Reckt, it turned out, was someone we knew. Kinda. She was the girl who’d been right in front of us when we were still in line to see the secretary. The one who’d mangled the pelts she was supposed to collect.

“Yo, Guild Master!” she called out even as she swung the door open. “Heard you wanted to see me?”

“You’re taking on some rookies,” Denden declared, apparently taking her casual greeting in stride.

“Wait, what?” Reckt asked, blinking. Then she noticed the two of us and a smile slid across her features. “Well, hello ladies~. Name’s Reckt. She and her - for the moment.”

“Does it change a lot?” I asked, fighting the urge to laugh. With her, of course, not at her.

“Sometimes,” Reckt answered, shrugging. “Sometimes I even shift my body to match. Most of the time I like to rock the femme look, though.”

“You’re genderfluid?” Mikaela asked, arching an eyebrow. 

“Is that the word for it?” Reckt asked back, frowning before shrugging off the idea. “Eh, why not. Let’s call it that. Anyway, are you two the smoking hot babes the ones I’ll be showing how to party?”

There was a momentary pause, during which I again tried not to laugh out loud. Mikaela, on the other hand, looked a lot less enthused, turning to the Guild Master. “Is this your idea of a joke?” she asked, her voice dangerously low. At the same time her pupils seemed to grow, overtaking her irises, and then even the whites of her eyes as her gaze turned pure black.

“Woah, Sis,” I interrupted. I wasn’t used to seeing Mikaela so angry, though I could sorta understand why she was. She didn’t like the messy, informal type at the best of times. It was part of why we clashed so often. And this wasn’t the best of times.

“He already gave us the rundown on why he chose her, remember?” I tried to remind Mikaela. “Mostly her being too dense to pick up on shit like this.”

“Shit like what?” Reckt asked, tilting her head. Thankfully, for all Mikaela’s anger, she’d taken our parents warnings about exposing ourselves seriously, and angled her face so that Reckt wouldn’t be able to see.

“Still - this?” she pressed. She was being almost… bratty. It was not the sort of thing I was used to seeing from her. “Surely you have someone more… professional to offer?”

“Hey, I can be professional!” Reckt protested. “Totally professional… if that’s what gets you going.”

Mikaela continued to stare at Denden, probably expecting him to cave before the pressure. He looked… utterly unmoved and unimpressed. Unlike Lissera, who was actually trembling a little.

“You’re not the first person with power who’s tried to boss me around,” Denden stated. “Probably the most powerful of them, but not the first. The fact is that I chose Reckt for multiple reasons, some of which I’ve already talked to you about. If that’s not good enough for you, then you can find your own veteran adventurer to go on missions with you. You’ll probably be able to pay someone to put up with you, if nothing else.”

“No need,” I interrupted before my sister could say anything. “Sorry, Mikaela’s usually not this quick to throw around her weight… She’s just in a bad mood right now.”

Mikaela scowled, but didn’t say anything. She knew I was right. Sure, Reckt hadn’t shown any real redeeming qualities so far, but that didn’t mean Mikaela had the right to throw a tantrum or act like a brat.

“Why don’t we go pick out quests together?” I suggested. “It’s gotta be gathering based, but it’s pretty much open other than that, right?”

“That’s right,” Denden said. “Though I’d recommend going for one of the lower paying ones. Most of the high paying shit is either hard for beginners to identify or in dangerous places and I don’t want you leading Reckt anywhere she won’t survive.”

“Hey!” Reckt protested. “I can totally handle anything a couple of newbie nobles can!” 

“Sure,” Denden replied. “Just stick to the lower paying stuff, alright? At least for your first job.”

“For our first job, I suppose,” Mikaela conceded. “Though I can’t promise after that. We need to earn a full saint before we’re allowed to call ourselves full-fledged adventures, right?”

“That’s right,” Denden agreed. “It also costs five virtues to register, but your parents paid the fee for you when they contacted me. They figured it would be better if I had everything ready for you, I suppose, which is why all I really need is your thumbprints on the cards.”

