Milly looked at her partner trying hard not to fidget and betray her nervousness. The ride over was made in air-conditioned comfort (a rarity that Millie had never indulged in before) and was not very long in duration. It was maybe an hour before Meryl called up to the chauffeur "stop at the point, I'd like a look around."
The spacious hummer, more than large enough to fit the four of them with room to spare paused suddenly and pulled over to the curb of the road on a hill.
"Come out and take a look, you'll rarely have seen anything like it," Meryl said.
Curious, Milly followed her directly to a rocky rise at the top of the hill. A warm wind smelling oddly saturated and green with growing things rushed up at her when she stood beside Meryl.
"There it is, Trevino Vineyards," Meryl said and odd sort of pride lacing her tone.
In the valley before Milly stretched neat rows of green for as far as she could see. It was like a Geo-plant only... bigger. A lot bigger.
"These grapes have been here for three generations of my family, and are descended from the original stock vines that came from Earth along with us," Meryl said softly. "That enormous pile over there.."
She gestured to a large, sprawling well-laid-out mansion done in the hacienda style with clay shingles and white plastered adobe walls decorated with blooming cactus gardens, orderly gavel paths and a fenced herd of thomases that seemed to spread out like the roots of a tree in the center of the vineyard.
"Is where I grew up," she finished.
Over the roof of the valley there was an odd iridescent shimmer, almost like a soap bubble warping the air. Milly blinked a couple of times, certain she was imagining it, but it didn't seem to go away.
"What's that Meryl?" Milly asked at last.
"The secret of our success," Meryl said with a wry smile. "It is a--"
"Particle field," Knives interrupted with a superior look. "It keeps the temperature moderated and the waterfall regular in a miniature biome contained within it."
"Just so," Meryl agreed uncomfortably, looking down.
"And I would assume that the energy found to run this precious field of yours, which is not cheap in costs of energy, is created by...us."
"Actually you assume wrong," Meryl replied tightly. "My illustrious ancestor was too much of a cheap miser, and too guarded with his precious technological secret I might add, to want to run a cable to tap into the nearest Plant."
"I am all astonishment," Knives said cuttingly. "And how, prey-tell, do you run this fine establishment?"
"That's for me to know and you to guess at," Meryl replied promptly. Knives frowned at her but she was already turning away to go back to the car. Millie shrugged and followed her.
The hummer resumed it's trip down into the vineyard proper, followed the long road that led through the neat rows of grapevines running along their stakes and wire supports to the wrought-iron gates of the manse proper. The place looked even more elegant and imposing up close. The chauffeur deposited them at the end of a circular driveway closest to the house in front of a large open cement courtyard with a classic marble fountain and boxed and potted plants at evenly spaced intervals along the side. The courtyard was surrounded on either side by elegant whitewashed porticoed walls leading to wings of the building. The enormous and intimidating front facade greeted them on the other side of the fountain up a series of wide, sweeping steps. The place oozed money and self importance.
"Once more into the breach, my friends," Meryl muttered under her breath.
The front doors were enormous, double-wide affairs made of real wood, with a cut-out window of paneled glass set by wrought iron. The panes made a stylized picture of a bunch of grapes, a wine bottle and a nearby goblet.
Meryl swallowed subtly as the left door was opened by one of the ubiquitous staff members dressed ever so properly in a coat and tails, neat as a pin and impeccably groomed.
Vash, Millie and Knives all found themselves scrutinized by the so-superior head butler of the household. The look was something akin to the regard ones gives something that the cat dragged in from out of the rain (not that they had rain on this world...). Meryl frowned in his direction as a warning to hold his tongue unless he wanted to get on her bad side. The man had the grace to look chagrined.
"This way, if you please," was all the butler said.
"Please have our belongings taken up to the rooms," Meryl said as they followed the head butler into the mansion.
Geeze I can't tell what this place oozes more of; money, or self-importance, Vash thought as the decorative gate that led to the inner courtyard with its neat gardens, decorative brickwork paths and actual water-fountain in the center opened. He was feeling intimidated already and he hadn't even gotten inside the damned thing!
I'm going to break something, I just know it! he thought nervously. Meryl would never forgive him if he ruined things for her with her family and he felt like he was soiling something just with his mere presence.
