Having now completed most of her morning routine, Mari is sitting at the kitchen bench with a bowl of cereal, letting out a deep sigh as she scrolls though a website on her phone.

  “They sure have some real crap on here, huh?”

  She’s browsing the local marketpce sites in hopes of finding more furniture to fill the pce with. She figures that buying everything new would cost much more than she’d be willing to pay, especially considering the sheer amount she’s likely to end up needing if she’s right about how many dolls she’s going to need to make. She’s lucky that some of the rooms upstairs still had beds in them, but at the rate she’s making the dolls it won’t be long before she’ll have to start asking some of them to sleep in the same bed unless she can get some more in here.

  Unfortunately, Mari’s search for any suitable furniture at all, not even just beds, has bore little fruit so far. Most of the furniture listed on these sites is either in rough condition, or simply just isn’t to her tastes. She’s never had to do all that much furniture shopping before, mostly just making do with whatever she could get her hands on for as cheap as possible, so she never thought it would be this difficult.

  It’s causing her breakfast to drag on as well, as she absentmindedly scoops up cereal and brings it to her mouth. Honestly, the food isn’t helping much either. Part of her wishes she could have made pancakes or something as a treat instead this morning, but as usual, time wasn’t on her side. Mari discovered after finally charging her phone that she’d slept in ter than she normally would on a weekday, leaving her in a bit of a rush to get ready for her job and make up for all the time she lost when yesterday turned out to be a bit of a write-off.

  The whole situation has left her feeling a little unfulfilled at the moment. She does like a good bowl of cereal, but it’s the only thing she’s been having for breakfast since she moved in, on the days she does have breakfast anyway, and she’s starting to find herself wishing for something a little different. Switching up what kind of cereal she’s buying every few weeks can only do so much before she starts to want something else entirely. It’s a shame that she just never seems to have time for anything nicer, whether due to work or something witchcraft reted she’s working on instead.

  “Ugh, would be nice if something worked out in my favour for a change…”

  Mari’s in the middle of letting out a deep sigh when something appears on her screen, something that almost causes her to drop her phone into her bowl in surprise. She clicks on the listing, making sure to take a close look at the provided images.

  “Oh shit… this is perfect…”

  Listed on the st site she thought to check before giving up for the day is a sofa that one would almost swear was specifically designed for Mari’s new home. The red velvet, the ornate wooden frame, painted deep bck, it’s the very definition of Victorian gothic, and Mari has to have it. Upon checking the price and seeing it’s in the triple digits, an entire digit less than she would have expected for something of this quality, she realises she has to act fast to scoop it up before anyone else does and immediately messages the seller to state her interest.

  There’s just one problem. The suburb that’s listed as the pickup location.

  “Fuck, that’s the entire opposite side of the city… How the hell am I meant to bring that back?”

  It’s quite the conundrum indeed. Mari cks a vehicle of her own, but even if she did, the trip would be well over an hour each way, not an easy ask on a workday. She can’t even rely on witchcraft, she could maybe get to the point where she could teleport that far in a few weeks if she really hunkered down and focused on it, but how on earth would she manage the return trip with a piece of furniture that’s bigger and heavier than she is?

  Still, this is too good an opportunity to pass up, and while she’s not happy about it, there is one other option avaible to her…

  She dials a number in her contacts list, and takes a deep breath as she waits for them to pick up.

  “Hey… yeah, it’s me. Look, I really hate to ask, but I need some help with something…”

  “Thanks again for this Jake. I know it was a big ask, but…” Mari gloomily looks out the passenger window of the truck as it travels down the expressway, watching the buildings illuminated by fleeting traces of sunset fly past as they take the sofa back to her pce.

  “Now now, it was my pleasure, Mari.” Jacob, Cassandra’s father, cheerfully says as he drives his work truck down the expressway with the couch safely stowed in the back. “Not every day that you of all people ask for help, after all.”

  “Yeah, I guess…”

  “So… How’s everything going with the new pce? Settling in well?”

  “Ugh, not sure I really wanna talk about all that right now.”

  “...That bad, huh? Well… you know… just give us a yell if there’s anything we can help with.”

  “I don’t think it’s exactly your area of expertise.”

  “Try me, kid. It’s been a while, but I did some work as a handyman in my younger years.”

  “First of all, don’t call me kid. It’s basically only a few years until I’m thirty at this point.”

  “Still barely more than half my age, for the record.”

  “And second, would a handyman know anything about dolls that don’t behave?”

  “...Dolls? Like, toys?”

  “No, they’re like alive, or not really, but kinda, or something… I guess they’re like homunculi?”

  Jacob looks back at her sheepishly. “Is… that one of those words only you and Cassandra are allowed to say?”

  Mari groans. “See? This is why I said it’s not something you can help with! You don’t know about dolls, and you definitely wouldn’t know anything about dealing with the fact that I barely even know what I am or what my body is doing anymore!”

  “...You’re not sick again, are you?” Jacob asks in an unusually serious tone, his smile dropping immediately.

