Dazmond waited in the parlour for Kronos to arrive.  He was late, and she had already eaten at least a handful of the Bertie Bots Every Flavour Jelly Beans that were sitting out in a silver dish on the coffee table, one by one, even savouring their flavours.  Her legs were crossed, the top leg bouncing idly, and she was completely relaxed in her environment, a marked difference from how their visits had treated her in the early days of their arrangement.  He wasn't usually one to keep her waiting, Dazmond thought, as she looked to her watch again.  The seven handles of her watch pointed toward 'Still Waiting for Something to Happen' which was scrawled in a tight script near where the five usually sat.  She sighed.  Leaving wasn't an option.  As comfortable with the insane and mischievous Kronos Malvivicus as she had come to be, she knew better than to cross him in any small or larger way.  He had made his men warp her mind before, and he would do that or worse again in an instant, no matter how jolly good she felt their terms were now.

After a few more minutes and a few less exceptional flavours of his Jelly Beans, Kronos came in wiping blood off his hands with a damp white towel.  Dazmond sat up slightly, and blinked, regarding him. 

"Sorry I got in the way of your killing someone," she said, with only a slight hint of snarkiness apparent in her voice.  "I can't imagine you like to be hurried."

Kronos gave her a grin that said he appreciated her ease in assigning a dark joke to something as obviously out of her ballpark as murder was.  "Ahh yes, well," he said, in the way of a good-natured grandpa, "Some things take precedence over my wants and wishes.  Can't always get what you want.  I had enough of that lout, anyway.  So tell me how my potioneer is doing, darling.  Still locked up in that sorry old flat of yours, working your skinny bum off for your old man?"

Dazmond answered with silence, eyes held steady on him and the hint of a smile speaking for her.  Of course her status was the same as it was last week.  She went out for ingredients, and otherwise, she brewed.  She'd turned her and Nate's flat into a brewing studio that required agile tiptoeing and leaping over cauldrons left and right if you were going to try to navigate it.  Nobody was allowed in, and all her clientele had been shooed off, or otherwise went elsewhere - as she'd left a vacuum that was only too readily taken up by a number of others ready to try out being a potioneer in Knockturn Alley.  She didn't care.  She had Kronos and Nate was in Azkaban prison.

"Yeah," said Dazmond.  "What of it?" she asked.  "Why am I here if you've already placed your orders for the month?  You haven't changed your mind again, have you?  I can't just throw out whole batches of brew; you know, that's sacrilege."

Kronos squinted at her; they were always going to have this sort of cat-and-mouse aspect to their dealings, weren't they?  She thought she was so clever and, really, she was.  But she was not clever enough.  "I figure this is working out well for you, I can tell you've gotten into a groove here, Mrs. Briggs.  But there is a slight problem, meaning something big needs to change.  On your part.  Any guesses what this might be?"  He was now neatly folding the half-white, half-red towel neatly on the coffee table, leaning forward from his place in his favourite chair.

Dazmond looked long at him, waiting for him to fill in the blanks, the almost absent, wry smile still lingering there.

"You need to get a life," said Kronos.  Again, Dazmond blinked.  "I'm serious," he said.  "You are just begging for the crimson robed fogies to come knocking down your door to crate you away to Azkaban with your husband.  Is that something you actually want?  Don't make me sick, Dazmond.  I hate throwing up with a passion.  You need to get a life.  Got it?  Good.  Go on and get out of my sight, then, and stop using me as an excuse to hide from your stinking reality.  Hodgekins!"  He yelled for his help, who came all too readily and took away his folded, blood-stained towel.

Obediently, Dazmond sat in silence and watched Kronos, not talking back and with the slight smirk vanished from her face.  "Bye bye, sweetheart," Kronos said to her as he got up and stole a jelly bean from his platter.  "I don't want to have to repeat myself, so you figure it out."