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zal-cryptid · 2 days

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When She Was Just-

(More fanfic of @zal-cryptid's Misfits in Toyland comic. Contains size stuff, so reader beware.)

“So you just sit on down, get yourself comfy, and I’ll be right back to start our playdate!��

Easier said than done, Beau thought to herself, squirming on the spot for a decent position on the couch as Dolly flop-skipped out the room, singing a tuneless babble. If Toyland had one notable disadvantage - once you exhausted the obvious grievances with losing your old life and existing as a plaything for probably all eternity - it was the lack of halfway decent furniture. Chairs and beds made to fit a doll weren’t exactly designed with human comforts in mind. Little give to their rigid wood and plastic frames, cushioning a sliver-thin strip of foam at best, too often ever so slightly disproportionate for all except one user. Beau herself could hardly roll half a turn either way in her own bed without risking falling out, let alone find a non-cramped spot on Dolly’s ratty wool sofa.

Granted, Beau took issue with her proportions in nearly all matters. A porcelain-figurine of a shepherdess, she towered over most other folk in Toyland. The Barbie doll down the lane claimed she felt no perspective different at twelve inches from her 5’6” human height; Beau, once 4’11”, felt quite the substantial difference at eighteen. That Barbie girl barely measured to the bottom of Beau’s chest. Her life as a vanishing slip ended the day she kicked her way from her arrival box and felt the dimensions of her new form , a figurine sculpted for detail over function, garbed in a needlessly voluminous lace gown triple her natural width. Actions major and minor all the day came with overbearing reminder she was, all told, huge.

Waking in the morning? Bumps and bonks reaffirming her playset of a home was hastily retro-fitted to just barely accommodate her bulk. Passing other toys in the public square? Snickers about her heavy trod and long shadow. Chatting with friends after a day in the fields? Oh God, how her voice so easily overwhelms the group.

One such chat started her path to this damnably undersized couch, why oh why won’t her dress gather without bunching and bulging in the small of her back? “You seem real tense lately, Beau.” “You spend too much time tending your flock, Beau.” “I didn’t know you could micromanage sheep.” They had a point, she did feel wound up, and without any mechanism to blame. Absolutely nothing to do with her work, they simply didn’t understand how much it meant to her, but a point on the mark is a point on the mark. Even so, she felt reticent about visiting Dolly when the subject inspired some… less than altogether pure remarks. “Oh, a playdate with Dolly is just what you need, big girl!” “Yeah, I hear she’s got the magic touch, pushes all your buttons if you got ‘em.” “I dunnow, seems more adventurous than Beau’s used to.”

She sulked in her home for some hours after, twiddling the too-small business card in her spindly fingers, torn between offense at their implications and genuine curiosity. The language Dolly used in advertising her services left anyone a smidgen past pure childhood innocence little room to ignore the barely-hidden meaning. Chance was right, she generally wouldn’t entertain those sorta transactions. On the other hand (flicking the card from one to the other), despite the crude jokes around “playing with Dolly,” the ragdoll seemed plenty friendly whenever Beau had occasion for brief exchanges to and from work, and those who did partake never so much as hinted at anything untoward. Just the surface-level meaning any halfway literate could take from the text.

Which posed some trouble when Beau hoped the rumors were true. Knew her frustrations ran deeper than simply too much time in the Arctic sun standing over sheep who, strictly speaking, needed no herding. Wanted to come right out and ask for the weirdest sort of help resolving her deepest set issue with life in Toyland. Yet if she guessed wrong, if Dolly’s play sessions were half so wholesome as suspected, there’d be zero chance of looking her straight in the button eye for a long time coming. Beau felt flushed, but her skin remained its neutral painted shade as she fiddled and twiddled, thinking long into the night.

After a week’s protracted thought, Beau had worked a free afternoon into her schedule, left a note on Dolly’s doorstep announcing her visit and available hours, spent a sleepless night cursing the inventor of packing foam, and squeezed into Dolly’s residence at the appointed time. The way she figured, best to play it cool, wend her way to the point roundabout as she can manage, and hope against hope Dolly gets the idea, and moreover, approves. If not… well, running away isn’t exactly difficult at her size. Though she may crack a doorframe or two in the rush.

So she sat, or rather shifted and bounced in vain with sitting a fleeting incidental matter, trying to distract herself from a welling panic in her breast by focusing on the details of Dolly’s foyer. No need to run if she busied her eyes studying the cardboard cutout of a flame in the fireplace, crayon scribblings of yellows and oranges subtly shifting in a dance implying warmth she could not feel. Why question her purpose in coming here when she could examine the conversation pieces on the coffee table, seemingly alphabet blocks with notably peeling paint and assorted accessories from mismatched doll lines chipped in odd places? Oh God, this was a bad idea, but don’t think about that, think about the imitation-wood wallpaper, or the paper-printout throw rug in the corner, or the approaching sound of rags on smoothed balsa wood!

Beau templed her hands over her face, pinching her nose so hard she risked shattering it and index fingers alike. You can do this, she thought, screwing her eyes shut. Just ask like it’s the most normal thing in the world.

“Alrighty! I’m… ready! How ‘bout… you?”

She blinked, turned, and looked down. Dolly shuffled backwards through the entryway, dragging a gallon-size ziplock full to bursting with cotton balls in her wake. “Sorry I took my time! Had to think’ve… something we could use for… sheep!” she beamed. “Didn’t… phew… didn’t want to ask yours to come in! Gotta keep things private, y’know!”

