For disclaimers and notes, see the end of the story. You have to read them. If you don't, your computer will explode and your head will fall off.

Honest. Would this face lie?

Content Warning: language, nothing worse than you heard in the school canteen

**

Snow Blooms (an addendum to the LF series)
By Jewels (jhantor@yahoo.com)

There were two types of weather conditions that were prevalent in the cemetary. One was of the stereotypical ghoulish variety, which perpetual midnight, dust storms, cloud bursts and the occasional lightning flash (although, in truth, that was really more for the tourists), and there was what it was a that point in time: calm and relatively peaceful.

Relatively, since the woman who stood over a grave marker was anything but calm and peaceful. It was fairly fresh, with very little lichen growth on its sides, and the chiselled words in the stone were as fresh as when they had first been chipped out. They gave only the deceased's name, and her date of death. The rest had been deemed... irrelevant.

It had been snowing thickly ever since the writer had arrived in the cemetary, and by that point, a thick layer of powdery white flakes covered the ground, slowly covering everything in side. If the woman hadn't seemed so solemn, the site of her standing there, boots covered in clumps of snow, while flakes that drifted down from the sky stuck to her clothing, might have been comical, as it gave her the vague appearance of a snowman.

After an indeterminate amount of time, she spoke, a whispered voice lost to the gentle winds through the cemetary, but somehow incredibly loud and pervasive.

"I didn't expect you to be here."

Even though her eyes rested on the gravestone, the object of her address stood a little way behind her and to the right, watching the scene silently. None of the snowflakes even came near to Calliope as she stood, arms folded imperiously across her chest. They just drifted around and away from her, falling to the ground. One didn't pay attention and came a little too close, disappearing in a *poof* of evaporated snowflake, fizzling into non-existence.

The writer turned, looking through ringlets of hair at the muse, to see if her words had any effect. Calliope didn't even blink, so the writer turned back to the gravestone, after a moment, leaning down and placing a single perfectly formed white lotus bloom on the grave. She had no idea that they even existed, until she had checked with the Subreality Botanical Gardens and was surprised to find an example of it. The curator hadn't even seemed particularly surprised when she asked for it, just handing it over like she had been expected. She had no idea who had written the plant into existence, and she didn't particularly care.

"You had to do this to her, didn't you? You couldn't just leave her alone. It wasn't her fault."

Calliope said nothing. A few more snowflakes, who had taken great pains to avoid the Queen, were zapped into nothingness with inaudible squeals.

"If anything was her problem, it was that she cared. And she was a realist. The needs of the many and all that crap." The woman ran a hand through snow-soaked hair, and clenched it into a fist when it betrayed her by shaking visibly. "Everyone she met she loved, as a sister, a brother, a friend." She gave Calliope a poisonous glance. "Except maybe you. Have you ever loved anyone?"

Nothing. Except for a narrowing of the eyes, and Calliope pressed her lips together until they were pale and appeared bloodless. There was a definite chill in the air that had nothing to do with the melancholy induced snow.

"I think she hated you when you assigned her to that bitch writer before me. What was her name? I can't remember... but I remember how pale she went when she saw the bitch on the news. Did you know she killed her own little sister?" The writer went even paler and clasped her hands together to stop them from shaking even more. "Her own sister! She strangled her!! How did someone like that even get a muse? You're supposed to be able to tell! She spent four years, FOUR YEARS, fearing for her own life. Forget the fact that she is..." The writer swallowed. "Was immortal. When she was reassigned to me, she was so timid. Wouldn't do anything. It took me six months to get her to even look at me. She was such a gentle soul. Do you know how much it crushed her spirit?"

Calliope raised her chin, taking that as a rhetorical question, and began to follow the writer with her eyes as the woman paced back and forth, obviously working herself into an even greater state of agitation.

"Do you know what the first story she offered me was?" The writer shook her head as she remembered. "It was the most horrific thing I've ever written. So much death and agony, and sheer trauma. I still have nightmares when I think about it. Dammit, I flinched when I was writing it. But she was so desperate to get it out. She even hung her hair in front of her face like a curtain, as if she was trying to hide. It took me months before I could walk into a room, or turn around and she was there. Most of the time, she hid. And whenever I approached, she panicked.

