“Okay, let’s try this one more time. What day is it today?” Mari asks calmly.
“It’s Christmas day, Miss!” A doll with long, scruffy, blonde hair answers.
“...But that’s what you told me when I asked you st night.”
“Indeed it was. Merry Christmas, Miss!”
“Urgh… I didn’t get enough sleep for this…”
It’s the day after Mari’s te night dollmaking escapades, and her newest doll, Adeline, has already proven to be quite a handful. The decorations in the workshop seem to have had an effect on the doll, causing it to become completely infatuated with the holiday season, to the point that its perception of the current date is completely warped. Mari has set the doll up in one of the bedrooms with a sewing machine and the materials it needs to create clothes for the current and future dolls, but its first attempt, while quite well made, isn’t what she asked for.
“Okay, let's talk about this then.” Mari holds up a bright red and green outfit that wouldn’t be out of pce being worn by an elf taking photos of Santa at a shopping mall. “I asked you to recreate some of the outfits the other dolls have been wearing as a test run, how did it turn out like this? I don’t even think I bought any fabrics in these colours.”
Adeline shrugs. “Christmas spirit?”
“Even if you’re telling the truth, that just raises more questions…” Mari sighs, bringing a hand to her brow. The worst part is that she can’t entirely discount it as a possibility, considering magic is involved.
“Okay fine, whatever…” She says, putting the outfit back on the desk. “Tell you what, I’ve got some other things I wanted to get done today, so I’m just gonna let you get back to work, but can you try to make a regur outfit this time?”
“Okey dokey, Miss!”
“Great, I’ll be in the study if you need anything.” Mari says before heading out the bedroom door.
“Oh, one more thing, Miss!” Adeline calls out, prompting Mari to stop and turn back to the doll.
“What is it?”
“Merry Christmas!” It says with a wave.
“...Sure.” Is all Mari says in response as she closes the door behind her.
She leans against the opposing wall for a few moments, taking a deep breath. Mari didn’t sleep very well st night thanks to a variety of factors, so she’s not particurly pleased about immediately running into problems with the new doll. She’s going to do her best to get to bed early tonight, but she also wants to spend time today practising her magic, especially since yesterday proved she still has a long way to go, so she needs to hold out for the time being and not let any of this get to her. She picks herself back up after her brief moment of rest, and starts heading towards the study to get to work.
“Hey Miss!” Naomi calls out from the ground floor of the lobby.
“What’s up?” Mari asks, leaning against the bannister as she looks down at the doll.
“This one and Leona have finished packing all the decorations that were in the workshop! Where should we put the boxes?”
“Oh, thanks for that. The two of you have been cleaning out a couple of the empty rooms downstairs, right? Just put them in one of those for now.”
“Sure thing, Miss!” Naomi says before running back in the direction of the basement.
“At least some work’s still getting done.” Mari quietly says to herself as she enters the study. It’s a shame the pn with the decorations didn’t work out, but at least it means they’ll have plenty of stuff to use when December actually rolls around.
Now free of distractions, she’s free to start getting some practice in. She’s not exactly in the right mental state to be learning anything new today, so she simply focuses on getting more time in with some of the spells she’s already been learning, seemingly oblivious to the unusual chill that starts to linger in the air after a while. It’s not until an hour or so ter, when it’s grown cold enough for Mari to feel the need to rug up, that she finally takes notice.
It’s strange, it’s not the right time of year for it to be getting quite this cold, especially so fast. She’s also not sure how it’s gotten this cold inside the house. She’s been here long enough that she would have noticed already if this sort of thing was an issue, to the point that she’d assumed magic was being used to keep the pce at a decent temperature. It couldn’t have anything to do with the core, right? She never actually touched the thing.
Before she can think on the issue any further, a wave of emotions hits her like a brick wall. All of a sudden she’s filled with overwhelming feelings of dread and emptiness, and while she can’t say she’s entirely unfamiliar with these sensations, she’s very aware of the fact that they aren’t actually coming from her. It’s just like that other time a few weeks ago.
“This… is Adeline, isn’t it…” Mari thinks aloud.
