Lightening Your Burdens (Tegaea/Mei)

[Meidolaon]

@[member="Tegaea Alcori"] @[member="Siobhan Kerrigan"]

As Mei entered the room she was staying in, she immediately noticed the view she had of the capital city. The view had in some ways reminded her of her time on Coruscant, though by all means Santaissa was a much more beautiful city to have a view of. The room in general was well-furnished without being over-the-top, and while Mei cared little one way or another how nice her own bed felt to sleep in, she admittedly did appreciate how comfortable the bed seemed to be.

Mei sat her luggage down at the foot of the bed, then turned to Mistress Kerrigan, responding to her welcome with a gentle nod. "Again, I must thank you for this opportunity. I will be sure to let you know if anything is needed."

 

[Siobhan Kerrigan]

@[member="Meidolaon"], @[member="Tegaea Alcori"]

"Glad to have you here, Mei. I'm sure you'll fit just fine. We'll see you tomorrow morning then," Siobhan said warmly in response, then turned and headed out of the room so that Mei would get the chance to unpack her luggage and settle into her new surroundings. The girl was very formal, but to Siobhan she came across as very efficient, which was something she appreciated. Her actual capabilities would be seen tomorrow, though the former Exarch hoped that she would not have to put her abilities as a bodyguard to the test so soon.

Regardless she departed and headed through the apartment in search of her wife.

 

[Tegaea Alcori]

@[member="Meidolaon"] @[member="Siobhan Kerrigan"]

Tegaea had gotten back to work at her desk. It was ironic that the work involved in running a small company was the same as running the Protectorate. The scale and content was different, but the amount of paperwork was about the same, mainly because she had proportionally less staff.

As she laid aside a bill and moved onto a letter from an Anzati Prince who really truly had 20 million credits he would be happy to share with someone who disclosed their bank details and paid a small fee…. She threw that one away.

Siobhan entering made her look up, smile. “Is she settling in alright?”

 

[Siobhan Kerrigan]

@[member="Tegaea Alcori"]

For her part Siobhan hated paperwork just as much as when she had still been Exarch. Fortunately these days her duties required a bit less of it, so she did not have to think up creative ways to avoid it. Moreover, 'negotiations' with the Eldorai court had been more to her liking than meeting with this or that dignitary.

"Yeah, seems so. Pleasant girl, said she'd call if she needed something. Real formal, but I think we made a good choice," Siobhan responded, pulling Tegaea into a kiss before stepping behind her and rubbing across her back, something her wife liked, but then she had, how shall we put it, skilled fingers. "How are things? Diplomatically bludgeoning through the paper flood? It's getting late, don't overwork yourself."

 

[Tegaea Alcori]

@[member="Siobhan Kerrigan"] @[member="Meidolaon"]

Tegaea smiled. “Well now you’ve given me that back rub I can go on a little longer,” she said with an amused smile.
“I’ll finish up in half hour, then we can get dinner.”

For the purposes of this RP, and so one of the participants are not left out, we shall skip ahead to the next morning when Mei was due to report for duty in Tegaea’s office for her first day….

 

[Meidolaon]

@[member="Tegaea Alcori"] @[member="Siobhan Kerrigan"]

Mei awoke early the following morning, shortly after dawn. Within minutes, she was out of bed and getting dressed for her first day of work. Once dressed, she tidiest up the bed she had been sleeping in before leaving her room, leaving it as tidy as it was when she first arrived, save the now empty luggage tucked away in the corner of the room.

It hadn't seemed like her mistress had awoken yet, so Mei stood by the bedroom door and waited. In retrospect, Mei probably should have asked when Mistress Alcori wished to be woken up, but it was too late to do that now; It would be best at this point to ask when her Mistress was already awake and moving about rather than to wake her to ask now.

 

[Tegaea Alcori]

@[member="Meidolaon"] @[member="Siobhan Kerrigan"]

Tegaea was, ahem, awake quite late into the night, so she was not up especially early. Leaving Siobhan to sleep she pulled a robe about herself and headed to the door. Opening it, she found herself almost bumping into Mei.
Taken aback, she peered, then remembered. “Ah, good morning, Mei! Keen to start, I see. Sorry I didn’t give you a time, my mistake.”
She pulled the robe a bit tighter. She wasn’t wearing much under it. If by much, you meant anything.

“Uhh, one moment,” she said. She headed back into the bedroom, closed the door and got into something a bit more…suitable. Only then did she exit and meet her new bodyguard in slightly less awkward conditions.

