you prefer broken things. you've been like that since your beginning. something in your head can't let a chipped plate go by without at least thinking about how to paint a tiny flower inside the crack, or a torn dress without feeling in your fingertips the stitches you'd make to patch it. the finished, the complete, the whole, those aren't things that need your help, or keep your attention.
the witch that made you is prim and careful, and her three other dolls emulate her in every way that matters. they're all very much finished, complete, and whole. you were an experiment that didn't fit, and she gave you away. really, you're a disaster and you never should have been made.
so the good news is that your new owner is a mess. you can relate. the bad news is that she might be a mess in ways that you can't fix without fixing yourself, which probably isn't possible, but it's not like you have anything better to do, in the long run.
she sleeps, while you don't, really, you just kind of pass out when you're not doing anything else. right now you're squatting on top of her wardrobe and watching her sleep. even witches let things slip when they're dreaming.
you're supposed to have some sort of link with her. you used to have one with her sister, your maker and previous owner, but it wasn't much of one. unlike her sister, your new owner notices you enough to have fucked you a few times already since she brought you home. at least someone is getting some use out of your body, weird spindly thing that it is.
she murmurs something about dolls and rolls over in her sleep. stands to reason she'd want more than just you. if she was really any good at dollcraft, though, she wouldn't have needed to take you home. she'd have made better already.
you close your eyes and feel around inside yourself for the link. the slight family resemblance between minds helps you find it. so does the last load of cum she left in you before she fell asleep, still slick somewhere inside. your awareness grasps something, and you pull, and,
you're floating in the air, at the top of a bluff, over the sea. she's below you, side by side with a figure you can't make out. down the sloped side of the bluff, an army of shadows stretches as far as you can see.
your owner shouts, "with me, doll!"
and your body wants to respond to her command, tries to, but you're only tenuously there, an intruder in her dream, and you can't move. but the figure by her side does.
it's a doll, of course. better made than anything your old owner has produced, better than any you've ever seen at one of your maker's insufferable tea parties, and dressed in military finery, blue and white and gold trim. the markers of inhumanity are still there: the absence of any unnecessary motion in its turn, the ease with which its slim arms heft its longsword. but it's made more beautiful by them.
a combat doll. haughty and powerful. and supposedly not made since the end of the witchwars, hundreds of years ago.
and yet it scans the approaching army with your own dark eyes. you've scrutinized your flaws in the polished blade of a knife often enough to know them. the bump of its nose, the set of its mouth, these are likewise familiar. its long dark hair looks as yours might, if you ever managed to brush all of the tangles out.
it responds, in your voice, "we don't have a snowball's chance, dumbass. arms tight, feet first." it picks your owner up and throws her off the cliff. then it sheathes its sword and arcs in smoothly after her.
you snap back to reality with the sound of the splash still in your ears.
so. romantic and delusional. you're no combat doll, and the little witchling who owns you has no armies to fight.
but maybe her dreaming mind understands that, and that's why the dream unfolded as it did?
and the doll in the dream was definitely you. not a new one, not a replacement. maybe rebuilt, but still you.
she rolls over in bed, half out of the blankets, and you flinch, not wanting to be caught watching her sleep. but she doesn't wake. she murmurs, "with me, doll," and the link inside you pulls, with the weight of the will of a witch on the other end.
you have no choice. you descend from the wardrobe and climb into bed with her. she hugs you tightly, and snores, and that's how it goes until well after dawn, so you have plenty of time to loop over your impression of her dream.
romantic and delusional. broken, from a certain perspective. not exactly the traits of a powerful witch. fixable… probably? she'll need more than glue and painted flowers, and you can barely imagine the tools you'll be using. but her dreams have you in them, and maybe that means you'll get the chance to try before being thrown out.
you're still going to make yourself a proper basement to live in, though, and try to direct any nascent dollcrafting urges of hers towards something soft that doesn't mind this kind of thing, sentient or not. you don't think you can take another night of cuddling.
