2022-04-30: Student Council Counsel 2
- Log: 2022-04-30: Student Council Counsel 2
- Cast: Milly Ashford, Lelouch Lamperouge
- Where: Ashford Academy
- OOC - IC Date: 0096-04-30
- Summary: The Student Council discusses a student issue... and a few of Lelouch's issues, too.
<Pose Tracker> Milly Ashford has posed.
It's been an eventful week in Nagoya. Milly remains at her default stride, primarily because she's already been exposed to this kind of thing in her life and tends to be irrepressible. (That's not to say it has no effect, of course. She's looked tired more or less since Behemoth's attack -- something that has only now started to right itself.)
The fourth-of-three-years Student Council President has stuff to do, though, and generally, actual tasks keep her on task. The start of the year is always fun -- especially since they've got elections for Treasurer, the one unfilled Student Council position besides member-at-large, coming up. (Milly is already working out how to put her thumb on the scale a bit, there; she has a preferred pick.)
Pinning down the rest of the Student Council for a topic that *isn't* totally conventional business has taken her a little time -- especially since *these* conversations she wants to have one-on-one. She's managed to snag Kallen, Rivalz, and Nina... this time, she's waiting in the student council office for Lelouch.
<Pose Tracker> Lelouch Lamperouge has posed.
Meetings were always a slight pain. This, Lelouch knew from deep within his soul. Whether his previous attendances of royal dances before everything, or of the mandated ones for clubs to lobby for their budgets by ways over and underhanded, there was always the slight prickle of wanting to do something else.
Not that he had the audacity to desert any of them. Especially as one as needed as this one. With the heavy weight of knowledge on his shoulders, and the barest hint of weariness in his eyes from dealing with the past week, Lelouch stepped towards the Student Council room. Truthfully, this meeting was needed. For his own sake, really. As much as the situation in Nagoya had demanded that plans and ideas be tweaked and trashed, keeping everything steady as a Lamperouge was also paramount.
A rap on the door. Once, twice, thrice, before delivering two final taps and opening the door proper. "I didn't think there were more meetings needed for this week, Milly." Ever the icebreaker.
<Pose Tracker> Milly Ashford has posed.
"Usually, there wouldn't be," Milly says, with a small frown. "This one is... well, it's not that it's not Student Council business but it's not *usual* Student Council business." She's not going to apologize for it, for reasons she thinks will become pretty obvious momentarily.
... but she's not a particularly heartless manager, so she says, "... First, though, are you holding up okay? You're usually not out of town when something happens." Is it suspicion? Concern?
... no, simpler than that. "Nunnally, Sayoko and I were all in the shelter within about five minutes. I was a little worried, but they were both ready to go." She's a little sad that the state of the world is such that she has to talk about this at all, but...
... anyway, back to business. "Have you seen this letter yet? I know you've been..." Slightly comedy-strained expression, "... busy." (She still assumes Lelouch's unusually long absences for what she expects to be short duties are cover for gambling -- and in a way, one would suppose they are.)
To be safe, Milly hands Lelouch a copy of the letter. 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.
<Pose Tracker> Lelouch Lamperouge has posed.
Holding up? It takes a few seconds for Lelouch to properly formulate an answer. The stress of A21. The sudden way everything collapsed. A group, suddenly taken away. There weren't many reassurances to hand out; everyone knew what they were in for, and most of the Black Knights were properly expectant. The remnants were slowly being absorbed. Some, wanting to push further, to raze Nagoya to the ground. Others far easier to convince, to bring in, to ensure that they could be loyal members that had their hearts in the right place.
Namely, perfect to direct. And that name...
Mr. Gold...
...This wasn't the time to ruminate. "Yes. I wish I could've been there for you all when the attack happened, but I'm glad everything came out okay." A turn of the heel and a bow. Respectful.
"Thank you for taking care of Nunally when I couldn't." Lelouch vi Britannia allowed that statement to hang in the air, returning to proper form a few moments later. Who he was was who he was, and that part of himself loved his sister dearly, no matter the mask at hand.
That being said, Lelouch Lamperouge took the letter in hand, reading over it. A parent and a child having a dispute. It wasn't anything that was exactly...Unknowing to him, concerning parental disputes. Yet another noble who dumped their child off and thinks they can control them from afar. The parallels were already ringing in his head.
