A Rafael Interlude

When Refael woke up from libidous dreams of a pale angel, he found that in his sleep he had not been turned into a monstrous, verminous giant locust man. Sighing in relief, he got out of his familiar Ministry dormitory bed, rubbing his eyes and yawning. His room in the ministry was similar to his room at the academy, hinting at the same contractor. Muttering to himself as he stretched, getting the kinks out of his system, the Vice-Director of the Magic Tool Laboratory– HAH!– got his bathing things and headed for the communal bathroom.

There were actually a lot of people in the baths at this hour. The Ministry was full of overachievers, workaholics, savants, lunatics, weirdoes, and the occasional normal person wondering why they stayed around besides the souls and free Light Magic medicinal treatment. Rafael liked to think it was the latter, but as he passed the Women's and ?'s baths to head into the Men's baths, he had to admit having no other qualifications to support himself might have had something to do with it.

Inside, he found his department's director taking a bath while chained by the leg to a ring on the wall. It probably said something about the Ministry that the bathrooms had already had those metal rings on the wall when he'd arrived, and not something added in to allow their directionally-challenge department director from wandering off and being lost most of the day.

After taking a quick bath, and heading back to his room to get dressed in his uniform, Rafael headed to the department to make a large pot of tea for everyone. That at least hadn't changed from his time as a student: he was still the designated tea maker. Just that he no longer constantly fantasized about poisoning it and killing off large numbers of nobles. Now he only did so occasionally, usually after a long work day.

That done, he went off to breakfast.

The Ministry's dining hall full of Ministry workers who slept at the dormitory or those on the outs with their wife, husband or both. Rafael picked a meal set and had breakfast, sitting with some other fellow Magic Tool Laboratory weirdoes. It was the usual set. Laura, looking huge and muscular as usual. Lisa Norman with the puppet she used to talk to everyone. Nix Cornish, wearing his usual sparkly, fluttery clothes with its deep man-cleavage…

Maybe he should start wearing a helmet again, like he had at Maria's estate. He was starting to feel very underdressed next to his colleagues.

"Vice-Director," Lisa said through her raccoon handpuppet as she continued eating. It was even odds whether she was using ventriloquism to make the thing speak, or had rediscovered the ancient method of imbuing an inanimate object with soul to make it move. Either way would make perfect sense for their department. "A note was left for you last night, but you were already asleep. The night shift asked us to give it to you." The hand with the raccoon puppet dived toward one of Lisa's pockets, and only then did she stop to wipe her mouth with a napkin. She was in the middle of drinking from her glass of water when the puppet came back out holding an envelope between its stubby arms. "Here you go."

"Thank you Lisa," Rafael said, glancing over the address and recognizing the handwriting. He frowned. Why would the Third Prince be leaving him a note a tonight? Tearing open the envelope with the ease of practice, grateful that his envelope-opening calluses had already come in, he opened it to read as he took a sip of water.

Everyone was treated to the sight of the water in their vice-director's mouth falling to his lap unswallowed, rather than the usual cliché of everyone getting sprayed on, as he gaped at the letter. Then he ran out of the dining hall like Larna Smith had been made director again and was looking for him to do her paperwork.

"Huh," Laura said behind him. "That was either bad news or an invitation to his lady's boudoir."

Why was everyone in his department so obsessed with his love life?

He ran back to his department and found Director Nathan Hart chained to his desk enjoying the breakfast that someone had delivered to him, the shackle on his leg now locked onto the desk. As a director, he was now too busy with work to be allowed to get lost for half the morning trying to find the dining hall, and then trying to get back to the department. It probably seemed cruel to an outsider, but many more senior people had turned down the directorship so Lord Hart could have a job that allowed him to stay in the same desk and not get lost.

"Director," Rafael said. "I need a day off."

The director blinked at him. "A day off? What for?"

"A friend of mine might do something stupid and I need to either stop them or help them," Rafael said. "Also, do we have any Magic Tools that can be used to find missing things? Or people?"

Maria! Mother-in-law (hopefully)(one day)! Hang in there!

Maria woke up, realized she'd both threatened the prince and committed several kinds of treason, and wondered whether she should just stay in bed and wait for Blades of the Darkmoon to arrest her. Perhaps she could remove those memories from the Third Prince's mind and pretend it had never happened? No, that was unlikely to work, he'd had all night to write it down. Well, she was trapped. The best she could hope for was the Third Prince allowed her to rescue her mother before blackmailing her into a lifetime of his personal assassin. More likely both she and her mother would die and there would be no one to take care of any of her wards, leaving them to die in the gutter or be taken as slaves again.

Ah, the familiar feeling of wanting to just sit on a chair with a slit wrist waiting for all blood and life to drain away as all her failures and horrible decisions weighed on her. It had been almost a decade, but it was back, and still unmissed. And no rude stranger to knock her out of it or put her out of her misery.

Eventually, she sighed and got up. If she was going to be arrested, she'd do it with a little dignity, not while being found in bed with several women she hadn't even had debauchery with. That would just be embarrassing.

She got dressed, putting on her trousers, shirt and boots. With the sun's light barely touching the land, Maria took her sword and stepped outside into the predawn cool. Rolling her shoulders, she began to do drills.

The sun had properly risen and she was covered with a light, healthy sheen of sweat as she finally ceased her drills, doing one last flourish with her saber before sheathing it once more. With her heartrate up and the dark despair sweated out, she was ready to face the day, though she still hadn't decided whether she'd meet the knights who'd be coming to arrest her in battle or if she'd surrender herself. Both seemed equally detrimental to finding her mother.

As she headed back inside to the manor, she caught movement at the windows. Along the top floor, children were watching, and waved when they saw they had her attention. She nodded and waved back, even as she scanned the other windows. Her older wards watched as well. Some ducked furtively, some waved hesitantly or bowed formally in acknowledgement at her gaze.

Lowering her hand, she headed for a wash and then perhaps breakfast. Whatever the day would bring, she would do meet it with dignity; go through it, go around it, or kill it as needed; and then save her mother. Somehow, she was going to save her mother.

At breakfast, Ghirardeli approached her, waiting to be acknowledged before he reported.

"Your ladyship," he said. "I'm happy to report that your carriage is ready. I've had the grooms go and pick it up."

"Umbasa!" Sophia cheered. "Finally, you can get around on your own! Congratulations on joining the ranks of the mobile and independent!"

"Aww…" Katarina said as Miss Shelly awkwardly ate breakfast at her other side, no doubt overcome with a strong urge to stand behind her mistress and be silently disapproving at any improper eating habits. "I'm going to miss my private rides with Maria-chan."

"I've been meaning to ask," Sophia said. "Shouldn't that be Lady Maria-chan?"

"Nope!" Katarina said cheerfully. "Doesn't work that way! The '–chan' overrides the 'lady'. That's just how Ashinago works!"

Sophia shrugged. "Well, I suppose you'd know," she said, a strange expression on her face. "So, is there any special rules on who it's used for…?"

"Nope! You can use it for anyone, Sophia-chan!" Katarina said cheerfully.

Sophia smiled wildly, and Maria got the sense she'd been let off some sort of hook she hadn't known she'd been hanging from.