All three of the Vincents made there way up through the station, making for Green Sector in an assortment of evening wear.
Rally herself wore the same sort of tasteful and conservative outfit she would wear to court or meeting a client for the first time. A long brown skirt with a white blouse and a good brown jacket. A simple tie hung down between her breasts, effectively concealing her cleavage so that attention was more brought to her overall business-like appearance rather than her gender or physical beauty.
Vivian wore a nice pair of black slacks with a blue knit shirt and a white, three-button vest. A pair of clipped on ear rings, silver bars about three inches long, were hanging from her lobes, though it was clear that she wasn't accustomed to such things as she kept reaching up to scratch at where they were clipped on. She was wearing a soft pair of silk gloves as well.
Shanti was the only one of the three wearing high heels, making her appear about four inches talling than her sister and getting closer to Rally's height. She was wearing a simple green one piece dress over which she had a sort of silver half blouse with long sleeves, that Rally was giving evil looks due to emphasizing Shanti's developing chest.
All three wore a bit of make-up, Vivian wore the least while Rally simply had applied what was appropriate to visiting an invitation like this. Make-up may not have been something she enjoyed wearing often, but it was expected of a professional woman in modest amount. Shanti, on the other hand, while she hadn't gone past tasteful, certainly stood out with the forest green lipstick and eye shadow in a lighter shade of green.
So far, Rally had put her foot down on hair dyes, but eventually, Shanti was hoping to get some green highlights.
Rally stopped them a little ways away from the quarters they were seeking.
"Everybody ready?" she asked.
"Yes, Rally," Shanti said with a cheerful smile on her face.
"As ready as I can be," Vivian said, still lingering on what the man they'd spoken to earlier had said.
"Please try not to ask about the war, Kitten," Rally said.
"Aww," the lovely girl in her green dress protested. "What if they start talking about it?"
"I don't know that it'll come up," Rally said with a frown.
Rally was sure it would probably come up, actually. She just was rather hoping it wouldn't.
"What kind of food will it be?" Vivian asked curiously, tugging on her gloves.
Vivian didn't like gloves as a rule, preferred not to wear them. These were hers and not often worn, made by machine and nothing emotional or traumatic had occurred around them yet. That meant she only ever got faint images from them, mostly of her own past. But at least they acted as a buffer against accidentally picking something up.
"Not sure," Rally said. "Just follow their lead, and wait before eating anything, all right, Kitten?"
"Hmm?" Shanti asked, blinking.
Rally ignored the feigned innocence for the moment and walked the rest of the way to the door and pressed the call button.
After a moment, the door opened to Lennier's pleasant face.
"Nie'se schlect sim'wa," Rally said slowly and carefully as she bowed slightly.
"Nie'se schlect sim'wa," Lennier returned. "You're Minbari sounds a bit better this time."
"I was a bit rusty," the bounty-hunter said. "Still not sure you could call me fluent though."
She looked to her daughters then.
"Good to see you," Vivian said politely with her own slight bow.
"Heya!" Shanti said with a small, friendly wave.
"If you will please come in," Lennier said. "Captain Sheridan is already here."
Rally gestured for her girls to move on ahead of her watching ahead of them cautiously, but not obviously. She kept a polite smile on her face.
There was a small table inside with seven seats prepared. Ambassador Delenn and Captain Sheridan were standing aside as they came in chatting politely until they saw the Vincents.
"Welcome to my quarters," Delenn said in a lilting tone. "I hope this will be a pleasant time for us all."
Vivian stopped short as she took in Delenn's appearance. The Minbari woman might have commented except that Shanti stepped past and cheerfully waved to introduce herself.
"Hi, I'm Shanti," she said with a broad smile.
Rally also noticed Vivian's sudden shift, but made no comment or sign save to glance at her briefly before stepping forward to Shanti's side and bowing politely, if somewhat stiffly.
"It's an honor to be invited here," she said briefly in Minbari before switching back to English. "This is my other girl, Vivian, she's a bit more shy than Shanti is."
With a smile she calmly encouraged Vivian to step forward and introduce herself.
"Umm, hello," Vivian said. "Miss, Ma'am...Lady? Uh.."
"Delenn will do fine," the Minbari woman said.
"I'm glad you girls can make it," Sheridan said in a straightforward accepting manner. "Ambassador Delenn was looking forward to getting to know you."
Rally nodded, noticing Lennier moving in the background. She understood all the meanings of that.
"Well, let's come and sit," Delenn said. "We've prepared a meal in the honor of our guests. I'm afraid there wasn't time to properly prepare flarn. I hope that is all right with you."
"Umm, sure?" Shanti said, a bit lost.
"It'll be fine," Rally said, putting a gentle hand on Shanti's shoulder before they all started to move toward the table.
As they sat, Vivian started to reach out for the eating implements and bowls.
"This is a beautiful set of china," Sheridan said.
"China?" Delenn asked. "Is that not one of your Earth na..oh..I see, the dishes. Yes, they have been in my family for generations and been used to serve honored guests for several hundred years at least."
