An Accountant Interlude

One morning, as Joanna Harker woke up from strange dreams about sweet, fruity cream cold as ice and delightful as sin, she discovered that in her sleep she had not become a mindless, ravaging hollow seeking the dark souls of the living.

That was always a good start to the day.

Joanna was used to not having what most nobles took for granted. Thus, having her own private bath was a great pleasure for her. She'd found that most of the rest of the household, barring her ladyship, her ladyship's fiancé, and her ladyship's mother, made do with a communal bath building for their ablutions. The fact she had her own bath was, she reflected, a small acknowledgement of her noble status despite the fact she was here as hired labor…

No, not hired labor. Joanna allowed herself a small smile as she recalled the recent change in her employment. With the tax season over, and her ladyship satisfied with their work, they three of the had been retained and offered more permanent positions. Joanna was now employed to handle the finances of her ladyship's estate, while the Sevenights twins had been retained to work on the account of her ladyship's businesses. The three still found themselves working in the same office, but as it was much better than any office they ever worked at before, they were perfectly fine with this arrangement.

Joanna fully expected to be pulled into what dark, illegal dealings her ladyship was involved in now that she had been hired as the estate accountant, but at least being hired on meant she no longer had to fear being arbitrarily disposed of as a witness. Good accountants were hard to find, after all.

Yawning, Joanna rose up and went to her door to collect the hot water she would add to her morning bathwater. It was one of the few extravagancies she allowed herself. After all, one more kettle boiling in the kitchen wasn't much to ask, right?

Though, come to think of it, it had probably come from the large boiler in the bath house…

Joanna went off to have a bath, humming a small tune to and reminding herself that the voices and laughter she was hearing were from the children upstairs, and NOT restless dark spirit hiding in the shadows to drive her mad.

She still wasn't completely sure about that—she'd once seen something sticking out of her ladyship's shadow—but that's what she told herself to maintain her sanity until the next time her ladyship gave her drugged cold cream.

It was another day in the Campbell Estate.

A Shio Interlude

Shio woke up to find her tail had been used as a pillow again.

She had become used to that, after all these months. For one thing, it was a much more pleasant thing to wake up that than… than…

…

Well… than any number of things that mama had messily killed and saved her from.

Plus, having people sleeping on her tail gave her an excuse not to get up just yet. After all, it would be very rude to move when doing so would mean waking up so many other people who were still asleep. Yup, best to lie back down on her side in her nice, thick, hard-to-take-off-without-waking-her sleeping clothes

Grandma Alice and Grandma Anne had been the ones to tell them a story last night. Grandma Anne wasn't very good at it, since she always read the story slowly and hesitantly, so Grandma Alice usually did it now, while Grandma Anne gave everyone cuddles. Katarina had told everyone that Grandma Anne gave great cuddles, and she would know.

Back when Grandma Alice and secret-Grandma Anne had started telling stories, they'd leave after the children was asleep to go back to the Grandma House and have Grandma Fun together. Nowadays though, since mama knew about Grandma Anne being a grandma, they'd didn't do that as much anymore. Instead, Grandma Alice would let the children cuddle around her and Grandma Anne, which was so much nicer. Grandma Alice smelled like mother, only with less blood and more sweat, and Grandma Anne smelled like beeswax and cooking and just a little bit of stress. Even though they weren't mama, they kept the bad dreams about bad things away.

Grandma Alice also called her a wonderful darling and didn't call her pretty, beautiful, cute, or any of the words that made her feel dirty just by hearing them again. Even 'good girl' and 'good boy' from their lips sounded wonderful, because they said it with love and didn't make anyone hurt afterwards.

Eventually, she felt one of the people sleeping on her tail start to stir. Shio sighed. Well, they all had to get up eventually.

Still, it wasn't bad. After waking up, they'd have breakfast to look forward to. The aunties in the kitchen made the most wonderful food, all warm and soft and fresh and not smelling like puke and blood and shit. They got to eat in while sitting on chairs and wearing clothes, like real people.

Which they were, Shio reminded herself happily. Mama had said so, and she'd already killed everyone who said they weren't…

Every day was like a dream.

Shio ignored the scared little voice that whispered it was all just a dream, that when she woke up, really woke up, she'd find herself in a cage again, her tail wrapped around painfully since the bars were too closely space for her to slip it through, naked and sitting in filth, waiting for…

Well. It was getting easier to ignore that voice. Its voice was becoming weaker as well. Soon, it would just be another bad dream to be slain by mama.

As someone else on her tail started waking up, Shio resigned herself to getting up soon.

It was another day in the Campbell Estate…

A Nightflower Interlude

"Be careful at work!" his wife called after them as he and the little ones set off for their lady's manor.

"Always am!" Wiley Acme said, giving his wife one last wave before turning to face properly up the road.

