31-05-2019, 02:47 PM
Whatever Gets You through the Night Pt. 08
"Death In the shape of a Panzer Battalion!
Insect of terror!
Don't run, face your fate like a man!
Cannot outrun our Panzer Battalion!"
-Sabaton, "Panzer Battalion"
Lady Maria Louisa Francesca de San Finzione believed in a "San Finzione family curse."
Her parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins in the Royal line were all gone, leaving only her as the last blood heir of Vincenzo Ramon de San Finzione the First. He had devoted so much of his time to rebuilding his country while thinking of the best interests of The People and grieving his first wife, Contessa Sofia, that his children and grandchildren had become idlers with nothing to do but spend Grandpapa Count and The People's money.
As a result, presently, La Familia Royale's family tree, from the bottom up, in reverse-line-of-succession, read: Byroni, Vincenzo the Second, Maria, and Helena de San Finzione. There were other branches of La Familia de San Finzione. However, truthfully, they tended not to be worth speaking of.
Everyone in-between them and Vincenzo I on the tree could be read as: Expensive Car, Expensive Drugs, Expensive Car Again, Expensive Helicopter, Expensive Car A Third Time, Expensive Yacht Collision, Mob Debts, Expensive Car A Fourth Time, Expensive Drugs, Trying To Buy Expensive Drugs From The Wrong People, Oh Hell One More Expensive Car; with the surprise twist at the end of Eight Expensive Cars And All Aboard.
"The Last Little Piece of Me That Shall be Left When I Am Gone" was not going to be lost by him the same way! Vincenzo took his great-granddaughter under his wing and tried to teach the little girl everything he knew about how to bring a nation back from the brink of post-war economic extinction and guide its people to a better future.
Vincenzo the First died the same year that Maria became old enough to drive on her own. Because of her family's history, she was terrified of the idea of an extremely powerful and expensive vehicle. She almost looked into being a princess on a motorcycle, but a couple of the cousins who'd been on the same level as her on the tree had gone that way as well.
Because Lady Maria was, in fact, a real princess, and a role model to girls her age and younger, setting the example that success need not spoil a person and that being born wealthy and beautiful need not always speak of poor character; she had to appear just as successful as she was personable. La Familia Royale's roots were Italian and San Finzione had no auto industry. Those things and long-standing trade ties to Italy; severed only because of and restored after Mussolini, meant that, for political reasons, the car also had to be Italian.
It would simply not do for the future Contessa de San Finzione to drive herself to red carpet events and emerge from an overly modest Fiat Hatchback. She wouldn't be able to get around needing to drive something that was stylish enough to make little girls say "I want to be like Lady Maria and drive a car like that someday," and their older siblings to say "Well, maybe a sports car doesn't HAVE to equate to a middle-aged guy's dick! I mean, Lady Maria seems nice. Hey, when does she turn 18 again?"
Great-Grandpapa had a saying whereby he didn't mean literally that Lamborghini and Cocaine specifically had killed more of his family than the Crusades and the Renaissance combined. He'd simply meant that fast, expensive cars tended to be the Serious Cop in a Buddy Cop movie where The Captain forces him to work with a new partner, that Psycho Nutball Transfer, Drugs. They work out their differences, find out they're not so different after all, and work together to take down The Bad Guy; represented in the analogy by La Familia Royale de San Finzione. Maria, nonetheless, took his words to heart, so that ruled out a Lamborghini for her.
Most of the acceptable manufacturers on the list like Bugatti would be custom-designed and priced beyond the hopes of all those girls who'd just turned 16 and grown up alongside her on television. Therefore, without Maria's asking, they looked to a rich and famous person their own age like her to tell them what THEIR dream car was. So, it couldn't be an unattainable dream for those youngsters, rather a "someday" thing they could strive for. Eventually a compromise was reached, and Maria agreed to something sporty and under a quarter-of-a-million American Dollars. The Ferrari California met the criteria, so that became "The Car that, if you're a decent person and navigate this Life thing correctly, you have a chance of one day driving; JUST like Princess Maria!"
La Familia's curse still loomed over Maria's head, which made her an extremely cautious driver, setting another good example for young people. She occasionally had a few down at the Taverna with Stavro and her friends, however always had a trustworthy ride home and made it back to the castle safely. Even if her Great-Grandmama had to send her entire Armed Forces to make certain that SHE, and if possible, the car, get home undisturbed and unmolested. Lest Great-Grandmama invoke powers that nobody liked less than Great-Grandpapa and that he'd often considered doing away with. On the other hand, having fought against Hitler, Vincenzo I recognized that he MIGHT one day meet The Man Who Did Not Deserve Any Mercy Whatsoever and wish he hadn't given them up.
He'd also had a suspicion who that man might be, so he left his beloved second wife with the powers in place to deal with him in the event he'd been right about what Generalissimo Armando Santori might try to pull after he was gone. Count Vincenzo died at the age of 79, never meeting The Man Who Did Not Deserve Any Mercy Whatsoever. Making him, to Maria, the exception that proved that the curse was real. "Great-Grandpapa had been a GOOD man, and HE didn't die like the others!"
Not only had his second wife been CONCEIVED by The Man Who Did Not Deserve Any Mercy Whatsoever, Helen was constantly having to deal with His Dick Cousin and Loser Buddies Who Don't Deserve Any Either showing up so often that she has to change her phone number periodically to stop them from calling HER because the Dick Cousin's constantly giving it out as "his number."
