Coming Home
The entry bell tinkles, a bright, happy ring echoing through the humble shop I call home. The sunlight filters in through the windows, a warmth baking over my worn form. My stitches, lovingly sewn, line my sides as they always have. My mismatched button eyes portray a goofy look that only a mother could love.
Love… I want to be loved…
For countless days, I have sat upon these dusty shelves, watching, waiting, for her: the one who is destined to call me her own. The filly who will cradle me in her arms, pour her troubles into my pain-absorbent fabrics, and hold me closer than she holds her own heart. I will guard and guide her, keep her safe, and love her, no matter the troubles I may face. I look forward to that moment each and every passing day…
In the hopes that I too, may be loved.
I am but a humble menagerie of love and dedication, with a hefty helping of a loving touch. My buttons are worn and smooth, my stitches tight and appealing, and my smile infectious in its simplicity. For many a day, I await her presence, the one whose warmth will also be mine to share, and whose embrace will fulfill my destiny.
I await the foal who has inexplicably trotted directly into the store, the entry bell dingling as it sways with the gentle outside breeze. Outside…
A colt walks through: short, stubby, his hooves dirtied with the mud of a long day’s play. My fabric sags as I realize he will not be coming for the likes of me. I watch, forlorn, as he trots across the shop—passing me by like a cool summer breeze, before reaching out for a new ball-and-bat set. As he leaves, purchase in tow, I am filled with the sadness of knowing another night will pass by without my hooves in a caring embrace.
As the lights to the shop dim, casting the room into darkness, I see the stars twinkling in the twilit sky. I look about me, at the dwindling shelves, the bare spaces marking toys’ presences no longer needed, having been fulfilled and loved. My gaze washes over a scant few toys, their once-immaculate forms broken by inquisitive youngsters, or by accidental use. The poor things won’t be given so much as a second glance—and yet, they’ve gotten more love than me.
The door shuts with a creak, the wooden barrier separating me from the loving grasp of my destiny as my Creator takes his leave. I sigh, resigned to another night upon these shelves, awaiting my destined one. My heart forever aches to be with her.
I have no doubt she feels the same.
The sunlight is almost blinding as it burns through the curtains, warming my stitches and filling my stuffing with hope. I have a good feeling about today. As the morning crowd begins to form around the windows outside, a small flash of purple crosses my vision. My polyester heart flutters. I see her face: her cute bangs as they fall over her face, her stubby horn peeking out from the dark fibers atop her head, her smile boring a hole right into my body.
I feel a warmth fill me like never before. In a brief flash of a second, she is gone—naught but a wisp of a memory now, her infectious wonder and happiness filling me with satisfaction even as her form is lost to the numerous crowds shuffling by.
The bell tingles—my Creator stumbling in. He is dirtied, and has redness in his eyes. He hunches over and squirms at the slightest noise. He drinks his blackness drink today, the rich aroma filling the shop with its homely scent. I would shrivel my nose, if only for the acrid concentration of the scent up here, but I can only sigh.
My Creator has done this for weeks now. He has often mentioned ‘hangovers,’ and I fear for him. His creations show less and less love, and their lonely shapes sit upon the dusty shelves, awaiting the child who will never buy them to come and fulfill their hopeless dreams…
I shiver and wonder if my dreams are also as hopeless…
The door creaks open, admitting the first customer to our shop. He glances around, mouth moving a mile a minute, the veins atop my Creator’s head throbbing in time with each syllable. I can see the anger in his heart as he resists the urge to remove the kid from our store. The child’s parents come to his immediate aid, bringing a wash of relief over the room. I can see my Creator visibly deflate as the mother passes him a couple blue tablets. They look like candies, but I’ve only ever seen my Creator take one at a time.
He takes both.
As the parents usher the young colt toward the exit, his eyes fall on me. The glimmer of hope shines in them, the idea of coming out of this ordeal with a toy has taken his mind and enraptured him with the thought. He has latched onto the first toy he saw—and it was me. He tugs and yanks at their strong limbs, reaching out for me. His parents stop, turning to gaze at my worn body, atop the third shelf from the left, where I have sat my entire existence, awaiting the moment a child would pluck me from my perch and give me a new home within their heart.
