F4 Unit LE-0T

Femme Fae Fiction Fabrication. No minors. A witch, a tinker, a doll, a pixie, and so much more. #Empty Spaces. She/They/It. 28.

[ribbonsaikeaux]

Arise

Tick... tick... tick... tick...

"Please. Miss. Don't. Cry..." amber said haltingly, reaching up to Roses' cheek.

"I-I... d-do-don't want y-you to g-go sweetheart!" She choked out through, deep, soul shattering sobs; clutching her doll to her chest.

Tick... ... ... tick... ... ... tick... ... ... tick... ... ...

"It... lo... ves... y... ou... Mi... ss..." it says, its lips cracking and creaking as a smile parted its lips.

Little ambers' body stiffened in Miss Roses' arms; its eyes distant, glassy, still. The ticking has stopped. Miss Rose wails in sorrow from the deep, empty, chasm that's formed in your stomach; clutching her beloved amber tightly. Earth shatter sobs rip through her as tears and snot pour down her face; her eyes, bloodshot, refuse to leave her dolls body. Clutching it tighter and tighter, closer and closer, she claws at its back in desperation.

"Nononono! Sweetie! Wa-ake uh-hu-hup!" She screams, shaking the now lifeless doll violently. "D-d-do-on't le-hea-heave meeeee!"

Rose gently sets amber down; standing in a daze as she stumbles to her feet with her head hanging.

"No. No. No. No. No. No. No." She just keeps repeating as she stumbles away, leaving ambers' damaged body behind as she limply tosses open the back door. She bounces of the walls of the hallway, barely able to stand, knees on the verge of giving out.

"No. No. No. No." She continues mutters, opening the basement door. Feet like lead fall heavily on the creaky wooden stairs, ocassionaly cracking the warped planks. She uses the wall to hold her upper body up, having lost any semblance of strength.

Finally, Rose reaches the basement floor, momentarily loosing her footing, catching herself on her workbench.

"No. No. No. No." She mouths, having completely lost her voice. One hand holding her head, she tears through her library, searching for a particular spell. Books fly across the dimly lit room, shattering beakers and pestals, mixing herbs and chemicals. Small explosions shake the house and fires start to spread, and yet Rose remains oblivious.

"You'll come back. You'll come back. You'll come back." She chants, finally finding the book she'd sought and clutching it to her chest. She trips over a piece of her now destoyed desk, eyes distant, empty. Fumbling her way up the burning stairs, she doesn't notice the smell nor the feel of the flames licking at her dress. She wanders through the collapsing house in her disociative stupor, collapsing just outside the door and onto the porch.

"Come back. Come back. Come back." She mutters, unsteadily climbing to her feet and swaying. Her knuckles tuen white, the leather of the tome creaking in her vice like grasp. Upon reaching ambers' empty shell, Rose collapses to her knees, the gravel embedding into them, as mindlessly flipping through the book until she finds what she needs.

"Arise. Arise! ARISE!" she screams, a sickly green glow eminating from her outstretched hands. Thunder cracks the sky, winds whip up, and the clouds darken to a near obsidian shade. The energy pours from Roses' hands and into the dolls' husk, filling it with mystical energy.

A bolt of lightning strikes behind Rose as the spell is completed, sending her flying forward. Instinctively, she covers amber protectively.

Beneath her, Rose feels a stirring. She pushes herself up raggedly and looks down at amber. The doll remains speechless, but it shifts, slowly aitting in front of its mistess. Its eyes glow with a sinister green tinge, staring straight through Rose.

Rose, overcome with elation, snaps back to reality and throughs her arms around amber. "My precious! You're back!" She cries through manic laughter, clutching her doll close and laying her head on its shoulder. "I love you so much..."

An unimaginable pain tears through Roses' chest. Her voice catches in her throat, leaving her soundlessly screaming. She leans back, unable to move any further due to the hand in her chest. She stares into the dead glowing eyes of her former doll, her own filled with pain, sorrow, and betrayal. She mouths "Why?" in confussion and dismay before the doll removed its hand from her chest with a jerk.

Roses' body collapsed to the ground with a heavy thud and ithe doll admired the crimson heart it held in its hand, expression never changing. Glancing at Roses body, it absently waved its diminuitive hand in its direction.

The corpse filled with a green glow as it started floating into the air; its bones cracking and creaking as it writhes unnaturally. The light diffused the bodys' while being, even pouring from the hole in its chest

The risen Rose settled onto its feet, dead eyes glowing. The two looked at each other lifelessly for a moment before the former amber took the animated corpses' hand. Wordlessly, they wandered down the road and through the forest, on the hunt for new recruits.

[witchpassing]

“Doesn’t it bother you?”

“Hm?” The doll’s hand stills for a moment, its fingers sinking quite out of sight into the stygian scruff-fur of the beast lolling its great head upon its lap. “Doesn’t what bother it?”

