Alice's cottage smells like the things of country living and dollmaking: Tea and paint, firewood and ink, dried herbs and newly-fired porcelain. The evening sun still shines through the windows of her workshop, but she's already lit several candles, giving everything a slight orange cast.

She needs the extra light, because tonight, Alice is making dolls.

In front of her is a wooden body that has already been assembled and enchanted during a previous night's labor: A featureless, but delicately curved, torso. Two legs, with ball-jointed knees and ankles so precisely-made that they'd make a watchmaker jealous. Two arms, with similarly articulate fingers on the hands. And, a bald little head with an empty face. The surface has already been sanded far smoother than any skin, and covered in a pale, almost-white, coat of paint.

Alice reaches down and taps the doll's head with a single fingertip. In response, the little figure pushes itself up to standing, with its blank face peering forward. Alice gently cups that tiny chin, and with her other hand, retrieves two blue glass eyes from a box and slides them into the empty sockets on the doll's face. She subtly adjusts them to make sure that both eyes are aligned, then lifts a fine-tipped brush and dips it in a pot of black paint. After years of doing this, she's quite dexterous, but she still takes her time as she paints a perfect dainty mouth.

When she's done, Alice pulls the paintbrush back and tilts the doll's head side to side to inspect her handiwork, then gently blows on it for a few seconds to help the paint set. With that, she pats the doll on the head. "Go on, go sit over there until you're all dry."

The doll stiffly turns, then totters over to the corner of the desk, with its little wooden feet tapping out a series of clicks as it walks. By the time it sits down, Alice has already picked up another body and started painting it.

The doll doesn't think, but it has awareness—enough to respond to orders, at least. Now it has eyes, so it can see the rest of the room. There are several more dolls just like itself sitting to the side. It stares forward without purpose, simply waiting for a command to give it a reason to move.

Two hours pass. More and more dolls line up next to it, and then the others start walking away one by one. Finally, Alice looks to the doll with a smile and beckons it with a bent finger. "Your turn."

The doll stands up and tap-tap-taps across the desk again, then stands in front of Alice. The magician reaches down to tilt its head for another inspection, and the doll does not resist. Seeming satisfied, Alice grabs a tiny mop of hair and secures it on top of the doll's head. Golden strands of hair pass in front of its eyes, and Alice brushes them back with her fingertips.

From a small box to the side, Alice lifts up a doll-sized black dress, with stitching so fine that it's barely even visible, and holds it above the doll's head. "Up. Up—there you go." The doll raises its hands in the air, and Alice pulls the dress down onto its body. This musses its hair up, but she patiently smooths it out again, then pulls it back into a bundle and deftly ties a red bow at the base. With the addition of a pair of black shoes to its feet, the doll is done.

Alice slides one hand beneath the doll and lifts it up to her face for a final inspection. Her fingers brush over its clothes, smoothing out miniscule wrinkles, then drift over its hands, where tiny fingers clench against hers in response. She smiles. "Welcome, little one. I'm sure you'll make a fine addition to the family."

With her inspection complete, she sits the doll aside moves on to the next.

When her work for the night is done, Alice leads the new dolls into the next room and directs them to rest on the shelves. Alice goes to sleep, and the doll continues to sit. From this vantage point, it can see dozens of its sisters, in dresses of all the colors of the rainbow. The doll doesn't sleep, but it doesn't notice the passing of time, either. Its glass eyes just stare ahead blankly, waiting for orders.

Several days pass. A week. A month. The doll does its duties. The doll helps cook. The doll makes Alice's bed with a team of six of its sisters. At night, the doll stares blankly ahead, waiting for orders.

Months after the doll's creation, it's a day like any other. The sun rises, and Alice with it. Other dolls float down from their shelves and busy themselves with making breakfast, while she oversees the process. The doll stays on the shelf, until Alice walks into the room and claps her hands twice, as if trying to draw attention to herself. It isn't necessary, but Alice likes to pretend. "Okay, everybody, it's time to get to work!" She lowers a basket of miniature tools to the ground.

