Where the fuck did our girl land?

"Y-you are magicians? Y-you both?" She managed under the astonishment, letting the pair of shoes fall.

A cold sweat slid down her spine.
Calm down. They maybe aren't your magicians.
Panic conquering her mind didn't stop her forgetting the saying.
Keep your friends close, and your enemies even closer.

"Well, yes, since we use magic." The woman clicked her fingers, cleaning Nia from the puke instantly. "But we aren't as insane as most will think."

"That wasn't proved yet..."

The woman clicked her fingers once again, making Einar's mouth disappear.
"We are perfectly sane. Do not worry about that." She declared, the boy panicking in the background. "I'm Almos, in charge of the washhouse, and this is Einar, a part-timer here."

And she told a newbie like her that super important secret just like that? Was that Almos really in possession of all her mental capabilities?

"Are you sure you're lucid, ma'am?" Nia queried, making Einar choke. (From the nose, it's good to be precise...) "I mean... any rational magician wouldn't have confessed their origin like that."

Only an ear-burning silence welcomed her comment.

"Y-you're clever, new girl." Almos stuttered, glowering and grinning at the same time. "But I can put any kind of spell on you, so weigh your future words with care."

Fear spread to every of her limbs which felt like cotton.
"You both are messed up." Nia observed, a frightened frown gluing her brows.

Being stuck here, finding a good servant and eventually not dying seemed instantly worse than anything.
Yet fleeing now, admitting she was a feeble princess...
No, she had to keep a straight mind.

"W-what do we do here?" A poor curve bent her lips.

The woman didn't resist a devilish smirk, snapping her finger and making Einar's mouth reappear as Nia jolted.
"Everything and anything." She chuckled. "The laundry completes itself automatically by the river out there, so I do experiences with Einar and other assistants all day."

"On me, you mean." The boy added, rubbing his recovered mouth and receiving a chilling glare from his superior.

"You should learn to hold your tongue. One day, you'll have it cut."

"...Yes, ma'am."

Almos spun back to Nia, her periwinkle hair twirling in her back as she moved.
"New girl, welcome to the laundry team." She showed all her teeth in the brightest smile when our writer could only feel shivers conquer every inch of her body thanks to it.

Einar, who still frowned at her with an abnormal will, just snarled.
"Do you even have a name, new girl?"

Almos' glance turned into a glare.
"So you didn't even listen when it was told this morning? It's Nia."

"Well," he began to brag with that perfectly slappable look. "I met another girl with your name. She was way prettier. Ouch!" He yelped after receiving the hit of Almos on his head.

"Between brainless and heartless, I wonder every day which one you are."

This extirpated an honest grin of Nia.
"A fine blend of both." She found the courage to say.

The boy swore in an indistinguishable mumble.

"What did you just say?" An exasperated brow rose on Almos' forehead.

"Nothing." His furrowed brows, knitted lips-all of this behavior was identifiable as a unique thing, jealousy.

"I also must tell you that you have your afternoons free since our 'work' is considered tiring." She declared solemnly before adding with a wink. "Though I'd love your company for longer, Nia."

"I'll have to decline your offer," she politely intoned. "Since "working" here seems, indeed... dull."

Dull for my social connections and chances of meeting my future servants.

"That's unfortunate..." Almos mumbled. "As long as you arrive on time, I'll guess I'll survive."

"If it can help, ma'am, I'll absolutely do it." Another fake smile spread on Nia's lips.

"Ahem." Einar interjected in this lovey-dovey garbage. "Someone knocked."

"ENTER." Our writer's new boss shouted as our girl bugged.

"Ma'am, the magic—" she tried, but it was too late since the door was already wide open.

"Gooooooood morning!" A girl thrust into the room with a large basket of various tissues.

"Hello, Yara." Einar spoke, the voice sweeter than before and the smile across the face. "Did you take Delyphena's turn?"

"Yeah," the Yara, who seemed to not see any part of the perilous magical installation, sighed with relief and exasperation at the same time. "You know how much she likes this place."

Nia, not understanding a thing of the happening events, met the girl's eyes with an unsettled expression as she laid the basket on the only place where there wasn't miraculously any bottles.

"You're the new girl Myrio and Jos talked about!" The girl excitedly saluted. "Nira, right?"

"I'm Nia—"

"I'm Yara; nice to meet you! I'm one of the traveling servants, so we might meet again!"
Then the girl jumped on both of her hands to shake them vigorously.

Nia couldn't help but feel wrong in such of a situation; having people jumping on you wasn't incredible.

"Yara... it was so nice to have you here, but we have work now."
Step after step, chatter after chatter, the loud Yara finally disappeared behind the door.

"Ugh, she's so nosy." Nia's colleague sighed, shifting his figure under a second.

