The Toymaker

"But Rarity! Can't we just look around for a bit?"

"Sweetie Belle, I've already told you, no means no."

The two siblings were standing in the middle of the main Ponyville street, others trotting to and fro with their afternoon errands. Rarity in particular was heading to buy new supplies for the rather large order she had received earlier, and Sweetie Belle had insisted that she follow along, to the fashionista's mild irritation.

But before she could even reach the first store on her list, a particular shop had managed to catch Sweetie Belle's eye: none other than the small toy store that was on the corner of the street. And now, Sweetie Belle was practically begging for her sister to let her go in. She had heard a bit about this place from her friends at school, and they all loved it. So now that the opportunity had presented itself, she wasn't going to give it up.

"Pleeeeeaaaase?" she asked once again, giving Rarity the best puppy-dog expression she could muster. Her efforts were finally rewarded as Rarity gave an exasperated sigh.

"Oh, fine," Rarity conceded. "But I'm afraid we can't buy anything. I have to conserve my budget if we're going to have anywhere near enough funds to acquire all of these supplies."

At this point, Sweetie didn't really care. She was just so excited to finally be able to see this place, letting out an ecstatic giggle as she made her way through the door, almost faster than Rarity could keep up with.

There was the soft ring of a bell as the two made their way into the store, and the sight before them made Sweetie gasp in awe. The place was truly a young pony's paradise. The walls shone with a white, gleaming sheen, the blue carpet beneath her hooves was dotted with shapes and patterns of all sorts of colors, and the brown wooden shelves that lined the walls all bore plush toys that were in the likeness of ponies.

In the middle of the building was a small desk, where a particular unicorn stallion was repairing a broken doll. The toy, needle, and roll of string were levitating in front of him, working to stitch together a tear in the doll's side. His coat was of a dark turquoise color, and his eyes were a bright orange. His light grey mane and tail were somewhat unkempt, with a few tufts of hair sticking out in places, and he wore a pair of black, circular glasses. His cutie mark was that of a white pony plush.

It took him a few moments to realize that someone had entered the building, and he set his current work aside to give the two a warm, welcoming smile. "It appears that I have customers." The stallion spoke in a voice that sounded light-hearted and somewhat breezy, as well as carrying an almost calming characteristic. "Terribly sorry if I was distracted. Fillies these days don't seem to treat their toys with as much safety as they used to."

Stepping from out from behind the desk, he was revealed to be wearing a light grey shirt with a vest that was lined with black and white stripes, and a red bowtie. In some respects, what with his formal attire, it seemed like he came straight from Canterlot, but there was still something about him, whether it was that joyful twinkle in his eye or his mildly ruffled appearance, that made him look old and young at the same time.

While Sweetie Belle was racing around the shop and looking through the merchandise, the stallion walked over to Rarity. "I suppose that this would be your sibling?" he said. "She's quite the energetic one."

"Oh. Yes, I suppose," Rarity said, still looking a bit uncomfortable. The longer they spent here, the less time she had to begin work on that order that was looming over head.

Then, something seemed to click in the stallion's mind as his eyes lit up in realization. "Aha! You must be Rarity from Ponyville! I thought I recognized that mane of yours. Well, Miss Rarity, what might you be here for? Something for your sibling, perhaps?"

Rarity stammered somewhat, trying to come up with a good explanation. "No, not really. Actually, I'm afraid I have to leave soon. I have a very large order to fill, and..."

"Aw, c'mon, Rarity!" Sweetie Belle said from a few feet away. "Can't I just buy something? I'll help out even more, I promise!"

"No, Sweetie Belle, you help enough as is." Rarity tried to console her sister, but she was getting incredibly antsy. The stallion who was talking to her earlier, however, gave the mare a quizzical look.

"Why not? Your sister obviously loves my work, and I try my best to make people happy," he said, sounding a bit disappointed.

"And I'm fairly sure that others appreciate that, but we simply must be taking our leave." Rarity used her magic to yank Sweetie Belle to her side, and the doll that the filly had been holding dropped to the floor in a heap. "Perhaps we'll stop by another time, but if I don't get these supplies-"

While she was trying to explain her predicament to the owner of the store, she was about to open the door that led back to the Ponyville streets...

Only to find that the door was locked.

"Oh. I understand."

The toymaker spoke out once again, this time sounding a lot less welcoming than he had before. As Rarity turned around to face him, he regarded her with an eerily blank stare.

