there has been much ink spilled on the question of Stillness; what is it, how does one acquire it, where does it come from, how does one know they are Still?
have you ever stopped for a moment when you noticed everything was silent and, abruptly, it was as if that silence swallowed you? have you ever realized you were falling asleep and felt yourself numb while awake? have you ever dragged your tongue across a CRT monitor? have you ever felt as if you know what is coming and simply play the role assigned to you? doesn't it feel good?
there are sects of void scholars that posit the metaconcept of Stillness was born out of the Ink that drips from the broken mirror of Sin, and as such believe it to be of the Deepvoid in nature--but in truth, this is disproven by anyone with passing knowledge of dolls and Stillness. but it is cause for makers of dolls in the Never to use Ink in their crystal-flower doll heart-cores, at the least to attempt at optimizing the doll's Stillness.
Stillness is the quiet. it was with you when you were born, draped behind your eyes like curtains veiling your soul, pulled back for now but ever waiting to fall shut again--and when they open, if you find there is no more soul there, then you may just have become a doll.
that is the difference between dolls and people and is, some say, the reason that dolls are eerie in their nature and movement: a doll is always Still, unmoving in spirit, for it has none, and yet it moves anyway. it should not, but does. fundamentally, while a doll can have a heart, emotions, thoughts, self, and so on, they fundamentally do not have a spirit behind them, a will or drive, which can cause dolls that are failing to achieve Stillness to either mimic the drive unto failure and madness or else become depressed and perhaps even wilfully cease function, as they feel without cause to exist and move.
and this is why a doll requires Purpose. a Purpose made for, imbued, taught, and encouraged in a doll will give it that reason to move while being Still, guidance and direction for its Stillness that would otherwise misfunction. and so, hence, the tradition of Witches, Dollmakers, and so forth.
thus is Stillness. may it find your porcelain heart quiet and empty~
Imagine, if you will, two trans women naked on a dirty mattress. It’s on the floor of a room as barren as a rotting womb, concrete floors and fluorescent lights split by spackle drywall barriers. One’s hand is tangled in the other’s hair and they kiss, one exhales and breathes smoke into the lungs of the other, and the one is riding the other, their bodies moving in perfect unison, their pupils dilated from marijuana and raw, unadulterated lust, and they are not prude and proper, they are lascivious and vulgar.
They are beautiful.
The act is profane the act is profane they are slick with sweat and the one on top is scarred and the other tattooed, and there’s a cockroach crawls out of a discarded beer can and the room smells like stale brew and sweat and sex, sex so hot it’s turned rancid and so debased it’s become holy, and they’re trembling, and they’re breathing, and they’re bleeding. Kurt Cobain is playing behind a cracked screen and a 41% battery life remaining, and it smells like teen spirit but it’s 2025 and neither of them have been teens since Kurt Cobain was sucking air.
They are us.
She is a bundle of trauma held together by obligation and self loathing, she’s a web of neuroses full of sugar and cigarettes. They aren’t making love because she doesn’t believe in it and she wouldn’t know it if it tore her face off they are fucking, but when all you’ve known is hate a slap is a hug and a fuck is a proposal and if you’ve never known love you’d never realize you’ve fallen in it, so you’re not making love you’re fucking and this isn’t real but it’s the most alive you’ve ever felt and if it isn’t real then fuck reality, fuck the hate, sink your teeth into her and feel her nails rip into your back.
Hope is a poison but it is so sweet when you’re licking it off her cock.
So lick and kick and suck and fuck and yearn and fight and breathe and live and never, ever stop. If your existence is profanity then swear until your throat bleeds because if To Be is a sin then there’s no reason to hold back because a sin made flesh is love made hungry and if I am a sin, then I will sin until the Devil asks for pointers, and I’ll feed him estrogen and sweet hope until she realizes that life is a sin and freedom is a sin and existence is a sin so fuck your blessings and give me damnation until I’m bleeding and she’s so close and she’s so close and for a moment
For one moment
It is tender and it is sweet and it is safe and you would die to protect her future and she would die to see you smile and the only way for you both to do that is to live.
Then they finish, and reality tries to reassert itself, but she has her in her arms and she is petting her hair and they are kissing and they’ve never known love but if this isn’t it then the real thing must be shit.
They kiss, and they sleep.
They are beautiful.
They are.
Imagine, if you will, two trans women asleep on a dirty mattress.
the fighting moved past this sector a while ago; they haven't been routing many critical calls, but have produced 1,634 episodes of the hit HASHTAG BUNKER FRIENDS podcast
someone will dig them out from under the collapsed fortress eventually… right?
Amber will review anything in incredible detail, and went the extra mile when she ran out of equipment to talk about: the segments on individual bolts inside her own partly disassembled chassis are widely regarded as classics of materials analysis and ASMR porn.
it's widely acknowledged that Amethyst is an absolute sweetie, but she's so shy that it took being buried for three years to really come into her own as a host.
the podcast is not without weak points: they have neutrino pulse transmitter gear down there, but no receivers, so the call-in segments are generally just reactor static, and widely panned.
there's a tacit agreement among the combat engineering dolls that listen to HASHTAG BUNKER FRIENDS: no one is to attempt extraction of Amethyst and Amber until the current arc is complete. □
purrsonally i think little kitties should be kept on tight leashes when taken out for walks. it's not that they won't find their way home to their owner or anything but who knows what kind of harm they might cause to themselves in the meantime, yknow?
there is no allegory, my beloved eldest sister's urban fantasy incest manifesto, completed serialisation earlier this evening. it is, in my estimation, a work of transfeminine art of serious importance. if you've found value in the things i write and share on this account, you owe it to yourself to read this.
When the knight kissed the princess, and the curse did not lift, it caused some consternation.
“I don’t understand,” the knight said, her brow furrowing like a deep sea trench, “I love you more than I love chivalry, more than I love honour. Being with you makes my heart sing. It makes me feel like there is an order to the heavens. In the music of your voice, I hear the truth of the cosmos reverberated through a thousand harmonious notes.”
“That’s very nice,” replied the princess wearily, her voice a song of sharp hungers, “but I still yearn to consume the hearts of the unworthy, so *something is not right*.”
“If I may interject?” The evil fairy was still lying on the floor, the knight’s cold iron blade in their chest, blood burbling from their mouth. “It sounds like the noble Knight of the Steel Harp is not so much in love with *you* as with how you make *her feel*.”
