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The soft scraping sounds that could be heard in Lady Rosalinda’s room ceased when a polite knock came at her door, alerting her that the day’s business was about to begin.

Rose was of the mind that Sylveon’s uncharacteristically polite knocking (which contrasted significantly with the treatment of those on the floors bellow) was as much down to the fact she knew the fairy pokemon was confident she had already ingrained her preferred wake-up time in people by the time they worked their way up at the top as it was respect for those who got there. Rose was, after all, already awake when the guild's eveelution based alarm clock went off.

She daintily set down the little stone she had been holding in her mouth and then she called back [color=ff007f]“Thank you for the wake up call dear, I’ll be with you in just a moment”[/color] to the mon, before setting about actually getting up. Just because you were awake, didn't mean you couldn't use those few minutes saved by being Sylvion’s last port of call, and being exactly opposite your destination rather having to slog up the stairs to get there, to get a bit of relaxation in.

Rose being Rose however, meant that that relaxation had involved tending to her blade. The sword was set up in front of her on a pair of wooden stands she’d whittled herself and she’d been using a whetstone, held in her mouth, to carefully sharpen its edge so that it, like she, would be ready to face the day. Preferably without cutting her face in the process ,which had happened far too many times to count when she had started out.

Now however, she knew exactly what she was doing as she lifted a hoof and struck down, her glancing blow flicking the whetstone into the air before catching it in her mouth. Then she leaned her long neck over to her saddle bags and sorted it away in there along with the other small number of permanent fixtures that she always had in her bags. The most important of those always at hoof items she picked up next, grasping her sword’s hilt in her maw and then standing up from her bed of straw (augmented by a lovely long pillow she had received as a gift in place of payment one time). After shaking a few stray strands off of herself she used a dexterous bit of mouth work to angle the blade downwards and sunk it into a sheath held by her bags.

Finally, two quick sets of kicks flicked the sword stand pieces up onto a shelf (up into the air, caught and then balanced on a raised hoof before being flicked on-wards again to their destination). With everything set neatly away she trotted over to her bags, slipped her neck in between the straps and then shimmied them along her long neck and then down into place on her back, before securing them with a pull and quick knot of a strap.

Some might see the donning of this gear as a bit of overkill for traveling a few meters across a hall to a daily briefing, especially the sword, but the Lady wouldn't be caught dead without wearing her weapon at her side. There were two parts to this, that rested atop a core of sentimentality for her father’s blade. The first was that her training emphasizes had included several cautionary tales of knights being caught dead without their weapons at their side because, well, they don't have their weapons at their side.

The other, more pretentious reason, was the belief that using a weapon is what set apart the civilized knight from a mere warrior or fighter. Without it she was just some Scolipede. With it she was a member of the prestigious (according to them) Order La Punaise, which meant a great deal to her identity, despite some of her extended family’s contempt for her.

Rose shook her head to clear the unbidden thoughts about her family and set off for the guild master's office, a trip that took all of a few seconds with the most arduous of its trials ensuring she didn't scrape the door frame with any of her jagged extremities. Not a particularly arduous task in her new room as it had been when she was down below. The vast difference in size of accommodation based on rank might reek of elitism, but there was a practicality to it, namely that your aces tended to be fully evolved and therefore generally a lot bigger than your rookies. 

Not always, of course. On the one hand you had Rose herself, who had only joined the guild when she was fully evolved, and so she had been rather cramped in the downstairs accommodation. In the exact opposite direction was Apricoatl, who as Rose understood it, would never get any bigger than she was and as a result if/when she reached Ace she would be absolutely swimming in space when she got to the top floor. From what she knew of the mon, Rose half expected most of the room would wind up being converted into a store/museum hybrid with only a little corner set aside for living in.

The Pachirisu in question had already arrived by the time Rose trotted out and carefully kicked her door shut behind her. As were all the rookies, to whom she wasn’t exactly being a good example to with her comparative tardiness. Not that she was late, mind, she was simply not at the front of the pack, which frankly was for the best because otherwise her large form could be quite obstructive standing at the front of their daily gathering. 

[color=ff007f]"Good morning dears, I hope you all slept well?"[/color] she asked the little ones conversationally, before glancing at Clay and amended [color=ff007f]"or had a nice night in general?"[/color] to her question. She was still getting used to the little fellow’s, well, everything. He at least fit in with the other two rookies by his punchy fighting style, if not by type. Combine them with the currently absent Bromwell and you’d find the guild mostly consisted of quite the pile of brawlers, which Rose found amusingly ironic considering its founder’s typing.

She lacked the self awareness to add herself to that irony pile.