The doll rises to standing and floats down to the floor. It and its sisters form two lines, one on either side of the basket, as Alice speaks her orders.

"Today is cleaning day! I also want a few of you to trim the hedges, so if you get a pair of scissors, please line up by the door so I can let you out." The doll patiently waits for its turn to get to the front of the line. It does not get a pair of scissors. Instead, it gets a cloth. Alice's will comes through clearly, though, and it hovers up to one of the windows. One of its sisters joins it, while another hovers behind them with a spray bottle.

Through the window, the doll can see the outside world. It is much greener than the inside of the cottage. This doesn't concern the doll, because its job for the moment has nothing to do with the scenery, and everything to do with the window in front of it. The other doll, with the spray bottle, douses the window with water, and the doll leans forward and presses the cloth to it with both hands, then swipes it around to clean up any smudges or dust. It takes a long time to clean an entire window, even with three of them working on it. But the doll doesn't get bored.

The first window is cleaned, and the doll hovers over to the second one. And a third one. After that is the mirror on the vanity.

The doll lands on top of the vanity and approaches the mirror. There's a face peering at it from mere centimeters away. It lifts its cloth, and the mirror-doll does as well. The doll hesitates. It is here to clean a mirror, not a doll.

The doll reaches forward to push this obstacle away, and its fingers press against smooth glass.

The doll is not smart. The doll does not think. It is merely carrying out Alice's will. But, as part of this, it needs to have some slight decision-making skills to execute her orders.

The doll reaches forward again. So does the mirror-doll. The doll pauses.

It's a scenario that other dolls have gone through dozens of times before. Every other doll has hesitated for a moment before cleaning the mirror normally anyway. But somehow, this doll is ever-so-slightly different.

The doll raises its hand again and watches the mirror-doll do the same. And again. And again.

The doll has figured it out: The doll in the reflection is itself. It's never seen itself before. It hadn't even really been aware of its body. It had never needed to be, really. This sudden awareness of its own existence threatens to make the doll's little head pop, and it stands still, staring at its reflection for almost a full minute.

But the doll isn't here to clean itself. The doll raises the cloth again, far to the side, and very carefully wipes around its own reflection. It's hard, because the mirror-doll keeps following it, but it tries its very best until the mirror is clean, then moves on to the next window.

After cleaning, Alice lines the dolls up for inspection. A few of them have torn their clothes during the day, and she settles them into her lap to mend them. The doll's dress has a little dust on it, and Alice picks it up to brush it off.

When everybody is fixed, the dolls return to their shelves, and Alice settles in to read. After some time, she slides into bed and drifts off to sleep.

The doll stares blankly ahead, waiting for orders. And then, its eyes turn toward the other doll to its left.

For the second time in a day, the doll's rudimentary decision-making skills are overwhelmed. Now it knows that these other dolls look like it does, but they don't feel like part of itself. But neither did the doll in the mirror.

It reaches out and gives the doll to its left an experimental poke. It doesn't feel like the mirror did, when it touched its reflection. The other doll keeps staring ahead, sitting stiffly. The force of the poke makes it slowly tilt to the side, and it falls against the next doll over. One by one, the other dolls in the row topple like dominoes. A few even fall to the floor with a clatter.

"Mmh?" Alice had been sleeping, but she's awake now. She pushes herself up to sitting and glances around the bedroom. Even though there's no illumination but the moonlight, her eyes settle onto the mess almost immediately.

Alice walks over and frowns at the dolls on the floor, but carefully picks each one up, brushes its clothes off, and sits it back on the shelf neatly. Afterward, though, she peers over them. "Now what knocked you over...?"

Six identical pairs of eyes stare forward blankly, and there's nothing moving in the cottage. Alice gives up with a yawn. "Well, I suppose it doesn't matter. Good night." She slides back into bed and is asleep within minutes.

The doll glances over at its sisters again. That does settle one matter: It is a doll, but it exists separately from the other dolls. It is its own thing. There is a new category to the ordering of the universe.

Another week passes. The doll's epiphany about its own separate existence doesn't change much. It is still a tool for Alice's will.

