The cottage that sat atop the hill was like something a child might draw made manifest. It had neat little wattle & daub walls, a thickly thatched roof, and a crooked brick chimney that billowed a faint smoke as you approached. The door was a faded blue, and bore the drawings and damage inflicted by you and your siblings now nearly two decades prior. The windows were square, neat, and held up a number of neatly potted plants. The plants were new, as was the delicately maintained garden that wound along the path up towards the crooked little cottage. Delicate, pretty changes that hadn't really been possible when the cottage had been your childhood playhouse. Now though, the well weathered structure served a different purpose. It had been given as a present to your childhood nanny, Nan. You could see her through one of the windows of the tiny home as you climbed the gentle slope of the hill. Her soft, furry form almost seemed to hop or dance within the small space of the cottage.
The early fall brought a crispness to the air that made the nostalgia of coming back home seem all the more impactful. It was hard to remember exactly how long it had been since you had been home. Two years? Or was it closer to three? It was powerfully nostalgic either way, but also a bit sad. The memories held an intractable remorse for the carefree days of childhood. That sadness, however, was washed away by a scent that drifted down to you on the autumn air. Banana bread, fresh in the oven, not quite ready, but tantalizingly close. More specifically, Nan's banana bread. Banana bread with a few too many walnuts, just the way you like it.
You knock on the door as you come to the cottage, which seems smaller than you remember. A child-sized door for a child-sized cottage. "Come in! it's open!" Nan answers from within, voice light and sing song like a soft lullaby. You let yourself into the small cottage, though you have to stoop to get through the compact door. The inside is no longer a messy playroom, but has been converted into an exceedingly cozy country cottage. The main room has been divided into a cramped but very well-equipped kitchen and an equally cramped but equally well-equipped reading room. Books of all kinds lay in neat towers around a small couch and the walls around the kitchen were filled with shelves of spices and dried herbs. "The muffins are almost ready. Just a few more min..." Nan says softly as she turns and realizes just who it is that has come to visit.
"Hey Nan," you say with a bashful sort of smile as you carefully close the small door behind you.
Nan's big, plastic eyes light up with delight as she sees you for the first time in years. "Is that my little Anon!?" she squeals as she quickly patters over to you on soft, leather re-enforced paws. The tiny stuffed squirrel is just as you remember her... almost. She has a few new patches sewn onto spots where her fabric has worn through, and her red felt fur is noticeably faded with the years, but she is still just as soft and just as welcoming as you remember. She comes up and gives you a hug around the waist with every ounce of her slight strength, not even bothering to remove the thick oven mitts from her little hands. "Oh my goodness! Look at how big you've become!" she says, craning her neck to look up at you. Her head hardly comes up to the bottom of your ribcage. Her painted-on irises dart about magically over the surface of her sewn-on eyes as she looks you up and down. "And so skinny! Have you been eating properly?" she asks you as she excitedly ushers you over to a small stool that rests by her kitchen counter.
"I'm eating fine... but I wouldn't mind a few of those muffins," you say as the child-sized stool creaks a bit under your adult weight. It feels good to talk to Nan again. You hadn't realized until you saw her cute cloth face how much you had missed the little plushie. Though you're technically older than her, your parents bound her wild spirit to the plushie doll when you were about three, so she has always been a mother figure to you. Your first friend. The one who would apply bandages when you'd scrape your knee. The one who would bring you snacks, utterly unbidden, while you crammed for a big test. The feeling that seeing her again brings up within you is hard to describe. Almost a bittersweet sadness, knowing that you'll never again sip at a juicebox on the porch while Nan chides you for getting your good boots all muddy.
"You can have as many as you'd like, and I'll be sure to bake a big batch for you before you head back to college," she says happily as she wiggles about her child-sized kitchen. Her voice is unearthly warm, like fresh laundry on a cold day. "Tell me about your school, Anon. Are you enjoying your classes? I hear the city of Treethe is lovely this time of year."
"I'd rather hear about you. Mom says you've been having a bit of a hard time since my sister left for college," you say as Nan sets an adorably tiny kettle on top of the stove. The living plush was created as a nanny for you and your siblings. Even her name, Nan, nanny, speaks to the very reason of her being. Caring for the three of you has been the work of her entire life. Now, with your youngest sister heading off to pursue her adult life, Nan has been left more or less purposeless.