"...Has she been made aware of it? If she has someone like this sending out letters for her, she may go without any notice." Start from the top.
<Pose Tracker> Milly Ashford has posed.
Lelouch gives her thanks, and Milly waves it off. "It's fine. Honestly, it's kind of funny," Milly reflects. "At this point I've known her almost as long as you have. It's not that I feel like she's my little sister too, but best friend might not be far off the mark." She laughs a little -- at herself, perhaps. What does it say about her that despite being at the age where she *should* be going to college (... or getting married) that her best friend is nearly five years her junior?
She breezes past that, though. Milly's not one to ruminate for very long, calls from her mother notwithstanding. She gives a smile back, affirming, "There's not a lot I wouldn't do for Nunnally."
Back to the task at hand, though. "She almost certainly knows, or at least, she knows it's on the table. She barely leaves her room except to eat and go to class, lately; either she's grounded, she made herself sick, or she's chastising herself." Milly realizes, "... I should probably check on her, actually."
Milly's thought of those parallels, too; it's part of why she's brought it to Lelouch. She even tried the same 'reframe as a bet' gambit with Emilia, even if it didn't take. "I don't want to lose to this, but I'm stumped. I don't want to get her hurt, but I'm just not sure what to do to outmaneuver this. My grandfather doesn't think we can press this administratively..." A strained smile crosses her features as she explains, "Like I told Kallen, I don't want the Student Council doing any humiliating and bludgeoning students that isn't on my say-so."
Even here, Milly sneaks in a joke.
<Pose Tracker> Lelouch Lamperouge has posed.
Even if it was meant to be breezed through, it was Nunally. All this was for her, and helping to guide her to a place away from all this was why he was here, after all. For various reasons.
"A best friend so young? It'll be a tearful time when we graduate, Milly. I'll make sure to set up the video calls so you can see her face in the years to come." The lies fall in so easily. "Sayoko would be included, of course."
Back to the task at hand, indeed. "Unsurprising. If the letter was sent to us, then she'd have been notified either at the same time, or slightly before." Setting the letter down, the secretive noble assumed a thinking pose; At least, Lelouch was taking the matter seriously enough. It was a thread to keep an eye on, a person worth looking into further.
"If I felt luckier on guesses, I'd say he's doing this out of worry for how the past week has been." A derisive chuckle. It didn't take a salamander's mind to discard that possibility. "We both know that isn't the case here, which means that he's getting worried." Think.
"We can't discount that she's being taken for political gain. Has something happened about New Yark?" Think, think. "Or maybe he's angling for a political marriage." Untoward local influences. "...Or he's possibly a racist that's using the past week as a pretext." Tap. Tap. Tap. Tapping at the student council desk, eyes closing in thought.
"For now, we can push lightly back on the check-ins. Not exactly day by day, but a document here and there over time. Those that can be sent once should be marked, notarized, and registered for delivery with an electronic equivalent. The seal of the Academy will be enough to not accidentally lose them." The way of respecting someone while allowing them to dig their own grave.
"...What we need to do is reassure him, or to have it be just enough of a hassle that he lays off on his own without demanding direct removal." Both problems in their own right, but the thoughts of what the endpoints could be are important.
<Pose Tracker> Milly Ashford has posed.
Milly smiles at that. It's enough to keep her brain off the worst of this. "Thoughtful *and* meticulous. Usually characters like *you* are helpless outside of their one key skill." With a snap that turns into a finger-gun, she affirms, "We'll make something of 'Lelouch Lamperouge' yet."
"This actually hit my desk before that," Milly explains, on the topic of timing. "I did get a passive-aggressive reminder last night after what happened, though, so he's definitely also using the past week as a pretext."
Playing along with the check-ins, but not completely... "I'm firmly on the side of making it a hassle," Milly notes, with a momentary twinkle in her eyes. "I know her phone is monitored -- and presumably her other devices, too. I did buy her a burner phone when we were up on the Orbital Ring, but..." Something seems to click. "... I wonder if her *accounts* are monitored, too, actually; she was pretty circumspect about her spending when we went up there."
Lelouch's suggestion of making sure they aggressively dot their Is and cross their Ts brings a smile to Milly's lips. "So we have to put the burden of the first mistake on him? I like that... though I'm worried about her. I'd like to help her get more independent, too."
