Disclaimer: I don't own Magical x Miracle or any characters

Night one at the palace and I wasn't sure what was more pathetic—the inn room I'd had at the edge of town or the scrappy room I was in now. I suppose it really wasn't the size, the yellowing walls, or even the musty smell the really bothered me. No, it was more so the sea of dust that covered the room and the agonizing thought of needing to clean up before I could even consider turning in. I was growing weary just thinking about it and so, sighing, I settled into the bare mattress for a spell and made an attempt to build myself up to the task.

My mind wandered back to yesterday afternoon, when Glenn had finally shown up six days after our reunion, to tell me that everything was settled and that I could move in anytime. I couldn't help but think how different the atmosphere had been, how it felt like we'd never spent a day apart originally, but this time it was as though we were complete strangers dealing with nothing but strictly business. I didn't know if it was me or him or what, but we hardly even exchanged a friendly smile that afternoon. In fact, all we did exchange was the thank-you-it-was-no-trouble protocol and so I was more than flabbergasted to learn that he arranging a job for me was nothing of that sort of protocol

Not ten minutes into my woolgather, my eyes started flickering beyond my control, and just as the thought slipped through my skull that I would wipe the place down first thing in the morning, a large, burly woman suddenly burst in unannounced, a cigarette in her teeth, and grunted, "So you're the one they just had to give a job too, huh?"

I immediately shot up out of bed and demanded, after regaining my breath and composure, "Excuse me?"

"You're the new maid, right? Well, duh, of course you are!" The woman laughed at her own question. "I tell you, you should have heard the Undersecretary and the Father going at it—about how we need another maid like we need a hole in the head and how he didn't know what he was talking about because he works in the magic department."

I wasn't exactly following what the woman was saying, but her point was clear as day: I should never have been hired. I replied, "I don't understand. I thought there were plenty maid positions available here."

"Yeah…maybe there were five, six years ago, but word gets out about this kind of job and everyone and their dog wants a spot for themselves," she grumbled.

"I see… that actually makes a lot of sense." I admitted.

"Well, so long as you know," she muttered, "but in any case, that's not what I really came to jar at you about."

"Oh?" I murmured. "What is it, then?"

"I just wanted to let you know you're on bathroom duty—toilets, tubs, and uh, anything else no one else wants to touch," she explained.

I frowned. It really doesn't suit one much to go from commanding the bathroom be cleaned to being the one receiving the order. Of course, I was in no position to argue, so I nevertheless said," Yes, ma'am."

"Good then," she grinned satisfactorily and then added, "You'll find all the supplies you need in the bathroom closets…obviously."

"Uh, so where would I find a broom and a feather duster?" I wondered, reluctantly recalling yet another feat that I had ahead of me.

The woman slumped over at my question, sighed irritably, and answered, "In the closet right here," she stepped back and started to point, "catty-corner to your room."

We stayed silent for a moment and then she huffed, "Is there anything else?"

I just shook my head.

"Fine," she grumbled, "I guess have a good night then."

Yeah right, I thought as I gave the room another once over and before I could even think to reply, the woman disappeared down the hallway.

"Well, I'm up," I shrugged and then proceeded to retrieve the supplies I needed. In the end it took me roughly—and to my complete surprise considering the hole-in-the-wall essence of the room—two hours to rid the floor and shelves of every speck of dust. I breathed a sigh of relief, though, as I realized the only place left to sweep was behind the nightstand. Little did I know, though, there was something other than just dust bunnies waiting for me on the other side and that something was an envelope with the name Miss Dahlia scribbled across it. I snatched it up and ripped it open like someone awaiting contest results, despite the fact that it was unsealed. It read:

Aside from the location of the secret room, I thought you might need a couple of survival tips. First of all, don't let the other maids bully you into the shitty jobs. What you're actually going to want to do is let Yue (the grumpy guy with glasses, and long dark hair) catch you standing around he'll surely put you to work organizing papers or something. He'll probably be a total dick about the way you do it, but hey, it's better than sticking your hands in the crapper, right? Anyways, I drew you a diagram of how to find the secret room on the back of this and there's also instructions for opening it. Just don't let anyone see, cause it is a secret after all.

