"You know, lately I feel like I've been forgetting something," commented Auricularis off-handedly. "There's just something that I feel like I should be remembering, but I really can't. At this rate my hair is going to start falling off."
Auriculars and Calorie were currently holed up in the princess's room. After the dreadful events of the tea party, Auricularis wanted to be absolutely sure she wouldn't accidentally run into her "brother" again, and she felt like the best way to do that would be to not leave her room… ever.
Calorie frowned and her brows scrunched together as she tried to dig up any thoughts in the dusty, cob-web filled corners of her brain that might be related to whatever the princess was trying to figure out. Yet despite all that searching, she was coming up blank.
"How to jog memory," muttered Auricularis, who at the moment was sitting cross-legged on her bed. She poked a pillow thoughtfully. "If only handy dandy search engines existed in this world. I don't really feel like going to the royal library and hunting for a book on jogging memories, if ya know what I mean. There might not even be a book about that stuff, so that'd be a total waste of time."
"I think I heard somewhere that if you do something you were doing when you forgot the thing then that might help with jogging your memory," suggested Calorie. "Don't take my word for it though."
"Huh. Jogging does sound like a good idea," Auricularis mused. She pulled up her bootstraps and forewent her usual avocado toast to prepare for a quick run around the castle.
"You coming?" Auricularis jerked her head in the direction of the doorway. It made her seem as if she was trying to make her joints crack. Perhaps she was. Unfortunately, Calorie was as fond of exercise as she was capable of doing housework.
"Yeah, nah. I think I'll pass on this one," Calorie backed away and picked up her trusty broom. "I think I'll just pretend to wash the bookshelves this time."
"Oh, okay," Auricularis shrugged. "Suit yourself."
She set out toward the castle gardens at a reasonably brisk pace. As she sped past a nice line of rose bushes, she heard the familiar clearing of a throat, one that she only remembered because of the phlegm sounds.
"Royal Sister, I did not expect to see you traversing the gardens at so late an hour," the crown prince said in place of a standard greeting.
Auricularis paused her forward movement and resorted to jogging in place so that she wouldn't seem too rude. She had to keep some semblance of etiquette at least, right?
"Uh, yeah," Auricularis nodded, unable to get very much out due to the failing state of her lungs.
"Indeed." The crown prince's mouth twisted. "I see that you are alone? Not a single person in your entourage today?"
He craned his neck to look behind her, seemingly seeking out somebody for whatever reason.
"Uh, yeah," she nodded again. "You too?"
Auricularis made like a chicken and bobbed her head aggressively in the crown prince's general direction.
"Quite," replied the crown prince waving his hand dismissively. "I must ask, though, where is the maid that accompanied you to the tea party the other day? I have heard that you are quite fond of her."
"Sure am."
"You see, I have not found the retribution of the earlier day nearly satisfactory enough, so I wish to seek her out so that I may set my heart at ease again," he continued, coughing awkwardly, turning the same shade as an overcooked lobster.
Auricularis rather liked regular lobsters, both to have and to hold. Sadly for her, before she'd transmigrated, she had discovered that her pet lobster was actually a crayfish. A tragedy of Shakespearean proportions.
"She's dusting the bookshelves, I think? I dunno," Auricularis shrugged. She was starting to get a little tired. Maybe it was time for her to start heading back.
"I see," the crown prince nodded thoughtfully, his face slowly ombre-ing back into the color human flesh was supposed to be. "Then I'll be on my way."
"Gotcha." Auricularis was tempted to make some finger guns at him, but her better judgement stopped her (for once) and though she intended to return to the palace, she headed off into the opposite direction. It really wasn't her fault she didn't have a sense of direction.
It didn't take long for Auricularis to realize she was lost and definitely not anywhere she wanted to be. That was, until she heard the synchronized breathing of a group doing muscle exercises from afar.
She would recognize that sound anywhere. It was akin to the siren call of her homeland, the gym, where she had spent practically her entire life.
