Her partner blinked groggily up at her, hands still clutching the blankets up to its chin. It yawned too, shifting as it stretched under the sheets, then finally pushed itself up into a sitting position.
"G'morning," Felicia mumbled back. It clumsily rubbed its eyes, then reached for a tissue and blew its nose. "You're up early. Sleep okay?"
Ira didn't answer. After a few moments of silence, Felicia blinked more sleep out of its eyes and looked over to see Ira just watching it.
"Huh? You good?" Felicia started to ask, but Ira was already shaking her head, her lips ever-so-slightly compressed.
"No," Ira mused, more to herself than to Felicia. "No, that's not what I want right now."
Felicia was too lethargic to react when Ira reached behind its head and grabbed a handful of hair, hard. It gasped, an instinctual wince only heightening the pain and forcing it more awake faster than it would've liked.
"I want to see my little toy this morning," Ira stated, her gray eyes boring into Felicia's.
"Wait, Ira, I—" Felicia felt the physical panic spike through its chest and abdomen at the same time that a tingle of excitement gathered in the back of its head.
"No. You aren't who I'm talking to right now, are you, Felicia?" Ira's tone was as hard as her gaze. "I'm talking to that cute little doll in there. The one who wants to come out and greet me properly."
"Ira, wait, wai—waih, I," Felicia's vision was turning fuzzy, its eyes unfocusing in defiance of its attempts to maintain control.
"Shhhh." Ira's voice was gentler now, though her grip on Felicia's hair had only tightened. "It's ok, Felica. Just relax. Go back to sleep. You're not needed right now. Doll, sweetie, you want to say good morning to me, don't you?"
"Mnnnah," came the noise from the throat that felt less and less like Felicia's.
"Yeah, I thought so." Ira's smile, or at least what little Felicia could still see of it, was wide and knowing. "Push Felicia back down for me and come say hi. Now."
"Nng." With one final noise of complaint, Felicia's eyelids fluttered rapidly, and a shudder ran from its hips to its shoulders. Then, its chest heaving as it took a deep breath, it completely relaxed, almost going limp in Ira's grasp.
it blinked a few times, much more alert and deliberate than the tired blinks Felicia had taken just minutes ago. When its gaze found Ira's smile, it beamed back and sat up as straight as it could, seemingly unaffected by the pain in its scalp.
"good morning, Owner!" The words were carefully enunciated, much more chipper than anything Felicia had said. Even its eyes were more clearly focused, wide and fixated entirely on Ira's face.
"There we are. Good morning, little thing." Ira's smile relaxed, but didn't lessen. She tugged the knot of hair in her hand, and smiled even wider as the doll gasped in delight.
