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Requested by:

Scrub Lord Yoda

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Inside, the Mining Corporate's entrance was wide, brightly lit, clean, and predictably very Atlesian. The walls, the ceiling and the floor were all dul greys, lit up by several hanging chandeliers high above the floor that cast down cold, white light. Rings of black couches formed a waiting area to either side of the door and further in, filled by suit-wearing office workers, clean-armored soldiers and few others. Just as typically as the place had been designed, there were no Faunus to be seen in the seats.

There were plenty to be seen serving the seats, though, handing out drinks and food to those milling about.

So typical…

Muddy and wet, most ignored him as he made his way through the long entryway. His boots were heavy and weather, and sank into the rich carpet that marked out the winding paths between the sitting areas, the door and the somewhat distant reception desk. If anyone had any opinions about him tracking mud on the nice carpet, they didn't bother to voice it. Instead, a pair of Faunus just rolled a cart past him to clean it all up.

"Sorry…" He murmured as the two passed. One, a man with one of his deer antlers broken off, paused and blinked confusedly. "For the mud. I, uh, couldn't get dry in the door."

"It's fine, Sir." The man said after barely a heartbeat, "It's our job to clean up, after all."

"Still, I didn't…" The Faunus were already shuffling on, though, and Jaune knew better than to stop them. If they took too long to clean up his mess then they'd get in trouble. And even if he wanted to help, he knew that would land them in hot water, too. So instead he sighed, "Just focus on your job, Jaune."

"It is all you can do." Mort answered quietly, words rasping up along his spine like death was plotting out his grave. "And at least they'll be safer, if there's no risk of anything mean and nasty crawling out of the mines. Or, well, nothing mean, nasty, and also big and furry."

"Yeah." He chuckled under his breath, "I have a feeling that mean and nasty things come crawling out all the time. And I have to meet with one."

"Yep!" Mort chuckled, "Just let me know if you want a little 'hair on fire' to spice things up."

Chuckling, he stepped towards the woman waiting, stood behind the welcome desk with a polite smile plastered on her face, and grunted a short, "Lord Arc. I'm here about a job that was posted. Grimm extermination in the mines."

"Of course, Lord." She smiled, turning to the little monitor beside her and adding a parting, "One moment, please, while I check you in."

"Uh, sure."

"Ah, there you are, Lord Jaune of House Arc." The brunette blinked, reading whatever was on her screen quickly and turning a smile on him. Stepping to the side, and towards a little door that let her out, she folded her hands in front of her. "If you will follow me, please, Guild Master Azure requested an opportunity to speak to you prior to you being dispatched to see to your work."

"The guild master?" Jaune's brow furrowed, "Why does he want to see me?"

"I'm afraid that only he knows the answer to that, Lord Arc." The woman said simply, her face every inch the picture of dutiful calm and professionalism. He hated it, how sanitized and fake it was, like every word she said was her lying to him. But of course, she didn't know that and went on in the same smooth, clean tone, "He had a prior engagement but I have informed him you are here. He will be waiting to meet you in a conference room he has chosen."

"We don't really have a choice here, sounds like…"

"Fine." He shrugged, laying his off hand comfortably on Mort's pommel and waving for her to lead the way. "But I hope he isn't expecting me to look particularly great right off the heels of a trip like mine."

"Not at all. Lord." The woman said, turning to lead him down a large hallway that split off from the entrance. Over her shoulder, she said, "Guild Master Azure is quite used to the… Rougher sort that his work inevitably leads him to meeting. Traveling Errants like yourself, licensed Hunters, even bandits, time to time, coming in to make some Lien."

"He does business with bandits?" Jaune asked, surprised, "That's… Extra illegal, far as I know."

"It is, if they are known to be pursuing illegal activities. Luckily, all bandit tribals entering Lavender Town adhere to a strict code of conduct. And all found to be breaking Kingdom law in the vicinity, or with an egregious bounty, are arrested and exiled forthwith. No exceptions." The woman answered simply, the words falling from her with an obviously rehearsed fashion to them. After a single step she added, quietly, "None are so foolish as to start any problems for the Guild Master, I assure you. So you will not have any need to fear for yourself or your horse."

"About my horse-"

"They are being escorted to our stables by hands as we speak." She sad quickly, coming to a stop outside a fine, oaken door inlaid with bronze and turning on a heel. Flashing another of her fake smiles, the woman said, "Rest easy knowing that he will be well fed, brushed, and cleaned while you pursue your work, Lord Arc. All free of charge, of course."

"Right." Triomphe had been in need of a good brushing for a while, now, so he didn't see much of a problem with it. Instead he bobbed his head at the door and asked facetiously, "The Guild Master?"

"Inside, and awaiting you." She nodded, waving a finely manicured hand at the door, "Please, see yourself in."

