Easy Work (TF Story)

Some say hard work helps to build character; some instead find that line to be bullshit. Sara was one of these people. To her, the line was just a way to get people to do work that frankly no one wanted to do, and she’d be damned if she’d be the one stuck to do it. She never really fancied herself as too lazy of a person, but one thing was for sure, she did not enjoy being at work. Over the years she found herself working as one thing or another, holding down a few odd jobs through the summer, but with each new job she found herself resenting the constant busy work that came with it. Through all her jobs she cursed the boredom and tediousness of it all. She even trying retail once, but with one of her biggest pet peeves including people, that didn’t last more than a week. As it turns out though, living does require money, so her search for a more fitting work continued. With time, she did find a new job, a job more her type; house sitting, and all things considered Sara loved her new work.

People were always traveling for one reason or another, and that’s where Sara came in. Most people are incessant worries, and thanks to that quirk many like their home looked after while they were gone to keep things in shape; shelves dusted, plants watered, she never understood it herself, but she didn’t care; if some rich old people wanted to pay her for little to no work, she’d be happy to crash on their couch while they were away. One job a week could land her all the money she needed with ease and work never really slowed down. All and all it was the perfect fit for her, but this week was different. At the moment Sara found herself dressed in her usual white tank top and black jeans, but what wasn’t usual was that she was laying around on her own couch instead of someone else’s for once, draping her legs over the arm of the couch as she sprawled out. After dropping her phone on the table after checking it for the 10th time that hour, the girl glanced over at it disappointedly. ‘It’s been days and still no job offers,’ she thought to herself. Blowing a few dark strands of hair out of her eye, she stared up at the ceiling with a look of boredom over her face. ‘I should be getting paid for this right now, how do I not have a job lined up for this week?’ she thought begrudgingly, half-heartedly punching a pillow as she did. With another sigh, she let her arm fall back to her side on the couch. She sat there in silence for a few moments, but out of the stillness on the coffee table a foot or two away, her phone went off. Slowly rolling off the couch to grab it, she read the illuminated screen as she pushed her hair out of her face once again. As she began to read, her eyebrows shot up; it was an email with a job offer! With a satisfied grin on her face, she quickly replied to the message saying she could start right away and rushed to the door to grab her keys. ‘Let’s go make some easy money,’ she thought to herself, and at that she was on her way to the house.

Leaving her house in the suburbs, she found herself headed away from the city through some much more wooded scenery than what she was used to. For someone who hated work, she found herself in a good mood for finally finding a job, taping the steering wheel of her car as she drove. The drive itself was easy enough, the address in the email was only a 30 minute drive, and soon enough she found herself pulling into a the end of a long winding driveway. Slowing down as she began to pull up to the house, she mumbled to herself quietly, “Damn.” The house ahead of her was massive, with darkened stone walls, styled more like a castle than a home. Pulling up her car behind another in front of the house, she parked quickly and stepped out to look up at the place. Caught off guard by it all for a few moments, Sara looked up at the towering structure before her before she slowly made her way to the front door of the house. Proportionate to everything else, the wooden doors towered above the girl, and as she reached to knock, a noise arose from behind the frame. Retracting her hand and stepping back slightly, the door opened slowly, unveiling a clean cut man behind it. “Sara?” he asked in a deadpan tone, stepping into the frame of the door to meet the girl. “Uh huh, that’s me,” she replied with a quick nod, but before she could speak again, the man was already turning her back to her, walking back into the house. “Come along then,” he said casually, motioning his hand in the air for her to follow. Without missing a beat, Sara followed and matched pace with the man. ‘This should be interesting, at least.’

Following the man through the front hall of the house, Sara listened to the man speak as he rambled off the details of the job. “I’ve been called away quite quickly for business. I don’t expect it will be long but until then I need you to mind the estate in my leave.” He said punctually as he began gathering his things to leave. “Simply make sure everything is in order here, there is quite a bit of value in this house, I need its safety assured. Keep things clean, water the plants, make sure the lights are off, and avoid my study, everything is where it should be there, I do not want even a book out of place. Understood?” With Sara placing a few “yeahs,” and nods on occasion, the man seemed content, and made his way for the door. Stepping into the frame, the man, stopped in his place and looked back. “As I said, there is great value in this home. I am trusting this to you, and I expect you will not break anything. I assure you, you will replace it if you will.” With that, the man turned again, stepping out of the house as he made his way to his car. Just as quickly as anything else, he threw his things in the back seat quickly before driving off, not even looking up once as he ducked into the driver’s seat. Waving with a fake smile as he did, Sara mumbled through her teeth “What a nutcase..why are the rich ones always so weird.” After walking back into the hall, Sara stood there for a moment, caught slightly off guard again by how quickly the man had left a stranger alone in his home. Leaning against the door with her back to close it, Sara sat against the closed door looking out into the large hall in front of her. After another moment she shook the oddness of it off, and in a second a smirk came across her face; “Alright then, let’s go exploring, shall we?” Pushing off the door, Sara started her way to the main staircase in the dead center of the room, and with that she made her way into the house.