The doors to the mansion were actual antiqued oak, with panes of beveled, stained glass in the picture of a bunch of grapes and a bottle of wine (in case there was any doubt about what this place produced). They were opened by the invisable hands of more of those servants.
Just where do they hide themselves? he wondered. He hadn't even sensed them and his gun-fight-honed senses rarely missed a trick.
The foyer was cavernous; round with a majestic staircase slitting up over a decorated arch that led to the next room, the banisters were decorated at the ends with large marble cherubs. The floor was sandstone polished to a glass finish, the individual tiles of which were cut into a radial pattern of interlocking diamons and triangles that centered in a starburst at the middle of the room. Hanging from the enormous cavern of the ceiling above the starbust-tile floor was an opulent chandelier of real gold and crystal.
Meryl looked over at him, then up at the chandelier and sighed a little. He didn't know for certain what she was thinking but he could guess, she was probably hoping they'd renewed their insurance policy. He couldn't blame her in all honesty. He was rather hoping the same thing himself...
"Wow Meryl..." Millie said, gazing in wide-eyes awe at the opulence which surrounded her.
"Don't look so impressed," she grumbled. "It's exactly what they want."
"You and your party may freshen up through there," the so-superior butler said with a tight look. It had the sound of suggestion but the weight of a command.
"Dinner will be served presently, for now there will be refreshments in the west drawing room. You will find the company gathered there should you care to come down and join them," the butler informed them.
Meryl tried to look reassuring through her own sense of nervousness and said to Vash,
"Go ahead and follow him. You're in good hands. Millie and I will join you presently. Then we get to run the gauntlet."
Vash was led away, not without a reluctant backwards glance, by the superior guy in the long-tailed coat and impeccable white shirt. He'd always thought that the classical depiction of head butlers as being snobbish and cleanlier-than-thou had to be some kind of myth but apparently not.
Vash had no idea what this "freshen up" might entail, he thought he'd freshened up earlier; he'd showered recently and had even washed his face before he'd come. He looked with uncertainty at the butler who led them to a large suite with a small sitting groom to the fore, a bedroom with two beds neatly made and a water closet off to one side. Vash tossed his travel bag on the nearest bed while Knives fastidiously washed himself of the dust of the travel. The butler, he noted after a minute, did not go anywhere but waited nearby the bathroom with a punctilious pose.
"Is he gonna watch me piss?" he questioned aside to his brother after a few moments of staring cluelessly back at the butler.
"No Vash," Knives replied with the disdain of one who was forced to teach lessons in manners to the hopelessly dense. "He is waiting for you to hand him your coat and boots so that they may be attended to."
If Vash had no clue what to do with a servant, Knives obviously did not share his ignorance. After his coterie of evil minions and his creepy-ass psycho right-hand henchman Knives knew exactly what to do with a servant. He handed off his own duster and allowed the man to polish his boots, straighten his hair and bring him a clean shirt to wear.
"I'd really rather not undress in front of this guy," Vash muttered when the snobby butler at last left to go get his brother his shirt. In response Knives ordered the butler to leave the other shirt and tie on the bed and take himself off.
"Do I hafta wear this," Vash whined, eying the stuffy white silk shirt with ruffles down the front and the funny black tie that went with it with antipathy.
"You do if you do not wish to embarrass your smaller female servant," Knives said in a tone that brooked no argument. "And I take back my original assessment of your short maid, Vash; it is useful to have a wealthy servant, for they can provide you with comforts you don't really want to do with out. So... when shall we take over?"
"We're not taking over Knives," Vash replied. "We're just here for a wedding then we're leaving."
Knives said no more then, but Vash could tell by his silence that the discussion was not ended. Vash decided against trying to correct his brother's insistence upon calling Milly and Meryl his servants. As long as he considered the two of them as belonging to Vash they would be left unmolested and safe. Vash put on the silk shirt and his brother tied the tie. The dinner jacket felt a little strange when he first put it on, the cut made it restrictive and hard to move around in, and he couldn't move his arms more than perpendicular to his body.
"Are you sure he brought the right size?" Vash questioned after having tried it on. "I can't move right in it." It was better if he left it unbuttoned, but not by much.
"It's not cut for you to move around in," Knives replied. "You're going to dinner, not a gunfight."
