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It's just turned Autumn, which means that Doll is catching up on all of the things that she couldn't catch up on over the past season. The Summer Court's Quartermaster is going through the cabin that she and her husband -- one of the Summer Regent's two second-in-commands -- share in the Freehold Hollow. There are piles of what look like clothing and bedding and all sorts of things arrayed outside the door: stoneware bowls and multicolored quilts, and from within the cottage itself comes a rummaging sound, followed by a woman's voice:
"Peter! I cannot find the leather oil, Peter! Where did you put it? I cannot clean your pauldrons without it, Peter!"
It doesn't sound like yelling, just like someone turned the volume up very loud on someone talking.
A few seconds later, a short woman with black hair braided into a single long braid hanging down between her shoulderblades, wearing a black t-shirt which says CLEVER SLOGAN on it in white print and a pair of cut-off jeans, emerges from the cottage. "Peter!"
She pauses and props her hands on her hips. "Well, I will tell you that I am cross with you later, Peter Wood. You were not supposed to leave yet. I know you were trying to avoid me cleaning. I will tell you later that I am cross." And huffs.
Ylva is sitting on one of the nearby tables working, having visited her shop last night she is doing some work on her tablet that someone needed help with on her tablet.
She isnt wearing anything today, just a black Kitsune with long white hair braided half way down her back.
Her head tilts up as Doll walks out, a half smile on her face. A gentle wave.
The way that Doll moves is both incredibly graceful and terribly mechanical, as if she were programmed by an excessively detailed clockmaker. She pivots on the balls of her feet as if about to jete and leap her way across a stage, but instead just... walks over towards Ylva and sits down across the table from her. Up close, it's easier to see the ball joints of her shoulders and ankles, the hinge joints at her porcelain elbows and knees, the hinge that allows her jaw to move, the lines around her eyelids and the crystalline lines in her bright blue eyes. She folds her hands together on the table with a soft click-click-click like fine china being stacked up in a cupboard. "Hello. My name is Doll Wood. Only Peter is allowed to call me Dolly. I know who you are. You are Ylva. You are new. I have not met you. What is your favorite color and your favorite food?" All of these words come out neatly and carefully, as if she is reaching into drawers in a cabinet and pulling out the words, stacking them up with deliberate precision.
Ylva looks a bit taken back as she speaks. Slowly closing her tablet before making a little eye contact with Doll.
Another wave as she starts to speak. "Hiya." She stops again, not quite sure what to say. "Black, though that isnt a color its a shade and after that its probably Punk Pink."
Biting her lip she pauses for a moment before continuing. "If you know who I am im going to say that you know what my favorite food is." a sigh.
Doll raises her hand and mirrors Ylva's wave precisely. It doesn't seem to be on purpose, just... something she does without thinking about it. "I think black can be a color if you want it to be. I do not care about those rules, I just want to know if you need clothing in the future which color it should be by preference." Her bright blue eyes roll up and down in their sockets as she looks Ylva over, and she doesn't ask a size.
"That is not an appropriate food, so I cannot make that food for you when you are hungry," she answers rather precisely. "You should talk to Liane, she used to eat people starting with the liver when she was a constellation. Now she is nice but sometimes she is very sad but she pretends that she is not sad because she is supposed to be only very scary. A lot of Autumns are like that I think. But also you should tell me your favorite appropriate food." No words get emphasis, she just says them all as if all the words have exactly the same importance.
"Pink and black are my go to for my skirts and black for my jacket."
Her eyes follow Doll's as those eyes look over her. "I would if I could, I can tell you what used to be my favorite food if you would like to know that, though I now cant stand it?"
It doesn't look like it should be possible for her to frown, because her lips are painted on porcelain, but still, somehow, she frowns. "Do you not like food at all unless it is the inappropriate food?" Doll asks. "Does everything taste bad to you now? Or is it just that you do not know what your favorite food is now?"