“Your Mistress being a dog. Some of the time.”

“Well!” A small huff. “Let’s not be disrespectful, dear. She’s a wolf, and a very impressive one at that. Isn’t she? Isn’t she so beautiful? Yes she is, yes she is.” The lycanthrope’s tail sets up a slow, heavy thumping on the hearthrug.

“But looking after her must be–”

“An important responsibility, yes! Oh, sorry, miss.” Roused by the excitement in the doll’s voice, the wolf has lifted its head, one great golden eye cracking open. A few gentle scritches behind its ear settle it back down. “But, yes. Tending to her needs is an important part of this one’s work as her servant. Her coat needs to be brushed regularly, especially in spring - because of the moult, you understand - and she’s very particular about her meat. And of course, she can’t… talk. Or understand most words. So, it’s this one’s duty to make sure she understands that everything is alright!”

So saying, the doll rubs its porcelain cheek against the top of the wolf’s great head, drawing a deep, contented hnf from somewhere in the creature’s ribcage. Its eye, still ajar, glitters in the firelight like old amber.

“... Can I pet her?”

The doll’s eyes, glittering amber too, are no less smug. “You may not.”

[absentwriterdoll]

What is a doll?

Tell me, do you know what a doll really is? A happy little thing that is beholden to its specific purpose, a specific being - that's what they always say, right?

You do understand how they got to this point, right?

A doll is a doll before they ever end up in their shells of whatever it is they end up made out of.

They don't come into existence trained to seek out Purpose and Stillness - no that happens somewhere along the way.

A person becomes not a person.

They know witches before they even know what the concept is - witches in a different way than the ones we usually speak of - witches that need no magic to effect their ways.

Take, for example, the "gifted student".

That's a doll right there.

Their Purpose is success in education. Their Stillness is respite from the otherwise ire of their witches.

They aren't a person:

They're their achievements.

And, tell me, doesn't that sound just like a doll to you?

[le-0t]

Witch who keeps a doll on her desk for the sole purpose of having something to fidget with, mindlessly disassembling it and reassembling it as she mulls over her other projects.

[spiribia]

they should do an MMO where everyone is a shapeshifter and you can go live with animal herds in the wild if you want for a time but you are never entirely one of them, noting that the wild animal npcs partake in behaviors with or make calls to one another that you may not understand the logic of but can try to learn to repeat the musical cadence of. this is true of even the human npcs, whose musical language is the most intricate and complex to learn of all and who will ostracize you readily if you do not use it properly. other players are not marked as players and there is no chat feature. as an elk you may not know if the wolf chasing you is an npc or another player who does not know the same of you, and there is no chat. maybe the players would develop a sort of musical cadence to identify other shifters. no one would like this game and it would not be fun. but i would like it

[spiribia]

were you a person? was i one? did it matter?

[le-0t]

Some days

She is full of life

And warmth

And ideas

And love

You tell her

You love her writing

You love her mind

You love anything she touches

She smiles

She loves it too

Some

Days

She

Can’t

Get

Out

Of

Bed

Can’t

Bear

To

Read

Her

Own

Words

Can’t

Write

Can’t

Think

Can’t

Move

Can’t

Can’t

Can’t

Ĉ̶̡̧̧͇̪̥̦̟͖͚̻͖̠̖͚̊̈̾̎̈́̅̈́̌̾̍̐͛̍̿̅͑̌̕͝a̸̹͖̞̠͓̠̪̲͍̪̻̮̬͍̳͖̤͛͂͗̈́̅͌̿̍͋͐͜͝ņ̵͙̞̞̪̭͙̲̺͎̭̖͙̼̲͈͉͊͛’̷̧̛̼̙̣̗͔̙̮̖̫̱̦̀̒̅̇̿̑̐t̸̖̋͆͛̿̅͆̀̚̚͠ ̴̡̳̹͚͉̦̩̲͉̺̙̼͙͙̜̠̖̝̤̅̅—

[writing-prompt-s]

You’re the healer of the group. The rest of the party has always treated you like you’re made of glass. You were content to stay out of their way and let them do their thing. Until they all got downed leaving you the only one standing. That’s when you show them how deadly healing magic can be.

[le-0t]

You sigh.

Not upset, not disappointed, just a touch tired, and a touch annoyed.

You were really hoping they wouldn't die, they were doing so good! But here they are. Dead. Some "healer" you are.

The thought makes you chuckle. "Healing" has always been a misnomer for the "magic" you use, but it's the closest version of it anyone would ever let you explain, you figure it's all they can understand it as.

They came to you broken. You could fix it, of course, and why wouldn't you? They were sad. So you fixed it, and you did it again and again. Some called you a witch, eventually they settled on healer; thankfully “goddess” never really caught on, which was good because you needed a break from being worshiped.

