Mayao had to laugh. It was quiet, devoid of the emotion normally held in a laugh. "I appreciate what you want to do." He said. "I really do. But it's not that easy. I myself have researched exorcism, before being sealed away. I still have my body, my normal, demon body. There are various ways to return me to that body, but it differs from family to family, exorcist to exorcist. It's vague, what I've read and heard. But once my soul is in a vessel, it has to stay in the item or body it's taken over or was forced into."

He looked at the ground. "But if you can find anything, maybe to give me my body back for just a few minutes... I'd be happy with that. And maybe I'll be able to figure out what happened to... my friend. I was his protector back then. He told me himself."

"Yes, that's true. You were actually around during the time that exorcism was big. No one really talks about exorcising demons around the dinner table anymore..."

Alexis sighed. "But, it was my family that did the sealing of your soul. So that could mean that if I dug into our family's history, I might have a chance of finding an answer." She growled to herself, grinding her teeth. "If my dad would just forget about Mark and let me carry on the Hughes name, even if it's just our history with exorcism! Then I could get the answer from him that way! But now, there's no way he or Mark will just tell me!"

Biting her lip, she glanced at Mayao askance. "So our first course of action should be finding out what we can about my family and how they dealt with sealing souls into objects."

“If you can find a diary or journal, perhaps written in the hand of the ones who dealt specifically with exorcism and who discovered new ways to either seal a soul, or bring it back out for a limited time, maybe even dealing with the animation of an inanimate object once the soul is inside it, that would help. But it’s been four hundred years!” Mayao jumped up and smoothed the front of the dress down. “Do you really think books from that time would survive being tossed around, thrown in storage and just left?”

He moved around the immediate area, treading on the grass and over the huge Willow tree’s roots. “They think I’m evil.” He said. “They think I’m like the hundreds of others that were forced to be sealed away. What can I be now? With all this new… technology, this new world?” Do the forests even exist anymore?”

Alexis raised her brows. "Of course forests still exist! I mean... There aren't any big ones around here. And as for the books, I found your doll body and the choker intact didn't I?" She cocked her head. "And books as important as those dealing with exorcism would have been kept in a safe place. I'll just have to find that place."

She shrugged before looking Mayao over as he stood by the willow, her eyes sweeping over his figure intently. Suddenly her eyes narrowed and she stood heading down the path. "Stay here. I'll be right back." She told him. Using her hands, she moved the willow's reaching branches and started for the house.

“Not big forests.” Mayao had to mull that around. How big was ‘not big’? Were they little islands, or groupings? Could this dirty, oily smell still be detected inside the safety of the trees? Were there still animals as abundant as they used to be? He decided not to ask these questions, but instead answered with a nod to Alexis’s next words.

He looked back at her as she stood and started away, stepping over the grass a few times, then pausing. He was listening to her. Listening to the girl who had brought him back into the world after it changed so drastically, leaving him behind and taking his closest friend away from him. She was listening to her. But as she went back to the house, he let himself touch the bench, feeling its hard stone. Then he hit it with a balled up fist, releasing a bit of the pent-up anger and energy inside him.

Walking through the house, Alexis first stopped into the guest room by hers, checking that the sheets were clean and neat, the room suitable for an inhabitant after all the years that had passed with occupying the room across the hall. Giving a satisfied smirk, she hurried to the hall by the kitchen, dug around in one of the closets and then started back out to where Mayao waited for her.

She found him standing next to the bench where she'd left him. "Sorry for the wait, Mayao," she stated. "Come on, I've got a room for you. And this!"

Raising the arm at her side, she held the feather duster out to him. "Here. The answer to your question as what you could be now."

Mayao watched Alexis leave from the corner of his eye. As soon as her brown hair vanished through the door, he pulled a long, thick branch of the willow down and twisted it with a grimace of annoyance, whacking it over the bench, ground, and tree trunk. "How, how!?" He yelled, his small voice breaking. "How can this happen, damn it!? How!?" Bringing the branch up, he grasped it with both hands and put it in his mouth, biting down as hard as he could on it.

