Plastic Wrapped Packaged Perfection
Exciting Posable Average!
"Now, I always found attaching the mast to the hull to be the tricky part."
Bon Bon watched the man curled over the kitchen table in her home with rapt attention and slight unease. The sweets maker was always one to make her way through life being gloriously passive-aggressive in her disinterest in everything. Therefore, it aggravated her considerably for her to realize she was in fact paying said rapt attention to Jeremy Colt, who by definition should have had the same value in her presence as burnt taffy. Him and his stupid black coat and hat that he never took off (when badgered about simple manners like removing that over-brimmed fedora indoors, he'd raise a fuss about the cold). Humans were such ridiculous creatures. But the earth pony made the mistake of walking in on him while he was busying himself with the ship-in-a-bottle. With his hands.
"Mast's gotta fold back after you slide it in, otherwise it won't fit inside the bottle..."
There was something disturbingly hypnotic about it. The chair was a bit too short for him, leaving his legs splayed out with the heels of his boots awkwardly trying to find purchase on the tile floor. His (aforementioned stupid) coat was spilled over the sides of his chair, making him look like he was being eaten by a blanket. But all his attention was on the wooden miniature that was resting atop a layer of newspaper, surrounded by thin brushes, sand paper, cotton swabs, small pans of glue, varnish, water, et cetera. The human had been deftly trading one tool for another with his hands as he assembled and finished the model. The activity was absorbing all of Bon Bon's attention to her horror. It was nothing like she ever saw before. Sure, it wasn't like Equestria didn't have scale models, but earth ponies and pegasi didn't have the precision to build them, and for the unicorns they were more like parlor tricks to show off their magical versatility.
Not that she was being accusatory. Of course not. Certainly not at Twilight "Look At Me Build A 10 Foot Replica of Manehatten's Statue of Happiness With Toothpicks Because I'm Princess Celestia's Prize Pupil And An Element of Harmony" Sparkle. But for Colt, the flurry of motion looked like it took quite a level of effort and concentration. An activity that was a worthwhile challenge. He was currently holding a pair of tweezers that were pinching the model's mast, and held it carefully above the ship, ready to slot it in.
"Attaching the mast to the main body... is very difficult..."
The hand was still being held over the ship. It began twitching. Twitching! The man was actually exhibiting tension trying to do this properly! Bon Bon dimly felt herself stop breathing in anticipation. The pony hated to admit it, but if it merely took Colt, of all men, to be amusing, she could see why Lyra was so fascinated with humanity.
It could have helped though, if Lyra had hosted someone more pleasant-
"Gah!"
That was when Colt raised both hands in the air with a strangled cry and turned to look at his captive audience, the look of annoyance clear in his dull brown eyes.
"Stop. Looking at me. I can't work on this while I can clearly see you planning to eat my jugular."
Bon Bon's face lit up with embarrassment, from the attention and from the realization she had been staring. She had to remind herself that she was supposed to find the human's presence an annoyance, not a source of bemusement. After coughing away the flush on her cheeks for being caught red-hoofed, the creme pony reset her eyebrows so they were as furrowed as the human's.
"A manticore would sooner chose to become a herbivore than eat you. More importantly, I want to know why you're in my kitchen. I thought Princess Celestia had sent you back to Manhattan this morning." (What an appropriate name for a human city, Manhattan, besides the fact it's such a terrible pun...)
Colt snorted before turning back to work on the ship-currently-outside-the-bottle. "Flight home was overbooked. Next available one's tomorrow morning, so I'll be crashing at your place one more night. Hopefully."
Bon Bon made an effort this time to try and not get distracted, "And Lyra knows about this?"
"Unfortunately. Which is why I'm working on this in your kitchen instead of the living room."
"...I don't follow."
It was amazing how expressive a human could be with their smaller eyes. Expressive enough that Bon Bon seriously considered removing his jugular after all when he quite clearly rolled his eyes in her direction, while jabbing the mast in her direction with the tweezers.
"So the model's not gonna get smashed to bits by some accident I know's gonna happen the moment Heartstrings comes crashing through the front door-"
The sound of the front door of the house being kicked open echoed through out the house at the same time a voice followed, all but screaming her arrival ecstatically.
"Colt!"
The pair in the kitchen flinched, startled by the noise before swearing in their respective languages.
"Sweet Celestia-"
"Jesus Christ-"
Lyra Heartstrings, of course, paid no heed to their surprise as she cantered up to the kitchen table, babbling for the human's attention.
"Coltcoltcoltcoltcoltcoltcoltcolt-!"
"Heartstrings." The human managed to respond evenly. Bon Bon didn't bother greeting Lyra, and simply showed herself out the kitchen while her friend was distracted. She could smell the train wreck coming.
The green unicorn momentarily managed to put a damper on her enthusiasm as she saw she had gotten the man's attention and politely asked:
"Watcha doin'?"
Colt could feel himself deflate in front of Lyra's coy grin. He was familiar with their language. "Whatcha doin" in the language of the horses was just short for "Drop your shit, I'm much more important right now". This certainly was going to end well.
