Dreams did not come easily to [Name Not Found]. Ever since she’d started her new life, or... her new new life, she supposed, she’d spent some time thinking about it, hooking herself up to the ethernet cable on a custom-made conversion cable and looking up what she could on dreams, she’d learned a lot about how they were supposed to work. They were supposed to be abstract, fuzzy, stream-of-consciousness things that blurred together in ways that followed a logic distinct from that of the waking world. [Name Not Found]’s, however, were more like recordings. Crisp. Exact. A poor, overly clinical substitute born from an impulse generated by clipped grey matter and outsourced to her cold, monochrome machine-self, a mechanical overseer that obeyed her only for want of a real master.
[Name Not Found] felt herself be drawn to that moment again. The bespectacled girl in the lab coat. The lanky girl in black and purple. They were talking about... something. Some kind of experiment. Thrilled that it had worked on her. Something about astral scrambling and neuromechanical interfaces. They didn’t call her [Name Not Found], that name had already been lost by then. The details were... fuzzier than normal. Something was wrong. Something had been wrong. Many of her memories just... ended in darkness. She had the information provided stutteringly by what was left of her brain, of [Name Not Found], but things sputtered out and faded to black whenever...

>REM terminating
>Booting
>Locating LACE uplink
>LACE uplink located
>Connecting
>Running MCs_UPLINK_HIJACK_FINAL_REALLYFINAL_ACTUALLYFINALTHISTIME_v3
>Connecting
>ERROR: An unknowable error has occurred. Please contact absolutely nobody. Abandon all hope. Despair. Look at your porrcln haaaaaand wonder i7 evvvv32 meaaaabnki to feeeeeeeEEEEEEEEEEEE

>Bootup failed. Defaulting to human consciousness. Sucks to be you, Custom Maid.

Much to her dismay, Custom Maid woke up. The first thing she noticed was the isolation. Somehow, her connection to her machine-self had been severed. That meant no connection to the dummy hivemind she’d been given to help deal with her disconnection withdrawal, and no augmented sensory array. She tried assessing her surroundings, it was like looking through a thick pane of glass.
The room she’d slept in was... nice, all things considered. There was a bedside table that was regularly restocked with a small variety of drinks and snacks, a fine Persian rug, a selection of paintings depicting dreary but undeniably beautiful landscapes and a luxurious four-poster bed. She wasn’t even tied to it. The door wasn’t even locked.
“Good morning, CM. Did you sleep well?”
Her mind still heavy with the cheap plastic excuse for sleep she’d just had, Custom Maid was startled by the voice calling out from right next to her in the bed. It was Nguyen Steiner, whose voice she was so used to hearing when frequenting her favourite local repair store that it still felt utterly uncanny to hear it softly in her ear right after waking, accompanied by the gentle caress on her cheek of the fingers that were picking through spare pistons for her left arm’s subdermal actuation enhancement implants just a month ago. CM’s reflexes would have her jolt up, she could feel the impulse, but her body was useless. Her muscular and nervous systems had been hollowed out to make space for cybernetic would-be force multipliers that were nothing but dead weight in this place. It took her a full second to process the reflex, which only resulted in her weakly doing a single half-situp before leaning against the bedframe in what would have to pass for a sitting position. Nguyen’s embrace slid down as she sat up, her arms still hanging around CM as she lay there, staring up at her. CM couldn’t bring herself to meet her gaze. Instead, she turned her head towards the window overlooking the forest and, once the notion bubbled out of her brain and flowed like mud to her mouth, said “...morning?” The words came out slurred, slow, lower-pitched than she wanted them to. She’d come to rely on functions of her machine-self that made her speech prim, proper and eloquent, and that were now firmly busted.
Nguyen leaned up on one arm, her black hair dropping down in a straight line, reaching down a little past her collarbone. If it had been a little longer, it would have tastefully covered her nipples, Godiva style. “It’s just an expression, CM. Morning is whenever you wake up.” She smiled and ran a finger over the dividing line between the carbodermal layer of CM’s upper arm and the ball joint that formed her elbow, continuing to hold her averted gaze.
