Alder's Grove

First: Funeral
Previous: Funeral: Mutual Interest

Senga looked at Erramun’s face for a moment before moving the washcloth closer to his throat. “You have lived a long time. You showed up to my Great-Aunt’s funeral and didn’t think she was really dead either. You’re Named Death Comes Silently and there is blackmail on you that is bad enough that you are willing to Belong to me for six years rather than risk it — although perhaps you just didn’t want to be the reason my family killed me.”

He cleared his throat uncomfortably and nodded. “Both. Mirabella knew I could handle anything for six years. She knows I’ve handled anything for six years. So she wanted to keep you safe. I mean, that’s my guess. And if she wanted you safe enough to blackmail you into it, she thought there was going to be a threat to you that her clauses and rules weren’t going to protect you from.”
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First: Funeral
Previous: Funeral: Kitchen Negotiations

“They’ll be at it all night,” she whispered as she led him upstairs. “Or at least a few hours. They always are. It’s how they handle… being them. All right, here’s the shower. You’re not body-shy, are you?”

“What?” He stared at her, and then at the bathroom - so suburban, with its pastel decorations clashing with the Human Anatomy shower curtain Chitter had insisted on.

“Your body? Can I see it naked?”

“…you Own me. You were there for that part, right? The part where you agreed to own me as your Bound Servant?”

“I was there.” If she was the sort of owner he thought she was, she might slap him for that tone, but she was pretty sure that wasn’t where she wanted to go with this and even more sure that it wouldn’t change his behavior in any helpful way. “And I’m asking. Can I see you naked?”

“…You really are young,” he muttered again, not quite looking at her.
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First: Funeral
Previous: Funeral: Best-Laid Plans

It was nearly a full day before the team made it back to the house. It’d been a short reconnaissance and information-gathering job, at least according to the brief, but she had three holes in her dress that had been holes through her until Allayne had thrown a healing at her. She’d had to do some interesting running to get her prey where she could subdue them one by one, and then even more interesting running to get to their backup-backup meetup spot without being seen.

Ezer was still cursing in her earpiece when they pulled into the driveway, their second nondescript rental car returned to its proper location. “Those fucking bastards. Reconnaissance. Reconnaissance does not mean getting my people fucking shot at.”

“Awww, Ezzie, I didn’t know you cared.” Even when Senga knew what Allayne was doing, that purr through the earpiece still sent shivers straight down her spine to her groin. And it did the same thing to Ezer a hundredfold. “Chitter, did you get what we needed?”

“Got it all and a couple soupcon of extras, too. If we don’t get hazard pay for this, I’m posting nude photos of the client to a photo-manip contest.”
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First: Funeral
Previous: Funeral: Coming Home


Senga shifted herself between Allayne and Erramun quickly. “Don’t kill her, either,” she whispered. “Allayne, this is Erramun, sa’Death Comes Silently, a former associate of my great-Aunt Mirabella’s and, ah, currently, thanks to Great-Aunt Mirabella, my Kept, my bond servant. Oh, we got the Manor, too.”

Allayne looked Erramun up and down. “Forget the Manor, your aunt gave you a man? How do I get to be part of your family?”

“Generally,” Erramun answered, with a dangerous rumble to his voice and an obvious lack of being impressed by Allayne, “by losing some of your current family, often violently. At least, that’s what seemed to happen to Senga here. Sa-” He frowned down at her. “You can’t call me sa’, you own me. And I can’t call you sa’, I don’t know your name.”

“You seriously Own him. You Own him. You went to a funeral and came back with a man. Only you, Senga, only you. I told you you should have taken me with you.” Allayne clucked cheerfully. “Well, hello to you, Erramun oro’Senga. And if she wants to call you sa’, I wouldn’t argue with her. She had a fun sense of protocol. Probably comes from growing up with Mirabella as family matriarch. I know that would make me absolutely crazy, and I think Senga here just sublimated it into some strange manners.”
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First: Funeral
Previous: Funeral: Family Problems

Senga’s good mood only lasted until they got to the parking lot. Erramun had stopped growling, but he didn’t look happy - not that she expected him to; she wouldn’t have been in his situation, and she wasn’t sure she was in her situation.

“I think you frightened her,” she murmured. “This is my car.” She nodded her head at the nondescript vehicle in the nondescript color behind them, a mintish-green Corolla she’d bought because it looked like a hundred other cars within any given three-block radius.

