Just Following Orders (Dris)

[Anonymous]

The captain wasn't exactly sure why she was summoned to the palace, the letter she got after her debriefing only said to report to the palace as soon as possible. The intent was probably for her to head straight over but the wording gave her enough wiggle room to take a quick bath. She had to be presentable after all. At least, that would be the excuse she would give if asked.

She got into the palace without any delays, which was nice. Even being a captain didn't let her skirt protocol here. They had been expecting her, of course, and the only thing she had to do was say who she was and one of the guards escorted her inside where she was handed off to a servant. Leslie followed the servant to where another one was waiting and was handed off again, then was handed off a second time a few minutes later.

A short time later, Leslie was shown into a room, was handed another letter, was told that her orders were on it and that she should wait here. Letters, letters, letters. Why couldn't she just have a higher up tell her to her face what she was suppose to do? It seemed like a waste of paper.

She opened the envelope and took out her orders.

Captain Cadoc,
You have been chosen to accompany Prince Ealius Maverikko as he goes about his daily activities. You are to make sure that the Prince does not come to harm or be placed in a position where he might come to harm. No others need accompany you in this task as it is believed that your abilities alone should be more than enough to keep the Prince safe.

Regards,
Maor Rochester.

Son of a bitch! They assigned her to babysitting! She couldn't even try to pass it off to somebody else. No wonder she wasn't told in person, nobody wanted to hear her protests. Maybe she'd be able to 'talk' to somebody about it later but for now, she'd just have to grumble to herself and deal with it. Having nothing else to do, Leslie picked a seat and waited for her charge to get here.

Dammit.

[Anonymous]

Life had finally had some excitement. It had been fun, while it had lasted. Then he was brought back to the castle, and left alone to his own things. While he had tried to establish a relationship with Captain Cadoc on the journey home together, it was obvious that because if his interactions with magic users, she did not trust him at all. Ealius sighed. Why did it half to be this way? The captain was an incredible fighter, and he never got to see her, in her glory of fighting. Not only that, she was not half-bad looking, well actually, quite the looker. Not that he really cared about looks. In the end, he had come up with a plan.

This plan was basically to hopefully start up a lasting relationship with the captain, and possibly get to see her in action of fighting. Eal had all the right to do what he was about to do with no concern about a higher power, after all, he doubted anyone with power above him was watching him that closely. He had pulled a few strings, and the end results were great and perfect. Because he had to be brought back from his trip, which he was given permission to go on, he gave a pretend order from a higher up saying that the one that brought him back would be the one to watch over him from now on. Basically . . . baby-sit. What more, she had no power to stop him from doing anything, just to protect him from trouble. An ingenious plan. He would have to lie at the beginning to get it started, but afterwards . . .

Eal walked down the hall and stopped in front of a door. Well, Captain Cadoc would have gotten her letter about the order now, she would not be given over to him, for lack of a better way to say it. He pushed to door open and saw her. She looked a pissed and frustrated. No surprised about that. The instant the door closed behind him, he bowed low, as he spoke. "I do apologize that you have to do this, watch over me I mean, Captain Cadoc," His voice was filled with pain and regret for having to have her do this . . .well, it was probably the acting of a genius, no one should be able to see through is lie. "I shall do everything in my power have you back to where you once were in no time."

[Anonymous]

Leslie's eyes darted to the door as soon as it opened and was up and at attention by the middle of his bow. She was just about to insist that the Prince need not apologize, that it wasn't his fault she'd been assigned to watch over him. How could it have been? The strings he would have had to pull to make this work would have taken longer than the short time they'd been back. Then he made the remark about getting out from under her eye.

Ohhhh no. Ohhhhnonononono.

It didn't matter how much she might detest babysitting, nobody, nobody was going to get the chance say Captain Leslie Cadoc weaseled out of her duties. She was a Dragoon, dammit! Though the distance separating her and the Prince wasn't that great, Leslie stormed every inch of it until she was right in front of the Prince and used every trick she knew to make herself loom over him and seem more ominous. "Now you listen to me. I've been tasked with keeping your ass out of the fire and, though I may not necessarily like keeping an eye on you all the time, I'll be damned if I don't do what I was ordered to do."