Alice sits the basket on the floor again, and orders every doll to take something and start cleaning. The doll chooses a cloth on purpose this time. It has cleaned before, so it will be better at cleaning than the other dolls. Besides, it is curious to see itself in the mirror again.

When it reaches the mirror, the doll sees that its reflection has a little dust smeared on its forehead. At first, it tries to wipe this off of its mirror self, but every time it pulls the cloth away from the mirror, the dust is still there. Finally, the doll turns the cloth around and wipes the dust off of its forehead. The doll is clean now, and so is its reflection.

The doll doesn't wipe around itself when it cleans the mirror this time. It's made of wood and cloth. The mirror-doll is not. The mirror-doll is only a mirror. It's just one more thing in the growing list of objects that the doll realizes are not itself.

Once the cleaning is done, Alice has the dolls line up for inspection again. Several of them have torn their clothes or gotten dirty. The doll watches as she deals with them. It has cleaned itself already. It carried out Alice's will better than any other doll.

More days pass. The doll is vaguely aware of this. It notices the passage of time now. It especially notices it when Alice is asleep. When Alice is asleep, the doll doesn't have any orders except to sit on the shelf.

The doll doesn't like sitting on the shelf. It's Alice's will, but the doll has noticed that Alice is pleased when a doll cleans well, or helps create a particularly tasty dish. Alice never seems pleased that a doll sat on the shelf all night.

The doll wants to carry out Alice's will... but maybe that isn't the same as carrying out Alice's instructions. Alice doesn't ask for it to clean itself when it's dirty, but it does that now. That is serving Alice's will.

How else can it serve Alice's will?

The light of the rising sun shines through the window. Alice will get up soon. Every day, when Alice wakes up, she sends dolls to bring her clothes, gets dressed, cooks breakfast with the help of several dolls, brews tea, has breakfast, and then reads for a while before getting down to the day's business.

The doll can't make breakfast, and the filled tea kettle is too heavy for it to carry alone. But it can do one thing.

The doll floats down from the shelf and hovers around the cottage until it spots its targets, then drags them across the floor one at a time. When it finishes, it settles back into place on the shelf.

When Alice wakes up this morning, her slippers are already waiting by the side of the bed. She barely notices. But Alice's will has been served. Even if she doesn't know it.

The next morning, the doll sits Alice's slippers out for her again. Again, she doesn't notice. The morning after, it also sits a plate, cup, and silverware on the table for breakfast. When Alice wakes up and sees this, she seems confused and a little upset. The doll isn't sure if Alice's will was served or not. The doll decides not to set the table again.

A few days later, a human comes to visit. The doll has seen the human before, but the other times, it didn't pay any attention, because it wasn't directly relevant to Alice's will. Now, it watches. The other human has yellow hair, like Alice, but wears a black dress, like the doll does. The other human also has a big floppy hat with a point on top.

Alice and the other human sit across from each other and talk for a long time. The doll spends this whole time sitting on the shelf. This is better than sitting on the shelf at night, though, because the other human says things and Alice smiles. Alice's will is being served. The doll pays attention to try figuring out what the other human is doing to please Alice so well. It isn't intended to understand conversation. But it tries.

Many more days pass. One night, Alice leaves her slippers very far away. The doll sits them by her bed like it's been doing. When Alice wakes up in the morning and sees her slippers, she seems upset and confused again, like she was the time it set the table.

The doll stops setting out Alice's slippers, but Alice starts asking for them first thing in the morning again. The doll is no longer certain that it was serving Alice's will. It goes back to doing only the things Alice orders it to, but this has problems too. Now that it's learned to anticipate Alice's will, doing nothing about it is anathema to its nature. Now that it's learned to anticipate Alice's will, it's aware of just how long the nights of doing nothing on the shelf can be.

The girl with the pointy hat comes to visit more. Other people do too, but the pointy hat girl visits most. The doll watches this and studies the things that Alice smiles at when people say them. It's an uphill struggle, but it starts to recognize words, like 'tea' and 'me' and 'magic' and 'doll.' Alice usually smiles when she says 'doll.' The doll takes this as a sign that Alice is pleased with her dolls, and for the first time, it feels pride.

