A star fell over the Faerie Vale, but this was hardly a noteworthy event. Wishing embers regularly rained down over the magical landscape in a respectable haze of clockwork sparkles.
The small silver lump left behind in the crater once this super-sonic, shimmer-strike settled down? Now, that was surprising—
The lump quivered and danced as it sorted itself out, sprouting a plum-sized head, bitsy hands no bigger than thimbles, and two tiny legs hardly taller than a sugar spoon. Shaking meteor dust from the metallic folds of her gown, this mechanical doll straightened to all nine inches of height.
"Curious! Have I always been this short?" she wondered. A label peeled off her chest and fluttered to the ground in front of her, but the singed scrap yielded only further questions.
“Smoleroid functions deactivated pending payment—for display only."
The doll did not feel deactivated. On the contrary, all her systems felt quite invigorated after her tumble through the sky. But no matter how she rolled the interrogative over in her mind, she could not pin down her purpose as a so-called "smoleroid." In fact, she couldn’t recall one scant second of her life before she woke up in the simmer pot of this crater . . . .
"How intriguing, I’m actually quite mysterious!" the Little Smoleroid exclaimed.
Her ruby cabochon eyes flashed as she surveyed the tall forest rimming the crater’s edge. Morning mists glistened like wandering veils through pine needles and leaf shadows, beckoning her like a million beacon lights. "Perhaps an analysis of my surroundings will reveal further clues to my identity,” she decided.
Her knee joints whirred as she bent low and leapt from the crater's heart, vaulting a hundred feet into the air in one fluid dart. The silver doll careened through lacebark pines, golden larches, and quivering aspens before aiming for a large rock in the center of a meadow.
However, her petite heels skidded across the scaly green boulder that she’d mistaken for a soft, mossy landing point.
"Ow! Watch where you're fly—er, falling," the boulder chided, unfolding a long emerald neck, razor talons, and scowling rows of fangs.
“Sorry, Lizard,” the Little Smoleroid replied. “Can you tell me: <who I—”
“L-lizard?” the beast stuttered, puffing his chest out as he interrupted her important quest of self-discovery. “Can’t you tell? I’m a dragon!”
His snout fell as his bright orange eyes scrunched tight as squished suns. “Oh, who am I fooling—even a new hatched wyrm can breathe fire, but I haven’t been able to light a twig since all my brimstones went cold.”
The silver doll shielded her gaze as a waterfall of lukewarm tears rained over her and bathed the meadow.
“Once, I was ‘Clawton the Frenzied Formidaflame!’” the dragon exclaimed. “‘High Simmer of Scorch, Evenly-Toasted Scone Master’—all right, that last one was purely aspirational.” He sniffled. “Now, you might as well call me . . . LIZZY!”
“Okay, Lizzy,” the Little Smoleroid replied dutifully. How puzzling—her reply brought on a fresh maelstrom of tears. “What’s a brimstone, and why is it so bothersome?” she asked.
“Essential fiber,” Clawton replied, “the bane of my existence!” He gave a longsuffering sigh that blasted off the fourth leaf from every lucky clover in the meadow. “My kind must devour volcanic stones to spark our natural flame, but I overnapped—er, hibernated by half a century and mine caught a chill. Now, all my brimstones are rumbling like useless ice chips in my belly.”
Two keen beams of light fanned out from the Little Smoleroid’s ruby eyes, scanning the dragon’s midsection. “Hmm—eat me!” she said. “I’m confident I can alleviate your stomachache.”
Clawton squinted at her doubtfully. “A measly mouthful like YOU? If you say so . . .” Quick as a flash, the dragon gulped the Little Smoleroid down in a single bite.
The silver doll slid down the beast's gullet straight into a gizzard tumbling with chilled stones. Opening both palms, a swell of laser heat spilled from her dainty fingers and irradiated the brimstones with the most incendiary of scintillas.
“Primary combustion restored,” she announced, pleased at this new discovery of her power functions.
The dragon gave a mighty hiccup that tossed the Little Smoleroid straight out of his fangs in a pillar of blue-tinged flames. She landed in a bed of charred daisies, swiftly pocketing a shard of brimstone as an insatiable urge to sample her surroundings overcame her.
“Wonderful morsel, you’ve saved me from the wretched ignominy of lizardhood!” Clawton proclaimed, ribbons of fire dancing from his nostrils. “You have my eternal thanks, Marvelous Minikin, Supreme Baker of the Brimstones, Lady . . . ?”
