Author Note: So this is kind of an unusual story, about Vaughn getting forced into being the Witch Princess's servant, and having to perform servantly duties for her...while trying to escape. A year ago I was going through this "I want to write about the Witch, and I want to write about Vaughn in a non-romance story!" phase- and this was the result. I printed a copy for the heck of it and then deleted it from my computer. Then last week I found that printed copy and decided to do a little editing and re-type it. Who knows, someone out there might like it! ^_^ If you do, please let me know! I'll post the two chapters that I've already written, but I don't know if I'll continue it past that unless people actually say they like the idea.
This chapter is more of just laying out the premise for the story, the next chapter is where things get interesting ;) Anyways, I hope you enjoy it!
From Vaughn's P.O.V.!

Chapter 1

It was just your average, boring day at the animal shop where I worked. I was busy restocking the shelves with merchandise, Mirabelle was organizing behind the counter, waiting for someone to come in and buy something, and Julia was pacing back and forth…...sweeping.

If you could call it that.

In my opinion, it was more like she was trying to kill an invisible monster or something, the way she was waving the broom around. She was paying no attention to what she was doing, just staring out the window, probably wondering when her boyfriend was going to walk in.

I scowled at her.

"Julia, watch it. You're gonna break something in a minute…." I grumbled, trying to move a small wooden crate of overpriced animal medicine out of the way of her broom.

"Huh?" She turned to glance at me, giving her broom one particularly large swing….

And knocked the crate right out of my arms.

"Nooo!"

I swear to you, I never knew Mirabelle could move so fast. She leapt out from behind the counter and slid across the floor, managing to catch the crate by the very tips of her fingers. A few of the bottles still smashed from hitting each other, but most of them were saved. I blinked, stunned by her sudden swiftness...

And by the look of rage she was giving Julia.

"For goodness sakes, Julia! Why don't you watch what you're doing?"

"I-I'm sorry!" she stammered, dropping the broom and looking unsure of what to do.

"Too late for sorry! Go get a rag so we can wipe this mess up..." Mirabelle muttered. Julia nodded and ran off to find a rag. Mirabelle frowned. "Jeez, this is going to cost us a fortune….."

"Why's this stuff so expensive?" I asked as I pulled the bottles that hadn't smashed out of the crate and placed them on the shelf.

Mirabelle crossed her arms. "Because of the ingredients. There's an extremely powerful healing mushroom we use to make it work so well. It's very rare….so it costs an arm and a leg to buy them for our medicine."

"You couldn't just find the mushroom yourself?"

"I wish! It'd save a fortune! …Heck, Id' make a fortune!" Mirabelle said, smiling a little. "I've looked around the woods here a few times, but I can never get any…"

I shrugged. "Probably don't grow here, then."

She smirked. "I said I could never get any. I didn't say I've never seen any…."

"…So you've seen them here on the island before?" Julia asked, trying to edge into the conversation as she bent down to wipe up the spilled medicine.

Mirabelle nodded. "….Yeah, I have. When I first came here. I wandering around in the woods one night and I saw this strange mushroom that seemed to glow in the dark. I didn't know what it was at the time, so I didn't touch it. But when I got back home and looked it up, I found out how rare and valuable it was! I went back right away to pick it, but it was gone…." She frowned. "So it's just a matter of who's getting to it first, and why."

I examined one of the bottles more closely. The color was nice; sort of a purplish-blue, but I couldn't see anything particularly special about it. Mirabelle walked over to me and took the bottle out of my hand, smiling.

"Vaughn, why don't you guys try and find me one of those mushrooms? If you do, I'll give you triple what you're making right now."

I raised an eyebrow, suddenly finding this mushroom thing much more interesting. "…No way…."

"I'm serious. Just one could make medicine for several months! Even if you wanted to take a bite out of it first!" She added, chuckling.

Julia frowned. "What would happen if you did eat some?"

"I'm not sure….it's a healing mushroom, so I guess it would cure your health problems or something."

"What if your health is fine?"

"You'd get magical powers? Look, I'm not advising that you actually eat one, I'm just saying that if you could get your hands on one, you'd be a very lucky person…."

Julia grabbed my arm. She had a fiery look in her eyes. I knew she wanted to find one to repent for ruining some of the medicine. And I have to admit, I was interested in finding one too.

"So when does this rare mushroom come out?" I asked.

"Sometime between eight at night and 4 in the morning, on nights that are cloudy and have a half-moon."

I frowned. What a pain in the butt….But I wanted to help them out, and I wanted to see this thing, see what was so special about it aside from the fact that it was worth triple my salary. Julia gave me another pleading look. I shrugged.

"I guess we could take look."

…..Like I knew what I was getting into.

x-x-x

Please let me know what you think so far! Any comments and advice are much appreciated! ^_^