My Creator smiles, grabs his extending hook, and stretches it out to me. I can feel the anticipation burning, the excitement welling up in my spine as the hook draws nearer and nearer, passing directly over my sight. I brace myself, preparing to weigh nothing, when I feel a slight brush against my left side.
A cold wave of regret washes over me as a plush bear passes into view, held fast by the hook. I am not the young colt’s selection—I was not the target of his love, his adoration, his sudden need for a toy—it was the one to my side. The bear is bagged and passed into the smiling colt’s hooves, while his parents make to extricate themselves from the dusty shop. They disappear from sight as the door closes with finality and a dull ring.
Sunset approaches. As the orb of light glazes orange, the sky recreates the waves of warmth I felt when she gazed upon me. The crowds walking past begin to dwindle as the day comes to a close. I hear my Creator rise and begin closing shop. As the lights begin to shut off, the door creaks open, and the bell tingles a few sweet saccharine rings into my patched ears. A soft pitter-patter of hooves fills the shop, and my Creator perks his ears, turning in the direction of the intruder. His wary look turns to one of delight as my train of thought derails, awash in a flood of love.
A small filly stands before the numerous shelves, a look of absolute adoration and appeal, love and wonder taking her features at a standstill. She gapes, her bright teeth filling my sight with warmth. A tingle rushes down my stitched spine. I know, in my fluffed heart, that she is the one. Her hair bobs and weaves as she whips her inquisitive little head about, swaying back and forth as she noticed more toys surrounding her. I felt a pang of empathy; she must have been deprived of our services, our duty, and her amazement shows no evidence to the contrary.
Her parents filter in behind her, glancing left and right for their little bullet of wonder.
“Twilight? Where are you, sweetie?”
Twilight…
My mind fills with images of the night sky, the swirls of the cosmos filling the expanse as the dying hues of the blazing sunset fade from view. It is a beautiful name for a beautiful filly, and I feel my stuffing swell with hope. She carries in her magic a solitary book. A glance to my side reveals my notebook and pencil, with which I can connect with her and form a bond stronger than family. I will form friendship.
She gazes about the room, her bright eyes digging, scouring the dwindling shelves for something. Her analyzing gaze draws near to me, and I feel as though butterflies have taken residence in my chest. She spots my worn edges, my loving stitches, and—of course—my accompanying stationery. A squeal of delight fills the room, a happy, bubbly voice erupting from the filly that I know will be my Best Friend. She gushes and awes over my fabrics, my limbs flailing about in the wind as she shows me to her family, presenting my notebook with a beaming smile.
I am in absolute bliss.
Waves of joy flow through me, filling me with a greater warmth than a day of the summer sun as she hugs me close, filling my fibers with her scent. She looks me over, searching for something, something that eludes me until I hear those fateful words: the words I had forgotten, put out of my mind, because I believed I’d never need hear them again.
She speaks like an angel’s song, and the heavenly chorus sings my name with the love that I have missed for all of these long days and nights. It fills me with purpose and gives me new hope.
“Smarty Pants.” A slight pause. “You’re just like me! We can study together, and read, and I can show you the Princess’ library! Eeee!”
My world shakes and rattles as she leaps about the store calling my name, delight in her step and happiness on her smile. Her parents glance at each other, a worried look taking them slowly, creeping across their features like a solar eclipse. Their hooves dig through their barren bitpurses, a scant three coins falling from the pouches to clink across the floor. Their smiles turn to sudden frowns, and they huddle close to their daughter. She ceases her leaping—my vision steadying for a moment—before I am lifted from her grasp and placed mercilessly upon my perch, the warmth leaking out of me and into the darkened wood. I sag, my ears drooping as my hooves fall to my sides in defeat; I will not see my destiny fulfilled.
Tears well in her eyes as she reaches for me with her magic. The lavender aura tugs at my limbs while my Creator’s hook holds me back, keeping my body in its tug-of-war between the two souls who would love me. Her parents usher her out, amidst her wailing cries for me, and her struggling hooves. No matter how many tears stream down the poor filly’s face, her parents continue onward.
