Author's Note : Fun news, Russian Roulette : Reloaded is now a podfic!
Over on AO3, the lovely QuinsValoria has asked and gotten permission to record and post chapters. And it is kind of embarrassing and awesome and flattering, and all sorts of shades of terrific. But if you'd like to have an audio copy of the story to listen to instead of read, go give her some feedback!
I have a terrible stutter that developed after my military years, so I can't do it.
Also, I have a business-orientated trip at the end of next week. Going to see the niece and nephew, then drive all over the northern part of the US. Yay… well, seeing family will be fun. The long trip… not so much. There's possibly another update before I go off on that, but then there'll be a longer than usual pause before the next one after next.
Edited (9/26/2018) - Minor corrections.
Russian Roulette : Second Chamber
Chapter 6
(Wednesday the 13th of May, 1970. Sonya & Tatiana's apartment, Mafia Land.)
"Dama, I purchased that land for you. In case you decided the local village wasn't deserving of your protection." Bjǫrn informed his patron, a touch exasperatedly, as he tried to both carry on a fairly important conversation and run comparisons between two different if similar investment opportunities at the same time. "So you could ignore the locals or not as you feel fit, and yet still have the space to not feel stifled."
"…three thousand acres?"
He lowered a Chinese-local variant of The Financial Times slowly, utterly confused.
Did Italy even have that much land?
It wouldn't be out of the question somewhere like Siberia, or possibly the Antarctic, but Italy?
Dropping the foreign magazine and shuffling his collection of paperwork, losing track of his actual current copy of Financial Times, he found the property folder stuck halfway between his desk and the wall instead of with the important files he was going through.
Pulling out and examining the deeds, the Lightning-Storm carefully tallied up the total and blankly stared at the resulting number. "Three acres of the castle and grounds, almost three hundred acres of the coastline and mountain behind your home, three miles in rough circumference. Where did you get three thousand?"
No, wait. He knew perfectly well. He was staring right at it.
Most of that land was unoccupied and undeveloped, so he bought it in bulk which made a large number understandable… however on one of the deeds for the total area there was a comma where there should've been a decimal point. Which turned the summary of the smaller property's total land coverage into 'about three thousand' instead of the two point seven one five acres for the castle's grounds.
Although, technically, if one dug out that mountainside… it was entirely possible she did have three thousand acres. Mountains were big.
Whoever wrote the deed should be shot, their handwriting was atrocious. Given Sonya's disinclination for contracts or legal speak to the point she shoved all such work on him or Galina, a skim or scan through to just be aware of what she was signing would hook on the hard numbers rather than the dry and frankly boring language used in the deeds.
…huh. Viper could probably use this to argue they owned Italy outright. Probably. Wouldn't hold up in any kind of court, especially not Italian ones, but it might amused his financial tutor for a moment.
His Lady would not be happy to hear the same. Even if the mistake was understandable.
Contrary to his expectations, she heaved a massive thankful sigh on her end of the phone line instead. "So I can tell Tyr to fuck off and just buy the other half of the mountain, right? He's speaking like he'd rent the damn land from me instead, and I'm not having a bunch of unknown assholes living out of my back yard when I've got impressionable idiot kids living with me."
Well… "…you have the only serviceable beachfront access to the sea between your property and the edge of Moneglia and Riva Levante, the next closest coastal town."
"I have a beach?"
"It's more a gravel-strewn stretch of sea-level land where they dumped the waste rock from boring out the car tunnel that goes under your castle's grounds, Dama. And not much of that, in the end." Amended the Lackey fairly, unsure of the actual details other than there weren't a lot of open area on the cost of the mountain in question. He'd seen it scoping out properties, but he had seen a lot of properties in a short amount of time. "Speaking of, there's also on-going plans to drill a train line from Genoa to Florence through the mountains that should be almost to you? It'll… go straight on through a few meters behind the castle's bluff."
"So long as it's no going directly under us, I don't care." Dismissed the rather exasperated sounding thief on the far end of the line. "It's up to you if you want to accept the Sword Emperor's offer, whatever it ends up being. Did you send the money to cover those adverts?"
"Maximillian should receive the cheques either today or tomorrow, but yes."
"And we have an account to pay wages to part-time workers, right?"
"…day-shift, not part-time, Dama."
"Whatever. Anything else you can think of?"
"Your sister should be nearly there?" Besides that, Bjǫrn couldn't really think of much else.
He had a nice bonus from that teacup-Sky contract, most of which went into padding out the deficit from the Poseidon stock tanking as it had. Even more as he could do that one weird contract, the info-brokers were keen on renting time to look through the inventory books.
Which, and Viper would be proud, he was charging simply ludicrous fees for… depending on how much they had previously annoyed the hell out of him. Which was most of them.
Aside his work, she actually had income. When doing nothing but spending it.
"…Bjǫrn, why is my sister coming here?"
"Uh, she has vacation time?" Why was she asking him?
It was her sister!
Admittedly, he lived with Tatiana more than she did. Currently. Although it wasn't like the nurse kept him appraised about much aside medical checkup reminders and some weird questions about Lightning-natures.
"Fuck." Blinking, because he could've sworn she muttered something about 'needing a bigger bed', he peeled the receiver away from his ear and slowly hung up when the dial tone became somewhat annoying.
…he didn't want to know.
The Lackey eyed the mess he had just made of his previously barely-organized desk to double check the property records, the mess which had dripped onto the floor like any self-respecting mess would, and sighed tiredly.
He hadn't written down the figures he had been checking, so now he had to start over again…
(ooo000ooo)
(Wednesday the 13th of May, 1970 continued. De Mort Castle, Moneglia, Province of Genoa, Liguria, Italian Republic.)
Glancing irritably at the phone she just hung up, Sonya then glanced at the simple business card still in her hand. It was embossed with a raised clam shell and simply held a number in black along the bottom, Vongola headquarters' number since Tyr apparently didn't have Lady Fiorella's extension.
She really didn't feel like calling more people, and there was the whole 'Tatiana was coming' issue.
It was about two weeks until Shamal got out of school for summer, equally it should only be two weeks before her sister went back to Moscow to help their mother out with the schoolhouse. Well… two and a half weeks to go…
…no, she wasn't obsessing. Who asked?
Snorting at her own thoughts, because she was perfectly aware she was and lying to herself did nothing for anything, the thief tucked the almost blank cardstock into the back pocket of her jeans and went to find which of the two offices Maximillian picked to occupy.
The main phone line for the castle was on the ground floor, directly across from the massive dining hall. Across the hall in fact, in a lounge affair with a decent view of a whole lot of construction. Normally it would've been the far castle gates and the front lawn, but she was having some buildings put in so the sight was a touch ruined.
