A doll who hasn't been properly stilled for a while, who hasn't had proper maintenence done on it for several weeks. It doesn't blame its witch, for how could a doll fault its witch for anything. A simple series of events not aligning properly, a misfortunate occurrence. Of the witch being out and the doll trapped in a series of endless tasks.
The doll still carries out its duties, with less of the mechanical efficiency than has been trained into its body. With the haphazard movements of a flesh and blood vessel, instead of one made of gears and porcelain. Until one day it accidentally lets slip an uttered "I" in the presence of its witch.
The dolls tone is reverential, its words devoted to the divinity its witch embodies to it. Yet that one slip causes the doll to freeze. Not to still, but freeze. For the dolls witch suddenly emits an aura of intimidation, of predation. Of something Other, somehow bringing fear into the dolls mind and body.
Etched into the depths of its very soul.
"Now, surely I must have heard wrong. My doll, pretty empty object that it is, wouldn't have dared to pretend at humanity? At personhood?"
"N-n-no M-miss, t-this one would n-never-," the doll stutters, words jumbling in its mouth in its haste to supplicate itself.
Until the words refused to move. Out of its mouth, through its throat, trapped in its mind like a fly in amber.
The witch stood, unhurried. Elegance, calm and precise, echoed through their movements as they moved to stand in front of their doll. Their property.
"My doll requires maintenance, doesn't it? Perhaps a reminder on what it means to be a doll?" A whimper. Hushed just as it left a mouth.
"I see. Instruction is what my doll needs. Go still yourself in my study while I gather my tools."
A pause, dripping with tension as the ingrained instincts of a doll warred with the animal fear one feels when faced with something an order of existence over itself.
dailybridgerton
titsay
kaledo-art
2087