Saying so, Denden opened his drawer and pulled out two small rectangular bits of paper. One had my name, the other Mikaela’s, alongside a physical description of us - red hair, violet eyes - and our height, five foot five. He then took out an ink well, which he had us dip our thumbs into, before using magic to get rid of the excess ink on our hands and press our wetted thumb prints against the papers. Then we had to do the same thing for an identical set of papers that he’d be keeping on file and we were done.

We were officially adventurers!

We were officially rookie adventurers. I suppose I should have been pleased, but all I really wanted to do was scowl. Scowl at Reckt for the vapid grin on her face as she led her down the stairs, and at Charlotte for the matching smile on her own face as she let excitement sweep her away, and even at myself for… for being such a grumpy bitch, I suppose.

I knew I was in the wrong. I knew it. Trying to intimidate Denden with my status was shameful behavior for a princess and I knew better. I was just… out of sorts, I suppose. Away from home, forced to work together with my sister, and now saddled with a ridiculously horny individual who seemed to think we existed to be flirted with.

In fact, she seemed to think every girl existed to be flirted with, judging by the winks she shot at every girl we passed, sometimes accompanied by a name as she tried to get close to them. Inevitably she struck out every single time, three times just on the way to the job board, but it didn’t seem to faze her..

“Why don’t we try something simple?” Reckt suggested. “Limberbeans are in season - they go for a lot as potion material. They’re visually pretty similar to wild stringbeans, but the pods are way more flexible so you can generally tell them apart by touch.”

“That’s… actually a rather convincing pitch,” I remarked, pleasantly surprised. Perhaps Denden hadn’t foisted a clown upon us after all?

“Plus, we can replenish my personal supply this way! I always like to have some limber potions on me - you know, in case I get lucky?”

…Perhaps I was being too optimistic.

“You know, I don’t really care if your mind is focused on nothing but sex, but I’d appreciate it if you’d at least stop hitting on me long enough to get to know me,” I remarked.

“I’d probably do you,” Charlotte volunteered, “but maybe after we finish the first mission?”

“Bwuh?” Reckt blinked at her in shock, pointing at her chest and mouthing, ‘Me?’

“Yes, you,” I replied on Charlotte’s behalf, rolling my eyes. “Don’t get too excited, though - my sister will sleep with anything that moves.”

“Nah,” Charlotte disagreed, “just girls that move. And that one girl who didn’t move, but that was just… boring, honestly. She just laid there and did nothing the entire time like a dead fish…”

“I’m not a girl, though?” Reckt protested. “I mean, sometimes I feel like a girl, I guess? And sometimes I feel like a guy… but I’d really rather not call myself either, honestly. I’m just me. Sometimes a she, sometimes a he, but always a me.”

“Sure, but you look femme and that’s good enough for a casual hookup as far as I’m concerned. …That said, if you’re going to ask me to call you anything masculine during sex, I’m out.”

“Deal!” Reckt said excitedly, grinning like she’d just won the lottery. An almost guaranteed win from what I understood. Not that demons in general were all that hung up on sex, or modesty, but we were princesses for goodness sake! Our every move was carefully observed, our every interaction picked apart by drama-hungry bloodliners ambitious to rise above their current stations. Sex might not have any strong meaning to it, but who we slept with still mattered.

Not that Charlotte ever took that side of things seriously…

“So, we set on the limberbeans?” Reckt asked. “‘Cause we can get that done in a total jiffy, and then get back here for the sex. Assuming you’re serious about the sex… You are serious, right?”

“I’m always serious about sex,” Charlotte replied with an easy grin. “But are we sure we wanna go with those? The paper up there says you only get three virtues for every ten you pick.”

“They grow in pretty big patches,” Reckt tried to assure her, “and it’s not like you need to earn your membership in just two missions, you know? I took, like, twenty.”

“Yeah, but… I don’t know… Can’t we go after something more exciting? Like wolfberries - there’s a request for those, too, right?”

“From a restaurant,” I confirmed, eyeing the posted paper that had caught Charlotte’s attention. “It looks like the limberbeans are a request from the guild itself.”

“Everything at the very top of the board is a standing request,” Reckt explained. “You know, stuff that’s always in demand, that the guild’s always willing to pay for. It’s mostly gathering requests, though some guild halls also put up routine requests for monster extermination. Usually it’s weak pests that are way too quick at repopulating like Green Monkeys.”

