

"BLADEGUNN!!!!!" she says with a squeal, picking Prin up and slamming her into Erebor's body in such a way that the clippers hit at the same time. They cut into his side, and he screams wordlessly with the pain. "Oh lawdy, I'm so sorry y'all." Prin's voice sounds on the edge of tears. The stabbing and slashing continues until Erebor is thoroughly scratched. This time, the pain does not fade immediately, as it had when she'd been dangling him by his legs.

"Round one is over, and the winner is…THE PRINCESS!" she announced, as though it were not completely obvious (and preordained). "Round two…ready?" she sets down the clippers, exchanging them for something that looks like a hairpin. "Go!" Once again Prin charges forward (or, Nerissa makes Prin charge forward) and he gasps at the sharp pain that lances through him. Nerissa buries the semi-sharp point deep into his muscles, stabbing and twisting, not content to make surface scars anymore.

"And the winner is…the princess!" she says again, just as triumphantly. Prin is silent, and Erebor is grateful for that – he couldn't have handled speech right now. His body is riddled with scratches and holes, which should easily be bleeding out, and yet are not. It's the most incredible torture, never ending, and yet he cannot seem to die. It's worse than death, easily.

He's worried that they're about to go for round three when there is a noise off past his range of vision, immediately distracting Nerissa. "Miss Nerissa." Petunia's voice is quiet. Nerissa drops the horse and the samurai warrior cowgirl princess, getting up to greet the woman at the door. "Tea!" she says, cheerily. Petunia follows here as Nerissa indicates that the tea is to be set down right near where they'd been having their tournament. Erebor feels the servant woman's eyes look to him, but if she thinks anything, she doesn't say it.

"And plug it in." Nerissa commands Petunia without thinking. "You know I have to stay while it's plugged in miss-" "Fiiiine." Nerissa says with an exaggerated sigh. "You'll just have to stay then." Petunia goes over to the wall, bends over toward something, and then straightens up again. She stands by the door, observing but clearly unwilling to interfere at all. This is Nerissa's show.

And the little girl claps her hands together in glee. "TEA!!!" There is some kind of glittering monstrosity on the floor, a dome of white and pink taller than he is, perched upon a flat riser that shines like the moon. And off to one side sits a large object, steaming and whistling. Tea, he realizes, quite literally. And apparently with a nice electric kettle, which has just been turned on to boil.

Nerissa takes great care to set her toys up in a circle around the tea set. Each of them receives their own cup. Erebor is last, but he is set before a place as well, his cup pink and white and floral. But just after she sets him down she frowns. "Miss Pony, you look dreadful. You didn't do very well in the tourney-mint, did you?" she sighs, picking him up (again by just the foreleg) and looking at him from all sides. "You need a bath Miss Pony. Luckily we've got one heating up right here!"

And without hesitation, she opens the top of the kettle and drops him in.

He screams. It is like nothing he's ever known before, as though every inch of his flesh is searing. He's glad that he doesn't seem to have nostrils to breathe through, or he'd no doubt be inhaling the scalding water as well. But as before, the human girl is either ignoring him or deaf to his cries. Not that it matters – perhaps it will finally be his time, he'll finally be able to die. He feels as though he is melting, as though the boiling water is making parts of him shift, reshaping him. It's a pain like having your bones and skin liquefied, like being lit on fire, like melting. There is nothing he can do but endure.

"Okay Miss Pony, nice and….AAAAAAHHHHHH!" Petunia is quick to Nerissa's side then, as the girl had been about to reach into the boiling kettle. "I'll take care of it, Miss Nerissa." the quiet woman says, and Erebor sees a kind of strange sadness in her eyes. "MISS PONY…" Nerissa is sobbing as though she's just witnessed the most traumatic thing in the world.

He is carried somewhere, still inside the metal container, still unbearably hot. It tilts, and the impossibly warm water flows away. It's then that he notices he can no longer see. In fact, he can barely feel. What little he does feel is so powerfully wrong.

"SHE'S……….SO……………UGLY." he hears Nerissa's sobbing again, and realizes (dimly) that she's talking about him. "YOU RUINED HER. I HATE YOU." she screams at Petunia, who still holds Erebor (or, perhaps, more accurately the boiled, barely recognizable, terribly warped and misshapen remains of the toy pony formerly known as Miss Pony McBerry Greenington, formerly known as Erebor)

"My lady, maybe we can fix-" Petunia begins, but Nerissa interrupts her "She was NEW for my BIRTHDAY and you RUINED her." and with that, Nerissa grabs Erebor's tortured body (by the foreleg, still slightly squishy from the boiling process) and flings him into a trashcan.