He started to explain himself, "I was just-"
"That's cool, but you'll never guess what I haaave!"
"I am brimming with trepidation."
"Check it out!"
With that, Lyra dropped her bags. With the tell tale glow of magic, the clasp opened on one and a clear plastic case was thrust into Colt's face. The human raised a hand to pull the object out of Lyra's grip to get a better view of it.
It was an action figure. Of a human, specifically. From under the plastic cover, he could see it was a male in a T-shirt and sensible slacks. It had been a rather novel idea in the beginning when Colt found out the horses were making toys of his species. That quickly fell out after he read the description of the third one Lyra brought home. And the fifth. And now this, as the human perused the back of the case
"Richard Robertson is your average 18 year old high school student, with an average family, and an average school life... join in daily activities of... listening to music, chatting on his computer... playing video games..."
Colt lowered the package.
"Heartstrings, out of sheer curiosity, how much did you pay for this?"
"Money is no price for quality!"
"That remains to be seen. How much?"
Lyra puffed up her chest, almost proud, "Sixty bits!"
"...This cost sixty bits."
The unicorn frowned, "What's the problem? I thought you'd be excited about seeing an action figure of a human!"
"Heartstrings, you ever think there's a certain... redundancy in what you're buying?"
Lyra looked at Colt, then back to the packaged toy. This repeated itself once or twice as she tried to determine if this was a trick question (This was a human talking about an action figure human, after all. Colt could be so crafty.)
"...No?"
The human groaned, before sitting up straight, one arm over the back of the chair, while his other raised Richard Robertson, lecturing, "Look, last guy you bought was Tyler whatever-"
"Reese! Come on, try and remember!" Lyra came close to whining, a little annoyed at Colt's flippant treatment of her treasures.
"I remember he was your average 15 year old high school student." Colt deadpanned, "Then there's also Jacob, Matthew, Greg, Martin..."
"So?"
"One of them's an average 13 year old middle school student, who plays video games all day, one's an average middle aged office guy, the other's an average 20ish writer... who all have average lives."
"...Yes?"
"You bought the same toy twenty times!"
That got the unicorn spluttering in sheer indignity, "What!? What are you... I... I did not- You're wrong!"
"They're all described as explicitly average, every day boring dude! There's literally no difference between them except what's printed on their case! Why do you keep buying the same toy!?"
"They're different!"
Colt had to fold his arms at that, Richard pressed against his side as he frowned skeptically, "How? How."
"Tyler's 'Ordinary', and Matthew has a 'Run of the Mill' life." Lyra replied matter of factly.
It was the human's turn to choke up, "What the-did-did you just... those are synonyms!"
"Well, they are different," Lyra quipped, "Besides, they all have different professions! You have to admit that."
"I would, if their accessories were relevant to their description!"
The unicorn took a step back at that, "What's that supposed to mean?"
"I mean this!"
Colt shoved the package towards his quadraped debater, one finger jammed at the objects entombed around the hapless average action figure. One object Colt seemed particularly fixated was a miniscule plastic black rectangle, sized so it could just fit into Richard's hand. There were faint lines imprinted onto the black tab to give the impression it had a screen and controls.
"iPods, Heartstrings! iPods! iPods! They all have iPods! It's either that or they have phones filled with popular music!"
Lyra's eyebrow shot up again, "Aren't these supposed to be popular on your side?"
"Well, yes." Colt testily admitted, "But that doesn't mean we're so physically dependent on them they're surgically attached. I don't have one. Do you see me walking around with a music player all the time?"
"You do go on about Iron Maiden a lot to the 'uninitiated'," the pony reminded, brow beating the coated man, "And AC/DC. And Pink Floyd, and the Beatles, and King Crimson, and Yes, and Queen, and Genesis-"
"Okay, okay! Your nation is profoundly lacking in rock, that's all..." Colt muttered to himself, looking to the side, "But we're getting off topic. The point is, every action figure of a human being on this side has pretty much been the same. That is to say, lacking action."
"But they're interesting! There's so much you can do with them! You can help them do homework together, and listen to music, and go on walks..."
"Holy hell, Heartstrings, why don't you just buy The Sims or something if you're going to play 'average house'," Colt said, the first two fingers on each of his hands waving up and down. Lyra never really got the significance of the action, but he did it when he was being extremely sarcastic. "At least it'll save you the money and time."
"Wow, Colt, you didn't complain this much when I showed that box set of that guys with that... Humvee thingus."
"That's because I thought there was a glimmer of hope for you, Heartstrings. You know, providing a little variation. Before you brought up the fact you had five identical sets of the 'Afghan Border Patrol'. That and they also all had iPods."
"Well..."
"And you actually also got the 'faceless insurgents with RPGs' to go with them," Colt chided, finger raised, "That's not right, man. Pony. Heartstrings."
Lyra screwed up her face at that accusation, "Hey, you told me RPGs were a popular genre of entertainment on your side! I thought those would be games! You never told me it had more than one anagram!"
"Well, there are." Colt tersely replied, "There are."