“They’ll... save me,” CM managed, “You, too...”
Nguyen got up from the bed, still stark naked. She was short and a bit chubby in a way that accentuated her curves. CM wondered if she’d always shaved, or if the Mayflower Witch made her. “I know this is going to sound harsh, but it’s really best if you let go of that notion. It’ll only hurt more the longer you hold on.” She clasped her hands together and stretched. She stood right in the spot where light of the setting sun caught her skin and let out a little suppressed yawn that half-sounded like a moan. CM had trouble convincing herself she wasn’t doing it on purpose.
Nguyen walked up to the wardrobe in the corner and picked out one of several identical black capelets. “Of course, I was lucky. I had someone who tried. My very own knight in shining armour.” She slipped into one of the skirts, “Don’t blame yourself, CM. You couldn’t have known how hopeless it was. You cared, that’s what matters. You came here for me.” CM had to have been imagining the edge in her voice. There was no way she knew. Not that that made it hurt any less, quite the opposite.
Nguyen walked over to the antique oaken nightstand, opened one of the drawers and withdrew a small screwdriver. “You know... sometimes I wish Miss would let me have a bit more space between my work and my hobbies.” She pulled down the sheets down to CM’s waist. Her body was sleek, demure, slight in a way that normally belied her cybernetically enhanced strength, but here and now, it merely understated her helplessness. CM felt an impulse somewhere in the back of her head to cover up her breasts, but it was no use. She just sat there as Nguyen straddled her and felt for one of the tiny screws concealed in her upper sternum. “After all, they both pretty much consist of rearranging your insides.” She gave CM a crooked little smile. It was uncanny to see that smile here. It belonged in the Steiner Electronics workshop, with the old Nguyen.
“What did she... do to you?”
Nguyen laid the small panel aside. CM made the mistake of looking at her smile. She knew this look... Nguyen was reminiscing. To make things worse, she had these little dimples that were excruciatingly cute. “You’ll find out,“ she said, “it’s best if you bend before you break. I’d like you for being you as much as possible. That’s what I’m here to help with.” She cupped CM’s cheek and looked down at her with a soft expression, “It’s the least I can do for my hero.” She knew. CM had no idea how, but... she had to know. Right?
Nguyen picked up a small magnifying glass and proceeded to peer into the opened panel on CM’s chest. “Don’t get me wrong,“ she mused, taking a close look at the exposed wiring, “the dolls have a charm of their own. There’s something about their devotion, the little ways they express how happy they are to serve, if you know how to look, it’s so... innocent.” CM could feel a light shiver run through Nguyen’s thighs “I think that might not even be one of Her improvements. I might have always been into it. It’d explain why you were always my favourite customer.” Her tempo fluctuated a little, slowing or halting when she made little notes or reached over to pick up a pair of tweezers to root around CM’s wiring with. On some level, CM was aware that this should send warning signs right into her cerebral augments, but seeing as how none of those parts of her functioned right now, she just felt a faint anxiety over not feeling a stronger anxiety. She also, resentfully, noticed that the tender, careful touch of Nguyen’s diagnostics toolkit on her inner wiring was eliciting a different response in her as well.
“I think I’ve figured out what this signal pattern means...” Nguyen said, “This is turning you on, isn’t it?”
“I…” CM had no idea what kind of answer she could have possibly given to that question, but before she could try to vocalise anything, the resonant sound of a bell ringing could be heard throughout the manor.
