Villa Herringbone

"Welcome to the neighbourhood, I let the Dandelions be the first ones to welcome you, because otherwise, they'd just have been unsufferable. But I am glad you accepted my invitation to Tcha."   "It was most considerate of you to invite us, when we just moved in. I assume this is the famous Villa Herringbone, which debuted the Kagomine Manor Plan?"   "It is, and I am Samminaëlle Herringbone, you may have met my daughter."   "The fearsome Kagomine Secretary of Defense Valias Herringbone, why yes, I have."   "Oh, is she well? She's been on deployment quite a long time, I get a call or two, some letters, but hardly regular news."   "Anyone with her level of access to Meihomei must be quite busy."   "What? Access to... Meihomei? My daughter?"   "Why yes, as the second most senior government official not related to Meihomei herself, and the fourth in command of all Meihomei."   "What? Valias never said that, just that she was 'moving on up'."   "Oh she was... She just neglected to mention her elevator reaches quite close to the top..."   "You yourself are in the civilian service?"   "Yes, although I must admit I am quite a few ranks below your daughter's."   "Perhaps she mentioned you, if you'd let me have your name."   "Lusitania Van Pelt, Lanungmei of Trusimon."   "Oh, she certainly has."   "In a good way, I hope?"   "Oh, I'm an old woman, I'm not sure I remember her words correctly, but she seemed to think you would be quite highly ranked at State, if you weren't already."   "Well, I'd like to think some of that has come to pass."   "Oh, a recent promotion?"   "Yes, to Undersecretary of state."   "My, that even has powers of tribunal, it's quite an important position."   "Thank you, certainly it means a lot coming from you."   "I hear the tcha whistling, please do come in, and make yourselves welcome! Err, I didn't quite catch this young man's name, either did I?"   "I am Lunqui Zvei, I am a founding analyst at Burrshire Fund Management."   "You hadn't told me you made founding..."   "It's just a reorg, they shuffled all the titles around, and then someone actually remembered I was the first employee hired."   "Why, the first? Isn't burrshire that investment bank that owns part of Sirius?"   "Err, yes, parts of Sirius Technologies and Marquarry."   "Please do come in, both of you." That was a minor faux-pas, in a sense, Lunqui had been introduced as Luci's 'company', but by inviting him in his own right, she made him part of her community in his own right. Quite likely because of the large number of Kagomine Sums she assumed he was responsible for, at Thataway. Lunqui tried not to smirk, the only people who'd ever had anything close to an idea of how much money that represented usually had seen actual financial and legal documents, no one else seemed to imagine the real amounts... were actually real.   "You've both moved into that mansion left empty when poor Arrantia Vallardi died in action, I sure hope she left no ghosts for you."   "I checked, I didn't see any." Lucy added tartly, which meant her hired sorcerors had found nothing of the sort...