Disclaimer: I may not own Dragon Knights, but I DO own your sooouuuulll...
Warnings: Swearing. Oddities.
A/N: ...Supreme motherf-- :cuts self off: Okay, I had to type this up. Because I had to freaking write it at band camp. And I'm halfway done, and the computer freezes and I loose it. :pissed: So now, as I'm rewriting this, I'm stopping every few paragraphs to save. It's taking so bloody long. This isn't made better by the fact that I was low on paper when I was writing it, so I had to squeeze in two lines into every -one- line. Plus, my handwriting is horrid normally, and isn't improved by my trying to write while I march or sit on a moving bus.
On a cheerier note, this is being updated ten days short of its one year anniversary! Since I only update once a month, this is as close as I'm gonna get to hitting that magic number(8/28)...
Happy birthday, BWAIHH!
:n:
"This is crap."
Rath nodded in agreement, snatching up a muffin from the cart Cernozura had wheeled in. The lack of breakfast had rendered him hungry, and the sweetened food was calling to him.
"It's the castle: don't they have dresses that would fit without having to measure us all day?"
"Don't ruin their fun," Rune said in a voice of reason, sending a mildly disapproving look at Thats over his drink and taking another sip, "Cernozura and Lady Raseleane enjoy doing this."
Thats rolled his eyes but conceded, lapsing into silence.
"Besides," the elf continued, "What would we be doing instead? You can't very well carry out your regular duties... Unless you like filing reports."
The other two knights shared a disgusted look, and Rath spoke up.
"...Couldn't we be doing something else? Something other than this?"
"Like what?" Thats asked, apparently curious as he seemed to side suddenly with Rune, "Play with the Dragon Fighters all day?"
Rune twitched at the mention of the palace guards, eliciting a snicker from the other two at the well placed comment.
He glared, flushing lightly and muttering.
"It's not my fault."
Thats and Rath grinned at each other again, starting off a barrage of questions and accusations.
"You're just too pretty."
"Were you showing too much cleavage?"
"Everyone knows what it means when a girl wears black underwear."
"Maybe it was your perfume?"
"Yeah. Must be that new 'Raging Slut' scent..."
"Oh, can it," Cesia snapped as she reentered the room, "It wasn't his fault."
Rune turned a bit redder at Cesia's interruption, but didn't object as the other two guys-turned-girls fell into an awkward silence.
Rath took another bite, making an obvious embarrassed attempt to change the subject.
"How much longer will this take?"
"Not much, I think," Kitchel said, walking in as well and casting a questioning glance at Cesia.
"Lady Raseleane is just checking the hem on a dress for Rune," the fortuneteller explained, "We're not sure if it can be taken down any more."
"It's cute," Kitchel added with a giggle, "It'll go perfectly with the Water Dragon."
Rune ignored the loving sigh that accompanied this statement. He had decided that the best course of action to take when it came to the thief and large, slightly scary creatures was to just remain silent. He didn't want to encourage her... And he didn't particularly want Water to be stolen again, either.
Wait, that reminded him.
"I won't be able to be seen with Water."
Thats blinked at him.
"What? Of course you'll be able to be seen with water. You'll have to drink sometime... Oh," he caught himself, "Of course! The Dragon. No, I guess you're right. I won't be able to get Earth, either. The same with Rath and Fire."
Rath gave a curt nod in agreement.
"It's still a lovely dress," Cesia concluded, brushing off the complaint.
"And Lady Raseleane said she had a pair of earrings that were made to match it," Kitchel added enthusiastically, glancing at Rune's still-pointed(Now that he thought about it, how was it that they were passing for random village maidens, if they were still obviously Dragon clan or Faerie?) ears.
"I wonder how many holes you could get in there? I bet at least a dozen, very easily."
Wh-what?" Rune stared at her incredulously. "I'm not getting my ears pierced!"
"But they'd look so cute!"she enthused.
"I could do them for you," Cesia mused, "I had my own pierced by the witch back in the Misty Valley... I think I remember how it was done."
When Rune blanched and Thats began to silently shake with laughter, Cesia scoffed.
"Come on. I was just joking. Of course I remember how. I just need a needle. And some ice. Unless you know a spell to numb flesh."
Rune shook his head, then quickly added, "And it's not that I don't trust you, Cesia, but I would really feel better with someone who has done this before."
"Does that mean you're actually willing to do it?" Kitchel asked, amazed.
