06 ~ June's night, Ribbon

She could hear some of their voices echoing in the void.

From a time when she was held by their hands.

G - Pinnochio... He was an obedient boy... No, it’s not the same story. Although, there is something they have in common; with the wish to see life given to things that are not alive and share our appearance. The wish to see a soul granted by god to these empty vessels. Once upon a time, there was a... How was it said? A Hyaku-nen Ningyou... That was it. Hyaku means a hundred if I remember it correctly. It’s the tale of the hundred years old doll. However, there was a little more to it, now that I think about it. It wasn’t just about a doll.

A - More? More than love?

G - There was something about a ribbon I think. Because in the philosophy of that part of the land it found itself, it’s not only about dolls gaining soul after a long while. Many an item could. Yes... That was it... Now I remember. He told me Gülnihal was an Omamori. A charm. The ribbon, it must not be untied if one wants the wish to come true...

A - There is no ribbon on it my dear.

G - I know. That’s why I didn’t think through about it before. The ribbon is probably inside her. These kind of charms are kept inside a pouch usually. It’s probably inside this shell.

A - I see... Is it clever or just silly? The promise is within the other promise... But which wish was this ribbon meant to realise then?

G - For me the same one. Love will make it so she gains a life. And she will keep our love true meanwhile.

A - So... The Japanese family who repaired Gülnihal saw or put a ribbon inside, and told the man you met about these legends?

G - Yes. He was fond of it...

A - If it was already there, I wonder why there was a ribbon inside it?

G - It is Gülnihal... Everything about her is sweet, just like you...

~

That was on old memory...

Esther could hear it again quite clearly as if had just occurred a moment before.

But she could tell that was a rather old recollection, from people she had survived.

It was probably an answer her mind had found within everything she had inside, as a form of progress in her introspective investigation to help her exotic progress.

The ribbon.

There was this little wish hidden within her old shell.

Her heart, made of cloth like most of her body.

And not unlike no human being would ever actually look at their own beating heart, she never saw her ribbon inside. But now she could picture it, as if she saw it once...

It felt like opening a book of recollections at the right page.

The wish ribbon brought her a strained memory around these older echoes.

A painful sight in dark background. An open hand with pale skin.

Smokes, wind, doubt and pain surrounding.

And around that open palm, a small and red, bright red ribbon with a few dark parts visible on it.

Stains? Or some other thread, darker, maybe?

Even if the mood in that vision was of distress, at least it was on interesting thing to recall for her.

Maybe her “life” her existence did not hold on her doll body, but rather on that even smaller and lighter thing, a ribbon of older textile. Her life thread held by Urðr and Verðandi was actually knitted into a ribbon?

Maybe it was too small to be held and watched over by the three norns at the same time...

If that nonsensical theory had a bit of truth, she was ready to forget the past to gain a future.

Esther was dreaming, uncovering some old memories from previous owners, and trying her best to imagine her own future.

There were rarely any words within her memorised past, at least before Georges Herson held her, but there had always been that small and constant underlying love for her... Some emotion aimed at the shell she hid under.

M - If only someone could have loved me...

That voice she heard, while being lost in that abyss beyond hell, it was her own.

Esther heard her own voice, the sounds of a throat, living. Air, vibes, music. She heard her music, her will unbound. She wanted to live, and her only way to get a grasp on reality was through the love she felt.

The more she could receive, the closer to reality she would get...

If only someone could have loved her for what she would become... That was her feeling now.

She wished having felt more love.

Endlessly more...

Now it felt like unquenched thirst. She felt parched in more ways than one.

Being only a doll, it was hard to get a lot of that emotion...

Like a seed barely getting what it needed to sprout, she couldn’t turn overnight into something big, but the beginnings she could recall had been around there. She had grown over what little she had received over time.

Being a Blue rose, it was through her but not toward her that love went. Nonetheless she received a lot more, and grew even faster toward what she now was becoming.

Would she be able to become something else now?

Something more, that would help her earn these feeding feelings even more.

Another form of spirit or shell for her to sustain, as a mean for an end she longed for.

The pit of darkness was always the same, below her and all around her.

Like an endless jail or pit to fall into and get stuck, waiting to die.

It was also in tiny amounts inside of her she could tell, frightening her.

She could feel that structural fragility all over, like an open memento mori where her heart should be.

But when she heard this voice anew, she created the new memory of that music which she could claim as her own.

It was possibly the very first memory that was her own entirely.

And from there, everything could be felt differently.

The abyss stood the same, but she had just changed, ever so slightly. In internal emulation of what she had collected for years and years, she had now made something new. The slow accumulation and processing of thoughts and knowledge had just sparked a conclusion.

Her very first words...

It ran through her like a thrill, as the inherent anguish from her condition felt a little smaller and the will to live even wider.

Her silhouette was beginning to change.

She was finding ways to start building herself up...

Esther felt as if in this buried condition, her hands and fingers had just and finally managed to make her crawl.

She felt the motion coursing through her entire self. She felt the tiniest but most meaningful of changes happening to her. Almost randomly, quite suddenly and out of nowhere.

A new grin of victory was imagined for the still faceless one.

One day would come, when she would have a face.

One day would come when she would have real lips to smile with.

That day beyond unending darkness was getting ever so slightly closer to her.

She was crawling toward it with the will to defy god and devil altogether.

She was coming toward reality.

It was her destiny to be.

They could throw everything at her.

She would be writing her own law.

In natural philosophy and physics.

In all known religions.

Esther, whilst that name may change, was going to appear.

The soulless would come to life, by the will that came from nothingness...

The thing she feared most still remained around, as the abysmal ocean she rose from.

Probably because she knew she was a lonely anomaly never meant to be.

Nothing would come out of that abyss of annihilation.

As if she was attempting to live backward through time, her doing so was unnatural and impossible. Everything she knew and everything she felt proved it. She was trying to crawl against the flow allowed by reality.

Yet, she was.

She would not return to nothing.

Not before suffering a common human death.

Not before being truly alive!

Between nature and possibly, below, far below reality, she was now crawling like an oblivious animal her way up.

She was in endless pain and suffering from her condition, and she was going to give everything.

If she could say one thing, to whatever might hear her, it was now simply her will.

The destiny she wrote for herself as new god’s law.

M - I. Will. Be...

Once upon a time...

By her will and mind.

This would become another truth to reality.

~