Mari teleports into the study, carrying a couple of boxes that have just been sitting in an unused room instead of being unpacked for all this time. She then closes the curtains, it now being dark enough outside that there’s barely any natural light left, and gets to work. Aside from the part of the room where she set up her PC, she hasn’t done much at all with this space beyond bringing in the couch from her old apartment and pcing her television on top of a cabinet that was just close enough to an entertainment unit to do the job.

  But now, as per Cassandra’s request, she’s going to be using this half of the room for something other than a space to practice magic for the first time since moving in. She wipes some dust off of the smaller of the two boxes, a reminder of how much work she still has to do before keeping the entire house clean will even begin to feel like an achievable goal, and opens it up. Inside the box, carefully wrapped in protective packaging, is her old game console, one she’s had for most of her life.

  “Man, it’s really been a while since I’ve used this thing, huh?”

  Mari can’t believe she’s managed to hold on to it after everything that’s happened. She remembers several possessions of hers getting thrown out throughout her childhood for reasons that have escaped her memory for quite some time now, so the fact that it not only survived all of those incidents, but ended up back with her after she ran away from home feels like nothing short of a miracle.

  She hardly even remembers how it happened, but she vaguely recalls Cassandra’s father walking in a few days after she’d moved in with them, carrying several boxes of her stuff. She’s pretty sure someone told her he’d spoken to that woman and somehow convinced her to let him take it all back to her, it’s the only expnation that makes sense that doesn’t involve outright theft, but she’d be lying if she said any memories of that day were particurly clear to her.

  Regardless of how it came back into her possession, she’s gd she still has this console now, and prepares to set it up. Part of her wants to try using her magic to do this part, moving the console would be good practice with a rger object than she’s used to, and plugging everything in would let her try more precise movements, but she remembers that the whole point of this is to stop worrying so much about all of that stuff, and relents to doing it the old-fashioned way.

  She pces the console on one of the cabinet shelves before connecting all the cables to the television and wall socket. Once the system itself is good to go, she opens the other box containing the controller, adorned with the same stickers it always has been, even if a few are looking a bit worse for wear these days, and a decent collection of games. She plugs the controller in, and then spends a minute or two looking through the box before finding one in particur that jumps out at her. She pops the cartridge into the console and turns it on before she takes the controller with her to the couch in the middle of the room…

  Suddenly stops about two thirds of the way there…

  And moves the couch closer to the television because the controller’s cable isn’t long enough to reach otherwise. That’s one big convenience that comes with the newer systems, Mari supposes, although it’s not all that relevant here considering she never got around to setting any of those consoles up in this pce anyway.

  Finally, she sits down on the right side of the couch and starts the game. She’s pyed this one many times throughout her life, but the colourful graphics and upbeat music always manage to take her back to some of the few bright spots in her childhood. She never had more than one controller for this thing growing up, they were always too expensive to bother, apparently, so she and Cassandra would just take turns in single pyer games instead, seeing how many collectibles they could get before dying, at which point the controller would get handed over.

  Mari admits that she was usually the one to handle the tougher parts of most games, though neither of them really seemed to mind. Honestly, Cassandra was just so… perfect back then, excelling at whatever she set her mind to, that Mari found herself taking some small amount of pride in the fact that there was at least one area that she was able to best her friend in. Would it maybe have been ideal if the one thing she was particurly good at back then was something a bit more practical in the long run? Sure, but things don’t always work out that way, and Cassandra was always looking out for her regardless.

  “Myaooooo!”

  She’s barely even started the game, and a distraction has already shown itself in the form of Martin sauntering in, looking for attention. Luckily for Mari, the bck cat seems content with simply receiving passive affection for the time being, as he jumps onto the couch and curls up in her p, purring happily. She gives him a quick pat, prompting him to look up at her with a serene smile, before returning to the game.

