Leaning back in the chair with a snow globe in hand, Claude looked toward the ceiling and let the glass ball loose up in the air, catching it without so much as a glance in its direction before repeating the process again and again. It wasn't typical to have this sort of downtime during the work day, but when it did happen he always seemed to find himself training his agility and ability to catch breakables without too many casualties. Over the years of running the Leicester Alliance Security Company (a rather wordy name in his opinion, but one that he had been forbidden from changing by the company's previous leader), he'd gotten skilled at catching just about anything thrown at him while he wasn't paying attention, usually because that was how people greeted him when he came into the office.

Of course, that wasn't the standard, and there were some there at the office that would prefer him use his time in any way that wasn't so risky. Enter his dearest receptionist, one-time girlfriend, and overall genuinely entertaining woman Hilda, coming into the office like she was sent there on a mission. Her eyes tracked the snow globe a time or two as it went up into the air and back into Claude's hand without so much as flinch as he caught it, her sighing and shaking her head as he went to throw it again. "Don't you think you'd be sad if you broke that?" she asked, startling him as he'd not noticed her enter. He set the globe down on the edge of his desk, the glitter settling around the facsimile of the castle of a nearby land while she explained the reason for her being there.

"You know, you could do like literally everyone else does and just call me to get out for a meeting," he pointed out after she'd finished up, but the way she started to laugh told him that she found some sort of enjoyment in their little arrangement—making sense, given their history with each other and the fact that they'd always have the other's back no matter what. "But give me a second, I'll be right there. You sure this is as important as you say?"

"Look, Claude, I might not be the most motivated person who works here, or even close to it, but when I say this is making me want to jump right into action…you probably should believe me. Meet us out in the hall in five, I've still got to collect everyone else." She feigned blowing him a kiss before ducking out of his little office and back into the main building, leaving Claude to do the honors of shaking his head in her wake.

How they'd ended up working at somewhere aimed to provide security to local and foreign events was beyond him, but the fact that the entire staff of the place consisted of friends or classmates always earned a chuckle from him. He'd ended up with the place under his care due to some questionable lineage tracing shenanigans that others had fought against until he had the keys to the door in his hand. Not like he'd started running the place any differently than the person before him, or the person before that, but there was one small wrinkle in all of it that he tried to ignore as best as he could. As far as he could be bothered to address with anyone, he was just the next person blessed with being the head of the Leicester Alliance Security Company, and that was that.

But it wasn't really the time to be thinking about that, not with Hilda's meeting that she wanted him present for in under five minutes. There were always strange requests for jobs that they received there, but none that quite got her bounding in and out of rooms like this one did, and the fact that she hadn't given any details at all regarding it only made it all the more mysterious. With the fact that she wanted everyone present for the talk in mind, he left his office, giving the snow globe one last look before closing the door and going to the typical meeting place in the hallway, where half of the rest of the staff were already gathered. "Oh, she got to you already?" Marianne asked in her gentle voice, sitting cross-legged on the bench with a book in her lap. "We were guessing you were going to either be first or last."

"Wouldn't you have been first?" he replied, nodding toward her and how she was actively looking through a scheduling book, her job there to be moral support when jobs got hard as well as Hilda's backup when she needed assistance with the receptionist work. "Since you should have been up there when she took this call and all."

Marianne glanced at the book, then up at Claude and shrugged. "I was actually on my break when this happened, but I was just back here so she was able to catch me without looking too hard. I've never seen Hilda move so fast for something work-related before."

"Yeah, no kidding, she's like a woman on a mission today and she won't tell anyone why," Raphael agreed, leaning against the wall and easily taking up a third of the hallway's space on his own with his broad shoulders and well-built body. "I honestly thought something was on fire when she came barreling through, but nope, it's just a work call that she's over the moon about and she hasn't said why."

At least it wasn't just to him that she was acting strange, which wasn't always the case in Claude's opinion. "Let's hope it's actually worth all this commotion and she's not just trying to be silly and waste everyone's time. I bet there's some youth baseball game we could do a gig at if she's taking all this time for nothing, it won't pay the bills but it'll give us something to do."

"Will you not doubt me for once and just accept that I've got the greatest news to share?" Coming around the corner with the rest of the crew, so that their entire seven-man company was there in the hallway together, Hilda put her hands on her hips and looked at everyone, them meeting her gaze with their own expectant ones. "Okay, so, I had the strangest call just a bit ago, but before I really get into what it was about, who's down for a bit of a trip?"

"Ooh, I am!" Leonie called, raising her hand high in the air and waving it around. "Usually I get left out of the long-distance jobs, for whatever reason, so I'm calling first dibs on this one!" Claude was going to keep his mouth shut and not tell her that the reason she didn't get to travel was because of her inability to manage money under her care, but he was sure she already knew that.

Hilda didn't seem the least bit bothered by that being the solo response she got, because she went right on with her spiel like she'd been rehearsing it in her head the whole time she'd been gathering everyone. "The job's not going to be an easy one, that's for sure, but it's a week fully paid in Adrestia, with five days working security for the highest-profile event I think I've ever heard of."

"We're not going to be working the Emperor's Ball or whatever she calls it, are we?" Lysithea asked with a shudder, a sentiment echoed by Ignatz beside her, minus the look of complete disgust. When Hilda assured her that wasn't the case, she visibly relaxed, but still muttered something about how she'd prefer to never step foot in that sort of environment if she could help it.

"It's not a ball, it's not a wedding or a ceremony or anything like that, it's just getting to play security for the king and queen of Faerghus while they're on a diplomatic trip." The hallway grew quiet enough to hear several pins drop in succession after she'd said that, and there didn't seem like there was going to be an easy ending to the silence. She seemed so excited about the opportunity, and while the faces of everyone around her were betraying their reservations to the matter, none were as clearly doubtful as the leader himself.