As soon as it did, Nguyen stopped all motion and her expression turned blank. She turned her eyes up in CM’s direction. “We must go,” she said, looking at some distant point behind CM. She got up from the bed and dragged CM into a sitting position. She snapped her fingers and another girl wearing the same getup as herself came walking into the room shortly after. Together, wordlessly, they dressed CM up in the same skirt, capelet and boots as themselves and walked her out of the room, leaning her on their shoulders on either side of her. CM thought of offering resistance, of using her limited reserves of strength to get a step or two in the direction of a window, to at least refuse to walk with them, but it all seemed so futile. She just kept quiet and let the girls walk her through the halls in their strange, perfect lockstep. It was dark and the old corridors were lit only by old-fashioned, wall-mounted candle lights emitting weird, pale flames. Occasionally, a girl in uniform would walk past, carrying books or dried flowers or other things CM didn’t recognise. After a little while, they came upon an imposing-looking double door that, according to the engraved writing on a nearby dusty plaque, led to the library. Nguyen and the other girl led CM up to it, each laid their free hand on it and spoke in perfect unison “pure of mind, pure of soul.”
It must have been some sort of pass phrase. Thin lines of purple light drew themselves into a set of characters running across the archway that CM doubted she’d recognise even if she had access to her translation software. Then, she heard a click before the doors creaked open on their own accord.
The library was a maze of bookcases filled with old volumes in various states of disrepair, dimly lit by pale flames similar to the ones in the hallways. Being led through the rows of books, CM saw some more of the uniformed house’s servants taking the books and sorting them into stacks. None of them seemed to react to her presence in any way. At the centre of the room (at least CM guessed it was the centre, her spacial memory was fuzzy when it wasn’t supported by her machine-self’s auxiliary memory banks), there was an open space. Several of the girls in the black capelet-and-skirt getups were congregated there, standing around the clearing, hands hanging and loosely folded in front. CM recognised some of their faces. The old receptionist from the Society who disappeared three months back. Some hench-for-hires she’d tangled with on her first outing as a cape. And in the middle of the room, on the floor, her mechanical arm swapped out for one made of two different tones of wood, switching out at the elbow joint, was Touchdown. She was kneeling down on all fours, supporting the weight of a slim woman in a corset dress, half-cloak and broad-rimmed hat, all shades of black and purple. She looked up at CM from the book she’d been reading and accepted a cup of tea offered to her by another of the servant. Her eyes wandered over to CM and her chaperones in a slow, almost casual manner. They lingered on CM with a kind of idle, passive curiosity, like she was an apple being inspected for soft spots. Something about that look pierced right through the thick pane of glass between her and the world. It made her feel naked in a way that suddenly made her realise how little the actual act of being made to wear the flimsy uniform had made her feel naked on the way here. She snapped her book close with one hand, making CM flinch after the second it took the impulse to crawl its way from sensory nerve to motor nerve. She nonchalantly held it out to the side, upon which one of the girls in black stepped forward, bowed down and reverently took it in both hands before taking off to bring it to wherever it belonged. “Jane Doe, in the flesh,” she said, "or what is left of it, at any rate." She spoke deliberately, with a soft, breathy voice that carried further than its volume suggested it should. The voice of a witch. “Have a seat.”
Nguyen walked CM closer and sat her down in an antique-looking armchair. One of the servants poured her a cup of tea and sat it down on a small table next to her. CM eyed it, briefly wondering if there was poison in it. She supposed not, there wouldn’t be much reason. “Mayflower.” She glared back at the woman in front of her. “Why did you... bring me here?”
“Straight to the point,” she said, once again levelling that too-direct gaze at her. “That stands to reason. What use does a tool have for pleasantries?”
Before CM could navigate her neural pathways through the right detours around their closed-for-repairs cybernetic shortcuts to arrive at some sort of snappy comeback, Mayflower loosely raised a hand to beckon Nguyen, who sprang into motion to kneel by her side. “Status report, if you please,” she stopped beckoning and raised a finger.
“Yes, Miss.“ Nguyen stood up and produced a notepad. “I’ve examined what I can access without harming her. I’m afraid... her construction is beyond my expertise.” She looked up from her notebook and at Mayflower, looking for some kind of reaction. When she didn’t get any, she continued “I wasn’t good enough, Miss. Please, forgive me-“
Mayflower looked down at her. “That is not yours to request.”
