When I reached the kitchen again, it was jarringly clean. Maid pit bulls went to and fro with mops and Pulis. The biggest one even dragged a bloodied Komondor. Make no mistake, the mop-dog was perfectly fine: the blood was not his, and he looked pretty happy with getting a bath, even if it had to be one of pit remains.
And among the servile, hardworking dogs, the little priest slept, on the furthest end of the kitchen, sitting on a throne of misshapen empanada crusts.
“May I grab an apple?” I asked.
The whole scene froze, the pits looking at me, the komondor keeping his dreadlocks in the air due to sheer force of will.
The priest gave a small bark and the scene came back to life, as if time had resumed its flow.
The pup nodded, and I nodded back. It was a gentlemen agreement. I found my way to the fruit counter, avoiding the maid, butler and mop dogs with deft movements I had developed during my years of learning folkloric dances.
The priest held a haughty stare in my general direction. From atop his throne of flour, he ruled undisputed. No other pit dared to defy him, not anymore.
I grabbed the apple, pondered a bit about using it to snipe the little pup out of the throne, and decided not to. Being a good person was a full time job and I, Walter Ignacio Claudio Romeo Severino del Valle de la Santísima y Venerable Virgen Gallardo[1], excelled at it.
“Thanks for your generosity, my lord of the kitchen,” I deadpanned, and completed the act with a mocking bow.
The little pup, unaware of my intentions, raised a paw as if saying “don’t even mention it, man of honor,” and dismissed me. I felt insulted by his inability to take offense. Was I getting rusty?
No, it was the puppy, the puppy was overly stupid. My act had been refined by years of min-maxing, naturally shaped by forces only found on the darkest forums of the internet. I, dear reader, take pride on being the pinnacle of the delicate art of vexing.
Forget it, it was time to go back to Sabrina’s room and see what the hell was going on with Mariana’s dress-moving device.
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I was received by a green-clad golden beauty and an absolutely distressed Sabrina.
“Mariana, cooperate! We need to keep on testing. Drop that electric grenade carefully.” The half-elf ordered, desperate, angry, with her feathers unkempt.
Mariana, in whose lexicon the word “care” didn’t exist, dropped the grenade like the good girl she was.
Sabrina received the very human and nostalgic experience of plunging a fork into an electrical outlet. I watched patiently while she seemed to have a seizure among the scrap, that couldn’t but make things worse. Mariana, on the other hand, was taking the electrocution like a champ, with the only signal of it being her hairs rising and sparks describing arcs from her snout to the ground now and then. And that, children, is how I discovered my dog was ground type.
Once the battery died, the half-elf clambered to her feet… And got promptly knocked back down by Mariana throwing the grenade to her forehead.
“Throw it, fetchslave.”
“Mercy…”
I grabbed Mariana from her collar and she looked at me like I had just murdered her whole family and she was next.
“IAmBeingAGoodGirlISwearWalterPleaseDon’tDisciplineMe.”
“Do you beat Mariana when she misbehaves?” Sabrina asked with an accusatory glare.
Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
“I do something worse than beatings.”
“He bathes me!”
Sabrina snorted and started laughing. “Fine, fine. The mechanism is mostly done and tested. That is, as long as Mar’s antics haven’t fucked it up.”
Mariana flicked her ears and the sides of the dress rose and fell just as I had asked.
“I guess we are done here. Thanks, Sabrina.” I extended my hand and she kneeled to kiss it. It was good to be recognized as royalty.
“Excuse me, but… why?”
“Force of habit.” She quickly rose and recovered her composure. Then, tried to discreetly clean a thread of saliva that was hanging from the corner of her mouth by pretending to scratch her cheek
“That’s a pavlovian response,” I pointed out gesturing with my finger.
“No, half-elves just have salivation problems,” she hurried to answer.
She then pushed me out of the room, and Mariana happily followed.