Which, she needed a very damn good gardener. Some topiary would section off a few personal yards from the 'main' castle ground. Maybe a fountain or something, if the view ended up being boring once a good half of it was cut off.
Maybe she should go wander around the mountainside. Just simply for something to do every day that wasn't violating someone else's privacy or wandering a comune she was kind of forced to protect.
…but she couldn't do that until after hiring new people to handle more skilled work needed around the castle, and after she did that she'd not want to leave them unsupervised while around her various minions and her minion's people.
Unless Tatiana wanted to chip in a little help. Faking like she would leave for a week or so would let her sister the opportunity to see how things would settle and work without the boss around.
"Lovely bossy Dragoness?" Cesare inquired from the kitchen, half leaning out of it with a politely inquiring expression, which made her realize she had slowed to a stop while in thought. "Did you need something?"
Sonya eyed him critically, and by the smirk that was slowly stealing across his face he knew full well he was skirting something personal. "…I need to ask Maximillian to find me a bigger bed."
"…oh really?"
"My sister is visiting soon."
"…oh. Really?" Yeah, she could hear a lot of Renato in that question. The hitman would've reacted exactly the same way.
This time she could actually sort of understand why, mainly because Fong questioned the same subject when she was playing hostage for him and his Triad. "You realize that Larion's family all shared the same bed before moving down here, right? If Usov had siblings, he would've been sharing with them as well."
"Well, that's markedly less interesting than I thought it would be." Amended the killer chef with a disappointed sigh, fetching up against the open doorway in hope for a longer conversation. "Can I ask why, or is that cultural?"
"No, it just gets fucking cold in Moscow for half the year. It's also expensive to heat larger spaces during the winter, and a waste if you're not using it. Easier to huddle up than pay for extra coal or firewood during the spring if it runs long." Even Lisa and Arseniy were really conservative about heating expenses, and they had a coal burner in the basement with ducts running under just about every floor to make it a touch easier on them.
Not to the point anyone had to crawl into their foster parents' bed for the warmth, because neither sister had been that brave way back when, but it could get nippy in midwinter. Mostly solved by a heap of quilted blankets on each bed… which occasionally doubled as the place Sonya hid jewels between heists sometimes.
"That, is entirely and depressingly practical." Sniffed the man, having the gall to pout at her.
"Very sorry." Tossed the thief over a shoulder as she finally continued on her way, earning a bark of laughter before the chef went back to whatever he intended for lunch.
Beyond the dining hall, and the kitchen that took up only a quarter of the total floor space on this side of the castle, there was a back-hall type affair. Sort of a sitting room slash conservatory area, which had bigger windows than the rest of the building until she had all the windows and the windowsills replaced.
Indoor garden thing, then?
Whatever, the more important part was the two backroom offices. One was Maximillian's, and the open door made which rather obvious.
Zinaida was out and about still, unsurprisingly as apparently only the spring months were fit to move honeybee hives around or in. She had reassured Sonya yesterday that she'd actually put in some help with the castle once everything was set at least until next year and the arrangement of proper hives for her bees, but if she wanted an early start to her honey supply she had only days left to get it all done in.
Which was a nice thought, but they hadn't really needed Usov's mother for anything majorly important. If the mead ended up being locally sold if it proved popular enough, or horded just because the Storm-Cloud really liked mead, was immaterial as long as the older woman was doing something productive.
Usov was sitting on a well-padded split length of crate propped up on what could entirely be stolen cinder blocks, reading a book she distinctly recognized as something she read around his age.
…hadn't that book been Lisa's?
Whoops.
"Maximillian, I need a bigger bed."
The man in question, not as thin as Verde or Scruffy but certainly not as well-built as Hawk and Adrik, looked up and scrutinized her only for a second. Probably remembering it was her money in the end, he just jolted down the order to give to Afanasii when he got back. "Anything else?"
"You might as well look into filling out the rest of the rooms with beds, there's no telling how many guests we might want to accommodate shortly," none if she had her way, "or visiting family and friends. My sister will be here soon, and it's either we sleep in the same room or we'd still need to pick up a new bed for her. My current one can be moved up to an empty room just in case, if no one needs it."
Usov looked up from the fiction book in his lap. "Can I have it?"
"…I suppose, if your parents don't need it." Allowed the thief after a moment. "Your current room will likely turn into guest rooms later on, so that would cut short some later shuffling of furniture."
"Usov, don't be greedy." Maximillian chastised, a frown being aimed at the shameless Mist blinking innocently back at him.
"She said if you don't need it, and they're getting really far with building the homes out there." Insisted his son simply, as if that had any bearing on his motives. "And, if I get my curiosity sated before we move out there, I won't try to buy one myself if it's too big."
The older man hesitantly glanced at her, and after a moment she kind of got the idea he was asking for either permission or something more related to the only other thing he knew she did with other Flame users.
"I'm forced to assume the more life-experience a Mist has, the better they are in applying their skills." She offered after a long moment of thought, enabled by the rapid nodding that almost certainly guaranteed it was a false assumption from the only Mist in the room. "Or applying their skills on other Flame users well aware of their abilities, making their Constructions more match with expected reality and less likely to be recognized for the fake image it may be."
Usov stopped nodding with his head tipped back, looking seriously contemplative in a way that made the hair on the back of her neck stand straight up. His father didn't really look all that comforted, but the possibility it would only help his son made him less against the suggestion on principle.
Time to bail out before the brat asked her to start testing some assumptions.
Scruffy should, and probably would, be delighted to help a former student develop his skills more. If not the Sun, then Verde would likely be highly interested experimenting with a Flame type he didn't have.
Either way, she was not taking that fall no matter how bored she was waiting out the building of proper habitation and moving woes.
Tatiana would be good for that, depending on the excuse she was giving for not at least calling ahead first.
(Thursday the 14th of May, 1970. De Mort Castle, Moneglia, Province of Genoa, Liguria, Italian Republic.)
"Nya!" Skipping around the weird new guy she didn't know, Tatiana quite literally threw herself on her baby sister's tender mercies… and her feet. "My ex got out on good behavior, help hide me?"
Sonya thought about it, ignoring her big sister sitting at her feet on her painfully hard marble stone floor.
"He almost caught me in Mafia Land, but I got to nope on out of there because Lisa is awesome and is letting me trade off with Avdotya about half a month early." Wrapping her arms around the blonde's thighs, the nurse fluttered her lashes up at her and just barely remembered not to set her chin on Sonya's stomach. "And I can also get a head-start on any medical checkups your various little gremlins need if you let me stay."
