The doll kneels, moonlight glimmering across her waxy body, glinting off the many winding wires inlaid just below her skin. For a moment all is quiet and serene, the only noise the gentle padding of her witch's feet on the cool tile floor.
Then, the click of a lighter.
The doll does not see her witch approach, her closed eyes buried far too deep beneath waxy godblood to even begin to open, but she hears—the hissing static of the flame, her feet on the ground, the strange little gap as the flame touches her wick, as she begins to burn—
It doesn't hurt.
Her witch promised her that much.
She burns slowly, and messily, smoke pouring off her—the wick's heat transmuting her to ash and smoke, sending her body dripping away to puddle on the floor, melting and reforming again and again as she burns away.
As her body fades to naught but a puddle on the floor, as her witch carefully observes the flame sputter and go out, spending the last of its heat against cool ceramic tiles, the doll gathers herself; a cloud of smoke and heat swirling about where she knelt.
Her witch lifts an arm towards her and she flows over it, eagerly exploring her body, her skin, in a way she never could when she was flesh—and her witch watches, considers, reads her doll's thoughts in wisps of smoke and curls of sudden heat against her polished skin.
"There, isn't that better?"
The doll eagerly agrees.
"No more flesh, no more meat, no more imperfections. My wonderful servant, purified by flame ..."
Smoke shivers against her skin, going limp and and variegated for just a moment before coalescing again—the witch laughs.
"Ah, but one last thing ..."
For the first time, smoke can feel where her witch pulls the object from, that odd place just on the edge of reality which always evaded her eye before; she is fascinated by it, poking at its edges, as her witch kneels before the cooling puddle.
A single ember still burns, the last bit of the wick still clinging to life, smoke's last connection to the doll she was—and as her witch tips it into the end of a long pipe, smoke feels her essence move with it, carefully laid spells reaching out to welcome her home.
Her witch takes a long drag of the pipe, breathes smoke in and out; it feels so good, to be inside her witch for just a moment, to feel the magic in her breath mingling with her new form—
"There, that's perfect. You're perfect. You're going to be so useful, dear."