He feels himself hit the bottom, dimly hears the clatter of plastic on plastic. Somewhere outside, the voices fade away, and a door slams. He is too broken to try imagining what's happening, too ruined to even think beyond this moment, to wonder what it means for the rest of his life. He is on fire, a flame of pain, too impossible to be described. Every nerve is seared, the damage is surely too much, and yet he does not die. He endures.

Broken, boiled, and ruined, at the bottom of the wastebasket, he endures.    

Erebor

Native Prince of the Chamber

warship x straia

[sleaze]

I’ll worship like a dog at the shrine of your lies tell you my sins so you can sharpen your knife We all float here, he had thought, falling, but he does not float. He hits the ground, bounces with his plastic buoyant skin. There is a noise then, the girl whose wrist still holds two small red dots from the clown he left in the toy box. It is loud, more giant’s roar than girlish squeal – he is so small, now, that sounds are distorted. Her squeal is like the roar of oceans, all around him, reverberating in his skin. He’s in her clutches then, grasped in a sweaty palm with fingers wrapped around him, pressing hard enough that his skin indents, like she could squeeze the life out of him. “Where did you come from?” she asks, but he has found himself frozen. The words boom about and echo off the walls. “Mine,” she whispers, and it is still too loud, the fingers pressing tighter until Sleaze is glad he no longer seems to have organs because they would have surely spilled out his throat by now. The days are blurry, and come in fragments until he forgets that time is a real thing – there is only her, Nerissa, the god, the devil with clutching fingers. He does not associate her with the memories that washed over him in the toy box, not at first. He does not know this is the girl the animals loved despite it all, the one they were meant and made to love. He knows her name because she carves it into him. First she simply writes it in sharpie, the chemical tang potent enough to sting his frozen-open eyes. But it is not enough (nothing will ever be enough, he will learn in the days to come), and she carves along the black lines with the open blade of mommy’s sewing scissors. He feels each letter, feels eviscerated after, a perpetual open wound, the jagged plastic seams of him unable to ever knit back together. She calls him Velvet, like the horse in the old movie, and he thinks no, I am Sleaze. He doesn’t have much, but he has a name. His name. Sleaze. He is Sleaze. Time blurs worse, after, but this is what he remembers: He is made to live in a plastic stable with other horses. Some of them he thinks he recognizes form the dark night in the toy box. They are made to race and jump impossible heights and when he crashes down he can feel it in his legs. Some of the horses are made of more delicate plastic than he, larger and more realistic, like the horses he might have encountered Once Upon a Time when he walked Beqanna’s meadows and did not know this world laid in wait for him. The word Breyer is etched across the yellow boxes they come in, and he wonders if it’s their name or something else. He tries to talk to them, when Nerissa leaves the room and he can move his aching limbs, but they whinny and snort and roll their feral eyes and he knows they are not like him. One of them – Cigar, a bay modeled after a racehorse that broke records – is run too hard by Nerissa’s overeager hands and his leg snaps off cleanly at the knee. Sleaze is not being played with and hears the crack and her resulting cry – first of surprise, then of dismay. But the dismay does not last long – she had no particular bond with Cigar’s outstretched form – and Sleaze watches as the three-legged creature is tossed into a round container and is taken away the next day by the housekeeper. He is in a boiling ocean, drowning. She encompasses the water, pallid flesh rising like mountains in this ocean (a bathtub, he will learn later, a new word, whispered by the cropped-haired Barbie he speaks to). He looks around and realizes the ocean is dammed by white ceramic. Somewhere there is a waterfall. He is submerged again and made to swim and when he tries to breathe there is only hot water perfumed by soaps and shampoos that stings his throat and eyes and fills him up until he feels heavy and distended. She finally lifts him up and squeezes in; squeezes tight until the opposing sides of his stomach touch and he wonders what it was like not to hurt. The water pours out like vomit through a hole in his stomach, one she accidently poked there when carving her name. She holds him under the waterfall then, the water pounding out, pounding over him like it wants to crush him into the hard white ceramic, but she holds him up while he tries to breathe and time does not exist, only this: the water, the fingers sunk into his skin, the pounding heartbeat silence that comes with being drowned. He is made to fight the other animals, the plastic ones he met in the toy box. She brings them, reaching blindly into the toy box. She withdraws a tiger, and he recognizes it as the one with shoulder blades creeping up through striped skin. Its body has been mangled, and part of its face is missing. Nerissa throws it away without a second thought – it happens, sometimes, to her toys, she assumes she does it and forgets – but Sleaze’s eyes remain fixed on it. He tries to call out to the mangled, discarded form but there is no answer, and he remembers the way the clown had buried its face to her throat. And then he can