#ironically enough ive never been hit by men

[autumnrainwrites]

A Blade Discarded

Durrest, 896 VAE/VC, Late August, Night

She moved carefully even now, stepping cautiously through the copse of trees as her ears caught the distant staccato of gunfire and the occasional burst of spell or rocket overhead. The crescent moon left only a bare trace of light to see by, augmented with the occasional burst from those loathsome rockets, yet she stepped surely and with purpose. Her prey was close, and her mechanical body and mind knew what was required. 

Her partisan’s steel head was their only warning. It caught her first target in the torso, parting maille links and cleaving porcelain and sinking into the machinery of the core below. The poor thing never knew what hit it.

Three against one became two against one. Still risky, but Nettles had surprise on her side. The doll with a caliver in their hands fired at where she had been half a second earlier, letting panic overcome purpose just enough to matter. Nettles already had her harpe in hand, drawing the sickle-sword from its sheath with a flourish even as she lunged for the halberdier doll. Up close, the short blade had the advantage, yet her strike met only the hard wood of the haft. 

Silently, Nettles stepped in, grabbing ahold of the other doll’s coat with porcelain fingers, turning to keep her between Nettles and the reloading gun-doll. The scuffle didn’t last long. Where a halberd is too unwieldy, a knife can be of service. When the bodies parted, Nettles came away with a crippled left arm. The other doll didn’t rise again.

There was no time to bask in success. The last of the enemies raised their firearm just in time for Nettles to bat it aside with her blade and step in for the kill. In all, three dolls of Vistria fell slain by one of Beldavia in a quarter of a minute.

Another rocket lit the sky for a glorious incandescent moment, and Nettles took stock. Her left arm hung limp and useless, the ball joint at her shoulder cracked bad. She wouldn’t be able to use her partisan, even if she could get it unstuck from the first of the dead dolls’s body using just one hand. With no other choice, the harpe she held would have to suffice.

She left the trees, moving even slower now. There were others about, friend and foe, dolls and men. In the open, alone, down here at the bottom of the escarpment, she would be easy prey. 

The day had started off… not well, but as expected. An enemy army atop the slope leading to the pass, an allied army in the town at the base. And naturally, Queen Greta had insisted upon where to commit her regiments. It was a defile, a shallower slope cutting the escarpment. An easier climb than the one facing the rest of the left wing, but the host arrayed in that narrow way were not humans or their kin like the rest of the battle line. No, Queen Greta IV, the Grasping, the Witch of Tyranny, self-proclaimed Queen of All Witches, meant to reclaim her country’s rebellious lost toys. 

It was a simple plan, and relentless. Successive waves, alternating between her mortal battalions and combat doll companies, would hammer the little band of free dolls at the top of the slope. When the mortals grew tired, the dolls would swoop in to cover the retreat and inflict the real damage. Human meat was only meant to dull the blade.

Nettles had been in the second wave, one of sixty-eight combat dolls rushing to the relief of the Glenrood Militia who bore the honor of first assault. A tricky maneuver, charging into battle in loose formation straight through a battered force of tired and frightened men with their axes and harpe swords and long stabbing spears, and at the end she crossed steel with hostile dolls for the first time, all under the cover of magic and missiles from both sides.

A friend, a doll she had shared tea with, took an iron bolt from some kind of field artillery right through the core.

A stranger in a black uniform that matched her own reeled back against her, its arm shattered to nothing just a few inches below the shoulder. 

An enemy, a pretty thing in their navy blue uniform, rolled screaming on the ground as green flames consumed it, hurled by the Royal Kinswoman commanding this wave. 

The enemy had magic of their own. A witch-doll peeked out from behind a low stone wall, raising a blue crystal stave in hand, and smote the Royal Kinswoman to the earth in a crack of lightning. But she did not die from that. She rose again, cackling, her body scorched and ward runes forming around her as she conjured phantom snakes that bit dolls on both sides with a poison of the soul even they could feel. Again and again the witch-doll hammered the Kinswoman with lightning and fire and wind, eroding her defenses just enough for an archer-doll to sink a rowan shaft into the witch’s royal throat.

And then the Padureni Highlanders hit the line, wild men with falxes flying, and Nettles and sixty-one other dolls fell back under witch-fog and cannonade.

Three more times, she made the ascent. It was not the same mortal brigades each time. And there was fighting elsewhere. All along the escarpment, from the steep north where the defile lay down to the shallower southern slopes, men of the armies died. In the south, the flames of a burning orchard lept so high that they could be seen from across the battlefield, as the maddened witch Duchess Chirmoneptas gyrated in hellfire above and her kin of sundered lines of a proud Imperial house butchered each other amid scorched roots below. 