Cesia accepted Rune's argument, stating, "Kai-Stern knows how. He pierced Rath's ear."
Rune protested faintly, "But..."
Raseleane conveniently entered the fitting room at this time, followed by a trio of slightly nervous looking maids bearing three elaborate dresses in red, green, and blue.
"Here we are!" She smiled, ushering the three young women in after her.
Rune shifted. He was suddenly reminded of the fact that they were wearing the bare minimum: not exactly proper attire in the company of others one didn't know... Especially when one's brain kept thinking of them as the opposite gender.
Kitchel jumped up, abandoning her half-finished drink in favor of swooning over the gowns.
"Wow," she exclaimed, "They look even nicer off the racks. Did you get the hem down?"
Raseleane nodded, an enthusiastic smile adorning her face.
"Yes. It should be just the right length now."
"We took it down a half inch, just to put it back up a quarter," the maid carrying the blue dress muttered, earning herself a disapproving nudge and a nervous giggle from one of the two others next to her.
"Would you three try these on now?" the Dragon Queen asked, sending the maids with a wave of her hand passing the three gowns to the(bemused) fortuneteller and thief.
Thats and Rune stood, the prior eyeing the vast layers of material dubiously, and the latter crossing his arms over his chest self-consciously.
Raseleane turned to the Knight of Fire, a look of concern spreading over her fine features.
"Rath?"
Cesia looked at him as well.
"Are you all right?"
Rath was sitting low in the chair, eyes closed tightly. A fine sheen of sweat was glistening on his face, and a red flush was on his cheeks.
"Rath? " Rune asked, slightly worried.
"...Are you in labor?" Thats tossed in.
Rath managed to open his eyes, glaring ferociously.
This was pain. Not pain like what he was accustomed to, with the familiar constricting of his chest and the slow draining of his strength, or of tearing slashes and gouges making him sharply aware of his both his own existence and fragility.
No... This was the same strangling pain as the previous day's, the one that had rendered him bend double and with a clouded, swirling mind. As he had previously known, pain was a great stimulant and prevented him from relaxing, much less stopping the sickening swaying of the room.
Cesia noticed the half-eaten and abandoned muffin.
"Yes," she commented, "Oil can do that."
"Oil?" Thats asked, taking his eyes off his struggling-to-appear-normal friend and onto the food.
Kitchel nodded, as Cesia tossed the remainder of the muffin to a grateful Thats.
"It's not unheard of," Kitchel said, leaning over to investigate the fine golden stitching on the skirt of the crimson dress in Cesia's arms. "It doesn't happen to everyone, but it's definitely not uncommon. You just need to make you not to eat the things that will set you off."
"That's great," Rath barely managed to deadpan through tightly clenched teeth, "But I didn't know," he growled, "That this would happen."
"He has a point," Cesia pointed out as Rune smacked Kitchel's hand away from the temptingly dangling gems on the red bodice.
The half-Yokai girl paused, looking consideringly at Rath.
"...Would you like me to help you with that?"
"Couldn't you do it?" Thats asked Rune, brushing the remainder of the muffin crumbs off his hands.
The elf shook his head. "I can heal things. Like I said earlier, I can't numb pain. ...Well, unless by doing so I close the wound, or something to that extent."
"Yeah," Thats agreed with him, "I don't think closing his fallopian tubes would help much," he paused, "Probably just make it worse, actually."
Rath made to dig in his proverbial heels in stubborn defiance over Cesia's suggestion. He did not need to be relieved of this mere physical pain. If he could handle anything, it was the struggle with a wash of discomfort.
Another cramp made its crescendo through his lower abdomen, and Cesia watched his eyes glaze over slightly, wincing as she almost felt the strong wave of nausea that would accompany the pain.
She sighed: half worried and half exasperated.
"Rath, come here. I'm going to pick out a pair of earrings for your dress, and I need you to come with me so I can tell which ones are too long. It doesn't look good if they hit your shoulders."
Against his will, an unexpected voice in the back of his head started speaking of how utterly embarrassing it would be were he to be ill in front of the others. And, it pointed out, that was what was bound to happen if he stayed here too much longer.
Rath found himself suddenly embarrassed, even more so than he would normally be, at the thought of losing face in such a way in public.
Cesia let Rath stand(albeit shakily) on his own, and led him carefully from the room.
The other blinked at the unforeseen outcome.
"...Must've been pretty bad if he accepted that lame excuse," Thats commented.
