This is something a little different. I've been wanting to make a different character to use from time to time, who I could use to do some stuff that wouldn't fit with Sierra, or that, potentially, is a bit more mature and/or naughty than I'm comfortable doing with her, and I figured it was time. Hopefully you'll all like it!

Matti wasn't sure what drew her eye to it at first, what made it stand out from the shelves and shelves of other toys as she stood there awkwardly, hating her life.

Shopping, in the first place, was not something she ever particularly wanted to do. She probably could have left this to her mother, as usual, and have her say that whatever present she bought was from Matti as well. She probably would have, if her sister, Kelsey, hadn't run into her in the dining hall the day before.

Matti hadn't even noticed her at first, too busy picking the mushrooms off her piece of pizza. The cafeteria had been getting ready to start closing up shop by the time she'd arrived, having gotten caught up in her latest video game obsession, telling herself she was just going to grind out one more level, then one more, until she'd gotten a text from one of her friends reminding her that if she didn't get moving, she would either have to go to the crappy late-night cafe on campus, raid the vending machines in the basement of her dorm, or go hungry.

Of course, by then, the only pizza left was veggie, or pepperoni and mushroom. Neither had sounded good to her, but the latter would be palatable if she took the mushrooms off, and nothing else she'd passed on the way to the pizza station had looked any better.

It was the silence she noticed first, the conversation of her friends dying off. Then she glanced up from her plate and saw the shadow, rolling her eyes. "What, Kelsey?" she'd asked impatiently.

She didn't hate her sister. She got the feeling sometimes that her sister resented her, especially after she had skipped a grade and wound up in the same class as her for the rest of school, but, despite how different they were, they could get along. They'd just spent the summer cooped up at home together, though, and college hadn't started up that long ago, so she was still pretty sick of seeing her.

It also didn't help that she knew the reason her friends had gotten quiet. Sure enough, when she lifted her head, Kelsey was in her cheerleading uniform, giant bow in her hair, everyone else at her table practically drooling as they stared at her sister's short skirt. She liked having guy friends for the most part, but this was the big downside of it.

"Nice to see you, too," Kelsey had huffed. "I just wanted to ask if you'd sent Brooke's present out yet."

Brooke was their younger cousin. As kids went, she wasn't so bad, but she definitely liked Kelsey more, probably because she knew how to talk to kids. She'd babysat for years, unlike Matti, who would rather do almost anything else with her time.

"Present?" Somehow, Kelsey always had a way of making Matti feel stupid, even though Matti was the one who had skipped a grade, and had a better GPA than her sister.

"Yeah," Kelsey had smirked. "Have you heard of them?"

"Yes!" Matti had glared at her. "I just assumed mom would send her something and say it was from all of us, like usual."

"Honestly, Mathilda," Kelsey had shaken her head, giving her hair, red like Matti's, though much longer, since Matti kept hers short enough that she didn't have to put any effort into deciding what to do with it in the morning, trusting her bedhead to look deliberate enough to have possibly been a conscious style choice, a flip. Matti knew she was trying to get a rise out of her, using her full name in front of her friends like that, but she was determined not to give her the satisfaction of reacting beyond her flared nostrils. "We're seniors in college now. Don't you think we're old enough to do our own shopping?"

And that was what had motivated Matti to roll out of bed early that Saturday. She grabbed her glasses, threw on some basketball shorts and a baggy t-shirt, and even slipped a hair clip into the mess of her hair, though it didn't do much to contain any of it. Mostly, she used it to signal to people who didn't see her as often and might not be able to tell at a quick glance, that she was, in fact, a girl. That, and it had a cute brontosaur on it. Then she headed to the store, only to realize, once she was there, that she had no idea what she should buy.

Kelsey was the one who talked to Brooke, who asked her about what sort of things she liked. Matti thought she remembered how old Brooke was going to be, but even that wasn't a huge help. She'd wandered the toy aisles for quite a while, constantly worried she was going to run into an actual kid there and have to try to make an awkward hello to avoid looking rude to whatever caretaker was with them, until she'd seen it.

She squirmed on the spot, feeling something odd in the pit of her stomach at the very sight of it. It wasn't disturbing, exactly. In some ways, it was the exact opposite. But there was definitely something about it that made her stare, creeping closer and closer, her hand slowly reaching out, almost afraid to touch it.

"I told you it was her."

Matti jumped, knocking another few neighboring dolls off the shelf as she turned, seeing, once again, her sister standing there, along with two of her friends. Matti guessed they were cheerleaders, too, though at least here, they weren't in uniform. They were just all holding coffee cups, the other two sipping as Kelsey sauntered over, Matti kneeling down to pick up the toys she'd knocked over.

