A place for everything, and everything in it's place. To all things planning is paramount, the plan is defined by a schedule, and the schedule is law. To live according to a well defined timetable was, the chamberlain was convinced, the only plausible route to success. It didn't matter if the rest of the world saw that, as long as they maintained at least a lower form of stupidity and if his employ conformed to that one tenant of intelligence.

Jess didn't know if the propensity to create order had been drilled into him as a small child or if it was a quality inextricably burned into his blood at birth. What he did know was that it was that something had hardwired the unwritten code into his mind, and so far the system had served him rather well. He had a Plan, you see, and The Plan never failed. Ever.

Achieve high standing at a credible academic institution by the age of eighteen - done. Attain public office by the age of nineteen - done. Gain a position of political power by age twenty-five - done, and early at that. His mind silently and methodically rambled through an invisible checklist that had been devised in furtive imaginings years ago, mechanically fulfilling seemingly insignificant objectives.

Most people's daydreams were filled with love and drama and other unproductive things. Moronic slackers .

To fulfill The Plan he had been forced to do things beyond what his gradeschool dreaming had envisioned. Blackmail, politics, and a subtle form of acting had taken more prominent positions - but The Plan nevertheless remained infallible. For the secret to success, the chamberlain had discovered long ago, was to pay attention to the tiny insignificant nuts and bolts that were minor everyday details. If you did those ordinarily unimportant parts would form the perfect, unstoppable engine that could smash through any obstacle imaginable. It was, he supposed, what kept him from becoming as idle as most politicians - those who awaited that one incredible opportunity at the end of the rainbow which would catapult them to fame and power.

Jess' tiny events were controlled by the schedule. The schedule, in turn, was contained in The Book. It was an innocuous green leather-bound volume, hardly what one would imagine to be the crux of a man's entire world. The man, realizing his dependance, preferred to think that it separated him from the drooling throngs also known as the public.

Jess had, with uncharacteristic absentmindedness, left The Book at the office the day before.

A place for everything, and everything in it's place. Screw that.

Maddy had heard her rat-bastard of a boss throw the saying at her couple of times and she swore that the man breathed the goddamn words. What a load of crap. Did he actually think that she would lose important government documents!?! She was too good for that, and as long as her work retained it's level of superioity it was none of his goddamn buisness. Just because her system of organization didn't conform to his bloody ridiculous standards of order didn't mean she haphazardly threw everything into a big pile until she found what she was looking for.

Okay, so maybe she did, but that wasn't the point. The point was that she was *right*, dammit! So what if Jessie-boy's meticulously cleaned hardwood floor was currently obscured by what could possibly once have resembled stacks of paper? Maddy knew where everything was. Approximately. Sort of. Maybe. Or not.

But that wasn't important, what was important was the monotonous ticking of that goddamn brass clock. Her deadline was first thing in the morning, and she couldn't find the file on tomato consumption. How the hell had she landed herself a job in which life or death was dependent on statistics about *tomato consumption * !?! It had to be somewhere, she was better than this, where the bloody frickin? hell had the man put it!

Frustrated, flushed, and with a murderous look that certain civil servants had grown clandestinely terrified of, Maddy proceeded to rifle through the filing cabinets. Boxes were overturned, papers were randomly stacked wherever there was space, and in a barely restrained rage at her annoyance the clerk turned into what could only be described as a human tornado.

Three-hundred mind-numbing ticks of the omnipresent timepiece later, Lord Jess of Muse unlocked his office door and Madeleine Rousseau let out an annoyed growl at her fruitless search.

When he walked into his office in the morning, Jess expected two things. He expected some orderly to have left him coffee ? although he sincerely doubted that the one who was assigned the chore completed it - and he expected it to be as perfect as he had left it. What he did not anticipate was that Rousseau woman. She seemed to be pawing through a mass of paperwork that really should be filed. Filed? nothing was filed? nothing was in the filing cabinets. Why was there nothing in the filing cabinets? There should be things in the filing cabinets. Things were *always* in the filing cabinets. And where was The Book? The Book, what had she done to The Book!?!