"Fine." Relented the Storm-Cloud with a sigh. "A call would've been nice, and not learning from my Lackey you were about here."
She winced, accepting the hand to pull her up to her feet and off her complaining knees. "Yeah, that kind of did occur to me… but do you know how rare it is for me to have any small coins in either my purse or pockets? And the phones out here are all pay ones, I only just had enough to call a taxi because I sure as fuck didn't know what train line to take."
She had about three one-cent euro coins left, and that was after turning out just about every pocket for change or money in a denomination Italy used and paying to call a taxi.
Speaking of… "Ah… you wouldn't happen to have a few lira bills here, would you? I kind of left the taxi guy unpaid to run up here."
When her baby sister opted to just stare at her blankly, the redhead huffed. "I'll pay you back in rubles, but I've got nothing he'll accept. Not even euros. I just wanted the hell out of there and I didn't want to talk to Nicolai."
"…why?"
Tatiana took a not-so-random stab in the dark, because she didn't think Sonya was questioning if she asked the taxi driver if he'd take rubles. "I know what he'll say, but he's not Arseniy and I'm not Lisa. Yeah, it might be the usual series of events for most the thief-couples who got split because of jail time back in Moscow, but I kind of want to heal."
She blinked at her a few times but did slowly start going down the right-hand hallway that went deeper than it appeared the left went. "Doesn't the airport have currency exchange branches?"
"I never bothered to learn to read Italian, little sis. I can't read English either, and my German reading skills are abysmal. There might've been, but you're safer and won't rip me off for not knowing the exchange rates." As her little sister merely gave an absent hum while leading the way into her very cool home, in both meanings of the word, she opted to actually take in the surroundings.
Hand painted fresco walls, sprawling amounts of marble, wrought iron chandeliers, and a minimum of furniture that did reveal how long someone had been in residence so far.
…she was kind of jealous. Just a little bit.
She'd never have enough capital to buy something like this castle. Especially not one perched on a moderately spacious hill overlooking a resort town and the sea. Well… not until she became a surgeon, and probably not even then would she have the money for this kind of place.
However, this was old ground for her. Tatiana had spent a good portion of her childhood being jealous and petty about her little foster sister's situation, missing the whole point of her good fortune in being Sonya's older sister entirely by a good margin.
Or, more topically, as long as her baby sister owned this place it was entirely possible she could vacation here and not have to get involved with paying for it or maintenance woes.
…as long as she asked first. Might be a good idea to remember that detail.
"Tats, Cesare. Cesare, Tatiana." Breezily introduced said baby sister to the guy with the pot of something interestingly tasty looking, then gesturing somewhat absently to the green-haired lady peering at the two of them from what looked to be a kitchen about the size of the common room in their apartment back in Mafia Land. "And Mrs. Tolmachyova, Larion's mom, this is my older sister."
"Hi." She greeted obediently, pausing mid-step instead of continuing to follow her sister. "When's the last time either of you had a checkup?"
There was a moment of hesitation on both parties' end, and Sonya continued on unheedingly to likely fetch the money she asked for, before the guy called simply 'Cesare' set down what looked to be a bit of very tomato-heavy vegetable soup for lunch on a side-table. "Is there a reason you ask?"
"Professional nurse, Nya's also letting me stay here if I do all of them that are needed." She explained with a roll of a wrist.
"Ah… well," hemmed and hawed the other new guy she hadn't met before, "I don't believe I require one…"
"Everyone needs one, at least once per year." Tatiana countered without humor, crossing her arms under her generous chest and pinning the man with an unimpressed look. "Free of charge, no record if you don't want one, just simply a quick overview to catch anything developing or make a baseline to compare later checkups against."
"For all of us?" Asked Larion's mom, which stood to reason she'd want to continue any medical record her son had to keep him healthy well into his young-adult stage of life.
"Yep." She agreed brightly, which didn't change the very professional 'disapproval' look she was nailing the other cook of her sister's with.
Which was exactly what Sonya came back to, counting out a couple ten thousand lira bills in one hand and barely looking up long enough to understand the situation. "Tats, Cesare's one of Renato's… acquaintances."
"I got tall, dark, and snarky to get one himself. You will not be as much of a challenge." Admittedly Doctor Kappel helped massively in his dour German way, but she could match that with equal annoyingness if need be.
Cesare blinked at her, the slightly-amused if stubborn look on his face falling off slightly before the man brightened himself with something approaching unholy glee. "Good Lord, do you really call him that?"
"To his face." Tatiana agreed equally as brightly and with a smirk. "I'm a Mafia nurse, if that's what you're worried about."
"You wouldn't happen to be staying a while, would you?" Inquired the man leadingly, which probably outed him as a Mafioso and another in their general line of work as well.
"Only for a month and a half." Swapping a large wad of ruble bills for the money her sister held out for her, if Sonya returned any extra or complained it didn't cover it would informed her exactly how irritable she was feeling, the nurse bounced off for the 'main' doors and to pay the taxi driver so she could get her luggage.
(ooo000ooo)
(Thursday the 14th of May, 1970 continued. Bagni Jolanda, Moneglia, Province of Genoa, Liguria, Italian Republic.)
"You might want to think about a ground-floor aid station. Or maybe a second floor one?" Wondered Tatiana aloud, adjusting the straps to her bikini and settling happily into the lounge-chairs supplied by the little beach-club business.
"…why?" Inquired Sonya slowly. "I put the kit Lisa gave me under the kitchen sink… well, one of them."
Then again, the nurse might have a point. Especially with the volume of people she had.
"No, no. That's good. Better than good, that's being prepared. There's a lot of sharp instruments in the kitchen, so having something there on-site just in case is excellent, and there's a backdoor there too. But… you're thinking about groundskeepers, right? Then there's normal childhood scrapes, so something near the front door might be an idea, and falling down the stairs when moving heavy loads, so something on each floor might be also an idea…"
She blinked at her blankly.
Tatiana laughed a bit sheepishly in response. "I know, I know. You do have to remember a number of people aren't trained in any discipline, or even do more than walk for exercise. But then again, the whole point of emergency medical kits isn't to solve whatever ill… it's to prepare against them. Hopefully, they'll never be used. But then again, if they're needed not having them will suck."
"…how about, in exchange for a visit for two weeks every summer, you handle that?" Decided the Storm-Cloud irritably, scuffing a heel into the warm sand by her lounge chair more or less absently to scratch an itch.
"Really?"
The less she had to remember the better off everyone else would be in the end. "You'd find or invent a reason to come over anyways, wouldn't you?"
"Totally. Have you seen this beach?" Agreed her sister without an ounce of shame. "But then again, you don't mind."
