The meeting was long, perhaps by design, and when it properly started it was with a warm welcoming from the queen herself. She seemed distant as she spoke, and her volume was just loud enough that everyone could hear her but her voice could not be heard anywhere outside of the room. "As you all are aware, this week here in Enbarr is part of a diplomatic trip across Fódlan to calm any anger that may exist in the Adrestian Empire or the Alliance territories towards the nobility of Faerghus. We have extra security for this specific part of the trip due to it being in such close quarters with the stronghold of the hatred against us, whether it be aimed at the royalty overall or myself as former archbishop."
"She speaks as if they'll be picking and choosing which one of us is the bigger enemy," the king said with a gruff chuckle, looking rather stern as he took a moment to see every face in the room, from the ones he'd brought with him to the ones he wasn't as familiar with. His eyes lingered on Claude, who hoped that people wouldn't take too much stock in that extended glance, before he was on his way. "The point is, I am familiar with how Emperor Edelgard works in situations like this, her and her men will do whatever they can to annihilate us in some manner. Hence the need for extra security and the splitting of where our ranks sleep each night."
Raising her hand to show that she had a question, Hilda didn't wait for either the king or queen to recognize her as needing to be called on before she was speaking. "Uh, excuse me, but if this is such a dangerous place for you two to be, why are you here? Couldn't you, I don't know, have a diplomatic phone call or something? Maybe a video chat? They've got all sorts of programs to make that happen, you could've found one you all liked."
"The act of diplomacy we are trying to create with this trip is not one that would be easily done over a distance," the king replied, seemingly unfazed with Hilda's brazen disruption of what was going on. "I have spoken with Edelgard over the phone many times and each instance ends in a failure for both her people and mine. We needed to make a face-to-face meeting happen to begin rebuilding bridges our countries have burned for the better of all of Fódlan, and now seemed to be the best time. A new year, a new outlook."
"That, and holding the meeting in person allows for us to limit the number of advisors and talking heads she can bring in with her," the queen added, her eyes casting downward with those words. "But on the other side, we have to impose the same limits on ourselves. Which means that when the meeting itself does in fact happen, it shall be just Dimitri and I in the room with her and one other of her choosing."
There was a moment where the room was silent enough to hear a pin drop, before Ingrid was jumping to her feet, her hands in front of her face miming grasping something. "Are you both mad?" she asked loudly, eyes flickering over to Sylvain and Felix on either side of her to see if they were going to back her up. "You cannot assume that she'd play fair and gentle with just the two of you in the room. Allow for at least one of us to be with you!"
"Stand down, Ingrid, it's being done this way because it is ultimately the safest." Waving for her to take her seat and not continuing until she did, the king then rose to stand at the head of the table, arms folded in front of him. "The last thing we need is for a guard of ours to pick a fight with a guard of hers mid-meeting and cause a crisis that could plunge Fódlan back into war for years to come. We want peace and diplomatic relationships to come from this meeting, that's the reason for our decision."
"It's one we can respect," Felix grumbled, glaring daggers at Ingrid for daring to drag him into her outburst. "We'll do exactly as you say, boar, and it should all work out in your perfect little world."
"How can a guard get away with showing such disrespect to his commander?" Lorenz leaned over and asked Claude, who shrugged. "I would never dare speak to someone who was employing me with such a vile tongue. That man's parents must be so proud of the child that they raised."
That comment was enough to get a small smirk out of Claude, who almost wished that Lorenz had the audacity to say something like that loud enough for everyone there to hear. Just looking at the people he wasn't familiar with, he could've guessed that the majority of them would have gotten upset about it, and that would have been a fun story to tell someday in the future. "What amuses you, down there?" The question came seemingly out of nowhere, but Claude soon realized it was aimed at him when he saw that Felix's glare had been turned onto him. "You think all of this is some funny game we're playing?"
Without needing to think about how he was going to respond, Claude opened his mouth and said, "No, of course not, I actually like taking my job seriously."
"Your appearance says otherwise."
"Another dig at my shirt, how creative. Say, how about you let your boss man down there tell you all about why he decided to hire me and my crew, and you can understand that maybe sometimes, there's more to a guy than what he wears." It was a recipe for disaster, giving the king that opening to say whatever he wanted as an endorsement of Claude, but he felt that he didn't have too much of a choice with this much of an audience. If this was how the world found out about his other identity, it was just how it was meant to happen.
King Dimitri seemed to hesitate on what he was going to say, now that the challenge had been thrown out there, and when he looked down at his wife still in her seat it was almost as if he was wordlessly asking her for assistance. "You told me you hired him as a leap of faith and a hope that the positive reviews their company had would be proven true," she explained, not looking anywhere but out into the distance, her eyes almost glazed over. "I wouldn't know if there's more to it than that, but that was what you told me."
"That seems correct to me," he slowly replied, "but it was several moons back that this hiring took place, so perhaps there are a few details I have forgotten." Mentally, Claude couldn't help but correct him that there was the detail they'd discussed privately downstairs that was being left out, words that were never going to be actually spoken in a place like this. "Say, this feels like an excellent way to move into everyone getting to know each other. An activity to ease tensions between all of our dedicated guards and assistants for this job."