Ylva furrows her lips at that. "Everything not meat tastes bad, everything meaty but not Lost tastes bland, like unflavored muesli bars. Calories but not tasty."
"My favorite food used to be Waffles made by my Wife on a Monday morning after a Weekend long Tattoo convention."
"Oh yes context is often very important to the enjoyment of food. Peter says that the food that I make for him tastes like love, but that is very silly because love does not actually have a flavor. Then he told me that what he meant is that contextually the Boston eclair cake tastes better when I make it because he knows that I made it even though I do not like Boston eclair cake that much." A pause. "Do you get to see your wife anymore?"
Sometimes it becomes apparent why one of the sentences Peter says most often is Jesus, Doll.
There is a smile on her face as she listens to Doll talk, a smile at having that relation again. Then she gets to the end of the sentence and it leaves her face completely a shake of her head.
"No, ive seen her once since I got back. It almost didnt end well."
Doll's little frown smooths right back out and she watches Ylva, her head tipping just slightly to the side, ever-so-precisely. "Maybe that is the context for why food does not taste good anymore. Maybe it is not that it is not the inappropriate food, but that you are not eating it with her. I do not think that I would enjoy eating any food at all if I could not see Peter without it making me sad." A beat. "What happened when you went to see her?"
Ylva tilts her head in the opposite direction, a frown growing on her face as Doll talks. A lifted eye brow as she herself begins to talk. "I eat people Doll, what do you think happened. A half mad Gristlegrinder that had just eaten her way out of the Hedge, through the Thorns and then tried to go to work and ate her client."
She sighs trying to remain calm. "Sorry, its not you im upset at, its." She gestures vaguely at herself and at the Hollow. "Everything."
A breath and she continues. "I snapped, trying to eat her and my assistant, before Aksel managed to grab me and get me out before I did anything, too, horrifying." (edited)
"If I knew what happened I would not ask. I do not ask useless questions, I only ask questions that are useful. Maybe you saw your Fetch and it made you angry, maybe she thought you were dead and she screamed, I do not know what happened, that is why I asked." She pauses for a moment. "Did you eat a person in Philadelphia? Did you tell Winter that you ate a person? They like to know if someone ate a person." Her white fingers unfold and fold again with a click-click-click, the subtle soft sound of a teacup in a saucer.
"If you are upset with me that is okay also. I do not have Social Filters. Peter says they took them out in Arcadia but I do not remember anything from before so I do not know if I ever had them." She pauses. "Well, Aksel did a good thing also. Was the eating a person a different day?"
"Maybe a Fetch would make it easier, no, no Fetch for me."
A pause as she thinks back. "I think so, Aksel said he took care of it. It was the same day, the day I got back, I tried to go back to work, was late for an appointment, ate said client and then wandered out to the lobby, right as Aksel walked in."
Doll takes a deep breath in and lets it out; it sounds somewhat papery, as if a brown paper lunch bag is inflating and deflating inside her chest. "You and Aksel should tell Winter about that, and probably Autumn also because Queen Alexis will want to know about that, even if Aksel said he took care of it. It is good that it is not Summer anymore because if Devon found out that something like that happened and nobody told anybody he would get very much yelly and no one really enjoys it when Devon gets very yelly, he will stare at you with his one good eye and then you wish to die and fall into the ground."
"I do not have a Fetch either, I think probably that is better in the long run."
Ylva nods her head. "Okay, I will do that then, still learning all the do's and don'ts."
A little chuckles as she talks about Devon before returning to serious topics.
"Im not sure. It makes it harder to let go when that would be the easier route. When she misses me but doesnt understand why she cant see me right now."
"I suppose that is true. But in the future when you are more stable, when you are referring to your eating people in the past tense rather than the present tense, you will not have to deal with a facsimile made out of trash and a sliver of your soul and bargaining with her for a place in your wife's life, or having to try to subsume her or kill her or any of the other options of dealing with a Fetch." Doll blinks slowly, her porcelain eyelids rising and falling with a click-click, and she reaches out to put her hand briefly on Ylva's arm, if permitted to do so. It only lasts a moment, if allowed at all, before her hand draws back again.