With a sigh, he threw it behind the tree and looked around, and not a moment too soon. Alexis was returning. He had to back away from whatever she held in her hand. It took a moment for him to realize it was a duster. He felt a small, weak smile reach his lips. "Wh-what the hell is...?" He raised an arm, touching the feathers. "You're... seriously going to... Oh, hell no! No! I'm not being a maid! Not for those freaks! No!" He turned around and glared at the tree. "I'll sleep in the tree, I'll just live outside." He crossed his arms.

"Now, that would be a little unusual, a tiny maid living in a tree in our backyard," Alexis argued lightly, but she could understand his anger. "You don't want to bring any attention to yourself do you? And I'm not saying that you have to clean up after my family... Just little stuff around the house. If anyone asks I'll say I hired you and that I'm responsible for you." She stared at him seriously. "I am you know."

She flicked a finger, ushering him to follow her. "And I'm not going to make you start today. That would just be cruel. Not to mention rude. You're my guest now. You're rooms across from mine."

She started on, heading back into the house and pointing out where things were. Then she stopped in the spare room, looking around with eyes narrowed in satisfaction. "Well, do you like it Mayao? My room's right across the hall, so if you need me, give me a hollar."

Alexis started out the door, stopping to look back at him over her shoulder. "I'll let you get settled for now. I'll see you in the morning." Then she stopped again, pointing to the switch on the wall by the door. "Oh and this! This is the light switch. You flip the switch up to turn the light on..." She looked up at the light as it turned on. "Then down to turn it off. See, simple. On, off. Have a nice night!"

Waving, she started for her own room and when she went in, she left the door open a crack. She didn't know if anyone in the family would be stupid enough to try to destroy him in the night, but they wouldn't get the chance! And she hoped Mayao wouldn't get into any trouble without her.

"I wonder if I should have taught him about the toilet," she mused. Then she frowned. "Can he even go to the bathroom...?"

“You aren’t responsible for me.” Mayao crossed his arms. “No one’s responsible for me, I’m responsible only for myself. But if you’d like to tell yourself that, I guess I can’t really say anything against it.” He noticed her swift movement, and decided to follow without much more argument. He absolutely detested knowing he would have to scrub floors for the family who had gathered for the sole purpose to look down on him after he had been degraded by his altered summoning abilities.

He halfway listened to Alexis at first, staring at the various things she pointed out but thoroughly baffled by the flat black rectangles mounted on the walls of some sitting rooms, or sitting on desks and attacked with black appendages to the walls. Little lights blinked sometimes, or were on indefinitely here and there. Despite the confusion, his day had been too full of annoyance and anger, he had no interest in learning what they were.

When she ushered him into the room across from hers, Mayao had to look around. It was a high-ceilinged thing, a tall bed across the carpeted floor flanked on either side by tall windows. A closet was to the left, hidden by a door. The walls were a medium-toned beige, reflecting the carpet and the earth-toned bed covers. A desk to the right was held in a corner, with a black chair on wheels. Two chairs were against the wall to their immediate right, against the wall.

“It’s… a nice place.” Mayao said. His gaze was altered when she flipped the lever she called a light switch, making the large orb on the ceiling flash several times. He nodded quickly, and waved as she left the room. With a sigh, he closed the door and leaned against it. The curtains over the window were opaque, the view outside leading to the back yard.

He glanced at the closet. It was a slight hope he would find clothes there, other than dresses or clothing that would be too large or small. He shook his head and went to the bed, crawling up and testing it. “Soft… I’ve never been on something so soft.” He smiled a bit. One thing he could stand, even if he had to deal with being the maid of the family who had condemned him, was a bed.

Rolling onto her back, Alexis stared up at the ceiling. She couldn't sleep... Had Mayao fallen asleep yet? She hoped he'd be able to get some rest. As for forcing the job of maid onto him, it was really the only way he could go about the house looking natural. Her parents often had company over, some who knew about demon's and exorcism. They'd notice something was wrong...

"Why am I worrying about it?" she muttered. "Like he said, he can take care of himself. But still..."

