Lucky Rabbit

“Elementals,” Nox corrected, straightening his already impeccable butler’s jacket. He hadn’t had much color to start with, with his black and white clothes, silvery hair, and dark eyes, but he, too, was noticeably less vibrant than he had been. He nodded toward Tempest, who still looked annoyed at being yanked so precipitously from her hidey-hole. “Just like your Auralis. We are bound to this house, and the Avington family.”

The faded remnants of Nyssa drifted over to hover beside him, somehow looking beeseeching in spite of her lack of substance. What remained of her lips moved, but only a soft groaning sound emerged. Nox gave her a look that was equal parts pitying and disapproving, and added with some reluctance, “Unless, of course, you dismiss us, at which point we will be forced to leave.”

Pandy had already opened her mouth to agree that dismissal was probably best for all parties when his tone sank in. He didn’t want to go. Why? “What happens to you if you’re dismissed? Wouldn’t you just be able to,” she waved her hand vaguely, “be free?”

Nyssa managed to flicker back to a semblance of solidity long enough to moan out, “Wwwweeee wooould vaniiiiiishhh.”

Pandy locked onto this. “You mean you would die?” Was that a thing? Hadn’t someone told her that after an elemental’s contracted human died, the elemental just wandered off?

Nox grimaced. “Elementals do not die,” he said, as if dying was a disgusting habit which he’d given up years ago, and thought everyone else should as well. But Pandy knew elementals did, in fact, die, because not only did Professor Beeswick do exactly that in Gacha Love, people had mentioned elementals being killed or dying even after she arrived in this world.

Still, what if both things could be true? What if elementals didn’t die, but they did cease existing here, which looked like the same thing? What if they went someplace else, and that place was called Hell, at least by her System, which was basically a spell meant to mimic Gacha Love – a spell created by a god who wasn’t paying attention because his girlfriend had maybe broken up with him, and he needed to visit the little gods’ room?

Speaking of whom, when was the last time she’d heard from Keros? Wasn’t it when he’d told her he was wroth with her, and she’d promised to let him know before she did anything else stupid? A few rather important things had happened since then, including the discovery of the poppet of Eleanor and Pandy inviting all of the children to move in with her. Which might actually end up qualifying as a ‘stupid thing’, but she couldn’t find it in her heart to regret it.

Isidor had withdrawn Tempest, who was sparking quite a bit less than she had been, and he was staring at Pandy as expectantly as the two fading ‘spirits’. “Ah, then, I guess I won’t dismiss you?” she said. “But I don’t want… I mean, you should do whatever you want. You don’t have to, um, serve me, or anything. Though,” she added hurriedly, “you can’t do anything that will hurt anyone. I’ve invited a few other people to come live here, and at least one of them probably will, and I won’t have him frightened!”

Nyssa’s form sharpened again, and a hint of color returned to her formerly rosy cheeks. “A beau? Your husband? Do you have other children?” She looked from Isidor to Pandy hopefully, and both of them immediately began waving off any implication that they were related.

“He’s not my- I don’t have any- And there’s no husband, but maybe a… a…” Pandy’s voice cracked, allowing Isidor’s to rise over it.

“My parents are dead,” he said in a tone that indicated he would allow no further inquiries into this line of discussion. “I’m just going to be living here while I go to school.”

Nyssa floated three inches off the floor in her excitement. “School? Falconet, is it? I have some uniforms put away somewhere. And you can have the second bedroom, which has the best lighting for reading, and the desk is practically intact. Oh, and wait until you see the library! It has all the required texts for students, of course. Lord Avington saw to that.”

She darted an almost guilty glance at Pandy. “The old Lord Avington, I mean. Of course, I shouldn’t presume. It’s up to you which room he gets, my lady.”

Pandy blinked. “The, um, second bedroom sounds perfect, thank you, Nyssa. But Isidor will be attending Kestrel, not Falconet. Can you… That is, if I tell you something, but order you not to talk about it to anyone else, can you do it anyway?” She grimaced at the taste of the word ‘order’, but she had to be certain an elementalist couldn’t just wander in here and force these two to spill all her secrets, especially since so many of her secrets also belonged to other people.

Nox drew himself up, black eyes flashing. “Even if we were not required to keep the secrets of House Avington, we would do so, my lady. Our loyalty is absolute.”

Nodding, Nyssa added, “That’s why we couldn’t warn you when you came the first time. Lord Piers wasn’t the head of the Avington family, but he was senior to you, and therefore we couldn’t speak to you, because he’d commanded us not to.”

Pandy worked her way through that, and came up with, “You mean you were watching me?” Both elementals nodded, and Pandy considered any number of things she could have said, before ending up on, “Then I command you not to ever tell anyone about what you’re about to see, unless I expressly tell you it’s all right to do so. Isidor?”

She looked at Isidor, who looked back at her with something like bemusement, then jumped as a spark arced from his tortoise to his chest. He reached up and took the necklace from around his neck, an action which caused several more sparks to flash between the dangling pendant and his hair. When he dropped the necklace into his pocket, his long locks stood up in a crackling halo, but he was a tall, gangly fourteen-year-old again.

Nyssa clapped her hands in excitement. “What a handsome young man,” she cried. “Yes, I’m certain I can find a Kestrel uniform for him. Isidor, is it?”

Isidor nodded, giving Pandy a ‘what do I do?’ look. Pandy wasn’t used to getting these from anyone, much less Isidor, but she said, “Then that’s what we’ll do. Second bedroom, uniform, books.” If Nyssa really could produce a school uniform and any required texts for Isidor, that would be one expense Pandy didn’t have to foot. Pandy had some doubts about the success of this venture, but it seemed like it would make the woman – elemental – happy to try.

