?Are you tracking breadcrumbs then, little Doll? Searching for a long lost one? Maybe we should have called you Gretel? so lost without your Hansel. Should I have made a companion for you, make you a matched pair? No? I think not? you were better meant as Goldilocks. Just look at your hair? all those curls? and the bears?well the bears have all gone away. Not big enough. Not small enough. It always comes back to selfish desires. I should know, I?m a very selfish man? after all look at you Annike? I?m never going to let you go. Nothing is ever? just right.?

Annike would say nothing as she listened to the Doll Maker go upon his tangent of discussion. Could she truly have a twin? Was that the truth of it all that her dark match was really nothing more then trickery and deception to fool her into forgetting that perhaps she once had a sibling. Or maybe she was truly nothing more then Goldilocks brought to life out of the fables and fairytales, folklore and fiction that she knew as her reality. Yet the genetic alterations and the soul games that the Doll Maker played would prove that the Dolls were always more. There was the thread of the preternatural to lace and bind her soul like the strings to bind the cloth of ever fragile dolls. The threads of her own breathed in with the soul imprint of Varulv and Valkyrja, the summoning of cultures that would better know her as a werewolf, as a valkyrie.

Those ghost lit depths of blue would turn away from the Doll Maker then. To speak was to know his hand, to question was to know his rage. Thus she would say nothing more to the Doll Maker as she watched her darker half, Lucian practice in the field. The sword dance was always something so exquisitely beautiful but she knew the dance was only one the Doll Maker intended for death. No matter how beautiful the dance, Annike found herself staring at her own reflection wondering if perhaps there was a mirror somewhere else? that she might know of? and find again.

Like so many nights before, she would wake in the same fitful state, sweat coated and heart pounding furiously against her chest as the memories would so gradually return to haunt her spirit and her nights.

Ever since finding the twin spheres of power she had been inflicted with the nightmares, the visions, and the memories. Gone were those that had known the current past. There was no Kenpachi, no Desiree, no Traithgren? not even Neikla or Alain were in her memories or to be found in her current haunted walks and dreamscapes.

In the Nocturne way of night there was no prelude to the current chapter of her story. Only two remained forward in her thoughts. The curious and uniquely different man she had come across in the Teas and Tomes that had drawn her curiousity, and the imprint of a visage so like her own? a face lost to her after what seemed like near a year? but so like her own.

As she stirred and shook herself from the haunting remains of her dreams their faces came to the surface of her thoughts. She whispered their names as solemn comforts to ease her spirit as those soul born blues flickered to the night sky.

Always now she would sleep beneath the stars, always now she would sleep alone. She would reach for her satchel then to remove the pair of spheres she had collected. One of the spheres was forged in the colors of crimson, gold, and onyx while the other had been created of azure, ruby, and snowflake obsidian.

Omens as much as wards were those spheres held within her hands. She whispered the legendary fable born nature of their names to the night praying that knowing them would empower her.

It was all in vain, for only against them would she learn to face the night alone.

She had watched them with fascination from the back room, how the families would look over the dolls that he had created. Dolls that once had been children, children that she knew would become dolls.

It was always that way. She had no recollection of her mother, no memory of her father save for the dull metal pendant with the wolf's head that the Doll Maker had given her as a token of her 'past' and a photograph of her mother.

Then again it all could be lies.

"Do they not know..."

The voice behind her was a low, growling baritone that brought her eyes over her shoulder to look at the Darker Half of the doll pairing. Lucian.

Her breath would catch in her throat, heart in a tandem when she looked at him. She couldn't help but wonder though... if all of this was only the Doll Maker's enforcement, those feelings. Just like the dreams of the pale haired boy, were they just something of Geppetto's manipulation?

"They couldn't know. If they did... they wouldn't come here. If they knew they were buying ones that were once... their friends... now to be their toys."

The musical softness of her voice was ever haunted as fingers curled delicately around the pendant at her throat, tattooed fingers in dark contrast to the pale of her skin.

Together they watched in silence as the Doll Maker played the game of a friendly business man. They had seen it happen... this little play... so often that no longer would they wince when they watched those devices of the craft cut into the flesh of the mother. How the blood would soak into the crevices and spill out a puddle of dark against the pale wood.

The son would run, screaming far too quick for the Doll Maker he roared in a fury at the thought of losing his newest promise of a doll. The boy was coming straight for Annike and she was awe-struck by the gold of his hair.