Sara wasted no time beginning to wander through the halls of the massive house. For once, the girl found herself actually excited by her work. She was used to lying around in apartments and boring suburban homes, but she never really found herself in a house like this. Curious, she began to pace from room to room, trying her best not to get lost in it all. The place was just as expansive as it seemed from the outside, even felt a bit bigger even, and as she made her way further in Sara knew this wasn’t going to be a boring stay. Lining the dark maroon walls were seemingly very old paintings, artifacts, maps, the occasional sword, and all kinds old looking things that seemed more at home in a museum than in some house in the country. Popping her head into each room as she moved along, Sara found herself loving the place more and more. The entire house had an old, adventurous feel to it, with each room with something weird or unique, everything from suits of armor to wooden statues. ‘All this place needs is a ghost and a Great Dane and we have ourselves an episode of Scooby Doo’ she joked to herself, running her hand along the wall as she continued deeper into the house. Eventually, she made it to the back of the house, with a large green house attached to the end of it all. Sara looked over the dozens of plants for a moment and shrugged; ‘I can always water those later, not when there’s more exploring to do,’ and with that she turned around to make her way back to the front.

The second time through the house, she felt even more lost than before. It wasn’t like she knew the place well, but the rooms felt shuffled around, with her even finding new rooms she hadn’t even seen the first time. ‘This just keeps getting weirder,’ she thought to herself as she walked down yet another hall, but she stopped in her tracks; in one of the doorways there was a notable flicker of light, with someone’s shadow cast on the wall opposite of the door. “What the hell?” Sara mumbled as she started walking slowly towards the door, her hands balled into fists as she got near. ‘This place should be empty, right?’ Finally at the edge of the door, she popped her head around the corner, but after a moment, she just sighed to herself. There, within the room, was a mannequin posed in the middle of the room, with an oil lamp lit not too far behind it. Letting her shoulders ease, Sara stepped out from behind the door and stepped into the room. All around the female mannequin were books, walls of them actually. The large room extended far back, with each wall but the back one lined with bookcases that reached all the way to the ceiling. Scattered throughout the room were tables, with a large desk towards the back, each covered with books as well as large sheets of paper with circular diagrams on them. ‘I guess I found the study, I better leave,’ she thought, ‘but where’s the fun in that?’ With a smirk Sara made her way past the mannequin to the back of the room and opened the curtains, letting natural light pour into the expansive room. Walking over to the desk, she blew out the oil lamp, glancing down at the desks contents as she did. All over the desk were more scribbles, more circular designs, and more books; ‘shocker.’ The titles of the books did catch her attention though: ‘A Practical Guide to Bio-Alchemy’ and ‘Protective Curses and Spells’ were just to name a few. “Guess our man is a magic lover. That’s normal,” Sara joked to herself, looking up as she did. “A magic lover that owns mannequins.”

Walking over to the unmoving girl, Sara looked her over. The figure was taller than her, standing naked save for a dirty blonde wig upon her head. Not as if that mattered anyway, the girl didn’t have anything to hide beyond lines and pivots at her joints. Posed with her hands around her neck, arms down in front of her over her featureless chest, she stared blankly towards the desk chair across the room. The only thing keeping her up being a stand at her base, and- Sara stopped for a moment. At the mannequins base there was another set of elaborate circles and shapes with the figure at the center. Upon the base, there was a note: ‘Transformation Test 4’ Looking down at the note, Sara chuckled to herself before looking back up to the unmoving girl. “I guess he was trying to make you real, eh? Too bad he isn’t a very good magician then, you’d make a very cute real girl.” She said in a playful tone, lifting her hand to the figures chin. “Or maybe he’s a good magician and made you this way, either way it’s a shame.” Laughing at her own joke, she gave the mannequin a light punch on the shoulder as she began to walk out of the room. Behind her, the mannequin wobbled a bit, staying ridged against the movement, but as it did the base of the stand became undone. A second later frozen girl came crashing to the ground, with one hollow arm cracking against the floor at it impacted, her head rolling off as well. At the sound of the crash, Sara cringed, stopping in her tracks in the doorway. Slowly turning to the scene behind her, she saw the now broken mannequin sprawled out on the floor, still more or less in its still steady stance. “Well..shit,” Sara said sharply, and with a sigh she walked back into the room.

