[IC] Princess-Champions of Hyperborea

[Tatterdemalion]

Adila!

Your keen tactical mind surveys the field. You are the Princess of the Watch! You are a dragon, fierce and proud! You are—

“Who’s a good girl? Who’s a good girl, huh?”

Thump thump thump thump your tail is causing a small localized earthquake. Rita has you in a headlock and is doing finger things to your jaw, her fingers soft and clever, her voice smoldering and husky.

“Whoooosa smart dragon? Whooooooosa brave, good dragon?? Is it you? Is it you???”

Yes yes yes yes yes it’s you

“Is you a good dragon no matter what that mean old Wicked Queen says?”

yes yes yes yes yes

Ahem. Keen tactical mind. Here’s the rub: if Solid Adila loses, she will be absolutely furious. If she thinks you’re throwing it for her, she’ll be absolutely furious at you in particular, ostensibly because you’re risking Eupheria adding in new variables, but really because she’s secretly very proud. So the only way to get out of this without being viciously, icily chewed out is to lose, but in such a way that it doesn’t look like you’re losing on purpose.

On the other hand, if you let Kazelia win, she’ll probably be sooooo happy and jump up and down and, gosh, don’t you want to see your friend so happy?

As for the game itself... it looks like Eupheria’s adding pieces, members of her Nightmare Army. Chances are high they don’t mind putting the fear of the Queen into you by giving you a sound thrashing. Substitute yourself for a piece with caution.

In addition, it looks like Euphie’s adding her own Chaos Spaces to the board. Knowing her, landing a piece on such a space will change them, perhaps giving them an edge, perhaps weakening or humiliating them, perhaps just throwing a wrench into the meta. The luck-based element might throw the very competent commanders on each side into disarray.

For Team Leash, there’s Eska, of course. She’s sitting cross-legged, one hand under her chin, watching the assembly of the three-way board carefully. For Team Prance, it’s going to be Kazelia, naturally. And Team Spankies has Solid Adila. The real trick, for each side, is going to be keeping their team under control.

So maybe it’s for the best if you distract Rita by rolling over and showing her your tumtum for more scritchies. Yes. It’s a strategy.

***

Mittens!

“If we work together and you follow my lead,” Solid Adila says, inspirationally, “there will be a happy ending, Alina. I promise.”

And it almost lands! It really almost does! She’s got confidence, and just enough gentleness, and the way she says it, like she’s letting you into her confidence— it’s almost perfect!

Almost.

Here’s what you pick up, your little triangles folding back against your skull despite themselves: Adila I has a plan of some sort. She needs you to be a part of it. She wants you to trust her, but she has no intention of trusting you in turn. She thinks she needs to dazzle you and lull you into a false sense of security. There’s a likely chance that she intends to use you as a weapon against Euphie, and in turn, a likely chance that she intends to do something nasty to you once your usefulness is expended. It’s plain to see, if you have eyes to see it with, in the way she’s trying to put you at ease, the way she pats your shoulder, the way her inspirational smile doesn’t extend to the look around her starry eyes. She’s a fake.

You know what’s stopping you from hissing and biting her hand?

You saw the look she snuck at Euphie as she stalked angrily away. The look of maximum guilt. Of being, for a moment, lost and adrift. She’s locking herself into a dumb, bad, scheming plan because she thinks it’s her Duty and her Penance and blah blah blah. She doesn’t love Euphie in that way, you’re fairly certain. But she cares and she wishes she didn’t.

She fell and I did nothing.

That’s an admission of guilt. Of someone who sat alone in her tent with her head in her hands, her shoulders shaking silently, as she thought about all the things she should have done. The opportunities she had to step in. To acknowledge Eupheria’s feelings and heart, and find a way forward together. The chances she had to stop Eupheria from going to find the Caduceus in the first place.

She fell, and I should have done something. I should have stopped her. I should have caught her.

You open your mouth to say something, and that’s when Azora Howl wraps her arms around your stomach and hurk.

“Excuse me,” she sneers, as you flail helplessly, feet lifted off the ground, stomach squished, breathless, “you failed to take over Hyperborea, you stupid old hag. My daddy’s succeeding. So why don’t you shut up and let a real general take command?”

A vein throbs on Solid Adila’s forehead. “Who are you calling an old hag, brat?”

“Who are you calling a brat, geriatric? You should probably hang back and let the kitten sub in instead. You don’t want to break a hip.”

You could probably defuse this situation if you weren’t reduced to pained, helpless mews and whines. Why does Azora have to be so tall? It’s not fair!

***

Kathelia!

Looks like there are a few new elements to keep in mind. Chaos Spaces, adding some uncomfortable randomization to your strategy. The fact that your animated pieces are, instead, members of the Nightmare Army. And, of course, this is a three-way match. You’ll have to keep your eyes on both Team Leash and Team Spankies to win; if you overextend to take down one, the other might take advantage and crush you.

“Ah’m just a simple pony from my ol’ country roads,” Dandy says with a grimace, “but seems to me we should be takin’ down Alina first, yeah? She’s got both yer sister and the old bossy Adila on her team, and I don’t like the look of that.”

“Please don’t,” Isolde breathes, in Eupheria’s most dejected squeak. “She’s already miserable... please, don’t subject her to worse for our sake...”

“I don’t much care fer the notion of keelin’ over for both those varmits just cuz yer little girl’s stuck with ‘em,” Dandy grumbles.

“ALL RIGHT, YOU NERDS, LET’S GO! SHOW US ALL, WHAT YOU KNOW! GOOOOO PRINCESSES!”

The horns sound. The games have begun. There are cheers, and boos, and thrown popcorn kernels.

[Declare your strategy, tell us how your team struggles to work together and what unexpected hitches you hit, and then roll +Sense with Despair. Highest roll succeeds in their strategy. Misses do NOT count towards your Curse.]

