Lament of the Traitor King (Complete)

Chapter 9 - Towards the Center of the Labyrinth (Minor Edits Made)

Netta's first reaction to the kitchen area was to gape at the sheer amount of knick-knackery that had happened since she had last been there.

She knew that Calliope understood full well to keep most of her obsession with the porcelain and painted ware mostly away from where she conducted her business, but Netta had not prepared herself for what she would see of it in her personal area.

Rows upon rows of it - a good deal magically held up - seemed to line the walls.  It was hard, also, to not catch a general theme. Porcelain Swedish children, looking bashful in different poses. 

All deathly pale, with the exception of their rosy cheeks and lips.

Ash, who had bent so that It leaned next to her, said, "Unlimited cosmic power - and such an intriguing way to spend it all."

Ignoring Ash, Netta found herself turning, looking at an ugly painting.  It took her a moment to recognize it, back when Calliope had first opened the store.  An odd scene to see in the desert, the painting looked very much like one of those mass-produced, halcyon works of a rolling green pasture and a fantastically red barn in the near-distance.

The only thing that seemed to draw her attention was a man - what an odd, out of place man to be in such a painting - waving from the top window of the barn.

Funny, had that character always been there?

So fixated was Netta on it at first that she missed what the older woman had asked her.  "I'm sorry," Netta stuttered, turning as she settled down to the card table that must have lived in Calliope's quarters since the seventies, "can you repeat yourself?"

Calliope blinked and asked, "Your companion - she's not terribly cold out there, I hope?"

Netta shook her head, and had to bite the inside of her cheek. She also had to fight the sudden urge to look over to the creature who stood in the corner of the room like a malevolent shadow.

"Ah, he'll be fine. He's got a great way to regulate his internal body temperature, if I don't say myself."

When Calliope's eyes went wide with some sort of an understanding, Netta hurried to correct herself. "Ah, I don't know from any sort of a personal experience, it's just that - he does great in the cold." Netta laughed and it was a little too exaggerated.

Thankfully, Calliope seemed to have become focused on working on making tea.

As she worked, Netta shook off her coat and relaxed back into one of the brown padded chairs surrounding the card table.   She stared, blearily, at the two figurines who got predominate placement in the center of the small enough table. A boy, eyes closed, leaning forward for a kiss and a girl leaning away, her eyes closed serenely.

How inopportune a time for her overtired mind to cruelly insert mental imagery of touching, kissing the creature who had been torturing her for the last few days...  She was too tired to stop it from entering her mind, and she felt as though she loathed Ashwood all the more for it.

"Well, if you're certain that he can handle the cold..." Calliope paused, filling a tiny pitcher with cream and pulling her cut-glass sugar bowl out of the cabinet. Still turned away from Netta, she asked, "I take it that you've been dealing with those Human gentlemen callers that seem to find Witches irresistible?"

Netta wanted to call the woman out on her bullshit. Calliope was under the distinct impression that there did not exist a human who was not obtuse enough to sense magic, somehow, and not a man who was not in some way drawn to it.

Netta knew, however, that in spite of how eccentric Calliope seemed now as an older woman, she had seen pictures of the woman in a much younger body.   She knew that the Witch's beauty had been able to rival even her older sister, Sia, in her own heyday. Magic, it was said, was so much stronger only a century ago. It was no large thing to regulate age and physique for a Witch, as much as immortality had once been a sure thing.