Greta gave orders that attacks would continue through the night. They never got the chance. At sundown, when all battle ceased save for in the defile and the orchard, the dolls of Vistria charged after their fleeing foes.

Nettles had not been supporting that wave, and felt glad for it. As dusk settled over the slopes, the men of Stremt and Harlen fell back as planned, yet even as the covering screen of dolls maneuvered through their ranks the somber silhouettes atop the crest surged down upon them. At the sudden onset, the mortal men broke, fleeing down the defile in blind panic. The relief company, caught in the onslaught, fell back in disarray, and the battle moved from the slope to the camps below.

Now, night lay heavy over the town of Durrest and the woods and fields at the foot of the pass. Chirmoneptas burnt herself out shortly after sunset, and the pyre of the southern orchards slowly dwindled. Shadows hunted shadows: dolls and witches and men grappling in the darkness. 

After the Vistrian charge, others followed, units of light infantry from the mortal contingents of the defenders, lightly armored men kept in reserve throughout the day to act as raiders or as rearguard as the situation demanded. It was a small band of these that Nettles came upon next in her own hunt. Five of them, a couple lightly injured, with bows and hatchets and short spears. Unguided by purpose and with inferior night sight, they would be easy prey for the combat doll.

And sure enough, they were.

As she cleaned her harpe of the men’s blood, a strange dark light fell across her crouched form, illuminating the blood on cloth, steel, and porcelain in a horrid greenish glow. 

Nettles looked up sharply, searching for the source, and almost gasped. In the night above, she saw an angel.

The winged woman wore a cruel smile and a long dark gown, and in her hands she held a bow whose string glowed purple in the night. That same unsettling violet shade formed a halo behind her head, its intricate designs entwined in runes of bondage and sorcery. Slowly, the angel’s eyes scanned the field, until finding what she sought. Then, with a casual perfection born of purpose, she drew back a bolt of that same strange black light and shot into the distance. 

Nettles felt the angel’s eyes upon her, and could only hope that her black uniform and sickle-sword stood out enough from the navy blue and broadswords of the enemy dolls. That must have been enough, for the angel’s attention turned elsewhere.

She was about to start the search for her harpe’s next victim, when the night lit up like a fiery day.

The dark angel fell from the sky, entangled with an angel whose leathern wings burned golden, whose arcane halo hung over draconic horns. The toys of warring goddesses tumbled down to the rocks, the crash rolling over the field, drowning out the sound of rockets and cannons and spells. 

And darkness returned.

An hour later, Nettles neared a trio of men crouched over a body. Red cloaks, black bows, harpes through their belts. 

“Rangers,” she said, voice soft. “What word?”

They turned to her sharply, hands reaching for hilt or arrow, but relaxed as she stepped openly into the moonlight. The nearest nods to her and said, “The queen lives, as of half an hour past. We came from her with orders to find General Clementine and, if practicable, eliminate her. Have you word of the general?”

“Not this one, no. This one has been hunting the raiding parties up and down the slope and through these fields, in accordance with its witch’s last order.” 

The man grunted and shrugged. “Very well. Carry on then. May the hearth goddess see us all home.”

Nettles nodded in response and faded back into the shadows. 

Hours passed. She could feel her springs winding down. She’d been tended to shortly before the sunset assault, but a night of heavy combat left her in need of another rewinding. So, as grey twilight heralded the end of the long night, she made her way across the stony fields in the direction of the Beldavian camp, and her attention slipped just enough.

The arrow’s steel head was her only warning. Only a lucky turn of her body as she stepped over a corpse saved her, the arrow catching the maille rings of her battle uniform at an angle and lodging itself there.

Nettles turned, harpe raised just in time to parry the sabre of a Vistrian doll, its face impassive and its hair scorched and burnt. Winding low and with her left arm crippled, and fighting two against one, it took no time at all for her to know that she wasn’t getting out of this. But she could at least take the sword-doll with her-

Another doll appears from the side. How did she not see them? They were already in motion, halberd swinging on a wide arc. 

The heavy blade took Nettles in the midriff, shattering porcelain through maille and padding, smashing the delicate machinery below. She toppled back, little chain links falling away as she landed hard upon her back. Her core screamed, her mind blank of all except white hot agony. Then she could see again, through the pain, as the halberdier doll loomed above, point raised to finish the job they started… and then something crossed their face, something Nettles could not identify, and her would-be-killer disappeared from view.

She could not stand. She could not move anything but her head and right arm. And her mainspring was almost spent. There was nothing to do but lie still and wait.