"I know, that's why I used all my charms to make her leave." Their superior boasted.

"Uh..." Nia gabbled, "...how..." before giving up. "What was that?"

"This was Yara, the chattiest girl of all the traveling servants." Almos threw with a shrug. "She gossips so bad, but at least, when we need something, we just have to ask her."

"But how didn't she see any of this?" Our writer pointed a wobbly finger at the unmoved installation.

Einar shrugged. "Magic. Simply magic."

"BUT HOW?"

He rolled his eyes as she had asked the dumbest question ever heard.
"An invisibility spell. Every person exterior from the team cannot see our laboratory. It is decided as soon as you sign the enrolling contract if you can see or not."

"And how many people have you stopped seeing that before me?" She snapped.

Almos innocently giggled. "A lot."

"Sixty-two." Einar finished, dead-serious. "Sixty-two, in total."

So, every servant had send her to immediate rejection. Our girl smiled with a devastating charm she conserved even with her different appearance, hiding a shudder away.
"I'm grateful to be the sixty-third, then. With which part of the work should I begin with?"

●●●

At the border of the small river, Nia threw with all her muscles the atrocious laundry.

When Almos had answered, 'Since it's your first day, just mind the laundry, I'll teach you magic later.' Our writer had been, of course, disappointed. She could have observed a more experienced magician, and now, having foreseen a quite good opportunity from which she had been dragged apart, she felt robbed.

Well, she wasn't this robbed, hearing Einar's screams, but it could have been fun.

It was so very peaceful to be here, by the laundry. Like all her problems had flown out of the window of her mind.

"Hey. Make some place." Einar, covered with an unknown smelly liquid, approached from the small path leading to the barn.

Nia slid out of the way hastily, with a heart attack when he began to undress.

"What are you doing?"

"My clothes are dirty, so I'll wash them." He bit off. "Turn around if you're sensible to a torso."

He still seemed irked by her.
His jealousy could cause some fuss in the future.
It was Jade's time to meddle in someone else's business!

"You know, Einar, I won't take your place or anything."

The incessant splattering noises halted.

"And everything will come back to how it was before quickly," she added since she was here for a week, at the longest. Nothing long here, "don't worry."

The halt lasted five big seconds before a fussing slosh exploded.

"Yeah, yeah, we'll see." He mumbled as he sent water with another excessive noise.
As he sent water on her.
"Plain girl." He finished, a despicable smirk on the lips.

Someone took some time to know you, to show you they aren't here to harm, and YOU assaulted them? (This Narrator wants to remind Jade that's just water.)

"COME HERE, STUPID—" She entered the river, flooding the environment grass and bushes, and took a wide scoop of liquid in both of her hands to throw it in his direction.

But Einar, whose experience in water battles was higher, had seen it coming and, using a forbidden technique, plunged under the waves, upsetting our girl even more.
She plunged after him and, to her big surprise, fell face to face with the boy.
Before she could make an underwater wave, a complex symbol appeared and made a shockwave vibrate through the river, propelling her far from him. A few droplets, having crossed her nostrils and landed into her lungs, she didn't manage to hold her choking in.

"Pwah!" The belched liquid of her lungs escaped her mouth, letting her breath come back.

Another challenging wave shook the river, immobilizing her.
A tower of water, as high as the centuries-old trees around, elevating again and again, draining all the liquid from the river, assembled slowly.

"Lapsus."

And the whole building started to tilt.
In her way.

Oups, that's not nice.

'I'm here, friend!'

"Spirot?" She muttered. "What are you—"

'Saving your life!' Spirot appeared, a shiny barrier building up around her. 'Shut up and thank me later, when no one will be around.'

She inspired a last cup of air as the turquoise tower creeped up.

"EINAR, WHAT THE ACTUAL SORRE ARE YOU DOING?"
A sprinting Almos distracted the boy in his attack; the watery building splitting the sky in two to join our girl.

"M-ma'am Almos—" he stuttered.

But it was too late. The tower was so close to Nia that she could have touched it.

It was crashing on her.

It should have crashed on her.

But it didn't, she was intact.

She looked up, frightened by this abnormal yet pleasing event.
A gigantic, fire sword floated above her head, slicing the liquid in its length.
Suspended in the air, the water tower seemed to have paused her life in the worst way possible, between life and death.

Slowly, the golden barrier Spirot had created crackled, fragment by fragment.

Just when this still seemed engraved in the moment, the water unexpectedly fell from the air, the Tuscany sword disintegrating in thousands of blonde dusts.
And, from both sides, the past retained blocks of liquid assaulted her.

The untamed waves swayed her back and forth, sometimes letting her lungs fill with oxygen, sometimes not. And sometimes for a little too long, when her muscles, unused to panic and perilous action, didn't respond as they should have to keep her to surface.