"Wh - where..." Jess stuttered.

"What's your problem, Jess?" his equally neurotic counterpart returned somewhat breathlessly.

It too a few seconds frozen in a state of shock before Jess stiffly relieved his desk of a green notebook which disturbed it's chaotically pristine white covering. The Book was okay. Everything would be okay. Everything would be filed.

Breath in.

Breath out.

The Book was there. The Book was fine.

"What the hell are you talking about? And where did you put that goddamn tomato file?"

The chamberlain resolved that he would not show weakness before that woman as he settled back into his newly acquired chair. Leaning back, Jess smiled with an air of practiced smugness and he proceeded to look Maddy straight in the eyes.

"You put it somewhere on that heap you call a desk two days ago. My report?"

Lord Jess of Muse hadn't fought tooth and claw for the veritable rule of the city of Muse in order to let his personal assistant cow him. Preparing for the worst excuse for an analysis he had ever heard, he clutched his evergreen leather security blanket with a genuine grin.

This...was an interesting turn of events. Maddy had been sure she?d have a nice, stress-relieving shouting match with Jessie-boy. Instead he was staring at her rather oddly. Trying to gain the upper ground, eh? He?d probably stolen the file from her desk in order to ruin her report and dig up some lame excuse to fire her. But Maddy could play head games just as well as that rat-bastard could. She?d ignore the slight mess he should have overreacted to and give the best goddamn report he'd ever hear.

It would be blatantly obvious even to him that if a prolonged siege occurred they would all starve to death. Her research was, of course, flawless.

Four hours later, Lord Jess and his equally neurotic assistant were hunched over a large tome of figures. Miraculously, they were calmly and rationally discussing the rather important matter of the survival of the largest city in Jowston.

"So if we reroute the wheat supplies to.."

"That won't work. We could charge a head tax for road usage and up our shipments from Coronet, though."

"You realize that eventually they'll realize we're draining them of their own supplies?"

"But if they're so mortally stupid they don't know a coming war when it bites them in the ass?"

"..then they deserve it."

"Exactly."

When the orderly reached the room he was more than a little surprised. Staring at the two oblivious strategists, Wallace gaped at the utter strangeness of the scene. There was no screaming, there was no shouting, and there was a huge mess? Lord Jess should be throwing a hissy-fit right about now.

Wallace was officially freaked out.

"Storage is a bitch, though."

"We may have to buy a couple of water runes and..."

He knew that they were out to get him, he just knew it. The eerie silence that had permeated the office should have been as warning to him that something was terribly, terribly wrong. When they had told him that he wasn?t to go in with bad news, he had thought that everything would be allright, but now....

" Do *you* want to be the one to tell lumberjack-woman that we?ll be spending taxpayer money on runes?"

"Would you stop calling her lumberjack-woman!?!"

"It's not my fault she looks like she hopped the last logging truck from Forest Village? that or playing the heroine in 'Romeo and Ethyl the Pirate's Daughter'?"

"That was very unprofessional, Rousseau. She *does not*...."

"Don't you *dare* call me unprofessional! I'll have you know that..."

It looked like he'd jinxed whatever had been going on, and the orderly wasn't sure wither he should be relieved or not.Timidly stepping foreward, Wallace ventured to interrupt the murky waters of their cryptic conversation. "Ummm... sir? Ma'am?"

Mousy brown and overly-styled black hair whipped upward simultaneously, the owner of the latter being the first to respond to the young worker's query.

"What the hell do you want!?!"

Concentrate, Wallace; you can do this. Just get in and get out. If only they'd just stop *looking* at him..

"Ummm, it's time for your public announcement Lord Jess sir?"

His employer looked down at a funny little notebook he was carrying with consternation, "damn, I should have checked."

Lord Jess Stanton rose from his sitting position while brushing his hair away from pale eyes, his odd yellow pants uncharacteristically wrinkled. "Finish outlining what we spoke of for me, we'll go over it once the conference is over. And Ms. Rousseau? Clean this mess up or you're fired."

