Surprise, surprise!, ISO: Rhi

[Leo Sexton]

Leo had shown up at the Hier mansion about two days before Rhi was due home for school, as he'd agreed with Mr Hier the year before. In that time, he'd met the rest of the family (a lot of people were coming in from out of town for the wedding and all,) the family tailors had made him several pairs of clothes (including his clothes for the ceremony) and he'd spent a good deal of time trying to not giggle evilly at the prospect of the fact that in just a few days, he'd have the financial backing of one of the richest families in the British isles. He didn't giggle, though, because he felt that if he did that, the Hier family would very possibly think he'd gone entirely insane and call it off, and that would be bad, because then he'd have no money.

Yes, he was only marring Rhiannon for her money, and yes, he didn't pretend it was anything otherwise.

Still, she had (unbeknownst to her) gone through a rather rigorous screening process from which many other potential hopefuls (err, though they also knew nothing about the fact that they were even in the running) such as Catrina Yates, Mairin O'Flaherty, Cadence Ready and Becca Amherst had all flunked out of for one reason or another.

But enough of that - back to the situation at hand. With approximately five minutes until the arrival of his bride to be, Leo finished pulling himself into the velvet green monkey suit that they'd made up for him and started yanking a wet comb through his hair. His hair, which had been a tangled mess from the day he was born, hadn't received a single combing through his entire school career, and just didn't seem to have a knack for staying where it was supposed to be had actually been rather well kept the last several days. He'd been combing several times a day in order to make a good impression on his new relatives, and he found that as the time that his fiance was supposed to show up drew near, the more and more self aware he was of his looks he became. Finally, not quite satisfied with the end result of his combing, but not having enough time to keep playing around with his hair, he placed the comb on his bedside table, slipped his shoes on, threw his shoulders back and went for the door.

As he touched the doorknob, he turned his head around and surveyed his surroundings one last time. Good Lord, did these people ever have cash. He'd be amazed if a single one of them knew what it was like to only be able to afford a meal a day... He let his eyes settle on the comb that he'd just been running over his head. It was a beautiful little thing - the comb itself was ivory, inlaid with mother of pearl and a jewel encrusted handle. An idle braincell at the back of his mind thought about pocketing it and using it to buy a new house, and then he realized that with the financial backing of the Hier family, he'd be able to buy hundreds of combs like that one. He held back a laugh, but he did let a tentative smile break across his face.

So, armed with his minimal knowledge of the Welsh language and a little green and red phrasebook, Leo pushed the door open and strode out into the hall, greeting the manservant who awaited him there with a polite nod, and putting on the most respectable face he could muster in order to greet the crowd of Slytherin alumni that had gathered around the floo like a flock of poisonous, fanged sheep.

Making his way to the living room, where Rhi would be arriving, Leo found the room chalk full of chattering Hiers of all ages. Some were just milling around, some were picking fruit off of the buffet table laid out at the far end of the room, and most stopped as soon as he walked in and pressed around him, pretending to be eager to meet the soon to be newest member of the family. He bowed to the ladies and remarked upon how wonderful they looked, firmly shook the hands of the men while looking them in the eye, pretended to not notice the dark mutterings of various family members - they were all speaking Welsh, but he knew what they were saying. They all wanted to know if Andras had lost his mind, marrying his only daughter to some poor muggleborn out of the slums of London.

But Leo paid no mind to it and kept the smile plastered to his face, though he was growing more and more nervous with every passing minute. He felt like a fake. He was pretending to be a rich lord of somewhere, and he was really just the bastard son of two people who the only worthwhile thing that either of them had ever done was help create him. He felt like he'd be exposed as a fake at any moment, and that his petty little charade would fall around him like a house of cards. And then he'd be thrown out, probably right after being tarred and feathered.

Okay, no, it wasn't going to be that bad, but that's still how he felt. Gods, how long until Rhi showed up? The time they had down was, of course, only a guess, but Leo was getting antsy and somewhat sick of answering questions about his family life from her relatives. He glanced around, looking for Andras - he wanted to discuss some last minute details and such, clarifying what both of them expected out of this arrangement. Gods, how long until Rhi showed up? He shook another hand, glanced at the fireplace. When the hell was she going to show up already?

[Rhiannon Sexton]

Rhiannon usually looked forward to going home during the summer, and this year was no exception. She didn’t absolutely loathe her family (most of the time) and unlike during the winter, she could at least escape them if she didn’t want to spend time with them during the summer. She didn’t enjoy her winter breaks nearly as much because it was usually too cold out to go very far from home for very long. To make matters worse, when everyone was cooped up inside the Hier mansion, it suddenly seemed much – much – smaller than it really was. She couldn’t ever escape her brothers, and when her only form of female companionship was her mother it didn’t do much to encourage her to even leave her room. She did like her mother, some of the time, but lately the woman just got more and more annoying, especially after spending more than a week in her close vicinity. She didn’t seem to be able to accept the fact that Rhi was growing up, even though Rhi felt like an adult while she was away at school.

She was also about to get married but, the thing was, Rhi didn’t consider herself an adult for that reason. The thing was, she’d forgotten all about the wedding.

