Omake Week 2022, Day 5: Now if only they'd announce that GrimGrimoire OnceMore was going to get a U.S. release...I'd have the collector's edition pre-ordered in roughly the time it takes to type this sentence.

~X X X~

There was a definite imbalance in the play schedule of Marcia Tempranillo, Jenny Smithwick, and Cressidor Blan-Virgine. Namely, the three girls tended to get together at Cress's home at least as much as they did at the other two's put together.

This was not due to economics, despite the fact that the Blan-Virgine home was a large mansion on Argentine Way; Jenny and Marcia were also the children of the wealthy and privileged. Indeed, both of them had bloodlines that had much more history than Cress's mothers could speak of (indeed, Amoretta Virgine was a homunculus, so she was literally the first of her line). Family did play a part, as Cressidor was an only child and so the girls didn't have to worry about bothering or being bothered by assorted siblings.

But no, there was a much simpler reason why they gravitated naturally to Cressidor's home: Lillet Blan was the kingdom's Mage Consul, which meant that neat magical stuff was a regularly common occurrence.

(Also cookies. Lillet could have had a fine career as a cook if she hadn't decided to be the kingdom's most powerful magician instead. She still made time for baking because work-life balance was important, as were snickerdoodles.)

As a prime example, there was Cress's dog Shuck, who at five hundred pounds (actually closer to six; even the legendary Black Dogs were quite capable of using puppy-dog eyes on susceptible snack-dispensers) was the perfect size for all three girls to use as a backrest during tea parties. Today, though, Shuck seemed a little bit downcast, and Cress had dark circles under her eyes that hadn't been there two days ago.

"Are you okay, Cress?" Jenny asked. "If you're not feeling well, we can get together another time."

"Yeah," Marcia said. "Or if you need to be in bed we can read or play something quiet or just chat with you there."

Cressidor shook her head.

"Oh, no, it's okay. I just haven't been sleeping very well. The howling keeps waking me up."

"Howling?" Marcia and Jenny both glanced at Shuck, who looked a little hurt at the implied accusation. After all, barghests only howled at really important things, like as an omen that someone in the house was about to die, or from regret that he couldn't sleep in Cress's room the night after he dug up the skunkweed patch and even magic needed multiple scrubbings to get the smell out.

"Oh, it's not Shuck. He's been having an much trouble sleeping as I have, haven't you, boy?"

She reached up and scritched him behind the ears, and he gave a little woof.

"Aw, poor boy," Jenny said, reaching up and petting Shuck's nose. "I'm sorry we doubted you."

He dragged his tongue the length of her face in response. The flames that licked along its length were purely visual and caused no harm. The slobber, on the other hand, was entirely material and left her fumbling for her handkerchief. Thankfully for Shuck, she was a dog person and didn't really mind the minor inconvenience of his affectionate greeting.

"What's howling, if not Shuck, then?" Marcia said.

"Oh, it's Trippy."

"That's the hybrid sheepdog-Cerberus your mama was breeding for your farmer cousins, right?"

"Uh-huh."

A three-headed dog definitely qualified as "neat magical stuff," and was very convenient for the girls as each one could get to pet a separate head. She got her unimaginative name courtesy of Amoretta, who was one of those people who should never be allowed to name things.

"Does she howl a lot, then? I can't think that's a good trait in a sheepdog."

"Well, it's not that she howls often, but she really likes to announce midnight. She keeps better time than the church clock. Thankfully she's not that loud, so that she doesn't bug the neighbors." Cress was a bit of an innocent on this point. While it was true that Trippy was not a very loud dog, the lack of complaints received about the howling was less likely to be evidence that it wasn't bothering anyone than it was of a more generalized reluctance to tell the Mage Consul that her magical creatures were being a nuisance.

"But I can usually sleep through a howling dog if they're not too loud," she continued. "The problem is, since Trippy has three heads, all of them howl at once like they're a pack. Which would be all right, except that one of the heads is always off-key!"