"When I felt the presence, I didn't know what I was doing by reaching out to it. How could I know? Obviously, I didn't have the insight to understand that what I was reaching for through my dreams was divine and had ulterior motives." It should be noted that Miss Vallière paused and found what she was about to say next was amusing despite her trauma. Her laughter could be compared to that of madman's. "What does any man want from a woman?"
The Doll awoke in a strange place with a girl's lips pressed to hers. Despite the odd circumstance, the Doll had experienced stranger things. "Child, what is it you desire of me? To please your worldly wants?" The pink haired girl didn't seem to hear her on this plain of existence. Rather, the child must have thought it was a good time for a nap and lost consciousness to her waking world. The girl's body stood up and stumbled. She looked around her as confusion set on her youthful features.
The Doll pushed herself up off the ground some and watched as the girl mumbled to herself and then stopped abruptly. "A monster!" And then the girl let out a world shattering scream as her body jerked and convulsed, falling to the ground without breath.
The Doll made to check on the girl, getting to her feet but stopped. A bald man rushed forward and knelt by the girl, speaking in the girl's tongue asking if she was okay. He touched her neck and his concern turned to terror. The Doll looked away, understanding that the girl must have died within her dream.
Around her were other strangers standing under the sun's warm embrace. They sort of gawked at the scene, none of them saying anything. Some of the girls had their hands to their mouths, as if to block the horrible situation from entering their lungs. The Doll found humans odd with their expressive body language.
Stepping close to the bald man, the Doll knelt down. She ignored a young man, with blond hair and a flower as a magic focus, as he gave a sudden outburst of emotion and accused her of killing the girl. He did give the Doll the girl's name though, Louise.
The Doll touched Louise's cheek, noting the strange symbols burned into her own hand, and breathed bloodechoes into the child. Color immediately returned to Louise's cheeks, and she gasped, her eyes fluttering away their death stare and focused. "What? Where am I now?" Louise blinked again and tears broke free, rolling across her delicate skin.
The bald man grabbed Louise's shoulders and gave them a light shake. "Louise! Speak to me, what's wrong?"
The girl didn't reply, but turned her head as if surveying a different landscape. The Doll knew through cosmic insight that the girl wasn't truly in this world. The girl was dreaming but her body remained in this place, still animated and connected to her realm.
With the gentlest touch the Doll could muster, she pulled the bald man's right hand away from the girl. "She cannot hear you, for she is slumbering."
"You did something to her when she made you her familiar." The man whispered, staring back at the Doll with fear in his eyes.
"I do not know what I have done. I am but a doll, made to take care of those who dream." The Doll trailed off as she took in the vast world around her. It was strange, bright, and full of sensation. "I should not be…" Her words fell short as she regarded the creatures that were with the group of children, one of them of notable greatness. Connections and insight washed through her and she understood. Looking down to Louise's fearful expression, the doll closed the girl's eyes, calming the child's body. "I feel pity for the maiden. She is not a Hunter, but she must be."
"What are you going on about?" The bald man grabbed the Doll's shoulders and shook her roughly.
The Doll panicked and yelped, fearful at the sudden attack of motion and expectant pain.
The man stopped, but the damage was done.
The Doll shied away from him, remembering hundreds of frustrated Hunters as they slaughtered her again and again. She grabbed Louise into her arms, perhaps to protect the girl from the violent bald man. The Doll didn't know where she was, or why she was here, but she felt an urge to take care of the girl. To protect her? The Doll understood maternal instincts. She was made to ease the hearts of Hunters in the Hunter's Dream. But the physical protection and defense of her masters? That was a foreign feeling.
The Doll accepted those feelings and outreached a hand into the fabric of space and pulled out a basic steel sword. The runes burned into her hand glowed and she understood not through insight but power of how to use the blade. It was a foreign sensation of which she accepted as simple fact of this strange place.
The bald man gaped at her. He worked his jaw and then coughed into his hand, blushing. He mumbled something about strange magic and not intending to provoke her. The Doll understood that blushing was a sign of shame and or embarrassment. She let go of the sword and it returned to the void from which it came.
"You do not mean to harm me? I wish no violence." The Doll said, careful of the man and the loud crowd of children. "I am here for her." The Doll pulled Louise close to her breast, hoping to make the girl comfortable in some way. Louise mumbled about finding weapons and confused why she suddenly knew how to use those weapons. Good, it seemed though the girl was not a hunter, the dream would provide for her. On second thought, it also seemed that the Doll had a strange connection or bond with the girl. She instantly felt as if she knew the girl for many decades. So despite Louise not being a hunter, the Doll would provide.