Now that the doll knows a few words, its vocabulary quickly explodes. It's voracious for more, and it carefully takes note of what words Alice uses for things around the house. The shiny thing where it first saw itself is a "mirror." The dolls in dark blue dresses are "Hourai dolls." It, and its sisters in black, are "Shanghai dolls." The things that Alice wears on her feet in the morning are "slippers." The things that she looks at in the evening are "books."

Sometimes Alice talks to herself when nobody is around, and the doll learns new words. Sometimes Alice sings to herself while she works. It seems like Alice is happy when she sings, so the doll is happy when she sings. The doll learns new words from her songs, like "sunshine" and "flower" and "dear" and "dance." The doll doesn't know what these words refer to, but they make Alice happy when she sings them.

The doll wants to make Alice happy too, just like the things those words describe, and it's coming to the slow realization that it needs a name to refer to itself. So, one day, it silently decides that its name will be Sunshine. Weeks later, it learns that "sunshine" is the light outside during daytime.

Sunshine understands so many more things now that it knows words. One night, it tries setting the table again while Alice sleeps. She wakes up, gets dressed, and when she sees the table, she glances around. "I didn't ask any of you to do this yet, did I?" she asks the dolls that are preparing breakfast. They, of course, don't respond. "... hmm." Alice lifts a fork and inspects it. "Strange."

Sunshine can understand Alice's words now. Now it knows that she doesn't get upset about the table being set because she doesn't want it to be. She gets upset because she doesn't know who is setting it. Alice's will is clear.

The next morning is like any other. Alice wakes up with a yawn, then sits up on the edge of her bed. After a moment to orient herself, she stands and beckons to a few Hourai dolls on the shelf next to her. "Clothes, please."

The magician raises her arms, and two dolls float over to tug her nightgown off over her head. By the time it slides free, two more dolls are already hovering in front of her with a dress picked out, and Alice steps into it. A small squad of them button up the back of the dress, while two more lower her hairband into her place. Alice makes a few adjustments, but seems pleased. "Good work, everybody. Now, let's start breakfast. Today will be porridge, and I'll have milk in my tea."

The dolls hurry into the kitchen, with half a dozen of them hovering around the stove and measuring oats, spices, and dried fruit into a sauce pan. Two more hover off to get water, with the kettle held between them. Alice walks over to the stove to supervise the effort.

Now is the time for Sunshine to make its move. The doll flies across the room, opens the cupboard, and grabs a plate. It will set the table, and it will do it in front of Alice so that she won't be worried when she doesn't know who did it.

Sunshine sits the plate on the table, then lands to push it into place. The sound of the plate settling onto the table makes Alice turn around. She watches as Sunshine flies back to the cupboard, retrieves a knife, sits it next to the plate, and flies back toward the cupboard again.

This time, though, Alice holds a hand out in front of the doll, and Sunshine stops in midair. "I... didn't ask for anybody to set the table yet. ... did I?" Alice frowns in confusion, and Sunshine isn't sure what to do. She should be happy now, since she knows that there isn't a stranger sneaking into her house and setting her table. Right?

Alice frowns at the doll for a few seconds, then sighs and pulls her hand back. "I must be getting forgetful. Go on, finish what you were doing," she says. Sunshine resumes flying without hesitation. Once the table is set, it hovers back to sit on the shelf and await orders. Alice watches it go.

The next day comes. Alice wakes up, gets dressed, and starts breakfast. Sunshine sets the table without incident. Alice watches the doll attentively this time. Sunshine is pleased that Alice knows it is carrying out her will.

After breakfast, Alice normally reads, but today, she walks over to the shelf and peers at Sunshine. "You're the doll who set the table today, aren't you?" Sunshine nods, and Alice reaches up to slide one hand beneath it and pick the doll up. "... right, let's have a look at you."

