'Till I sea you again

The first order of business, when searching for other possible transmigrators or reincarnators, is to actually leave your room and start looking. Auricularis and Calorie with their undoubtedly genius level intellect did not think of this.

Instead, they decided to lurk inside Auricularis' chambers until another maid summoned the royal recluse for second breakfast.

"How weird would it be if you ate with me?" Auricularis asked Calorie. "It's kind of lonely eating by myself."

"Very weird I think."

"Darn."

"Your Highness, the food is ready," called the maid for the sixth time.

"Coming," the princess yelled back. "I guess I'll be seeing you around homeslice."

"Hopefully soon."

They nodded at each other, and Auricularis exited the room to follow the maid outside to the dining hall.

In the dining hall there was a small army of butlers surrounding the long, rectangular table. Their arms were laden with silver platters that the princess just knew had good food in it. The scent of roasted garlic was singing her name.

On the table was a sparkling array of silverware shining so brightly that for a second she feared she was going blind. In total unison, the butlers took the covers off of their dishes with a grand flourish, set them on the table, and went to stand by the wall in perfect single-file lines.

Auricularis had always had a large appetite, and today was no exception. She felt a bit bad her buddy couldn't join her, so the hungry, hungry hippo had resolved to eat enough for the both of them.

While Auricularis was chowing down, Calorie had left the princess's room and was now wandering the castle's hallways hunting for something to do so she wouldn't look too suspicious.

She had considered finding another room to clean, but she was pretty sure her wrong way of cleaning looked even more suspicious than her just walking around. Calorie did not want to get sent to a holding cell for interrogation, but aside from cleaning, she had no clue what else maids did.

To her surprise, she had a thought: explore the castle grounds and hunt for potential reincarnators! Or transmigrators! Whatever they happened to be.

Calorie nyoom-ed out the door to search for Auricularis, completely forgetting that Auricularis was currently supposed to be stuffing her face at a maid-free banquet table. Unlike the princess she was so urgently searching for, Calorie was not blessed with a veteran employee to guide her around the castle.

So, it was no surprise that she was unable to find the dining room. Calorie soon found herself at dead end after dead end, stumbling upon corridor upon corridor lined with ivory crown molding. She had long lost track of how many fancy windows she had peered through, hoping it would help her figure out her location, and her feet had begun to ache (which was not saying much considering she was in pretty bad shape).

At this point, all she wanted was somewhere to rest. Looking up, Calorie found herself gazing upon the sun at its zenith. Had she been floating around the castle grounds for so long that another day already dawned? And since when had she left the palace interior and entered the royal garden?

She stumbled along the packed dirt path, dragging her weary feet behind her, and plopped down on a conveniently placed bench.

The story's author must have felt bad for poor 'ol Calorie who had been searching so hard, because lo behold just as the worn out maid sat down, a panting Auricularis turned the corner and joined her on the stone seat.

"Avery!" Calorie cried tears of heavenly joy, her happiness at the sight of her newfound friend restoring all the energy that she thought was gone for good. "I was looking for you!"

Auricularis slammed a sweaty hand over Calorie's mouth and made a violent shushing noise. After a couple of tense seconds, Auricularis removed her hand and wiped it on her skirts, her eyes darting from side to side as she assessed their surroundings.

Calorie quickly gagged to the side and scrubbed her mouth furiously with her apron, turning back just as Auricularis turned to look at her.

"You good bro?" Auricularis raised a brow.

"Um, yeah. I just choked on my spit," Calorie fumbled as she tried to erase the feeling of Auricularis' moist palm from her memory.

"Oh okay. Anyways, I was thinking that maybe we should be addressing each other by our new names now? Not because they sound cooler, because they don't, but because it would be dangerous if someone accidentally overheard us, right?

Calorie snorted. Mentally though, of course, because she wasn't about to offend the only person who would speak to her. The idea of being forever referred to as a unit of measurement commonly seen on the back of a bag of chips rubbed her the wrong way, but she had to admit that the ear muscle made sense.

"Sure, it's a pretty big brain idea."

"Thanks, man," beamed Auricularis proudly.

Then Calorie remembered her own big-brain idea.

"So like, you know how we're on the lookout for other people who are from our world but, like, in another body, right?

"Well, what if we went out and like, looked for them?"

Both of them were stunned by her brilliance for a brief moment.

"Wow," Auricularis whispered, totally in awe.

"Yeah," Calorie nodded emphatically.

Their smooth brains synced up and they stood at the same time, taking off in the direction of where they thought they would find people.

Ultimately, they failed, because they did not really end up finding anyone. They were the ones found.

"Princess!"

"Your Highness!"

"Calorie!"

A crowd of torch-wielding maids flooded the clearing and swept Auricularis up in their tide.

"You've been missing for half an hour, Your Highness. Why did you disappear from the dining hall so quickly?" One especially important looking maid, probably the head maid, pulled Auricularis aside.

"Even more importantly, Your Highness, you are to attend a tea party tomorrow and there are preparations to be made."

A bit further out in the sea of people, a maid smacked Calorie's head.

"What were you doing you fool? Lunchtime was thirty minutes ago," the maid scolded.

"Yeah, now you'll starve for the rest of the day!" another one chimed in.

"You're lucky I saved some of my bread for you," said the first one while shaking her head. She stuffed a piece of stale, moldy crust into Calorie's hands. "Here. Eat."

Calorie stared at it with watery eyes. She had forgotten about the difference in living standards in the feudal system. The life of a manservant was a difficult one.

On the bright side, she hadn't gotten lost in the castle for an entire day, just one forty-eighth of one.

Like the parting of the Red Sea, the ocean of maids split in two, one group heading in the direction of the castle, and the other back to the servants' quarters.

Auricularis and Calorie caught each other's gazes above the turbulent waters. Since they were in the same boat they knew they had to stick together, but how?

"Wait, bring back the maid who was with me," Auricularis called.

The maids turned collectively, their wide skirts rippling not unlike the water of a pond after a stone had been thrown in.

"Water are you doing?" Calorie tried to get her words across, but alas! She was a man lost at sea.

"For what reason exactly, Your Highness?" The head maid slid her spectacles up her schnozz that was scrunched with suspicion.

"I want her to be my personal maid."

The head maid frowned but who was she to argue? To pick a fight with a royal would make her deluge-ional.

"As you wish, Your Highness." She curtsied as deeply as the Mariana Trench, then waved at the rest of the maids.

They exited the garden together, following the head maid like a school of fish.

"Why did you do that? Are you baiting them? Giving them a reason to throw us in prison?" Calorie exclaimed once she was finally reunited with her new charge.

Auricularis shook her head. Her mind had grown three sizes that day.

"That ship has already sailed. There's nothing more we can do, so the next best thing is to stick together." She gazed solemnly out into the horizon. "Besides, you need to help me figure out what to do about the upcoming tea party. Do you know how a tea party works? I don't. I've never been to one, never been invited to one, never thought I'd go to one, never-"

"Ah, I hate to break it to you girl, but we're in the same boat."

"Shoot. What should we do then? It would look way, way too suspicious if either of us asked the other maids about how to get ready for a tea party. I'm 97.2% sure that's something we're supposed to know, my man."

"Um...uhh...errr…"

Unfortunately, the astounding intellect that had possessed the two earlier had gone with the wind.