I call her the devil
cause she makes me wanna sin
”Oh no, another one. Poor dear…” Maria shifts the armful of crushed party hats and half-eaten plates of cake to her other hand so she can reach down and pluck the half-melted pony figurine out of the trash. She tosses the garbage into the can and takes a moment to inspect the blackened, twisted piece of plastic. The eyes are still perky and bright, and its mouth is still open in a wide pony-grin. It is missing its mane and tail, which is odd, she thinks, but not out of the ordinary for Nerissa’s discards. Maria thinks of her daughter’s own mismatched toy collection and the wild imagination Lena possess. A slight, pleased and secretive grin spreads across her lips. “She really did a number on you, huh, little one? I’ll see what I can do to put you back together. Or, well… barring that, at least turn you into something beautiful again. Yes… I think we can salvage you, my dear,” she murmurs to herself as she slides a disfigured Shaytan into her apron pocket and then her purse, to mingle with her keys and hide amongst the various hair ties and pennies and other odds and ends to be put in the right place at the end of the day. Except that this will go in her purse, and not back in Nerissa’s toybox.
Shaytan neither feels, nor hears a thing; she drifts on wings of unconsciousness, dreaming of the real-world life she once knew. Dreaming of bunnies and the Chamber and Straia and of Belgarath’s nips and Navarro’s creepy clinginess.
When Maria is done cleaning up after Nerissa’s party and making dinner, she hangs her apron up in the pantry and slips out the back door. On quiet and eager feet, she walks across the vast green lawn and past the swimming pool, to a low fence and a gate that separates the best of her world from work. When she spots her mother, Lena comes running out the door to meet her and jump into her warm, tight arms. Maria laughs and holds her daughter close. “Ooooh. I missed you, pretty girl.” Lena wraps her legs around her mother’s waist and leans back, smiling. “I missed you too, Mama! And guess what!” She grins with pride, and Maria cannot help but chuckle. “What’s that, darling?” Lena responds, “I folded allllll the clothes and made peanut butter and jelly for dinner!”
Maria gasps in delight, her warm brown eyes opening wide. “Oh! How did you know that’s exactly what I wanted? Aaaand some carrots too, yes?” Lena makes a ‘yuck’ face and then starts to wiggle, so Maria puts her down. “And if you eat all your vegetables, I have a surprise for youuu…” Lena’s eyes light up and she claps her hand excitedly. “Ok, ok , ok! I promise I will.” Her mama’s surprises were always fun and usually involved spending the rest of the night in the craft room. She then grabs her mama’s hand and tugs her towards the door of the little cottage. The quicker they eat, the quicker she gets to see the surprise!
After they finish eating dinner, Maria tells Lena to close her eyes and then leads her into the small arts and crafts room that is the heart of their home. Shelves are lined with meticulously labelled boxes, denoting where glue and glitter and googley-eyes go, to name a few. There is a small table in the middle of the room, with two chairs, one on either side. Maria sets Shaytan down in the middle of table and then leads her daugher to the table and tells Lena to open her eyes. When Lena sees the what Nerissa has done to this toy, she lets out a soft “Awwww…. the poor thing. Was it one of hers?”
Lena never calls Nerissa by her first name. She’s never liked the little blonde-haired demon child.
Despite being well aware of her daughter’s dislike for Nerissa, Maria nods and smiles. “Yes, but when I saw it, I thought that maybe we could make it into something new and pretty again. What do you think, love? Up for a challenge?” She raises her eyebrows in a daring way, knowing that Lena loves a good challenge, especially when it comes to fixing things up. Their whole house is full of repainted objects, her closet a parade of patched and altered clothes, and her toys are fantastic, multicolored creatures from the depths of Lena’s imagination. Her sweet-natured daughter laughs and pulls a very early pre-teen “Duh! Of course I am!” before sitting down and picking Shaytan up.