Figures shuffled through the growing light, battered survivors of the night assault. Dolls with missing limbs, men carrying each other as they stumble from the bloodloss, trained wolves whose mistresses lay dead somewhere on the field…

As the red-gold sun rose over the mountains, Nettles saw two delegations approaching under white banners.

The larger of the two delegations came from her own side. Elite combat dolls, members of the Cotillion of the House, flanked the party. Within stood witches, and a handful of bureaucrats, an armored knight, a frightened comfort doll, and the queen herself: Greta IV.

Opposite them came just three dolls, each in a blue jacket with silver decorations and swords at their hips.

Two stepped forwards: the queen and General Clementine. 

And Queen Greta bowed as low as her stiff back would allow.

“The field is yours, general. You… have the best of us this day.” The queen’s voice is hard, choking back rage. Nettles wondered if she had even been so humbled, but set the thought away as improper. “And by our count, eighty-three of my own Royal Kinswomen lay dead upon the field. I have come before you to… to beg for leave to retrieve our dead and our wounded and return home.”

A few seconds only of silence, and General Clementine smiled. “Very well, Queen Greta. The battle is over, and we must both tend to the fallen.”

The general turned to leave, but the queen stood there a moment longer, seething in anger. Then, she turned back to her party and took hold of the comfort doll. The poor thing merely whimpered as its mistress forced it to its knees and pushed down upon its faceplate until the porcelain cracked and its polished eyes popped out, but the general flinched and gave one last look back. 

Nettles herself could not bear to watch.

Morning sun shone down upon the fields and the defile, where so many lost their lives. Nettles had barely anything left to give. She conserved the last useable energy of her mainspring for when the salvage teams reached her. It would not be long now.

At last, a team reached where she lay, a handful of support dolls and a common witch leading. She raised a hand to wave, and the witch approached.

“Designation and status?”

“Nettles. Under Miss Sylvain until she died in the second wave, then Miss Tessa until she died just after moonrise. This one is… damaged to the left arm and the core. Can’t move its lower body at all.”

The witch pondered for a moment, then shrugged and said to her crew. “Leave it. Not even worth salvaging. It’ll take me so long to repair, I might as well start from scratch.

Nettles wanted to protest, wanted to beg for another chance, but her energy was wholly spent now and the crew was already moving away. Time began to distort around her as her mainspring finally ran out, time passing by faster and faster. Sounds became a low constant drone to her ears. The last thing she saw before her sight became a mere blur of colors was a face smiling down at her, blue sky behind it.

And then, from that terrible entropy of slow panic, the world returned to Nettles in the form of a rocking wagon.

She was nude now, her undecorated and badly damaged body exposed. Someone behind her turned the key winding up her spring once more. She could move again… at least her head and right arm. The rest of her was still just as useless. Even if her limbs were replaced, she could feel the crack in her gyroscope. Until that was repaired, she knew she’ll barely be able to walk without falling over.

“Almost done,” a soft voice said, and that bright face reappeared, peeking out from behind her. It was another doll, smiling at her. Wavy blonde hair framing gentle porcelain features, set with polished hazel eyes, and her accent was strange. With a start, Nettles realized that this doll is of Vistria.

“I- You’ve made a mistake. This one-” 

“That one is quite alright,” the foreign doll said, finishing the final turn and gently pulling the key from Nettles’s back. “You were abandoned on the field, but this one saw that you were not dead.”

Glancing away a moment, she added, “Actually, I was told that you were there, by one of the soldiers. They weren’t willing to just let you die for no reason, and this one… and I agreed to check. I got there just as your salvage teams were leaving.”

Nettles said nothing, rattled by the news. It sat there, still and thoughtful, gathering what was left of itself together. Finally, she asked, “Is this one a prisoner then?”

“Yes, for now. But once you can move again, you’ll be free to leave. We… we don’t keep dolls who want to leave, not unless they’ve done something wrong.”

“This one fought… killed…”

The foreign doll raised a finger to Nettles’s lips, silencing it. “This was war. But if you feel so guilty, a magistrate can hear your case when you are well.”

They rode in silence a bit longer, in a wagon piled high with weapons, supplies, empty vessels of the slain. Finally, the other doll spoke again. “This one is named Marjoram. I’m a civilian assistant to the magistrate overseeing the army. What are you called?”

A pause, then, “Nettles. This one’s name is Nettles.”

“Nettles? What a pretty name.” 

Nettles never thought her name was pretty, but if Marjoram said so, she was going to trust that. She said nothing else then, but sat in stillness, leaning slightly on Marjoram’s shoulder. The other doll didn’t seem to mind.

Cast:

Nettles (She/Her, It/Its): A combat doll from Beldavia.

Queen Greta IV (She/Her): A cruel witch and ruler of Beldavia.