Thankfully for Claude, there was someone who was a tad less graceful with their disgust as he was in their midst, and so he was able to let Lorenz take the lead on this one. "My apologies, Hilda, but why would the king of Faerghus be reaching out to a little-known security company on the other side of the continent from where he intends on going, looking for strangers to protect him during a dangerous time? Can't you smell the suspicions here, it's clearly all a ruse that—"

"It's not, though, and I can tell you why that is if you'll just let me get to it." Snapping at Lorenz like she didn't want to hear his naysaying, Hilda pointed directly to Claude, who felt the seriousness shooting from her fingertip. "He, as in the king himself, not some secretary or other worker under his position, told me that he'd had us recommended to him by means of a foreign king, who swore that if you needed security in a pinch, our company was the one to go with. And since the only one here who's done dealings with a foreign king of any kind is Claude, we have him to thank for scoring all of us a week in Adrestia with some royalty!"

A wave of thanks and cheers rose in the air, but Claude wasn't having any of it. He closed his eyes, sighed deeply, and pushed his hands together, giving a bit of a prayer to the goddess before opening his mouth. "Sure, the Almyran royal family knows me and knows my ability when it comes to keeping things running smoothly during diplomatic events, but why would a king be calling on his own behalf? Shouldn't one of his guards been doing it for him? I've heard the man's got quite the security detail of his own that he pays for, I don't know why he'd need us to supplement their work."

"Yeah, see, I didn't ask anything about that because I didn't feel like I needed to question it. You don't look a gift horse in the mouth, and you don't question a king when he comes to you looking for aid." That was some solid enough advice coming from Hilda, and while the whole situation seemed sketchy enough, there was just enough validity behind it that it almost seemed truly plausible.

Or, at least, that was what the general consensus was. Even Claude was starting to buy into it, if only because Hilda had turned this into a whole-group spectacle rather than doing this to him in private and watching him suffer when it came out it was all a joke. The only person who hadn't started down the path of being convinced was Lorenz, and he was making that clear with the way he was scoffing and sputtering as he looked around the hall at everyone else's reactions. "You cannot actually be buying this nonsense," he muttered, eyes shooting to Claude first, before tracking over everyone else present. "She is clearly spinning some lie that she wants us to fall for, for whatever reason."

"Will you can it, Lorenz?" Lysithea loudly said, her having been one of the earliest believers of what Hilda had shared with them. "I'd love the chance to get to go to Adrestia, and even if the king ends up not being there, what's the big problem? We can afford the group vacation on at least one person's family savings, can't we?"

"You expect me to foot the bill if it comes down to it?"

"What else are you good for?" As she cackled, covering her mouth to deafen the sound slightly, everyone could see how red in the face Lorenz was getting, although no one was going to jump in to try defending him from what had been said.

There was more chatter about the whole situation, Hilda relaying all of the information and news she had to offer about what she'd agreed for them to do with zero conferring with the rest of the staff first, but no one was too bothered by the lack of communication before the deal had been struck. She made it fairly clear that the king had seemed like he was rushing to get this taken care of, which led to Marianne asking the biggest question beyond the validity of the whole thing: "So, when exactly does this take place? We have jobs booked over the next two moons here and there, so I hope you checked the scheduling book before agreeing to anything with him."

"Oh, trust me, I wouldn't make that sort of rookie mistake even while as starstruck as I was talking to him. The week's at the beginning of the Guardian Moon, just a few days after the turn of the year." Cue a couple of surprised noises as well as a single groan from Lorenz, clearly still thinking about the financial comment previously made. "As I understand it, the royal family is doing a tour of Fódlan to start off the year, and as a gesture of good will they wanted to begin in the Imperial Capital and go from there, but the king's…usual guard? I think? is going to be unavailable for the first half of the moon and can't attend the dates we'll be present for."

"And because it's the capital and not a lesser city, he wants to bring in some outside help," Claude finished, having pieced together the reason for their inclusion before Hilda could actually get to it. "Makes enough sense, I suppose. I know if I was a royal visiting a hostile neighbor I'd be careful with who I brought as security, too. Picking some nobodies from Derdriu might just work in his favor."

That comment earned him an eyebrows-raised look from Hilda, but she took it in stride. "Yeah, I felt that denying him when he wanted an answer right away would've just been kind of rude, seeing as he has a really good reason for why he needs us when he does. I think you all will have a great time working with him to keep him and whoever he's with safe, and Marianne and I will have fun getting to sightsee and maybe do a bit of work too. I don't know, I've never been to Adrestia."

"O-oh, I didn't think they'd want to pay for the two of us to go," Marianne admitted, closing the schedule book that she was still holding. "We just do reception work, we're not the guards that the king is looking for, so it would make sense if we didn't go, right?"

Hilda laughed, walking over to Marianne and putting her hands gently on her shoulders, before pulling her in for a quick hug. "That's so sweet of you to think of the king's finances like that—or Lorenz's, if I'm lying after all—but he told me that we're all welcome. Something about wanting the whole team together just in case anything got too crazy."

"But we're not guards. We can't do anything if it gets crazy." Even while mid-hug, Marianne was clearly underselling her talents; if he felt like stepping in to the conversation Claude could have easily pointed out that Marianne's gentle grace and kind words were something they all relied on to get them through some of the hardest jobs they'd ever worked. He could have reminded her that without her being there, they could easily devolve into chaos and fail their one job that they were being assigned, so she was arguably more important to have along than all of the guards at once.

But he didn't want to get back into the conversation, as he inched back toward his office, getting inside before anyone really commented on his slow departure. Once inside, he sat back down in his chair and grabbed the snow globe from his desk again, giving it a solid shake and watching the glitter swirl and twirl around the Almyran castle before setting it back down. Then, he looked at the picture of his team, the entire staff of the Leicester Alliance Security Company, and gave a halfhearted smile at the idea of them getting to show their worth in front of royalty in just a matter of moons. He knew that somehow, they'd manage to screw it up and make fools of themselves, but the fun was going to come in the journey of getting there and getting to spend time with the royal couple and anyone they were bringing with them.