Funny the things you notice when forcing your thoughts away from undesired conclusions. As Beau sat ramrod stiff, hands still hovering before her mouth, her gaze darted all over Dolly, taking in aspects of her person as substitute for the chant oh, Oh no, oh no no no, she really does just want to play at counting sheep, this is bad, get out, abort, abort! The polished button eyes which twisted about and pressed on her face ever so slightly to distort the surrounding area into expressions. The rosy patch circles on her cheeks Beau swore sometimes grew and shrank in size with Dolly’s mood. The faded candystripe pattern of her burlap dress - shorter than her usual outfit, or just Beau’s imagination? The… well, the slightness. Dolly stood somewhat taller than most humanoid toyfolk (if still a few inches shy of Beau’s height), but being a cotton-stuffed ragdoll made her seem so insubstantial. Hardly any klumphing from her step, a wavering quality to her gestures, so light that the occasional jostle when passing her could knock her several body lengths away. Not a rigid or heavy thing about her.

“Sooooo…?”

Beau flinched. She should probably say something.

“I’m… sure they wouldn’t mind, if you asked…”

“Naaaah, don’t be silly!” Dolly waved off the notion, wrist bouncing every which way. “I see you in the fields, acting all Miss Bossy Lady with ‘em, hardly having any fun! All they’d do is get you doing that again! Sure, if you wanna invite, I won’t say no, but as Toyland’s first ‘n’ best professional playmate, I gotta say you’re better off with THESE sheep today!”

She hefted an armful of cotton balls, cradling them back and forth while bleating, “Baaa! Baaa!”

Beau coughed. “Well, you know, I… it’s the right way of doing things. A shepherd, well… she tends her flock and… makes sure they go where they need to…”

“Plus!” Dolly scampered over and tugged at Beau’s voluminous dress folds, encouraging her to come over to the “flock.” “Plus, I’ve heard you talkin’ all the time! Who could miss it? You’re usually SUPER confident and forward. Don’t give anyone a turn until you’re done! Being all ‘uh’ and ‘err’ and ‘well..’ ain’t like you! Trust me, if you’re here and being Miss Hem Haw instead of Miss Bossy Lady, you NEED this!”

For her stature and composition, Dolly pulled surprisingly hard, prompting Beau to rise and at least begin hesitantly stepping towards the cotton pile, lest her dress tear under enthusiastic hands. “Right, but the thing is… I don’t exactly w-”

“So!” Dolly plopped herself down on the floor, busied beyond hearing with her ideas for the next few hours. “We got your sheep here, right? And you’ve got your you, and since you’re the shepherdess, you’re gonna do shepherdess things for them! EXCEPT! We aren’t gonna do your boring herding stuff, we’re gonna have fun! Name the sheep, get to know them, let ‘em scamper around, jump some fences, do some counting, maybe a nap in the middle if it makes us sleepy!”

“Dolly…”

“That’s all for later, though! What’d you think THIS little sheepie’s name should be?”

“Dolly, may I please say something before we start?”

She wished she still had a tongue to bite. The request wasn’t meant to come out quite so impatient, barking. If Dolly minded the sudden shot of aggression, it only evidenced through her face going neutral for a moment or two before breaking back into a wide smile. “Sure thing! Whatcha got?” And then her head lolled to the side, resting angled cross her shoulder in a way Beau always found offputting. No matter how much she knew this as Dolly’s I’m Listening I’m Hearing Honest pose, the limp stillness in her manner creeped a body out.

With a heavy sigh, Beau gathered her skirts and lowered herself cross-legged to the floor, intent on getting this right. Steady and honest, she reminded herself, tucking and checking the fabric for comfort. Wend your way in, give the full picture, keep your head, hope for the best. Right. Here goes.

“I am sure you have heard me tell how I came to the island, or at least heard from another who has,” she began, voice low and level as manageable. “Short, skinny little Beau used to flying under everyone’s notice, suddenly so big a toy she’s practically eight feet tall compared to all the rest. I am not stupid, I took one look at myself and figured a good rough version of why I came here - and a bit of talking to my neighbors cemented it. All those years dodging attention, dodging responsibility, shirking duties for increasingly ephemeral reasons until I wasn’t taking proper care of my own health, let alone the people I might have helped if I took a tiny bit of interest in my life? And now I’m a shepherd in Toyland with a flock waiting? The message was pretty clear: shape up, adopt this duty, learn some discipline and make some proper commitments for once.”

A pause, to glance at Dolly for response. Absolutely none, as expected, blank-eyed and still. When she listens, she does literally nothing else.

“So I did what was expected. And it helped, it really has, I like being shepherd for the sheep. I do not know if they’re toyfolk themselves or just extensions for my punishment, but I get up, I tend them however long they need tending, and then I go home. That is my life, and I think it a good life. I live on a clock where I let hours slip, I’m assertive where I let others step on me, I’m a responsible person with a point to her life instead of a slacker doormat of no worth or use. All to say… I just do not think playing cotton ball sheep is what I need here. My job is playing the person I’m supposed to be, so there is no need to replicate it. Right?

Expecting Dolly’s continued silence and mentally readying a third leg to her spiel, Beau jolted hard when the ragdoll’s head shot up and said, “Okay! We don’t gotta play sheep! What do you wanna play, then?”

With a shudder, Beau steered towards her main point. “Right. The reason I came here today… the REASON I came here today is because I have felt one.. one major problem the entire time I have lived here.” Good Lord, could her speech be more stilted? “Not something you would expect most to complain about, probably too silly for consideration, I should just g…” She promised herself. No running until outright rejection. Say it. “I do not like… I want… well…”

“Your clothes? Do you wanna play dress-up? I’ve got some-”

There go the floodgates.