This is how Shaytan comes to - cradled very gently in a pair of soft hands, looking up into the chocolate-colored eyes of an angel. It is her gentle, dulcet voice that wakes the unconscious pony as she ponders exactly what to do with a horse who no longer has any hind legs, or tail or mane. Lena thinks out loud while Maria busies herself at the boxes, looking for this and that and pulling a few things out, as Lena thinks of what to do.“Hmmmm… do you know what I first thought when I saw it, Mama? I thought it might be a mer-pony, like a bigger sea horse, you know? Something that Ariel might ride on…”
Sea horse…? Mer-pony…? No, I need grass. Not Ariel… Shaytan. Those gentle hands hold her up to the light and turn her from side to side and diagonally, trying to figure out how to make her bottom half look like a fish. “Mama, can we try and re-melt this? See, if take it - her - I think it’s a her - If we can reshape her hind legs, and maybe give her some fins and a yarn mane, OH! and some glitter! She would be really pretty. What do you think?” Maria already has an arm full of boxes, as if she had anticipated her daughter’s idea, and sets them down on the table. “I think that sounds perfect,” she says, and then holds out her hand for Shaytan. “Why don’t you go get an old magazine to cover the table, and I’ll get started? I’ll do the reshaping, and you can do the rest.”
Reshaping? Oh god. Ohnononono not more… At Maria’s words, Shaytan slips into the dark depths of despair. She clearly didn’t die, despite all the fiery pain of before. She didn’t think she had immortality - was it the eating of the bunnies and the drinking of their blood? Did that give her eternal life?! For a moment, she thinks that she would give up the whole bunny thing if it would end this whole ordeal… and then she thinks of the thrum of pleasure that runs through her body when she bites down, and the crunch and… fuck, it’s a hard decision that she’s unwilling to make just yet. The pain no longer exists. In fact, she can’t feel anything on her back end. It’s as if Shaytan has been paralyzed. So perhaps this reshaping wouldn’t hurt at all?
Shaytan just wanted to be a real horse again. She would try so very hard to be good in the Chamber if she could just be a real horse again.
Maria grabs a pair of tongs and turns the oven on low. In her left hand, she holds Shaytan by her head and neck, leaving her misshapen back end to be heated once more over the open flame. In her right hand, she has a pair of tweezers, with which to pull a prod and mold Shaytan’s back half into some kind of curved, fin shape. Lena stands at her mother’s side, watching for awhile, until she gets bored when nothing is happening. “Mama, how long is this going to take?” Maria pokes at the plastic with the tweezers, an it gives a little, but doesn’t really hold a shape. “Maybe a couple more minutes. Why don’t you go get the glitter ready? We’ll need to put it on while the plastic is still hot.” So Lena scampers back to the arts and crafts room and gets a glitter shaker and rips a page out of the magazine to catch the excess.
After another couple of minutes of waiting, Maria tryies to plastic again and is able to bend it fairly easily. There is a faint chemical smell in the kitchen, so she wants to get this done quickly and then open the windows. With the tweezers and a tongue depressor, Maria tries to bend and push and twist Shaytan’s hind legs and rump into something resembling a sea horse’s tail. She manages to smooth out her rump and tuck what was once her hind legs under and towards her belly. Shaytan’s hind legs are harder, but Maria is able to make them a little less lumpy, and spreads the ends out into a fin shape. It’s not perfect, and it’s still back, compared to the vibrant maroon Shaytan used to be. But Lena seems thrilled, and liberally sprinkles the black plastic with glitter (which should stick to the warm stuff). Maria then runs Shaytan under cold water to cool and harden the plastic again.
Shaytan didn’t feel a thing except for a smushed nose. Just another thing to endure. Except that cold water bath feels nice too. She sighs. Listening to the two of them, they didn’t seem so bad. Then again, she hasn’t yet come in contact with any of Lena’s toys… they would tell her the truth.