So what if he was the Prince of the whole damn country and could probably have her court marshaled for talking to him that way, she was tasked with protecting him and Leslie was going to make sure that he knew she would do that. Whether he liked it or not. Hopefully she'd be able to use that as an excuse if he took offense to anything she did. Hopefully.

"I will warn you now." She said, backing off slightly. "Though my orders don't allow me to directly prevent you from doing what you damn well please, I can definitely make things very uncomfortable for you if I think it would put you in unnecessary danger." She crossed her arms beneath her breasts, doing her best to give off a stern, bodyguardly look. "Now. What does Your Highness have planned for today?"

[Anonymous]

Oh boy. This was going to be so much fun. All the things that he could do. Plus all the things that he could do where she would have to help be in very awkward situations. Oh the fun this could be. His words were all but fake. But she didn't know that. She believed him to have less power then he did. A mistake. Not a fatal one or anything, but a mistake nonetheless. Ealius almost grinned as she spoke. While she may be able to make him very uncomfortable, it worked both ways, and he had more power then she did at this point.

There was so much to do. But the first thing that needed to be done was that she had to be able to keep up with his constant disappearing acts . . . so how else would you do that besides disappearing a few dozen times? "There are some things that might make you frustrated . . . try not to break anything or something like that, this is all so that when the time comes that you have to actually protect me, you are THERE to protect me." Ealius said. "I apologize beforehand for any trouble that might come for you, but believe me, there will be a hell a lot of trouble."

"Just as you have warned me, I must warn you, I am a bit of a daredevil, a magician, someone who just does what he wants, even with someone to protect me, I warn you, you have to be able to keep up." Ealius said. And he walked to the ledge. "There are many things that you have no idea that I do. You cannot say a word to anyone, because no one would believe you and it might just cause more trouble for you." he coughed, wincing at how arrogant he sounded. "I apologize once again for my behavior and how i am speaking to you right now, but I wanted you to be . . . well . . warned." He sighed. "Consider yourself warned."

And he fell back and vanished as he fell over the ledge. Little did she know, he had his powers, and even if not, there was rope for him under the ledge.

[Anonymous]

Trouble? From him? No shit. She more than expected trouble from him. He wouldn't have been assigned a babysitter if he didn't get into enough trouble for three of him. Leslie was already getting a headache from just this conversation and was definitely not looking forward to putting up with this royal pain in the ass.

And now he wanted to be thought of as a magician. She gave him a flat look as he moved towards the ledge. Magic. She made a face. Why the hell did he always try to associate himself with magic? It was vile, filthy, and the source of all of the world's problems. And he wanted to be thought of as a magician. She squeezed her eyes shut and rubbed her temples. This was going to be one hell of an assignment. When she reopened her eyes to drag the answer to her question out of him, Leslie was greeted by the sight of one missing Prince.

She was in the frying pan now. Her charge hadn't been in her care five minutes and already he was gone. Then the realization hit her of the only place the Prince could have gone. Shit! Leslie thought as she practically jumped to the spot her missing person had been a second ago and chanced a glance over the ledge before heading at a dead sprint out of the room.

He was falling alright. Leslie wasn't too sure what she would be able to do. A fleeting hope passed through her that she could run faster than he could fall and that she would be there to catch him. Ha! Fat chance. In just a few seconds her military career had gone from illustrious and all around amazing to the pile of meat she expected the Prince to be when she got to him.

Okay, so maybe he wouldn't be dead. Maybe. The ground the room they had been in was grassy and made to look pretty. That would make for a soft landing, right? Damn the fact that it had been a two story fall, he would be fine, dammit! As much as she tried to convince herself, however, Leslie knew that the Prince would be in bad shape. She reluctantly opened the door to the outside, expecting to see him laying on the ground, battered and bloody.

She was rightfully shocked to discover him standing there looking, to her, like he was waiting for her to catch up with him. Leslie stood in the doorway for a few seconds, slack jawed and gaping at him before coming to herself enough to produce one eloquent statement.

"What the fuck?!"

