Chapter Four - Clean Clothes

Rem felt clean. She felt clean all over and it was awful. She wiggled a bit, water dripping down her chitin to the bathroom floor. She was so clean.

Too clean.

Rem decided that she would jump in the first mud puddle she saw.

It would anger the stupid maid, which made it a doubly good idea.

The stupid maid walked into the bathroom, somehow stepped over every puddle and stain on the ground without even looking, his shoes, with their little bows and heart-shaped cutouts, not once getting wet. He stopped before Rem and raised a black and white thing before him.

It was a maid outfit. “I got you this to wear.”

Rem stared at the outfit, then up to Alex. “Are you stupid?”

The maid tilted his head to the side. “You don’t like this outfit?” he asked. “I did some resizing, it should fit you well enough.”

“I don’t want to look like a stupid maid!” Rem said. She slashed at the outfit, expecting it to be chopped in half, but the stupid outfit didn’t even get a nick.

The stupid maid nodded. “That’s okay. I understand your reluctance. Being different is fine.”

Rem hissed at him. He was being stupid, she just knew it.

“You can wear something else in the meantime. Do you prefer pants to skirts?”

Rem hesitated a moment. “Yes. Those are better.” Pants didn’t impede her motions as much as skirts. Not that she’d ever worn a skirt. Skirts were for those plumper humans and stupid maids.

The stupid maid nodded. “We don’t have anything tailored for you, I’m afraid. We will need to make something entirely from scratch. I suppose there’s no harm in taking you out for shopping right now. I’ll go get those robes of yours.” Alex bent down, picked up Rem’s clothes, and was soon out of her antenna.

Rem didn’t quite know what to do. She was naked, which was fine, and in the bathroom of a place with someone so terrifying she was certain even her mother would hesitate to eat him, which was considerably less fine.

Standing up on the tip of her feet, she looked out the bathroom window to the yard behind the inn.

The one called the Limpet was there, chanting something and moving her arms in strange ways. A bolt of necrotic energy shot out of the air before her and hit a dummy head on.

The magic was weak, but it was obvious to Rem that the girl was only practicing her aim. And that had been necromancy, the magic of the undead. Very forbidden, and dangerous. Even Rem disliked fighting the undead. Mostly because she couldn’t eat them once she was done, but also some were just dangerous.

The stupid maid returned, this time with the loose fitting clothes Rem had been wearing. They weren’t the same colour anymore. “I cleaned your outfit,” he said. “It was in quite a state. I also patched some of the holes in it. Can you put this on and join me? I’ll be waiting in the corridor.”

Rem grumbled as she slithered into her outfit. The stupid maid had made it all starchy and clean. It was awful.

She kicked the door aside and stepped out into the corridor where the maid was waiting with his fingers interlaced over his stomach and his back board-straight. “Wonderful! Let’s just confirm things with Bone Daddy before we head out.”

Rem’s mandibles worked, but she followed after the maid to the backyard.

The limpet one was still practicing her illegal dark magics on the dummy, occasionally pausing to take notes in some book, and the skeleton was still reading without a care. He looked up when they approached. “Alex.”

“Yes Daddy?”

“Did I not tell you to take care of the mantis?”

The maid nodded. “I did. She’s clean now. I wanted to go buy some materials to make her a proper outfit, if that’s permissible. We can start training her after.”

“Oh hoh! I see. Well, if it will keep you amused I suppose there’s no harm. Do you need any money?”

The stupid maid shook his head. “I have enough gold in my purse to take care of anything we may need.”

“Hmm, very well then. Do return on time to prepare the limpet’s meals. Or I suppose she could eat the inn’s food.”

The stupid maid straightened. “The food here is sub-par. I will return and make her something healthy and nutritious that tastes far better.”

“As you wish.” The skeletal man returned to his books, dismissing them as the glowing pits in his face refocused on the page before him.

The stupid maid bowed at the waist, then he reached out and tugged Rem after him by the sleeve. “There will be all sorts of things for you to learn,” the maid said as they left out the back. “But it’s okay. We have plenty of time to teach you.”

“Learn what? I don’t want to learn anything!”

The maid shook his head. “Papa said that I had to take care of you. Right now, you’re unemployed, right?”

“I don’t work for nobody,” Rem said. She looked around the back alley they were heading down, but really, there wasn’t much she could do to escape the stupid maid. She’d wait until he was asleep first, or distracted.

“Exactly. Taking care of you means making sure you can take care of yourself. I only know one profession, so I’ll teach you that.”

“What?” Rem asked.

She had the impression that terrible things were happening to her without her realizing it.

“Yes. I’ll teach you to be an excellent maid.”

Rem hissed, arms snapping out to make herself as wide as she could in protest. “I don’t want to be a stupid maid!”

The stupid maid shrugged. “A butler is fine too. I won’t judge.”

“I don’t know what that is, but I don’t want it either.”