[Anarion]

Kathelia's team probably had the easiest time working together in battle chess. Isolde and Dandy weren't trying to disagree with her strategy, and they all wanted the same outcome of Eupheria's games, so it made sense to work together. Since Kathelia knew that there was randomness added by Eupheria and that each of the other teams had one of her sisters, she expected them to fight a lot, and to fall back on their strengths. That made things easy because they were predictable. Eska would settle on a bishop early to strike across the board, Azora would use her princess aggressively. Kathelia didn't like the idea of fighting Alina or Adila (or other Adila, she wasn't really sure about that one), but she had Dandy stay in reserve for when fluffy Adila showed up because that was a good matchup. There was also something to using a horse as a knight that did actually have the right feel, though she didn't push Dandy too hard on that front. Isolde would be a good match for Alina, especially on a smaller piece if they could defend a simple pawn when Alina came out so none of her lights would be in play.

Really, with both of Kathelia's teammates, it was mainly a question of motivation, rather than strategy. Isolde was obviously depressed and Dandy seemed like she was dealing with some things (in fairness to her, it seemed like what fluffy Adila had said had really been a big deal) so Kathelia had to do a lot of work to get them to pay attention and give the game their focus. A lot of "we're the team thatth betht pothithioned to wisth everyone elth out of here!" and some pats and hugs.

But at the end of the day, it was a simple strategy that was best here. Play to their strengths, look for good matchups. In a complex game with many sides and lots of randomness, simple was often the best strategy. This wasn't a pair of expert chess masters trying to out-think and out-gambit one another, it was a scattered group of teams who probably weren't going to agree and would fall back on their own first order strategies. Kathelia was ready!

[Sense with Despair: 5, 5, 5, +0=10]

[Phoe]

Mittens sits cross-legged on the Command Platform, looking out over the chess battlefield with a little pout stuck on her face. Her ears are permanently flattened against her skull, and her tail is pulled in tight against her body. Even her normally good posture has left her for slumpy grumpy kitty witty-- rrrrgh!

"What are you doing, you brat? Our left flank is exposed!"

"And you're giving up like thirty chances to crush your pup, hag!"

"The battlefield is chaos! The only winning strategy is patience!"

"So, what, we just sit here until I'm as old as you?! Ugh, you don't know the first thing about conquest!"

"...Hey, you know I think we should try--"

"Be quiet, Cascade!"
"Shut up, kitten!"

...Murble.

The worst part is not the constant arguments, or not being allowed to participate, or having to watch their army slowly get swallowed up while their pieces awkwardly shuffle back and forth between aggressive and turtle positions. No, the worst part is the petting. Mittens am pat. She am pat lots. Azora showers her in attention every time she loses an argument, or a piece, or feels slighted, or gets bored, or... basically, it's constant.

And she has no idea how to treat a cat! Mittens has spent her entire life hanging out with Askaians so she is an expert at this, even if she shouldn't need that information right now. And this? Is completely wrong! Why did fluffy Adila get all of the good rubs and Mittens had to put up with all of these skull crushing headpats? Bap! Bap! Bap! Right on top of her sensitive ears, smooshing them with what is possibly the least pleasant sensation she's ever experienced in her life. Mittens' throat is caught in a constant low growl.

With a quiet whistle, Mittens shuffles around behind another shouting match before Azora can abuse her therapy kitten again and heads onto the board, where she can at least hear herself think. She's never been good at chess anyway. Just ask Helya!

Though, that doesn't mean Mittens has no strategy. It's just... not the same as anybody else's. Thank goodness she has more than one game to work with. Mittens feels herself get plucked up into the air and set down seven spaces to her right. Princess to G-8; now she's guarding a rook. Yay? A moment later she gets shunted ahead to fight with a Grimalkin. Not so yay.

The game itself doesn't matter. Even winning the title at the end of this is pretty unimportant, Mittens thinks to herself while she flips overtop of Euphie's weird little demon thing and kicks it down a hill. Right, anyway, where was she? Oh, right. No, it doesn't matter who wins. They're all just playing Eupheria's games right now. Win, lose, draw, she'll just keep looping everything until she gets bored. And then she'll think of a new game, and it'll start over again. No, she needs... what she really needs is a chance to get her team to trust her. Yes, you heard that right. This entire thing is just a Princess Trust Exercise.

Her true goal is as simple as it is impossible: she has three different matches to figure out how to trick Azora Howl and the immortal traveler Adila of the Watch into having fun with her. Everything starts with that. So what's the best way to--

"Oooooooh, penalty square!" Eupheria's singsong voice chirps out across the entire arena, "Dance of the Thousand Web Vipers!"

Hiss. Hisssss!

"EEEEUUUUUPHEEERRRIIIAAAAAAAA!"

[Game roll, Sense with Despair: 6, 2, 2: 5.]

[Thanqol]

Princess Adila is a good dragon, and not a bad dragon. It has been confirmed with pats. And over the course of the critically important pre-game pats she has time to do some critically important pre-game strategy with Princess Rita.

She suggests, and Rita agrees, that the Princesses Mittens and Adila I are the best placed to capitalize on victory. Adila I has a master plan for situations like this going back centuries and Princess Alina can capitalize on her family connection to Eupheria. The best play to get out of this situation is to throw the game to them, even if it means sacrificing themselves. The correct play is to go after Princess Kazelia immediately and leave Alina's team uncontested.

She overlooked two things in her plan.

One was that Princess Kazelia had Princess Dandy on her team, and she knew how to use her. On the third move in the game Princess Dandy had her on the ground, hoof only half-apologetically on the back of her neck, telling her through a wall of country aphorisms that the throat chakra was really important to dragons and she should do more breathing exercises to strengthen that muscle group. She then had to sit out the rest of the game giving embarrassing choking coughs and rubbing the tender part of her neck where Dandy had expertly hit it. With her gone so quickly, Kazelia's expert play began to completely disassemble their team and poor Rita couldn't hold the line by herself.

