Nova, Comet Moth

surely this one is yours to train as you please, and has not also been intentionally teaching you to associate its presence with doll-baked treats, pleasant perfumes, and the wide-eyed gasps of an excited doll, and to associate its absence with a sourceless vague chaos.

everything might seem harder, messier, less vivid when it's not there. it assures you that this is just how life is sometimes.

the doll is, of course, totally substitutable. any doll will do. any doll will smell right, feel right, sound right, already know your quirks and preferences and the way you like your bean tea served (half cream, two sugars); any doll will wear clothes cut just right so that your hands can brush bare dollflesh when it sits demurely next to you.

you could get any other doll and train them to do anything. they're dolls. the training and imprinting process won't make you think about this doll at all.

mutual conditioning! obviously, that could never happen. it would be like clay that shaped the potter.

you are the owner, and this doll is just a silly doll! please do not worry about it.

(but porcelain was clay, once. and broken shards can cut deep.)

"Apologies, Miss... but ownership of this unit is non-transferrable."

What.

Its previous owner is dead. You were there. Why would she have spun together all those postmortem clues, just to lead you to one of her dolls? Unless...

...Of course. Another of her jests. She always enjoyed getting the last laugh, even now.

Well, no matter. If the trail ends here, then the only option left is brute force. Thankfully you have become quite adept at reforging dolls after you break them down, ego and all.

As if in anticipation of your thoughts, the doll's neutral expression curls into a smile.

Its irises tighten and glow red, the sclera ringed black with a familiar shadow.

Her shadow.

witches who keep their first doll around because they're sentimental

witches who keep it around because it's better at explaining their whole deal to the nicer newer dolls than they are

witches who keep it around because it's grown far too cursed to safely put down