"Really, Clarabelle, I do appreciate your efforts, but I believe that the Dream Whisperers are quite adorned enough."
"But they look so sad and dead, Cassandra." Clarabelle's eyes are wide, innocent, her voice mournful and pleading, bordering on a pathetic wail. "They are twigs, Cassandra, nothing more! They are not even skin and bones, but twigs! It will soon be the Winter Solstice, Cassandra! The time for rebirth! Will you deny them that?"
Cassandra Pharos sighs, gently resting her fingertips against her forehead and counting up to sixty-nine. "Fine then, Clarabelle," she says at length. "You may decorate the Dream Whisperers if you really must."
"Excellent," says Clarabelle, who is already miraculously perched on a rafter, twining strips of red cloth around a small doll-form. "I'm really glad you've made this decision, I'm sure the dolls will be all the happier for it."
"They are Dream Whisperers, Clarabelle, not dolls."
"Well, I'm sure they'll be happier in any case."
Cassandra opens her mouth to argue some more, but after a moment she closes it again. Then she opens it once more, thinks, and then closes her mouth. There are some battles, she thinks grimly, that simply should not be fought.
A/N: I love writing Clarabelle, truly I do...
~Mademise Morte, December 2