The second problem she'd overlooked was Princess Eska. She'd heard Princess Adila's proposed plan. She'd considered it in a reasonable kind of way. And then she'd decided that humiliating Azora Howl took priority over any sort of escape. She capitalized ruthlessly on the disorganization in Alina's team, ripping through their lines and taking an enormous personal pleasure in personally capturing all three princesses. She was smiling so widely that Princess Adila found that she couldn't even hold it against her - it looked like she was experiencing the best day of her life, right up until Kazelia took her down.

...

At least she got to see the happy Kazelia bounce.

[Sense: 2, 2, 2,+2: 6]

[Tatterdemalion]

Kathelia!

There is confetti and cheering and Kyouko chanting your name while waving her pompoms. You are victorious! Please go ahead and show off the happy nerd bounce and victory dance.

To the victor go the spoils. You have plenty of time to celebrate with the worried King Isolde and the smug Dandy before the next event in the Winner’s Tent. There’s cupcakes in there, and a battle chess cake!

***

Mittens!

You are flushed and poisoned and exhausted from helpless cocoon wiggles. You are squirming, red-faced, as you stand before the booing crowd with your sulky team. Adila I and Azora are not on speaking terms, and the silence between them is icy.

“Now it’s time for everyone’s favorite part! TRUTH! OR! DARE!” Eupheria manages to look intimidating even in the bridal gown. It’s probably the leather jacket she threw over it that makes it look dangerous. “Go ahead, step on up!”

The platform in front of you glows ominously. Darn it. You can hear laughter and celebration from the Winners’ Tent, even as Azora shoves her way in front of everyone else.

***

Adila!

“Truth!” Azora preens on the magical platform of Truth or Dare, as lights shine all around her and its rim spins like a top, before settling. A vast Sphinx made of neon light and shimmering frozen fireworks emerges from the depths of the platform with a terrible cry, suddenly, causing Azora to squeal and fall flat on her butt.

“TELL ALL WHO WITNESS... YOUR MOST EMBARRASSING CHILDHOOD MEMORY.”

“Oh my gosh,” Azora says, “well, like... when I was a kid, Kazzie once tricked me into thinking my stuffed owl had flown away and left me behind, and I cried sooooo much that Daddy had to spank her until she told me the truth!”

“TRUTH HAS BEEN SPOKEN. YOU SHALL REMAIN... UNPUNISHED.”

Rita gulps next to you. “Oh, spice and sand,” she murmurs fearfully.

[Princesses! Tell us all your choice, and what terrible prompt you are given by the Sphinx of Truth or Dare!]

[Thanqol]

Why had she chosen dare!?

Truth and Dare was a solved game. You asked for truth first and then, if the question was too harsh, you chickened out and went to dare instead. She should have asked for truth! It's - urgh. Nobody starts with dare! Even if the the sphinx denied chicken-outs even a punishment outcome would have been preferable to this! Sure, her day had been ruined already by honesty, but that just meant that there wasn't anything nearly as bad to still confess.

She had her eyes clenched all the way shut. It was the only way she was going to get through this. She took a deep breath, cleared her aching throat for the fifteenth time.

Okay. It was time. No more stalling. Just rip the band-aid off. Get it over with. You can do this, Adila.

She opened her mouth. Breath hesitated on her lips. And then she started to sing with her so long-hidden natural voice.

"Puff the magic drag~on lived by the sea~
And frolicked in the autumn mist in a land called Honah Lee..."

[Phoe]

"Dare! Dare!"

Mittens is a blushing, giggling, swoony mess right now. The icy air between her teammates should be worrying her right now, but honestly? Honestly, she feels gooooood, hehehe!

"Hi Rita! Hiiiiiiii~"

She blows a kiss through the air and falls into another venom-induced giggleswoon and almost misses the booming command of:

"[b]IN FRONT OF ALL WHO GATHER HERE... REMOVE YOUR BOOTS! AND PRANCE!"

Whaaaaat? That's easy! Mittens drops delicately onto her cute little behind and starts unlacing her super pretty boots. Such a shame to pull the outfit apart, but the nice sphinx said she had to, and... wait. What's that squirmy cold feeling in the pit of her stomach?

Off come the boots. Out comes the laughter, and none of it's coming from her. Mittens' ridiculous, calico print socks are bared for all to see. She blushes, and this time it's got nothing to do with web viper venom. It's because of her suit! Her super pretty, empowering, princess-slaying suit! Everyone knows beyond a shadow of a doubt what Eupheria picked out for her, and it's just as super obvious that she's the only one who's been allowed to dress herself since. The math is inescapable even if you did tend to fall asleep during that class in the Solarium: there's no way, simply no way, that she didn't pick them out specifically.

Her shameless, silly triangles wiggle happily to hear all the joyful noises echoing around her. Her goofy bean-clad toes(ies) wiggle to celebrate their release from Boot Camp. She stands up, feeling like she's shaking like a leaf. Glances at the Sphinx. Gosh what a pretty... eep! Mittens jumps with fright and prances all about the stadium as she blushes like the dawn. Her form, as always, is so faultless that the only conclusion you can draw from watching her is that she's doing it intentionally. Her catlike grace is worthy of the Island of Askaia! Yay, Mittens! Yay, silly kitten!

When she comes back and starts hastily re-lacing her boots, she notices Rita out of the corner of her eye. Those eyes unmake her. She laughs, breathlessly.

[Anarion]

Kathelia tries to look cool. When the last Queen goes down, she tries to lower her head and push her glasses up so the light reflects off them just so and she gets that perfect chessmaster look. But, seriously, she can't hold it, she's so giddy. Her little Pegasus-clad butt bounces in her seat, and before she can help herself she's pulling in her elbows and lifting her arms up to cover face and jiggling her legs as she giggles and just...just being giddy all over. She won! She won!

A-and, Kyouko is cheering and waving pom-poms and l-looking right at her aaaaaaaaah! She pulls into herself and shrinks to cover her face entirely with her hands and before you know it, she's in the winner's tent, what?! She tentatively uncovers one eye, then the other, and there's cake in front of her. And oooh, it's that chocolate with a little layer of raspberry jam cake that is just so decadent and delicious. This is extremely exciting, although maybe not as exciting as winning and having Kyouko cheering for her. She starts to blush again and hurriedly hides it by taking a bite of the cake. Heavenly.

