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“Something the Great Magilou made didn’t work?” Magilou yelled, slamming her hands on the wooden box that stood between her and Eizen, who earlier had a customer that requested a special type of aphrodisiac whose contents and expected effects were not to be spoken of. “That’s less likely than a chicken crossing a road! That’s less likely than you ever flipping a heads and hell, that dense ass Velvet ever getting a date.”
Eizen averted his gaze, knowing fully well and clearly embarrassed over his unfortunate curse of foul luck, which has subjected him to a year’s worth of emotional abuse from Magilou in forms such as this. “That’s what the customer said and demanded a refund, unless you’re able to make a new one.”
“Urgh fine, I suppose I have nothing better to do anyway. If it doesn’t work this time, it’s their problem, not mine.” Magilou shrugged, walking away back to her chambers as Eizen left in the opposite direction to meet up with Rokurou for a couple of quick delivery and hunting commissions a couple of merchants had requested from them.
A couple of minutes later, a certain bruised and battered trio returned to the Van Eltia carrying hoards of materials they collected from Loegres which Benwick had begged them to receive for ship repairs. Phi practically joined Benwick with the pleading and eventually convinced Velvet to accept the job, much to her discomfort. On their return journey however, the trio unfortunately crashed into a Sacred Baboon, which Eleanor barely made it out alive due to the handicap of carrying such heavy cargo on her back.
Collapsing onto the deck, Eleanor threw off her back-snappingly heavy sack and leaned against the cargo boxes. “I really didn’t think our luck would be this awful! We never bump into dire foes when we wish to.”
Velvet sighed, shrugging as she placed down her load and helped Phi remove the precious contents from his small satchel. “That’s not my first encounter with this so-called desire sensor. You’ll never get something when you want it, where you want it. Such is life.” From the corner of her eye, Velvet spotted the potion, which indeed looked incredibly similar to a Life Bottle, and threw it to the former exorcist sitting on the ground. “Take it.”
Nodding in appreciation, Eleanor drank the entire bottle in one go, and lied down on the ship, stretching her arms out. “Thanks. Tasted sweeter than usual but that may just have been my thirst acting up on my taste buds.”
Phi carried two glasses of water towards the two girls, who gratefully accepted, until Phi almost dropped Eleanor’s glass. “E-Eleanor…”
Tilting her head in confusion, Eleanor took the glass from his quivering hands and gently patted him on the head. “What’s wrong?”
“I-I think… There’s feathers growing on your skin...”
Velvet snapped her head towards the red-haired and to her displeasure; the exorcist was indeed growing feathers at an alarming rate, until she shrank enough to form a small, pink-feathered chicken. “What in the name of the Empyreans…”
Chicklenor clucked in distress and attracted the attention of the pirates aboard the ship, causing a massive commotion as the pirates gathered around to feast their eyes on this mysterious chicken. “Ayy, that’s one plump chicken! You think we can cook it up for dinner tonight?”
“Dunno mate, maybe we should sell it. Must grab us some big bucks with those pink feathers.”
Chicklenor’s survival instincts kicked in, and she dashed. She ran as fast as her chicken feet could carry her as she whizzed through the port, past the gates and into the fields of the Danann Highway with her two former companions close behind her, clucking frantically as all the gazes from the merchants and sailors turned towards her.
“Urgh, you sure make things difficult!” Velvet grunted, making sure she didn’t lose sight of the bright pink chicken, whose colour luckily made it fairly easy to keep tabs on, that is, until Chicklenor dashed into a herd of Axe Beaks whose brightly coloured feathers completely concealed their targeted chicken.
“Velvet! I can’t find her!” Phi said, tears welling up in his eyes as he gently wiped them away with his sleeve and clutched onto his compass in his satchel to make himself feel better. “What if we never find her again?”
Velvet let out an exasperated sigh and shook her head. “I won’t let that happen. She’s your vessel so we’re bringing her home today. Just keep your eyes peeled and stay safe.”
Phi nodded in response determinedly and the two proceeded to survey the area for their favourite former-ex-orcist. Crawling through bushes, shadow stepping past past Axe Beaks, Snakes and Gibbons, the two searched as hard as they could for the entirety of the day for Chicklenor, but not even a single pink feather was found lying strewn on the ground. As the sun began to set, the two rested up against a tree, exhausted and fully regretting that they hadn’t had any time to bring any beverages to at least energise them up slightly.
