I Am Big Girl, Hear Me Roar
It was the fifth day of the week, and as was customary on Thursdays – not that Millie felt she could ever quite get the hang of Thursdays, otherwise – one of the small group of travelers was required to go out and replenish foodstuffs.
She was not, of course, aware of whose turn it was this week – only of the fact that the newly stocked groceries were finally here and hers for the taking. She seized several cups of dark, rich pudding and dumped them into a huge bowl. With a little prayer of thankfulness to the gods of dessert, she dug in.
She was not prepared to find herself blanching after one bite.
"Se... Sempai?" she asked timorously, and beneath her quiet words one could detect a glimpse of barely contained emotions – the calm before the storm, so to speak. "Who did the grocery shopping this morning?"
"Um... Vash did, I think," Meryl replied.
"Somebody say my name?" The outlaw stuck his head out from an adjacent room.
"Yes," Millie continued, maintaining her strangely composed tone. "I just wanted to say that...
"THIS IS SUGAR-FREE!" she exploded, bolting up from her chair. She threw the bowl of pudding at Vash, where it struck him point-blank between the eyes; the force sent the gunman reeling onto the tiled kitchen floor, covered with pudding as a war soldier was covered in the fluids of his fallen comrades.
Millie advanced toward him slowly, looking less and less like herself and more and more like an enraged agent of Lucifer.
"What kind of sick person are you, anyway?" the large girl demanded, fury blazing in her eyes as perceptibly as if fire tongues were themselves shooting out at the hapless Vash. "To inflict such atrocities upon an unsuspecting, delicate woman...!"
Those were perhaps the biggest words either Meryl or Vash had heard Millie use in all the time they had known her. The latter whimpered something unintelligible, to which Millie responded with a roar:
"Didn't see the fine print? ...WHAT THE HELL KIND OF EXCUSE IS THAT?"
"H'llo, did I miss something?"
A certain cross-wielding, chain-smoking priest suddenly wandered in, assessed the bizarre scene with a nonchalant air.
"I brought pudding," he announced.
"Nooooooooooo...!" Vash cried at an attempt at warning, but it was too late.
"Oh, you got my favorite," Millie chirped, bounding over to Wolfwood's side as happily as if she hadn't been just inches from crippling Vash a moment ago. "Chocolate-fudge swirl!" she added, producing a spoon from her pocket and tucking into the proffered cup.
"H-how did you do it?" Vash asked weakly when the ordeal had run its course.
"Easy," the priest said, running a weary hand through his messy head of hair. "I noticed the Big Girl was getting testy lately. Figured her Aunt Flo had stopped by to pay a visit."
"And...?" Vash failed to see where this train of thought was taking them.
"Well, what do girls need most when they're on the rag?"
Meryl winced at his choice of words, while Vash hazarded a guess. "Chocolate?"
Nick grinned, glanced over at Millie while she continued to consume sweets at an upwards of Far Too Much. She remained completely oblivious to their little talk.
"Exactly."