Okay, okay, safely amped up on sugar and succes, Kathelia has the option to take stock. In some ways, she's a little disappointed. They all moved into a tent, but she can't see the former battleground or get a sense of the overall maze. She was hoping that Eupheria would escalate the stakes by moving them closer and closer to the center. It just made sense to her that as the games got bigger and closer to the finals, they'd progressively move somewhere more important and draw a larger crowd until eventually they got to center court, or whatever it was called here. That's just...that's how these things were supposed to work. She couldn't tell for sure though. If they weren't gaining ground from this, she'd need to rethink her strategy, maybe use the next game as a way to try and get under Eupheria's skin instead of focusing on winning.

One thing that was good though, Dandy looked a little more together. Smug, sure, but committed and back into saving them too. "Dandy..." Kathelia said, walking over to her with her plate of cake. "You were thuper good out there. Like, theriously awethome!" She gives her a braces-filled grin. "I know today hath been like, inthanely weird but...we're gonna get through thith. Together." She turns, looks at Isolde. "You too, King Itholde, right? We haven't really had the chanthe to talk, but I really look up to your daughter, sthe's one of my betht frienth."

[I'd like to use the time in the tent to take a relatively safe speak softly with Dandy and Isolde. 5+1+1=7.
To Dandy: what can she tell us based on her experience about how to get through to Eupheria?
To Isolde: What does Isolde want and how can I help her get it?
To Isolde: What can she tell us about Eupheria and her motivations?]

[Tatterdemalion]

Kathelia!

Isolde smiles at you. It’s an exhausted, I am having the worst day of my life right now but I’m deliberately pushing it down because you’ve just told me something wonderful, regal smile. “If my Lina has a smart cookie like you for a friend, she’s choosing her company wisely. Although I’d rather she was in here than out there being mocked, but...” She shakes her head. “I can’t blame you for wiping the floor with those two fools she has for teammates. Now, I don’t think we have much time at all, but while Eupheria’s entertaining herself outside: please do not forget that this maze, these games are rigged. Eupheria trusted before, and it only brought her pain. She won’t make that mistake again.”

“So we cheat?” Dandy chews thoughtfully on her cake, and if you were feeling mean, you might compare it to the chewing of a barnyard animal.

“We play along, we buy time, and if any of us see an opening to separate her from the Caduceus, we take it, no matter the consequences.” She might have Eupheria’s bubbly voice, but it’s muted and serious. This is where Alina got her scariness from. “Promise me. No matter what. We have to end this for the good of Hyperborea.”

***

Adila!

Well, at least that’s over with, and at least Dandy didn’t have to watch. Or listen. The jeering from the stands nearly drowned out your voice anyway, as you sang the traditional Felorian children’s song.

One by one, the other members of the teams end up dragged up there. First, there’s Eska, who’s Dared to compliment everyone. (“Ugh. Adila, you’re... remarkably pliable. Crybaby, you’re... colorful.”)

Then there’s Rita, shimmering and swaying as she marches up to the Sphinx, demands a Truth, and is ordered to tell the world what her least favorite thing about Alina is.

“My heart... she blames herself for everything, especially things which aren’t her fault at all!” Shimmy, shimmy, swish swish. “She needs to learn to forgive herself, and—“

“LIES.”

”She only eats fish skinned and deboned and that’s so cowardly I’m so sorry Lina!!”

Then, finally, there’s Adila I, who resolutely decides on Dare, because not even wild bucking hippogriffs could induce her to pick Truth.

“APOLOGIZE TO EUPHERIA FOR YOUR SINS.”

“...I’m sorry that you misinterpreted my intentions in Jedad, Euphie. If you hadn’t jumped to the worst possible conclusion—“

***

Mittens!

You prance over to the smoldering crater on the far side of the field, holding hands with Azora, mostly because she can’t pick you up one-handed.

“Nice job,” Azora twitters, as Adila I pulls herself up with an aching groan. “Are you going to be okay to play, old hag, or did that swing from Caddy put you in need of a full body cast?”

“I’m fine,” Adila I lies, like a liar, and then faceplants into the grass.

...so, um, two-player Heist! You’ve won this before, but... well, you’ve won with Rita on your team, not Azora Howl.

[Your next event is Heist! which is rolled with Courage. You may roll without Despair if you have an undamaged stat. Yes, even Mittens.]

[Phoe]

Ok so... problem number one: it's really, really hard to win at Heist! when you're down a player. The field is HUGE. It has to be, because you wouldn't be testing any of the right skills if all the players could see each other the whole time. Single Princess, Double Queen was an impenetrable wall of defense that could pick apart other teams at will. But Single Princess, Single Queen? You're sending out an invitation to get mobbed from all sides. Double Queen would mean just sitting there and hoping to come in second, and we all know how Euphie will reward that.

"I think," Mittens says while very carefully holding Azora's hand, "We need to go full offense. Between the two of us we might be the most talented Princess players on the field. If we can steal down their treasures faster than they can get them back, we might be able to--"

"Um?" oh no, Azora is too close she's looming over her, Ourania in a wedding dress why is she so tall, "Excuse me? Excuse me? Are you trying to tell me how to play this stupid game?"

"I..." Mittens gulps nervously, "I'm j-just saying you're really good, so if we--"

"First the hag, and now you! I can't believe this!"

"Well I mean, I'm sorry but--"

"That's right you're sorry! And you'll be even sorrier when I tell daddy about this! Don't you go thinking that just because we're on a team together it means we're friends. I'm older than you, and that means I'm in charge, you got that?"

"Um, I don't think that--"

But no amount of protective hand holding could guard Mittens from being lifted off the ground by her shirt. She squeaks and flails about.

"You. Got. That?"