Just based on that introduction alone, it seemed like the so-called activity was more like one of those icebreakers that teachers used in school to get students to meet each other, and that wasn't that far off the mark for what it really was. They were all expected to go around the table and introduce themselves, stating their name, what they did as their job, and offer up an interesting detail about their lives. The king went first, introducing himself as Dimitri rather than with any stuffy titles, and he asked everyone to refer to him in the same way when outside of private spaces just to be that much more careful with his life. "Of course, there aren't that many men of my stature with the same facial injuries that I have, so it's all going to be for naught, but we're going to pretend like this matters."
The murmurs and half-chuckles that filled the room after that comment lightened the mood slightly, and he took his seat only for his wife, the queen, to stand up and introduce herself to everyone. "Much like with Dimitri, I want no mention of my titles or roles anywhere they can be overheard," she prefaced, twirling some of her sea-green hair around her finger. "But as you have been told, I am the former archbishop of the Church of Seiros and current queen of Faerghus. However, you will refer to me only as Byleth for this week."
It was a lovely name for a lovely queen, but thinking about her as such would only lead to accidentally referring to her as the queen, so Claude squashed that thought from his mind as she kept talking about herself for a moment before sitting back down and letting the ladies next to her both stand up, giggling like they were a pair of schoolgirls. As he found out, they were Byleth's personal assistants and did little in the way of actual guard work, meaning that they were more in line with Hilda and Marianne than any of the security guards themselves. After their introductions were over, the guy next to them who hadn't said a word so far stood and introduced himself, acting shy and hiding behind a fringe of hair that he must have used as a safety net, but when he finished talking there were a couple of supportive cheers from other members of the Faerghus group.
They were split now, though, because the entirety of the team from the Leicester Alliance Security Company had to do their introductions, starting with Raphael and Ignatz and going through the roster, with Claude just after halfway through the bunch. He rehearsed what he wanted to say in his head, not needing to pay attention to what the people he was already familiar with had to say about themselves, so when his time came he could stand up and dazzle everyone with his confidence. He was confident when he spoke to everyone, but it came at the cost of several of the people he was talking to not listening to him based on previous encounters and Dimitri staring him down with his one good eye, almost begging him to mention something royalty-related. "I'm not really that interesting of a guy, even with my position as leader over here and all that," he said to wrap up his introduction, and while that earned him some eye rolls and a couple fake laughs, he was surprised to see Ingrid actually covering her mouth to giggle at that.
Hey, if he could impress her by being modest in ways she couldn't comprehend, that had to count for something, didn't it? He sat down and let the introductions continue, finding himself tuning them out for the sake of sitting there staring in Ingrid's direction, waiting to hear what she had to say. He loved himself a woman who was confident and knew what she was capable of, and he wanted to see if there were any other checkboxes he could tick off for her when she spoke.
Before he could hear about her, though, he had to hear Felix talk about himself, which amounted to very little as the man stood up, said his name and shot a nasty look in Dimitri's direction, then sat back down without anything else to add. "Ahem, I think it should be said that he's a man of few words and even fewer chances before he fights you," Dimitri explained, showing that perhaps he had a closer relationship with that particular guard than Felix wanted to let on. "So don't get on his bad side and everything should be fine."
"Or, better idea, just ignore him whenever he gets into a grumpy mood," Sylvain added as an alternative, leaning forward over the table to give Felix a smirk that was met with a rude hand gesture. "Which I should've done just now."
"Can I please get on with my introduction?" Ingrid asked, standing up and looking at the guys surrounding her, and they straightened up and let her take the floor. Not failing to meet the expectations even slightly, she gave the whole room a full name greeting, rather than the first and last she'd given them before, and started talking about childhood dreams and expectations and all sorts of things that did nothing but highlight her passion for her position. Just when Claude was ready to commit to being under her command for the week without any questions, she dropped one little tidbit that sent him reeling: "I will do nothing but put my work first while we're here, which means friendships are going to be left at the door. I'm not going to jeopardize lives just to get to socialize."
"Damn, there goes the 'getting to know her' plan right out the window." Mumbling under his breath so that no one could actually hear what he said, Claude felt his spirits falling at the rejection that hadn't even been aimed at him, but he had to respect her dedication and focus to her position. Perhaps he'd get to know her as well as she'd allow and they could compare tips on security work in the future.
When she took her seat, Sylvain stood up and treated everyone to something a lot less serious and much more fun-loving than what Ingrid had provided. He seemed to be her foil in terms of how focused on the job they were, because whereas she had made it clear she was there to work, he was getting flirtatious with the ladies down at the end of the table, the women who were Byleth's personal assistants both rolling their eyes at his advances. They had to have been used to hearing him say such things unprompted, merely based on how they were reacting to it, but at least Hilda and Leonie were still falling for it, if their attentive eyes and almost dreamy expressions were any indication.
Once he had wrapped things up, Dimitri was back to his feet, commanding all attention with a loud clasp of his hands. "Now that we all know a thing or two more about those around us, I believe it is time to begin explaining your assignments for the week. Usually my dear friend and guard Dedue does this sort of delegating, so I'm quite out of my element on this one, but in his absence I made it a point to step up and control my own protection."
