A Scripta

Angel - now with the title of Frost - walked through the hallway of the Winter Southern Base, her ice armor glinting in the dim lights of the hall.  Her small entourage of two of her three brothers and their assistants followed her.  Since the Calling Forth, they began mustering whatever forces and information they needed to begin finding this man. 

She turned the corner and jerked to a stop.  All of them saluted the red-haired woman before them who smiled at them in response.

"Dusty," she said in English, "I will speak with you."

"Yes, Lady," she replied and followed the woman into a side room that looked like a human's library, with books, tables, and chairs spread about.  The woman motioned to a chair and Dusty sat.

"Who angered you now?" she demanded.

"A man who used me."

She sighed.  "We have gone through this before.  Did he pay you?  Give you things?"

Dusty blinked.  "He said he would give me money.  He gave me some, yes."

The red-haired woman folded her arms across her chest.  "When are you going to understand that when people pay you, that means you're obligated to do something.  Do you understand obligation?"

"It is when you have to do something."

"Yes.  Just as Fealty means you have to treat the other party as a son, and if you're Claimed it means you need to be protected.  You *have* to do those things, right?"

"Yes, but it is not the same."

"Of course not.  Because you have to do something for someone else because *he* told you to do it."  She turned away.  "That's what angered you.  You had a job.  It's not his fault that you screwed up."

With no emotion on her face, Dusty looked up at the woman.  "I did not 'screw up'.  I--"

"Got too close?"  The woman turned around and gave her a slight smile.  "I know how that is. I've been where you are.  You're half human, remember?"  She walked behind her desk.  "I have ordered the Calling Forth cancelled. No more shall you be allowed to muster troops until I say so.  If your brothers want to do something for you, that's fine, but we will not waste precious manpower on your petty whims."  She looked up at Dusty.  "Is that clear."

Dusty rose from the chair and saluted her.  "As you command, mother."

Her mother folded her arms across her chest, and Dusty left quietly.

"Princesses," Lady Winter spat.