6 Ash 121
Registration Office, West End, Zaichaer
“Miss Quill, I understand that you wish have an item you wish to have considered for registration?” The man said brusquely from behind his desk while Vanessa sat casually across from him. The office they occupied was drab and sparsely decorated, befitting a pencil pusher. On the wall there was a clock that ticked away loudly. Tick, tick, tick. Its consistent insistence on being noticed made Vanessa want nothing more than to smash the damned thing.
The man was a representative from the College of Minders, and he was one of many that tended the bureaucratic side of Zaichaer's oppression. He had dark hair, and green eyes that held a false kindness that Vanessa saw straight through. This was a man that was used to being respected at every interaction, and Vanessa offered him no such treatment when she had strode in for her appointment.
She had been late, which had been the first thing to irritate him. She had not greeted him, nor had she so much at glanced at the nameplate he kept prominently displayed on his desk. Then Vanessa had the gall to retrieve a knife from her boot and use it to clean the dirt from under her nails while he stared at her with derision and expected her to try and lead the conversation.
The magical item in question was in a box that Vanessa held in her lap collecting flecks of dirt from her nail cleaning. When the Minder mentioned it, Vanessa placed the box on his desk. She leaned back in her chair then, and nodded her head towards it. That was all the introduction she felt it warranted. He had a pair of working eyes, after all. No sense wasting breath on something he already knew.
The Minder's anger flared, and Vanessa kept a satisfied grin off her face when she saw a vein bulging out across his temple. “And what precisely is it?” he asked, his sharp tone falling on uncaring ears.
“Cloak of flying.” Vanessa told him.
Even that answer managed to irk him. He was used to people pleading their cases before him that someone simply telling him what she had brought before him felt so patently rude. Though at this point Vanessa had decided there was hardly a thing she could have done to avoid irritating him. While there was no use in trying to mend a burned bridge, the bodyguard at least found that fanning the flames could be entertaining.
“I see.” The thin man said as he examined the box. It was wooden and well crafted, but otherwise plain. He ran his hand over the top of it, and finally opened it on its hinge.
Inside was a simple black cloak meant to be worn over the shoulders with a clasp to keep it secured. The Minder was careful with the cloak as he removed it from the box and laid it out across his desk. Then he reached over into his drawer and took out a jeweler's loupe that had been fitted with aura glass. He held it up to his eye, and brought his face close to the garment.
He was examining the magical pathways that had been woven into it, and occasionally lifted his head and referenced a series of reference cards he had on the opposite side of his desk. Each and every magical item had its own signature, and he was doing his part to ensure that this item was solely a cloak of flying as she claimed.
This was also where most registrations stopped. Even minor inconsistencies between the item in question and its 'expected' aura were deemed unsatisfactory for registration and confiscated. The already angered Minder was downright infuriated to find that her cloak matched its expected aura signature completely. With a sigh, he set the aura glass down, pinched the bridge of his nose and closed his eyes.
“This is of acceptable quality for a magical item of this class.” he said with unveiled frustration. “There are still a few questions we must answer before we can finalize your registration of the cloak.”
And with that, the minder was able to return in kind the irritation Vanessa had impressed upon him. He cracked a smile as he took out a multi page form filled with dozens upon dozens of questions that needed answers. The bodyguard deflated at the sight of it. Her one weakness, legislative red tape!
He took the usual suspects first, her name, her address, family members. Vanessa had half a mind to lie, but she had been advised against it by Franz. She was an honest citizen now, and if the Order wanted her address they could have found it whether or not she had falsified it now. He was right, but that did not make it easier. She felt a shred of safety stripped away as she rattled off her personal information and the minder dutifully scribbled it down in their records.
That was the point, of course. Anything she told the college was, at best, surface level. That did not matter, what mattered was that they had to exchange their safety to be trusted with a magical item. This alone was a good enough deterrent for most common folk to have not bothered. Nobles of course would not have cared to have given up such information, as it was public record anyhow.
Such a small way to keep people oppressed, so small that the Minder himself did not see it that way. He was doing his job, and in fact thought he was doing Vanessa a great service by not dismissing her at once for having been late. That was how these things went, though. A thousand little inconveniences that no one individual could have been responsible for, but each one building upon the last.
After the personal questions came ones that had any merit at all. The Minder flipped the form over and then looked back up to Vanessa with his pen at the ready.
“What do you intend to use this magical item for?” He asked. His irritation had gone now, replaced with a wry smile as he wasted Vanessa's time.
Vanessa had suffered the tedium badly, fidgeting in her seat, fussing with the clasps on her sleeves, and doing little to hide how stir crazy she had gotten. So many damned questions! Her frustration was palpable as she stewed in the chair, and she slumped back so deeply in her chair that her head was barely above the desk.
“Business.” She replied.
“And what sort of business is that?” the Minder said, pen scribbling away.
“I'm a bodyguard. Should I spell out precisely how that might help me protect someone that is in danger?”
The Minder's grin widened, his answer coming to him in an instant. He had been expecting this, and clearly thought his retort would serve as a reminder for Vanessa to mind herself. “Would you please explain further? I merely want the record to be thorough.”
She glared at him, and pushed herself up in her chair. She leaned forward now, placing her hands on the table and getting dangerously close to the Minder. When he tried to lean back, Vanessa brought herself in nearer so that she could maintain the distance between them. She was so close now that he could smell the alcohol on her breath, and at once he felt rueful that he had chosen to prod her.
“Let's say a rogue witch tries to attack House Michaelis. Do I sit on my ass and wait for a Reconciliator to solve the problem?” She did not wait for him to respond before continuing on, temper rising. “No, I grab the Lords and Ladies and get them to safety. Being able to fly makes my job easier. Couldn't be more simple.” She sat back down in her chair, but still she radiated a thorny disposition.
The Minder had been stunned into silence after she had mentioned one of the noble houses. His hand trembled momentarily, before he swiftly began to write. He filled in not only that question, but did the honors of answering the rest of the questionnaire as well, no longer requesting Vanessa's input and merely inferring the answers. “Of course. My apologies! Just procedure, you understand.” He said, voice so suddenly meek.
The Minder did not want the patriarch of House Michaelis to learn he had harassed one of his employees. While the Defense Corps and the Order of Reconciliation were distinct entities, there was no doubt that General Franz could have ruined this man's livelihood if he had shaken the correct tree. The fact that Lord Franz never would have thought to stick his neck out like that for Vanessa did not matter.
Once the registration was finished, the Minder stepped out of the room for a few minutes and returned with multiple copies of her newly issued license. He handed them over quickly, dropping a few in the process and scrambling to recover them.
“Thank you so much for your patience, Miss Quill.” he said, trying to save face.
“Don't go thankin' me for something I don't have enough of.” Vanessa replied, tucking the licenses away and leaving the office.
She made for the airfield once she was outside, and slipped her cloak on underneath her full length jacket. She would need to find a better way to integrate the cloak into her attire, but for now this would work.
When she made it to Grand Central Station, Vanessa slipped through the crowds and up towards the airship docks. The larger airships stayed high aloft when at port, delivering their cargo via a lift in the center of the circular tower. Vanessa rode one of the cargo lifts back up the hundreds of feet to the docks themselves.
There were four main docks stretching out in the cardinal directions. They jutted out in straight lines from the main body of the tower, and Vanessa turned herself to the empty eastward
Then she ran full tilt. Vanessa's boots thudded on the ground, her jacket billowed behind her, and men shouted at her as she passed. Vanessa did not hear them, instead paying heed to only the roaring of wind in her ears and the need in her own heart. She reached the end of the wooden pier, and fearlessly kicked herself off.
And flew.