The new bodyguard didn't understand why having her guard Kystia was so important. While she would never question orders that she'd been given, especially by that one who keeps appearing at night and without warning.
However, coming here had made it difficult with her last job since she had to essentially break the contract and couldn't come up with a good reason why. Despite the fact that she was certain her previous employer would know who she was referring to if she mentioned who it was that had given her the order to break that contract.
Yet, like always, she was even more confident that if she did that, she'd eventually end up getting killed by that same woman.
However, when she saw the women the marquis had found to protect his daughter, she nearly laughed. The bodyguard couldn't say that they could fight their way out of a wet paper bag with how masculine they were, yet because the marquis wasn't stupid and could see that himself, she had to assume there was something about those young women that would make them at least capable of fighting in some ways.
She also had heard rumors in the castle of them having magic but largely ignored that. As in her experience, only fools bragged about all their abilities. Though, if they did have magic, then it would at least explain how they were able to convince the marquis about their abilities. As even the bodyguard knew to take care with those who had actual magic abilities. Although, she at least knew a few things that were typically true of magic users that would also make it easier to defeat them if she ever got an order, or contract, involving an assassination or murder.
As while she hadn't had that happen yet, she wouldn't be surprised for it to happen some day, since the skills involved with being a bodyguard often went hand in hand with trying to kill someone as well. In fact, it wouldn't be a stretch to say that those who made it as assassins had started out as bodyguards, since that would allow them to learn to recognize what means could be employed to counter any defensive measure.
While it was always a bad mark on someone's record to have let the person they were guarding die, the new bodyguard knew that it was also possible to kill the one they were supposed to guard without making it look like she'd failed in her duties. Primarily she'd just have to make it look like it had been something natural. Such as an illness or natural event.
The only thing with this job, though, was just to protect the girl until she was told otherwise. Which meant that she was probably going to be here a while until this 'Beth' was able to do whatever it was that the woman in the shadows had directed her to. Which wasn't something the bodyguard needed to know, so she never asked what that task was.
As even asking could make it so that she'd get killed, just like her lover had learned in the past when he'd been with her the first time she'd met the woman in the shadows.
However, now that she'd gotten the marquis to accept her as a bodyguard for his daughter, it was time for her to meet Kystia. Something that she doubted she'd be happy with since she'd always had a hard time dealing with children. Especially ones she couldn't just leave when she started getting annoyed by them.
As she opened the door to Kystia's room, the bodyguard stepped in without announcing herself, mostly to see what Kystia's reaction would be so she could see what she had to work with. As if Kystia started screaming, then the bodyguard knew she'd have problems with this girl. Yet if Kystia kept her distance, then the bodyguard would be confident in the girl's ability to live through a surprise attack.
However, what she found instead was the girl teaching her other bodyguard how to dance one of the most basic courtroom dances. Something the young woman seemed to be struggling with.
The bodyguard leaned against the door, a little surprised to find that her presence wasn't immediately noticed, but willing to let that slide with how entertaining the scene before her was. Something she certainly hadn't expected to see.
"You're not stepping fast enough!" the young girl informed her bodyguard. "You need to step, step, step, step-step, and one last step-step on the last beat." Kystia sighed after saying that. "Okay, once again from the top! And one, two, three, four, and five. One, two, three, four, five. One, two- No! You're doing it again!"
While it was entertaining to watch, the bodyguard had to admit that she'd had a little trouble with that part when she'd had to learn that dance to protect a young nobleman who was just being introduced to the court. She could tell that the young woman would eventually get it, but it would be a painful process.
Each time they started over, the bodyguard could see that the young woman was getting better at it, but it would still be some time before she mastered it.
And while she'd like to watch some more, she couldn't be sure how long before the young woman's friends would come in to disrupt the lesson themselves. Something that the bodyguard felt should only happen after she'd introduced herself to the one she was going to be guarding. Plus, she only knew that they were her friends because of what the woman in the shadows had told her. Something she wasn't sure would have been important until she encountered them when she'd been speaking with the marquis.
As she cleared her throat, he was surprised to see the young woman continuing the lesson as if she didn't hear her, despite the fact that she'd made a loud enough noise that the young girl should have looked to see what was causing the noise. Which said to the bodyguard that while Kystia hadn't shown any sign that she'd noticed the new bodyguard, it was clear that she really had noticed her at some point, but in fact had been aware of her presence already, she just hadn't felt like it was important enough to react to.
