dressed to impress! ;; amerie, aran

Luka was definitely dressed to impressed. He wore his best suit today, black with a smart grey tie. His hair was neatly combed and gelled back, and he wore a hint of cologne. Today was the day he wouldn't be in his father's shadow, today was the day he'd be hired as the Solas overloridian's adviser! He felt rather confident, in his nice, shiny black shoes, and his neatly pressed pants. He was terrified on the inside though. If he didn't get this job his father would surely be disappointed in him, and disappointment always came with discipline.

He had his resume in his hand, free of wrinkles or ink smudges. It was as perfect as he could make it, and a cover letter to beat. He wanted, no, needed this job.

You can do this, Iris assured him, while perched on his shoulder. I believe in you!

Luka reached up and patted his daemon in thanks. Finally he reached the overloridian's home and knocked on the door. He put his best smile on and greeted the door opener. Here goes nothing!

Amerie and Aran were hanging out in Amerie's study, talking about idk something that wasn't training or overloridian stuff for once. They were waiting for the last adviser applicant of the day to show up for his interview. His name was Luka, which Amerie thought was a nice name, but Amerie was really over these interviews.

A week ago Amerie had finally gotten up the courage to dismiss Keller, the adviser that her parents had hired for her years before she even became overloridian. After the altercation with Kole, Amerie had tried to take a lot more control over the way Solas was being run, and Keller didn't seem to understand that it was Amerie who made the rules, not himself. After making yet another important decision without consulting her first, Amerie decided it was time for him to go. She felt bad, and it took a lot of courage and psyching herself up, but she knew it was the right decision. Especially since Aran agreed with her.

"Miss Amerie?" Mellan asked, peeking his head inside the door. "Mr. Snow is here to see you."

Amerie paused the conversation with Aran, her hands held high as she was mimicking whatever they were talking about. "Oh, he can come in!" she said, dropping her hands. She smiled as Mellan pushed the door open for Luka Snow. Who. Was. Beautiful.

"Hi," she said, suddenly nervous for absolutely no reason at all.

Aran looked over at the last wannabe adviser of the day and looked him up and down. He was good-looking, with a nice haircut and a fancy suit and a handful of important looking papers. He definitely looked like what one imagined when they thought of an overloridian's adviser. Not like her, she thought, thinking back to her interview with Amerie. With her borrowed button down and black jeans and nothing to hand over when Amerie asked for a resume.

What's that matter? Gamma asked. You're a bodyguard, not an adviser. Why wouldju wanna look like one?

Why does Amerie need a new adviser anyways? Aran asked grumpily. If she needs advice she should just come to me...or that Tamar lady I guess.

Well geez, A, if you wanna be an adviser so bad you shoulda told her before, Gamma said.

Don't be a dumbass, Aran thought back. I never even went to school. I can't be an adviser.

As much as Aran wasn't happy with the new adviser idea, Amerie was finally starting to make decisions on her own and Aran didn't want to change that by disagreeing with one of her first independent ideas. So she went along with it, giving her honest opinion about the hopeful clio that came in for the job. Amerie seemed impressed with this new one already.

Luka politely thanked the man who brought him to the overloridian's office, then smiled at her. He wasn't expecting the other woman to be in there, but he smiled at her nonetheless. "Hello Overloridian Lux!" He said while holding out his free hand to shake. "My name is Luka Snow!" After shaking the overloridian's hand, he shook the hand of the other woman sitting next to her.

"It's very nice to meet the both of you," he said to them, while handing Amerie his papers. "This is my resume and cover letter, I hope that you will find that I meet a lot of your qualifications!"

Very good! Iris said approvingly. Very confident!

"Luka Snow," Amerie greeted with a nod, trying her best to put on that "I Am A Professional" face she had been working on. She shook his hand, took his resume, and then sat back down behind her desk.

She gestured to the cushioned chair that sat opposite her, "Please, sit!"

She glanced at his resume as he presumably sat down. "What brings you here today, Luka?" she asked, looking up at him and smiling. He was so cute! She hoped his credentials were as nice as his smile. Because he had a nice smile. I wish he was smiling in his signature. Or shirtless. Or both.

Aran fought hard to not look as sullen as she felt, keeping her expression pretty blank. She glanced back and forth between this Luka guy and Amerie. Him all professional and courteous, her looking all awed and starstruck.

