Morning all and happy Monday. I hope you had a fantastic, if chilly weekend. I feel bad for the spring flowers in my yard, they are not having the best time with the yo-yo weather. But for now we are inside and ready to start the day with the morning prompt. So Timers set and lets see what comes out with today’s starter sentence.
Okay I am going to have to work with this one. No clue where it is going, but I will be spending lunch figuring it out.
Monday, March 16th: The room was comfortably appointed.
The room was comfortably appointed. It was more formal than I would have liked and the colors and styles weren’t to my taste, but I couldn’t fault them. They didn’t know me, or what I liked. ‘And they made an effort,’ I thought as the porter set my bags down. I heard hm place the trunk on the floor and then stack the other luggage on top of it. I looked around the room as Mr. Talbot tipped the porter.
I listened to the porter go as I continued to study the assigned quarters. Truthfully, I hadn’t expected them to go to even this much effort. I expected the bare minimum. A bed, a bathroom and with luck a closet or chest of drawers. The last place I was sent had a rail bolted into the wall for hanging garments and I had to keep anything I didn’t hang up in my trunk. As I specifically bought the steamer trunk because it could be used as a mobile closet and chest of drawers it wasn’t a problem.
‘And the place before didn’t have the clothing rail,’ I reminded myself. It also had a metal toilet and sink that made me oscillate between wondering if they acquired the items from a prison or some sort of decommissioned military vessel.
I had not enjoyed using the metal toilet. Prior I can’t say I thought too much about commodes and their designs but after I had a deep aversion to the metal ones.
This well-appointed space, although somewhat formally and fussy, was a far cry. It was an effort made by people who didn’t have to make an effort. My handler sent me. I couldn’t refuse. The deal was struck.
As one of those born with magic, I was given education and training. Then once my training was complete I was required to be of service to the empire. For a set time I was in what was called Service. I was given a handler. Requests for my abilities came in, my handler sorted through them and chose the ones most appropriate. It made me useful for the empire, allowed me to practice my skills in what the government found an acceptable manner, and it provided someone to make certain I knew what sorts of jobs were acceptable.
At least in theory.
My handler received fifteen percent of the fee given for the jobs I was sent to undertake. The government took ten percent leaving me with seventy-five, most of which went into my savings for the life I hoped to have once my years of Service were over. In reality, my handler chose the jobs that either paid the most or those brought to him by those who offered the most attractive kickbacks.
Not that they were called kickbacks. Incentives was the word my handler liked to use. My handler had three children all enrolled in private schools. The incentives not only got his children on the list of schools that would otherwise not have considered accepting them but made certain that he never had to write a single tuition check.
Privately I wondered what he would do when I was no longer in Service. I had less than a year left to serve and without my skills as a bargaining chip many of the schools he wanted for his children wouldn’t let them in the front door. It was thought for another time. For now there was this job.
There was something not right about this comfortable set up.
Everyone knew I had no power to refuse and there was no reason to go to the trouble of courting me. Something wasn’t right.
Ten til Midnight 