A Ruined Reception! Mello’s Fountain!

A Star Blazers/Death Note Short by: Ami Meitsu

“All right! I want that over there! And you-put that back where it was!” Invidia was pointing everyone in different directions. She stood in the middle of what one would perceive as a ballroom. That evening the Comet Empire was going to be the place of a reception. A reception is often held before a peace conference, something about easing tension…

Invidia sighed, she had been doing this all day and things still weren’t perfect.

“How’s it going, Princess?”

“Huh?” Invidia turned around, Zordar was behind her. “Oh, it’s all right but we’re still working on a couple things.”

“Don’t worry you’ll get it.” He kissed her head.

“Aw! Ow!!”

“Huh?” they both turned around and saw Misa and Mello falling out from behind a plant.

“What are you two doing?!” Invidia snapped.

“Misa did it!” Mello pointed.

“Get over here!” Invidia ordered.

“Yes” Misa and Mello asked.

“Look! I don’t want you anywhere near here tonight! Got it?! This is an important occasion and I don’t need you screwing it up! We spent a lot of money on this! Over twenty-thousand dollars for the whole thing and four hundred dollars for the ice sculpture! So stay out of the way!” Invidia pointed to one of the tables.

“You spend four hundred dollars on ice?” Misa asked.

‘Oh my god! They really are stupid!’ Invidia put her hand to her head; they were beginning to give her a headache.

Misa looked around and ran off to one of the tables, she picked up something that was on it, it was a dress. “Ooh! This is cute-can I have it?”

“No!” Invidia told her “That’s a five hundred dollar dress and I don’t want you ruining it!”

“Five-Hundred dollars?! That’s…” Mello stopped when one of the waiters walked by with samples; it was a desert cart full of chocolate!

“Chocolate!” he ran after it.

“Oh no you don’t!” Invidia chased him.

Misa went back to her original spot and looked up at Zordar. “You spent four hundred dollars on ice?” she asked.

“Get out” Zordar stated.

Later, four hours before the actual reception Light and L were busy in the kitchen-taste-testing.

“Too sweet” Light pushed one of the cakes away.

“I’ll eat it” L took it.

Light shrugged as another plate came his way; they had been tasting small samples for a while.

“Hey! You two!”

“Huh?” They turned and saw Invidia coming toward them.

“Yes?” Light asked.

She looked them over “You wanna help with the reception?” she asked.

“Okay…” L said.

“I’ll give you each two hundred and fifty dollars to help serve food.”

“Make it three hundred.” L told her.

“Two hundred.” Invidia said fiercely as she glared at them.

“Two hundred’s good!” Light and L backed up a step.

“Good, go ask the head Chef about uniforms.”

“I have a name!” he shouted.

“Yeah, well I don’t care what it is.” Invidia snapped. “And you two- be ready by seven o’clock.”

Light and L nodded, Invidia left, she needed to go take a bath.

“This is gonna be awesome!” L said “we get paid to be waiters, and if you’re lucky you can use that money to pay someone who will get you laid!”

“Shut up, you sound like Tamaro…” Light muttered.

“Who’s Tamaro?” One of the interns asked.

“Physic cousin, long story” Light sighed.

Meanwhile Misa sat with Mello inside their jail cell, which was more of a room now that Misa had furnished it.

“But I want to go!” Misa said.

“No! No matter how much chocolate there is…” Mello trailed off.

“You know, I did hear something about a chocolate fountain…” Misa whispered.

“Chocolate fountain..?” Mello said with wide eyes.

Misa nodded.

“Let’s go!” he grabbed her and they ran.

About two hours later Invidia was busy getting ready for the reception, things like that usually took her longer to get ready for, so she always started early. After her bath, she sat in a long black robe in another room, this was a place she was rarely in, often seen a second bathroom, or part of the closet. Invidia stared at herself in the mirror, she rested her head on her hands and her arms on the vanity table under her.

“Mistress, you know you rarely come in here.” Shamura told her.

“I did when I was younger, now I don’t need too, but this is a special occasion.” She picked up a makeup brush and handed it to Shamura “Do.” She stated.

Shamura laughed softly, she didn’t know why but it was a little funny…Invidia turned to her and Shamura fixed it so that it went well with her skin tone, she was good at stuff like that. After a minute or so she turned Invidia back to the mirror. “So? What do you think?”

“I like it; you can’t even tell it’s there.”

“That’s the point.”