Nod nod nod! Ok ok, yes yes, you're in charge, tall and mighty Meowstress! Mittens squeaks again as she's dropped and falls right on her tail. She winces, rubs her butt, and tries to recover what's left of her dignity while Azora draws herself up and in charge or whatever. This is about having fun, remember Mittens? It's about having fun, and that includes her. It's fine, it's fine, don't hiss, don't bite her, AND STOP ACTING LIKE A CAT!

"Better!" Azora smirks, "Now, when daddy really wants a job done right, he sends me out to do it with Morgina at my side. She's broken or whatever now, so I guess this time you'll have to take her place!"

"You... wanna go Princess/Knight?" Mittens' ears press flat against her skull, "But that'll be so slow! And we won't have anyone to guard our treasure. This is stupid! This is the stupidest plan I've ever heard!"

Mittens pops up off the ground, ready for a fight. Ready to defend herself, or get knocked back into that ditch alongside Adila I and just let this stupid jerk fend for herself! Solid Adila is the one she needs to connect with anyway, so... so... she draws up short. Mittens was ready for lots of things, but none of them were the sight of Azora Howl. Azora Howl! That terrifying witch who's been terrorizing her life and her dreams for the last several years... with a look on her face like she's about to start crying.

Mittens wants to roll her eyes. She wants to laugh or walk away or... well anyway, can we blame this on leftover venom? Mittens, in her gorgeous suit, takes Azora by the hand again and drops to one knee, the way she's always imagined Helya doing in her dreams.

"You win Princess," she says as she kisses the back of that hand, "I'll be your knight."

There's a moment of incredibly awkward silence. Was this, uh, right? Had she imagined the whole thing? Was she even-- eeeeeeep! Mittens gets yanked off of her feet around the stomach again and pulled into a possessive, crushing, dangling hug.

"Oh kitten, I knew you'd see things my way!"

"This... hrrrrk! Isn't.... heeeerrrph! H-helpful!"

[Rolling damaged Courage: 6, 1, 1: 1]

[Thanqol]

There were two things that Princess Adila was completely, unambiguously good at in a way that even the worst humiliations or self-doubt could never take away from her.

One, she was good at reading rulebooks.
Two, she was good at stopping crimes.

Heist! was in a lot of ways a broken game and nowhere was that more apparent than in the role of the Knight - not only were Knights prohibited from scoring but they had to actively return treasures back to their home kingdom as a matter of honour. Having one on your team was essentially going down a team member for no clear gain, instead sacrificing to a shared sisterhood that stood in the way of the game being actually played. Too many Knights would actively ruin the game for everyone.

And it is exactly this role that Princess Adila took.

She and Rita were everywhere. They lurked above every treasure box. They ambushed from every dark shadow and blind corner. It was so by the book that Adila I might have called her a nerd. Princess rivalries were exploited - Azora Howl and Princess Eska spent the game in a grudge match that cancelled each other out, and no matter how skilled Alina was, this was a plan where Rita was incentivised to bind her in whatever ways she saw fit to. Traps were laid. Asymmetrical ambushes were followed by skilful tying up of prisoners. Nobody scored - nobody even got close to scoring. The entire game ground down into a terrible stalemate where princesses would leave their kingdoms and immediately be returned in a variety of creative new knots. Before too long the game petered off into an absolute standstill, frozen beneath the vigilant eyes of the dragon perched atop the battlefield. It was much an assault on Eupheria's entertainment as it was on the game itself.

And then, just before Eupheria cancelled the game in a fit of pique, Princess Adila swooped down to Princess Alina - and made the offer of ransoming Princess Eska from Alina's dungeons early in exchange for a single piece of treasure. +There's only one battle here that really matters,+ she thought, +and you are best placed to fight it.+

[Roll with courage: 6, 6, +1 = 13, and throwing the game to Alina]

[Anarion]

Kathelia had a pretty good plan. Everyone said the knight was useless, but if you ran two knights and one princess, your knights could serve as a sort of cover. Follow around the key scorers on the other teams and immediately fight them and take away the treasure they stole, then your princess could use the protection of your knight as an escort. Nothing stopped the second knight from playing defense during that time, and they could switch off. It was like, maybe 1.5 queens instead of two, but with the bonus of a safe escort for a single princess into a kingdom. A slow, careful, meticulous strategy. It would have worked absolutely perfectly, too, if Adila had played normally!

But nooooooo. Some dragon had to be a total party pooper and ruin it for everyone. With just one princess on her team (Dandy, obviously) and basically a billion knights running around, the game ground to a complete halt. No treasure was ever changing hands and it looked like the crowd of sprites, spriggans, and assorted animated objects was going to start booing and throwing things at having their entertainment ruined. And then fluffy poochy Adila had to go and make an offer to Alina to break the tie.

Kathelia pouted, but she couldn't really be that mad. Alina deserved a win, and Kathelia was still riding high on the cake and battle chess, so she figured her team could endure a little bit in the loser's box too. But her strategy had totally been good and she wouldn't let anybody tell her otherwise!

[3+5+2=10. Good, but not quite as good as Adila.]

[Tatterdemalion]

Adila!

A paper box hits you right between the eyes. The audience is fuming and furious, and Eupheria seems as coiled and dangerous as a snake. Literally, some of her limbs are all noodly and curled up, and she looks down at you through contemptuous lashes.

The Sphinx arises again with a howl, and Dandy sighs with resignation. “A’right, I’ll go first.”

“DO THE SILLY SUNFLOWER DANCE.”

“Tarnation!”

***

Alina!

Rita makes sure to give you a kiss as she lets you loose, and you make sure to hold her cheeks with your paw— with your hands for a moment after that.

“Don’t worry,” she says, resting her head against yours. “We’ll get out. I promise.” She smells of water flowers. You briefly consider dragging her back to the Winner’s Tent with you, surely she wouldn’t be missed?

But you have a much more important date in there. One that could save everyone.

***

Jessamine!

“Report!”