It wasn’t that she didn’t know she was forgetting something. She knew that something had slipped her mind, something important and something that she’d been unhappy about, but ask her what it was and she couldn’t have told you. When she’d been told over her last summer break, she’d been pretty pissed off – after all, she didn’t know who she was getting married to, and her parents hadn’t exactly given her an option. She hadn’t been expecting to be given the option of whom she was going to marry, true, but she’d expected to be a little older than fifteen. Fifteen was around the age that muggle women got married, she thought. Weren’t they at least going to let her finish school before getting her hitched with someone? Apparently not. She was going to finish school, though, but that had taken some wheedling on her part. Her father didn’t seen the point, not if she was going to get married and essentially be a housewife, which was what she assumed the case would be. Her parents wouldn’t pick just anyone to give away their only daughter to.

That had been the one thing she’d used to console herself: since she didn’t know who it was she was going to get married to, she’d decided that he was handsome and rich and charming, because her imaginative fiancé was probably a hell of a lot better than whoever the real one was. As the months had passed she’d forgotten all about her anger and her imaginary husband-to-be and her frustration at not being given any say in the matter, and gone back to focusing on school and her own private studies of the dark arts and hanging around with her friends, and the entire marriage thing had slipped her mind. Now it was just something that she’d forgotten about, and if she’d forgotten about, it obviously couldn’t have been that important, right? She shrugged it all aside and instead grabbed her pinch of floo powder so she could get out of Hogwarts for a month. She left all of her belongings behind, of course, since she had an entire second wardrobe at home anyway, so when Rhi went up to the fireplace it was just her. She hadn’t even bothered dressing up or anything, since she was just going home. The only concession she made to her appearance (well, besides any attention she normally paid to it) was to make sure her hair was nice and tightly braided, lest it catch fire. She loved her hair – she definitely didn’t want to risk singeing it.

Tossing the floo powder in the fire Rhi stepped in after saying that she was heading home to the Hier mansion, and then closed her eyes as the room spun around her and her stomach tried to rise up through her throat. That was the worst part of heading home – floo powder made her feel sick. When she opened her eyes again she started to smile when she saw the familiar hall and stepped out of the fireplace –

But her smile immediately vanished when she took in the crowd that was there. Her cousins Dylis and Efa, her uncle Grigor – everyone was there. It was like they’d all gathered for someone’s funeral, or something. But she hadn’t heard that anyone had died...

“Rhiannon!” Efa nearly shrieked and swept up her younger cousin in a bone crushing hug that Rhi didn’t return. She glanced around the room again uneasily, wondering why everyone was giving her a smile – the sort of smile that was half congratulatory and half pitying. What in Merlin’s name was going on? “Congratulations!” Efa continued, stepping back and holding Rhi at arm’s length to take her in. She and Rhiannon shared the same bone structure (as did half of the Hier side of the family; Rhi’s hair was the only thing she’d gotten from her mother) and it was easy to tell by looking at Efa what Rhiannon would probably look like someday, once she finished growing. Efa’s pale white-blonde hair was done up intricately, as if she’d been trying to impress someone and she was wearing a nice dress – very unlike Rhi. Efa seemed to frown a bit at Rhiannon’s casual appearance. “What,” She teased, the frown quickly replaced by a smile. For a girl who’d been in Slytherin a few years back, Efa often seemed more like Rhiannon did than what seemed like the rest of her family. Often, but only when she was actually dealing with Rhi; Efa and Rhi had been playmates as children, so they still held a soft spot for one another. “Did you forget that we were all going to be here?” She continued, a little sarcastic.

“No,” Rhiannon said, totally honestly. “I didn’t know you were going to be here at all. What’s going on?” She glanced around the room and then paused on an unfamiliar face – well, vaguely familiar, but clearly not family. Oh no. Wedding, She thought faintly. Efa laughed.

“Did you really forget your own wedding, Rhiannon?” Rhiannon tore her gaze away from – Leo Sexton, was his name? She knew him from Hogwarts, she thought, but he was older than she was. They hadn’t been at Hogwarts for very long at the same time. That name sounded right, though.

“Ah,” Rhiannon said faintly. “I – no,” She changed her answer abruptly. It was bad enough that she really had forgotten, but to humiliate herself in front of everyone? Even so, she flushed. “No, I just didn’t realize that you all would be here already. I thought it was in a couple of days?” She tried not to sound too hopeful.

[Leo Sexton]

"So, what's it like growing up as a muggle? You don't have brooms or floo or anything, right? How do you travel without magic? Must be awfully hard not being able to use a broom. I hear that muggles are all superstitious and such!"

Those were the sorts of questions that were shouted at him from the crowd as he attempted to struggle his way through the surge of future relatives. He tried in vain to answer the sincere questions, while pretending to have not heard the ones that were asked with a note of sarcasm or vindictiveness. He had to admit, the family he was joining was... Interesting. In all honesty, he liked Andas quite a lot, and a good deal of the extended relations seemed to have a delightfully dark sense of humor, and Leo couldn't help but like the ones that didn't have something against the fact the he was muggleborn or poor, err, or the ones that weren't blithering idiots, like Alwyn.