no longer watch the tiger’s graveyard because she has pulled out the plastic animals, engaged them in an elaborate battle only she knows the rules to. He fights them as best two animals made stiff by plastic can fight. A wolf’s frozen open mouth drags across his face, is fastened for a moment around his throat then lets go. He is made to rear and clash against a unicorn, a pale white thing that glitters and later stabs against his chest with her twisted horn. He can hear the laughter of the other animals in his head, and he realizes they enjoy this. To them, it is a game. They do not feel pain the same way he does, he realizes. They have no concept of it. To them, they are merely happy to be in her clutches, crashing and biting at one another, free of the toy box, free of Pennywise the clown who lurked there with his Glasgow smile and halo of red hair. (On the latter he cannot blame them.) Does it not hurt? he asks Kapu, the wolf who once saved him and has since clawed and bit his way across Sleaze’s skin. To which Kapu replies, the confusion evident in the words even as his face remained frozen, only the clown hurts. She loves us. She loves us is a mantra that repeats itself across the toys. She loves us, thinks the cropped haired Barbie; thinks it even as Nerissa places her thumbs on the underside of the woman’s chin and presses up until the head pops off like the cork from a champagne bottle. She loves us, thinks a fairy with wings like a dragonfly, as Nerissa jettisons her out of the second story window to watch her float down. She loves us, thinks the soft Cinderella doll as the scissors vivisect her naked body and something white, like clouds, spills out. She loves us, Sleaze tries to think as she scratches the fine point of a scissor blade back and forth across his eye, eventually removing the paint and leaving him half blind. He still feels pain. He has drowned and been carved into, bitten and kicked and made to land impossible heights on legs that felt like they would shatter. He has been squeezed until deflated and left to reflate, the feeling strange and terrible and he wonders if there’s an end, any end, to the hell he woke to. It goes on like this. Time passes. He does not know how much. He forgets what his skin used to feel like. He forgets his father’s name. He forgets the taste of grass in his mouth. He forgets what it’s like to live without such an omnipresent force. Sometimes he forgets his own name and that is the most terrifying, he will whisper it into the shadows when she sleeps, this one shred of self that is left: Sleaze, I am Sleaze. I am Velvet, he whispers once, almost out of curiosity, and he is shocked at how right the name sounds. I am --  ----------------------------I  ---------am  ------------------------------------  (sleaze)  ---------------------------------------------------------(velvet) She loves us, he thinks, and it almost makes sense. One night she is sleeping and he hears the creak of wood and a muffled thump. He moves his head and sees something, a blur of white and red and yellow dragging itself across the hardwood floor. It crawls – slithers – up her nightstand, and he hears the clown whispering to the girl, though he can’t quite make out the words, and is glad for it. She moans in her sleep, turns over, and the clown lays a mangled, white-gloved hand on her neck and seems to contemplate something. Sleaze almost loves her then, because even though she is impossibly large, she seems so delicate and fragile beneath the reptilian yellow gaze of Pennywise. She loves us, he thinks, and in that moment he believes it, and his body hurts a little less. Time no longer matters, but it is morning. Nerissa wakes, sleep-eyed and stretching in a pink shirt. She sees the clown and grabs him quickly, shoves him back into the toy box. She notices the balloons are gone but assumes they broke off and are scattered at the bottom of the box. She shuts the lid tight and heads downstairs, allowing Velvet (sleaze) to move, to stretch out his limbs. The other toys that are out are chattering joyously enough, excited for what the day’s play will bring. She loves us, they chorus, and Velvet (!! sleaze !!) choruses along with them. It is easier to do it. It doesn’t hurt. It’s okay. She loves us. The bedroom doesn’t look like the gallows, all pinks and whites and golds. A palace, perhaps, but not a gallows. Gallows should be dreary and dark, not pink-wallpapered with a poster of a Pegasus thumbtacked to the wall. But Nerissa is bored (or perhaps a strange little clown whispered a suggestion into the curve of her ear). Nerissa is bored, so she wraps her hand around Velvet’s head and twists, keeps twisting. Velvet’s head is twisting and is there pain? He doesn’t know anymore. He doesn’t remember pain, it fades like a dream, a delirium of another life. Velvet’s head spins, and eventually something gives way with a low pop like a seal being broken. Through his one remaining eye he sees her own eyes, ice-blue and watery, peering down at his decapitated head. There is a feeling of pressure as she tries to press him back together, but fails. She gives up, and gathers his body in her hands, drops him into the same garbage can Cigar and Barbie and Cinderella all went into. She loves us, Velvet thinks, but thinking is harder because the bond forged between child and toy is breaking, he is transcending, changing, dying. I am -- he begins, but cannot finish. She loves -- Somewhere, miles away, he thinks he hears a clown laughing. sleaze  cancer x garbage

[Wichita]

She looked over the toy box ledge, she was out.

