The sound of the dormitory door slamming echoed through the entire hallway, followed by the sound of a chair hitting the wall and splintering. "How could they do this to me!" resounded through the small room as the man dressed in a Guard Captain's uniform slammed a second chair onto the floor and swept everything off the table with his arm, sending books and papers flying. "He left with that heretic priest then he comes back and expects to just walk back in like nothing happened!" Kinoc's ranting voice lowered slightly as he heard voices in the hallway calling out in alarm. "I deserve to keep the position – I deserve to be Captain of the guard, not Auron!" Kinoc stood for a long time, breathing heavily, fists clenched at his side, face reddened with emotion as he thought about the humiliation he'd been subjected to just a few minutes earlier.

"Auron! You're back!" Guard Second Rimon shouted with excitement as he saw his former Captain enter the Guard Captain's office. "How'd it go, being stuck with the heathens I mean?"

Auron grinned at his second in command and slapped him on the shoulder in greeting. "Not as bad as I thought it would – some of them are actually quite nice." He looked around the nearly empty office, nodding to others of the command staff who where working at their desks. "Where's Kinoc?"

Rimon snorted then pointed towards the inner office. "Probably in there, gloating as usual. He's been a real pain in the ass since you left, so praise Yevon you're back. Please tell me you're the Captain again?"

"Grand Maester Mica has reinstated me as Captain, but it won't be formalized until later today, so don't spread it around until Kinoc is officially relieved?"

Of course that request was ignored, and Kinoc was furious to find out about his demotion from gossip in the temple cafeteria. He was further humiliated when his request to speak with Maester Mica concerning the position was denied, in front of a number of other people waiting to see the Maester. The final straw was dropped when he returned to the Guard Captains office and walked into an impromptu welcome back party the guards were throwing for Auron.

"He's going to pay for this…" Kinoc muttered, reaching into his cupboard for a bottle of sake, not bothering with a glass. "He is going to pay."

"What the…Rimon? Could you come in here for a moment," Auron asked, leaning over to look out his office door towards his Second. Rimon nodded as he finished signing a report, then closed the folder and rose to enter the office, raising one hand to push his dark hair back in a habitual motion, then dropping it with a sigh. Rimon's hair had always been just a little bit longer than regulation, and tended to hang in his eyes, but it was now even shorter than Auron's, to the man's apparent disgust.

"Oh, that," Rimon commented, taking the folder Auron was holding out. He opened it and leafed through the papers, which were covered in charts and graphs, with notations and arrowed lines scribbled in the margins. "That was Kinoc's idea of reform. He had us changing shifts every three days and rearranged all our patrol routes, with the end result being we were all so tired none of us could think straight, and people were forgetting where they were supposed to be – so some area's had no guards, while other's had triple what they should have had. Even worse, some of the guards started hallucinating due to sleep deprivation and a lot of the rest were drinking themselves blind in order to get to sleep, so they had hangovers, when they weren't still drunk at shift change. He finally had to drop the idea when the healers protested. One of the guards fell asleep and ended up in the Via Purifico. He drowned before the others could pull him out. Kinoc refused to sign the paperwork for compensation to the poor sod's family, said he'd died due to dereliction of duty, so the rest of us took up a collection. And that was just the first month you were gone."

Auron looked at Rimon, then back at the folder with a puzzled expression. "Why?"

Rimon dropped the folder back onto Auron's desk then shrugged, reaching up to scratch the side of his hawk like nose with one scarred finger. "He said it was to prevent complacency. That some of the guards were so set in their ruts they weren't alert."

Auron sighed and leaned back in his chair, tipping his head sideways and rubbing his forehead as he closed his eyes. "I never thought he was an idiot, but I'm beginning to change my mind. What else did he do while I was gone, besides rearranging the entire filing system that is?"

Rimon pulled a chair over closer to the desk and glanced out the door, checking to see that none of the other's were within hearing. "He spent an awful lot of time kissing up to the Maesters, when he wasn't strutting around in his uniform making everyone miserable. Formal inspections every day, guards reprimanded for any deviation from regulation, punishment details handed out for any infraction…shall I go on?" Auron shook his head, not bothering to open his eyes.

"I guess that answers my question about the over enthusiastic greeting I got yesterday." He exhaled noisily and sat back up. "Get me the list of the punishment details and the folders for anything else you think I need to see, and I'll look at it in the morning. I'm going to go to the training grounds and beat on something; I think I've had enough of Kinoc's plans and schemes for the day."