He reached out toward the glass of the picture frame, fingertip nearly brushing against it right over his own face. As the leader of the ragtag bunch he called his work family, he knew he needed to tread carefully while proceeding in this rather strange situation, but something told him that the reason the king had called them of all the places in Fódlan wasn't just coincidence. While he could easily try to find some line of contact for the king and get the answers ahead of time, he figured it would be a mystery solved the moment their paths crossed in the Adrestian capital.

The Guardian Moon was a rather chilly time across most of Fódlan, with snow covering the ground as the gaggle of security guards made their way to the airport outside Derdriu to catch their flight into the Imperial Capital of Adrestia, Enbarr. But as they flew over the country, they found the snowpack growing less and less until they landed in a cold, but otherwise dry country that was new territory for just about all of them. "At least we get a week without our shoes getting iced over," Claude remarked as they made their way to the curbside where a secure vehicle had been arranged to come pick them up from the airport, all seven of them bundled up appropriately for the temperature as they waited. "Bet that's going to be the only positive we find regarding the weather."

"It's not too different from home, at least we're not dying from the heat while we're here," Leonie pointed out, which made sense given that she was the one of the group wearing the lightest jacket but still maintaining a decent level of warmth with her mess of scarves and gloves. "I don't know what I'd do if I had to strip down to not roast, at least when it's cold like this you just throw more clothes on."

"Of course you'd be the one with the problem with stripping down." Her response was playful, but Hilda had picked a poor time to make it as it was right as the shuttle was pulling up to the curb, so any further discussion would have to either wait, or take place in front of a driver who was wearing an armored vest and seemed to be taking his role as secure transport seriously. That didn't exactly stop them all from chuckling about it off and on during the ride to where they were staying, though.

Their hotel was nice, close to the center of the city but not anywhere that could be considered downtown or even midtown. The ride over gave them a good look at what Enbarr had to offer, a city growing after war had pulled it apart in places, and as they'd passed some of the rougher parts of the area it was clear why someone like the king of Faerghus would want some extra security while in the neighborhood. They were dropped off unceremoniously at the back entrance where prying eyes wouldn't have noticed them coming inside, and once they entered they were ushered into a side room where a check-in clerk was there to take control of the situation. "You see, we had to split the reservation for safety reasons," the clerk explained, looking nervously at the group gathered before him. "Three of you are staying here at this property, and four across the street, but never fear because your clients are aware of the change and are also dealing with the exact same problem. The king and queen even have two rooms at two different properties, just so that they can separate for an overnight if it's deemed necessary for their safety."

"We weren't warned about this beforehand," Marianne mumbled, having been the one to take over planning for the trip since it would be more likely to get done with her involvement than Hilda's. "Did something come up that prompted this change that we weren't told about?"

"Er, yes, a rather recent development," the clerk replied, almost with a twitch to his eye as he spoke. "In the spirit of keeping everyone involved on this diplomatic journey safe, decisions have been made that directly impacted your reservations and split the entire group dedicated to keeping the king and queen safe across three hotels in the area. Since we are the smaller of the properties, we only get three of you rather than the originally-intended entirety of the traveling party."

"Did you already decide which three of us?" Claude asked, figuring that they had in some arbitrary way that he'd need to sort out as the leader of the group. "Or is that something that we get a say in."

The clerk paused, before twitching his way right through the answer. "Oh, oh, you get to decide who goes where, I'm only letting you know how many of you will be here and how many will be a couple blocks down the road. I would prefer it if you keep actual guards here instead of just staff, though, since we could easily be a target for protests and we could use the protection if it comes to it."

"We didn't agree to protecting random hotel workers," Lorenz said, looking at the rest of the group for some sort of backup, but they were all letting him take the reins on that topic. "I mean, at least I can say that was not anything I agreed to."

"Hey now, it's a good reason for why they might need us on hand, even if it's not exactly our specific job." Thinking about the fact that they needed to pick who was staying there, and listening to how much Lorenz was against the idea, Claude felt it was a natural pick to make him be one of the three on random hotel guard duty. He stroked his chin, considering all of the possible combinations he could make with his ragtag team of men and women to fill the roles necessary, and after giving it as much thought as he could, he came up with his plan. "Since whoever's staying here needs to be capable and willing to work, I'd think it'd be safe to assume we don't want someone who's likely to disappear if the work gets hard."

"I don't 'disappear' if it gets hard, I just find something better to do," Lysithea muttered, knowing the comment was aimed at her, and she was given a gentle pat on the back by Marianne, while Leonie stood next to them with her head tilted slightly to one side, almost as if she was anticipating what was going to come next.

But Claude, ever the trickster, threw the curveball of the century at the group as he looked at the other three men in their midst. "Lorenz, I know that you don't want to do this, which is why you have no choice but to do it. Same with you two, Raphael and Ignatz, I know you work best when you have the other around and—"

"No worries, we get it," Ignatz interrupted, cutting Claude off before he'd quite finished his statement. The moment he'd spoken he realized what he did and covered his mouth, squeaking out an apology. "I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to talk over you, whatever you needed to say was more important than what I needed to say, I'm sure!"

"—hey, don't think like that! Knowing you're fine with my plan is definitely more important than what I was going to say. Whatever it was." He didn't need to hear if Raphael had anything to say because he knew it would be booming and agreeable, and anything Lorenz wanted to add wasn't necessary, so Claude turned to the twitchy clerk and made it clear which of their people would be there for the duration of the visit. There didn't seem to be any complaints from the clerk, who brandished six room keys and handed them out carefully—one to each man who would be staying there, and three to Claude himself, who seemed rather surprised to receive them.

