Monday has come around, and Mari is at her PC in the study, working her remote IT job. For the most part her work is fairly simple, as long as nothing is on fire anyway, and today she’s more or less just handling a lot of busywork that she can tackle at her own pace.

 

She has just finished signing and sending off a report when someone with short dark hair walks in, and heads to where she’s sitting.

 

“Hi Miss, this one has finished dusting the furniture in the lobby!” It announces cheerfully.

 

“Oh, thank you Naomi.” Mari replies, still far from used to this situation.

 

Naomi is the doll that she spent most of yesterday creating. The entire process took longer than it needed to as Mari was constantly concerned about getting something wrong, and it certainly didn’t help when it basically leapt off of the workshop table moments after the core was inserted.

 

Once she got over her mini heart attack, she ended up spending the rest of the night talking to Naomi and asking questions to try and figure out exactly how this whole doll thing works. While she did make some progress, it probably would have been more productive referring to the book or that web portal for information. Naomi struggled to provide any helpful information on the nature of its existence, only seeming to know that it was created to serve her.

 

One aspect that she’s still wrapping her head around is the doll’s way of speaking. Mari’s still not entirely okay with the idea of having a servant do everything for her around the house, but Naomi pushes things even farther than that, referring to itself as “it” or “this one” like it’s some kind of object as opposed to a person. 

 

The other thing that stuck out to her is that her doll seems to be completely incapable of learning her name, as any attempt to get it to call her Mari was unsuccessful. It’s almost as if its hearing cuts out when her name is said, and sentences appear to have a blank space where said name is written. She was able to talk to Naomi about Cassandra just fine, so for whatever reason it’s only her own name where the issue lies, and she’ll have to get used to being called Miss.

 

Mari realises she’s been spacing out while thinking back to yesterday, and she returns to the present to see that Naomi is still waiting patiently, but is completely motionless in doing so, the subtle movements you’d expect from a human standing still being entirely absent. She finds this somewhat unsettling, but it does the answer to a question she didn’t get a chance to ask yet, and it’s that dolls don’t need to breathe, or if they do there are no visible signs of them doing so. 

 

It’s eerily similar to how the feather duster simply floated in place once it had run through all the commands she gave it yesterday, so this is likely happening for the same reason. From what little she understands, dolls are capable of being much more independent than enchanted objects, on top of being able to carry out more complex tasks, but as she can see, they can also return to that same default state if there’s nothing for them to do.

 

“Hey, Naomi.”

 

The doll practically springs back to life after hearing its name. “Yes, Miss?”

 

“What do dolls… do? Like when they’re not carrying out orders.”

 

“This one is happy to just wait until you have something else for me to do.”

 

Mari isn’t satisfied with that answer. “But don’t you get bored? Like is there something you want to do when you’re not busy? Something you’re interested in?”

 

“Something this one is interested in? Hmm…” Naomi puts its hand to its chin and looks around the room quizzically in response to the question, seeing if anything grabs its attention. Its eyes widen after taking notice of a particular object, and it squats down in front of Mari’s PC.

 

“Miss, what is this!?”

 

“That? It’s my PC, I use it to work and like, look at things on the internet or whatever.”

 

“No, not the box, all the pretty pictures on it!”

 

What Naomi is actually interested in are the stickers adorning the PC, depicting various colourful characters, many of which are girls, from various series that Mari has taken interest in over the years.

 

“Ah, you mean the stickers? They’re just like these things that you stick to things you own to make them look nicer.”

 

“This one understands, does Miss have any more of these stickers?”

 

“You know, when I asked if there was something you were interested in, I meant like an activity you could enjoy when you’ve finished your tasks, but sure, we can start with stickers. Is there something you want to stick them on?”

 

“Sorry… I think this one should have been more specific…” Naomi says nervously, as if she’s not sure if what she’s about to ask is okay. “This one… would like Miss to put a sticker on this one to make it look nicer…”

 

Mari is taken aback by the unusual request. “But Naomi… these stickers, they’re for putting on things, and you aren’t a thing, are you?”

 

Naomi suddenly starts getting upset.

 

“But… this one is a thing… This one is Miss’s thing…”

 

“I’m… not really comfortable calling you that…”

 

Upon hearing those words, Naomi crumples to the floor, as if it has lost all willpower to keep going.

 

“H-Has this one not been a g-good doll for Miss?”

 

Oh no.

 

The doll has started crying.