Tired Doll

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.

it didn't take this long last time... last time she got stuck for a while, sure, but she was about to move beyond the first stage fairly quickly. she's already slept a few times, and the floor in front of where the door had been looks like it's been sandblasted. her poor knife. so many marks.

every other surface simply showed her reflection. nothing more, nothing less. just her as she always was.

after another second in eternity passes, she finally hears a door slide open.

pass the arrow, add a mark. pass the arrow, add a mark. pass the arrow, add a mark. pass the arrow, add a mark. pass the arrow, add a mark. pass the arrow, add a mark. pass the arrow, add a mark. pass the arrow, add a mark. pass the arrow, add a mark. pass the arrow, add a mark. pass the arrow, add a mark.

far away, long ago, Daedelus blushes.

“who... was that?” it was only half a second, and the cracks distorted the image, but that wasn't her reflection. strange.

she frowns at the mirror, willing it to open and let her see again, but it doesn't budge. after losing a staring contest to her reflection, she crouches with a sigh, and carves an arrow on the floor with the blade from her belt. she's been here before, she knows that this place will have her going in circles, so she may as well keep track. y'know, for research.

and so the Witch strode into the maze, following her own arrows, her flawless self-assuredness only slightly dinged by that strange reflection.

“who was that?”

“ughhhhh, my head... wh-where am I?” a dark room, a hard floor, cold air. smooth walls, cool to the touch, slippery like... “glass? wait...”

she curls her hand into a loose fist, flexing her fingers out sharply. “... huh?” she repeats the gesture again and again, unhappy with the results. “why isn't it...? no... no no no...” in the time she'd spent fixating on her apparent powerlessness, her eyes had adjusted to the dim light and she sees... herself. infinitely. “so it's brought us here again, then. wretched thing, I should have shattered it the last time.”

she lifts herself to her feet. feeling at her belt for her gear, she breathes a sigh of relier as her palms find themselves wrapped around small satchels and the handle of her athame.

she makes a beeline for the doorway, knowing full well that the only way out of this place is already roaming the maze. she knows she'll find her quarry, even without magic. she did so last time, she'll do it again.

as she crosses the threshold, a glint in the corner of her vision catches her eye. a cracked mirror but...

the door slams shut, dissolving seamlessly into the wall.

the wind has stopped, all is silent.

two painted eyes stare at each other from across the room, shimmering flecks of pearl white and glittering gold lie between them.

footsteps.