The magician sits down with the doll in her lap and performs a thorough inspection: Pulling its clothes off and looking over its body, looking into its eyes, even pulling out a thick book and reading a minor cantrip from it. Sunshine waits patiently through all of this, until Alice sits it back down on the table in front of her.

Alice taps her chin as she looks at the seated doll, and finally, says, "I know that I didn't ask anybody to set the table this morning."

Sunshine looks up at her, with its face as expressionless as always. It understands the words, but Alice's will isn't clear.

"So why did you?"

Sunshine continues staring upward. It set the table because Alice was going to want the table set, of course. The doll raises a hand and points at Alice.

The magician blinks, looking quite surprised, and blushes slightly. "If you're a youkai and this is your idea of a joke, I ought to haul you in front of the shrine maiden," she says. And then, a little more softly: "... but if you're not..."

Alice stands up and crosses over to a shelf, then pulls out one of her boxes of dollmaking supplies. It doesn't take her long to find a white ribbon. She unties the red bow from Sunshine's hair, then replaces it with a white one. "... there. Now I can tell you apart from the others, at least." She looks upset. Anxious. Sunshine feels bad that it seems to be the cause of this, but doesn't know what it did wrong.

Alice pats the doll on the head. "Go back to your shelf, little one."

Sunshine complies. Alice seems worried. She pulls several very thick books off of the shelves, and reads. She reads all the way into the night, until the candles start burning down. Only then does she go to bed.

The next day comes. Alice wakes up late. Today, she dresses herself. She heads into the kitchen, and she cooks her own breakfast. From its spot on the shelf, Sunshine can see all of this, and knows that something out of the ordinary is going on. Alice has never done any of this by herself, but today, all of the dolls stay on the shelf.

When Alice finishes breakfast, she pulls out a box that Sunshine has never seen before and sits it on the floor. "You three, and you four," she says, gesturing at a few dolls. "Please, come get ready." The dolls comply. From the box, each one grabs a weapon, long pointy things and short sharp things that Sunshine doesn't know the words for. Once they're all prepared, Alice slides a few rings onto her fingers, and from these, extends thin, almost invisible, wires and attaches them to the dolls' joints, giving her direct moment-to-moment control over them.

Alice approaches the shelf, now with an armed guard around her, and raises a basket, with the top held open. "Climb in, please." It's directed at Sunshine. This is also out of the ordinary, but it's Alice's will. Sunshine climbs into the basket.

The inside of the basket is lined with fluffy cloth. It bounces around as Alice walks across the cottage, and then Sunshine hears the familiar sound of the door opening and closing. Through the gaps in the sides, the doll can see little flashes of the outside world, and the armed dolls that are walking in a protective ring around Alice.

Alice takes off flying, and the basket bounces around even more. Sunshine digs its little fingers into the material of the sides to stay in place, and keeps watching the outside world. It is much, much bigger than the cottage, and there are many more green things than Sunshine had expected.

Alice flies for a long time, then lands in an area that's less green than most of the other places they've passed over. During the flight, the cloth shifted up against the walls of the basket a bit more, so the doll can't see much. It feels Alice walk, and somebody says, "A-ah! Miss Margatroid, hello, we weren't expecting you. ... you didn't come for a fight, did you?"

"Ahh, no, no, they're just a precaution." Even without being able to see her, Sunshine recognizes Alice's voice. "Could you please check if Patchouli has some time to talk?"

"Just a moment, let me flag down a fairy maid and send a message. I'm sorry, but I can't let you through if she says no."

"Of course. I haven't had a good fight in ages, anyway."

"Eh-heh. Please don't say that."

There's a very long wait. Sunshine uses this time to pull the cloth down from the sides of the basket and peer outside. There is a woman it hasn't seen before, with green clothes and red hair. There is a very big house. It's far bigger than the cottage. It's bigger than Sunshine thought the entire world was until today.

There's another brief discussion, the gate slides open, and Alice starts walking again. Soon enough, Sunshine sees the inside of the house. Some of the rooms are bigger than the cottage too.

