21 Ballin'

As per maid protocol, once she reached the pearly white gates of Heaven, aka the door to the princess's room, she knocked and then presented herself.

"Your Highness, it's Calorie."

"Come in."

Inside, Auricularis and Bolita were huddled on the floor over a crisp cream envelope. Auricularis greeted her with a classic bro-nod of acknowledgement, which Calorie returned.

"Hi," waved Bolita.

"Hihi," replied Calorie, throwing in a peace sign for flavor.

"Right then, let's get down to business," said Bolita gesturing toward the envelope. "I received this letter last night, and as you can see, it's from the palace. Auricularis, our resident expert on classic reincarnation troupes, has an idea of what it could possibly be, and if it's what she thinks it is, it's not good news for me."

"What do you think it is?"

"Not saying," replied Auricularis. "I don't want to accidentally jinx it, you feel?"

"Ah, right, we don't want to manifest bad things into existence."

"Would you like to do the honors?" Auricularis held out the envelope to Calorie.

She lived, breathed, and died for gossip. Of course she'd do the honors. Calorie tore open the envelope as best as she could without damaging its tender insides. The other two watched from behind her like vultures, with bated breath.

After a long moment of Calorie struggling to take the letter out of the envelope and then another short moment filled with muffled swearing at the papercut received from taking the letter out of the envelope, the paper of destiny was out in the open.

It didn't take long for the three to skim through its contents. It was very kind of the higher being who transported their souls to stick them in a world where the writing was easy to understand.

"So was Auricularis right?" asked Calorie.

"Sadly yeah," sighed the princess, running a hand through her pink locks.

It was all Calorie could do to hold back her comment about the royal transferring oils from her hand to her hair, though that probably wasn't something the princess cared about.

"An engagement to that wack-ass prince huh. And an official decree at that. So that's what this ball that I've been doing all this work for is for."

"Oh so that's what you've been up to this whole time," said Auricularis, the sparkle of realization entering her eyes. "Finally becoming a real maid, eh. 'Bout time too."

"You say that like you've become more of a princess or something."

"She's got a point," added Bolita. "At the moment you're probably the least in character out of the three of us. Probably need to get to doing something about that too, since I don't get the feeling we'll be out of here any time soon, what with all the..."

At this, she gestured vaguely at the three of them and they all nodded in clear understanding of their kind-of-extremely-lacking brainpower in the tricky situation they were in.

"So you're saying a model aristocrat or something," frowned Auricularis, her brow wrinkling in a very unladylike manner.

"Maybe not a model aristocrat, but I think I've been doing a decent job as a duchess-to-be. I will admit that I do have a maid who's basically an info-dump character, so I've kinda got the advantage. But anyways, that's not the issue. There's got to be some way to get me out of this engagement. A nerd, I may have been, but standards, I still do have."

"Girl, if you won't settle for a literal prince then I don't know what to tell you," said Calorie with her brows raised and lips pursed to the side. "Kidding, nah, he's pretty crusty for a prince. And what kind of name is Spamlet? I can sort of understand Auricularis, because even if it's an irrelevant muscle, at least it sounds kinda cool. But Spamlet? Spamlet? Might as well call him Prince Spiced Hammiest while we're at it."

Auricularis side-eyed Calorie as if to say 'You're one to talk, look at your name'.

"Arghhh," groaned Bolita, burying her face in her hands and letting herself fall to the floor like a pillow that had just tumbled off a bed. The general consensus seemed to be that nobody really wanted anything to do with anybody named after preserved meat.

"Looks like the engagement ball is in five days. Yeah, I don't know what we can do on that short notice," frowned Auricularis.

"Maybe if we make Spamlet disappear under a set of mysterious circumstances?" offered Bolita.

"That certainly would be an option if her were not one of the more powerful political players in this country." Though Calorie had just lowered her brows she raised them again, but this time snarkily.

"Okay well maybe not."

"Oh while I was being worked to the bone for this ball or whatever, did you two figure out how we're getting back home?"

"Uhhh…"

"Errr…"

"Well the school is certainly a starting point," smiled Bolita brightly, as if that idea wasn't a relic of their last group discussion. "As soon as it starts, we can try and take advantage of the library it has to have. Or maybe even the professors!"

"Alright, alright," nodded Auricularis.

"Wait so if you guys weren't discussing how to get back home, then what've you guys been writing about the whole time? Have you guys even been writing letters to each other?" There was a 100% chance Calorie now had more muscle than Auricularis and Bolita combined, and boy was she ready to use them.

"I actually, haha, now would you believe it, haha, couldn't figure out how to send letters," chucked Auricularis, her gaze drifting toward the ceiling.

"And I don't know if us lower ranked aristocrats are allowed to send letters first," shrugged Bolita.

Calorie took a deep breath in and out. Zen. Calm. Peace. Mindfulness. She could not unleash the fury of a tilted gamer onto two nobles if she enjoyed having a head on her shoulders.

"I… okay. I feel like I shouldn't be surprised or disappointed, but here we are."

"Oh yeah, just remembered I'm supposed to pick out a dress for the ball. You two wanna help?" offered Auricularis.

"Why yes I do," grinned Calorie. Had she been mad? Had she really been about to lift Auricularis up by the ankles and throw her into a wall? Had she really, really been about to pull on all of Bolita's curls and cackle as they'd undoubtedly crash into her head with painful force? Most certainly not!

"Since I'm here I guess I might as well," shrugged Bolita.

"Riiiight, so should I have the dresses brought here or do you guys want to go the dress room?"

"You know what, I take back what I said earlier," remarked Bolita. "'Should I have the dresses brought here' sounds very princess-like."

"Thank you verily, Lady Bolita," replied Auricularis with a saucy wink and a grin that bordered on smirk.

"Let's go to the dress room. My fellow maids have it bad enough as it is, let's not give them more work to do."

"Sounds good to me. Guess I'll lead the way."

The trio popped up and formed a single-file line with the princess at its head and the maid at its tail and began snaking their way to the dresses.