There was stillness in the halls. Summer shone its light into the royal palace’s eerie stasis as though searching for signs of life. The palace had occupants, but they strove to shed their humanity in favour of a higher calling. A higher standard. They were to become Dolls for their mother, who worked tirelessly to care for her lovely Princess Pincushion and ensure that the staff did not carry the same stink—both figurative and literal—of the ratfolk infesting the city below.

Dollmother cared not for the people of the cove even if they were the queen regent’s subjects on paper. She would see them starved were they not dependent on the exploitation of their labour. This was the lot of peasantry, and she believed that they should have been more than grateful for the opportunity to keep the Princess safe and happy and fed.

There was a stillness in the halls, but it had begun to wane. There was a disturbance in the palace, as a young thing of 20 whined against its Mother’s paddle. Tears stained the disappointing Doll’s cheeks as it buckled dramatically with each and every strike. It knew that it deserved the physical punishment and wanted it to fix it—to break it—so that it could better serve as a real Dolldaughter. The sting was just.

Across from the Doll being bent over its mother’s knee was an identical Doll, hands folded neatly together and the corners of its eyes welling with unified shame and shared catharsis. That was normal for them; sisters shared everything. Seeing its mirror being dealt the same hurt it had just been administered—like medicine—its own rear bright red and terribly sore against the investigative sunlight, reminded the Doll that they were a single entity. They were gestalt.

“The two of you need to overcome this fault of yours, or I’ll pick the one I like the least and cast them out into isolation, like a sickly gull. Pretty things like you, my daughters, would be eaten alive by the rats out there. Defiled, rather than preserved; the menfolk really cannot help themselves I’m afraid. A mother’s love is an aegis.” Dollmother stroked the back of her soft, well kept hand over her property’s backside. Four knuckles dancing over that raw skin which held small bites from the small metal teeth that were studded through the wooden punishment tool. “You’ve been my Dolls for a while now, sweetlings, I expect better from you. Your big sister reports everything to me, you should know that.” All three of the white-haired Dolls in the scene tilted their gazes towards the lanky Doll by the door, who did not appear to be apologetic in the slightest for having carried out her duty. The Doll the others called ‘Big Sister’ was endlessly proud of herself whenever she found herself on Mother’s tongue, or even just decorating the perfect woman’s periphery in silence.

“Sorry, Mother! It is… this one’s fault. We struggle to bathe together, and when bedtime gets… active… it needs to leave the room. It knows that walking the halls past midnight is forbidden, but…”

“You’re having difficulties being open—and intimate—with your fellow Dolls?” Dollmother interrupted the standing Doll, who was staring at its sister’s red flesh intensely before averting its gaze down to its glossy black shoes, attempting to distract itself with the observation that one of its frilled white socks reaches up higher than the other, probably. “Look at me when I’m talking to you, daughter.”

The Doll’s head shot up, and its shoulders hunched. It met its Mother’s eyes obediently, meekly, ripped right out of that attempted reverie it sought to escape into so as to avoid looking upon its sister’s present state. It was not the redness that twisted Doll’s heart most, but the contorted look of pleasure worn on its mirror-self’s face. Did this one look the same as that? It wondered in horror, recalling the way its sister could not bring itself to turn away.

“I-I ah… sorry, Mother. I… no, not with all the Dolls. Just that one. It… isn’t sure why, but that one makes it feel ashamed in a way the other sisters do not. It’s a fault of this one’s.” The Doll’s heart was pounding irregularly in its chest, but it knew not why. It was tincture-touched, too fucked on the sky blue cure that freed it from its mental gravity to remember why this particular sister was distinct from the others.

“A mutual one at that, as I hear it. You’re both struggling to overcome the embarrassment the other makes you feel. I cannot abide this. All my daughters are the same, all are equal, save for your big sister who I lend power to so that she may keep the peace. The rest of you are not granted special privileges, nor are you permitted to cling to the vestiges of your human past. These feelings you harbour, they are ghosts. Today, we will conduct an exorcism of a sort.”

Dollmother removed the disciplined dolly from her lap and smirked, imperceptibly, as she watched the frail girlthing struggle to stand on such shaky legs. The Doll reminded her of a baby deer, and hypocritically recalled the hunts another girl once tagged along with her father and brother on. Anarres was not a hunter; Dollmother was a predator. She was akin to a spider, and these servants of hers had gotten trapped in that cerulean web she’d spun in her den. With pronounced steps that commanded the room’s attention as much as the stern, infallible voice she always spoke with, the Dollmother walked over to her bedside table and pulled open the Princess’s treat drawer.

