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 Posted: Wed Jun 21, 2006 9:37 pm
Normally Simon had little interaction with his feien housemates, but after his visit to the shop he felt he needed some answers and the first place to look was close to home. It took him a good hour of searching to locate another feien in the vastness that was Wakefield, but find one he did, following the vague sense of direction provided him by his magic detection.
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Posted: Mon Jun 26, 2006 11:14 pm
It was actually pure luck that he found anyone at all; Marne Lukas-Hein had taken to staying with Ruby Soho, as ordered by her now-gone sister, and had come back only to rifle through her Barbie closet for things she could play dress-up with with her 'girlfriend'. To this end she was also using the Barbie Suitcase. Marne never worried; read haltingly over the letter Rose had left, decided that Rose was going to marry a rich millionaire and then they could all live on Palm Beach once Burgundia... Boy, Dee better get back soon! Marne did not have worrying in her make-up.
"Rebel yeeeeeell Billy Idol haaair," she hummed under her breath. "Billy Idol, Billy Idol, haaaaaair. - What?"
It was out of the corner of her eye that she saw Simon. Mistaking any adult feien for her sister, Marne immediately flew across the room like a streak of light and put her arms around his neck. "Dee! Dee! Hey - Oh - hey, you're not my sister. Boy, that's a mistake. You're like a guy. You don't even have breasts. Sorry, this isn't kosher! I know how to spell infidelity now! I N F U D A R L E T I!"
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Posted: Mon Jun 26, 2006 11:19 pm
Simon's first instinct was to say "oh my god," but he was an atheist. He had no god. Instead he went for a highly indignant (perhaps "shocked" and "scared" were better descriptors) "Excuse me?!?"
There really was nothing else he could say. It was Marne, and she went beyond what words were capable of expressing.
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Posted: Mon Jun 26, 2006 11:22 pm
The little redheaded feien waggled her finger at him. "Don't tempt me! Lead me not unto temptation! I once read that in Dee's bibley thing; Rose once read me a little, too, and it's got more sex parts than Red Shoe Diaries. I'm a happily girlfriended girl! Except if Brunswick has a hot brother; I haven't seen him yet, so he may be hot or not. Hey, what are you doing in Mr. Djerod's House? He's totally either gone or dead."
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Posted: Mon Jun 26, 2006 11:29 pm
Poor Simon could only stare, torn between going ghastly white and cherry red. He ended up pinkish. Reaching up to adjust his glasses with a shaky hand, he managed to answer Marne's quiestion. "I'm Simon," he said. "I live here." And had lived there a long time before Marne, and probably would live there long after.
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Posted: Mon Jun 26, 2006 11:46 pm
"All alone? Are you a hermitage?" The juvenile feien-girl turned around to continue packing her stuff in. "Wow. I didn't think any feien lived here beside me and Dee and the ghost of my deadass brother. He's a ghost, you know. I have totally seen him around. - Hey, you wouldn't have seen my sister, would you? She's like ginormously tall, and she's kind of grumpy; her name's Burgundia. Apparently the Fleet have taken her and murdered her. She'll be back, though. She'd never leave me or Soho!"
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Posted: Mon Jun 26, 2006 11:51 pm
"Burgundia is missing?" said Simon. He was familiar with Burgundia by reputation; it was hard to live in the same house and not know someone else existed, though Marne managed it. Simon wondered if this connected back to the investigation summons. Of course, if the Fleet had taken her, there would be no need for them to investigate her whereabouts. "Why isn't Djerod here?"
Poor, poor Simon. Nobody told him anything. The stricken look on his face said it all.
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Posted: Mon Jun 26, 2006 11:55 pm
"Oh, he's totally dead or something," Marne said kindly, which would obviously assuage Simon's worries. It was fairly obvious how she could live in Wakefield and have no idea that Simon even was there. She tossed her short mane of red hair back to her shoulders. "Mild bummer. I was hoping he and Rose would get married. Only he's pretty old; she can marry someone else who isn't, like, a grandpa. - Yeah, Dee went all psycho at the Fleet guys, I wonder if they're all interrogating her like in movies? Hey, that's a bitchin' idea. All 'I am Burgundia! I will tell you nothing!' - 'Course, Rose said that they said she'd gone on a quest, but if you'd met Dee, you'd be all, 'Oh, shyeah.'"
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Posted: Tue Jun 27, 2006 12:00 am
Simon's voice was tiny. "Dead?" He drifted to the nearest table and perched on its edge. Of all the things to not be told, the death of your patron had to rank up there. He could scarcely believe that Careli had not told him. Surely she would have come by and said something, or one of the servants!
Clearly, Simon was not well-versed in the art of disbelief. He accepted Marne's words at face value and as truth, since in his mind there was no logical benefit to her lying.
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Posted: Tue Jun 27, 2006 12:05 am
"Well, good as dead, anyway," the girl amended, and sat on the suitcase to close it. She drummed her feet on the table and looked at him with interest. "So who are you, anyway? I'm Marne Lukas-Hein, attorney-at-law." (It was fairly obvious that was not an attorney-at-anything.)
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Posted: Tue Jun 27, 2006 12:08 am
"Simon," said the elder feien, his voice hardening a bit. Not only had she just contradicted her claim of Djerod's demise, she had overexuberantly bounced past his earlier introduction and logic demanded no feien with a head as empty as hers could be a real lawyer, much less a feien who was still a juvenile and probably less than two years old. In the hopes that he would strike some chord of recognition with this bubble-headed feien, Simon added, "I'm bonded to Emperial."
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Posted: Tue Jun 27, 2006 12:13 am
"Shut up!" said Marne in surprise, using it as an expression of shock rather than wanting Simon to, in fact, shut up. "Wow. I thought she was made-up. The only one who ever met her was, like, Casca. I never met him either. He left his soap stuff, though. Silva totally snapped his neck, he was like 'Pow, b***h please!' and my brother was like 'Urk!'. Silv is awesome. Have you ever met him? He's badass. I want to be just like him one day, only with better hair, and breasts, and not dating Averno."
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Posted: Tue Jun 27, 2006 12:20 am
The name was familiar, but Simon was unable to match it to a face without his notes. He had a stronger memory of Averno, mostly through Corvus mentioning her. He felt obliged to point out the holes in Marne's statement. "But my bond and yours are friends, to the best of my knowledge," he pointed out. "That was the entire reason Rose came to live at Wakefield."
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Posted: Tue Jun 27, 2006 12:23 am
"Yeah, but Emperial never comes to see us," Marne added gloomily. "I bet she owes me birthday presents. I'd have liked to see her. I'd have hugged her and everything and not minded if she, say, gave me a noogie. I don't like Wakefield much," she said, a bit surprisingly. "It's too big and nobody's here. I like Ice's house. There's lots of feien, 'cos Bavaria is Soho's cousin and therefore my cousin-in-law, and everybody's always over there. This place is depressing."
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Posted: Tue Jun 27, 2006 12:27 am
Simon did not agree. He realized he probably had less of a social need than Marne did, though, and did not begrudge the juvenile feien her opinions. For him, Wakefield was everything a house should be: large enough to have several private rooms, full of antiques and books, and quiet. Mostly quiet. He still had nightmares about Emperial's old house from time to time and living up on the top shelf of the closet being bombarded by conversations and arguments and television programs all day long. Besides, Wakefield had well-tended gardens. The place was exquisitely tasteful and beautiful.
All Simon said was, "She went away. Emperial."
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