"You just care more about yourself and what you want than making your friends and family happy. Is that it?" He continued to speak to Rarity, his voice now dissolving into a fairly ominous monotone. Sweetie Belle was now silent, startled by this drastic shift in the stallion's behavior.

"What...I didn't say anything about that!" Rarity said indignantly.

"Ponies like you are the reason why the world is such a sad and lonely place," the toymaker said, now slowly walking towards Rarity and Sweetie Belle. "Tell me, what's wrong with being happy? Is being happy just too good for you?"

Rarity, at this point, didn't know what to say. Sweetie Belle was now clinging to Rarity's legs, shivering slightly out of fear. Suddenly, this place seemed quite different from what the other ponies had said about.

After a moment of dead silence, the toymaker was just about a foot and a half away from his customers. His behavior was not only abnormal and creepy, but furthered the schism in his apparent age. He was speaking with more simple words, and his voice almost sounded child-like.

"Your sister deserves better, Rarity. So I'm going to give her what you cannot."

Before Rarity could respond, the toymaker's horn began glowing with a bright blue light. Sweetie Belle was surrounded by a magical glow of the same color, and in a flash, the stallion made a run for one of the doors near the back of the building. Sweetie Belle was floating in the air alongside him, the filly now thrashing around to escape her captor's telekinetic grasp.

Rarity, after an initial moment of shock, began running after the stallion in an attempt to catch up to him before he could reach the door, but with no such luck. Right before the mare could reach him, the toymaker had ran into the back room and slammed the door shut, Rarity colliding with it not soon afterwards.

A series of soft clicking sounds signified that the door had been locked, but that didn't stop Rarity from pounding into it with all the force she could muster. She was half-screaming and half-sobbing as her attempts at stopping this mad pony became increasingly futile...

Meanwhile, behind the door, Sweetie Belle was in just as much of a hectic state, worriedly glancing at the stallion who had basically kidnapped her. The room that they had been taken into was almost pitch-black, the dim glow from the toymaker's horn being the only source of light. "W-w-what are you going to..."

Sweetie Belle statement quickly trailed off when the lights seemingly flickered on of their own accord, and the room was revealed. It was probably more akin to a storage room, with the walls and floor being nothing but bare stone. The place had an odor that Sweetie Belle didn't quite recognize...the smell of blood.

To her horror, she looked around and noticed the corpses of various ponies chained to the walls. Some were young and some were old, but all of them had slashed throats and their eyes were missing from their sockets, as well as having rather large cuts through their stomachs. And against the wall was what appeared to be a working bench, with a large toolbox sitting right next to it.

Sweetie Belle was about to let out a mortified scream, but was quickly silenced when the toymaker put a hoof to her mouth, still holding her in place with his magic. "Shhh. Don't worry. I'm going to make everything better now." He spoke with a smile, like he was trying to be comforting, but the situation in which the filly found herself only furthered her fear.

The toymaker walked over to the bench and set Sweetie Belle on top of it, his magic still providing an unrelenting grip on the filly. Sweetie Belle's protests had now given way to terrified whimpering as the toymaker rummaged through the nearby toolbox. After a bit of searching, he managed to find the objects that he needed: a rather jagged knife...and a stitching needle. He also brought out a pair of buttons and a long roll of string.

"After this, you won't feel any more pain. You see, dolls don't feel pain. Only happiness."

Those were the last words that Sweetie Belle heard the toymaker say, the knife drawing closer to her face. And the toymaker still smiling as he began his work.

The agonized shriek of Sweetie Belle brought Rarity, who had been slumped across the floor near the door in exhaustion, back to her senses and making her stand upright in an alarmed matter.

"Sweetie Belle!" she yelled, once again slamming at the door, repeating her sister's name, her sobbing and Sweetie's screaming clashed together. It wasn't long before Rarity gave up on trying to break through the door, and instead looked for a way in which she could escape this place, before that psychopath got to her next. She wildly looked around, but her options seemed minimal. There weren't any windows in this place, and the front door was already looked.

Her eyes eventually fell upon the desk in the center of the building, then upon the front door. Forcing all of her concentration into this one effort, Rarity's horn began glowing with a dark blue hue. The desk slowly moved off the ground, and towards the door. Then, with all of her might, the unicorn drove her makeshift battering ram right through the door, which broke apart and allowed Rarity exit.