"It wasn't until... whatshisname... Jeremy. He was a fictive I borrowed off a one-time collaborator. Absolutely brilliant psychiatrist, but what do you expect when a writer has a PhD in psychology and is practicing. He told me that she was so deeply traumatised by that bitch that she might never recover. He advised me to cut my losses and get another muse, or all I might write for the rest of my list was disturbing fic. And that was true. For about a year.

"One day she just suddenly came to me with an idea. She seemed somewhat embarrassed, and I think that one of my fictives had probably had to talk her up to coming and speaking to me. It was an idea for a silly fic." The writer let loose with a genuine laugh, however brief. "Something about a My Little Pony meets Gen X. I almost refused to write it, but when she looked at me... she was so hopeful. I just couldn't refuse. Worst fic I ever wrote, but it was worth it. So worth it."

The writer stopped pacing and faced Calliope directly. "She was getting better, dammit. She loved each and everyone of the fictives she helped create. If I was their mother, then she was their ever-present loving auntie. She never wanted to see things hurt. And after she recovered, she never wanted me to write fics where fictives hurt that much again. The thought was too much for her.

"Then that... that /bitch/ returned. When I found out... I wanted to scream. It was like spending years faithfully repairing a beautiful and intricate tapestry, and then have some wild animal reduce all your hardwork to shreds in seconds. The same collaborator who lent me Jeremy saw them together. Outside the Cafe. I went looking for her as soon as I heard. I spent what felt like forever searching. All my fictives searched as well. They may spit poison at me sometimes, but they loved her.

"Nothing! There was nothing! She had just disappeared and there was no trace! Do you know what I tried to do to find out what happened to her? She was gone for days! I worried, I panicked. I spent nights sobbing, and my family didn't know what was wrong. How could they. They're mundanes. It wasn't until Sarah suddenly appeared, sobbing her heart out and babbling incoherently that I found out something was wrong. And then, a day later, Pyx shows up on my doorstep, telling me he's my new muse, and, by the way, your old one is dead."

The writer stamped her foot in the snow, displacing large chunks of it. She raised her voice to a shriek, and it resonated in the air as a voice can do so only when it is cold and miserable. "It's all YOUR fault! If it wasn't for you, she wouldn't have been made mortal. She wouldn't have been put with that BITCH in the first place. And don't you DARE SAY ANYTHING about mistakes or errors, because that crap won't wash with me. She never did anything to you. She never did anything, and you fucking killed her!!"

As the writer stood, tears running down her cheeks and heaving great sobs at such an outburst of emotion. Finally, Calliope deigned to speak.

"Ma'at killed herself. I had nothing to do with her death."

The reaction was instantaneous. The writer crossed the distance between them in two long strides and slapped Calliope.

She might as well have struck a brick wall.

Calliope did not react in the slightest. There was a slight reddening on her cheek, but otherwise, an observer would not have guessed that she had just been gravely insulted. Calliope's eyes frosted a little more than usual, and a nasty glare which reduced several nearby plants to wilting wrecks had no effect on the writer, who was oblivious to anything now.

"Burn in Hell," the woman whispered viciously, before grabbing her skirt to keep the hem out of the snow and storming out of the cemetary.

Calliope watched the writer depart, once again assuming her silence. After a moment of contemplation, she approached the grave and regarded it, leaning down and placing a single perfectly formed white lotus bloom on the grave. It had been Ma'at's favourite flower. That particular fact hadn't been found in one of Calliope's omniscient dossiers, but came from overhearing two muses conversing after Ma'at's death. The curator hadn't even seemed particularly surprised when she asked for it from the botanical gardens, just handing it over like Calliope had been expected...

-End

Notes:
You know, I told Farli, a couple of times, that because you people are so stingy with feedback around here (which, may I say, is majorly depressing - my last three stories got not a peep, and I was more than a little upset) I would never write another story (with one exception) involving Subreality. Let alone write an addendum to the Little Fictive series.

Well, lookit what you have in your hot little inbox. And it's seasonal. Snow, and everything. Appropriate since the snow around here gave us a three hour power cut yesterday. *grr*

Calliope is public domain, so I don't have to go into hiding for using her in this story. And all other characters mentioned here are mine. Do Lotus blossoms exist? I think so. But I'm not sure. They're only mentioned in mythology that I've seen. Ah well, this is the girl who still can't spell crys... chrysan... crisa... oh bugger.