  Mari opted not to start a new save file, instead just continuing on from a half-completed one from the st time she pyed, even if that was a couple years ago by now. This isn’t a game that takes a massive commitment to complete, but she’s not sure how long she’s going to be putting into it tonight, especially seeing as it’s already getting fairly te. She could pull a te night to get it done if she really wanted, but the whole point of this was to try and rex for her own sake, she wouldn’t exactly be keeping her promise to Cassandra if she barely gets any rest at all.

  Speaking of rest, she hears a squeaky snoring sound start to come from her p after a few minutes, it seems Martin has already managed to fall asleep. It takes her back to how he used to do this all the time when she sat on this couch at her old pce. Why did he stop doing it when they moved here?

  “Right… Guess I haven’t been making much time to hang out with you either, have I, buddy? Things have been really hectic recently, I’ll try to do better from now on, okay?”

  Martin stretches a bit in his sleep, letting out a soft chirp in the process. Whether he understands what she’s saying or not, he seems to be enjoying himself.

  After that, it doesn’t take long at all for Mari to become fully engrossed in the game, even if she somewhat ments the fact that her past self left her on the swamp level. No worrying about magic, mortality, the house, what’s going on with her body, or anything else, for the first time in a while she’s found herself able to just sit down and focus on what’s in front of her. She’s so focused, in fact, that she doesn’t even notice someone else walking in until they sit down on the opposite side of the couch.

  Mari looks over to see Adeline sitting there, the doll having tucked its legs in as it watches the screen with an odd expression. She can’t say she’s ever seen one of her dolls make a face like that before, it’s like Adeline is completely transfixed on the screen, but rexed at the same time.

  “Is… everything alright?” She asks after a few moments.

  “Mhm.” The doll replies, not looking away from the television.

  “Do you… want to py, or something?”

  “No, this one is happy just watching Miss py.”

  “Okay then…”

  Deciding it’s not worth trying to figure out what’s going on here, Mari simply returns to pying. It’s not like the doll is doing anything to bother her, even if this behaviour is a little unusual for it. So, with two audience members, if we include the one that’s asleep, Mari continues to make progress in the game, and she has to admit she’s feeling pretty good. Making that promise to Cassandra may have been the right choice, it really seems like this is what she needed after everything that’s been going on.

  Every few minutes, she encounters a reminder of something that happened when pying with Cassandra all those years ago. A conversation they had while pying, a section they particurly struggled with, a secret that they were both so excited about when they discovered it for the first time, memories that help remind Mari of the brief happy moments within her turbulent childhood.

  It’s just… a shame that even small moments like that seem so out of reach these days… Things are just so hard for Cassandra these days that it can be hard to know how to help, what can Mari even-

  Her thoughts turn elsewhere when Naomi suddenly walks over and sits down on the floor and leans back against the couch under where Adeline’s seated, inadvertently saving Mari from yet another spiral. Mari can’t see its face from where she’s sitting, but this doll seems just as focused on the television as Naomi is.

  “...You wanted to watch too, huh?”

  “Yes, Miss. This one wanted to join the others.”

  “The others? But only Adeline’s…” She looks to her left and does a double-take upon seeing that Leona is also here, standing behind her and learning forwards into the back of the couch as it stares at the screen as well. “How long have you been there?”

  “About ten minutes, Miss.”

  “Huh… didn’t even hear you come in…”

  Mari gets the impression that the dolls aren’t particurly interested in conversation right now, so she simply returns to what she was doing as they all watch. As she continues to make progress through the game in silence, aside from the sounds of the game itself and the ccking noises of her controller, she realises that there’s something oddly calming about this situation, as strange as it all is.

  She’s used to the cat in her p happily sleeping away as she games, that part’s nothing new, but also having the dolls in her presence as she does so is a very new experience. Not only is it rare for them all to be in the one pce for so long, they’re usually busy keeping things clean or getting into trouble, but for as differently as they’re all acting tonight, it’s also somewhat rexing to see them all like this. She’s not sure why, but something about it is… peaceful.