Which meant that guarding this girl might actually be more interesting than she'd initially thought it would be.
Yet, she did notice that the young woman looked towards her when she cleared her throat, but not with any surprise. It seemed more like the young woman was interested in seeing what she had wanted their attention for, but Kystia quickly snatched her full attention back.
"Focus! You're not going to get this if you let minor things distract you. Again from the top! And one, two, three, four, and five. One, two, three, four, five. One, two- Are you trying to get this wrong on purpose!?" Kystia snapped when Beth's footwork wasn't keeping up with Kystia's. Again.
"Might be good time for a break," the bodyguard said, not sure how much time she had before the lesson would get interrupted anyway.
Kystia glared at the bodyguard, looking like many nobles did when they were interrupted in something they were intent on doing, regardless of what else occurred.
"And who are you? I can see that my father let you in or I'd have heard a commotion from the guards by now and you're up here without any worries," Kystia commented, looking at the bodyguard as if she was the cause of the young woman's inability to get the steps right.
"I'm your new bodyguard. You can call me Yunias," the bodyguard answered, bowing her head respectfully, the way it was done with the children of the nobles.
Kystia, however, seemed less impressed than Yunias had expected. While it was possible that she just wasn't that easy to impress, Yunias felt like it had more to do with her lesson being interrupted than anything else.
"Well, that's good to know, but I'm a little-" Kystia started to say but was interrupted by the young woman's friends arriving.
"Beth! It's been a while!" one of the young men greeted the young woman.
Yunias stepped back and let the reunion take place. She'd accomplished what she wanted to do before they arrived anyway. So, letting them annoy Kystia was good enough for her.
"You won't believe everything that happened," one of the young women called out to the one who'd been receiving the dance instruction.
"All of you silence!" Kystia roared, her little voice carrying far more than Yunias would have expected. "We were in the middle of her lesson, so either be quiet until its over or help me get her to fix her problems!"
Yunias could see Kystia becoming either a great leader in the future or a great speaker. Either one was an option with a voice that carried like hers in a place with such terrible acoustics.
However, despite that, she had a feeling this was going to be worse than she \had initially expected. At least if the girl expected to be able to treat her as a student rather than as her bodyguard.
_
Beth was glad when she was finally able to get out of that lesson. While she didn't mind learning the dances of this world, she was finding it difficult when she was being pushed faster than she felt she should be into learning it. As it wasn't like she was going to need to know these dances anytime soon.
Especially when she didn't plan on attending any formal gatherings that would require her to know any of these dances. As Kystia made it clear that there was a distinct difference between the dances the common people, or commoners, of this world danced at their festivals and the dances the nobility danced during those same festivals.
While Beth wouldn't mind learning what those differences were, she also didn't think that she had the time to indulge in those things, seeing as how she really needed to be learning what she could about where griffin canyons on this world were so she could visit them one by one until they found the one they were looking for.
Although, without Charlie, Beth doubted that they'd be able to search that griffin canyon effectively, considering they'd be looking for something that probably looked almost like a stone among stones. While Beth had a feeling it'd at least look different than the rocks around it, they still wouldn't know if they were getting close to it or not.
Yet, unless her friends had found a lead on Charlie, Beth couldn't say when it was that they might actually see her again. Not with everything else they had to do as well.
Then there was the fact that Beth suspected that Charlie's fears about her getting killed had been more on the mark than she'd initially thought. At least considering the mysterious stranger who visited her cloaked in the shadow of the night. Though, Beth had decided to refer to her as 'Red' considering her red hair. The only real identifying characteristic she could distinctly remember. One that she was certain the woman hadn't meant to reveal.
Which in turn made Beth wonder if she should have revealed she could see that much of her, since that certainly had put the woman on guard around her and if she hadn't, then the woman might have allowed herself to continue to be careless around Beth and she might have seen more of her.
When her friends had arrived right after that strange woman who claimed to be Kystia's new bodyguard, Beth had hoped that she'd be able to get out of the dancing lesson, but was a little disheartened when Kystia insisted on continuing the lesson anyway. Not that having her friends around helped any, since she was the one who was clearly not getting the footwork down for the dance and kept having to have Kystia repeat the process where Beth would continue to fall behind in the beats and cause Kystia to stop everything by the third count.
