"I wonder if I'll make a good mother-in-law?"
"I wouldn't know."
- Yumiko Kobayashi and Junko Iwao, My Otome DVD special #5
"We had our friends run a check on this 'Joseph Payne Astor' you claim to be. On paper it holds up. But look closer. Parents dead. No siblings. Medical records barely exist. Convenient, right?"
"I wouldn't know."
- Jason Carter and James McCaffrey, Viper episode 1 (the script version)
"Who the fuck are the Knutsens?"
- Jeff Bridges, The Big Lebowski
Some days Mahya felt like she could rev this car up to 7,000 RPMs and send it flying into a wall so Jon Polito's clean-up crew would make all her annoying memories go away. This, thankfully, was not one of those days.
The back seat of the imperial wagon was unusually quiet. The Deputy Column could monitor everything going on back there—where heads were turning, where certain hands were reaching, any kind of unwarranted movement—with her extra wide rearview mirror while always keeping her eyes on the cars ahead. The three of them were on their way to meet with some friendly An Nam ambassadors, a rather straightforward and non-threatening occasion. Mahya considered the risk assessment to be Very Low. Certainly not on the level of those Artai stooges last week.
King Nguyen Bao and his daughter. Very lovely girl, that Anh Lu was. She provided the perfect role model for everything Akane was supposed to be (as long as she was nowhere near a bottle of liquor). Mahya always enjoyed overseeing these particular meetings.
The car came to a stop as Mahya pulled up to a red light. Traditionally, she should have been steering the car so it always remained directly in the center of Protection Command vehicles traveling in her front, back, and sides. But you could never be too careful these days (try telling that to the guy Kazuya had abruptly replaced, Argos XIV) and the sight of a royal limo traveling in line with several decorated squad cars just drew too much attention from too many potentially bad people. Mahya preferred to transport her charges like she was today, in a plain-looking car while the rest of the royal guard acted as a decoy parade on the opposite side of town. If anything did go badly, Akane could be Activated instantly from the back seat, Mahya would Activate herself, and together they could level ten square blocks of snipers and so-called bomb experts if it was deemed necessary.
Mahya's eyes glimpsed away from the road and toward the rearview mirror for a second. The two passengers were leaning together in the center seat meant for a smaller third person, with her head nestled against his shoulder and his cheek nestled against her ear. Not going over morning reports. Not practicing lines for an upcoming speech. Just sharing a brief moment of R&R together like a couple of regular shmoes.
And thank Fumi for that. Mahya grinned silently to herself.
Kazuya and Akane were becoming popular for their very honest mom-and-pop-ish approach to interkingdom diplomacy. Technically speaking, they were a few years ahead of the Academy's calculations. Mahya herself had expected them to still be in the "I don't want these responsibilities. This is too much for me. Leave me alooooone" phase, but they seemed to be content when they were just allowed to share a little corner of space together. Maybe all of her strict surveillance had finally taught them to think less of their own personal desires and more about the desires of the empire as a whole. Or they had just mellowed out, at least.
When they were together like this, they looked less like a sovereign head of state and a noble bodyguard in their best royal finery, and more like just a couple of teenagers on their way home from a drive-in movie. It must have been quite the magical experience taking the old girlfriend out to watch Christine.
Auntie Mahya would normally be berating the two of them for getting too touchy-feely and telling Akane as a Holy Maiden she should be ashamed of herself, but this was okay. After all the political stress and mortal threats they'd been through lately, it was nice that they just found a chance to relax and keep each other happy. That's what this contract was ultimately supposed to accomplish.
And besides that, the public displays of affection (when kept in moderation!) helped move things along. Everyone felt safer when they knew the man and woman leading them deeply cared for each other just like they cared for the rest of the kingdom. At some point, Akane's royal duties of "protect the emperor's life" would have to change to "ensure the emperor has many descendants so the peaceful line of succession can continue." And when that change happened, she was going to be the happiest lady in the world.
Now, if only Mahya could keep these two this tame until it was time to let them start climbing all over each other. Akane was the best dancer Garderobe had turned out in the last few years, but she came with some drawbacks. The trick was to constantly remind her she was supposed to be playing the part of an Odette while keeping her Odile side in check.
The Column nodded silently in approval and crossed off a mental checkbox that slightly advanced Akane's earliest permissible retirement date. BUT she was still watching these two like she had eyes in the back of her head. The moment she spotted Kazuya's hand getting a little too close to Akane's thigh, the moment Akane so much as blushed the wrong way, the wedding would be pushed off for another year and Emperor Hornball was going straight back into the chastity belt. Between screwing up the Academy's first contract alliance with Florince (i.e. Akane being an over-emotional nitwit and running out on the king) and throwing Cardair into a politically unpredictable smokescreen with a complete nobody assuming the throne (i.e. Kazuya becoming emperor just by dumb luck), these two rascals had already caused enough scandals that derailed all of Fumi's calculations by almost a decade.
But Mahya was just considering the worst-case scenario. In all likelihood, as long as everyone learned to behave like professionals, it wouldn't be the emperor of Cardair and his Otome sitting in the back seat a couple years from now. It would be the emperor of Cardair and his wife, the empress, along with a dozen or so baby seats. Job Well Done, and then Fairy Godmother Mahya would float off to her next assignment giving some other lost sappy young girl a little bit of authority and leadership to help her dreams come true (in a way that also benefitted the country that held the girl's contract so Garderobe always came out looking good).
Mahya admired Akane, in a way. The stubborn little graduate could have accepted the first contract the Academy tossed at her. King Florince was an older guy with his country in order and nothing too risky going on. Decent father figure, but rather boring. It would have been a quiet and comfortable job for her. Smile politely, look pretty, and crack a couple of fools' heads when a dispute broke out every once in a while. But instead, she wound up drafted into the service of Cardair's brand new kid-emperor plagued with constant threats of political undermining and assassination. Akane wasn't a simple plaything to him: She was a shield he needed desperately just to survive. By swearing allegiance to Cardair, she (to simplify a long and winding story) had chosen the far more dangerous contract for herself. But, as long she did a good job, her reward would bring her more personal joy and higher honors than anything she ever would have earned in Florince.
That's all that really mattered to Garderobe: Positioning each Otome that walked out of its doors with a place in the world that fit her personal strengths and motivated her to put on her best performance. It just took a couple extra steps and some serendipitous political upheaval before they found the right contract for Akane. Mahya's involvement was the school's way of saying "Okay. If this is what you really want, it's not going to be easy. But we'll help you through this so you'll have a chance to shine."
There was no doubt if Akane had simply been given the choice of King Florince or Emperor Krau-xeku from the start, she would have gone straight to the emperor without a single complaint and everyone could have avoided a major contractual crisis. With Krau-xeku bound as her Master, she could fulfill her dream of becoming a Meister Otome and have a promising future with her beloved when she retired. They'd probably still need a babysitter, though. Couldn't let the new young couple have too much freedom right out of the gate when one was an untested supreme head of state, the other could be classified as a Weapon of Mass Destruction with cat ears, and they were both giving each other the romantic oogly eyes. Someone with experience had to keep a close watch on these two teenagers and steer them away from doing anything reckless while they grew up.
The light turned green. Mahya's gaze moved away from the mirror and focused back on the street.
"Psh. Kids." She playfully rolled her eyes as she lightly tapped the accelerator.
Author's note: I mostly write things inspired by Viper, or random stuff on my playlist, or random Viper stuff on my playlist.
I took this personality quiz called "Which fairy tale archetype are you?" yesterday and it told me I'm the Boy King. Yeeeah… that probably makes sense.
Voulez-vous coucher avec moi ce Akane Soir?
