Melody

  ***

  Flying back into the capital in the te hours of night, I kept an eye out for anyone in need. In this case however, my ears were the thing that caught it. With the sound of wood breaking, I heard a short yell. Looking over I saw a man holding on for dear life from an open window! Given the broken wooden shutters falling behind him, I guess it must have broken when he was leaning on it. Ah, he’s slipping! Quickly flying over, I caught the man right as his hand slipped.

  “Ah!?” The man said surprised. “Melody!?”

  “That was a close call, huh?” I gave him a smile.

  “You saved my life!” He said.

  “All in a day’s work!” I said, lowering him to the streets below.

  Landing gently on the floor, he looked at me with reverence and hastily shook my hand.

  “Thank you!” He said. “Thank you so very much!”

  “No worries!” I said. “Just try and be more careful next time.”

  “I will! Thank you.” He bowed gratefully.

  Job well done, let’s continue back to the watchtower.

  “There he is!” An angry woman shouted.

  ““Huh?”” The two of us looked over.

  Standing there was a woman, who was pointing at us. From around the corner, she was joined by several other women in very eye-catching clothes. They all looked very angry.

  “Get that pantie thieving scoundrel!” One of the women shouted.

  “Woah!?” Putting up my hands, I backed away from the man who started to look pale.

  Still shaking from his close encounter with death, he missed his chance to escape. What should I do in this situation? Well, I think I should leave this one to the locals- is what I would say if this guy didn’t look scared to death, and the women didn’t have murderous gres. Still, I’m not exactly sure who I should be siding with. Ah? One of them is pulling out a knife. Putting aside my reservations, I stopped my retreat and took some careful steps to pce myself between the man and angry women. But I wasn’t standing too close to the guy.

  “Okay, um what’s going on?” I hesitantly asked.

  “That man is a liar, thief, and a scoundrel!” One of the women said.

  “And a two timing chartan!” Another said.

  “And a drunkard with unpaid bills!” Said a third.

  “That man, if you can call him such,” Said a mature woman, voice full of contempt. “cheated my girls and many others.”

  From the looks of her and the way that she carried herself, she’s used to being in charge. Not only that, but she had the air of authority. Not like The Regents, but something like it. Although, if I’m being honest, I was a bit confused by their choice of clothing. People looked at me like I was some sort of pervert for not covering below my knees. They had dresses that not only showed their knees, but exposed the entirety of their legs and upper thigh. Not only that, but they also have very low cut necklines. Even being a girl, I was a bit confused as to where I should look. Luckily they didn’t look at me with hostility, so their eyes were a good refuge.

  “T-that’s not true!” He said, not at all sounding convincing.

  “Look at him!” One of them said. “He’s guilty for sure!”

  He certainly didn’t look innocent, but maybe he is? After all, he is surrounded by some very angry and threatening women, one who was about to give him the London special. Maybe he's just shy?

  “Is there any proof of this?” I asked.

  “We all saw him!” One of the younger women said.

  “Yeah!” Another said.

  Um, well, it’s not like I don’t trust them, but they obviously seem biased.

  “Is there like a third party witness?” I asked.

  “No, this happened in my shop.” The mature woman said. “All of our other customers were… occupied.”

  Well, this is a bit of a problem…

  “You said that he stole them?” I asked.

  “Yes he did!” Said a very angry woman. “Right from my nightstand!”

  Putting aside why he was; A. in a private room with panties long enough for him to steal them, or B. was in a room where she left them out where they probably shouldn’t have been, he should still have them. Turning to the man, who took cover behind me, I gave him an apologetic look.

  “I’m sorry, but could you please empty out your pockets?” I asked.

  “Y-yes! Of course!” He said, quickly doing so.

  Emptying them out, he threw several things on the floor. A key, some spare change, a piece of bread for some reason, and other small things, there were no panties. Even going as far as to turn his pockets inside out to show that he had nothing. Okay, so he must be innocent. Turning back to the woman who were still gring at him, I wondered how to resolve this.

  “Could this be the wrong guy?” I asked.

  “It’s him I know it!” Said the woman who was robbed. “He must be hiding them somewhere!”

  “Hm…” The mature woman looked deep in thought.

  Does she have a clue?

  “A bag.” She said. “I remember him leaving with a bag.”

  Looking at the man, it was clear that he didn’t have a bag.

  “He must have hidden it somewhere!” The wronged woman said.

  “Probably to show his buddies!” Another said.

  “A bag…?” I asked. “What color was it?”

  “A dark color.” The mature woman said. “Brown I think.”

  Could it have fallen with the broken shutters?

  “Give me one moment…” Flying up onto the roof, I looked for a bag. “Ah!”

  Picking up a bag, I showed it to them.

  “Is this it?” I asked.