"Oh, then can be a bitch," Kitchel said cheerfully, now holding all three gowns tightly to her body, as Cesia had deposited the one she had been hanging onto in her grasp as she brushed by her.
"Hey!" She exclaimed, suddenly remembering and turning to face the Dragon Queen, "These are for your anniversary party, right? Congratulations!"
Raseleane's face lit up into a broad smile, a soft pink blush alighting over her pale cheeks.
"Yes," she sighed blissfully.
As Kitchel gave a bubbly response, asking how it felt to be together for so long and whether it was just as "enjoyable" as it had been in the early years, Rath and Cesia entered the spacious palace room once more.
Thats noted with a mental grin that both of them were acting as if their real purpose had been to fetch the jewelry in question.
Rune, on the other hand, was still rather surprised at how well Rath's ego had taken the intervention.
Before he had the chance to comment, even to himself, on this, the Dragon Knight of Earth spoke up.
"Back already?" Thats paused, suddenly noticing something, then continued, slightly flustered in spite of himself. "Rath, your amulet's, um..." he never did finish his observation, placing sudden false(well, not really) interest in the dangling silver and ruby earrings in Cesia's grasp.
Rath flushed slightly, yanking the blood-red drop from where it had slid into the front of his bra, snapping, "Why were you looking?"
"I didn't mean to," Thats sweatdropped, still investigating the jewelry, now joined by a slightly-too-interested Kitchel.
"Calm down," Cesia rolled amber eyes at Rath and snatched the earrings away from the two thieves. "It doesn't matter. We're... Uh... We're all girls, here."
She and Kitchel shot a sidelong glance at one another and started to quietly giggle.
"Why do you still find this so funny?" Rath, still annoyed, asked, although they paid him no heed.
Raseleane intervened.
"Rath, now that you're back, I'd like all three of you to try these on," she smiled giving a small wave of her hand to the dresses.
"And we can start working on their hair," Cernozura added in, sliding back into the room from the hallway.
Thats blinked, then turned to Rune.
"...Did you even see her leave?"
Rune shook his head.
"Girl thing I guess."
"Maybe ninja."
Cernozura gave a short laugh, shaking her head, but seemingly pleased by their comments.
"No, I was just interviewing a young lady for the position of castle maid."
The Dragon Queen appeared interested in this news.
"Really? Did you hire her? We've been short on staff for a while now."
Cernozura faltered.
"Well..."
:n:
"So do you have an experience in housekeeping?"
Cernozura looked apprehensively at the skinny little girl seated in front of her, oddly green eyes narrowed in slowly simmering anger.
She couldn't help thinking that this... Child, really, didn't look like she had hit puberty, much less as if she had any experience with holding down a steady job.
"Of course I have!" She snapped, shaking her(obviously, Cernozura thought, And rather cheaply, too) dyed hair flying about her tiny frame. "I've cleaned Lord Kharl's cas-- mansion for years."
That wasn't a lie, Garfakcy smirked to himself. A castle is a type of mansion... A very large one. And both a couple and a couple hundred are years.
"And why did you leave your last job?" Cernozura asked, dutifully continuing the interview as she always did.
Well, not always.
There had been that one time when the applicant had shown up to the interview too drunk to spell her own name. She had only been shown the door once she insisted on trying to start up a rather heated debate on the benefits of plastic versus cardboard with the highly confused Dragon Fighter who had had the unlucky task of delivering a message to the embarrassed and dumbfounded castle caretaker.
At least this girl hadn't regressed into a slurring and pms-ing tampon spokeswoman yet.
"I didn't!"
Cernozura blinked, shaking herself out of her thoughts, and tried to remember where this conversation had been going.
This last question seemed to have struck a nerve, but she was unable to figure out what it had been.
"I'm still... I mean," Garfakcy struggled to get his story together and himself under control, "I just recently stopped working for him. I still think that I work for him, sometimes," he attempted to explain, "But I left because... The danger pay wasn't high enough."
The head maid paused in her notes, startled at this unusual response, then marked it down.
Danger pay...
Yes, this "mission" qualified as dangerous. He was trekking into enemy territory, after all, charged with discovering--
Garfakcy's mental rant was cut short by the next inquiry.
"And why do you want to take up this position?"
"I want the chance to work my way up the corporate ladder," Garfakcy managed to get out with a straight face, adding in almost as an afterthought, "And cleaning is a way of life."
Cernozura nodded taking down the answer.
"I agree," she said with a friendly smile.