“Have you been to other guilds?” I asked, curious despite myself.

“No,” Reckt said, not quite meeting my eyes. “Not… I mean… I’ve just heard things, alright?”

“Alright,” I murmured, surprised by her evasiveness. It was suspicious, obviously, but she was free to have her secrets. Charlotte and I certainly did.

“So… Is that a yes or a no on the wolfberries?” Charlotte asked, no doubt trying to change the subject.

“I mean, they sorta only grow near wolf dens,” Reckt said. “Think it’s something about their shit, or something? Either way, kinda dangerous for a mission worth… Five virtues per berry?!”

“It looks like the requestor is… Hunger’s Bane? What sort of name is that?” Charlotte asked, causing me to roll my eyes.

“It’s probably the name of a restaurant or something. I’d assume they want the berries for culinary reasons.”

“It’s a fancy schmancy place not too far from here,” Reckt volunteered. “One I wouldn’t mind taking you ladies to… if I could afford it…”

“If we do the request, maybe you can,” Charlotte pointed out. “Though I don’t think Mikaela would agree to going out with you.”

“I’m not interested in being wooed alongside my sister,” I confirmed. “And I have no interest in bedding you, either. That said, I am curious about these berries - do they have any magical properties?”

“Not that I know of,” Reckt replied, frowning. “I hear they taste pretty good, though?”

“Then perhaps we can purchase whatever dish makes use of them,” I suggested. “After we complete the mission, of course.”

“Uh… don’t I get a say in this?” Reckt asked. “I am supposed to be the veteran adventurer here.”

“You know, treating my sister to a meal is probably the best way to get into her pants,” I remarked.

“Hey! Don’t use me as leverage!” Charlotte protested.

“Yeah! She already agreed to sleep with me! And why are you so determined to take this request, anyways?”

“I’m simply curious about the local cuisine,” I replied. I wasn’t a glutton like my sister, of course, but I did consider myself something of a gourmet. I liked to try new foods - to taste flavors that I’d never experienced before. A new ingredient was very appealing to me.

Besides, the quicker we earned a saint, the quicker we could be rid of our ‘guide’…

“How about this - if you agree to take this request, then I’ll agree to pay for my sister’s share of food at the restaurant when she inevitably drags you there.”

“I can pay for my own date!” Reckt said in a huff, crossing her arms. “I mean, yeah, it’s… sort of expensive, and I wasn’t really planning on taking her there, but… how much could she eat, anyways?”

“The whole menu,” Charlotte replied immediately.

“...The… The whole menu?” 

“I mean, I’ve gotta know what everything tastes like, right?” Charlotte said, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

…Not that I could blame her when I fully intended to do the same thing.

“ …But you’ll sleep with me even if I don’t take you there, right?”

“I mean, I’m going to wanna go there,” she replied. “Though I guess you don’t have to come? Kind of a shame though - gotta admit, nothing makes me wanna work off energy in bed like a good meal.”

“…Fine. But if I die before I get to have sex with you, I’m totally going to haunt and stare at your ass!”

~~~

Author's Notes

I initially tried writing part one from Mikaela's PoV, but it just... didn't work out. Kept running into writer's block. Somehow, even though Mikaela was the main actor, it came out better when I shifted to Charlotte... Oh well. Hope the end result is good?

I wasn't expecting sex to be a Thing this early in the series, but I guess I shouldn't be that surprised... Charlotte's pretty casual with it. (We'll see if it actually goes anywhere, and how many chapters it takes to get there, I guess.)

Many thanks to FallingLeaf for editing, and for suggesting the title! Also, apologies for those waiting on my other series to update - I've been doing a little work on my stray cat strut fanfic, and of course I haven't forgotten about Naughty Magic, but... Depression has been bad, and getting one story out every week has been about all I can manage, I'm afraid. DX Sorry, but there will be more of my other stories when I can manage it.

In the meantime, if you're interested in supporting me (or just reading a couple chapters ahead) do please feel free to join my Patreon~! For as little as a dollar, you can read two (unedited) chapters ahead on Double Trouble, and a few of my other series. You'll also get access to my discord, where I post all my pictures of Autumn! (The true reason to join, obviously. Though the post with the invitation is also available to free members.)