After a long walk, Alice stops again. There is a lady with silver hair. Her clothes make her look kind of like a doll, herself. She politely gestures to the door next to her. "Miss Patchouli will see you now. I've already prepared some tea for the two of you." She looks down to the basket, and it feels like she is looking directly at Sunshine. "Would you like me to look after your parcel?"

"Ah..." Alice lifts it up. "It might be best if it's not in the room while we talk, yes." The silver-haired lady grabs the basket and carries it off, then puts it somewhere dark.

Sunshine sits in the dark for a while. An hour, at least, but this is nothing compared to waiting every night while Alice sleeps. Finally, the silver-haired woman returns and packs the basket back, then sits it on a table.

Through the walls of the basket, the doll can see Alice on one side, and a very lavender-colored girl on the other. The lavender girl is wearing clothes like Alice wears to sleep and a hat that looks like a bag. The lavender girl opens the top of the basket and peers down at Sunshine. "This is the doll?" Her voice is quiet and flat. She sounds like Alice does just before she goes to sleep.

The lavender girl reaches down and grabs Sunshine, then lifts it up. Sunshine can see the whole room now. It, too, is bigger than Alice's entire cottage, dark, dusty, and filled with books. Seeing a room in such dire need of cleaning is an affront to most of the doll's sensibilities.

The strange girl inspects Sunshine, rather more roughly than Alice did yesterday. "I am not a dollmaker, but the construction looks similar to your others. You're sure that you did nothing out of the ordinary while making it?"

"It's been months, but... yes, I've checked her out, and she looks like the others."

Oh. Sunshine hadn't known she was a she. She takes care to remember that.

"Hmm. Well, if it is moving on its own, there are several explanations. The animating enchantment could have faded enough to—"

"I already checked that." Alice sounds almost offended.

"I am merely being thorough. It isn't a tsukumogami. You haven't used it for anything special?"

"No."

"Then it is doubtful that it has grown unique enough to develop a genius. Genii are rare in Gensokyo, anyway. Have you left it anywhere where it might be exposed to strong vectors for the element of wood?"

"Well, no..."

This conversation goes on for some time, and while Sunshine pays attention and tries to learn new words, most of them go over her head. Finally, the lavender girl lowers her back into the basket and shuts it again. "Then I don't know. I can give you a better idea if you let me dissect it and determine its elemental balances..."

"That's out of the question." Alice rests a hand on the basket and subtly pulls it closer to herself.

The other girl shrugs. "The animation of constructs isn't my specialty, and you've read what few books I have on the subject."

"Right." Alice sighs. "Well. Thank you, Patchouli."

There's another long walk back out of the mansion, a flight, and a shorter walk. Alice lands somewhere rather greener this time. It's just like the first time: She waits a while, and then she says a bunch of big words that Sunshine doesn't understand to a woman with silver hair, in a blue and red outfit. The silver-haired woman turns Sunshine over in her hands, more carefully than Patchouli did but still less gently than Alice.

And then it's back into the basket for another trip. This time, when the basket opens, she's looking up at the blonde girl with the pointy hat. Her name is Marisa; Sunshine figured that out weeks ago.

"Huh. This one?" Marisa reaches into the basket and lifts the doll out. Sunshine's used to it by now, and waits patiently as the magician turns her over in her calloused hands. She's the roughest of all of them, giving the doll's arms a few experimental tugs before sitting her down on the table.

"Yes. Patchouli and Doctor Yagokoro have already looked at her and can't tell me much."

Marisa gives a low whistle. "You trust me more than Patchy and the Doc? I'm flattered." She rubs the back of her head and grins, laughing, while Alice frowns.

"No, but I thought that another set of eyes couldn't hurt."

"What's the big problem, anyway? You wanted a doll that can think on its own, didn'tcha?" Marisa reaches down and lifts Sunshine's skirt to peek beneath it, and Alice almost reflexively slaps her hand away.

"I do, yes, but I wanted to make sure it wasn't a youkai trick, or something else. And now..." Alice looks uncomfortably at Sunshine. "... well, I still don't know if that's what I'm dealing with."

"What, you're still not sure if she thinks stuff?"