Oh, my god... Her mind screamed at her, Who was this freak? She was barely restraining herself from gaping in shock: only the years of ingrained niceties were now preventing her from doing so.
"And you are aware that you would be staying in the castle and abiding by our curfew?"
Garfakcy nodded.
"Yes. I have no problems with it."
"Well," Cernozura was still a bit uncomfortable with hiring this young lady. While she had produced official-looking documents stating her to be of legal hiring age and listing her name as "Garfanny"(It had been Kharl's idea. He had found it hilarious. Garfakcy, on the other hand, would have preferred to have been thrown into a ship full of bored and unscrupulous sailors, wearing naught but his current form and a smearing of cookie dough.) and from the far-off village of Costa Rica.
She was... Uneasy, however, although she couldn't place her finger on exactly why.
They did need more cleaning staff at the moment, and this girl was the most qualified and enthusiastic she had seen so far. That was a rather pathetic testament, Cernozura noted, to the staff moral among the other girls working or applying for jobs at the castle.
She was suited, and there was no reason why she shouldn't be hired.
"...I think I'll give you a position here. On a trial basis for the first month."
Cernozura stated this as though it was customary, but had a feeling that they both knew it was an exception she was making: that with the "open door" policy of the castle, both maids and fighters were usually hired on the spot, without any waiting period.
"Fine," Garfakcy stood, brushing imaginary dust off his light vest and darker pants: he was still wearing the same outfit as usual, and it fit his new body perfectly.
"I'll have one of the other maids show you your dormitory -you'll be in Block thirteen- and the chart of rooms to clean. You can spend the rest of today getting settled in and learning your way around. I expect you to be at breakfast in the mess hall tomorrow by five thirty."
As she had been explaining this, Cernozura had walked around from her desk to the single oaken door leading to and from the small office she had been conducting the conference in. She opened it, quickly spotting a plain-looking young girl with long braided black hair and wearing the castle's traditional maid's billowing dress.
"Havana!" She called, attracting the maid's attention, "Would you show Garfanny around?"
Cernozura was oblivious the the very slight twitch given by Garfakcy at the sound of his mutilated name.
"I'll assign someone else to the rest of your work for today."
Havana's eyes lit up at this chance to get out of work, and she nodded eagerly.
"Yes'm. Should I get her a spare uniform now, too?"
Crap, Garfakcy swore to himself.
He didn't want to dress in drag, and he didn't want to be shown around the Dragon Castle by some bore of a girl.
Damn that Yokai and his foolhardy plans!
When this was over, he vowed as he was grudgingly led away, there would be hell to pay in Arinas.
:n:
A/N:coughs: Did you catch my attempt to cover for the fact that without a copy of the story in front of me I tend to forget what happened... Like, say, who was in the room? I made that mistake twice, actually... I just caught it earlier the first time.
:n:
Ginsing:tackles: You haven't reviewed in so looonnng... But it's all good as I talk to you on AIM. XD Oh, by the way... When you come here? For the RP-ing? The Dragon Knights... When are we going as them? ...I mean, from when in the books? Because we were thinking either the very beginning or about where they are now... And I was thinking now, as those costumes are cooler. XD ...And that line so is not. I claim that one for myself. :mock anger:
Blackcat: Oh. Okay. :lazy, so leaves out: Well, it is a rather cool number...
Yokai no Miko: Haha... I'm worse than they are. Obviously. I'm writing this. XD
Tarinyo's Forest: Well, we don't see him as a woman so much as a preteen girl, but... :shifty eyes: You're on Gaia? Did you tell me this before:is on Gaia, too:
Yavie Aelinel: ...Ew. XD I know what you mean, though. :has choked on things like that while laughing before:
Old Fiat: Okay. n-n; :no longer remembers what's going on:
Chibi-Muse-Chan: ...This review makes considerably more sense than the last one... Well, you know... I got confused about that. I mean, if one is straight, but then one flips their gender... Well, then presumably one would be gay, actually. :shifty eyes: But I get confused easily, and decided that the spell would also flip their sexuality... Only not... :confusing self more:
Go-ruden Kiba: Oh. Well, that sounds awesome. non My name means... Well, actually it's short for "dragoninaquajogger", which is short for "dragon in an aquajogger", which is short for "fire-breathing lizard in a water-floatation device", but... And I feel bad for you. No internet 'cause you didn't know the password... :laughing at:
Dark-Birdie: ...Your name reminds me of Zoma... Hmmm... I really wanna see Nohiro as a girl, but...