Paul stomped through the kitchen, saddlebags in one hand, stick in the other.
The stick was for the bad days. Today was a bad day, hence the stick. Not that he was letting it slow him down very much. Slinging the bags onto the kitchen table he swung around for a weighty paper-wrapped package before swinging right back round again and cramming it into the bags.
“Alright, so that’s lunch. And there’s a snack, too. I did make a snack. Where’s the snack?”
Lunch in this instance not being his trademark ‘It is good for you!’ slop but rather something more pony-friendly involving flowers and other nonsense he resented having to have learnt about. At least it kept complaints to a minimum, he supposed.
Cozy, who had been following him this whole time, jumped up and put a smaller paper-wrapped package in front of him, also on the table.
“Here,” she said. He packed it.
“Right, good. So that’s those. What else are you going to need…”
“Come oonnn! I’m gonna be llaaaaattteee! The others are waaaaaiitttiiinnggg!”
“Steady on, Cozy, don’t want to be sending you off half-cocked, do I?”
“We’re not even going far! We’ll be back before it gets dark! Coommmeee ooonnn!”
Cozy continued to have a curfew, which was why she was going to be back before it got dark. Also why anytime a sleepover occured (as one would be later, once she returned) it happened at hers. Or Paul’s, rather. Paul’s house that she lived in, making it also hers in an oblique sort of a way. Her home, you could say.
The same three kids she was going out with today were the ones who would be sleeping over, and who had done so a few times previously.
There was an orange-y one, a white one with a pointy bit and one with a bow. Paul had been told their names several times now but they kept slipping out of his head. He just referred to them all as ‘Child’ individually when he had to and ‘Children’ when as a unit. Pointing was also involved.
Apparently - according to Cozy - she and those three went back aways. They were the ones she’d shut in a cupboard, she said, though they seemed to have more-or-less put that behind them, at least if the deafeningly-loud, all-night-long giggling sessions they had nowadays were anything to go by.
Kids! Could forgive anything! Or not, sometimes. Like flipping a coin, really.
Like life.
Looking down at the child hopping from hoof-to-hoof in excitement by his feet, Paul frowned.
“I was going to pack you a cagoule but I suppose you can do without. What about a hat? Will you need a hat?”
“Do you guys need any help back there or what?” Came a scratchy voice from the front of the house.
“I’m coming!” Cozy called back, leaping up to snatch the saddlebags and swing them over herself in one surprisingly deft movement, trotting out the kitchen with Paul staggering close behind, weight on his stick with every other step.
“What about the hat?” He asked, concerned.
“Forget the hat!”
He followed her through to the front part of the house (still the shop part) and there found the three young girls he was passingly familiar with (all engaged in ogling the toys, something they did every time they came over) and some rainbow-haired mare he did not know the name of and did not care to know the name of.
Nominally she was there to act as the supervising adult presence for all four of the kids on their trip out today, in reality she was really there to mostly keep an eye on Cozy.
For while she’d made progress - considerable progress, by all accounts - it was likely that Cozy would never really be able to fully make up for the damage she’d done to the trust everyone had had in her, or at least not for a long, long time.
Still, getting better every day, and Paul believed she was trying, albeit in her own singular way. That he believed this was all that seemed to matter to Cozy anyway. Not that she’d admit it.
“Hello Mr Cozy,” the trio of kids said to Paul in chorus. They kept doing that.
“No no children, Paul, Paul,” he said, tapping a finger against his chest. “Try again.”
“Hello Mr Paul,” the trio of kids said to Paul in chorus.
“...better. Cozy, Cozy?” He then said, getting her attention.
“Yeah?” She asked.
With a wince and a groan he heaved down onto one knee and beckoned for Cozy to come in closer, which she did.
“Okay. Now. What is it we say, Cozy?” He asked.
This they’d practised.
“Don’t let the bastards grind you down!” She replied, one hoof raised high. He gave it an awkward bump. That they hadn’t practised, and even if they had Paul would still probably be bad at it.
“That’s right!”
