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The doll cares for Gehrman. He is old, weary. A shell of what he used to be, confined to the dream for time innumerable. His joints creak when she takes him to bed, hoisting him out of his chair with an arm around the shoulder. When she looks close, the planes of his face are etched with lines, dots, and marks, withered and aged.
The doll does what she can to soothe him. She dries his tears and wheels him around and prays to an unknown, imaginary god for his well-being. She loves Gehrman, she knows, because he made her to love him. She is a doll, and so she exists to be used. If that was the way that he wanted to use her, then so be it.
In those early days, when Gehrman was younger, he loved her senselessly, loudly, and often. The doll didn’t mind. The doll was made to please, after all.
Sometimes the doll can feel something in the back of her mind, persistent and scratching. Anger, maybe, if only she knew exactly what it was meant to feel like. It is quickly disregarded along with everything else.
Countless hunters are chosen to pass through the dream, as is the will of the Moon Presence. Some are cold and uncaring, a front to cover their paranoia and agony as the hunt draws on. Some are violent, prone to beasthood. Some are large and bright, all quick smiles and broad shoulders. The doll likes the last hunters the best, though they are incredibly rare. They will come to her, and she will clasp their hands and kneel and recite the lines she is meant to say. All the while, an emotion, unidentifiable and warm, pools in her belly. The doll does not know what it is—can’t know what it is, mustn’t acknowledge it.
One of the hunters, Yvette, not from the hinterlands but an outlander nonetheless, liked to talk to her. This is not uncommon. The hunters are lonely, achingly so. The job of a hunter is a profession defined by loss, destined to end in tragedy. The hunters find a companion in the doll, young as she looks, and the least she can do is listen as they chatter about beasts and blood and holy men.
But Yvette liked to talk to her, the doll herself, and that was new. She reveled in the thrill of it—more than a cursory exchange of power, she was given the gift of conversation. Yvette would engage her, ask her questions, tell her jokes. The doll’s responses were lackluster, but the hunter would simply laugh in response. It was a bold, hearty sound.
Yvette would change her bandages on the steps of the old house, as hunters are prone to doing, and talk about her family. She smelled like leather, and blood, and thunder. The doll would stare, transfixed, at the curve of her neck, the muscles that shifted in her back, the freckles that dotted her tanned skin.
Yvette told the doll that her laugh sounded like little bells. It was such a shame, then, what happened to her in the end.
Such is the fate of all the living, one way or another.
The doll cradles the young hunter in her arms. They are slick with mucus, and it sticks to her hands, her dress. It would smell unpleasant and vaguely fishy, if the doll had a working nose. The hunter squirms as she adjusts her hold, a stray tendril batting her on the cheek and leaving a trail of slime.
The doll giggles.