The sound of a jingling chain filled the room—bedchambers which housed five heads of white hair—and the Dolls turned towards the thing bolted to the wall, which knelt on a repurposed cushion with a happy little grin that made the Dollmother swoon and wilt.

“Not for you, precious, I need to borrow one of your candies to train my daughters. They need to serve you perfectly, so you’ll excuse your mama this once won’t you?” The previously imposing woman now spoke in a tone so lilting and affectionate that none could deny the love that poisoned it.

Chained to the wall, with a chunky iron collar encircling her neck, was the queen regent of this kingdom. The cove’s ruler could not be trusted to wander about on her own, so in the rare cases where Dollmother was forced to leave the lovely Princess’s side she felt the need to employ this measure of bondage. The happy little thing tilted her head with a whine, and with the collar she almost appeared as a puppy to the onlookers—who would never even dare to vocalise such dangerous thoughts aloud in front of their Mother. Princess was not a puppy; she was the most cherished and important of the daughters, of all daughters, and her mama made sure to remind the girl of that each and every night as she obliterated the regent’s higher thought process forever with that pale blue tincture.

“Tin… ture?” The girl mouthed, her eyes displaying nothing but the need of a nursling, fingers digging wantonly between her thighs to make the image that much more depraved and impossible to look away from. Princess had the largest pupils of all the Dolls, and her lips were as blue as a dead girl’s. Still, her skin was flush, her face a picture of radiance when in the presence of her beloved mama.

“Not now. Be good.” The Princess’s keeper kissed that soft white head of hers and made the overgrown infant tremble with pleasure at the attention. It made her feverish whenever her mama would play with her, but even a mind broken wastrel like her knew that was not liable to happen right now. It made her awfully jealous, and where she had previously kept quiet on her mama’s command her highness had now begun to thrash against the chain that kept her in place. The sound of clinking metal tantrum filled the room as the Princess demanded, without the need for words she was not so proficient with any more, that she was left neglected no longer.

Mother sighed, and resigned to her fate with a warmth in her smile that told the room she was incapable of losing her patience with the girl she loved. A command from her Owner was a potent thing, Dollmother slipping her dress down her shoulder and reaching for the medicinal body paint to coat her bosom with. “Dahlie, come here.” The big sister Doll obeyed without hesitating, skipping over to her Mother’s side and waiting patiently for instruction. “I need you to take those two and… make them get along. Tear down those walls they erect between one another by any means necessary, it’s unbecoming of Dolls to care about such petty, human things.”

“Yes Mother.” The doll named Dahlie felt winded with new purpose, pride swelling in her chest, and her loins, at the fact that Mother trusted her enough to delegate a task as important as this to her. With a private little ceremony in her heart, the Doll told herself that she’d have no cause to burn tonight. She was being good.

“Use this. The medicine woman made different samples for us, but I’ve taken to other methods. This is too hands off for me but perfect for making two resistant sisters learn to love each other without petty restrictions. I’m sure you can figure out what I had in mind, you’re very bright for a Doll, Dahlie.” The Mother manipulated her ‘eldest’ the most, for the unmedicated Doll needed that extra push to be kept well under thumb.

Dahlie’s mind was swimming, no, drowning in the praise. Every time she spoke to her Mother she felt her old self snuffed out and replaced with a new iteration of Dahlie. Each time, she was just a little more perfect; a little less Markham. It’s freeing, to have the you fucked out of you until the only thing remaining is a black hole of “Yes Mother. Thank you Mother.”

Dahlie took the large, flat lolly from her Mother’s hand, inspecting it with wide-open eyes that filled with sudden understanding. The candy was shaped like a heart, not the anatomically correct kind you’d expect from a doctor like the medicine woman, but one fashioned symbolically in the shape of silphium’s seed pod—as seen in black on the Durenburg family heraldry. Here, it was blue, and Dahlie was a bright enough girl, as her Mother had suggested, to know exactly what that meant. The Doll’s fingers curled tight around the wooden stick that ran through the lolly and carried it with the care and respect one should for such an invaluable medicine.

“This is diluted, but still, they will not need their doses tonight.” Dollmother turned her attention away from Dahlie after speaking those words, and the Doll saw this as a sign that she truly was trusted above anyone with such precious matters. She swelled again, turning to face the sister Dolls who looked as ashamed of themselves as Dahlie was proud of herself. Good, she could use that.

