I don't hate you, you just make me feel funny! (GxG,Pafp,Knight needed)

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    ooc: Hello everyone! Thank you for stopping by and reading/skimming over my little post here! If you're interested then post a form and a bit of roleplay! Normal rules apply so we'll be keeping it fairly pg13!


    Plot



    My Charrie~


    "What?!" Amelia looked at her mother with a mix of shock and annoyance, her mother sighing as she repeated her new policy. "All members of the royal family shall be appointed one guard that is to stay with them at all times. I know you don't like someone watching over you all the time but it's for your safety." Queen Alnwick quickly raised her hand to silence her youngest daughter, the girl sighing but nodding in understanding. The Queen cleared her throat and looked towards the door of Amelia's bedroom, knowing that her daughter's guardian was waiting. "Enter."

    Bio

    At the command, Arca enters the room. Her eyes dart around the room, checking the surroundings as she begins to lower in a bow to her Queen and Princess. She speaks with a low, even voice, tone kept properly respectful. "Arca Dænor at your service, Your Majesty." She redirects to Amelia with a subtle shifting of her balance and the tilt of her head. "Your Royal Highness," She adds. Amelia can see that she is quite short -- shorter than the Princess herself -- but she carries herself with an air of alertness only seen in trained guardsmen. Her steps are balanced more toward the ball of her foot, indicating a readiness to spring into movement, belying the firm set of her shoulders and strong posture. She does not straighten from the bow until relieved, in proper form.

    The Queen nodded in acknowledgment before she turned back to Amelia. "She will be your personal guard both inside and outside the castle. And if I hear about you purposely abandoning her, you will be punished. Now if you'll excuse me, I have work to do. At ease Arca, I shall see you both for dinner." She nodded to both of them before quickly leaving the room. Amelia glanced at Arca and crossed her arms with a small sigh. "How much do I have to pay you to pretend to be my personal guard?"

    Arca straightens, nodding to the Queen as she leaves. At Amelia's question, she looks almost amused, the corners of her eyes crinkling slightly. "While I do understand your wish for unsupervised activity, I cannot and will not be paid to 'pretend' to be your personal guard. It is my duty both at the request of your mother, Her Majesty, and my oath to the country and the royal family alike." Although her eyes are bright, her mouth is flat, not giving way to a smile of any kind at Amelia's question. Her blue eyes break away from Amelia's own brown to sweep over the room more carefully, noting possible entrances and exits, hiding spaces and the likes. She weighs them in her mind, making mental note.

    Amelia's eye twitched at the response, rubbing her eyes for a moment with a tired sigh before she reluctantly nodded. "Well you'll have an easy job I suppose, thankfully I'm boring. You're lucky, keeping up with my sister is going to be difficult. The little social butterfly that she is and all that." She muttered the last part to herself with a small, dismissive wave of her hand as she sat on the small couch in her room. "So, did you volunteer or did you pull straws to get this job?"

    The guard raises one eyebrow at Amelia's proclamation of being boring, but does not say anything of it, instead opting to reply with a simple, "Some people are always on the move, that is true." She shifts her weight more evenly across her feet, clasping her hands in front of her, one on top of the other. Her stance is controlled and careful, speaking of years of experience. Her gaze flicks back to the Princess, having scoped out the room as thoroughly as she could from her stationary position. "I volunteered for the job. It is a great honour to personally serve any member of the royal family."

    The Princess leaned forward slightly, resting her elbows on her lap and her head on her hands, as she stared at the guard for a moment. She hummed in thought before she spoke again. "Indeed, I suppose it carries a bit of weight. I'm not exactly the best royal member to serve, but I suppose I'm one none the less." She nodded in understanding as she leaned back into her seat. "Feel free to sit, make yourself comfortable."

    Arca frowns at Amelia's statement but holds her tongue, uncertain of how the famously cold royal would take a question of why she would say that. The guard instead steps forward, still keeping her steps light, to delicately sit down at the very end of the couch. She sits forward, hands folded in her lap, still posed with the same wariness as she had been the whole time. "Thank you," She says with an appreciatory nod. She takes a breath and then seemingly forces herself to relax, posture dropping infinitesimally.

    Amelia looked over Arca curiously, as if examining her for a moment. She then made a small, approving hum before she stood up and dusted herself off. She strode over to a nearby bookshelf, picking one with a dark brown cover and a small white piece of ribbon sticking out of it as a placeholder. "Tell me about yourself, if you don't mind." The Princess quickly sat back in her original spot, looking at the guard expectantly.

    "Of course, Your Highness." She thinks for a moment, biting the inside of her cheek. After a silence that lasts too long for her own liking, she starts to speak, uncertain of what exactly she's going to say. "I am Arca Dænor, as you know. I am twenty-two, but I have been in the guard since a young age and am nowhere near new to the service. I accompanied, notably, the Comraes Treatise, the Accords of Nedeur, and I acted as personal guard to Inot Genor during her travels."