You hop off your pegasus, frazzled and singed from where you slammed into the reality warping barrier around the bazaar. Around you is arrayed the Princess Confederation, reborn out of the celebrations at Castle Thessia. At one end of the tent, Helya glowers over the basic map of the situation: one circle, representing the dome.

There’s one way left. One you haven’t even tried because of how foolish and dangerous it is, not just to you, but to your pegasus. You wouldn’t even be considering it if Alina wasn’t in there, probably fighting the Wicked Queen right now all alone. You wouldn’t even be in Jedad again, this soon, and especially not with Princess Ninian herself looking up to you, waiting for you to tell everyone your plan.

“There’s one way in,” you sigh. “And no one is going to like it.”

“We’ll do anything,” Tashanna says, resolutely. The confidence in her voice rouses everyone in the room, except for Hornet, who has her hand raised.

“We have to go through the Gulch.”

“Impossible!”

“Are you out of your mind, Jessamine?”

“Difficult.”

“Or, or, or!” Hornet unfolds her parchment. “I use my Ultimate Tunnel Digger to dig through the dome and hopefully just the dome!”

There is a moment of worried silence as she beams.

“Hornet, prepare the Digger. If we can’t get in through the Gulch,” Helya says, squaring her shoulders, “your tunnel will have to get us there.”

[Anarion]

Oh dear, the loser tent had a lot less cake, and a lot more awkward mockery of curses that Eupheria herself had put down. Kathelia bet that Dandy was actually a really good dancer and could even make that odd sunflower dance look nice if she didn't also look at a horse. This was just mean.

"Say Sally sells seashells by the sea shore without making a mistake.” Oh, well, that was easy.

"Thally thellth theashellths by the thea sthore"

EEEEEENNNNZZZZ Eupheria blares a loud air horn that echos out across the stage. "Incorrect. Please try again, and this time, do try and enunciate!"

"Sthally s-s-s-thellsssth s-s-theashellths by the sssthea shhhore"

BBBBBBBZZZZZZZT this time a loud buzzer goes off blaring from everywhere on the stage at once, making Kathelia wince. "Incorrect! No stuttering please!"

"S...Sthally s-ell-s s...ea..sh...ells"

BRRRRRRTT Eupheria blows one of those party noisemaker things, which extends out into a mimicry of a snake but still makes the raspberry sound instead of hissing. "Too slow, you'll just have to do better."

Suffice to say that over several more attempts, Kathelia does not do better. Her braces and her teeth and tongue just aren't working right at the moment, and the curse won't let her overcome that (and sure she could blow some magic on trying to hold back the curse, but seriously, it's not worth that kind of firepower right now). So instead, she just gets purpler and purpler, and eventually she's up there hyperventilating and just not able to do it.

"Well, nice try sweetie pie. Better luck next time!" And at that point a giant cane comes out of nowhere and pulls Kathelia off the stage.

[Phoe]

There's at least one thing Adila is wrong about (half a dog that she is): Dandy is far from the most dangerous princess in Hyperborea. It turns out that title actually belonged to a properly motivated Rita von Catabas. Mittens couldn't remember ever feeling more outmatched in her entire life. The way she moved! The way she... well. It was all Mittens could do to bravely sacrifice herself to maintain Azora's freedom.

Also, maybe this was just part of her curse? But something was definitely making Rita a lot, um... friskier than usual. Like, there was no need to lace the ribbons through her collar and around her wrists like that. Or bind her in ribbons instead of ropes in the first place, come to think of it. And for that matter, while Rita was pulling her elbows in close to her sides and wrapping all those extra bindings around her chest, was there really a need to tie them in a big bow? Also, does capturing a Knight in Heist! usually involve that much ear massaging?

In the end, all she could do was sit there on her knees with her legs delicately bound together and her arms lifted up to dangle her p-- hands! Dangle her hands just under her chin like she was begging for attention or table scraps or, um. Y-yeah. Anyway, Rita was dangerous. And this was the single worst game of Heist! Mittens had ever seen played. Although...

***

It's been ten, maybe even fifteen minutes here in the Winner's Tent, and Azora Howl has not shut up for a single sopping second of it. On and on she goes, bragging about how well she did, how great her plan was, how her brilliant moves lead to the winning capture of Eska, and barraging Mittens with those awful crushing headpats the entire time.

For her part, Mittens endures the assault with the kind of good humor and grace worthy of an Illuminan Queen. She doesn't complain, and she laughs enthusiastically like a good Number Two should. When she cuts in, it's to (delicately) make fun of Eska, or Kazelia, or herself. She lets the useless twit puff herself up and waits for an opening. And then when it comes...

"Princess, Princess, you have to try this!" she chirps and pushes a plate with a beautiful chocolate tartlet in front of her, "Seriously, it's uh-maze-ing! Come on, come on, you're our MVP! You deserve a treat!"

And then she watches with glee as Azora takes a bite and makes that face like she's just fallen through a cloud and found heaven.

"See? See? Puts the sandwich platters to shame. She made this herself, I guarantee it! My family? The best at desserts."

Mittens had pushed that one up specifically because she recognized it. She'd learned this recipe from Momma, actually: a salted caramel and marshmallow chocolate tart. All the tightly packed layers of decadent sugar made you feel like you could fly... and had a tendency to weld your mouth shut, if you weren't careful. Ah, blissful silence. Mittens smiles and takes a long sip from her lovely cup of oolong tea.

Her eyes smile at the "other" Adila from over top her cup, but hidden in those crystal depths, there's a challenge there waiting. Do you see, she says without speaking. Do you see? This is my greatest enemy, and yet I'm having fun. I won't forgive her, but I'm trusting her. Just like your successor's trusting me. And do you see what we're accomplishing, just with this?

But these aren't the words she chooses to say when she sets the little glass cup back on its saucer. It's these:

"Look to love, always." Mittens smile is toothy, a little pointier than it ought to be, but beautiful, "I don't like the Watch, I'm sure you know this. But I've always liked those words. They're yours, right?"

