Being a chronicler isn’t always easy. Sometimes I wonder if I’m really making a difference in ponies’ lives… Just writing stories down won’t help turn those stories for the better, will it?
Pages trotted over to the balcony door and pulled the curtains aside. Having visitors at the window or on the balcony wasn’t exactly strange, but it was rather uncommon. Opening the door, he could see an orange mare standing outside.
“Hey, uhm… Can I come in for a second?” Plush Ramen shuffled her hooves, avoiding his gaze.
“Of course, come right in.” Pages nodded and stepped aside, letting her in. “What do I owe this visit to? Anything I can do for you?”
Plush looked around for a moment, then sighed and slipped of her saddlebags to pull out an old cardboard box. “I still can’t say I remember much about you, but after I met you yesterday I found this here.” She held out the box for him.
Pages took it and inspected it curiously, then opened it to peek inside. “Is that…?”
“I think I made it as a little filly… Apparently you told me that you would buy one from me when I open my shop, so I made this one in advance.” She cringed. “It’s… really not one of my better works. I don’t know what I was thinking when I made it, I guess it was just me being a little foal.”
Pages held up the misshapen piece of stuffed fabric, threads in all colors spanning around it. It had the form of a pony, but it didn’t look like one. It looked like somepony had taken the forms of over a dozen different stallions and mares in all sizes and ages and mixed them into one pony. What seemed like hundreds of thin colorful threads went out from the cutie marks on its flanks, spanning around it and connecting all the different parts.
Plush watched as Pages inspected it for a few seconds, then she cringed and looked down. “Oh Celestia, it’s horrible, isn’t it? I’d understand if you didn’t want it, I don’t even know why I showed–“
“It’s perfect…” Pages turned it around one last time, then looked back at Plush, smiling happily. “It’s absolutely perfect. I promise I’ll take good care of it.”
“You don’t have to patronize me, you know?” Plush frowned, glaring at him. “It’s a jumbled mess made by a little filly with too many colors at hoof, and it’s probably for the best that I never tried to make those things for a living.”
Pages sighed and looked at the plush. “You don’t see it anymore, do you? This plush was made by an amazing little filly who knew more about what she was doing than she might have realized herself.”
Plush just groaned and shook her head. “If you say so… It doesn’t really matter, anyway.” She stomped back to the balcony, her wings twitching.
“Plush, wait!” Pages walked over to a desk as the pegasus paused and turned her head back to him. “I told you I would buy a plushie from you and that implies paying for it.” He pulled out a small bag of Bits from the drawer and tossed it over to the mare, who expertly caught it in a wing.
Plush pocketed the Bits and scoffed. “You don’t need to give me pity money.”
Pages just shook his head. “Then take that money for something else. You take the Bits and you promise me that you’ll make another plush.” He gave her a sad smile. “I remember that filly very well, even if we only talked for a few minutes. Please don’t lose that filly.”
Plush stared at him for a moment, then shrugged and spread her wings. “Whatever. I doubt I’ll see you again, so goodbye, Mister Pages.”
Pages looked after her for a while as she disappeared against the night sky. Then he closed the door and the curtains and sat down on the bed, holding the plush in his hooves. He took a deep breath and looked down, unfocusing his eyes.
The plush blurred and wavered a little before the colorful threads seemed to move. A dozen ponies, from a foal and a young filly to an elderly stallion or a hulking farmer pony, moved forward for a second before blurring back into the background. The thin threads hung between them, connecting all of them in a net of different colors.
Pages smiled and laid back, hugging the plush in his forehooves as he fell asleep.