"What a shame he couldn't be here," Felix mockingly said, rolling his eyes and cementing his face in a sour expression. "We'd be better off with him than this whole brigade you hired."
"Hush, their competence will speak for itself when the time comes." Waving Felix's comment off like it was nothing at all, Dimitri looked to Byleth, trying to recall what he was supposed to say next, but she merely stared back at him without a word and gave him the space to think until his thoughts had been sufficiently ordered. "In normal situations such as this, I have no one aside from Dedue as my guard, but because he had other events to attend to this week I have had to make arrangements to get the best coverage for us as possible. This has resulted in quite the shake-up in positioning."
In her seat, Ingrid seemed to be anticipating something that Claude and the others figured related to what she'd told them before, that she was going to be in charge of them; the look of complete shock on her face came immediately when Dimitri outlined the changes he'd come up with. "I will be taking Felix and Sylvain as personal guards, which should come with little surprise, while Byleth will receive Ingrid and Ashe to take care of her, Mercedes, and Annette. The group from the Alliance territories, your job will be first line of defense, making sure that no one can get close enough for the inner guards to need to take any drastic measures. Does that make sense?"
While there were a lot of nods and no complaints from most people there, there was one outlier who had something to say. "I thought you said they were under my direct control?" Ingrid asked, her eyebrows furrowing in her confusion. "What changed that made it so I don't have the say over them?"
"Safety hazards changed, as did other personal circumstances. I have no doubt that Claude and his team can handle themselves in their new role, without you directing them on what to do." The way Dimitri smiled at her was an attempt to appease her, but Ingrid did not seem interested in accepting that offer. She slumped down, muttering something about having wanted the role of power for a change, and he could do nothing but look slightly apologetic for breaking her soul like he just had.
"I don't mean to interrupt," Mercedes, the blonde one of Byleth's two assistants, started to say, before she pushed her hands together in front of her face, "but perhaps there is an opportunity here for some readjusting? Do you really think that we need all of these hands in the mix to protect our queen? Ingrid could easily be moved to a different position in the grand plans, I do believe."
"If anyone were to switch their role, it certainly wouldn't be Ingrid, but there's no real way to make any changes now that rooms have been assigned and checked into." Now it was clear that Dimitri felt somewhat bad for what he'd done to one of his guards, but he seemed like his hands were tied. Even though she didn't seem happy with the answer, Mercedes looked at Annette, her orange-haired companion who'd been by her side since entering the room, the two of them breaking into whispers once most eyes were no longer on them. "Are there any other concerns with this setup? We worked hard to ensure that everyone could play some role in the overall story of this diplomatic endeavor, and we don't want anyone feeling like they are being excluded."
If there were any other problems people had, no one was brave enough to speak up about them, and so the meeting drew to a close, the king and queen bidding everyone farewell and leaving the room, Mercedes and Annette close behind. As the door closed on them leaving, Sylvain stood up and gave a dramatic stretch, his eyes locking straight on Hilda. "So, since you're not actually one of the guards, you want to be under my wing as well? I can make space in my day to take care of you as well as the king."
"Oh, stop it, I have plenty of friends who can take care of me," she replied, trying not to make it too obvious that she was flattered by the attention. "But if you want to keep talking to me like that, by all means, go ahead. I am all ears for you."
What Sylvain didn't know, and what Claude did, was that flattered tone was dripping with sarcasm and no real interest in whatever was being offered, so while one man approached her the other walked away to speak with someone else. Someone whose dreams of leadership during the event had been crushed unceremoniously. "Sucks that you're not going to be in charge of me after all," he quietly said once he was close enough to Ingrid for her to hear, her having flopped forward on the table. "Have to say, I was beginning to look forward to it."
"Thanks, but I know you're just trying to make me feel better." He wasn't going to deny that, even if it wasn't the full truth, so he sat down next to her and went to put his hand on her back as a way to comfort her—an action stopped when he felt something wrap itself around his wrist just before his hand touched Ingrid's back. With her not paying any attention to what was going on, he looked in confusion at what was going on and did a double-take, seeing Felix staring at him from the other side.
Words were mouthed, to back away from her, and without arguing he did exactly that, scooting the chair a bit to the side so that he wasn't as close. "Uh, anyway, I hope we're able to still work together in all of this, you seem like a dedicated security guard and I'd like to see how you work."
"What's the point, if I can't even get the position I was promised I'm clearly not as good at this as I'd like to think." As she sighed, Ingrid seemed like she was in desperate need of a good, reassuring pat on the back, but Felix was still there staring Claude down, threatening him silently to keep his hands off of his friend. "But, you know what, maybe if I can remind them that I'm worth more to this team than just being an extra guard for the queen, next time I could actually get what I was promised. If there's even a next time."
"Y-yeah, that's the best way to look at it. Do your best work, show everyone how capable you are, that sort of thing." Now he was stumbling over his own thoughts and words, over the presence of this grumpy guy who seemed to have it out for him! Just as he was going to drop all kindness and directly ask what the problem with him was, Felix got up and left the room, slamming his chair into the table behind him.
That was enough to get Ingrid to poke her head up, looking for the source of the noise, and when she saw that she was flanked by only someone she'd barely met, she didn't seem all too pleased. "Were you over here picking fights?" she asked, sounding offended. "I'll have you know, he may be a bit hard to handle but Felix is one of my best and closest friends and I won't stand for you causing problems with him!"