 

[Siobhan Kerrigan]

@[member="Tegaea Alcori"], @[member="Meidolaon"]

Siobhan had also been, how shall we put it, rather active. She tended to be a night person after all, which translated into her not seeing the need to get up rather early. Like poor proles who had to do heavy labour in some factory, in other words the sort of person she had once been so long ago. She yawned slightly, turning in bed as she felt the lack of warmth and of the redhead-sized blanket. Out of the corner of her eye she spied the time on the chronometre. It was that late? Or early? Whatever.

Pondering for a few moments whether to get up or continue lazing around, she finally stirred, rubbing the sleep from her flesh eye. Presumably at some point today she would have actual work to do...as surprising as decadent aristo Siobhan doing actual work might appear, even to this writer. As it happened she arose and headed for the door just after Tegaea had bumped into Mei. Much like her wife she was only wearing a robe, with nothing beneath it to cover herself. Unlike Tegaea she did not seem the least embarassed about it, but then this was Siobhan.

"Good morning, Mei. Up early." Was it early? Ah, who the hell cared. "Slept well I hope. We'll be...with you soon," she said in a terribly chipper tone before following her wife, or perhaps being pulled back in with her. "You're so cute when you're embarrassed you know that?" she saw the need to tease wifey before likewise putting something less...revealing on.

 

[Meidolaon]

(Sorry about taking so long with this reply)
@[member="Tegaea Alcori"] @[member="Siobhan Kerrigan"]

When Mistress Alcori nearly bumped into Mei and apologized for not giving her a time to either start or to wake her, Mei shook her head and responded, "No, it's my fault for not asking in the first place. It was something I should have inquired about when we first spoke yesterday. I apologize for my failure in that regard." She was being completely sincere with her response; Even her slight bow following it felt sincere when combined with the tone of her apology.

Mei nodded in response to Mistress Kerrigan's greeting when she came to the door as well. Now that she thought about it, she had gotten up at dawn, though she didn't know what time that was actually at and she had lost track of how long she had been waiting for her employers to wake up. Regardless, though, most would consider waking at dawn to be pretty early.

Mei continued to wait outside the room as her employers went back inside to clothe themselves; The fact that they slept wearing so little held no importance to Mei. She knew that the two were married, after all, so such sleeping conditions were to be expected. Nevertheless, she was glad that the two were getting dressed to some degree. There was something that seemed... wrong, for someone to walk around all day in just a robe. When Mistress Alcori returned now dressed, Mei turned to her and bowed, properly greeting her for the first time since she woke that morning.

"Good morning, Mistress Alcori. Did you sleep well?"

 

[Tegaea Alcori]

@[member="Meidolaon"] @[member="Siobhan Kerrigan"]
Tegaea smiled. "Good morning, Mei. I did sleep very well indeed! Please come with me."
Leading the girl down into the study, she sat at the desk. "I'll run over our schedule with you. Now you've had a night to think things over, after that I will ask for suggestions from you about improvements to our security setup.
So we generally wake up around 7:00, have breakfast by 7:30. We're at work in one form or another at 8:00. We're either here, or out to meetings. You are to stick with me if we split up though. My wife is able to throw tanks around with her mind, since I can't, I need all the help I can get! We get lunch at some stage in the day and usually finish up work by 18:00. Dinner is usually at 19:00, and we tend to go to sleep at 22:00...just in time to do it all again the next day!"
Tegaea smiled. "Everything make sense so far?"

 

[Siobhan Kerrigan]

@[member="Tegaea Alcori"], @[member="Meidolaon"]

((No problem! I like Mei a lot! BTW. this is the group Tegs/Sio are part of: http://starwarsrp.net/forum/879-kaeshana-confederation/)

Siobhan had likewise followed the two into Tegaea's study and sat down at the desk next to her wife, legs crossed, her posture was relaxed. She found herself liking Mei a great deal. The girl seemed efficient and her reaction to Tegaea bumping into her was quite cute.

"You have many other great qualities, love. Lot better than throwing tanks or tearing a roof down," she said fondly to Tegaea and gave her shoulder a soft squeeze before turning her attention back to Mei, giving the handmaiden a friendly smile. "I would appreciate your ideas on how to improve security arrangements once we're through."

Needless to say when Tegaea listed their schedule she had left out '21:00-22:00 'Take wifey to secret dungeon and have kinky sex because that was probably too much information for Mei!'

 

[Meidolaon]

@[member="Tegaea Alcori"] @[member="Siobhan Kerrigan"]

Mei listened quietly as Mistress Alcori went through the schedule with her. It was simple enough to follow along without having any real questions, though the schedule for her employers' own work wasn't exactly well-defined. Her job, however, would entail accompanying Mistress Alcori to wherever she needed to go outside the mansion. While at the mansion, Mei imagined she would be handling mostly the chores one would expect from a handmaiden. She knew that would include cleaning, but up until now she had been assuming that it would include cooking too; Mei thought it would be a good idea to have that clarified, especially since Mistress Kerrigan had asked how they could improve security arrangements.