My Creator just stares after them, heartbreak in his eyes. He slumps, before looking at me with a weary gaze. Countless closing times have graced me with their ceremony and sadness.
I can tell, as my Creator bundles my stationery and my tear-soaked limbs into a box, that they shall plague me no more.
My world is thrown into darkness, the top of the box sealing me away from these shelves I have called my home for years. I think back to the day I was created, made to sit upon the first shelf ready for purchase. Countless days with my Creator, awaiting the day I would become complete, and I would find my other half.
The half with a heart.
As the box shifts and moves, I hear the faint tingle of that fateful bell ringing through my fabric ears. A bristle of excitement drips down my stitched spine, filling my hooves with the same warmth I felt in her embrace. I hear her cries pick up in volume as my Creator draws near. I hear his muffled cry—“Wait! Wait, young child!”—and I hear the pain in his heart. He does not want my time to be up, and yet he is happy—happy to see my purpose fulfilled.
Her sobs come to a wracking halt, her shuddering breaths permeating the atmosphere. “Y...yes?” Her voice cracks on the last syllable; I can tell her tears are still flowing.
“You forgot something, young miss.”
My box shifts as I feel a softer, lighter set of hooves take my weight into their grasp. I bubble with joy and anticipation. I can feel it in every fiber and stitch. I have been waiting my entire life for this one moment, and as I see the slivers of the fading sunset peeking through the box, accented by lavender and a blinding smile, I know that I am ready.
I am ready to come home, Twilight.
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A cute little story.
Wow. That line is wonderful.
mylittlefacewhen.com/media/f/rsz/mlfw1086_small.jpg
Damn you for doing this to me!
You get all my upvotes
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Thanks, guys :D I had a blast writing it and watching the reviews roll in. I'm glad I can bring a happy ending story for once to you guys :V
5632632
Thanks for that, and the follow :D I hope my changes made the impact that much more realistic, I know I fixed a lot of inconsistencies. This is something I need to keep doing :D
Excelent story, but I don't see how the romance tag applies here. I'd recommend going with just the slice of life tag.
Really good story, though.
5632667
A comment on the Writeoff thread by HoofBitingActionOverload penned it as a romance with a happy ending, and in a way, I see it. We have the longing of Smarty, and the adoration of Twilight, the meeting that brings the two together, and subsequently pulls them apart. Each one will complement the other, and the ending brings us to see that it isn't so much a romance in the physical sense, but a romantic-styled theme and plot. Emotional romance, if you will. It's longing of the heart, but for friendship, more powerful than love, and that, in my idea, is the best picture one can paint of a romance.
I want to pen it as plain SoL, but it just feels right with that there. Still, thanks :D
This was really good.
I haven't cried like this since Toy Story 3's ending.
That was truely a heartwarming story.
SERIOUSLY?
THIS IS THE STORY THAT MAKES ME TEAR UP?
Absolutely LOVED IT!
Also I found reading the story in this voice was really effective.
>inb4 Relevant Heavy Metal
5632824
:O Nice! Sounds like a mix between Manowar, Testament, and, well, a lot of shred bands, but I hear some Marty Friedman influence in there :D
Completely off-kilter from the fic, but thanks for this, got a band to go download. :D
5632818
;_;7 Thank you, good sir :D I tried something new, and it seems to have worked!
5632676
So it's romance in terms of narrative form rather than in terms of the type of attraction they feel for each other? OK, I can see that. In that case, I'd suggest mentioning it in the author's notes, if not the description, to avoid confusion. Carry on.
5632852 If there's one thing Germans know, it's their power metal. Pretty sure you can find the discography on Pirate Bay, too.
Absolutely stunning, made me care about a doll way more than I was expecting. I really liked the shopkeeper as well.
Very nice. It reminded me of The Velveteen Rabbit, and I could see an Alt-U continuation of this story going that way (considering what we know actually happens to Smarty Pants).
