Sew Plush

“There were a few tears that had to be mended, and frayed edges to be hemmed…” Peter, the fashion designer, seemed to be absently listing off the fixes one of his workers made on the red trench coat as he worked on another glamorous outfit. Despite his general annoyance towards most, Goetia was pleased about this, following along and checking out his repaired coat, which he had actually worked hard to earn enough to pay for.

Exactly right, it was as good as new, he begrudgingly had to admit. Pulling his arms into it one at a time–flop–his hand pushed something out of its arm. Crouching a little unsteadily on his hoof, the gray hair Succubun squinted his glowing eyes at the shape before reaching out and picking it up.

Tilting his head as he righted himself, Goetia turned to look over at Peter quizzically before holding up the plush rabbit (?) doll, “What is this?”

Seeing the plush, the fashion designer seemed to hastily set his work on his desk to get up, and take it from the elder Succubun…or he would have, if it wasn’t held away from him. A little sheepish, but also impatient, Peter settled somewhere in the middle and answered honestly, “It’s a plush toy.”

“Why?”

Brows furrowed in confusion, “Well, I used to make them?”

“And people would buy them?” Goetia snorted at the thought, finally letting Peter have the plush doll back.

It had…been a long time since then. Turning his back to the grey haired bun, Peter let out a sigh, “Well, I design fashion now…” Touching the plush in his hand, he lifted it to a higher shelf for the moment…

“Ah, wait.”

Again, Peter found his brows raising. Turning around, the lean Succubun seemed to be thinking, arms crossed over his chest.

“Can you, well…”

“Well?”

“Can you show me…how you made it?”

Momentarily stunned at the question, which didn’t match the man in front of him, Peter couldn’t help but answer simply, “S-sewing?”

That earned a huff from Goetia, who seemed to be fighting with something like personal pride that could only be outshone by actual pride Succubuns…before groaning out in annoyance, “Teach me. Show me how you make plush.” Peter could almost imagine that Succubun stomped his hooves on other occasions.

“Well, first you need the supplies.”

Goetia’s mouth formed into a frown.

“It’d also be a good idea to sketch what you want the plush to look like.”

His brows furrowed.

“And then you need to make a pattern.”

Goetia looked at his own hands.

“...”

For some unknown amount of time, probably too long for either Peter or Goetia, they worked together on the plush at hand. Peter offered to help make the pattern, Goetia already cutting vague shapes, throwing some small amount of carats at him for ruining the fabric with the rough cutting. And then, a rhythm of pushing and pulling a needle and string through the fabrics, transform the pieces of fabrics into an empty shape. And then add eyes, details, stuffing. Close it up...it was by no small effort on the tailor’s end that it was finished.

Holding it in his hands, Goetia couldn’t help but feel like the efforts were kind of fun? And, very much worth it. It was rabbit shaped, pink, with white tufts of fur. He hadn’t realized it as they worked on it, but it vastly reminded him of Byron, Imogen, and…himself. Smiling to himself without realizing, and then glancing at Peter as he stowed some of his stuff away to return back to his work, as if embarrassed to be swept up in this plush making business, “Thank you. I’ll be keeping this.”

Before leaving, his bright eyes spied another plush-looking shape…swiping it from the table, a bell over the door jingled as he stepped out of the shop, and Peter was left alone to suddenly realize his cute, round, bun-shaped pincushion was missing.