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The Toy Soldier knows it’s Different. This has never bothered it. Right? This has never bothered it. Toys don’t have feelings.
It isn’t lonely, because toys don’t get lonely, but maybe it pretends to be. It pretends to be sad, when the others don’t seem to want it around; pretends to be hurt when no one notices its spot-on impression of feeling left out. It is very good at pretending.
Sometimes its friends don’t want a toy, and that’s okay. They have each other, and they’re real, not like the Soldier. Everyone would rather have a real friend than a toy.
Jonny, especially, prefers his real friends over the Toy Soldier. He plays cards with Ashes, shoots guns with (or at) Tim, but he does not want the Toy Soldier to be involved.
It stands by the table where Jonny and Ashes play a game it does not understand. Chips and cards are laid on the table and the Toy Soldier watches, pretending to be interested. It does not know the game but its friends are having fun, so maybe it could play too. When it asks, “May I Join?” Jonny’s answer is firmly negative. No, it can’t, he’s playing with Ashes. It pretends to be disappointed, and it leaves him alone.
This happens often. Jonny isn’t the only one who brushes it off, of course, even if he can be the harshest about it. Nastya doesn’t like the Toy Soldier very much, either. Nastya doesn’t like real people, but that doesn’t mean she likes the Soldier any better. Nastya likes machines, not toys. The Toy Soldier pretends it dislikes her in equal measure. It’s almost like a game.
Brian is the nicest to it, and it doesn’t understand. He tells it things about how it’s allowed to be upset, asks it if it’s okay when it comes back from the last airlocking, and the Toy Soldier doesn’t understand. Brian is very kind, but he is wrong. “Toys Can’t Be Upset, Silly,” it tells him. “I’m Only Pretending To Be!” Brian seems to think it should be upset, so it pretends to be, for him (Only For Him, Of Course!). The point of pretending is for other people, after all. Brian does not seem any happier when it says this. In fact, he seems even more upset. It wonders what it did wrong.
If it cannot be Involved, the Toy Soldier at least wants to be Useful. Jonny likes it, or at least tolerates it, when it is being useful. The whole crew appreciates it sometimes, and that makes the Toy Soldier happy pretend to be happy. Toys are meant to be used, after all. It helps Raphaella with her experiments, it makes everyone tea. It doesn’t mind when Ashes sets it on fire - it burns excellently, they say! - or when Jonny and Tim decide to use it for target practice. It is hard not to pretend to be hurt, but if this is how they want to play with it, then it doesn’t mind. It’s what toys are for.
It’s most useful on stage. It knows this because everyone says so. Sometimes Jonny will say it is only useful on stage, but it knows that isn’t true. People compliment its singing; it always gets compliments on its singing. It always thinks about the Angel, and about how its most useful trait, its best feature, isn’t even really its own. It isn’t sure how it would feel about that, if toys had feelings.
Eventually, after millenia, the Soldier’s friends start to leave. The first time is rather confusing. The crew of the Aurora aren’t supposed to leave, not for good. But Nastya is the first. Brian explains to it that she’s gone, that she’s probably not coming back. It still doesn’t get it, completely. Surely she’d come back eventually, it thinks, but no one else seems to share its optimism. They all seem so sad. It never got on with Nastya particularly well, but it still pretends to be sad about her leaving. Everyone else is, so it should be, too.
But of course no one else would leave. They’re not supposed to. It thinks this for a long time. It still has the rest of its friends. Until - until it doesn’t.
They start to leave, too, a long time after Nastya has gone. Marius, first, is eaten by octokittens, which is not an unusual occurrence. It becomes unusual when he doesn’t come back. Dead, the Toy Soldier hears the others say, upset and confused. Which doesn’t make any sense, the Mechanisms didn’t die, not really. But they make it sound so definite. Dead. Gone. The Toy Soldier pretends to grieve.
They all follow Nastya and Marius eventually, except for the Toy Soldier. The Soldier is Different; it can’t die. You have to be real to die. But everyone else does. Tim, Ashes, Ivy, Raphaella, Jonny, Brian. They’re all gone, and, though the Toy Soldier has pretended to feel lonely before on the Aurora, it was never quite like this.
The loneliness it pretends to experience feels more real than it has any right to. It is only pretending, as always - but there is no one to pretend for anymore.
So, it stops.