He raised his eyebrows. “Making a lack of statement?”

“Exactly.” She beeped the car open and slid into the driver’s seat. “Unless you’re worried about your ride being stolen, why don’t you come with me now, and we’ll come back for your vehicle later?”

“I walked.” He slipped into the passenger’s seat. “I don’t - didn’t - live that far from here. But.” He coughed and shifted in his seat, not looking at her. “There’s stuff I don’t want to leave there too long.”
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First: Funeral
Previous: Funeral: Ellehemaei Inheritance Law

Senga looked over and up at Silence. He was looking over and down at her. He lifted his eyebrows at her. She shrugged at him.

“You’re right,” she admitted, “I’m screwed if you say no, and you’ve got more to lose by saying yes.”

“You don’t have shit to lose by saying yes,” he growled.

“Why don’t we talk about that when we’re out of here, one way or another? Because this isn’t exactly my cup of tea, either.”

“Yeah, well..”
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First: Funeral
Previous: Funeral: Negotiation

The security guards wrapped up with Muirgen and headed back into the lawyer’s office, just as someone in a well-fitted but cheap suit stalked out of the room. Senga watched the man go with curiosity.

“One of Mirabella’s bean-counters,” Silence murmured. “Always thought he was underappreciated. Guess the will hearing justified that.”

“Maybe she threatened his life and reputation too,” Senga responded in the same low term. “Maybe he didn’t appreciate being treated like someone she ‘appreciated’ after all.”

“I’ll note she didn’t do that with her daughters.”

“Neither did she give her daughters diddly. They’re - well. You probably know them better than I do.”

“Ah, but they’re your family. And it’s their mother’s funeral.”

“And they’re on par with Mister cheap suit there,” she added in the same casual, quiet tone. “They don’t get the big things. They’re just not as important as they think they are. Of course, that won’t stop them from killing me,” she added ruefully. “And they’ve wanted to do that for a while.”
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This follows The Funeral and Further Funeral and Funeral: Will-Reading and Funeral: Senga’s Inheritance. It’s set in Fae apoc, pre-apoc era, possibly 2010.

Senga stared at the lawyer. She didn’t dare look at Mr. Silence; she didn’t dare look at the rest of the room.

Clause Seven. That was the clause which had kept her alive. That answered a question she hadn’t wanted to ask yet - did Great-Aunt Mirabella’s protections continue after her death? It appeared that they did, or at least that they might.

If she agreed to Own someone who was clearly averse to the idea and clearly dangerous.

Well… he might be less dangerous than the rest of the family and of Mirabella’s empire.
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This follows The Funeral and Further Funeral. It’s set in Fae apoc, pre-apoc era, possibly 2010.

“What are you doing in here?” Eaven glared at Senga as a small group of the mourners trooped into the office. “It’s not like you’re the most favored relative or anything. And you.” She glared over Senga’s head at the as-of-yet-unnamed black-clad cowboy Senga had been talking with. “This isn’t for the help, you know.”

He smirked. It was the sort of smile you might imagine on a shark, right before it had you for dinner. “I was invited here to listen to the will-reading. It falls within my agreements with Mirabella. So here I am.”

“Same,” Senga agreed. “Great-Aunt Mirabella wanted me to be here. I haven’t told her no yet.”

“You don’t dare, do you? Even with her dead, you can’t go against her, or-” Eaven ran her finger across her neck.
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This started out as something else, but it appears like in addition, it wants to be a murder mystery. Fae apoc, pre-apoc era, possibly 2010.

Senga didn’t believe it until she saw the body. Ellehemaei did not die very often, and they almost never died of natural causes; until she did a very quiet Working on the body itself, she was still working under the assumption that this was some trick of her Great-Aunt Mirabella’s.

The confirmation that it was real took her breath away. She walked past the body again, looking at what her diagnosis told her more than the corpse. Natural causes? Well, hawthorn was natural, she supposed, and her aunt was chock full of it.

“Miss Attenoin? Do please come to my office at noon. There’s the will reading.” The suited man stank of lawyer, and his suit stank of money. No surprise, considering her great-aunt. But…

“The will?” Senga frowned. “Great-Aunt Mirabella and I weren’t all that close…”
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