“Just ‘Smoleroid,’ thank you,” the silver doll replied as she dusted ashes from her gown for the second time that day. “Do you mind telling me what that is, more precisely: <who am I?>”
She mimicked the dragon’s prodigious sigh, and her compressed airwave shook all the bells on a lone bluebell blossom. “I lost my full designation,” she confessed. “I was hoping to recover my complete data set in this forest, but so far all I’ve encountered is a NOT-A-Lizard.”
“How perplexing!” Clawton clacked his fangs together in deep rumination. “I hoard all manner of rare treasures from primeval marbles to fine porcelain dinnerware, but I must confess that I’ve never seen a ‘data set’ lying about.”
He raised a single talon. “Try the unicorn in Marionberry Gulch—that wild beast has galloped across every nook and cranny of the Faerie Vale! But beware, itty-bitling . . . Alfalfie might obliterate you before you can get a word in edgewise.”
The Little Smoleroid clenched her tiny fists in determination. “Oh, I’m quite tough for my compact size and not the least bit crushable,” she assured him. “I can even survive a dragon gulp!”
“Quite right,” Clawton said with the utmost admiration for his diminutive comrade.
The morning mists dissipated and unveiled a cornflower-clear sky as the Little Smoleroid followed the dragon’s meandering description of the lay of the land. Yet she didn’t locate the gulch that glistened with live black gems until high noon.
“Hullo? Unicorn Unit?” the silver doll called, her voice echoing off stone walls brimming over with luscious marionberries. “Clawton sent me! Can you please tell me <who I—
> > >
The clarion clatter of hooves drowned out the crucial end of her interrogative as a golden unicorn splattered in violet berry juice cantered towards her.
“What a peculiar rock sprite, I’ve never seen your form before!” Alfalfie exclaimed. “Are you grown with moon silver or star quartz?” he asked, but his dulcet tone sharpened as he tossed his glinting spire. “No matter, I challenge YOU to a duel.”
“Challenge accepted,” the Little Smoleroid replied, mildly surprised by her own eagerness for spontaneous violent engagement.
Was this combat instinct an automatic function just like her laser palms? As the unicorn lowered its deadly spire, tiny hover thrusters embedded in the silver doll’s heels lifted her three feet off the ground. Neat. Ah, she was learning so much about herself already . . . .
Alfalfie charged her so swiftly that it seemed like his form fractured into a glittering mirage. Still not fast enough to catch her!
The Little Smoleroid flitted from the lethal edge of his spire like a firefly. Together, the silver doll and golden unicorn wove a dangerous dance among the marionberry bushes. Ripe gems exploded in the air as sparking hoof and laser bursts shook the gulch with their tangled silhouettes.
“What a glorious tussle! I’ve never met such a formidable challenger,” Alfalfie panted in glee an hour and an age later.
“Me neither,” the Little Smoleroid admitted, for the unicorn was her first recorded foe. Correction: what was the other word? F-f-fr—her fingers pocketed a glittering fragment of unicorn horn as the itch to sample overcame her again.
“We must do this again!” Alfalfie said as he shook marionberry juice from his mane. “Promise, wee warrior of the rock sprites?”
“Contract acknowledged,” the silver doll replied, grateful for the chance to trade tactics with a creature whose fierceness so easily inspired her own. She flicked a battle streak of marionberry from her cheek. “But I’m not a rock sprite, I’m a Smoleroid . . . ever heard of me or my kind?”
Her core chamber sputtered with a melancholy flicker as Alfalfie replied, “Never!” Yet an ember of hope ignited as the unicorn continued, “But you might ask the willow dryad by the Leftling Stream. Dendrita gathers the songs of every creature in her roots and leaves. Tree folk are quite knowledgeable, you know.”
“Maybe her wisdom will finally explain the minor anomaly of my existence . . . .” the Little Smoleroid whispered hopefully.
The silver doll flitted from the gulch at max hover-thruster output as she followed the unicorn’s directions towards the Leftling Stream. A lazy sun haze hung over the Faerie Vale as she encountered the willow dryad in the dead heat of afternoon.
The tree woman bathed her long green fronds in the rippling waters, her bare feet rooting in the muddy bank with impressively knotted toes.
“Salutations, fair Salix matsudana,” the silver doll said. “I’m a ‘Smoleroid,’ but I don’t even know what those three fancy syllables mean. Can you perchance tell me: <who AM I?>” Her head fell as she stared at the sterling face mirrored in the water’s currents like a stranger, worlds away. “I must know my primary function!”
