Mercury: Sweet Doll
Designer's Reflection: Sweet Doll
Obtained: Pinnacle Battles 3
Rarity: SSR
Attribute: Pink/Sweet
Awakened Suit: Heart Stealer
Story - transcripts from Designer's Reflection
Chapter 1 - Telosma
Chapter 2 - Night Bloom
Chapter 3 - When a Flower Withers
Chapter 4 - Dance of Withering
Story - summarized
You meet a telosma flower, and it wants to tell you about its short life.
It grew on a tree in Mercury's Moonlight Garden, and it watched a lot of dinner parties that the CEO would hold. The flower didn't understand people's politics, but the events were still pretty to watch. One night, a girl showed up late to the dinner party. She was Lilith.
Mercury took an instant liking to her and spent the rest of the party with her. Not only that, but Lilith was a candidate for the queen of Ninir, and he wanted to help her get elected. The telosma flower had no clue why, but it liked Lilith and hoped she would be queen.
But one day, Lilith asked Mercury if he loved her. He said he was just helping her for his own reasons. Lilith declared that she would win the election without him. He found that amusing, since she needed him, and no one else had ever successfully bargained with him.
Still, Lilith walked out, and Mercury needed a new candidate to support. He chose a noble-born girl named Ciciti, who was beautiful but selfish, entitled, and nasty. She wanted to get rid of all the flowers in the garden and replace them with lilies. The telosma flower hated that, as all flowers were beautiful and lovely, not just the boring lilies.
Everything seemed to be going Ciciti's way: she was gaining popularity in the polls, and she was the star of Mercury's dinner parties every night.
About a week later, right at Ciciti's proudest moment, Mercury finally arrived to the dinner party... with Lilith! The two had made some sort of arrangement, and he was back to supporting her as queen. They danced together, all the while admitting to just using each other as political tools.
The telosma flower couldn't help but find the moment sweet and romantic. It threw itself off the tree and scattered its petals, making this moment extra special.
Connections
-There are other "object" narrators in Reflections: Yexiao's drawing comes to life and shares a memory in Spring Forest.
-On the first night of the dinner party, Lilith talks with a poet and is charmed by him. During the Puppet Encounter hell event, the doll Lilibet relives all of Lilith's journey through the other toys, and she talks with a poet toy - and subsequently steals his pen to steal his talent.
-Lilith has another Reflection, Telosma's Kiss, that relates her to the humbly beautiful flower. She begins her life as Lilith and tricks her way into the Glay family.
-In Pinnacle Battles 3, Nikki and friends find an illusion of Mercury dancing with a doll dressed exactly like Lilith. When he detects the "intruders," he sends thorny roses after them instead of telosmas.
-At the end of Voice of Desire, Lilith noticed Mercury and how he was the only one not charmed by her beauty. She made a point after winning the crown that she would do whatever it took to make him love her.
-In his Reflection for Daybreak Overture, Mercury (as a child) meets a nobleman in the countryside who gifted him a beautiful rose garden after his death. Now, Mercury owns two gardens: the Pigeon Rose Garden, and the Ninir Moonlight Garden
Fun Facts
-A telosma is native to the Indo-China region. It grows on trees, and it's a small flower that can range in color from a sunny yellow to a pure white.
-While this Reflection, and the whole game, is fantasy, Mercury is still 124 years old, and Lilith is 16 years old. The age gap is disturbingly huge... and it's worse when you remember the two were acting cutesy at the dinner party in the last chapter.
-Lilith worked alongside Nightbane to become queen, so she truly didn't need Mercury. And since he mentioned that no one had ever gotten him to negotiate before, and we see the two of them at the party, it's possible that Lilith found a way to get him to negotiate after Ciciti started taking over the garden.