He felt weird when he looked at himself in the mirror. His hair had grown out in the interim since he'd come back with his brother and he hadn't bothered getting it cut, so Knives had expediently slicked it back and tied it into a small tail. Vash never thought he'd miss it, but suddenly he wanted his coat and spikes back.
"It looks like I'm ready to go. Are you coming or do you want to just have dinner up in the room?"
"I prefer my dinner without the distasteful presence of humans who would only soil it with their... humanness," Knives said immediately.
"Suit yourself," said Vash. He knew Meryl was very concerned about this despite her defiance in going "as she was" Vash could sense that she desperately wanted them to accept her anyway. He was beginning to suspect form context clues that Meryl might be setting herself up for a rather large disappointment.
I guess we'll be failures together because after the way she and Milly have stuck by me, I can't let her go it alone.
Meryl let the chambermaid brush her coat while the other one bustled about her room putting away all of her personal effects from their quasi-permanent place in her suitcase. Before they'd settled in LR while Vash went out to fight his brother (and after) Meryl could hardly remember a time when she'd bothered unpacking. She'd learned her lessons about unpacking early on in her life of following Vash the Stampede around, and that was; don't. She never knew when he might capriciously decide to skip town on them and she needed to be ready to leave at a moments notice.
It feels so weird being back here, she thought, looking around her old childhood room with new eyes. It had been converted into a guest room and there was no longer any trace of the young girl who had grown up here in it. Her old canopy bed had been replaced by two serviceable double beds, the dresser, desk and mirror had been switched out with another set for guesting, all of her personal effects had been (for the most part) given away with the few keepsakes she felt worth saving safely packed in the attic. It was actually a relief on many levels. She didn't know if she could handle being surrounded by childhood things when she was feeling out of sorts about the whole fiasco.
"Are you sure you don't with to change into something more... appropriate for dinner miss?" one of the chambermaids questioned delicately.
The outfit she had on was the best she owned now, the newer of her white office shirts with its rows of frog-and-toggle buttons that had yet to show all that many signs of wear and use, a grey regulation-length office skirt, tights and her boots. Milly's outfits was... less refined than hers, showing a good deal of use and wear on it both from long travel and from her work at the well. If there was one thing she didn't want it was to have her best friend feel like she was the rag that got mixed in with the linens. She'd just tough it out with her and this and that to those who didn't like it.
"No thank-you," Meryl said politely as she looked herself over in the mirror. "Just a change of shirts will do." She tucked a few stray hairs that had come out of her arrangement and freshened her make-up and lipstick.
"Very well miss," the maid said, shrugging with her voice as if to say 'it's your funeral'. Meryl ignored her.
"Gosh sempai," Millie said still looking around her at the finery. "Everything here is so... nice. I haven't seen a place this grand since we investigated that insurance scam at that grand hotel-casino in New Vegas."
"I'd like to think that this place is in finer taste," Meryl said dryly. She still had nightmares on occasion of the pink neon light-up bed, and the private slot machine in the shape of a naked woman located at the mini-bar. She shuddered a little.
"If you're ready miss?" the maid questioned with a polite bow. Meryl took one last look in the mirror.
"As ready as I'll ever be, and if I stay much longer I might not go down at all," she said.
Vash was waiting for them in the foyer looking very nervous and out of place in his borrowed finery. Despite the incongruity of the infamous outlaw gunman and legendary Humanoid Typhoon having been stuffed into evening wear, he puffed out his chest and gave her his best "confident bravado" look when he saw her. Meryl couldn't help but smile a little in return.
"How do I look?" he asked as she joined him. Meryl cocked her head to one side, appraisingly and stepped in close. She buttoned his jacket closed and slipped her hands under the front flaps of the jacket to tug his shirt straight. She then delicately neatened the collar of his shirt and aligned the tie, and brushed the shoulders of the jacket, checking the fit of the arms and lastly settled the lapels of the jacket. It was strange, even though her touch was all business and Meryl didn't mean anything other than the last minute adjustments she made to his look, there was something about it that felt strangely... intimate. She stepped back.
"I think you'll do," she said with what she felt was admirable evenness, despite the fact that there was some sort of invisible vice inexplicably gripping her chest and making it feel hard to breathe.
"Then we should go," he said. While he turned toward the doors of the drawing room, Milly caught Meryl's eye and there was no mistaking the twinkle in her own eyes and the barely suppressed (dare she call it a--) smirk on her junior partners face. She thought this was cute! Meryl tried to frown imposingly, she was not after all a woman who could be described as "cute" but somehow, her usual intimidating look wound up becoming a smile, completely of its own accord!