As they left where Kystia had been conducting the lesson, Beth couldn't help but notice that Yunias stayed behind. While she wanted to trust that she had come in and the marquis knew about her, she couldn't help but feel like her presence was a warning of sorts. Though a warning of what, she couldn't say.
"Any idea about that woman Yunias?" Beth asked when she was confident that they were out of earshot from that woman.
"Not really, she was talking with the marquis when we'd arrived," Hannah replied, sounding more resigned than Beth would have expected.
"She said something about the person who had given you a task or something had sent her to make sure all of us would be something or other," Tim added, yawning as he did so.
While Beth couldn't help but smile at Tim's yawning, she was pretty sure she knew all she needed to from that one simple statement. It might not be something that would give actual information on its own, but with what Beth knew, she had a feeling she knew what the 'warning' that Yunias' presence was about. Not to mention how she already felt it concerning how Red wanted Beth to show up with her friends to make an attempt on the queen.
While it could just very well be that Red thought Beth would need the help to do that, she couldn't help but feel like it was an effort to accomplish something else. Something that Beth hadn't quite determined what it was. Something she worried she'd only figure it out after it was too late.
"While I'm not sure we should trust her, the marquis seemed to accept her when… Yunias was her name?" Amelia asked, to which Beth nodded. "When Yunias mentioned that she'd be willing to wear a collar or something that the marquis said every noble has that ensures complete obedience from a slave. Which I think is just plain wrong. A collar like that shouldn't exist, no matter what."
While Beth agreed in principle with Amelia on that subject, she had a feeling that it provided more services than just that. After all, slavery was just something that this world hadn't given up just yet and their thinking merely went along with that, regardless of how it could be used to interrogate prisoners. After all, Beth had a feeling it'd be as close to an actual truth serum as could be made in this world.
"Well, while they might use it for slavery, I could see it being used when interrogating prisoners and making them answer questions they might not like to otherwise answer," Beth remarked, ignoring the incredulous look she got from a couple of her friends, Amelia included. "I mean, it's probably not ethical, but especially in time of war, I could see it being used to find out what information they could from a captured enemy soldier."
"You might have a point with that," Wes remarked thoughtfully. "Many wars are won or lost on what information they have at that time and it's usually best to have as much accurate information as possible."
Amelia groaned as they walked through the corridors towards their rooms. "Well, regardless of any of that, I'll be just as happy to distance myself from it as quickly as I can."
"Well, aside from that, any news about Charlie?" Beth asked, pretty sure it was time to change the subject. Especially when it was clear that Amelia, at least, wasn't going to be happy if they continued discussing that collar.
"Actually, it was a complete bust," Ralph remarked, surprising Beth. Mostly that he actually spoke up directly without making a joke or remark that was rather annoying. "No one seemed to recognize the description we gave of Charlie and we didn't see any sign of her all the time we were quarantined there."
Beth blinked. "'Quarantined'?"
"Yeah, there was an outbreak of the spotted plague there. So, we got stuck dealing with that," Tim answered. "Though, what was surprising was that for those that recovered from the spotted plague, they seemed to contract another illness that needed the magic stones to recover from."
Beth was having trouble following the response at that point. She was pretty sure she'd been following Tim's explanation up to the point her mentioned the 'magic stones', to which she felt like she had to have lost him before then, since she couldn't say what those rocks would have to do with anything related to any illness.
"You know, I think you lost her," Hannah remarked with a smile that annoyed Beth more than she knew it should as she was pretty sure that Hannah was only trying to help her, not that it made the smile any less annoying.
"Really? I merely summarized what happened. Once Embris recovered from using Ameila's bag as a pillow, she said that she'd tried pretty much everything she had in her bag on Oleania to see if it'd work on her and then the stone wouldn't let her remove it until she'd recovered. Isn't that right, Amelia?"
While Beth was starting to understand what it was that the magic rocks had done, she still turned to listen to what Amelia had to say, though she couldn't say that she'd really finished processing all the information she'd just been given.
"Yeah, but how'd you know her name? I'm not sure I'd remember it even if they had told me."
"Well, I just heard it in passing while I was in that 'central building' of theirs. I wasn't sure if I should ask for more information about her, but it was clear that that's what her name was."
"Whatever her name was or how you learned about it, could we please focus on what we were talking about? You didn't come back all this way to debate about those things, did you?" Beth asked, feeling like her patience was running thin with her friends.