"I wasn't—he was—are you really going to accuse me of causing problems with someone I wasn't even talking to?" Claude felt slightly attacked, but more hurt than anything at how Ingrid had come out of her slump to immediately start going off on him when he'd only been trying to help her. "I want to work with you, and him if I have to, but mostly you. Why would I start a fight if I want that?"
"I don't know, but it's not like him to storm out like that without good reason." With a huff, Ingrid stood up and followed Felix's path out of the room, and over by everyone else Sylvain took that as his cue to leave as well. In their wake were a bunch of confused newcomers to the whole situation, and one remaining member of the group that hailed from Faerghus.
And it was that one member who spoke up next. "You have to forgive them and their little quirks like what you just saw, they're all great people when you actually get to know them." When Ashe spoke it was with a timid voice, but as he sat in the same seat he'd been in the whole time he sounded like a voice of reason to everyone else. "They'll all open up properly in time, and you'll get to see how amazing of people they all are! That's a promise!"
He seemed genuine enough with that declaration that no one argued with him. After all, he had to have known them all better than they did in their brief encounters, so his word was immediately better than anything personal experience could tell them. "We'll keep that in mind, little guy!" Raphael cheerfully replied, giving Ashe a thumbs-up that was shakily returned. "It's always great when strangers help strangers out, so thanks for your help!"
"It was no problem at all," Ashe hurriedly replied, scrambling to stand up, "but now I must go, because if they decide to leave without me, I'm not sure how I'll be getting back to my hotel room!"
As he dashed out of their meeting place, the rest of them looked at each other confused until Lorenz reminded everyone of the multi-hotel setup they had going on with their stay. If he was so worried about possibly being left behind, he had to be staying somewhere off-site, but who else was there with him was a relative question mark, even though educated guesses could be made. "Annette's the one that's staying on our floor," Marianne said, "but she made no mention of anyone else being there with her. Perhaps they're assuming between the three of us we have enough skill to take care of ourselves in a pinch? Oh goddess, please let that not be the case…"
"Come on now, Marianne, she works with the queen of Faerghus for a living, she has to have some sort of persuasion powers or maybe some kickass physical skills that she's hiding from all of us underneath her cute exterior." Hilda put a finger to her chin as she thought of further possibilities, but dropped the train of thought when she realized she had something else to say instead. "Not like it super matters that much, though, right? We find we need someone, I'll just call up that Sylvain guy and have him do the dirty work. Dude seems smitten with me, so as long as I bat my eyelashes and ask nicely he should do it."
"Not unless he's busy helping someone else when you need him," Leonie cut in, before immediately backing out when she realized what her statement seemed to imply. "I mean with the king! Please, I don't need help from a guy like that, that'd just be…not my speed."
"They really put him in the same building as all of these women, wonder why that might be," Claude muttered to himself, shaking his head before getting out of the chair he'd sat in back when he was trying to be a good guy towards Ingrid. No, he wasn't bothered at all that his ex-girlfriend was going to use her powers of flirtation to get back at the guy who had been trying to flatter all of the ladies, that would've been jealousy rearing its ugly head and he'd long since accepted that he didn't get much of a say in what Hilda did. Their time together was long past and there wasn't anything he could do about that, except remove himself from the situation before it did start bugging him. He made his way to the door, hearing feet and chairs moving for others to join him. "No, don't leave just because I am, I'm only heading up to my room to get a moment to myself after all this. Now that I know the work order, I've got to start planning for it."
"You sure you don't want anyone to go up with you?" Lysithea asked, more of an offer than a question, but he turned her down either way. "Fine, suit yourself. Hope you remember which door is yours without us there to help you."
Such caring parting words, but he knew that he'd already made one mistake with the doors in that hallway so being given that half-hearted hope was more or less a reminder to be mindful when finding his room. He barely remembered which floor it was that he was supposed to go to, but knew he'd made it when the elevator doors opened and the flower arrangement sitting outside of them was the same one he'd seen before, the carpets on the floor looking pristine and rather untouched. From there it was more of a game of counting doors than anything, and after trying the lock on one wrong one he was successful in getting back into his room.
It was a lot quieter in there when he was by himself than when he had the entire group with him, and he kind of missed having quiet moments like that while out on assignment. This was the first time in the years of being leader of the company that he'd been out for a job and not been sharing a room with at least one other person (usually Lorenz, but it changed on rare occasions and entirely at random). Why he was never allowed to room by himself, he'd never fully understood, probably a way for Hilda to dig at him without being overly direct about it, but now that someone else was footing the bill he was given a place of his own.
He sat on the bed, testing its firmness and finding it to be much more plush than he would prefer sleeping on; it was a problem that he was just going to have to grin and bear as long as the room was his. He turned the TV on to see if there was anything interesting to watch and found nothing much at all, the Enbarr stations all playing the same sorts of shows he could watch back home. If anything of note was going to air, specifically about the diplomatic meetings that were meant to be happening that week, it would be during news hours, and he wasn't sure when those would possibly be or if he would be around for them. In a perfect world, the people of Enbarr, and across the Adrestian Empire, wouldn't care that royalty from another part of Fódlan was there for a meeting with their emperor, but there was too much animosity between the different regions for that dream to be realized.
