Properly Becoming pt. 1 —
The witch decided to retain the personality of a particularly adorable doll through the transformation. The doll is in a whole new body, just like it wanted, but it’s going to have to learn how to actually be a doll on its own. Well that’s not quite true, it’ll have the loving hand of its witch.
The doll reports for duty bright and early in the morning after a long sleepless night. It was simply too excited to start its new life. How cute! It’s chipper, maybe a bit too chipper for the witch’s taste but that can be worked out in time. Today it’s decided on a beautiful poofy dress with frills and ribbons. She can tell that it’s been waiting for this.
“Good morning, Miss,” it smiles joyfully, “um, I hope that I can be of service to you,” the smile fades slightly, revealing an anxious interior.
“Good morning, Doll,” she replies with a voice like honey, “Today will be unlike the rest of your time serving me because we are going to take the first steps together, understand? I want to see exactly how good of a doll you can be and the greatest showing of that is in how you adjust to your new life. So, to that end, I have a gift for you, my sweet.” The witch hands the doll a shock collar, modeled just like a dog or a cat’s, with an engraved tag that reads “Property of Miss Cassandra.”
“O-oh!” The doll squeaks, “ok yes ma’am.” The doll hesitantly places the collar around its neck, adjusts it, then looking in the mirror. It blushes heavily. This is unexpected.
“Good, and for the record, when you receive a gift, the proper reply is a show of gratitude. Objects don’t often get gifts you see. Worry not though for you have given me a perfect segue into the collars function. When you make a mistake, much like the one you just made, it will shock you. These shocks will increase in power each time and will only reset at the end of the day. Starting, of course, with this one.”
The device goes off, forewarned with a slight beep and a click, before the collar sends volts of shocks running through the dolls body. It convulses, nearly falling to the floor, and lets out a hefty whimper but, adorably, it regains its composure, frazzled but not out of it just yet. It bows deeply and says, “I’m sorry Miss. Thank you so much for this gift. I will treasure it always.”
ZAP! Another shock runs through its neck and down through its body all the way down to its toes. This one is slightly but noticeably strong than the last. The doll is sent nearly to its knees once again. It looks very undainty hunched over trying to catch its breath. “I’ll give you a hint as to why that one happened,” the witch smiles, lovingly and twistedly, “a doll is not a person. You ought to try to remember that. Now, i know I’m being harsh on you, please know that it’s all a normal part of the training that you must go through to become a doll,” the witch giggles to herself, “so, if you can use your big doll brain to figure out what the proper response was, I’ll give you a reward, ok cutie? Otherwise, it’s another zap for you.”
The doll would be sweaty heavily right now if it still had pores or glands or skin or organs that could suffer from overheating. Instead, it looks up at its witch from its hunched posture, eyes full of worry, nearly overflowing with tears. But both it and the witch know that these tears are not for the injustice some doll rights advocate would say it had suffered. No, it was about to cry because it had done something bad, and all it wanted in the world right now was to fix its mistake. Adorable.
It climbs to its legs and though its posture has been repaired, it cannot hide that its legs are shaking. It begins to bow again, deep and low but without even looking at the snide look on its witch’s face, it course corrects. Instead, down on the floor in a kowtow before its witch, it begins again “T-this doll is so sorry Miss. I-it is not and never was a human and it shouldn’t have implied otherwise. It it’s still humbly grateful for the gift you have bestowed it. It will treasure its collar always.”
“I know you will my sweet doll,” the witch says with an unseen smile that permeates her speech. Before the doll can raise its head to see if it may rise or not, the witch has swooped it into her arms and is carrying it away. Close to its masters bosom, the doll flames scarlet red, inconspicuously trying to nuzzle further into her embrace. It doesn’t get too long with her, though, as it is soon ceremoniously plopped down on a small pedestal.
“Now normally,” the witch grins happily, “this little ritual doesn’t happen until a few weeks into a dolls residency with me but since I promised a reward and since you’ve been so good, I thought I’d give it to you now. Besides, for all your goofs today, you have proven something to me,” the witch’s face hardens, more serious. She lays a hand on the dolls shoulder and looks it in the eye, “you have the spirit of a good, loyal doll inside you. You will be an amazing doll.” As soon as the sincerity came, it went as another gleeful smile returns to the witch’s face, “now stay still. This will be good practice for you. If you move at all, that’s a shock, got it?”
“O-oh! Yes Miss! This one understands,” the doll cries out in response, preparing the stay still for an unknown amount of time. The witch skips away happily, and sits behind an easel, a brush in her hand. Before either knows it, hours have slipped away. The doll moves once in that entire time and while this clearly annoys its witch, she sighs and shrugs her arms. The shock is enough of a motivator. And then, at the end, the witch walks up to her doll. “You may move again, my doll. Please go take a look at the easel.”
It does, following her command like it was the word of god, and there it spies the project the witch had started and completed. A large portrait of the doll, standing in a perfectly pretty pose, in its perfectly pretty dress, and, though it wasn’t very doll like nor did it fit the traditional style of the other portraits around the house, the witch had painted her doll smiling brightly, warm as the sun.
“I’ll have it framed and hung tomorrow. So, what do you think?” The question was intended as an excuse for the doll to have a chance to compliment its master for her wonderful work, serving both of their interests rather nicely, but it had an unintended effect. For there, lit by the light of the setting sun through the windows of the big house, the little doll embraced its witch tightly. Her dress grew damp as tears flowed out of the dolls eyes, through the rich fabric, and down to the floor. It clung to her like a lost child, found again, shaking and whimpering and when the witch recovered from her slight shock and decided to hug back, it began to speak.
“I love you.” ZAP. “I love you.” ZAAAP. “I love you.” ZAAAAP. On and on until its voice grew soft and unintelligible and it laid face down on the floor, barely still hanging onto the end of the witch’s dress. Then finally, it passed out, overloaded. The witch, eyes wide with surprise and even slight confusion, chuckled happily at the sight. She leaned down and picked up the doll, carrying it away to her bedchamber and laying it next to her so that together, they could drift off to sleep.