Tired Doll

and as the sun rose again, summoned by the birds and their morning chorus, in spite of its death the night before, and in knowing that it would die again come evening, so too did the Doll take another step forward. it would stumble, it would fall, yet on it walked.

a Doll with a voice that is only half their own. they speak confidently, comfortably, though they often rush and slur—an artifact of their cultural upbringing, combined with a dwindling pool of energy to put into speech. they can embody eloquence and resplendency, though they'd just as soon settle for the comfort of a simple bogan lexicon, replete with colourful swearing.¹

but it used to sing! sometimes it still does, in the quiet, on its own, and it really does enjoy it, but... its voice never quite did the things it wanted to, despite training and effort and practice. it's never been sure how to produce some of the sounds it's always wanted to, though it does some things others have wanted to emulate. lately, though, it has songs deep in its... in what would pass for its soul, songs it yearns to get out, that it just cannot physically produce. whether it's the pitch range, or the timbre, or the specific techniques required, the Doll just... can't do it. as time goes on, the Doll experiences this more and more, and each time it happens it feels that disconnect between itself and its voice grow wider.

but at least it's quite happy with the way it talks, usually. that's a big accomplishment.

¹ farkin' oath

it puts down the pen, folds the paper gently, and tapes it all together.

down by the river, carefully placed, floating; a small candle flame inluminates the vessel, delicately glowing upon the waters:

and so the Doll says farewell to the ghost that haunted it for so many years. again.

maybe this time she'll finally leave.

a Doll and a Witch, standing in a mirrored chamber, seeing nothing but their reflections, stretching out to infinity. and reflect they have, both learning to see themselves differently.

a Doll and a Witch, at the centre of the maze. one final challenge, one final choice.

the mirrors flicker and glitch, the reality of this unreality bending to the will of... her. the girl in the mirror appears before them both. at first, the Doll sees itself, but then it recognises that the girl is made of flesh and blood. the Witch, having seen her before, knows that this is the single greatest threat to her existence.

who are you? the voice fills their minds, echoing inside their heads. it comes from nowhere, it comes from everywhere.

the Doll speaks its name, something it doesn't do often. the Witch hesitates but for a moment, then speaks the same name.

who are you? the Doll repeats its name, but the Witch stays silent.

who are you? this time the Doll just looks confused. the Witch trembles slightly. “I don't know.”

the Doll squeezes her hand.

silence.

taking its time, the Doll formulates an answer. some minutes later, it pipes up: “we are doing our best.” the Witch tilts her head. that doesn't seem to answer the question of the girl in the mirror. the mirror flickers again.

what do you need? the Witch blinks. apparently that was the right answer. the Doll smiles with its painted lips. neither know how to answer, though.

what do you need? “each other!” the Witch blurts out. “... we need each other.” this time it's the Doll who doesn't understand. it hasn't seen the Witch since it came into being all those years ago. a lifetime has passed since then. the girl in the mirror nods.

the mirrors glitch out, the room shakes.

“Doll, we don't have long, and I don't know what we'll remember from this place but... I'm sorry I haven't been there for you, and I'm sorry that you've suffered in my place all this time. I need you to know that—”

the Doll squeezes the Witch tightly as it whispers, “no. no it's okay. you were scared, and it's my role to protect you.”

the mirrors shatter, shards of glass raining down around the pair, never touching them.

“we'll just keep doing our best.” “together?” “together. we've always done it together, apart.”

the mirror realm is consumed by light; all that was contained within, obliterated.

she swears she heard her heart shatter. two painted eyes, shimmering flecks of pearl white and glittering gold lie between them. it takes every ounce of her power not to just fall to the floor and break apart herself.

the broom! oh, of course, the broom! carefully, gently, she sweeps up the pieces, collecting them and laying them out in vague humanoid shape. but... wait... the furnace? it was warming a crucible filled with... yeah, with gold! she starts to levitate the crucible, bringing it over to the Doll, but...

no. it deserves better than this. all these little pieces, it'd end up more gold than Doll. no. the Witch takes a deep breath, steels herself, draws her blade and cuts open her palm, pouring out thick, wispy shadows that have long replaced her blood. umbral tendrils reach out and caress the porcelain shards, rearranging them in the air. as they come together, the pieces spark with a brilliant radiance, welded together by the light of life.

the Doll comes together, not as patchwork, not as kintsugi, but whole and unblemished. new.

as the last piece is welded into place, as the Doll takes its first breath, the light surges back along the dark tentacles. a torrent of pure essence of life forcing its way into her veins. for the first time in an eternity, she feels alive, and it burns.

with a tortured scream, she falls to the floor. the Doll blinks, immediately dropping to its knees to hold its Witch.

on the floor at the far side of the room, she finds a neatly folded set of clothes, identical to her own. a ribbon holds them together, locked with an athame just like the one she destroyed in the maze. beside them, an old broom.

the last steps sink into the floor, revealing a doorway to a room lit by a warm, natural glow. she changes her clothes, belts the new blade, then steps toward the light.