She pushes a beautifully iced sugar cookie in the shape of a rainbow sheep across the table, and waits for a response. There's none. She sighs.

"I think about them a lot, actually. Whenever I'm talking to Adila. My Adila, I mean. You know, she loves you. No of course that's obvious, right? She can't hide her heart from anybody. But I love that about her! But that's not the love you meant, is it? And, obvously... Eupheria loves you too, right? I mean, that dress and..."

The smile falls off her face. Mittens watches the starry eyed Adila coolly.

"But that's not what you meant either. Look to love, always. I'm sorry, I just... did you ever plan on telling her? That you'd fallen in love with someone else?"

[Thanqol]

She didn't even like biscuits.

Princess Adila sat completely straight, completely still, eyes half crossed as they were continually drawn back to the biscuit balanced perfectly on top of her nose. Leave. It was all she could think about. There was a biscuit and she was not eating it. She'd been sitting like this throughout the entire game and it was all she could do to stop involuntary whines.

Eupheria was watching her like a hawk, keen for an excuse to punish her. She needn't have bothered - Adila was a good girl no matter what she said. She'd been told so. But even so she took a distinct pleasure in calling 'Uh-uh!' when she'd tried to sneak her tongue up to at least get a taste. Bells and chimes, this shouldn't be this stressful!

Sit. Stay. Leave.

She was good.

Finally, Eupheria smiled. She looked down at her. Then she took the biscuit off her nose and ate it herself.

Adila was unable to suppress a heartbroken yelp.

[Tatterdemalion]

Mittens!

"You understand nothing," Adila I snaps back, and if you're cool, she's just been cleaved off an iceberg. "Her love is selfish, cloying, and possessive. There is nothing so foolish in all the world as to make one person your whole world, when love is meant for one's brothers and sisters in arms, one's family, and one's community. By love you fulfilled your duty to your people, Cascade, and by love you still struggle against Eupheria for the sake of your mother. If you were relying solely on your love for the Askaian, you would have failed already."

She stands, stiff and formal, glowering down at you. "And my duty is not to Eupheria. My duty is not to coddle her or take responsibility for her obsession. My duty is to the people of the Bazaar lost in this labyrinth, to the members of the Watch who follow my creed, and to all of Hyperborea. It has always been to this world entire, you selfish, short-sighted, spoiled child."

"Is it the stick wedged up your butt that's causing you to say such nonsense?" Azora Howl delivers the line with the smug smile of someone who's sure her zinger is the wittiest thing that's ever been said, and it makes Adila I scowl and storm out of the tent, hands clenched into angry fists.

Well. There it is. There's one of the walls that stands between Eupheria and Adila I: Euphie sees people, Adila sees communities. When Eupheria looked at Adila, she saw the strong, stubborn, beautiful warrior. When Adila looked at Eupheria, she saw one of my followers, who is part of my larger social circle. It's stupid and frustrating and... and it's the kind of worldview you cling to harder and harder when you worry that you're wrong. A shield to hold up to defend you from yourself more than others, especially when everyone else around you falls in love and you've never felt what they feel.

Has Adila I ever been in love? Can she be in love with someone the way you love Rita, the way Eupheria loves you? Or are her feelings of guilt and loss and stubborn pride what you might feel if you'd had to put down Jessamine?

***

Adila!

Brightball! The noble sport!

Dandy adjusts her sash, trying to make it look a little less like a feed bag, while Team Spankies come back out from the Winner's Tent. Azora and Alina are still holding hands, and Adila I is stalking out in front of them, walking like she intends to burn the court down. Eupheria deliberately doesn't look at her, but an ambulatory bit of turf still manages to trip Adila I over and she faceplants in the dirt. Oof. You are going to have to work very hard to hand Alina this win, even if she is one of the best Brightball players in Hyperborea!

"Now," Eupheria trills, taking a seat in mid-air, shoe dangling from her toes above your heads, "let the game begin!"

And with a snap of her fingers, each one of the hoops grows a plethora of legs and starts scampering away. Oh. Oh, boy. This game suddenly got a lot more unpredictable.

[Brightball is played with +Grace!]

***

Hornet!

The other princesses left you behind. They're all getting salves and amulets and preparing to face the heat of the Gulch, which might be a crack inside, but that seems like it'll be a pain, and how are they going to get everyone back out? They have to think about practical questions like this, after all. What's more likely is that the Wicked Queen's Nightmare Army is going to be waiting inside and they're going to bop the princesses over the head one by one as they squeeze through the sweltering crack in the dome. If you were in the Wicked Queen's slippers, that's what you'd do. And you'd have an Effacious Wrappinator to toss the princesses into, one that didn't have a tendency to keep wrapping until it broke down, because if you were the Wicked Queen, all your inventions would work just the way you wanted them to.

The trick, you consider, as you wheel the Ultimate Tunnel Digger up towards the dome, is going to be making sure the tunnel is just through the dome. As long as your Insurmountable Stop Button works properly, you should be able to stop the Digger from digging right through Hyperborea and into the void beyond Ouroboros. And though you haven't had time to test the Stop Button, in theory it should work to Stop just about anything!

You're going to show them all. You're going to show them all. You're going to make a tunnel an entire host of Princesses could march an entire Bazaar's worth of civilians through, and it's not going to punch holes through anything it's not supposed to, and then Adila's going to feel so ashamed for ignoring her official friend, and she'll even maybe want to hang out with you even when she's not required to by contract. As long as the machine works. So it has to work. The Digger will dig and the Stop Button will stop, and you're going to save the day for once.

Yeah. For once.

[Phoe]

Mittens shares a look with Azora for a moment. Then she sighs into the dregs of her tea.

But when she walks out of the tent there's a look of determination on her face, and the way she's walking suggests she might even be holding Azora's hand out of more than just a sense of self preservation. She can do this. She can do this! For her friends and family and for Rita... she can do this.