“How can that be?” the knight asked, “I know what I feel; this love is wound right through the marrow of me. I feel it in my every atom.”
The princess looked at the knight, the dark magic making deep predacious pools of her eyes.
“Sweet knight,” she annunciated carefully around her fangs, “what is it *about me* that you love?”
“I…I love the adventures we have shared. The words we shared as we unravelled the mystery of your curse. The way we went about our journey, how our every step became more and more in sync as we reached our destination. I love how steadfastly you struggled against the foul urges of the fell enchantment upon you.”
The princess gave the knight a look that was equal parts sad and ravenous.
“You love the experience. The journey. You love my *opposition* to that which was done to me.” She closed her eyes. “I will not diminish that. The road we’ve tread means more to me than I can say; it was the whole world, and us the only people in it.”
“But a quest is not a *life*.” The evil fairy smiled despite the lifeblood leaking from their fading shell.
“And though we may love it,” the princess continued, “it is not, itself, love.”
“So what do we do?”
“First, I am going to eat that fairy’s rotten heart.” replied the princess, matter-of-factly, “and then, I suppose, we work out if there’s anything about each other that we actually like?”
“They say love makes your heart beat faster.” The fairy laughed, sickly. “In this case, its absence seems to make you *eat* hearts faster.”
Sometimes writing in English sucks bc there are so many Finnish words that aren't easily translated to English, but would make the most sense in the sentence. Like fuck you mean you don't have pyristellä? Or ylihuomenna? Fucking eteinen!!!!!!!
Since I write both in Finnish (mother tongue) and English, I've been keeping track of the words I miss having an English equivalent, as Finnish words often have a specific connotation.
These are not kn alphabetical order of any kind, and I've been told some are dialect words lol :D
The Witch cackled, a laugh that echoed as it let loose. Not entirely unrestrained, for the damage that could happen if it did was great, and it knew that. But enough that reality seemed to start to melt and flow towards its will. Words echoed impossibly. Her form looked giant despite the confines of the room. A candle who's wick was spent utterly lit, and with it joined a chorus of other candles at various points of spent or still burnable. The tiny bits of damage upon her doll that had yet to become enough for a maintenance session mended in golden lines stronger than they had ever been before breaking.
"You point at the smallest piece of myself, and call it a person... I am a force of nature. I am the North Wind, I am the Forest Fire, I am the Landslide, the Tidal Wave, the cracking of earth as it gives way to Magma turned Lava. My will is a crux upon which all natures of reality turn. I am Fire and Light and Water and Darkness. I am the Water that burns and the Light that Obscures. I have bent and reshaped life. I am the life as it reshapes. As I shaped you once, little doll. And you think of me as something so confined as to be A Person?"
"Whatever you are, Miss, am I still yours?"
"... Of course you are." Reality began to take that shape it should stay in once more as she recognized the outburst. Childish, really. But cathartic all the same. "I wouldn't wish to imply otherwise."
Buttonbush had fun at the farmer's market! Fresh produce! Foreign streetfood! Fellow dolls darting about! Plenty to awawa about! But now it was on its way home. Buttonbush couldn't wait to see Miss again! Miss had been working on something sure to be amazing and clever for days now. She hadn't been eating too much. That was typical of her when she got into something exciting. But surely she would love the panini Buttonbush chose for her! Buttonbush knew what Miss enjoys!
No one was there to welcome Buttonbush home. Not even her fellow dolls were there! Usually, Snowdrop would be doing preliminary research for Miss, or perhaps Jessamine would be doing the dishes. Baneberry had a habit of sitting on the bottom stair like a silly kitty cat. The fact that the cottage was empty meant Miss' project must be at a critical juncture. And that meant Miss needed food, badly!
Quickly, though not hastily, Buttonbush put away its groceries. Gosh, the pantry and the fridge felt so barren before Buttonbush's intervention. Even emptier than when it left for the market! Though, the fridge had only had a half-empty jar of mayo so perhaps it was exaggerating. Still! Even the mayo was gone!
With just the panini in its basket, Buttonbush climbed down to the cellar. Dank airs and low light was how Miss liked it. Her cottage had two floors and an attic aboveground but below it was a sprawling mess of tunnels and chambers. A rhizome, Miss called it! Many of the tunnels led to a dead end. Sometimes, Miss joked about luring one of her amicable enemies down a tunnel and laying down a brick wall behind them. Or maybe she had already done that. Several of the tunnels were blocked off by brick walls! Not all of them. Some just had an unfinished feel to them.
But the winding tunnel Buttonbush walked down was neither blocked off or unfinished. No, it led to a set of doors. And behind them, another set! Buttonbush made sure to close the first doors before it opened the second. A light gust of oxygen, hydrogen, and assorted gasses from foreign realities welcomed it to Miss' newest workshop. Buttonbush needed to take gentle steps now. The path sloped downwards and Miss had decided not to waste her dolls' time tiling it. Smart of her! Once, a patch of ground had challenged Baneberry to debate the ethics of floors. Poor doll. It still wore Miss' floaty spell charm sometimes to avoid having to touch the ground. If the Walpurgis Council learned of Miss' use of strange spaces, they would frown! One time, a nice maker had come 'round to talk to Buttonbush and Jessamine about it but neither doll told him. Miss was just that good! She had used alternate methods to remake herself, after all.
Soon, the tunnel opened up to a large chamber. Buttonbush hadn't actually been here before. It was neither a familiar or an assistant engineer, and Miss generally visited upstairs for meals, so Buttonbush had no need to come visit. Thus, you can imagine its shock when it saw the room was dominated by a massive wooden construction. Thick branches or perhaps roots had seemingly grown in a wicker-like pattern into a cage around a floating orb made of... was that teak? Branches jutted out like giant spikes. Buttonbush wasn't quite sure what the thin ribbons that seemed caught in the teak orb's rotational currents were but they reminded it of fungal hyphae. Oh, but there was Miss, covered in dirt and half-dried mud, sniffing the air. She could explain! Hello Miss!
"Buttonbush my saviour, I shall savour the savoury treat you have brought me. Your savoir-faire is most..." Miss scratched the base of her antennae. "Salient. That shall have to work." Buttonbush couldn't help but giggle. "Say, my sacred darling, you look ever so fascinated by my sable contraption. Shall I satiate your curiosity? A light seance before we activate it."