I remember this from the writeoff.
It was beautiful, it made me feel for lil Smarty Pants.
Well done.
I still don't get this story. :/ Must be something wrong with me.
Beautifully done...manly tears were shed
I have mixed feelings about this one. I think the concept is unique and clever -- how many times have you seen a love story between a toy and a child? -- but the execution needs work.
I've identified three areas for improvement:
1) General grammar. You know, you actually did a pretty damn good job with this. Most authors can't handle long sentences well, but you knocked them out, one after the other, without too many stumbles.
However, there were several usage errors (using The sunlight instead of just sunlight in the first paragraph, using awe as a verb, etc.) as well as areas where you're grip on those long sentence did falter, where two shorter sentences would have been more suitable.
2) Rhythm. Long, luscious prose can lose a reader in its intricacies, bore them, or just give them eye strain (although only in those bastard works of literature which have sentences as long as a page). As an author, you can control how a reader moves through the text, and you control that by rhythm.
Rhythm. Slow or fast, meandering or direct. It changes the flow of the sentence. It modifies how a reader reads. It is your best friend when it comes to turning uninspiring prose into something that sings, dances, and leaps off the page and into a reader's memory.
I played with it a little just then. I think you need to play with yours. As is, the piece moves between flowing and stilted prose, especially due to the repetition of _______ and ______ descriptors. If you went through and read the piece out loud, then modified it to suit the voice you are going for, then I think this would be a much stronger story.
3) Conveying emotion. This piece is strongly on the tell spectrum. No problem with that, if it's done right -- especially when your narrator is first person and it is much more forgiveable for them to just tell you what their dominant feeling is.
However, I think this story would benefit from a bit of understatement.
For example, when the toy next to Smarty Pants is chosen instead of her, you wrote "a cold wave of regret washes over me as the plush bear passes into view."
Instead you could use gesture to convey the same emotion: "I slump/sag/bow my head as the plush bear passes into view."
Or manipulate paragraph structure:
"I brace myself, preparing to weigh nothing, when I feel a slight brush against my left side.
He didn't pick me.
I slump/sag/bow my head as the plush bear passes into view."
By implying emotion rather than just stating it, I think you could achieve a much deeper depth of feeling, partly because it forces a reader to empathise and project their own feelings of sadness and/or rejection onto the character.
---
Anywho, it was pretty decent. Did not hit me as emotionally as it did others, but it has the potential. Keep up the good work
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I'm glad I've gotten some useful stuff from this comment :D I want to address a few things:
There's something you should know about me as a writer, that applies to most all of my work >.>
I'm a terrible planner/re-worker. I get inspiration for something, then write the first draft and final draft as one and the same, go through for edits(I read aloud to catch errors), and post. This one was honestly something entirely new for me to write. I've never really focused on first-person nor the perspective of limited consciousness. It was an interesting write, but I felt the sentences were what needed to be told, as opposed to the story needing to be reader-tailored.
I'll keep your suggestions in mind, though. I know I write a bit heavy - blame it on reading heavy writers here - but I tried to exude the feelings without making he/r seem animate, which brings us to the next aspect of this:
I know this is technically bad writing style, but I disagree wholeheartedly here. I feel it would actually break the immersion, were I to give Smarty more liberal movement than a ragdoll toy should have. I use the sagging to show the deepest emotional sadness in the story, when she is taken from Twilight's grasp, but I feared that giving he/r even that small bit of animation would break the reader from the aspect of Smarty being unable to do anything about he/r predicament. I tumbled over that idea with a couple prereaders (something else that's new for me), but in the end, the emotional punch hit a bit better when Smarty was truly inanimate, yet vividly emotional within.
One thing I'm really confused about - and don't get me wrong, I like emotional pieces - is how making it even more vague would immerse the reader better. I kept getting that in the writeoff thread: "Make the emotions more vague" "Try leaving it up to the reader a bit more" and my personal favorite "Let the reader imply it on their own" :V I'm not sure how doing so would work, when almost everyone who read it could not see the aspects of the shop that proved it to be a dying shop: bare shelves, broken toys, drunken/hungover shopkeep, I honestly don't know how I could have made it clearer without actually telling the reader it was a 'going out of business' shop, yet everyone's nitpick revolved around how poorly this store displays its wares.