“I’ll make you proud, Mother! Come, you two. We can do this in our quarters while the rest of the sisters are hard at work. You’ll make up for that lost labour, I hope you understand?” Dahlie rounded up her little sisters and took one last glance back, hoping for her Mother’s approving gaze to be fixed squarely on her. It wasn’t, of course, because the Princess was a true black hole; she absorbed all of that attention and love and was never fully sated by it. Dahlie chewed her lip to stop it from quivering and turned away to reach for the door handle. It was impossible to contend with the Princess. She was Mother’s daughter too, her favourite in fact, but she was by no means a sister. Princess was a narcotic.

The moment they spilled out into the hall, Dahlie offered a hand to each of her little sisters and the Dolls took it without hesitating; they trusted and loved Dahlie as one of their own, even a superior of a sort, despite the anointed eldest being untouched by the pale blue goodnight kisses that pressed upon the other Doll’s egos so lovingly.

“Your hands are so clammy. Does being in one another’s company truly make you so uncomfortable?” Dahlie spoke like a figure of authority, leading her lambs to the slaughter of their shared shyness.

“It’s not that…” one of the Dolls began, the three of them syncing their footfalls into a uniform rhythm as they made their journey to the maid quarters, which was now a den for Dolls and daughters. “Just, watching something like… that… feels different with that one. It makes this one’s chest tight, it’s so silly, but outside of more embarrassing activities the two of us are nigh inseparable.”

“You really shouldn’t pick favourites, Doll, but I’ll confess it’s really rather cute.” Dahlie, as sharp and unmedicated as she was, could tell what this mystery difference was like it was the most obvious thing in the entire world. To a human, it was, but to Dolls packed into narrow tunnels of thought and perception, their minds spaced apart into spinning galaxies that robbed them of some basic understandings, it was esoteric and frustrating. The Dolls wanted to be good, they could not understand why their hearts were sabotaging their obedience. Dahlie looked between them both and felt a rush of something naughty between her legs as she considered just how taboo this was, though it was hardly beyond the ill morals she had already committed to. Having chosen to steep herself in sin for the sake of her beloved Mother so many times already, training two biologically identical twins to unlearn their personal boundaries and enjoy each other’s body as one, as gestalt, was nothing she could not swallow. Worse, she was going to enjoy it, secretly, and punish herself with copper kisses later in the evening for her own depraved excitement at the act. “Come, get yourselves situated on the bed.”

The two Dolls felt their nerves return as Dahlie’s fingers slipped from theirs when the stern command left her lips. Giving one another bashful little smiles, as though goading each other onto the bed co-operatively, the twins dropped their knees onto its edge at the exact same time and knelt facing each other, holding hands instinctively. Dahlie was proud to see that they had assumed the position she intended for them without even needing to be directed. This was going to be easy.

Removing the paper wrapping from the bright blue candy in her hand, Dahlie walked over to the two patient Dolls, though did not join them on the bed. It was a long stretch of mattresses pushed together to create the illusion of one long bed that spanned the back wall of their quarters; sisters shared everything, so sleeping together as a collective only made sense to the daughters. “All I need you to do is lick, I won’t make you share the same side, see? This thing is big enough that you won’t even be able to see the other, but you’ll feel the pressure of their tongue against the candy. A bright blue buffer that will slowly ease you into sharing more. Do you understand?”

The Dolls stared intensely at the candy that fell between their eyes and obscured the other from view. Their fingers were still laced together below that looming, heart-shaped destiny, and they tightened their grip to remind each other that they were in this together come what may. Blue was not a typical colouring for confectionery, nor any common consumable, and even Dolls as dimmed as these two knew exactly what it was that hovered before them. Tincture. It made them want to drool down their dresses, their eyes bulging against that cerulean window to the soul, a Dollmaker of medicine that had them all in its blissful vice; each of them succumbed to that mental guillotine that cut their ambition down to size, something small enough to shelf in a cabinet with its sister Dolls.

“We just have to lick it? B-But what about when it gets smaller…” One of the twins squirmed, shuffling on the bed as the pair’s knees kissed atop the sheets. It was taking everything they had not to completely lose themselves in the drug they were helplessly addicted to, but clarification was needed due to their unusual discomfort.

Dahlie chuckled, holding out the lolly in one hand while fixing her stick-straight white hair with the other. “The purpose of this exercise isn’t to exhaust your jaws, I’m not going to make you lick it that long. Just for a few minutes at most, that isn’t so difficult is it?”

The relief hit both twins at the same time, their sighs would have met in the middle were it not for that big blue barrier between them. Dahlie tried her best to hide her sisterly smirk as she watched their hunched shoulders relax and their acceptance blossom. There was something a little intoxicating to the eldest in manipulating impressionable, slow-witted dollys, but such a thought only meant that she had a date with the branding iron that night after her siblings drifted off. She needed to be more disciplined than this, less indulgent to her own perverse desire and more obeisant to her Mother’s iron will.