Growling, she rolled onto her side wondering what tomorrow would be like. A smile started to curl her lips. At least this would make things interesting, and banish the restlessness that had been plaguing her boring life. Who knew? Maybe something more exciting would happen!

With that thought in mind, she closed her eyes and drifted off to sleep, the little smile still curling the corner of her mouth.

It took a while for Mayao to fall asleep. Having been trapped and in a deep sleep for four hundred and three years, he feared he would not be sleeping for a very long time. But as the moon rose in the sky, he closed his large, watery eyes, and in the dress he had woken up in, fell asleep on the bed.

Pale light hit the lids of his eyes. Without moving, he considered the odd dream he had. All the odd contraptions, the people and their clothes, the place! And waking in a female’s body, how ridiculous. He would open his eyes and see a blank wooden wall, or a canopy of trees above him with a faint light of morning shining through the leafy branches, the scent of earth in his nose, the noise of birds and little animals battering about the uppermost branches. How Trosi would laugh when Mayao told him of that odd dream! He opened his eyes.

The beige walls, scent of clean wool and silence reigned when he sat up. The gentle fault of the surface he sat on was a bed. The light he saw was from the window. He was alone, Trosi nowhere to be found. He bit his lip, forcing back a wave of anger, but it didn’t stop the burning at the corners of his eyes. “No!” He balled up his small fists and hit the bed sheets. Stopping himself before he could yell again, he bit the pillow he had slept on. It wasn’t a dream after all. He wasn’t in his forest, he wasn’t with Trosi. He was trapped.

Gasping as she jolted upward in bed, Alexis looked around her room with wide eyes. That dream... She'd just had a dream that she was back in the storage room, putting the choker on the doll. Only this time, it was she who woke in the dolls body, and Mayao had been given hers! Then her family had wanted to dispose of her!

Groaning, she fell back, hitting her pillows with a thump as she caught her breath, the sweat from her face drying. After calming herself, she stood and shuffled her way across the hall. She stopped outside of Mayao's door, pausing as she raised her arm to knock. Would he really want to see her? After everything that happened, she probably seemed like one of the bad guys.

She shook the thought away, giving the door a gentle knock. "Mayao? Are you awake?" She asked. "Can I come in?"

Mayao spat out the mouthful of feather-stuffed cloth. “Erh… Come on in.” He called, low enough for Alexis to hear. The memory of his friend Trosi faded into the backdrop of his mind as the reality came crashing down on him. He was employed as a maid to a family of previous exorcists, and he was a demon! The world he knew was gone, that was certain.

But what was uncertain was his existence. What was the feeling in his stomach? Hunger? But he was a doll! How could a doll eat? How could a doll sleep? How could a doll walk and talk and harbor the soul of a demon to become a living creature? The questions were endless, but they would be answered in time. He hoped.

Peeking her head in the door she smiled. "So how'd you sleep? Good I hope," she said, tentatively slipping into the room. "Though you were probably hoping you'd wake up at home in your time right?" She guessed by looking at his face, before her eyes landed on his pillow... Was it wet? Shaking her head, she ran a hand through her hair, which she'd left out, the ends brushing the middle of her back.

"How are you feeling today? I doubt your excited to start your job as maid, but we're pretty clean here, so there shouldn't be much to do. And if you want to get away from anyone, you're free to go hang out in the backyard," she offered.

Taking a seat on the bed, she leaned foward on her knees. "I had a nightmare last night that I'd been put into the dolls body," she confided softly. "And that you had been put into mine. My family wanted to destroy me, because they said that I was useless..." Alexis sighed, keeping her eyes forward as she fiddled with the strap of her tanktop. "I don't envy your position. But hopefully while today I can start hunting down some clues as to how to get you back to normal."

Turning, she looked at him seriously, her grey eyes narrowed befoer forcing a small smile. "Well, what do you want to do? Are you hungry or anything? Can you get hungry?"

Mayao tossed the pillow behind him and fiddled with the end of her apron. “I thought everything that happened yesterday was just a bad dream and I’d wake up in my own time, under the sky with Trosi. But… It wasn’t a bad dream. All this new stuff, the lack of forest, the… people. It’s real.” He laughed weakly, running his hand absently through his hair, slightly annoyed at its length, which reached well past his waist while out of its pigtails.

