“I presume you brought one of those ghastly carriages,” he asked with a thinly veiled scoff as they exited into the chilly morning air. She nodded, pulling out the remote starter as he continued. “If she insists on these anachronistic tastes, she might as well acquire a real carriage with horses.”
“And have to deal with 'those dumb foul-smelling creatures'” she responded with a chuckle imitating their step-mother's voice, “Not a chance. She wouldn't even let us keep Charley and Everett at the stables in town. And the last time Balthi brought in one of his injured birds home, she had it thrown out a window. The only animal allowed on the property right now is grandfather's Great Dane and she wouldn't dare upset him by getting rid of it.”
A large ornate carriage drove itself up from the main lot and stopped seamlessly in between the cars already parked along the loading zone. He helped her up the steps and followed audibly swallowing his distaste. As soon as they were seated, the AI driver called out in an artificially cheery tone.
“Master Maximilian. It is a delight to have your company. Destination time is currently three hours, two minutes. Please enjoy refreshments and music.”
The two of them remained quiet for quite some time as the carriage wound its way up the coast. Although their letters could go on for pages, it had been nearly four years since they had talked in person. Neither seemed to know quite where to begin. She was in deep thought and watching the scenery when suddenly he began to apologize to her profusely for not engaging in conversation.
“You know you don't have to keep up all this gentleman behavior when we are alone,” she said.
“You are the only one for whom I am happy to oblige. And if you must know, Verona will see no such respect from me. In fact I may just don one of the accents, I have picked up from my colleagues. Something particularly distasteful to that old hag.”
“Could you at least wait until after the wedding to grate her?”
“Well, I...” he began but silence was far more preferable to a hollow promise and that silence persisted for much of the rest of the trip, which continued to trace the coast for some time before crossing over into the low northeastern mountains. As they passed the cities, they would make occasional small talk over how much they had changed or stayed the same. Since his last visit, a few of them had linked up and in a few more years they would become just another mega city sprawling on uninterrupted for miles.
As they wound their way deeper into the mountains those packed skyscrapers and impenetrable suburbs gave way to farmed plains and thick forests filled with smaller mountain towns and palatial estates afforded to the wealthier families and social elites. The estate that belonged to his family had been built generations ago on a col between two of the ranges more secluded peaks which gave them a privacy few could obtain these days. A little lower on one of the mountains his family had also built a colossal clinic, one that was more massive than any of the hospitals found in the local cities. Nevertheless, it actually remained quite vacant except for one brief period during the last great war.
It was this clinic that would become his professional home for the foreseeable future. And as his eyes finally laid upon it, he spoke aloud with an alarmingly grim cadence, “As a child, I always dreamed of working at the family clinic, but this feels like the start of some dreadful nightmare.”
