This was written using my characters Myka and Gabriel from The Demon’s Secretary in mind. I have been practising using writing prompts to produce scenes for works that seem to come to mind while I’m writing them out.

He had pots on the window sill, but they were just filled with dirt, some holding the dry corpses of plants. The wood and terracotta were faded from sitting for so long against the window, a line of six small, sad pots. She hadn’t looked up much when she’d first arrived and so they came as a surprise to her. “What’s with that?”

He looked over to where she was nodding her head at them and shrugged, returning to the brief he was reading. “A gift? I don’t remember who from.”

“And you just let them die?” She rose from the table and saw dust lining the wooden holder as she approached.

“I don’t cook so I never used them.”

“You mean to can’t cook?”

He turned away from the brief, eyeing her as he wondered when it was that she’d allowed herself to become a smart-arse in front of him. “I don’t need to cook.”

He raised an eyebrow when she snorted a laugh. “Don’t need to cook,” she laughed under her breath. “You’re not wrong though.” She paused, and laughed again. “So you just kept a little herb cemetery here? Why don’t you just throw it out?”

He stared at the pots for a while, leaning on the back of his chair as he realised he hadn’t thought about it before. He had not thrown them out for as long as they had been there but he couldn’t remember why. “Re-plant them,” he suggested. She looked at him with a small frown. “Re-plant them and you can learn how to cook and use them, if it bothers you so much.”

“It doesn’t bother me,” she said. She looked back to the pots.

She had never grown anything before, never had to nurture anything and she wasn’t sure she knew how, which made Gabriel think it was a worthwhile project for her to start. She had grasped the concept of appearing amicable in front of people and had sharpened her ability to control situations but he knew that he had to build a softer sense of responsibility in her, so that she didn’t stop ten years down the track and realise she couldn’t love anything new. She had compassion, but he imagined she could only replicate the kindness of himself and the others, which wasn’t going to cut it if she decided to live normally and have a family. He bitterly laughed at the thought, knowing that the likelihood of her ever having a family in the first place was slim.

“I wonder if Curt will teach me how to cook,” Myka was saying, pulling Gabriel out of his temporary brooding. “He always cooks for the boys.”

His eyes narrowed a little and he turned back to his paperwork. “Then you can go over to his if you want to learn. I don’t want you destroying anything in here.” He heard her, though muffled, chuckling at him.

“Do you not know how to cook because you didn’t need to learn or because you suck at it?” She saw his fingers tighten on the pages for a moment and when he turned around her with the smile he wore at the mandatory events, she shivered.

“Come to think of it, why should I waste my time reading through all of this when I can get you to do it and write a summary for me?”

Myka’s jaw hung. “But… but that’s for the conference at nine… you need to read it to be prepared for it.”

He stood up, putting the papers down onto the thick stack he’d taken them from. “Then you better get a move on.” He started heading towards his bedroom.

“But…” Myka continued, hoping he would turn around and tell her ‘just kidding’, but he never pranked her. He teased her but he never took back his word. “Gabriel, the meeting is at nine. I don’t have the… I haven’t even had breakfast!” she called down the hall.

“Then call Curt to come and make you some.”