“I hate being so much taller than everyone! It’s not just bumping my head and knocking people over and never finding anything in my size, that all sucks but I’m sick of being so BIG overall! I woke up in my box and I looked around and I thought oh my God, it finally happened! Because I was always short, right, and I had a THING for it and wanted to be even smaller, smaller than possible, and here I was under two feet and telling myself well, you’re not a person anymore, but you’ve got your dream, that’s something at least. And then I wander into town and what do you know, they’re all shrimps compared to me, I’m practically a living colossus compared to everyone, and I have to learn how to be responsible and punctual and outward while living in THIS body? THIS gigantic freak of a thing? I’m the runt I always fantasized about and I can’t even feel it and it’s just too much and I want.. I want… I…”

Beau could not remotely account how, lacking lungs and all, she winded herself spilling her secret in one prolonged babble. Regardless mechanics, she sat there on the floor, huffing for breath, fully aware she looked an enormous fool in figurative and literal terms. Somewhere in her rant, Dolly’s head had lolled to the side again, which gave Beau the impression she could, perhaps, sneak out without further embarrassment. The other toys sometimes said Dolly’s true self fugued away years ago; maybe if she made the door before Dolly straightened out, she wouldn’t be mis-

“Oh! Ohhhhhhh! I get it now! You wanna play Big Girl/Little Girl!”

-ssssssssssssssssssssssss-

“You be the little girl and I be the big girl, right?”

-sssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss-

“I can do that easy! You shoulda said when we came in, we coulda been at it ages by now! C’mon, up, up, just gotta use your imagination for this one!”

-sed. Through mentally sibilating, Beau let Dolly’s mitten-like hands grasp her overlarge yet slender digits and guide the towering shepherdess to her feet, passively swaying on the spot. From where she stood, she could not possibly imagine how Dolly meant to fulfill the roles as proposed. Half due to still whirling through panic at her shame being so readily accepted, half due to standing some six inches higher than the doll’s crown. Gazing through doubled vision at the knots and kinks of black yarn hair, Beau tried to picture Dolly as the taller of the two, and failed as her mind blanked.

“It’s alright!” Dolly piped up, rags still grasping porcelain. “This is to help you relax, but you gotta do that at least a little to get going!” She stood there, neck considerably craned and mouth brightly curved until Beau adjusted her stance, an honest effort at playing willing participant rather than shellshocked statue. “Great! Now, I’m just gonna…” Dolly shuffled herself back and forth, producing a light scuffing whenever she bumped Beau’s dress. “...and a bit of…” Her head bounced about, hair bobs threatening to shake from their bows. “...aaaaaaand!”

A rag foot went lightly fwuph upon the floor. “Hi there, little girl!” she giggled, looking down. “I’m big girl!”

The air in the room hung still as seconds tip-toed by. Beau measured her options. Responding as Dolly clearly expected didn’t feel right. Walking out ran the risk of Dolly telling someone later. Screaming felt undignified. She settled, somewhat reticently, on polite suggestion.

“Uh, Dolly? I am not entirely sure if you have noticed but… I am… I’m up here? Would it help if I laid down? You might look pretty tall then…”

“Huh!” Dolly kept her eyes fixed firm on the floor between them. “That’s weird! I definitely see little girl Beau down there! She’s sooo tiny! Hi there, lil’ Beau!” Her hand waved carelessly about for a few pendulations, until her forehead wrinkled, her arm slowed, and she asked, “Wait… you’ve never played like this before, have you?”

“Well, I might have roleplayed online some in college, but… look, are you sure I should be standing for this? I don’t want to tell you how to do your job or anything, but if we’re being open and honest about this, you could try uh… stepping on me to get the point across?”

“Nahhhh, that’s Dommy Mommy, we don’t need to make pretend for that! I mean like… really played! Like when you’re a kid. Tried and tried and tried until you actually believed for a little bit! Here, look, close your eyes and think, ‘I’m real real real real little right now, and Dolly’s suuuuper big,’ and then when I stomp, look up! Give it a try!”

Features blank and uncomprehending, Beau did as she was told anyhow. It felt stupid: if she looked up, she might see the poorly painted roof to Dolly’s foyer a few inches from her face, lit by a weak heat lamp behind a fake cardboard fire, standing on cheap balsa wood, but not Dolly. She was down there, Beau was up here. At the least, she could humor her host. So she leaned her head back and set a mental intonation. I’m small. I have been small since I got here. I am like… like a minifig. Everyone look like mountains. I need friends to carry me everywhere. I can’t tend the sheep because they’re practically mattress warehouses compared to me. That’s me, a pipsqueak, a speck, the smallest girl in Toyland. And I like it this way.

“Okay!” One more, Dolly’s foot went fwuph, signaling Beau to open her eyes. Only this time, several factors shifted radically.

The ceiling, seconds ago so close she might reach to scrape away the peeling paint, now seemed a mile off, details lost in the distance. A steady crackle sung from the fireplace, which flooded the room with a warmth before sorely lacking. Those flimsy strips of balsa felt firm and sturdy as proper oaken hardwood.

And Dolly’s stomp made the whole house shake.

Beau stumbled off her feet and hit the ground hard, yet kept staring upward, mouth agape, verbal expression utterly useless to capture the sight before her eyes. Impossible though it ought’ve been, she now splayed before a great black mound, dust particles still settling round its base. Another, twin to the first, lay some distance to her right, and from both jutted pillars of pure brown fabric, stitchings the length of Beau’s entire body at quick estimate running along the sides of each into… void. No, not a void, merely deep shadow; scootching herself back some, Beau noted a ring of alternating off-whites and dulled-reds, which in turn coalesced into candy cane striping drawing her higher, higher, higher. Past trunklike arms, past a flowered ruff that could drown her home, up to a familiar mouth quirked into a smile, cheek patches glowing more intensely than she’d ever known, button eyes wide, magnified beyond all reason, and trained directly on her.

“There you are, little girl! Told ya you were down there! Hee hee!”

Shrank me. She actually shrank me, Beau thought. Inching back further for a better view, however, she found her understanding of the situation very quickly challenged via her back striking something. What, she couldn’t tell, for when she twisted herself about to check she found only the open expanse of the floor, her frame so small as to readily slide under the couch. Yet, from the scratchy coarseness against her back, tangible even through her considerable layers, Beau knew for a fact she was now pressed firm into Dolly’s sofa.