Ylva flinches back from the contact. "Sorry."
As she continues talking there is a sadness to her voice. "Maybe then itll be easier, now its just hurting my loves and easing their pain would be nice." (edited)
She folds her hands together. "I am the one who is sorry, I did not ask. I am going to look at your brain now, and that I will not ask about because that is part of my job. I am sorry if that disturbs you. Glitch says I am looking at your brain power levels, I will not see any private thinking." Doll blinks again, click-click. "It is always difficult when you are first back. Everyone struggles in their own way."
"Okay, im, okay." She looks and sounds uncertain but doesnt feel the need to push against it.
"What was your struggle when you first got back ?" (edited)
"I need to fix the damage that you did to your brain when you ate that vampire," Doll says in the same tone she's been using the entire time, no rise or fall in her volume or intonation whatsoever. Just words stacked up in front of her like boxes on a table. "That requires me to touch your hand for a moment. Please allow me to do this because this is my job. I cannot do it without being permitted to briefly touch you."
She blinks again -- click-click! -- and continues, "I have complete and total amnesia. I was able to escape because my Keeper threw me out. I lay in the waste pile with all of the dolls that were actually broken and did not work at all anymore. When I first came back I could not sleep at all without waking up screaming and begging the broken dolls to stop staring at me because it was not my fault they were broken beyond repair."
Ylva places on fist on the table, claws digging into her palms with the other firmly holding the table. A nod. "Proceed. And thankyou."
She tilts her head watching Doll speak. "It seems waking screaming is a universal feature of coming back." She doesnt speak further on it but seems intrigued.
"Not for everybody. Peter did not do it, or so I am told. He had been out for a while before I met him. I actually just walked out of the Thorns and fell over right in front of him. It was very lucky for me that he happened to not just be the first person I saw but also he is the most handsome and kind and gentle man that has ever existed. He is not the smartest man, but I am not the smartest woman so that is okay. There is a lid for every pot and he is mine." And somewhere in the middle of all of that, Doll's hand touches Ylva's very briefly. Her mind unclouds instantly, and the skin on the back of Doll's arm cracks audibly, as well as the skin on her cheek, spiderwebby and dark. "But for many of us, we scream when we wake up, we scream when we are awake. But sooner or later we become who we are instead of who they made us. Either that or we die. That is just how it is."
"That is adorable. I have tried to eat the first few people ive been attracted to since being back." At the contact her whole body tenses and her claws dig into her own palm just a little past healthy. When her mind unclouds she tilts her head at the marks on Doll. "Sorry, I hope that you can, heal from that."
"I scream when I sleep, when I wake and whenever I lose time I usually come back screaming at whats happened."
She waves a hand dismissively, and there's a swirl of her Mantle -- Doll's Summer Mantle is strong, and smells like the row of food trucks at a county fair, all fried dough and fatty meats, the scent of sun-baked grass and the warmth of late August, but late August in the shade down by a creek -- as her body heals itself. "I used to be Spring, and I know a few things still from when I was in Spring, before I learned how to understand my anger instead of being afraid of it all the time." Her cheek and arm smooth out like nothing ever happened at all. "Generally speaking, if you keep trying to eat people, then people will become very upset about that. Especially if you eat people because you like them. I am very concerned about you, Ylva, even though I have just met you. I do not want you to have big problems, because you seem nice and like you are trying to be kind even though you are sad and hungry all the time."
She smiles inquisitively at the Mantle. "Ah yeah, courts, I should really work on that some time."
Chewing at her finger she continues speaking wiping clean the blood from her palm with her other hand.
"To be fair, Vampire Patty was my first slip up in a few weeks."