"Oh, it's true. I feel like a hen suddenly without a nest to sit on," Nan says with an honest pout. Ever the busy sort, she works about the kitchen as she talks, setting saucers for tea, mixing spices, dusting off her flour board, etc. "I mean I've tried to keep busy. Your parents, bless their hearts, went through the trouble of having me recognized as an independent sentient object. I'm a bona fide magical citizen!" she says proudly, bushy tail wiggling back and forth behind her as she talks.
"Wow, that is awesome! You can go anywhere now, do anything," you say to her as she sets a small teacup before you.
"Yes, well that is the problem, after all. What does a lifelong nanny do once she has no kids to nanny? Your parents have given me this little cottage, and allow me to do chores for them three days a week. But you know those two. Without you and your siblings to worry about, they hardly need any help at all. It leaves me... bored," Nan says sadly as she rests her buck-toothed head on one small, cotton-stuffed paw. "I mean I garden, I bake when I can, and I don't lack for reading material. Oh, and once a week I have a get-together with a group of other awakened objects. We go out and watch movies, go ice skating, lots of fun stuff... but all of that just feels like a distraction. I'm afraid that I've become a squirrel without a purpose."
As you are about to respond, an egg timer on the counter gives off a sharp alarm. "Oh, the muffins are done!" Nan squeaks with delight as she slips the oven mitts back onto her dainty paw-hands. The petite little plushie bends over as she carefully takes the steaming hot muffins from the oven, and you notice something that hadn't been obvious at first glance. Nan's body is different than how you remember. Nan had always cut a rather slim figure. She was proportioned much like a realistic squirrel, and her body had been quite slim. Now though, you can't help but note the definite growth of her form. Her previously slim stomach has become somewhat rounded. A definitively feminine swell that spoke to a mature fertility. Her thighs too have plumped up, thickened now to give her form some reasonably flared hips. Most obvious perhaps, was the full, round, almost doughy looking arse that she now sported beneath her bushy tail. If it hadn't been physically impossible, you would have thought that she had been stuffing her face with junkfood to gain such weight.
"Nan, did you have some work done?" you ask her with a barely suppressed giggle. The change must have been intentional, conscious. Nan would have had to literally add more cotton stuffing to herself in order to change her body to such a degree, and it looked like she had added quite a bit.
Nan whirled around with a distinctly embarrassed look on her face. If a plush could blush, you could be sure that her face would be crimson right now. She sets the tray of steaming muffins down and fixes you with an almost hurt look. Apparently, you've touched a nerve with your remark. "I... I've decided to try dating," she says plainly as she takes the now steaming kettle off of the burner and fills your cup with perhaps a bit too much steaming water. You say nothing, and simply steep your tea bag as you allow Nan to find the right words for what she wants to say. "I thought, that perhaps I might find someone to share my life with. Someone I could bake for, who would read books with me, who I could... comfort. So yes, I've altered myself to appear more womanly," Nan says almost somewhat proudly. She turns from you and her tail flicks up in the air indignantly as she pulls a second tray of banana bread muffins from the oven.
Nan, dating. The thought is as amusing to you as it is confusing. You've only ever seen her as a second mother to you, but she is a woman after all, even if she is made of cotton and wool. She deserves the right to pursue happiness like anyone else, but the thought still feels icky in your head. You realize though, that her decision was probably a rather difficult one, and must have taken a fair amount of resolve to see through. "Well, any luck?" you ask her encouragingly.
"I've only been on two dates... blind dates. It isn't easy advertising yourself as a romantic partner when you have the body of a children's toy. Not that I mind that fact, mind you. I adore this cloth body, but it can make it hard to appeal in the ways I want to," Nan says with an obvious look of frustration on her face. Her big plastic eyes almost glimmer with a deep-seated worry. "Oh, but listen to me blithering on like some old bitty about my little social woes. WE should be making plans to do something fun before you have to return to school!"
She reaches over the counter and moves to grab a small bowl of sugar, but doesn't seem to realize that she still has her oven mitts on. As she grabs for the bowl of sugar, her mitt-clad paw sends the bowl of sugar and your still steaming hot cup of tea clattering over the table.