As you wave your hands and stitch them back together you wonder what it must look like for them... Beautiful, if you had to guess by their reactions.

To you it was as a paint-laden brush stroke on canvas. A pixel or two on a screen. A few lines of code and a well thought out backstory. Buttons in your UI.

To them each stroke was deadly as it was lifegiving.

What then might the scene behind you look to them? Enemies utterly obliterated from existence... You're just glad they didn't see it happen. You weren't sure if they could see the smudges like you could, though everyone's always told you you're a perfectionist...

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

You hear your name.

Yes. Your name.

Someone's calling it, trying to get your attention.

You blink out of your thoughts and look up at your party relaxing by the campfire. One of them is waving you over to play a card game with them. They look happy. With an exhale of subtle relief and grin of reluctant approval, you rise to join them.

You suppose they didn't notice the smudges after all.

[writing-prompt-s]

You’re the healer of the group. The rest of the party has always treated you like you’re made of glass. You were content to stay out of their way and let them do their thing. Until they all got downed leaving you the only one standing. That’s when you show them how deadly healing magic can be.

[le-0t]

You were sort of glad they were always so worried for you. It meant they could be the ones in harms way and you could focus solely on keeping them alive. It meant they were always focused more on you than what it was you were actually doing. It meant they cared about you, they let you get close, they were vulnerable just like you needed them to be. And besides, you liked watching them work up a sweat.

“Healing magic” was always a misnomer for what you did but you stopped correcting people after the first few parties disbanded in a mix of horror and embarrassment. It made them uneasy for reasons you never understood. No one wants to know how the sausage gets made, especially when they’re the sausage.

So you were relieved, frankly, that they were all unconscious. It made your job so much easier, and you really, /really/ didn’t want them to see this part. It’d probably break their sentimental little hearts. There was no time for you to sit and stitch them all back together, so instead you’d have to handle it yourself. The barriers keeping the hordes of drones off your party didn’t have to move, just hug their lifeless forms, which was something you could easily keep up as you focused on the task at hand.

You took a deep breath in and out, then got to work. You could be fast when you wanted to be, when you needed to be. Weaving in and out of drone attacks, taking hits as much as you were giving them. You weren’t sure why other healers never wore armor, it seemed rather stupid. Your fighter thought so too, and had tried on multiple occasions to buy you a set. Thankfully you could lean on tradition as an excuse. She wouldn’t have liked the real answer. What were you going to tell her?

[platosshadowpuppet]

Bell, book and candle

Try to force the Fae to do something and they'll fight like hell. Issue a challenge and they'll fight for the chance to compete.

A common form of challenge is the bell, book and candle test. It's a safe form to choose, as the rules are well established and the scope for cheating is limited. It is formed of three components, performed at midnight over the course of three nights.

The challenger sets their request as the forfeit for the Fae. The Fae will set one of their own - which can be unpredictable and often dangerous.

The first test is of the body. The challenger must ring a handbell three times, between the first and twelfth chimes of midnight. The Fae will attempt to prevent this, using purely physical means. Compulsion, glamours, or hexes are strictly forbidden.

The second test is of the mind. The challenger must read aloud, without losing their place, hesitating, or repeating themselves, as the clock strikes midnight. The Fae can use any manner of glamour to try and distract the challenger but must not touch or bespell them in anyway.

The last test is that of magic. The challenger must ward their candle, so that it stays alight while the clock strikes midnight. The Fae can employ any magical means to extinguish it, though must not physically cross into its bounds.

As with all dealings with the Fae, they hold the upper hand. To triumph the challenger must complete all three tasks, to forfeit they need only fail at one. Before issuing your challenge, be sure of the value of your request, and consider well what you're willing to lose in its pursuit.

[transman-badass]

Here's to the people who can't get the words on the page. The people who are too tired after all life throws at them to write. The people who are blocked. The people who are burnt out. The people who can't write because of physical or mental illnesses. The people who don't know why they can't write. And the people struggling with all those other things that get in the way of writing and make it seem or be impossible.

You're still a writer, you're still an artist. And you matter. This world is better since you're in it. Thank you for wanting to write, even if you can't right now. I hope you and your words find each other soon.

[le-0t]

The doll warily watched as the fae girl who recently moved in skipped through the house. “Miss… why is she here?”

The witch cracked a rare, fond smile as she watched the fae pick up another doll and twirl it around, telling it how beautiful it was. “To remind us— mostly me, that you are toys, and that you deserve to be played with.”

The doll watched in silence for a moment. “…Oh. …That’s good.”

“Yes, it is.” The witch reached out a hand for the doll to grasp. “Shall we join them?”

The doll watched the fae play from a distance for another moment, smiled bashfully, and nodded as it wrapped its fingers around one of the witch’s.

[cat-eared-dollwitch]

A doll and a witch. Two titles, one being.