"Well, everything makes sense so far, yes," Mei started, going through the short list in her mind as she spoke, "But there are a few things I was wondering about. First of all, do you already have a cook? If not, I could prepare all meals and make sure none of the ingredients are poisoned myself; If there is a cook, though, a taste-tester could also prevent poisonings." Of course, if it was the latter case, Mei was likely to be the one to do the taste testing, in which case she was going to need to learn how to detect poisons in food without actually ingesting them. "Also, perhaps we should consider security precautions for transportation to and from the meetings that were mentioned, or keep the meetings confined to secure locations. Or perhaps both." Mei would have liked having both; It would be much simpler to streamline the security measures that way.

 

[Tegaea Alcori]

@[member="Meidolaon"] @[member="Siobhan Kerrigan"]

Tegaea was impressed. The girl had finally spoken more than a few words and had shown herself to possess an incisive mind. That was good.
"We don't have a cook, no. If you think you can handle the role, and taste-tester too, that would be good. We can get one of those top of the line food testing units which can detect toxins from just a sample."
"As for transport, it's a wise idea. I've been eyeing the latest model Adamant Groundspeeder with the blasterproof windows and reinforced armour. I think we'll invest in that now our latest contracts have finished up. If you can pilot it as well that would work too. As for secure locations, where possible we'll do that, but sometimes it's not practical. But that's why I have you two!" she said with a smile.

 

[Siobhan Kerrigan]

@[member="Tegaea Alcori"], @[member="Meidolaon"]

"You're the one with the big brain - and the firemane. That already makes you special," Siobhan said cheesily but warmly as she gave her wife a smile. As everyone knew, redheads reigned! They were special and needed to be treated as such.

"The Adamant's a sound investment. If we're not at home, the bulk of the meetings takes place at Firemane Headquarters or the palace. We can go over security arrangements with the Great Seraph for the palace." The Eldorai would not like it, but they were also sensitive to the fact that not so long ago traitors among the Angelii had murdered their Queen.

"I handle most inspections of Firemane operations on site myself, my wife accompanies me sometimes though. Since Firemane operations are being expanded beyond Kaeshana, to mining on Vandelhelm and Dahomey, you'd be accompanying us when we go there to check up on things, negotiate etc. I'll provide you with the necessary files. We got a yacht and a military-grade corvette for space travel," she briefly shared a look with Tegaea. There was still a way to go, but thanks to the mediation of Firemane the cooperation between the Eldorai Shipyards and Silk Holdings should soon expand their naval capacity. She could not wait for the Valora-class.

"I'll show you the armoury later today. You can familiarise yourself with the weapons and equipment there. Also got a training room." They had guns, lots of guns. Because Siobhan was the sort to be a walking armoury.

 

[Meidolaon]

@[member="Tegaea Alcori"] @[member="Siobhan Kerrigan"]

So there wasn't a cook already. That made it a bit easier for Mei to ensure that the food remained safe, being able to prepare it herself... Though admittedly one of those food testing units would be nice, too. As for the Groundspeeder, Mei nodded in agreement with Mistress Kerrigan that it was a sound investment; Whether or not Mei could drive it, it was a relatively safe mode of transportation. Between those, the off-world transportation, and the locations that the meetings would take place at, Mei was pretty confident in the level of security that Mistress Alcori had... Except in the less secure places she might be visiting.

Granted, Mistress Kerrigan did mention that when they went out for the inspections, she would provide Mei with the necessary files, so Mei would still be able to ensure Mistress Alcori's safety. That didn't change that these inspections, and any meetings that would be impractical to hold in secure locations, would be the most dangerous points for Mistress Alcori, especially from any one of the groups after Mei's employers who manages to get access to a schedule for such meetings. Still, Mei could take measures to ensure that even if the location itself isn't secure, Mistress Alcori would be.

"Thank you," Mei said with a curtsy, "I think that answers my questions... And training room, you said?" Mei had never cared for firearms beyond when she had to use them out of necessity, but a space for her to practice her Teräs Käsi would be great. "I would certainly like to see that later, as well. Though, I suppose I should see the kitchen first, unless we plan on skipping breakfast today."

 

[Tegaea Alcori]

@[member="Meidolaon"] @[member="Siobhan Kerrigan"]

“The training room is open for you any time of the day you do not have other duties. If you require any other equipment or features, please let us know. I’ll make breakfast this morning, you go with Mistress Kerrigan and see it. Do you want anything in particular this morning Mei, Siobhan? I’ll have everything ready by the time you get back,” Tegaea said with a smile.

