Cohost writing prompt: @Making-up-Monsters — Monster who has a heart, and that’s a problem
“Callie!” the wizard calls from a door at the foot of the tower, into the trees. “Cal, Cal, Cal! Callie! Dinner time!”
The girl who skips out from the eldritch-angled trellises of the Poison-Garden could be any coltish young lady without a care for grass-stains on her sundress; if not for her eyes, which are big and featureless black, and her smile, which is crammed from end to end with needle-razor teeth. She beams unreservedly at the wizard, who smiles back; and tries to sidle past her.
“Callie,” the wizard says, in the tone one uses on small children and unusually bright pets who think they’re putting one over on you, “what’s that behind your back?”
The girl widens her eyes to glossy hugeness: who, me? and shifts her weight from foot to foot; front side kept carefully presented to the wizard, hands held behind her back.
“Calumnestra,” the wizard says, and the girl heaves a vast sigh at the unfairness of the world and shows her hands, caked with dried-on gore from fingertips to wrists; and a plucked-out human heart cradled in her palm, with as much delicate care as if she’s trying to sneak a captured mouse in to keep as a pet.
The wizard puts her hands on her hips, and the girl shuffles her feet, slowly drooping with shame.
“How many?” the wizard says finally, in a lightly scolding way, and the girl holds up three fingers.
“How many still alive?”
She shrugs, holds up one, shrugs again, expression saying: who knows, really?
“We let adventurers come to the house, Callie,” the wizard says. “Honestly, how am I supposed to hear any news if you play with them first?” She harumphs. “They might have had books! What am I supposed to do, traipse all through the forest looking for dropped backpacks? And maybe one of them was hot! Do you know how long that’s been?”
The girl pulls a horrified Ew! face.
“No pudding!” the wizard declares firmly. “Now go and put that in the Cold Vault for later and wash your hands.”
