2022-04-14: Student Council Counsel 1
- Log: 2022-04-14: Student Council Counsel 1
- Cast: Milly Ashford, Kallen Kozuki
- Where: Ashford Academy
- OOC - IC Date: 0096-04-14
- Summary: Kallen and Milly talk about a mutual acquaintance... and Kallen gives Milly a little thanks.
<Pose Tracker> Milly Ashford has posed.
School has begun again, and somehow Milly Ashford *already* has a problem she's genuinely annoyed with.
This is a rarity, to be sure; usually the Student Council's president-for-life has fun with the fun parts of her position and is at least content -- motivated, even -- to deal with the rest.
Here she's not. There's a few tells for this type of thing.
1) Milly discusses the issue one on one before bringing it to open forum. This usually suggests it's something that needs to be handled with some delicacy, a thing Milly is... inconsistent with.
2) Milly presents nothing beforehand and sends nothing ahead. This suggests that she's having a feeling big enough that she can't express it on formal channels, or that she's got a (usually) legitimate operation security worry.
3) The text Kallen receives telling her that Milly would like to meet to discuss something does not include a single emoji, tilde, or double entendre.
Milly has taken up a position in the Student Council's office -- at the head of the table, as usual. The furrowed brow on her face and the scrunch of her nose, taken together, form point #4 along that very stark line.
The seat at her left hand has a printout in front of it. It's on NIA letterhead, from the Eschonbach family. It outlines that, while Ashford Academy is surely discharging its legal duties as a mixed-attendance school in an Area, it has simultaneously overstepped its authority into the realm of an in loco parentis relationship that isn't outlined as part of the terms of Emilia's enrollment and underperformed in its management of her day-to-day activities to avoid exposing her to 'untoward local influences,' a term which -- contextually -- virtually always means 'I would just say Numbers, Coordinators, or spacenoids, but am uninterested in risking political exposure in this specific letter.'.
It outlines terms under which her regular check-ins with the Student Council could restart, most of which are unenforceable and overly-specific; the burden of proof required isn't insurmountable in abstract, but is a little out of the operating range of (and for) a high school student.
It is signed on behalf of Joseph Eschonbach by his secretary.
Milly looks like she's been reading this one-page letter for about an hour.
<Pose Tracker> Kallen Kozuki has posed.
Kallen Kozuki doesn't generally think of herself as a paranoid woman. Cautious, certainly. It's a requirement in her life, having been taught carefully to avoid anything that might cause undue scandal to the Stadtfeld family. Even so, when she's sent an unusually serious text from Milly, that's entirely vague in its intent... It sets off certain alarm bells. That is to say, she's just a smidge on edge for most of the time between the message coming in, and her arrival at the office, no doubt with windows closed and latched for secrecy purposes. Something anyone observing her carefully would have likely noticed.
She draws in two deep breaths before entering, to center herself and present as nominally relaxed and calm. Though certainly not as... half-asleep as she often can seem. Well, she's gradually reducing that anyway though. When it's only Milly in the room, and a seat with a singular document, the tension practically blows away, like a balloon. When she takes her seat, and starts reading on the other hand... She turns slowly to face Milly, and ask a question with a tone of deadly seriousness. Her blood is boiling, but she's avoiding anything like shouting. "Miss President. I don't suppose you have any knowledge of say, imprisonable crimes this man has committed. And relatedly, where one might obtain legal guardianship documentation." She's very specific in her wording, precisely because she knows how old, potentially influential figures of status can be. Evading a number of crimes and scandals would be easy. Very few things could be made to stick.
<Pose Tracker> Milly Ashford has posed.
"There's nothing embarrassing in Joseph Eschonbach's history that isn't in any assessment of the One Year War's impacts on Britannia," Milly starts with, with a small frown. Here, she sure-enough opens a social studies textbook, sliding it across toward Kallen; there's a picture of Garma Zabi in New Yark. Off to one side is a circled picture of an old man in a three-piece suit.
"If it were that easy I would have already gone for it. This is -- mmm." She worries at her lower lip a bit -- not enough to draw blood, but enough to disrupt that very outermost layer of skin a bit.
