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Post by demikara on Aug 16, 2018 10:41:52 GMT -6
It had taken time and effort, though not much of either to be true, for Aerilyn to get the address of her boss. Given that the small woman could be terribly intimidating it wasn't surprising that she had been able to easily get the address of the apartment her boss was staying at. And now they were having a long overdue conversation on the nature of bodyguards, friendships, and not stuffing people onto escape craft, even if the end result was her talented and amazing husband, and the addition of more than enough gold jewelry to her wardrobe. She still didn't know how they managed to find it all, but it had been found.
Aerilyn sighed and composed herself before knocking on the door to the apartment in a nice middle class neighborhood. Hopefully her visit wouldn't come as too much of a shock. Dressed in her usual red beret and red knit coat to hide the scarring on her arms, she was fairly recognizable at least. With her hair braided up, and a few of the pieces fo jewelry from her wedding on her, she hoped the other would at least be receptive to listening. She was a bodyguard, and Arianne was a friend. The other needed to realize how important she was and how little her bodyguards appreciated not being able to protect her. and it wasn't like Aerilyn had anything but time lately. Finding a job she could take had proven trickier than she liked, given her husband's work.
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Post by Ylanne on Aug 19, 2018 23:22:27 GMT -6
The building was a two-story low-rise with separate doors to the outside for each unit, arranged like miniature townhouses one after the other for a total of eight. The colors were whimsical, ranging from lavender on one unit to grassy green on another and coral pink on the end unit. That alone had been a major selling point for the building, when Arianne Drulović had come to it some months back, tired of living from a single suitcase in tiny motel rooms graced with the ever-present scent of mildew, dust, and faded dreams. Her unit was violet. And she was back in Wing City, or at least its outskirts, somewhere in the vast sprawling metropolis, in one of the sectors relatively undamaged from the last several catastrophes to strike. The Bureau now maintained most operations at Nida-Kule, with satellite operations and sometimes management at Veritas.
Home, though, was in a neighborhood sandwiched between solidly middle-class families and borderline struggling workers just barely on the other side of middle-class, with bright exterior walls and neatly trimmed lawns at first glance, and peeling paints and creeping mosses and weeds at second. At the corner store on the end of the block, workers chattered loudly and listlessly, sharing cigarettes and beers throughout the day, while kids raced each other on bicycles at the other end of the block. The neighbors didn't see much of Drulović, except sometimes on Sunday afternoons. The woman famed now for saving Terra and surviving Aschen capture and torture was an almost ordinary neighbor who spent long hours at work and occasionally baked chocolate chip cookies for the kids. Here, she was an uneasy presence for at least some. She was not quite nested.
The name on the mailbox by her door simply read HANSON. She'd never updated it from the prior tenants. A few solicitations from mail-order catalogs and credit card companies peeked from under its lid, most of them addressed to Elizabeth Hanson. The curtains were drawn, and the paint on the door in dire need of a new coat or several. The only sign that someone actually occupied the space was the cracked clay pot with newly growing chrysanthemums, aching toward the sun from beneath the untamed bushes.
When the knock sounded, no response came at first. Then a familiar voice from within called, "Come in. It's open."
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Post by demikara on Aug 20, 2018 5:11:40 GMT -6
Aerilyn groaned and opened the door, stepping in and sighing. Arianne, we've talked about this, a least once. You have to actually lock doors. It's important." Aerilyn knew perfectly well that the other wouldn't even start but she had to say something. At least the other had a beautiful house and the deaf woman liked the color. It was definitely distinctive enough. Still, the other never took her security remotely seriously, despite having too many enemies to count. "I could have been a terrorist or something." She wasn't. She was a loyal former soldier and someone who loved her planet, mostly.
That didn't change the fact that she worried over her boss and her friend. And Arianne was a friend more than she was a boss at this point, someone whom Aerilyn enjoyed spending time with, even if she never seemed to take her security remotely seriously. The woman tracked down her friend in the apartment and smiled at her, glad to see her safe again. Whole was...whole was relative of course, something the heavily scarred woman knew all too well. No one on Terra was really whole anymore, especially the people of Wing City. They had been attacked too many times, their people hurt too many times, for anyone to truly be whole. But they could pretend well enough, and that was more than most could do. They were resilient as a whole and could handle anything thrown at them.
