Shiny Gear was a unicorn toymaker, and the founder of Gear's Toyshop. He was to toys, what Celestia was to magic! A natural! There was nothing he couldn't do with clockwork and springs, wood and metal, magical batteries and a limitless imagination. He would sit at his desk, well into the small hours and back into the big ones. Always tinkering with tiny screwdrivers and even tinier cogs and gears until he would shout, "Yes! I've done it again!"
His board of directors were always ready and waiting to see his latest creations. Sometimes these presentations would take place as early as four in the morning, for time did not mean the same thing to Shiny Gear as it did to others. But it was never a chore to get up early to see his new toys, and soon every stallion and mare in the room became a foal again, as they watched a clockwork bird, flap it's wings and lay an egg, which in turn would hatch into another perfect clockwork bird, and so on. He created a clockwork squirrel that would hoarded nuts in summer and collected them in winter. He even created a small rocket that flew around the room, leaving multicoloured trails of delicious smelling steam.
"You're a genius!" shouted one of the directors, gawking at the latest automaton.
"We'll be rich!" shouted another.
"Nonsense," said Shiny Gear smiling, making the directors gasp. "Make a thousand and send them to the orphanages." The directors calmed and agreed, for they knew that this was just the type of stallion Gear was.
His foals adored him and believed that he must possess some sort of magical spell that brought him his brilliance. His wife Daisy didn't know of any spell, but she knew he possessed a very special ability. An ability that made him able to chase away any sadness and make anything seem alright. He was the light of the household, and the rest of them were happy to bask in it.
However, there was one who didn't like him, and that was the dog. And above all else, no one quite knew the reason why. Perhaps it was because he would not permit him to have any bones, even when they were offered by his family. "They used to belong to somepony like you or I," he'd always remark. "Give them some respect."
Or perhaps it was the fact that Gear had once accidentally stepped on the poor dogs tail, leaving it kinked in a way that even after years had passed, had never really straightened out.
So. When Gear's heart stopped beating, a few days before his forty third birthday, the joy in the house was instantly replaced with emptiness, and discontent. The world had caved in so it seemed, and left the poor family without the light of their lives. And so, darkness fell.
The funeral was predictably well attended. One poor stallion cried so loudly and so long that he had to be removed, and his laments could be heard even over the choir. The family remained silent throughout. Unable to grieve. Unable to accept their loss. Almost everyone who attended the funeral took home something as a gift. Nothing ostentatious. Just simple trinkets, a pen, a handkerchief, a napkin ring...
All of this was given on Gear's request in his will.
But as the hubbub of the funeral calmed down, a truth became clear to the family. Daisy, Ginger and Comet would never recover from their loss. They knew that the happy part of their lives was gone. They would never move on! Never, never, ever! They would never recover!
The thought of not seeing Gear again was too much for them to bear!
But, as fortune would have it, they did see him again. The following Thursday when he arrived at the house. There he suddenly was, standing his full height, one hoof held out clutching a glass tumbler and an expression of glass eyed benevolence, on his lacquered face. You see, Gear had been stuffed, by a taxidermist at his own request. The family were left with the frightening statue and a letter of explanation. Gear's last will and testament was very specific in it's peculiarities. And the exhumation, preservation and taxidermation of his body was just the beginning.
Daisy read aloud, the late but yet present, Gear's instructions.
"You must keep me in whatever room you are in. And make sure I'm facing you, I want to see you my dears."
Poor Ginger who had been out of the room fetching some water suddenly came in, screamed and fainted at the sight of the resurrected master of the house, her glass shattering on the floor.
Comet blinked and said in a rather unsure voice, "It was so...Kind. Of father to do this. So thoughtful." He moved his head but could not avoid the expressionless eyes of his father's corpse.
"Yes, indeed...This has your father written all over," whispered Emily, who was unsure whether the knots in her stomach were due to grief or nausea. "It's...Wonderful to have him back," she said, meaning the opposite.