Milly picks up the letter with one hand, creasing it just slightly, and gives the paper a slap. There's compassion behind her expression -- but at its outmost layer it's more of a, 'who put this shit on my desk and who do I have to kill to get it off?' "This is a scare tactic from someone who thinks he's... if not inassailable, certainly not worth assailing. I don't know if his sense of self-importance is overinflated or so limp he thinks we wouldn't risk the confrontation. Unfortunately, he's right, and my grandfather doesn't think we can press from the administrative side."
Milly's shoulders sag. "I can't say this doesn't validate my choice to fail my exams and stick around," she admits, with a momentary exhausted smile. "But I'm just stumped," she eventually admits, that smile evaporating. "I'd love to skip directly to telling him to shoot birdlime into vacuum, but we probably can't. Ashford's admission of even the occasional exceptional Eleven --" here Milly realizes she's falling too far into the trap of operating in her opponent's cognitive frame, stops herself, and corrects, "-- Japanese student has already been controversial, and the NIA letterhead tells me he's willing to press the wedge issue in public."
With a shake of her head, she concedes, "I'm out of ideas, Kallen. At least the kind that don't catch her in the crossfire."
<Pose Tracker> Kallen Kozuki has posed.
It's not that seeing a picture of a man who so heavily resembles Emilia is surprising. After all, it's... not obvious at a single glance. At least it shouldn't be to the average person? But given Kallen's own family particulars; a scan of his facial features, and the particular bounce and fluff of his hair makes it abundantly clear what she's looking at. Even if she's not inclined to spill that right off, and thus files it into the back of her mind. It's just not significant in that way, to her. Bloodline doesn't change who somebody is, and Emmy is first and foremost, a friend.
Eventually her eyes move to the man actually being indicated though, and she offers her first impressions. And her impressions offer more consideration and thought into his nature than one might expect. "This is a man who wants no life at all. Merely to subsist without drawing attention, ire, or scandal. One with the temperament of a worm, or a chameleon perhaps? Content to fade into the background and let his money make money, while he quietly funds his propaganda and politics of choice. ...Which makes him imminently dangerous to our mutual friend, as someone he deems 'safe' to push around. One of few, I imagine, he considers to be such."
<Pose Tracker> Milly Ashford has posed.
Milly has actually *not* put the line together just yet. (Once she looks at this picture again closer to Emilia's birthday, now -- maybe notes the date -- that might be a different story.)
"That's about my assessment, too," Milly offers Kallen, with a small nod. "He's humiliated, and for whatever reason he hates his deceased daughter *so much* that he takes it out on the only person remaining to do it to."
Her expression isn't improving over-much. "I don't like having this type of thing happening at Ashford. I mean, I don't like it happening at all, but especially not here. I'm not letting the Student Council be used to humiliate and bludgeon a student."
A beat, before Milly appends, with a bit more of her usual playfulness: "At least, not if it's not me doing it."
She notes, a little cautiously: "I think this is really about the concerts. It's not that I feel like we're responsible, but I do think it makes us better-positioned to act..." She doesn't want Kallen to feel guilty; she *herself* doesn't, but...
<Pose Tracker> Kallen Kozuki has posed.
Kallen raises an eyebrow. She figured Milly had noticed it too... It explains perfectly the Spacenoids thing after all, even more than the old man just being a hateful creature like is so common. But it's not her place to tell that detail, unless it could somehow help, right? And there's no guilt to be had here. Those concerts were GOOD for Emilia. Especially the second one and all of them know it, even if Emmy herself hasn't quite grasped how.
Briefly she manages a slight chuckle at Milly's attempt to lighten the mood. She appreciates it all the more for how serious this problem is. "I'm no more a fan than you, so I'll do everything I can to help. Though I suppose that's obvious in hindsight after offering to take her into the Stadtfeld home, isn't it? With what we know of the man, he won't do anything he could be legally liable for, or would provoke retaliation. Only actions he sees as safe and acceptable. So how do we *ruthlessly exploit* that fact to protect her?" The option of faking Emilia's disappearance and having her stay under a false identity is something Kallen has already silently dismissed. Simply because she doubts they could get away with it. "Perhaps a way to make her so vital here that he can't remove her, that would at least buy us time to act? If she was headlining a championship event between Academies, or..." Kallen clicks her tongue against her teeth, for the horribly Britannian thought she just had. "If there were a connection that got the current Viceroy or Sub-Viceroy involved in her favor. That's wholly unreasonable to imagine happening, so... please ignore that last one. ...If there were any *proof* of severe long-term abuse, could he just be removed? ...I doubt he's that careless, but I at least have to ask for thoroughness."