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Post by Ylanne on Aug 20, 2018 10:32:47 GMT -6
It was a small unit, with just enough room for either a short couch or two cozy armchairs in what passed for a common space, but Drulović had neither. Instead, the near total lack of furniture gave the room the impression that it was even smaller than it might otherwise have appeared. The wooden floors were clean, thanks in large part to the old woman's meticulous scrubbing and polishing. She was on her knees, stooped over as she worked the polishing cloth against the floorboards, for once dressed not in austere, conservative black, but in an airy sleeveless blouse with her hair tied back, curling at the nape of her neck.
Against the wall, two large cardboard boxes rested on either side of a modest suitcase. Aside from the boxes and suitcase, the only furnishings visible were a small table and two rickety chairs crammed between counter and wall in a cozy nook off the kitchen.
Drulović did not look up when Aerilyn entered, but a small smile did creep over her lips. "Some might say that we both are terrorists, you know." It was a Sunday afternoon, the sun boring bright and warm through the curtains. "You'll have to forgive me, though. I haven't boiled any water for tea." Brow furrowed, she kept at her task, moisture shining across her face, adding depth and shadow to the angry scars curling about her arms and wrists. What was strangest about the apartment might have been the lack of any pictures at all. Instead, the walls were plain off-white, showing only scattered holes where the Hansons must have hung their frames.
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Post by demikara on Aug 20, 2018 16:36:48 GMT -6
Aerilyn smiled and removed the coat and beret, placing them over one of the chairs and removed her shoes, then knelt down and placed her hands over Drulović's. "Some people refuse to see the truth." She smiled. "Let me do this. You can boil some water for tea." The other was older and Aerilyn was still young enough she could easily handle polishing the floors. Her hair was already pulled back in a braid after all. Ahmad was the only one who ever saw it down now. Everyone else simply saw a braid, and sometimes that was pinned up as well. As far as she was concerned it was a subtle way of flirting with her husband. It seemed to work like a charm as well.
How was it she had come to scold her boss and ended up helping her polish the floors? Theirs was an unusual relationship. Well, someone had to help take care of the battered older woman, and scars and all, both were battered in their own ways.
The scars still upset Aerilyn some. She hadn't been there, hadn't been able to stop things. It was something she still beat herself up over, on bad days. Right now though, she mostly hoped the other would let her fuss every now and again. That was all she could really do to make up for not being there, for letting herself be bundled off with her...well he hadn't been her husband then. That had been... Well their relationship was certainly dear to her and to him so far as she could tell, and a lot had gone into getting that far. Much like a lot had gone into actually befriending Arianne.
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Post by Ylanne on Aug 20, 2018 17:05:00 GMT -6
Drulović paused her motions, but her voice was firm. "No, please, leave me to it," she said. "There's a comfort of some kind, however odd a sort, in it. I've never been some spoiled oligarch wanting for a team of well-behaved servants to wait on her hand and foot." She continued with her task, shrugging Aerilyn's hands gently from her own.
The apartment looked more like Drulović had just moved in that same week than that she'd occupied it months ago. She did not have many possessions now. They'd nearly all been destroyed years ago during the second Aschen occupation, along with the house in which she'd made her home. And in the years since, Drulović simply hadn't bothered. Before Parliamentary committees and military tribunals, the old woman had cut her distinctive appearance as late with well-loved suits thinning and nearly worn through. She was neither adored nor reviled much in public anymore, an obscurity the spymaster readily cultivated through carefully calculated neglect. It was a wonder anyone bothered anymore.
"Besides," Drulović added, her tone a bit pointed in that knowing way of hers, "I rather suspect you'd like to clean my floor as some form of misplaced penance, and I've no need or desire for such useless confession, nor ability to grant you some kind of absolution." She kept at the polishing, oils seeping slowly into the wood with each application of pressure and circular motion.
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Post by demikara on Aug 20, 2018 17:42:23 GMT -6
Aerilyn wrinkled her nose. "Sometimes one does penance because it is soothing." She sighed and stood back, shaking her head. The other knew her almost embarrassingly well. "Where is your tea kettle then, and I'll boil us some water." Though she hoped the other didn't anticipate her hearing anything while she did so. Kitchens echoed so oddly on her hearing aid. It was nearly impossible to make out what others were saying. Tea with the other would be nice if nothing else. Besides, she wasn't letting the other be alone for too long.