You can't fill the shelves if you don't want to make more toys to fill them now, can you? Can't we entertain that Canterlot has its failing businesses that crumble under the Barnyard Bargains and Stall-Marts, unable to continue their family tradition of toymaking when mass-production is stripping their shelves bare? This store is dying. If the general populace of the write-off couldn't figure that out, I don't think making the story even more up to reader interpretation would have the intended effect.
Thanks for entertaining the notion, though.
I'd love to fix it up to fit your aspects of change to better immerse you in it, but I fear it would break the rest of these fine folks out of their reading as-is. I will definitely consider that for next time I venture into this perspective, which I really want to try :V
Thank you, for commenting, and suggesting things to improve upon, I'm really glad you at least liked it :D
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Always nice to see when an author replies to comments in depth.
I understand what you're going for here. The powerlessness of Smarty Pants is important to the story, but I stiiiill reckon you can include gestures without compromising that.
Call it style bias
Like, there are already gestures in there: "My seams sagged", and the such. You could use gestures of a similar sort -- even a lack of gesture ("I sat motionless") -- for greater effect than simply telling.
Which leads onto the next point.
Yeah, I get what you're saying. That advice ("make the emotions more vague") is so vague in of itself that it's just confusing. Not helpful at all. I had the same problem with show versus tell, and I'm still trying to get over bad habits.
So let me explain what I meant.
First, I don't get either why people couldn't tell the shop had fallen on hard times. Souring toy maker. Bare shelves. Hangover. It was pretty obvious, and now it's even more so, what with the coffee.
Second, and this is where it gets trickier. This story relies heavily on us being told emotions. Which is okay, in first person, because it's pretty much a convention. But it isn't the only tool available, and in other narrative modes, it is a serious flaw.
Why?
Well, I think it's because when we communicate in real life, we rarely set out to deliberately make someone feel something, and we rarely tell someone exactly what we are thinking and feeling. We infer feelings by how someone phrases something, what words the choose, their posture, expression, visual ticks.
So when a character tells me that they feel a wave of sadness crashing over them, or something to that effect, it doesn't affect me emotionally. It doesn't really connect with a sense of true sadness either, because I understand sadness through speech and gesture.
But if the author, rather than telling me that the character is sad, lets me figure that out for myself, through gesture and timing and dialogue and subtext, then I'm connecting to the character as though they were a real person. This makes the emotions that much more believable. It even allows me to read a lot more depth into those feelings than you would be able to convey with direct telling.
So when people say "be vague with emotions" and all that, I think they are trying to say, "We aren't so dumb. Let us figure it out for ourselves."
(Interesting connection: It's related to why so many authors recommend people-watching. You have to figure out what behaviours convey which emotions, and then you can use these in writing.)
At least, those are some of my thoughts on it. I might be wrong. I definitely haven't been exhaustive. But I hope it helps clarify things a little.
---
Also, yeah. It's probably not worth trying to alter the whole story just for these changes, haha. If anything, they're just things to keep in mind in the future.
If for nothing else than how quickly this was put together, I applaud the work done. I love the details and the unique perspective.
i.imgur.com/X4NpPxt.jpg
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I'm doing FoME's happy dance now. xD
I wish it could have hit others as hard as it did most, but alas, not everyone sympathizes with Smarty. Thank you for the kind words, and the add. :D
I came here from PresentPerfect's review. I love PP, but I thought he was way off the mark with this one. "I just never felt like I could connect with Smarty as a narrator" seems a poor excuse to dock a story. I loved it.
A paragraph expressing Smarty's gratitude towards Creator might help bring things full circle, don't you think? Maybe play up the alcoholism at the beginning a bit more, too, to make his redemption in Smarty's eyes that much more impactful. Just a thought.
Keep up the good work?
Goddamn it, you got something in my eye.