Vivian's hands stopped short of grabbing anything as she stared in something close to terror or dread.
"Oh don't worry," Delenn said, misreading the girl's hesitation. "They are of very sturdy construction, I can guarantee you. They've survived things much worse than a simple dinner between acquaintances."
And that only made things worse.
"Yeah," Vivian said. "I'm just being a bit careful. I like to have manners."
Across from her Shanti was already holding her eating utensils and eagerly waiting for food. She failed to notice her sister's look.
"I really can't say how surprised I was at this invitation," Rally said as she quietly patted Vivian on the back. "I'm not anybody important."
"Mmhmm," Shanti said then. "I mean, you're Captain Sheridan. You're probably the biggest hero of the whole...oops. I'm sorry, Rally asked me not talk about that stuff."
"That's perfectly all right," Delenn said comfortingly to the now embarrassed teen as Rally visibly winced.
"I've tried to avoid talking about the war with my girls," Rally said eventually. "Too many stories make such things out to be wonderful adventures when they're not wonderful at all."
"I can understand the sentiment," Sheridan said in agreement. "There are a lot of memories that I'd rather keep buried."
As they were talking, Vivi gingerly took up the eating utensils, thankful that the gloves at least partially dulled the shuddering feeling of the memories the antiques had gathered and held for the many years they had been used.
Nothing was very distinct, because she'd deliberately pushed through it as quickly as possible. Not that it wouldn't float up in her dreams later, and be confusing, but at least she didn't have to deal with it right now.
Her shoulders hunched partially and she shivered, trying to keep it unnoticeable.
The distraction of Rally's and Shanti's conversation covered her mostly, but from his seat, Lennier noticed the shivering as the girl took up the utensils, and that the other two were pointedly not paying attention to her. After several seconds, the girl seemed to calm down and take a deep breath, though she still looked a little bit pale.
As conversation continued, some of the food was set aside for the seventh empty seat, something about the return of Valen, which sounded sort of Christian-esque to Vivian.
"I was going to ask the Captain to be present for this meal anyway," Delenn said. "Or at least someone in command, but then I heard that Captain Sheridan was already acquainted with you. I'm curious as to how you met each other. Something about ripping or tearing security a new one?"
Rally flushed a bit in embarrassment at the reminder of that incident.
"Actually I met Vivian first," Sheridan said. "I'd just arrived in the station and misplaced my bag. She'd found it and brought it back to me. I remember because she said something odd right after that."
"What did she say?" Delenn asked, curiously.
"Vivi is always saying weird things," Shanti said casually. "Like 'what's the big deal about guns', or 'what do you mean NASCAR is boring?' and 'why do you wear dresses?'"
"None of that is weird," Vivian said in exasperation.
"Yes, well this was a pretty odd thing," Sheridan noted.
"I warned you that she had something of an imagination," Rally said casually.
"Yeah, but I still wonder what made her say 'I didn't think Minbari grew hair'," Sheridan said with a partial laugh before stopping and looking quickly across at Delenn and seeing that her and Lennier both looked rather surprised. "Oh, sorry, that was a bit thoughtless of me, Delenn, I didn't..."
He paused again and looked over toward Vivian.
"I think I arrived on station several days before you came out of that cocoon," Sheridan said. "How could you have guessed?"
"It's probably just a coincidence," Rally said, waving off the question with a simple shrug.
Unfortunately, the nervous look on her girls' faces was making it hard to keep things looking less than extraordinary. Vivian especially looked something like an animal caught in the headlights of a vehicle.
"I wasn't really thinking of Ambassador Delenn," Vivi said. "I was just trying to imagine a Minbari with hair."
Delenn nodded and shared a look with Lennier and then glanced over toward Sheridan.
"I see, then I do not suppose this needs to be discussed any further," Delenn said firmly. "Don't you think, Captain Sheridan, that this is a simple youthful fantasy and should remain a private issue?"
For the moment, he'd let it slide, but he'd be watching now.
Behind her casual smile, Rally was cursing.
The rest of the dinner went politely, though with a trace of tension.
As the group was breaking up to return to their individual quarters, Sheridan held Rally over a bit in the hallway.
"Look, sorry about that," he said. "The coincidence was just sort of striking. I didn't mean to make you or your girls uncomfortable."
"Yeah," Rally said. "I can see that, and I might just be a little protective of my kids."
"Well, we'll just chalk this up to an over-active imagination," he said.
"Do humans have seers?" Delenn asked Lennier.
"I do not know," he returned. "I hadn't heard of anything like that. But she was a bit distracted the entire meal."
"Look into it discreetly," Delenn said. "I do not think we'll have an issue with Sheridan reporting this, but I do not think we want a repeat of the human Psi-Corp's last visit here."
"Yes, Ambassador," Lennier said. "Other than that, she still strikes me as perfectly reasonable."
"Myself as well," Delenn said. "Unfortunately, the issue now is making sure the rest of the Minbari population believes it too."
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(Posted Tue, 21 Dec 2010 01:13)
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