“…This was my fault. I shouldn’t have trusted Magilou to not leave her weird chicken-inducing potions around the deck.” Velvet grumbled as she snapped twigs in half with her fingers. “I’ll have to take responsibility. If we lose her, who knows what will happen to you.”
Phi stared up at Velvet, placed his small hands over hers, and glared angrily. “No. It’s not about what happens to me. Have you not been considering what will happen to Eleanor if she stays like that forever? Lost, in the world alone forever. Maybe she’ll be hunted for food, or for goods… I don’t even want to imagine it.”
Scratching her head, Velvet blushed and looked away. “You’re right… I should be thinking more about her right now… I’m sorry, Eleanor.”
As if on cue, a large pink feather peeked out from a luscious green bush directly ahead of the pair. Glancing at each other, they nodded as the boy closed the distance between him and the pink feather. Slowly and slowly he crawled, until the feather was within arm’s reach. He desperately snatched at it and pulled it towards him, to find that it was just a singular feather to his disappointment. “I’m sorry Velvet… It wasn’t Ele-“
“Step back!” Velvet yelled as she burst past the bush and wrapped her therionised claw around the creature that had just been standing behind Phi. Opening her claw, Phi cried out in joy as he saw the pink chicken had been unscathed and seemed slightly confused over her current predicament. Velvet grabbed the chicken by the legs upside down, as she returned her arm to normal and gestured to Phi as she walked off with the boy scampering close beside her.
“You can’t just hold her like that, Velvet.” Phi pouted as he gently patted the pink, distressed chicken. “Look, she’s all scared. You need to hold her properly in your arms.”
“She’ll run away. I’m not risking it until she’s in our room.”
“But Velvet…”
The two soon returned to the Van Eltia, ignoring the stares they received from the pirates and merchants as they quickly made a beeline to Velvet’s room, where she finally released Chicklenor from her clutch as Laphicet ran to find Magilou and dragged her in.
“That’s Eleanor?” Magilou said, bewildered, which is a pretty rare sight for her.
“Yuuuup.”
The self-proclaimed witch rubbed her temples as she paced around the room. “That’s probably the one thing I wasn’t expecting. Congratulations! I have literally no idea what to do! You’re on your own!” Magilou clapped her hands together and bowed, and turned towards the door. “I wish you two the best of luck! Toodle-“ until she found a certain claw wrapped around her neck.
“You’re gonna figure out how to fix this or I’ll devour you.”
Magilou raised both of her arms surrendering and turned back towards the trio. “… Hey, who was the one who fed Eleanor the potion? Don’t think that was me.” She knelt down and inspected the quiet and strangely obedient chicken before nodding to herself. “I’ll find our dearest Eleanor a cure or I’m not the Magnificent Mazhigigika Miludin do Din Nolurun Dou! It’s down to you two to take care of Eleanor though. I’m not signing up for sweeping up chicken poop.”
“You like taking care of animals, right? She’s yours then.” Velvet said, as she inspected the chicken herself, who quickly averted her gaze when Velvet glared into her marbly green eyeballs.
“We should do it together, like Magilou said. But I think she should stay with you.” Phi suggested, awkwardly pointing his fingers together and blushes furiously. “Because y-y’know… What if she turns back to normal at night? She might feel scared if she’s with us boys and especially if she turns back n-nak…”
The raven-haired girl ruffled Phi’s head and smiled. “Don’t force yourself, I got it. I’ll keep her here until Magilou finds a way to turn her back.” Phi grinned at looked over at the pink chicken who has been silent during the entire exchange, who in chicken terms, grinned back.
Over the next few days, Magilou holed herself up in her room, while frequently taking trips to Eizen’s treasure trove of all sorts of eccentric out-of-the-world items as well as a couple of sneaky runs into the Loegres Villa library during the nights to ‘borrow’ some potential books that may enlighten her, although she didn’t keep her hopes up.