Meryl felt a wave of gratitude for her two friends for being so forbearing as to not let her face the viper pit alone.
The butler preceded them, announcing "Meryl Stryfe and guests" to the room at large. Meryl gave one last tight smile to her two friends before taking a deep breath and slipping into what she liked to call her mask-state. The insults would just roll right off her then.
When they stepped into the room, the entire assembly froze solid, the soft buzz of chatter and background piano played by a servant went dead as if suddenly cut by a knife. Every single eye in the room was fixed on the three of them.
I think I've had nightmares like this too... she thought vaguely, trying to think of something, anything, to say or do that might break this horrible unending pregnant pause.
The looks of dismay, shock and/or disdain weren't helping any either. Maybe she should have taken the maids advice. Too late now. Of course her stepmother could always be counted on to save a dinner party...
"Why Meryl dear!" she said rising in her elegant evening wear to greet her prodigal step-daughter.
She hasn't changed much... Meryl thought assessingly, suppressing her dismay. She was as agelessly beautiful as ever, with her auburn hair (not a single streak of grey to be found) curled and twisted into a flattering crown on her head and her sleek, lithe body sheathed in a dress that cost more than some desert families yearly incomes. The current Mrs Trevino had been an acknowledged beauty, even made it so far as Miss Lacoda Territory, before she'd married the current master of Trevino Vineyards and given birth to the younger miss in the household (not Meryl, but her half-sister Mellisandra).
"How... ah... ah..." Mrs Trevino was obviously fishing for something to say.
"Mother, I'd like to introduce my friends," Meryl said in a strained voice that sounded remarkably even (and here she'd worried it was going to come out as a squeak!).
"Of course, where are my manners?" her mother said a little too heartily. She was less successful at hiding her relief at being able to find something polite to fall back on.
"Mother, this is Milly Thompson, my best friend and partner at the Bernardelli Insurance Society And this..." Meryl said, bring him forward a little. "Is Vash."
"It's a pleasure to meet you both," Mrs Trevino said as she shook their hands in turn. "I am Claire, the mother of the bride."
Thank god that's over with, Meryl thought, but her stomach had yet to unknot itself (and she suspected that it wouldn't until she was safely tucked away in her bed that night). She could already hear the sursuration of whispers and veiled conversation going on about the room, people leaning close to each other so as not to be overheard, hushed titters of laughter behind snapped-open fans, veiled glances and more remarks. Ah, the rumors were starting already, how refreshing that somethings never changed.
Now to make with the polite small-talk. If she could just keep things going along the polite vein involving "the weather, and everyones health" in the words of Bernard Shaw, she might just make it through the hors d'oeuvre.
"So Mister... Vash, was it? Just Vash?" Mrs Trevino questioned, groping for something polite to say.
"Just Vash," Meryl said quickly when it looked like he was either going to answer with his real title or that silly, long winded made-up one he'd tried to use on Mister Wolfwood when they'd first met.
"I'll thank you not to interrupt my dear," her mother said pointedly to her stepdaughter (whom she was maybe six or seven years older than at best). Her stepmother was on the scent for information. This could go so wrong...
"Now, as I was saying. Mister Vash," this with a honey-sweet smile. Oh if he only knew the sword hidden within it. "You seem like a very... responsible young man."
Meryl choked on the glass of champagne that she'd just taken a sip of after a passing waiter had given it to her.
"Raspberry," Meryl explained at her mothers inquiring look. A raised eyebrow, but the subject was left alone.
"What pray-tell is it that you do?" her mother pursued. She was quite plainly eying the Longcolt 45 holstered at his hip and coming to her own conclusions as to what he did for a living.
Oh great... here it comes, Meryl thought, trying not to roll her eyes.
"I am a hunter of peace," he said confidently. "Searching for the elusive mayfly known as love." He was pouring it on rather thick in Meryl's opinion, but she wasn't about to interrupt his attempt to smooth things over. Who knows, perhaps his sad attempts at charm would actually work.
"Well... that's nice," her mother replied uncertainly. "You seem to have found it." She indicated her head to Meryl.