    The scar over her lip suddenly makes sense, given the (short-lived) media attention that Inot had garnered after telling the story of how her guard had taken a rather nasty injury for her during their duties. Although she had kept the name secret, there had been one, blurry photo of the unnamed guard holding a blood-spotted square of cloth over their mouth, one hand held out as if to block the camera from capturing them and Inot.

    Arca does not leave much time for Amelia to dwell on this, however. "I was adopted at age nine by Vor'en Kessal, a former guard. I have a sister and two brothers, also adopted, as well as the two children of my sister." The guard does not speak more than that, does not share the stories of her scars or why she had been adopted so late, why by a guard. She does not say how young she was when she joined the service.

    Amelia blinked in surprise, her brown eyes scanning over the guard once more before she quickly recovered. She cleared her throat as the surprise left her face. "You have a very impressive record. I can see why you were picked to be a royal personal guard." She smiled for just a moment, it was small and really only a slight twitch of at the corner of her mouth. "Why isn't someone like you guarding my mother or my sister instead?" She knew that most of the high ranking guards and soldiers had been moved to secure the border in the recent months, but there was no shortage of talented guards in the kingdom.

    Arca ducks her head at the praise, face heating. She finds herself glad that her skin tone makes a blush rather difficult for others to notice, regardless of how warm her own face feels. "Thank you, ma'am." She stops slightly longer than necessary between sentences, just long enough to lift her head again and catch a glimpse of the momentary smile, gone so quickly she could think she had imagined it were it not for the training that had taught her to notice even the most minute of details. "As for your question, Inot Genor was not nearly as important in a political setting during my time as her guard, and there are much more qualified guards available for Her Majesty, the Queen. Additionally, I was not the only, or even the primary, guard during the Accords."

    Amelia took note of her reaction, hiding her small smirk behind her book. Although she couldn't see her blush, she guessed it was there based on her other reactions. She decided that she could get along with Arca, the guard could wear her emotions on her sleeve and she respected that. "You make a good point Arca." She replied with a small nod, opening her book to the page she had left off on.

    ((sorry this is late, uni just started back up and I got unexpectedly busy))

    Arca nods again, unexpectedly surprised and therefore affected by the praise of the publicly hard-to-please princess. She luckily does not blush again, but the guard is already embarrassed by her reaction and the tell-tale ducking of her head, which Iibha had once pointed out to her with a laugh and Avo had never forgotten. She makes a mental note never to bring it up to her siblings (while later talking about whatever she allowed herself to share at all, given her customary privacy constraints).

    (Understandable, I'll be in the same boat in a few days.)

    Amelia's attention had left her guard for now, focused on her book. Her left hand obscured the title as her right turned the page when she was done reading it. After a couple of minutes she slipped the ribbon into the book and closed it, her gaze once again flickering over to Arca. "Do you have to accompany me to lunch as well?"

    Arca subconsciously relaxes, now in familiar territory in regards to conversation. She drags her gaze from the now closed cover of the book and the shimmer of light on ribbon that she had been watching as Amelia read, although her other senses had been well attuned to the rest of the room. "Yes. I must accompany you everywhere." Her voice is calmer than it had been during the previous conversation, vaguely tinged with embarrassment.

    The princess nodded, as if expecting that answer. She stood gracefully, taking a quick moment to smooth out her dress. "Let us be off then, I always arrive at lunch before my sister and I intend to keep my record." Without waiting for a reply Amelia turned and strode towards the door, opening it and slipping out into the hallway.

    Arca stands and follows close on her heels, although not so much as to accidentally step on the princess' dress. She keeps pace easily, glancing around the hallways and into any open doors with feigned nonchalance. While she is not particularly worried of an attack at this time of day, so soon after the first attempt, she is still wary. Just as her job, and the Queen herself, expects. There is always a chance that even the most trusted of individuals and confidants could be dangerous. Always.

    Amelia's walk seemed to hold an air of nobility, even with the brisk pace that she was moving through the halls with. She didn't seem as concerned as her guard, although she had been a bit tense since the attack on her mother. Still, she didn't let that make her hesitate. Soon the pair emerged outside of the castle, in the royal gardens. She smirked for a moment as she saw the empty table that sat under a small gazebo. "Good, she isn't here yet."

    Arca takes in the open expanse with a vague frown, searching out more defensible positions in the event of danger. Her blue eyes cast a look around the highest positions, noting the windows and doors. She may be unfamiliar with the exact layout of the Royal Grounds, but she is dedicated to memorize it all -- beyond what rather minimal information she had been given in the original briefing -- to perform her duties to the best of her ability. The scar across her lip twinges in a reminder of her dedication to duty, and she feels a brief flash of confidence, which is quickly suppressed.