A noise. A humming.

The notes hit Wichita’s tiny plastic auds, as she slowly turned her chassis towards the sound. A dainty, blonde headed girl sits at a Victorian style dressing table, gold leaf surrounds a gilded mirror that provides her reflection. A young lady of 8 or 9 adjusts a golden curl, her baby blue eyes displeased when it bounces back awkwardly, having not been tamed at all. Perhaps she normally would have had a tantrum, but just as her mouth sours, so it does quickly broaden.

Her eyes become alarmingly wide, she slams a pink hair brush down on the white lacquer and squeals. “Eeeeeee a pony!” The cherub bounces up from a down filled pillow, it sits skewed now, atop its matching pedestal. Her small pink hand wraps around the mares chiffon colored frame, pressing much too hard on her hip. The mare wanted to protest, but as the fingers folded around her, her once flexible form became immobile. What’s going on? She thinks, as the words will not sound through her molded mouth. You there, girl! Please let me down, you squeezing me too tight! The words bounce around her head, lacking their emphasis as they fail to be heard. She is soaring over a plush looking carpet, everything is moving quite fast as the child transports her across the room, slamming her down on a pink table.

Wichita is permitted a look around having been placed at the head. A child’s dining set has been turned into a make-shift beauty parlor. Play makeup, nail polish, Q-tips and the like are haphazardly strewn across what had before been an impromptu tea party. Kid sized fine china was stacked on top of each other, without any regard to first clear its contents. Half eaten sweets sat smashed between plates and saucers alike, tiny crumbs littered each dish in between.  It was surprising to Wichita that the room was not infested with critters, not an ant to be seen in all the sticky mess. A colored liquid slowly dripped to the floor from an overturned tea cup, a puddle forming by one of four table legs, and at this pool crouched a snow colored Angora cat.

“Welcome our new friend to Nerissa’s Beauty Shop everyone!” the girl shrieks. The yellow pony wished she could cover her ears, this little one surely did not know the meaning of ‘use your inside voice’. Wichita was dismayed to see the toys that had been chosen to participate in a day of glamour.  A blue teddy bear sat to her right, a purple heart clutched between its arms that read ‘Be Mine’, one side barely hanging onto the thread that connected it. Both of its plastic eyes were missing, the stuffing peeking out through the holes that they had once been held by.  It had bright pink nail polish half way up each arm, and clip on extensions in unnatural colors clung to each ear. Across the way sat a well preserved Sophia the first doll, a too small tiara crookedly adorned her brunette tresses. Only a bit of well-placed makeup and crumbs from a cookie, or maybe a cake, to provide evidence that she had been played with. On the mares left side in the last seat was a princess Merida, one of those oversized toddler style dolls, her red curls streaked with hair chalk. Her green dress was torn and stained, a smear of pink frosting spread from her ear to her nose, eyes adorned with several different colors of eye shadow.

Nerissa jostles the table as she takes a seat, having moved her vanity stool to her place behind Wichita, sans its down pillow. The small toy horse can do nothing as the child shakes a bottle of blue liquid in her hand against a cotton ball she has pressed to its opening. “This is my new pony,” she rattles off, gesturing with her free hand, “she’s going to live with us forever and ever, I knew I would get a pony for my Birthday.” The child sets the acetone down having saturated the dripping cotton ball she held, and reaches across the table. A half-eaten cookie falls to the floor where it is forgotten, Nerissa’s hand clasping around the tiara Sofia was wearing, only to pull it from the dolls plastic head with a yank. “Stupid crown!” she yells, as the combed ends tangled in the dolls hair. The cat bolts at the sudden increase in volume through a cracked bedroom door.  “Stupid Sofia! You can’t wear the crown anymore, my pony is going to wear it. She’s prettier than you, I didn’t want a stupid Sofia doll anyways.” Advising them all just how she felt, Wichita made the equivalent of whimpering noises though no one heard. That’s just awful, she can wear it, she can, I don’t need it. A pollen hued pony tried to reason, but her requests where for naught, as they fell on deaf ears and a miniature tiara was placed on her head.  “Now you all will bow to Queen..Queen,” Nerissa hesitates shaking her finger at the tea party guests as she makes her demands. ”Queen Sunshine Pony,” she finally decides. Had she been able to move, Wichita would have wrinkled her nose, that was a silly name.

