Debutante (Beta)

[Marco Dawson]

"Where are they? They're late."

Standing proudly outside the gates to the Royal Palace, Greenwich's finest slouched and shuffled in their row and muttered to each other. Marco wondered if they were doing this just to annoy him.

"Not late," another voice piped up. Marco took note of the speaker, a stocky bull with his two horns rising to either side of his navy blue cap. "Rich an' important, not military. If they turned up now it'd be bloody early."

"Fash'nably late, is wot they calls it." The greyhound shuffled one foot. Fingers squirmed into his right pocket before he remembered it was undignifying and clenched the errant hand back into a rigid fist at his side. "'cause if they show up first there ain't nobody 'round to stand around gapin' at 'em."

"There won't be anyone around," the lean, tanned human pointed out. The sandy brown beret shifted in Marco's peripheral vision as he turned his head to glance at the building behind them. "Anyone that's here was here to begin with. In there."

"Then they're late."

"Fash'nably late."

"Lucky, innit, gettin' tae see the Queen." At this point, Marco stopped trying to keep track of all the miscreants. "When mah Nan took the High Road down here she never saw squat o' the King's bootprints."

"Button it, Durham. We've all heard that one before."

"Are ya disrespectin' mah Nan?"

The purr of a well-kept limosine whispered through the evening air.

"Here they are. Everyone look sharp, now."

"They're late."

"Fash'nably late."

Marco cleared his throat very loudly. The entire line of bodyguards-in-waiting snapped back to attention.

"Tossbag," the Caledonian whispered in his general direction.

[Beta]

Beta was straining to be poised, but whoever designed those seats had seemed intent on their victim to be slouching. The illusion of grace, too, was difficult, with her father acting the way he was, and she hated that she was the one who at least had to try. The new Ambassador seemed more interested in this steam-run contraption than in acting like the noble he was.

"This is exciting, is it not, daughter?" Jean Pierce asked her quietly. The two soldiers that had met them before were sitting just a bit aways from them in the limo, personal guards that were mumbling things to themselves, and Jean was apparently trying to keep their talk a secret as well.

"Yes, father. It's exhilarating," she lied. Her last outing in the woods, that had been exhilarating. She had had to put on a good show to remind the goblins to be afraid, while she was gone. The dark roads just wouldn't be as safe, without someone willing to kick ass for wary travelers.

Not for the first time, she was reminded of everything she'd been forced to leave behind - the good, and the bad. Well, it was mostly bad, but at least there she could get away with sneaking out at night and beating the crap out of a monster or three before daybreak.

Her eyes went back to the two guards at the other side, and thought more on what they'd been told before. Such "prestigious guests" as they were to be protected 24/7. All the monitoring they were about to be under would obliterate her chances at midnight excitement.

But one of us finds the ride exhilarating she mentally mocked her nearly oblivious father. Her own eyes tried to lose herself in the world so rapidly passing them by - speed, its only real redeeming feature in her silenced opinion - but that was no escape. The sky seemed darker here somehow, and the world itself had lost so much color compared to Arcadia.

This is 'progress'.

She shifted in her seat, as if moving would get rid of an unseen annoyance.

"Stop fidgeting, daughter," Jean ordered softly, reminding her that he saw just enough.

She repressed the firey desire to call hypocrisy, as he immediately started straightening the fancy Greenwich-made suit he was wearing. He'd been so proud to have an excuse to wear it in public, with the "fancy" long tails of his jacket and the top hat. Beta didn't think it went very well with his long brown hair, but he wouldn't have listened to her opinion on the matter anyway.

"Sir, ma'am, we'll be there momentarily," one of the soldiers chimed up. She looked again at the elven warrior type, and not for the first time she wondered if they chose him to remind her of home. Maybe they thought it would ease the transition, so to speak.

Pity she hated all the elven warriors back home.

Someone save me, she internally begged the universe as the limousine made its way through the great gates and wards of the palace. The vehicle finally came to a stop, and the guards stepped out first. They flanked the door as the newly appointed ambassador stepped out, fixing his top hat and tapping his cane upon the stone ground.

Beta stepped out after him, wearing a long, elegant green dress from their homeland. Gold threaded trim lined the edges, especially near the open sleeves. Her own hair was held back by a small circlet of the same. She was a model of Arcadian nobility and grace - and kept all her disdain for that under a charming smile.

Her eyes passed slowly over the assembled guards as more talking went on, only half paying attention to it. Ebon feathers caught her eye. She'd never seen one of the feathered beastfolk before though his was … a familiar countenance somehow. Perhaps it had something to do with the way his stern expression spoke so much of his dissatisfaction.

Okay, maybe he'll do.

[Marco Dawson]

It wasn't her beauty that caught Marco's attention. All elves were beautiful.

It wasn't the dress and the poise and the grace - all elegant, all subtle, class without the arrogance, confidence without condescension. Marco had schooled himself quite thoroughly in what Greenwich knew of their esteemed guest Jean Michael Pierce, the unusually progressive Marquis of Versailles, the strangely unpalatable dormouse in a garden full of vipers who ruffled more feathers on his own countrymen's finery than he did with the occasional visiting dignitary. At least some of it must have rubbed off on his daughter.

When the limousine coasted to a halt, with the passenger's doors directly before them; when the two bodyguards who'd gone ahead to meet the ambassador emerged from the vehicle's chrome-black depths and stood, flanking the open door; when the ambassador's daughter rose from the carriage next, the weight of her position carried squarely about her shoulders -

Nothing that stood out about elves, or this particular relative of that particular elf, appeared significant in Marco's very first impression of the first Arcadian he laid eyes on.

He saw the barest trace of a scowl, masked further by the evening. Then it melted into neutral, perfectly composed pleasance, the wary mask of a diplomat in deep water. Not disgust at being surrounded by sub-fey scum and animals, but a more general sense of simply not wanting to be here.

He could tell. Since his arrival in the clockwork heart of his very own clockwork homeland, he'd only seen that expression every time he confronted a mirror.

She was looking his way. Studying his own expression. Watching him, watching her.

Stiff upper lip. Eyes front. His gaze snapped back to the car, just in time to catch the ambassador himself on the way out.

He looked distracted. Almost fascinated, at the sight of the uniformed menagerie.

Marco saluted. The rest of the men snapped into the same rigid pose, half a heartbeat behind. Greenwich's finest. Perfectly synchronized. Just like clockwork.

Silver, cat-like eyes slid his way. The elven bodyguard's features were carved ivory, no outward indication that the poor man was moments away from a nervous breakdown. His thoughts, slipped directly by magic into the raven's mind, took the shape of two thumbs upraised and a tidal flood of relief.

Nolan, Marco thought over the mental link. The elf stood a bit straighter. His visible eye twitched.

Don't faint on us yet, soldier.

He locked eyes with the ambassador. "Your Grace."