"Just in case something happens, we want you to be able to get into the rooms," the clerk explained, trying his best not to twitch all the way through his sentence. "None of the ones I've given you are marked, so you'll have to remember which rooms they are for on your own for security reasons, but they're yours for safekeeping."

"Well, thank you." Claude bowed his head to show his genuine thanks, before perking back up and looking around the small room they were still in. "Say, where's our luggage? Since we're not all staying here, shouldn't those who are get their things and get to their rooms so we can get on our way over to our rooms?"

The clerk's face erupted in a smile, one that was clearly untrustworthy just by looking at it. "I'm happy to announce that the bags are all in the adjoining room, and you can all grab what's yours and get it. Then the others can go up to their floor and find their rooms and you can all get to your hotel and where you need to be staying." Thankfully, he was not lying and they found everything they'd packed for their trip in the next room over, everyone's bags properly labeled with their name so they could get their belongings quickly, and after getting directions for what floor the three men had their rooms on, they were on their way upstairs and Claude and the ladies were back out to the shuttle to get over to the other hotel.

While on the drive over, Hilda leaned up from the back seat to a bit closer to where Claude was sitting, loudly asking, "So, did you intentionally make it so it's you staying in the same building as all of us ladies, or did you just have it happen this way out of chance?"

"If Lorenz hadn't opened his damn mouth, it would've been Leonie there in his place," he admitted, watching Leonie give him a thumbs-up as she'd fully expected that to be the case. "I couldn't let him get out of things easy, though, and there was no way I was separating the other two. Last time we sent Raph on a solo job, do you remember how bad that turned out?"

"Eh, I'd prefer to forget about that. I didn't know he'd be rolling solo and I would've done something about it if I had."

Next to Hilda, Marianne was looking out the heavily tinted window of the van, shaking her head and sighing every so often. "I'm sorry to change the subject, but does anyone else feel uneasy about this turn of events?" she asked, her voice small and timid, showing her deep concern. "I can't help but think the guys will be in trouble…"

"I think there'd be more trouble if we were all staying at that place like they'd originally planned," Leonie replied, "because think about it. That place itself was giving me some weird feelings, that clerk was super weird in how he was talking to Claude, and we were all supposed to be there? Even the king and queen? This has got to be a much better arrangement for all of us."

"I suppose that's true, but I'm still…" Trailing off, Marianne gave a small sigh before leaning her head against the glass of the window. "I'm still worried that this is all happening like it is for some reason. Maybe the goddess is punishing us all for trying to intervene in the meeting of different powers within Fódlan?"

"Calm down, Marianne, it's all going to be okay." Trying her best to be reassuring, Hilda flashed Marianne a smile before adding, "And if it's somehow not all okay? We blame Claude for letting that clerk push him into making the three guys stay there instead of with the rest of us without questioning it."

Chuckling because that was the typical Hilda response that he'd expected, Claude settled back into his seat as they finished their drive over to the other hotel, which was made longer due to traffic on the roads. When they were dumped outside the front doors this time, luggage firmly in their hands, they had no choice but to go inside like everyone else, making it very clear that there was something high-profile happening within those walls. But any uneasiness that the entry provided melted away when the lobby proved itself to be empty minus the employees, with a doorman locking the glass doors behind them once they were all inside. "Welcome, you must be the security guards from Leicester," the woman behind the front desk greeted with open arms. "We have been waiting for your arrival since hearing you'd first shown up at our sister property."

"Yeah, no one told us about the change of plans until we were already there, sorry to keep you waiting," Claude replied, taking the lead at the head of the group to do the talking for the rest of them. "I assume you're in on the whole thing as well?"

She nodded, while a couple other employees approached the group. "We're going to escort the ladies up to their rooms now, we have your receptionists on a different floor than the royalty but they will not be entirely alone, and…sir?" She gestured right at Claude, before pointing toward a side hallway. "May I please have you follow me this way? I have had a request for your presence in specific in a meeting, as you match the description of the person in charge of the entire group of guards."

It took Claude a second to remember that he was the only guy there, and with him taking his spot at the front of the group it was all but a sure fact that he was the one in charge. He handed his bag off to a waiting employee before following the woman's direction, ending up in a meeting room that contained one single person sitting at the table, who rose to meet Claude when he came inside. "Thank you for bringing him down," the man said to the desk clerk, who gave a silent gesture as her way of accepting the thanks, before she left the room to just Claude and this other man. "I suppose you may be wondering why you are here, out of everyone we could have called on in all of Fódlan, hm?"

"If I said I'd been wondering, I wouldn't be telling the full truth. Got kind of obvious when I really started thinking about it." Scratching at the back of his neck, Claude tried looking anywhere but at the rugged and rough face of the other man in the room, but ended up locked in a stare with the scarred eye and the perfectly seeing one that were looking right back at him. "How'd you figure out where to find me?"

"I knew I wanted security from Leicester for this job, but finding you happened as a coincidence and there was no way I was going to let it end without action." The other man, muscular, tall, and physically intimidating even in his relatively toned-down choice of clothing, slammed his hands down on the back of the chair he'd previously been sitting in, gripping it and causing the fabric underneath his fingers to crumple. "It only felt fitting that I invite someone of your status to this event, whether you wanted to be present and your people represented or not."

Grimacing as he thought about how it could be him getting grabbed and squeezed like that poor chair was, Claude put a stop to the man's line of thinking right away. "Sorry, but I don't speak for anyone but myself and my team of guards. People, what people, you're not getting me to say I'm the voice of a group of people. Not here, not anywhere."

The man relaxed his grasp on the chair, looking at Claude with his one good eye focused squarely on the space between his eyes. "But that's what you are, is it not? The prince of Almyra, avoiding his duties for whatever reason?"