"Are you following me?" Matti glowered.

"We come here every Saturday," Kelsey informed her. "We get our coffee, we do a little window shopping. If I'd known you were going to be here, you could have ridden with us. I mean, I invited you I don't know how many times, so I'd think you would have known you could come this time."

That was probably true. Matti remembered that vaguely from their first year or two at college, though, of course, she'd never taken her sister up on the offer, since she didn't see the appeal of going shopping if she didn't need anything. Maybe that had even been in the back of her mind when she'd decided to stop at this store in particular to see if they had any good gifts.

"Sorry, I have... other stuff to do after," Matti lied.

"Sure," Kelsey gave her friends a knowing look.

"God," one of Kelsey's friends stepped forward, moving a strand of Matti's hair out of her face. "Wouldn't she be the perfect flyer? How have you never gotten her to try out for the squad, Kels?"

Matti moved her head away from the girl's hand with a crinkled nose, though whether it was more in response to being touched or the suggestion that she'd ever want to dress up in those short skirts and flounce around, she wasn't certain. Having seen what the rest of the squad looked like, she definitely didn't feel like she'd fit in, but that was probably why they thought she'd be good for it. Being short and scrawny would make it easier for them to lift and toss her, and they could always give her a padded bra if she thought she needed more boobs. Or pretty much any, for that matter.

"You have no idea how many times I've tried," Kelsey let out a long-suffering sigh. "She used to love playing soccer, but after she... stopped, I could never get her to give cheering a shot."

'Stopped' was being generous. She had enjoyed it, but eventually, most of the other kids her age were getting bigger than her. It hadn't bothered her at first, until the accident that had left her with a fractured leg, and made her a little more gun-shy about trying out any other sports. It was all right, really. It gave her more time to study, and read, and play her games, but she did miss it sometimes.

Not nearly enough to stoop to being a cheerleader, though. If their mother could only get her to wear a dress on special occasions, and after a fair bit of bargaining and cajoling, there was no way she was going to get up in front of a whole stadium full of people in one of those skimpy, girly outfits!

"Well, don't let us bother you," Kelsey shrugged. "I just wanted to say hi."

"Hi," Matti waved, even though they were right next to each other. "Have fun."

"We will," Kelsey smirked, ushering her friends back down the aisle, pausing at the end. "Oh, by the way, you do know Brooke is too old for dolls, right?"

"What?" Matti's forehead wrinkled. She definitely remembered seeing Brooke open at least one at the last birthday party of hers she'd been to, didn't she? But, with her birthday being so close to the start of the school year, that party had been quite a while ago now. Had she really outgrown dolls already?

"Maybe she's just shopping for herself," one of the other cheerleaders teased, Matti's cheeks starting to turn the same color as her hair as her eyes flicked towards that one doll, staring at her from the shelf. She turned away quickly, not wanting the other girls to notice, to see what she was looking at, even as she worried, from the way those two were giggling, that they knew. "Do you need a new dolly?"

"No," Kelsey said sternly, cutting off her friends' laughter. Matti looked over at her, for a split second thinking that her sister was trying to save her from being mocked, though, deep down, she'd known that probably wasn't the case. "She wouldn't even play dolls with me when we were kids. She just wanted to play with her stupid trains."

Of course. She was looking for sympathy for how tough she'd had it when they were growing up, having to deal with Matti. "They're not stupid," Matti called out as the trio walked away, the other two cooing over Kelsey's tough luck.

She waited until she was sure they were gone to turn back towards the doll. She almost didn't, almost tried to ignore it and move on to try to find something else for a present, but she couldn't resist.

What was it? Where had it come from? If it was some kids' show, it made sense she wouldn't be aware of it, but something about it didn't quite seem right for that. After a moment, she thought to pull her cell phone out of her shorts pocket, opening up the camera, then switching it into Lens mode to search for what this doll could be.

Somehow, it didn't come up with any results. Or, rather, the results were for other dolls, none of which were the same as what she saw in front of her. She frowned, moved back a step, tried again, but there were still no exact matches.

She looked back and forth, heart pounding as she reached out for the box again, pulling it closer to her. There was no mistaking what it was wearing, the pink dress doing absolutely nothing to hide the bulky diaper underneath. The doll itself looked so real, though, not like the plastic most baby dolls were made out of. And, while her outfit wasn't doing her any favors in that department, Matti still got the feeling that this girl wasn't meant to be a baby, that she was much older, maybe somewhere close to Matti's own age. Too old, definitely, to still be in diapers.