So, he continually glanced over the heads of the crowd every few minutes in order to check if Rhi was there yet or not, not particularly because he wanted to see her or something (though, in fairness, he kind of did) but more because he just wanted someone he could shift all of this somewhat unwanted attention over to. He held back an anxious sigh and pretended to be interested in the questions that were being asked of him and the stories that multiple people were all trying to tell him at the same time - the stories were all right, but he really didn't have the time or patience to properly listen to them just then. Wasn't Rhi there yet? Gads, now some old lady was telling him a story in Welsh! He pulled out his phrasebook and failed to translate a word of it and proceeded to say things like "Hmm?" and "Ahh." and merely nodding every once in a while, pretending that he knew a damn thing that she was saying...

"Ow! Fy annwyl Rhiannon!"*

Huh? What? The old lady had suddenly stopped and exclaimed something about Rhiannon, and now she was shuffling past him. Huh, it was probably the end of the story, and she'd been telling some charming homily about Rhiannon or something. Oh, wait, no, now someone else had shouted Rhi's name, and the wall of people had suddenly started moving towards the fireplace. Ah! She was here! It had taken him a moment to catch on, but he got there in the end. He suddenly felt immensely relieved, but he was also mildly annoyed that Andas seemed to be on the other side of the room now and there was no way he could get to him without making it look absurdly obvious. Instead, he just decided to go with the crowd and not get trampled, making his way over to the fireplace slower than the main rush of relatives and well wishers, but not so slow as to be considered unenthusiastic.

But he did make his way across the room fairly quickly, just in time to catch the end of Rhi and Efa's conversation. Well, this was mildly disconcerting - not only was she wearing her average, everyday clothes with no more preparation to her physical experience than you might expect out of her on any given day of the week, she also had an incredibly baffled and somewhat bemused expression on her face. Oh dear... She had either forgotten entirely about the whole thing, which didn't seem particularly likely - getting married wasn't exactly a small occurance - or the rest of the family had entirely blanked on the bit about actually telling her about it in the first place, which seemed a little more likely. "Well," he spoke up, commenting on the end portion of Efa and Rhi's talk, "it seems someone told Rhiannon that the day of the ceremony was the day that guests would be arriving. Just a communication error, though, no real harm done." He plastered on a giant smile and attempted to be as charming as he could, but he still felt like he was just a fake and that he'd be exposed at any moment...

-

*This basically translates to "Oh! My dearest Rhiannon!"

[Rhiannon Sexton]

"Oh! My dearest Rhiannon!" Rhiannon glanced around for her grandmother and easily spotted her amongst the crowd, though it wasn't as though her white hair was what made her stand out. Both sides of Rhi's family were blond, but her father's side was definitely made up of blonds of the pale white variety. White hair was close enough to - well, even Efa's hair colour - to make it hard to pick out. No, Rhi caught sight of Arhanrhod Hier almost instantly because her grandmother was a formidable, charismatic woman… if she was having one of her good days. Some days she just toddled around as senile as her husband - who was one of those crotechy old people even his family avoided when they could. Aranrhod was standing very close to Leo Sexton, and for a moment Rhi had a pang of worry; oh Merlin, what had her grandmother told him? It didn't occur to her that he might not speak Welsh, not when everyone else in her family did. They didn't exactly marry Englishmen or women into the family very often… or nearly ever, actually. They wanted to keep the old blood and the old wealth in the family, and in Wales.

"Of course it is," It wasn't Efa who answered Rhiannon's half question, it was Iefan, and from the way he was looking down at Rhi - and not just because he was one of the taller members of the family - she knew that he knew she really had forogtten. She hadn't done a very good job of covering it up, and she kind of hoped that only Efa and Iefan and Dylis had been close enough to hear her changing her answer. Given the crowded room, chances were her hopes were in vain, but she was an optimist. At least, She thought to herself, Leo wasn't close enough to hear it. Maybe.

"Well, it seems someone told Rhiannon that the day of the ceremony was the day that guests would be arriving. Just a communication error, though, no real harm done."

Vaguely Rhi wondered if Leo spoke Welsh - and only because he'd spoken up in unaccented English. Even Rhi had an accent, and after five years away at school plus lessons for years earlier she spoke the language fluently. All of the Hiers were speaking Welsh, though, so if Leo wasn't - either he wasn't comfortable in their native tongue or he didn't speak much Welsh at all. Suddenly, and very desperately, she hoped it was the latter and not the former. She could deal with marrying someone who didn't speak Welsh fluently; that was fixable, and it would spare her her current humiliation somewhat.

"A communication error," Rhiannon echoed in English, hoping that Leo would take the statement as a confirmation. She was still feeling a little faint and very claustrophobic. "Exactly, yes." Iefan snickered.

"Sure, Rhiannon," He said in Welsh. "Maybe between your brain and the rest of the world. Why don't you go and give your new husband-to-be a proper welcome?" Several of her younger male cousins hooted, clearly finding the dare much more amusing that Rhiannon did. Efa put a hand on her shoulder before Rhi could lunge at her older cousin and Dylis said coolly,

"Don't be a prat, Iefan." Rhiannon was shocked; her cousins were standing up for her? She was surprised Iefan would be such a jerk in front of their parents and grandparents, though - and yes, she realized as she glanced uneasily around the room again, all of their parents and grandparents were there. Merlin, she wished she had remembered this. Belatedly, Rhi realized that Leo was probably a little confused; that, or offended by her family, if he understood what they were saying. Fighting off her blush, she said to him in English, apologetically,

"I have to apologize for my family. I'm afraid that propriety isn't a part of some of my cousins's vocabulary." Or, apparently, Rhiannon's, since she shouldn't have been insulting her cousins to someone who was essentially a total stranger (even if they were going to be married in a few days).