"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to startle you miss, uhh?"
"I am but a Doll."
"Miss Doll, I didn't mean to startle you. Talking familiars is rather unheard of, and you seemed to have cursed Louise in some manner." The bald man's face melted into an expression of pleading. "Would you mind, fixing whatever you did?"
"I do not know what I did." The Doll regarded the child in her arm. Louise's body was now hugging the Doll, sniffling into the Doll's breast. "I will care for her." It seemed to be why she was here at least. She wrapped her other arm around the girl again, hoping to comfort the child further. Closing her eyes, the Doll searched and reached for plausible reasons why Louise was unconscious and her spirit stretched from this place.
"I did not do this." The Doll said, understanding coming to her. It was not her doing for why the girl slumbered. There was a sense of a familiar touch between the eldritch blood in her veins and a presence far, far away. She did not share that information with the bald man, for he wouldn't understand. She didn't understand completely herself to be honest.
One of the children from the group ventured forward. "So, uhm, what just happened? Did Louise go crazy or something? Was her sanity the cost for actually summoning a familiar?" The girl's tone was haughty with abrasive words, but the Doll understood the concern in the girl's intent.
"I do not know. I should not be here." The Doll said simply, an honest admission of ignorance. "She is slumbering."
The new girl folded her arms over her ample breasts and frowned. "So she'll be fine once she wakes up?"
The Doll cocked her head to the side, giving Louise a light squeeze, a gentle hug. "Maybe?"
"Class is over!" The bald man seemed to have realized that the situation should perhaps be moved to a more private place. "We'll take care of Miss Vallière. She'll be fine, and her familiar will be questioned."
No one moved, rather many of the children walked forward and started bombarding the bald man with questions. They all prattled without useful information to the current event. They acted in their strange human way of insistence for knowledge from those who could not provide answers. The Doll felt herself become overwhelmed from all the voices and she drifted off into cosmic thought, enjoying the sensation of flow that time and space provided her.
Suddenly she felt someone prying Louise from her arms and the Doll returned to Louise's waking world. The Doll pulled Louise closer, meeting the eyes of the person trying to take her charge away from her. It seemed she must have drifted a little too much, because she had been moved to a new place with beds and medical supplies. A nurse was trying to take Louise away from the standing Doll.
"Please, they said you could talk, so let go of the girl!" The nurse said, pulling harder with frustration.
The Doll let Louise go. A human might have said something, questioned where they were, or ask if they could stay by their charge's side. The Doll simply stood, watching as the nurse laid Louise down on the bed and muttered about bothersome familiars.
All seemed to be well, so the Doll stood and ignored the nurse but watched Louise's chest slowly rise and fall.
The nurse tapped the Doll on the shoulder, grabbing her attention. "Hey, I asked if you would come with me. The professors has questions."
"I will stay by the young hunter's side." The Doll said.
Perhaps as a pure coincidence or the workings of divine beings, Louise suddenly convulsed and shook. The Nurse yelped, grabbing Louise's arms as they thrashed. The Doll waited, expecting. And then Louise fell still, coughing up phantom blood that faded into mist inches from her mouth. The nurse looked at the Doll with a horrified expression.
Leaning down, the Doll breathed life back into the girl and stood again. Louise began to breathe again, and talk.
"I-I died again? Those stupid dogs! I'll kill them and blow them to pieces!" Louise yelled, sitting bolt upright in her bed. She had the ferocious expression of a frustrated hunter after a humiliating defeat. The Doll had seen such expressions many times before.
"Miss Vallière!" The nurse exclaimed, grabbing Louise's shoulders and pushing her back onto the bed. The girl's body accepted the nurse's touch, but Louise's spirit continued to speak.
"By the Founder, I hate this place! You, stupid Golem, you did this to me!"
The Doll felt a bolt of pain in her ribs. As if she was kicked while lying down. The Doll frowned and leaned over Louise. She regarded the child, wondering how violent her new master was. It would be awful to wake up back in the Hunter's Dream and the child abuse her. The Doll accepted such mistreatment from her masters, but she preferred a relationship with connection and companionship.