She feels her face start to get even colder, and realises that tears have started pouring from her eyes, even though she’s not crying herself. On a different day she might have been able to handle this better, but between the ck of sleep and her already worsened emotional state from the nightmares she’s been having, this new development is already starting to wear her down. It’s been a long time since she’s felt anything quite like this and she can’t say she ever wanted to feel like this again, so without even taking a moment to check where the emotions are coming from she leaves the study and walks back over to the bedroom Adeline has been stationed in.
Mari opens the door, and sees the doll on the bed in the corner of the room, curled up against the walls. The chilling sensation is even stronger in here.
“What’s going on, Adeline?” She asks as she walks over.
“I-It’s n-nothing.” It answers, shivering profusely. “T-This one knows that Miss would r-rather spend time with its s-sisters anyway.”
“What are you talking about? And why is it so cold in here?”
“This one u-understands… This one knows that M-Miss likes the other d-dolls more than this one. N-No need for Miss to w-worry...” The doll says as everything starts getting even colder, and the emotions being sent in Mari’s direction grow more intense.
“Did something happen? What makes you think that? G-God it’s getting cold in here…” Mari excims, starting to shiver herself.
But Mari’s questions are met with silence.
“Adeline… p-please… t-talk to me...” It’s getting harder for Mari to distinguish between Adeline’s emotions and her own, did she actually start crying herself at some point? Either way, the doll’s not responding to her and it’s too cold to stay in here any longer, so she uses her jump spell to escape out into the hallway to take a moment to figure out what to do.
She rests against the wall in the hallway once more, only this time she doesn’t have it in her to stay on her feet and ends up on the ground instead. It isn’t quite as bad in the hallway, but not by much. She needs to do something about this fast, but between the cold and these emotions she can barely think right now, let alone do anything.
Mari’s starting to get quite concerned about how quickly this happened, and why the hell does it keep getting colder? This is much worse than what happened the st time a doll had a breakdown, and Mari doesn’t have a clue what could have happened for it to have ended up like this. All she did was ask it to make some more outfits, and then she left Adeline on its own when-
Wait, is that what did it? Mari sighs deeply. It would make sense considering everything else that doll has going on. It’s at least worth a shot, especially since she doesn’t have any other ideas anyway. She calls out for the other dolls, and it doesn’t take long for Naomi and Leona to come running.
“Miss, are you okay!?” Naomi asks upon seeing the state she’s in.
“N-No t-time…” She says, the cold clearly taking a toll on her. “G-get those d-decorations… P-Put them up in t-there…”
Raising a shaky hand and pointing in the direction of Adeline’s room is about all she can manage at the moment, but the dolls get right to work, bringing the boxes of decorations upstairs and putting as much of it up in the bedroom as they can. Slowly but surely, Mari starts to feel a bit better as the room fills up with fshing lights and sparkly ornaments. Having to keep these decorations up all year round will be a bit of a pain, but at least it’s contained to a single room she doesn’t need to go in all that often, and it’s more than worth it if it means she doesn’t have to go through this a second time. After a while she’s finally able to get up again, although she’s still freezing and emotional, and walks inside to sit on the bed next to Adeline.
“H-Hey, look at all these decorations we’ve put up.” She says. “Are you ready to t-talk now?”
Adeline shifts its head slightly to look around the room, but it still doesn’t say anything, and goes back to how it was afterwards. Mari sighs as she looks at the still shivering doll, and all the decorations the other two have put up. Maybe this isn’t enough, but there’s barely any space left in here for more, what else can they do? She thinks back to those warm, comfortable Christmas nights spent at Cassanda’s pce, and one thing in particur sticks out to her.
“L-Leona, I’ve got a very important j-job for you.” She says, turning to the doll who looks over with mild apprehension.
“Yes, Miss?”
“I need you to G-Go downstairs and make some hot c-chocote for Adeline. Can you d-do that for me?” Mari doesn’t really trust either of the dolls unsupervised with the microwave just yet, but desperate times call for desperate measures.
“Okay, this one will try.” It says before running off.