((OOC: I kinda stretched what you said he'd be doing from the PM. xP I assume he'd be waiting for Leslie but if you want Ealius to run off before she gets there, just yell at me and I'll change the post accordingly. ^.^))

[Anonymous]

It was a quite a feat to annoy the hell out of someone who was going to be with you for a long time; it was just as amazing to get them to be concerned . . . but then again, he was the prince. Captain Cadoc seemed to have had much on her mind; she was distracted enough that he just lightly hoped off the ledge. Kind of sad that she didn't notice such a big motion, but it didn't really matter that much.

In reality, he actually had two different routes to get down. One was a failsafe. He had attached a rope to the balcony the night before and would climb down on it. On the occasion that the rope broke or he fell, he still had his abilities to fall back to. As he climbed down in an unhurried pace, he thought back to what he had said to Miss Leslie Cadoc before he had done his vanishing act. He had been pretty sure that he had said "magician". Strange though, he actually meant it in the sense that he was one to be able to trick people, to do things that seemed LIKE magic, but was not real magic.

Dropping to the ground safely, he grinned. It was always easy to piss people off; likewise, it was just as easy for them to get angry and fearful for you. Ealius could imagine what was going through his bodyguard's mind at the moment. Something like . . . "Oh fucking shit! Not good!" or something. Just thinking about it made him shiver with anticipation of what he could do to get a reaction out of Captain Leslie.

He didn't have to wait for very long for running footsteps and a ruffled Captain Cadoc to show up, a look of incredulous on her face. Her jaws dropped and "What the fuck?!"

A grimace crossed Eal's face as the shout hit him. Inwardly, he would remember to make sure to have her NOT shout too much. Shouting was never a good sign. "Is there a problem?"

[Anonymous]

Leslie marched up to the Prince. "You're damn right there's a problem." She crossed her arms beneath her breasts and gave him her best 'your ears are going to fry' look. "Ignoring the fact that you jumped off a fucking balcony, how the hell did you manage to get down here without breaking any bones?"

Then she looked up.

The Captain didn't know what made her look. She might have been rolling her eyes and caught sight of the rope. It could have been pure chance. Either way, when she saw the rope Ealius had climbed down on, she went very still and very quiet.

So. He had played a prank on her, eh? What she would have given for him to be one of her subordinates. Then Leslie would have been able to punch him in the nose without too much fear of any lasting repercussions. Except he wasn't her subordinate. He was the Prince of the whole damned kingdom and he thought it would be fun to scare her half to death with a fake fall.

She let out a long breath.

Leslie knew he would be a major headache and at least he had given himself a safe way down, right? Need to look at the bright side. Need to look at the bright side. She thought. If she didn't keep the positives running through her head, Leslie was sure she'd strangle her charge. Rank be damned.

"Okay. So you made sure you wouldn't kill yourself with this stunt but would you please not scare me half to death pulling something like that?" She was really getting to the end of her rope. Captain Leslie Cadoc didn't politely ask people things. Dragoon Cadoc didn't squirm when people needlessly put their lives on the line. Pah! What she wouldn't give to be out on a Mage hunt. Those were much simpler.

"You're old enough to drink, right?" She needed a stiff one and she'd be damned if Ealius would stop her.

[Anonymous]

Ealius tried not to look annoying or like an arrogant prince. His pranks never were supposed to be funny. Most of the time they weren't even supposed to be pranks but people always called them that. He just waited and watched for Leslie's reaction as she looked up. It was seriously funny. Eal cracked a grin before returning to a solemn expression. The Captain never ceased to amaze the Prince with how she handled things, whether they were well taken care of or they were badly done.

There was a long silence as Leslie took a deep breath. Prince Ealius got the feeling that she really wanted to throttle him at the moment but could not do so. She was probably thinking something about how he was the prince of the entire kingdom and it would not do any good for her to hurt the prince. Something like that. Otherwise she was thinking how great it was to be stuck with the one person above her in rank that liked to play pranks on people.

"Of course, I apologize for my course of actions, that was just the way I usually get down from my room since most of the time it takes too much time to go all the way down and out the door," Ealius inclined his head the slightest of bit. He actually had to give it to the Captain for being able to deal with him so well after he had seen how she usually was. Then she asked something unusual.

"Well, I don't really know, but if you were to go, I doubt I would be refused a drink," Ealius shrugged. "Not that I would ask for one." He paused. "If you feel like you really need one, lead the way."