She stepped aside as the boy came her way, closing her eyes tightly as she felt the blow from the Doll Maker that would bring her to the knees. She would feel the cold swift cut of his blade into her flesh as she gasped out in pain as those spirit born blues were locked on the sight of the pale boy as he was caught by Lucian's swift hand.

The tears would spill down her face even as she was unaware as to why they would fall. So many children had lost their lives to become dolls... she and Lucian had been two of them, how was this boy any different? Yet as her blood painted the floor and her fingers were stained with the scarlet spill she would watch his own blood pour down the drains and against the floor to join with her own until the sweet bliss of unconsciousness would claim her.

"Is this what you expected then my little dear? Is this what you wanted to hear? That you were bound to another, that you were meant to hold bonds that would keep you in between the Dark and the Light. I'll make your soul a Purgatory. That craving, those desires that you do not feed... they will be the death of you. I can sympathize with your condition, dearest, I've damned you from the beginning."

The Doll Maker clicked his tongue to the roof of his mouth as his words stirred her into awakening against his table where the pain again had drove her into a brief relief and escape of unconsciousness. It was only then with the pull of strings, the familiar sensation of the hooks in flesh that it all came flooding back.

"A curious thing for you to be so blessed to have two that would take of you, that watch over you. In truth they may just desire you. To claim you as their own. Rutting like savage beasts, is that what you wish for dearest? Trust me well, I know the hearts of men... and your Pale Protector, your Dark Guardian... they want only to possess you."

Her silence was an infinite thing even as the haunted ghost depths of her blue eyes roamed the room and found the withdrawn countenance of Lucian. His face to so many would become an unreadable mask but all these years she saw the tension, the careful cracks that would expose his tension to her.

She loathed the fact that the Doll Maker's words stirred something within her, deep down to the core of her being. An ember of desire, a deep flame of love burned her soul and left her charred with the sensation. She stirred physically against those bonds as her eyes closed. The Dark Guardian long had found his sights upon another, and the Pale Protector... so near a haunting replica... well it was wrong to feel such things, to want him in such a way. So wrong...

The Doll Maker's laughter erupted in a way that made her blood turn to ice as he whispered affectionately in her ear as he placed her roughly against the wall, fingertips trailing on the smooth path of her navel and daring a venture lower. His whisper sent horror and disgust singing through her soul, marred by a grace of self loathing.

"Sin. Isn't it such a delicious taste on the tongue? You want it so...I can feel it...these things you'll never have."

With the words he left her. It was only a small solace that the Dark Guardian would remain, but at what price? The tension and desire lingered in the air, unspoken between them, forever bound to that which they could not possess.

They returned again. Both of them returning as if they knew of the loss and the lonely whim of her spirit.

So many confessions to Peredhil. She had told him of the Dolls, had told him of what she was.

A close of eyes after she awakened in the rise of the dawn. A flash of memory, a vision of the dreams of before.

Pale Protector. Shining One.

Could he truly have come back to her in the form of Peredhil? With the man it was so strange and difficult to understand her own emotions and thoughts when she was around him. It left her uncertain of her reactions or even how she should react when it came to him.

He wished in at least some small fashion to be friends, and he claimed he would not leave her... she could only hope his words were truth.

Clarity set in with awakening, senses stirring as she breathed in sharply and was instantly reminded of her Dark Guardian. But it was not Lucian that shared the cottage with her now... but Connell.

One that seemed instinctively to understand and know better then she did the wild dark nature of the blood that ran through her veins.

A sprint and challenge of speed through the forest, a kiss by moonlight gone feral.

The past was repeating... yet he was so different from Lucian... so different.

A glance out the window to watch the gold of the sun painting its etched touch upon the glass.

The image of such beauty flashed another thought of Peredhil. Sighing softly as her tongue licked across her dry mouth as she became aware of that aching draw, that soft longing within.

Could it be... could he really be the Shining One returned to her... her Pale Protector?

More so...what would he say, what would he think... how would he react if she voiced such?

Sighing she got up to face the day, hand moving through the gold of her hair as she tiptoed through the cottage. Pausing at the partially open door of Connell's room.

A look away and she continued on as her mind raced before her... that realization becoming far more difficult to ignore.

No longer did she wish to be alone.