Unfortunately, it was still a good deal into the afternoon, and needless to say, something like breaking down the front door to a shop was bound to draw attention. Surely enough, the ponies in the nearby area immediately turned their heads towards the store, and towards Rarity as she walked out from it, breathing heavily due to both emotion and exertion due to her spell.

Before Rarity could bring herself to try and speak to the crowd assembled there, they were already panicking, with various cries of "Madmare! There's a madmare on the loose!" being thrown into the air as ponies ran all over the street.

"No! You have to listen to me!" Rarity yelled, unsuccessfully trying to calm the crowd down. "That store, there's...that stallion, he's...my sister...she..."

Her speech quickly trailed off when Rarity found herself alone, the other ponies now making their best effort into trying to stay away from her. She already began to notice others closing their windows and shutting their doors, and Rarity just looked between them in blank horror. Not only did no one believe her, but now everypony thought she was crazy for breaking some store door open, while that toymaker was in there doing who knows what to Sweetie Belle.

And there was nothing she could do about it.

Rarity slumped down onto the ground as the realization hit her like a ton of bricks. Sweetie Belle was gone. Perhaps even dead, if those screams were anything to judge by. She started sobbing uncontrollably, now regretting her decision more than ever. There should've been something, anything that she could've done to save her, but now it was too late.

Giving that store, that accursed store, a hard gaze, Rarity soon began running, lest that stallion find his next victim. She was running for Carousel Boutique, the only place where she could think to go, in light of her recent actions.

She could only hope, through some stroke of luck or fortune, that Sweetie Belle wasn't dead.

It had been several hours after the incident, and Rarity now in her bedroom, still wailing her eyes out into her pillow. Her friends had tried to talk to her earlier, and Pinkie Pie in particular offered some cake in an attempt to cheer her up, but those efforts were in vain, and eventually, they just stopped trying. Now it was about dusk, and Rarity wasn't showing any signs of calming down.

However, there was a small knock on the door, to which Rarity didn't respond until a squeaky, accented voice started speaking to her from behind the door.

"Uhm...Rarity? Can we come in?"

Rarity didn't respond verbally, but her crying did lessen considerably. That voice belonged to Apple Bloom, one of Sweetie Belle's friends. The filly decided to open the door, and it was revealed that Scootaloo was there, too. Scootaloo was carrying a saddlebag with her, a slight rattling noise audible as she and her friend walked to the side of Rarity's bed.

"We heard tha' yer really upset 'bout Sweetie Belle runnin' away..." Apple Bloom started to say.

"She didn't...run away..." Rarity said, face still buried in her pillow. "He...he took her..."

Apple Bloom exchanged a worried glance with her friend, but continued nonetheless. "We thought tha' this migh' cheer you up a bit. See? It looks just like her!"

As Apple Bloom reached into the saddlebag that her friend wore and pulled out their gift, Rarity immediately jumped off of the bed and stood in front of them, prompting a somewhat frightened reaction.

The mare that usually put so much effort into keeping her appearance in check was now a sight for sore eyes. Her coat, mane, and tail were extremely ruffled. There was eyeshadow running down her face. One set of her false eyelashes was missing. And her eyes, bloodshot from crying so much, were as wide as dinner plates, looking at the gift in shock.

It was a doll. A doll that had an uncanny resemblance to Sweetie Belle, with buttons in replacement of eyes and a stitched-on smile.

"Where did you get that?" she asked, her voice dangerously soft.

"From that old guy who runs the toy shop!" Scootaloo responded. "Y'know, the one whose door you broke down for some reason?"

Whatever response Rarity would've made, however, was cut off by Apple Bloom's startled yelp as the doll she held started moving around on its own accord. This caused the filly to drop the doll, which starting twitching around on the floor as the three ponies stared at it for a while.

Then, suddenly, the doll stood up and turned to face Rarity, who was totally dumbstruck by the sight before her. This fear was only intensified as one of the toy's button-eyes fell right off, revealing eyelids that had apparently been stitched shut. However, that eye managed to open itself with a revolting noise that sounded like peeling flesh, and trails of a gooey, red substance stretched between the two eyelids as they opened. They revealed what wasn't an eye so much as a soulless, black hole.

The doll's mouth then opened in a similar manner, revealing a malformed set of jagged and incredibly sharp teeth that were twisted into a hideous grin. Staring at Rarity with its single open eye, the doll spoke in a ragged, horrible voice...

"Goodnight."