The office thing is an interesting idea to keep in mind for the future. Though I've no idea if I'm going to be able to write Haruka worth a damn.
This bit, I spent a while on, and rewrote it a time or two ... meaning I'll likely need to go over it for errors tomorrow or something, because right now I'm yawning.
*return!*
*timestamp - picture of a fat black cat chasing a kerchief that's being carried off by the wind, with a black marker notation of 'Ren, please keep your personal snapshots out of the archive folder, yes?' on the side.*
The problem with being a foreign head of state visiting even an allied nation is always security. The more powerful you are, the less you can afford to trust people, and the more you have to dig into them and try to pull out their motivations ... well, metaphorically speaking.
Ideally, you have an Otome contracted to you, and can make do without the gaggle of bodyguard meatshields that would otherwise be the norm.
That allows you to have a modicum of privacy, since your best interests and the Otome's best interests coincide.
Yukino Chrysant was generally considered a too open, well meaning, and genuinely friendly person to be a politician, much less the President of the Aries Republic. In part, her winning the election had been based on certain parties' misconceptions that this would make her easy to manipulate.
As it turned out, nuts to them.
Even before she'd made a contract with a Garderobe graduate, she'd shown that below that friendly exterior lies a very much iron will and sharp mind.
Then she'd become the master of an Otome who was rumored to be willful to the point of being insubordinate, brash, ill tempered ...
This, according to several personages who will remain nameless for the time being, could simply not end well.
Well, they'd been right.
It had not ended well.
It had ended up being bloody spectacular.
The pair was a steamroller.
Or, no ...
Haruka Armitage was the steamroller. After she'd rolled past, Yukino would offer less drastic alternatives, and those were usually snatched up so quickly that the people doing the snatching only realized they'd conceded more than they'd initially meant to a few days later.
I've probably said this before, but I didn't really like Haruka much. Maybe because she was too damn loud, maybe because of her tendency to jump to conclusions ...
As for Yukino?
Black had started out as a discreet but reliable courier service in Aries, recommended to several local interested parties by a few quiet words spoken into the right ears. Information gathering and distribution had become the prime source of revenue after less than six months. Though those had been a tiring six months. By then, the core group of analysts and runners that still operated from there had been assembled, and business was expanding to cover more ground than just that of the Republic.
At the time, we were getting ready to expand further, but a little more referential push was always welcome.
So we compiled a moderately comprehensive report packet, with a focus on several of the budget problems Aries seemed to be having, and delivered it ...
Or rather, I picked a quiet night and deposited it on her doorstep.
As far as reactions were concerned, I hadn't really known what to expect. Office bets had been on Armitage leading a manhunt through the city, which didn't happen.
Two days later, one of the higher ranking military officials was quietly relieved from service, and sent off to live from a modest government pension in some backwater town on the arse of the Republic, or else.
A week after that, an invitation found its way onto my desk.
I remember fairly little of that meeting, other than the fact that it passed in a bit of a blur. A pleasant blur, though. At the end, a contract that would later become the standard one the company used when dealing with governments had been drawn up, looked over twenty ways from Sunday, and signed.
We didn't handle their deliveries - the Republic's own couriers were very professional - but monthly, sometimes bi-weekly, compiled information packets were prepared and delivered.
I'd made a habit of dropping them off myself. One that, a few weeks later, turned into the habit of staying and discussing the current report's contents ... and anything else, be it connected thereto or not.
It was a very odd dynamic that we'd developed, and I found that above and beyond anything else, Yukino Chrysant was an engaging conversationalist. At first, this had been mostly verbal sparring, and her trying to see if she could get anything beyond what had been put into the report out of me.
Later on? I'd like to think we'd become genuinely friendly.
Sadly, schedules being what they were, chances to sit down to a long lunch and talk had been few and far in-between during the last few months before the company had gained enough momentum and reputation to expand again.
Which, in turn, had brought me to Windbloom.
I realized my lips had curled into an involuntary smile as I brought the sedan into a parking space.
I think I missed her more than I'd expected to ...
I blinked.
Damn.
Damndamndamndamn ...
I'd barely restrained myself from introducing my forehead to the steering wheel. Repeatedly.
With a reluctance I hadn't felt moment ago, I opened the door and stepped out onto the sidewalk. The sedan automatically closed and locked behind me as I started towards the middling-sized Jipang place I'd arranged to meet Yukino (and Haruka) at.
"I so didn't need to come to that realization right now," I muttered into thin air, and slid the front door of the restaurant open.
---
Gah. This has the potential to turn messy, in a personal way. The bloody idiot insisted, though. What can you do?
And my dialogue writing skills seem to have flown the coop for the time being. Damn.
-Griever
When tact is required, use brute force. When force is required, use greater force.
