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Of course you know that before I went camping, Duck's lawacore came by for a visit, right after he told me that he was going off to visit her home over Thanksgiving, hoped I would have a good time while everyone was gone. Sure. All I wanted to do was go to my room and get it together before my last class. As I got close I could tell someone had entered and when I opened the door, there sitting on my bed was a lawacore, the tall skinny bleached out blond one. She had a bodyguard with her. I can make one out from three leagues away. All good assassins always spot the bodyguards. He was magical, some paladin type (Ducks said this country has something they call the "Secret Service" though everyone knows about it -- what kind of secret is that? -- that provides bodyguards for the government. Ever since her Dad began to run for president, she has had this guy with her. I'm not sure about the details, but these guys have the Greeks beat. Even in the middle of getting ready for a war, they get ready to change the entire government every four years. Her dad is getting ready to challenge the one they call the little bush. Getting ready, well, he actually is challenging the little bush (where do they get these names?  Who would call the nation's leader and hero the junior or little bush? I'm supposed to learn more about the entire thing next semester). Anyway, they were in my room, waiting for me when I dropped by to rest a little and study between classes. I'm not fond of people in my space, though back home "my space" was just the small area on the marble flooring that was mine for sleeping. Here I'd started to think of my room as private -- I even lock it. Of course I knew something was up before I opened the door. I just figured her dad being a politician she was going to try to hire me. Sure enough, she started by telling me that she was serious. The bodyguard was caught between trying to look like he was serious and trying to look like he wasn't there. I noticed that he took a hard look at the glyph on my collar. When we had met, briefly when I was saying hello to Ducks, the glyph had been just an enamel pin. This one is Iridium over Starsilver, inlaid into a flattened sapphire that is about 5/8ths of an inch across. I cut the lawacore off. "I'm blue lodge, we don't do commission work." She kind of sputtered and I just looked at her. Then she launched into something about how Ducks was her boyfriend and I'd better keep my distance. Oh, I'd read her wrong, this wasn't the kind of political stuff I'd learned to brush off since I was even younger than I am now. But I wasn't happy, it would have been bad enough to violate my private space for business, but for this tripe .... so I said "Or what?" Her "or else" response wasn't called for, especially the word she called me to go with it. I am not a female dog. I don't think I look like one. The room flashed green, just a warning. No one steps into my space and threatens me, not like this. Look, Ducks can date a real manticore for all I care (ok, I care a lot), but if it wants to come into my place and tell me things like that to my face, I'm not sitting still for it. I hadn't moved, so the "secret" guy didn't, but he could recognize the green aura and knew what it meant, especially as strong as it was in the room. You could see things click, somehow he put the green together with the glyph and he used some sort of magic, asking for his back to be up. "I need back-up" -- heck, asking for a little spine, just what you need in a bodyguard. I'd had more rhetoric than this twit had, for all law school is supposed to teach them rhetoric. Before she knew it we were into a discussion of how she had come to know dogs so well and what her mother was like. She got so turned around that she called her own mother a hetari. Then she got red and tried to slap me. I was five feet away in an eye blink. The room isn't large, but she was in her bodyguard's lap  (and he was sitting without realizing how he'd ended up sitting down in a chair) and they were at the far end of it from me. Just then the police came in. Boy, I was impressed. Ducks kept telling me that the reason things were so safe was that the police were honest and fast. As soon as they burst in I caught the eye of the one in the lead and before anything else got said, told him "arrest these people for breaking into my room." Since they didn't seem to be moving like I wanted, I spoke a little louder and a lot more firmly "I'm entitled to your help, they've breached the king's peace." "Idiots, just like Ducks" is what I was thinking. What I meant was that they had broken the law and I wanted them out of my room. So I didn't get the words right. I keep forgetting they have presidents and such and they don't have priest-kings like I'm familiar with. I guess it was also true that they had breached the Bitter King's peace by attacking me in my place since I was a member of his household. Which is how the bodyguard, the not-so-secret-server-guy, that is how he took it. He used a word that would have made me wish to wash my mouth out with sand and soap and they all looked to him. "She has diplomatic privileges" he said, and the whole room went a little still. Then he was talking to his charm again "We have a situation here" and facing me "Ma'am, what can we do to make this up to you." "Make this up" to me?  All I wanted was for the king's men (ok, the policemen, you know, the city watch types) to throw the lawacore out of my room, and her bodyguard with her, before he lost a charge. Wouldn't be too good for him, secret or not. I didn't know what to say. Couldn't these people just leave me alone? I just started crying, and the red bull wrapped around me. I just wanted to be left alone. Couldn't they just let me have a little time to myself. Ducks had promised me some time this weekend, so I wouldn't have to spend the holiday alone, then he is suddenly going with a group of law students for a study weekend, then they are all going to this lawacore's house (sure, he is taking a crowd with him, but she is in my room telling me that it is exactly like Kore and Hadeas and I'd better just butt out). I guess I said something "Can't you people just leave me alone" kind of slipped out and Mr. Not-So-Secret looked ashamed. "Get her out of here" he said, putting the lawacore arm-in-arm with one of the police officer types and they pulled her out of the door, forming a box around her, almost as if they were extra bodyguards for her. "I'm so sorry" he said to me. Then he stood there and a true peace aura started to slowly leak out from him. Slow enough to let me recognize it and decide whether to accept it. We just stood for a while. The aura let me read him and he was a pretty good guy. I decided to block it from reading me (a girl has to keep her secrets, especially from bodyguard types), but it could pick up the surface. When I was feeling better, he just kind of faded out the door. Later, my godfather had some words with her father. Elves vote, even if they are "other persons" in the Constitution (hey, I remembered something from my classes). Well, some elves vote, often in factions. But that is another story for another day.