Integra was having a bad day. Of course, no one but herself knew this. She, herself, had tried denying it, but the truth remained. Things were just not going her way.
Integra sat back in her chair and felt an eye twitch as she remembered that morning's fiascos.
She had awoken three minutes late. Integra, of course, immediately saw this as a very bad sign, but decided that the best course of action would be to forget it, rather than allow it to affect the rest of the day.
Then she had the slip in the shower. She had been trying to hurry, she told herself. Had it not been for the fact that Walter had come running in to check on her, it too, might have been an easily forgotten detail of the day.
Breakfast passed smoothly, until a loose thread from the tablecloth became snagged on one of her buttons just as she was rising. True, she was able to sit down again quickly enough to keep things from spilling over, but it didn't change the fact that she had placed a hand into the middle of her plate in an effort to steady things.
Reading the daily mail was always its own sort of nightmare.
When Walter informed Integra that there had been a small fire in the kitchen and that lunch would be delayed, she nearly laughed. She'd been waiting for something to happen. When lunch finally did arrive, most everything smelled rather horribly of smoke.
And now, here she was. Sitting in a large chair relaxing in her favorite hideaway. The library. Integra sighed contentedly as her mind calculated the odds of something unfortunate happening in this place. She'd decided against having a fire in the fireplace, and had tested all of her chair's legs before sitting down. She wasn't near any windows, there were no ornaments or chandeliers to fall on her.
Integra allowed a small but haughty smile. Take that, it said.
The smile soon vanished as Alucard appeared before her dressed up as though it were some sort of occasion. "Ah, master," he said. "I couldn't help but notice that you seemed to be enjoying yourself..." Integra stared at his wicked grin with fury before at last crying out,
"Walter, for the love of the Queen, what day is it?!"
"Friday the thirteenth, ma'am. Why do you ask...?"