Funeral: Silence’s Inheritance

This follows The Funeral and Further Funeral and Funeral: Will-Reading and Funeral: Senga’s Inheritance. It’s set in Fae apoc, pre-apoc era, possibly 2010.

Senga stared at the lawyer. She didn’t dare look at Mr. Silence; she didn’t dare look at the rest of the room.

Clause Seven. That was the clause which had kept her alive. That answered a question she hadn’t wanted to ask yet – did Great-Aunt Mirabella’s protections continue after her death? It appeared that they did, or at least that they might.

If she agreed to Own someone who was clearly averse to the idea and clearly dangerous.

Well… he might be less dangerous than the rest of the family and of Mirabella’s empire.

“Now. Erramun called Silence, Mirabella here leaves to you one million dollars from the general fund, these three blue envelopes here, and her 1963 split-window Corvette, under the requirement that you agree to serve as Senga Monmatrin’s bond servant for no less than six years under the Law of the People. In addition -”

“Why does she get him?” The voice was shrill and loud.

“Miss Muirgen, if you engage in one more interruption, I will be forced to remove you from the premises and from the will, as allowed for in provision three of the will and as you have already been warned.”

“I’d like to see you try!”

“Very well, that does count as another interrupt. Joseph, Henrich,” he nodded to the two large men.

Muirgen was removed from the room with a surprisingly small amount of fuss.

“Now, as I was saying, Mr. Silence. If you do not agree to those terms, not only do you not receive your inheritance, but I am ordered to publicize the contents of what is referred to as envelopes A, B, and C.”

He said nothing, but Senga could see the way his shoulders tensed and twitched. He nodded his head very slowly.

“Please see me when the will reading is completed to discuss these terms.”

The lawyer moved on to the next person on his list. Erramun-called-Silence stood up and stalked out of the room.

Senga considered for two or three heartbeats before she followed him out.

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0 thoughts on “Funeral: Silence’s Inheritance

    • The things that translate easily into money probably go into the general fund (I suspect at the end of the will the remainder of the general fund will either go to Mirabella’s favorite charity-equivalent or be split among a pool of people). The information and named objects there might be explicit (and cascading) fallback plans for?

      • There is pretty much exactly this as an option in will, for handling bequests that fail. There’s the ultimate backstop of a statutory distribution as well, which is often equal parts to all living relatives in a circle of N hops from the deceased (and if there aren’t any living relatives in that circle, to the government), but some statutory distributions do not limit the N. People don’t usually want the statutory distribution, but sometimes there’s no will, or the will is declared invalid in whole. I expect that Great-Aunt Mirabella has quite carefully spelled out backup plans at least three deep in all places, and has made quite certain that her will is iron-clad.

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