"Emphasis on avoiding his duties, because it's not just me playing hooky. I left that life behind when I came to Fódlan to pursue a normal existence and there's no regrets there. I'm not a voice for the Almyran people, and while I'm glad you think I'm worthy of being present for your summit or diplomatic meeting or whatever you're planning for this week, I'm not here for any reason but being your guard." Somehow Claude had known that this would turn into a conversation about his past and how he was the legal prince of Almyra, his parents currently on the throne that he had no interest in inheriting, but he'd figured the conversation would happen by some keen-eyed guard for someone else. The fact that it was happening with the king of Faerghus, of all people, was the truly surprising part. "Which, by the way, you want to elaborate on why you've beefed up your security squad for the week or are you going to keep that a secret?"

"I assumed we would discuss that once the entire guard force is gathered together, whenever that may be. I had wanted to discuss this with you before then, though." That was when the king approached Claude properly, his commanding presence becoming oppressive with every step he took closer to where Claude was. "Do your fellow guards know your other life, or are they unaware of who you really are?"

With his back getting pushed against the metaphorical wall, and about to be against the physical wall as well given how much he didn't want to be within reach of the king, Claude had to think on his toes for what had to be the correct answer. "Only one of them knows, and the fact that she knows is why she's my ex-girlfriend, so that should tell you how happy people are when they find out who I actually am. As far as they're concerned, the me I introduced myself as is the real me."

"So I take it that referring to you in front of them as Khalid—"

"Is a complete no-go. Do it and I walk." Just hearing the name that he had tried to scrub off of his being made the hair on his arms stand on end, and Claude found himself shooting the king (the actual king!) a glare that showed he meant business. "That's not who I am, and if you really chose me and my team for this job because of who you thought I was, you made a poor decision."

The king, after shrugging off the look because Claude was far from intimidating when wearing a flower-covered shirt that had clearly been fished out of the laundry right before being worn, made his actual stance on the matter very clear. "I hired you first and foremost for your competence as a team, but the coincidence of knowing you to be the former prince of Almyra was too good to pass up. I shall refer to you solely by your preferred name and not the one of your past, and you won't abandon your job here like you abandoned your throne."

"Sounds like an agreement I can work with," Claude said, finally feeling less like he was being cornered and more like he'd come to sensible terms with the guy on the matter. He considered holding out a hand to shake on the agreement, but went for a bow instead, as one usually would in the presence of royalty. "Now that we've gotten that taken care of, you want to tell me what you're having us call you for the duration of the event? I'm not throwing out 'Your Majesty' every time I need to address you."

"Er, we can talk about that when we're in the whole group meeting, because there's a time and a place for several different names, as decided on by myself and the queen. We are trying to take our safety seriously on this trip, especially since…" Whatever it was that the king was going to say, he stopped himself and stepped back, choosing to head for the door instead of finishing his sentence. It seemed strange, but Claude was not going to pry into the matter and end up picking a fight he wasn't going to win. So, instead, he followed the king out of the room and back into the empty lobby, where the employees were quick to escort them toward the elevators up to the higher floors.

For whatever reason, it was deemed 'safest' if they were staying on some inconspicuous floor in the middle of the building instead of at the top, but it seemed that it was standard practice at that exact hotel to do just that. The floor they were taken to appeared to have normal rooms lining the hallway, but the employee leading them to their assigned rooms explained that there were mega suites located on the floor, hidden behind doors that didn't actually open but had fake locks on them to confuse any would-be criminals if they were snooping around. They reached Claude's assigned room first, and as he was given the key to enter he saw the rest of the group, including the three staying at the other hotel exiting the room next door. "Hey, you finally made it up here, slowpoke!" Hilda playfully called, while Leonie made sure that the door was firmly closed after they'd all exited, leading Claude to assume that the room was hers. "We were starting to think you weren't showing up, even the guys got here before you!"

"Had something more important to take care of while you all got settled in," he replied, deciding he'd check his own room out later and rejoined the crew, while down the hall he could see the king being taken into the room he'd been given. He wasn't going to call out the king for what had happened, or his reason for picking them as his chosen security for the trip, but he was going to hold him to explanations when the time came. "Anyway, what's the view like up here? Gotta be nice, right?"

"Filtered windows to promote safety, couldn't really see much beyond the windows of the building right across the way," Lysithea replied, holding up her own room key and pointing to the next door down from where Claude's was. "At least, that's what I saw from my room. Leonie's got a bit of a better look out on the street, and the other two…"

"Two floors up and a much, much better view than what they have out their windows," Marianne admitted, hanging back just a bit from the overall crowd that they'd created there in the hallway. "We also met one of the guards who is here to protect the queen while we were up there, she seemed rather pleasant in passing."

It made sense that the queen would have her own delegation of guards, but for one of them to be staying on the same floor as the receptionists seemed a little strange. At least no lies had been told when it was said that they wouldn't be alone on their floor, but still. "I've heard we're going to get to meet all of their guards from home at some point," Claude said, knowing that was a safe thing to bring up from his conversation with the king. "No idea when, or where, or why, but I know it's going to be happening."

"It's after the rest of them get here, from what we were told when we came in," Ignatz presented, looking at Claude with a wry smile behind his glasses. "Which the lady at the counter had no idea why they weren't here already, so it's easy to guess that—"

He was cut off by a loud scream that came from down the hall, and given that they were all security guards who were attracted to the thrill of protecting people, they stopped what they were doing to go investigate the source. It turned out that the culprit was not screaming because they were in any danger, but rather because they were so excited to have gotten off the elevator on that floor that they couldn't hold in their emotions any longer. "Hey, sorry for spooking you with that yell, it's just been a long day and knowing that we're finally where we're supposed to be…couldn't help myself." The person speaking had reddish-orange hair that seemed unruly, with a bag over his shoulder and an employee standing sheepishly behind him. "Wasn't expecting any strangers up here though, to be honest with you. You guys the group from Leicester that ol' Dimitri hasn't shut up about since he hired?"