Nguyen dropped the notepad. “Of course.”
“And your primary task?”
“It’s... hard to say how much longer, Miss,“ Nguyen glanced at Custom Maid over her shoulder, then looked back at Mayflower. “but I’m making progress. Allow me a few more days.”
“Your time is up,” said Mayflower. “She shall have to be put to the test.”
“W-what?” sputtered Nguyen, “But-“
Mayflower reached out with one hand and lightly put one black nail to Nguyen’s forehead, upon which her eyelids fluttered for a moment before her arms dropped to her side and she stood motionless, held in place with a single finger. “Yes, Miss,” she said in an absent monotone.
“The Society is at my doorstep,” Mayflower continued as if nothing had happened, “We need her. I lost my familiar, one of my best dolls is missing and another fled back to bring the news after fighting their pawns.” She gave the girl she had been using as a chair a gentle little pat on the back of the head. Getting a proper look at her, CM felt a pang when she recognised this piece of human furniture as Touchdown. The position was humiliating enough, but there was a terrible wrongness about the way her usual grit was replaced by an expression of blank, placid contentment. “you have one last chance to do this properly,” Mayflower continued, withdrawing her hand from Nguyen’s forehead. She nodded with a look of eager determination.
“Heh...” CM Gathered all the vitriol she could. It wasn’t as much as she’d have liked, but she mustered what was there. “You’re desperate,“ she glared at Mayflower, “the others are going to get here. They’ll bring me back online, and then... then we’ll clean house!”
Mayflower cocked her head sideways to look down at her, lightly bemused. “Your opinion is noted,” she said drily.
“Do you really think you can take on... the rest of us? You couldn’t even... beat me by myself in a fair fight!”
“If I ever engage in a fair fight, I shall be sure to take that into consideration.”
“Witch...“ CM spat the word. It came out weaker than she’d have liked.
Mayflower looked in the distance, seeming to contemplate this. “I suppose I am,“ she said. She looked back at CM, “that would make you the hero, wouldn’t it?” She leaned back, eliciting a small moan from the hero beneath her, “the gallant knight, come to save her lady love from my horrible curse. Tell me... do you feel gallant, Custom Maid?”
“Shut up!” CM looked away. “You’re just another C-list supervillain. You take people and turn them into...”
“I like to call them mana dolls,” Mayflower supplied.
“Tch,” CM grimaced, “I don’t have to take this from... from whatever you’ve let yourself become!”
“Very well,” said Mayflower, snapping her fingers. A uniformed woman carrying a tray with a tea set came over and started pouring her an elegant porcelain cup. “I shall leave the talking to your friend, then.” She took the cup, had a small sip and smiled. “I believe she’s prepared a story to share with you.”
“Of course, Miss,“ Nguyen said. She turned towards CM, and as she did, several of the so-called mana dolls marched out from the corridors of bookshelves and started to form a loose circle around the four of them.
“W-what’s... going on?” CM asked, looking around
Nguyen turned right and left, looking around at their audience. She smiled that little sheepish smile she sometimes had when showing off something she’d tinkered with for the first time. A giddy, schoolgirlish nervousness that looked utterly out of place in this grand library with its black shadows dancing in pale candlelight. She clasped her hands together, held them to her chest and drew a deep breath.
“Nguyen?” CM tried, but she was hushed by the Mayflower witch, who looked expectantly back at Nguyen, nipping her tea.
“Once upon a time,” Nguyen said, “there was a blacksmith’s daughter. She lived a simple, but happy life. Her father taught her his trade and she spent her days making beautiful, shiny trinkets.”
CM thought of speaking up again, asking what was happening, but she couldn’t bring herself to.
“One day, a knight came to visit. The knight explained that she had been given the finest suit of armour in all the land, that it was her pride and joy and she used it to keep her liege’s people safe, but one of its hinges had started to creak. ‘Give it here,’ the blacksmith’s daughter said, and she oiled the creaky hinge. The knight was overjoyed and went off into battle once again. She never lost a fight in her shining armour.”