None of them could speak the truth. And so, inevitably, the situation grew worse.
Gear was a master of clockwork, and as such, there were more surprises to discover within this deceased philanthropist, this father, this husband. Who had once been full of laughter and light and was now full resin, sawdust and plaster.
The "late" Gear also contained a sort of speaker, fitted in his throat and powered by an extremely long lived magical battery. The speaker activated itself. Every seven and a half minutes.
It seemed Shiny Gear had recorded some special messages for his family. Four, in total. In rotation. Every seven and a half minutes.
"I'M STILL HERE!" he would bellow. And just 450 seconds later...
"DRINK PLEASE!" he would shout, waving his little glass tumbler which refused to leave the cold dead grasp of his hoof.
"I'VE DONE IT AGAIN!" was message number three. And finally, but perhaps most irritatingly...
"I'M SORRY, WOULD YOU SAY THAT AGAIN?" after which, whoever in the room had last spoken was under strict instructions to repeat loudly, and into his cold dead ear whatever it was they had said.
"We have to do it," said Daisy rather fearfully. "If it's what he wanted, then we must do it. He did so much for us."
And so they did what Gear wanted.
There he would stand, demanding drinks and attention at all hours of the day. And night.
They took turns keeping him in their bedrooms, having him watch over them, his rictus grin always finding a patch of moonlight to be illuminated in.
After a month of this horror and wretchedness, the family had still not admitted to each other just how utterly miserable they all were. One night while Comet was on the terrace, his deceased father looking on, he was lighting some candles when suddenly...
"DRINK PLEASE!"
Comet, looked over and frowned as he picked up an open bottle of whisky. He then proceeded to 'trip' and 'spill' the drink all over the dead stallion, quickly followed by him getting up and 'accidentally' knocking one of the candles in Gear's direction. However, this 'accident' did not have the desired destructive force to rid the family of Gear. It only succeeded in making him more horrific.
The following night Daisy had been taking care of some letters in her bedroom when she 'accidentally' fell and pushed Gear out of her second story window. He plummeted down, bouncing off a windowsill and smashing a birdbath in his stead. Unfortunately despite destroying most of the garden, he had not destroyed himself.
"I'M STILL HERE!" he bellowed mockingly from the small crater which he had made.
The next day, Ginger was working in the garden with the flowers and 'accidentally' toppled Gear, and after 'losing' him in the grass, 'unfortunately' ran over him with the lawnmower. But unfortunately the iron spirit and iron bars that had been used to give Gear his rigid appearance would not break.
Gear, it appeared, was as strong a character in death as he was in life. And after each 'accidental' attempt, the stuffed Gear became more and more disgusting.
The family were EXHAUSTED. But Gear had one more trick up his sleeve.
Quite literally in fact, there was something that moved down his foreleg. With a clockwork whirr, a shiny, white, fake bone, plopped into Gear's hoof. And Gear uttered one, new phrase.
"Here boy!"
This was too much for the poor dog, who sat in his bed in the corner of the room. This teasing, toy bone was the last straw. In a fit of rage the normally placid dog attacked Gear, with terrifying ferocity. He bit and scratched and tore and pulled and howled until...Until there was nothing left.
Ginger, Daisy and Comet all swore they were about to call off the poor pup. But they kept to the story that they were all expecting another to do it and thus hesitated. What was left of Gear was not a pretty sight. And they all agreed, wishes or not, that he should be buried again. This was swiftly arranged.
After the proper burial of Gear things got back to normal. The garden was cleaned, the family slept and the dog was given a new bed and all the bones he could ever want.
Happiness, had returned to the family and promised to stay and never outstay it's welcome.
What the family didn't know however, was that all of this didn't happen by accident. You see, Gear could work ponies the same way he worked his clockwork toys. And his last and final act of generosity was a triumph.
Despite their grieving and their assurances they'd never be happy again...
Daisy, Comet and Ginger...
...didn't miss him anymore.