“I think I’ll just ask your parents what I should do. Best just… to get a list from them! Especially if I want these days to pass any faster. I found I can… see the time go by a little easier when I’m busy and not letting my mind wander.” He was angry. He had to be their maid! Why not a butler, at the very least? He could handle the bit of extra dignity that came with the role of a butler, but a maid? A man in a female’s body, dusting and sweeping and trying to keep up the guise of female human. He sighed, and glanced up at Alexis in time to hear her final question.

It was that moment he felt a pull of hunger. “Er, I guess I can.” He said. “I’ll have to assume that whatever body I’m inhabiting, as long as it appears human, will take on whatever attributes a human generally has.”

She smiled crookedly. "Awsome! I'm starving. Now that I think about it, I didn't eat any supper..." Standing she stretched this way and that, before opening the door. "My parents should be there, then you can get the list." She stopped with a frown. "This is won't be remotely awkward."

Alexis shook her head anyway, starting off for the dining room at a comfortable pace that Mayao could keep up with. "So what do you like to eat? We have cereal, but we usually have bacon, toast, eggs, and coffee. Oh, right you've probably never had coffee before. It takes a while to get used too. Or you could have tea, I guess." She looked back at him over her shoulder as she walked into the wide dining room.

Like she thought, her father was sitting at the the head of the table, a paper before him and a steaming mug of coffee in his hands. The long table was covered with food, her mother sipping her tea and Mark was sitting at the table, his eyes closed. He wasn't a morning person, a trait he shared with Alexis, though the nightmare that had woken her had banished all sleepiness.

She sat down, gesturing to the seat next to her for Mayao to sit down. Her father was looking over his paper at them, her mother too with her sloped nose wrinkled. Mark turned his face that way, his eyebrows furrowed in confusion but he hadn't opened his eyes yet.

"Morning," she said, getting no repsonse from her paretns and only a groggy nod and mumble from her brother. "Well, dig in! If you need me to pass you anything just ask."

“What’s cereal?” Mayao asked absentmindedly, hurrying up and nearly getting caught in the curls of his hair, which surrounded him and made him shake his head. “But you know, Alexis, coffee was discovered before the 1600s. I’ve had it.”

He fell silent immediately, shifting in his clothes to get rid of the wrinkles from his sleeping in them. He felt his heart leap and start to pound. The presence of these people who had humiliated him was straining on his nerves, until he found he didn’t care what they thought, the suddenness of it almost making his head spin. So with a smile and heave, he got onto the chair by Alexis and sniffed. He could reach the table rather well, a surprise for him in his short stature. He smoothly reached several squares of toast and bacon, and busied himself with it. He had to imagine how he could bring his wish for a list into the light.

He neglected speaking for a few moments, taking the time to actually enjoy the silence and the fact that he didn’t have to steal food for a while. Toast, it was. Harder than bread, darker than a bun… Somehow, it made sense. The crunch of every bite seemed magnified in the silence, but it was only in his head. He glanced up and to Randall for a moment. He returned the man’s stare and nibbled the side of his bacon.

The silence got to be ringing in Mayao’s ears. Finishing his food, he leaned forward and laced his fingers under his chin, a move he did quite a bit even in the old days. It was something that let others know he was getting very serious and would take no moment’s hesitations. “Well, Randall. I suppose, since I’ll be working for you people as a maid now, I’ll need a list of chores. What should I do? Cooking? Cleaning? Yard work? Various trips to market or whatever you call it nowadays? Write me a list and I’ll take care of it, be it against my better judgment.

There was a moment of silence as Alexis watched her father, munching on some toast. Even Mark opened an eye. Randall sighed. "We have people who do yard work," he stated. "Cleaning is mainly all that needs done around the house. And I suppose when we need something at the store Alexis could accompany you there. I'll write up a list of all the things that need cleaning, but the entry way is the first thing. It's getting dusty."