General Clementine (She/Her, They/Them): A doll general from Vistria.

Marjoram (She/Her): A doll acting as assistant to a magistrate of Vistria.

Various dolls, witches, rangers, and soldiers.

Author's Note:

Another dollfic, but this one is not tagged Empty Spaces because it takes place within a broader fantasy setting this one has been working on, called the Patchwork Lands. It is maybe not the most original of names for a fantasy world, but this one is rather fond of it. It hopes to write more in this setting soon. Meanwhile, it will also continue to post other dollfics, as well as some things it wrote about things other than dolls.

[sshireens]

2, 6, 8, 12 👉👈?

THANK YOU YINNIE 💓💓💓

2. a compelling argument for why your fave would never top or bottom

this requires me to narrow down my favs, which is so much more difficult than i ever could have expected. yin if i don’t answer the ask quickly this was why. catelyn tully would never top because ned lays pipe and she’s a freak like that. saw a ss of a reddit post that was like ‘my wife likes to get blitzed and then come home and have me fuck her brains out’ and thats her. brienne is never bottoming and jaime is never topping because jaime has some kind of reversed gender thing going on that makes him want to be a girl but not to another man. and brienne lives to serve. she literally is a sword. and thats a penis metaphor as we all know. margaery is never topping men because despite being the first ally in westeros she thinks thats weird. these are compelling arguments to me! daenerys stormborn is NEVER. NEVER NEVER NEVER. never bottoming because A). thats the prince that was promised B). jon likes to get dicked down C). i personally believe that being sold and traded will lees her to discover (amidst her several trysts with irri jhiqui and doreah (bc u cant tell me otherwise. irri is canon first of all)) that she, as the breaker of chains and mother of dragons and khaleesi of the great grass sea, is not inclined to experience things at the whim of others but rather the opposite. is that appropriate to say.

6. which ship fans are the most annoying?

oh god. SORRY PLEASE DONT SHOOT ME EVERYONE! daemyra (this might be biased bc i just dont like daemyra) some sansan ppl really get under my skin…. LUCEMOND JESUS CHRIST. almost forgot about them (was almost free). wow sorry lucemond shippers first place for annoying. its not that im an omegaverse toxic incest yaoi anti its just. Its the people it truly is i cannot even enter that circle. there is a blog on here though i can’t remember the url of that makes cute sfw art that doesnt frighten me and ive been known to browse, even hit like once or twice. lucemond still stay away from me please

8. common fandom opinion that everyone is wrong about

daenerys is not going to be queen of the seven kingdoms NOR SHOULD SHE BE. if daenerys takes the iron throne the whole series is pointless

12. the unpopular character that you actually like and why more people should like them

what qualifies as unpopular. also what do we consider like. because i consider like as in ‘this is a fun character to see interact with the world’ and NOT!!!!!!!!! ‘i support this guy’. just to clarify for any other viewers at home. a character ive seen a lot of people Dislike but i think deserves to be heard out is criston because he’s funny and thats it thats why everyone should like him. but i dont consider him unpopular? hmm tough tough …… will i get flayed if i say larys like i mean he’s just sick i love wondering what is going on in that head. in regards to characters i think are not given enough attention: jaehaera targaryen. ‘she’s a little girl shes a non-character’ SHUT UP. she’s a little girl exactly. she didn’t get the chance to be her own person she is alicent’s pain helaena’s pain and her own. GOD MY BABY GIRL….. she names her dragon death…… AUGH DONT EVEN TALK TO ME DOONNTTT EVEN. um also rhaella, daughter of rhaena the lesbian AND! mother of daenerys. bc first of all rhaella and aerea switches thats true. so like. rhaella septa rhaella wondering if that was meant to be her. wondering if maybe it would have never happened if she hadn’t traded places. is it kinder to force her twin into the faith or to let her die? Augh. also daenerys’ mommy just… why dont we know about her i need more people on here like me willing to band together to make up canon. i guess thats not really a reason why people should like them. ALSO SHIREEN BARATHEON I DONT KNOW IF YOU CAN TELL BUT IM THE BIGGEST SHOOTER FOR SHIREEN THATS BABY THATS MOTHER THATS THE PRINCESS THATS MY DAUGHTER THATS ME I LOVE HER SO BAD OH NY GOD SHIREEN PEASE COME HOME THE PEOPLE MISS YOU. and i know everyone dgaf about baby boy bowl cut brown boba eyed broken bran. but i gave birth to him. and thats why you should like him.

i don’t consider myself a targ girlie and then it comes to questions abt asoiaf and i can only answer in reference to them 😔 tried to be diverse 🤞