Millie felt like a fish in the desert; she fancied herself a simple girl and being surrounded by the "upper crust" with thier fashionable clothes that looked like they'd be utterly ruined by a day spent in the kind of work she was accustomed to and their haughty elegant accents and manner was not something she found she enjoyed very much. It was strange and sad, the people who surrounded her. They all seemed wrapped up in so many layers of game and counter-game; intrigues and politics in which they said one thing to your face and might go and say something completely different to another person based on what that person said.
It's a wonder that Meryl's as honest as she is, Millie reflected sitting down with a heavy plop on her bed.
Subtlety simply wasn't in her sempai's nature. One of the things that had attracted Millie into the torturous process of making Meryl her friend had been not just the older woman's confidence in her own competence but also her no-nonsense manner. Meryl was a practical soul, "plenty of good horse sense," as her grandpa would say, and that suited the sixth daughter of a generational farmer just fine. Gaining her trust had been an uphill struggle; Meryl was slow to let people in... very slow. But Millie knew a thing or two about gaining the trust of a wild thing from growing up on a tomas ranch; all it took was faith and plenty of patience. It had taken Millie well over six months of faithfully exchanging casual greetings and invitations out to lunch and such (that had always been met with politeness but gracefully declined) before she'd finally run the beast into exhaustion.
Meeting Meryl's family for the first time last night had been a real eye-opener. No wonder Meryl had such a difficult time opening up to anyone; just look at where she was coming from! Guarding her words had to have been something she grew up with, and if she was as much a blue tomas as Millie suspected it was probably even harder for her to run the risk of letting people in far enough to get hurt. There was a good reason that cacti had such hard and numerous thorns; the flesh was tender once one got around those thorns.
I wonder what the deal was in town this morning, Millie thought, turning her thoughts away from Meryl's family (it wasn't a situation she could do anything about, and she'd probably just make it worse if she butted in).
She certainly seemed preoccupied. Millie entertained the notion of perhaps going to Vash about it; Meryl might herself but it was more likely that she wouldn't. Meryl liked to handle her own problems and was reluctant to go getting others involved; she and Vash were much alike in that respect, both of them took too much on themselves.
I wonder what's taking her so long to get back here, Millie thought, sighing impatiently. Getting fitted for a dress might take a while but Meryl had been gone all day! It was past dusk right now and there was still no sign of her. Millie had tried wandering about the house for a while but in the end had felt like she'd only gotten in the way so she'd come back to their room for a rest from the hive of activity going on in the rest of the house. Even in this room it wasn't completely quiet; there was still the sounds of footsteps clacking down the hallway outside the room as guests and servants had to use the passage to get where they were going and the voices of people calling to other people about this or that. Millie was about ready to go hunt down Vash for some conversation.
Just then the door opened, admitting an elegantly dressed young woman in a strictly high-fashion ensemble featuring a tight corset, hobble-skirt with bustle, silk gloves and matching impractical shoes. Figuring that the guest had gotten herself lost and entered the wrong room, Millie turned and said
"Excuse me miss, but you have the wrong room."
"That's odd," came the familiar voice of Meryl from the elegant young woman in the ornate, ruffly day-dress. "I could have sworn there was only one room rented out to peregrinating disobedient daughters and their partners in this wing."
"Meryl?!" Millie said, double-checking with her eyes to confirm what her ears were telling her. Sure enough, it was Meryl... Millie would recognize that scowl anywhere. Fine clothes and facial paint couldn't disguise the expression that was purely her friend Meryl Stryfe's.
The dress that she had to have been poured into in order to fit in was cut to accentuate her fine, slim figure; clinging to her curves like a second skin at her hips and waist, tapering to a narrow skirt not made to accommodate Meryl' usual brisk stride. If she could move her feet more than six inches apart at the hem, Millie would be very surprised. The ridiculous bustle at the back exaggerated the hourglass of her figure even more, and ruffles of lace at the collar and down the front were meant to de-hance her relative lack of bust. Her short hair was styled to make her look as if she had an old-fashioned pompadour instead of just short hair.
She might be trussed up in the height of fashion enough to where her own mother wouldn't recognize her (to be honest, her own mother didn't appear to be able to recognize her in her normal garb) but Meryl did not appear to be liking her new state of elegance one bit.
"Unfortunately," Meryl said with a heavy sigh. "My friend, I beg of you, help me out of this torture device disguised as a dress before I make a scene."
"Sure Meryl..." Millie said, approaching her friend where she stood in front of the vanity. "My, you look very pretty sempai!" Millie said that in an effort to cheer her up, Meryl's mood was clearly deteriorating rapidly.
"I hate these things!" Meryl hissed. "I haven't worn one in so long and now I remember why... could there possibly be something less practical to live in invented by man?!"
Millie grinned at her friends fine-tempered rant... obviously a way to vent some form of built-up tension rather than any true anger at a hapless (though admittedly very impractically designed) garment.
