“You have to help us. We’ve waited a long time for a lady knight.” The second doll spoke in unison with the first, and she found herself wanting to run away. Pulling at David’s arm, she tried to drag him across the floor, but the carpet could’ve been thick undergrowth to a being her size and she was struggling to lift her feet high enough.

                “I won’t help you. I didn’t want to be a knight.” Aniviel didn’t want to, but she drew her sword and pointed at the dolls, just as David or Peter would have done. “I’m not a knight, you stupid doll things, so leave me alone, all right? This is all just a stupid thing I got into by accident.”

                “You have a sword,” said the first doll, looking at her steadily. “Only knights have swords.”

                She knew it was right. Letting the sword tip droop until it touched the carpet that was giving her so much grief, she looked at the dolls’ house. “I can’t help you,” she repeated, though there was less strength in her voice now. “Ask someone else.”

                “You must help us,” the second doll repeated. It stepped forward, placed its unmoving china hand on the wooden gate that she’d left open, and raised its other arm. “We’ve waited a…”

                Aniviel turned and ran, but David’s dead weight combined with the problem of the carpet was too much. She tripped and fell, and it was almost impossible to get up. Suddenly, she was as heavy as lead, and about as cold too. She couldn’t even turn her head to breathe more easily. Convinced that she was about to suffocate, she used all of her strength to push herself from the ground – and woke up.

                “Are you okay?” David, very real and very alive, was looking at her in some concern. He’d managed to light some sort of campfire and was struggling to put up some branches to hold a saucepan the way they do in films. Struggling out of her sleeping bag, Aniviel moved closer to the warmth.

                “Yeah. I had a bad dream.”

                “Oh. I’m sorry to hear that.”

                “You were in it.”

                “Thanks!” He seemed offended, though not seriously, and for a few moments Aniviel couldn’t work out what she’d said. Then she smiled.

                “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it like that. You weren’t the bad bit. The dolls were.” She told him everything that had happened. “I think they’re telling me about the quest. Like there’ll be something I can do that you can’t, because I’m a girl and my brain works differently. What do you think?”

                David didn’t look thoughtful as she’d expected him to. He just laughed and leaned back so that he was propped up by his elbows, saying, “You know what, Ani? I think it was a dream.”

                “Thanks,” she said, suddenly grumpy, and picked up the sticks. She made four holes in the ground and put the ends into them, before filling in the gaps with earth so that they’d stay up. “There we go. I’m done already. Doing something that an idiot can’t do.”

                “I didn’t mean to upset you.”

                “Fat lot of good it was telling you about this. You know, I was bloody terrified in that dream, and you’re laughing at it?”

                He tried to keep a straight face, but only ended up smirking again. “I’m sorry, I really am. It’s just I didn’t think you’d ever have been the type of girl to have a dolls’ house.”

                “What time is it?” she asked, ignoring the jibe. He rolled up a sleeve and showed her the face of his watch: almost six in the morning. There was no point going back to sleep, not when the sun was already up. “I’ll wake Peter. If you’re capable of it, you could try and make us some breakfast. Some tea would be good, if you can boil the water. Do you think you can manage that?”

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The Quiet Ones - Public Edition.

SpookOfNight and Elorithryn, this is in our group as well. Since you liked it, I'm posting here for all the world to see. Feel free to read this one instead, although I won't reply to your comments so much! I won't be updating the old version as well.

Aniviel went to uni to get a degree, get a job, and get away from the parents that called her Aniviel. Her two closest friends are members of a strange society, the Blue Knights, who take themselves far too seriously and seem to be living in the past. She's determined that she won't join. But of course, that never works out...

I started writing this in my notebook but it got kinda interesting. After testing it on Spook and Elo, who liked it, I began to post it here. It's a first draft and there are a few formatting-space errors between MS Word and Protag, so please bear with me. But feel free to point out genuine typos! (Chances are with spaces they're fine in my version.)

updated Sep 10 '11 by delorfinde