The Living Marionette
Age: 145
Appears: 20-ish
Eyes: Powder blue
Weight: 1-2 lbs
Height: 21"
Predominant features: Porcelain, petite figure; pale heart-shaped face; ball-joints.
Estelle's life has three beginnings.
One begins in an artisan's shop, as porcelain was pressed into molds, sanded, hand-painted, assembled.
Another begins as a young woman being brought up in a closely regimented upper-class Victorian household with her older sister, courting with hopeful wishes an intelligent, shy young man.
A third begins with the unfortunate and sudden illness and death of the young woman, and a collision of consciousnesses, as her soul lingered behind and found a suitable, if somewhat cramped vessel.
Estelle the living marionette does not have memories of her human counterpart, and only a vague memory of her time spent as an inanimate object.
Much of her recalled existence is of the years simply sitting and listening on the mantelpiece, watching the comings and goings of the people of the house, the dinner parties and secret trysts, absorbing whatever snippets of life drifted her way.
She would have been a fine gossip, if she'd ever had anyone to talk to. During this portion of her life, she was quite pampered; dusted off, and arranged, displayed in a lovely fashion, even taken down and conversed with sometimes by the older sister, who perhaps sensed something almost sentient about the doll from the beginning.
One day the porcelain figure revealed to the eldest sister, and perhaps to itself, that it could move, act, and speak of its own accord. From then on they were confidantes, girl and doll, almost as close as sisters.
Eventually, the sister was married, and left the doll at home. The girl's mother died soon thereafter, and the father sold the now empty house along with many of his possessions; including, to her horror, Estelle.
From the estate sale she was passed on to an antique store, where she was shoved onto a back shelf and left to fend for herself, which was quite an affront to her dignity. Estelle didn't dare escape for fear of being found by small dirty children and being broken crudely by accident. Later she was sold to a child and shipped roughly to America, where she sat in collector's attic, under a glass case, for some years.
It was a time of great mental frustration for the doll. She lost some of her graceful, benevolent patience, her fresh-eyed girlish charm. Like a prisoner in solitary confinement, she went a little crazy, and a little sharp at the edges. She became prone to heated fits and accusations, less forgiving than she had been before.
Sometime later she was sold again to a different antique store, silent and in a state of despair. She waited without much hope for any future but one spent in another private collection, in another glass box, waiting for another estate sale-- but a few days later, a strange gentleman with a bandaged face purchased her on a whim, on a ginger and inexplicable impulse, a feeling of recognition, and took her home.
Before another dusty case could muffle her she confided in her new holder that she was very much alive despite her jointed ceramic exterior.
This was how Estelle and Cristoff met, and came to know one another.
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