Katarina, while always her village’s greatest beauty, was also incredibly vain. Although the men (and a few of the women) longed to gaze upon her sapphire blue eyes and her long flaxen curls, Katarina usually shut herself inside where she spent long hours brushing her hair and applying rouge to her angelic face.
The village soon found itself in crisis when a particularly virulent strain of doll leprosy started decimating the residents. Luckily, only a few villagers lost their limbs to the disease before an evacuation was planned. The villagers grabbed as much of their belongings as they could carry and ran from their homes. They beat upon the doors of Katarina’s dollhouse, begging her to follow them. “No!” she cried. “I cannot leave!” She was glued to her reflection and could not move. Instead she just brushed her curls faster and applied several more layers of gloss to her nubile lips.
Years later, a group of travelers came upon the town and entered Katarina’s home. And there they found what was left of dear Katarina. The leprosy had ravaged her little synthetic body. But once they came upon her disembodied head they couldn’t help but marvel at her golden curls and the blueness of her eyes.
