[Chapter Backlog-- Scene] Guard Duty

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Who: Senel Coolidge & Marta Lualdi & Marta's daddums.
Where: Daath, a residential building, I gather?
When: Backlogged: two years ago.
Warnings: Ummm nothing? I dunno.


He approached the front of the large building with the letter in hand, making sure to show it to the guards outside. "Here." After he handed the paper over and was given a quick nod of approval, Senel made his way into the wide open hallway area and to the meeting room his presence was requested at.

The whole thing was a little disconcerting. He'd just finished with the training to be a guardian a few months earlier and since then there was nothing of particular importance that Senel was assigned to do. Well..he was given quite a few "important" letters that had to be delivered from one place to another and some of the basic guard duties, if one could really consider those important. Then all of a sudden he was given an urgent notice that he was needed right away for an important job. According the the vague message he'd received it was something to do with guarding an important person, perhaps it was the fon master? Someone else in the order that he had to accompany? Couldn't imagine anyone in the military needing a guard, though...

Inside the room was occupied by few--just himself, a table, the man that had called him there, as well as one other person. As was indicative of a soldier mentality, Senel didn't waste any time in getting to the heart of the matter of him being there. He took out the same piece of paper that he'd shown to the guards at the front entrance and held it up, "I was told in this message that there was an important job for me, and that I had to come right away." Senel started right off, hoping to clear up some of the vagueness of the letter. He didn't seem to realize ho crass he was being in the presence of someone so important.

The other man in the room, an importantly dressed man at that, motioned for the soldier to take a seat at the lone table. "Yes. It's about the matter of becoming a guardian."

"A guardian for who, exactly?" Senel slid into one of the seats.

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A fourteen year old little miss Marta Lualdi sat in one of those seats, arms folded over her chest, and something between a glare, a pout, and a scowl crossing her face. She looked up as the newcomer arrived, but only long enough to give him a nod of acknowledgment and a bit of a cold stare before returning her gaze to the table in front of her.

She was fourteen years old. Marta didn't need a guardian! And yet, her father insisted upon one for her. She let out an irate sigh. If her father thought that she was going to be degraded like this, then ...

Mn. But it wasn't like the other guy wasn't being forced into this situation, either. But eh, it was different. It was his job to answer calls like this.

Grand Maestro Mohs frowned at his daughter, but stood, and moved over in back of her anyway to place his hands on her shoulders, smiling about as warmly as he could manage at Senel.

"My Daughter, Marta," He said. "As i'm certain you can assume, her life is of utmost importance to me. I'd like to be comforted by the knowledge that she's well taken care of while I'm unable to see to it myself."

Marta grumbled something akin to "When can you ever see to it for yourself?" Under her breath. She didn't mean to be rude, honestly. She did love her father. But this entire situation just sucked, and she didn't want any part of it.

Mohs chose to ignore his little girl at that moment.

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"Your daughter?" Senel parroted rather blank-faced on the task he was given. He glanced from the Maestro to the girl, then back again. The girl seemed pretty unhappy about the whole matter, and that alone was foreboding enough to give him the impression that guarding her would be a difficult thing to accomplish. Senel could understand why there would be a desire to have her kept safe if there was an indication that there were people who would hurt his daughter, but it didn't seem like Mohs would have enemies like that. Hopefully this mission wasn't some feeble attempt at giving his daughter a baby sitter.

All in all, it seemed like he was placed in the position of doing grunt work again.

The Maestro seemed to nod after his 'disregard' of his daughter, "It seems that she agrees with my decision well enough," he said with a flat tone of voice, and the correlating flat expression aimed his child. If he never was able to 'see to' anything, then at least she agreed there was a lack that needed tending to. "These are details of your responsibilities so there is no question or discrepancies." The important-looking man retrieved a folded piece of paper and sat it down in front of Senel, "Now if you both will excuse me, I have important work to attend to." With that the Maestro made his hasty exit.