It wasn't signed, but it didn't take a genius to tell who it was from. "Sylthfarn," I murmured, "how did you know I'd be staying in this room?"


Morning came around far too quickly as I was awakened by the crazy raucous of the forty or so other maids getting up and starting their days alongside the sun. I was still too woozy and exhausted to think of anything else but rolling over and going back to sleep, but it became clear in the few precious moments I closed my eyes again that they were not staying shut. And so, finally succumbing to the presence of a new day, I stumbled out of bed and into my shower. I was ready only fifteen minutes later, but it seemed it was fifteen minutes too many because when I stepped out my room to inquire an elder maid about Yue, she herself decided she had many questions for me regarding my tardiness. And so after about thirty seconds of being hissed at and spat on, I realized probably none of these women were going to be too quick to listen to me. I was forced to commence with wandering the corridors in hopes of finding Yue with nothing but blind luck. I did inevitably wind up getting completely lost, but as fate had it, my knight in shining armor came running to my aid. I never would have guessed it at first glance though, or rather first smell, as he smelled very strongly of alcohol.

"Excuse me," the man with dark hair I'd encountered in the hallway spoke, "are you lost or something?"

"Oh, I…I was just looking for, um, You," I took my best stab at pronouncing Yue's name.

"Me?" he murmured. "Why were you looking for me?"

This is Yue? I thought. Gee, he doesn't seem like a dick at all to me…nor does he look anything like Sylthfarn described him.

"Ah, well," I laughed nervously. "I was just going to ask if there was anything I could, um…clean for you?"

He looked completely baffled, but still replied as politely as he possibly could, "Well, no, I don't need you to right now, but uh, I'll be sure to let you know. What's your name?"

"Dahlia…Dahlia Young," I stated.

"Right, cool, I'm Vaith, but you already knew that, right?" he said.

"Vaith?" I questioned. "I thought you said you were You."

"Ah, yes, I am me…uh, Vaith." He said. "Wait…so, uh, just who exactly is you're looking for?"

"Um, You, you know, Y-u-e," I thought that perhaps spelling his name would prove more useful.

"That…that's pronounced Yue," He corrected me. "And you wanted to…to clean something for him?"

He got a look across his face that just screamed, "What the hell does that mean?"

I just nodded, and hoped to God that he wasn't thinking what I thought he was thinking, and therefore I was confirming his hunch with my nod.

"He's, uh, actually probably in his office," he stated and then proceeded to give me directions. After we went through them a couple of times and made it perfectly clear just where this office was, I took the opportunity to fly out of there like a bird in a hunter's aim.


"Lecto, would you hand me that pile of papers from that shelf," I heard a strong voice coming from the office I had been informed was Yue's. The door was open and I poked my head in just in time to hear the voice add, "I want to look them over one last time before I have to officially file them."

I saw a blonde fellow standing at a counter looking over the several piles sitting on it, when he realized, "Oh, of course, you mean Mel's paperwork." I watched as he walked over to the desk and set them in front of the person that was obviously Yue. It seemed Sylthfarn had described him to T after all. A girl with long, silver hair sat opposite of him.

The blonde kid happened to look up in my direction just then and asked, "Excuse me, is there something we can help you with?"

This naturally caused Yue and the girl to look up at me as well. I nearly fell over when I saw her face. Sure, I'd seen her picture in the paper plenty of times and had heard all about the Silver Haired Saint, but seeing her just then—it was almost more than I could handle. She really did look exactly like Sylthfarn.

After several minutes of me staring at her without even blinking, the Saint finally asked, "Was it me you were looking for you?"

"Forgive me," I choked. "I'm just shocked to be seeing the Master Wizard in person. It's an honor, Ms. Merleawe."

I gave her a slight curtsey, to which I thought, Dahlia, you are making a complete fool of yourself.