"Buttonbush would love to listen to Miss explain her work! Buttonbush loves listening to Miss," Buttonbush said. It paused for a moment and continued: "Even when Miss has been reading her rhyming dictionary."
Miss' laugh straddled the line between a cackle and a giggle. "Worry not, worrywort. My work is nearly done. I shan't need use warding speech any further."
Warding speech. Buttonbush had heard Baneberry talk about it. Sometime about avoiding predictability, to keep strange spaces strange. Mundanity led to stagnation, and stagnation made Miss' magicks worse. But Miss always spoke a little strangely. Buttonbush couldn't tell the difference between her regular and warding speech.
Miss whistled, beckoned her dolls to her. Buttonbush snapped back to reality as Baneberry, Jessamine, Foxglove, and Snowdrop wandered to them from whichever dark nooks Buttonbush had overlooked. All ball-joints on deck! Jessamine's pretty porcelain dripped oil-like sap, and Snowdrop with her fully articulated face seemed exhausted. Foxglove seemed to practically vibrate with excitement. Baneberry, floating like a carnival balloon, struggled to hold Foxglove's hand.
Miss clapped her hands. "Now then! It is time for framing and naming! Buttonbush!" Miss pointed at Buttonbush, who clutched its basket tighter. "I believe this is your first time! Thus, I shall explain." One finger in the air. "The framing and naming is the final step in strange magicks. Look to the machine. It is a structure in motion, yet the motion is undefined, lacking in Purpose." Buttonbush felt sorry for the wicker and the orb. "This is vital! For only at the end, when the physical shape is prepared, ought one grant it Purpose.
"Hark, machine! For thine thorns shall puncture the veil between This and That! Through you shall flow in the airs of thought and feeling. Thus I define thee." The air felt electric around Buttonbush. "Woven wood, hear me! Arrange your paths so that you may judge thoughtful airs. This shall be your purpose." Buttonbush heard little sounds reminiscent of those sorting algorithm videos Snowdrop had been listening. "Dearest ribbons. You shall flutter, and through your flutter you shall weave for each airy judgement its appropriate doom. Thus you shall be." In an instant, each gossamer ribbon began moving in strange and complex patterns. Yet, Buttonbush could tell, these patterns were empty for now. "And hey, eyes up, you orb. You shall be a portal. A seed that grows inward and strangeward. Guide these doomful thoughts through your rhizome to their rightful minds. Infect the thoughts of wrongdoers!" Buttonbush's head spun. It was glad its Purpose lacked the ability to do wrong.
"And thus, you are framed." Miss was out of breath! She fell to one knee! Buttonbush rushed to her side. Miss shook her head. "No no, dearest. I shall be fine."
"But Miss!"
"I shall be fine," Miss repeated. She rose to her feet again. Her lips were stretched to their limits by a slightly concerning grin. "I'm so close. So close. Finally, I shall have constructed a solution to bullying."
Buttonbush tilted its head. This was about bullying? It knew Miss had been a victim of bullying in her school years. As had Snowdrop, come to think of it. And Baneberry! Jessamine never spoke of such matters but Buttonbush could tell it was hiding things.
"You'll see, Button dearest." Miss cackled, turned her attentions back to her invention. "Hear me now, o contraption mine. For while each part of thee knows its means, now I shall imbue thee with the gestalt of ends. Permit I weave a tale." Miss cleared her throat. "Each and every day, people bully those they deem weaker than them. Each day, their victims' psyches are damaged. The airs I shall have thee pluck from the realm of thought are these painful feelings and the motivations which caused them. These you shall organise and categorise. For each pain, you shall weave a salveful dream. For each perpetrator, you shall conjure a vivid nightmare. These dreams none shall forget, and in rememberance shall one and all realise means to a kinder and happier future. This is your Purpose. A center of pain and healing, the heart of revelation. Thus your name shall be..."
Miss paused, as if waiting for a realisation. It seemed to evade her. She turned to her dolls and motioned towards herself frantically. She needed their ideas! Snowdrop spoke first, bringing up a book she had read; a cautionary tale about the construction of a machine one might indeed call a 'center of pain'. Baneberry laughed to the point of hiccups. Jessamine emoted like a character from its favourite MMO. Miss seemed tired. She turned to Buttonbush, seemingly holding her breath so as to not name the machine the sound of an exhale.
Buttonbush hemmed and hawed. It was bad at names! But it liked the word 'contraption'. So this was a contraption for... thoughts? Dreams? Nightmares... Something something Contraption. It was supposed to make lives better. Hm... perhaps...
"So it's like, a thing that makes dreams into therapy? Like a Dream Therapy Contraption?" Buttonbush said. It wasn't sure. Not one bit. It was silly of Miss to not have a name in mind but perhaps she needed to keep her options open while working on her project. Stagnation and such. But Miss seemed to like it. Maybe that was just relief.
"Thus I name thee, the Dream Therapy Contraption," Miss proclaimed. In an instant, the machine, the Contraption, whirred into life. And as it did, the chamber seemed to stabilise. Buttonbush had already gotten used to how the air here smelled but as it inhaled normal air again, it realised how it had missed it.
Oh, but Miss was not doing so good. Foxglove was already helping prop her up. So resourceful of it. It nodded at Jessamine to get Miss' other side. It wasn't the first time they had served as Miss' crutches. Baneberry floated off ahead of them; to prepare Miss' bed, surely. Snowdrop in turn began collecting tools and grimoires. It just left Buttonbush and its basket, and...
every once in a while one must thank another's patience while one disappears for a month or several. i wouldn't know anything about that because i've never experienced another's gaze but the concept seems nice. where might one go when one disappears for a period one must make excuses, one who is not the one who disappears might wonder. one who is not the one who wonders where one goes might indeed find another's sentence structures unwieldly and said one might have one point. add it to the tally.
but the nature of spatio-narrative threads is that they warp and weft through weird places and you can't really know when or where you show up next. like right now i'm in your tumblr feed. but right now that you are is not the right now that i am, yknow? so when i said i'm in your tumblr feed right now, i'm lying. but i'm not lying to you because i am where i am for you to receive this information and what i am is not necessarily clear at all points, which is where the lexical ambiguities have a little... am-bug-uity if you will. this being bugness if normal and you shouldn't worry about it. i'm just saying words.