The solider reached out for the piece of paper and began reading over the list he was given, For some reason it struck him more like a list of chores than anything else. On it were details of things that he was supposed to do and a few details of the guard duty, but more importantly there was a list of things not to do...which he planned to adhere to well. After a moment of strange silence in the room due to Senel being absorbed in the brief reading, he looked up at the girl just across the table. "Oh yeah." He motioned to himself, "My name's Senel Coolidge. I guess you should probably know that considering I'm going to be.." he gave a brief glance at the list, "...'standing outside your room at night and guarding the door'." His facial expression was clear with the emotion of 'is this for real'.

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"Yeah, well, have a good day to you too, Dad. Thanks for nothing." Marta pouted a little more, her eyes following her father as he left the room, before she averted her attention to the young man sitting before her. He couldn't have been too much older than she was; maybe a few years, at most.

But considering the guy's expression, Marta was beginning to think he wasn't really so bad. She offered a tiny smile (though she was still not too happy with the situation, but it wasn't AS horrendous with the both of them in the same boat) and held out a hand to him.

"Marta Lualdi," she replied simply. "And seriously? Seriously? They put that on the list? Give me a break," She sighed rolling her eyes.

"I obviously don't like this situation any more than you do. But since we're both in the same boat, I guess we ... make the best of it or something."

Though, she couldn't help but make a face.

"What else does that list say, out of curiosity?"

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To be quite honest, he wasn't sure what kind of response to expect out of the girl when her father wasn't present. She was a teenage girl, and if she was trouble enough to need a guard there wasn't really any telling if there was a good reason outside of an overprotective father. However, her reaction seemed reasonable enough and it was pretty reassuring to see a smile and have her sound reasonable about matters.

Per her request Senel went back to the list, "Well, it's a pretty long list." He couldn't imagine that any teenager would want to hear any of this stuff. It would probably be hard trying to go out and do...whatever it was teenage girls did and having to have some guard there all the time to worry about. "Must be present any time when in the city itself. That includes the market, shopping, and anything that entails being with the public." He briefed over one particularly dangerous sounding detail on the list, "Report any suspicious behavior from other people .. give detailed reports of the events of each day....make sure to keep a record?"

The solider couldn't help but raise an eyebrow. Was he supposed to be guarding her or tattling on her every move? There was never anything remotely like these orders when he'd trained to become a guardian.

Instead of reading the entire thing, he offered Marta the lengthy list to read for herself in case she doubted any of it. "That's pretty obsessive, if you ask me." It wasn't his place to agree or disagree with orders, but seriously.

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Marta took the list into her hands and read over everything, scowling the entire time.

"Daddy, you're getting really weird," she said with a sigh, placing a hand to her head and shaking it.

"I am so sorry you got stuck with this job, Senel. Seriously. I don't know what's got Daddy so paranoid that I'm going to get myself hurt or-- you know, I don't even know what's going on in his mind. Especially not with lists like these." She waved the list of his duties around before sliding it back at him over the table.

She groaned, then sat back in her seat.

"So, then ... I guess we take this time to get to know each other."

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"You don't have to apologize." As long as she seemed so reasonable about it, maybe they could set out some ground rules or something so he didn't seem so invasive. Senel wasn't really fold of the idea of tailing some girl and reporting her every action to her dad. It was his job, but even jobs like that needed boundaries. "I'm sure that you're dad means well. If he does this, there's probably a reason he's not letting on." Of course he could scarcely imagine the reason he'd want to hire a guard like him to guard his female daughter.

With that he took the list back, folded it, and tucked it into his pocket for safekeeping.

"Yeah." Though he was told in guardian training that getting to know who was being guarded wasn't always a good idea; personal attachments could hinder the quality of work. But then again, if it was her suggestion then why go against it? "Well, what about what you do on a typical day? If I knew that, Then maybe we can work around this somehow."

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Marta had to think for a few moments.

"Depends on what Daddy will allow me to do. I usually just bum around the city if I can. Daath isn't really all too interesting after having lived here for a long time."

She shook her head. "This whole thing is just stupid. Really. It's like Daddy's afraid I'm going to run away or something."