"You should before you run out of time," agrees Doll solemnly. "Devon gets very yelly about courts. Basically he has three modes, killing things appropriately, yelling about things which are inappropriate, and drinking beer." She ticks off the modes on her fingers, little click click clicks. "Oh, and also asleep I guess. So that would be four modes." She blinks again, click-click! "I accept this, but I am still concerned. Concern is my job."
"Ive narrowed it down to two options which is like half the options. That is a good start right ?" She chuckles looking up before continuing. "Concern sounds like a stressful job."
She pauses. "That is a very good start, actually. Which are your two options that you think might be good?" Doll shrugs slightly, oddly liquid for such a fixed body. "I am not stressed out by it, but when I am, Peter pats my head until I go to sleep."
"My current thoughts are Spring and Autumn, trying to figure out which would be better without being swayed by the court of those that I enjoy spending time with."
She smiles blushing a little. "That sounds nice."
"It is very nice. He is warm. It is like being a lizard laying on a sun rock, I think. I do not know for sure, because I have never been a lizard, but Peter is very warm." She pauses. "Well, if you make the wrong choice, you can always change. I did. And maybe it is not even the wrong choice, maybe it is just that later you will be a different person because you changed and you grew." Doll continues on, "Why Spring? Why Autumn?"
"I miss being able to fall asleep in a bed and wake up with someone next to me." She forces a smile. "One day."
Tilting her head she speaks again. Trying her best to look past it. "Autumn does a lot of Hedge side stuff which is something im quite good at and im interested in learning more about the things that go bump in the night and how they work. Since coming back ive learned that we exist, Vampires exist and Mages are real. Its so intruiging."
She tries to reach into the pocket of her jacket before remembering she isnt wearing it. "I have dealt with addiction and pleasure and stuff long before Ardcadia and I was told it would be nice to have a spring with that experience who still maybe has some issues, to be able to help people with theirs might be able to help me with mine?"
"Why can you not do that now with someone that you like that is not your wife? We can control our sleep and our own dreams, and maybe if you shared your Bastion with someone who you trusted, you might be able to address the root of some of the issues you have with food. And in any case you can control your dreams if you want to, and learn now to not wake up screaming and staring at the eyes of the dead dolls. We can all control our dreams, but that is a skill that needs practice." Click-click, she blinks and blinks. "Both of those are good assessments. Do you think that you maybe like one better than the other? Are you hanging on to just have options?"
"Because as Vorpal put it, 'Sleeping in a bed with a reforming cannibal is a good way to not wake up again.'" She shrugs. "My dreams are messy and meaty and they are next on my to do list. I would like to learn how to control mine, to be less Durance and memory than they are now. That or nightmare's of things that might happen."
She cracks her fingers getting a little fidgety. "I dont know, im hanging on to not be wrong and to be sure that my, whatever the fuck they are, with Laura and Vorp arent affecting my judgement. I havent met many Springs."
"Yes, if you are not sharing each other's sleep. Vorpal should learn more about Bastions and shared dreaming if she thinks that this is the only way. Dream therapy is often easiest when sleeping next to someone. But you must do what makes you feel more comfortable, and of course Vorpal has her own boundaries and maybe those are not just her boundaries." Doll clicks her fingers together thoughtfully. "It must be difficult to have to have so many wives and husbands, Peter is exactly enough." She nods once, sharply. "I think you should make a decision and then you can change it later. There is no such thing as wrong about seasons, you can always change." And then she stands up. "I have to go and finish my chores now, I cannot stay any longer and talk with you about seasons. Laura and Vorpal are very nice but you should also talk to Springs. I think you already made a decision though and you are just afraid."
"Which maybe is a good reason to be Autumn because your fear is making your decision instead of you and Autumn will teach you about that. Anyway, I have to go now, it was nice to meet you, okay, bye!"
"Lots of learning to be done. And I suppose that is fair."
She smiles a bit taken back but happy none the less.
"It was nice to meet you and thank you for taking the time to talk. Have a good night."
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