Paul had never considered bastard a swear word, personally, and even if he had he felt that the wisdom here was important enough to be worth bending the rules a little. And with this tidbit delivered he heaved right back up again, albeit with slightly more difficulty - always harder getting back up!
“Ready to go?” The rainbow-one asked Cozy, who nodded brightly.
“Yep!”
“Good! Finally! Let’s go!” The rainbow-one said, leaping up into the air, flapping.
“Hey hey. You. Wait,” Paul said, motioning for the rainbow-one and waving the kids off. Cozy was already sharing the snack with the others, something Paul didn’t know whether to be annoyed about or proud of.
“Yeah?” The rainbow-one asked. She didn’t really have the measure of Paul or any real idea of who or what he was, beyond the lunatic creature who’d agreed to babysit Cozy Glow for whatever reason and who - by all accounts - was apparently doing an adequate job.
Paul bent down closer towards her and pointed through the window over to where the kids were waiting some distance away, still happily sharing out the snack.
“If Cozy hurt, will be angry. Track you down, make machine to wake you up early every weekend until end of your life. Yes?”
Machines that flew were tricky, but not impossible. He could do it if he had to.
“Geeze, okay! She’ll be fine! You really care about her that much, huh?” The rainbow-one asked.
He recoiled at the mere suggestion.
“What? No! I - just that if Cozy hurt, I blamed. That all. Keep safe, yes?”
“She won’t leave my sight. Trust me,” the rainbow-one said, casting glances out the window towards Cozy who was, at that moment, laughing harmlessly. But with her that could really mean anything.
“Hmph. Good. You can go,” Paul said, waving her off. She didn’t need telling twice.
The bell jangled and out she went, catching up with the kids and leading them off through the gate set into the wall that circled the compound into which Paul’s house had been moved. The gate on which both sides were posted guards, the compound over which a great net had been stretched, on the off-chance Cozy felt like going for a nice leisurely escape.
Paul found this setup a huge imposition and a ridiculous overreaction. He'd argued at length (and often volume) with the Big White One on how this was not an environment likely to yield positive results on the development of a child and the Big White One had agreed. Sadly though, she had not budged. Apparently they wanted at least some idea of where Cozy was.
And as loathe as he was to agree with anyone in a position of authority Paul could kind of - distantly, dimly and with great reluctance - see their point. He knew that Cozy wouldn’t do anything, not really, but he still didn’t trust her - a position he understood perfectly but couldn’t ever have hoped to actually explain to anyone.
By now he’d mostly stopped caring anyway. It was what it was, you could never change the mind of anyone in charge and while you could probably make an argument for it being a big cage, really, the alternative hardly bore thinking about.
And Cozy seemed happy, he supposed. Which was kind of the main thing. Unless she was pretending. If so, she was doing a very good job. Damn kid was always smiling these days. Paul couldn't quite understand it, honestly. But he could put up with whatever happened if it helped her keep it up.
Best not to complain too much anyway. Things could, as always, be worse. Sit on the log and say it's naff, get an eel. Mock the eel, get the heron, then you're fucked.
Still, ultimately, you had to laugh, didn’t you?
And with Cozy and her friends gone and out of sight Paul sighed, shuffled over to his stool, sat himself down and set about working. Because that was what he did.
Credit where it was due, Cozy had been right - moving to a bigger city (or, strictly speaking, just outside a bigger city) had indeed done wonders for his commercial potential.
This important pony’s child had seen this other child playing with this toy and heard that that toy was made by this weird alien who was doing this thing for that villain and etcetera etcetera.
Result? Demand, and lots of work for Paul to supply the supply. Enough to keep him happily occupied those times he wasn’t grunting at Cozy, at least. And money, he supposed, certainly sufficient funds to cover the decoration of her room which he had indeed helped to paint.
And speaking of Cozy - again, as Paul often seemed to find himself doing these days, even when she wasn’t around - an example of her attempts at Paul’s very particular style of toymaking sat overlooking his place of work these days, lopsided and half-finished, on a shelf where he would glance up at it every so often and smile to himself.