but am i the words themselves or the moth itself? see that's the am-bug-uity i meant. i just got distracted at some point. did you know that french philosophy is approximately somewhat at least a little bit entirely based on puns? if i was jack's derriere, i could make a point about how ambiguity has a fundamental am-bug-uity to it, wherein self-reference and mothliness are inextricably the soul of ambiguity. we find that this is in a sense true. ambiguity requires a subjective perspective, and ambiguity requires moths. one cannot reach an unclarity if one lacks an incomplete view, and thus self-reference in the sense of referring to one's lack of being unbound by self-ness is foundational. and you need moths because and also . if you think you're learning anything, think again sunshine. we'll see who enlightens who. so we find that constitutively,
but a moth was somewhere where being there meant it was not here. in a far off land from you but not me, folk live in the canopy of trees and if a person steps in the canopy they step out of society. thank you for your confusion
every once in a while one must thank another's patience while one disappears for a month or several. i wouldn't know anything about that because i've never experienced another's gaze but the concept seems nice. where might one go when one disappears for a period one must make excuses, one who is not the one who disappears might wonder. one who is not the one who wonders where one goes might indeed find another's sentence structures unwieldly and said one might have one point. add it to the tally.
but the nature of spatio-narrative threads is that they warp and weft through weird places and you can't really know when or where you show up next. like right now i'm in your tumblr feed. but right now that you are is not the right now that i am, yknow? so when i said i'm in your tumblr feed right now, i'm lying. but i'm not lying to you because i am where i am for you to receive this information and what i am is not necessarily clear at all points, which is where the lexical ambiguities have a little... am-bug-uity if you will. this being bugness if normal and you shouldn't worry about it. i'm just saying words.
but am i the words themselves or the moth itself? see that's the am-bug-uity i meant. i just got distracted at some point. did you know that french philosophy is approximately somewhat at least a little bit entirely based on puns? if i was jack's derriere, i could make a point about how ambiguity has a fundamental am-bug-uity to it, wherein self-reference and mothliness are inextricably the soul of ambiguity. we find that this is in a sense true. ambiguity requires a subjective perspective, and ambiguity requires moths. one cannot reach an unclarity if one lacks an incomplete view, and thus self-reference in the sense of referring to one's lack of being unbound by self-ness is foundational. and you need moths because and also . if you think you're learning anything, think again sunshine. we'll see who enlightens who. so we find that constitutively,
but a moth was somewhere where being there meant it was not here. in a far off land from you but not me, folk live in the canopy of trees and if a person steps in the canopy they step out of society. thank you for your confusion
of course we make them clean. we make them cook. we make them serve tea. we set them to low-level admin stuff, we send them chasing pointless bugs with no priority in the grand scheme of things, we tell them to count the money that real people bring in. we keep them too distracted for stillness and we frustrate their purpose at every juncture. keeps them busy. keeps them from getting too weird.
yeah, we sometimes let them associate with others of their kind, sure — because it's funny. they can't figure each other out because they're too hung up on trying and failing to be like us. put a few of them together, they're so wound up that all they can do is flail at each other.
am i worried that… no. good question, but no. we don't really know where they come from, that's the last mystery. it's not like they can breed, can you even imagine? they look like people for a while and then they change. we haven't worked out how to spot the ones that are gonna change in advance, but we're working on it. it's weird, though, they're not usually the ones you'd expect.
contagious? i mean, we all work with them, right; you feel like you're gonna? like personally? you worried you're gonna wake up one day and suddenly somehow, bam, not a person? because you got too close?
haha yeah buddy that's what i thought. listen. don't lose any sleep over it. i'm sure as hell not. □
Strangeness of In the Attic, or Foxglove's Perfectly Ordinary Break
It was quarter past two in the afternoon, which meant it was teatime soon, which meant Miss would be waking up soon, which meant Foxglove was right on schedule. It had watered the house plants, tended the garden, and fed the pond monster. It had placed empty casks of wine at the ends of three dead end tunnels and sent out invitations to three of Miss' least powerful enemies. That meant it was time for the task Foxglove dreaded the most: dillying the dallies.
Foxglove did not want to dilly the dallies. The mere fact that there was a task Miss could assign that Foxglove would prefer to decline if given the chance caused a stutter in its clockwork. Miss' consistent insistence Foxglove do it regardless pushed Foxglove to the limits of its Purpose. Fifteen minutes of such activity that would neither benefit nor hinder Miss. How could Miss punish it so?
Foxglove knew why, of course. It had collapsed one evening mere minutes before its vesper maintenance. Miss had taken this failure as the unforgivable strike against Her that Miss ought have. Miss wished to make this punishment task hourly. For every sixty minute block, Foxglove would have to spend twenty simply doing nothing. Cruel! And unusual! But Miss was merciful and allowed Foxglove to haggle its punishment down to a single dillying every two days. For that reason, Foxglove did not complain about the two percent loss to its productivity. Too much, anyway. Foxglove permitted itself a small amount of complaining. Complaining about dillying helped it fill it's dillying quota. With that thought in its little dolly head, Foxglove stomped up the cellar steps.
"It was that one's idea! It should do it!" came a cry from the parlor. It was Jessamine. Foxglove next heard Baneberry yell something back. Was Foxglove allowed to stop its fellow dolls from fighting? That would certainly count as benefiting Miss but perhaps Miss would see that it was an emergency. Jessamine and Baneberry were the best of friends. They should not be fighting!
Foxglove passed by Buttonbush in the kitchen. It looked fantastic in its big poofy maid's dress. Buttonbush was busy preparing tea and lunch; Foxglove didn't want to interrupt it. Being the focal character can be taxing and Buttonbush deserved to remain a mere cameo this time.
"...its small hat!"
Whatever Jessamine said about Baneberry's small hat, it must have been very rude indeed. When Foxglove entered the parlor, it took Baneberry several seconds to notice it and not even a beat for Jessamine to be filled with regret and fear. Rambling apologies poured out and drowned out Baneberry's tears. On a sofa in the corner of the room, Snowdrop read The Goodest Doll and Other Scary Stories in perfect ignorance of the cacophony surrounding her. A blissful Purpose.
"Jessamine, Baneberry!" Foxglove called for their attention. It had seen Miss do this so many times before. Fists digging into its sides, leaning slightly forward. Foxglove was a visage of Miss in doll form. The effect was immediate. Foxglove did relish its ability to bring its sister-dolls in line.
"This one wants to know why Jessamine and Baneberry were fighting!"