"I wonder if we're even going to be needed in all of this mess," he said after turning the TV back off, not interested in watching any of the sitcoms that he could choose from. "He says we're the first line of defense but we're really just playing backup to his men and women who are already on the job. There's no way he's going to actually find a purpose for all of us around here." Laying down on his back, Claude continued to think about what there could possibly be for them all to do while they were there, and could have easily fallen asleep had there not been a knock at his door.
When he got up to see who it was through the peephole, he found that it was Annette, looking somewhat confused but her facial expression was matching his at the sight of her, so he opened the door. "You looking for someone else?" he asked, figuring that she'd found the wrong room and needed some careful redirection. "Since I don't think—"
"You're exactly who I need to speak to, actually!" Stumbling her way into the room with Claude not sure what was going on, Annette waited until he'd closed the door to let out a long, drawn-out sigh. "It's kind of a complicated matter, really, but I know you're the guy that's in charge of everyone from the Alliance territories and if anyone needs to know this sort of thing, it's you."
"Whoa, slow your roll there, I'm not really sure what's going on, or why you're in here in the first place, so let's backtrack about five steps and start over, shall we?" Claude didn't mind if he wasn't being the most serious right then, because Annette seemed like a lovely girl who would appreciate his attempts at lightening the mood. "What's so important that you need to tell me about it?"
Annette froze, staring at Claude with eyes full of panic, and she slowly relaxed to the point that she felt comfortable with starting from the top. "It's not anything to do with me, or any of the guards you'll be working with, but rather about the queen herself."
"Ah, yes, intel about the person we're here to protect, an excellent choice to bring that straight to me." He offered her a spot on the edge of the bed, which she respectfully declined to sit in the room's only available chair instead, which left him little choice but to sit back on the deep-sinking bed himself. "Well, if that's what you're here to deliver, I am nothing but open to hearing it."
Nodding as she accepted his openness to receiving the information, Annette's mouth wavered for a moment before she hung her head, not sure of how to say what needed being said. "It's a really complicated situation, I'm afraid," she started, unable to lift her head to make any sort of eye contact with Claude, "and it's one that they don't want getting out to the general public, whether here or back home. You see, they planned this diplomatic trip to mend the bonds between Faerghus and Adrestia and hopefully bring Fódlan into an age of peace without a looming threat of war, and that's still what it is now."
"I…see," Claude replied, not really seeing what was relevant about rehashing information he was already super familiar with. "Is there anything more to this?"
"Yes, the part that they don't want getting out. Mercie has done a fantastic job making sure that everyone who already knows stays silent on it, but it was decided that at least one of you need to know, just in case." There was a little shudder in Annette's shoulders as she continued speaking. "Another part of what they wanted this trip to be was a tour across Fódlan to let the people know why Queen Byleth stepped down as archbishop of the church without any sort of public explanation, but it's become a sour topic in the moons since she gave up her title and took on the role as queen and only queen."
"Yeah, what's up with that? Can't say we actually had heard much about the whole situation back home, and we've even got a devout follower of the church in our bunch." That was Marianne he was referring to, who had been the one to call Byleth out for her former role and hadn't been aware of the change.
"She stepped down mostly to focus on her role as queen and not have to split her time between her love and her job in the church, but also because the heads of the church wanted her to spend more time with her than the king. Add in the fact that they planned on starting their family sooner rather than later and it just made sense for her to back down from the position." That was when Annette finally raised her head, a smile on her lips that seemed sad, almost haunting. "And that was what happened, and what they were going to talk about to anyone who asked them about why she was no longer archbishop."
It took Claude a few seconds to piece together what Annette was referring to, and the look he gave her was one of bewilderment. "You mean they've got a little something-something brewing there between them?"
"Oh, goddess no! And don't even say it like that!" Annette's smile faded as she reacted to that comment, and Claude realized he'd overstepped a boundary he hadn't known existed until just then. "They're trying their hardest to conceive a child but nothing's come to fruition and they—why am I telling you those details? I'm only supposed to be telling you that trying to raise discussions about why Byleth is no longer archbishop is frowned upon because the truth behind the decision is a sensitive subject. But I said too much and now Mercie's going to find out about this and I'm going to be in so much trouble!"
"Hey now, I never said I was going to rat you out for anything you told me just now. All of this is safe with me, that's for sure." Why in the world Claude would want to run and tell anyone about this, he didn't know, but assuring Annette that he wasn't going to do exactly that seemed to make her feel better. "If it comes up with my people I'll just tell them that it's a personal matter and that there's a perfectly good reason for the decision, but it's not something they need the details on. Sound fair?"
She hesitated for a moment before saying, "Yes, it sounds perfectly fair. I knew that coming to you about this was a better idea than going to any of your friends."
"Yeah, well, there's a reason I'm the one in charge, after all." Never mind the fact that the real reason he was in charge was something that he was going to keep wrapped up nice and tight in his back pocket, something that he was going to make sure didn't get out any further than the limited places it had. "Can't just have anyone being the head of a well-known security company. Have to have some sort of credibility."
