There was a strange hush in the entrance vestibule of the venue where the Congress of Dolls found itself and when Soo took her proferred ticket, waved her Plazenby badge for the discount and honoured guest status, she found that hushed atmosphere unnerving.

"Lyra!" she called, and other attendees gave her dark looks, as if they were in some sacred place of worship. "I'll go mad," the girl muttered, "before this afternoon is over I shall be foaming at the mouth."

"Ah there you are," Lyra said, breaking through a crowd waiting to enter the display space. "We'll do a circuit and pay our respects to the Queen of the Dolls, and then have a closer look. You, my friend, are in for a spiritual treat." With that she linked arms with the other girl, who did her utmost to hide an inner trembling as she felt she was about to be confronted by some supernatural phenomenon not of this world or any other.

It was terrifying. Hundreds, if not thousands, of tiny little girl and boy figures sat upon tier after tier, smiling or pouting at the onlookers as they passed. Every conceivable hair colour was on display, including some whose hair apparently changed colour depending on where they were viewed from. Every skin tone from the pale Evernight girls to the dusky Greetiyah girls had a place there, some too with green skin and purple skin that matched sparkling amethyst eyes. A fashion designer's dream from half a millenium of change dressed the little dolls in costumes from picturesque Xenia ballgowns to frothy confections of a Perfecta sweet sixteen party, to impossible natural garments of leaves and grasses and delicate cobweb fibres. Tiny hands reached out beseechingly to spectators, begging for hugs, caresses, affection of any kind to match hidden tiny hearts which beat for companionship eternal. Yet amid all this crowd of colour and fabric, style and personality, the proud and humble, it was the eyes that shook Soo Toglak's soul to the very core.

Big blue eyes, coal black eyes, rainbow eyes with impossible lashes, eyes that were mere dimples in a round face, and eyes that seemed plucked from living creatures and sewn into these diminutive pseudo-humans as a punishment of sorts, all these eyes looked at Soo as she passed and asked her a simple question with their glazed stare.

Will you please take me home?

Lyra dragged her friend around the large circle, past countless inanimate beings that somehow had something within them more than human, and presented her to a more elaborate doll creature sat upon her throne of crystal. She had brown hair, a supercilious smile, and eyes that looked down on mere humankind as beings to tolerate. Yet even those chocolate brown eyes of hers asked that question, though phrased a little differently. Would you dare to take such a one as I home with you?

Lyra all the while smiled brightly, enthused by the little faces looking at her and the little hands outstretched, pleading to be grasped. She touched fingers with some of the nearer dolls, pointed out oddities among the soft crowd, and when in front of the Queen of the Dolls she actually curtseyed, smiling all the while.

"That one," Soo said, trying to keep her voice steady, "reminds me of the snooty brunette in Dorm Flare," meaning Princess Rapture, heir to the Highly Romantic Winkel of Xenia in the far and barbarous north of Winkel World.

"Alas, she does indeed," Lyra admitted with misplaced sadness, as if this was a matter of regret. "Still," she added brightly as she looped her arm in that of her friend again, "now you understand something of the matter, having made the single most important discovery about the Congress of Dolls that a visitor could make. They should give out badges."

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"What do you mean?"

"Don't you think," and she came closer to whisper, not to prevent other attendees from hearing her words, but the dolls themselves, "there is in the world a doll that resembles every living being?"

"What if there is?" and Soo gave a start, imagining a little bronze-haired figurine in leather tunic holding a spear sat somewhere among the crowds, staring at her with the same earnest desire to be loved as smiley blue-eyed blondes or dark haired little maidens in homespun frocks.

They passed through this disconcerting main arena into a series of corridors that showed single dolls in cabinets and glass cases, as if prisoners of their own attractiveness, punished for being too lovable. Perversely, Soo felt an urge to break the cases and set them free. Lyra also seemed a little more serious in this less frequented part of the exhibition.

"In Meditia, dolls have a significance beyond that of playthings for little girls," she said, still whispering. They had paused before a figure in a flouncy patterned frock, stood stiffly on a stand, with tiny silk bootees on her feet and mitten gloves concealing mitten hands. Her hair was a rich series of coiled chestnut strands framing a soft sculpted face of perfect proportions. The lips were a delicately rich pink, just hinting at a smile, and the eyes, gold-flecked and wide set, seemed to take in everything which passed before their gaze with infinite understanding and equally infinite patience, a wise timelessness that made Soo breathe slowly in and out with awe writ large upon her own face. This indeed was not a plaything but some frozen soul captured by devious art into the semblance of a helpless little child thing. What magic spell could release her from such captivity? Smashing the glass would not do it.

"Souls trapped within?" Soo whispered back "I've heard of such around the fires of my tribe. Old men tell of animated little creatures in which the soul of a condemned person is enslaved and which when punished, causes affliction upon the living being too. Burn the doll and the man perishes instantly."

"Such it may be in Mangoria," Lyra breathed in the quiet space as they distanced themselves from the wisely old but sweetly young figurine in her fashionably flouncy frock. "In Meditia there is an understanding that one's life cannot be complete without some little doll creature forming part of that life. A natural connection which enriches those fortunate enough to have a companion resembling themselves."

"You could knit yourself one," Soo suddenly blurted out, for they were in the entrance vestibule again having completed a circuit of the show. Here it was still hushed but the oppressiveness within where all those tiny figures sat pleading for attention, was replaced with a more placid atmosphere that lightened the Mangoria girl's mood. Lyra laughed softly at this, still respectful of where she was.

"No, it is a discovery that makes the connection. One finds a doll that is like a dear friend and then one knows they are complete, they are safe. There is an ancient ritual, linking spirits of the sea and spirits of the land in the tiny little figure that confirms the connection."

"I hope there are not pairs of tiny blonde, pigtailed dolls in here anywhere," Soo said. "Those Flare twins complete each other quite well enough without additional enhancement." Then she shook her head and took a deep breath. "Look," she began again. "These mystical dolls are all nice and interesting, but there's another talent you have that fascinates me more. I can swim, fairly well, but not as good as I want to. You swim like a mermaid. Can you teach me? I mean, not as well as you, that'd take a lifetime. But at least to retrieve a beach ball from rolling surf and dragging tides."

The look she gave the dark-haired girl just then resembled the pleadings of a lonely little doll begging for friendship.

"Okay," Lyra replied after a moment, nodding briefly and then she smiled. "I'll see what I can do."