Unknown to many, but well known by Siobhan, Tegaea was a great cook, having learned during her military and mercenary days. Back then of course she had rather less exotic fare to work with, but still!

 

[Siobhan Kerrigan]

@[member="Tegaea Alcori"], @[member="Meidolaon"]

"You know I like whatever you make, dear," Siobhan said happily, turning to give Tegaea a loving kiss, her hand lingering on her shoulder for a moment before she got up. Presumably the redhead's cooking skills had helped when it came to putting a wedding ring on Siobhan's finger. Along with, well, many other reasons!

The training hall into which Mei would be led into after she had responded was long, giving ample room for exercises and for practicing martial arts, not to mention force meditation and lightsabre practice in the case of Siobhan. It was also well-stocked with work-out equipment and training dummies. Connected to it was an armoury stacked to the brim with a variety of melee and ranged weapons, the latter including blasters, web rifles and the famous bolters that were the couple's pride and joy, though for obvious reasons when Siobhan felt like firing them she used the firing range on the Firemane grounds.

 

[Meidolaon]

@[member="Tegaea Alcori"] @[member="Siobhan Kerrigan"]

Mei nodded in acknowledgement of Mistress Alcori's wish for Mei to see the training room, before answering her question about what she wanted to have for breakfast. "I can't say I have any preference to anything in particular," the Kuati handmaiden respinded, clasping her hands together just above her waist. "Whatever is prepared, I am sure I will enjoy it."

Once Mei responded, she was led to the training hall. The room was quite long, with plenty of open floor space for her to practice her Teräs Käsi; This alone was all that Mei would need when she had time to practice, though the variety of training dummies were certainly a welcome bonus. The armory was connected to the hall, filled with weapons that Mei herself would generally never use- if Mei needed a blaster, she would likely prefer one that was a smaller, easily concealable blaster pistol, rather than the larger firearms like the web rifles. She simply had a distaste for most melee weapons as well, especially blades- too much of a mess left behind, in Mei's mind. She imagined that there probably was such a blaster in the armory somewhere, but she could hold off on looking through there for another time. Of course, eventually Mei would have to get some familiarity with most of the weapons in the armory anyways, if only to know how to counteract them if a would-be assassin uses a similar model, or circumstances force her to use them. For now, however, Mei was content with the training hall and its accommodations.

Once she was done seeing the contents of the armory for the moment, Mei turned to Mistress Kerrigan and curtsied. "Thank you again, for showing me the armory and training hall. I believe everything I would need to train is already available to me here... Though I may need training with some of the heavier firepower later on to utilize it properly." That training wouldn't be quite as necessary for neutralizing it as a threat, should similar weapons be used against them, but it would certainly be beneficial there as well.

 

[Siobhan Kerrigan]

@[member="Meidolaon"], @[member="Tegaea Alcori"]

As Mei had correctly presumed, there was in fact an assortment of smaller and more easily concealable guns in the armoury, such as several variations of hold-out blasters. Tegaea tended to carry one due to certain events on Naboo years ago when they had been in leading positions with the Protectorate. Likewise there were also several small slugthrowers that could be easily concealed. They were just not the first weapons that caught one's eye upon walking into the armoury because its main user was Siobhan and being a hammer as opposed to a scalpel she preferred the big guns and blades. A recent business deal had also provided them with two Mandalorian rippers.

Siobhan waited as Mei examined the contents of the armoury, giving her time to familiarise herself with the equipment and its layout, then responded as she was addressed. "You're welcome. If you come across something that might make a good addition, do feel free to bring it up. Not sparing any expenses where my wife's is safety is concerned. And no problem. We'll make time for it and I'll show you how to handle the big guns. I've used just about every one of here at one point or another," she said warmly. They had a big firing range at Firemane headquarters and Siobhan really liked showing off heavy firepower. Of course, despite that she understood that the lighter, more easily hidden weaponry was more suited to Mei's duties, but it made sense for her to be prepared in case assassins or attackers came packing heavy weapons. Hence she appreciated their attendant's initiative.

 

[Tegaea Alcori]

@[member="Siobhan Kerrigan"] @[member="Meidolaon"]

Whilst the two sparred and did whatever it was they did below, Tegaea was cooking breakfast. She had servants of course who could have done it for her, had droids who claimed to have ‘over six million forms of recipes’. However, Tegaea preferred to do some things herself when she could. Of course, the washing up could be left to someone else, but the cooking…that was special.

So when Mei and Siobhan emerged they would find a veritable feast waiting for them…far more than the three of them could ingest without exploding! However, any leftovers were put to good use by the staff and servants.

“So, everything up to scratch, Mei?” Tegaea asked cheerily, offering some eggs and blue milk to her new bodyguard.