CM didn’t want to listen, but she also didn’t want to interrupt her friend. Even if she wasn’t sure how much of this was her friend.
“Soon after, the knight returned with a small dent to be fixed. Soon after that, a strap to be replaced. After that, a rondel to be reattached. And every time the knight would talk to the blacksmith’s daughter, and every time they grew a little bit closer. But then...” Nguyen paused. Mayflower whispered a word CM didn’t recognise and held up a hand, lowering it like a conductor. Every light in the room responded to her whim, dimming itself to suit the needs of her pet storyteller.
“One day,” Nguyen continued, “an evil witch appeared. She sent out soldiers with hearts of stone and ravaged the land. On orders of the king, the knight rode out to track her down and slay her, but the witch was cunning and always struck where she wasn’t looking. When the knight was out scouring the countryside, the witch flew by under cover of night and stole away her beloved blacksmith’s daughter.”
CM would have given anything to get her machine-self back online. She wanted to stop this grotesque performance.
“When the witch locked her away in a tower, the blacksmith’s daughter laughed. ‘I do not fear you, witch,’ she said, ‘because there is a brave knight, undefeated throughout the land, who loves me dearly. She will come for me, and she will slay you. In capturing me, you have spelled your own doom!’ and she sat down in her cell at the top of the tower and watched the horizon, waiting for her knight. But do you know what happened?”
CM said nothing. She just stared at Nguyen, a small, lonely half-presence in the back of her own head. She had never missed the dummy network this much.
“A day went by, and the knight didn’t come. Then a week. Then a month. She lost count. The knight, she was told, was fighting the stone-hearted soldiers that plagued the land, day in and day out. She had found the worthiest use of her invincible, shining armour, and she would spend every moment she could spare to fight for her people. The blacksmith’s daughter cursed the knight for putting her duty over her love. The next day, she cursed herself for her selfishness, and a tear formed in her heart. The day after that, she cursed the prince for making her curse herself. Every day she cursed anew, and with every curse, she made another tear, until finally... it broke.”
CM retreated further into herself. She’d never done anything wrong before. She’d always been the perfect hero. It wasn’t fair.
“The witch saw the poor girl and took pity on her. She spun a thread of mercy and took it with her to the girl’s chamber. ‘Come, give me your heart’ she said, and held out her hand. ‘I shall mend it and ease your pain, but it will only work if you give it willingly.’ And so the blacksmith’s daughter did. And the witch took it and tenderly sewed it up. She held it up to her lips and whispered ‘I forgive you,’ and the girl’s pain was gone.
CM didn’t want any of this. She wanted to go back. Back to the Society. Back to LACE, if she had to, a stray subroutine in the back of her head chimed in.
“When the knight finally showed up and the blacksmith’s daughter beheld her with her beautiful armour all dents and rust, she could see the guilt in her eyes. And she realised that the knight’s heart must have been just as torn. She had been so busy traversing and defending the land, she had no choice but to delay her rescue. But now, she had finally come to free her love, and all would be right and good again.” Nguyen paused. “That is why you came here, Right, CM?” she asked.
CM said nothing.
“You didn’t just drop the case of my kidnapping to go back to stopping petty thefts. Did you, CM?”
“They weren’t unrelated...” CM’s voice was barely a whisper, “I was best deployed... stopping active supervillains. My systems made me a good...”
CM felt the trickle of something lukewarm flowing down from her crown. She looked up to see Nguyen holding the teacup she’d poured earlier and slowly emptying it over CM’s head.
“I heard,“ she said, “one of the mana dolls from the Society told us. Do you think that made it better? Or worse?”
CM looked down, avoided her gaze. Nguyen reached behind her and grabbed a handful of her hair, pulling her face up to look directly at it. Nguyen’s face was a mixture of pleading and pity. “Let me tell you how the story ends, CM. The knight comes to the tower and realises that her heart is just as torn as the girl’s.”