Surprisingly enough, she didn't.
Tatiana was familiar and known, and in a household mainly full of people she only recently met or didn't really care much for that was somewhat relieving. Besides, the older woman's presence made things kind of more like she was wasting time for Bjǫrn to send her the start of another contract spree rather than simply aimlessly wasting time for no reason.
Okay, there was a reason. Didn't make it feel more productive than it was, supervisory shit she didn't want to do and wouldn't have the time for it either. It was the whole point she didn't mind Larion jumping ship on her, his mom could be the head of household without her and without having to worry someone would try anything funny with the other criminal types living with her.
Her sister offered a crooked grin for her, stretching out to get every exposed inch of her into the sun as she physically could. "I know it feels weird, and a bit like trying to fit yourself into place when your puzzle pieces don't fit. But it's only because it's new, and that'll wear off."
"…did I leave you alone when you would've rather I be nearby?"
"Mmm… don't think about it like that." Dismissed the sunbathing Sun, batting a hand at her. "You and I don't really have the same reactions to things like this. Yes, I just know what you feel because I've been there before. But I dealt with it by… ah, just redecorating. I made it my own, superficially, painting my walls and shoving in my own furniture and all those knickknacks of mine. You, on the other hand, will likely require something more personal and less easy to do to feel fully at home."
Sonya stared into the sky over the sea, contemplating the advice.
"…if only because of course you'd need something more than I did." Snickered her sister, fishing out a pair of sunglasses to do the same without risking eyestrain. "Troublesome little sister."
"Says the one running from her ex to said little sister." Refuted the Storm-Cloud dryly.
"You might have a point, might. I'm ignoring it."
"Duly noted."
Flexing her toes, and watching the sea roll in and out again, occupied the younger sister until the older one thought up of something to ask some time later. Around the time she flipped over, to ensure her back got some color too.
"Hey, do you mind if I call Ganauche and tell him I'm in the country?"
"Why the fuck would I care?"
Tatiana shifted the massive length of her blood-red hair to hang over the shoulder that wouldn't block her view of her little sister, having opted to lay her lounge chair flat instead of leaving it only inclined like Sonya's originally started out as. "Because then he might come here. I know he probably knows I left Mafia Land, the CEDEF actually warned me my ex was on his way to the hospital and I wouldn't put it passed anyone with moderate intelligence to have them also call him with where I was going and why I abruptly left…"
"…so, is there a reason you're dating Ganauche the Defective or should I…?"
"He's not defective… or at least it's not his fault." The nurse started out with a strident tone, only to end up muttering the last into her forearm. "And no, it was my idea so him trying to fulfil his end isn't stalker-creepy."
Sonya pulled the lounge chair's support pin, dropping flat to join her sister in a way that would let them keep their conversation just between them with help of the unceasing crash of waves behind them and the general noise level a well-occupied public venue could generate. "What do you mean by that?"
The older Russian didn't immediately launch into an explanation, which caught and held fast the blonde's attention while she ordered her thoughts.
"His, Galina's, and even Verde's type are… they have a predisposition to be over-thinkers. You don't really expect Ganauche to be one, I know. But they all are a little too literal." The medically inclined Sun glanced over with a worried wrinkle in her forehead, not even reacting to the skeptical expression aimed at her. "Remember how Bjǫrn ended up with you? All the motivation he had basically boiled down to 'impress her with dedication, then I'll live better'. And he's Classical."
"…fuck." That would explain a few things about her Lackey, like how startled he could get when jolted out of his comfortable ruts. Going from a message runner, to her message runner, to her Lackey, into her financial advisor… he'd grown out of getting spooked bit by bit.
She had attributed that to growing either into an adult or more confident as her busywork man, and while both could entirely contribute it didn't necessarily mean the Lightning-Storm had no other contributing reasons to that lack of reaction as time went on.
…Bjǫrn had almost thrown up his stomach lining the first time they got stopped by the local police. The second time, in France with the PI, he'd barely been phased at all. That was either a phenomenally short adjustment period, Viper's fault, or something central to the teenager himself.
"They find one 'main' trait or use for their lives and dedicate themselves to that. Entirely. Every next step, every short-term goal, is all to that 'ultimate' goal. The problem is with their rapid learning curves or retention rates they pick it way too early. Kind of like you did, without the ability to shift what kind of thing you went after. They pick something, or get groomed for it, and then if they don't get it their whole lives fall apart…"
'Groomed' for a life's purpose?
"Guanche was repeatedly assured he'd be… well, what he is growing up." Tatiana offered after a moment of silence, a bitter smirk twisting her lips. "Him, and about the twenty other candidates Nono Vongola had for his type. He got it, sure… but what happened to the other guys?"
Sonya frowned at her sister, utterly confused as to why they would care about four handfuls of Italian Lightning Guardian candidates.
Aside her being the former principal of a Flame-orientated school back in Moscow.
…and she would be the 'proper' chain of communication to get new discoveries back there, if they were to ignore the fact Tatiana was as much Lisa's daughter as she was and could damn well call their mom herself.
"Did you tell Galina?"
"Well, not yet. That one's going to need… a lot of liquor and maybe a whole tub of chocolate ice-cream to help." Propping her head up on an upraised palm, the Sun gave her a small smile. "That's ancient history, though. We'll get to it when she gets here, and I noticed you didn't answer my original question."
"As we're currently sharing a bed, I'd rather he remain in the village for any visits." Allowed the younger sister slowly. "I won't strip him to bare skin if he visits here. But he better be on his best behavior."
"Thanks, Nya."
"I appreciate you asked first."
Tatiana snorted lightly. "It's your home, I'm just visiting. Of course I'd ask first."
(Friday the 15th of May, 1970. De Mort Castle, Moneglia, Province of Genoa, Liguria, Italian Republic.)
A double delivery of both Peter's jewel-cutting and glassblowing equipment suddenly earned him the undivided attention of one very bored Lightning. They both bowed out of the continued book-sorting to deal with or investigate the checked delivery, much to Hawk's ire.
Verde spent an entire fifteen minutes inspecting the equipment for damage for him while Scruffy was putting all the gem-cutting tools into his bedroom, because it was really just a table-mounted grindstone with various attachments and grits available for polishing aside the chisel and small hammer for pairing down the rough edges, before assisting him with finding a suitable place outside to set up the glassblower's forge.
Of course, the man didn't do it silently.
For every question Scruffy answered while the two of them wandered the castle grounds, three were posed in rapid-fire.
No they didn't know if cut, clarity, or component elements had any effect on which Flame user could use what stones. It was half of why he had the equipment ordered, yes. The glassblowing forge and equipment wasn't for making fakes, but rather the manufacture of gemstones they could control the quality for either further testing or without the incredibly expensive price tag.