"You are a maid and clearly a new one at that!" Lecto suddenly snapped. "I highly suggest you get over your hero worship and get back to work. The last thing we need is a bunch of stalkers following us around."

"Need I remind you yourself were once a stalker," Merleawe laughed out loud at him, then turned back to me and sweetly said, "It's very nice to meet you, but it's as Lecto says: you should really get back to work."

"My…apologies," I murmured and started to turn around, having completely forgotten why I'd even came there.

Someone proved that he always had his head on straight as rumor had, it, though, because Yue called to me just then, "Wait just a moment. You are the new maid? Is it as Lecto says?"

"Uh, yes, that's me," I replied.

"Then you need to thank your friend Glenn, because he harassed me and harassed me until I promised to let you work in my office," he stated. "He was also nice enough to promise on your behalf that you'd keep it spotless for me as a bargaining chip. I hope you're up to the task."

He reached into his desk and tossed a key across the room to me. He explained, "That's my only spare, so don't lose it. I expect it to be cleaned every morning before I come in around six. And I expect it to be clean when I return from lunch at two."

"Uh, yes, sir," I replied and thought, Just how messy are you?

"I should be leaving for lunch in a couple of hours," he continued. "In the meantime, you should be keeping yourself busy moping the hallways or something."

"Yes, sir," I said again.

"You're excused," he finished and then returned his attention to Merleawe. I just blinked hard as I stepped back into the hallway, thinking all the while that that had been too easy.

The rest of the day went pretty well as one might expect, with nothing but sweeping, dusting, and moping to keep me company.


Night two at the palace came around in a flash. As I looked back on all the events of the past twenty-four hours, it was as though they hadn't even happened. It was like I had just stayed in bed all day and dreamt it all. I supposed I just wasn't used to my new life yet. Whether I really believed it all happened or not, though, it was still repeating itself all over again. While I wanted nothing more than to crash after yet another long, hard day, I was still faced with one more task late into the night. I was able to get about two hours of sleep as lights out were at tweleve and this was suprisingly sufficient as I was too anxious about finding the diary to sleep anyways.

The hallways were completely pitch dark aside from the light of the moon pouring weakly in through the large window. This made deciphering the map nearly impossible and I got lost I don't know how many times before I finally found the right place. All the while I continued to feel like I was living in a dream and it felt especially surreal in the moments that I opened the door and made my way into Sylthfarn's secret place.

I could tell it was regularly cleaned and kept well as all the books were neatly organized on the shelves and not a speck of dust lifted from the floor as I approached them. I spent about twenty minutes just going up and down and back and forth, reading all the spines that pertained to everything from magic to porn, but unfortunately I saw no sign of anything that resembled a diary. Finally, I began to pull books off the shelves to ensure he hadn't hidden it in the back somewhere, but I found nothing there either. In the end I even moved all the bookshelves about to look behind them and even checked to see if he had somehow attached it to bottom of the table, but I was finally forced to surrender after an hour and half of relentless searching, as it was clear to me the diary was nowhere in this room.

"I…don't understand," I said. "First you say it's incredibly urgent that you get your diary back and now you're telling me to wait it out? What if someone reads it?"

"Oh, I'm sure they will, assuming they can get past the spells I put on it," he commented.

"Sylthfarn," I seethed, "if you knew someone was going to take it, then why in hell did you send me on this wild goose chase?"

There was no sense in getting angry, though, because I needed to spend my time and energy answering one very important question and that was: who took it?

I sat down at the table, and rested on it for a few minutes, as I tried to remember all Sylthfarn had told me that day. It took a few minutes, but I finally recalled that he was worried about a specific friend reading it, although I couldn't remember what he'd said about him exactly.

"Was it 'my…hazy friend?" I murmured to myself. "What could that mean, though?"

I decided then it was time to return to my room. I had a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach that I was going to get lost again, which caused the thought of meeting Vaith to enter my head.

Drunken…hazy…hmm… I thought.