The Reclaimed Doll

"We can't hide our actions like this for much longer, your sister is beginning to get suspicious." A woman wrapped heavily in furs muttered, thickly gloved hands brushing aside heavily piled snow to reveal a frosted over tablet in the cliffside. "Further, the crown may start to stick their nose where it doesn't belong if we stay away for too much longer."

"She is not beginning to get suspicious." Her conversational partner retorted distractedly as he inspected the door towering in front of him. Built into a cliff long since lost to the ice, this was nothing short of the eighth ancient ruin which the pair had personally been at in the last few years. Many had remained untouched for who knows how long, left to exist only in the legends and folklore of the northern tribes. "She has been suspicious since before last harvest's ball. The very reason the Crown hasn't caught on yet is because she's running interference."

"What?" While in a more glorious setting, a deft click might have heralded the key being revealed, the fur-laden woman was content to mundanely chip away at the frost obscuring the tablet. There were runes etched upon it, a written language she would leave to scholars to translate once she had managed to procure a copy. "When were you planning on telling me about this? I've been trying to keep it a secret!" The crack that accompanied her exclamation, however, was the cue for a small chunk of the tablet breaking off in the ice.

"One person knowing the difference isn't a problem, especially if that person is her." He didn't spare a glance back at his cursing companion, instead focusing on investigating the entryway itself. Time had taken its toll, burying what would otherwise have been a grand structure behind tons upon tons of fallen rock and snow... A structure which was never particularly meant to be hidden had, instead, nearly been forgotten. "Are we certain this is the right place, this time? I'd really rather not have to deal with more Guardians if it could be avoided."

While the piece of tablet was fitted back to the whole, the fur-laden woman grumbled on about shoddily built relics. "No, we have no idea if this is the right place or not." She broke shortly from her complaints to shoot back an answer, "It isn't as if we have Quality Assurance on information we're projecting from vague barbarian shamans telling camp fire stories."

"Right, but it's been mostly accurate, right?" The man scratched his chin, a pocket of darkness catching his eye.

"If by 'mostly' you mean three legends out of nearly forty have actually held some merit, then yes." She groused, "Only two of the eight places we've been out to in this frozen wasteland have had anything even remotely to do with why we're out here in the first place!" Three ancient ruins of lost civilization, from a time when the northern barbarians were a civilized and unified race. Four Ateliers, only two of which they 'meant' to find. This kind of archaeological excavation progress would have caused Artemis to go green with Envy had they known. For the people actually involved however, it was northing short of exhausting.

"We're running out of places to cross reference in Mint's Diary. What we're looking for has to be up here somewhere."

----

Expedition after expedition failed. Even with support from East Heaven, there was a limit to how long something like this could go on.

With this ruin marking their final efforts, it was finally called a failure. All members were to pack up and make their way home. While for all records it was the last entry in a long series of unexplained campaigns, the truth behind both the outings, and whether or not they truly ended at that time, would remain obscured...

At least, in La'Fiel.

Not long after these expeditions concluded, East Heaven Kingdom's borders slammed shut, firmly locking away the only other party who had involved themselves in this fiasco.

----

"While we're thankful you agreed to cooperate in retrieving it, the terms and conditions were clear from the beginning: This is property of East Heaven. You have no claim to withholding that from us."

A woman, previous laden in furs, could quirk her thinned lips at the imperiously handed down verdict. The people in front of her were just voice-boxes, people who would echo the words of their superiors mindlessly. Talking to them was a waste of time, they could no more make decisions than she could convince them. "You're welcome to try and take it from me, then." One pale skinned hand clenched protectively around her treasure, tucking it into her pocket with a contemptuous air as she raised her chin to the people in front of her. "Bring every man and beast you have, see how you fair."

Surrounded by the officials and guard of East Heaven, it was perhaps unfair for them to face this one woman down. It wasn't that she was in any sense capable of taking them on, nor would she be capable of escaping the assault. No, despite her bravado and condescending gaze, her loss here was completely assured from the moment the fight began.

The singular reason behind this stalemate lay within her pocket, held between those unshaking fingers.

"You have less than five seconds to stop me before your precious toy gets broken."

Entrusting her life to that ransom, an expression that all but told them she knew she had won, this insufferable woman was the one who had forced her way into an audience with the remaining royal family. To those held abroad, for those ensnared in campaigns, for this individual, an entire nation's government screeched to a halt for her own selfish whim.