A deafening coo from above forced her eyes Dollyward again. “Hey, hey, don’t worry! Gonna seem a bit weird, but it’s all part of playing pretend! Long as you and me both think you’re tiny, you actually are, sorta! Big Beau’s still here, she didn’t go anywhere. It’s just you’re ALSO Little Beau now, which means I can do-”

Scrabbling for comprehension, Beau experienced two wholly contradictory sensations at once. In the back of her mind, she dimly perceived Dolly crouching down, scooping both arms underneath Beau, and hefting her up with considerably less difficulty than she handled the far-lighter bag of cotton balls. In active sight, though, clear as day and solid as anything, she watched helpless as Dolly crouched, gently slid a single mitt towards her, brushed her aboard with the other, and tenderly rose back to her full stature. The rush of air nearly knocked Beau flat once more, but she held her ground best she could, no matter how much said ground felt like ever-shifting cotton stuffing just beneath a layer of old cloth. Maybe the existence of proper flooring in top-side reality helped her stay balanced?

Only, no, Dolly didn’t have proper flooring, she lived in a bargain bin dollhouse! That stuff practically bounced under every step on the way in!

But, if Beau was still standing on flimsy balsa wood, how did she keep her footing s-

No, wrong, she wasn’t even standing, she was in Dolly’s arms. On Dolly’s palm. In Dolly’s house, which Dolly now vastly outsized. Only it wasn’t Dolly who was big; Beau was just very, very small. Except…

“-THIS!” Dolly triumphed, shaking Beau from her reverie.

“I think I’m gonna throw up,” she murmured to herself, irrespective her lack of stomach.

“Well if you WANT to while playing pretend, you can! Though I wouldn’t like it very much, so please don’t unless you REALLY need to!”

“Okay… okay, okay, alright, so…” Beau did her best to gather her thoughts. Dolly made this somewhat difficult as her enormous hand hovered nearby, gently prodding the miniature shepherdess to and fro (or at least tapping her regular-sized face for similar effect), though Beau found no will to ask Dolly stop. With every bump and subsequent stumble, it became marginally easier to tune out what was really happening, stop thinking of it in such terms. While she could still see and feel the awkward weight lifting job necessary to simulate her palm-bound station, the sink of her feet into the hidden fluff seemed softer, the slight must inherent to ragdolls of Dolly’s vintage permeated deeper, the boom of Dolly’s giggles and the warmth in the room and the sense of having dwindled next to nothing inching towards total believability as her only reality.

“Tiny. Tiny like I always wanted.”

“Yep!”

“On your hand. Like some kind of bug.”

“Uh-huh!”

“Except n-” No, actually. Beau bit back the words, acceptance and embrace seeming easier than interrogating denial. If she pushed too hard, the perceptive spell might break, and she might not find the will to go back. Instead, she shuffled on the spot until Dolly asked a question of her own.

“How do you like it?”

The answer came far easier than expected. “I- I think it’s wonderful. Can all the toyfolk do this?”

“Oh yeah, all the time! For sleeping and eating and washing and all sorts of stuff! But fun stuff like this, you do need two making believe together at least! It can’t do stuff like make you hhhhmmmmmmmmnnngngn, but you can see and feel and do all sorts of things! It’s really really neato!”

Beau opted against asking about the sudden mushmouthing, and instead asked, “And… do you like it? Me like this and you like that?”

Dolly tossed her head in a prideful swish, enough yarn to smother the town square flouncing in reply. “As Toyland’s first and best professional playmate, I like anything my guests wanna do!” Then she leaned in close, so close Beau almost scented something like candy-sweet breath, and added in whisper, “But also you’re SUPER cute like this! Hee!”

With those words, whatever reticence Beau felt melted entirely. She pulled herself to her feet, rushed forward, slammed herself into Dolly’s cheek, and spread her arms to squeeze them against the ragdoll’s cushy face wide and tight as she could manage. “Thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you so much I love it I should have come here months ago!” Mid-nuzzle with a stitch broader than her torso, she caught herself, realizing what must have happened topside with her sudden movement, and coughed, “Oh, uh… sorry if I, you know… bulldozed you there.”

“Don’t worry! I put you down while we were talking! You’re just standing there, still ‘n’ sturdy! Didn’t move an inch! Not that you can unless I want you to~.”

Beau blinked. She achieved total immersion and hadn’t realized. A broad smile lit her face. “Oh, this is going to be so much-”

“FUN!!!”

Dolly’s exclamation sent Beau tumbling backward head over heels. And so - with the quick establishment of safe words and signals - they were off.

As show of gratitude, Beau let Dolly take first point with whatever sorts of games she’d normally prefer. To no surprise, her instincts trended towards childish games, though the sheer size disparity made these more engaging and enjoyable for Beau than had they tried beforehand. Marveling at the seemingly overlarge ragdoll’s deftness as they played patty-cake, bulk slab hands gently bumping against her own and clapping just softly enough to only produce a minor sonic boom. Now and then, Dolly timed her claps to close around Beau, enveloping her playmate in muffling dark and snickering as Beau squirmed within, doing her level best to keep the rhythm while ensnared.

Jumping rope wouldn’t work quite so well under normal circumstances - Beau had no chance of clearing Dolly’s skips, and the idea of Dolly registering Beau’s twirls was laughable. Instead, she placed her mite of a partner in her hair, and told Beau to hang on while she tried at besting her record. At first, Beau found the rapid swish of corded rope overhead and the wild tangle of Dolly’s hair a little frightening, but after the first fifty skips she came to appreciate the experience as a kind of thrill ride. With the right wriggling, she could tuck herself between a few yarn strands, ensure a secure position, and appreciate the doll’s talent for speed step and criss-cross.

All the same, she asked for a game more accommodating her size next, inspiring Dolly to a round of hide ‘n’ seek. This suited Beau quite nicely, though not because she proved a particularly adept hider. She found her options severely limited by where Dolly placed her and how far she could scurry within even a deliberately molasses countdown, which made her discovery inside a minute practically inevitable. Rather, it made a delightful opportunity for exploring the room from her miniaturized vantage point, breath taken away by the cavernous space under the couch, the monolithic quality of knick-knacks on the mantle, the all-swallowing dark of an otherwise light shadow in the connecting hallway, all of it so incredibly convincing through new eyes. If she woke up here with no further context, there wouldn’t pass a second she thought it anything other than a full-scale home.