The fact that the place was still scantily furnished made her wonder some, but, well. Everyone had quirks, especially on Terra where the normal was danger and invasion it seemed. Aerilyn stood back, though she remained focused on the other woman, trying to be certain she could hear her, or at least could read her lips if hearing was not an option. Arianne with probably the only other person out there who saw her scars these days. Well, other than her husband, but still. Somehow, perhaps it was the others own scars, it wasn't as embarrassing to have them here.
There were many reasons she liked spending time with her charge/boss/friend. That was just one of them. Aerilyn grinned. "I promise, I brew an excellent pot of tea." If only from the sheer amount of practice she got.
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Post by Ylanne on Aug 20, 2018 23:20:09 GMT -6
Drulović paused in her cleaning only to gesture vaguely in the direction of the cramped kitchen, indicating the cabinet beside the stove top. "The kettle's on the top shelf on the right side," she said, and then resumed the polishing she'd begun earlier. "I've plenty of tea in a satchel on the same shelf. I'm sure something there will be to your liking." The cabinet, unlike the rest of the apartment, was packed with jars and packaged foods, the top shelf containing the kettle along with four different mason jars with loose leaf teas, each labeled in distinctive shaky cursive in non-Latinate script.
"If you stay long enough, you might be here when Julie and Safira will come to visit for cookies." Drulović spoke with little affect, her expression returned to neutral. "But tell me ... what brings you here today? Surely you have other things to be doing on such a pleasant day. I trust things are well with Mr. Fazari." Of course, she'd spoken with Ahmad, as she did most nearly every day. But he was largely occupied with his own responsibilities, and that game he enjoyed each Wednesday that she'd never quite understood.
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Post by demikara on Aug 21, 2018 5:17:50 GMT -6
Aerilyn got out the tea kettle and filled it with water first, selecting a tea she had come to like that her husband had introduced her to and setting it aside. She set the kettle to boil and considered how to say it. "Things are always well with my Mr. Fazari. He's a doting husband in many ways." Even their arguments rarely had teeth and could usually be talked out. She was terribly lucky that way.
"I suppose, I came because I am still upset." She admitted, not facing the other. "I was your bodyguard and I ended up on a shuttle without you." And that was deeply upsetting on some level, had felt like a failure on many others. "You sacrifice yourself too much." She complained to the other. "It was my job to sacrifice for you." And she took her job seriously in many ways. "And now I hear you still manage to elude your guards." The other was entirely too crafty on so many levels.
Aerilyn was no longer a bodyguard or bar security. She was still finding her feet and had taken to extensive volunteering while she figured out what it was that she could do, that no one would protest as too dangerous for the wife of the deputy director. All of that was a damned lie as far as Aerilyn was concerned. She had a rail gun and the ability to fight. She wasn't some delicate flower, deaf or not.
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Post by Ylanne on Aug 21, 2018 18:24:44 GMT -6
In the kitchen, a small, unframed icon of Theotokos was the only adornment or ornamentation visible. The space looked almost identical to the day the leasing agent had showed it to the older woman, and she'd had little time or desire to change it since then. Upon closer inspection, the table was scuffed and marred -- a secondhand or even thirdhand purchase from a thrift store somewhere that thrived on post-apocalyptic salvage deals. The chairs did not match in cut or stain, and some looked sturdier than others. The curtains were about as worn as the clothes the old woman typically wore, which had long confounded friends and adversaries alike.
"You forget that it is my duty to sacrifice so that my fellow Terrans may be spared whatever indignities and pains I would suffer in their place," Drulović replied, watching the floorboards she was polishing all the while. "It is my job meanwhile to ensure that those for whom I am directly responsible have the best chance possible to survive what terrors our enemies may rain upon us. I care for you, Aerilyn, and I value your life." At this last, she paused at her task, blinking at the younger woman. "If your reaction to my care is to be upset, well, so be it."
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Post by demikara on Aug 21, 2018 18:34:17 GMT -6
The other knew how to cut to the heart of the issue didn't she. "And I care for you, and value your life." It made them rather at loggerheads. She sighed and shook her head. "It's over with at least." She admitted, rather pleased with that. The worst was over, for now, and she was certain they'd have a temporary peace for at least a year or so. "Perhaps next time, we can discuss it together?" That would be a good compromise. Given both parties were excessively stubborn, that would be a hell of a discussion, and Aerilyn had no doubt that Drulović would handily outmaneuver her entirely. Still, it was a suggestion at least.