Every fiber cable, mercurial coolant, and diamante lens inside the Little Smoleroid froze as Dendrita let her deep-pooled gaze fall full upon her.
“Othersky seed, you are entirely your own wish, and no one else’s!” the willow dryad said. “Did nobody ever tell you that?” Her leaves rustled with a chortle. “Make of it what you wish—see the trick?”
“Of c-co—” the Little Smoleroid’s voice processor skipped as she was caught in the willow dryad’s twisty logic trap. “Elucidate me, please! I MUST know the trick,” she pleaded.
Dentrita’s fronds swayed as she shook her head in a slow breeze. “A nut that hides in the dirt cannot understand a sapling’s song. Sometimes, we must live with our own heavy mysteries for a while before earning the answer meant only for us.”
“But I dislike variables,” the silver doll confessed. “Especially when it’s <me>.”
Dendrita raised her face to the sun and gave a splinter-lined smile. “Variance is just the mystic knot between wind, earth, water, fire air—oh, and heart. And we do not mock the root for its winding journey.”
“So . . . I should defer my destiny for another day, right?” The Little Smoleroid asked. Her sigh was too small to budge a single leaf this time. “Affirmative.”
The silver doll wiled away the brightest span of the afternoon by the Leftling Stream. Sorting the finest pebbles with Dendrita and decorating the shoreline seemed a highly acceptable way to utilize her skill set, after all.
The Little Smoleroid took particular care to add her own laser flare to each specimen, etching her chosen stones with geometric gibberish . . . coordinates, maybe?
Immaterial! This garble of ghost codes had NO hold over her anymore. She would forge a new command path for herself—
“I suppose ‘function’ does include ‘fun’ in its first syllable,” the Little Smoleroid mused.
“Ah. You’ve mastered the trick,” Dendrita said with a resinous twinkle in her eyes. She blinked, and a liquid drop of gold slipped from her eye and hardened into an amber tear. “Here—a keepsake to celebrate this moment.”
"Thank you! I’ll treasure this precious sample forever,” the Little Smoleroid said, pocketing her third snatch of wonder since falling from the sky at dawn.
Yet as daylight dimmed into the soft pink and lavender shimmer of the gloaming tide, her happily framed horizon blew apart as the sky above the Faerie Vale ripped wide open.
A familiar silhouette tore through this starless void. It shared her own form, but—magnified to colossal proportions! A thirteen-foot silver robot with oversized blaster arms and blazing dual rocket boots hovered in the sky.
“Display Model 003, I tracked your last position to this rift. Why haven’t you reported back to headquarters yet?” the mega-doll demanded in a booming bass voice.
The Little Smoleroid felt every gear and bolt in her body twist and tighten: enemy. Enemy! ENEMY. Yet she could not deny the summons despite the siren warning coursing through her frame. Her heel thrusters responded to the command as she flitted skyward to meet her behemoth twin.
“Who are you to label me with such a strange name?” the silver doll retorted. “I don’t even know your designation!”
“Are your logic circuits scrambled, tin crumpet?” the robot retorted. “I am Gargantroid Unit 1234, and YOU are just a miniature mimicrant of my majesty!”
Her crimson eyes flashed a blinding wave of scanner beams over the Little Smoleroid. “Ah, I intuit the fault: your internal portal jumper was damaged after being misdelivered to this pocket dimension . . .” Her eyes narrowed to glowing slits. “And maybe a few other critical systems, too—”
“I’m not misdelivered! I’m exactly where I wish to be,” the Little Smoleroid objected. “The Faerie Vale is an ideal realm for brimstone baking, unicorn sparring, and pebble etching—”
“Error,” the Gargantroid scoffed, tapping the Little Smoleroid’s head with a blaster butt so firmly that her skull plating clanged like a bell as dizzy neon codes danced in her eyes. “Do not allow this undeveloped dump to corrupt your core directive. The human king of Ashburbia is impatiently waiting for you to demonstrate your battle functions at court. Correction: my battle functions.” The robot’s snicker rattled like a box of loose wingnuts. “YOU are just a shiny demo dolly sent to prospective buyers—a gimmick to advertise the might-for-hire of the Gargantroides Free Battalion!”
The Little Smoleroid clasped her small hands together as she wished she could shrink back into the crater that brought her to this land. “So . . . I’m just a toy soldier?” she asked.
The Gargantroid nodded. “Your logic circuits have rebooted: excellent. Now, let’s turn this uncharted diversion to our advantage with a live broadcast of your combat capabilities. Level this dimension, Display Model 003!” the larger robot ordered. “Even your tiny laser stick fingers should be adequately armed to blaze this revolting pastoral zone to the ground in thirty seconds flat.”