(One round did go in her favor. She tip-toed her way under the slight heel rise in Dolly’s shoe, and spent several minutes shuffling along with its tread while snickering to herself, grateful Dolly found the act of pretending so natural she never once thought to nudge Beau’s actual body for a hint.)

I Spy proved mainly an excuse for Dolly to walk about the room humming and erring to herself in mock consternation over what to choose, her path always hewing within relative inches of catching Beau underfoot, then spinning about in “sudden” inspiration with, “I spy a cutie pie!” Obviously Beau could not replicate the same effect, especially not while blushing from the compliment (actually, properly blushing, she realized, real heat from her cheeks gone flush); she instead alternated between playing legit and spying “the biggest doll ever.” Either way, Dolly knew her home and herself too well to fail a guess.

They did find time for a brief round of play sheep tending at Dolly’s suggestion, a transitory game to ease Beau into control of their activities. True to her word, Dolly made sure Beau kept from her usual controlling, overly-mannered habits, prodding verbally and physically if she showed signs of slipping. Really, it only took a few of these before Beau conceded entirely and the game turned into one of plonking into cotton balls thrice her height for warmth while Dolly shuffled the others about, generating heat and bleating to herself.

Maybe I should just relax with the sheep from time to time, Beau pondered, her face sinking another half-step into the fluff. If their wool feels half so cozy as I’m imagining, it might do us all some good…

The task of calling time suddenly fell to Beau, alongside Dolly’s head when she slumped face-first into the cotton pile, having put herself to sleep counting cotton ball sheep. A gentle smile on her face despite the sudden jar, Beau pattered on over to shove at Dolly’s cheeks in hopes of rousing the giant. No good, alas. Rule of play made counting sheep dangerous business if one believed in its narcoleptic sway, and nobody on the island adhered to its tenets firmer. Girl was plain out like a light.

Beau contemplated her options. She COULD will her perspective back to normal and wake Dolly in her full-sized body. Or…

She had a much, much better idea. Scuttling at top speed, Beau made a beeline for Dolly’s thigh, half-exposed beneath the folds of her dress. Fortunately the doll’s awkward pose compressed her dimensions somewhat, else Beau would have quite the long run before her. As it were, a mere minute’s running brought her before her destination, a great unmoving wall. The sight could take her breath away, were she not already winded from the sprint over - voluminous dresses did not make good exercise gear. After affording herself a moment’s awe at the sheer expanse of something she thought remarkably slender and floppy just this morning (and to catch her breath), Beau cracked her fingers best she could without breakage, and set to dancing them across Dolly’s rags in a tickle.

At first, no result. Not shocking, for even imagining Dolly’s leg as smooth warm flesh rather than sewn cloths, Beau could only stimulate so much surface area. Movement was necessary, which meant sidling her way inwards, towards hopefully more sensitive patches. Gliding her arms up, down, and in circles on her approach, the hem of Dolly’s dress passing by overhead and necessitating a small adjust in step underfoot, Beau half-hoped Dolly would wake before she pressed too much further… then mentally slapped herself for such idiocy.

“Just snooze long as you like…” she grinned, sliding one step further in, and then another, and another, and another, closer and closer and closer to…

Exactly how deep she went, Beau could not say. When Dolly finally registered the caressing strokes, the lack of unfiltered light and those enormous pillars kicking all about conspired into complete disorientation as Beau was mercilessly thrown about, eventually tumbling out the dress between Dolly’s feet. In spite of the indignity of her situation, Beau found herself laughing alongside the giantess, pounding the floor some at the thought of what she just did until Dolly scooped her back up, and kept on for some time after at that.

“Guess.. hahaha… I guess there goes any formality about my taking point!” she chirped, spreading out on her back and gazing up at Dolly’s staring face.

“Hee, yeah! Being spontaneous can be just as fun as planning things out!”

“...Dolly, did you put yourself to sleep on purpose to see what I’d do on my own?”

“Won’t tell! But it felt good anyways!”

Beau stuck out her tongue, marveled at the fact she could, then stretched and heaved a long sigh. “Do you know, since we went there, I have wondered something about this whole imagination distorting reality thing since we started.”

“Oh?”

“We can make me smaller after a fashion by making believe, but… can we also make you bigger? If both of us pretend really, really hard, like you said?”

Hardly a moment after she posed the question, Beau got her answer, as Dolly simply expanded outward. Attention still fixed on the mini-toy in her hand, smile unwavering as ever, the ragdoll became, unceasingly, more and more. All in their imagination, of course, but Beau’s shrinking happened instantly and involved no changes beyond herself; this was Dolly’s legs crowding her furniture against the wall, Dolly’s back blocking the entryway and sliding along the ceiling as she hunched over, Dolly’s free hand covering and smothering the fireplace in a groping quest for free space. The fact of a process Beau could stand and witness in real time made the already impressive growth near-overwhelming.

As she kept on, the room groaned and the foundations creaked. Beau distantly recalled her observation about Dolly’s weight as insubstantial, realized her contribution to this particular bit of make-believe rendered the ragdoll just so heavy as her size implied, and felt her higher functions black out. From feeling like a mite to a veritable dust speck, she rode out the change, reveling a little every time Dolly shifted on the spot to gain more room or produced a worrying crack at her feet. Whatever this looked like in proper reality, Beau couldn’t give two spits. This was glorious, and that was enough.

If Dolly wasn’t quite human-sized within a minute, she certainly challenged the room’s maximum mass capacity as she tapered off, grunting some in mild discomfort from awkward positioning. Surprising for her composition, yet Beau supposed someone so bendy and soft must too have their limits. Or rather, she would suppose, were her eyes not lit with the delighted sparkling of an entire night’s sky.