The casual reference to the king's real name made most of them look almost shocked to hear it, seeing as they didn't know who this guy was or how he was related to everything. There was only one assumption that could be made, that he was one of the guards from Faerghus, but no one wanted to ask to be sure and so the guy was led away by the employee down to what was presumably his own room, down past the group that belonged to them. After a careful count of doors it was deduced that, as long as they weren't fake doors in the middle, he was four rooms away from Leonie's, and somewhere between them on the other side of the hall was where the king had entered his room. So, assuming he wasn't alone in the guard department coming from Faerghus, the rooms in between were most likely going to be occupied, or else there was a bit of a balancing issue at hand.

But with the question of who was screaming firmly resolved, the group headed back down to the room Claude still hadn't entered, and when he opened the door they all went inside to a small, fairly standard hotel room meant for a single person to stay in. "No kitchen? No mini fridge? What kind of service is this?" he grumbled, almost playfully as he looked around, the general consensus being that the rooms that weren't the special suites had to be less than stellar in quality. "Well, since the king's footing the bill for our stay, guess we're ordering a lot of room service."

"Our rooms at the other property have microwaves and fridges in them," Raphael said, his broad shoulders barely fitting in the narrow space by the door of the room. "We can always go get meals to heat up and eat them over there, it wouldn't be the easiest thing but it'd be cheaper than all the room service we'd need to feed all of us. I'd feel kind of bad racking up that much of a charge for someone else, even if he's a king."

"For once, Raphael raises an excellent point, but if we go with this plan, I would kindly ask for all of you to pick one of their rooms to dine in," Lorenz scoffed, as if he was just above the idea of letting his colleagues heat food up in his hotel room. "I will be taking advantage of room service in that situation and taking care of the bills myself."

Looking at him with her eyes growing wide, Hilda put on a bit of a puppy-dog pout and asked, "Wouldn't you think of us and add a couple extra meals into the mix? I can't live on microwave dinners forever, think of how much that'd wreck my figure!"

"It wouldn't be forever," Marianne pointed out, but her logical response was drowned out by the drumming up of an argument between the other two, Lorenz becoming a bit heated that Hilda would dare ask him to use his money on her, and her getting equally upset that he wouldn't take one for the team and keep her eating healthy.

It started to get so heated, in fact, that Claude had to raise his voice to get the two of them to shut up, then had them separate so that Lorenz was on the other side of Raphael and Hilda was over by the windows so that they couldn't even see each other. "Now with that headache out of the way, anyone hear anything about what we're supposed to be doing right now? I doubt the king paid for us to come all the way out here for us to be standing around looking and acting like fools, but he hasn't really given much else in the way of directions."

"I haven't seen much in the way of anyone coming down the hall since we all came in here," Ignatz unhelpfully told them, fulfilling his role as the usually-designated lookout without being prompted to do so. "Only some employees, but they were headed back to the elevator and weren't bringing anyone new up here."

"Guess we can always solve this one the old-fashioned way," Claude chuckled, thinking about how easy it would be to go bang on the king's door and get answers about what to do that way, but he knew that wouldn't be a good look for any of them. Especially since he knew that the king would probably retaliate by asking him if he thought that was behavior befitting a royal. He earned several confused looks by his companions, none of which had come to the same conclusion on what to do as he had, but before he could explain his poorly-made joke he realized there was a much less awkward way of handling things.

"You're…going to tell us what that way is, or are we going to be left in the dark?" Leonie asked, being the one to speak up for everyone else as she leaned against the room's pitiful dresser. "I mean, I'm not going to force you to say anything, but I think we'd all like to know."

The opportunity was there to dare suggest trying to get answers from their boss for the week, but Claude swallowed that down and went with his second choice of idea. "We go down to that guy we saw's room and ask him if he's got any idea of what to do. We know he's one of the Faerghus guards, or he's at least someone associated with the king, so he's more likely to have answers than any of us standing here. Anyone got a problem with this idea?"

There was a muffled mutter that obviously came from Lorenz about there indeed being a problem, but his contrarian behavior was to be expected and there was no way that Claude was going to stop what he was thinking of doing just because of Lorenz having a teeny problem with things. So, the group filed back out in the hallway and they made their way down to the room that belonged to the man with the reddish-orange hair; the problem that Lorenz was going to point out reared its ugly head when they began knocking on the door that seemed like the right one but was answered by someone who was definitely not the man they were looking for. "Excuse me, but who are you?" the dark-haired man that answered the door said, glaring straight at Claude and the rest of his company. "What are you doing on a private floor like this looking like that?"

He looked down at his shirt, remembering how he'd ended up wearing it in the first place, then back at the guy with a completely straight face. "I'm looking like this because unlike you, I know how to do a job and live a little. You work for the king of Faerghus?"

"I—you—don't make assumptions about that, it's not working for him so much as working with him. That boar doesn't own me or my time." None of that made any sense to Claude, or really mattered to him, but it seemed to be something of note for the guy saying the words in the first place. "I just want to know how you got up here. There's no way you're the hired help he's been looking forward to meeting."

"Unfortunately for you, that's exactly us in the flesh. Name's Claude. Claude von Riegan, head of the Leicester Alliance Security Company," he said, holding a hand out while maintaining shaky eye contact with the man whose face was souring more by the second. "As a hint, this is the part where you tell me your name and we shake like gentlemen. Unless you're more of a boar than whoever you were talking about and need to be taught some manners right now."

"You disgust me."