He looked him over carefully, one of his thick brows cocked. "But I don't expect you to run around here with only one set of clothes." He went back to his paper. "I'll make you some. Stop by my office sometime tomorrow. I should have a few of them done by then."

Alexis turned to Mayao giving him a thumbs up, her smile wide and curled more at one corner. "Don't do that Alexis, it's unsightly," her mother scolded from behind her tea cup. When Alexis face dropped into a sour frown she inquired, "What are you going to be doing today?"

"Well, I thought I'd raise an army of zombies, since I revived a demon's soul yesterday..." She stated lightly, tapping her lips with a finger. "I'll probably go out and exercise later. Did you guys know coffee's been around since the 1600's? I didn't know that." She took a sip of hers. "I have a match later this week. So Mark what do you say?" She turned to him with an evil grin. "Want to duel later?"

"Not on your life," he grumbled.

She rolled her eyes, turning back to her plate. "Fine. Mayao, tell me when you want to get started, I'll show you were we keep the cleaning supplies."

“The entryway’s getting dusty? Hmh, you mustn’t have many visitors.” Mayao muttered to himself, but only just caught Randall’s mention of making him new clothes. He knew how to sew? Mayao cocked a brow and stared at the man for a moment, giving Alexis’s odd motion a smile that disguised his confusion as to what it meant.

“I’ll start now!” Mayao jumped from the chair. “It’ll give your parents time to think up a barrage of chores for me to take care of through this entire fortress.” He referred to the size of the house, a very large thing that would certainly require a lot of cleaning. “Ah, Alexis, if you need help with raising an army of zombies… I was quite well known for doing just that!”

He laughed. Of course he wasn’t, but he wanted to leave on that note. And he did, walking from the room to wait for Alexis just outside the door.

Alexis stared after him for a moment before bursting out laughing, startling her brother. "You know, I like him! As I thought he's not a bad guy. Or, you know, demon." She got up, still chuckling as she started for the door. "Don't put anything too crazy on that list!" she warned. In the doorway, she glanced at Mayao before looking back over her shoulder, her eyes narrowed and shadowed. "And I'll see you outside around 2 Mark! Bring your gear!"

"Alright!" she declared. She pointed down the hall. "This way for the cleaning supplies!" After showing him the closet she brought up the entryway that she had taken him out through the day before. "It's really the floor that needs cleaning," she informed him, carrying a bucket. "If you need water, you can run into the kitchen, just past the dining room."

Then she started away. "I'm going to go rummage through my grandfather's old study to see if I can find anything. It's next to the minor living room." She stopped, turning to add, "Oh and if you finish up around two, come outside! You can watch me kick Mark's butt!"

Then, cackling, she started toward her grandfather's study. He always kept things and her father hated clutter. So the old books and documents on sealing souls would probably be there. At least, she hoped so anyway. Glancing down she sighed. "Oh, I should at least get dressed first," she observed before heading to her room, then the study.

Mayao actually felt happy, for making someone laugh. It might have been the girl who had awakened him into his current situation, but he liked her more than her family, for sure. Looking into the closet, he glared at the bucket, mop, broom, various bottles, and brushes and rags. He took the two strings off his wrist and tied his hair back into their pigtails, grabbing the bucket, a rag, and a scrubbing brush. With that, he took the bucket to the kitchen, marching past the dining room and gathering the water, standing on his toes to reach past the bucket. Hauling it back, he felt he must have looked rather foolish. Setting it by the closet door, he decided to read the back of the bottles on the floor. They were cleaning solutions.

“What?” He wrinkled his nose at them. “Whatever happened to plain water and muscle?” Tossing the bottles down, he shut the door and went to the entryway with his items. The reality of the situation was just starting to fall as he got onto his knees and saturated the scrub brush and started in on the floor. “What’s become of me?” He muttered, rubbing the brush’s bristles on the floor and staring at the little puddle he would soon spread to polish the entire area. “A demon! The strongest demon in the world, by the way, reduced to cleaning floors for people he doesn’t even like! And he… is a she. Oh… What the world has come to!”