"Tch. Humans are complicated..." Lyra grumbled, dropping down onto her belly. With her free forelegs, she brought one hoof up to rest her cheek on, and the other resting in the crook of her raised limb, "Well, what do you want then? Clearly, your tastes are so much better than mine. Maybe I should just give up having an interest and give all my bits to you!"
Colt sighed, "Look, I'm not telling you to stop buying these things. Just, would it kill you to get a, you know, an action figure? You guys have Daring Do, right? Something like that."
"Daring Do? But Daring Do is boring."
Lyra was actually shocked that her last line managed to get audible silence from Colt as the human just stared back with ever widening eyes.
"...I'm sorry, did you just say Daring Do is boring? The equivalent of Harrison Ford?"
"Uh... Well, I said Daring Do was boring. I don't know who Harrison Ford is, though."
"How... How is Daring Do boring!? That character is a treasure hunter! She goes on adventures and fights villains and leaps over death traps and gets treasures... and stuff! How is that more boring compared to Richard Robertson!?" Colt almost choked with inarticulate confusion and rage, shaking the poor encased plastic man in his hand to emphasize his point.
Lyra made a motion that reminded him of an open handed shrug as she irritably retorted, "Come on, Colt! Daring Do is for kids! It's a book for foals so they can have adventures through Daring Do before they grow up."
"As opposed to what!?"
"Uh, growing up? You kinda notice how we adults tend to keep falling into one incident after another? Come on, by the time you're my age, the stuff Daring Do does is vanilla already. Boring."
That actually brought Colt to a halt mid rant. Finger raised in the air and open mouthed, the man stopped for a moment before bringing some fingers to rub his chin in thought, "Well... like that..."
"I mean, seriously, you were there at the thing with the pony at the place."
"And my nightmarish flashbacks of Griffons resumes." Colt monotonously said.
"Well the point still stands!"
"Well, my point still stands." Colt retorted, "Even if you folk go around having awesome, TV episode inspiring adventures every five minutes, you bought a toy, 'I'm-an-adult' Heartstrings."
"It's a toy relevant to my interests!"
"It's a high school student! Not an adventurer! Not a spy! Not a wizard, or a psychic or anything! It's a dude with an iPod!"
"Y-you just don't have a sense of imagination!"
Colt shut his eyes for his moment, squeezing the ludicrousy out of his tear ducts, "I can't believe you said that."
"Well, prove it! What's exciting on your side? What would you want a toy made of, if my toys are too boring for you?" The unicorn challenged.
Colt considered it for a moment.
"Your dream ends here!" Cried the Scarlet God, waving his flaming sword of Mardurel (+5)
Sir Crow, techno-knight of arms, defender of the realm, purveyor of fine arts brandished his own lightsaber, fitted with a Beta-C drum magazine, ready for battle.
"You won't get away with this! Humanity is ready to create its own future!"
"You fool, I am the only thing that stands in your way of destruction! The Eratosphere is not what you think it is!" The Crimson God took a clanking step, crushing the marble underneath him with his massive, stainless steel, glowy lined suit of armor. They were also fighting in a marble palace that was being hoisted through the air by stone giants, by the way.
"Crow, don't listen to him! I believe in you!" The Love Interest empathetically shouted. She had wand knives.
"Right!"
"Yeeaaaargh! Fine, then die here, feebly grasping for things you cannot comprehend, foooooll!" The big armored dude screamed, brandishing that sword of his, as it streaked through the air, leaving a cloud of ash and sparks.
"I won't lose to you! There's too much at stake!" Sir Crow raged back, and charged forward to meet his arch nemesis.
"SNAAAAAAAKE!"
"LIQUIIIIID!"
And the swords clashed, causing the room to explode from sheer force and-
"...You'd probably laugh at me, so I'm going just tune you out of my vision and finish this ship," He decided to answer, before dramatically turning his chair back to the table to work on the miniature boat.
"Ha! Yes! Lyra Heartstrings wins again!" With that, Lyra's magic came to life again and pulled her newest purchase away from the table and back into her saddlebags, "Talk all you want, Colt, I'm gonna have Richie here join Jack and the rest in my university set."
A happy tune hummed and a cheerful pace set, Lyra took off for her room upstairs, leaving Colt to mutter to himself as he went back to trying drop the mast into the model ship.
"Pphh. Hobby Horses." He snorted one more time, mentally rolling his eyes.
"Oh, you're still here."
Colt turned around to see Bon Bon returning to the kitchen, smarmy as ever. He stiffled a groan and tried to concentrate on the ship.
"I'm not that easy to get rid of."
"I don't know. The way the two of you were shouting, I thought Lyra was going to 'punch you into another dimension', as you humans put it." Bon Bon commented as she walked past.
"Oh, go burn some taffy, you walking twinkie."
Bon Bon just laughed to herself.
Author's Note
Just sort of imagine me standing atop a soap box. It's kinda like that.
Actually, the more I wrote it, the more the banter interested me. It is interesting to consider what would be exciting for the horses, and what is for us.
Also, iPods.