  Mari waves her hands defensively. “No no no, nothing like that! It’s just wi-... weird magic stuff… It’s something I have to deal with myself, you wouldn’t get it.”

  Jacob takes a moment to respond. He’s clearly relieved that it’s not as bad as he first thought, but he must be aware that it doesn’t mean that everything’s okay either. “...Well, you got me there… Cassandra mentioned you’d been getting into the whole witch thing, but I can’t say I ever really got what any of that meant, other than the part where you stopped using the front door, anyway…”

  “Witchcraft. I’m not an actual witch or anything like that.”

  “Well hey, no matter what you’re calling it, that second problem sounds like the kinda thing you’ve got plenty of experience with already. You’ll get through it.”

  “Huh?” Mari turns to him confusedly. “What do you mean I’ve got experience with it?”

  “Look, I know I’m not the most knowledgeable when it comes to the whole trans thing, or any of that stuff, really. I’m just saying this isn’t the first time you’ve had to hunker down and figure out who you are and what you wanna do.”

  “...Those two things are more than a little different, Jake.”

  Jacob shrugs “Maybe so. Honestly, I have no choice but to trust you on that, but you gotta start from somewhere, right?”

  “If you say so…” Mari wearily turns her head back towards the window.

  In all honesty, Mari never really understood Jake. He’s so chipper, so positive, so eager to help out. Whenever she’s around him it feels like she’s just waiting for the shoe to drop and find out he expects something in return, but… that moment just never came. They’ve known each other far too long for Mari to still expect him to be going for some kind of long con, but she still can’t find it in herself to completely trust him. What does he get out of helping her out all the time?

  More than anything, she doesn’t get why he’s like this with her of all people. Sure, it made some amount of sense in that brief period of time she lived under his roof, god knows she needed a lot of help to get back on her feet back then, but it’s been years since she moved out and he’s just kept this going ever since. He’s not a bad guy, but the only connection they have at this point is that she’s a friend of his daughter, so the fact that he’s willing to go so far out of his way, for something that has taken several hours when he’d also just finished a full work day, all just to give her an hand, it escapes any expnation Mari can think of. She supposes it’s a good thing he’s like this in the long run though, it means that Cassandra will always be well taken care of, although taking time away from her to help out with trivial stuff like this isn’t necessarily the best sign in that regard, either.

  “Hey, so…” He says after a while. “Can’t help but notice it’s getting pretty te, how about we grab a bite on our way back? My treat.”

  …And there he goes again, he hasn’t even finished doing this favour for her and he’s already trying to do more.

  “Thanks, but no. I’m taking up enough of your time already, and you should be thinking about getting dinner for Cass and Bethany instead anyway.”

  “I think Beth is more than able to whip up dinner all by herself, I’ll have you know. They’ll fare just fine without me for a little bit longer, but st I checked you’re still out there in that big house all on your own with not a lot of time left in the day to make a proper meal, unless those… uh… dolls of yours can cook or something?”

  “They… really can’t… but it’s fine. I’ll just make some ramen or whatever.”

  “And how many times in the past week have you just had those noodles of yours instead of a proper meal?”

  “Not… every day… Only like three or four times. Like st night I had… uh…” Mari trails off, realising there’s something she forgot to do after all of yesterday’s drama.

  “If you’re about to tell me you didn’t have dinner at all st night, we’re taking the next exit and pulling into the first takeaway we find.”

  “Look, I had a lot going on yesterday, okay? It was one time! And we’re not stopping! I’m not some dumb kid who doesn’t know how to take care of herself!”

  “Okay, I see how it is. Guess it’s time to bring out the big guns.” A smirk appears on Jacob’s face as he continues. “It just so happens that a certain little dy specifically asked me to make sure you get some food in you before I let you go today… We wouldn’t want to let her down now, would we?”

  Mari looks at him incredulously. “No way, she’s in on this too?”

  “Sure is.”

  “Fuck! Urghhhhhhhh!” Mari throws her hands in the air, accepting defeat. “Fiiiiiine, let’s find a burger pce or something…”

  Jacob lets out a deep chuckle. “Now that’s more like it!”

  “I’m paying, though.”

  “Hey, still counts as a win in my books.”

  “That’s pying real dirty, you know. Pulling the Cass card like that.” Mari pouts.

  “Probably is, but if that’s what it takes to make sure you’re getting taken care of, then that’s just what I have to do.”

  “Well I guess I know where she gets it from now…” Mari crosses her arms as she turns to the window once more, wondering if there’s anything she could’ve done differently to avoid this situation, when she thinks about her morning and suddenly has an idea. “Hey Jake, let’s say that theoretically I did have a doll that could cook for me, would that stop you and Cass from worrying about stuff like this so much?”

  “Honestly, not sure there’s anything you could do that’d stop the two of us from worrying about you at least a little, but it’d certainly help us rest a little easier. Why’d you ask?”

  “Oh, just thinking about a project I could work on, is all…”

  SyntaxSpeedway