“Hm” Invidia looked at herself for another second then she picked up the mascara on the table and used it to make her eyelashes appear a little darker, and possibly not blend in with her hair too much, she looked at herself to make sure it was done right.

Shamura put her hand on Invidia’s shoulder and looked in the mirror with her “now that’s a pretty face.” She stated.

Invidia looked up at her and gave her a small, gentle smile. “Thanks” she nodded, stood up and picked up her dress that Shamura had brought in; her father had bought in for the occasion and honestly she was unsure of whether she’d actually wear it, but she did like it. She gave Shamura a look; it was the kind of look that said ‘why are you still here?’

“Right!” Shamura left Invidia to get dressed.

Invidia watched her leave and when she was sure that Shamura was gone she took the robe off and slipped her other clothes on, she stared at herself for a minute, the dress did look good on her. “Shamura you can come back now” she said.

“You’re beautiful” Shamura complimented.

“Thanks” Invidia nodded “Now I’ve gotta find my sandals…”

She ran off and after about 5 minutes Misa and Mello ran in…

“Misa I told you we were lost awhile ago! Why did you come in here?” Mello asked.

“The reception isn’t for another half hour and I wanted more stuff, but I also wanted to know- what’s this room?”

“I don’t know” Mello said. “And I don’t care! I just wanna find the chocolate fountain!”

“I didn’t know she actually had a place like this, I mean you’d think she didn’t want to bother with makeup, I’ve never seen her use it before.” Misa began sieving through the drawers.

“Misa stop!” Mello grabbed her hands “She could come back! And we have to find this stupid reception! Come on!” Mello took her and they snuck out and down the hall, the same way they had gotten to the ballroom earlier.

It was still early but Invidia figured she’d check out the last of the preparations, just to be sure.

She muttered to herself while she walked “Okay, now we only have about twenty minutes to finish up, and anything that’s wrong must be fixed immediately.”

“Invidia!”

“Huh?” Invidia turned around, her father was coming toward her, he stopped in front of her.

“You look so nice, just like your mother…” he picked her up for a minute.

“Father stop it!”

Zordar put her down “Sorry, you’re just so cute…” he kissed her head.”Now come on, let’s go see what’s going on.” He walked with her to the ballroom and for once they found everything in place.

“It’s a miracle, no stupid mistakes” Invidia said.

“Yup! Everything’s set! Five more minutes and they’ll have the food out” Light informed them.

“All right then, everything’s ready, so we have nothing to worry about…”

Unknown to her-Invidia was going to take back those words later…

An hour later everything had come together, Invidia walked around with her father holding a glass of wine in her hand currently she was on her third. Everyone just sort of looked at her, she was so different. Her dress is definitely the first thing they noticed; she wore a strapless long black dress with a sash in a darker black. The dress was cut a little bit near the middle, and showed her off really well, quite different from her usual attire. Most of them thought she looked sexy but none of them would dare say so; Invidia didn’t take well to comments like that and they were often slapped for saying things like that.

“You know she does look kind of hot…” L whispered to Light.

Light looked at him “What is wrong with you?”

L shrugged.

“I could care less how they look; I was kind of hoping I could at least try dancing.”

“We’re the help! We’re not supposed to dance!” L walked past him with another tray of chocolate, yes, it was true-there was a chocolate fountain, around it were several cadies and chocolate coated fruits.

Invidia just looked at the table ‘too much chocolate.’

“Invidia, don’t just stare at it” her father told her. “Eat it, and give me that!” Zordar removed the glass of wine from her hand “you’ve had enough wine! I don’t want you drunk!”

“But father…”

He left without saying anything else. ‘Stupid father! Probably just wants my wine for himself…’ she walked off.

“There it is…” Mello muttered. He and Misa had been standing outside for about ten minutes trying to decide how to sneak in.

“Yes, but forget that! Look at all these people! And Invidia! She looks so pretty!”

“Who cares?! There’s chocolate!!”

“Mello, control yourself!”

“But I haven’t had chocolate in so long!! I need my Chocolate!” he ran off.

“Huh?” Invidia watched him ‘No! He’s going to ruin the whole thing!’ She wanted to go after him but couldn’t, she’d look stupid and couldn’t exactly run in the high-heeled sandals she was wearing.

Some of the guard tried to go after him but he was faster, he stopped and started eating the chocolate-fast.

“Where does he put it all?” Light asked.

“I don’t know or care! He’s your friend! Get him!” Invidia ordered.

Light and L ran, they grabbed Mello from behind but he reached forward and fell face first into the fountain.

