CHAPTER TWELVE: Can A Phoenix Have Scars?
PART TWO…Tinkering With …Kicking her feet wildly below the table, Callisto watched the monitor intently. Now and then, her ever-smiling face broke into a giggle or sigh, head cocked to her right to stare intently at the feed. Suddenly, she became stern and climbed atop the table to bend over the device beside her and fiddle with the wiring and hardware. She checked the screen, bent back to mess with another thing, and settled back into the grinning rapture.
All the while, Knives knelt on the floor before the screen, grasping the edge of the table breathlessly. His eyes barely blinked, but the stoic expression became increasingly somber until, hours later, he was truly frustrated.
"If you look long enough you'll feel them," Callisto offered helpfully. "But can you make me dinner now?" she asked casually, clicking the device off until the hum died to silence. She padded out of the room in her oversized work boots. The top of her work suit was dangling from her waist, the far too baggy pants rolled thrice about her ankles. She'd been hard at work on something that day, and wore a tank top that was still a bit damp from sweat. The little thing was as pale as the moon and saw no daylight, it seemed. But whatever work she was doing was life for her – the blush of her cheeks highlighted her ever-enthusiastic activities about the plants.
He only watched her leave for a moment this time, for this enigma of an object baffled him. Any fool could understand its workings, he surmised haughtily, but what did she see that he didn't? She'd shouted to him when he entered that afternoon that she'd discovered the way to understand the plants. But this…surely this was a child's daydream. This device measured something, surely, but it must only be blood pressures or pheromones. Callisto may have seen something more in that monitor feed, but he certainly did not. What a grand imagination the young have, he chuckled half-heartedly.
Over dinner, Callisto shoveled spoonfuls into her mouth, perhaps swallowing without tasting. It would've insulted Knives a bit, but his mind was elsewhere.
Though it was a silly fear, he wondered if Callisto would up and leave him as everyone else had. It was nearly impossible, after all. Without reason or want for suicide, or a means of long-distance land or space travel, neither were truly going anywhere. However, Knives had a poor track record of being abandoned and betrayed, or at least he felt that way. Callisto was becoming no grand exception from that rule. She'd begun pushing him away since she was three months old.
As he watched her finish her meal, the space the table created between their bodies may as well have been an ocean. The little being he'd raised from the bulb, the one he prayed and cried for – here she was, and she was glorious. This little blonde angel was perfectly intelligent and witty and lovely, but she was lacking in the one, key thing he didn't have the foresight to ask for – adoration for him. She loved Knives as a daughter loves a father, but she could never want more from him than to feed her occasionally and, at all other times, to leave her alone. He expected to raise a lover, a friend, a life mate, a soul mate, a familiar. But she would never even be his companion.
She grinned, bits of corn stuck to her lower lip, and returned to the plate. Was she oblivious to his pain, or did she relish it? Perhaps she knew everything, and wanted to ignore it for fear that any of it should come to pass. It wasn't fair to assume that she'd want Knives around at all, he surmised, since she was equipped enough, physically and mentally, at this ripe age that she really didn't require any of his services or company. Those smiles and such, they were only pity? No, he couldn't let himself believe that yet.
He missed her so much all of the time. Knives was always traveling iles and iles out of his planned routes just to have a meal with her. She, however, wouldn't even come out to greet him until she'd completed whatever petty thing she was doing when he came in. Why didn't she respect him, if only for the mere fact that he was a plant as well, or that he was her elder by over a hundred and fifty years. Did time mean nothing to this fledgling masterpiece? Had he not stressed kinship enough? Was it because she had not known the true evils of the human race, to compare with their own race and conclude that they were superior and special?
Callisto was clearly comfortable with the silence. It was when he opened his mouth to speak that she winced, ever so slightly – almost too faint a gesture to detect, and one that he had missed or ignored countless times before.
"The tomas have been struggling lately," he prattled off, casually. "I won't be coming around much anymore."
She looked straight into his eyes and shrugged her shoulders. "Okay."
He cleared his throat. It was tough to keep this calm composure at such a response. "You should have the provisions you need, but I'll come by once in a while to stock the kitchen." Knives waited, got no clear answer, and continued. "It could be weeks, maybe months."
"Dramatic!" she exclaimed. "Don't worry, I'm fine by myself. You need to slow down anyways, and rest up instead of coming out here all the time," she added helpfully.
Knives' stomach dropped and the blood rushed cold from his upper regions. It seemed to prove his paranoia that she wasn't the least bit bothered by the proposition of spending months in his absence. He assumed she was hiding excitement. She looked so jolly, somehow more at ease than before. How dare she?
As much as he could wished to cover his fears with anger, he couldn't muster the strength. It would've been easiest to weep aloud. If he opened his heart to her wouldn't it help? No, his heart reminded him, pulling forth memories of Vanessa's rejections. Openly weeping and sharing the innermost thoughts and feelings that took him so long to figure out – such things mean nothing.
Knives smiled and excused himself with a feigned yawn.
Callisto waved goodbye before darting out into the hall, bound for some stupid task, he guessed. Some pointless escapade so intriguing that she wouldn't even think to lead him to the door or give a hug.
The pressure in his temples was too much. He walked quietly back through the kitchen area and into a dusty storage room. In a flash of light he sent blades flying through the room, shredding containers and shelving into fine slices. Once it was all lain to waste, he sighed. That wasn't enough, but it would have to do. After catching his breath and cursing softly, he marched out, locking the door before returning to his cart. In his haste to leave, he forgot Nuisance in the plant compound, and was unwilling to return for her. That damned animal always went wandering when he visited and often it took hours to locate her. He assumed Callisto would feed and care for her, and was too prideful and anxious to go traipsing back through the complex for such a disobedient feline.
It was an amazingly cold and long night, and he rode to his shack shivering.