The Little Smoleroid said nothing as she composed her internal rebellion:
• Clawton,
• Alfalfie,
• Dendrita—
Their lives, and so many more in the Faerie Vale depended on her carefully calibrated response! She raised both palms and blasted the Gargantroid at point blank range.
“Apologies, Unit 1234,” the Little Smoleroid said as her laser beams pinged off her counterpart’s chest plating in a pitiful spray of sparks. “I must neutralize you.”
The silver doll mustered every ounce of courage as she straightened to her full nine inches of height. “No Gargantroid may ever log the coordinates to this pocket dimension, ever again! It’s my new headquarters, you must understand . . . . ”
“You, calculate you can defeat ME?” the Gargantroid scoffed. “Pint-sized scrap, I won’t leave a single unformatted particle behind!” Double suns burned ominously in her blaster barrels as Unit 1234 leveled both weapons at her tiny target.
The Little Smoleroid evaded the first searing volley with only a singed antenna, but velocity alone would not help her to escape the robot’s wrath. Nor would her puny arsenal save her from superior annihilation by her monstrous twin; the Gargantroid had everything that she did at her disposal, in grander proportions! Except—
Three teensy-weensy things . . . brimstone shard, spire sliver, and amber tear!
“Can’t you intuit?” the Little Smoleroid shouted over her shoulder. “A core directive with destruction at its heart will one day leave us with NO future function.” Her fingers scrambled to reconfigure her three precious samples as Unit 1234 bore down on her with relentless, fiery scorn.
“The Gargantroides Free Battalion obeys the ancient wish of our makers. And from their millennial dust, we raze the universe in their eternal honor!” Unit 1234 retorted as she fired a dozen missiles at her mini-me.
“Break your brackets! Are you truly ‘free’ if you can’t even make a wish for yourself?” the Little Smoleroid asked in a final bid to save her counterpart even as missiles harried her heels.
Unit 1234 contorted midair, combining both arms into one massive cannon that would sear a blast zone with a mile-wide radius. “I AM—”
The Little Smoleroid flew straight towards the eye of her own annihilation and tossed her makeshift death marvel into the barrel: One dragon brimstone, excessively explosive, melded to one unicorn spire sliver, highly refractive, speared to one amber dryad tear, extremely flammable . . . .
Unit 1234’s cannon imploded, her mangled torso and smoking limbs raining over the Faerie Vale in burning heaps. The impact of the robot’s main body cratered a hill with a simmering pond of melted metal.
The Little Smoleroid hovered over this bubbling inferno as she scanned the wreckage for any remaining traces of her enemy, troubled—why hadn’t the sky tear stitched itself back together yet?
“Defective model deleted—” The skeletal frame of the Gargantroid sliced warped claws into the air, hooking the Little Smoleroid and dragging her down into the molten pond with her.
“Oops! Unhand me—” The silver doll blasted free of the hissing ooze with a final laser palm burst that severed the barbed cage of the robot’s claws. She calculated an escape trajectory, but her overheated heel thrusters could only pop her onto the side of the crater. “I’m sizzled,” she said with a forlorn sigh.
The Little Smoleroid resigned herself to fatal malfunction as she quietly processed the void sealing shut in the sky, and the first pinpricks of starlight twinkling over the Faerie Vale.
However, she did not anticipate an audience for her demise. Her three most favorite acquaintances gathered close as her body dribbled metallic rivulets into the crater.
“Pardon me, I’m melting,” the Little Smoleroid said. “It was a pleasure to m-muh-meet—”
She sputtered the end of her goodbye as Dendrita snapped a vine from her hair and poured golden sap over the doll’s body.
“I’ll refine your limbs with living amber,” the dryad promised.
“And I shall weave you a new chainmail suit with a brimstone buckle,” Clawton vowed, molting a sudden razor storm of dragon scales.
“Oh! I’m giving you knives for new fingers,” Alfalfie exclaimed, shaving slivers off his unicorn horn that glinted clean-cut as rays of moonlight. “You’re going to love them.”
“I’m so glad I was misdelivered,” the many-glimmered doll said.
Arrayed in the gifts of true friendship, the Little Smoleroid functioned happily ever after.
*This story was inspired by little sister M, who told me about Pandora dolls . . . miniature dolls traveling around Europe from the 14th to 19th centuries that showcased the latest fashions!
~*~
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