“Awesome!” He sprung up again and chocolate spattered.

“Hey!” someone shouted.

“What’s the meaning of this?!” another one asked.

‘Oh crap!’ Invidia looked to see that her father had left. ‘I’m…I’m stuck!’

She watched as Mello shook his head sending the chocolate drops even farther, then he stuck his head back into the fountain and began drinking the chocolate sauce.

“Hey it’s raining chocolate! It’s Mello’s dream come true!” Misa said.

“You’re here too?! I told you to stay out!” Invidia snapped.

“Yah, but this is too much fun.”

“Okay enough of this!” Someone picked up one of the chocolate cakes and tried to throw it at Mello-it missed.

“Oh so this is how it is?” One of the woman said, she picked up another one and soon everyone was fighting and throwing things left and right, it was quite childish but no one seemed to give a damn.

Invidia stood up on one of the tables “All of you stop! I thought we were here for a reception not…” She stopped when some chocolate sauce came and hit her dress. ‘My dress! And there’s no way to get out of this…’ Invidia didn’t know what to do, so she took cover under one of the tables for the time being. ‘I can’t believe it…everything down the drain…’ She sighed.

Two hours later when after everyone had left Invidia paced back and forth in front of Misa and Mello.

“You two are Horrible! You ruined twenty-thousand dollars and three days worth of work! And look at my dress! Thanks to you, not only to I have to spend days trying to clean this but I have to take another bath! But aside from that you ruined a very important night!” Invidia said with hot tears in her eyes, tears of anger. “Thanks to you this treaty is never going to fall through! Now clean this up!” she stormed out of the room, when she came into her room Shamura was waiting for her.

“I did everything you asked, Mistress.” Shamura told her.

“Good!” Invidia headed into the bathroom.

“Bad night?” Shamura followed.

What do you think?!” Invidia threw her clothes off and got in the bath, not really caring that Shamura was still standing there.

“It’s all right, you’ve probably had worse.”

“No this is the worst. No more chocolate fountains!” she raged as she threw some water out of the tub.

After awhile she got out and went back to see her father, he was sitting on his bed looking over a couple of documents.

“Father?”

“Hmm?” he looked up from the paper he was reading.

Invidia climbed up on the bed and rested her head on his shoulder, when she did the robe she had been wearing slipped down, she wore her slip under it, it was hot so she hadn’t bothered to put on much. “The reception was horrible.” she stated.

“I know, but the actual conference is what counts-you know that… right?”

“I guess” Invidia sat up and sighed.

“Come here.” Zordar pulled her into his lap. Her robe slipped off all the way when he pulled her onto him, she let it fall.

“Why did you leave me there?” Invidia asked.

“I had to do something and when I came back it was chaos, I didn’t want to get in the middle of it and I thought you could handle it.”

“When everyone is acting crazy how am I supposed to gain control?!” she asked.

Zordar shrugged.

“Father! It’s not right! You should’ve seen what they did! Everything was wasted! Our time and money-gone!” Invidia said with tears in her eyes.

“Okay, just shush, it’s no big deal” Zordar held her closer.

Invidia nodded, she didn’t care as much anymore, after a minute she yawned.

“Tired?” Zordar asked.

Invidia nodded.

He laid her down “you can stay here tonight.”

“Good, ‘cause I’m comfortable” Invidia muttered as she began to fall asleep.

Later that night, Misa and Mello showed up in the room.

“Misa! Do I have to?” Mello asked.

“Yes!” Misa said as she came into the room, she looked at Invidia and Zordar. “Aw that’s so cute! She looks so sweet sleeping with her Daddy!”

“I don’t think she calls him that…” Mello said.

“Eh.” Misa shrugged and left something on the nightstand, and they left.

The next morning Invidia found said ‘thing’. It was a note.

Princess,

We understand what happened was uncalled for; but we took the punishment and cleaned the whole room we even made sure to get rid of all the stuck chocolate. It took forever but we did it, and even if you can’t forgive us, you can still thank us…We deserve at least that-don’t we?

Misa, Mello, Light and L

PS.: Light and L did nothing, but they helped. And Misa cleaned your dress.

Invidia sighed, they were kind of right, a small ‘thank you’ would be sufficient-especially since Misa cleaned her dress. ‘I’ll thank them later, I don’t usually do that, but it’ll get ‘em off my back…’ Invidia thought, as she laid back down, she was still tired. She got closer to her father and settled in. ‘At least they know how to take responsibility…’ She thought as she fell back asleep, there were no more dreams that morning…