Millie looked around in puzzlement at the vast and complicated array of hook-and-eye fastenings, lacings, buttons and decorative flounces.
"I can't blame you," Millie said honestly. "I don't even know where to start."
"Unbutton the tops of the gloves at my biceps, I'd get them myself but the buttons are murder to do one-handed," Meryl instructed. From there she went on to coach her partner through the complicated steps involved with disrobing a Lady of Fashion. There were an incredible number of steps in the entire process.
No wonder ladies maids are considered indispensible by the wealthy, they need one just to get undressed in the evening! Millie thought once she was halfway through the elaborate process.
Millie had just at last managed to get the corset unfastened when there came an abrupt knock at the door followed swiftly by the door being opened (as if knocking were no more than a formality). The corset and gown dropped from Milly's hands in her surprise leaving Meryl glad in her undergarment and be-derringered garters. The stripped young woman gave an awkward squawk and ducked behind Millie.
"Vash!" she screeched in outrage upon recognizing the entrant. "The knocking rule is there for a reason! Wait for a reply before you come barging in on me!"
"I saw nothing! I swear!" he said, his voice sounding panicked. The door slammed with him on the opposite side of it. There was a moment of quiet and Meryl shrugged and picked her new clothes up off the floor and hung them in the armoire. Fishing around in her travel case she pulled out her usual garments and donned them with undisguised relief.
"Ah! That's better," she remarked to her partner, taking a deep breath.
"Can I come in now?" Vash asked timidly from behind the door.
"Oh fine," she grumbled, but it was clear to Millie that Meryl's begrudging reply was half-hearted, at best. She was giving him a hard time mostly out of habit now and because contrariness was probably part of her nature. Given the sort of environment that it appeared she grew up in Millie was starting to find that that wasn't surprising. The door cracked and Vash poked his head in, looking to see if she was had any projectiles she was planning on throwing at him, seeing the coast was clear he entered fully into the room and plopped down on the nearest bed (which happened to be the one Meryl slept in).
"Don't mind me, make yourself right at home," Meryl said, her voice heavy with irony.
"You disappeared pretty fast this morning," Vash remarked with absent curiosity as he stretched himself out full length on his stomach and snagged a pillow to stuff under his chin, Meryl gave a half-hearted frown at him for his liberties. "Where'd you two go?"
"Over to the nearest town," Was all Meryl said in a non-chalant tone of voice. She didn't mention her concerns or anything of the fact finding-mission that had went on during their visit. She didn't even mention the fact that they'd been followed. Apparently she felt the information was to be told on a need to know basis... and Vash didn't need to know. Millie caught her friends eye and gave her a significant look. She paused for a moment, as if thinking things over and then added
"It's name is Sandiville. I'd stay away from it if I were you... there could be trouble."
"What kind of trouble?" Vash asked, immediately interested.
"I'm not sure yet," was all Meryl said. Vash's face was suddenly inscrutable as he looked over at her but Meryl wasn't inclined to speak about whatever it was she was hiding and she changed the subject.
"Once was enough for me," Meryl announced next. "I'm not inclined to go down to dinner tonight. I'm going to plead indigestion or something and have the servants bring me up some supper. You all can go if you want to, but I wouldn't recommend it."
"I'm good, I'll just eat here with you," Vash said quickly.
"Same here," Millie added. "I'm pretty brave, but I find the prospect of eating in a house full of wealthy strangers at a formal meal kinda scary."
"I don't blame you one bit," Merly said fervently.
"So where'd you go afterwards Meryl?" Millie asked. "You've been gone all day; the fitting couldn't have taken that long."
"I was shanghaied," Meryl said with an edge to her tone. It was apparent by her manner that Meryl was getting ready to vent about her day and that the two of them were going to be the sympathetic ears whether they wanted to be or not. Meryl did not disappoint.
"As soon as that particular dressmaker was done with me, my stepmother kidnapped me and dragged me off to another one," Meryl said in an aggrieved tone. "She said that I needed to have something presentable to wear. 'Presentable to whom' I'd wondered they had me there for the rest of the afternoon draping swatches over me and discussing ribbons and I don't know what else, I thought I was going to have to hang myself from the ceiling by a bobbin of lace after a while. Finally they had something they deemed suitable and they "helped" me put it on. Well, once they stuffed me into that godless contraption they promptly carted me off to dinner at The Chez Peirre with my father..."
Millie took it that the restaurant mentioned was probably one of those restaurants where you had to RSVP and follow a rigidly formal dresscode; not your average dessert saloon. Meryl confirmed it with her next words
"That's the finest restaurant in Saptimber by the way; five star accommodations, one of those places you hear about that have food so expensive that "if you have to ask, you can't afford it". So anyway, I get there, he's waiting at the table for me. Just him, by the way, no-one else not even grandfather, I would rather have been about anywhere but there, but since I did come here to try to repair relations with the man I figured I might was well give it my best."