When the greatest force is required, use your head. Surprise is everything. - The Book of Cataclysm
This bit, I spent a while on, and rewrote it a time or two ... meaning I'll likely need to go over it for errors tomorrow or something, because right now I'm yawning.
*return!*
*timestamp - picture of a fat black cat chasing a kerchief that's being carried off by the wind, with a black marker notation of 'Ren, please keep your personal snapshots out of the archive folder, yes?' on the side.*
The problem with being a foreign head of state visiting even an allied nation is always security. The more powerful you are, the less you can afford to trust people, and the more you have to dig into them and try to pull out their motivations ... well, metaphorically speaking.
Ideally, you have an Otome contracted to you, and can make do without the gaggle of bodyguard meatshields that would otherwise be the norm.
That allows you to have a modicum of privacy, since your best interests and the Otome's best interests coincide.
Yukino Chrysant was generally considered a too open, well meaning, and genuinely friendly person to be a politician, much less the President of the Aries Republic. In part, her winning the election had been based on certain parties' misconceptions that this would make her easy to manipulate.
As it turned out, nuts to them.
Even before she'd made a contract with a Garderobe graduate, she'd shown that below that friendly exterior lies a very much iron will and sharp mind.
Then she'd become the master of an Otome who was rumored to be willful to the point of being insubordinate, brash, ill tempered ...
This, according to several personages who will remain nameless for the time being, could simply not end well.
Well, they'd been right.
It had not ended well.
It had ended up being bloody spectacular.
The pair was a steamroller.
Or, no ...
Haruka Armitage was the steamroller. After she'd rolled past, Yukino would offer less drastic alternatives, and those were usually snatched up so quickly that the people doing the snatching only realized they'd conceded more than they'd initially meant to a few days later.
I've probably said this before, but I didn't really like Haruka much. Maybe because she was too damn loud, maybe because of her tendency to jump to conclusions ...
As for Yukino?
Black had started out as a discreet but reliable courier service in Aries, recommended to several local interested parties by a few quiet words spoken into the right ears. Information gathering and distribution had become the prime source of revenue after less than six months. Though those had been a tiring six months. By then, the core group of analysts and runners that still operated from there had been assembled, and business was expanding to cover more ground than just that of the Republic.
At the time, we were getting ready to expand further, but a little more referential push was always welcome.
So we compiled a moderately comprehensive report packet, with a focus on several of the budget problems Aries seemed to be having, and delivered it ...
Or rather, I picked a quiet night and deposited it on her doorstep.
As far as reactions were concerned, I hadn't really known what to expect. Office bets had been on Armitage leading a manhunt through the city, which didn't happen.
Two days later, one of the higher ranking military officials was quietly relieved from service, and sent off to live from a modest government pension in some backwater town on the arse of the Republic, or else.
A week after that, an invitation found its way onto my desk.
I remember fairly little of that meeting, other than the fact that it passed in a bit of a blur. A pleasant blur, though. At the end, a contract that would later become the standard one the company used when dealing with governments had been drawn up, looked over twenty ways from Sunday, and signed.
We didn't handle their deliveries - the Republic's own couriers were very professional - but monthly, sometimes bi-weekly, compiled information packets were prepared and delivered.
I'd made a habit of dropping them off myself. One that, a few weeks later, turned into the habit of staying and discussing the current report's contents ... and anything else, be it connected thereto or not.
It was a very odd dynamic that we'd developed, and I found that above and beyond anything else, Yukino Chrysant was an engaging conversationalist. At first, this had been mostly verbal sparring, and her trying to see if she could get anything beyond what had been put into the report out of me.
Later on? I'd like to think we'd become genuinely friendly.
Sadly, schedules being what they were, chances to sit down to a long lunch and talk had been few and far in-between during the last few months before the company had gained enough momentum and reputation to expand again.
Which, in turn, had brought me to Windbloom.
I realized my lips had curled into an involuntary smile as I brought the sedan into a parking space.
I think I missed her more than I'd expected to ...
I blinked.
Damn.
Damndamndamndamn ...
I'd barely restrained myself from introducing my forehead to the steering wheel. Repeatedly.
With a reluctance I hadn't felt moment ago, I opened the door and stepped out onto the sidewalk. The sedan automatically closed and locked behind me as I started towards the middling-sized Jipang place I'd arranged to meet Yukino (and Haruka) at.
"I so didn't need to come to that realization right now," I muttered into thin air, and slid the front door of the restaurant open.
---
Gah. This has the potential to turn messy, in a personal way. The bloody idiot insisted, though. What can you do?
And my dialogue writing skills seem to have flown the coop for the time being. Damn.
-Griever
When tact is required, use brute force. When force is required, use greater force.
When the greatest force is required, use your head. Surprise is everything. - The Book of Cataclysm