"Claude, stop antagonizing this guy, he's clearly not interested in being friendly." Ever the voice of reason, Marianne was speaking at a whispered level to try and not be heard by the guy, but when his glare flashed over to her for a second, she gave a loud eep! and ducked behind Hilda, who was shaking her head and trying not to laugh.

"And what's with you bringing your whole crew down here to try and intimidate me into talking? You too much of a baby to handle conversations yourself?" This guy really did not seem like he was going to make further communication easy, and so Claude dropped the hand and stepped back with a shrug, opening the door to have the actual door slammed right in his face.

"That could've gone better," he admitted, only for an unfamiliar laugh to respond directly to what he'd said. They all turned to see the guy they'd been looking for standing in front of the next door down, giving them all a wave. "Oh, shit, we weren't even in the right place," he whispered, feeling a bit of shame at disturbing someone who wasn't their intended target.

"If you were looking for me, you actually did have the right room, I just was checking something out in Felix's room for him while he was doing the same for mine." The man with the reddish-orange hair was already so much more agreeable than his friend had been, and he made quick work of the introductions phase of things. "The name's Sylvain, I already figured you're the Leicester guards but when I heard you talking to Felix just now you kind of cemented that in stone. So, we've got the real lords of security in the Alliance territories here working with us for a week, that's gotta mean something good's coming our way."

"I like this guy," Raphael tried to quietly tell the others, but on account of his size and relative lack of volume control Sylvain was able to hear him immediately.

"Thanks for the compliment, big fella, have to say I like you already too." Shooting Raphael a couple of finger guns, Sylvain came right up to them and took Leonie's hand in his, giving the back of her knuckles a kiss and making her retract her arm as she blushed. He was going in for Hilda's hand when he felt the judging stares hitting him from all sides and he laughed, stepping back with his face contorting into a forced smile. "Sorry, but I'm much fonder of the ladies than the dudes, but if everyone wants a kiss I guess I can pass 'em around to everyone."

Based solely on the way he didn't sound like that was a genuine offer, no one forced him to act on it, and so he proceeded to just kiss the hands of the ladies there, all four of them receiving the exact same treatment. "Wow, finally a guy who recognizes me as the woman I am and not as some child," Lysithea remarked after Sylvain's lips had brushed against her knuckles. "I think we should keep this guy for ourselves. His normal job be damned, right?"

"Heh, thanks, but leaving my day job's not really on the table. I've known the king for far too long to abandon post." Sylvain seemed like the kind of man who would flatter anyone he could and then flake out on whatever commitments he arranged for himself, so Claude was perfectly fine with that unauthorized offer being turned down. But there was something else about him that seemed alluring, not just his charming personality or ability to get all four ladies on the team staring at him with varying degrees of blushes across their faces. What that was, exactly, Claude couldn't put his finger on, but he figured he'd come to figuring it out at some point in the future, especially if they were going to be working together during the king's week in Enbarr.

"We wouldn't actually ask you to leave your job, no worries," Claude told him, before shifting all of his weight to one side to dramatically turn himself around in the hallway. "But we would ask you if you have any idea of what we're supposed to be doing right now. No one told us where to go beyond our rooms."

"That's strange, I'd have thought they would've told you exactly where to go and when to get there." Looking at the group with a thoughtful smile on his lips, Sylvain gave a bouncing shrug before heading to the front of the pack, everyone's eyes following him (minus Claude's, because his were already in that direction). "We can head down together, then. Dimitri wants us all meeting in the board room on the second floor to get acquainted with each other, but naturally meeting time came and went and there were, uh, not nearly as many people as should've been there, so it got rescheduled to…" He made a flourishing motion to pull his phone from his pocket to check the time. "Twenty-three minutes from now. There's no harm in getting down there early, though."

With that being said, he started down toward the elevator, and the majority of the group proceeded to follow, the only people hanging back being Lysithea and Leonie, both of whom called after everyone that they'd be there soon but they wanted to go back to their rooms before attending the meeting. "Just don't fall asleep while you're in there, that'd be a horrible first impression!" Hilda called at them from the back of the group, both ladies waving her advice off as being less helpful and more antagonistic.

Given the size of the group, riding down all together would be a tight fit, so they split up; Lorenz and Marianne ended up on the same elevator as Sylvain was, none of them saying a word as long as the doors were open, while the other four got on the next elevator going down. "Have you noticed that we haven't seen anyone here not related to the king's visit or employed here at the hotel?" Ignatz asked as they were riding down, the other three mumbling in agreement. "I'm starting to wonder if they've closed off this place to the general public to keep everyone safe, but then…why so much security?"

The answer to that question was given when they reached the second floor and the doors opened to reveal a glass window looking down on the lobby on the next floor, which had filled up with common folk in their time being upstairs. "So much for that idea, huh, Iggy?" Hilda replied, patting his shoulder with a gentle touch, while he stared down agape at the sudden change.

"They must've closed the hotel for when the king got here, but now that he's in the building they're letting everyone back inside." Raphael was also looking at the presence of other people with shock, but he seemed to be taking it better than his friend was. "Guess maybe that means we'll have to start thinking like security guards again."

"Assuming some of us ever stopped thinking like them, a mistake of a decision as usual," Lorenz said, from a couple windows down. He and Marianne had been standing there when the others had disembarked from their elevator, but no one had noticed them because of the windows showing what they were. "Sylvain mentioned the board room being just down this hall, do we want to go down there now or do we want to risk being caught standing here by people with nothing better to do but cause chaos?"

As much fun as chaos sounded in that moment, Claude chose to do what any good leader would do and started in the general direction that they were intended to go, not too focused on if anyone followed him because they were down there early. The second floor seemed to be closed off to the public for the time being, which backed up what Raphael's read on the situation had been, meaning that for once, the brawn of their operation was acting as the brains for them as well. There was no doubt when he arrived outside the board room, seeing as there was a sign on the door greeting the diplomatic party from Faerghus as well as their special guests, and without so much as a knock he opened the door to see himself inside.