"That's a good way to look at it," she replied, standing up from the chair and straightening her skirt so that it looked professional once more. "Sorry for more or less cornering you into this conversation without warning, but I felt it was best to get it done as soon as I could. I'm lucky you were in your room, actually!"
Before he could say anything about how she was lucky to even find his room in the first place, Claude realized that she was inching her way toward the door and so he walked her over to it to let her out of the room. The sound of someone down the hall gasping at the sight of her leaving led him to poke his head out to see none other than Ingrid down at Felix's door, looking down the hall to see what was going on. "Are you two going to explain yourselves?" she yelled, easily loud enough to disturb anyone who may have been in their rooms at that moment. "It's not exactly appropriate for a man and a woman who've just met to be in a room together like that!"
"Calm down, Ingrid, I was just talking to Claude about something that he needed to know for the job." Annette turned to look at Claude, shaking her head with a sigh. "Silly Ingrid, always thinking that she needs to be in the know of everything we do around here. She'll get over not knowing what we were really talking about soon enough."
Even with Annette's assurance that things would be fine, Claude couldn't shake the idea that perhaps it wouldn't be quite as simple as that. After he was back in his room, the woman on her way toward the elevator to go up to her own room, he was pacing back and forth, thinking about how the first impression he'd made with Ingrid clearly wasn't going to be good enough to carry him through all of these other missteps. None of these social screwups had really been his fault, though, because he hadn't intended for Felix to get so angry and storm off when they'd interacted and he certainly hadn't had the idea of inviting Annette into his room on his own. If only there was some way to get that across to Ingrid without hunting her down and making her feel like she was being targeted by him.
He decided that, no matter what it was that he wanted to accomplish with her, he needed to keep his distance and not make the situation worse than it was. There was a job to focus on, he didn't need to be trying to wrap his head around how to approach a fellow security guard without alarming her, and if it just so happened that they ended up in the same place at the same time again, then he could evaluate the situation and make the call if trying to mend things was appropriate.
Claude had no idea that his first opportunity to make amends would come just hours later, when the guards staying there at the same hotel as the king and queen were gathered back in that meeting room to have dinner together. Everyone else had been shuttled back to their own hotels, meaning that the size of the group was significantly smaller than it had been before; without three of his usual go-to people for cover, Claude was left either needing to socialize with Hilda, try talking to Marianne, get into some pointless conversation with Leonie or Lysithea, or try and break ground with the people from Faerghus.
There must have been a look in his eyes as he settled on that last option, knowing that he could easily talk to Ingrid and try to set things straight, because he heard a loud cough come from elsewhere at the table. Looking to the culprit, he felt his blood chill in his veins as it was Felix who'd noticed who he was glancing at. "Dude, it's probably nothing," Sylvain cautioned, but even with that reminder it didn't seem like it mattered to Felix, who stood up, motioned for Claude to follow him, and waited by the door to the room for him to listen to the command. Never one to willingly let others boss him around, Claude considered ignoring it, but something told him that doing that would only make matters even worse.
Against all semblance of good judgment, he got up and met with Felix, who opened the door and walked out into the hallway, expecting Claude to follow him there as well. "Whoa, aren't you going to tell me what this is about before you start leading me everywhere?" he asked, receiving a grumble that was impossible to make sense of in return. "Ah, that makes perfect sense."
"How about you shut up and just meet me like a man?" Felix finally snapped, and Claude was taken so far by surprise by it that he felt obligated to humor him further. Once they were out in the hall, Felix gave him a disgusted look that spoke novels about how he felt about the man he'd barely met. "You need to stop sizing her up like a piece of meat. She doesn't need someone like you ruining her life."
"I'm sorry, who are you talking about?" Now, Claude knew that this was about Ingrid. He wasn't dumb, but he was going to pretend like he was just to ruffle some feathers. Just watching the way Felix's eye twitched slightly at the reaction was enough to bring a small smirk to his face. "Just kidding, I know exactly who you're talking about, but I promise you that I'm not doing any such thing. She's just…interesting, that's all."
Waggling a finger dangerously close to Claude's face, Felix was not about to let that comment stand without a fight. "I'm aware you don't know this, but I'm all too familiar with the look of a womanizing bastard and you've got it written all over you. Don't bother trying to get to know Ingrid, she has better ways to be spending her time than worrying about how you're going to break her heart."
"I've barely met her, you're jumping to all sorts of conclusions on this one, my friend."
"There's no conclusions that I've jumped to, and don't dare call me your friend." The voice Felix spoke with was venomous, like it was meant to inflict damage deep into Claude's veins, but it was coming off as more of an annoyance than anything. "If I see you so much as trying to talk to Ingrid going forward, I can promise you that I won't be anywhere close to as 'friendly' as I am right now, so don't risk your life or limb on her."
It was the first time the whole conversation that Claude felt genuinely unsafe, and after looking around the area to see no one else within earshot, he asked, "Is that a threat?" Based solely on the murderous look in Felix's eyes, it was clear that it was a legitimate threat, and his immediate reaction was to try and get back into the room where he knew he'd have witnesses to whatever was going to happen.
"It's not a threat, more like a promise that you'll regret messing with her." That was the end of the discussion, as it was after those words that Felix went back into the room, and Claude had to take a moment to collect himself from that strange encounter before he could return as well.