"Death In the shape of a Panzer Battalion!
Insect of terror!
Don't run, face your fate like a man!
Cannot outrun our Panzer Battalion!"
-Sabaton, "Panzer Battalion"
Lady Maria Louisa Francesca de San Finzione believed in a "San Finzione family curse."
Her parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins in the Royal line were all gone, leaving only her as the last blood heir of Vincenzo Ramon de San Finzione the First. He had devoted so much of his time to rebuilding his country while thinking of the best interests of The People and grieving his first wife, Contessa Sofia, that his children and grandchildren had become idlers with nothing to do but spend Grandpapa Count and The People's money.
As a result, presently, La Familia Royale's family tree, from the bottom up, in reverse-line-of-succession, read: Byroni, Vincenzo the Second, Maria, and Helena de San Finzione. There were other branches of La Familia de San Finzione. However, truthfully, they tended not to be worth speaking of.
Everyone in-between them and Vincenzo I on the tree could be read as: Expensive Car, Expensive Drugs, Expensive Car Again, Expensive Helicopter, Expensive Car A Third Time, Expensive Yacht Collision, Mob Debts, Expensive Car A Fourth Time, Expensive Drugs, Trying To Buy Expensive Drugs From The Wrong People, Oh Hell One More Expensive Car; with the surprise twist at the end of Eight Expensive Cars And All Aboard.
"The Last Little Piece of Me That Shall be Left When I Am Gone" was not going to be lost by him the same way! Vincenzo took his great-granddaughter under his wing and tried to teach the little girl everything he knew about how to bring a nation back from the brink of post-war economic extinction and guide its people to a better future.
Vincenzo the First died the same year that Maria became old enough to drive on her own. Because of her family's history, she was terrified of the idea of an extremely powerful and expensive vehicle. She almost looked into being a princess on a motorcycle, but a couple of the cousins who'd been on the same level as her on the tree had gone that way as well.
Because Lady Maria was, in fact, a real princess, and a role model to girls her age and younger, setting the example that success need not spoil a person and that being born wealthy and beautiful need not always speak of poor character; she had to appear just as successful as she was personable. La Familia Royale's roots were Italian and San Finzione had no auto industry. Those things and long-standing trade ties to Italy; severed only because of and restored after Mussolini, meant that, for political reasons, the car also had to be Italian.
It would simply not do for the future Contessa de San Finzione to drive herself to red carpet events and emerge from an overly modest Fiat Hatchback. She wouldn't be able to get around needing to drive something that was stylish enough to make little girls say "I want to be like Lady Maria and drive a car like that someday," and their older siblings to say "Well, maybe a sports car doesn't HAVE to equate to a middle-aged guy's dick! I mean, Lady Maria seems nice. Hey, when does she turn 18 again?"
Great-Grandpapa had a saying whereby he didn't mean literally that Lamborghini and Cocaine specifically had killed more of his family than the Crusades and the Renaissance combined. He'd simply meant that fast, expensive cars tended to be the Serious Cop in a Buddy Cop movie where The Captain forces him to work with a new partner, that Psycho Nutball Transfer, Drugs. They work out their differences, find out they're not so different after all, and work together to take down The Bad Guy; represented in the analogy by La Familia Royale de San Finzione. Maria, nonetheless, took his words to heart, so that ruled out a Lamborghini for her.
Most of the acceptable manufacturers on the list like Bugatti would be custom-designed and priced beyond the hopes of all those girls who'd just turned 16 and grown up alongside her on television. Therefore, without Maria's asking, they looked to a rich and famous person their own age like her to tell them what THEIR dream car was. So, it couldn't be an unattainable dream for those youngsters, rather a "someday" thing they could strive for. Eventually a compromise was reached, and Maria agreed to something sporty and under a quarter-of-a-million American Dollars. The Ferrari California met the criteria, so that became "The Car that, if you're a decent person and navigate this Life thing correctly, you have a chance of one day driving; JUST like Princess Maria!"
La Familia's curse still loomed over Maria's head, which made her an extremely cautious driver, setting another good example for young people. She occasionally had a few down at the Taverna with Stavro and her friends, however always had a trustworthy ride home and made it back to the castle safely. Even if her Great-Grandmama had to send her entire Armed Forces to make certain that SHE, and if possible, the car, get home undisturbed and unmolested. Lest Great-Grandmama invoke powers that nobody liked less than Great-Grandpapa and that he'd often considered doing away with. On the other hand, having fought against Hitler, Vincenzo I recognized that he MIGHT one day meet The Man Who Did Not Deserve Any Mercy Whatsoever and wish he hadn't given them up.
He'd also had a suspicion who that man might be, so he left his beloved second wife with the powers in place to deal with him in the event he'd been right about what Generalissimo Armando Santori might try to pull after he was gone. Count Vincenzo died at the age of 79, never meeting The Man Who Did Not Deserve Any Mercy Whatsoever. Making him, to Maria, the exception that proved that the curse was real. "Great-Grandpapa had been a GOOD man, and HE didn't die like the others!"
Not only had his second wife been CONCEIVED by The Man Who Did Not Deserve Any Mercy Whatsoever, Helen was constantly having to deal with His Dick Cousin and Loser Buddies Who Don't Deserve Any Either showing up so often that she has to change her phone number periodically to stop them from calling HER because the Dick Cousin's constantly giving it out as "his number."
Like, Comment and Give Rating.
![[+]](https://xossipy.com/themes/sharepoint/collapse_collapsed.png)