The twins’ relief was obviously misguided, but they did not need to be aware of that. They did not need to be aware of anything for the next half hour besides each other, and the candy would make that a certainty soon enough. Dahlie was only slightly jealous of their ability to taste the Milky Way kisses that she could not, but she had since learned to take pride in what she viewed as a wholly consensual and unassisted devotion arc in her own fall to Mother’s loving control. Even sharp witted humans could be blind at times of course, in fact it was arguably even more destructive; with full mental faculties, your ability to trick yourself into justifying anything you want becomes much stronger, even when those wants were borne of weakness and hurt.

“You may begin now, little sisters.” Her permission was voiced in the tone of an order, each of the twins tightening their grip and leaning close to that obliterative blue. Pale pink tongues lolled out with shaking breaths, their eyes scrunching adorably shut as they drew closer to their undoing destiny. Dahlie held the candy firm, watching as both muscles slowly extended and flattened against the flat surface of the corrective candy.

The two small bodies relaxed even deeper the instant they made contact with the treat that was as hard as they were soft—as brittle as they were broken. Dahlie drank in the sight of their fluttering eyes, only ever opening halfway as they began to lap at the sugary sweetness before them. The tincture had no discernible flavour at all, but it was the best thing they had ever tasted in their lives. Fingers that had previously been tight in their sisterly lock now loosened as the twins forgot about anything but the cosmos in their mouths. It was unlocking their minds the same way it did each and every night, stealing away ambition and independence and gendered pronouns with the glee of a carnivorous predator sinking its fangs into prey; the medicine was gluttonous, never sated with the sweet catastrophes wrought by its ingestion. It hungered like it had the capacity to want for itself.

“Good girls. I mean, Dolls.” Dahlie thought on searing flesh, and the penitent brands she already harboured for her previous indiscretions, as she misspoke so foolishly. It did not matter to her, a Doll yet referred to as a ‘she’ as a means of indicating some earned authority, that the two nameless daughters before her lacked the self-awareness in that moment to have acknowledged the speech infraction; Dahlie was honest and self-discipline was more important to her than anything. While she feared that word she would be forced to press into her flesh come evening, Dahlie’s arm did not so much as tremble as she held it between the two brainless Dolls. They were really gone now, no light at all visible behind those glassy eyes, hair falling down to call curtains on whatever thoughts were inhabiting their brains before the drug’s hostile occupation took over.

“Mmhnn…” “Hhh… ggghh…” The two of them were lapping away eagerly, but unintelligently—like mongrels. Dahlie recalled the way these lifelike imitation Dolls had been acting all the way up until their tongues pressed upon the blue, and her face turned a contrasting red. It was such a turn on, the eldest privately confessed, wanting to see her little sisters’ ruination up close, savour it like this was her fucking cut of the terrible deal they all made. Slowly, the predatory Big Sister inched ever closer, dropping her knee onto the bed and keeping her arm held steady while her free hand began to twine fingers into the left twin’s hair. Sinful digits pulled the white strands up to her face and Dahlie inhaled, laughing quietly at her own strange, unexplainable perversion. It was just the same fresh scent every Doll carried, herself included, but the violation turned it into something heady and exotic. She wanted more, to violate these stupid twins she trained herself to love as a way of letting them pay her back for being their pillar. Mother was love, but she was often busy with the favourite.

Dahlie would exact her price soon enough, but she could at the very least manage to forestall her indulgence until she’d truly got the ball rolling on the Dolls’ bonding. These things were so trusting and impressionable, it was as pitiful as it was endlessly endearing. They were as children, drug-fucked and beautiful. They were amber-clad, trapped in a chrysalis that would preserve their simple natures forevermore.

“Sorry, little ones.”

Before either of the twin Dolls could acknowledge the words addressed to them, which they were not liable to have done in their shared altered state, Dahlie lifted the lolly between their faces until their needy tongues could no longer follow its cruel ascent. It became a blue Moon hovering above them in the night sky above—in the late hour of their dignity—and then it disappeared entirely when Dahlie placed it onto the empty dinner tray beside her. The Dolls were desperate for more of that addictive substance which had enough hooks in them at this point to split them in two. While nobody wished for such bloody quadruplets, the daughters’ object permanence in their present headspace was so poor that they could not follow the trajectory of that runaway Moon at all, and they were ready to be torn asunder by the absence. Then, as they blinked away the humiliating tears which filled their vision, the mirror Dolls noticed something curious—something hopeful. Something exciting.