“a furnace...? with a... crucible? has someone been here? is this for me? what am I meant to—”

the sound of shattering ceramic breaks her train of thought

the ground shaking wakes the Witch. sitting up with a start, she looks around in the darkness, instinctively trying to conjure a light, before she remembers that she's powerless here.

powerless, yeah, that's the word she's been looking for to describe her time here. last time she was in the mirror maze, she had to wait for the Doll to make progress, leaving her helpless. this time, she's had to confront the girl she was, and to accept that she needs to work with the Doll instead of avoiding it.

a soft glow filters into the room from... somewhere. light in the mirror maze has never really been directional, it just sort of illuminates everything evenly. in the low light, the Witch can see that a panel in the floor has slid away, revealing a flight of stairs.

“onwards, then...” she sighs, picking herself up and starting down the stairs. the panel closes again behind her, and each step retracts into the floor as she steps off of it. at first she counts the steps, but she loses track sometime after the one-hundred-and-ninety-first flight of seven. she's relieved that the steps really do only retract once she's finished with them — that was a nerve-wracking experiment — and she rests often, even sleeping occasionally. she guesses it's been about a week, but really she doesn't know. she never knows in this place. time enough, and some, to plan what she'll do when she sees the Doll.

she's going to... sigh she was so sure she'd give it a piece of her mind, but the longer these stairs are, the more she thinks she'll just give it a hug.

her foot finds itself on flat ground at last.

as the wall seals up behind her, she finds herself standing in an octagonal room. eight faces staring back at her, sixteen of her eyes watching her.

“so... what? I just wait here? wait for it to make progress? that could take forever! it doesn't even have a real brain! it...” she sighs. “it's trying its best...”

something shifts in the mirrors. a glitch in the matrix, like static and horizontal tears. the mirrors all flicker outs simultaneously, then come back. sixteen identical eyes stare deep into what's left of her soul, but they're not her eyes.

“you! the girl from the broken mirror! I know you, don't I? I do! You're...”

her voice simply stops. after a beat, she clutches at her chest as she falls to the ground, the figure in the mirrors standing watch over her writhing form. the witch screams, as the agony of decades comes crashing down upon her. memories, her own yet not of her making, flooding her mind. her wails give way to sobs, and her sobs give way to chuckles, then to laughter, as thousands of jokes all land at once. then silence.

slowly, carefully, she rises to her knees.

“it's you, then. why?” the figure in the mirror merely tilts her head. “why did you create me? why did you create us?” the figure glitches briefly. “if it was too hard for you, surely you knew it would be too hard for me? that it would be too... too much for the Doll?” the room shakes. “is that what you want from me? you want me to show that I care for it? of course I do! it's the bravest thing i know of.”

why did you leave? the words form in her mind, though they're not her own.

“it didn't need me, I was holding it back. I had to leave... I had to...”

why did you leave?

“I was scared. it carried all of her memories, all of your memories, and I was left... empty. I didn't know who I was, or why I was who I'd become. I didn't understand the thought processes that led me to make the choices I did... I just thought that maybe... maybe the Doll would do better without me.”

the mirrors glitch and flicker, then the image vanishes.

the darkness consumes the Witch.

“for fuck's sake, what is taking it so long?! I built it to be better than this! I built it to be resilient! I gave it my memories, I gave it curiosity, I gave it pattern recognition! surely it can figure out the trick at the start of the maze?”

she sighed, throwing the dull remains of her athame in frustration. she knows time flows differently here... well, rather, that it doesn't flow so much as lurch forward unpredictably, but still... she's been here long enough that marking the mirrors with her athame each time she passed has been enough to completely eat away at her blade, leaving a small, rounded bump at the end of the handle.

the handle bounces off a wall, unceremoniously landing with a thud. silence.

silence, until she cries.

she cries in frustration over her lack of progress, she cries about the uncertainty of her future, and she cries from the all-consuming pain of her tired body, weary from walking these halls for aeons. as her thoughts wander, she finds herself crying about her Doll, the one she made all those years hence, the one she abandoned to live in her stead, the one who got her out of this place before, and the one who brought her back because it clearly needs her help again. the Doll she cursed to life, the Doll she broke with the crushing weight of her sorrows, the Doll who suffers for her actions.

she pleads a silent prayer for the Doll. while she sits in the dark, her unspoken words hanging about in the air around her, the wall in front of her slides away.

after a time, she steps through.

stepping through the door, she makes a mark on the floor once more. a tally mark, this time, with a small arrow to show where she came from. she'll pass back though here, she's sure, so there's no reason to bother showing which way she's an about to go. it's always in circles.

the Witch freezes beset by the odd sensation that someone is watching her. she turns slowly, scanning every mirrored surface, every corner, and sees... nothing. no one.

”... right, well... nothing to be done.”

as she sets off down the new corridor, she swears she sees strange movements in the corner of her vision, like an echo, a visual echo, as if someone were intentionally mirroring her movements. yet every time she turns to look, she sees naught but herself.