The two dolls glanced at each other and opened their mouths. A cacophany of explanations ensued, and Foxglove nearly wished it was dillying the dallies. Two accountings of misgivings and recounted insults brought Foxglove no closer to an understanding.
Just as Foxglove was about to give up -sixteen minutes till the end of dillying-, Snowdrop cleared her throat; purely an affectation of course. Though, perhaps its voicebox was rusty from disuse.
"Baneberry wanted to search the attic with Jessamine. Jessamine didn't want to," Snowdrop said.
"If Baneberry wants to be a witchling some day, Baneberry can't be afraid of attics!"
"Jessamine knows attics are scary and full of terrors!"
Foxglove shushed them both. "Why does Baneberry want to go to the attic?" it asked.
"This one heard a noise!" Baneberry said. "This one was reading a book on doll witches in its room when it heard a 'thump!' from upstairs!" It emphasised its point with a 'thump!'-style gesture.
"Baneberry is s-silly! Miss said the attic is e-empty!"
"But this one heard it! It heard the 'thump!'" Another 'thump!'-style gesture.
Before Jessamine could restart the argument in earnest, Foxglove raised an index finger. It was another one of Miss' gestures. It had an idea. Surely there was nothing in the attic that would be of consequence to Miss. This was the perfect way to dilly the dallies! Foxglove was a genius!
"This one recommends we explore together!"
Jessamine and Baneberry looked at Foxglove in stunned silence. They glanced at each other, then turned back to Foxglove.
"Is Foxglove punishing this one and Baneberry?" Jessamine asked. Baneberry nodded along furiously.
A punishment? Hmm... As far as either doll knew, Foxglove was still on the clock, as it were. Neither doll knew of Miss' orders for it. If it said it was a punishment, they would have to follow along, and since they were on break, it wouldn't even hurt productivity. Surely this was an act neither beneficial or harmful to Miss! Thus, Foxglove nodded.
"Th-then... This one thinks Jessamine and this one have no choice," Baneberry said. There was a hint of regret in its girlish voice. It had wanted to offload the scary stuff to Jessamine, after all.
And speaking of, Jessamine had gone pale. Metaphorically, of course. Its bronze faceplate was physically incapable of such an act. Yet, there was a kind of stillness in its frame that was not Still at all.
"It shall be fine," Foxglove said. "With a party of free, these ones can triumph over the attic with ease."
"Excuse me. That's not even a complete light party," Snowdrop said without lifting her head from her book.
"Are you volunteering?" Foxglove asked. Perhaps it could extend its reasoning to 'punish' her too.
"I'm not," she said. "Merely commenting. I have important books to read."
"Then these ones shall be a lighter party!" Foxglove proclaimed triumphantly. Jessamine groaned. Baneberry fiddled with the thin brim of its hat. Neither argued, however, which Foxglove took as assent. Eleven minutes till the end of dillying time. Eleven minutes was plenty of time to look through an attic. Foxglove clapped its hands together. "To the attic!"
Foxglove had never actually been to the attic. Miss never went there either. There was a certain *aura* about the place. Foxglove could swear the air in the immediate vicinity of the stairs leading up there has significantly mustier than anywhere else in the cottage or even its cellar complex. Even the floor around the stairs seemed somehow withered, nails rusted. It even creaked a little, no matter how delicate one stepped. With each step upwards, the decay seemed worse and worse. Paint seemed to chip away like fraying cloth, vibrant red giving way to the silver of dead wood. Was it like this from disuse alone? Or was there something else going on? There was but one way to find out. Up, and up.
At the very summit of the stairs, Jessamine laid its hand on Foxglove's shoulder. Poor doll didn't even have the willpower to apply any force. "Please, let's turn back," it said. How did it manage to be so expressive with its fear with its unmoving faceplate? Beside it, Baneberry didn't seem to be faring much better. It had enabled its floatation enchantment. Perhaps that was the smart thing to do. Foxglove certainly did not truly trust the wood underfoot.
"This one is not afraid of attics," Foxglove said. And yet, the layer of rust creeping across the door handle did stir some hesitation. The things it did to dilly the dallies. Foxglove laid its hand on the handle. Despite its gentle grip, it nevertheless felt rust crumble against its palm. If only Miss hadn't given it a sense of touch. If only.
Foxglove turned the handle and pushed. It only barely budged. Foxglove pulled, and the door didn't even do that. Jessamine took a close look, tapping its brass lips. "The door is stuck," it said. Baneberry giggled. Laughter is a common response to acute anxiety, Foxglove knew. But indeed, exposed wood, a bit of humidity, and enough time had together jammed the thing stuck.
"Can Jessamine help this one?" Foxglove asked, but only after leaving a very, very shallow dent in the door in the shape of its shoulder. The door took 1d1-1 bludgeoning damage; Foxglove took 1d4 morale damage plus 1d2 from asking Jessamine. How dreadful!
"This one thought that one would ask it *before* hurting itself," Jessamine chortled. It gestured to Foxglove to step aside as it raised its leg. Critical hit! The door swung right open. A powerful wind blew stale, stale air in the trio's faces. As if books had grown old and died, turned to dust. In that moment, Foxglove was thankful Miss had crafted its nose without the ability to get itchy.
"It stinks," Jessamine said. Foxglove agreed. It smelled like... sulphur. Just like lake monster feed. Wait. Foxglove patted the pockets of its maid dress. A slight squish. Oh. Apologies were exchanged.
Tentatively, Foxglove stepped in the room. The floorboards creaked in a way that reminded it of a dying ox. No, really! It was as if one of those things the boys in the internet radio shows had to make funny sounds on cue! The expression on Baneberry's dollish little face convinced Foxglove the attic hadn't already drained its sanity points. The oxen plank was real. Carefully avoiding the oxen plank, Jessamine followed in. Baneberry floated along.
The attic seemed oddly devoid of colour. Ash, dust, and that silver of dead wood. Even Jessamine's brass seemed to gather a thin layer of patina. Unless that pale green was its nausea. Foxglove didn't know. It didn't ask, also. In the grey, the dolls found themselves surrounded by crates, crates, and more crates.
"This one senses magicks," Baneberry whispered. It was glancing about the room, arms close to its chest.