[Leo Sexton]

Rhiannon confirmed that it was a communication error, and Leo was about to say something that would make him all charming and awesome and dashing and what have you when one of Rhi's cousins - Iefan was it? Said something in Welsh that even Leo, with his minimal understanding of the language, knew didn't stand within the traditional borders of publicly accepted polite decorum. He raised his eyebrows a little, as rolling his eyes wasn't acceptable in such a situation, and hoped Rhi would catch the meaning of it. He was going to respond to Iefan's statement, hopefully in a manner that would shut him up and not break societal rules or start a brawl, but it seemed that Dylis - or whatever the heck her name was - did his job for him, and whatever the hell she said seemed to shut him up - temporarily, at the very least.

"I have to apologize for my family. I'm afraid that propriety isn't a part of some of my cousins's vocabulary."

"Ah, yes, that does happen on occasion." He said, glancing over at Iefan for just the briefest of seconds - hopefully a little too quickly for Iefan to actually notice anything. With that, he turned on the spot, so that he had his side to Rhi. He wasn't thinking that he whole thing had been a mistake, he was just starting to think that maybe letting Rhi's relatives in on it had been a mistake. There were just so... Many of them! He couldn't have honestly said that he'd expected this many people to be there for it - he only really had the one family member, after all, so it wasn't as though he'd been entirely prepared for it. At least Bernard wasn't here, though. That would have made it a disaster of amazing proportions. Though, it may have been worth it to watch the entire Hier family beat him up...

Actually, the thought of the Hier family beating up his father made him disturbingly happy, and the smile he'd been wearing suddenly became far less fake than it had been. But he pushed the idea out of his head, trying not to smirk, and looked over at Rhiannon for a moment. "Well, Rhiannon," he remarked, holding an arm out for her, "I believe we are to join your mother in the drawing room for tea." He said politely. He then, in thought, added '...and for getting away from your swarm of relatives...'

[Rhiannon Sexton]

"Ah, yes, that does happen on occasion." Rhi wasn’t sure if Iefan caught the look that Leo gave him, but she certainly did, as did Dylis, who snickered at Iefan. From the bemused look on her cousin’s face, he had missed it completely, which gave Rhi a case of the warm-fuzzies. She still wasn’t so sure about this whole marriage business, not that she had a choice, but at least it seemed like her father hadn’t married her off to some asshole. Or rather, if he was an ass, he was at least the right kind – he’d fit in with her family. All half million of them. And as far as Rhi was concerned, that was something important, because if she ended up marrying someone who didn’t get along with her family, chances were she wouldn’t have a husband for very long, assuming he even made it to the wedding. Briefly it occurred to her that having her entire family there days before the wedding wasn’t necessarily the best of ideas. First off, it made the mansion rather cramped; secondly, it meant that her future husband would be subjected to all of her relatives, all of which were acquired tastes. He’d probably be scared off of her just because of the rest of her family.

Maybe then he’d call off the wedding? Doubtfully, but Rhi could hope. It wasn’t that she didn’t like Leo; it was that she didn’t know him.

Efa nudged her forward when Leo turned and offered her is arm, as if she expected her younger cousin to make a run for it instead of taking it. While Rhi was seriously contemplating it, she figured that she wouldn’t make it very far in the room before someone grabbed her and made her go with Leo wherever it was he was going to lead her. It wasn’t like they’d be allowed going anywhere together alone, so she wasn’t too worried, unless it was someone like Iefan acting as their chaperone.

"Well, Rhiannon, I believe we are to join your mother in the drawing room for tea." Rhiannon managed to keep from giving Leo a look of horror before taking his arm. This time it wasn’t horror at the thought of taking his arm, but rather the thought of being stuck in a room with him. And her mother. At the same time. Mere days before her wedding.

Oh Merlin, she wasn’t going to survive her mother’s raptures.

Huw sidled up one side, and Mair on the same side as Leo – two of her older cousins. Clearly they weren’t going to be chaperoned by just one person, but two; what, were they worried about Leo or something? Rhiannon remained silent as they crossed the large entrance hall and went into the hallway to the sitting room.

“She’s going to want to talk about a little more than you’d expect at tea time,” Rhiannon predicted when the drawing room door came into her line of sight. She wasn’t really sure what to say to Leo, but even so she felt like she should warn him about her mother’s potential pre-wedding excitement. Merlin knew that she would have wanted to be forewarned. Huw pushed the door open for her and held it open for both Rhiannon and Leo. Rhi went in first and broke into a wide smile, her first real one since she’d come home, and she returned her mother’s hug warmly. Even if they didn’t get along all of the time (well, most of the time), Rhi really did like spending time with her mother.

“Both of you, take a seat,” Her mother instructed in English as she took a step backwards. The cups were laid out for tea and there was a pot already brewed. Once everyone was settled, her mother dove straight into the pleasantries, “You got away from Hogwarts alright, Rhiannon?” Her mother’s English was clumsy, but she managed to get her sentences in the proper order when she spoke slowly, which she was now. Rhi was starting to realize that Leo’s Welsh might not have been very good at all, not if her mother seemed to be trying to use English when he was there.