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Awh, s'okay, Meri. Prolly just dust. You guys got a load of that out there ;V
Thanks, for both adds. :D I thought you were already following me. Huh. I had a blast making this, I'm glad you've gotten enjoyment from it.
5647834
Many thanks :D Glad you liked it. Liking this one's a matter of personal preference. Like the fandom's teeming hate for Flash Sentry, or whether you eat the blue pill or not. xD I've given some thought to the Creator fulfillment, and I could include something, perhaps, but I'm still trying to think of how I'd make it happen. I'll let you know if something spawns of it. Danke for stopping by!
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I've been busy lately.
Sorry for the late reply
I've not heard of The Velveteen Rabbit, but I'm going to go look it up, if this is making you reminisce on it. Of course, I dunno if I'll be revisiting this one exactly, though the style is enticing to write. Thanks for the comment :D
5654324
I thought I was following you too. :P
5654324 If you don't object, I'd like to make an audio version of this one. Shoot me a PM when you're done revising?
5659963
I would be honored :D Feel free to hop on that whenever, I've got this one finished :V Glad you liked it!
'Editing Work done by Cerulean Voice.'
I look forward to reading this.
5668519
I am certain you'll enjoy it :D He did mostly punctuation and the such, the feels are on me.
That was a really beautiful and bittersweet story, thank you.
I write a review of this story. It can be found here.
That...that...that was borderline Toy Story 3 with what it does to you
5700665
Y'know, that came up a few times in the Writeoff thread :D
...I should really watch that for once >.>
Thank you for the kind words/add :B
You can has review!
6410808
I don't think I ever thanked you for taking time from your busy days to take a look at my story way back when, but I truly appreciate the kind words and your taking a chance with my most serious fic :V
That was really very sweet! The only nit I have to pick is the lack of funds in Twilight’s parent’s purses. I think it needs more explanation (scrimping every bit to send Twilight to Magic School?) or perhaps to have Twilight herself be the buyer short of cash.
This was beautiful. Rough in some places, which is reasonable for a contest entry.
I was confused in several places, and had to go back and read it again. Some bits I'm still not sure about. Mostly the shopkeeper's interaction with customers. I thought it was clear that the shop was at the least struggling, if not going out of business.
I don't think it was much more than sweet and emotional, but it did well at those things, and for a short contest entry, that's all it needs.
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The explanation would be that I wanted to wrench at your heart a little more, make the climax just that much more emotional, and really, who hasn't spent a day out shopping only to realize you're basically broke and have to leave behind something at the counter? I really, honestly, am so proud of this piece that I'm holistically against changing any part of it, but certainly I could have provided a bit of context, valid point.
8737004
Thank you so much for the kind words, I've been absent from fimfic for a good while, so I feel bad about missing replies on my favorite story..I was only aiming to tug your heartstrings and then make everything better again in the end, with some crying in the middle. I still tear up whenever I hear the audio of it.
Feel free to PM me (I know this is a late reply so if you've passed on your interest elsewhere, I fully understand.) if you have questions or are just wondering about the overall story because I intentionally left a lot of things vague. I was trying out a lot of new things with my writing, not just in the tense but also with the style of writing and with how quickly it was assembled (about an hour to type and self-edit, one more for an independent editor) into a well-made story. Considering I garnered my fame with random/comedy shitfics, I'm quite impressed to this day with this little piece. I'm honestly so thankful that it's still getting views, even to this day
Not sure how u missed such a gem all these years. Cool
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Awwh thank you (: Coming Home is my baby of the site. I love and cherish it almost as much as Smarty Pants cherishes that foam-to-foal contact they receive at the end. Truly my best offering and very happy that you enjoyed.
Im just so glad to see this still getting the love and appreciation almost 4 years on. Thanks for reading (:
ooooo gooood
hit the feels in the spot where it is a bittersweet punch
9874768
Thank you so much! I know its quite late of me but I deeply appreciate the ability to make for a good read despite having put down my pen. Neighrator Pony made a pleasant audio version of this that really puts the atmosphere of that feeling in the room if you need to use your eyes for something else on a reread 😊