Elise To Koukotsu No Marionette -rj01284416- · Official

Elise tilted her head. The gears in her neck made a sound like a lullaby. "You are not hollow, Father. You are full of a thing you refuse to name."

She wasn't carved from pine or painted plaster. Elise was a symphony of porcelain and clockwork, her limbs jointed with filigreed silver, her hair spun from starlight-fall and spider silk. Master Velas had spent twenty years on her, not as an automaton, but as a vessel. He had poured his obsession into every gear, his longing into every curve of her cheek. The final piece, the Anima Core —a heart carved from a single, flawless opal—had been installed just before his heart, flesh and blood, had given out.

For a decade, she sat. A masterpiece without a soul. The townsfolk called her "Velas' Folly." Children dared each other to tap on the glass of his sealed workshop window, only to run away screaming when they thought they saw her finger twitch.

"Hello, Father," she whispered. Her voice was the sound of wind chimes in a graveyard.

And somewhere deep inside her opal heart, Master Velas's final note plays on repeat: "At last… I am no longer alone."

But he couldn't. So he began to break her rules. He pried open her chest panel while she slept. He touched the opal heart with his bare hands.