"I would expect you to join the household and spend most of your time in my presence or accomplishing tasks as I direct, with some time to pursue your own interests. If you were to marry, either your husband would join the household or you would leave it to join his, at our discretion. It remains to be seen what our schedule will look like; I expect us to be mostly engaged in receiving vistors, but this may turn in to the Chelish embassy or a center of magical research." She does not say out loud the thought that they may simply become a zoo exhibit, exotic groundhogs for the multitude to gawk at. 

"- okay, so a live-in position, but do you expect to be able to accommodate any time off beyond sick leave?"

Something about the framing of this line of questions is jarring to her; it seems too mercenary, or like it creates too much separation between the role and the person. It's not like she has time off from being a duchess, or being a mother.

"Could you give me an example of what you have in mind?"

"If a friend of mine gets married, or if there's an errand I need to run in person, or if a friend I haven't seen in a while wants to get together, would I be able to get a day or an afternoon at a time off with appropriate notice?"

"Yes, those all seem reasonable. You may have to become more wary of your friends; we have heard that when the news is released broadly, it will create quite the stir."

"Oh, absolutely, I won't tell them where I'm working. Everyone understands that sometimes someone gets a classified job and has to tell everyone they're on the board of directors of the university of minding your own business."

Another mismatch. "Will you be recognized, if we are seen in public together?"

"- that depends where we go. I don't normally live in Shapto, but I do look a lot like my grandfather, who works in the federal government, and anywhere with a lot of blues has some chance of my being remembered from some event. But I'm too young to have a lot of independent recognition."

"As you say. Any other questions?" She thinks that Ninpa is not correctly assessing how motivated people will be to learn about them, but perhaps espionage is less well-developed here.

"Anything it'd behoove me to brush up on before starting if it should be the case that I'm starting?"

"I expect to make a decision tonight. In the meantime, you might think about how to run a conference on aliens." They might end up doing so--and if not, the undersecretary of international relations undoubtedly will be interested in that. 

"Absolutely!" grins Ninpa Nenwa.

"That will be all, then." She will dismiss Ninpa with a small nod, and then direct Mihent to supply her with writing supplies once Ninpa is gone.

Mihent has acquired longhand writing supplies for the low-tech aliens; she's got a selection of ballpoint pens and some pencils and a spiral notebook for her.

She writes what struck her about Ninpa, and a short note asking Ekachta about her grandfather and granduncle, and then takes a few moments to simply stare off into the distance.

Once she's done with that, she starts preparing for the next applicant.

(Ekachta can identify the grandfather - he's in legislature - but can't figure out which grand-uncle she meant based on the description.)

The next lady-in-waiting candidate has her ultramarine hair in a long mohawk braided down the middle of her head and she's got darker brown skin than most of the people they've encountered so far. "Good morning, I'm Chiko, no job name at the moment!"

"Job name?"

"Oh, has nobody explained that? Tapasphere custom - us, our protectorates, Anitam, a couple other places - is a personal name from your parents, given first, and then when you know what you want to do with your career, you pick a word that indicates or is somehow emblematic of that. I've been traveling - hopped back here from Shi Cubrio on an overnight flight, lucky I can sleep on airplanes - and that's not a job, and I haven't been certain what I'll settle down with, which is why I was free to come take this interview. It is absolutely thrilling to meet you."

"A pleasure to meet you as well. So, tell me about yourself." Once again, she studies Chiko closely. Where is her attention? What is she drawn towards?

The hair. Again. But also she's pulled out her pocket everything and has it on the arm of her chair to peer at notes.

"I'm from one of our border provinces, down south. My great-great-grandmother's running this whole operation, she's Ekachta's boss. I was tracked for constituent management, in school, though I haven't started uni, I'm taking a year off to see the world - or I was, before this happened. I used to win public speaking contests, but that was all at the junior level, I haven't competed since I was four."

Great-great-grandmother? That opens some questions about their biology and lifespans, but--another time.

"Do you have a favorite poem to recite?" To her, that is a natural followup to the claim about public speaking contests, and she doesn't notice that it might be a non sequitor.

"I do, actually, but it's six minutes long, would you like to just hear the first stanza or two...?"

"Yes, that would be enough." How good is she?

She stands up for this and starts declaiming about the villages nestled within the mountains of Ethkinai. She's obviously working from a poetic style and public speaking convention Isidonia's never heard of in her life but it's not surprising that she could've beaten thousands of other teenagers like that.

Alas, Isidonia grew up listening to bards, and is married to Felip, and it takes much more than that to impress her. But she'll still nod and do a soft clap at the end.

"Tell me more about constituent management."