Inside, the building's more normal Atlesian design gave way to something a touch more personal. At least, by the standards of an average mining Guild Master. Dark, oaken walls and dull black ceiling tiles were lit by warm electric sconces and old, worn wooden floors groaned under his boots. Floor to ceiling bookshelves, stacked high with every kind of book he could think to look for, filled the entire wall opposite the door. On either of the two walls perpendicular to it, and the door, were paintings of forests and mountains, split by two sets of double doors, one on each wall.

And on the last, to his right, was a fireplace, burning bright and hot, with a pair of simple looking but no doubt expensive leather backed chairs and a table between them.

"Hello, Lord Arc." The wiry, oddly young man sitting in one of the seats said as the door shut behind him. Like many Atlesians, he was pale, with a well-manicured, brown moustache nestled over his mouth. Also a bit oddly, he was dressed in a very comfortable looking, dark blue business suit, the coat slung over the back of his chair to leave him in a black dress shirt. Watching the fire, the man gestured at the other seat and offered, "Warm yourself by the fire? The weather is dreadful outside, so I'm certain you're cold."

"I am, yeah." He nodded, "But I'm also wet, and muddy."

"Don't worry about my chairs." The man laughed, "They're cheap and replaceable, even if they are comfortable. And besides, I'm sure that the staff can get mud and water out of them in any event."

"If you're sure…"

"I am." Guild Master Azure smiled, finally looking to him with an oddly amused glint to his cold, green eyes. "And I will insist if you need me to."

With a quiet shrug, he turned to find the large coat rack beside the door and shouldered off his cloak. It was still dripping and wet but he'd been told to ignore that, and so he did. His ragged gambeson was little better, of course, but he ignored that too and turned to head to the seat he'd been offered. After days and days of riding, rain, and nothing better than a stump or a log to sit on, and the ground to sleep on, he couldn't help the groan that left him as he eased into the chair and felt the warmth of the fire.

It was a very comfortable chair, it turned out.

"Heh." Azure laughed, the sound little more than a breath that escaped him before he could catch it. "Rough travels?"

"Yeah." He nodded, untying Mort from his waist awkwardly and leaning it against the front of the chair, resting in the heat of the fire and leaning just a bit against his knee. Quietly, he asked, "You can tell?"

"Oh, easily." Guild Master Azure smiled, "I'm rather experienced in dealing with travelers, so I've developed something of a skill in telling how they have been faring out in the woolly wilds.

He opened his mouth to say something but the man smiled, waving his questions off as the door opened and a quartet of servants, this time all Human interestingly, came in. Quietly, they set out two small standing trays in front of them with lidded dinner trays on them and glasses of something steaming and brown. Experimentally, he took a sip and grimaced at the familiar, bitter taste.

"I felt that some coffee to warm you up would be appreciated." Azure explained amusedly, "Apologies if I was wrong."

"You weren't, I'm just… Not used to coffee just yet." He said, trying not to drool when the servants laid a thick napkin over his lap and opened the tray, revealing a thick, well done looking steak and a hearty, gravy-laden helping of potatoes.

"It's on the house." Azure smiled, already cutting into his own when Jaune looked to him. "Think of it as… An overture, for some extra business I wanted to talk about."

"Alright." He shrugged, turning to his food to dig in and grunting around a spoonful of the best potatoes he'd had in a month, "What's the extra business?"

"You are the disinherited Lord Arc, of House Arc, of Ansel." The man said simply in answer, turning a contemplative look on him. "And you were made an Errant after you were-"

"Can you save me the lesson and get to the point?" He growled quietly, grimacing when the man's brows rose at his interruption, "Not to be rude, but I don't need the history lesson. I lived it."

"True enough." The man said as the last of the servants left them to their meal and talk, "To the chase, then. The last time the Arcs established a cadet branch, it became quite successful. Even before the tragedies of the last century. And something tells me your errantry will be much the same."

"Hopefully."

"Hopefully." The Guild Master parroted, "As such I would like to… Get ahead of the curve, shall we say. To be simple, I would like our families to become friends. Allies, maybe, eventually."

"We just met." Jaune argued simply, pausing to set the bite of steak aside and turn a look on the man, "And as good as it is, a steak isn't enough to win me over."

"Oh no, of course not. I'd never be that preposterous." Azure laughed, shaking his head and smiling warmly. "I merely meant to… Offer it, and to make overtures in that direction. Like transit to Vale, once work here is done."

"That was part of the contract your man and I talked through last week." Jaune murmured, "Wasn't it?"

"Yes, it was." Azure smiled, "But I am referring to private transport. My private transport, in fact. Which is standing by to bring you to Beacon directly as soon as our work here is done. A sign of my good will and, hopefully, a step on the road to that friendship between us I mentioned."

"Hm…" He didn't like it, to say the least. Business men were only after one thing, and Jaune wasn't sure how Azure meant to get it from him.

"A free ride in style is better than what we were going to get, Jaune." Mort chimed in gently, voice carried on the crackle of the fireplace's logs. "And you're not really making any commitments, either. Maybe biting the hand that is literally feeding you isn't a great plan?"