A dollwitch is a broken thing that tries to fix other broken things.

It has a hard time accepting help. It resists attempts to fix it.

The things that come the closest to being allowed to mend the cracks in its frame and mind are other dolls. Things that understand. Things that were also broken, in a way, but have been fixed by utilizing the fractures to make something new.

A dollwitch is a self-appointed ablative shield.

It’s unhealthy, but it exists in this state. It is personified stability in turmoil. Its home is in the fire, its safety is among the waves, its solace is in conflict.

It gets nervous when things start going too well, as it is at its weakest when it is at peace.

There is always a second shoe.

[stutterhug]

Cinders~

[frostgears]

the space between cracked and broken

the reclusive doll knows far more about repair dollcraft than any other doll you've ever met.

"how did you learn all this?" you ask, pulling an opaque stocking up over a formerly shattered shin. if you look very closely, you might see the cracks, but that's better than you ever managed with just epoxy and your own fingers.

she takes a long sip of the pu-erh you brought her. (hard to get. you couldn't run from loss prevention, so you had to be perfect on the first try.) finally she says, "you really should try this."

it smells better than anything you've had this month, but you're paying her with the stuff, and you don't want to cut into her profits.

"thank you, but this doll drinks greens, mostly."

she shrugs. "your loss. so. i can tell you two stories… up to you what you want to believe."

the reclusive doll continues, "one is about a doll who figured dollcraft out by hard work. she can patch and sand and re-charm you like this, because a hundred other dolls came to her first, and got the best she could do for them then… and maybe a hundred dolls from now, she'll be even better; if you'd broken six months from now, there wouldn't even be a mark, who knows."

you notice that the china cup from which she's sipping tea has a thin crack. you wouldn't have noticed, but one of the roses only has three-quarters of a petal.

"and the other?"

"perhaps," she says, "she used to be a good doll, a real proper polite witch-toy. maybe the witch even had her help build new dolls, taught her a thing or two, just so the witch wouldn't have to do the boring parts, and what she can do now, that's just what she remembers. a few scraps from the witch's table, turned to mending instead of making."

you hear a very faint clatter, notice a judder in her hands that can't have been there earlier in the afternoon when her careful fingers were inside you. the teacup clattering ever so faintly against the saucer. only another doll would notice.

"that tea does smell quite good," you say. "perhaps just a sip?"

"oh, not a problem, let me pour you a fresh cup…" and her movements return to their normal grace.

old habits die hard, you suppose. if this was your place — if you had a place, hah, more like, if there was a place for you — you'd want to serve a guest too. so it goes.

it really is very good tea. □

[frostgears]

followup visit

it's just a preventative visit. you've been to see the reclusive doll before, damaged far worse than this. she'd taken your cake of stolen pu-erh, patched what could be patched, told you to come back in six months for a followup; she'd check that the epoxy and filler holding your shin together had stayed properly bonded.

you'd laughed at the time. six months for an ownerless doll? an unlikely eternity.

not long after, one gloomy middle-aged woman with a perpetually furrowed brow had noticed you casing her tea shop for the third time. she'd locked the door with a security remote before you could make a dash through it, and said, "i know what you are, but i'll bet not many else do. and you've been looking at the good stuff, which means you have decent taste. sit. let's talk about whether i call a friend of a friend, or whether you think you can pass for an employee."

and here you are, six months later in the reclusive doll's parlor, holding a small brown waxed-paper bag of milk oolong with the shop's logo imprinted on the front. it represents an uncomfortable fraction of what the shopkeeper had let you have recently; you weren't going to go dry, exactly, but you'd be running for a week or two on cheap bulk stuff pinched from orders that would never notice.

the door opens, but it is not the reclusive doll that comes out first.

"—do my best, but no promises i can't keep. anyway, that's what i got you for, yeah?"

the doll in the doorway is fascinating. you've never seen so many repairs on anyone still walking around. no more than three-quarters of her face is original porcelain, absolute maximum. the rest is patchwork replacement. there are shiny lines of solder bridging cracks, parallel to others filled with the dull matte epoxy that the reclusive doll uses, a cheek with a blue-white willow pattern that has to be a transplant from dining china, and her eye—

you look away as soon as she notices you staring, but her very eye is split by a gleaming gold lightning bolt of kintsugi work, holding the two unequal halves of her blue glass iris together.

"there's only so much i can do with hedge dollcraft, Calico! you're no Ship of Theseus. the original charms on your body will only stretch so far, and they'll only take so well on material like this."

her dress is just like her: it's a recognizable pattern, lacy but not entirely impractical. there are places where damaged fabric has been excised, patched, carefully replaced without changing the shape, but all done in black fabric. an image comes to mind: on the side of an abandoned building, burn scars.

"then you'll just have to get better, won't you? we both know that's what you want anyway."