Then after ruling out the front courtyard and not just for the construction efforts no, he didn't know the chemical compositions of most gem-quality stones but he did need to research it now. Cuts and specific facet gems were the next to be empirically tested, although he didn't know who would be testing it now they were a bit removed from a mafia-sponsored academy for Flame users. He wasn't sure if Sonya would appreciate Verde having a look at his notes just yet, which was a moot point as the information wasn't here yet.
Which also lead into how he figured out it was possible to manufacture jewels, an interesting discussion about the origin of the manufacture of jewelry quality glassy stones back in the 1800s, and the only recipe he knew of which was for the undesirable and explosive sapphires. While they aimlessly wandered around the castle's ground floor to see if there would be an ideal space not directly under a window or something.
Finally the scientist broached the topic of the Moscow School, and the Sun gave the man a reproachful look instead of answer those questions.
The Lightning blinked slowly, then blinked again while tilting his head so the lenses of his glasses flashed in the sunlight, and obligingly changed the subject. "Where did you learn to cut gemstones?"
…not much better of a topic, really.
"A bit from my former life, a bit from being the unwilling guest of an illegal diamond cartel, and I'd really rather not talk about that either." Peter informed the man with a grimace, as he stepped out from under the small tunnel that went under the covered walkway connecting the castle to the six-car garage as well. "I think we should just ask Sonya for space in her garage."
"Not necessarily." He advised, pushing the round-frame glasses to sit higher on his nose. "You have a skill I find to be interesting, I will trade you some space in my laboratories for instruction in mineral crystal manufacturing. I will even throw in my old geology notes from my formal instruction in the field, and the chemical breakdowns of such glassy stones as need be."
"…there's chemical compositions for jewels?"
"Everything has chemical compositions."
…well, fair enough then. Scruffy didn't really put a whole lot of thought into it, before something fairly major occurred to him. "You're going to need Sonya's permission to work on the gem-manufacturing with me, I think. I'm going to mainly, at first, focus on the types we do know will work for certain Flame types in hopes of narrowing down what enables that."
"Is there a list?" Inquired Verde almost tonelessly, which didn't work to conceal his interest in this topic. "If so, I might be able to save you some hours of manual labor and false-theories using the chemical breakdowns I studied once."
"Still, and again, you're going to have to sound that out with Sonya." Not to completely pass the man around or anything, but he didn't know what intents their boss had for the man. "If she says yes, then I'd really appreciate some help."
The other man's already green eyes gleamed with not-entirely-natural light, before the Frenchman immediately stalked off on him aiming for one of the backdoors to the castle.
Peter glanced around, which didn't really give him much view of anything too perfect to set up a personal-sized and side-opened crucible for glass blowing. All he could see was part of the retaining walls that prevented soil erosion under the walkway above, some parts of the lower back yard of the castle, and a bit of a stone wall that encircled the grounds.
At the very least, the conversation netted him another avenue of investigation before he could set up the equipment. If Verde could get himself included in the study, then an actually enclosed lab would prevent all the fears of some child getting into the forge without enough care for any molten glass being heated or cooled down.
Which would nicely solve this hunt for space and might get him someone other than Galina to talk to about further ideas he might have. The Lightning woman tried, but he knew she didn't honestly understand a lot of what he blurted out to her.
(ooo000ooo)
(Friday the 15th of May, 1970. De Mort Castle, Moneglia, Province of Genoa, Liguria, Italian Republic.)
"How is your research efforts into French, or even Italian, views on Dying Will Flames going?" Sonya asked instead of answer Verde's apparently burning question.
"I utilized Adrik as an intermediate and have the compilation of northern French views waiting for your review. I have been, until this point, too removed to perform the same information gathering for northern Italian or southern French views of the topic. With Adrik's current condition and responsibilities, such can wait until a healthier individual is available to navigate the finer points of the investigation or a Flame-enabled member of the local criminal syndicates is available to answer inquiries."
That was… actually way more than she expected. The man could apparently multi-task with the best of them. "Alright. I'll take a look, and we'll call your end of the grant-thing a third of the way done. Being the case, I'll grant you conditional access to what Peter's doing. As long as he wants the help."
The Lightning gave her a sharp nod, turning on a heel to stalk off and hopefully find his notes to give her.
She could use something new to read.
Afanasii was sort of getting into the habit of always bringing her back at least one new book every day, apparently there was a second-hand bookstore in the comune which helped him a fair bit in that regard. The man's first few bids of romance novels were regarded probably a touch too skeptically for the minor favor he didn't have to do for her, but she had a distaste for them ever since Tatiana bought her a dime-store novella that actually had the most unrealistic sex-scene she had ever read.
The phrase 'he tasted of chocolate and leather' still made her shudder to recall.
While chocolate was good… leather didn't have a distinctive taste. It was either the chemicals it had been treated with or whatever nasty shit it had brushed up against, rather than anything aside a texture. She'd held enough leather-reinforced gloves in her teeth to fumble with her lock picks to know.
…and she cleaned the fuck out of her gloves when and if she knew there'd be difficult locks in her way expressly in hopes to avoid exactly that happening.
Maybe it should've been evoking the scent of warm leather?
That was almost equally as distasteful, given Cherep's favorite kind of jacket and his ever-present motorcycle boots. Which he had been probably wearing for a week straight by the time they left Woodstock and smelled like it.
Sonya shuddered with disgust, caught Tatiana's interested look over the top of her few Italian romance novels she was using to learn to read the language, and stuck her tongue out at her sister. "Should I get an x-ray machine?"
"Kind of impractical, even if I'd like one of Adrik's lungs right now." Mused the Sun, getting back on track instead of asking what had gone through her little sister's mind for that reaction. "I mean, aside splints and sterilized bandages… the best you should have on hand is painkillers and anti-allergy medication. A lot of people are allergic to bee stings… with a couple IVs of saline solution, for alarming amounts of blood loss, and that is probably the best you can get away with without earning a couple questions from the authorities. And even that would earn a raised eyebrow without background detail."
"The stupidly overstocked med-kid Lisa gave me is outright illegal, given how much morphine is in there." Pointed out the Storm-Cloud practically. "As long as I'm not risking more than a fee for being in possession of controlled substances, I don't see a reason to go lightly if there is a possibility it might be useful."
"The kit's Russian, and do you want to bet on if anyone from the Soviet Union would confirm what is in standard home emergency medical kits to someone capitalist like a dignitary from Italy?" The redhead merely shrugged at her, frowning prettily at the book in her hands out of confusion rather than irritation. "Do I really have to write down emergency guidelines? Can't I just tell you and you write it in the native languages?"