  “That’s it!” The woman said. “I knew it!”

  Marching up to the man, she grabbed him by his colr. Two more women grabbed his arms as if they were about to beat him up.

  “Wait wait wait!” I said. “Hang on!”

  “The proof is right there in your hands!” She said. “What’s the reason to wait!?”

  “He still might be innocent.” I flew down to them.

  The bag, which supposedly matched the thief’s bag, wasn’t exactly unique. I’ve seen many of them before.

  “I suppose we’ll need to search it.” The mature woman said.

  “No!” The man said.

  “It’s the only way to prove if you're innocent or not.” I said.

  “…” The man looked conflicted.

  “Search the bag.” The mature woman said.

  Yeah, they probably aren’t going to let him go unless I do it. Opening it up, I saw that it was mostly empty. No undergarments here.

  “There’s nothing here.” I said.

  “Pardon?” The mature woman sounded surprised.

  All the angry women looked at me in shock, the man too. Why is he surprised?

  “Are you sure?” The mature woman asked.

  “Yeah.” I nodded. “He’s got like cheese, some candies and some other random stuff.”

  Holding up the string and some weird net like stuff, I showed them that there was nothing inside the bag. Once more, the women looked shocked. The first to come to their senses was the mature woman. Giving me a gentle smile, she took the string and bag from me.

  “It seems that we were mistaken.” She said. “Girls, please take care of… this man. I’ll…”

  She looked at me as if wondering what to do.

  “Show Melody, our appreciation from cleaning up this misunderstanding.” She smiled.

  “Um, what about-” I pointed at the man who looked even more scared than before.

  “How about I take you to a little shop that has the best pastries in the city?” She asked in that same tone you would use to distract a child.

  Clearly something is going on. I don’t understand it, and I’m not exactly sure what to do… Well, as I said before, let’s leave this one to the locals.

  “Okay!” I said cheerfully.

  “Hel-” The man seemed to start to yell, but was cut off.

  I tried to look back, but the mature woman blocked my gaze.

  “Have you ever tried a peach cobbler?” She asked with that same, child friendly smile.

  “No I haven’t.” I answered honestly.

  “Well, you’re in luck!” She said, leading me away.

  What a nice dy. I’ll just ignore Angelica telling me about the beating going on behind me. As the Houston Magical Girls would say, “See no evil, hear no evil!”

  Nissia

  ***

  Walking in the city with my friends, we were in a bit of a pickle, rather everyone was. According to what we heard from Lna, Evelyn’s retionship with her family is much worse than we thought. Not only that, but she stayed home ever since meeting her brother. I know that this is mostly a family drama, but knowing how badly it would affect us all if it were to go bad, those of us in the Saint Squad have been preparing. What have we been preparing?

  Well, mostly it was money. We’ve been taking side jobs on weekends to earn some money to buy everyday goods and some luxuries when we can afford it. Speaking of luxuries, we finally managed to afford some tailor fit clothes! It was a long time coming, but we wanted some fancy clothes to have for important events like the end of the year dance. Yes we are only half way through the school year, but we wanted to get them with some time to spare. What if we gain or lose weight? That’s not a problem. We can all sew and make some minor changes if we need to.

  As for the designs we picked, well, obviously they are based off of Melody’s costume. Or is it her uniform? I think it’s actually a uniform. Anyways, right now we’re picking them up. Each one was packed in a nice little box and wrapped in paper. Once we get home we’ll have to iron them out and hang them up so they don't get creased or wrinkled.

  Well, the clothes aside, we need to pick out some suitable jewelry for ourselves, but not today. We’re already carrying some expensive clothes and we just spent most of our money. We do have some savings, but we need that for emergencies. After all, it is always good to be prepared!

  …

  Am I forgetting something? Nah, it’s probably not important. We already got our clothes for the end of the year dance. Let’s just hurry up and get home. I don’t like the look of those clouds.

  “Uh-oh.” Alice said.

  “Uh-oh?” I asked.

  “Oh, that's not good.” Jenna said.

  Looking up at the road, I sighed. There were two carriages blocking the road, both with broken wheels. It looked like they collided, even if only for a little bit.

  “That’s going to take some time to clean up…” I said.

  “Let’s take a side road.” Lidia said.

  “Yeah, it looks like it’s going to rain.” Alice said, looking up at the clouds.

  “Yeah.” I said. “Um… which way?”

  Despite living in the capital for many years at this point, we didn’t know every little twist and turn. So, any path off the main roads will be a bit unknown to us. As for the main roads, it would be a long detour to get to the Academy.

  “This way…?” Jenna pointed at what was probably a random alley.

  “It’s better than standing here.” Alice said.

  With our new clothes held firmly in our hands, we headed off on our journey. Two- maybe three turns ter and we were lost. Even worse, things were getting colder.