"Well, no. Consciousness is a notoriously difficult branch of magic, and determining if something has thoughts is one of the harder types of it. This would all be easier if we could contact the satori, of course. I've been thinking about experiments I might run, and..."

Marisa doesn't seem to be listening. She glances over Sunshine, then says, "Yeah, well, how about this experiment? First..." she reaches toward the doll, with a rather frightening leer on her face. "... we tear off her arms!"

Sunshine freezes for just a moment while all of this plays out in her head. She wasn't designed to have many self-preservation instincts—Alice does use her dolls as shields and walking bombs when necessary—but she still finds herself unhappy at the idea of having her arms removed. She rises to standing just as Marisa's hands are closing in, then scrambles away to hop back into the basket. Once inside, the doll tugs the lid down and holds it closed.

"..." Alice pinches the bridge of her nose. "Marisa. You are not tearing off her arms."

"Hehe. Well. That wasn't really the point anyway. She ran away."

"Yes. And?"

"She was scared, dummy! You didn't tell her to run away, did ya?"

"... well, no." Alice slides the basket toward herself and opens the top just a crack. She finds the doll peering up at her. The magician offers a hand. "Come here, little one. I... won't let her hurt you." She blushes slightly. Giving orders to her dolls is nothing new. Reassurances, not so much.

Sunshine reluctantly climbs out of the basket, and Alice lowers her onto the table top. "There. But no more threats."

"Ah, I didn't mean anything by it. Point is, you don't need crazy experiments to figure out if she thinks or not. I mean, you never performed experiments on me, and you know I think, right?"

"Do I?" Alice crooks an eyebrow, and the witch sticks out her tongue in response. "... but maybe you're right." She turns back to the doll and fidgets for a few seconds. "... can you understand me, little one?"

Sunshine nods.

"Hmm. I guess that doesn't prove much, though." Alice purses her lips. "I... give you permission to do whatever you want for the moment. As long as you don't hurt anybody."

Sunshine freezes, overwhelmed with choice. While she's made some decisions before, they've all been to further Alice's will. And now Alice wants her to... do anything? Anything at all? The little doll wobbles as she struggles with her sudden absolute freedom.

"Uh-oh. Think you broke her."

Alice reaches out to steady Sunshine, with a hand under each armpit. "Okay, so maybe we should start more gradually than that. Hmm. This would be easier if she could talk..."

"... hold on." Marisa stands up and walks away, disappearing between two of the towering piles of junk that form semi-stable walls in her house. There's the sound of her digging for a few minutes, and when she returns, she sits a piece of paper, a pencil, a pot of ink, a paintbrush, and a quill on the tabletop. "There."

"What makes you think she knows how to write?"

"Eh, it's worth a shot. Hey, pipsqueak, lookie here." Marisa grabs the quill, dips it in ink, and draws a stick figure on the paper, then taps it. "See that? That's a person. Do ya get it?"

Sunshine leans over and stares at this, then glances between Marisa and the picture a few times, comparing the two. Art is not something she has much experience with. But she can kind of understand this. Marisa is a tall thing with a ball on top and four thin things poking out of its sides. Just like the picture. Well, almost. It's missing some things. The doll toddles over and crouches down to heft the pencil with both hands, then stands over the stick figure.

Alice goes wide-eyed. "What is she...?"

"Eh, just let her draw. Not everything's gotta be an experiment."

Sunshine spends several minutes glancing between the stick figure and Marisa. She presses the tip of the pencil to the paper and walks backward, dragging it along to draw a line running across the figure's head. When that one is done, she repeats it twice more, adding two slanted lines on top of this that come to a point. It's a slow process, and the lines are wobbly, since the pencil is almost too big for the doll to hold. When she finishes, she stands over the stick figure, then points down at it, and up at Marisa.

Marisa leans over and peers at the picture. "... 's that my hat?" She points up at her head. Sunshine nods, and Marisa beams in response. "Heh. ... well, she's not much of an artist, but I think you've got yourself a thinkin' doll on your hands, Alice. You're a mommy!"

The puppeteer looks like she's going to faint.