She brewed the tea for the two of them and smiled. "Though I hope you'll forgive me for not having a way with words like you. I tend to discuss things best with a gun in hand, and I'm informed reliably that's not how you deal with friends." Her rail gun was actually in her vehicle, locked up tight. There was a pistol at the small of her back though, given that she never went anywhere unarmed. Too long as a bouncer for Gambit's tended to have a pronounced effect on a person.
Aerilyn knew that the other ensuring she and Ahmad had been shuffled off had, in it's own way, led to their rather hasty wedding, even if the courtship had not been hasty at all. She couldn't be too upset.
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Post by Ylanne on Aug 21, 2018 18:48:21 GMT -6
"Hmph. I can't imagine friendship at gunpoint would be particularly trustworthy friendship," Drulović said, resuming her work with the floor. "Believe me, I've tried it from both ends of the gun, and I should know it by now." The old woman was nearly always armed herself, the cane with a hidden knife in it currently propped against one of the boxes, and a pistol holstered at her waist, mostly hidden by the blouse she wore. Hazards of her life's profession and more than enough assassination attempts for several lifetimes.
When Drulović had finished another pass on the part of the floor where she kneeled, she moved to stand, her motions noticeably slow and pained. For much of the past decades, she had been far more conspicuous and readily identifiable than the old spymaster would have liked, in large part due to the tortures she'd survived. The effects never truly disappeared or healed. You felt it in your bones, in each layer of skin, in the air you breathed. She did not have to explain this to Aerilyn.
Drulović rose and ambled toward the kitchen, opening another cabinet door to reveal a set of chipped porcelain teacups. She retrieved two and set them atop the creaking table, before rummaging again in the cabinet for a sugar bowl and spoons. Her hands trembled as she washed them at the sink, wiping carefully on a hand towel before taking one of the chairs and eyeing Aerilyn with an unreadable look. "If you don't mind terribly, the tea?"
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Post by demikara on Aug 21, 2018 18:55:56 GMT -6
Aerilyn nodded and poured them both some tea, placing the kettle to the side. The other had no need to mention what torture could do to a person. Aerilyn knew all too well, had seen it herself and seen the after effects. She had suffered them for- Well, she was no longer a hermit living in the woods. Progress happened. She still ached now and again, and there were times when Ahmad had to be very careful not to startle her, but he was usually good about it all.
The woman took the other chair and smiled, glad for just a quiet moment with a friend, even if said friend was all too wily. "It's not at all. Usually, I find myself friends with people all on the same side of the gun though, so that's helpful." She had made more friends that way than in others, or at least truer, and before her marriage had borne the name of two good friends who had taken her in when she had needed taken in.
She didn't think she had ever even told Ahmad about her...fraught...birth family relationship. He probably thought them all dead given that she never mentioned them. Most people actually probably thought that, given this was Terra and losing your entire family was depressingly common.
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Post by Ylanne on Aug 21, 2018 20:42:33 GMT -6
Drulović laughed a bit as she took her tea in one hand, sipping. "I'm afraid I haven't too many friends, these days," she said. "It seems most of them have passed beyond this world or else joined the ranks of my enemies by now. I'm sure that's a line so long it'd probably wrap around Terra's middle circumference at least twice if not more."
Politics were always changing. As an intelligence agency, the Bureau might claim to be immune from such shifts, but of course it would be affected. There were the Malijin years, and then the capitulation of the treasonous Parliament. Khayyam certainly took a different approach to intelligence-gathering than had Cranford or even Galdámez. To the old woman, it was all noise.
"I'm glad you're well, though, Aerilyn." She left further comment unspoken, the meaning behind her statement hanging between them, understood but unacknowledged.
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Post by demikara on Aug 23, 2018 5:51:22 GMT -6
Aerilyn put down her tea cup and smiled, though it was a fragile smile. "I would be better, if my good friend was well also." She said simply. "Arianne..." She sighed. "You know you do still have friends. All of us who would have been labeled terrorists certainly count you among them." That was true enough. Arianne had made friends, even if they were largely distant ones. Ahmad and her definitely. As far as Aeri was concerned Arianne was a dear friend.
"But I do worry. I know Terra is...often bereft of many creature comforts, but you've not even got a couch. Is everything okay?" It didn't look it, by the state of the apartment. Everything seemed to have been reclaimed from somewhere, including the tea cups. She had come to scold her friend for not letting her guard her as was her job, and as was a position she had served for her daughter and her successor at times. But it seemed to her that, well, there was more going on here than she really knew.
The hermit turned bodyguard turned wife was worried now.
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