She didn't seem very disturbed by that.

"But how can I be punished for the work of a random gust of wind?" she relied with a stream of verbal saccharine.

Lord Jess, in turn, rolled his eyes, "Whatever. Just clean it."

Ms. Rousseau grinned and replied with an exaggerated roll of her own iron irises, "Whatever."

With that, Lord Jess breezed out of the room with a pained expression. His boss looked like he was about to blow a gasket... it was a good thing Wallace was leaving. Now he could just walk back to his desk. Maybe Janet and her cronies in accounting weren't trying to ruin his life, maybe it was just a series of unfortunate coincidences!

"Where the hell do you think you're going?!"

Oh shit.

"Back to work Ma'am?" he turned slowly back to the tiny pitbull of a woman, speaking in the same stilted manner as he used with Lord Jess himself.

"WRONG!" she stalked up to the him, faintly growling. "You're going to clean this up by the time 'Lord Jess' gets back you spineless lackey!"

He'd been wrong. They were definately out to get him.

"But Ma'am, I have to finish collating those carriage driver-training manuals or Lord Jess will?"

"I'm sorry," she spat, "you must have mistaken me for someone who cares! Now MOVE! I have real work to do."

Taken aback, he bent down to begin organizing half the paperwork in Muse while she stormed out of the room. First that chair thing... he'd actually had to break into the library... and now this....

He had been careless, the announcement was in The Book and had become a rather nice addition to his collection of good deeds. Jess was sure that it had been that damned woman... the sheer mental effort of not arguing with her had taxed him to the limits. At the moment, that was something he simply couldn't afford; he had to focus on the situation at hand...

Practically hugging his daytimer, Jess afforded himself the time to clear his mind on the way to the appointment.

Who'd have ever thought that insane cultists, enemy generals, and escaped criminals could be so useful? The samurai - Geenpu or Genshaw or whatever his name was - might be angered by this... but despite his physical prowess he didn't have a snowball's chance in a Tinto forge of touching Jess.

Mounting the familiar wooden platform within the main hall, Jess could feel the eyes of the public on him. Concerned parents clutching their remaining brats, reporters, and people of rank anxious to appear disturbed by the incidents blended into a mass of color that fixated on his face. This was what it was all about.

Jess gave the routine motions to various aides and then began an impromptu speech.

"People of Muse," he cried, voice accustomed to taking advantage of the large room's acoustics. It was time to put down the meaningless babble that accompanied any crowd.

"People of Muse, I recognize your concern and am pleased to announce that I have initiated an operation to purge our fair city of the detestable criminals who would steal her children."

The hubbub immediately resumed. He would have to nip that in the bud...

"As I was saying, Muse shall soon be rid of her cancer. I have hired and dispatched a famed samurai from Harmonia and a former Toran general who are sure to destroy their nest of evil once and for all! I heard your cries for help, and in the absence of Lady Anabelle due to pressing interstate concerns I felt it my duty to remedy this situation."

With a dramatic sweep of his arms, the chamberlain gained a vengeful air, "Acts of this nature will not be tolerated in Muse as long as I have control here!" Having made his point while deftly avoiding the usage of the title "assistant mayor", Jess' performance was cmoplete. All that was left was to remain in his melodramatic position and let their applause float on upwards. It was all going according to plan; the relieved weeping of a victim's parents was a priceless commodity in his business.

True heroes often fail to realize that image is a far more effective tool than reality.

The office, perfectly organized once more, was waiting for the chamberlain upon his return. So was the veritable china shop of paper's designated bull.

"Finished feeding that save the children bullshit to your 'adoring public' ?" came a query punctuated with a raised eyebrow.

"Yes, actually. Unlike yourself, Ms. Rousseau, I know better than to annoy the people keeping me in power."

"And unlike you, Jess, I know how to get away with saying whatever the hell I want."

