I mean, for real.
—-
“Mamma. Mamma. Mamma…”
“Mon Cœur,” Athénaïs said as she nudged Sérisse gently.” Thierry calling your name.”
Sérisse didn’t mean to ignore Thierry; she was engrossed in an article about the disappearance of Amelia Earhart. Mortals were so intriguing; always curious, always searching for answers. If only they knew Amelia was not only alive, but had been living in Pascagoula for decades. In a little red brick house.
“She’s been there since the nineteen thirties, and they have no idea,” Sérisse said out loud to not one in particular, “I’m sorry…Mon Tresor…what is it?”
“Thierry,” Athénaïs repeated. She nodded toward the dining room table. Oh, right. That fucking game, whatever it was called. The one her children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren played. Sérisse didn’t have the heart to tell a two year old no when Franchette-Melisandre asked her to play.
But this game sucked.
“What now?” Sérisse said.
“You’re up,” Thierry said, “The Spawn’s already moving and he’s going straight for the cleric.”
“Fine,” Sérisse said, her eyes returning to her iPad. She waved her hand in the air lazily, “I shove his head in the toilet.”
Thierry sighed dramatically. “Mamma, you can’t just do whatever you want in this game. There are rules. You have to roll to hit, and there is no toilet. It’s Barovia – there are no bathrooms.”
“No bathrooms?” Sérisse snapped, looking over her glasses, “Who the fuck designs a game where there are no bathrooms.”
“Mamma, this is set in the medieval time period,” Absynthe sighed, “It’s supposed to be rough.”
”That’s what she said,” Charon cackled. Charlestre burst into laughter and high fived her.
“Jesus, okay well, then I shove his head into a pig trough,” Sérisse said, flicking her fingers.
“You still have to roll, Mamma,” Marcellin sighed, “I’ve told you that. I even took a pair of dice over there for you to use. What happened to those?”
Sérisse looked around. Shit. There had been dice here somewhere…where the fuck did they go? “They couldn’t have just walked off…Mon Tresor, are you sitting on them?”
“I give to Bijoux,” Athénaïs said matter-of-factly, “She like to play with.” She pointed to the Vaselotte kitten tossing the dice up and down.
“I’m not fighting Bijoux to get those dice back, and I’m not getting up,” Sérisse said flatly, “Roll it for me.”
“Mamma,” Charlestre muttered, already exasperated, “You’re not tired, you’ve had too much wine. Seriously?”
Sérisse’s head snapped toward Charlestre; sharp and immediate. “Did I say ‘seriously’ when you peed yourself every night for three months straight when you were two, or did I simply handle it like a civilized adult Gorgon?”
Charlestre blinked, then recentered. “No. You did not say ‘seriously.’”
“Exactly. No, I did not. I got up, cleaned you up, changed the bed sheets, which in those days was a colossal pain in the ass….we even had to put seaweed padding down underneath your sheets because mattresses back then were too fucking expensive to keep replacing,” Sérisse shot back, turning back to her iPad as if her rant alone had settled everything, “The memory of those times alone make me want to go open another bottle and-“
“What you actually said, and I remember this clearly was ‘Fuck my life, who gave you water after sunset, this is an ocean for fuck’s sake,’l Charlestre interrupted.
“Horseshit,” Sérisse snapped, “I said I told you not to drink anything after sunset.”
“MAMMA CAN YOU PLEASE FUCKING ROLL?” Thierry bellowed.
“Jesus. Fine,” Sérisse sighed and flicked her fingers. The dice on the table clattered across then fell to the floor. Amelie picked them up.
“Fucking seriously? A twenty?” Amelie sighed, “Jesus. Okay Mamma what do you want to do?”
“I give the vampire a swirly,” Sérisse said, her attention back on the iPad.
“MAMMA!” Thierry whined.
“What is swirly?” Athénaïs asked, “Is ice cream? Like the kind on the little cone? You give medieval fuccboi chocolate and vanilla twist?”
“No, Mon Trésor,” Sérisse said, “A swirly is when you stick someone’s head in the toilet.”
Athénaïs frowned. “You gonna give ice cream then dunk head in toilet?”
“There is no ice cream, just the toilet,” Sérisse said.
Athénaïs wrinkled her nose.
“Is disgusting,” Athénaïs retorted, “Very bad.”
“You wanna see very bad?” Sérisse said, grinning like a Cheshire Cat.
The room erupted in groans.
“Maybe you wanna see I got nothing on underneath dress,” Athénaïs teased.
Sérisse’s wings snapped outward then ruffled before calming down and gently folding themselves back into place.
This woman. Five hundred years and she could still undo Sérisse with a pout and a very well crafted provocative sentence.
Athénaïs stood and walked toward the bedroom, looking over her shoulder and biting her lip.
Sérisse didn’t need to be told twice. She crossed the room in two strides, picked her wife up, carried her into the bedroom, and shut the door behind them.