~The Beginning~

The Doll Maker stood in the room, reflective and pleased with his recent conquest. His new prize for the collection that he was gradually adding to, one day at a time as it had begun to grow. Of course it wasn?t his collection but he?d like to believe it was. Disillusioned to the truth, the Doll Maker easily felt that he controlled the demon rather then the demon controlling him. Still each and every night the Doll Maker and his prodigy collected, hunted, and gathered as was requested by that dark whisper in his ear. The Doll Maker called the room his studio, though the studio was more suitable for being a medieval torture room or the back room of a butcher shop.

He looked down to their recent piece for the collection. Greatly pleased with the addition of the creature that they now kept bound to the surgical table. She was lovely. Pale of skin, gold of hair, eyes jewels of the sky? those eyes so very blue. One the angels would surely weep over if they saw her face now. The utmost agony and pain etched against such a flawless fa?ade. Exquisite Flesh that soon would be Exquisite Corpse? as ordered and these rules the Doll Maker would follow.

He had only asked for one of the fallen. No specifications though when the Doll Maker?s prodigy found this particular beauty he knew she would be the perfect choice. The prime candidate for the female was pregnant.

The experiments began. The lies started. The pregnant female was kept drugged near comatose as the Doll Maker whispered his lies to the belly of the woman, whispering to the child ? the creation growing inside of the womb. Only with time would the lies continue after birth. Upon the Doll Maker informing the Other of the fact that his new piece to add to the collection was pregnant the request changed. Kill the vessel, keep the child. Raise the child. Lie to the child. Hone the child and corrupt the child. The child would never know what she was truly? only what they made her believe. Of course the experiment would make it easier for the child to believe the lie.

That concoction of souls collected filled into a syringe and the mix inserted into the embryonic sac. The Doll Maker did so love his experiments?and this was just something more splendid then ever imagined. Beast soul intermingled in the blood concoction of Viking legends and filled into the womb where the child grew to become something more. So much more.

The Doll Maker turned towards the collection of jars that lined the wall. Glowing and Blazing each with a different hue. A palette of colors? A gathering and harvest of souls? two jars now empty were tossed into the trash as he stroked the Gold waves of the captured vessels hair. The prodigy looked to the Doll Maker then with curious eyes.

?What will you do with her once the child is born??

The Doll Maker smiled thinly. A sick expression of madness, cruelty and delight.

?The rules have changed. If the birth of the child does not kill her? then I will??



-------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------------------------- -------------------------



Nine months later the child was born. The mother survived but not for long. Drugged so heavily she had no opportunity to fight even when she had been one of the better fighters in their legion. In the distance the Doll Maker heard the tiny chimes of the door opening to the Doll Maker?s workshop to his doll business. A chuckle escaped him, amused by the fact as he leaned in to whisper to the mother. ?I hear that when a bell chimes? an angel gets its wings.? He broke her neck with a swift sick cracking of bone even as her eyes opened, even as the drugs had worn off. The opportunity for the mother to save her child had faded.

The cord broken, the Doll Maker mused over the future of the child as he shifted his eyes thoughtfully to the lean figure of the young boy with his muss of dark curls and dangerous eyes. A quirk of lips before the Doll Maker turned away again, offering the child out like he was offering her to be anointed. The cloak figure took her silently. A pleased smile in shadows even as he ripped a minor ?flaw? off of her back that sent the child wailing.

?Call her Annike. Tell her what you need to in order for her to believe the lie.?

Offering the child back without a word more the cloaked figure disappeared leaving the Doll Maker to turn towards his only son. True blood? True born son? and his very first experiment. A successful experiment because the Demon Blood had taken and adapted to his son?s blood. He motioned the five year old boy over and bent down so that the boy could see the little girl.


?Come Lucian; come meet your new playmate??

Darkness and Light. Ghost Pale and Shadow Stained. The Masterpiece of the Collection had begun like a fine match of chess? and the game had just begun?

~The Borders~

It was the question of what would happen of Little Red Riding Hood fell in love with the Wolf. If Snow White found herself endeared towards the Hunter sent to kill her.

She was running through the forest, wild as a dog set free after the collar had been removed. Still... there was the knowledge of the Master, that she belonged to another. Owned. No better then property. Freedom was a new harmony in the lifeblood symphony as her muscles rippled and rolled in unnatural manner beneath pale flesh. The Doll Maker watched from the distance. She was exquisite to watch in movement. Lucian himself stood at his father's side, holding the collar that had kept Annike restrained. He watched the fifteen year old girl move like a white and gold doe through the trees. Delicate and Graceful in her leaps and bounds.

"Are you going to let you go far?"
"Don't be foolish Lucian. I could let her run forever and she'd still come back. We are all she knows... and she loves you."

Lucian grimaced at that. He knew that he and Annike were a split pairing of the Darkness and Light. Sharing thoughts and souls... it was too dangerous to love each other. Too dangerous for them to share a heart as well.

Oblivious to it all she ran, deep into the forest. At fifteen the tattoos with the Norse runes and the swirling designs was a finished piece at her hands. The Doll Maker had stated she "earned" the privilege of now having her back marked... deadly nightshade and wolfsbane weaving and growing and twisting vines through those old scars. He found some humor in it. She never understood why.

Her shoulders rolled back to test the sensation of the new tattoos that marked her flesh as she finally stopped running as she approached a camp. Dropping down to a crouch she exhaled sharply. Eyes wide.

A tribe... so strange. The vision of it made her ache with a sensation of the familiar. Could this once be what her real 'home' had looked like? The place she had been taken from?

She knew she was not the child of the Doll Maker, knew that she was taken. Lucian had told her as much. She hard learned that night of her fifteenth birthday to lock her emotions away. It was best to protect the others.

Her bright eyes watched and shifted as she smelled the scent of a burning fire, a fresh kill, and animal fur.

Based on her knowledge and the stories read she might have thought them barbarians...or Amazons. One huge man stood up and turned towards her, sensing her presence like a rabbit snared in a cage.

She froze, staring wide eyed. These were not her people... this much she knew... but striking was the similarity of something starting to fade from her memories.

"Girl..."

His voice was rough, growling and her eyes moved, danced over his tattoos. Blue marks of ink designing his flesh.

"Annike! Stay away from them. They are the Woads."

Disgust was brutal on the tongue of the Doll Maker as his voice cracked against her body as a whip lash of words. She stared down at her hands at those same swirling markings...one look back as yearning ran through her spirit before crushed away.

She ran back to her prison then, leaving the blue marked man to watch her retreat with private wonder.