Auricularis flew toward the general direction of the grunts, feeling as if the energy of a thousand suns had flowed into her. After a few incorrect left turns and four U-turns around the same stone column, she arrived in a courtyard where she was greeted by the pleasant sight of just over twenty massively muscular knights in perfect rows and columns counting out loud to three hundred as they planked in push-up position, the perfect training for strengthening arms and abs at the same time.
"Ah! I didn't catch ya there Princess!" exclaimed the burliest one at the front, raising his head from his plank and shifting his weight to one arm so he could tip the brim of his cowboy hat back two and a half degrees. Auricularis knew because she calculated using trigonometric ratios.
"Yeah, just thought I'd come around to see what's up, ya feel?" For some strange reason, Auricularis felt an undeniable kinship with the group. Perhaps it was their shared affection for bulging biceps or the similarity in their manners of speech and movement, but for whatever reason she was immediately as at ease around them as she was around Calorie when they'd first found out each others' true identities.
"Well, we always welcome anyone who's up to improve their health with a nice and refreshing workout. You can hop in right now, Princess. We're moving on to our third set of ladder planks!"
"Yessir! I'll get to it!" Auricularis dropped down and fell into (ladder) step with the rest of the knights, grunting as she performed each rep. She fit in like the last piece of a missing puzzle.
Three sets of ladder planks later, the head knight called for a break.
"Alright lads, we're resting!" he called.
The knights adjusted their cowboy hats and dusted off their brown, wool ponchos, forming a neat single file line to receive their kale and cucumber smoothies from the knight at the front, who was also the captain.
Auricularis couldn't help but feel slightly left out as she was not decked out in proper cowboy attire. It looked much more comfortable to work out in than the frilly dress she was wearing at the moment.
All of a sudden, a leather clad man with gray hair that matched his wolf ears and tail burst into the courtyard. A furry, undoubtedly. He had about twelve or so books stuffed under each armpit. The bloke might as well have been T-posing.
"Your Highness?" he gaped in astonishment, noticing Auricularis step up to receive her smoothie. "Why are you consorting with these blood-sucking brutes?"
The knight captain frowned.
"We're vegan actually. Doing a juice cleanse as of now, in fact." He handed Auricularis her smoothie, going down the line.
"Whatever," the furry sniffed. "I was not talking to you. Your Highness, where is your brother?"
"Uhh," Auricularis had never really been comfortable talking to people with an extra set of ears. Not that she had anything against them, but it just reminded her of a certain movie adaptation of a musical that she was all too ready to forget. She sniffed her smoothie and took a sip. It was quite good. Then she processed the earlier words of the furry. The knight regiment was made up of vampires?
Well, that certainly explained their cowboy gear shielding them from the sun and their pasty faces so pale she wouldn't have been surprised if they didn't even know what sunlight was.
"He went inside, I guess?" Auricularis could only vaguely recall a short interaction with the crown prince that had something to do with lobsters. Mmm. She hadn't had seafood in quite a while…
"Right then, I'll be off. I trust that I will not be seeing you in the company of these battish brutes next time." The furry flounced away, the flopping of his tail seeming abnormally realistic. Some people were really dedicated to their fursonas.
Auricularis then redirected her attention to the knight regiment. Although the general air was still as spiffing as it had been before, it was obvious that more than a few of the squad members were miffed at the furry's insensitivity. They didn't judge him for his preferences, so who was he to judge them for their dietary habits? And to top things off, his assumptions hadn't even been accurate.
In an attempt to cheer them up, like she would at the gym with her workout buddies, Auricularis polished off the last of her kale and cucumber smoothie and wound up her right arm a few times.
"How 'bout some cardio to end off the day?" She bellowed as loudly as her flimsy stomach muscles would allow. The response was a nice, resounding chorus of cup slams, as the rest of the regiment geared up for a nice long set of footwork.
However, their invigorating and honestly rather ambitious plans for the day were sadly interrupted as a dark-haired butler burst onto the courtyard, his waistcoat sad and singed, and his monocles chipped and cracked.
"The Lady," he gasped, struggling to catch his breath.