“Yes, of course,” Rhi answered with a shrug, and frowned. “Why didn’t you tell me everyone was going to be here when I got here?” Everyone, she silently continued, including Leo? Geez, thanks for the warning, mother. Her mother looked at her blankly.

“I did, though,” She said, but this time it was in Welsh. “Last summer, don’t you remember? Please don’t tell me you forgot.” Rhi stared at her mother, and slowly came to the realization that her mother was right. She had been warned; just like she’d forgotten about the wedding, she’d forgotten about everything that they needed to do before the big day. It must have been obvious from her expression that she’d done just that, because her mother forced a smile onto her face and turned to Leo. “My apologies,” She said. “I think Rhiannon’s just feeling a little overwhelmed.” Rhi scowled at her mother and studiously avoided looking in Leo’s direction.

[Leo Sexton]

Leo took Rhi's lead while the two... err... four of them walked across the entrance hall – took her lead by not talking, I mean. It was somewhat an uncomfortable combination of just not knowing what to say, being not entirely sure if it was societally acceptable to say anything in that sort of situation and or the difference between what was and wasn't acceptable to say, and not knowing Rhiannon herself well enough on a personal level to feel as though he could say the vast majority of the relevant things that were running through his head at that exact moment. Which... Is kind of disturbing, considering that they were getting married in a few days and all.

He was glad when they made their way across the entrance hall, though – he felt as though he could feel the eyes of the entire Hier family staring at his back as he left the room, though, he knew that couldn't be true, as Rhi wasn't currently able to stare at his back, and her mother was still a little ways up ahead. Never the less, he had to suppress a slight shudder as they entered the hallway and Rhi's relatives could no longer stare at him. He very seriously hoped that he would get used to all of them, and visa versa, because he didn't want the attention to continue like this much longer. He could deal with it, sure, but it still made him feel uncomfortable and overly scrutinized.

Huh? What? Oh, right. Leo hadn't actually expected anyone to say anything until they had reached the drawing room, so he was mildly caught off guard when Rhiannon had actually spoken up. “Yeah, I expected as much.” He responded in a semi-casual tone, though he did unwittingly pick up his pace just a little bit, “Thanks for the warning, though.” He tacked on to the end. Though, after saying it, he felt like the thanks for the warning bit could have been said better, but he really had bigger issues to deal with just then than wondering if he'd properly said thanks. Never the less, he dwelt on it until they reached the door.

Rhiannon entered the room first, Leo followed closely, and he shut the door quietly once he was in. He was just about to find himself at a loss as to what to do next when Anwen bid them to take a seat, which he promptly did. He then thanked Mrs Hier and poured himself a cup of tea while listening to Rhi and Anwen's conversation, which quickly turned to being in Welsh. He almost went for his phrasebook, just out of pure reflex, but he was able to realize that if they were speaking in Welsh around him, it was because they didn't feel that whatever they were discussing was any of his business and thus, managed to stop himself before he actually moved.

“My apologies, I think Rhiannon’s just feeling a little overwhelmed.”

Oh, so they were speaking English again! That was good. He'd have to learn Welsh some day, he'd been quickly realizing over the last several days – it seemed to be the main language of far too many people in his new family. He wasn't worried about it, though – he could just schedule it right in with his universal domination plans.

He'd put it in his daily planner: Be crowned. Gain the love and support of the people. Learn Welsh. Invade France. Have tea.

So, he put his cup down on the table and smiled again (the fake, plastered smile that he'd had in the entrance room had slowly disappeared while they had walked to the drawing room out of a lack of necessity for it) – this time a real one “Oh, no need at all to apologize, Mrs Hier! With school, and the wedding coming up, there's no real wonder that Rhiannon would be feeling quite overwhelmed about now.” He said, turning his face towards Rhi just as he said her name. Well, this was going well enough so far.

[Rhiannon Sexton]

Rhiannon could have killed her mother. Yes, she had been very happy to see her like - two minutes earlier. But now, she would have been perfectly happy to strangle her; that, or vanish completely, because she was starting to feel completely and utterly humliated. She'd forgotten her own wedding. She should have been feeling humiliated. That didn't make her feel any better, though, it just made her wish that the ground would somehow rise up and swallow her whole. She was starting to wonder why she hadn't invested in an invisiblity cloak yet, since it would clearly have been a worthwhile purchase.

She didn't look up when Leo put his cup down on the table, and winced when she saw her mother's broad smile. She was either revelling in her daughters embarassment (which, Rhiannon suspected, was actually her mother's sole purpose for being on this earth; to humiliate her only daughter) or returning a smile. Rhi assumed it was the former, though if it was the latter she wouldn't have known because she wasn't looking at Leo. If she had been, she'd probably have wondered if his smile was genuine or if he was just trying to make her feel better or if he was something like her brothers and actually mocking her.

“Oh, no need at all to apologize, Mrs Hier! With school, and the wedding coming up, there's no real wonder that Rhiannon would be feeling quite overwhelmed about now.”

Rhi caught Leo's look in her direction out of the corner of her eye and glanced back at him, wondering if he was being sarcastic. She was half waiting for someone to finish the sentence with, 'After all, that's a whole lot more thinking than she's used to!' or something like that; it sounded like something that Haydn would say, or Dai even. Alwen wouldn't have been able to think the insult up, but he'd have laughed heartily at it once he heard it, and then ask about it later; he should have been the Hufflepuff of the family, Rhi always thought.