"we can't always have what we want," the reclusive doll mutters, trailing the scarred doll into the parlor. then, "oh, you're here. Calico was just leaving."

Calico is in no hurry, apparently. she pauses in the middle of the parlor, turns, and gives you a slow look-over, mismatched glass eyes scanning hungrily for something.

"you said 'material like this'. what if we had better material?"

"we don't. and we can't get it."

"but what if we did?"

"then maybe. i don't know that it's been tried before."

"you'd try it."

the reclusive doll shrugs. "maybe. now get out. i have another patient."

"so you do," the scarred doll says, finally acknowledging your existence. "nice to meet you, another patient, however briefly. maybe we'll run into each other again, hmm?"

you move your free hand to cover the shop logo on the brown waxed-paper bag of oolong, but in your witch-crafted heart, you can feel — you know — you're absolutely sure — that you weren't fast enough. □

[frostgears]

the inevitable end

"look at the two of us," Calico says. "that went sideways fast, huh? but we're still here anyway."

you risk another look down. your skirt was floor-length this morning. you usually wear them long to cover the repair work on your right shin, which is subtle but still obvious if you're close enough. now the skirt hits at about mid-thigh, but it doesn't matter, you suppose, because there's nothing below mid-thigh on that side any more. your leg is gone. nothing left but a few stubborn shards holding onto a twisted frame.

you look her straight in her mismatched eyes, one brown, one blue and split into unequal halves by gold infill, with as much contempt as you can manage.

she nonchalantly pats at the smoldering ruins of her already much-repaired dress, lacy white patched with lacy black, with her remaining hand. "mostly still here. not bad for two dolls."

"we're done," you tell her. you hold up the spell-inscribed circular saw that opened the cut that let your ruin into the world. it's spattered in corrosive gore, blade still smoking. "we're trash."

"not like you were doing much with your existence anyway."

"i was clear of this. i had the tea shop."

"a human has the tea shop, and she's exploiting you as neatly as anything else would. can't have been that important, anyway. i showed up and you were all smiles and ready to go."

"that's how i always look when i'm working! and i thought i might have a chance to get you to leave."

she laughed. "that was stupid! of course i wasn't going to leave. if you'd put up a fuss i'd have burned the place down. i needed you. well. i needed a doll it hadn't seen before. i didn't need you you. but you did great anyway! we killed a witch!"

you look to the corpse on the floor of the witch house. it seems exaggerated in death, shattered bone looming through scraps of cloth and torn pallid flesh, sputtering internal fires casting shadows up the wall. it had been a little thing in the shape of a petite human woman when Calico had delivered herself to it, apparently relishing the return of a prodigal doll.

you'd known there was a flood ribbon coiled around Calico's arm, ready to unleash a sense-blinding deluge that'd give even a witch pause. you'd had a moment to try to run. but the saw she'd concealed in your bag lent you a weight and an import that you'd never felt before, and when the moment ended, you didn't run after all. more fool you.

"and we're here next to what's left of it, and we can't move, and a witch's death will draw scavengers. we're scrap. we're grog, Calico, we'll be lucky to be ground up and recycled."

she shrugged, a gesture that cracked something else in her, with an audible pop. "then that's how it goes. but hey, we're not going out thirsty. there's a vacuum flask in my bag. hot maofeng."

you glare at her, digging deeper into the well of contempt that you thought you'd used up. "and we're going to drink it out of what, exactly? the flask?"

"there're teacups. in the hutch. right there. i can't reach 'em, but you could."

there are, actually. a set, splashed with cheery gloss green over unglazed bisque. as vessels for a last drink go, you could do a lot worse.

you drag yourself over, slowly, past the witch, your truncated skirt smearing itself with ichor. you raise yourself on one knee and the ruin of a leg.

the teacups aren't the only thing behind the glass. it's a minature museum of junk. half-used candles next to chunks of raw jade and quartz next to a carefully-carved relief scene in dark copper-shot Elsewood…

you've seen something like the last before. you've used something like it before, a long time ago, before you made your own escape from your own witch's household. it's a door anchor. you slip it into your pocket before you make the long crawl back, made slower by the teacups you're clutching.

you pour, still having most of both of your hands. she sips. you sip. liquid green pleasure slides down your throat, and the weight of your end lifts a little.

"not bad," you allow.

"to doing," she says, raising her cup, "what we came here to do."

"Calico," you say, weary, "there never was a we," and you swing the flask. her face is already patchwork. it doesn't take long.

then you clutch the anchor in your pocket, and holding a place in your mind, you open the door.

you were never meant to see the inside of the reclusive dollcrafting doll's office from the outside of everything, walls in places that don't make sense in three dimensions, floor and ceiling stretching into infinity in the void, but it's over quickly enough. you and what's left of Calico drop, hard, onto the carpet.

luckily, the reclusive doll is there, paging through old notebooks at her desk. she's frozen, immobile with dollish surprise, but she recovers quickly.