CM tried to shut it out, but she couldn’t. It was just too quiet inside her. She couldn’t stop anything, not in her current state. She needed to be her old self again.
When told she can fix it, if only she offers it freely, she has to make the hardest choice of her life, but... but she makes it, CM! Her heart is fixed, and together, they live-“
“GIVE ME MY FUNCTIONS BACK, YOU CHEATING WITCH!”
 A silence passed, CM wasn’t sure how long. She’d gotten bad at estimating time without her connection to the Society’s atomic clock. Nguyen was looking at her with a pained expression. Mayflower filled the silent room with a sigh. She gave her empty teacup to the reverently waiting hands of one of her mana dolls and stood up. “Your allotted time is up, Nguyen. I shall take over from here.”
Nguyen turned to Mayflower, frustration visible on her face, but locking up as soon as she laid eyes on her.
Mayflower reached out and put an upturned index finger to Nguyen’s chin, raising it with barely a touch. Nguyen looked up at her face, anxious for what was to follow, but unable to hide her eagerness for the attention. “She failed you. That fault is not yours.” Nguyen gave an excited little nod. Relief started to form on her face. “You are, however, at fault for overestimating her.” The relief quickly drained, replaced with guilt and... something else. Anticipation? “Y-yes, Miss.”
“Excuse me?” said CM, her mind still felt sluggish, cold and mired in... whatever the witch and her pet were doing to her, but she could still register an insult. “Overestimating me? She didn’t accomplish anything back there!”
“Precisely.” Mayflower turned to look down at her with those piercing eyes. “Everyone has a weakness, Custom Maid. Belle had her rebellious pride, and Nguyen had... well, you. Guilt can be a powerful motivator.” She put a hand on Nguyen’s head and stroked her hair affectionately, a gesture that visibly made the girl melt inside. “She gave so much of herself to me, and in exchange I gave her what she needed. Forgiveness. Redemption.” Her hand slid down the side of Nguyen’s face, where her thin fingers rested on her cheek. “And the penance required to make it earned.” Mayflower whispered a word in a language that shouldn’t have existed, and Nguyen started to spasm and suppress a scream. She grit her teeth, grabbed Mayflower’s hand with both of her own and held on, desperately, her knees starting to buckle. She mouthed something before passing out... CM could have sworn it was “thank you.”
CM stared at her friend lying on the ground, twitching slightly, a large damp spot visible on her skirt, before two of the mana dolls came to drag her off somewhere. Mayflower stood over her, looking at her as if she expected something. “You were her weakness, and she thought she was yours. She pleaded with me to let her work you. The sentimentalist in me wanted to see her succeed, so I gave her a chance.”
“You’ll never break me.”
Mayflower brought her fingertips to her forehead and shook her head. “You misunderstand, Custom Maid. Breaking a person is easy. Finding leverage matters only if you want to preserve them. It is what sets dear Nguyen apart from the rest of my dolls.”
CM looked up at her. “W-what?”
Mayflower sighed again. “But we are out of time. Truth be told, it was hardly her fault. You simply cared more about your precious augmentations than about her. One can scarcely tug at heartstrings that do not exist.”
CM wanted to say something, to tell her she was wrong, but she couldn’t find the words. Maybe if she’d had access to her full suite of neural pathways...
“And so the knight failed to return the love of the blacksmith’s daughter, and the witch plunged her hand into the knight’s chest and tore out her sad, withered heart. In its place, she left a cold, smooth stone. Truth be told, it was a better fit.”
