When a knock came at the door, Jeri ground her teeth, grip tightening on her pencil until it made the telltale crackles of being ready to snap. She forced herself to release it, taking a deep breath and glancing at the crest of the Sweeper Quarter on the wall to remind herself that a duty of her post was being pleasant and courteous to whatever moron decided to show up and waste her time.
"Come in," she called in her best ready-to-serve-the-kingdom voice.
The office door swung into one of the four filing cabinets, disturbing loose papers from the top. The visitor took one out of the air with his right hand, then bent for another and put them back, ignoring several others. Many visitors to this office were immigrants to the kingdom, it was by serving as sweeper that the gates opened and one could claim a space in the city. The man who stopped before her desk clearly came from afield; a Waren was easy to spot after all the years she'd been married to one. It wasn't physical appearance, really, as much as bearing they had, the way a son of that famed island carried himself, knowing what he did about the contents of others' minds. Jeri faced a fair number of arrogant ones in her years rising to the top office, but usually her assistants were better at screening. Perhaps they didn't know what to do with this one because he was daft.
'Did you come in here just to stare at me? What the fuck do you want?' Jeri wanted to ask, but of course she couldn't do that. "How can I help you?" she asked instead, using the kingdom's salute and a tone of voice designed to make him think she might care.
"I don't really know. Nobody out there can help me, and they didn't look super happy to try," he said, his voice too deep to be so whiny. "Every time I tried to explain they got markedly less happy. They all wanted to go home, I think, it being so late. Aren't you going to go home?"
'That didn't answer my question, you jabbering imbecile,' Jeri wanted to say, but swallowed the words with a diplomatic smile. "What's the problem?"
"I guess I'm getting kicked out of my apartment?" the Waren said with a shrug. "Is that a thing you do here? You give people apartments, then you just take them away?"
Jeri wasn't sure if he was joking. "Do you have a work permit?"
"No."
"Were you issued a work permit?"
"Yeah."
Jeri waited a moment to see if he would venture to elaborate, but the big ninny was looking around her cluttered office like he'd just been let out of a cave for the first time. "What happened to it?"
"He took it away when he kicked me out of my place."
Her teeth were grinding as she forced her diplomatic smile. "Who is 'he'?"
"I don't know his name, but he said he was my 'boss'."
Jeri flexed her fingers as an alternative to scowling; it was a tradition of the kingdom for officials to wear their name and position in makeup on the top half of their face. One house head, whose design was far more elaborate than Jeri's and his name quite clear, had already contacted her about the situation. "He's a house head of the Sweeper Quarter. He took your space away because you didn't go to work."
"What do you mean, working for food and shelter? Don't you have Traveler's Courtesy here?"
Jeri continued to smile until her eye twitched, familiar with such arguments. As should her secretaries be, so she could be spared hearing them again. "Traveler's Courtesy is meant to go both ways. As you don't seem to be traveling right now, if you plan to stay the winter..."
"You'd, what, kick me out onto the cold plain to freeze solid? I thought this kingdom didn't condemn people to death."
Rolling her eyes was out of the question, of course, but preventing it was a struggle. "Ejection isn't a death penalty no matter what time of year it's done," Jeri said. "Your job is two hours of sweeping halls and one picking up trash in the courtyard, six days out of seven. It's the price a visitor pays for food and lodging over the winter, and it's a fair price for any able-bodied resident. Is there some reason you feel yourself incapable of such simple tasks?"
"I can't do things I don't want to do," he said with a hopeless sigh. "It's just too hard to motivate myself."
'Are you five or actually retarded?' were the words that popped into Jeri's head, but she didn't even want to say that. The mentally impaired of the kingdom, many of whom were quite hard workers, didn't deserve such insulting comparisons. "Fear of freezing solid on the cold plain isn't motivation enough for you? That's your choice."
"It's more that such tasks are below my capability. I need a sort of challenge, so I can be interested."
'You arrogant twit,' Jeri wanted to say very badly as she continued to smile, 'I'd thought you'd find it intellectually challenging to stand and breathe at once.' Eager to look at anything other than his stupid face, she found the work permit on her desk, and the notes on it. "So you're Evan, is that right?"
"Yup."
"It says here that you reported for a single shift in almost three weeks. You were given several warnings."
"I told you, I need work that's more engaging."
"We have many more challenging positions in the Sweeper Quarter, but if you find it too difficult to even arrive for your shifts..."
"I'm not suited to that kind of work, but I want to give something back to the kingdom." He smiled at her, and she would be lying not to admit that the young man was handsome, but for his level of arrogance he should have shone like the sun. "My talents lie in other areas, and I believe you could really use my help."
"You have a valuable service?" she asked, and a smug nod was the only answer.
"Are you a doctor?"
"Do you need a doctor?"
"The kingdom is always open to doctors..."
Evan shook his head. "I can help the kingdom by helping you, personally."
"Speak plainly, if you don't mind," Jeri said. Her husband taught her years ago to put out a 'don't even think about it' vibe, as he called it. She'd been pushing the vibe hard, but she relaxed her effort, curious about what the cad would say. She made her voice bright and pleasant by forcing herself to smile wider. "What talent would you use on me, personally?"
"Well, let me put it this way, what's your job here?"
"I asked you to speak plainly. You're trying to obfuscate what should be clear, in attempt to escape your duty to the kingdom."
"So your job is being super uptight? That seems like it would be exhausting."
'Dealing with little dipshits like you who think they can skirt the rules with a fast mouth is what makes me uptight!' Jeri wanted to say, throwing something at his smug face to drive the point in, but of course she didn't. "It can be a challenge. What talents do you have that you think might relieve my tension?"
"Let's start with making you say aloud a few of the things you think you can't."
Jeri was taken momentarily aback, expecting something rather different. A stereotype of the Waren more prominent than their psychic abilities, which they generally tried to downplay, was their solution to every problem being a good lay. "I was under the impression that bringing up people's thoughts to them was considered rude."
"It depends on the situation, but you're right that admitting I can hear it when you stare right at me and call me a dipshit isn't usually done."
Jeri could not be judged on thoughts, that was the edict of the Waren as far as she'd ever heard. She could not be held responsible for anything she didn't carry into action, yet she was flustered to have her lack of decorum pointed out to her whether she said it or not.
"Hey, it's not that I mind," Evan assured her with a smile. "I am a dipshit. Look at me, annoying an important lady who only wants me to roll out of here with my head stuffed into my own asshole, hoping you'll give me a favor just to get rid of me. That's pretty stupid from what I can tell about you."
Jeri took a moment to consider whether agreeing with insults to one's own self be considered insulting the one, concluded it was, yet she said, "I agree."
The man's smile grew. "You must really resent me, jabbering away like a simpleton, wasting your time. You must want to yell at me to get out of here."
