[This is an old oneshot that I came up with a while back, and finally found the time to write out. (It's summer! Huzzah!) It sort of explains the origins of Pokota's stuffed-animal body. I began to wonder, when Duclis had a beastman body, why did Pokota end up in a stuffed animal? It's possible that Rezo made the plush, but I decided to give it a bit more of an interesting back-story. Since his mother was never mentioned, I began to wonder about that as well... so this story came to mind. As a fanfiction author, writing about past events is treading on dangerous ground, so if there are any problems with my facts, do let me know right away! And since no one seems to know how Duclis is related to Pokota, I made them cousins. I don't know whether that's true or not, but that's just my theory! Enjoy the story! Warning- it gets depressing in some parts!]

Too Old for Stuffed Animals

"Look Posel! He's waving hello!"

A woman's voice called out to her 2-year-old son, who eyed the stuffed animal that his mother held curiously. It was new, and apparently had been made by her especially for him. He reached out and grabbed the long, white ears, examining the small, red cape, and the tuft of purple fur on top of its head that matched his own hair colour.

"So cute!" he gasped, taking the toy from his mother and hugging it tightly. The woman's face lit up, seeing her son so taken with the toy she had worked so hard to make for him.

"Isn't he, though? And he was made just for you!"

"Yay! Yay!" the little boy exclaimed, jumping up and down, hugging the toy closely and running off with it.

The woman and her husband stood and watched the young boy playing with his new toy, smiling with pride and affection. They weren't young parents- they had almost given up the hope of having a child at all, which was even more distressing because they were the kind and queen of a country. However, their worries had been cast aside when Posel had come into their lives, and though young, he promised to be as kind and just a ruler as his father before him.

"Hey Pokota! Let me see your new toy!" the boy's 12-year-old cousin called to him, waving happily.

Pokota pulled the stuffed animal closer to himself. "No." he responded. "Mine."

"Aww, can't you share? Just for a second?"

"Oh, he just got the toy, Duclis. Let him play with it a bit more before asking it of him." the queen laughed.

"Sorry!" Duclis apologised. "It's cute, though! Really cute!"

"Thank you." Pokota's mother smiled. "I hope that he will keep it and care for it for a very long time."

"I'm sure he will." Duclis nodded. "That is, until he gets too old for stuffed animals!"

"I don't think you're ever too old for stuffed animals, to tell the truth!" the king said with a smile.

The 7-year-old boy sat on the marble steps inside the palace, clutching his small toy tightly, his tears staining the once-white fabric, now worn to a cream colour through much handling and affection from a loving child.

He continued sobbing, clutching the stuffed animal even harder. On one ear, it wore one of Pokota's mother's gold earrings. The other earring, the boy had taken to wear himself. The earrings and the stuffed animal were now the only material possessions that they boy had left of his mother.

"Your highness! There you are!"

Pokota recognised the voice of his cousin, now seventeen, and thinking that he should refer to all royalty with their titles, even though he was related to them.

"Go away, Duclis…" Pokota sobbed weakly.

Duclis bent down and placed a hand on his cousin's shoulder. "Your highness, you can't alienate yourself like this. Your country is grieving. They need their prince."

"Well I'm grieving too! Don't they care?" Pokota spat. "Why should I be the one to comfort them? They can't possibly miss her like I do! She never hugged them, or kissed them goodnight! She never read bedtime stories to them until the early hours of the morning, or played games with them when they were bored, or worked hard making a stuffed animal just for them! I know a prince's duty is to his people, and that they are feeling lost without their queen, but that's just it! They miss her as a queen! I miss her as a person! As my mother! Oh Duclis! I love my people! But I miss my mother even more!"

Duclis watched sadly as Pokota broke into tears again, clutching his stuffed animal. The young man missed his aunt dearly, and wanted to give his cousin a big hug, but he knew that Pokota needed discipline in order to become a good ruler.

"You highness," Duclis began, placing a hand on Pokota's head. "I'm sorry. I know it's hard. But you've got to be brave and strong. A prince is willing to face hardships for his people. You should know that by now." He reached for the stuffed animal that Pokota was holding, grabbing it by an ear.

"H-hey! What are you doing?" Pokota gasped.

"You're too old for stuffed animals now, your highness." Duclis replied, taking the other ear in his hand's grip, and grabbing for the body with his remaining hand as he tried to take the stuffed animal away from the boy.

"N-no! You can't! Give that back!"

"Your highness… please…"

"NO! DUCLIS! NO!"

Pokota pulled harshly on the stuffed toy, trying to get it from his cousin's grasp. Duclis began to think that he needed to let go, or the toy would get broken, but he was too late. Duclis felt himself falling backwards, hearing a sickening ripping of fabric.

