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30 October, 2012

A Little More to Love (Prelude to GTFO)

"I got great news babes!" Byron Way's message popped onto the screen of Neffydd's mobile com. "I'll be able to come to the potluck on Monday!"

"You mean tomorrow?" Neffydd typed back. She hadn't even thought about the weekly potluck yet. She had been mightily distracted by enjoying her weekend off. There had been absolutely nothing to do and it was rather relaxing. This meant work... so she got right to contacting her circle of friends.

Monday Neffydd awoke early, due to falling asleep at some extremely early hour and started preparing for the onslaught of food related event planning. There is a complex mathematical formula for what time to tell each set of her friends to be there so that they all arrive in the same hour.

She also had to bring Sebbock to school to get some papers signed. So she ushered Sullens and Sebbock onto the public transit carriage and braced for a ride where she had to artfully answer every question Sebbock could think of.

About late morning, when all of the prep work had been done; Warder Sullens came into the kitchens, mobile com in hand, with a story of things that Aine had been telling people then showed Neffydd the display.

"Oh, for the luv of... tell her to message me!" The rest of the afternoon was spent cooking and burying the hatchet with her ex-lover, Shael. The trouble didn't come so much from the hatchet burying as finding the damn thing first.

She had actually just gotten the painful, 3 year long ordeal smoothed over and ready to organize into digestible chunks when the message popped in: "I'm on my way, babes." Great... Byron was not a favorite person, but tolerable in small doses.

"OKies." She sent to Byron; then opened another solid message to Shael.

"Wanna come to our weekly potluck?" She pecked out on the smooth surface of her mobile, "There's gonna be a bunch of people here and we can pick on my 'boyfriend'... That's always good for entertainment."

"I haven't got transport." Came Shael's reply. "I don't live in the city anymore."

"Yeah, I know..." Mutual friends of theirs had felt the need, over the past years, to tell Neffydd everything that went wrong in Shael's life... Neffydd found it annoying, really. "Let's see if one of my friends has the time to help us. Would you come if you had a ride?"

"I could be persuaded..." She replied quickly, "I would have to bring the lil monster along."

"Of course! I couldn't bear to be the one to tell her she couldn't see her boys! lol..."

Neffydd thought of Jaeredd first. Maybe he'd be willing to drive if Neffydd put some gas in the tank...? She messaged him and he replied right away that "Of course!" he would help get Shael to the party.

The plans were set, Byron arrived then Jaeredd and Neffydd left with Jaeredd to get Shael and her minion. Thirty minutes later, after driving up to the northern suburban part of the sprawling city and back, Neffydd walked into her party going, full blown, without her.

Neffydd loved that her parties were so well planned that they could go on without her having to micro-manage them.

The night proceeded smoothly with pot roast and drinks had by all. Some people left after dinner and there were just a few left to drink and be merry.

Somewhere toward the end of the night, Shael noticed that the eggnog that they had been adding butterscotch Schnapps to had high fructose corn syrup in it and winced. That was one of the human inventions that she detested the most.

"Like you have to worry about it." Byron goaded her. His feet were possessively in her lap as they had been for most of the night. "You aren't fat."

"No," Shael agreed with him, a bit defensively, "I know I'm a skinny girl. But I don't want to be the girl who used to be skinny but isn't any longer because she did nothing to keep healthy."

"That's a good bit of reasoning..." Jaeredd started but Byron cut him off.

"It's like you and Neffydd..." Byron told Shael matter-of-factually. The absolute dead silence of the room created and emotional event horizon that even Byron could sense. He looked around the kitchen to every pained face and smiled. He thought he was finally getting his fifteen minutes from these people!

Jaeredd broke the momentary silence by issuing a warning: "Dude..." He said gently, "I wouldn't finish that thought out loud."

"No, it's OK." Byron assured him. "Just let me finish."

This statement was greeted by the room practically exploding with astonished reprimands from slightly drunken fae-folk. "No!", "Oh, migod!", "Do not say the next thing."... even Shael's ten year old girl child was screaming: "Shut up! Don't call Neffydd FAT!"

Over this din, Byron managed to force out his statement. "Shael, you are skinny and hot; but even though Neffydd is heavier, that just means there's more of her to love."

More ice-cold, shocked silence as a few people moved to block Neffyd's access to weapons. The silence was broken, finally, by a child's pained groan. "Did he just call my mom fat?" Sebbock, the socially disinclined, asked. Even an Autistic child could see it.... ouch. Neffyd broke into hysterical laughter.

Neffydd looked to Shael, who had gone pale with emotional mortification. Neffydd jerked her head toward the front of the house then looked at the time display on her mobile comm. Shael nodded and looked at her mobile too.

"Oh, Jeeze... I didn't realize it was that late!" Shael exclaimed. "I was supposed to get my kid in bed hours ago!"

They asked Jaeredd to bring Shael and her daughter home then all headed for the door but Byron slipped in between Neffydd and Shael to block Shael's progression.

"Can I get your number and maybe FaceBook?" Neffydd's mouth dropped open and a slow anger started to burn as Sutek snickered and Jaeredd coughed/gagged at Byron's audacious request.

Shael was able to extricate herself from Byron's lecherous grasp and they finally made it to the parking lot piled into Jaeredd's vehicle.

"Thanks, for driving... we needed to get the hell outta there before I cut him." Neffydd told Jaeredd.

"Yeah, I kinda figured." Jaeredd replied. "I couldn't believe his audacity!"

For the remainder of the trip, and even after Shael and her young one were dropped off, the conversation was about processing the utter shock of the out right disrespect.

When Jaeredd and Neffydd returned to The Lair, she looked about the lounge and Byron was nowhere to be seen.

"Did the Shit Head leave?" She asked of no one in particular.

"Oh, shit..." Sutek's bird-like features set in a look of apprehension, "That's never good."

"No, he's still here." Sullens replied. Byron re-entered the lounge just then. Out of difference to her strong sense of polite manners, Neffydd endured about half an hour of idiotic babbling before Byron finally tweaked the last nerve.

"I'm hungry..." Byron announced, as if anyone in the room cared at that point.

"OK," Neffydd replied, "There's plenty of left-overs and the beef is still hot.."

"I'll just go get my sandwich from the car." Byron left, returning shortly with a sub-shop take-out baggie, a brief case, a small suitcase and a EatherCom mobile terminal carry case. Neffydd had finally been insulted enough.

"How do you think you have made me feel tonight?" Neffydd demanded. "Hitting on my Ex, insulting me to get into her good graces, hounding her for her contacts while I stood right next to you..." Neffydd's voice was getting louder and louder as she vented her emotions.

"I didn't mean-" Byron's eyes were wide.

"BULL SHIT!" She interrupted him. "You knew exactly what you were doing and you kept doing it. Six people screaming at you to not say something isn't a subtle hint that you could possibly miss, you ass..." Neffydd got up out of her seat and headed toward her sleeping chambers. "You know what? I've become too emotional. I'm going to bed."

Neffydd stormed into her room, slammed her door and threw herself belly down onto the comfy bed. A few moments passed where she could hear murmuring coming from the lounge, then a knock on the door.

"Neffydd?" Sutek's muffled voice came from the other side of the solid wooden partition. "Are you really going to bed?" He opened the door a crack, just in case she was still in a mood to harm people.

"I don't feel like starting an incident."Her reply was muffled by her soft pillows and blankets.

"Well, then i guess we'll just have to move the party in here..." They proceeded to drink and talk. After a while Sullens came in to inform them that Byron had left for his home and they all wound down for the night.

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