As a stuffed friend enthusiast and, more specifically, a deranged hoarder collector of plush elephants, could I put in a recommendation for Flandre to see in the window of a run-down, dusty toy shop in Paris an elephant in a little gold crown and a green suit, to which she is unaccountably drawn. The elephant is hand-crafted, and one of the eyes is slightly mismatched because toy parts are bottom of the priority list in war-torn and rebuilding Gallia, and his fashionable clothes are a little rumpled and worn, but some special technique has made him very soft and snuggly. The big toy shops have similar-looking elephants, with bright green velvet and shiny gold crowns and tusks that are the same length, but none of them feel quite so real as this one does to Flandre.

And so she leaves, with a Babar The Elephant of her very own, after promising to the little old man behind the counter that she will take only the best possible care of him. She does not know who Babar is; the old man thinks she must be the only girl in Paris of her (apparent) age who doesn't, but pays it no mind. And she knows the real value of something made from scraps and leftovers and spare parts with love and care and patience and kindness, because in some dark and unpleasant part of her still-recovering psyche, that's how she views herself. She was repaired, slowly.

She comes back the next day, with Babar and M. Le Président in tow, and asks to learn to make toys. It is fiddly, detailed, delicate work, long hours for little money, but she is unperturbed. She knows what the real reward is. The old man is patient, and kind, and teaches those as much as needlework and articulation and the hundred other fine points of stuffed animal creation. She learns, and loves to learn, and will be back tomorrow.

The shop has gone by tomorrow, of course. Remilia wonders if it was ever there at all.

Flandre knows it was real, in the way that matters.

Just ask Babar.

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"She's old, she's lame, she's barren too, // "She's not worth feed or hay, // "But I'll give her this," - he blew smoke at me - // "She was something in her day." -- Garnet Rogers, Small Victory

FiMFiction.net: we might accept blatant porn involving the cast of My Little Pony but as God is my witness we have standards.

this has been the flandre scarlet wholesome hour