THE SUPPORT TEAM

The afternoon was slowly starting to adorn the corridors with the colors of the sun, as Fennel strolled back to the dome reflecting on the recent conversation. Even though Lady Aelia was clear with her message, he couldn’t help but remember how his mother, who used to work at the palace about a decade ago, complained frequently about the strict hierarchy structure back when he was a kid. She even once mentioned how a young talented researcher was rejected from joining her team, for not using the proper honorifics in an interview, strongly handicapping his career.

Following the same line of thought, he could easily see how this was true, considering the past few days since he first entered the palace. The only ones who seemed to neglect the word “Lady” when referring to Aelia, were her superiors, such as the veteran guardian Ataoro, who was in charge of supervising her development as a guardian; and Elia, who led her research and support team, and was for all practical affairs, considered her foster parent. Even Lex, one of the few venerated elite royal knights, and the only one in charge of guiding combat training for guardians, referred to her mostly as “Lady Aelia”, only skipping the honorific when doing high paced exercises.

Calling Lady Aelia just by her sole name was the equivalent of tagging himself as a troublemaker, or someone with no respect for authority. He didn’t mind at all using the honorific either, although he did think they didn’t have any real importance, since to him, respect was not about the words used, but about how he treated and felt about others. In any case, he was the newcomer in this job, and he knew he shouldn’t expect anyone else to care about his beliefs.

Fennel arrived at the dome and entered the cabin where his team was still working.

"How did it go?" Asked Elia with both authority and indifference.

"I couldn’t find out what was troubling her, miss."

Elia let out a subtle smile as she seemed to sigh in relief.

"Nothing out of the expected."

"I’m sorry, miss."

"Oh, don’t worry about it, Fennel. Aelia is extremely hard to handle. If you’re worried about Lord Ataoro, I’ll make sure to explain it to him."

"Thank you, miss." Replied Fennel with a faint feeling of disappointment, as he approached to help Inai, the other member of the team, who was packing up the tools used during Lady Aelia’s training session.

Fennel took a long breath, wondering if he should share his thoughts about his brief conversation with Lady Aelia. He had a strong drive to make things better, one of the qualities that made him reach this position at such a young age. He gave it a few thoughts, until he dared to raise his voice.

"Lady Aelia did say something interesting though."

"And what was that?" asked Elia with interest.

"She reasserted her request for me to drop formalities when speaking to her."

Elia stared at Fennel with a blank face and didn’t reply with a single word. She just stood there waiting for Fennel to keep talking.

"I think maybe, she could open up more to us if we treated her differently."

Inai looked at Fennel silently, with surprise and a subtle hint of agreement.

"Do you have any concrete suggestions?"

Fennel was starting to regret his decision as Elia’s words seemed harsh and cold, but he knew there was no way of escaping this conversation now.

"She really insisted on me treating her as an equal. Maybe we could be a bit more friendly towards her."

Inai joined the conversation with a shy voice but with the bravery to support Fennel’s idea.

"Maybe we could..."

"Don’t mistake what your role is, Fennel." Commanded Elia, cutting Inai’s suggestion mid-way through. "I know you two met as kids when Anise was still working in the palace. I was there too."

Fennel looked at Elia nervously as she was obviously going to scold him.

"But don’t for a moment think you’re meant to be friends with Aelia. It’s been years of hard work getting her to show some minimal discipline since your mother left."

"I’m sorry, miss."

"Your mother was too soft during Aelia’s early years; she filled her with ideas not appropriate for someone who is meant to protect a nation. Dealing with her was a nightmare, and I won’t give any chance for that to repeat itself. Being the son of your mother won’t give you any immunity if you screw up. Is it clear?"

"Yes, miss Elia."

"Stick to analyzing the training data, Fennel. And leave it to me when it comes to dealing with Aelia."

As Elia finished her sentence, she looked toward the other team member.

"And you, Inai, don’t meddle with this stuff either."

"Y-yes miss…"

Elia let out a deep sigh, as her agitation began to decline. A sense of nostalgia filled her face, and after a brief pause, she continued with a much softer tone.

"Your mother was… and surely still is, a great woman, Fennel. I won’t say you were hired because you’re her son. Your own merits alone were enough for you to reach this far."

Both Inai and Fennel listened carefully as Elia spoke.

"She had something special, and was the only one who could get Aelia to open up and do her tasks out of intrinsic motivation. When we knew Anise’s son had graduated early and was applying to the palace, it was a big deal."

Elia stopped there for a moment, and changed to a more serious intonation.

"But you’re not her, and I won’t take any risks. This isn’t a small business or some silly school drama. I’m the one responsible for raising one of Rossmaria’s guardians. The lives of this whole kingdom might one day rest in Aelia’s hands, and depend on what we’re doing right here, right now. We can’t leave anything to chance."

A somber but much calmer atmosphere filled the cabin, as Elia began to leave the room.

"I hope I was clear. I’ll leave you two to put everything in its place."