As she’s doing that, Maria turns once again to Lena. “So do we want this little merpony to have fins? And what color would you like her mane to be?” Lena’s eyebrows scrunch up as she thinks and studies the cooling Shaytan. “Hmmm… We could put a sticker on her side. Or some Balsa wood. Do you think that would stick? And maybe some green yarn to make it look like she has a mane made of seaweed?” Maria looks at the clock. It’s getting late, but these last few touches shouldn’t take too long. “Sure honey. And then I think it’s bed time. Can you go plug in the hot glue gun and cut some yarn?” Lena nods eagerly and skips back off to the craft room, while Maria removes Shaytan from the water and dries her off.
Shaytan must have drifted off for a moment (that’s how comfortable she was), because the next thing she know, there’s something burning along her ribcage and the top of her neck! No No Nooooooo not again! It hurts, though not so much as before, and the thought of going through all that again makes Shaytan want to cry like a baby. She doesn’t even realize that beauty is pain, and that with the addition of marker-colored, green balsa wood finds, and green yarn for a mane, that she is now a beautiful little mer-pony!
Of course, that’s mainly because Shaytan can’t see herself, and has never thought of herself as pretty. Straia is pretty. She is just spotted Shaytan.
Lena oohs and ahhs over her newest fantastic toy, and then helps her Mama clean up. They prop Shaytan upright so that she can dry overnight, but before she turns out the light, Lena gives her a little kiss on the nose and whispers, “I’m going to think of an awesome name for you in my dreams tonight, ok? And tomorrow you can meet everyone else. They’re going to be so excited!”
Oh boy. Shaytan is really confused now. Who are these people and are they nice or naughty?
The next day dawns bright and beautiful, and the first thing Lena does when she wakes up is run to the arts and crafts room and pick up Shaytan. “I thought of the best name for you! You are going to be Amelia, and you are Ariel’s friend and pony. Come on, she wants to meet you!” Once again, Shaytan is flying across space and is so high up and if ponies could vomit, she might. Thankfully, it is a short flight (for the cottage is small), and Shaytan is soon on the ground, surrounded by a couple of other patched up toys. There’s the red-headed barbie with mismatched limbs (her arms are clearly African American, while the rest of her is Caucasian), the transgender Potato Head (elements of both Mr and Mrs), a one-eyed, one-eared stuffed puppy, and a toy firetruck with large buttons for wheels.
Shaytan is the most busted of them all, but their voices are welcoming and warm as they chime out a ‘Hello!’ Oh. Oh. These toys are not like the other toys. They do not seem to be afraid of being out and played with. “Umm… Hello. I’m Shaytan.” she says haltingly, still proceeding with caution. The Barbie giggles in a rather high-pitched voice, and tries to put the newest member of their group at ease. “Don’t worry, Shaytan. Lena told us about how you were tortured at Nerissa’s. We all were, but now we have the best owner! Play time is AWESOME! Right guys?” They all pipe up in assent, and Shaytan barely has time to process the words ‘owner’ and ‘playtime’ and ‘awesome’ before she is swept up and pressed into playtime with the rest of the toys.
No. Shaytan is real. She doesn’t have an owner! She doesn’t do… playtime. No.
She must be losing her mind, she thinks.
Or this must be hell.
Somewhere in the background, Shaytan hears a knocking on the door. Nerissa’s voice comes screeching through it, calling for Maria. Maria, however, is in the shower, so Lena sighs and puts down the Barbie, but keeps Shaytan clutched in her hand. It is a forgetful, silly, thing to do, but Lena just wants Nerissa to be quiet and go away. She opens the door and answers with a very polite “Hello, Nerissa. Mama is in the shower, but she should be up to the house shortly.” Nerissa ‘hmphs’ and then turns to go, clearly afflicted with Hangry Syndrome. And then she stops and turns back around, her mean little eyes narrowing. Her hand shoots out to grab Lena’s wrist and turn it up, so she can see what the girl is holding. When her suspicions are confirmed, despite all the changes, she hisses, “You thief…”
Oh bloody hell! thinks Shaytan. Not again. No no no. Not again. She’ll be a good little Chamberling! Really, she’ll work very hard. Just not her again!
Shaytan
and every time she knocks
I can't help but let her in