Looking down at the mess, it was clear there wasn’t much fixing things at this point. With one of the arms completely snapped, she couldn’t fix it even if she knew how. Cursing herself quietly as she did, she slowly lifted up the mannequin off the floor, leaning her against the desk. Quickly she collected the arm as well, placing it down next to the headless girl, but that only reminded her as a clear issue; ‘Where is her head?’ Sara began to scan the room, but from where she stood she couldn’t see the head anywhere. Backing slowly, she found herself in the middle of the room, craning her neck to see where the thing could have rolled off too, but instead something else caught her eye. Below her, the lines of the diagram around the mannequin’s base were glowing a bright yellow, with Sara finding herself in the middle of it all, one foot on the stand. “What the he-“ She stopped short as she felt a wave of energy pass through her. All at once her body felt frozen, both in movement and in an icy feel that ran up her body from the floor. Moving up through her feet, she began to feel hollow; Sara felt her weight press down on her legs as she felt her strength go from them, and yet she continue standing up right. With the feeling reaching her torso, she felt unnaturally light, but soon a new feeling came over her. Slowly, she felt her skin becoming plastic; once again starting from the floor Sara felt each of her joints turning into discernible curves and divots into her body, leaving visible marks along her knees hips and waist. The same occurred as the feeling pushed up past her chest and too her arms; with her arms still out to their sides she saw new visible joints in place, with even her fingers becoming articulated at each knuckle. Finally reaching her head, Sara felt the base of her head disconnect from her neck, now attached just as all her other joints were. As the changes swept over her face, her expression of shock was frozen in place, leaving it locked into unchanging plastic upon a hollow head. Finally reaching her hair, the dark form Sara was so proud of turned just as quickly into a nylon wig, with several strands of hair settling over her eye as the energy left her body. In the matter of seconds, the flesh and blood girl had been converted into a mannequin just like the one now leaning against the study’s desk. Still in shock, Sara struggled to move against her new form, unable to even shift her gaze away from the desk chair across the room from her. The last thing she could clearly feel was a support pole from the base below her going into her through her pant leg, a feeling that through it all made her shutter internally. The lights of the alchemic patterns on the floor below sharply stopped just as they had begun, and just like that it was done; Sara was now just a realistic mannequin.

The next few days were a sort of hell for Sara; unable to move, her thoughts ranged back and forth from questions of how this happened to panic of how she’d get back to normal to anger for letting any of this happen in the first place. With her perception of time painfully sharp thanks to her view of the study’s window giving her a good idea of the time, these thoughts were essentially put on repeat for her. This went on for three days, until finally Sara could hear footsteps coming from down the hall. Dying to turn around, all she could do was listen as the came closer and closer to the study. There in the hall past the doorway, the clean cut man walked by, after a second quickly backstepping before glancing into the room to see Sara. With an annoyed look on his face, he b-lined towards her, speaking as punctually as ever. “There you are, girl!! I’ve been searching every for you! My green house is as dry as a desert, the lights in the kitchen on, and what did I say about-“ He started as he walked quickly into the room, but stopped short as he put his hand on Sara’s plastic shoulder. Looking at her for a second, then sharply looking at the mannequin against the desk for a second, and finally looking down at the alchemic symbols across the floor, the man looked back to Sara with understanding on his face. With a sigh, the man pulled a wand from his suit sleeve and flicked it at the mannequin against the desk.

In a second, the figure stood up straight, with its shattered arm reattaching seamlessly, as well as its dislocated head rolling out from beneath a table before being lifted back to its place on the girl’s shoulders. “That’s better,” he mumbled to himself, walking around and examining Sara. “Well, for what it’s worth you did come out much better than Kristen over there,” he said motioning to the newly repaired figure. After reaching Sara’s gaze, he stopped, pausing for a second. “You see Kristen tried to steal from me a couple of months back, and well as you can expect I didn’t take too kindly to it. Thankfully she’s been more than willing to assist in my experiments since that point to make up for it. This is just the latest of things,” he said glancing to the room around him, twirling his wand in his hand. “She’s been everything from a statue to a throw pillow to a cat in the past month. Unfortunately she tried to run off during that period; decided to betray my trust, so now she won’t be animate without being under my control for a while. I truly do hate when people betray my trust.” The man’s eyes sharply went from the wand in his hands to Sara’s frozen gaze. Internally, she gulped. “You entered my study without permission, you broke my poor assistant, and most importantly my garden has been unattended for days. Days! Something must be done about that.” After a moment of silence, the man glanced back to Kristen before locking eyes with Sara once more. “As a matter of fact, I think I have just the thing,” the man said, Sara seeing him smirk for the first time as he did. “I did say you’d replace what you broke, didn’t I?”