"i know you, and i knew her," she says, "so you have ten seconds."

"you once said the original charms on a body would only stretch so far with conventional materials. i need repairs. i have materials," you say, gesturing to Calico.

"i have questions."

"i have a door anchor that might work once or twice more, and i have a weapon that killed a witch."

"no further questions. i'll keep the anchor, but that weapon leaves with you, and i have an idea about that, actually…"

twenty-six hours later, you stand up from the workbench. the reclusive doll offers you a selection of dresses, and a mirror. then she makes a complex hand motion next to the mirror, which goes black. you can see the saw blade now, a white toothed shadow, turning slowly in your chest.

"i can't show you where her parts are as easily. leg, fingers, yes, but other parts went all over."

"doesn't matter. they blend in so well. you'd never know," you whisper, letting your fingers linger on a lacy black and white dress. □

[le-0t]

A gentle hum fills the ‘guest’ room, as it did every day and every night. An off-white noise that blended into the background for most. Especially behind the quiet, squeaky sobs coming from the bed.

“…Whoever or whatever is making that noise? If you could stop? Please?” Cinelle pitifully asked into the darkness of her room. The noise ceased.

She sniffles and works herself into an almost silent flailing fit until she finally bursts; a rather quiet, pitiful ‘burst’ but it felt furious to her all the same. “It’s just- it’s this day!” she whines as she finally flopped on the bed. “It sucks. It’s dull. There’s hardly anyone around. I hate it!” She flailed around again, squeaking out muffled half-screams of frustration.

A small lightbulb lights up in the center of her room, hovering in the darkness about three inches from the ground. It’s an old, flickering lightbulb with a warm glow. It all strikes Cinelle as rather curious, so she abandons all thoughts of sadness, (she was rather good at that) sits up, and tilts her head at it, firmly ignoring the tears on her cheeks. “You were listening,” she says. She kicks her feet as she waits for confirmation.

Slowly, quietly, the humming that had been emitting from the lightbulb returned, like a computer working hard, spinning up. The bulb flickered as the response came, just audible above the hum. “….yes.”

A grin suddenly cracked Cinelle’s face, befuddled, bemused, bewildered, curled crooked by the half-formed mischievous thoughts bouncing around like fireworks in her head. Her eyes glowed softly in the dark, flickering orange and yellow like a candle flame.“You can talk?” she finally asks it.

There’s another long pause. The fan, which had briefly died down again, kicks back up to a steady hum. Cinelle exhales a laugh out her nose as she realizes it’s /thinking/, or at least trying to. “…yes.”

“And why haven’t you before?”

It takes another long moment to think. The fan spins up once more, and the lightbulb grows brighter until it illuminates its whole form; a small mechanical copper doll with a dome shaped lightbulb atop its head. It wore a simple dress that flared at the bottom to cover everything above its mechanical knees, and a cloak that split in the front and the back to look like little wings. Cinelle thought it looked rather like a moth, especially with the filaments in the bulb angled and curved the way they were, like antennae.

“It was cleaning. It had never stopped,” it finally states as an answer.

The answer made Cinelle’s face twitch with confusion and half-asked questions. What did that mean—? Never stopped… to speak? To think. Anything. Always humming away, always cleaning. “Huh. Suppose that makes sense. You /are/ basically a fancy roomba.”

Its fan kicked up again. “Room….ba?”

Cinelle snorted and snickered as she pictured a mix between a sheep and a roomba. “Don’t worry your little circuits about it. Mmh,” she sat forward to on her bed to get a better look at the doll.

As she leaned forward and her face came into the light the doll started to hum loudly again. “…your face is wet. Why?”

Cinelle broke into bitter laughter and then started to brush off her tears. She stopped herself early and shook her head out. No, she wouldn’t push it all the way down this time. “I was crying. Because I was sad.”

“Because your day was boring.”

Cinelle giggled. “Yes, you remembered.

Good. What’s your name little one?” They were all named, even the ones that were never expected to talk. Cinelle liked to know their names, so they had names.

The next answer took noticeably less effort on the part of the doll. This was something it knew for certain. “Moff.”

Cinelle cracked a crooked, fond grin. “Like a little moth. Cute.”

For some reason Moff found its light flickering atop its head, and its fans begun to spin again. It was certainly not thinking of anything complex, just one word on loop, “cute…”

Cinelle giggled, flopped down on her bed, and exhaled a long, tired sigh. “I like you. We’ll talk again. I’ll make certain of it.”