The maid shook his head. “Don’t dismiss it so soon. Butlering is a noble profession.”

“I bet it’s a stupid profession,” Rem grumbled. She still kept up with the maid as he dragged her along. Soon enough, they were back to the merchant’s district where she’d first attacked the maid.

Alex went from stall to stall, never stopping where there was clothes to sell, but instead looking at bolts of cloth and poking at pieces of fabric.

“What are you doing, stupid maid?” Rem asked.

“Before you can become a good butler, you need to look the part. I’ll make you a proper uniform. Are there any symbols or styles you’d like to incorporate into it?”

Rem hissed. “I don’t need a uniform. Why don’t you just leave me alone?”

“If I leave you alone, what will you do?” the maid asked.

Rem dismissed the question, but the maid just continued looking at stuff, so she unwillingly spent some time actually thinking about it. What would she do if she wasn’t being tortured by the maid and dragged around?

She supposed that it meant that she had failed her Mother-given mission. She’d have to go back home to be eaten. Or if she was clever, which she was, she’d run away and go live somewhere else until her Divine Mother found out and chased her down for sport.

Rem didn’t like this.

So her options were... dying or working with the stupid maid?

Rem screamed, unleashing her anger into the sky and scaring off a bunch of dumb humans that were hanging around. The stupid maid turned around, a bolt of black cloth in hand, and stared at her until she finished screaming.

“You might want to curtail that. Big displays of emotion are generally frowned upon as a maid or butler.”

“Shut up stupid maid, I’m having a brain problem!”

The stupid maid shook his head and tucked the bolt of cloth into his too-small purse, then he placed a golden coin on the counter of the stall. The lady behind the stall was no longer behind the stall. She had run off when Rem was busy screeching at the sky.

“Do you need help?” the stupid maid asked. “One of a maid’s duties is listening to people rant and complain so that they can relieve some stress.”

“No! I want to eat you!” Rem said.

“But you won’t do that, because I’m helping you,” the maid said.

Rem jumped at him and tried to gnaw his head off for that, but the maid shifted out of the way and bonked her on the head with the side of his hand. “That is also very rude. No eating clients or fellow housekeepers.”

“Now you’ll tell me that I can’t ever eat anyone!” Rem hissed.

“Of course I wouldn’t say that. Killing for your master is one of the greatest duties that all maids and butlers are tasked with. After all, you can’t be a maid or butler without a master, and so you need to protect your master by killing anyone that would threaten them.”

Rem blinked. “You get to kill people?”

“Yes?” the maid said. He tilted his head to the side. “It’s why Papa made me so strong.”

“Do you get to... eat them?”

Alex tapped his chin. “I suppose I could. Usually I just stack the bodies after taking anything precious they have and storing it for later. Sometimes Daddy wants some corpses for experiments or to turn into undead. I don’t think he’d mind you eating any.”

The job was suddenly sounding a little bit appetizing.

“Even if you offer me food, I still won’t like you, stupid maid!”

“I am being a little selfish,” Alex said. He smiled big and bright at Rem. She hissed back. The stupid maid had no business trying to look cute. “I want a friend to help me help Father, and I think that the limpet could also use more people around her. It’s my duty as a maid to make sure that the master and mistress are well taken care of, and that means being surrounded by interesting people, and you’re very interesting. Even Papa said so.”

Rem didn’t know what she felt about that. Mostly hungry, she decided. “You’re an idiot,” she said.

“Don’t worry! One day, when you’re the world’s greatest butler, you’ll look back on this moment and be happy that I took care of you.”

Rem glowered as the maid grabbed her by the scythe and pulled her along.

“There are so many things to teach you! How to make tea, greet guests! How to patch clothes and make beds and how to cook a delicious meal!”

Rem wanted out, but she couldn’t slice her way out of the maid’s grip, so she had no choice but to follow him all the way back to the inn.

“We’ll start off slowly. I’m sure you know how to cook at least a little?”

“Cooking is for idiots! Smart people eat food raw!”

“Okay, well I can write down some instructions for you to follow. We’ll start with how to chop and peel vegetables.”

Rem scoffed. “I don’t know how to read.”

The maid stopped, then turned towards Rem with his big eyes welled with an emotion she couldn’t place. “You can’t read?”

“Reading is for stupid humans.”

“Oh, oh no. Please don’t say anything like that around Papa. He would be... so disappointed. Okay. Change of plans. I’ll begin your instruction on how to read as soon as we arrive. Perhaps the limpet can help a little?”

“I don’t want anything to do with the limpet! And I don’t care what the bone person thinks!”

“That’s alright. You sometimes need to learn to ignore a master’s habits as a maid or butler. I guess the very first thing will be making you a proper suit!”

“You are the worst person,” Rem said. “Stupid maid. I’d say you stink, but you don’t even have a smell. What kind of person doesn’t have a smell?”

“A clean one?”

“Shut up, stupid maid!”

***