Momentarily content, the flaxen girl again takes her seat. “Now we will give the royal Majesty her makeover,” a giggle passes her pouty mouth. Cotton ball in hand, she rubs it across Wichita’s left eye, the painted peeper growing faint. A few more passes, and the acetone does its job, a one eyed pony stares back.

Inside, Wichita was crying, sobbing dry tears that would not come. My eye, my eye, why did you do that? She could do nothing but stare back through her one brown eye, as Nerissa picked up the nearest eyeliner and she was given a scribbling. At least, that’s what it felt like. What was so wrong with my other eye anyway?! She shouted. To this, eye shadow and mascara were added. Streaks of purple and pink were smeared across her brow, clumps of black paste spotted where eye lashes might have once been. “You’re beautiful now, but not as pretty as me.” The tot says matter of factly, picking up a tube of pink lipstick and dabbing it on her lips. “Mommy says I am the most beautiful girl in the world.” Pouty lips and kissy faces follow her statement.  After tossing the tiara to the floor, she picks up a rhinestone set of scissors and begins chopping away at Wichita’s mane. The flowing curls she once had, fell to the floor, pieces sticking to a cupcake wrapper below. “Oopsie,” Nerissa says, as the silver blades cross and meet a plastic pale-yellow ear.

Aaaahhhhh! the yell is agonizing, a curdled call, bubbling up in Wichita’s throat to explode out her muzzle.  Nerissa doesn’t seem to notice, or mind her little mistake, not yet anyways. “I can fix that your highness.” She tugs on the few short strands of hair she had left to the mare’s head, a butterfly clip swooping in to be placed awkwardly across the open hole, held by but a few strands of synthetic blend.

“Nerissa!” a yell from the hall Wichita notes, an older tone, a woman’s tone.  “Nerissa dear, come and help mommy with the goodies!” Ms. Ribbons and lace, jumps up carelessly bumping the table. Sofia tumbles out of her chair and into the floor. Wichita finds herself now on her side watching the little girl recede from the bedroom, the door faintly half-latching behind her. The mare’s sobs continue but to her surprise she is vocal again, her body shaking in waves of pain beginning at her clipped ear. She manages to gain her legs, the awkward cylinders made even more so as she wobbled, only one eye to guide her.

“H-Help me p-p-please ca-a-n you.” she says through an attempt to stifle her sobs, the other toys still staring straight ahead into nothingness. She makes her way across the table, stepping in what was probably fruit juice in the process. A head bump to Merida’s hand and the doll is awake, her green eyes afire as she looks around. A hand reaches up to wipe away the frosting that was starting to harden across her cheek, and she wipes at her heavily made up eyes. The result was hardly better than what she started with, but Wichita had no room to talk. “Lassie, what in the blazes you doin’ comin here?” she questions almost accusingly. “I didn’t want to come here, I didn’t ask.” Wichita returns, her voice hurt to match her mangled body. “Well lets get ta movin’” the redhead begins to jump up, ”Well come on what are you waitin’ for?” she asks fiercely as the pony fails to move, rooted to the tabletop. “What about them?” she motions to the others with her dial, a simple nod in their direction. “We can’t leave them.” Merida huffs, crossing her arms in front of her chest, “Fine, you do it then.” she makes no attempt to help. Wichita makes her way across the table, gently touching herself to the teddy, he sniffles and sneezes before calling out blindly, ”What? Who’s there?” he says, a worried piglet voice emitting from him as he clutches the stuffed heart. “Mr. Bear,” Wichita calls to him, “it’s me uhh…Queen Sunshine Pony. We have to leave now.” Her voice grating along her windpipe, sore from such copious amounts of crying.  “Leave? We can leave?” he says questioningly, perhaps never knowing that was even an option.  She turns to wake the other princess, the one in the purple dress with brown hair, having forgotten her fall. Merida seems to have a change of heart, though stubbornly so. She lifts the limp Sofia’s arm, holding it out to Wichita begrudgingly. A yellow foreleg, meets a plastic doll arm to awaken a defensive ruler. Sofia immediately snatches her hand away from Merida, holding it close to her chest. “Unhand me!” she shouts. “don’t you be grabbing at me, you want me to get hurt don’t you? So she’ll forget all about you? No, no I wont.” She runs to Wichita clasping the mares head in two cupped hands. “Oh little pony, it was awful. I wanted to help I did, is it terrible, does it hurt?”