"You're supposed to call me *Lord* Jess," the chamberlain grated.

"Yeah," the thorn in his side agreed, "so what are you going to do about it?".

Rousseau was sitting on his desk. Why couldn?t the moronic slacker woman use the chair like any normal person would? But then again, most normal people *were* moronic slackers?

Wearily ... it seemed like sleep deprivation had become his religion lately ... Jess slumped down beside her on his illicitly acquired chair. "Well?"

"With the seafood stocks we might have a chance? that?s with an emphasis on the might though."

"Good. Buy up everything you can without making a noticeable dent in the budget and rent out a warehouse on the east side for it. We can't be too careful."

"Lumberjack-woman won't be happy about this."

" *Lady Anabelle* doesn't have to worry about what she has no knowlege of."

"Ooooh, is Jessie keeping secrets from his lover-girl? Why aren?t you the little knight in shining blazer?.," the infuriating creature half-purred, looking down at him. What was she talking about?

"What are you talking about?"

"Oh come on, most people may be too dense to know it but I've seen the way you look at her," she said, languidly swinging her black nylon clad legs.

"Then you're not as good as you claim to be," he gruffly shot back. He wasn't in love, he *couldn't* be in love... it was just a passing infatuation that he was being entirely too obvious about.

"Whatever," she laughed, "So what's in this for me?"

"Power. Information is valuable, we both know that. And if I gain power, you gain power... you'd like to have my job some day, wouldn't you?" Jess asked, equilibrium regained.

"But of course, Jess! But then I could just betray you to the pirate wannabe?"

The chamberlain gave her an exasperated look, "Do you honestly think that she can unite the Jowston states? And if she fails, whom do you think the people of Muse will turn to? The mythical woman who hasn't appeared in public or made any policy concerning them without it being 'creatively filtered' through me? I practically run this city while she conducts her diplomatic business, and I think I concern myself with placating that horde of morons far more than she does."

^^ But I don't want to hurt her, and I don't completely mean that. Can I really take that all away from the woman I.... admire? ^^

"I know that! Do you think I'm some kind of idiot or something!?!" Maddy exclaimed with the usual agitation. In his current state, Jess decided not to make the obvious retort.

^^Definitely necessary. If only... but that's impossible^^

"Good. Now..."

A knocking on the door interrupted them both, and a lanky man hurriedly entered the office without bothering to wait for a reply. He questioningly glanced at the woman perched on his superior's oaken center of command.

"It's fine. She'd find out anyway," Jess responded to words unsaid, placing his head in his hands. He'd resigned himself days ago to the inevitability of her finding out pretty much everything that went on in the office when she approached him about that tax debacle.

"Yessir. Jus' got back from Toto sir. Whole city is in ashes," remarked the spy.

For once, the two civil servants were speechless. Even that, however, could only last for a moment.

"Who?" Jess deadpanned.

"Ruka Bright, sir. Don't know much though, sir?"

"Damn. Start making the preparations we outlined Rousseau. And don't let the .... 'lumberjack' know about this until I say so."

"Whatever, Jess. Same reason as before? Maybe you're just trying to play the chivalrous heeeeero," the feminine rat crooned sweetly.

"Get out," came a fatigued command, " get out now."

"Bastard...." she mumbled, exiting the room she liked to think of as already hers.

"Lawrence, I want you and Danae in Highland ASAP."

"Yessir!" his personal agent saluted, taking his leave of the lord.

Left finally to his own devices, Jess was at the mercy of his own devious thoughts. It was war, and yet this perfect opportinity was intoxicating enough to lure him away from thoughts of death.

Casually, he studied the green book. The day's events called for an accelerated gameplan, and he would have to buy a new one. Things were already beginning to take form in the chamberlain's overactive mind; this new gambit was was so bright, so clear, so perfect. His current engine of tiny matters was so near completion, and that engine once started could not be stopped...

*Anabelle...?*

*Can I really do that to Anabelle....?*

Not even by the copper-haired dream that was the Lady of Muse.