"I'll accept it." At least as a ride and a token of good will. But nothing beyond that… Instead of sticking on that topic, though, he asked, "What kind of Grimm do you have in the mines? If you don't mind me getting right to work."

"A pack of Creeps." Azure answered simply, "Around a dozen of the little blighters. The Miners can't possibly face them down, even if they wanted to, but they aren't that grave a threat. My blasted security forces could do it if they weren't dodging work through some careful bloody contract wording…"

"Might want to revisit that contract, then." Jaune suggested with a smile, "So next time you have an easier time."

"Already working on it." The older gentleman chuckled thinly, "Take my Lien and then shirk their work will they? Bah."

"Humans." The strangely quiet Mort said bitterly, "Always looking for two things. The easy way out, and someone to step on."

"I've been there, yeah." Kind of, at least. More than once he'd done a job and come in for payment only to be told to shove off and given a pittance.

Such was life, though, for unlicensed frontier fighters like him, noble or not. And traders like Azure, too. Which was probably why he wanted to make an alliance with him, even if the idea was only something far off in the future. To make this nonsense less likely. Which was a goal Jaune understood more than anything else Azure could possibly have hoped to get out of this.

"Well, rest assured you won't get that kind of behavior from me, Guild Master Azure." Jaune promised with a wide, simple smile. "I'll deal with them in the morning, if that's alright, and be on my way just after."

"That's more than acceptable." Azure smiled, "Enjoy your meal, please, and the fire. I'll have you shown to a room after."

"Sounds like a plan, Guild Master." Jaune smiled, "And thanks for the meal."

"Of course, of course." The other, older man smiled warmly, slicing off another chunk of meat and biting it off of his fork. "And thank you for your coming efforts with my beat problem."

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Once he was finished eating, more servants came to take his dishes away while a final one, again a Human not a Faunus, came to show him to his rooms. Why that was, Jaune had no idea, and after a while he chalked it up to the typical so-called 'frontier pragmatism' that tended to surround Faunus. That being that any Faunus hires could be, or become, White Fang agents. And thus none of them could be trusted to work close to important people or things.

Of course, no one ever caught the self-fulfilling prophecy that laid in treating Faunus that way…

The room he was given to use was small and simple, with little more than a cot to rest on and a bathroom through a door just inside and to the right. It was small, to be sure, and according to the servant - who rushed to anxiously explain it before he'd even had time to react - meant exclusively for overnight travelers and Hunters like him. A place to sleep before a mission and literally nothing else, with a phone set out on the nightstand beside the bed for if and when he decided to call in food.

"Not the best place I've ever stayed in." Mort noted when Jaune leaned the blade against the nightstand and turned to peel off his patched, shoddy gambeson and underclothes, his only real pair of sleeping shorts laid out on the cot already. "Then again, it's not the box, so…"

"Swings and roundabouts?"

"Pretty much, yeah." The ancient thing answered amusedly, rasping out a long chuckle. After a long, quiet moment Jaune spent changing, Mort finally asked, quietly, "What did you think of Azure?"

"The Guild Master?" Jaune snorted, tugging on his shorts and taking a seat on the cot. "He just seems like your average frontier businessman trying to jockey a Noble for some weird, off in the distance payout. Why? Did you get something different from him?"

"Kind of." Mort answered quietly, "But I'm… Not really sure what."

"A bad feeling?"

"Definitely."

"Hm." Mort was far, far older than him, and magical besides. Even if neither knew how they worked on a fundamental level, he knew better than to ignore if Mort was feeling off about something. "Do you want to leave?"

"We can't, Jaune." Mort answered instantly, "Beacon's Initiation's last registration is less than a week out, and it takes that at best speed to just get to Vale from here. You're seventeen, too, and starting Beacon at eighteen would be a black mark against you. Against you being Knighted."

"I know, Mort. By the gods do I know…" He sighed, "But if you're uneasy…"

"I'm fine." Mort reassured him quickly, "Azure himself makes me uneasy, this is true. I hate mercantile types like him, always angling for the next coin they can slip into their wallets. But we're here for a job and then we're leaving. So…"

"So we're sticking it out?"

"Yeah." They answered, "We're sticking it out."

"Alright." Jaune nodded, flicking the lights off and laying back in the bed. Gods, did he miss his nice bed back in Ansel… Even after so long, nothing he'd run across had even come remotely close to beating it. Or his mom's stew… "If you get another funny feeling, make sure you say something. Got it?"

"Yes, boy."

"Jaune."

"Boy."

"I will get a box to put you in." He threatened, smirking ruefully when they only laughed in answer.

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A touch more character establishing, establishing some stuff, answering some questions, avoiding answering some others… Next chaptoir comes da murder. Well, of Grimm.

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Zenith Tempest :

Nah, just commissions. I HAVE had a different nobility oriented AU in my head for a while, and may end up blending some elements, but this ain't it.