When Mittens reaches her hand down to offer Adila I some help getting back up, a violet tray with the uneaten sheep cookie floats there beside it. Both are there if the proud, stubborn woman wants either.

"I know it may not feel like it, but we are on the same side, ok? There's a happy ending here for everyone, I still believe that. Will you help me find it?"

She smiles, but there's a tiny spark of defiance that won't leave her eyes. That poor cookie, it's never going to get eaten.

There's so much she wants to say to everybody here, but there's no time to say it in. It's not really safe to with Euphie floating just above their heads, either. Mittens delicately arranges her scarf around her neck and does a bit of light twirling to make sure it's on right. Her movement is as fluid as water: watching her pirouettes, her tail, hair, boot and scarf all swirl about her and give off the impression that she's become a whirlpool filled with colors. She steps out delicately and offers each other player a polite little bow in turn.

She's sorry. She really is. None of you deserve the humiliations you're going through. And she really, really hopes you know that, but... she needs the opportunity that comes with winning. There's a, a... something, a fragment of a memory tugging at her heart, of something Kazelia said at Argossa when they'd first learned about the Caduceus. That feeling is everything. She's sure of it. So, so forgive her for this. Please.

Then the hoops start running away from everyone, which she guesses mean the game is starting. Without a word, Mittens leaps into the air to grab the ball before it can drop into anybody's hands. She flips forward and smoothly transfers the ball to her scarf loop before her feet touch the ground, and then she's prancing across the court like some sort of strange cat-deer. She's everywhere. Nowhere. An untouchable ghost.

She's been playing this game since she could walk, after all. The only way you could make this harder for the field is if you let her have Jessamine on her team. There's a tiny smile on her face as she zips past Kazelia and very nearly runs into Adila. They each get a tiny nod, that means "Thank you. I'm glad we're in this together." And then she bends one leg over her head and whips around in a full flip without leaving the ground, tossing the ball across the court to the old Adila and not even needing her hands to do it.

Twirl, twist, and leap! If the hoops are going to run around all over the place like this, there's really only one way to score. She soars through the air, spiraling in a corkscrew as she waits for the pass back. Then, with a flourish, she finishes what is quite possibly the daintiest dunk in recorded history. The net barely even moves. She bounces back and gets ready to guard the next play.

It's going to be that sort of game, girls.

[Grace: 6, 4 + 2 = 12]

[Thanqol]

Princess Adila has historically been a bad loser - but it's only now, here, where she's properly able to perceive why that was the case. She hadn't been frustrated at her opponent - she'd been frustrated at herself and taken it out in dramatic sulks. But since she was specifically not playing to win here she could perceive things entirely differently. She could see the flaws in her play not as humiliating admissions of weakness but as things to work on - things she already had ideas about how to work on.

And it also helped that she was pretty sure that never in her life she'd be able to beat Alina. Knowing that she'd failed when it mattered, that she'd lost things she could have won - that was stress city and the reason why she flunked out of so many hobbies. Knowing that there was no way she was even going to land a tail touch on Princess Alina freed her from all of that. It was similar to hypnotism, similar to the state she fell into when close with Dandy - a compliant freedom in the face of mastery.

So she takes the game at its own rate, on its own terms, free from ego. She learns that despite her speed, her size makes it impossible to move while holding the ball without getting tagged - she has ideas about that too, but they're long term. Instead she's best served attempting to intercept passes and long throws with her wings and then immediately hand them off to team members. The only times she takes it on herself to try to score are when her team is entirely out of position, and in those cases she goes for long range shots. She's losing, but every action is an experiment, and every experiment is one that she is determined to refine and perfect.

[Grace: 6]

[Anarion]

Kathelia vaguely remembered visiting a world where sports were really popular. It would be have several back now, more than five maybe? Oberon had taken a very personal hand in that one, he seemed to quite enjoy winning trophies, even if they were meaningless to him once he had them (except of course if anyone else tried to touch them, in which case his full wrath would be on display). But not to fall too deep into the sad memories, that world had held up its great athletes as its heroes and they had used magic to project the matches to huge crowds in stadiums, bazaars, marketplaces, and palaces.

Kathelia had um...(no no, in the memories she was still Kazelia, she could think of herself from back then without her internal voice articulating the lisp, mostly)...she had been enamored of one of the sports there, a kind of flying javelin toss fake combat thing called "Lighting Strike!" The participants wore winged shoes and used special golden energy rings to catch and hurl the javelins. If you hit another participant without them catching it, you'd score (and there'd be a big lightning effect on the person's uniform), and if you bypassed them all and hit their goal with a javelin, you'd get something like a ten times score accompanied by thunder and lighting while everyone reset positions.

What was coming back to her now, though, weren't really the games themselves though. It was the promotional material! Back there, the games had been promoted with all sorts of ridiculous claims on posters and by people announcing them around the marketplaces. "See Juniko, the Unstoppable Arrow!" "Watch Anika the Unbreakable crush her opposition!" "Live today it's Esmeralda Thunderbolt, she's promised to win the match without touching the ground even once!" It's those kind of claims that Kathelia is thinking about as she watches Alina vault around the arena.

Sure, she's there, she's trying to get the ball when it gets near her, but she's a little afraid of it too, she doesn't want her glasses to get damaged or for it to hit her in the face. Besides, the nearest it got was when Alina brushed by her with that smile and more than anything else, that made her blush and fangirl out a little. She wanted to shout "Voids, this is just like the time Esmeralda Thunderbolt recovered from being poisoned by the coach of her arch-rival team, the Avalanches, and then she made a show out of personally taking down each player with a javelin catch reversal at close range before taking it in for a score!" (yes, she wanted to shout all of that, she could speak very quickly despite the lisp). There wasn't time though because Alina was already gone and one of the hoops had been stilled with the most delicate back flip double somersault dunk (around Eska!) Kathelia had ever seen! She was in awe and she was almost certainly going to ask Alina for an autograph after this if circumstances permitted it. Squeee!

[My grace roll was a 6, by the by]