Neither of us are supposed to care! (P)

Théo had heard worse arguments, hunters tended to get particularly rowdy and argumentative when drunk, and he had spent many a winter at Chateau Guillaume during his training. Hunters tended to return to their home castles for the winter, if their work allowed it, to catch up with others, mourn those who had fallen in the year and see the new students. Théodore hadn't had that chance yet, and he had passed his trials four years ago. It didn't look like he would make it back this year, either, this job was indefinite as far as he knew; he would protect the princess for as long as she needed protecting, though it did sound like she wasn't in favour of the idea at present.

At the command of the queen, he entered the room, closing the door behind him and greeting the two royals with a bow as he had been told to. Not that he was very good at all of this court business, he had grown up in a gutter on the streets of Medine, so etiquette wasn't exactly his most practiced skill. Standing straight from his slightly awkward bow, he introduced himself. "My name is Theodore Reuter, your highness. I am a hunter from Chateau Guillaume, to the east. It is a pleasure to meet you." he said. The words he had practiced rolling right off his tongue. 'Reuter' wasn't his surname, it was that of his mentor, but the steward had insisted he use some kind of surname rather than appear to be too lowborn to be in royal company. It all just sounded pretentious to him, but he went along with it anyway, there was no need to upset his new employers.

The princess didn't seem pleased with him at all, it almost reminded him of how Sialva glared at him sometimes. His adoptive sister and fellow hunter, she had enough willpower to rival ten men, she had been a princess at one point hadn't she? A place far to the north, where even royals had to fight for survival. Other than the way she was glaring at him, he couldn't see any other similarities, she seemed too rich to have Sialva's endurance, and if they needed him there then she obviously didn't have a martial skill to rival Sialva.

The oath was something he had suggested, oaths were very important to the culture of his country, he was unsure of their significance here in Trenith, but he didn't appreciate her scoffing at what was considered something solemn and soul-binding back home. He attempted to ignore the action, and replied to the queen. "Upon my honour as a Hunter of The Lodge, I swear to protect the princess with my life. Should I fail, my life and legacy will be forfeit." he said, drawing a knife from the holster at his side when he mentioned the Hunter's Lodge. Blunt and ceremonial more than anything, it was his mark of being a hunter, and would bind all of his oaths. There was an eye carved into the pommel and he held the blade, giving the appearance of the eye on the pommel looking outward. "May my blade be witness, and my oath be accepted." he finished, presenting the handle of the knife to the princess. Now it was tradition that the subject of the contract accept his oath and the knife. That would be the princess, in this case, but if she should refuse, the queen could do it in her stead.

Honour, oaths, formalities, these were all things that were important in Sernia, the country he was from. The Lodge of Hunters was founded there, and although it had bases and contracts in other countries, the traditions of its' founding country stayed prominent. Sadly for him, oaths were practically the only formality Théo was familiar with. Social graces were far out of his sphere of understanding. He was passable when accepting contracts and such, but if he was going to be spending lots of time with the princess, he was bound to slip up at some point, and that thought scared him.

After the queen's departure, the hunter began fiddling with the buckle of the now-empty knife holster. Releasing it from around his waist and passing it to the princess in one swift movement. "You'll need this if you want to keep it in good condition. It is blunt already, but it can still get damaged if you're careless with it." he warned, the seriousness in his voice lessened now that he was no longer taking an oath. It wasn't a warning with any threat or malice behind it, but Théodore would hate it if his knife would be damaged through carelessness, so it was in his best interest to advise the princess on it, right? He doubted that the princess would be one for idle chitchat or getting to know one another as the queen had suggested, she seemed the standoffish type from what he could tell. As bad as he was with actually communicating with other people, he was adept at reading them.

There was a moment of his processing this, her unease with the situation he could see, but he couldn't really piece together why. Perhaps she was just of the less social disposition, if she was spending much of her time studying, that theory would hold. She may not like the idea of being followed around, Théo was certain he wouldn't like it, but it was his job.

"If I may ask, princess, what is it that you study?" he asked, genuinely curious. He hadn't had much of a formal education, he could read contracts and write almost passably, and he could work with numbers enough to calculate his pay and estimate how long it would last him, but most of his education had been monster-lore and fighting practice. He genuinely didn't know what a noble would study, history perhaps? Religion? She didn't have to answer, and he wasn't really expecting her to, but knowing her and what she did would help him with his job wouldn't it? He followed where the princess went, keeping a couple of paces behind her and mapping out the castle in his mind, familiarising himself with the place.

An answer. That was good, they were getting somewhere. Théo knew little to nothing about nobles, and it probably showed in his reaction to the library space. It was what he imagined the library in the original hunter's lodge to be like - shelves upon shelves of books. He had to stop for a moment in the doorway to take it all in, and then hurriedly close the door behind him and keep moving when he noticed that the princess was already halfway across the room. Evidently, she came here often, and knew the layout well.

Politics and history sounded... awfully dull, but he didn't actually know all that much about either subject, so who was he to judge? He supposed that he would let her do as she pleased while he plotted the layout of the room in his mind, and kept an eye out for any dangers that could befall her.

He didn't read much, and wasn't going to take a book before something caught his eye. Gerald de Montfort - a compendium of creatures burnished in gold on the spine. Under normal circumstances, he would just leave, but this was a rare copy as far as he knew. Weighty, but also considerably useful if he wanted to brush up on monster-lore. If he was right, and this was a reproduction rather than the original, it would even have diagrams and illustrations in it! Théodore wasn't particularly scholarly, but this was too good to pass up really.