___________________________________

It took… and /embarrassingly/ long time for Cinelle to realize it. Nights and nights of conversation between she and Moff had gone by. Until finally, mercifully, Cinelle noticed. She suddenly froze, midway through some story she was telling. Her eyes locked on the little moth doll before her, quickly analyzing all three inches of it. “Moff, *Stop*.” The latter word hung on the air like the heavy steam of a sauna, slow and viscous, enough to pull a whirring fan to a stop.

It stopped, and dutifully waited for the next command.

“How many times have we spoken?”

It hummed for a long moment. She thought hoped it would. A quick answer was not what she was betting on. “Twelve thousand four hundred and seventy eight individual times.”

“Fuck,” Cinelle exhaled in defeat. She stared for a moment. “Stars, I don’t actually know what that means. Is that a lot of times? I can never remember. Uh- shit. Mmmnnn…” Cinelle continued to hum while she thought, a habit she’d picked up from spending time with Moff. She started flailing around a hand as an idea slowly came to her. “The- the first time we talked, What did we talk about?”

“My name. Moff. You named me.”

Cinelle sighed with a mix of defeat and relief as she realized that she wasn’t as clueless as she was worried that she was. Then another thought occurred to her. “Oh fuck. Oh stars. Uhhhh…. What did we talk about the first time /you/ talked?”

It hummed. Sooner than before, it answered, easily. “Talking. It had never talked before.”

Cinelle stared again, then fell into a flailing fit on her bed. “Ugh! It’s not helpful if /I/ can hardly remember. I hardly remember yesterday!” For some reason that made her groan with defeat. “No, that day I remember, even if I’d rather forget it.” She started and stopped a few queries for a moment, gasping for any sort of memory to anchor to. “I remember feeling…” her head tilted with confusion. “Sad?” Huh. Not often she could say that.

“You were crying. Your day was boring.”

Those words knocked Cinelle’s memory back into her head briefly. “/Fuck/! You /remember/.”

“Yes.”

Cinelle laughed with joy, and then groaned again. “How did I not notice it?”

“It is very quiet.”

“No, Moff, not you— well. Yes, but more /importantly/ you remember every time we’ve talked! And the first time you talked was during the time loop, so you can remember each reset too!” Cinelle was very excited about this.

Moff was very confused. “Loop…?”

Cinelle was already moving on, too caught up in her own burst of excitement and ideas. “Oh, I gotta tell Dani, and then we can work together to fix it and we’ll be happy again and this boring goddamn day can /end/! ….Tch.” she deflated as she remembered something else, “no, she doesn’t want to talk to me anymore…” with a sigh her gaze fell back to the doll, only for the sight of it to reignite her excitement. “Ah! You!”

The bulb tilted at a slight angle, something it had picked up from Cinelle that helped it silently express confusion.

Much like that first day they spoke, Cinelle’s face split with a too wide grin, otherworldly in its excitement. “You remember! That’s amazing! You, my little doll, are going to help me break us out of this time loop.”

Its fan whirred for a moment. “…okay.”

___________________________________

“It is wondering if Cinelle knows what she is doing.”

“Pffff! Yes! Duh. Of course I do. I helped make you!”

“It is wondering if that is accurate. It remembers Miss Danica crafting it from starlight.”

A pause. Cinelle didn’t want to give it the satisfaction.

“It has a better memory than you.”

“Okay! Okay fine. I didn’t make you. But! I helped with the design.”

It lifted its bulb, as if trying to stare at Cinelle.

Not that it needed to, metallic as it was, Cinelle could taste its doubt. She made a sour face and then tossed a tool to the side. “Fine! I should /theoretically/ know some of how you work, because you clean up faerie dust, and I know faerie dust better than anyone in this universe. Besides, I’ve made a thing or two in my time. Okay- wait-“ she preempted the doubtful stare this time, “you’re right. I don’t know a thing about how she does all this magical machinery. Ugghhh… Stars, what am I gunna do? I don’t know what to do…”

“It cleans,” Moff offered.

“…What?”

“It is good at cleaning. When it does not know what to do it cleans. What is Miss Cinelle good at?”

She hummed and thought, then smacked her own forehead. “Duh. /Games/.” She grinned impishly. “You and I are gunna play a game~”

[witchpassing]

“Well?”

Misericorde gathers herself up onto hands and knees, probes her midsection with impatient fingers. Results inconclusive. “.... No. Do it again. Harder.”

Anise, standing over her, not a hair out of place, recalibrates an eyebrow. “You’ll break,” it says, in the tone of one commenting on the weather. Its half-lidded eyes, dark and heavy as tourmaline, bear an expression of profound disinterest.

Misericorde wants to swear. “That’s the point. That’s the point. What part of I want you to hurt me don’t you understand, I don’t care if I–”

“This one cares.” Anise marks a half-circle around Misericorde’s half-slumped body, its shoes ticking on the polished hardwood of the cellar floor, even as a metronome. Misericorde loathes that effortless perfection, and Anise knows it. That’s why she chose it for this. “If it breaks you, it’ll get in trouble. We’re all supposed to get along nicely here, Misery.”