Sighing, Alexis stared at the bookcases that made up the walls of her grandfather's study. These books, she could tell just by smelling that some of them were old indeed. But it would take days to look through all of them! Instead, she headed for the filing cabinet. That was as good a place as any to start searching. Her grandfather had filed away all the documents that weren't in books.

"Ah, this is going to take forever," she murmured, before taking a seat in front of the filing cabinet.

She started in the files on demon souls and mystical objects... But as she got halfway through each section, she started to notice that some of the files were missing. And they seemed to be the ones she needed!

"Has someone hidden them?" she asked herself. "Or have they just been misplaced?" Her grey eyes narrowed. The part about sealing demon souls was gone. And the file on items strong enough to house souls was also missing... "So there's a connection between the missing files." She looked up, biting her lip. "What does that mean?"

Mayao was at a point where he could hardly tell what was water and what were tears. His gaze was glitteringly obscured by his angry tears as he scrubbed nearer the door. “I’m a demon!” He cried. “I should be able to clean this in an instant with my power!” He sat back and raised his hand. “Water, boil and burn, make this mess disperse!”

A series of high, random pops exploded all around him, and small flowers rained to the floor. He sat, amidst the puddle and flowers. Even more mess to clean up. “Oh. I don’t have my powers anymore.” He sniffed, sobbing and going about, gathering the flowers in his apron and scrubbing where they had fallen. “What a mess, a mess, mess!” He cried to himself. “Blasted mess, my own fault!” He felt stupid, crying and scrubbing the floors and gathering up flowers he had summoned a moment ago. He felt so stupid.

Alexis cracked her neck, feeling a stiffness in her shoulders setting in. Glancing down at the paper in her hand she blinked before shooting upright. "I don't believe it! This is...!"

Grabbing an old letter opener as she bolted past her grandfathers desk, she ran straight for where Mayao should have been cleaning. She ran over, yelling, "Mayao! You're never going to believe what I... AH!" Alexis crashed to the floor with a thud, lying on her back as she blinked. Then she looked to the side, picking up a tiny blossom. "Flowers...?"

Looking at Mayao, her eyes widened as she picked herself up. "Oh! Right! Check this out!" Grabbing the letter opener in her hand, she cut the tip of her finger open and then quickly reached forward and smeared her blood on the choker's jewel, a giddy smile on her face. "This should work temporarily!"

Mayao had to shake his head to get rid of the tears and break in his voice. “Be careful! I made a mess.” He looked up as Alexis stood and cut her finger, and the shock of being advanced upon almost made him shoot backward. But with Alexis’s blood on the choker, it contracted for a moment, and he gasped, feeling a tingling spread from under the jewel to the rest of him. His arms and legs cracked as the bones started elongating, and he gritted his teeth to stifle the pain. The golden curls straightened and shortened, paling to a pure white, the face of the doll changing, becoming more angular and sharp, the eyes narrowing a bit and darkening to a violet tone. His hands grew larger, the fingers extending more. He frantically kicked from the small shoes his feet were trapped in, as something black enveloped his body. It looked like leather, under the dress, a noise sounding out like chains shifting. His body grew longer, taller.

Struggling out of the dress, he managed to look himself over in a second. Black clothes, two different belts, heavily-buckled boots. His shirt had a high collar that hid the choker that still clung to his skin, but his shirt was sleeveless, and his skin was rather pale. He raised his hands to his face, feeling it, running his hand through his hair, but it returned to the style it was in: Long in front and a little shorter in back. It was parted more to the right, and went over one of his eyes. “I’m back.” He muttered. The presence of his voice, now its normal, neutral tone, a deeper tone that resonated as male rather than female, brought a smile to his face. “I’m back! My powers. My body. My clothes.” Levering one of his long legs under him, he stood and turned his gaze on Alexis. “You did it! How did you find out? And how long am I able to stay like this?”

He stretched his arms. Four hundred and three years he had been trapped, and for what seemed like a millennium he had been trapped in a female doll’s body. Things seemed so much more normal, except the loneliness in the pit of his stomach that came from not having Trosi around. He didn’t care to use his powers at that moment. They didn’t mean as much to him as Trosi, who had died many years before. He didn’t let Alexis see his thoughts had turned.