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Sleep was the most glorious and wondrous of things.
At least that was what the witch had mumbled before she crashed into her bed, curled up under a pile of blankets and mismatched clothing, a dozen tarts all huddled around her. Fright Night had been absolutely wonderful, but jackdamn it had Belladonna been tired when she finally dumped the last box of clothing into her room. Speaking of room, her's looked like a particularly vengeful tornado of clothing had swept past. There were literally at least a hundred different articles of clothing scattered everywhere, though most resided on the bed. It would most likely remain a mystery as to where the witch had managed to gather so many clothes she would never, ever wear.
But unlike most mornings, she did not rise early. There was no bubbly voice that proclaimed it a good morning to Binx, there was no catchy music that played while the cleaning was done, there wasn't even any stirring under the mound of fabric.
Not until someone knocked at the door.

The first two knocks were ignored, the third gave the witch pause and when she opened her eyes under all those blankets and shirts and pants and vests and skirts and realized that it was Mort doing all the banging, she finally decided it would be best to get up.
A loud groan escaped Belladonna as she sat up, dislodging quite a lot of clothing from the bed onto the floor, but still she crawled from her sweet, soft haven and shuffled over to the door. Binx had elected to stay out for the night (mostly because he didn't want to contend with all the cute pets the witch had brought home), so instead of the black cat clutched at Belladonna's side like a stuff animal, it was a sleepy licorice treat tart, yet unnamed.
Though the witch couldn't actually recall if she had put on a pair of bloomers before bed, thus leaving her with only an overly large shirt and a wrinkled pair of striped socks, Belladonna was still so entrenched in sleep that she only wrenched open the door. For a moment she stood there, eyes half-lidded, totally uncaring that she had forgotten to braid her hair before she'd gone to bed so that her curls literally stuck out from one side of her head, and only stared up at Mort.

Then she blinked at him once more, began to say something and noticed that the little troop of tart treats were making pitter-patter noises across her floor. Still unaware of everything except Mooooort, Belladonna only stepped back and waited for him to come in.
She didn't even say anything, only stared at him and blinked and tried not to fall asleep where she stood. It had been a very long night...

For once it was Belladonna who did things slowly, as she had hardly gotten out of Mort's way before he was in the room and the door was closed with a heavy thud. The thud made Belladonna blinked at the door and then at Mort.
"Something chasin' you?" She asked, her voice lower and thicker than normal. The little tart treat in her arm rustled and she brought it forward, hugging it to her chest as she blearily stared up at Mort.
Regular wit seemed silly, involved too much thought so Belladonna only nodded about it being a long night. A long night didn't really even begin to cover it.
An absent hand tugged down on the shirt that skirted her thighs and the witch tried desperately to rouse herself a bit more. Even half-asleep she understood the importance of being a good host.

The sneeze from Victor did a fairly good job of attracting the witch's attention, wherein she turned around and smiled at the pet. She even offered him a wave until she noticed a strange little woosh of air that brushed past her ankles. Finally her eyes opened all the way and when Belladonna turned around, the tarts from her bed were in the process of crawling up onto Mort. A few had managed the jump onto his pants, the little rage tart even had jumped high enough to hook itself on his hip, but the others were all busy scrambling up him.
It was such a silly sight that Belladonna couldn't help but begin to giggle just the littlest bit.
"You can stay as long as you like... And I'd love to go back to sleep, but I think that might be a bit difficult..."
Well, it wasn't really witty, but it was still a full sentence.

The little army of treats each squeaked and chirped at the zombie, desperate to get closer and cuddle him. Maybe it was all that cuddling from the witch the night before, or the fact that Mort fulfilled the missing parental parameters, or maybe they were just being extra pesky, but for whatever reason they refused to be daunted. The ones that were brushed off only fluttered their little wings and tried to crawl back onto him once more. Granted, once one of the treats found a suitable spot to cuddle they were sated, and only clung to him, but until then they crawled around on him.
Belladonna could not help herself and began to laugh a little harder, the licorice tart in her arms content to watch its brethren clamor on Mort. Yet when he mentioned something being there, the witch stopped laughing. Now she was confused...

A little noise at her door distracted her enough that she set down the licorice tart (who promptly attached itself to Mort's ankle) and shuffled over to the door.
"What it is?" She asked, as curiosity dictated she open the door. When she looked down and saw the wolf pup, it happily looked back up at her and barked.



Belladonna's only possible reaction was to coo at the creature.
"Are you running from this precious thing?! Mort, its darling!!" All remnants of sleep had fallen from the witch and she instead bent down toward the pet, all smiles and cheerfulness for the fire wolf pup.
"Are you being naughty and giving Mort a scare?" She asked it with an unabashed smile, though she wagged one finger at the pup in a mock scolding.

Oooohhhhh~
The little pup was so warm! As someone who was naturally warm blooded and spent most of her time cuddled up with someone very cold, there was quite a lot of fun in getting to pet something very, very warm. Besides, the witch was a little chilled, as the days were growing cooler and the early morning chill had crept into her room.
So it was with great relish (and quite a lot of cooing of "Precious baby!" and "Look at your wittle nose!") that Belladonna continued to lavish attention and love onto the pup. While the treats made themselves at home on their zombie-daddy, Belladonna made herself good friends with the fire pup.

"Dangerous? Hardly." Belladonna countered with a wry smile, her fingertips giving the pup a good scritch behind the ears.
She held up a finger and was happy to see it sit down without further coaxing, though it continued to frantically wag its tail.



