"Hey, hey. how about some story times from when you were a young Turk? It's hard to imagine you as... not old."
An eyebrow arched; Veld was pretty sure Reno had work to do, as did he, but then it was a miserable, gray, rainy day outside and none of them were feeling terribly motivated.
The question was strange to his ears and Veld didn’t reply right away, idly drumming his fingers; no one ever asked about his past. Too afraid or too uncaring, he supposed. Not that he really cared all that much himself. They were his employees after all and not in any way entitled to know.
Still... he’d humor this request this once.
“I’m not even that old, Reno.” he said dryly, leaning back in the chair and stretching his legs out in front of him. “But I was never really a young Turk...”
“I came here after being a bodyguard to a.... well sort of a princess in Wutai, and took a job as young Lilith Shinra’s bodyguard. Her father had died and somehow I ended up sort of taking that role as well. She was a handful, especially when she was old enough to take over the company.”
Veld smiled fondly, lost in thought, then took a pull of his coffee and hummed.
“I was glad when I was allowed to start forming this department and could hire a few spare bodies. We all lived off assassination attempts and car bombings. Now most people are too scared to try an assassination.”
But by the gods he wished they would... and he wished that if they tired, they’d succeed.
“I remember the winter gala... It was held in the fine arts center in Sector 2. I think it’s been turned into a orphanage and clinic now which is a shame. White marble floors and golden chandeliers, gilded banisters. Lilith matched of course, she almost always wore white and gold. Vincent went as her ‘on the arm’ bodyguard, since he could pull off a tux like none of the rest of us, and he was the better dancer.”
“About half way though, one of the floating drink servers pulled a .45. Unfortunately for him, he hit Vincent in the shoulder because he wasn’t a very good assassin who had’t been paying attention to the dance. Since that failed, this idiot thought he might as well give it a real go and charged with a knife, which I intercepted while Vincent hauled ass with Lilith. Smashed his face off a marble pillar and brought him home to be interrogated.”
Veld drained his coffee and wheeled back to his mini-fridge for a bottle of water, then wheeled back.
“Disappointingly he wasn’t involved with anyone... Just an anti-establishment wing nut. We’d not even discovered mako at this point. Lilith was fine, but pissed off that Vincent had bleed all over her white gown, but really she should have been used to it at that point. He was always getting shot, stabbed, or blown up protecting her.”
Vincent’s bleeding heart was the reason he was dead. Bastard.