<Pose Tracker> Lelouch Lamperouge has posed.
With a chuckle and a deliberate slouch in his body, the Lamperouge brother delivered a nod. "Don't snipe too hard. You're the one coming in with the problem of needing this one 'key' skill." A wink.
Returning to the topic at hand, bringing a frown with him. "If it hit beforehand, then that means...The first checkup is soon enough. We can't exactly start out on the wrong foot on this matter." His tone carries the slightest hint of urgency; Considering the level of details on these requested checkups, the more perfect they could deliver the first round, the better.
"If her accounts are monitored, then it's harder than it looks." Tap. Tap tap. Tap tap tap. "Burner phones are easy, but the purchases aren't. Skimming off the top of every deposit to build up a slush fund could work, but that depends on how detailed he wants to be." An idea added, mulled, and discarded. "The alternative would be to set up fake purchases as a proxy to an account where she wouldn't be monitored." A slight twist on what he was doing, frankly. Take the gambling winnings. Skim a bit off the top. Build it up. "She may have to rely on others to buy some things for her, depending on the level of surveillance."
"Of course." The onus of the first mistake. "We can push him towards that route easily enough; Milly, you should know how easy it is to say one thing and only be a half-truth. He only needs to make that mistake once." The master of tugging everyone around just had a larger target to destabilize. Easy. (Understatement.)
However, his words settled back down at the talk of independence. "...The important thing is that she wants it, but we have to be there for her." Independence. Away from the machinations of whatever the bloodline of the Eschonbach family wanted. "I think I should talk with her about it." Eschonbach. Even if it was a political family of small note, it was a family nonetheless. "Without the realization she can do something, she won't do anything." He could see the parallels more and more. Even if he couldn't share them in the slightest.
<Pose Tracker> Milly Ashford has posed.
Despite herself, Milly *loves* to watch Lelouch work. It's always fascinating, and even if she can tell when his talents come from his Byronic Hero tendencies, it's fun to see him engaged.
Truthfully, the fact that he's proven himself reliable, charismatic, and willing to protect people in bad situations is part of why she's convinced herself she might like to see him a *different* kind of engaged... but that might just be her looking for a safe way to escape her own problems. ... neither here nor there, at any rate.
"Do you *often* have to hide large sums of money from current and former government officials?" Milly teases a bit, though she's well aware the answer is almost certainly 'yes,' and is even quite aware of why. "I think you two would have a lot to talk about... be warned, though -- she's an accountant, not a gambler. I tried motivating her the way I did you, and it..." An uncharacteristically hapless rub at the back of her head follows shortly. "... well, the problem with the deal wasn't what I was offering, let's go with that."
Her brain seizes on that last comment. "If I didn't know better, I'd think you were working on a 'realization you can do something' of your own... or maybe you've already had it?" It could just be teasing about Lelouch's one-man crusade to empty the pockets of every ranked Britannian chess player... but does she suspect something? She's not stupid, and no one knows more about the timing of Lelouch's absences and sudden trips than Milly Ashford...
<Pose Tracker> Lelouch Lamperouge has posed.
Nod after nod of acknowledgement. Lelouch couldn't exactly decide on the ways one could help a person without talking with them. To do so would be...disastrous, at the worst case scenario. "I don't think anyone would say yes to such a question, even if it was true." Was it? He wouldn't say. Considering how well each knew each other, he didn't have to say. Hopefully.
"An accountant...So if she desires it that much, we can lean on her pragmatic side." Appeal to what she gets out of disobeying the slightest bit. Appeal to pathos. Appeal to logos. "That, and seeing the lines of what she can do would be more appealing. If she fears him so much, we merely have to provide places where that fear is deliberately nonexistent..."
Trailing off into silence, he listened on. Of course; Milly wasn't that kind of person. That was good. But the tease. The lightly conscious tightening of fingers against the desk. "Don't be silly, Milly." Don't be suspicious, Milly. "You know I'm doing what I can." For Nunally. Against Britannia.
He gave a chuckle. A slightly dry one free of anything. At all. "I think I'm doing well for myself as it is." Deflect. Undermine. Gaslight. True? False? Angle it away anyways. "The realization that I'm good enough to drain those Britannian nobles is something like that, isn't it?" Suspicions or not, it was necessary, nay, mandatory to stomp that teasing down flat...
