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The Toy Soldier isn’t an expert on sleep, but it’s pretty sure that sleeping humans aren’t supposed to do whatever Ivy’s doing right now.
It’s been pretending to sleep for the past few hours, sprawled out in a jumble of wooden limbs while Ivy snoozes with her head pillowed on its chest, and thus far everything has been lovely and peaceful. Well, as lovely as anything can be when it’s peaceful! The Toy Soldier far prefers raucous violence, but it’s almost as partial to the red of Ivy’s hair flopped across its chest as it is to the red of spilled blood. It’s a toss-up, really. Regardless, it thinks it’s doing a decent job of lying here limp and motionless in this tiny reading nook, but apparently that’s not enough to keep Ivy calm.
At first, her hands twitch like she’s trying to hold on to something that won’t stay solid in her grip, while her nose wrinkles and she presses her forehead harder into the Toy Soldier’s chest. “Ivy,” it says, as soft as its clockwork will allow. “Are you quite alright?”
She doesn’t wake up, but she does get a fistful of its uniform and thrash her legs about like she’s struggling to swim. “No, no, no,” she mumbles in her sleep, “stop, stop! P-please, let me go back, I’m… it’s…”
As her voice tapers off into sleepy whimpers, the Toy Soldier raises a hand to pat her head, deliberately holding its fingers stiff so they don’t clack against each other in her ear. “There, there. It’s just me! No need to get all in a tizzy.”
“S-stop,” Ivy says louder, and the Toy Soldier stops its movements, only to realize that her eyes are still closed. “Why… it’s… please don’t…”
By now, it’s decided that something is Very Wrong, because those aren’t the kind of words that indicate good emotions for humans in general, much less when those humans are asleep. The Toy Soldier has heard plenty of humans begging for their lives, but it firmly detests anything that sparks that kind of reaction in its crewmates. It sits up straight, jostling Ivy off its chest and into its lap, and shakes her shoulder. “Please wake up, Ivy,” it insists. “You seem distressed.”
That works, thankfully. She jerks awake fast enough to smack the Toy Soldier’s chin with the back of her head, but before it can steady her and ask if she’s alright, something strange happens in her eyes—her pupils are more dilated than it’s ever seen them, but in seconds, they narrow to pinpricks as her face goes oddly slack. The Toy Soldier is even less of an expert on body language than it is on sleep, but it’s had a long time to make observations, and Ivy’s face at the moment is acting absurd. “Good morning,” she monotones at last.
“Good… morning?”
Ivy squints, then frowns, her face returning to some semblance of normalcy. “What’s wrong, TS?”
“Um.” It doesn’t know how to answer that. “Are you okay? You were behaving quite strangely, dove!”
Her eyes widen. “Oh! Sorry about that, I have… nightmares. I hope I didn’t disturb you.”
“You know I don’t sleep! And did you want to talk about them?”
Another frown sweeps Ivy’s face, only to be rapidly stifled. “I don’t remember them. They’re a side effect of my brain, probably? Carmilla didn’t bother explaining.”
The Toy Soldier wraps its arms around her, now that she’s relaxing into its side again. “If I had to sleep, I rather think I would prefer not to dream! They seem distressing. Our delightful Captain has detailed some rather horrible ones to me! Like one where he was trying to ride a horse and—”
“Did Jonny command you to call him captain again?”
It nods solemnly.
Ivy scowls. “I’m going to rip his limbs off. Later. After we’re done cuddling.”
“I would much prefer to cuddle for now! Though I would be delighted to receive permission to not call the Captain Captain,” it suggests, making its most direct eye contact with Ivy and subsequently getting distracted by the way her eyes crinkle at the corners.
“I command you, Toy Soldier, to refer to Jonny d’Ville as only ‘First Mate’ or his name, and never captain.”
It shivers, delighted. “Thank you for that, my dear girl! Now. Where were we?”
Ivy picks up the book she was reading to it before she fell asleep, something about the history of the four-dimensional printing press, and even though the Toy Soldier has never been tired before, it would be happy to pretend-sleep here for days as long as it can hold Ivy in its arms.