He imagined - at some point in the future when they were all languishing under her iron hoof, brutalised by her magical clockwork constructs - that he would come to regret teaching Cozy a few tricks of his trade, but he was only human and could only have held out against her pouting for so long.
Besides, in contrast to her usual ability to pick up just about anything in no time at all, she wasn’t very good at it, much to Paul’s continued amusement and her endless frustration. Seemed that only he had the knack. Fine by him.
Well, mostly.
Previously he had been more than happy imagining his particular talents passing from the world when he did. Lately though he had entertained - idly, briefly - the ludicrous idea that maybe possibly, were she amenable, Cozy could maybe continue the fami- the business.
It’d keep her out of trouble, after all, and keep her in pocket.
But no, no. Silly idea. She was just putting it all on anyway, all this niceness. And besides she wasn’t that good anyway. Yet. Maybe. It could change if she put a little more time into it. But it was a silly idea anyway. Not sure why it kept popping up, honestly.
That aside, overall, if he had to admit it, Paul might say that life right now was adequate. Okay. Pretty good. Alright.
Acceptable.
Cocooned in his thoughts and concentrating on his work as he was, Paul failed to notice the sound of Cozy surreptitiously flapping up behind him from the kitchen, only noticing when - with a squeal - she plunged and wrapped around the back of his head.
“Love you, dad!”
“Gerroff, Cozy! And don’t call me that! I told you!”
The ‘dad’ thing was Cozy’s latest wheeze to get under his skin, having only started a couple of months ago. He’d clamped down on it the moment she’d first tried it, of course, but she still gave it a shot here or there, plainly doing her best to wriggle even deeper into his grudging affections than she already had.
It was a good thing that she was clearly kidding, too, because if she was being serious about it then Paul wouldn’t have known what to think.
So that was lucky, then.
Reaching back Paul peeled a giggling Cozy off himself and dangled her by the scruff of the neck in front of him, doing his best to look unimpressed by her sneaking abilities. She’d only got him because he’d not been paying attention - normally she never got close!
“Thought you were worried about being late,” he said.
“I am! But I’m also worried about not saying goodbye properly!”
Paul knew what this meant, and knew there wasn’t a whole lot of point in resisting. Sighing, he released his grip on her and a moment later she thumped into him, trying and failing to wrap her hooves around his middle. She never could manage, but she always did try.
“I’m not buying this for a second, I hope you understand,” Paul grumbled, but that only made her snuggle in harder.
“That’s okay,” she said.
This persisted and, eventually, gingerly, Paul put an arm around her in turn. One arm! Just one! And just to get it over with! Cozy hummed happily, and Paul was in serious danger of actually smiling before he decided that this had clearly gone on long enough and used both hands to firmly but delicately remove her.
“Aww,” she said, pouting, held before him.
He wasn’t falling for that one. Not this time. Turning her about he dropped her onto the worksurface - safely, mind - and pointed to the front door.
“Off! Away with you, child! Daylight’s burning! Off! Go!” He said.
Cozy zipped to the door with a:
“I’m going, I’m going!”
And was then off and away.
“You better be! And you better go and have fun, you hear? I want to hear about it when you get back!” He shouted through cupped hands before the door swung shut again.
Once it did, things were much quieter.
Briefly - only briefly - Paul reflected on what a strange turn his life had taken of late. Which, given what life had thrown at him up until this point, was saying something. He wasn’t sure how he felt about it, really, but the more he reflected the more he felt himself leaning towards a conclusion, so he stopped reflecting on that.
Instead, he reflected on how he’d have to make food for those fucking kids when they got back, too, and put up with all the giggling throughout the night. At least he’d had another bathroom fitted with some of that sweet, sweet success money so he wasn’t woken up every five fucking minutes by tiny kids with tiny bladders forcing him to hop out of the room he slept in while they used the facilities.
Still though…
Still...
Shaking his head he upped tools and got back to work, smirking.
“Damn kid...be the death of me yet…”