Hilda had noticed him leave and who he'd left with, and so when he was back in the room she was quick to pry into what had happened. After he'd glossed over the more threatening aspects and laid down the broad details, she was glancing toward Felix with concern across her face. "Look, if he's causing trouble I think we've got to report that to someone, it's not safe if there's fighting between people who are supposed to be doing the guard work. And he came at you without any reason, which only makes him look worse."
Grimacing as he thought about how flimsy any defense he could come up with would be, Claude decided that honesty would be best in that regard before Hilda started stirring up drama that wasn't quite necessary. "Actually, uh, he's got a reason for coming after me, and that's because he thinks I've got something for a friend of his. Is it a good reason? Of course not. But a reason's a reason and he's got one."
"Ugh, Claude, you're not supposed to come up with a defense for the guy, you're supposed to just let me get him kicked out for being such a jerk. Here I am, actually doing extra work for once and you throw it all away." Hilda laughed playfully, clearly not too actually bothered by not needing to get her hands dirty in a situation she had no part in. "I guess you're just going to have to play by his rules while we're here then."
"Something tells me that'd be for the best anyway, I can't help but think that a personal guard of the king has some sort of protection from being booted from the job." Trying his hardest to look nowhere close to Felix's direction, but also keeping his eyes away from Ingrid at the same time, Claude found it easiest to just look right at Hilda as they talked, which was always awkward given their history. "Just call it a hunch or something on that one. Dude's bound to be here long after I'm gone."
Tapping her chin for a moment, Hilda replied, "That's probably true, but what if it's not and he's super replaceable and they're just begging for an excuse to get rid of him? Wouldn't that just be the funniest thing, him picking a fight with you being the last straw before they finally ditch him?"
"You know, you talk really loudly," Lysithea snidely remarked from next to Hilda, which made her stiffen up and apologize for what she was saying just in case they were being listened in on from across the table. "Just saying, if I were whoever you're talking about, I'd be itching to fight you for all of this stuff you're saying."
"Lysithea, you're always wanting to fight me for things that I say, I don't think this is anything new for you." Even though she was clearly embarrassed for being called out for her volume, Hilda was still not above ribbing the person who'd called her out in the first place. "I take you wanting to fight with me as a badge of honor, not much of a threat."
"It's because I'm small, isn't it?" Puffing up to try and look a little less small, Lysithea earned a laugh and an answer that yes, that was most of the reason she wasn't threatening, and she backed out of the conversation with a mutter that she wasn't small and she was threatening even without her size being factored in.
"Anyway, I doubt he's actually in any sort of hot water, given how he's here and was brought with them already acting like this. Dude's probably got a solid reason for why he doesn't want me messing with Ingrid—even though I don't want to mess with her, I just want to get to know her—and he's too socially inept to get it across to me." Shrugging, Claude was perfectly fine with leaving things right there and not touching them further, but he happened to look up and see Ingrid mid-bite of her meal, the food she was shoveling into her mouth more than he'd even expect to see some guys he knew eating at once. She seemed to catch his eye out of the corner of her own and she dropped her fork, meekly closing her mouth and beginning to chew what she'd bitten, but he'd already seen enough and averted his eyes as fast as he could.
Whether it was fast enough or not, he didn't know, but based on the very loud and forced sigh he heard from the other side of the table he was leaning toward it not being anywhere close to fast enough. Nothing was directly said to him regarding it, though, so he tried to push it out of his mind, knowing there were much more important things to worry about. "This food is really good," he commented under his breath, hoping that he could drum up conversation, but the ladies he was with had all started talking between themselves and didn't seem like they were going to be letting him any longer.
For once in his life, Claude found himself wishing that Lorenz was around, because if nothing else he was good for always being up for conversation, worthwhile or not. But instead, Claude was relegated to having to eat without much in the way of anyone to talk to, aside from the occasional utterance to the ladies in case they were listening to him, but they seemed perfectly content with being in their own world. Eventually, he got tired of the lack of conversation and decided that if he was going to be basically alone, he could do it where he was actually alone, and so he took a takeaway plate of food and carried it up to his room without telling anyone where he was going or why he was going there.
When he got to the floor, he found it just as empty as it usually was, seemingly cut off from the rest of the hotel without any explanation, and he was able to get to his room correctly on the first try. While he was trying to pull out his room key without spilling any of his food, he was quickly reminded that he had the keys to the rooms at the other hotel in his pocket, and he had to fish the correct one out and use it to open the door quickly and efficiently. Of course, when he finally got the door open, he tilted his plate just enough to spill a bit of the food on the floor, leading him to walk into the room cursing under his breath before salvaging the rest of his lonely little meal.
The whole rest of the night he was alone, at least physically. At one point, Ignatz did start texting him asking how things were going where they were, getting quite detailed about the service (or lack thereof) the hotel they were staying at was. He didn't seem annoyed with it—in fact, Claude read the messages as rather awed at the fact there was service to begin with but sad that it wasn't great—but he did seem slightly bothered that he wasn't getting to share the experience with the whole group. Those messages turned into an actual phone call, which Raphael ended up getting in on as well, because as it turned out they'd gone out to the rooftop pool to get to enjoy the heated water in the chilly night air.
