The Capture Target Only Loves Magic

1-11. Exploration

It was royal nap time. Annie sang a simple song to put me to sleep. I hummed along quietly and pretended to close my eyes after a while. It was a gentle humming noise. Annie, for all her faults, was pretty good at singing. Her voice was smooth like the rolling waves of a sea as she sang her lullabies.

I opened my eyes just a crack after a few seconds. I heard something peculiar.

Annie was snoring.

Her maid outfit was a long slim black dress that reached her ankles, and she wore an equally long white apron tied into a bow behind her. There were no decorations, not even any lace. Annie's outfit was skewed to one side and her apron was tied in the wrong way. I sighed, it wasn't knotted correctly. A long brown coat was draped over her body, plain with many pockets. A maid hat that covered her head down to her ears, she never took that thing off.

She didn't open her eyes.

I opened mine. So Annie was asleep. Now that I had gotten past my initial days of sudden drowsiness every three or four hours, I was getting more and more bored. I could walk on my own a few weeks before my first birthday but the maids didn't let me sit or stand up properly, especially without supervision, claiming it wasn't good for me and I would be hurt if I fell over.

I stretched out a limb, then stood up in the middle of my crib, making sure to stay as quiet as possible as I walked towards the edge of my baby bed. Annie didn't stop snoring, she was actually getting quite loud at this point.

I sighed, I needed to get out.

My mind has been going crazy these past months. I held it in, I kept trying to occupy myself with other things, but there were fewer and fewer things to occupy myself with.

My room was a completely normal-looking baby room. As it was currently late springtime, the gardens were pretty and bright, with daisies, some wilting daffodils, and other flowers. They showed through my bedroom windows, which were half-closed with curtains. Annie was slumped over the rocking chair, and there were various toys and blankets and pillows around my room, along with other soft objects. The floor was covered with a rug.

My crib was wooden, and it had no bars, only walls. It was like a wooden box, more similar to a coffin than a baby cradle. Or a modern-day baby carriage, just without the wheels. Everything was hard as stone and very high. There was little else in the room. My crib was desolate.

It would be hard to escape, I judged.

There were several pillows, or small square-shaped flat cloths, and thin spring blankets. They were mostly white or royal red, soft green, gold, and silver. No, they wouldn't be of help, even if stacked up

I shifted through my blanket to find Dodvilla, a tall wooden doll my size painted like a human. Beside him was Carriage, literally just a carriage toy, just a really, really big one made with soft cotton that felt smooth when I touched it. It smelled clean and soapy. I picked Carriage up and uprighted him, the toy had a split seam, almost unnoticeable. I set it aside.

I briefly considered my options, which there wasn't much of.

Should I try to vault over the walls? Build something like a staircase to go over them? While it was possible, I couldn't help but worry about how I would be able to get back up. And the fall back to the floor... oof. That would hurt. There weren't enough pillows for a staircase back down. I couldn't just stay on the floor after I took a walk around.

If I had a puzzle, some matches, Legos, anything, I would have considered waiting in my crib for about an extra year. Patience is something I am used to, after all. But doing absolutely nothing for twelve months made my hands itch all over for action. Even kidnapping.