----

"Even for someone descended from that line, our good will is painfully thin at this point. You knew exactly what you were getting into when we contacted you for this, so why make trouble now?" Red hair. That single description could have applied to all but one person in this room. Brilliant, scarlet hair that denoted a royal line, through branch after genetic branch, this was a mark left to them for glory and fame. They knew who they were, the weight of their words and presence, and for the first time in years, they had gathered.

Each with their own agenda, each with their own sections of interest, at this moment, only the one before them demanded their attention.

Commanded their attention.

"Because things changed. You agreed to lend us your precious heirloom when you discovered the implications inside of it, of what was hidden away in the north, and you used us to go find it for you." Blonde hair swept out behind her, an elegant and thick braid that reached to her thighs, "A personal favour, and of course given what it was about, we had our own interest in working with you... "

"And now you have." One interrupted her, "And you have the nerve to draw our country into a meeting like this just because you don't want to turn it over to its rightful owners? Look around you, you have no power here. You are only barely tolerated out of respect for our history. What do you think stops our patience from ending right here and simply seizing it from you?"

"Because you don't know what it is." She shot back smugly. "You didn't know anything about it besides what was in Mint's Diary. You jumped to the conclusion that it was a treasure or relic of hers, and I'm willing to bet my life that not one of you even knows what it is, much less how to use it."

"And you're saying you do?" The allegation brought the meeting's tension to a peak, as attention focused on the single egotistical narcissist that had laid claim to the center of the room.

She breathed in once. Twice. Closing her eyes, a dismissal of the crowd of people who had gathered around her. Prince, Princess, Minister, Chancellor, Advisor, General, and Noble alike. "Would you like a demonstration...?" The smirk on her lips revealed the expression of a shark who had smelled blood wading into its waters. She held the gem in her hand, a soft rainbow of light refracting from its crystalline edges.

---

That treasure, which you might have called Pandora's Box, was in truth... Just that. A box. The box itself was meaningless, aside from its curiosity in the modern age. Composed of unknown materials, created in ways that only Luna could possibly remain privy to, it was simply a container to store things within. A Box.

Though, even if you were to call it Pandora's Box, it didn't change the fact that what was stored within was far less than all the world's evils, and a single glimmering ray of hope.

What lay within was a single doll, inanimate and still.

"Was deceiving East Heaven worth something like this?"

But in the end, it was a box. What was inside the box could be changed at a whim. This doll, the original occupant of that particular box, lay slumped in a chair across from the blonde woman as she toyed with the engagement ring adorning her finger. "We raided enough Ateliers in the north to fill that box to the brim with undiscovered relics and revelations." She answered distractedly, "I consider that a fair trade for this."

"And just what is 'this'?" The man stood next to her. Her researching partner, her soon-to-be-husband. While he would be quick to say she was struck by his handsome looks and sense of justice, the truth of the matter was that she had eventually grown fond of the poor man she had often coerced into taking the fall for her more risky academic ventures.

"This, Mr. Valen, is a doll." She announced proudly, holding her hand out towards the white haired thing in front of her. It twitched after a moment, joints shifting in the chair, before rising of its own accord at her beckoning. Glassy, unseeing eyes opened with a gesture, and the life-like mimicry sat attentively within its chair, seemingly awaiting orders. "Without a single trace of Mana, this thing reacts to my every motion. You might call it a humanoid apparition, but I'm not sure if it even has thoughts of its own." She hummed in thought, twirling her finger casually as the doll tried to spin to her liking. "The musculature is humanoid... I suppose this is what you would call a homunculus?"

"...What was that doing in a box?" The crimson eyed man, one Prias Valen, could only boggle at the peculiarity before him.

"Maybe whoever made it had a purpose for it. There are directives inside of it that I can't access... Yet." The blonde woman shrugged, "More importantly, it seems malleable."

"Malleable... You mean?"

A multifaceted hue shifted across the surface of the doll, limbs, hair and eye alike shifting with an unnatural grace. Changing size, changing length, changing color.

"I figured out how to program it." She answered simply, "Or at least, the aesthetics. This interface is something similar to Mana Attunement, so I'm still trying to find out what exactly it's supposed to do... I might be able to go so far as to construct an entire personality."

"...You're playing God."

She smiled freely, looking up at the man with sparkling, child like eyes.

"Aren't I?"