"Ah, what's on the menu tonight mother?" Meryl inquired, swiftly changing the subject before it could be probed too deeply. But her mother went on just as if she hadn't heard her step-daughter's query.
"You know we had thought that our own eldest girl, a lovely young woman of twenty-five and very eligible, I might add, would certainly be married off by now. But well... we all know how that worked out."
Meryl just kept smiling politely. Internally, her temper barometer was starting to edge its way upwards; it was at around "steam kettle" currently.
"I tried to tell her that riding thomas-back across the desert would ruin her complexion, if not her figure, all that sun and wind, not to mention the dust clogging every pore," the Lady of the Vineyard went on, happily oblivious to Meryl's distemper.
"A career that takes her away from home an hearth more often than not is no way to attract a husband I've always said, but... well... Meryl is Meryl I suppose. Nobody blames you dear." This said with a reassuring pat to Meryl's hands and a false smile that told her everyone thought just the opposite.
"Glad to hear it," Meryl said politely. Hang me now!
"If its okay with you, I think I'll just mingle for a little while," Meryl said trying to disguise her awkwardness. The woman she called "mother" was after all a virtual stranger to her and she wasn't certain what other kinds of things she would say if forced to carry on a conversation around the weather; it was hot, it was dry, it was windy... that's about it.
"Of course, I have to speak with the chef about the extra plates at dinner so..." with polite nods and a mutual feeling of reprieve they parted company.
"My goodness Meryl," Millie said in a subdued tone. "Our families aren't anything alike at all."
"Lucky you," Meryl said with a wan smile. She was having a hard time keeping up appearances and the fun had just barely started. She plucked up two more flutes of champagne with raspberries floating in them and handed them to her friends then next absconded with a tray of hors d'oeuvre.
"Tastes like an 87," Meryl remarked after a sip. "Good year."
"... dressed like a desert bohemian," one auntie murmured to another in the kind of undertone meant to be overheard. "I always said no good would come of letting her into that college, didn't I always say that? And after that horrid scene she caused before she left! Well it just goes to show you what happens when you let a girl go off for an education instead of a proper finishing school, soon they're running wild!" The other auntie nodded in emphatic agreement.
"She was always the difficult one," auntie two said knowledgeably. "My Claire never knew what to do with her."
"Let's just go over this way," Meryl said shortly leading them in another direction, away from the two gossiping old maids.
"...see her hands?" Meryl caught the edge of another conversation. "She could sand a plank with them."
"And her hair, she looks more like a boy than..."
"Meryl," Millie said, looking both concerned and a little upset. "I think they're talking about you."
"And that tall boy with her," a well-dressed "dandy" attending the arm of an equally fashionable lady said with grating condescension. "Looks like he walked in out of some kind of "wild west show" or something."
They can make remarks about me until the cows come home, but they have no right to start in on my friends! Meryl thought angrily.
"Yeah," Meryl said, just loud enough for the dandy to overhear and let him know that he'd been overheard. "And you should see his sharp-shooting routine, he can put a bullet through a pea balanced on the end of a needle before you can say pacifist."
The dandy promptly shut up and found somewhere else to be. Good riddance.
"Sorry to drag you guys into this," Meryl apologized. "If you want to go upstairs and eat in peace I'll understand. I can handle these people, no problem; though I'm half tempted to give them my own demonstration to remind them of why I'm called Derringer Meryl." She inclined her head to the cut lead-crystal glasses lining the wet bar and the antique vases displayed on pedestals and gave a small mischievous smile.
"And you yell at me about property damage," Vash teased, obviously trying to lighten the mood.
"Yeah, but they're family; they'll have to forgive me sooner or later," she replied then added "My guess would be later."
Milly tried not feel like a stork in the company of swans as she made her tour of the room alongside her best friend. Everyone here seemed so elegant and perfect, their clothes were all expensive and the height of haute couture, jewels of differing levels of taste and ostentation gleamed and glittered in display on necks, hands, waists and wrists. The low gentle hum of conversation offset by the gentle clink of fine crystal glasses swirled about her in eddies allowing Milly to catch a few words here a sentence there before the currents that guided the speakers ferried them someplace else.