Carefully taking it from the shelf and sliding the tome under his arm, he made his way out of the room to follow the princess. He was surprised that she hadn't remarked on his eyes yet, usually that was the first thing people mentioned when talking to him, the almost glowing amber cat's eyes that marked him out as a hunter. She was perceptive enough, he assumed, or maybe she had done reading on hunters before he got here, and had no questions. He had tried to say a thank you for the offer earlier, but she was already halfway out the door by that point. He wouldn't lose her, even if she tried to run off on him, he could track by scent and sight should he need to.

"Don't worry yourself. I'll have enough to keep me busy. Gerald de Montfort is long-winded, so I'll be here a while." he explained, offering a view of the book under his arm. He had almost reminded her that he was here to keep an eye on her, so how could he leave? Taking a seat in a chair facing a low table, he flipped open the heavy book in his lap and began skimming through the pages.

He had noticed her staring earlier, but didn't think it was worth bringing up. Her notable lack of questions was curious, however, and after a few minutes silence, he spoke up again. "Have you read about hunters? If you have De Montfort in your collection, I assume you have other hunter-related books. Not to mention that you didn't ask any questions, people usually do when they first meet me." Théo asked, bringing his gaze from a page on Harpies to focus on the princess over by the desk.

He didn't think that there was a hunters' base in Trenith, there had been at one point, but it had been abandoned almost a hundred years ago to his knowledge. Perhaps the palace's collection of hunting manuals had come from there? "I wouldn't say that everything you've heard is true. The thing about us having to be invited to be allowed over a threshold isn't, I think we just don't go where there isn't business so people think we can't go where we aren't needed. Obviously, it would depend on what you've heard, but yes, we force ourselves to be more than human." he replied, forgetting himself and going off on a slight tangent with what he was saying. Maybe she was hesitant to ask about it because she thought he'd be offended or something? So he quickly tagged on another statement. "Well, I'd be happy to answer your questions if you have them anyway." he said.

She seemed to react positively to his offer, that was good at least. "Yes, we serve the interests that the council of hunters deems important. Outside of major wars or disasters, we are simply told to take contracts and vanquish monsters that we find. Each school is of course slightly different to another in political opinion or fighting style, but overall we adhere to the rule of the Lodge and the council of the most experienced hunters that reside there. There have only been two wars that the council has deemed important to take a side in, generally it has to be a grave or continental matter for us to take action as far as I'm aware. Royal families would probably dislike it if we started meddling in their wars and political matters." he explained, trying to keep the explanation relatively simple. He knew that some hunter schools trained in assassination and were hired out to local lords or royals to eliminate opponents, but that was little more than a rumour. A hunter-turned-assassin would be all but impossible to stop, and the council would likely step in, so very few schools actually did this for fear of being disbanded and exiled.

( Maybe it's a hunter assassin after your character's family? That would certainly make more sense for Théo to have been brought in, but maybe he wasn't told completely about it out of fear that he wouldn't fight another hunter or something? Idk, just brainstorming here. )

Well, wasn't this princess inquisitive? It seemed that he would be talking for a while trying to explain this, and so he closed the book and place it upon the table next to him, looking back up at the princess with a smile. He was happy to answer her questions, of course, and it might allow him to ask his own questions in turn. "The Hunters' Lodge was set up centuries ago, when monsters first started appearing. There are some really old texts that try to explain why, but I didn't take Old Mortainian, so I can't read them. Originally, monsters were stronger than they are today, so the enhancements were necessary to stand any chance at all against monsters, and even then hunters had to hunt in groups, which is why we have the first schools set up. Now monsters are weaker, and what would have taken four or five hunters to bring down now only needs one or two. The hunters are still needed, but in lesser numbers, which is why places like the school that was in this country disbanded and fell into ruin." he explained, pausing for a moment to consider what exactly he could say about how hunters came to become as they did.

"Uh, we come from all walks of life. If a travelling hunter sees a promising child, they will talk to their family, or in my case just pick them up and take them back to their school to train. Many start training, but it's tough and not all finish it. Sometimes they go back to their families, most times they just stay and help with castle upkeep, they've found a family there and don't want to leave. Once you've trained enough you can choose to take a trial, if you pass it you get given the mutations and full status as a hunter. It does vary from school to school what the training and trial is, even what specific mutations you get tend to depend on the fighting style of your school." he said, realizing that he may just have betrayed himself as someone of common birth, as the steward specifically told him not to, but the words were out of his mouth now and he couldn't change it. Perhaps he should say more detailed things to try and distract her? "The training might be tough, but usually there's a few of us in one group for training, we end up practically siblings by the end of it. We went through too much not to be close, really. Sialva was a princess before she was a hunter, I think Morgan was just a farmer's son, and Jaya was the kid of some travelling merchant who had no other way to pay the hunter that saved them." he said, a rather sad look falling across his face for a moment as he spoke of those he had trained with. He hadn't seen them in years, but such was the nature of being a hunter, the price they paid to travel for jobs.

He managed to shake the emotion off though, and move on to talk about the mutations. The specifics were quite closely guarded secrets, so he couldn't go into any detail, but he could explain as best he could. "The mutations are a necessity. It hurts to get them, you end up in agony in the sick bay for a few days, but after it... You become stronger and quicker and can see and smell things that you couldn't before. Even use magic. small spells, of course, nothing like what witches or sorcerers use, but enough to place small magical traps or conjure fire." he said, knowing that he couldn't really say much more than the basics. The specific mutagens that they used were known only by the eldest of the hunters of a school, and how to administer them was a closely kept secret. Couldn't be letting just anyone make themselves a hunter, could they?

( Great! Idk if you want to work out details of it right now? We can just bring it in later if we're struggling to keep the thread moving, I think, and work out details then. Unless you want to work out timings and such for the plot now? )