“Oh my God, you can, you can actually get bigger, cripes, no, wait, this changes everything, I was expecting you to say no, oh my fffff… Dolly, Dolly how much bigger can you get? Let’s do it, let’s keep going, I want to see it, I wanna climb in your collar and watch you burst this stupid house and go stomping around the island, give everyone the shock of their lives, bigger shock than coming here ever was. Oh, oh, hey, if we get more toys to see you like this does that make it realer? Can we make it more real than your actual body, can we make this permanent? Get you like, fifty feet tall, or whatever that would be proportionate to us? First and best and BIGGEST playmate, can you imagine it? Oh my God oh my God oH MY GOD!!!”

Hyperventilating, Beau let her thoughts run wild in a way she hadn’t entertained since college. She woke up this morning expecting humiliation and disappointment, and now THIS door opened wide just for her? Heaven from straight out hell!

Tragedy, alas, came crashing about her head when Dolly spoke, alongside serious earache from the raw volume of her voice.

“I can, actually! Although, even if it is all pretend, there’s still enough really happening to be uh… a little bit worried? I’m trying super hard to not crush my couch right now. And if I keep growing, I might just sorta appear outside without any damage, or I might break my roof. So… can, but prooooobably shouldn’t?”

Beau sat there, contemplating. She came dangerously close to suggesting all caution go stuff itself in the wind, consumed by overwhelming desire to glut on her deepest fantasies and see this place smashed to splinters as revenge for their inhuman state. Thankfully, a new life of self-discipline paid dividends beyond dragging herself out from bed in the morning, and cooler-headed reasoning prevailed. To face the entity responsible for repairing any beyond-the-pale damage and explain WHY Dolly’s house had a great big Dolly-sized hole in would prove too too much.

“Mmnnnnngh, alright, fine! No ragdoll rampage unless we start another one of these playdates outside. Just… can I have a uh… a kiss before you shrink back d-”

“SURE!”

Escape velocity g-force didn’t compare with the pressure pinning Beau to the spot as Dolly pressed hand to face. Any chance to account why she asked for a kiss when she knew perfectly well Dolly’s mouth was a pasted-on detail with no depth or lips vanished the instant she smashed directly against the red semi-circle. Mwah!’s of thunderous amplitude boomed from every direction, Dolly indulging the request many times over, giving Beau the space necessary to conjure something other than fabric around her person. Same basic principles as all other forms of play, of course, just a matter of picuting what you want to see and feel…

With some effort, the rags morphed. Warmth crept into their fibers, their flat surface splitting and expanding into new volume, a texture like the finest gloss spread over naturally smooth flesh. Beau imagined the twitch of tiny facial muscles pursing and puckering, stretching across micrometers that may so well be miles at her scale, to catch her in the cleft and pull her vacuum tight with the slightest suction. A pop louder than any sound in history as she’s released, only for the phantom process to repeat again, and again, and again.

She leaned into it, thrilling at the tangible contrast between present and imaginary, the hints of plain stitching on those lips and the taste of proper breath intermingling with cotton. Some small (VERY small, all told) part of her wondered again how far she could push this, whether imagining Dolly sucking an infinitesimal bit harder to trap the shepherdess in her mouth would actually transport Beau inside the doll’s head, to mingle with nonexistent teeth and tongue and saliva, the threat of swallowing looming ever closer. And then to properly go through with it - impossible when this wasn’t her real body, but if it WERE, lost in Dolly’s stuffing, forgotten and insignificant as any other piece of debris.

Eaten by a ragdoll. Wouldn’t that plain beat all?

Fortunately, Dolly had her fill of mock-smooching a practically empty palm before Beau could make serious headway on imagining an unaware vore scenario. Or seemingly unaware, as it were. With their minds modestly intermingled for the game’s sake, Dolly sensed Beau’s intentions, and figured it best they move on before she took any rash actions requiring surgical intervention.

“While you recover down there,” she said, voice returning to mere deafening rumbles as she imagined herself back to a sensible size, “we can do something a little like me being big big big BIG girl! Only gotta go the other way round!”

For her part, Beau was less recovering than indulging a passing sulk. Can’t watch Dolly wreck the town, can’t feed herself to Dolly, and now the colossal palm upon which she laid shrank back to mere enormity. S’not fair, this was supposed to be the part where she got to do whatever she liked. If they had to obey rationality and precaution, where was the f- f- ffffffff-

Beau’s mind once again stumbled on drawn-out consonants as she noticed the spatial distortion of her immediate environment reversing polarity. Dolly resumed her usual size, yet her hand, which had seemingly collapsed in on itself, now stretched away from Beau’s central location, at rapid speed and seemingly more gigantic than before. She was shrinking again, in moments as tall to her first shrunken height as it stood against Dolly, and then the same for her second tier, down down down…

“WE CAN GO A LOT MORE EXTREME LIKE THIS, I THINK!”

Porcelain chipped from Beau’s face, the statement slammed her so hard. Yeah. Yeah, that’d do as compensation.

To her mind, she lost days wandering the now-continent of Dolly. Because none of this was strictly happening, her waves and foot-taps for attention were always met with an obliging pinch ride, her requests for another location heard and fulfilled without trouble; but even so, on deposit at her new destination, Beau let time slough clean away. Those candycane stripes represented plains a dozen miles wide and countless miles along, ideal for thoughtless wandering as Dolly lay upon her back. The simple curve of black leather on her shoes became ascent up a slope worthy any seasoned mountaineer, magnificently challenging for a size-obsessive like Beau. She walked the shadow of a single stitch, her hand run along its rim to enjoy the microscopic imperfections bumping through her fingers; she had Dolly bend the flowery ruff round her neck to transform it into the ultimate downhill zip-ride a few too many times over; she closed her eyes, let Dolly select a random patch of rags within the dress, challenged herself to figure where she stood, and blushed quite ferociously when the answer coalesced.