This family reunion was nothing at all like what she was accustomed to; when Milly went home on her regular leave to attend her family reunion or wedding or (on those sad occasions) wake the house was always full to bursting with friends, neighbors, family and distant relations all climbing over one another to hug her up and welcome her back. People babbled at each other in a stream of volume (loud and louder) trying to be heard over one another and tell her what they'd been doing since they left and trying to get her story so that they could pass it on. The smiles were open and there was always someone else every time she turned around wishing her well.
Poor Meryl, Milly thought sympathetically. No wonder she had such a hard time opening up to anyone; look at these people! They simpered and smirked to her face and said things like How Do You Do? then when she moved on they were judging the origins of her clothes!
"Don't take anything personally," Meryl cautioned, grabbing hold of Milly's sleeve after they'd passed by a small knot of recent debutants who were currently discussing the feasibility of perhaps selling the lot of them to a traveling circus, one of which suggested that it might be to the side-show.
"But they're being so cruel, Meryl!" Millie hissed, ready to put aside all attempts at decorum and use her stun-gun to teach them all some manners. These high-society folk were supposed to live their lives at the height of Manners with a capital M but Milly could see plainly that there were cowhands at her papa's ranch that had better upbringing than these pampered spaniels!
"They don't really know any other way to be," her elder said with resignation. "Many of them were born to a certain amount of privilege and idleness, with that sort of negligence comes a need to find something to fill up the long hours and occupy their minds... they just choose to pick at each other. Pity them, but don't let them get under your skin."
"If you can't let your family under your skin," Milly argued. "Then how are they supposed to reach your heart?"
"Oh look, honeyed pears!" Meryl said, avoiding the subject. Milly and Vash both exchanged a very long, very speaking Look. It was the kind of look that said "mmmmm-hmmmmmm!"
After snapping a few off a passing tray with practiced fingers Meryl continued
"It's not as if they're all entirely useless. This farm doesn't just produce grapes and vinegar they export well over half of this territory's fresh produce, as well as sending out aid packages to towns and villages struck by disaster or those that have simply suffered a blight or drought and don't have enough to feed everyone. Good press, you understand." That last was a little cynical, even for Meryl.
"Way to change the subject," Vash said.
Meryl looked like she was about to reply when she apparently spied something from the corner of her eye and abruptly froze. Her face went unreadable. Milly looked over at the entrance to the room and saw framed in the doorway the most beautiful couple.
The man was average height, thick wavy hair as dark as a raven's wing slicked back with one rakish lock hanging into his face. His eyes were dark, and his straight even white teeth under a neatly trimmed mustache seemed to flash out even more brightly against bronzed skin from a square jaw with a cleft in it. The suit he wore was obviously tailored to him and the line cut to accentuate broad shoulders, narrow hips and long slender legs. He was flanked on either side, oddly enough, by two bull-dogs that had learned to walk on their hind legs (or at least that was what the two men dressed in stark unrelieved black suits with a tommy gun and several other weapons ostentatiously displayed alongside them most closely resembled).
The lady on his arm was like a princess from a fairy-tale; her curled strawberry-blonde hair was swept up into an elegant diadem with curling ringlets all around, wide innocent grey-blue eyes with long lashes flashed demurely out from skin as pale and smooth as cream (that had obviously never spent a day in the hot suns and stinging wind-carried sands). Her nose was fine and patrician, her glossed lips full and petal-soft. She was a head taller than Meryl was, slender and shapely, filling out the ruffled blue-shading-to-purple evening dress she wore as easily as any model might. The dress was cut to display her many attributes, slender shoulders and arms, generous cleavage a narrow waist and flaring hips.
That must be them, Millie thought sympathetically as she looked over at Meryl who was contriving to look as if she'd never seen them before in her life. Suddenly a voice that quavered with age spoke from behind them.
"Where's my little spit-fire?" the voice asked.
"Grandfather!" Meryl exclaimed as she whirled around, her face alighting with joy for the first time all evening. She rushed over to envelop the oldest spry man that Milly had ever seen in an enthusiastic hug. He had a head of silver hair fading to white and a neatly trimmed goatee on a face seamed with fine lines. His posture was proud and ramrod-straight and his grey eyes still as sharp and piercing as a man half his age with signs of a good deal of intelligence as well as humor. His clothes were cut in a military style, all in white and silver; Millie was less than shocked to note that Meryl's own clothes were a feminized version of what he wore. So, this was the person she was closest to then. Meryl was smiling, a real genuine smile, and an answering grin spread of its own volition across Milly's face.
