Aeries Villa, Pendragon, Holy Empire of Britannia
Summer to Autumn of 2008
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I had always been lead to believe that our initial mandatory assigned guard duties for newly inducted knights were a slog of boredom and procedure, that babysitting one of the Emperor's wives and their brats while trying to not lose your mind was simply a rite of passage for our hollowed ranks that one accepts without question. From what I've seen of the other facilities in Pendragon that is by and large what happened, and good for my brothers and sisters in arms enjoying easy assignments right out of the gate. They like myself could appreciate a well planned out career path and an equally well padded resume.

That all said the past few weeks of guard duty spent at the Aeries Villa largely meant spending most of my time near my principles along with my brother, because it would appear the children had imprinted on us and thus wanted us around more often. I call bullshit honestly but as with any bullshit that works in my favor I ask no questions and thus can speak no lies. Regardless I got to bear witness to the litany of suffering that was Prince Lelouch's life as he is ceaselessly beset on all sides by adoring little girls on a daily basis which was worth a laugh.

That while amusing wasn't why I was here though, no the reason I was here was the Empress Marianne and who she really was behind the scenes, and what I knew about her that no one else did. Leaning back in my chair I glanced at said Empress who met my gaze with a knowing smile and turned to meet me fully, head tilted in question.

"Is something on your mind Sir Taylor?"

Embracing the swarm to take the edge out of my voice as to not falter, hoping a couple months and some change in time was enough for such familiarity I blithely replied with, "No need to stand on ceremony Empress, as you say I work for a living. If you wish to simply call me by name feel free to do so."

As a drill instructor once told me sometimes you find yourself in a situation where you have no choice but to roll a hard six, shoot for the hail Mary pass, go all in, that sort of thing, it isn't ideal, but it is what you have. This was sort of that kind of gamble for me, I can hope that my weeks of eavesdropping on this place had paid off, or I had completely misread the room and this was going to be an incredibly boring assignment and a wasted recruitment attempt.

Smile turning up a notch she replied in a coy, "Oh very well Taylor, but only if you call me Marianne."

Fucking. Score.

I am now on first name basis and if I'm not misreading this being slightly flirted with by one of the heads of the Office of Secret Intelligence and she has no idea that I know that I now just got myself firmly in the running to be put on the incredibly fucking short list of potential future recruits. The OSI wasn't like any other government agency, you didn't apply for them, they recruited you, or as in my case you play a four year long gambit to be in this place at this time and take your shot.

God I live for this shit, dance puppets dance.

I winked in return, "Well Marianne, as for what is on my mind I was wondering if you would be willing to allow me to play a little game with your children and their gaggle of friends."

That had the older woman pause, but still she looked intrigued, "Oh what did you have in mind?"

At this my expression turned utterly devious, "You see I would have to be well and truly blind to not to have noticed your boy has a brilliant mind that needs tested and cultivated. So with that thought in mind I was thinking of putting him and the kids through some games my brothers and sisters played with the servants at their age."

Jeremiah, who had been staring at me in resigned horror at my little gamble, snapped his frantic gaze to mine, "Oh good lord please don't tell me you're going to force them through your insane master stranger protocols!"

I did my level best to hold back a scoff then quickly shot back, "Not at all, rather tradecraft brother dear."

At that he perked up and responded with a positive, "Oh, why yes! That would work out well since we've already finished clearing all the servants so they'll happily play along."

I think 'happily' would be pushing it quite a bit brother dearest, but you did refrain from purposely intimidating them so you avoid my mental dope slaps this time.

Marianne for her part appeared interested, "What did you have in mind?"

My game was actually a fun little thing I put together out of boredom as a kid thanks primarily due to the fact that my powers pretty much made things like 'privacy' a thing of the past anywhere there were insects. I knew things I had absolutely no right knowing and I sometimes forgot that I was talking to kids because physical mental development catching up with your consciousness is tedious at best.

So, I needed an excuse for other kids to know what I know, and it all stemmed from having a good relationship with the servants. First rule of acquiring informants, the help talks, especially about their bosses, get on their good side, get them comfortable, they'll say things they likely normally wouldn't. It's these little tidbits and tales you have to pick up, and all of your little helpers bring you their bits of random information, then your infobroker, usually Jeremiah or myself, collated all the data and the one at the end of the line had to decide what the secret being hidden was.

This first time around I had Lelouch's worst enemy and best friend Millicent Ashford be his broker, she had the looks of a solid Lisa with a few playfully loyal vibes so keeping her around Lelouch would at the very least temper him. After getting the servants in on it and personally informing them that I was teaching the kids and the staff that we could only trust each other and to be aware of strangers, the initial stage was set. On an unrelated note this had the hidden side benefit of forming a conspiratorial bond of us and them with the staff, I'm not sure I'll ever need to take advantage of that but best to have it and all that.

So the brats scattered forth, young Milly collated the gathered data, and young Lelouch and his friends discovered that there was ice cream hidden in a cooler in one of the servant break rooms, much to Marianne's proud delight.

I really didn't think anything further on the game after that other than answering pestering questions, otherwise Milly's army and Lelouch's oversite did their own thing related to that and I was left out from that point on unless asked to play. That is until some time in October when I was called into Empress Marianne's office, which honestly didn't concern me overly much at first, it wouldn't be the first time she would call for personal consul and it likely wouldn't be the last.

Knocking on the door I gently pushed it in seeing two other Villa guards at ease inside the archway, they nodded to me as I walked past them towards the desk in the center of the room and promptly saluted my principle.

"Empress Marianne, Sir Taylor Gottwald reporting as ordered."

At that she waved me off with a wan smile, "At ease Taylor, take a seat, I have something interesting to show you."

Sitting in the offered seat I pulled the crayon mark covered folder towards me and opened it doing my best not to let out an incredulous huff. I set the meticulously categorized, brightly colored documents in front of me, processed that all the informants were categorized from the most reliable to the least, which ones were obvious plants, and who was spreading misinformation.

Becoming more and more impressed, baffled, and out and out proud on someone else's behalf I looked through the gathered intel until I froze at the final page and met Marianne's mirthful visage with my own as I broke out laughing, my charge joining me a moment later.

Written in bright purple crayon in Lelouch's meticulous hand was 'All signs indicate Britannian Invasion of the Indochinese Peninsula by years end.'

The invasion began next week.

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Soooo yeah, Taylor may have accidently created a monster or two. She isn't laughing at the invasion by the way, she never does about that sort of thing. Also I tried to make the crayon font purple but it was really hard to see on mobile so yeah. Anyway moving onward!