Gathering himself back to his feet, Duclis stared at what he had in his hand, and then what Pokota had. The ends of the stuffed animal's white ears had been ripped totally off, and there was a large gash in the body, just below where the cape tied.

"Oh.. Pokota… I'm so… so… sorry…" Duclis breathed, forgetting the formalities for a moment in his shock.

A few, disjointed sobs escaped from the boy, and he threw the tattered remains of his toy to the ground. "It's not fair!" Pokota cried miserably. "First I lose my mom, and now my stuffed animal too? Fine then! Have the stupid toy, Duclis! You're right! I'm too old for it anyway!"

Pokota ran down the long hallway, and Duclis watched miserably as his cousin disappeared from view. He knelt down and collected the remaining pieces of the stuffed animal.

"Oh Pokota… I never meant for this to happen… I was wrong… and now I need to fix this… and apologise."

Duclis carried the remains of the toy back to his own home in order to see what could be done with it. He scrutinised it over and over, looking at the unclean rips and tears. Simply sewing them back together would look much too sloppy. There had to be some other way to fix it.

Thinking first of the ears, Duclis searched his closet for something he could use to repair them. He didn't have any plain fabric on hand, so perhaps he could use something from the pile of clothes he never wore. Digging through it, he came across the ideal articles of clothing- they were the right size and everything!

"These old green gloves… the ones I made for my dad when I was little, but he never wore because I only made four fingers!" Duclis laughed at the memory. "… these would be perfect!"

He cut the ends of the gloves in a nice-looking fashion and stuffed them with stuffing before sewing them onto the ends of the ears of the plush toy. It was a tad odd, seeing that the toy now had two sets of hands, but perhaps it would come in handy one day.

Duclis suddenly shook his head at the idea. How would a stuffed animal having two sets of hands ever come in handy? What an odd thought…

He then turned to the body of the stuffed animal, with the large gash in it. Searching through his belongings, he found a sweater that he had long outgrown. It was held together with a zipper- the perfect thing he could use to fix the gash in the body of the toy. In fact, he could even make it into a pocket, that way Pokota could put things in it. Duclis wasn't sure what Pokota would ever need to put into it, but he'd add the pocket anyway. Who knew what the future would bring?

Apparently Pokota was still quite upset at Duclis, and wasn't willing to talk to him just yet. So the young man decided to put the toy in the back of his closet and give it back to his cousin when they came back on better terms.

By the time the two did make up, Duclis had already forgotten the stuffed animal in his closet, and thus it stayed there for five years…

A 12-year-old Pokota ran angrily down the hallway toward his bedroom. He'd been steaming all day over an argument that he'd had with Duclis, and just when he was calming down about it, he'd been informed of the news.

His father's condition was worsening.

It had been the very topic that he and his cousin had been fighting about, and it left him feeling very hurt. Why couldn't he do a better job of helping the people of Taforashia? There seemed to be nothing he could do- and if it kept up at the rate that it was progressing at, Pokota would lose his only remaining parent. And, since his father had no brothers, it was Pokota who'd be forced to take his place as king of Taforashia- if Taforashia still existed by that point.

Duclis had seen how diligently Pokota had been working to help everyone in Taforashia, and had both praised and scolded him for it. He'd told Pokota that what he was doing was admirable, but the ones who gave comfort to troubled people needed comfort themselves once in a while. With his mother long gone and his father too ill to leave bed, Pokota didn't have anyone providing the moral support that he needed. Of course, Pokota was working out of love for his country and its people, but even so, he was running out of hope and becoming frantic. His attempts to hide his uncertainty from everyone was taking a toll on him, however, and he was extremely stressed.

Pokota had yelled at Duclis for suggesting that he take time away from helping his people to rest. What kind of prince would he be if he didn't spend every waking hour- and also some that he really should have been sleeping- to help his country?

Pokota reached his bedroom, panting after running so much. The door was slightly ajar, suggesting that someone had been there since the prince had left that morning- seeing as he always made sure to close his bedroom door on his way out in the mornings.

Who would have come by? Maybe it was Duclis… Pokota thought to himself. He pushed the door open and looked around the room. There was no one there, but an object sitting on the neatly-made bed caught the prince's eye.

Pokota really wasn't sure what to believe. It was a very familiar-looking stuffed animal… with a few modifications, of course. Memories of his mother's death and a fight with Duclis- similar to the fight they'd had that day- came flooding back. Pokota blinked back tears as he took the stuffed animal in his arms and read the note that Duclis had left several times over.

