#WritingWonders 5.4 — What is your occupation? Do you like your job? Why/why not?
[This doesn't fit with the interviews I wrote last month, but it does apply to the same unwritten, possibly not to be written, AU extension of the #sff story.]
I am a Troubleshooter, best I understand it.
Rainy Days trapped me into the job. She convinced me into taking it by what, in retrospect, seems like an overly dramatic end-of-the-world scenario. When I refused at first, saying I had no real power to fix things (and was evil and had been a criminal besides), she elevated me to what she said was a "crown prince" to her as a "king," essentially a spare ruler for Home should the "immortal" ruler die. She is immortal but not invulnerable, though killing her might be impossible. I fought her. Somehow I survived. I know. After she explained the terms "crown prince" and "king"—we're both female, btw—I fell for her con.
With in days of my elevation, Rainy Days left on a mission to prevent an armistice from blowing up into renewed war over what proved to be a pile of wood and forestry rights. Experience and intuition quickly convinced me that we were open to an attack instead nearby. It's what I'd do if I were that specific enemy and I wanted to take the initiative. (I usually do.) I foresaw a slash-and-burn incursion into the ag-land around the capital, one that if executed swiftly could easily have turned into a siege. I wanted to order airships and troops into the area to prevent stupid from happening. It proved impossible in any normal way to convince the captains of the army and navy because they saw a late-teen with no experience. They saw me as a pretty devil-girl figurehead. They did not know me or my history, and didn't care to learn when I had the temerity to summon them before breakfast.
That failure left me with a ticking clock, having to connive and prevaricate through "back-channels." I even got into a fist fight to convince the master of a museum piece frigate to humor me, to do what I asked, in order to be there in time to repel the invasion I worried might happen. That I'd precipitated another completely independent incursion that got countered at the same time is another story.
In any case, that I was right didn't convince many. Rainy Days has her own problems, which I also need to fix, and isn't helping clarify. I think she looked at it as a training opportunity for me. Worse, it looks like I'm getting married because of the job—and that is another story all together. Ugh!
Do I like my job? Do you really have to ask that? All I've ever wanted is to be left alone to read my books and practice magic. Will nobody listen?
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