<Pose Tracker> Milly Ashford has posed.
"Britannian welfare agencies are understaffed and usually don't go after powerful people's children, even powerful commoners." That's the easy answer, which means it actually kind of nags at Milly to give it. She lets out a long, slow breath, ultimately conceding, "More than that, though -- he's petty enough that if we tore him apart he'd do his best to drag her down with him."
The event leadership, though... that catches her attention. "I don't know that she'll *bite*, but I know that that'd at least buy us time." She brings a pen to her lips for a moment. She taps her teeth with it a few times, then sucks at the cap a bit. "If we made her central to one of the upcoming cross-school events, just documenting those events would actually be enough to satisfy most of these terms for free... that's actually a really good idea, Kallen. We'll start there!"
If the Ashfords had a better leg to stand on politically, they could just tear him apart in broad daylight and that'd be that. That thought does occur to her... and in turn, that brings her thoughts to her own situation.
She can kick that can down the road for now. At least until she's alone again. Instead, she asks, "How have *you* been lately? Kind of a shame I couldn't make it to the concert... though I hope you and Emilia had fun. Both of you seem like you could use that."
<Pose Tracker> Kallen Kozuki has posed.
That Milly approves of any of the ideas she posed, well, it brings the beginnings of a smile to her face. Just the corners of her mouth for now... but it's a start. "The obvious question would be which event. The lack of time to build enough self-esteem for her beforehand... That might narrow down the options available to us."
Milly's thinking and the subtle crease of her brow don't go unnoticed. Kallen jots down a few mental notes. "The concert was... eye-opening. To say the least." She breathes out, endeavoring to overcome her embarrassment. It only helps so much, as her face goes red at the memories. "I didn't notice it at the time, but I had a slight meltdown in the bath when my mind caught up fully with Sheryl's... finale for the night. We uhh... ahh... we definitely both had a good time though."
But before Milly can quite pounce on the presented opportunity, Kallen attempts to turn it around. Perhaps not quickly enough. "And you, Milly? Pardon me if it's difficult to talk about, but the differences in your face and demeanor are telling, when we're alone here." And almost as an afterthought, because while true she normally wouldn't even consider it. "I promise I'm not a gossip."
<Pose Tracker> Milly Ashford has posed.
"We'll have to think on it. I still haven't met with any of the others yet... they might have a better sense of her strengths." Milly is content to leave it there for now.
Kallen's admission gets an immediate smirk from Milly. "Oh? It sounds like Sheryl has that effect on shrinking violets and late bloomers... though I don't know which category I'd have put you in, in hindsight. You're not Shirley or Emilia, but I suppose I'd say you're definitely blooming... at least from when I've caught a glimpse." Despite what she says, there's not a lot of intent in the flirting; she's just blowing off steam, a bit.
Interest in *her*, though... "I'm fine," she says, with a shake of her head. "Just expecting a call from my mother tonight or tomorrow. She's given me a few days to get started with school, but that's starting to get handled." This is one of those topics people know, generally, better than to press too hard.
<Pose Tracker> Kallen Kozuki has posed.
She does know, of course, not to push, so she won't. But that won't stop her from at least holding out a hand. "You'd say this for any of us, so. If there ever is, remember you don't have to handle everything alone. That's what we're all here for. And that's all I'll say on that topic." Better to shift gears now.
So she'll pivot over to the topic that gave Milly at least some curiosity. "I think more the former category. Though maybe both, if you consider a... different form of blooming. You can take some credit yourself on that, for pushing me to be more... visible in the world." To some extent she's rambling, not certain how much sense the words are making.