---Epilogue: 4 Months Later---

Once again the estate sat silently. Jacques, as well dressed as ever, sat in the front hall of his house with book in hand, this time about animate transformation spells. “I really should lend this to Nate, he might get some good use out of it,” he mumbled as he thumbed through the pages. Piercing the silence, there was a firm knock at the door. Lowering with the book with a smile, Jacques quickly made his way to the door, opening it quickly to find a fairly young girl waiting behind. Before he knew it she was quickly rushing past the door to hug him. “Hey Uncle J!” the girl yelled, almost catching the man off guard as he did. Smiling at the sight of the girl, he rustled her hair, greeting her back; “Good to see you too! How’s my favorite niece doing? Ready to start your training?”

The pair walked into the hall together, Jacques grabbing her things as they did, and right away the two began catching up. Jacques was due to take his niece Sophie as an apprentice for the summer; teach her the basics of what magic meant, and he was happy to do it. For him it was a nice break from the toils of research, which he’d been working at nonstop for quite some time. It had been nice having a new assistant, even if she wasn’t too keen about the role, but we all can’t be happy. After discussing a bit longer about how the family was doing, where everyone was at, how her lessons had been going, Jacques finally led the girl into the house. “And here, is where you’ll be staying, Sophie.” Opening the door to one of the guest rooms of the house, Jacques motioned in to an expansive room, with the walls a bit more brightly painted and the windows looking out over the green house. The girl’s eyes lit up as she say the size of the room, but one thing in particular caught her attention in it all; Still dressed in a plain white tank top and black jeans, Sara was propped up on the foot of the bed. By this point, she hadn’t been a mannequin for some time; but at the moment she wasn’t too far off though. For now, she sat as about half her normal size as a ball-jointed doll, with her hair pulled back and a bright smile over her face. Sophie ran right to the doll, looking back to her uncle as she did. “Wow, is she for me?” she said excitedly, Wrapping her hand around Sara’s waist and picking her up from the bed. “Of course, Dolly here is going to be a training dummy for you for the next few weeks, as well as a little something to keep you company while you stay here.” Jacques looked past his niece and winked at Sara. Internally, Sara groaned. ‘Why did he have to call me Dolly, it’s bad enough that I’m going to be this kids plaything, better Jacques lab rat than this,’ she thought to herself, feeling the girl’s tight grip around her waist as she started posing her in various ways. Tossing Sara haphazardly onto the bed, Sophie ran to hug her uncle once again. “Thank you so much! She’s even better than that blonde maid doll you sent me for my birthday!” At that, Jacques smiled. “Ok, ok, you’re crushing me kid. Listen, I’m going to go get dinner started, you unpack your things and I’ll call when it’s ready.” Sophie smiled back.

With Sophie putting away her things, J made his way out of the room, yelling behind him as he did. “And don’t worry about playing too rough with your new toy! First week’s lessons are on repair and puppet possessions!” Laughing to himself down the hall, Sara only grimaced more under her forced smile. ‘God, he has such a horrible sense of humor,’ she thought as she laid sprawled out where she was thrown on the bed. She personally didn’t mind being a doll, better than some of the other things Jacques had her as over her time as his new “assistant.” It was the playing she wasn’t looking forward to. Suddenly, she felt herself picked up again, back in Sophie’s hand. With her limbs dangling behind her, Sara felt herself get carried over to the floor beside the bed. There in Sophie’s other hand, she held a maid ragdoll that she had pulled out of a heap in her backpack. The toy was practically crumpled into a ball from its time in the bag. Dusting off the cloth doll, Sophie set Sara on her back, her gaze to the side as she fixed the maid doll’s hair. ‘Kristen,’ Sara thought to herself, looking up at the other dolled girl, ‘Glad to see she’s doing well.’ She chuckled internally at that; Sara couldn’t imagine what it would be like to be this kid’s plaything all the time, but at any rate she would be finding soon she supposed. At that, Sophie dropped Kristen to the floor beside Sara as well, her plush form bouncing slightly, with her head rolling to meet Sara’s gaze. Pulling a wand as well as a book of beginner spells out of the backpack, Sophie sat up in front of the toys and flicked the wand at them. All of a sudden, Sara felt herself standing up, but not by her own will. Kristen did the same, her cloth legs somehow supporting the rest of her body. The two dolls then looked up at their owner, as if waiting command. “Alright then girls,” Sophie said looking down at her new toy with a giggle, “Lets play.”

By the end of the day, Sara felt exhausted without ever feeling a muscle. With Sophie gone with her uncle for the night, the doll sat against the base of Sophie’s bed, limply tossed there when her owner was called down for dinner. With Kristen in a heap on the other side of the room, Sara could only wonder what she was thinking. All she could really know for sure was what she herself thought at that same moment: ‘You know what? Retail doesn’t sound so bad.”