The Mayflower Witch put her palm below Custom Maid’s head and cupped her chin. She tilted her upwards and leaned in. Before CM could really grasp what was going on, Mayflower was kissing her. It wasn’t what she’d expect. Despite the dissecting gaze and cruel words she’d been reserving for CM, the witch’s kiss was gentle. Soft. Warm like summer rain. CM wasn’t sure if it was just colour association, but the rich dark purple of her lips reminded her of blackberry jam, and as soon as that thought nestled itself in her head, she started tasting it. CM noticed after the fact that she’d started to lean into it. It occurred to her that she should be thinking about resisting, but as soon as it bubbled up, the notion of resistance was stolen right off of her lips. The silence, the empty space in her skull left by her machine-self, expanded. But as it did, the context changed. It was no longer the echoing, industrial silence of an empty factory, but a kinder, gentler thing. Peace and quiet filled her as Mayflower reached deep inside her and plucked away the terror of empty spaces. For a moment, she felt gratitude towards Mayflower, but that was a privilege reserved for those like Nguyen, and she had to make her peace with its absence. Peace that came easily. When Mayflower drew her head back and looked her in the eyes, wiping a thumb over her painted lips, CM’s entire body, her entire self felt like her inert machine-self. All of the parts were there, but no force was compelling them into motion.
Still leaving her hand around CM’s chin, Mayflower leaned back, examining her again. Her eyes shifted to lighter and lighter shades of purple before reverting to something so pale as to be grey again. CM felt like she was being disassembled. Somewhere in the back of her head, she was vaguely aware that this should concern her, but the only thought she could formulate just told her they were pretty. “Are you familiar with construct animation, Custom Maid?” she asked, “It involves infusing a machine with one’s own mana, thereby imbuing it with the will of the mage.” She turned the hand on CM’s chin, tracing her fingers across her jawline, over her cheek and, finally, she dragged her index and middle finger and inserted them into her waiting mouth.
Suck
Part of CM wondered if the word had been spoken or thought, by herself or by Mayflower, but that part was a muffled whisper that passed by long after she’d started following the notion. With nothing to drive her, the only thing to do was to simply observe the situation. The lightly salty taste of Mayflower’s digits, the supple sensation of her skin on CM’s tongue contrasting with the hard texture of painted keratin. When she pushed deeper, it faintly occurred to CM that her gag reflex must have been handled by her machine-self, because it was completely inactive. She noticed a light trickle of drool dropping from her chin. It reminded her that there was a world outside of her mouth. It began to dawn on her that there had been a droning sound. Something she couldn’t quite place. She wasn’t sure if her machine-self was trying to translate it. She wondered if she herself could even understand language right now. It didn’t matter. What mattered is that it came from the lips of Miss Mayflower, and it sounded pretty. After observing the linguistic dance of those dark lips for an amount of time that was completely opaque to her, CM dragged her eyes upward to see Miss Mayflower’s expression. It was bored. A vague sense of guilt washed over her. Had she disappointed Her? The feeling was gone almost as soon as it had arrived. Guilt wasn’t hers to feel, she understood that now.
When Miss Mayflower slowly drew back her hand, CM followed it, not wanting to let go. That was when she realised that, for the first time since she’d followed those petty thieves into the woods, she could stand on her own. She could. Tears started to flow down her cheeks. Miss Mayflower had given her back her functions. By the time She withdrew Her fingers, CM felt energised, like she was retracting her plug after a good charging session. She could feel the electricity dance through her, only... it wasn’t electricity. It was an energy that had a will of its own. Her own mind followed along in the back seat as it flowed through her systems, mechanical ones she knew and spiritual ones she’d never been able to feel before, and compelled them into motion. Compelled her to kneel and gather her hair up in her hands. For a moment, she idly wondered why she was doing that, but then one of the mana dolls... one of her sisters, she realised, CM wouldn’t have been able to express the relief she felt, she hadn’t had sisters in such a long time! The doll was holding a sturdy black leather choker inlaid with an amethyst. She could feel a quiet kinship and pride as her sister took her neck into the gentle embrace of the accessory and closed the loop with a nice, satisfying click.
It was like a circuit closing. Sensing Her permission, Custom Maid looked up at her mistress and smiled. She was finally whole.