"I wasn't expecting everyone to be waiting in the hall." She said by way of explanation, trying not to sound too stiff. What she really wanted was for them to not talk about her like she wasn't there. She figured that Leo had already gathered as much, and it was pretty clear that she was saying that for her mother's benefit and not Leo's… but decided to change the subject, and quickly, before she could be further humiliated. She didn't think that that was really possible; she was already pretty mortified.

"So… uh, Leo. Do you speak much Welsh?" Rhiannon managed to continue to look straight at Leo, even though all she wanted to do was give her mother a pleading glance to get her out of this mess. Not that her mother was likely to call off the wedding (or rather, convince her husband to call off the wedding) either. She seemed to like Leo, and that meant that Rhi had no chance of getting out of this at all.

[Leo Sexton]

"I wasn't expecting everyone to be waiting in the hall."

Wow, really? No, he didn't say it, nor did he let a sarcastic or 'duh' type of look cross his face - he just sat and smiled pleasantly at her, nodding understandingly. Right now, Leo was trying to decide if Rhi had blanked on the occasion entirely, if she had honestly thought that people wouldn't be arriving for another day or two, or if the Hier family just hadn't gotten around to telling her about it. He could see her brothers 'forgetting' to tell her about it, but her parents... Not so much. Either way, he pitied her in this situation. Though, if it was the case that no one had told her about it at all, Leo felt himself rather impressed at her ability to take such a large surprise all at once.

"So… uh, Leo. Do you speak much Welsh?"

Eh? Where the heck did that come from? Okay, no, he knew exactly where it had came from - it was something she'd been wondering, and she wanted to change the topic of discussion, rather understandably. Halfway through her question, he realized where she was going, and immediately picked up his mug and took a big sip of tea - that bought him a few seconds to think of a response in Welsh that hopefully wouldn't make him sound like a blithering idiot.

Well, being as he didn't actually know how to speak Welsh or anything, he failed miserably. "Chwaethach cymaint fel myfi... deisyf?"* He said to her, trying not to wince as he noticeably messed up the end of the phrase. Well, he quite honestly messed up the entire thing, but at least he messed it up in a way that she'd be able to understand what he had meant. Hopefully. "I speak just enough to not be able to get by if I had to." He then added with a shrug. Rhiannon's brothers had been attempting to teach him rude phrases in Welsh over the last several days and telling him that they meant things like 'You look lovely tonight' and 'Could you please pass the salt' but Leo was yet to be gullible enough to actually fall for anything they had told him, and he certainly wasn't dumb enough to attempt to impress Rhiannon by telling her exactly how wonderful she looked by using one of her brother's little phrases. Though, if nothing else, it'd certainly get the one-of-them-having-a-seizure-out-of-pure-shock phase of the relationship out of the way.

-

*Means "Not as much as I would like." only butchered, because Leo has no idea what the hell he's doing >.>

Sorry, not much to respond to, but it's four AM and I wanna get a post in before I leave for the frozen tundras of the north *nods*

[Rhiannon Sexton]

Even though Rhi had technically known about the wedding, she was still taking in a rather large surprise all at once – though if you’d asked her, she wouldn’t have said that she was doing a good job of it. Rather, her mind was shutting down completely, thus her continuous repetition of not expecting so many people, and it would be a while before she’d actually completely absorbed everything that had surprised her and, by extension, a while before her brain started working again. At least she had her mother to act as a buffer for now, since as far as she was concerned her cousins were as likely to be out to get her as they would be to help her regain her bearings. Her mother, at least, she could count on to not be malicious, even if she’d probably embarrass Rhiannon in some way or another before they were done with tea. That was what mothers did though – embarrass their teenage daughters. It was expected; being humiliated by her cousins in front of her future spouse wasn’t nearly as expected, and out of the two choices Rhi knew she’d rather be humiliated by her mother than by the rest of her family.

"Not as much as I would like."

Rhi also managed to suppress her wince, albeit barely and attempted to give Leo an encouraging smile. She had the feeling it was just awkward, especially since she felt like an idiot trying to reassure someone six or seven years her senior. She actually wasn’t quite sure how old Leo was but, all things considered, she knew that she shouldn’t have been complaining about marrying him over anyone else at all. He could have been some crusty old bastard, and that would have been much worse. At least Leo wasn’t much older than Haydn, if he was older than her brother at all, and he seemed decent... this far. He hadn’t mocked her outright about forgetting their wedding or that her family would all be arriving this early, and he didn’t seemed too overwhelmed by her millions of relatives. Bonus points for Leo! Welsh was something that he could work on.

A lot.

"I speak just enough to not be able to get by if I had to." Leo added in English.

“Well,” Rhiannon said cheerfully, her default state of being – thank Merlin, in situations like this, because if she’d been a perpetually gloomy sort of person it’d probably make Leo think she hated him right off the bat – and continued, “That’s alright. I’m sure you’ll pick it up pretty quickly. If you’d like I could teach you a little.” There. She’d been friendly. And it hadn’t killed her to do it. Even better, she hadn’t blushed a ton when making the offer, which was what she’d expected would happen.