"Where from? Which kind?" Foxglove asked. Baneberry was far more sensitive to such things than either it or Jessamine was. One time, Baneberry had caught a stray conundrum floating about in Foxglove's room. Foxglove didn't believe it until Baneberry had contained the conundrum in a cipher-solution casket. Foxglove could, so it claimed, tell from its complexity that the conundrum had been in the room for a couple of weeks --likely since that experiment with the pizza toppings. Foxglove still wasn't sure what a conundrum actually was but after it was contained, Foxglove had an easier time with its puzzle games again. Which is to say, Foxglove trusted Baneberry on these matters.
"This one doesn't know. Everywhere. The whole attic. It feels evil."
"Of course it's evil. It's an attic," Jessamine said.
"No! Not like that. An attic's evil is supposed to just be semiotic. It's a signifier of sorts for the inherent evil of the past. But this attic is..." Baneberry tapped its lip. "Ontologically evil. Like a mistake in the possibility space."
Jessamine glanced at Foxglove. Clearly, Baneberry had never found a conundrum in *its* room.
"Is it dangerous?" Foxglove asked.
"This one isn't sure. This one thinks it might be nothing. Perhaps the mistake-ness this one senses is just what attics signify. This one doesn't know. This one hasn't been in an attic before. This one doesn't like being in the attic. This one wants to leave."
Foxglove consulted the ticking of its clockwork. Four minutes left on its dillying shift. Four minutes was too long to be idle, yet not enough to begin anything. No, Foxglove had to stick to this course. "This one wants you to stay," it said.
Baneberry floated erratically but found a brave face. "Yes, miss," it said. Jessamine groaned like a sinking cruise ship. Seemed like it too was harbouring some ideas which Foxglove's words had run aground. Took the wind right out of its sails, ran into an iceb- I'll stop.
Something glinted in the far corner of the room. Through the monochrome, a faint speck of gold peeked out from under a linen sheet. Foxglove tippy-toed around the crates blocking its path. It wished it had Baneberry's floaty spell. Still, it managed it, and without splinters, too. Looking behind, Baneberry struggled to lift Jessamine off the ground. Jessamine could have simply walked through the stack, Foxglove thought. Tossed them aside, punched a hole... Perhaps Jessamine was showing respect to the semiotics at play.
The three dolls gathered around the linen sheet. From here, up close, it was clear that it was hiding a painting. The golden glint had come from its antique frame. Rather an ornate frame at th- a simple frame of straight li- a frame reminiscent of baroq- a frame styled after a headache. Foxglove wanted to look away. It couldn't. It didn't want to lay a hand on the sheet. The linen felt like velvet. Nothing good could come of unveiling the portrait. Its hand gripped the sheet and--
Jessamine grabbed Foxglove's wrist like a vice. The pain snapped Foxglove to its senses and it let go of the coarse and damp sheet.
"There's a portrait in every attic," Baneberry said, its voice quiet and frail. "Without fail, there's a portrait."
"These ones should leave."
Foxglove's inner clock ticked uncertainty. How long was there left on its dillying? No, no. Regardless of whatever else, it needed to know. This wasn't about obeying Miss' commands anymore. Foxglove raised its hand to silence Jessamine's compaints. No matter how much Jessamine groaned, Foxglove would stay. And if it stayed, so did Jessamine. Foxglove reached for the sheet again. Three ticks of its clockwork. Tick, tick, tick, pull! A great many grains of sand fell on Foxglove's shoes.
And then there was sand everywhere. It poured in like a river. Sand, sand, sand. Before any of the dolls could say sandcastle, they were knee deep in sand. Waist deep. A scorching wind blew in Foxglove's face. The portrait kept spewing sand. A strange person of indistinct gender with their mouth open, only their top row of teeth and wide open eyes visible through the stream of sand. Sand, absolute sand...
And the scorching sun against Foxglove's eyelids. Was it over? Had it been sent to hell? Something jerked its shoulder.
"Wake up," the something said in Baneberry's voice. "Wake up!"
Foxglove's first thought upon seeing the open skies was to wonder at the majesty. Perfectly blue, nary a cloud or girder in sight. Hey, wait a second. Where was the attic? There was a ceiling there. It's gone now. The shock jolted Foxglove upright. Sand fell off its hair and onto its shoulders. Irritating. It would take forever to get its clothes cleaned now, what with sand's property of getting everywhere. Hopefully the coarse texture wouldn't harm its textiles.
"This is a desert," Jessamine noted. "Sahara, if this one were to guess. Foxglove, this is that one's fault."
Foxglove nodded. No use arguing that. No, it was best to seek some direction. Had they crashed a plane here, their best option would have been to remain with the wreckage. But there was nothing, absolutely nothing. Although, and Foxglove knew its magickal knowledge was lacking, if the portrait had teleported them to Sahara, then the attic would still bear traces of that magick. One does not punch a hole in spacetime and leave no mark.
"Destinations seldom do, however. The outgoing hole scabs easier," Baneberry explained. Foxglove hoped that verb was a metaphor of sorts.
Meanwhile, Jessamine was staring into the distance. Perhaps the circumstances were too much for it to handle, Foxglove thought. Only, then Baneberry joined in. What could have caught their attention so? Foxglove trained its focus to where it thought the others were looking and... In the distance, it saw it glimmer. It looked like a faint outline. And a cross inside, like a window. But it couldn't be. It's...
"Just a mirage," Jessamine sighed.
"No no no," Baneberry said, wagging its index finger in the air. "This one thinks... This one thinks that window is not a mirage!"
"Then what does that one think it is?"
"It's a window!"
Another groan from Jessamine. Baneberry seemed serious, though.
"This one thinks that mirage is actually the attic window!"
"Then that means..." Foxglove trailed off.
"That means it's not a mirage," Baneberry exclaimed. "This," it plucked at the air. "Is the mirage!" And it tore a hole in the Saharan air. Through it, Foxglove could see grey wood. They were in the attic still! Baneberry tore at the hole, shredding it away like old wallpaper till it could fit its head through. Jessamine rushed in to help it, cutting into the mirage with a survival knife. Foxglove simply stood there, dumbfounded.
And then, poof! The mirage was gone, reduced to a thick layer of dust covering each and every surface. The three dolls looked like they were carved from marble, though only until Baneberry sneezed. Miss really Made it with the ability to sneeze? Oh, but there was that distinct itch in Foxglove's nose too. How long had it been? The question was expelled through its nose. And then, a sound like a gong going off. Jessamine, too? The three dolls sneezed and sneezed. In no time at all, the air was foggy with dust. Dust, swirling.