“Now the upper side of my hand likely smells as old man dick does. Damn her,” I muttered. “I will go wash my hands and then we will practice, Mariana. Don’t go into the vents”
“Come on, let me vent a litter,” she irresponsibly punned.
I crossed my arms and loomed before her. “Okay, you get five minutes in the vents if you answer me this: why was your ‘summon Wraith’ spell in use during the battle against the shadow? It said that the summon limit for the spell had been reached.”
“Follow me!” she said, and pranced away. I followed, not without certain logical reluctance.
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Down halls and flights of stairs I pursued my pet. The turns I had to take made me question the logic behind the castle’s architecture, and if the dusty halls were not rearranging themselves when unseen. The bearded pit bull playing the harmonica without solace may have played part in the conception of such a demented man’s doubt.
“Here, here,” Mariana stopped in front of a dead end.
“Come on, open the secret passage and show me the horrors you are making the wraith commit.”
Mariana kicked a lose brick and the whole wall came down. The candlelight was so abundant it became blinding. And, once the dust settled, an ethereal, handsome figure was revealed, sitting at desk, quill in hand, crying over a piece of paper.
“I want a computer, I want a keyboard, I need pirated Microsoft Word!” wailed the taciturn specter.
“If I had a cent for every time I have found an alter ego of myself during this misadventure, I would have two. One too many for character development, Mariana.”
“But I wanted to venture into the world of the wraithen word,” she caviled.
Step by step, my doppelganger approached. The image of his hands flickered, showing the ghostly claws underneath the fake skin.
“I am a necromancer, I fear not the dead.”
“What about the dead heart of the reader that complains about the accurate biology of the plant erotica you weave?” asked the specter, making me wish this had been solved with stabbings and/or demonic possession.
“Well, but you are not that.” I turned to my dog and crouched to look her in the eyes. “Mariana, why me?” I whispered.
“Well, we are disgraced, life sucks…” she began.
My heart swelled so much with pride that it almost blows up, which would have ruined the specter’s paper sheets. And my day, maybe.
I walked up to the table, passing through the wraith’s ethereal form, and checked on whatever the fuck it was writing.
“Mariana’s novel?” I said, holding the manuscript up to my face.
“Yupyup, I relay him the words and he wraiths.”
My face was a piece of poetry written for the gods of incredulity. Why? Why had I raised a dog that wrote such uninspired drivel?
“Mariana, you need to read more!”
“Why?” asked the being of a species incapable of understanding written language.
“This sucks ass. No, even worse, this sucks armpits. No, even worse than that, this Humbert Humberts eyeballs.”
“Well, considering sucking ass is good…” began Mariana. I gave her a slap with her own manuscript. That’s how we give feedback in my neighborhood. Feel the inconsistency of your prose in all your dog-face, Mariana.
The sides of their dress rose and fell like flapping wings due to the slap. What a solid system Sabrina had developed.
“Walter, word of advice from Walter to Walter: she’s a dog!” promptly and calmly explained my doppelganger. Never mind the exclamation mark.
“That’s no excuse to not read. ‘I have no time, I am blind, I am a non-human animal.’” I mocked with an annoying voice.
“How would you make a sea sponge read, hmm? And don’t tell me you’d use chemical markers for letters,” said the specter.
“Damn Mariana, I never knew you were Judas yellow for a reason. You just nailed me, girl!” I congratulated my pet.
“But Judas didn’t nail Jesus,” he said.
The ghostbusters song awakened in my brain and wormed its way to my lips.
“Mariana, order him to erect the wall back up and keep on writing.”
“Wait no… I need screenlight… I need… I need…” he started hyperventilating.
“You heard my owner, Walter two, build and wraith!” said Mariana, and a spectral leash came out of nowhere to whip the disgraced ghost. “Build and wraith!”
The ghost let out an “Eeep” and started picking up bricks form the debris. I left the papers in the desk and extinguished the candles by gently blowing on them before going away, passing over him as he whined and wept. It was time to practice.
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[1] This version of my name could be fabricated and merely artistic. Discretion is advised.