Their jaws were hanging, drool abseiling down from their slick chins to their bunched up skirts below. With their tongues exposed, each of them were free to take note of that mesmerising cerulean colour which replaced the typical pink. It was like a painted on target, telling their poised muscles exactly where to strike. The two were upon each other in an instant, forgetting both the lolly and their prior difficulties regarding physical intimacy as they now lashed at one another’s tongues for the deep blue treasure like they were attempting to welt the other. The sounds they made were obscene as they sucked and slurped in each other’s mouths wantonly, whores of instinct who knew nothing beyond the bounds of their engaged tongues. The muscles locked together in a constant struggle, tasting that fading tincture which refused to let them surface from the deep waters of their flooding souls. Dahlie punctured the weak skin of her lip as she watched them both, heard them both, moaning and suckling and making such terrible messes of their chins as spittle escaped like there’d been an evacuation notice inside the soft cavities of their faces that knew only how to whore in that drugbent reverie they were lost in.

“Gods… I-I need… you both,” the eldest let out a lusty exhale unbefitting of a Doll in her position, and quickly finished her thought “t-to get along like this from now on, I mean. Okay? Break… break down those barriers and learn to love the taste of your sister’s tongue in your mouth like a lover’s. Gosh.” Dahlie’s breath had become terribly laboured as she watched her little sisters pulling closer, their clammy fingers finding each other again but only locking for a brief moment before they began to roam. It was only natural, the sensual nature of their bonding had lit a fire in their loins that began to make too much sense after Dahlie likened them to lovers. The twins lacked experience with sexual intimacy, but they did their Doll-best to imitate the acts they’d spied during their service in the palace, pushing greedy fingers against one another’s slumping forms and groping handfuls of flesh to better acquaint themselves with those previously taboo bodies. When she noticed how much they were failing to put on a good show of bonding, wasting that passion on directionless grabs at the other like the rutting animals they’d been reduced to, Dahlie found her in and smiled darkly.

“Ah… you girls… Dolls… need some help? I, yes. I’m here for leadership and guidance, so it’s my responsibility to show you how to bond properly.” Dahlie licked her lips, snaking over that sore bite from moments ago, and pushed between the daughters on the bed with strength the chemically weakened, frail toys did not possess the means to fight against. Forcing herself between them and immediately feeling an almost overwhelming heat envelop her from both sides, Dahlie sat back and watched with intense focus as the twins leaned over their big sister like she was little more than an obstacle, their mouths returning to the meld with reignited vigour. They were completely addicted to each other in a way that would have felt inappropriate for even a regular, unrelated couple. It was adorable. One twin wrapped its arms around the other’s neck while the other cupped its sister’s burning cheeks as they continued, ceaselessly, to assault each other so deeply they could gag on that smouldering love. Dahlie assessed the immolation of their inhibitions, their morals and pride, with a satisfied smile. Mother would be happy with this result, thought the eldest bashfully, surmising hopefully that she might even receive praise for the job well done. Completing tasks was a baseline expectation of course, never something to expect reward for, but a Doll could dream; even if Dahlie was barred from that sky-blue heaven the dreamers oft surveyed.

After a few seconds of watching the two lean over her to continue the sloppiest trading of spit the kingdom had surely ever seen, their hands dropping down from holding one another to sinking deep into Dahlie’s thighs for stability, the soberest of the three Dolls found her temptation building into something towering and ghoulish. It was destiny, knocking three times against the door inside her head behind which she locked all of her own perverse desires so that she could be nothing but a dutiful servant—a Mother’s limb.

Dahlie let the door swing open. It was fine, she reasoned; this was bonding time.

“Let’s get a little more comfortable, alright?” Without bothering to wait for an answer that would never come, Dahlie’s fingers were already rolling up the hem of the first twin’s skirt and peeling the white-haired Doll’s maid dress up past its torso and chest. When she reached the top, it took some pressure from the eldest’s firm palm to pry their mouths apart so that she could remove the dress entirely. Her eyes bulged at that soft, vulnerable body Dahlie knew she could have her way with to her own black heart’s content, hugged nicely by white lace underwear she found herself more perverse in keeping on then tearing off right away. The second twin was undressed next, then Dahlie hurriedly removed her own uniform and neatly folded it by her side. The Doll shivered and smiled, pulling both sisters deeper into her lap. “We’ll have to stay close for warmth, okay? Your bodies are so much more heated than mine, I need to siphon some of that. It’s only fair.”