“Oh,” Pandy said, as Isidor started to follow the gray cloud out of the room. Nyssa hadn’t produced any feet yet, and she still hovered a bit above the ground. “Can you-” Again she waved, and Nyssa looked down at herself, then offered an apologetic smile.

“I’m afraid our abilities are rather limited at the moment, my lady,” Nox said gravely. He too, was beginning to look a bit soft around the edges. “If I may, you should probably take a Look at the Books.” There was a weight to these last few words that told Pandy he wasn’t talking about the books in the library, so when he, too, turned and glided from the room, Pandy followed.

The suit of armor that had attempted to hack Pandy in half had been reassembled, and the cuts and stains on the floor covered by a ratty old carpet. While there were still dart-holes in the walls, the darts themselves didn’t make an appearance, though Pandy kept a wary eye out as they passed.

Nox saw her look and said, “We have taken the liberty of removing what traps we could, my lady. We can always put them back if-”

“No!” Pandy said as she gingerly touched the banister that circled the winding staircase up to the second floor. The stairs remained as firm and right-angled as ever – which wasn’t all that firm, given that several sagged in the center and looked distinctly water-damaged. “No,” she said again, as she climbed the steps, “and you can call me Pandy. Or, um, Eurydice.”

Nox and Nyssa, of course, didn’t actually have any weight to put on the stairs, but if they did, the one Nox hovered over definitely would have creaked as he came to an abrupt halt and faced her. This process was somewhat disturbing, since he was briefly inside out before his face reformed on the other side of his head, but Pandy ignored it as best she could.

“When you claimed the house, you said your name was Pandora. Is that not correct?” he asked, in a tone that could only be described as chilly. For the first time, Pandy felt a distinct wave of cold wafting from him, and Isidor shivered, clutching his suitcase and Tempest’s box – which he’d picked up from the entryway and insisted upon carrying.

Pandy nodded hastily. “Pandora is my full name, but I usually go by Pandy. And, um, when I look like this,” she gestured to herself, “most people know me as Eurydice Haupe.”

Nox didn’t even look surprised by this revelation. “Then you would prefer that we call you Lady Eurydice?” Pandy nodded, glad that he’d accepted it so easily. What was with that initial reaction, though?

Nyssa stopped outside the second door to their right. This was one of several smaller bedrooms on this side of the hall, and Pandy had skipped it on Guising Eve because even though there were a few small items inside which could be sold for a bit of gold, there was also a particularly nasty trap involving poisonous gas and acid that dripped from the ceiling. There was no way to avoid it, so Clara had to just run through, grab the goods, and get back out before she was poisoned or dissolved, then heal up before continuing on. It used up more Stamina than it was worth, so Pandy never bothered.

“This will be your rooooom, Isidor,” Nyssa said, barely moaning at all. Obviously she’d managed to pull herself together at least a bit. At Pandy’s look, she gave a wispy smile. “It’s perfectly saaaaafe.”

Understandably, this assurance made Isidor look a bit nervous, but he cautiously entered the room. Pandy waited, ready to yank him out, but the trap would have been set off as soon as the door opened, and instead she just saw a good-sized bedroom with a bare four-poster bed and a desk beneath a surprisingly clean window. Isidor paused, turned so he could push the box Professor Beeswick had sent at Pandy, and firmly closed the door in her face.

Well, then. Pandy gave a small sigh and followed Nox onward. Nyssa had vanished somewhere while Pandy wasn’t looking, presumably to find a uniform and some books for Isidor, but Nox was as solid as before – which was to say, not very.

Coming to a halt outside of the office, Nox nodded to Pandy. “The Books are on the desk,” he told her, once again emphasizing the word ‘Books’ in a way that made it quite clear that these were No Ordinary Texts.

Pandy hesitated. “Um, thank you?” she said, voice rising on the last word, turning it into a question. Nox gave a short half-bow, but made no attempt to open the door for her, much less enter the room. So Pandy did it, stepping into a room which had changed far more than the rest of the house.

If someone had asked Pandy to design her perfect home office, this would have been it – with the obvious omission of a full gaming rig on the desk. The windows were wide, with morning light gently illuminating the space through the clear bottom panes of the windows, while the top panes held stained glass scenes depicting lush plants.

As Pandy drew closer, drawn in by the beauty of the display, she saw that there were animals hidden there as well, peeking from behind large green leaves and out of burrows in crystalline grass. A white rabbit stood at attention in a glassy shadow, its ears standing straight up, bright red eyes seeming to stare into Pandy’s.

“Nox, what is this? It wasn’t here-” her voice broke off as she turned, seeing that the elemental servant was gone. The hallway stood empty, its stained and broken floorboards a direct contrast to the beautifully restored wood of the office. Pandy turned, taking it all in.

The colors of the stained glass painted every surface, changing the simple white walls to green-tinged rainbows. Two soft white chairs sat by the window, with a thick carpet cushioning the space where the chairs’ occupants would place their feet. The desk that had been thick, dark, solid wood was now lighter, with dainty clawed feet and delicate carvings on every edge and down the sides. The rabbit motif was repeated here, but Pandy could also make out a carved kitten with a bow tied around its neck, a dog that was more droop than not, even a tortoise and a creature that could only have been a capybara.

Pandy circled this work of art, finding a chair behind it, with the same sweeping lines and clawed feet that were distinctly rabbit-like. The seat was covered in lush green satin, the same shade as the majority of the leaves in the stained glass window. There were several drawers in the desk, each adorned with a pretty brass handle, but when Pandy gingerly pulled out the chair and sat down, intending to search the drawers for the Books, the surface of the desk shimmered, darkening to shadow, revealing a stack of three tomes.