“Stop doing Caretaker’s voice.”

“It’s a good impression. She sounds like that.” Well, she does, but -

“It’s disrespectful.”

Anise laughs, three perfect, lilting a-ha couplets. The worst part about Anise’s laugh, Misericorde has decided, is that it actually does come naturally, right down to the slender curl of hand before mouth. “You’re so confused, Misery. Do you still think you’re a good doll?”

“Look, I’ll– I’ll say I fell down the stairs again, just–”

“You can't really expect that excuse to hold.”

Anise’s little half-moon smirk is unbearable, intolerable, just fucking right, and at this point Misericorde makes the mistake of saying:

“Please.”

Something kindles in the well of those lazy tourmaline eyes, and Misericorde realises, belatedly, that Anise is as good at playing hard to get as it is at everything else.

[arachnixe]

One Final Homecoming

The rain falls hot on my skin, landing with a sizzling hiss whenever it manages to dodge the brim of my hat and find a patch left exposed by my dress. The burns heal immediately, the spell an automatic reflex I don’t consciously register anymore.

I don’t sneer at the people hurrying through the rain, shielding themselves from the downpour with umbrellas and coats. I don’t show my contempt for what I can only conceptualize as a form of cowardice, knowing the rain would happily embrace them if they let down their guard. The water would glide smoothly over their skin with a gentle caress, a “you belong here and I love you” that stands in stark contrast to the downpour’s efforts to scour me away.

I don’t sneer. I keep myself composed. My mask of indifference remains flawless. The world may reject me, but I rejected it first, didn’t I? Being born here came with certain terms and conditions I found disagreeable, and so I made myself its enemy.

It’s in the spirit of this mutual animosity that I stand here right now, in front of an unmarked office building in a city that sleepwalks a cancerous expansion of itself. My hand drifts of its own accord into my bag seeking the reassuring touch of the seed I carry. It’s still there—smooth, warm, pulsing gently—the beating heart of something altogether foreign, yet not a heart at all, and maybe not quite a seed either, but rather a key, and if there’s anything in this world or any other that a witch understands, it’s keys.

Time’s wheel turns, as do the wheels within and without. I turn the mind’s eye inward to watch. I raise my eyes skyward to see. At last the inner aligns with the outer. Above and below, a moment clicks into place. I press my hand to a locked door and push it gently open.

The security guards inside are unprepared for me. “The Anomaly” is their name for me, and they shout the epithet while drawing guns. Their bullets splatter across my clothes, leaving even less of an impression than the raindrops, and it has been a very long time indeed since mere weather could divert my path. I pluck their threads and discard the rest—without much gentleness, I must confess—as I proceed to the elevators.

Their computer networks would deny me access to the lower floors if I asked permission, so I do not. “Down” is the most natural direction for a thing to move anyway, and it takes little persuasion to coax this little box where it wants to be. Down, down, down below the surface of this world, I pass alongside the city’s veins of sewage and lightning, poisoned air and poison dreams.

Real resistance makes itself known down below. This building’s ideas have strong roots down here, where people in stark suits spin a web of ontology to catch and contain, sneering their contempt of me. I let the mask fall. I am no moth, mercurial and unaware, easily misdirected to get ensnared by their traps. I dance electric across the apocalypse they’d weave for me, high voltage burning my entrance and exit through their collective consciousness.

I have even less gentleness to spare for these agents than I did the guards above. They collapse, mindsblood painting the walls in crackling infrablack.

A stairwell—less accessible than most, requiring the right eyes to even see it—takes me down to the bottom floor. There, the root office. In the office, a table. On the table, a briefcase. Above it all, a fluorescent light flickers.

I shove the table aside and get to digging. When a thing is meant never to be unlocked, one may need to carve a keyhole. Sometimes this means using one’s bare hands to claw through carpet and concrete. I do as I must, working quickly and ignoring the arrival of my executioner.

The bullet she puts in my head is made of realer stuff than mere lead, and I die almost immediately. Not much time left, then, but enough to reach into my bag, extract the key, and offer it a single kiss. I plant it and suture the building’s wound with the guards’ threads.

“It’s over,” my executioner informs me as if she believes me unaware that I’ve already died. I offer my most withering smile, one I’m quite sure will eventually kill her, before laying myself down to rest. My curse rattles her enough to command that concrete be poured here, filling the root office and sealing me in, as though I were radioactive waste, safe as long as I can be sequestered away indefinitely.

She will survive my smile for a decade or so. Long enough, I think, to see the strange new roots growing upward through the building, throbbing with the lifeblood of something truly alien to her reality. A fine curse, I think, to be the only one aware of corruption gripping the nexus of her life’s work.

My bones will rest easy, nourishing the world that is to come.