"And you two learn your lessons, you hear! Don't make her ladyship had to end you home!"

"Yes, mama!" they said, with that exasperated air of having gone through this many times before.

Well, it made sense. After all, not many villages sent the children to their lady's manor for schooling. Still, after all these months, one would think his wife would learn to stop worrying about the children somehow offending their ladyship so terribly she'd do… something… about it. Perhaps his wife still saw the old, never-to-be-sufficiently-hexed-to-the-abyss Marchioness, who had reigned in terror for years.

Wiley and his children walked towards the manor, exchanging greetings with other men, women and children walking the same way.

"Got your badges?" he asked the kids, just to be sure.

This was met with less exasperation, as the knights and armsmen took the badges VERY seriously. No one was allowed into their lady's lands unless they were on a list or had a badge. Wiley wore his Nightflower Workshop badge proudly, as did the other men and women of Raven's Nest employed there.

"Here!" the children chirped, holding up their Schoolroom badges, which allowed them to actually go up to the manor.

The wait at the gate was brief—thankfully, it seemed no one had gotten drunk and had their badge stolen by yet another sneaky thief trying to steal their lady's secrets this week—and soon Wiley was bidding his children goodbye himself as they went up to the manor. As he headed towards the Nightflower Workshop's manufactory, flashing his badge and nodding at the knights on duty guarding the other factory full of his lady's secret, he heard familiar cries of "Heigh-ho! Heave-ho!" from his lady's squire, and made a note of it should Lady Ascart stop by. She was always in a good mood after he gave her news of how Lady—sorry, squire—Claes was doing. Really, that young woman was so pent up…

Well, none of his business. Arriving at the manufactory, which had grown twice already since he'd first been hired—wow, had it only been a few months ago? Time certainly flew—Wiley set about checking on the inventory and equipment.

He hoped they did another sample test soon. It was always good for morale, and he so loved it, seeing one of the nightflowers they'd made light up the sky…

It was another day in the Nightflower Workshop…

A (not Susanna Randall) Larna Smith Interlude

The woman known as Larna Smith had to admit, she definitely had more time to actually make magic tools nowadays.

The process was barely slowed down by all the paperwork their new Shadow Director insisted she fill out before he'd authorize her to start on the next one. As much as it galled her to say so, filling up those forms certainly helped give her new ideas for magic tools as features she hadn't thought of at the time were revealed, ways to make it more efficient came to mind after the fact, and being forced to find actual practical uses for her creation—with a priority towards improving the working conditions here in the Ministry—gave her even more ideas for things to build.

It also led to a surprising amount of introspection and self-recrimination. Really, past-self, a bag that let you store the smell of food? What were you thinking, you moron?-! That's the sort of thing that gets your development budget slashed!

She was in the middle of drafting a design for a new magic tool—another attempt to create a Dark Magic detector. 7th time's the charm!—when Rafael entered her lad, holding a pot of tea. From the smell, it was a batch he'd brewed himself.

"Larna," he said, glancing at what she was drawing. "That's the latest Dark Magic detector?"

"Yup!" she said. "Hopefully it works this time." Her first attempt turned out to be detecting the Dark Soul, and so had made her paranoid that everyone around her had been affected by Dark Magic and had nearly led to her braining Sora with a chair. It wasn't a complete loss, and was now being used to serve as an alarm for restricted areas, but still! They really needed this detector.

Rafael nodded. "Well, you should know the procedure by now," he said. Huh. Was he starting to trust her again? Convenient, if so, she could do with less reminders. "I need to talk to you during lunch break, so be sure to actually come up for lunch today, all right?"

"Lunch break?" she said, blinking curiously. "Why wait until then? You're here now."

"It's not work-related," Rafael said.

"Ooh, do you want to commission a magic tool from the greatest—" Larna began with a grin.

"NOT work related, I'll discuss it over lunch!" Rafael said loudly.

"Hmm… I don't know, I was planning to work over lunch…" Larna said coyly.

"Oh, that's a shame, I have these Maria-made cookies—"

"Fine, fine, I'll be there!"

Rafael nodded. "Wonderful. I'll see you then, Larna."

Impulsively, she reached over and ruffled his hair.

"Excuse me?" he said blandly.

"Look at you," she said, unable to keep pride out of his voice as she grinned. "Not even too years and you're already running this place after treacherously deposing your old boss, giving me orders. I'm proud of you, kid. I knew everyone else was an idiot for not picking you for their deparment."

Surprisingly, he smiled back. "Thank you for giving me a chance, you lazy slavedriver," he said.

They both nodded in understanding.

"I'll see you at lunch, boss," Larna said, going back to her drawing board.

"Thanks, Smith," he said. "And be there early, I wasn't kidding about the cookies!"

It was another day in the Ministry.