“That would be a lovely idea,” Anwen said, giving Rhi the nod of approval. “Though I am not sure how much time I can give you before the wedding, Rhiannon. There are some things about it that I would still like to go over with, with you.” Rhiannon knew that there couldn’t be that much that was going to happen with the wedding and guessed that her mother was just making up an excuse to keep them apart before the wedding, since otherwise she’d have to find someone to chaperone them whenever they were together. Despite the large number of cousins and aunts and uncles in the house, that didn’t make it easier to find chaperones – all of the servants were off taking care of the rest of the Hiers, and there were a limited number of Rhiannon’s relatives who could actually be trusted to watch Rhi and Leo without being vicious or sulky about it. “You might just have to continue trusting Haydn or Dai for help,” Anwen added for Leo’s benefit and Rhi gave her mother a wide-eyed look.

“You trust them to –” She started in English and then hastily stopped speaking and changed what she was going to say from English into Welsh. She suspected that if Leo had spent any time with either of her brothers he’d already know that whatever they were teaching him couldn’t be trusted but figured it wouldn’t exactly be good form to insult Haydn and Dai in front of him. “Haydn and Dai probably aren’t teaching him anything fit for polite company,” Rhi told her mother as delicately as she could manage. Anwen looked genuinely surprised but didn’t question what Rhiannon said; it wasn’t that she didn’t believe her daughter, but rather that she thought her sons would have enough decency to treat future family a little better than they probably were. Hah, Rhi thought cynically. She’s obviously not seen either of my brothers for years, then.

“Or perhaps Huw or Andras,” Anwen said dryly. “It just occurred to me that Haydn and Dai often have a sense of humour that is not appreciated by... the rest of the family.” Well, that wasn’t quite true. Most of Rhiannon’s cousins would appreciate their humour, or at least the younger ones like Iefan would. It was Rhi who didn’t appreciate it.

----

I put Rhi's one Welsh sentence in Italics, just in case it wasn't clear that she switched languages there. Sorry. XD

[Leo Sexton]

Well, Rhi had smiled at him, and he was pretty sure that it meant that he'd at least made himself understandable to her in Welsh, and that was good. It also meant that he hadn't confused what he'd said with one of Haydn's charming little phrases, and if he'd mixed it up with one of those, he was fairly sure she would have been gagging right about now - not smiling. So he had that going for him. He shifted in his seat a little as Rhi started talking, finished up the dregs of his tea and placed the mug back down on the table. "Yes, I would appreciate that very much." He said to the room in general, looking from Rhi to Anwen, "Though, your mother is right, it would have to wait until after the wedding in order for either of us to have proper time." He added, nodding to Anwen as he said it. Was there time for Welsh lessons before the wedding? Yes, there probably was. Would decorum allow it? No, it would not. Which was okay, really. He didn't know Rhi all that well yet, of course, so being alone with her for any amount of time would probably promote a fair degree of uncomfortable feelings for both of them, and that would certainly be a negative point at this portion of their relationship. Yes, the whole situation was uncomfortable as a general rule, but that didn't mean there was any reason to add to it.

"Haydn and Dai have been teaching me much about the language, though." Leo noted to no one in particular in a rather nonplussed way. Yes, they'd been teaching him things that he would never, ever say. Though, he'd suspected that they had thrown in a polite phrase or two just to throw him a little. When he was king, he'd... Bah, no, they weren't significant enough to really do anything to. He most certainly could if he wanted to, on the other hand, and that was a rather happy thought.

“You trust them to –”

Rhi quickly switched to Welsh, but what she said there was pretty much confirmation of his suspicions about what they'd been trying to teach him to say. At least he didn't just have to suspect anymore, though, his suspicions had been fairly well based. He then proceeded to desperately try - and succeed - to not start laughing at the whole situation. The whole thing was mildly absurd, and a large part of him felt like he was going to wake up from the last week or so at any moment to find it was all only a dream. But that wouldn't be happening any time soon, so in the mean time, he just sat back and maintained his sense of decorum while Rhi finished her rather obvious sentence in Welsh.

“Or perhaps Huw or Andras, it just occurred to me that Haydn and Dai often have a sense of humour that is not appreciated by... the rest of the family.”

Thank God.

He smiled amiably and nodded slightly - he was quite honestly pleased at how well the whole affair seemed to be going. After all, no one was chucking plates yet, and that was a pretty good sign... Right? "Huw and Andras would be more than welcome teachers." He responded to her, glancing over to Rhi and looked for any movements from her that might suggest that learning from Huw or Andras could possibly be a bad plan. "If they have time, of course." He added almost immediately. He really didn't know Huw or Andras all that well, but they at least seemed better than, say, Haydn. Maybe he should just ignore everything in Welsh that they tried to teach him, and then blackmail a Snowden into confirming everything for him or something. But what was he supposed to blackmail the Snowdens with? The fact that they were all freaks? Everyone knew that already! Yeah, he'd just go with hoping that Huw and Andras were up to the job.

[Rhiannon Sexton]

"Yes, I would appreciate that very much. Though, your mother is right, it would have to wait until after the wedding in order for either of us to have proper time."