...Without pushing her away. That was the hardest part.
<Pose Tracker> Milly Ashford has posed.
Perhaps that's the thing that differentiates Lelouch from Milly, at least on this topic; *Milly* isn't sure she'll get answers that she can use out of Emilia. As far as she knows, Lelouch hasn't seen what she's mired in quite as up-close as Milly has.
... How different would things be, one wonders, if she could see behind people's masks? Perhaps a world without those masks would be kinder to Milly Ashford. ... on the other hand, perhaps it'd be impossible for her to be 'Milly Ashford' in a world without them.
Milly notices Lelouch's deflection, a bit -- but whatever it is doesn't seem to bother her that much. "I'm not *Shirley*," she teases. "I'm not going to hassle you about your little excursions as long as you show up to... *some* meetings on time. I might have to work my magic a little bit, but we've already established you're immune to *that*, too. Then again, I might have a stronger spell than Guts sooner than later, at this rate..."
Musing, she reflects, "Honestly, that's an idea; if you floated Emilia a small loan from those winnings, she might take it better than she does a gift." Back on topic. Easy. Apparently, if Milly had suspicions they're placated -- and if she didn't, well, at least she's back on topic.
<Pose Tracker> Lelouch Lamperouge has posed.
If he felt open enough to visibly sigh at this imagined trial being passed, there was an 85% chance he would do so. Right now? 0%, but the slight relaxation of his posture could pass for that all on its own. "If you need me to show up more often, I'm sure you have some favors to call in."
A shrug and a smile. "My work gets done. What am I liable for in the end, if the duties are upheld appropriately?" All back to normal, with the usual back and forth. Something good for the soul, as burdened as it was.
"Mhm." That's an idea. "If she feels she has to pay it back, it'll be better than thinking we're pitying her and doing it based off of that alone." Back on topic, back in the frame of mind. "I'll be sure the interest isn't predatory, of course."
<Pose Tracker> Milly Ashford has posed.
Milly's no slouch when it comes to noticing Lelouch's tics. She's one of the only people who can connect Lelouch to at least one of his other identities, and she's known him for almost as long as Suzaku has; she *probably* just thinks he's relieved she's not going to get after him for his extracurriculars.
Then again: that's actually pretty much just true, so maybe we give Milly credit for a solid read. Perhaps *she* ought to start gambling.
"I'd have to enforce our restrictions on part-time jobs if you became a loan shark," comes the teasing counter. "Thank you, though, Lelouch. ... I wouldn't have thought about her finances at all if we hadn't talked like this. You two are a lot alike... you might have better luck actually getting her to open up a little than I did."
<Pose Tracker> Lelouch Lamperouge has posed.
A long sigh. He might need a drink of water after that light scare. "I have no intentions of being someone that desperate." A half-truth in the best light, a lie in the worst light.
But really, it did seem like Lelouch had brightened the slightest bit over the entire talk. Sleep deprevation aside, the heavy air of worry had disappated the slightest bit. Even if that meant he had a few leads to pursue on his off-time.
"Really? You should know me by now, Milly. I don't think I'm that good at making people reveal themselves at first glance." A laugh.
<Pose Tracker> Milly Ashford has posed.
Milly laughs at that. "You're better than you give yourself credit for." She gives him a wink, finally heading back to her seat in the Student Council office. "After this I was going to press you a little about the cross-border school project, but honestly I think the only problems we have are big enough that they're my grandfather's responsibility and not mine."
She ought to ask Ms. O'Connor about a couple of those things, too, actually... either way, though, squarely an adult problem. Settling in, she says, "You're free now! ... Though if you want to help me sort through the budget for the Mecha Enthusiast Club until we get a treasurer and a few first-year at-large members, I'm not going to say no."
<Pose Tracker> Lelouch Lamperouge has posed.
The soft smile of someone who knows how bad it could be. With a shake of his head, the obvious declination of his purported boasted "completed" job duties was shown. "I don't think I'm too good at knowing which mecha is which...I'd be more a burden."
"So, good luck on that, Milly. Don't work yourself to sleep or anything like that."
And just like that, the perpetual gambler of life and death was gone from the room.