Get that look off your face, Amerie, she wanted to say, You're lookin' for an adviser, not a boyfriend.

At least she didn't look terrified for once.

Luka took the seat she motioned to, then fixed his posture. It wasn't so straight that he looked stiff, but it wasn't so lax that he came off as lazy and uncaring either. He kept eye contact with the overloridian, but he didn't stare deeply into her soul. He was bred to do this.

Amerie wrote:"What brings you here today, Luka?"

"Well," he began. "I saw the add posted in the newspaper, and immediately became interested. I've always been into politics, you'll see on my resume that I was the president of the debate club in high school, and worked beside my father, the mayor of Dahlin, as his second." He really hoped to impress the overloridian. This was a very important job, there was no room for even the slightest mistake or stutter. Everything had to be perfect.

Amerie listened to Luka as he talked a little about himself. "You worked in Dahlin?" she asked, looking away from him so she could scan his resume. She found the section about his previous work experience and read about his duties while he worked with his father.

"Did you have enjoy working with the mayor?" Amerie wondered if his dad was like hers. That would explain why he wanted a different job.

Amerie wrote:"Did you have enjoy working with the mayor?"

"I loved it!" Luka replied enthusiastically. "It was challenging, and engaging." He went on to tell her more about what his duties were as a second to his father, he paused only a few times, and briefly, but was able to quickly get back on track. It was sort of easy, talking about himself.

Aran listened to the back-and-forth conversation between Amerie and Luka. None of the stuff they were talking about really mattered to her (who the fuck cared if he was on a debate team?), but she figured it was all stuff that made sense to say if you were a rich mayor's son who wanted to be an adviser. What she cared about more was whether or not Luka was trustworthy, not whether or not he liked working for his rich dad.

"What would you do if the overloridian did somethin' you didn't agree with?" she asked him. Going behind Amerie's back was what the last guy got his ass fired for, so Aran wanted to hear this one's answer. "Ignored your advice or whatever."

Luka turned his attention on Aran and nodded, looking thoughtful. "Then I would have to respect the overloridian's decision," he replied. "Ultimately, she is the one ruling the eilemaiden." There had been plenty of times his father had made a choice that Luka hadn't agreed with, but Luka wasn't the mayor and he knew that. He always gave his father his opinion, but never argued with him if he didn't agree.

Amerie was about to respond when Aran asked Luka a question. It was a good question, too. Aran always asked the best questions, even if she hadn't asked many.

Amerie smiled at Luka's answer. "Good answer!" she said, her voice upbeat. She'd been ready for the interviews to end, but she was happy that she'd given this guy a chance to come in.

"Hmmmm..." she said, glancing down at the resume and then back up at Luka. "It says here you live in Dahlin, but you'd have to move to Solas if you were hired. Would that be a problem for you?"

Aran felt oddly annoyed that Luka had answered the question so well. He just seemed too perfect, like he was just saying what they wanted to hear. She didn't like it. Amerie seemed to, though, and moved on to a different topic before Aran could follow up.

Aran had a feeling that Amerie had already made up her mind to hire Luka. If so, she wasn't going to say anything about not liking the guy. Just as Luka himself had just said, she was the overloridian and her decision would be respected. Besides, what did Aran know about what made a good adviser? These two had been studying politics their whole lives.

Amerie wrote:"It says here you live in Dahlin, but you'd have to move to Solas if you were hired. Would that be a problem for you?"

"That would be no problem at all," Luka replied with a shake of his head. In fact, he wanted to move to Solas. Whether he got the job or not, he needed to get out of his family's home. It's not like he'd be getting a warm welcome back anyway if he failed.

Amerie smiled and nodded, looking back down at the paper. She wished she could think of some other good questions... She hadn't needed to ask many before. There hadn't been many clio that seemed qualified, so she and Aran would let the applicants go soon after they arrived.

"What... Have you ever been put in a tough situation? While you were working with the mayor? And um, how did you handle it?" Aran had asked a similar question earlier on in the day, and it had stumped the guy. Of course, the question had been asked a lot more cohesively, then. It was a good thing Amerie had asked Aran to sit in on these interviews!

Amerie wrote:"What... Have you ever been put in a tough situation? While you were working with the mayor? And um, how did you handle it?"