“Of course,” Rhi answered with a nod. She was secretly a little grateful for that, too; even though she knew just as well as Leo did that there would probably be plenty of time for her to teach him the basics before their wedding, she couldn’t help but feel that the less time she could spend in small group situations with Leo, the better. She wanted to know more about him before they actually tied the knot (not that it would make a difference, of course; that was more for her own well being and peace of mind, since if she was marrying a total git she wanted to know beforehand), but she wasn’t going to find that out through polite conversation. He was obviously not stupid enough to let things drop in casual conversation, since he wouldn’t have been marrying into this family if he was. However, people could only pretend to be polite for so long, and if he had been around her family for several days now there had to be some gossip floating around about him; that was just the way her large family worked. If her cousins hadn’t picked anything up, the servants most certainly would have. She’d find more out about Leo by asking some discreet (and not so discreet) questions; her cousins loved to gossip, and the servants were nearly as bad – they would just be worried about offending her, she figured, but if she asked them directly she’d get some answers.

Well, it also wasn’t just curiosity that made Rhiannon want to know more about Leo. She liked to gossip just as much as Efa or Dylis or any of her other female cousins did, but unlike, say, Dylis, she generally wasn’t vindictive about it. She had the feeling that this was because she was the only girl in her immediate family, and gossip never seemed to bother any of her brothers; Dylis, on the other hand, was an only daughter as well, but Mabon and Iwan were both terribly offended whenever they thought someone thought poorly of them.

Rhiannon also had the advantage of having attended Hogwarts, unlike most of her cousins; her family was more than wealthy enough to afford private tutors for all of their children – one tutor for each child, even – but her father believed it was a good idea to send his children to Hogwarts so that they would learn something of the world outside of the family’s manor. Rhi wasn’t sure how much she had learned that she couldn’t have learned at home (a lot, in reality, but she didn’t really know any better), but she had learned how to make people dislike her and, more importantly, how to make people like her. She wasn’t amazingly popular or anything, but she didn’t think that she’d made herself any real enemies while she was at Hogwarts. Sometimes she got the feeling that people got a little sick of her and her undying optimism, but she was no worse than any of the other Hufflepuffs. If someone didn’t like her, chances were it was because they didn’t like anyone, she told herself, and for the most part she was probably right.

"Huw and Andras would be more than welcome teachers." Rhiannon nodded in agreement, tucking a loose lock of hair behind her ear. Her braid was starting to come undone. Her mother’s suggestions were both much better, though she wasn’t sure if she wanted to leave poor Leo sitting in a room with her father for too long. Andras wasn’t a bad man, but he intimidated her and she assumed that he had the same effect on everyone. It didn’t cross her mind that he and Leo got along well, but only because she couldn’t picture her father being anything but a little scary. Huw, at least, was a (mostly) genuinely nice guy, and he wasn’t so much older than Leo that it’d make lessons really awkward or anything. She’d decided that her impression of Leo being around Haydn’s age was right, and added that question to her ever-growing list of things to find out about her husband to be. She wanted to know what his family was like (she was in for a bit of disappointment) and what he did for a living (assuming, she thought, he did anything at all) and if he and his family were open minded when it came to the dark arts (she assumed he was, since there was no way he’d be willing to marry into her family if he thought them all to be the work of the devil or something like that), things like that.

"If they have time, of course."

“I’m sure they will,” Rhiannon said confidently. “I’ll talk to Huw for you, if you’d like. Perhaps you’ve already met him?” She was sure he had, since there was no way he couldn’t have if he’d spent more than ten minutes with her family, but that didn’t mean that he knew which one Huw was. They all looked alike, and she knew from experience that if a bunch of people were introducing themselves all at once there was no hope of remembering them all.

[Leo Sexton]

Unfinished

Leo nodded amiably, half paying attention to what was being said and half wondering if he'd be able to try to use his tea to tell the future without making it too obvious that he wasn't really listening anymore. He voted against it, not wanting to insult the Hier family. At least, he didn't want to insult them before they gave him all of their money their blessing. Okay, so he wasn't paying that little attention, he was still aware enough to know what to say when he was expected to say something, but... probably just barely. Never the less, paying no attention what so ever to his surroundings would be the social equivalent of walking on ice over a lake in the late spring. Either you were lucky and came out fine, or you weren't, and you ended up dead. And ending up dead wasn't fun.

“I’m sure they will, I’ll talk to Huw for you, if you’d like. Perhaps you’ve already met him?”

Wha? Oh! Right! There was a conversation happening! He'd nearly forgotten. "Yes, of course," He was pretty sure he'd met every member of the family by now, and while the exacts of each individual member had sort of melted into a big generic puddle, he could probably remember who they were and such when he actually saw them. "Huw has been quite friendly." He added, almost as an afterthought. He couldn't remember which one this Huw character was just now, so he'd more just been saying that to make everyone think him polite, and he also couldn't recall anyone being particularly horrible to him - at least in any blatant way - so he wasn't exactly lying there...

What time was it, anyway? He was getting bored. Unfortunately, Bernard had never considered patience to be a virtue (not that he would have cared even if he did consider it one) and had never attempted teaching it to his son, and Hogwarts had only beaten it into him a little bit. Most of the time, Leo just sort of took the initiative when it came to things and hit patience on the head with a big stick. Which was quite the bad habit, he had to admit, especially for someone with his high ambitions. He'd need to learn patience one of these days, but that day wasn't this one.

Hmm, what could he possibly use as an excuse? What was in the timetable for the day? Nothing, as far as he remembered, past this meeting. It seemed that everyone had realized that this was going to take a while and then proceeded to plan for it to not get out early. Guh. Wait, there was an idea!