Both twins tilted their heads in a sluggish manner, like puppies that did not have the language centres available to decipher the words being told to them. Dahlie was so turned on she knew not how to behave, ignoring how deeply tonight’s punishment would have to scar her for such wicked vices as she dragged her tongue across the first twin’s spit-soaked throat and up its chin before invading its mouth like she had equity in it. The other Doll whined, pawing at Dahlie and its sister simultaneously, begging with such simple noises to not be left out. Who was Dahlie to deny her little sister’s pleas? Her palm pressed itself firmly into the second Doll’s plush chest, cupping its rightmost breast with fingers that forgot grace in this Doll-delirium that Dahlie had been thrust into by the pornographic showing her seductive moppet sisters had put on. Dahlie lifted the Doll’s breast to get a feel for its weight, sinking into the flesh as she felt something harden against her palm through the thin slip of fabric. All the while, Dahlie was bonding with the other twin quite nicely; her tongue had the other’s in a strict bondage, having won the wrestle for supremacy with the same ease one might find in duelling a training dummy. She supposed that’s what these silly little things were akin to in this horrible, blissful snapshot of life in the palace under the queen regent’s rule: training dummies for sex. You cannot molest a porcelain Doll the same way you can’t murder a wooden fencing partner, it’s only make-believe. So when Dahlie gagged the sweet, docile plaything she had up on her thigh while tenderising its twin sister’s flesh with a hand that only knew how to take things by force from those too weak to fight it, she was committing no offence. Sisters share everything, even consent.

The medicine staining the tongue that Dahlie sucked on had no love for her and thus she was immune; ingest enough of it and she’d take ill, even, but fortunately for her predatory advances the Dolls had already lapped up all but the lingering trace. It was mostly just the colour left. Dahlie pulled out of her little sister’s warm facial hole and the two of them gasped for air, the Doll in control laughing breathlessly and peppering the mentally regressed fucktoy’s cherub-like face with more kisses than she had regrets left to taunt her. This felt too good to guilt over. The other Doll was jutting its chest out, leaning into that clawing, vice-like grip desperately as it mewled and writhed in place on Dahlie’s other thigh. These two were women once, Dahlie supposed, turning her attention to the clingy sister who’d been waiting for more kisses and assessing that expression she could never imagine being worn by a person, let alone a woman. No, that would only take if she were to picture the sort of adulterating, scatter-brained harlots that men’s scrawled fantasies would typically always depict. Dahlie was just a Doll, but she knew well that in her Mother’s eyes that placed her squarely above the menfolk she loathed so. Knowing this made the Doll feel smug, revelling in the fact that she was able to enjoy a man’s wet dream while he’d never taste such forbidden fruit outside of his pathetic fantasies. This variant of slut no longer belonged to men, but to pristine female imitation. Dahlie felt like a creep, but the sleaze just seemed so much more attractive on a woman. The mirror across from her, which she usually stood before during her self-inflicted punishments, was now presenting something dangerously erotic: The Devil. It was Dahlie’s arcana, and she was the beast, sitting there with two servile mortals stripped and bound; their collars and chains were incorporeal, but Dahlie could see them plainly in the mirror, which told truths to her each and every night like bedtime stories. There, in the revelatory silver of their body-length mirror, sat two naked Dolls clasped in irons just like the Princess, tethered directly to Dahlie’s aching cunt. The mirror whispered her fate in a single card pull, and Dahlie knew then that temptation and lust were these sisters’ names. She needed them between her legs more than she cared for the sanctity of her own psyche after all the brands she’d have to bear in penance.

“Both of you need to sharpen up a little and listen to Big Sister. Do as I say, I know you’re too suggestible not to bend to a stronger will right now so don’t be difficult.” Dahlie ran her fingers through both heads of hair, watching as the meek things’ eyes became so soft and round and receptive. They were finally listening, nodding like the puppies Dahlie likened them to earlier. Cute. “Repeat after me. I need to eat Big Sister’s cunt.”

Both Dolls turned flush, even in their simplified headspace, and looked at one another for guidance. Dahlie clicked her tongue and gripped their hair, forcing their heads to turn back towards her. She knew her task was to have the two bond, but simply fucking each other wasn’t enough. They had to learn how to service together. Better still, they had to learn how to share when they were this horny and high off their heads.

“I… neeed to… to eat… b-big sister’s… _cunt.”

“I n-need to uhm… eat my big sister’s… _cunt.”

Neither of them could reach above a whisper with that last, naughty word. It turned Dahlie on so much she could not resist prying fingers deep into each of their mouths, letting them grow docile and pacified by the digits which held their tongues down and guided them, wordlessly, off the edge of the bed and onto their knees. The floor was a hard wood board, but the drug-afflicted trance was enough to kill the pain in its crib.