From the tone of her voice Millie took it that things hadn't went very well at all. Meryl's voice trailed off into a pensive silence in which she was obviously reviewing the contents of their dinner conversation, completely oblivious to the other occupants of the room. Millie and Vash exchanged a look as the silence wore on and Meryl still said nothing.
"Did you two fight?" Millie ventured tentatively as the silence grew too much to bear. Meryl gave a small start, shaken from her reverie and seemed to recall that she'd just left them hanging.
"Not exactly," Meryl said. "I'm not certain. That's the thing about my father; when he's displeased with you and he wants to bring you down a peg or two he'll lie in wait; he'll do something to intimidate you or catch you off guard and then he'll start in the middle of the argument. You can walk in and he'll start of with something like "I see" and you'll be like "you see what?! What are we talking about?" and then he'll start with the head games. As you can tell I feel like I've been through five kinds of hell right now, but I'm older and a little wiser now than I was when I was fifteen so I think I held my own with him."
There was no mistaking the ring of satisfaction in Meryl's voice when she said that.
Looks like she's not going to go into the specifics, Milly thought disappointedly, but that wasn't surprising. Even now, Meryl didn't like to let her guard slip.
"Scootch over," Meryl ordered Vash peremptorily shooing him where he lay on her bed. "I feel like I've been run through the wringer." Vash moved over and Meryl plopped down beside him with no attempt at grace, elegance or decorum. She flung a hand over her eyes and just lay there. After a moment Vash poked her in the ribs. Meryl smothered a giggle and tried to glare at him. Vash blinked.
"Meryl are you-- ...Are you ticklish?"
"Of course not!" she exclaimed in such a way as to make the real answer ("yes, exceedingly!") very obvious.
Millie didn't know whether to honor Vash's bravery or just agree with Meryl and call him an idiot when he poked at her ribs again. She squirmed and said
"Stop that."
It wasn't an "this is fun, to keep at it" stop that, but rather a "do it again and I'll strangle you with the bedsheet" stop that.
"You are ticklish!" he exclaimed. Meryl moved her arm and gave him her best deathglare. The look was diminished however when he poked her again and she laughed.
"That's it!" she exclaimed. She yanked the pillow from under him and proceeded to beat him soundly with it. She didn't give up when he tried to run for cover, yelling for Milly to help him either, but rather, chased him around the room landing good solid thwacks when she managed to corner him. By the end she was laughing, which might just have been Vash's design in the first place (the man was far more perceptive and devious than anyone ever gave him credit for being).
"Uncle! Uncle! I give up!" he yelled at last, raising his arms in surrender. Meryl's smile turned sharp, rather like the time when Vash had broken the jeep and Meryl had come up with the idea that since he had broken their vehicle he'd just have to replace it... "Gee Meryl, this car can talk."
"Well, since you've offered unconditional surrender, I get to make the terms," she said.
"Geeze," Vash said, sighing. "it's a good thing they never put you in claims after all, you'd figure out a way to weasel through anything."
"It's no fun if I get paid to do it," Meryl replied. "Now, about those terms?"
"Fine fine, by the ancient laws of chivalry," he stated in his 'deep voice' (the one he'd used while posing as "Vash the Stampede" at the Schezar manor). "For defeating me in battle you are entitled to my mount, my sword and my armor, but since I have no mount by my feet, no sword but my courage and no armor but my wits--"
"You may keep your wits, If I accepted them I would be forever at a disadvantage," she teased lightly.
"Ouch, I see your own work quite well," he replied in the same manner.
"I've seen how you ride, you should come out with me tomorrow and let me teach you a few things."
Maybe it was just Milly's imagination, but Meryl sounded almost eager. Her mind automatically painted a romantic scene of the two of them riding side by side through the desert together... Provided he could stay on his tomas. From the limited amount they'd seen, Vash wasn't a very good rider at all; if he couldn't get on a bus, ride a sandsteamer or get an automobile, he'd rather walk.
"Is that your condition?" Vash said reluctantly.
"It is," Meryl replied. Vash sighed heavily; his reluctance to get on the back of a tomas was well known among their little group.
"Don't worry," she reassured him. "I'm a good rider if not a patient teacher; you'll be having fun in no time."
"Am I dreaming or did the word fun just escape your lips?" Vash replied. "I think this may be the first time I've ever heard you use the word without the word "not" accompanying it."
"Ha ha ha mister. So, tomorrow at dawn?"
"And now I have to get up at dawn too? This bites," he grumbled but it didn't sound to Millie like he meant it.
"That's right and if you're not there, I'm coming in after you so be forewarned and don't act surprised."
Hope you enjoyed the chapter and are looking forward to t he next one. Just think, the two of them, alone... together. Erm poor Vash?
Preveiw:
"You ride like an arthritic granny," she observed. "Shoulders back, sit up straight; posture conveys authority."
"Is that why you always look like you have a stick shoved up your--"
"Just remember who is in a position to fire on whom's unguarded backside," she reminded him.
"Vash, I feel that I should tell you something that's been weighing on my mind lately," she said, looking over at him.
She's going to confess! he thought in surprised delight.