Thats so her

“Oh my God, these cows are so cute!”

Elena said gleefully as she stroked one of the Bulbous cows. The enormous creature stood contentedly beneath her hand, its round pink body covered in irregular white spots.

Silvi peered through the cottage window.

“Elena, dear, do you see any milk bottles?”

Elena reluctantly pulled herself away from the cow. Near the cottage, she found three glass bottles waiting for her.

“Found them!”

She gathered all three in her arms and hurried inside. Hundreds of blue Lulu blossoms now covered the once-barren ground around the cottage, swaying gently in the breeze.

Inside, Sybill lay motionless on the bed.

“Feed it to her, dear, will you?” Silvi said.

Elena nodded and opened one of the bottles. A sweet scent of strawberries and milk immediately filled the little cottage.

“Mmm. Yummy.”

“Elena.”

“I know, I know.”

She carefully lifted Sybill’s head and helped her drink. After several mouthfuls, Sybill’s eyelids fluttered and her lavender eyes opened.

“Sybill?”

Sybill stared at her for barely a second before her eyes closed again, and she went straight back to sleep.

Elena blinked.

“Well. That was encouraging.”

While Sybill slept, Elena wandered around much of the Domain with Silvi tucked safely in her pocket, explaining everything Elena had never seen before.

The cottage itself fascinated her. Its furniture was quaint and mismatched, as though nothing inside had ever been bought as part of a set. A carved wooden chair sat beside a much newer table, while old embroidered cushions rested on a little sofa.

Shelves held pottery, jars, ornaments, and books. Lots and lots of books covering almost every topic imaginable.

Silvi had explained that whenever Sybill left the Domain, she would always ask her to bring back books. Over the years, Sybill had returned with enough to fill shelf after shelf, along with other little things they had collected from different eras.

After checking on Sybill once more, Elena stepped outside with one of the remaining bottles of Bulbous-cow milk and settled beneath a fruit tree, resting her back against its trunk.

Silvi sat beside her in the grass. Hundreds of blue Lulu blossoms stretched around them while the Bulbous cows grazed peacefully nearby.

Elena opened the bottle, and the same sweet strawberry-and-milk scent drifted towards her.

“Mmm. Yummy.”

Then she opened the basket Helen had haphazardly packed the moment she learned Elena was about to travel. Apparently, Helen had decided preparation meant throwing in as much food as physically possible.

Bread. Fruit. Cheese. Several pastries.

And somehow, an entire pie.

Elena had already claimed the pie. She balanced the milk bottle beside her, took another bite, and glanced at Silvi.

“You know, I’ve been meaning to ask you something. How did you end up like this? I know your soul is inside the doll, but how did that actually happen?”

Silvi looked towards the cottage where Sybill was sleeping.

“I was dying. I had used far too much magic, and there was almost nothing left in me.”

Her voice softened.

“Sibi was holding my hand, trying to wake me. Then, just before I lost consciousness, she suddenly let go and reached for something above me.”

Elena frowned.

“Something?”

“I couldn’t see it, but she did. It was as if she were looking at an apparition—or, as I would like to think, my soul leaving my body. She let go of my hand and clung to whatever it was.”

Silvi glanced down at her porcelain body.

“She had this doll with her. That is the last thing I remember. Then I woke up in this form.”

“So somehow, without even knowing what she was doing, Sybill trapped your soul inside the doll.”

“That is what I believe.”

Elena was quiet for a moment.

“Do you resent her for putting you…”

“In this body?” Silvi completed.

Elena nodded.

“No, dear. Can a mother resent her own child?”

Silvi looked back towards the cottage.

“Miracle baby. That’s what Mother called her.  She was born when Mother was already approaching menopause. The healers said pregnancy was still possible at that stage, though very rare.”

A faint fondness entered Silvi’s voice.

“I had no other siblings. Only her. She was mine from the day she was born.”

Her button eyes remained on the cottage.

“I raised her as my own. No resentment whatsoever, Elena. Just love.”

For a while, they simply sat beneath the tree, surrounded by blue blossoms and creatures the outside world had lost generations ago.

Silvi looked across the Domain.

“I never thought Sibi’s Domain would preserve things like this.”

Elena glanced towards the Bulbous cows. The cottage held objects collected across different eras, while plants and flowers that had become rare elsewhere seemed perfectly at home here.

Then she looked towards the cottage.

“She’s changed so much, hasn’t she?”

Silvi’s expression softened.

“She has.”

“But she’ll never change the way she speaks, will she?”

Silvi smiled.

“Sibi changes the things she wants to change and ignores the rest.”

“But she can speak normally?”

“Perhaps if she wants to, I guess.”

Silvi’s button eyes curved with amusement.

“She never quite liked the way normal people speak.”

Elena stared towards the cottage for a moment.

“That explains it.”

She took another bite of pie.

“Stubborn as hell.”

Silvi turned towards the empty milk bottles nearby.

“Put those back near the cows when you’re finished, dear. They fill up magically.”

Elena stopped chewing. She looked at the bottles, then at the pink-and-white cows, and finally around the enormous Domain.

“Sybill’s self-sustaining Domain.”

She laughed.

“That’s so her.”