“There we go, such good Dolls.” Dahlie’s voice was dripping lust, which ignited in her throat. Every single word she spoke was laced with fire, immolating her sisters’ own dormant honeypots. They were kneeling with their thighs pushed together tightly in a row of four, fingers prying into the clefts to explore the sensitive, erogenous conflagrations that burned damp holes into their innocent white panties. Their thoughts were so spaced apart by that medicine high that the arousal was the only thing anchoring them to the real world; that and Big Sister Dahlie’s words. “Nuzzle close now, here let me help you. Leadership and guidance.” Dahlie picked up the lolly still slick and sticky from those perfectly obedient tongues and smeared the wet blue coating up her thighs. Both Dolls did as they were told happily, shuffling as close as they could until each of them was between Dahlie’s spread legs, locking arms for support before letting their blushing porcelain faces descend upon those drugged thighs. Dahlie let out a lilting little sigh as she felt tickled by those swarming tongues and soft white curtains. She soon found herself grabbing their heads as she had before, guiding them. Leading them. The tongues were oh so thorough in their drug-addicted duty, lapping at every spot of Dahlie’s thighs that housed any trace of tincture. “What did I tell you fucking Dolls? Repeat it again and see if you can put two and two together in this state of yours.” As she spoke, Dahlie rubbed the candy’s surface with her fingers, preparing them for what came next.

The twins groaned as Big Sister clicked her tongue to emphasise that her words were not to simply wash over them, but to be heard and obeyed. Her words were a command, and Dahlie’s little sisters could not stave off the shared compulsion to submit.

“I need… to… to eat Big Sister’s… c-cunt.”

“I neeed to… eat… my Big Sister’s… cunt.”

They were both too freshly spaced out by the medicine woman’s finite gift to consider the embarrassment of saying that word this time around, staring almost blankly ahead at that waiting wetness between Dahlie’s legs just as the eldest began to coat her lips in cerulean ambrosia. The twin Dolls pushed their faces closer, cheeks melding together as they finally reached their sister’s spiked sex and began to slurp at it in perfect unison. Their tongues touched occasionally, and Dahlie felt as much in heaven as she belonged in hell.

“Gosh… th-this is… yes, you’re learning to share. Hey! Let your sister lick there. You can take turns with m-my aaaahhh… my god… damn…” The Doll in charge was getting carried away, her temptation was, itself, an infinite blueness that touched upon her abdomen and started a fire in her body. She disciplined the Dolls occasionally as they ate her out with an endearing lack of technique, Dahlie eventually helping them work her up to her first orgasm. The left twin was the one to push her over the edge, and that gave the eldest a wicked idea. She grabbed the lolly and painted a tally mark onto the right twin’s torso, where its own tongue could not reach. “One point to left here, whoever gets the most will have more tincture to suck off the other’s flesh once you’re done serving me.”

The game was somehow understood immediately by the two bonding siblings, who were learning that even competition could help them grow closer and more intimate. Their tongues became more fierce, their mouths grappling for control over Big Sister’s pleasure. Dahlie felt herself as The Devil in the mirror again, corrupting her baby sisters without a care in the world for anything but her own pleasure and Mother’s orders. The former did not supersede the latter, but anything else was fair game. She loved her sisters, but they were just too endlessly fuckable in mind and body not to use from time to time, else she’d feel that their perfect flesh was being wasted. She would not let such supple pleasure slip between her fingers, seep through the floorboards, and rot into obscurity.

The twins continued their task, mouths overlapping over Dahlie’s cunt so egregiously they were experiencing a three-way kiss. Dahlie could see her own lust glazing their smiles, and felt that it went perfectly with their glazed over eyes. She came again. Right’s on two now…

Just an early lead, they had all fucking night.

A week had passed since the bonding incident occurred, Dahlie slamming the door shut on vice after sobering at the horror of that word now seared against half her lower body. She may have made a mistake, but she would never slack on her self-imposed punishments. Discipline was important, she was trusted to oversee her own mental conditioning and that spiked her with more pride than she had demons. It culled her drive to get carried away again, made it impotent as the men she oft fantasised about making cuckolds of.

Rising up out of bed bright and early, Dahlie stared down at the mess of self-inflicted burns above her navel and sighed. She hated being such a devilish wretch, spitting on her Mother’s kindness, and so knew these were deserved reminders… yet, she was so ashamed of them that she always made sure to wake up first so that she could dress herself and begin her daily tasks without becoming a spectacle.

