Rosie waited.
It was a fickle existence, fraught with hindrance by unforeseen hindrance, but the pay off was drawing nearer and nearer with each passing day. Soon, it would all be worth it. Soon, she would rule the world.
There were certain drawbacks not being able to move had provided her, but Rosie's cunning intellect had worked around these with marvellous skill. Where her fuzzy stuffed legs could not take her, there was ever a child eager to play in that direction, and while her softly stitched smile and buttoned-on eyes were hardly an appropriate facade for her unlimited ambition, the minds of children were open to her, and an easier target was never to be found. Or at least, she assumed. Rosie had not yet mastered the skill of controlling the minds of others, but when she did, there was always a surplus of available psyches to be tampered with in her current form.
Her form, yes, now that was something she could be proud of. Countless had died in the effort to get her precisely as she was now. They remained countless merely because Rosie had no need of the skill of counting. Mathematics was for her underlings to deal with, and she would not lower herself so far as to learn it herself. Nevertheless, people had died in her construction, and that fact alone was a point of great pride to her fuzzy self. Some might see a death by illness or a bandit raid as the workings of chance or coincidence, but Rosie did not believe in such things. There was no fate, there was only the superior force of Rosie's will, and all things that happened in her favour worked because she intended them to. It was as simple as that. No excuses.
And so Rosie waited, yet on this one morning she could feel that her waiting was near an end.
She could not see, not where she was, but this was all how she had intended it to be. Riding in someone's back pocket was merely the first step in a larger chain of things to come. There was no shame in the honourable carriage of someone's less-than-regularly washed breeches, not when fate was approaching as it most certainly was.
Her current vessel of transportation was a simpleton of a boy, the elder brother of the girl who named her Rosie. The simple fact that she had implanted the correct name into the girl's brain was all the evidence that she needed that world was hers to control. It definitely had nothing to do with the rose that was embroidered into the blue patch on her back, not at all, not in any way whatsoever. Rosie couldn't see far enough behind her to actually see this rose, but she knew it was there, for all things were under her control, and reality was her playground. All would fear the name Rosie when the time was right.
And the time seemed close. There was an essence in the village that Rosie had sniffed out with her gleaming button nose. Metaphorically perhaps, but sniffed out just the same. The essence was the key to things to come, and Rosie had great plans for this ... thing.
She could feel it as it ran through the village, back and forth, closer and nearer. Soon it would come closer and ... yes, there it was now. Up the path it came, and within moments it was so close Rosie could practically feel her short fur bristle with anticipation.
Rosie still could not see, nor could she hear very well, but there were voices. The matter at hand could not be deciphered, but the sheer immensity was obvious. Never had Rosie felt her stuffing tremble like the way it now. She felt ... alive. As alive as she could possibly feel, being the stuffed bear of un-portended doom that she was.
She drank in the sudden air of violence. The pain, the misery. It was glorious, glorious and wonderful, and all too soon it was over. More words were spoken and she was lifted out of the boy's pocket. The trip was ungraceful perhaps, being held upside down and in the wrong direction, but it was all planned, so she allowed it. She had the fleeting sight of the village road her holder was standing on before the next hand grasped her, and all else disappeared in a blur of anonymity.
She tingled. Every strand of horse-hair fur, every stitch of loosely threaded wool, and certainly her lovely embroidered rose. She quivered at the touch of the one that would change the world in her image, the one that would shape all of eternity into her wanting. Had she the ability, she may have laughed or cried or danced a small jig, yet as it was she merely smiled her smile of eternal cruelty. The era of her fuzzy doom was nigh.
Her glee was cut abruptly short when the sensation suddenly ended. Her sight was returned to her and she watched in horror as the small girl who owned her swung her around in nauseating glee, thanking the boy for returning her beloved bear and laughing as he walked back up the path he had come.
Rosie's mind was racing. This was not right. She needed to be with that one, everything rested upon that. Yet why was she here? How did this girl claim her once more if this was not part of her plan? She wanted to scream, to shout, to murder and pillage and burn the entire village to the ground, but all she could manage was her smile of eternal fury and resentment. Her plan was ruined! She-would-not-allow-this!