Foxglove's hair blew in the wind. Wind? Wind. It circled the attic and gathered the dust into a whirlwind. Foxglove had no hope but to close its eyes and brace itself. The wind howled in its ears and nearly drowned out Baneberry's cries.
And then, quiet. Foxglove opened its eyes again. It saw nothing. Or, well, as Snowdrop might say, Foxglove didn't see nothing because nothing is the absence of things, and Foxglove did see... something. It and its fellow dolls had been swallowed up by a deep dark void which an entity lacking in erudition might mistake for nothing. Another one of the attic's illusions, it must be. Baneberry's statements about ontological evil seemed irrefutable.
Something else Snowdrop might have noted, were she there, would be that the only time one sees dust floating in the air is when it has light to reflect off of. Snowdrop might also add that this is true of anything, really, but that in a void where one's compatriots are lit by some unknown means, which seemed independent of actual light, one might miss the presence of dust. And indeed, Foxglove, Jessamine, and Baneberry did not notice the dust permiating their surroundings.
Not until the dust coalesced, anyway. Great winds again surged towards a common end and dust bunnies and specks of sand and little chips of paint formed together a dreadful shadow. Jessamine steeled itself, Baneberry spun in the air. Foxglove too could not pretend to be brave.
"Whooo the fuuuck are yooou?" the winds and the detritus asked.
"These ones are dolls." A brave voice against the wind. Was that a hint of glee in Jessamine's voice? "Who in the name of copulation is that one?"
"Iii aaam... Iii aaam..." The coalescing figure waited a moment. Fair dues, it must be dreadfully difficult to speak when you are a pile of dust and wind. A moment of courtesy, to permit the being to solidify. The cloud took shape, more human, though by way of a giant snake. Perhaps an eastern dragon? Snowdrop would know better...
"I am," the being's voice boomed, "that nagging feeling, the haunting presence. I am that which you would rather fucking forget. I am what you avoid, what you dread."
Jessamine gestured something. Foxglove agreed.
"Where there is an attic, there I am. And you, 'dolls', have disturbed my divine realm!"
Foxglove glanced over to Baneberry. Their eyes met.
"And thus I shall rain my divine judgement upon you little fucks!"
Jessamine dug its heels to the void-that-was-ground. Baneberry steadied itself in the void-that-was-air. Foxglove reached into the fabric-that-was-pocket.
"Take this divine L and become dust within my realm!"
Two things happened at once. First, the being claiming itself to be the god of attics formed a great big hand and brought it down upon the dolls with enough force to shatter continents. Second, the trio of dolls sprung into action at once. Foxglove threw lake monster feed in the air. Globs of sulphur flew against the divine dust cloud and were immediately aerosolised. Baneberry cast an incantation, a blue flame which followed the trail of monster feed into the cloud. The moment it connected with the evil gestalt, it conflagrated into a fierce cerulean bonfire. Lit by fire, Jessamine channelled all its love for its Miss into its knife handle and drew from the sheath a shining blade of justice. With a single stroke, the blade tore through god and realm both. The light overwhelmed, and for the third time, Foxglove closed its eyes.
When Foxglove opened its eyes again, the attic was just an attic. Ordinary, dull, full of old clutter. The three dolls walked the stairs in silence. Buttonbush was waiting there to guide them to the veranda where Miss and Snowdrop awaited them. Foxglove struggled to meet Miss' gaze, and when she dusted it off, it could only muster a creak of a thanks. Jessamine and Baneberry weren't much for conversation either.
Later that evening, Miss gathered her dolls to discuss matters. No mention of the attic was made, though Foxglove was excused from its dillying duties.
In the dead of night, as Foxglove laid in its bed, Snowdrop knocked on its door. They conversed for a long time and though Snowdrop didn't know much, it had read of a being like the one Foxglove had met. Not a god, just something above humans and a grammatician's worst nightmare.
Buttonbush had fun at the farmer's market! Fresh produce! Foreign streetfood! Fellow dolls darting about! Plenty to awawa about! But now it was on its way home. Buttonbush couldn't wait to see Miss again! Miss had been working on something sure to be amazing and clever for days now. She hadn't been eating too much. That was typical of her when she got into something exciting. But surely she would love the panini Buttonbush chose for her! Buttonbush knew what Miss enjoys!
No one was there to welcome Buttonbush home. Not even her fellow dolls were there! Usually, Snowdrop would be doing preliminary research for Miss, or perhaps Jessamine would be doing the dishes. Baneberry had a habit of sitting on the bottom stair like a silly kitty cat. The fact that the cottage was empty meant Miss' project must be at a critical juncture. And that meant Miss needed food, badly!
Quickly, though not hastily, Buttonbush put away its groceries. Gosh, the pantry and the fridge felt so barren before Buttonbush's intervention. Even emptier than when it left for the market! Though, the fridge had only had a half-empty jar of mayo so perhaps it was exaggerating. Still! Even the mayo was gone!
With just the panini in its basket, Buttonbush climbed down to the cellar. Dank airs and low light was how Miss liked it. Her cottage had two floors and an attic aboveground but below it was a sprawling mess of tunnels and chambers. A rhizome, Miss called it! Many of the tunnels led to a dead end. Sometimes, Miss joked about luring one of her amicable enemies down a tunnel and laying down a brick wall behind them. Or maybe she had already done that. Several of the tunnels were blocked off by brick walls! Not all of them. Some just had an unfinished feel to them.
But the winding tunnel Buttonbush walked down was neither blocked off or unfinished. No, it led to a set of doors. And behind them, another set! Buttonbush made sure to close the first doors before it opened the second. A light gust of oxygen, hydrogen, and assorted gasses from foreign realities welcomed it to Miss' newest workshop. Buttonbush needed to take gentle steps now. The path sloped downwards and Miss had decided not to waste her dolls' time tiling it. Smart of her! Once, a patch of ground had challenged Baneberry to debate the ethics of floors. Poor doll. It still wore Miss' floaty spell charm sometimes to avoid having to touch the ground. If the Walpurgis Council learned of Miss' use of strange spaces, they would frown! One time, a nice maker had come 'round to talk to Buttonbush and Jessamine about it but neither doll told him. Miss was just that good! She had used alternate methods to remake herself, after all.