"That is a very good question," Luka replied. "Well, last year when the winter was at it's coldest, some of the pipes in the Dahlin plumbing system froze and cracked. All the sudden freezing cold water started to rise and make its way into the shops and apartments of all these poor clio!" He was using his hands to emphasize how crazy it was and continued, "Of course my father was sick with this terrible flu, so I had to round up all of the able bodied Dian and Ughdarras clio. We worked for hours but finally managed to fix the leak and clean up any damage done to the buildings around it." That had been such a stressful and cold day, but his father had actually told him he was proud for once.

"I remember that winter," Aran said thoughtfully, frowning at the memory. The same thing had happened with the pipes in Stonecraft, including her own apartment. Instead of fixing the pipes or anything like they had apparently done in Dahlin, they just shut off her water supply and left it at that. It wasn't that big a deal though, Aran was just glad she had a roof that winter. "It happened in Stonecraft too. Never got fixed, though."

"Oh, uh, sorry," she said, realizing she was interrupting the interview. She looked between Luka and Amerie. "Keep goin'."

Hopefully they'd be done soon. This whole interview thing was putting her in a bad mood.

Amerie had never been to Dahlin or Stonecraft, but she wished that Luka had been working in Stonecraft so that Aran's water would have been fixed. Aran hadn't told Amerie much about her past, but Amerie knew that she hadn't had an easy life. Whenever little bits came out like this, it made Amerie really sad. No one deserved what she had lived through, especially not Aran.

Maybe Luka could help Amerie make sure that that never happened in Solas.

"That's impressive," she told him honestly. He seemed to truly care about his clio, and that meant a lot to Amerie. All she wanted was to be a good leader and for the clio of Solas to be happy. That's why she needed a good adviser to help her!

"Aran, unless you have anything else, I think I'm done," she said, turning back to Aran. She would dismiss Luka, letting him know they'd send word within a week on whether or not he'd gotten the job. As long as Aran liked him, Amerie already knew she wanted to hire him, but she still needed to re-look over somethings.

"Nah, I'm good," Aran said, shrugging. She didn't think there was anything she could ask that this guy wouldn't have the "perfect" answer for, so there wasn't any reason to keep going.

Luka had listened intently when Aran talked about her situation in Stonecraft. He had actually wanted to help them, but his father had told him no, told him it wasn't in his jurisdiction. There was a good example of Luka not agreeing with his father. He mentally shook his head.

Aran wrote:"Nah, I'm good,"

"Well then," Luka replied. "If there isn't anything else I can answer for you..." He trailed off, looking at the overloridian. He didn't want to just dismiss himself, but he also wanted to make sure nothing last minute popped into her head.

"It was very nice meeting you, Luka!" Amerie said, standing and offering her hand for a final handshake. "Thank you for coming in!"

Luka probably stood up and shook her hand, and Amerie smiled at him.

"I'll send word within the week about the position," she told him as she walked around the desk to open the door for him. Mellan was waiting to lead Luka out of the estate so that Amerie could have some time to talk about the interviews with Aran.

"Thank you again, Luka."

Luka stood when Amerie dismissed him, he shook her hand and Aran's, before walking to the door with her. "It was great finally getting to meet you as well," he told the overloridian. "And you too!" He told Aran. He smiled and gave one last goodbye before walking out the door with Mellan.

I think you did swimmingly! Iris told him. I'm very proud of you!

Thank you, Iris. he said to his daemon. I'm just glad it's over.

He felt like he did well, and the overloridian seemed impressed. He wasn't sure if Aran was impressed, and he worried that maybe her decision would affect the overloridian's. She must have been some sort of assistant to Amerie, but he couldn't decide. He sighed, said goodbye to Mellan, and started heading home to Dahlin.

Amerie closed the door and turned back to Aran. She couldn't hide her smile. "What did you think about him?" she asked, with more enthusiasm than she had had for anyone else.

She came around and sat back at her desk and picking up his resume. "He's done a lot of work with Dahlin, so that's good!" Almost none of the other applicants had had any experience with politics at all.

"If you like him, that's good enough for me," Aran said simply. As much as she didn't think Amerie needed another adviser, if she wanted one, Aran wasn't gonna stop her. Especially when she looked so goddamned fucking adorably happy about it.

Aran was just gonna hafta keep an eye on this guy for a while, that was all. Make sure he was good for Amerie, wasn't gonna lie or hurt or take advantage of her like some people had. And if he did find some way to hurt her then Aran would just hafta wipe that perfect smile off his face.