Pokota-

You do so much to help your country, you sometimes forget that there are people who care about you just as much as you care for your people. Please, remember that, if you don't take good care of yourself, you won't be able to care for others very well either.

I found this in my closet, where it has been sitting for much too long. I'm sorry I forgot to give it back to you sooner. Hopefully it will provide some much-needed comfort.

Take care, and be strong.

~Duclis

The prince realised that the modifications to the plush must have been made by Duclis in order to fix it after it had gotten broken. Pokota hugged the stuffed animal for a second, and then turned around to stare out the window. Opening it, he looked down at the dark street below him, illuminated by just a few lamps. It was so dark…

The darkness ate away at Pokota's heart, and he scowled as he stared at his old toy.

"Standing here hugging a stuffed toy…" he began. "…IS NOT GOING TO HELP MY COUNTRY!"

Losing all restraint, Pokota took the plush and tossed it out the window, watching it fly four stories down into the town before. He didn't even bother to search for where it landed, as he had turned around and was running out of his room before the toy even hit the ground. He had to do something… something…

Running through the streets of the city, Pokota was trying to figure out how to help his problems- though nothing was coming to mind. He stopped for a moment near the outskirts of the city to catch his breath. Suddenly, a voice behind him caught him off guard.

"Excuse me, but I believe you dropped this."

Before he could protest, Pokota found his stuffed animal being handed back to him. He took one look at it and tossed it to the ground in disgust, not even wondering how the man could have known that it was his.

"I don't want it. I'm too old for that sort of thing." the prince spat.

The man, who Pokota recognised right away to be some sort of priest, took the boy's hands and placed the animal back into them. "One is never too old for stuffed toys, so long as one knows how to make use of them." the priest said cryptically. Pokota stared closely at the man, whose closed eyes seemed to see straight through him. The man began to speak again, with words that sent chills down the young prince's spine. "Tell me, what would you do to save your country?"

"Anything! I'd do anything!" Pokota exclaimed.

The priest nodded, shifting his large staff which made a clinking noise as it moved. "This is good. I can help you. I think that, in the near future, you may find that stuffed animal to be more important to you than you ever dreamed."

Pokota could only nod in total confusion.

"Wh-what do I have to do?"

Over ten years later, Pokota sat by his window again, observing his country. He was still quite young, yet he felt as though he'd grown old as a stuffed animal, with all the things he'd learned in that period of time. His chances of ever getting his old body back were no longer existent, now that Lina had destroyed the ghost of Shabranigdo with the Giga Slave.

And quite frankly, he could accept that.

He'd lost so much, and yet he'd gained so much as well. New friends, for instance. There was fellow royalty, like Princess Amelia. He immediately smiled at the thought of her- after all, who wouldn't? She had to return to Seyruun, but had promised to write him as often as she could, which was quite often. Pokota always found himself looking forward to her letters, and hoping to find some excuse to make a diplomatic journey to Seyruun, in order to see her.

Then there was Zelgadis, who'd gone off somewhere in search of his elusive cure. Though the chimera had been distant, Pokota felt a strong connection to him in the fact that they both had been put through so much pain and suffering because of Rezo, and yet they both owed him so much as well. It was an odd kinship, but Pokota felt it strongly, and hoped that one day they'd meet again.

Gourry Gabriev might have been a little on the slow side, but he and Pokota had shared the enjoyment of the replica Sword of Light. Plus Gourry had always been a good one to talk to. Even if he didn't quite understand your problems, he was a good listener, which was a certainly respectable quality. He was one that Pokota definitely wouldn't mind meeting up with again. However, as far as Gourry was concerned, if he was there, Lina would be there as well.

Lina Inverse.

Granted that their relationship hadn't exactly started off on the right foot, Pokota found that he couldn't stop thinking about her. No, it certainly wasn't out of affection (Gourry probably wouldn't allow him to even think along those lines), but out of an odd sense of admiration. Lina was the one Pokota had the most in common with- she was almost a mirror image of himself. This was, of course, the reason they fought so much, but also the reason that they completely understood each other. Lina might not be the nicest person in the world (that was an understatement!), but she was a true friend, and Pokota wasn't sure he'd find anyone else who understood him so well. Out of everyone he wanted to see again, she was the one that he wanted to see the most, and the least.

What a tricky friendship they had!

Pokota closed his eyes happily, thinking also of the memories of those he'd cared for that he'd lost. The people that helped him out when he needed it most.

"Mom… Duclis… even Rezo… thanks for teaching me… that you're never too old for stuffed animals…"

~The End~

(A/N: So, there you have it. Did you enjoy it? Ugh, I'm bad at writing oneshots, since all my stories need to have intricate plots for some reason. Oh well… do leave comments as to what you thought!)