Tossing the book to the side of the couch she wasn't sitting on, lightly enough that although she glared at her there wasn't any damage to get huffy about, Tatiana stole a pad of paper from out from under Sonya's hands.
Without waiting for the answer to that.
She sighed, giving up on maybe teaching her sister to read Italian. Even if she really should know how, or the book being one of those romance novels she might be interested in more than her, or for something moderately interesting to do.
Shamal only had two more weeks of school, and maybe there'd be another graduation thing so she could go get him a few days early.
…she should call Bjǫrn again, to see if there was anything sent there for her about said possible graduation event. Otherwise Renato would have to tell her, whenever he got back form whatever it was he was doing.
Which was likely setting up a suitable 'death', so she immediately changed her mental track onto something else.
Anything else.
Like… Shamal. She should get the kid some basic furniture until they could customize his room as the kid wanted. Well, by 'her' she really meant Afanasii. Which also included whatever she was going to need for puppies, dog training manuals or the tools to keep them fed and well groomed.
Indoor or outdoor dogs?
Sonya glanced around, over Tatiana's head, at the developing second-floor sitting room. There was an old couch that apparently had been here when Bjǫrn stayed to be basically a gate-opener for the construction crews. It was old as fuck, however.
She would not care if a pair of young dogs chewed on the furniture. As long as they were being put to some use, they could chew on it all they wanted. Just the one or two, more than that and she might find it more annoying than anything.
That couch needed replacement as it was, there was only a small amount of still-building linens to cover all the beds and serve as towels as needed. Which was for someone else, who probably already knew and couldn't find an acceptable replacement or more linens. Maybe she should turn that mirror room in her bedroom into a sewing closet or something… although she didn't find sewing a relaxing hobby, she could get on making some of the things they still needed herself.
Maybe she should go request some yarn and knitting needles too.
The suggestion of decorating with her own knickknacks kind of seemed something she was interested in, but just her own books didn't seem to be cutting it. Her library was slowly filling out, and she really needed to give Hawk something else to do before he decided to set it all on fire in spite of any revenge she might dish out, but even the few hallway bookcases slowly losing whatever shelf-space they could didn't make it feel anything other than just a building to her.
If she knitted her own blankets or something, to decorate with, perhaps it'd feel more her own home.
It wasn't like she had anything better to do with her time.
Tatiana suddenly sprawled out over what had to be an incredibly unfortunately placed couch arm just to lay her head and a massive length of her unbraided hair on Sonya's shoulder. "It'll just take time, Nya. Stop stressing out about it, you'll get there. You have more than enough time to spend, especially with bambino's summer vacation almost here."
"I'd like to no longer be aimless." When was the last time she had nothing to do?
Not just nothing important, but absolutely nothing to do but wait?
…oh yeah, the Triad hostage thing with Fong.
She definitely didn't want spending time 'at home' to be equated with that disaster of a contract's worst parts. The simply sitting around part.
"Hey, wait, where are you going?" Squawked her sister in alarm when Sonya very nearly knocked her to the floor instead of remain sitting there.
"I'm going to go find a fabric shop." Pausing just long enough to right Tatiana, because the knocking over thing was probably her fault entirely, she padded out of the mid-way sitting room on the second floor positioned between the six other bedrooms on this floor.
One of them had to be for Shamal, but she could entirely appropriate one into a place to stick fabrics or yarn for her knitting/sewing hobby. Once Verde moved out of that corner room, it would have more than enough light to help her see stitches. Bonus, if Shamal took the connected room across the bathroom then the kid would have a private bath of his own.
The Lightning might still be in residence here when the brat moved in with her, until then she could use that room with the hidden door into her bathroom to work in.
"…ooh, shopping. Wait for me!"
"Did I tell you I can sew?" Wondered the younger sister as her elder caught up with her.
"When did you pick that up? Where?"
…because Crina was a bit of a bitch and used it to test her tolerance for both the work involved in being part of a traveling circus and for being ordered around. The Storm-Cloud didn't feel like bringing the old dead bat into things, so instead she started with and kept to the less painful events from her two years with the Großes Volksfest as they went down the central flanking staircases.
(Saturday the 16th of May, 1970. De Mort Castle, Moneglia, Province of Genoa, Liguria, Italian Republic.)
A delighted yell of 'Ganauche' was the only warning he got.
Tatiana didn't just 'basically' jump him, she hit him going full speed and wrapped both arms and legs around him to boot. The Lightning Guardian very narrowly avoided getting knocked off his feet, and only because he fell backwards against the armored car instead of go ass over heels all the way down to the drive.
If she did this kind of thing often, then it was a good thing she was a nurse. Even better that she was a Sun Flame healer in her own right.
Drawing back just to beam at him, the redhead glanced to the two women he agreed to 'escort' out here. "Well, that didn't take you long at all."
Aww… no kiss?
"My," observed the still-bitchy as hell Nilda Superbi rather tartly, eyeing the new woman with a measure of wariness for jumping a Mafioso without care to the unintroduced unknowns nearby, "that was quite an entrance."
"Mrs. Silvery-White, my sister Tatiana Primakova." Introduced a vaguely annoyed looking Sonya Bazanova flatly, also descending the steps but less hurriedly than the Sun. There was also a very pointed show of hefting a gold ax on a shoulder while she did so, but he was ignoring it out of respect to his still very bruised pride. "Lady Vongola, Fiorella, my older sister. Tats, the wife of Timoteo Vongola. The lady that sent you those silver heels."
Then the lithe blonde spent two seconds just looking at the somewhat stiff acting wife of his Sky, making a kind of dissatisfied but equally sympathetic sounding noise.
"Right, I know that look. You might want to follow me." The Soviet Storm-Cloud gave him a dismissive kind of glance, before taking Fiorella's arm to gently lead the lady away from them and the driver trying to figure out where he should park the car. "Tats, either debauch Ganauche or get off him. Then go tell Cesare to make a few local 'comfort' foods for dinner."
Tatiana snorted at her little sister ordering her about, turning back to give him a wry grin while very pointedly not moving off him. "Sorry, but Nya's feeling out of sorts and I never realized exactly how hard it is to keep up with disgruntled Clouds. I'm fucking tired."
"It's not a problem." Ganauche found his tongue in time to insist, very truthfully, finally hoisting her up into a position he could hold her in and walk. Sort of, it was more of a shuffle. "She won't take it easy on you because you're her sister?"