Mari’s left with some time to think as she sits there shivering, quietly watching Naomi, who only grows more colourful by the day thanks to all the stickers affixed to it, take care of the st few decorations. Leona was acting a bit strange there, wasn’t it? Now that she thinks about it, she’s barely even seen the doll since she yelled at it yesterday, and she’s pretty sure that exchange just now is the first thing it’s said to her since then as well. She sighs. Adeline’s probably not the only source of these bad vibes, is it?
Mari also notices a half sewn, bck garment on the desk, and she’s pretty sure it’s going to be a shirt when it’s done. It looks like Adeline had managed to start on something less festive before whatever all of this is began.
Leona returns to the room before too long, carrying a tray with two steaming hot mugs.
“T-Thanks for that Leona. Look at this, Adeline, we’ve got s-something for you.”
Leona holds the tray out in front of the newer doll, who eyes one of the mugs for a few seconds before reaching out and grabbing it. Adeline takes a sip, and Mari can immediately feel the effects as the doll’s eyes light up a bit. She’s still cold, but the air around her is warming up, and her thoughts are becoming clear again. She breathes a deep sigh of relief as the shivers come to a stop.
“There we go, are you feeling better now?” She asks the doll.
“Uh huh…” Adeline says quietly before taking another sip. “Thanks for the hot chocote.”
“Great, if you get like that again make sure you tell me or one of the other dolls. Someone will make you more, it’ll be much better than whatever was going on in here.” Adeline simply nods in response. It’s still a far cry from the doll’s previous demeanour, but a solid improvement from a few minutes ago nonetheless.
Mari turns back to Leona, taking note of the second mug. “Did you make an extra one for yourself?”
“No…” It answers as it moves the tray towards her. “Miss is cold too… right?”
“Oh… Thank you Leona, I wasn’t expecting that.” Mari grabs the mug and takes a sip herself.
Bleh. There’s way too much cocoa in here. But it’s still drinkable, and very warm, which is exactly what she needs right now.
“Hey, Leona…” she starts, looking down into the mug, “sorry for yelling at you like that yesterday. I was stressed out, and really scared, but I shouldn’t have done it.”
“It’s okay, Miss. This one understands.” It replies with a weak smile.
“No, it’s not okay. I have to do better than that… I have to do better than her…”
“Is everything alright, Miss?”
Mari blinks a few times before looking at the doll. “Sorry, don’t worry about it. I’m not going to let that happen again, okay? You and Naomi can go make yourself some of this if you want.”
“Thank you, Miss.” Leona smiles as Naomi quietly jumps around behind it, and Mari feels like a small weight has been lifted from her. Seems like she was right about Adeline not being the only doll who needed something today.
The two dolls leave, and Mari notices that Adeline has sat itself up on the side of the bed, now sipping its hot chocote next to her. Mari closes her eyes for a moment and takes a deep, peaceful breath.
This weekend has been a whole lot for Mari. She wouldn’t say any part of moving in here has exactly been easy so far, but the past two days in particur have had a lot of obstacles and distractions, and they’ve been much more intense than everything that’s come before. She’s going to need to look into a lot of what’s happened, but she doesn’t feel like she’s up for it today, so she’ll just go back to the study for more practice when she’s done here. She has to admit though, a quick break like this with a warm drink every now and then isn’t so bad.
…She’d like to make the hot chocote herself next time though.
Enjoying the peace and quiet, Mari pulls out her phone and opens up a spreadsheet she created the other day, simply titled “The Doll Chart”:
Name:
Naomi - General purpose
Problems:
Needs to be involved
Spirals when things go badly
Solutions:
Stickers
Lemonade popsicles
Name:
Leona - General purpose
Problems:
Self deprecating
Tries too hard to help
Solutions:
Time with the boy
Lemonade popsicles
Name:
Adeline - Clothing
Problems:
Jealous(?) of other dolls
Cold?
Do NOT remove decorations from its room
Solutions:
Christmas (in general or specific parts?)
Test the popsicles on a warmer day
SyntaxSpeedway
