My Home, My Family, My Duty, My Doom (Spy X Family) (MATURE!!)

Betrayed

"Loid-san?" Yor mouthed, trying to get her husband's attention without letting anyone else in on her confusion. "Which of the knives am I to use?"

The long table was laden with a dazzling amount of sweet and savory treats so ethereally beautiful that putting them into your mouth made you feel a little ghoulish. There was a majestic five-tier stand full of little sandwiches filled with egg mayonnaise; lemony cucumber and prawn; creamy goat's cheese, walnut and roasted pepper; smoked salmon and avocado; tiny salmon club sandwiches pierced with toothpicks; and what the head servant had proudly called the "best ever crab sandwiches in the world". There was another stand with what was called "scones", apparently something people ate on an island to the north-west? There were fruit scones; classic scones on which to put clotted cream and a selection of jams; walnut scones; and bakewell tart scones.

Earlier, before the kids had been ushered out by a nanny so they could play, Anya had focused all her attention on the colorful baked goods - blood orange and poppy drizzle muffins ("what are those black dots? Bugs?!"); lemon and poppyseed cupcakes ("Sour bugs? Yikesies!"); banoffee muffins with cream and salted caramel chocolate ("This chocolate tastes a little strange but it is very tasty!"); caramel covered shortbread (it had stuck Anya's teeth together) as well as raspberry religieuse ("Can you buy these for me tomorrow, Mama?"); mini eclairs ("mhmmmmmmmm"); vanilla custard slices ("Can I have one more?"); chinon apple tarts ("They're so tiny, I need to eat more to be sure I like them"); and crème brulée tartlets ("Ahhhh, it crackles in my mouth!").

"Mama, what if Anya bursts?" Anya asked Yor, her lips smeared with a mixture of pink cream and chocolate, her hand protectively cradling her tummy.

Yor had never heard of children bursting from too much food, but she was an inexperienced mother.

"Well...," Yor mused, not sure about what advice to give - she had learned to eat as much as possible as a child when food was available, but with a father as generous and affluent as Loid, Anya had surely never experienced such hardship?

"You have to stop before you burst," Loid interjected with a stern expression, "you shall never lack cakes in your life, Anya, I promise. No need to overindulge. You might make yourself sick."

"Hrumpf," Anya pouted as she turned her back on her father.

Though several days had passed, she was still noticeably displeased Loid had left her in the care of Henry Henderson without a word of goodbye.

"Papa forgot about me completely," she had informed Yor grimly after her return from the hospital. "We girls have to stick together, men are not to be trusted."

That was only because Loid had been so concerned about her, Yor knew. She felt so sorry for it. Really, if only she could tell him what she did for a living besides working in an office, he wouldn't worry so much! The bear had been very enraged, that was true, but in the end, fighting enraged men twice her size was very similar to fighting an enraged bear twice her size. The only mistake she had made was not getting away quickly enough when the bear fell over and buried her underneath its furry mass - the lesson: men, even the very large ones, were considerably lighter than a bear.

All that aside, a bear falling on top of her was nothing in comparison to what Loid had endured... jumping off a high cliff into an ice cold fast-flowing river! He was so lucky he had only twisted his ankle!

"It was nothing," was his modest conclusion, like he did this sort of thing every day - when it was such a heroic thing to do for a brain doctor!

"You could have hit your head on a rock," all the horrifying possibilities of a gruesome death played in Yor's head, one after the other. The thought of losing Loid was... unbearable.