  “Okay, so…” Jenna looked at the crossroads. “This way?”

  “Is that just a guess?” I asked.

  “Hey, it’s better than just standing here.” Alice said.

  “That’s what got us stuck here in the first pce.” Lidia said.

  “Do you have any better ideas?” She asked.

  Something wet hit my head. Looking up I saw some very dark clouds.

  “That’s not good.” I said as raindrops fell down on us.

  “Shoot!” Jenna said, using her body to cover her new clothes. “Is there anywhere we can hide?”

  “I don’t know.” I said. “Just start trying doors!”

  Given how expensive our clothes were, we really didn’t want them to get wet. Trying door after door, we moved deeper into the alley until we finally got lucky.

  “Found one!” Alice said, holding a door open.

  “Ah! Excuse us.” I said, rushing inside.

  “Sorry!” Jenna said entering just after me.

  “Pardon me!” Lidia said.

  Closing the door behind us, Alice let out a grateful breath. Happy to be out of the rain, we took a look around trying to figure out where exactly we were. Some old dusty bookshop, lit by various mps which didn’t seem too bright. Given the grumpy looking dy at the counter, I didn’t exactly feel welcome. Still, shelter from the rain is shelter from the rain…

  “Unless you’re buying it, don’t touch it.” She said sternly.

  ““““Okay…”””” We said.

  Given that we just barged in to get out of the rain with no pn to buy anything, I can’t exactly bme her for not being so welcoming. I certainly would want a bunch of rain soaked people touching my books. I wonder if there is any pce to sit…?

  “Huh?” A voice called out.

  “?” Looking over I saw a hooded figure of a young woman.

  With much of her face covered by both her hood and a book covering everything below her icy blue eyes, I couldn’t exactly tell who it was. Did I know someone over here?

  “…” She looked at me silently, studying me for a moment. “Nissia, right?”

  “Um… Do I know you?” I asked, still not recognizing her.

  “You might.” She said.

  Putting down her book, she removed her hood, revealing her radiant blond hair. But what stuck out to me more was the look on her face. She was deathly pale and looked like she hadn’t slept for days. Her eyes seemed duller than usual, not helped at all by the bags that hung below them.

  “It’s me, Evelyn.” She said, only now I noticed the weariness in her voice.

  “Lady Eytell!?” I couldn’t help but excim.

  “It’s just Evelyn.” She brushed aside my arm. “We’re cssmates after all.”

  What’s Evelyn doing here!? Hasn’t she been sick for the past few days!? Why is she not at home resting!? Clearly she needs it! I wasn’t the only one surprised by this. Jenna, or at least I think it was her, dropped her package before hurriedly picking it back up. What is she doing in such a run down book shop like this!? Does she have any guards with her!? No, it’s just her! At least she is disguised. But it’s hard to hide her features. Hair especially. Weather aside, that does expin the cloak. Man, I really should have brought mine, but it’s so heavy and I may have skipped one to many washes on it, so it smells kind of off.

  “You got stuck in the rain?” Evelyn asked.

  “Y-yeah.” I nodded nervously.

  Seeing my reaction, she frowned, though it’s not like she was smiling before. I’m sorry I just can’t help it. Speaking to nobles is scary for commoners like myself. Not to mention that she is supposed to be the viliness who’ll kill us all. …? Huh, I feel like I’m forgetting something.

  “Well, there’s some chairs here if you want to have a seat.” She pointed with a shaking hand to some chairs beside her.

  “Right…” I said.

  Now that she pointed them out, I feel compelled to sit there. Hopefully this rain stops soon so we can head back. Very carefully not to touch either her or any of the many books nearby, we sat down. Unluckily, since I was the one she called out to, I was stuck sitting next to her. Perhaps as an act of benevolence, she cleared off the counter top so we could put down our clothes.

  “Thanks.” I said.

  “Doing some shopping out in this weather?” She asked.

  “Well- only kind of.” I said. “We ordered some stuff and today was the day to pick it up.”

  “I see.” She said. “If you don’t mind me asking, what is it?”

  “Oh, it’s just some clothes for formal events.” I said. “Like the dance and some school meetings.”

  “Is that so?” She asked.

  “Yeah…” I said.

  “…”

  “…”

  ““““This is awkward!!!”””” My friends and I thought.

  I don’t know how to talk to her!

  “So…” I started. “Do you come here often…?”

  “No.” She said.

  “That’s cool…” I said.

  From behind us, I could feel the gre of the store keeper. Does she think I’m insulting this pce?

  “You like books?” I asked, trying to turn the topic away.

  “They’re alright.” She said.

  “That’s cool…” I said.

  ““…””

  I wanna go home…

  Grayburne