(She figured it only proper to not ask after the meaning behind the massive “S” on a field of red. Breast tats are a private matter, after all.)

The head alone offered endless possibilities. Eyes like a frozen sea on a moonless night, so dark they swallowed all ambient light, so slick Beau practically glid over their surface, the thread holes chasms into an underworld. The forest of yarn-hair at her old size now an endless Amazonian expanse, the weave’s logic lost to miniscule chaos of discarded fuzz and imperceptible shifts, like the environment malforming itself into a maze just to challenge Beau. Bows of a silky softness approaching angelic, tempting sleep everlasting in their flamingo tuck and fold. Cheek patches, radiating mid-summer desert heat, near-intolerable at this size past a single minute, yet how delightful and special a thing to roast in the glow of another’s affection. As to the mouth… well, Dolly wouldn’t let Beau near the mouth again.

A thousand locales upon a doll scarcely over a foot high, so many seemingly identical, yet all stirring in their own unique ways. Between major hot spots, Beau simply stood, immersed, let herself be. By the loose reckoning of time in her head, she must have spent so long upon Dolly that her host got up to attend other matters, looked after her own feeding, sleep, other clients, whole daily cycles interrupted every so often by her adorable germ asking for a new location. Sense dictated Beau should detect Dolly moving about while curled in the crook of her knee, feel gravity shift as the doll changed positions. To think elsewise would render Dolly more than a mere continent - an entire world unto herself, population Beau and no other. Clung to a thin cloth skin, needing and knowing nothing save her new home. Such thoughts flitted through her hollow head, then vanished into wordless euphoria.

As with all things, it soon came to an end. Happily, this ending announced itself via a pleasing rumble.

“HEY, CUTIE! HATE TO SAY WHEN YOU’RE SO COZY, BUT WE ARE ALMOST AT YOUR THREE HOUR LIMIT. YOUR NOTE SAID YOU NEED TO CHECK ON YOUR SHEEP AFTER THAT, SO WE’VE GOTTA GROW YOU BACK. SORRY!”

Though too at peace for the words to seriously disturb her, Beau felt minor confusion at the reminder. “Drat, you’re right, I did set a limit. Except, wow, has it really only been three hours?”

“CLOCK SAYS TEN MINUTES TO GO. I JUST THOUGHT YOU’D NEED SOME TIME TO ADJUST BACK INTO BIG BEAU.”

“Feels as though I spent a lifetime down here…”

“Aw, that’s just how playing pretend gets!” Already Dolly’s voice softened to near-intolerable levels, in tandem with Beau regaining her starting shrunken size. “So, if you close your eyes and picture it real hard, we’ll bring you back up to full size, and then-”

“W-wait!” Beau cried, flailing her arms in a desperate bid for reprieve. “Ten minutes can be practically forever in playtime, right? We have enough left for one last thing!”

Dolly tapped her chin in consideration. “Oh yeah! When you thought we were playing Dommy Mommy, you asked me to step on you! I can do that, hang on!”

“ACTUALLY!” She coughed, shuffling on the spot, eyes cast downward, goading herself into asking plain ‘n’ direct. “It is… it’s a little more than that. Would you mind… if it’s not too much… I mean…” Beau gestured uselessly towards the couch, then groaned. “Dolly, can you sit on me?”

The smile that followed could turn deepest midnight to a midday blaze. “I thought you’d never ask~!”

Imagination served Beau’s reactions well. Breath caught in her chest as Dolly carried her to the couch. Skin ran with prickling goosebumps as Dolly set her down perfect center. Nerves screamed in anticipation as Dolly turned about. Sweat pricked her forehead at the sight of Dolly gathering her dress to draw it tight about her backside. An entire nonexistent system of biological impulses and reactions took in the sight of a perfectly flat, rectangular spread of cotton-stuffed fabric leaning back over her position, compared it against the expected list of sexually exciting imagery, ruminated for the briefest of instants, and ran back a report: “Yeah, no, this is still stupid fucking hot to us too.”

Beau squeaked.

WUMPH.

All shape and sense fell away. No chance she’d ever think Dolly slight after this. The only sensation Beau processed was unrelenting weight - Dolly’s complete nothing of a frame crushing her into a flat surface whose wool texture vanished beneath the fact of a single pound turned poundage uncountable by a simple difference in scale. Some part of her wanted to believe Dolly shifted herself back and forth some, rubbing in her position of dominance, but in the moment, the difference between supposition and reality was practically nil. Dolly might do anything up there, and all Beau would know is compression, and paralysis, and weight.

A particularly eager voice in the back of her head had demanded she repeat something like her trick during the earlier kiss, summon up the sensation of a proper person’s rear to enhance the sensation. Run it through a dozen dozen body types to smother herself beneath every manner of human Dolly she could imagine. Completely impossible, now, stupid to have assumed any choice. She was undoubtedly underneath a doll, at the mercy of as sexless a humanoid thing as you please, impressions of curved flesh totally denied by hand-sewn, unendowed textiles. And God help her if the alienation from anything like the human form didn’t make this ten times better, just by mere association with Dolly.

She tried to squirm. She tried to struggle. No use. If Dolly fell inanimate right now, they’d blow clean past her stopping time, perhaps leave her trapped by this wonderfully unbearable pressure all day, all night, however long until someone thought to check on the ragdoll. And if they did check, rouse her or pull her from the couch, would they care to notice the speck she ground into its seating? Could they notice? Beau wanted to shudder at the thought, but could not. She did not kick, nor flail, nor much of anything else. She took the weight, for there was nothing else to do.

(Except, briefly, ponder whether that Barbie doll and her bendy girlfriend might like to try this. Hard plastic held an appeal all its own…)

And then it was over. Light and sound flooded from above as Dolly hoped from her spot, leaving Beau to reel back into normal consciousness. “Alright, we’re inching pretty close here, so we really gotta finish off! Your sheepies are gonna get lonely if you don’t head out soon!”