Except, Dahlie was not the only Doll in their pile that had rose before their typical awakening wrought by sundial lancets and synced circadian rhythm. There were two others that she had spied on the other side of their long bed, sitting up on their knees and holding one another’s cheeks. Dahlie scoffed, tracing a finger over the brand she gave herself for ruining them. She had been instructed to bond them, but did far too good of a task. There they sat, knees pushing between one another’s legs, chests compressing together, exploring each other’s mouths like they simply couldn’t help it. Like it was how they said good morning now.

“S-Sis…” One of them whispered, glancing Dahlie’s watchful gaze in its periphery and worrying they might get in trouble.

“Don’t mind me, little sisters. I’m still paying for this new habit of yours, so the least you can do is enjoy it. You’re not the ones in trouble, and it’s really cute, so go ahead.” The eldest slipped out of bed and walked across the room, picking up the uniform she ironed before going to sleep and beginning to dress herself right in front of the incestuous Dolls.

“O-okay, thank you Big Sister!” The Doll giggled and its twin joined it, their hands lowering to lace fingers together as one began to kiss and suckle against the other’s neck experimentally. They had spent the past week learning that intimacy with each other still felt different, wrong, but in a way that only seemed to excite and encourage their perverted desires. They were touched by The Devil in the mirror, and neither of them cared to protest its alterations. Hands roamed freely, no shyness in the touch because their body was one. Like the Mother and the Princess, they were two halves of a single depraved whole.

Dahlie whistled.

“There you are. Later than usual but still earlier than agreed upon. Punctuality can be annoying when it’s overbearing, daughter. Can’t you see I’m still breastfeeding?” The Dollmother was sitting at the foot of her bed, with the Princess curled up against her latching her greedy mouth against painted bosom; the scene reminded Dahlie, shamefully, of the event which led to her present castigation. Mother, who was kindness itself, had only been mean to her all week. Cold. None of the usual praise that peeked out and made Dahlie feel special when she was nice and compliant. It made the Doll so very nervous, but she was told that if she performed these extra service duties for a month following her indulgence, she might return to her Mother’s good graces.

“S-Sorry, Mother. I… I can leave and come back if—”

“No, no. You’re here. Kneel.” Dollmother’s tone was that of a deity addressing its subject, Dahlie feeling an overwhelming gravity that compelled her to the ground faster than she even processed the command. The kit she was carrying dropped down to her right with a thud louder than the one made by her own dainty knees. Dahlie considered the fact that she had already punished herself, that this was unnecessary, but the truth was she was never directly told to do that. Mother’s punishment was just. Everything Mother did was awe-inspiring, Dahlie adored her so much because she no longer had anybody left to worship and make the lonely pain in her chest disappear. Only Mother.

“Should I… start now?” The Doll glanced the Princess, who paid no attention to anything in the room but the medicine coated breast plugging her mouth.

“Yes, daughter. Earn your place by my side, by hers. I don’t have all day.”

Dahlie nodded emphatically, chewing the inner lining of her mouth as she felt torn over this situation she found herself in. It was not much of a punishment for her, who craved any excuse to enter these chambers she was so rarely invited into. In fact, she was dreading the month coming to a close, contemplating acting up again just to continue visiting. No, no… she would never. Because the woman just called her daughter, while her body said otherwise. One day she’d run out of hidden skin to print that sadistic little word onto and then the truth of what she was would leak out for all to see. A sinful thought crossed Dahlie’s mind—that she was better at punishing herself than Mother was at disciplining her directly. Then, she got to work, reaching into her kit and placing her Mother’s foot atop her thigh. The contact felt so exhilarating, even if she knew this was going to end so unpleasantly. The medicine did not work on her, it made her very ill.

“I… thank you for always having my… b-best interests at heart, Mother. I… love you. So much.” Dahlie’s body was trembling as she used the contents of her kit to clean Mother’s leg and then coat it in the same cerulean paint that stained the messy regent’s happy face. She felt as Mother ground her foot down cruelly while she worked, digging heel into Dahlie’s thigh for little more than a cheap salve for impatience. Swallowing drily, Dahlie finished the first part of her task and watched Mother pull her leg off her thigh so that the Doll could get on her hands and knees for the final part of this cruel punishment ritual. While on all fours, Dahlie would have to lap up every stretch of skin she just painted—until either she finished or she threw up. She never finished. It was only fair. It was her bondage, and the Doll willingly submitted herself to it with only minor flecks of tears in her eyes. This was her lot. Dahlie was content. She knew, shamefully, that despite this tough love…

She would sin again.