"Please." Louise began to sob, her face scrunching up into an ugly grimace. "Let me go home, you trapped me here in this awful place. I want to go home."
The Doll met the nurse's eyes. "I did not do this."
"She says you trapped her." The nurse said, frowning as she also regarded Louise talking. The nurse slowly let Louise's shoulders go stepping back. The girl's body lay calm in the bed, tears still streaming from her eyes.
"She's not really here." The nurse whispered and then her voice rose. "You took her mind. Somehow, by the Founder, you stole her sanity!" The nurse stepped away, the accusation in her eyes turning to fear.
"I need to be by her side. She could die if I am not." The Doll said. Humans could be irrational and not grasp simple connections. Moments ago Louise had died, the nurse saw it, but despite the Doll bringing Louise back right away, the nurse still might not see the importance of witnessing such an event.
The nurse tightened her hands into fists. "Stay here if you must!" She stepped away from the bed, keeping a cautious eye on the Doll and walked to the door. She peeked outside, as if looking for someone and then pointed. "You!"
"Yes!" A high pitched and feminine voice yelped back.
"Seista, go get professor Colbert and the Headmaster! The thing refuses to leave and I won't leave it alone with my patient!"
"Thing?"
"Come here and look at it. It's a live size talking doll. By the Founder it's creepy." The nurse looked over her shoulder, glaring at the Doll.
The Doll didn't care. Matter of fact, she was used to some Hunters unnerved by her existence. It was a fact of life, so she paid no heed to the nurse.
Louise sat up again, her legs swinging over the bed. With a gentle hand, the Doll pushed Louise's animated body back down and calmed her. The girl's eyes closed, hiding her distant stare, and her body relaxed as it returned to a fitful sleeping state.
Standing straight again, the Doll looked at the nurse, noting the irate expression on the woman's face. Perhaps the nurse had come to a conclusion that the Doll was controlling Louise. In truth, the Doll was the only one who could care for the girl in her current state.
A girl with black hair and wearing a maid's cap peeked in. She regarded the Doll with curious eyes for the briefest of moments and turned her head up to the nurse. "It's pretty?"
"Girl! Go and get the faculty!"
"Yes Ma'am!" And the girl ducked back, her run echoing back into the infirmary with fading thumps.
The Doll grabbed Louise's hand. The nurse walked back and pulled up a chair. Not caring for the human's irrational anger, the Doll focused her attention on Louise. She pondered, her mind drifting away on cosmic current. Instead of letting herself be taken by the flow, she pushed herself and swam towards Louise's mind, breaking past the barrier that kept their souls apart, and entered Louise's dreams.
The Doll sped up Louise's awareness, time distorting between reality and the girl's perception. With that done, the Doll waited back in the Hunter's Dream. Only a few seconds in real time past until Louise appeared again in the haven built for Hunters. She stepped towards the workshop but stopped and turned to regard the Doll, who to Louise's eyes now seemed to be standing and alive.
"Hello good Hunter." The Doll greeted and bowed.
"Great, you're alive." Louise pulled her cane from her side and snapped it through the air, turning it into a bladed whip. "You better start explaining before I disassemble you."
The Doll prepared to begin the speech she constructed when a second figure stepped into the dream. It was a little girl, with a white ribbon that tied her blond hair back into a ponytail.
The Doll cocked her head to the side, confused to see a Yharnum child in the Hunter's Dream. Perhaps, what the Doll understood of the nightmare wasn't accurate.
"Miss Louise?" The little girl said, grabbing onto Louise's short skirt. "I thought you said this place was safe?"
Louise growled, showing her teeth. Fur sprouted from Louise's arms, claws growing from her fingernails. Two pointy ears popped out of her hair and a long pink furred tail materialized, whipping back and forth irritably. Her teeth elongated into canines. "Don't worry." Louise said, her feline features stabilizing. "That's my familiar. She'll do as I say, or I'll whip her into submission and then she'll do as I say. How's it going to be Miss Golem?"
This story is going to be more of a series of scenes I think would be fun to write. I'm also looking for ideas and suggestions of plausible future scenes. Most of the story is planned to play out at the Academy and Hunter's Dream, but I can try to fit in one or two boss battles as well. To be truthful, I'm just writing down ideas and concepts that have been dancing around in my head.
If anyone liked the idea of this story and is interested in editing or co-writing this with me, send me a PM.