Rosie turned her mind to the girl – the fool girl who was skipping along in the dirt in that sickeningly happy manner. Rosie bent her will, her thought, her entire being into the girl. She grasped at her conscious thought, throttled her soul and threatened the girl's brain to do as she wished.
The girl stopped her skipping. Rosie trembled with unexpected glee. It had worked! She hadn't expected it to, but it was clear that it would. All things were in her power, after all. The young girl lifted Rosie up with both hands and smiled, speaking for all the world to hear. Rosie would have leant forward if she could, but she contented herself with a more than triumphant smile. She had won!
"Don't worry Rosie, Bunion will look after you until I get back. Mummy says I'm old enough to cut your hair now. We just need to find the scissors."
With that Rosie was dropped unceremoniously next to the hideous monstrosity that was a stuffed rabbit as the girl happily skipped away from the bed and out of the house. Rosie quivered with rage. The fool girl! She clearly had no idea of what she was going to do. Rosie's fur was more sacred than anything the world had to offer!
No, the fur did not matter. It was the boy. She needed to get into the hands of that boy before it was too late. Her window had passed, but perhaps all was not lost. If she managed to get there before –
A high pitched scream from outside told her that her thoughts were in vain. It was starting, as she knew it would, and the boy was already firmly out of reach.
Rosie's hopes sunk around her. She quivered in the salty taste of defeat – however it was that she could taste it without a tongue. This ... all of this was not possible. It was not! All eternity was under her control, there was no-one that could have interfered with her plans. No-one at all.
...Unless.
A thought seized her. She barely recognised the searing flames that had begun their slow digestion of the house as she turned her consciousness towards the other being on the bed. No, it was not possible. After all this time ...
Bunion the rabbit smiled at nothing in particular, his rough blue fur glistening with heat as one ear hung down over his unmoving face. Rosie would not have thought it possible before this very moment, but it all made sense now. She quivered with rage and fury, with all the destructive prowess at her mighty disposal. The rabbit merely smiled.
You fought well, Rosie, a deep voice echoed throughout the caverns of her mind, pulsing fear throughout her every morsel, But it seems you grew slack in the end.
Rosie could almost hear the laughter that the rabbit could not create as it spoke.
A stalemate was the best I could hope for, but now we go together. The child goes free.
Foul beast! What have you done? Rosie wanted to claw this menace from existence, to rend him from the very plane of thought itself. Instead she smiled. She smiled as he did, unmoving as the bed around them burned with the heat of a thousand hells. Rosie did not feel pain, but if she were capable of it, she would have endured any amount of it just to see that rabbit die before she did. She watched eagerly, willing to accept this last pleasure before her plans were prematurely ended. Rosie would not rule the world, perhaps, but she would win this last victory before leaving this wretched existence behind.
The flames danced and burned and consumed the house until it was no more. Like most of the village, little was left of the family's belongings, leaving only memory that soon faded from minds entirely. Some lived and some died, but the Hero of Oakvale survived that night, shaping the world to his actions freely and without the influence of Rosie the Bear, great though her power had been.
Had there been a mass of followers with the ability to witness the battle of the minds that had taken place that day, cries of Rosie the Bear and Bunion the Rabbit may have lived on into the following ages, carrying their tale on into the eternity neither had managed on their own. Yet, as it was, all they had managed was to smile at the oblivious world around them before being forgotten entirely. None would remember Rosie the Bear, nor would they ever know Bunion the Rabbit, but their wills had left a mark on the world, and that mark would shape the world like none before.
I need to start a Coalition for all the unloved side characters that deserve their own bouts of awesome. I just do.
But anyway, enjoy your Fable Fic, all you Fable Fic lovers.
Much thanks goes to the wonderful Becoafamu, who Beta'd in all her Beta-ing glory with her equally glorious vegetables. We all bow to your excellence!