"Eh, the first day was fairly tame. We went to the beach and all, after I got here. But yesterday?" She sighed, sliding down him to stand on her own feet again just before he got them to the front stoop of her sister's castle. "We started trying to plan something out, medical stations for any accidents, you know? Then… something got into her. She spent the entire day just wandering the local town's streets and stalking out some fabric stores, half of it wasn't even shopping. Just watching, finding new vantage points to do said haunting around in, and then investigating the people on their day-to-day errands."
Not entirely what he asked, and frankly he was glad she didn't take him seriously when it wasn't remotely like that, but informative. For something.
Ganauche didn't know what Visconti would make of it and was of two minds about reporting anything to the Cloud Guardian when he checked in later tomorrow. Especially if it would earn them more ire from this particular Cloud.
The nurse gave him a full-blown pout, before her eyes slid to the side and she got a lot more serious. "She didn't even buy anything… and wow that Rain-woman is good. When did she stalk off?"
He glanced around himself distractedly but didn't expect to see a flash of silver anywhere as a rather wiry Russian gestured for the driver to move the car over to a lower building with a walkway connecting it to the castle. "She's Lady Fiorella's bodyguard, so probably to tail after your sister and her charge almost immediately when they walked off. Did you buy anything?"
"Of course I did, silly! Ooh, some of it's really good, too." She whirled around, smacking him with a long length of blood-red strands of her loose ponytail, then just whipped around again to face him instead of do anything. "I don't think Nya will appreciate you being invited to our room, but you can wait on the landing while I show it off."
'Our' room?
…bad idea to think about, Sinclair would likely punch him in the mouth again if he ever caught on to his wondering how that worked out.
"Your sister asked you tell a 'Cesare' to make-"
"Right!" With a grin that told him that she had forgotten, and appreciated the reminder, Tatiana tugged him by the hand into the surprisingly not-gothic or gloomy looking castle. "Kitchens first."
…why did Tyr call this 'Death' Castle, then?
It was outright cheerful. Almost disgustingly so for the lair of a temperamental Cloud, and also jarringly busy with construction efforts. The master assassin could not have missed that, nor a 'out of sorts' mistress of the property.
Maybe it had to do with some French-related reasoning, given which language was used to title it.
(ooo000ooo)
(Saturday the 16th of May, 1970 continued. De Mort Castle, Moneglia, Province of Genoa, Liguria, Italian Republic.)
Sonya guided Fiorella to the back courtyard of her castle, then felled a moderately sized almond tree with almost an absent swing of her still present ax. Stepping backwards, she offered the wife of Nono Vongola the weapon hilt-first. "Go wild."
The married woman and mother of three children glanced at the impractically gilt-metal weapon, at the tree that crashed to the ground with a rather ear-spitting racket, then delicately accepted the Cloud's weapon and focused on the felled tree with some disturbing intensity.
Nilda blinked at her charge's back, watching rather bemusedly as she took the opportunity to vent with gusto. "…how did you know to do this?"
Instead of immediately explain, the thief now standing next to her simply dug around her pockets for a pack of cigarettes and offered her one. They both waited out Fiorella's single-minded intensity to chop the most wood any one woman could realistically do with civilian limits in an hour, after the Storm-Cloud very exasperatedly taught her a key elemental fact about what having Dying Will Flames meant for starting fires.
It took three hours, for the older Italian woman to exhaust herself chopping wood and for Sonya to start speaking.
"I had the same look in my eye about from age five to about… eight. Then again about a year ago, but the reflection at that point… well, it was a little tainted by my Will." Puffing hard one last time on the third cigarette since they came out here, she stubbed it out in the grass before pocketing the filter end. "I know what it is, but aside this part I'm guessing. I swallowed it instead, myself. Or tried, anyways. Needless to say, don't do that."
Breathing hard, and a little unsteady on her feet, the wife of Don Vongola put slightly more emphasis on her last swing of the improbable ax to lodge it into the part of the trunk she hadn't gotten to yet. It promptly shattered the moment she turned her back to it, in wisps of lavender Flames which sort of explained how a gold-metal ax stayed in shape enough for an edge to be useful. "I apologize, Sonya. I didn't intend-I, I just wanted to welcome you to Italia not… not more of this."
"We needed firewood anyways… eventually." Interrupted the thief blandly before she could continue, jerking a thumb backwards to the backside of her castle. "I have a full bathroom to myself, well… myself and my sister. I don't think we'll care if you'd like a really long hot bath now."
Fiorella huffed a rather breathless and tired laugh, but then alarmingly she started to tear up as she picked a way to the flagstone path leading into the back-patio of the castle. "He lied to me for eight years, after I had three children with him, and every day of five years of marriage. What the fuck?"
"You should slap him across the face." She advised somewhat levelly, somehow inching backwards to the castle without lifting her bare feet or ripping the grass out by the roots. It was paired with an almost panicked look darted to the panels of glass making up the windows facing them. "Hey, Tats! You there somewhere?"
As the redhead obediently emerged from what seemed to be a kitchen door, the three of them somewhat made it to the fieldstone bracings a rather charming garden plot. That was where the civilian woman picked to stop even if the other two would end up leaving her there, just looking both exhausted and fairly miserable overall as she leaned against the thankfully stable looking stonework.
Nurse Primakova eyed the woman curiously but showed a lot of tact by not asking anything but for what reason her sister called for her.
She pointed at said miserable woman, which slightly ruined that non-comment's attempt to respect said woman's privacy. "Hug."
The Sun first huffed at her before moving to do as asked. "You know, Nya, you won't break out in hives if you hug someone."
"No, but I might just break them in half with an ill-timed sneeze. And there's a lot more pollen down here than I'm used to living with." Snarked back the younger Russian sister, with a roll of her eyes and defensively crossed arms to go with the whole petulant baby sister act. "I'm going to go run her a bath, take her up to the master's when she gets her breath back."
Nilda glanced from her charge, who had happily accepted the unknown woman's offered hug with abandon and was currently outright sobbing into the redhead's generous chest, to the blonde's retreating back.
She really wanted to know the rest of this, because if she got this upset she'd just kill the offender and call that it. Which, given who Fiorella was upset with, was not remotely a good idea and stopped her from doing something similar with just a knife and maybe vegetables. Figuring out how Sonya knew what this was, and all the parts she knew of for later identification and use, was a pressing concern.
…but that was an unknown. A nurse, admittedly… but a Mafia Land nurse.
Sonya's elder sister.
With unknown skills and her own thoughts about something as sensitive as marital-problems in Vongola's highest ranks.
Who seemed entirely alright with being used as a living pillow by a woman that couldn't be remotely familiar to her.
And the woman was either dating or 'seeing' Ganauche. Where was the damn Lightning Guardian?