Denied the ability so thoroughly for so long, Beau fidgeted on the spot. “I mean… you did say I work myself and them alike too hard. Who’s to say staying longer won’t help?”

“Naaaaaah. Besides, I got me-things to do still! Can’t give Little Beau my attention all day!”

“Little Beau can just sit in your collar while you work! Or get put on your shelf and abandoned until…”

“Hey.” Dolly knelt down by the couch, positioning her face on even level with the shrunken shepherdess. “I get it. You wanna play all the time, never stop being Little Beau. And I do too! It’s lots and lots and lots of fun being the first and best professional playmate in Toyland! But you gotta stop sometime, right? Do what you gotta do outside playtime.”

Beau stood, turned her back, crossed her arms, huffed. “But we agreed being Big Beau is bad for me. I haven’t felt this happy and relaxed since I came to Toyland! Why should I go back to acting stuck-up and high-strung all the time?” To her surprise, the last part came out with a slight whine round the edge.

Her ears heard the rough scrape of fabric on fabric as Dolly rubbed her chin in contemplation. “Maybe you’re only like that as Big Beau because you never take the time to be Little Beau. Maybe you spent so much time doing what you think you need to do, you don’t turn off and be what you want. So Big Beau is bossy and stiff, and Little Beau overdoes it and doesn’t wanna stop. Maybe you just gotta find the right balance!”

Beau sniffled, reluctant to turn about.

Arms scooped around her, both miniaturized self and true self, the latter invisible to her eye yet right next to her on the couch. The vertigo of existing across two perspectives clouded her head again as Dolly hefted her high for one last hug. “You can always come by again whenever you got time in your schedule, yeah?” She gave a gentle squeeze, warming Beau to her core. “Little Beau ain’t going away; she’s sleeping so Big Beau can have her turn. They’re not different people! Just, y’know… sides!”

Beau did her best to hug back, simultaneously too small and too big to do so properly. Although she suspected Dolly did not quite take her own advice… “You are right, Dolly. I will keep an eye open for when I have time. And cherish what we have done already. Thank you, so very, very much.”

“No problem!”

The spell broke.

Dolly’s legs wobbled. Without the power of play rendering Beau’s body lighter than a feather, her cotton-stuffed limbs were not equipped to hold a doll half her height over and thrice her weight so high aloft. The pair teetered for a moment, then went crashing to the floor.

“...is there any chance you are into being sat on yourself?” Beau joked.

“Not really! Can you pretty please get up?”

“Fair.” Uncrumpling her dress and unsnagging strands of hair from the floor, she rose back up, steadying against the suddenly unfamiliar yet already normalizing vantage point of her normal toy self. “Do I owe you anything for the service? I know most toyfolk avoid financial exchange unless they have a fondness for Monopoly money, but I figure it best to ask in case…”

“Lemme hang out with your flock sometime and we’re evens Stevens!”

***

Later in the evening, Beau lay awake in bed, echoes of the day’s experiences ringing in her head.

For the remainder of the afternoon, she'd done as she’d planned: stand over her flock, moving them from one end of the pasture to another and back again. Absent the ordinary pressures and obligations of tending livestock, she spent years engaged in this on the daily out of obligation, obligation and belief fastidious attendance might purify her wrongdoings. With Dolly’s session at her back, however, today she took a different set of words to heart and tried to have fun with the job. It was not easy, divorced from such immense gratification (and immense presence…), and she was not sure she did it right, but her sheep seemed appreciative when she let them run free from her command for a time. Bleated approval and followed when she broke into a spontaneous run. Stood willingly as she hugged them at day’s end, imagining each a cotton ball.

Her friends took immediate notice at dinner. Genuine notice, no snark or innuendo, which characterized their original suggestions. “Good one, Beau!” “Can’t believe what a difference I’m seeing, you MUST tell me what she did in there.” “I have never seen you this laid back, it’s a miracle.” When they partook in a night-closing chaser, Beau actually deigned to stay and take a drink herself - for the first time, she felt the slightest buzz from sipping the empty cup, prompting cheers and claps on the back.

Tipsiness wasn’t the only novel sensation in the hours since. Her own home seemed friendlier. The lights provided proper illumination where once they offered dim, faltering glow; the personal effects on her dresser seemed almost serviceable makeup options rather than cheap plastic imitations; the floor no longer groaned under her step, the doorframes accommodated her figure a little more willingly.

Her pillow felt of soft down, her blankets a comfortable fleece. The rickety, long-hated foam strip masquerading as a mattress: just like the one she remembered back home.

How had she gone this long without a spark of vibrancy in her life? Convinced Toyland was this dead, unchanging place, cut off from the joys small and large which made a life worth living? In honesty, likely the same way she went her human life convinced of the same. Self-isolation, presumption of living as an inherent misery, refusal to look up and see what’s actually there without turning about and running. She wanted to feel shame at the thought it took effectively a private kink roleplay session to realize one only need want the full scope of offerings to find them all around… but in the name of balance, swatted the thought aside. Take the good where you can, she thought, that is the real important thing.

And besides. If she learnt of this aspect to the rule of play any other way, she’d never think to do this.

Eyes laid gently closed, Beau rearranged her perspective. While the sensation could not match the strength possible with Dolly’s cooperation, she did not need full intensity in her sleep. Even the faintest impression of her body dwindling until the bed felt sensibly proportioned would help. Somewhere between the extremes, just enough to fit, and settle in, and snooze. If Big Beau and Little Beau needs must cooperate to improve both their lots, they can start by making sure Beau Beau gets some good rest.

Beau rolled on her side, and, for the first time since her arrival, felt at peace in Toyland.

#Misfits in Toyland #Fanfic #toyfolk #dolly #not my work #macro/micro #fan art #fanart #not my oc #my ocs #original character #ragdoll #fan character

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