Because it was so far ahead of when the meeting had been rescheduled for, there weren't very many people already in the room. Sylvain was there, and Claude had honestly figured he would have been the only one, but there was a blonde woman that he was talking to, looking annoyed with whatever it was she was hearing. "Am I interrupting something?" he asked to get their attention, causing both Sylvain and the woman to look at him, one much more surprised to see him there than the other. "Kidding, kidding, we're all meant to be professionals here, aren't we?"

"Let me guess, this is the guy Dimitri's been overjoyed to have on our side for the occasion?" the woman suggested, nodding toward Claude without so much as a smile or anything friendly aimed at him. "I never would have suspected that our king would be so excited to work with someone so…"

Once again Claude glanced at his shirt, cursing himself for making the decision to dress comfortably rather than with a good first impression in mind. "I might look like I've come right in from the beach, but there's a reason I'm the head of the Leicester Alliance Security Company, and it's not for my fashion sense."

"I was going to say someone so ignorant to social standards, but you're right, your appearance does betray your apparent skills. Sylvain, have you actually met this guy?" When Sylvain told her that he had indeed met Claude, she heaved a sigh and walked over to him, forcing a smile onto her face. "I suppose then I have no choice but to introduce myself. I am Ingrid Galatea, personal guard to the royal family of Faerghus and the person you will be answering to this week. Any questions you have will be coming to me. Not Sylvain, not Felix, not the king or queen themselves, but me."

"Heard you loud and clear on that one, Ingrid," Claude replied, tempted to pull a Sylvain and try kissing Ingrid's knuckles, but he felt that she would be used to that routine and not take super kindly to it. "I'm Claude von Riegan, but based on what you just said I think you might've already known that. When was it decided that you were in charge?"

She shook her head, tossing her tied-up hair from side to side. "That is none of your business right now. If the king chooses to disclose that information then you'll find it out, otherwise it remains between me and him."

"A woman who knows her power and isn't afraid to flaunt it, color me impressed." That was not an attempt at flattering her, as he was actually feeling a bit of something deep inside from how she was speaking to him with apparent power and force in every word. She seemed to hold her ground even when the rest of the group from the Alliance territories finally came into the room (including the two who they'd left upstairs before), introducing herself to all of them with the same announcement that she was the one in charge of most of them. No specific names were dropped, but it was fairly easy to conclude that the ones that weren't under her control would be informed of who they needed to be listening to once the meeting was underway.

"What's with all of these forceful people from Faerghus thinking they can bully us around?" Hilda whispered to Claude after Ingrid had finished speaking with them and had walked back to where Sylvain was waiting. "I don't think we came here to be talked down to or treated like we're lesser just because we come from a different country than them, you know? We're all citizens of Fódlan."

Inwardly groaning because that wasn't actually a true statement and Hilda should have known that, Claude had to come up with some answer that explained why he was fine with how Ingrid had presented herself. But because he was talking to his ex-girlfriend, he needed to tread carefully. "I think the way she shows her confidence in her position's a good trait for someone to have," he said, trying not to look at Ingrid while he was talking about her. "If I were you, I'd think about acting like her for a change."

"Oh, trust me, I could act just like her if I wanted to, but then you'd have no choice but to fire me for it." Putting on a rather sly smile, Hilda poked her head right in the way of Claude's line of sight, giving him a welcome distraction from his attempts at avoiding looking toward Ingrid. "Is that what you want from me?"

"No, I think you could be like her without being worthy of being fired, but that's just my opinion." He wasn't planning on elaborating further, because if he had to tell Hilda that he thought she could be assertive without coming off as combative or just nasty in general, she'd be ready to argue with him for it. Instead of letting that conversation continue, he turned to speak with some of the others instead, most of them also voicing their thoughts on the blonde who had so confidently told them what their job was without any of them asking for her perspective. All the while, the room slowly found more people entering it, one at a time every couple of minutes, everyone who came in going over to where Sylvain and Ingrid were continuing their discussion about whatever.

When Felix came in, he loudly scoffed at seeing the giant group huddled together, but chose not to approach the others too closely and instead took a seat at the table in the room, leaning back in the chair as if he held power in the upcoming discussions. He looked at the room's clock frequently, tapping his fingers against the table impatiently, and just when Claude was starting to feel a bit of the same emotions the man was going through, the door opened again and two people came walking in, draped together in a dark blue cloak that was adored with fur and stitches that signified it as belonging to the royal family of Faerghus.

"If I could have your attention," the king called, his voice commanding but steady, earning the gaze of every person in the room, "but we would like to get this meeting of introductions underway. Everyone, please take a seat so we can begin. Time is not on our side this evening, I'm afraid, and I would…"

He trailed off right as the woman at his side, clutching part of the cloak carefully to her chest, spoke up in his place. "We would like to be able to find the time tonight to get some relaxing in before the chaos and busyness of the next week get underway." She also spoke with a steady voice, but hers was softer, more relaxing, and oddly familiar to the hired security group.

It was only when she stepped out of the king's shadow that there was a gasp, Marianne unable to keep herself quiet in the revelation of who his queen was. "That's…the archbishop of the Church of Seiros?" she asked, almost as if she was unsure of what she was seeing, and the fact that she'd said it loudly enough to garner everyone's attention onto herself made her feel worse about the accusation.

"Former, but yes," the queen replied, bowing her head as she took her chair at the head of the table, the king sitting right next to her after draping his cloak over the back of his seat. "One of the many things we are here to discuss so you're up to speed on this week's schedule of events. Now take your chairs as asked so we can begin."

A/N: I didn't give up on writing, I've just had a lot of different projects I haven't been able to post yet. This one is actually the beginning of my NaNo fic for this year, which means you are in for a Ride.