"Grandfather I'd like you to meet my two best friends," Meryl said, sounding more like her natural self than she had since they had arrived. "This is Vash, and this is Milly. You two, I'd like to introduce Provisional Council Territorial Governor and ex-Col. of the militia, Arthur David Stryfe Jr."
"A pleasure," the old man said. "And call me Artie."
"Everyone was surprised when we received your reply saying you were coming. Everyone except me," he said to Meryl. He frowned with censure at his grandchild. "I always said you'd been letting things go for too long and that isn't like you."
"I wrote you," Meryl sidestepped. "Did you get my letters?"
"I have them right next your your sainted grandmothers, god rest her soul," he replied then added
"And don't change the subject." Meryl grinned (and honest to goodness grin) then caught herself and modulated it to a small smile and said vaguely
"Can you blame me for putting it off? Pater was as mad as a sandworm in a music hall."
(It had been discovered early on that sandworms abhorred loud music and noises for the awful vibrations they created in the ground that played havoc on their sense of direction.)
"Such a stubborn boy," the old man said regretfully. "I often wonder where I went wrong in raising him."
"It's not your fault," she said patting his arm. "And speaking of my father, where is he? I haven't seen him yet; I thought for sure he'd come to... greet me."
"I believe the word you meant to use was gloat," her grandfather said with a knowing look. "And he isn't here. He got called away to Sandiville abruptly this morning and won't be able to make it back until tomorrow at the earliest."
"Ah," was all Meryl said.
"He said it was about a recent bout of plague hitting the village," her grandfather added. "I'd go out to help him but my bones aren't as spry as they once were."
A momentary frown flitted over Meryl's features and a sort of conspiratorial look was shared between the two of them... more the look between two people who share a familiar burden. Her grandfather shrugged in answer to a silent question asked that only they knew about and said
"You'd have to ask him, missy. I have no authority over it since I gave over the day to day running of things to him."
"I see," was all Meryl replied, she abruptly switched topics completely when she said
"The prospective bridegroom looks a good deal happier with his new choice of bride." She nodded her head over to where the happy couple were receiving the praise and well-wishes of one half of the room.
"You should go over and give them your own well wishes," her grandfather said looking sternly at her, his words carrying the tone of a suggestion but the weight of a command.
"Must I?" Meryl grumbled wryly, only half-joking.
"Show them there's no hard feelings. There aren't are there?" This last softer, and with concern.
"No, not anymore," Meryl said. "I'll admit that I was angry when I first got the news but that was more hurt pride than anything else."
"You've always had a lot of pride to hurt," her grandfather said, softening his harsh words with a smile.
"Well I've had to," she replied easily, gesturing to the room at large. "What else do I have?"
Milly blinked in startlement and shared a long look with Vash, but Meryl was going on
"Besides, there are no hurt feelings. Considering how things fell out between the two of us, can you blame him for wanting the softer, more malleable sister?"
Somehow, that doesn't sound like a compliment... Milly thought.
"You just aren't the settling down sort my dear," her grandfather said frankly. "You have too much of your sainted grandmother's spirit in you."
"They say it skips generations," Meryl quipped.
An older woman in the livery of the household coughed politely for Grandfather Stryfe's attention and he bowed his apologies and left to attend to the matter, leaving the three of them to their own devices for a moment.
"Gee Meryl, you and your grandfather seem to have a close relationship," Milly noted. Meryl's tone and body language had been much more natural around the elderly gentleman, it seemed that she'd let her guard slip too. That was much closer to the sort of behavior Milly expected to see around family.
"Yes we-" she was cut off.
"Why if it isn't little Meryl," a honeyed drawl came from behind Milly. That didn't sound like a compliment either, and by Millie's observance in the time she'd known her senior partner, Meryl had very firm and decisive ways of dealing with what offended her. Breifly the younger insurance agent wondered if she'd have to spend the rest of the evening holding her sempai off from attacking the other guests.
"I'd heard you were going to grace us all with your presence but I almost didn't recognize you," the young man continued. When Milly looked over to see who was speaking she was unsurprised to find that it was the handsome young man who'd arrived late with his elegant date. This must be the groom-to-be then.
"You look so... short." Meryl's eyes narrowed for a moment still she forced herself to relax, smile, and said with a cool yet even tone
"Congratulations on your nuptials. I wish you both well together."
