[Wild Roses] Sun Queen era
Title: a rude awakening
'Verse/characters: Wild Roses; Aifiric, one of the Keep's managers-of-staff
Prompt: 13C "awakening", 'an appointment one would rather ignore' (klgaffney)
Word Count: 501
Notes: before winter quiet.
The rat-tat-tat of knuckles tapping at the study door warned him, and he eyed the door with distaste, pondering whether he could pretend not to be present and thus ignore the meeting.
Iarlaith would probably skin him for it, though, so instead he called "Come in," pitched to carry through the wood, and the manager-of-staff came mincing in, somehow combining supplicant-to-king and irritated-teacher in her body language.
"Yes?" he inquired when it became obvious she was waiting for him to speak first, and she inflated her chest, interlacing her knuckles before she spoke.
"It's your daughter again, sir," she said in what should have been an apologetic tone and wasn't.
"Oh? Bubble floats in the stairwell?"
"She's abusing the staff."
He blinked. "No she's not."
"She held a man hostage for 'thinking too loud'!" the woman protested.
He firmly informed himself that he was not going to laugh. Leaning forward and setting his elbows on the table, fingertips interlaced, "Where was the man at the time?"
"I--don't know," she said, and deflated further when he propped his chin in his nondominant hand. He knew, and considering she was coming to complain about his daughter, it seemed only fair she should have arrived actually prepared.
"He was standing outside the door to her rooms, thinking her name multiple times, and then tried to go inside. How long has it been since the last assassin scare?" He flicked his free hand, no power behind it, but the woman twitched slightly anyway. "I'm mildly surprised all she did was demand name and purpose. Her mother probably would have dangled him off a parapet or tacked him to a wall for the same behaviour."
"Your majesty," oh, and now came the ultimatum she thought she could pull, "we simply cannot work under these conditions--"
"Fine," he said, cutting her off, and she gawped, briefly resembling an unhappy sturgeon. "I'll speak to my brother about making other arrangements for the staff associated with my daughter. They'll report up his chain of command, you needn't worry about them bothering you," he smiled at her, "so if you'd be so kind as to inform those currently on shift and the following that they will be reassigned--"
"You can't do that--" she spluttered, then chopped herself off, shrinking back, when he stood, walked around the desk, and looked down at her.
"I am the King," he told her evenly, holding eye contact. "You are a middle-level manager who is upset that my daughter felt obliged to hold a man briefly hostage with a glass nail file because he frightened her. Instead of apologising for the man's slip to the princess and asking someone better informed as to how to avoid a similar situation happening again, you went over her head and tried to have her punished for her behaviour. I am being polite and giving you the benefit of the doubt, and am not banishing you from the Keep for this. Do not tell me what I cannot do."
'Verse/characters: Wild Roses; Aifiric, one of the Keep's managers-of-staff
Prompt: 13C "awakening", 'an appointment one would rather ignore' (klgaffney)
Word Count: 501
Notes: before winter quiet.
The rat-tat-tat of knuckles tapping at the study door warned him, and he eyed the door with distaste, pondering whether he could pretend not to be present and thus ignore the meeting.
Iarlaith would probably skin him for it, though, so instead he called "Come in," pitched to carry through the wood, and the manager-of-staff came mincing in, somehow combining supplicant-to-king and irritated-teacher in her body language.
"Yes?" he inquired when it became obvious she was waiting for him to speak first, and she inflated her chest, interlacing her knuckles before she spoke.
"It's your daughter again, sir," she said in what should have been an apologetic tone and wasn't.
"Oh? Bubble floats in the stairwell?"
"She's abusing the staff."
He blinked. "No she's not."
"She held a man hostage for 'thinking too loud'!" the woman protested.
He firmly informed himself that he was not going to laugh. Leaning forward and setting his elbows on the table, fingertips interlaced, "Where was the man at the time?"
"I--don't know," she said, and deflated further when he propped his chin in his nondominant hand. He knew, and considering she was coming to complain about his daughter, it seemed only fair she should have arrived actually prepared.
"He was standing outside the door to her rooms, thinking her name multiple times, and then tried to go inside. How long has it been since the last assassin scare?" He flicked his free hand, no power behind it, but the woman twitched slightly anyway. "I'm mildly surprised all she did was demand name and purpose. Her mother probably would have dangled him off a parapet or tacked him to a wall for the same behaviour."
"Your majesty," oh, and now came the ultimatum she thought she could pull, "we simply cannot work under these conditions--"
"Fine," he said, cutting her off, and she gawped, briefly resembling an unhappy sturgeon. "I'll speak to my brother about making other arrangements for the staff associated with my daughter. They'll report up his chain of command, you needn't worry about them bothering you," he smiled at her, "so if you'd be so kind as to inform those currently on shift and the following that they will be reassigned--"
"You can't do that--" she spluttered, then chopped herself off, shrinking back, when he stood, walked around the desk, and looked down at her.
"I am the King," he told her evenly, holding eye contact. "You are a middle-level manager who is upset that my daughter felt obliged to hold a man briefly hostage with a glass nail file because he frightened her. Instead of apologising for the man's slip to the princess and asking someone better informed as to how to avoid a similar situation happening again, you went over her head and tried to have her punished for her behaviour. I am being polite and giving you the benefit of the doubt, and am not banishing you from the Keep for this. Do not tell me what I cannot do."