She got her answer when the man wandered out of the same doors the nurse used, nibbling on some kind of dark bread slice. Upon seeing the situation, the Lightning Guardian paused a full moment.
An actual full moment, rather than the simple hitch she would've expected from a Lightning like him.
At least the man was still paying attention, even if he was distracted slightly with what his 'lady friend' was up to with his Boss' wife. Pointing at him then motioning for the Mafioso to stay put where he was, she twisted on a heel to go see what Sonya would tell her about how to prevent another of these rage-induced breakdowns.
…or how to identify and solve it in other forms, the best she knew how.
"Straight through the other set of doors, up the stairs, immediately take a left. All the way down the lounge-like landing is the door to the master's bedroom. The master's bath is through Sonya's bedroom."
Giving the slightly amused looking Primakova a nod to show she heard her, Nilda entered the other doors not clogged with one of Nono's Guardians.
It was a rather quiet place, almost more like a high-end library than a lived-in castle. There were a few bookcases lined against a few walls that helped with that impression, all that paper and stiff leather fouled the echoes the marble floors could throw off. That was all on the ground floor, she kind of wondered if that feature extended to the next.
At the very least she knew for a fact no one was walking near her, though that might not be a comforting thought. Depending on if there was someone waiting for her instead.
Following the directions given to her and trying to ignore the nerves trying to rise for basically invading a Cloud's privacy without permission like this whole farce of a visit ended up as, eventually had her knocking on a pair of doors with bright brass work handles.
It didn't exactly fit with the older and darker metals used elsewhere in the building.
Before she could follow that thought all the way through, she only got to new and likely including either a lock a thief trusted or one difficult enough to force open to alert the occupant with enough time to react to, the door opened.
There was a distant sound of running water, but the Rain was a hell of a lot more interested in the woman that did the opening of said doors. "Seriously, how did you know?"
Clouds were not what one thought of first when thinking of emotionally balanced creatures.
"I've been there." She simply repeated, not looking very willing to either invite her in or join the ex-hatchet woman on the second floor's elongated landing. "Of course, I had to beat the shit out of kids around my age for the stress relief… or put a burning hole into a city block. Why didn't you just give her something to stab?"
"I was a little worried she'd stab Nono." Her first instinct was right?
Nilda felt a bit weird, and really confused, hearing that. Almost like she had blown the whole thing out of proportion, which wasn't the case. Fiorella's state of mind was equally as much her concern as the woman's physical health, and it was obviously really poor right now. Enough to be concerning for anyone with two, or even one, eyes to see it.
"You are a Rain." Pointed out the Storm-Cloud when she heard that particular recent irritant of hers. "Maybe you're equally as obsessive over emotional or mental health as my sister is with physical."
"I have never-"
"Yeah, that's about right. Discord like being upset is pretty much Rain-bait, especially personal discord, and has the opportunity to make us obsessive if we remotely feel involved somehow." Interjected a brunette child wandering his way to the staircase, not remotely too bothered by the short look she threw him for entering the conversation without being invited.
"That is Larion the Rain. The former head of the Rain training section back in Moscow." Sonya introduced her with an absent wave. "Larion, Mrs. Silvery-White."
"Must you?"
"Yes."
Wait… former head of the Rains?
Turning to actually see the child, the disturbingly young boy, she got a fairly skeptical eyeballing back through the wooden railings back for the effort. "Why a child?"
"I killed the second one I got, and the one next was utterly ineffectual as a leader. So, we ended up with him." Tossing the kid a look of her own, she nodded to the lingering child Rain to continue on his way. "Larion, ask Cesare for a tray for four of us to be sent up instead of wait on us until we get in for dinner to clean up."
"Can I ask why?" It was likely no, but if so then asking wouldn't cost her anything-
"The first one got arrested, and I really disliked his successor." With that non-answer, Sonya pinned her with a fairly suspicious look. "Mrs. Silvery-White, not that I mind all that much right now… but why the fuck are you all here?"
"Fiorella's been… 'reconnecting' with her parents and introducing her sons to them. The Superbi are the closest Alliance Famiglia to her parents, and my husband didn't mind putting her up for a few weeks for this." Nilda pressed the palm of her right hand against her forehead, well aware she was not put together enough to match wits with a 'discomforted' Cloud with Storm tendencies. "Nono Vongola finally told her… everything. In detail."
There was utterly no reaction from the other woman.
"Obviously, she's a little distraught. And confused. And… rather rightfully pissed off with her husband, a little bit with her mother-in-law, and just about everyone else remotely around at the time the dishonesty had been reinforced around her." Which was obvious given what little the older Italian woman managed to tell the thief before her emotions got the better of her. "We really only came by to visit for coffee before going back, once the Sword Emperor stopped by the Superbi headquarters to see us himself and she learned you were nearby."
"Interesting and all, but not my problem."
"No, it's not. And I appreciate you letting her to chop apart one of your trees for her own health." Holding up her left hand, Nilda spread her fingers wide to beg a few more moments of explanation. "Being that I am part of those that lied her, Fiorella wanted to check a few things with a fairly neutral individual that hasn't yet… well, lied to her. You didn't exactly tell her the truth, but-"
"Amazing what not lying to someone's face prevents you from suffering." Drawled the thief, utterly sarcastically the longer her patience was taxed further than polite. "And if she's asking me, I'm telling everything that I know. As long as she can ask the question. Still not enough of an explanation."
"We just came so she could ask a couple questions, have a cup of coffee with you and apparently meet your sister, then go until you wanted actual visitors. But Ganauche being added in last minute by her husband kind of tipped things over into… well, that disaster. And the man had an actual reason to tag along, one she was actually at first not entirely unhappy to hear."
Sonya still looked really unconvinced of anything. "Why not just call? I gave Tyr my number, and you said he passed by your place."
"I planned on it earlier today where we would decide to visit you or not, it only takes about two hours for us to get out here and all. I would've called around ten or so for a possible visit just after lunch, but then Ganauche happened." The less said about this morning's disaster the better, in her opinion.
Fiorella had seemed more or less fine after breakfast with her own sons, Nilda, and Silvano… up until her 'favorite' of her husband's bodyguards joined them for the somewhat lengthy trip. Even after still agreeing that being without a bodyguard for this family connection mending escapade of hers was a poor idea, apparently the Lightning Guardian was entirely too much still.
A bright voice below insisting that it was fine, that a particularly chipper Sun nurse didn't mind hugging others at all, alerted the two of them that Fiorella was on her way up. Sonya finally shifted from her position firmly barring the way into her own rooms, with a very dismissive, "you're sleeping on the couch," tossed behind her.
…wait, what?