“Whhaaat?” comes the piglet voice across the table, the blue bear having not yet moved from his seat. “Hurt? Who? What happened? Did she take your eyes? Tell me girl did she have your eyes out?” He laughs a strange laugh, that sends an unsettling chill down Wichita’s spine (or lack thereof) She is about to ask him if he is okay, when the bedroom door swings open, a mess of golden hair entering. The others become limp once again, Sofia and Merida crumpling in on each other, Wichita now too stiff to move. A golden cockapoo crosses the lush carpet, nose down close to the ground, sniffing deeply into the threads. Schnnf schnnf schnnf schhhnf the dogs scenting is loud, as it scavenges for scraps, snapping up cookies and sweets as it approaches. It appears to inhale food, hardly chewing the snacks, they disappear rather quickly. At last, the beast rears up on hind legs, snuffling at the pink table, its head angled to lap up spilled juice.  The yellow mare watches it through one chocolate painted eye, as it laps at her leg, the one covered in sticky fruit juice. She sidesteps attempting to get away, but this only makes it worse, a game of chase! The pup reaches up and clasps her between its powerful jaw, saliva coating her as its teeth pierce through her barrel.  She can’t imagine anything could ever hurt so much, jagged pinholes clawed their way across her stomach, as the fur ball chewed and chewed.  How many 20? 40? At least, 50 she would have thought, had she been able to muster such a worry. She made to scream but nothing came out, not because she had yet gone limp, but because there was no sounds to register this pain. Puncture wounds spread from her back left leg, up her thigh, around her barrel on both sides, ending at her shoulders.  A thin film of spit, slowly slimed its way down her bodice and the dog’s mouth. She had struggled, but only for a bit, only when the bottom of her foot had ripped off in beaded up fragments had she stopped.

She became rigid once more, petrified, as Nerissa re-entered her chambers. A flash of fabric and fists, as she flung her appendages wildly around. “Cuddles!!!” her wail was frightful. Little miss princess reached for her pony, clasping Wichita around her neck, tugging against Cuddles who only pulled back. “Let go! Let go, you stupid dog!” it was more screams than words Wichita thought, the pony simply in some limbo form of existence now. She retreated far into herself, an attempt to escape the pain. Finally with a loud pop, Wichita’s head dislodged itself from its base, Nerissa clutching it open mouthed. Her tail was hanging between the dogs upper and lower jaws. Once recognizing the game was over, the golden pet smartly bolted from the room. Tail still in mouth, its small token of victory.

Nerissa bent down, picking up Wichita’s body from the floor. A disappointed look in her eyes, as she carried the separated pieces out of her room. “Mommy! Cuddles broke my pony!” she regaled handing the two pieces to a woman Wichita could not see.  Whoever it was, they were repulsed, crossing the kitchen in quick strides.  Wichita was dropped, unceremoniously into the waste basket, she could hear the woman’sm uffled voice assure the child. “Don’t worry sweetie, we’ll buy you a new one.” 

The lid closes, and once more she is shut in an unfamiliar dark place.

(( count:2,344 ))

[Yronwood]

He's barely taken a few steps away from the toy box that he had just escaped, when he hears a string of sounds that fill his little plastic heart with dread, though he's not sure why. A loud slamming noise. A quiet voice from elsewhere in the house. An excited shriek that is even louder than the slamming sound had been. And then, footsteps. Footsteps racing in his direction, and the door behind Yronwood flies open. Nerissa hurls her pink schoolbag in the general direction of her bed, before turning her attention to him. Caught up in her gaze, he feels like one of the Jungle monkeys in the moment before a fearsome jaguar pounced, and even before her hand snatches him up, the colt is unable to move a single muscle due to his terror.

This, this must be the girl that Monkey had spoken of with such dread. At first, she seems excited upon seeing her newest toy, and he wonders if the cymbal monkey had exaggerated its words. But all too quickly, her happy grin flips itself, her young face contorting with rage. "NO! YOU BOUGHT ME THE WRONG TOY! YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO BUY ME A PINK ONE! I AM A PRINCESS! " And he abruptly finds himself hurtling through the air, colliding painfully with the nearest wall. One of his legs snaps off from the harsh impact, and he finds himself lying back on the floor again, agony etched in every plastic bit of his body. There was no chance of him being able to try to run and hide now, if he could even stand at all anymore. Staring blankly at the pink wallpaper, he can hear Nerissa rummaging around in the direction of the desk he'd had a quick glance at earlier. The sound causes Roe to attempt to stand, but he only manages a step or two before his uneven set of limbs causes the bright red pony to topple over again.

