The doll sat in the center of a room. A nondescript room made of wood. A bed, side table, several chairs, and a window that flooded the room with light… but no body was present to observe.
“I really like her mane.”
A mane, made from scraps of Apple Bloom’s own hair; stolen from the garbage by her farmstead. The filly had mane cuts every week to keep her style, like most ponies did. Applejack or Big Mac would seat her on a stool outside the farmhouse and trim her hairs as needed and collect them in an old sack, only to throw them away.
Of all the things to do to such lovely locks of hair, to simply discard them like they were worthless. They were collected bit by bit. Week by week under the moonlight they were taken and put to a better use. There’s always a better use for something that’s been thrown away. And thanks to a wasteful filly, the doll has a mane.
”Shimmery, but not showy. And the entire line is in the same adorable pattern.”
She threw them away like they were nothing. Such exquisite fabrics and swatches that must have cost more than most ponies make in a day were in the garbage with old food and towels that were used to wipe a muzzle clean of vomit. Such disdain for such fabrics and cloth from such a caring and loving, giving, mare. She gave more to the garbage and landfills than any pony could ever receive from her.
She was always futzing with her bangs.
Orange is an okay color, but purple is amazing. Her sporty mane was the most amazing thing I’d ever seen. I watched her for so long. I watched her bangs flounce and bounce as she sped around town. I imagined being the wind that blew through it as she soared through the air during her jumps and touching it as she landed and it bounced so freely. The doll has a mane, and it’s thanks to what she cut off by the creek in such a boorish manner and left for nature to discard.
I’m stuffed.
She shaves every night.
Every night before she bathes and prepares for bed she tosses a clump of white fur, wet and squishy, into the garbage straight away so no pony, not even her sister would see. Her vanity is on par with that of her terrible sister. There’s no limit to what her entire family must be worth with her parents always taking vacations and the elder sister running a growing business.
I collect the fur she tosses away and wash it. I make sure it’s as clean as it is when it’s on her flesh, and I learned to keep the smell of her natural body. It’s a scent that makes me weak in the knees and it fills the doll as stuffing, so every time I hug her to my body I smell the filly I wish to be with.
Ooo, what's the matter? Afraid you'll get a hair out of place in that rat's nest you call a mane?
The doll has a tail. A long luxurious tail nearly as long as my foreleg from all the hairs I could collect without getting caught from each of them. Fluttershy, Pinkie, Twilight, my dearest Sweetie Belle, my love Scootaloo, darling Apple Bloom… the sisters and best friends have given the smallest things to make the doll perfect and the tail is one of my favorites.
It’s smell is a melody, an ambrosia of the mares and fillies… even Rarity, I have them all and the stories of their lives, he he, the tale of their tails.
I saw her put a spell on my brother that made his eyes go all...
The eyes are the most simple part of a doll. Two buttons that are sewn onto it’s head and carry the worst story. I had to steal them from Twilight Sparkle like a pauper, a poor pony that has nothing to lose and nothing to gain. The dragon played some game and left his sewing kit and her dress out and I saw the opportunity. I took them, and now the doll has eyes.
I walk into the room and see the doll on the floor, one of its eyes has fallen off and it hurts me to see it in such a shape. I hurriedly get the kit and sew it back on, then hold it tightly to my chest. I nuzzle it’s mane, sniff its smell, and caress it’s cloth skin.
This is the secret that no pony know, the love I have for ponies that don’t know me, hate me, or discard me. The doll is the love that they don’t know they have for me and the only way I can show them in return. The doll is mine, and so are they.
Society says I have to act a certain way. I have to take care of my mane a certain way. I have to brush so many strokes in so many different directions each night. I’m not like the ponies I idolize in secret and love. A cow? A donkey? A mule? A pony… what am I that matters?
If I see what I want and can’t get it what does that make society? Is the world wrong for making me what and who I am? This doll, made from a half dozen different things represents more to me than anything society can ever dictate and I hope that one day, I can be looked at like I wish I were, not the creature I am.
I am different than the others. That’s what the doll and I have in common. We are both stuffed with emptiness, a lie. Nothing will change us, nothing will make us real. I cry into the doll’s cloth and know that if it were possible, it would cry into me.