"My sweetie and I are going to be very happy together!" the young woman enthused before the groom could get a word in edgewise. She had a sweet voice and wide batting eyes and Milly, who always liked to believe the best everyone, wasn't sure whether to call it innocent or contrived.
"We just have so much in common, we were practically made for each other, isn't that right darling?"
"Of course dearest heart," the man replied squeezing her hand with his free one. They both looked over at Meryl to see what she'd do or say.
"Good. Glad to hear it," was all (and this in an emotionless voice smooth as water with accompanying unreadable cop-eyes).
"Well that's a bit of a let down," the young bride remarked to her husband to be. "I thought for sure she'd blow up and provide our evenings entertainment."
"Most disappointing," he said lightly, with an air of aggrieved disappointment. "Especially after the sensation she caused the last time anyone lifted up the rock and let her crawl out."
Meryl smiled blandly, as if they were talking about nothing more than the weather or the price of Brussels sprouts on the market. Vash's eyebrows raised and he took a step to one side. He knew from long experience that it would not be long before they suffered the Wrath of Stryfe. The oblivious pair continued signing their death warrants.
"Still, I suppose we'll have to settle for a minor scandal with her showing up to the fete dressed like a ranch-hand," her sister said. "I nearly pointed her to the servants entrance by mistake."
"I thought for certain one of the little boy tomas-herders had wandered in on an errand," the young man seconded.
Uh-oh, Millie thought. That was one subject Meryl was sensitive about; her height and relative lack of... padding. This could get messy. Milly nearly died from shock on the spot when Meryl only gave another bland, innocuous smile.
"Ok-ay that's enough," Meryl said lightly. "You've had your fun. Why don't you two kids run along and rip the wings off flies or something?"
"You honestly thought you could scream things out in public, at a gathering of the Families no less, in the manner you did the last time you were here and not ever have to answer for it?" her sister said sharply to her.
"Grudge much? That was ten years ago," Meryl riposted, her tone a dismissal.
"It doesn't matter," her sister replied. "Disaster doesn't begin to cover it."
"Debacle, not even close," her husband-to-be chimed in.
"It was a social Cheyrnobl... the fallout of which we are still paying for," her sister said in a tone that borderlined somewhere between condescending and offended. The groom was quick to add
"Not to put too fine a point on it but you-"
"Mister Korin," Meryl said sharply, her voice an authoritative whipcrack that had Vash snapping to attention by reflex. They knew that tone...
"I'm going to take the moral highroad here and not drag out your dirty laundry in public again," her words as sharp and precise as any surgical instrument. "But may I remind you precisely whose fault it was that that particular social land-mine was set off? If you had been honest with me from the start..."
Meryl was obviously building up a rather large head of steam when she clamped her jaw shut and visibly collected herself
"I did not come here to argue with you, we all know who's at fault. You can lie to yourselves as well as your minions over there but don't think for a second that you can lie to me, I already know you both better than I want to. I came here to wish you both well and I have done that, if I and my guests are no longer welcome here, simply tell me so and we'll leave."
There was a long pregnant pause while the three stared each other down, you could have heard a pin drop in the room.
"You have an invitation," the bride said with ill grace. "So that means you're welcome. Stay if you must."
There was a nearly room-wide sigh of relief when the bell was rung for dinner, people proceeded by twos to the formal dining room and seated themselves where their placards indicated. Whatever crisis there had been involving plates was apparently resolved, for Vash was seated to Meryl's right and Milly seated on the other side of Meryl's grandfather just down the table.
The evening was nearly half over with, with any luck the second half would go more smoothly than the first had. Unfortunately, Vash and company weren't exactly well known for their streaks of good luck. But it was only dinner, what could go wrong?
AH, chapter three at last, where it starts getting good. I'd like to acknowledge and thank everyone who's stuck with it thus far, and especially those who have been so kind as to leave a review for me. Thank you very much. Big shout outs to Aine of Knockaine, NocandNC, Lady ShadowcatLilaznbunny, My Magdalena and x-animosity-x, for leaving behind a review to tell me what they thought. I appreciate it.
I try to remember to post a chapter every Thursday (so I can milk the weekend crowd, hopefully) but if I forget and you just can't wait drop me an e-mail to prod my lazy butt into posting. See you in the next chapter.
Nightheart