Chapter 7 - Mochi vs Walking

The three spent hours combing through books. Nao had retrieved the original book from the room for reference, and also ran defense with the other maids, claiming that she had found the princess and was dutifully punishing her as the royal attendant.

Nao had been the princess’s attendant since they were children, so some of the younger and newer maids worried a childhood friend would go too easy on punishment for murder, but the more seasoned maids who had watched Nao grow knew she was the no-nonsense type and left it in her hands.

It helped that Milly was so negative and gloomy that whenever another maid passed the library out of curiosity for the punishment, they could hear moaning and groaning from the princess herself.

Milly’s moaning however was simply due to the fact that they weren’t having any luck with finding another book. They thought they had found a breakthrough at one point and found a spell in another book that might have been able to restore the damaged page in the original book, but when Milly tried to cast it nothing happened.

“Nao… What do I dooooo?... Can you try casting the spell?”

“I’m afraid I can’t use magic. You’ve always been a wonderful caster though, I wonder why it’s not working.”

Milly flattened her ears and looked at Nao with a sullen face, and waved her little paw through the book.

“I’m not a wonderful caster, I’m terrible. I couldn’t even cast magic without touching spellbooks before, and now I can’t touch anything…”

“There’s the dreary princess I know. I guess in all the chaos you forgot to be mean to yourself for a moment.”

Tugging on her ears, Milly flipped onto her back and floated around, kicking her furry legs in frustration.

“Miss Milky, what would you like to do?”

“It’s not Milky… It’s Milly. Millicent. I thought it sounded cool but Mochi couldn’t say it.”

“Ahhh, I see now. Millicent definitely fits in line with your past choices. Druscilla, Akasha, Carmilla, Lenore…”

“S-stop, stop!”

“I still don’t understand why you don’t just use your real name-”

“Nao!”

“Fine, fine. Though I don’t know if I’m a fan of Milly either. I always liked the first name you picked best. How you introduced yourself was so cute…”

“Nao!”

“‘It’s your pleasure to meet the vampire queen! Princess Evil! Er… no wait… Evuli!’”

If dogs could blush Milly would definitely have been beet red as she flailed around and flew through Nao’s head trying to get her to stop bringing up her mortifying past. Nao just kept laughing.

“How could you be the vampire queen but still a princess!”

The laughing awoke Mochi, who had been curled up beside Nao, and she stretched out her body as she yawned.

“Biiiiig stretch! Good morning Miss Mochi.”

“I’m sleepy. What’s happening?”

“Well, that’s up to the princess, but I think we should go to see Velho. I have a feeling there’s more to this spell mess than we can handle on our own. What do you think?”

“I think I'm going to humiliate myself in front of the greatest mage in the world…”

“Then it's decided! I'll go fetch Zen.”

“NAO NO. Why do we need him?! It's fine! I'm a ghost! We don't need him!”

“Who's Zen? Does he have food? I'm really hungry.”

“Zen is my brother, and a member of the royal guard. He's protected the princess since we were children.”

“He has NOT! He's FOLLOWED me every time I wanted to leave the castle and bullied me for years. We don't need him!”

“Okay Mochi, let's get you some proper food and clothing, and we'll go meet a new friend. How's that sound?”

Nao smiled gently at Mochi and gave her a pat on the head, and was met with happy panting and an enthusiastic nod and a bit of drool.

Silently screaming, Milly tried to pull her ears clean off her head, but just came away with tufts of ripped fur in her paws. They quickly disappeared and reappeared attached to her, and Nao looked impressed.

“My, what a cool trick!”

Standing and offering her hand to Mochi, Nao saw for the first time that Mochi couldn't stand or walk on her own.

“Hmm. One thing at a time I guess. Let's get you walking before we venture to Velho’s.”

“H-how long is that going to take? I don't want to be a dog for weeks.”

Nao's shoulders began to shake slightly as she faced away from the two.

“Oh don't worry, I'll only need a day.”

She turned back to Milly with a devilish grin and Milly knew instantly that Mochi was in for the worst night of her life.

The three of them navigated to the kitchen, with Nao carrying Mochi princess style, but when they arrived she closed the kitchen door in Milly’s face. As the door closed Milly saw Nao’s evil smile grow larger as she started chuckling to herself.

“Come back later Princess.”

Milly looked on in terror, but had to quickly hide behind a large vase as another maid came walking down the hall.

A sudden guttural scream could be heard from within the kitchen, and the maid stopped in front of the door and knowingly nodded with a smile before continuing on.

“Poor Mochi…”

Milly decided to use her free time to partake in one of her favourite activities; moping in the dark. She phased herself through the large vase and got cozy, realizing that dogs had the perfect bodies to curl up really tight, and sighed and lamented all that had happened in the last day.

At some point she fell asleep, and awoke later on when her tail brushed against her nose, causing her to sneeze.

“Ahhh. You were hiding in a dark place, of course.”

Milly groggily poked her head up through the opening of the vase and spotted Nao alone.

“Where is Mochi?”

Nao gave a smug grin and called towards the closed kitchen door.

“Miss Mochi~ Come here girl!”

The door clicked and opened, and Mochi stiffly walked out on her own. Her face contorted as she focused on her balance. She looked like a newborn deer, but she was walking.

“And you opened the door!”

Nao nodded triumphantly.

“And she opened the door.”

Tears started to flow as Milly congratulated Mochi on being such a good girl. Mochi stopped in place, spread her feet wide to keep herself upright, and put her fists on her hips. The smug look Nao had before was now plastered on Mochi’s face.

“I'm good at this!”

Nao: 1

Mochi: 1