And that, Matti realized, was what was really confusing her. Was this some kind of inclusivity thing, meant to show that sometimes older people needed to wear diapers, too? If it was, then that made her feel even worse, even more embarrassed, for the way it was making her feel.

In the end, she couldn't resist it. It was the only one on the shelf, and Google hadn't found anything, so if she didn't get it now, she knew she might regret it, so she rushed to the front of the store, hoping to get out of there before her sister and her friends finished walking around and decided to leave, going straight for the self checkout.

She ran the box over the scanner, but, even as infrequently as she went shopping, she could tell right away from the beep that it made that something was wrong. She tried again, then a third time, the screen changing and telling her that somebody was coming to assist her.

"No," she hissed, her eyes widening, not wanting to be caught with this toy. Her stomach clenched, eyes darting around, wondering if she should make a run for it and try again after the attendant had come and gone, or if, maybe, she should see if she could make it to the exit without being caught. Shoplifting was really more Kelsey's thing, and usually only small things like makeup, but if she could pull it off, surely Matti could, too.

Before she could decide, a worker stepped up beside her, punching in a code on the touchscreen. "Having a problem?" she asked cheerfully.

"Y-Yeah," Matti nodded. "Sorry, I-I can just..."

"It's okay!" the girl assured her, picking up the doll. "Let's see here." She ran it over the scanner herself, frowned, then pulled an ancient looking PDA device off a holster on her belt and scanned the barcode with that. "That's odd, we don't have that in our inventory. It must be a return. Let's get you to the service counter, and they can figure this out for you."

"N-No, you don't have to go through all that," Matti protested, but already she was being ushered away from the lane, to another, older woman standing behind a desk, the first worker setting the doll down in front of her.

"This young lady needs to buy this," she announced.

Matti swallowed, seeing the older woman's eyes move from the doll, with it's humiliating diaper, over to her. "I-I don't NEED..." Matti squeaked.

"It isn't showing up," the girl continued. "I think it's a return from an online order or something?"

"I don't recognize it," the woman shrugged. "I bet somebody forgot to scan it in properly when they took the return, so it probably isn't even in the system. Here." She opened up a drawer, looking over something, then scanned something, getting a much more normal-sounding beep. "How does five dollars sound?"

"O-Okay!" Matti blushed, hoping she didn't sound too enthusiastic, too thrilled at the idea of getting this doll. Really, she was just glad to be getting out of here before her sister could find her again. She had no clue how much dolls normally cost, but it seemed more than fair to her as she fumbled her wallet out of her pocket, running her debit card through the reader.

She was halfway up the dorm's stairwell, plastic bag wrapped around the doll's box as many times as it would go to keep anyone from seeing what was inside it, before she remembered that she still hadn't bought anything for Brooke, which was the whole reason she'd gone out in the first place. She shrugged, deciding this would be one area where she'd let Kelsey feel that extra year more mature than her, and she'd just have her mom add her name to the card after all.

As soon as she was back in her room, door closed and locked, she pulled the doll out of the bag, setting it down on her desk, sitting down in front of it and staring at it. "So," she said, half to herself, and half, silly as it was, to the doll as she read the box. "Who are you? You're a witch?"

That definitely didn't seem right, for someone with magical powers to be wearing diapers, but after she read that part of the box, she noticed the little plastic wand attached to the backing cardboard, right above the doll's outstretched hand, held in place with wire, as if she were eternally trying, and failing, to reach it.

"'Lil Miss Sierra', huh?" Matti mused. Her last search hadn't gone so well, but that was just off of the picture. She unlocked her computer and typed the words in, shocked when she got a hit. She knew she shouldn't be, since this doll had come from somewhere, but, somehow, she'd thought she'd wind up chasing her tail trying to figure this out.

And maybe she still would. Sierra was a common enough name that she got plenty of other results, but only one that completely matched, and, weirdly enough, it was for some DeviantArt page. That couldn't be right, could it? How would something like that get a doll made for it?

She clicked on it anyway, and right away, she knew that it had to be where the doll had come from, as she saw picture after picture of a girl that looked exactly like the doll, all of them prominently featuring diapers in some shape or form. She squirmed in her seat, biting her bottom lip, those funny feelings she'd felt when she'd first seen the doll welling up again, growing more intense. What was wrong with her?! She should find this weird, or gross, but that definitely wasn't what was happening.

"Wait," she murmured. "There are stories?"

A part of her didn't want to, was almost scared, but the rest of her was far too curious not to click, and start reading, every story bringing up new, naughty ideas in her head, and making her more and more confused about how the doll sitting on the desk in front of her could possibly exist.