"It's really something that you'd like to do with us, I think," Ignatz said after a while, time that Claude had spent looking out his window at the completely empty view he was given, the floor of the hotel he was on seemingly erased from the minds of everyone but the people staying there. "When we get back home, we should look into finding somewhere that has a pool like this, it'd be an experience I'd enjoy sharing with everyone!"
"Something tells me that we could make that happen," Claude replied, shaking his head as he stepped away from the window, bringing his phone with him as he traversed the room to his bed. "I can look into booking a stay somewhere that has a rooftop pool, or even something a bit more unique than just in the ground. It'll have to wait until the weather turns, though, because I don't want to be out there freezing."
"Actually, with how cold it is here it's not too terrible out on the pool deck!" Naturally Ignatz was trying to put a positive spin on things, but in the background Claude could clearly hear Lorenz complaining about the temperature of the air around them. "I-ignore him, he's just doing it to make me look bad."
"I most certainly am not doing any such thing."
"Yeah, ignore him!" Raphael chimed in, giving a booming laugh after he spoke. "Weather's great even though we can see our breath when we breathe. Water makes it nice and bearable to be out here."
Claude nodded slowly, taking that entire exchange in before saying, "Let me take a wild guess here and say that Lorenz isn't in the water with you, huh?"
"Why would I be? There's no point to be swimming right now," Lorenz said, and the rolling of his eyes was so audible in his voice that Claude could visualize the entire display without effort. "I'm only up here to humor them, I'm not getting into this pool at this time of day and certainly not in these frigid temperatures."
"Go on, live a little." Teasing him with that statement, Claude settled on his bed with his phone resting on his lap, touching the screen every so often to make sure that it didn't go to sleep or disconnect without it being intentional. "Maybe you could loosen up the stick that's been planted firmly in your ass if you got in the water for a minute."
The sound of horror that Lorenz made was exactly what Claude had been fishing for, getting him all riled up for no reason but the humor of it. "I would never say such a crude thing to you, why would you assume it's appropriate to say the same thing to me? I'm merely out here being a good companion to these two, a moral compass that we know they both need in their lives, and I'm—ack!" His sentence was derailed by his scream, which was followed soon after by a loud splashing sound that came in tune with laughter from the other two.
"He's going to hate that in the morning, I hope you guys know." Claude was beyond amused that someone would dare throw Lorenz into the water, but he knew that Raphael wasn't exactly in possession of the most logical brain, so as a decision made by him it made a whole lot of sense. Yes, there would be hell to pay once Lorenz was no longer waterlogged, but for the moment it was something fun to laugh about.
Ignatz seemed to be aware of the problem that they'd created and quickly hung up the call, the last thing Claude hearing from him being a panicked shout that they needed to get Lorenz out of the water right away. It wasn't until a couple moments after that brief ending that Claude realized that was most likely because Lorenz had his phone or other important belongings still on him and they were being damaged every second he was submerged. "Uh, well, hopefully he doesn't break anything over this, that'd probably be bad," Claude said after thinking the situation over. With them being in a different part of Fódlan from where they lived it would be quite tricky to correctly replace anything that was destroyed, and he knew that somehow Lorenz would hold him directly accountable for anything that happened because of this incident.
But those were concerns to address another time, he decided after setting his phone on the bedside table and fluffing his sad-looking pillow on his bed, mentally readying himself for a night in an unfamiliar place all on his own. Just like everything else this trip seemed like it was going to be throwing at him, a bit of infighting between him and one of his closest confidantes would only make sense. While it would have been a perfectly acceptable thing to do if he'd jumped in the shower and pondered how he was going to point it out that he had nothing to do with the decision of another man, Claude instead spent his time under the scalding water the shower had to offer thinking about other things. Details of a work-related trip that he still hadn't fully figured out. How he was going to get people he was potentially working with to not hate him. What to do if a situation arose that put him in danger. Things that were actually relevant to the next day's activities, rather than one man's potential anger about a little innocent fun.
Claude figured that in the grand scheme of things, the pool incident would be a minor footnote in the book of events between him and Lorenz, especially based on how closely they worked together on a daily basis. "If he gets mad, he gets mad, but I'm still going to be the one writing his checks and I'm still the one that he answers to, so he's got to think twice about getting mad over that," he decided after shutting the water off and grabbing a coarse towel to dry with. It was when the rough fabric touched his skin that he was distracted from that one fleeting relapse of thinking about an inconsequential moment. "Wow, this hotel really spared no expense on making sure their guests are comfortable. Feels like I'm drying off with sandpaper."
A pause, as he stared at the foggy mirror without any possibility of making out any part of his reflection. "If this is as bad as we've got it here, I'm scared to know what they're dealing with over at their place. Maybe Lorenz'll forgive being tossed in the pool because the water was nicer than the shower or something."
It was wishful thinking, but there wasn't much else Claude could do in that moment, given how poorly everything around him was starting to unfold. The next morning's events were undoubtedly going to be the deciding factor on how the whole trip would proceed, and he needed to hope that he wasn't going to be skinned alive by someone he was already so familiar with.
A/N: and so things start to happen, but this is just the tip of the iceberg, so to speak!