  Mari lets out a small smile before a yawn overtakes her, maybe calling this situation rexing is a bit of an understatement. She supposes it is getting pretty te… she’d better finish… this level… and… get to…

  —

  Mari slowly comes to, blearily opening her eyes to realise it’s now light out. Did… she fall asleep on the couch? Why does everything feel so cramped, so… heavy? She tries feeling around a bit, and finds herself grabbing onto something soft. It almost feels like… an arm?

  Mari shakes her head a bit to wake up, and realises what’s going on. All three of her dolls are sleeping on top of her, the couch having far too little space for all of them to fit any other way.

  “W-Woah! Hey!” Mari jumps up in a panic, waking the dolls up as they find themselves falling to the floor. Martin, who had been napping on the ground nearby, yells as he runs out the door. “D-Don’t just do that!”

  “S-S-Sorry, Miss!” Leona sputters out as it gets to its feet. “We didn’t mean to… it’s just…”

  “Miss looked so sweet when you were asleep like that, we all wanted to join in.” Adeline adds apologetically.

  “This one hopes Miss slept well!” Naomi announces, apparently much less sorry than the other two.

  “Slept well? How could I possibly have a good sleep when you all-” Mari stops, allowing a few seconds to take stock of herself. Yes, sleeping on the small couch with several other bodies piled on top has left her sore in at least a few pces, but otherwise she feels… fine, great even. When was the st time she felt this well rested? Maybe Cassandra’s really was onto something with all of this. Mari figured it would help, but she never expected to feel this good, even with the problems her dolls have caused. All that exhaustion must have caught up with her once she finally slowed herself down for a night, no wonder she fell asleep without realising.

  Waking up like this has only raised more questions about the dolls, though. She’s never really bothered investigating what a doll’s body is actually like up until this point, she’s been far more concerned with their behaviour, but apparently they’re a lot lighter than she expected them to be, considering how easily she was able to push them off of herself. She supposes there’s not too much of a mystery there, their porcein bodies are very different to the flesh and bone of a human so it makes sense that they don’t weigh the same as one, but that only leads into the other question, why did the porcein skin feel soft like a human’s? She pokes one of them to find it as solid as she’d normally expect, but between that and the realisation that she’d just been standing here thinking to herself for far more than just a few seconds now, she starts getting self conscious.

  “Look, just don’t do that kind of thing again, especially not without asking. I don’t… I can’t… do that sort of thing, okay?”

  “Okay, Miss…” Naomi sulks a little as the other two dolls bow in acknowledgement.

  “Good. Now, you’ve all got jobs to do when you’re ready, I’m gonna go take a shower.”

  The dolls all acknowledge the command and start leaving the room when another thought crosses Mari’s mind.

  “Leona, hold on a sec.” She calls out, as it’s to the st doll to leave.

  “Y-Yes, Miss?” It asks, worried it may have done something else wrong.

  “Just wanted to double check something. I know there were a few chairs and desks among the furniture that witch left here, but nothing comfier to sit on, right? No couches or anything?”

  “No, Miss. Not that this one has seen. Why do you ask?”

  “Well, the one couch we’ve got already isn’t enough for all of us, as we’ve clearly just found out, and things are only going to get tighter as I make more dolls. We need to make sure everyone has room to rex if we’re going to avoid another incident like that, and that means we’ll have to get a lot more furniture in this pce.”

  “Is… Miss asking this one to get more furniture?”

  “Hmm…” Mari considers the idea of having Leona do some shopping on her behalf for a moment, and immediately decides against it when she realises it would involve having to trust one of her dolls with money. “No, I’m just thinking out loud. Just keep on with your usual chores and I’ll sort it out.”

  Leona bows one more time before hurrying off. Finally having a moment to herself for the first time since she woke up, Mari pulls her phone out, only to let out a heavy sigh when the screen remains bck when she presses the button.

  “Right, didn’t get a chance to charge the thing all of yesterday…”

  She then heads to her bedroom, eager to put the events of yesterday behind her. Some time ter, once her phone has power again, Mari opens up her doll chart, and adds a new note into the solutions column for all three dolls:

  “Videogames?”

  SyntaxSpeedway