One breathe, restrain. Two breathes, restrain.
Three—

"Glurg—" her will of inspiration resulted in water in her lungs.

Was she really going to die? By drowning?
Could have been cooler for a death.

"Nia!" She faintly heard Almos. "Galia, can you hear me?"

The little last amount of liquid remaining in her throat didn't resist her coughs and evaded her lips.
"Yes, I" another cough escaped. "I can hear you."

"Thank Gaila..." A blurry Almos probably to the young boy, a little afar from our dying girl, shooting a lethal stare. "YOU—"

Well, he was dead hearing her tone of voice.

"HOW DARE YOU? WE AGREED ON THAT POINT, NEVER USING MAGIC ON NONMAGICIANS. AND WHAT DID YOU DO? APART TO THROW A TANTRUM WHEN I KNOW YOU ARE MORE MATURE THAN THAT? YOU BROKE THE RULE! FIRST, YOU PUT HER LIFE IN DANGER, AND, SECOND, DO YOU REMEMBER THERE ARE STILL OTHER PEOPLE WHO CAN SEE OUR MAGIC IN THE QUARTERS? IF SOMEONE ELSE THAN HOENIR HAD SCURRIED HERE, WE COULD HAVE BEEN IN A SORRE OF A SITUATION! AND YOU'RE LUCKY IT'S HIM WHO ARRIVED, YOUNG BOY!"

Our girl was maybe just hallucinating cause she heard the name of Hoenir.

Her eyes flew up
Same blond hair, orange eyes, and straight nose as always. But with a more perturbed expression than the habitual.

"Miss, are you alright?" He asked with care.

Hoenir was a magician.
Holy shit.
Jade's throat was drowning with anxiety.
She didn't think the magician could be so close.

Calm down.
Calm down.
Breathe.

First, he didn't know she was Jade.
She was Nia Tre and nothing else for now.
Second, perhaps he was just a random magician, not the one who'll cause her death.
And third, magic contracts, stopping the contractors from hurting each other, existed. She could always force him to sign with a knife on the throat, as she had planned to do for Einar and Almos upon engaging them.

Everything would be alright.
Finding good servants couldn't be so dangerous.

Hoenir was above her; a strange halo of light shone around his head, making him look like a saint in those religious representations. Her only reaction was to instantly raise her head from his laps.

"Yes, of course I'm alright." Her mind tried to understand. "Almos, what is—"

Their boss took a deep breath as Einar had already slide far away from their terrific boss.
"Nia!" She jovially intoned, spinning to her as if nothing happened. "I present you our past member, Hoenir! He's now under the Tenth Star orders. Cool, right?"

As Einar ran to Nia's side speedily, like she was his ally or something, Almos, with a sign of the hand, indicated Jade's servant.

"Miss," he curtseyed.

"Oh, don't bother yourself with that." Almos shook her head. "She knows."

Hoenir jolted back before showing off a majestically flabbergasted face.
"She knows?"

"She knows."

"SHE KNOWS?"

"Ahem," Nia cut, "yes, I know."

Without a warning, he seemed to totally flop, but on his feet.
"I already told you to not accept everyone, Almos." He sighed like a tired, old man.

"But I don't!" Almos began to whine like Einar just did. Birds of feathers surely come together.
"She had already entered the barn when we told her, and we had enough information to blackmail her!"

Yeah! Best thing ever! Everyone spends their weekends extorting people!

"That wasn't the point..." Hoenir took back, frowning as his life was at stake. "Nia, right?" He passed his unfathomable regard on her, from head to toe, before his voice turned dreadful. "Don't you dare to pronounce a syllable about this place."

Menaces, menaces, and menaces again.
"Yeah, y'all finished with the threats? I have to change clothes." She only gave a glance at their destabilized expression, and raised her hand to swear.
"I promise on my own life that I'll never tell a word about it. Satisfied?"

"Of course!" Almos hastily regained her figure, on the contrary of the two others. "Now, Einar, lead her to the bathrooms."

"What?" He protested, being dragged out of his surprise. "But it's just water. It'll dry off!"

"If she wants, you'll go."

"But—"

"No, you will do." She attested. "Now," she shook her hand, "go."

Einar swore under his breath as our writer could only desolate herself on the case.

She wanted to go alone to communicate with new people. But she was now doomed to tug this despicable boy who practically drowned her everywhere. Contradicting her new boss, whose mood swings were more invasive, would sadly be anything but a good idea.

"Then," Almos asked Hoenir as the forced-to-collaborate duo strode back to the quarters, "why are you here today?"

Nia marveled if it was because she was missing he had free time.
But marveling around that wasn't the top priority.