Pleased with the pup's obvious intelligence, Belladonna couldn't help but heave a sigh as she looked over her shoulder at the zombie who had almost made it to her bed without her. The witch was kind and did not roll her eyes at him, or even look altogether put out. After all, undead were hated enemies of fire, so Mort's reaction was absolutely natural. Hilarious, but natural.
"He looks perfectly fine to me, but I can see if I can find a spell or something to keep him from burning you?" She offered with a small, slightly bemused, smile. It would be unexceptionally rude of her to laugh at her boilfriend over something that could potentially dissipate him, but Hecate it was a little funny how visceral his reaction was.
"Wait, Mort darling... Did you run all the way to my room from your own? Just to get away from this pup?"
Oh. Oh well if that was the case it wasn't funny at all.
It was vastly more precious than this pup.

Ultimately distracted by her dearest zombie's fear, but more his trust in her, Belladonna stood up straight. Quick, stockinged feet brought her to the bed where she stared up at Mort, the tiniest bit angry he was on the bed and therefore even taller than normal. Still, she reached out a hand to him, flapping it for a moment in attempt to let him know she was not only here for him, but that she greatly appreciated him.
"I'm sorry this little creature has startled you, but I am so glad to know you can count on me!" As it was obvious that Belladonna was prepared to have a moment with the boil, her eyes went over all sparkly and her hand remained outstretched toward him.
After a moment though, the witch realized a particularly pink treat had made Mort's hair its home and the witch rolled her eyes.
"All of you, back to the closet. Now." Belladonna instructed of the tarts. For a moment they each, at once, turned to face her. Each tart looked their witchy-mama, opened their eyes wide and tried to give her their best puppy-treat-dog eyes.
Belladonna only lowered her eyebrows.
En masse the tarts fluttered off the boil, each gave the witch a kiss on her cheek and quietly trudged back to her closet. It was a bit miraculous, as Belladonna was sure only one night with her was not enough to warrant obedience, but she certainly wasn't going to argue the point this time.

And just as she was going to offer to take the pup from him, or do anything to assuage his obvious fears, he made a sound. A very... Very.......... Not good sound.
Belladonna stood there and blinked up at Mort, more surprised at how high that note was than anything else. Her mouth opened to say something, but the breath in she had taken before speaking stopped her. It smelled acrid, smokey. The witch whirled around and let out a shriek.



The beautiful tie dress that Alexander had made and she had so meticulously saved was burning!!!
It was far too early in the morning for this, so Belladonna only let out the loudest curse of

Of course Belladonna was stricter than he thought! All he ever saw was her sweet, fluffy side peppered with seductive grins and posing. It wasn't often the witch was given the opportunity to draw herself to her full height and command when necessary.
And naturally, this all went unsaid because things were burning.
Another shriek burst from the witch as the shirt she was holding caught on fire and she quickly had to drop it. The tips of her fingers were singed, enough that she let out a tiny curse at the pain. And then Mort was yelling and with a twirl the witch faced him, eyebrows drawn down in anger.
"DON'T YOU ******** YELL AT ME." She shouted before she raised both hands over the slowly growing fire. So fixated on fixing this, on stopping the fire before it spread onto the rest of her room and more importantly, Mort, the witch got a little too excited. Instead of just creating enough water to douse the fire, she created quite a lot more. Enough to drench not only herself but also anything within a five foot radius of her. The water formed above her head, heavy and shimmering pink, a perfect disk of liquid help that crashed down onto the witch, the floor, the burning clothing.

For a long moment Belladonna only stood there, blinking at the now soaked circle around her. Then she shrieked again.



"Oh Hecate! Mort, Mort are you ok!?" Suddenly worried (and with all traces of former anger absolutely gone from her face), the witch whirled around to face the zombie boil. The edge of her bed was soaked, but if Mort had been very lucky, he had only watched a sheet of water rain down instead of be caught under it.

This was literally the most awful wake up ever. Even that one time where Delphinium had been feeling particularly vengeful and sent a pack of skitterz to wake up Belladonna had been better. (Mostly because she had made friends with the creatures after her startled wake up.) Or even the time Hemlock had jumped on her and sat on her until she cried. No. This was pure awful.
At any moment Belladonna was going to start crying, mostly because now her room was soaked and Mort had been so freaked out and worried and the little fire pup was whining and everything was so wrong.
Suddenly afraid she was cursed, Belladonna pressed a hand to her eyes in attempt to keep the tears at bay. Nothing good ever seemed to stay...
"Yeah... Always practicing." She told him with a sniffle, her other hand suddenly raised to wipe her face off.
Subdued in her movements the witch shuffled over to her closet and pulled out a towel before she shuffled back over to the side of her bed. Without looking at him Belladonna offered Mort the towel, keeping her eyes down at the ground. He'd come to her for help, for sanctuary and she'd so thoroughly ruined everything. He'd come to her to escape one fear and she'd instead drenched him with another.

"The little pup can stay here with me until you figure out something to do with him." She offered in a small voice. "And I do not think I will go back to bed."
It was supposed to be a joke, a funny little phrase to lighten the mood. Instead it made Belladonna cry, for even the safe haven of her bed had been taken from her.
She was tired, stressed, wet, cold with her hair totally flat and insanely proud of how powerful she'd made that water. It made her all the more confused as she stood there, one hand pressed over her mouth and eyes clenched tight, because she was supposed to be wholly regretful of what had happened. And for the most part she was. But one little glimmer of pride shined through and made the witch feel all the worse for being so selfish.