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If there was one thing Alice Kirkland could say with absolute confidence, it was that she hated the Midwestern United States. It was somehow hot and humid at the same time, filled with nothing but miles and miles of farmland between small towns, and there was never any respite from the absolute god-awful blaring sun that bore down on them for the long, stretching day. Simply put, it was a horrible place to be and the fact that she was forced to be there did improve the situation any. She’d even tried to open the window on the passenger train she was on, hoping that the train currently barreling through the Great Plains would bring some sort of relief, but even the air that circulated in was hot and musty.
“Don’t look so down, cherie ,” the Frenchwoman sitting across from her scolded, fanning herself with a souvenir fan she’d bought when they’d passed through Louisiana. It made the thin veil she was wearing poof up, but at least she was getting some sort of air flow. “We’re almost there.”
“Ah, yes,” she responded shortly. She doubted Marianne could see her raised eyebrow behind her own veil, but she was sure that the other woman knew it was there. “Then we can suffer in a house instead of a carriage. How marvelous.”
Instead of responding, Marianne hit her with the fan.
“Oh, please,” Alice scoffed when her companion began fanning herself again. “You know it’s true. How anybody survives out here is beyond me, much less any of our kind.”
“They’re resilient,” she hummed. Beneath their feet, they could feel the train losing its speed, and Alice’s eyes caught the sight of a small cluster of buildings ahead of them. The train station, she assumed.
“They’re mad, is what they are.”
“Whatever they are, try and keep your opinions to yourself when we meet Amelia,” Marianne warned as the train came to a stop in the station. Outside, people milled around, either waiting for someone to disembark or to board the train themselves. Alice wondered which one was the Amelia Jones that Marianne had dragged her all the way out here to meet. “You know as well as I that having their clan’s support will be beneficial to us.”
Alice raised a doubtful eyebrow as the two women collected their luggage and filed out into the small, cramped hallway. “And how is having some backwater clan from the middle of nowhere going to help us?”
A few people around them threw dirty looks their way, but Alice solidly ignored them. She couldn’t care less of what they thought of her anyway, most of them would be dead long before her so she couldn’t bring herself to care. Marianne, though, threw a glare over her shoulder, piercing enough to shred through her veil and burrow deep into Alice, and she felt her will cow as she conceded. It wouldn’t be of anyone’s benefit to insult their host now. Alice had suffered the entire trip there just to speak to the other clan leader and it would definitely piss her off if it all ended up being for nothing.
With the matter unofficially settled, the two women wound their way through the train’s slim corridors and finally, after several long days of nonstop travel, made it onto the wooden platform acting as the train’s docking area. The station itself was no more impressive as it had been in the distance when Alice had first glimpse at it - just the platform below her feet and a small red-bricked building that people flowed in and out of. Yet, that wasn’t the first thing she noticed. Instead, it was the people milling about the platform, who, despite not being as primped and ‘put together’ as their eastern counterparts, were dressed in more-breathable, certainly cooler-looking, clothing than Alice’s own dress, which felt as if it were trying to violently suffocate her.
“Ms. Bonnefoy, I presume?” a voice with a low, distinctly southern American drawl called from somewhere off to their right. Alice’s eyes shot to the sound in an instant, searching for whoever had said Marianne’s name. The person she found, however, wasn’t who she’d expected. The two women’s efforts to avoid the sun had not only left them completely covered from head to toe, but pale as well. Regardless, the climate and weather back home had made it easy to blend in amongst the humans around them, and no one really blinked an eye at their passing, especially in clothes so similar to those in mourning. The woman in front of them, however, was dressed in an entirely different fashion - long pants cuffed with dirtied leather boots, a loose long sleeved shirt that was tucked into the riding gloves on her hands, and a wide brimmed hat that shaded her tanned face from the sun overhead. She appeared human, blended in here as easily as the other two women did back home, but she wasn’t. Her eyes gave it away, glittering and sharp and predatory, and only slightly dulled by her bright smile.
“Ah, yes!” Marianne answered, smiling politely even underneath her veil. “Ms. Jones?”
“That’s me!” their host confirmed as the two women shook hands. “Welcome to the Lone Star state. Thank ya’ll for comin’ all the way out here. We’re in the middle of getting ready for a cattle drive, so I appreciate it.”
“Of course, thank you for having us,” she said, much nicer than Alice would have. Then again, if it had been her choice, Alice wouldn’t have come at all. “This is my friend, Alice Kirkland. She is the head of the London clan.”
“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Ms. Kirkland,” Ms. Jones greeted with a bright smile and a tip of her hat. Something about it, though she wasn’t sure quite what, scratched her the wrong way - an irritable itch that made the collar of her dress seem just a little too constrictive and the sun just a little too hot and her smile just a tad too bright.
“It’s Lady Kirkland.”
To her credit, the other woman didn’t flinch. Instead, she simply stared straight at Alice, making eye contact even through her veil, and sharpened her own smile.
“Apologies, Lady Kirkland,” she corrected, snatching up Alice’s hand and placing a kiss to her gloved knuckles before Alice could protest. It was swift, and over in a moment, but it still left her fumbling over what to say. The stupid heat must be frying her brain. “We should start on our way back home,” Ms. Jones continued without missing a beat. “Wouldn’t want people wondering where the funeral was now, would we?”
“Why you little -” Alice bristled.
“That would be wonderful,” Marianne cut off, sending her a pointed look that told Alice to shut up .
“Great!” Ms. Jones said with a wide grin, briefly flashing the sharpened points of her fangs before turning in her heel. “Follow me.”