Here is the next chapter - enjoy!
CHAPTER 6 – The Guardian Council – The Start
After a few moments I had caught myself and picked up my laptop and writing pens in a hurry so that I wouldn't be late. Most of the Guardians who knew me from former classes probably expected me to be late, but from time to time it was good to shock people by doing absolutely unexpected things.
When I hurried to the door I prayed that I wouldn't cross path with Dimitri, but luckily he was nowhere to be seen. Without any problems I arrived at the room, reserved for the Council's meeting.
In front of the room was a small stage, which overlooked rows of tables. Each place was reserved by a name sign and strolling through the rows where some participants while others were already seated. When I let my eyes wonder through the room, I saw my mother waving. I guess I had just found my seat.
Soon I had reached my mother and, without any surprise, my name sign stood right next to hers. Since the meeting would start soon, I quickly installed my laptop and sat down. And so the big meeting did start.
The start of the meeting, as it said in my time schedule, would be filled with speeches of all the important persons of the Council.. At first Alberta opened the meeting and then some other important Guardians whom I didn't know made their speeches. Soon I was getting bored and started to play games on my computer, which brought me some side glances from my mother.
After the last speaker, Alberta stepped onto the stage to start with the first discussion round. The topic was to review the last year, the happenings and the problems that had occurred. The actual discussion was not very interesting, since I was too isolated living on the Court together with Lissa and Christian. At the Court, the daily Guardian business was not the topic with first priority, so it was hard for us to gain any information at all.
But for me it was interesting to get to know several Guardians, because everyone who spoke up was called out by name. I've heard many of the names before but could never place them with a face. So, after a while the discussion got me interested and I started to listen more carefully than before.
Soon I was so engaged with the discussion that I forgot everything around me. The problems, the Guardians spoke out loud, where to my surprise not the big problems concerning the Strigoi, but concerning daily problems.
There was a young mother who wanted her child to be educated at the Academy but her Moroi lived too far away for her to see her daughter very often. Her request, to assign her to another Moroi-family had been turned down by the queen.
Then there was a older Guardian, who was close to retirement but had the problem that he was paid so poorly by his Moroi-family that he hadn't been able to save some money for his time of retirement. Now, he said, he had to work on even though his body wasn't in the shape to fulfil his promise as a Guardian anymore.
Another woman told us several stories about her Moroi and their bad treatment of her daughter.
The more Guardians spoke about being treated badly by the Moroi, the more I felt glad towards Lissa and her equal treatment of me. Even though I had promised to save her life at all times and even to give my own life to safe hers, she treated me like any other person, not caring whether they where Moroi, Dhampir or human.
When Lissa had started studying she had even given me the possibility to take some classes on my own. She even paid for it, because I couldn't afford even to pay for one class. Now I studied together with her and we even had some classes together. She studied politics, since she would need that for later times in her position as the last Dragomir and the possibility of her to become the next Queen one day.
I had decided to take classes in economics also but also studied Material Arts since that would be very helpful with me guarding Lissa. Astonishingly I had very good grades in all my classes and even the Moroi tutor was surprised at how good I could follow the courses even though I didn't need the studies. But I had fun and I could be with Lissa more often, so I quite enjoyed it.
To my surprise it was already lunch time when the first discussion round ended. For the most urgent problems the Council members promised to find a solution and the so urged ones where also promised to receive help later.
Since my mother and I had seats in the back of the room, it took some time for us to pile out of the room with all the others and to get to the room in which the buffet had already been set up. Quickly some groups formed and after we've grabbed some food, my mother and I strolled over to the group around Alberta and Stan.
"It is outrageous how some Guardians are treated by their Moroi!" I heard Stan rant. "They should be withdrawn of their Guardians so they can fight for their safety on their own! We're no pets but hard working people!"
"Stan, calm down!" my mother interfered, "It doesn't help those Guardians if we talk like this. We just have to find another solution for this problem."
"Yes, Janine is right, Stan. Your ranting doesn't help." Alberta agreed. "But the more urgent problem is the bad payment. Most of us are working 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and only have 10 days of vacation. Most of the guardians are underpaid and can hardly make savings for their retirement. The Moroi don't understand that an old Guardian cannot protect them the way a young one could."
"That's right." I heard my mother again. During this conversation I had stayed quiet. I don't want to chime into a conversation about problems, I've never had and I didn't know about until now.
"But I don't have an idea what to do." Alberta said.
"Hm, what about an account, supervised by the Guardian Council, where every Moroi family has to pay a certain amount and from which all the guardians are being paid?", I voiced my thoughts out loud. It was only a suggestion but I know that this system works very well in Europe. In one of my classes we had just talked about the social systems in Europe and they seemed to work pretty well.
Alberta, Stan and my mom stared at me, all of them thinking about my suggestion.
"What exactly do you mean with that?" Alberta asked me.
"In one of my college classes we've talked about the different social systems in Europe comparing them to the American System. In Europe the systems works like that. Every person who works pays a certain amount, according to their annual earnings, onto one account. From this account, those who don't work are have already retired are being paid. This is just a small overview since it is more complicated, but it is the principle that is interesting." I explained my idea further.
"Well, and how would you decide which Moroi have to pay more than others? And don't you think that Guardians, having worked for a long time, should be getting more than the younger ones? How would you do that?" Alberta questioned, looking not too convinced of my idea.
"I would try to build up a system, in which we consider the importance of the Moroi family, the members and how much money they have. So the Moroi, who are most important and rich also pay the most money and those who are small families and don't have so much money, don't pay that much."
"And what about the Guardians?" Stan wondered.
"For the Guardians I would also make up such a system. Here I would try to find a scale on which the Guardians are classified by age and experience. The younger and the lesser experienced don't get much. But for the elder and more experienced Guardians one should pay more." I also had an answer for that question. Inwardly I felt so proud …
"And what about retirement? Who's paying for that?" a deep voice chimed in. I hoped not to cross path with him again so soon.
I tried not to flinch back when Dimitri stepped closer to the group right next to me. When I looked up I saw his brown eyes bearing into mine, bringing up memories of what had happened earlier. Again I felt my heart speed up and heat rising in my cheeks.
"Each Guardian should make savings on their own of course. But when we calculate the Moroi payment correctly we might be possible to establish a monthly retirement payment system. It will not be enough to make a living but it should at least be that much to secure the basic needs."
Slowly I saw understanding in the eyes of Alberta and Stan. Only my mother stayed critical (as always) and in the eyes of Dimitri I saw mild admiration. This surely was a feeling I wasn't expecting to see and it made me nervous.
Before we could deepen our discussion the bell rang to signal the continuation of the meeting and quickly the group drifted apart and each one returned to their respective place.
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