His plastic nose twitches, catching ahold of something he'd never smelled before. It's strong, whatever it is, and.....something drips down onto his back and shoulders. Were he back in his non-plastic body, he would have twitched his skin in response. Maniacal giggling assaults his ears, followed by yet another shriek. "PONY! YOU NEED PAINTING!" Oh...so that's what had dripped upon him, he thinks to himself just as she snatches him up once again, a paintbrush utterly *soaked* in pink paint held in her other hand. Nerissa coats Yronwood with it from head to tail, not even sparing his eyes, and his vision is quickly blocked out by an endless sea of pink. Held fast in the child's grasp, he can't even close his eyes or rub a leg against them to try and remove the paint. Oh, please let this be a nightmare. Please let him wake up from this so he can tell Ephrelle all about his crazy dream, so they can laugh it away together and make it not seem so horrid.

The reality of his battered and blinded form is all too solid, however. There is no waking up from this. Once the paint has dried on his body, Nerissa plays with him for what the colt can only guess is a week, keeping track of how many times he hears her going to sleep at night and leaving in the morning for school or play dates (and the idea of there being more human children out there as horrible as she causes a shudder to wrack his plastic body). By then, most of his mane and tail strands have been pulled out, and one of his ears is bent at a pretty bad angle. It seems to be the fact that his missing leg keeps causing him to fall over that finally pushes her over the edge. "PONY IS BROKEN! I WANT A NEW PONY! ONE THAT'S ALREADY PINK! "

He hears the voice from the very first day, the quiet one, protesting at first, before giving in and agreeing to get the monster-child a new pony. What was going to happen to him now? For what turns out to be the last time, he is grabbed ahold of, carried a short distance, and hurled into a plastic bag that smells absolutely awful and is full of various things that leave him actually feeling grateful to be sightless. He's never cried in his life, and now, when he wants to, he can't. *Ephrelle*, Yronwood thinks, *I'm so happy that you're safe and not here with me, that it's only me who had to go through this. I love you, and Mother. Mother, I hope you've found exciting new places in your travels.* His goodbyes said, he lies there in the darkness, silently awaiting his fate.

[Dagny and Olivier]

I won't let you go; so don't leave go of me

The formerly red, now blue, plastic pony toy is the first up the block-stairs behind the purple octopus. He comes to an abrupt halt, and she scrambles to a halt behind him, but the others behind them are not so nimble. Barbie and Ken follow, the tiger toy behind them, and finally the uncoordinated t-rex; the impact of the lizard-thing behind all of them sends the group tumbling into thin air. For a moment she is afraid – there is a rush of air beneath and around her, absolute nothingness, and she simply knows that she will dash her body against the ground below in some devastating way (she doesn’t understand that she is no longer bone and flesh).

But her descent is halted suddenly, with a force that would push air from her lungs if she had any, and there is a high-pitched squeal in the air. Even dazed, Dagny can hear the clatter of toys hitting the ground around them, and see her would-have-been friends sprawled on the white ground. For a moment, there is hope – it’s white, like the snow and ice of the Tundra! Perhaps she is home, and father will be there any moment to swoop in and save her! – but it is fleeting. She doesn’t get a good look at her captor at first, dazed as she is, because the girl is swinging her through the air, and then holding her too close to her face to get a good look. Dagny wants desperately to struggle and squirm her way free, but her limbs are unresponsive now.

“What a pretty pony!” the girl squeals again, sweeping her free arm across a low play table, sending the former occupants crashing to the ground. Then Nerissa plunks Dagny roughly down, not rough enough to bend her plastic legs but it sends shock waves of pain up them anyway. Then she sits back, and the girl gets her first real look at her captor. Pink, naked skin; bright gold hair, bright blue eyes. But Dagny doesn’t understand people – Nerissa is simply a monster to her, a giant of a thing, and even though her body refuses to respond now she quakes inside and wishes this were a bad dream that she can wake up from now – preferably tucked safely into the recesses of a Tundra cave beside her twin, with  her father standing guard.

“Everything’s tangled,” the girl pouts, and turns to rummage in the toy chest for something. Suddenly, the girl feels herself start to shiver and a thrill runs up her spine – she can move! Desperate, she lunges forward, only to halt abruptly at the still-dizzying height the edge of the table spans from the ground. Before she can steel herself for the fall, the monster has turned round again, grasping something in her fist. Nerissa grabs Dagny again, this time holding her head-down and rump-up…and there is sudden, shooting pain as she runs the thing she’s holding through the pony’s tail, and then again. And again. And when she’s finished, she flips the toy up and starts on the mane. And, true, the tangles are gone – but so is quite a bit of her hair, stuck in the spines of the brush. Dagny cries out, more than once, but the girl seems to care not at all. “That’s better,” she says, with an air of satisfaction, setting Dagny down carefully this time on the table. “Much prettier.”

