When everyone's vision had returned to them, Sarman was gone. However, the lady was still there, though she was tied to the spit and doing her best to turn over so that both sides were done evenly.
"Well," Calorie said from somewhere next to Auricularis. "You can call me a robot after fighting a titan because that just blew my mind. Looks like there was no need for my magic broom after all."
Auricularis turned to her companion with her brows scrunched. "Your what?"
Calorie shrugged and did not elaborate.
The butler who had called them to this rescue mission was already next to the spit, hurriedly putting out the flames and snipping the zip ties binding Lady Bolita to the stick with a pair of garden shears he had pulled out from his suit. They came apart easily, and upon a slightly closer inspection, Auricularis could see that the spit was actually very shoddily put together.
All of a sudden there was a distressed cry from the butler.
"The imported silver glass jar from Dondeestá! I beg your pardon my lady, I've failed you again. That thieving scoundrel took My Lady's treasured jar!" He went into child's pose to grovel and show the full extent of his shame and utter self-loathing.
"Oh, uh, it's fine," said the duchess uncomfortably. Auricularis decided that she would probably be uncomfortable too if she had been strapped to a branch for an extended period of time and just let down. Something about iron deficiencies and all the blood rushing quickly to one's head.
The knight regiment busied themselves with scouting the inside of Sarman's hideout to look for any clues as to where he might have headed next, but to their disappointment there was only a sticky note scrawled in highlighter lying at the back of the cave saying, 'You schnugen you lugen!' with a small angry smiling face emoticon.
Since everyone was busy doing their own thing, Calorie and Auricularis busied themselves with drifting off to the side of the cave and pretending they didn't exist, as per usual. This time, however, they ended up drifting off far enough to the side that they wound up next to the duchess, who was straightening out her drills and then letting them bounce back in a vaguely dignified manner. Her butler was somewhere off further to the side in the cave, bemoaning his recent failure.
"Your Highness," the duchess curtsied, dipping down deeply. "It is an honor to be graced with your presence."
Auricularis exchanged panicked glances with Calorie. Neither of them were at all equipped to deal with this situation. As they were flailing mentally, the duchess lifted a cautious eye up in an action that would have been borderline scandalous if any other noble had been present, considering that the princess had not yet given her leave to lift her head. Then, in an even more daring turn of events, the duchess squinted at the princess and her maid. Such a thing had never been done!
"Your Highness?" The duchess resumed proper duchess posture.
"Ah yes, um you can, er, be at ease now, Lady uh," Auricularis cast another panicked look at Calorie.
"Bolita," Calorie supplied helpfully, scuttling behind Auricularis for safety reasons. Traitor.
"Ah hm, yes, Lady Bolita," Auricularis bobbing her head grandly, with all the majesty of a true shoujo heroine. She even fluttered her eyelashes, something that would have looked much more impressive if she were a character that had been drawn in the 90s. Not quite the next Ayumi Himekawa yet, but she was getting there.
"Indeed," Duchess Bolita squinted again, this time in full view of Auricularis and Calorie, suspiciously. "Might I inquire, Your Highness, to the state of your health as of late?"
"Uh," Auricularis was stumped again. She couldn't really handle another one of those weird verbal battles again, if this was another one of those veiled insults, as she had never been one for those sort of mind games. So, she looked to Calorie for help. It was time for the lowly maid to pay her dues to the royal family.
Calorie stepped in front of her as smoothly as a stick of butter, like a criminal undercover.
"Her Highness will not be taking any questions at the moment. Please refer to her again after two to three business days," Calorie dipped in a half curtsy and slunk back behind Auricularis.
Clearly, channeling the energy of an overworked secretary's automatic email response mechanism was the wrong move, because Duchess Bolita squinted even harder.
At last, after a few long seconds of intense squinting and sweating, (though the sweating was only on Auricularis' end) Duchess Bolita stopped squinting and cast a furtive look around the cave. There seemed to be a lot of look casting, Auricularis noted. Hopefully they would catch something soon.
At any rate, the surrounding vicinity was clear of any nosy butlers or eavesdropping knights, so Duchess Bolita assumed it was safe to speak.
"Did you say business days?" she whispered.
Calorie blinked very rapidly like she was going to try and blink herself out of existence and her face paled.
"I did, Your Grace," replied the maid.
Duchess Bolita was squinting so hard now that her eyes had been reduced to mere lines drawn with a 0.3 inch lead pencil.
"Perhaps… could it be…" The duchess looked at the princess and her maid, with her eyes wide open now, sparkling with what could possibly be hope.
""D..diamond box?" questioned Duchess Bolita really quickly and really quietly. Had the two palace residents been listening any less carefully, they would have missed it.
Auricularis looked at Calorie who looked at Auricularis, both unable to believe their ears. The Duchess who had been so prim at the tea party and who had just been tied up like a chicken had recited their school chant word for word after hearing the phrase 'business days,' something which probably did not exist in this sort of medieval fantasy world.
Auricularis was a lot braver than Calorie, probably because in her past life she had the guns to back her words and in this life she was a princess, so she knew it was up to her to do what had to be done.
"Are you from Diamond Box High School too?" the princess asked.
"I am," gasped Duchess Bolita, with a hand to her mouth. "I didn't think that you guys would actually… I don't even know what to say… I can't believe this…"
"No way," exclaimed Calorie, and in her excitement she temporarily forgot her place and grabbed Bolita's hands, shaking them up and down. Just girls being girls.
It would have been exceptionally rude to exclude the princess, so as soon as they realized she wasn't grooving with them, Calorie and Bolita each extended a hand to Auricularis so that they were a circle of three making an infinite wave with their arms. Then as if she were just pelted on the back of her head with a baseball thrown at 5 miles per hour, Auricularis froze.
"Wait a minute," she said, the color slowly draining from her face like water filtering out of a potted plant's soil. "So that's what I forgot. Finals."