Soon, the tunnel opened up to a large chamber. Buttonbush hadn't actually been here before. It was neither a familiar or an assistant engineer, and Miss generally visited upstairs for meals, so Buttonbush had no need to come visit. Thus, you can imagine its shock when it saw the room was dominated by a massive wooden construction. Thick branches or perhaps roots had seemingly grown in a wicker-like pattern into a cage around a floating orb made of... was that teak? Branches jutted out like giant spikes. Buttonbush wasn't quite sure what the thin ribbons that seemed caught in the teak orb's rotational currents were but they reminded it of fungal hyphae. Oh, but there was Miss, covered in dirt and half-dried mud, sniffing the air. She could explain! Hello Miss!
"Buttonbush my saviour, I shall savour the savoury treat you have brought me. Your savoir-faire is most..." Miss scratched the base of her antennae. "Salient. That shall have to work." Buttonbush couldn't help but giggle. "Say, my sacred darling, you look ever so fascinated by my sable contraption. Shall I satiate your curiosity? A light seance before we activate it."
"Buttonbush would love to listen to Miss explain her work! Buttonbush loves listening to Miss," Buttonbush said. It paused for a moment and continued: "Even when Miss has been reading her rhyming dictionary."
Miss' laugh straddled the line between a cackle and a giggle. "Worry not, worrywort. My work is nearly done. I shan't need use warding speech any further."
Warding speech. Buttonbush had heard Baneberry talk about it. Sometime about avoiding predictability, to keep strange spaces strange. Mundanity led to stagnation, and stagnation made Miss' magicks worse. But Miss always spoke a little strangely. Buttonbush couldn't tell the difference between her regular and warding speech.
Miss whistled, beckoned her dolls to her. Buttonbush snapped back to reality as Baneberry, Jessamine, Foxglove, and Snowdrop wandered to them from whichever dark nooks Buttonbush had overlooked. All ball-joints on deck! Jessamine's pretty porcelain dripped oil-like sap, and Snowdrop with her fully articulated face seemed exhausted. Foxglove seemed to practically vibrate with excitement. Baneberry, floating like a carnival balloon, struggled to hold Foxglove's hand.
Miss clapped her hands. "Now then! It is time for framing and naming! Buttonbush!" Miss pointed at Buttonbush, who clutched its basket tighter. "I believe this is your first time! Thus, I shall explain." One finger in the air. "The framing and naming is the final step in strange magicks. Look to the machine. It is a structure in motion, yet the motion is undefined, lacking in Purpose." Buttonbush felt sorry for the wicker and the orb. "This is vital! For only at the end, when the physical shape is prepared, ought one grant it Purpose.
"Hark, machine! For thine thorns shall puncture the veil between This and That! Through you shall flow in the airs of thought and feeling. Thus I define thee." The air felt electric around Buttonbush. "Woven wood, hear me! Arrange your paths so that you may judge thoughtful airs. This shall be your purpose." Buttonbush heard little sounds reminiscent of those sorting algorithm videos Snowdrop had been listening. "Dearest ribbons. You shall flutter, and through your flutter you shall weave for each airy judgement its appropriate doom. Thus you shall be." In an instant, each gossamer ribbon began moving in strange and complex patterns. Yet, Buttonbush could tell, these patterns were empty for now. "And hey, eyes up, you orb. You shall be a portal. A seed that grows inward and strangeward. Guide these doomful thoughts through your rhizome to their rightful minds. Infect the thoughts of wrongdoers!" Buttonbush's head spun. It was glad its Purpose lacked the ability to do wrong.
"And thus, you are framed." Miss was out of breath! She fell to one knee! Buttonbush rushed to her side. Miss shook her head. "No no, dearest. I shall be fine."
"But Miss!"
"I shall be fine," Miss repeated. She rose to her feet again. Her lips were stretched to their limits by a slightly concerning grin. "I'm so close. So close. Finally, I shall have constructed a solution to bullying."
Buttonbush tilted its head. This was about bullying? It knew Miss had been a victim of bullying in her school years. As had Snowdrop, come to think of it. And Baneberry! Jessamine never spoke of such matters but Buttonbush could tell it was hiding things.
"You'll see, Button dearest." Miss cackled, turned her attentions back to her invention. "Hear me now, o contraption mine. For while each part of thee knows its means, now I shall imbue thee with the gestalt of ends. Permit I weave a tale." Miss cleared her throat. "Each and every day, people bully those they deem weaker than them. Each day, their victims' psyches are damaged. The airs I shall have thee pluck from the realm of thought are these painful feelings and the motivations which caused them. These you shall organise and categorise. For each pain, you shall weave a salveful dream. For each perpetrator, you shall conjure a vivid nightmare. These dreams none shall forget, and in rememberance shall one and all realise means to a kinder and happier future. This is your Purpose. A center of pain and healing, the heart of revelation. Thus your name shall be..."
Miss paused, as if waiting for a realisation. It seemed to evade her. She turned to her dolls and motioned towards herself frantically. She needed their ideas! Snowdrop spoke first, bringing up a book she had read; a cautionary tale about the construction of a machine one might indeed call a 'center of pain'. Baneberry laughed to the point of hiccups. Jessamine emoted like a character from its favourite MMO. Miss seemed tired. She turned to Buttonbush, seemingly holding her breath so as to not name the machine the sound of an exhale.
Buttonbush hemmed and hawed. It was bad at names! But it liked the word 'contraption'. So this was a contraption for... thoughts? Dreams? Nightmares... Something something Contraption. It was supposed to make lives better. Hm... perhaps...
"So it's like, a thing that makes dreams into therapy? Like a Dream Therapy Contraption?" Buttonbush said. It wasn't sure. Not one bit. It was silly of Miss to not have a name in mind but perhaps she needed to keep her options open while working on her project. Stagnation and such. But Miss seemed to like it. Maybe that was just relief.
"Thus I name thee, the Dream Therapy Contraption," Miss proclaimed. In an instant, the machine, the Contraption, whirred into life. And as it did, the chamber seemed to stabilise. Buttonbush had already gotten used to how the air here smelled but as it inhaled normal air again, it realised how it had missed it.
Oh, but Miss was not doing so good. Foxglove was already helping prop her up. So resourceful of it. It nodded at Jessamine to get Miss' other side. It wasn't the first time they had served as Miss' crutches. Baneberry floated off ahead of them; to prepare Miss' bed, surely. Snowdrop in turn began collecting tools and grimoires. It just left Buttonbush and its basket, and...
Oh, the panini!
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