“Help!” the filly yells, when the girl turns and climbs into the closet, clearly looking for something in a jumbled heap on the ground. Once more she races to the edge, a few steps, and stares down at a couple of discarded toys on the floor, but they don’t move. “We can’t help you.” comes a voice from below, barely audible, and then: “And she can’t hear you scream. So it doesn’t help.”  Silence for a moment. “Or hurt,” comes another voice, “It doesn’t hurt to scream. Sometimes you just need to.” She takes a wavering breath, blinks back tears. “Why would I be screaming? What’s going to happen?”

They don’t respond, even if they wanted to, because the girl is back, flouncing across the room, dropping to her knees beside the play table and spilling an armful of toys onto the table beside Dagny. The two-legged pale things from before make an appearance, and alongside them another pale female. Another lizard-like creature – this one Dagny recognizes (it’s a dragon), though only from stories. Her purple octopus friend makes an appearance, as well as an innumerable number of what she now knows are blocks. The girl shoves everyone into a pile, except Dagny whom she places lovingly upright beside it, and begins stacking the blocks carefully, until she is out and the stack stretches like a small mountain. “A tower for our princess.” the girl says (and Dagny wonders if the hair-pulling and bone-jarring was a mistake, she sounds so nice!), and reaches for the girl two-legged thing, roughly pulling off what Dagny had assumed was her fur and replacing it with a pink, frilly fur. She places this creature atop the tower, and then puts the brown and worn fur on the other figure – and places her there too. The male she gives a pointer silver stick, and then finally she slams him down on top of Dagny. “A loyal steed for the knight! To rescue the princess from the evil witch!” She’s gleeful, holding Ken and Dagny together in one hand and grabbing the dragon in the other – and then roughly slamming them into each other. Pain blossoms in Dagny’s unmoving chest and limbs, her nose and eyes burning where they’ve been slammed into sand-paper rough scales and pointy claws and fangs.

And again. And again. Finally the girl slams the point silver stick into the dragon – and then even the stoic dragon can’t keep silent, crying out in pain – and then Nerissa drops both Dagny and dragon to the table, forgotten, as she crushes Ken and Barbie together for what she must suppose is a passionate embrace.

In the next game, Dagny flees from every predator in the toy box – and loses an eye, the paint scraped off against her tiger friend.

The next is an adventure – but she can’t see most of what they explore, because the world never stops spinning. Her tail catches on an errant banister – and most of the rest of it pulls out. There’s only a few hairs left.

After that, the girl crafts Dagny a pair of paper wings – and spends some time throwing her through the air. The pony loses a plastic ear.

After that, it’s something about magic, and sorcerers, and she’s bound with thread (“magic ropes”) and loses most of her mane (apparently she’s not very well made).

Nerissa takes her into the bathtub – and she loses the other eye. They may be painted on, but she discovers something worse than pain; blindness is torture in and of itself.

The girl takes the pony to bed – but she rolls over on her one too many times at the wrong angle, and a plastic leg snaps. As the others warned, her cries go unheard. The night is long, and as the hours drag on, the girl finally overcomes shock and she cries. Being unheard in her pain is nearly worse than the pain itself. Eventually, she sleeps – waking only when motion jerks her awake, as the monster-girl goes flying from the bed, pony grasped tightly in her first. “It’s my birthday! My birthday!” she chants, running down the stairs. Dagny is thrown onto a cold, hard surface and lies unmoving while the girl snatches up a pink-and-gold package and snatches the wrappings off.

It seems mom and dad came through at the same time as fairy godfather – the box is a pony. Less magic, perhaps, but it’s pink. And it’s bigger, and thus obviously better, than Dagny. Loud, excited squeals emanate from the very walls as the new toy is snatched up and the girl flees the room. Of course, Dagny can’t see any of it – but she can hear it (kinda, out of her one ear. There’s a lot of garble). Dagny can’t get up – three-legged horses don’t balance very well – so she simply lies upon the cold marble, shivering, until footsteps come into the kitchen, heavier than before. “I wish she wouldn’t leave these nasty old toys lying around,” says a disgusted voice, and then a light touch sweeps her off the counter, and once more: she’s falling.

Maybe now, she thinks, she can wake up. She desperately wants to wake up. Or - and despite her youth, this thought fleets across her mind - it might be a relief to die.  

Dagny & Olivier

no one can ever follow; no one can ever know