Meanwhile, the young Malak spent his days playing with the chicken in his room and occasionally took her out on a leash, as Velvet had demanded. Phi handled feeding Chicklenor some seeds and corn, which Prince Percival had recommended for the bird while during the evening, Velvet would take Chicklenor into the bath with her, and scrubbed her muddy feathers down until they were sparkling pink again after Phi’s messy adventures during the day, before taking her to bed and letting the chicken share her pillow. “Eleanor, you’re a real pain in the ass, but a pain I don’t mind having around, I suppose.” Chicklenor clucked contentedly in response.
The next morning, Magilou slammed Velvet’s door wide open with a poor Phi being dragged by his collar. “Velvet. I’ve got it.” She said as she placed the boy down and treated herself with the armchair in Velvet’s chambers.
The daemon sat up and subconsciously hugged the chicken in her arms and rubbed her eyes. “Did you figure out how to turn her back to normal?”
“That indeed is what I just said.” Magilou said, as she twirled around the room, flaunting her entire being. “She just needs a kiss from her true love. She should turn back to normal after that. I saw something similar happen in one of Eizen’s weird books so we can give it a shot.”
“K-Kiss?” Velvet blurted and stared at the chicken in her arms, who looked back at her pleadingly. Magilou and Phi shifted their gaze to Velvet, offering Velvet as the first knight in shining armour in an attempt to wake up the sleeping beauty, knowing Eleanor’s love life fully well. Almost not so surprisingly, Velvet threw Eleanor towards Phi who caught her in his arms safely. “P-Phi. You go.”
“Huh, me? But she’d surely turn back if you just…” Phi replied in confusion and looked over to Magilou for confirmation.
“Maidens sure can’t show their true feelings while they are young and are facing the brute force of love~” The witch sang, as she sniggered at the other girl who was busy sorting out her thoughts to care. “Boy, I think you should go ahead. This might be the one chance you have to kiss an older girl.”
“H-Huh???” Phi stuttered, his own face as flushed as Velvet. “But... She’s a chicken. That’s not the same thing, is it?” Magilou replied with a shrug, so he went for it and kissed her forehead. Nothing happened, as expected.
“Alrighty who’s up next in our mission to wake up our sleeping beauty! Oh would you look at that! There is only one person left in the queue. You’re up, Vel!” Magilou applauded as Phi presented Velvet the chicken with both hands, who reluctantly accepted her golden prize and stared into her emerald eyes.
“D-Does it have to be me? But… We’re both girls there’s no way this is going to w-“
“Vel darling, don’t give me that ‘we’re both girls’ shit in 1021 or I’ll seriously whoop your ass tonight.” Magilou sighed, cupping her face in her hand. “If you’re this stingy about doing this, you might as well be saying ‘oh I love Eleanor so much so I don’t know what she would think if I went in and kissed her and it would be so embarrassing if nothing happened because now I’m really expecting something to happen and-‘“
“…Shut up I’ll do it.”
Velvet inhaled. And exhaled. And deeply inhaled. And exhaled. She lifted the chicken towards her face, but her arms refused to move once the chicken was a couple of inches from her face.
“Kiss. The. Chicken.”
Velvet glared at the witch, who was clearly enjoying herself, despite putting on her exasperated façade and clicked her tongue. She returned her gaze to the poor chicken who had been waiting for her kiss for the past half an hour and slowly inched closer, her lips quivering, until she felt a nudge on the back of her head, which soon revealed itself as a pure white dove that Magilou summoned up.
Without even realising it, her lips met the beak and the room filled with a blinding light, as the small chicken began to grow, returning to her original form as a human and as Eleanor Hume. Her now snow white feathers slowly fluttering off her skin and decorated the bed and the surroundings as the others stared in awe. That is, until Phi’s one fear had turned out to be true and the young Malak boy covered his eyes and frantically excused himself from the room.
“Um… Hi Velvet…?”
“…Welcome…Back…?“
The two turned around, avoiding eye contact, both a blushing mess as Velvet passed her a blanket to cover herself with as Magilou cackled, tossing around in the feather bath. “I can’t believe we’ve finally gotten this far. You two have to thank my awesome failed-aphrodisiac potion for this.”
“Lesson learned. To never trust any strange potion lying around ever again.” Velvet stated firmly as the exorcist nodded in agreement. “Who knows what Magilou could have been brewing up.”
“Oi, I worked so hard for you guys and this is the thanks I get? I don't get paid enough for dealing with you lot.” Magilou smiled, “Oh well, not like I care.”