Grimalkin!

This is the best programming that Eupheria Productions has produced in the past fifty keplon. (A keplon is "however long it is for Eupheria to decide that it's time for a new one," naturally.) Sure, the game of Heist! was boring and ridiculous, but watching Mittens the Kitten crush the competition with your heat vision is delightful. She moves like a flickering star, leaving a trail of her flushed cheeks dwindling behind her. It's been impossible not to see her ever since she landed on the Dance of the Thousand Web Vipers.

Every keplon is going to be like this from here on out. You and your family are going to get to bring the good news of Eupheria to the rest of Hyperborea. ("Congratulations! Have you ever thought that everything was too ordinary, mundane and boring? Well, you'll never have to worry about that again!") You'll be her hands and eyes and ears all throughout the world, bringing her new agendas and ideas and whims to her new forever kingdom, and, yes, there'll be Truth or Dare whenever Eupheria wants.

(The king wiggling out of her Truth by saying that Somebody, who always left the tap open but also always brought her flowers, was her favorite daughter, may have been boring, but Eska's interpretative friendship dance was worth the price of admission alone, and Rita's own admission that she really did like pears on her lemon cakes had been scandalous!)

The bell signaling that Alina Cascade has made her seventh score begins to chime, low and deep, and you hop to your feet cheering: "IN THE PIT! IN THE PIT! IN THE PIT!"

***

Adila!

Your keen senses allow you a moment to drag your claws down the side of the pit after it opens up beneath you. Eupheria might have gotten you once by surprise, but she won't get you twice! No, you will clamber back up and demand she let you back into the labyrinth by a more dignified--

That's when Dandy's butt lands right on your snout, and with a surprised yelp you fall, tucking yourself in around her in order to shield her fall. Down and sideways and up you tumble until you shoot right out into a muddy, murky swamp. It smells awful, and Dandy wrinkles her nose as you manage to hold her up over the bog, though for how long you can keep her from it is anyone's guess, with the way you're slowly sinking into it.

"Thanks for the catch, sugarcube," she says, giving you a very comforting pat on your tumtum. "Sakes alive, I wish that witch would give us a little more warning before she tosses us around!" Then, she freezes up, and says, in a hoarse whisper, "There's more of those freaky black centaurs here, but I don't think they've spotted us yet..."

***

Kathelia!

You land in a twisting maze of crystal tunnels, each one slowly building in magical power. Every now and then, one will shoot off a beam of magic, doubtlessly very dangerous to get hit by. There are two extra problems to consider, too. One is that Eska is here too, and has managed to land some distance away. She's the most likely competitor to turn on you and leave you encased in crystal or dangling from the ceiling to "weed out the competition."

The other problem is, well...

"HERE WE ARE, A PERFECT TEAM! TRY TO AVOID THE LASER BEAM!"

There is a cheerleader on top of you and thinking is hard and, wow, is she wearing perfume to cover up the fact she's been sweating as she cheered for you all? And is she wiggling, and, agh, no, you need to be thinking about Eska, not about bouncy foxes with beautiful smiles and how she's looking at you even though you're a tiny dweeb and aaaaaaah

***

Alina!

Azora cheers and gives you a smothering hug, and that's how you miss the part where Eupheria claps her hands and all the other princesses fall into pits. By the time you manage to wriggle your way out of her arms, hissing a little, the nightmare creatures up on the bleachers are vacating, making sure to litter as much as possible on their way out, and Eupheria is standing very, very close in her bridal gown, and suddenly it's just the four of you: Azora, Adila I, Eupheria and you.

"Congratulations on winning the Princess Olympics," she says, grinning, shaking all three of you by the hand and giving you all head pats. "First place gets... tea with me! Aren't the three of you just the luckiest little girls in all of Hyperborea?"

She raises the Caduceus and a terrible hissing, screeching noise fills the arena. One of the walls dilates into a tunnel, and a harsh light shines forth. A gleaming parody of a goblin locomotive comes hurtling out, laying down track in front of itself with giant gloved hands reminiscent of Eupheria's own. It comes shuddering to a halt right in front of you, and the doors in its sides shudder open with an unpleasantly wet squelch. It rocks from side to side, full of barely contained energy, as Eupheria gestures for you to enter the dining car.

Congratulations on your victory!

Adila!

Your keen senses allow you a moment to drag your claws down the side of the pit after it opens up beneath you. Eupheria might have gotten you once by surprise, but she won't get you twice! No, you will clamber back up and demand she let you back into the labyrinth by a more dignified--

That's when Dandy's butt lands right on your snout, and with a surprised yelp you fall, tucking yourself in around her in order to shield her fall. Down and sideways and up you tumble until you shoot right out into a muddy, murky swamp. It smells awful, and Dandy wrinkles her nose as you manage to hold her up over the bog, though for how long you can keep her from it is anyone's guess, with the way you're slowly sinking into it.

"Thanks for the catch, sugarcube," she says, giving you a very comforting pat on your tumtum. "Sakes alive, I wish that witch would give us a little more warning before she tosses us around!" Then, she freezes up, and says, in a hoarse whisper, "There's more of those freaky black centaurs here, but I don't think they've spotted us yet..."

Princess Adila nodded. She was quiet now, not because she'd forgotten how to think but because stealth was called for. Thoughts didn't travel like sound, they came into the minds of those around her clearly, so when it came time to prowl and evade she kept her thoughts structured. Besides, it was Princess Dandy's turn to talk.

She knows enough about swimming to know that if she keeps her wings spread and her lungs full of air she can float forever on her back, drifting with winds and tides or with steady flowing motions of her tail. In silence she sets sail into the deep and dark like that way. The only catch with holding that much air is that it ignites inside her and she occasionally has to breathe out little candle-plumes of light which illuminate these dark realms so that she can navigate for them both.

Nnngh! Don't give in! Don't give her the satisfaction! Euphie is a condescending jerk who just dropped all her friends down a pit while she was distracted and Mittens is not about to let her rub it in her face like this. She's not! She's a strong, independent princess with a plan to, t-ttttoooooooo...

Mittens purrs. Darn it! This isn't her fault, ok? She's half a cat right now, and Eupheria is really good at pats! This isn't fair. Her cheeks burn with shame, but that happy kitty sound won't stop rumbling in her throat even as she steps onto the train with every ounce of dignity she can muster.

It's dark inside the dining car. Dark and damp. Dark and damp and warm. Dark and damp and warm and, eugh! Squishy. It's like... you know what it's like? It's like walking inside of a big mouth. Mittens' tail bushes up and stands on end as she takes one quivering step after another. Her eyes dart about in the dark, looking for teeth. Squish squish, squish squish. That'll be her companions. Squish, squish, SPLORT!

"Eeeeek!"

Mittens jumps ten feet into the air, shrieking, her foot covered in blood, or, or pus or or or... the lights flick on, and Mittens lands back in the burst remnants of a simple water balloon. It's a shockingly normal train car, after all. Very plush, even! Velvet walls and swirling feather tapestry carpets and the most charming painted glass table Mittens has ever seen sitting in the middle. Each of its legs is another type of fish leaping up out of a stream of water, and on top is a sumptuous spread of cakes, cookies, and other fineries that would be more than home at one of Mommy's super fancy, super boring Queen Tea Parties, though mixed in there are pastries and party favors from... all over Hyperborea, really. You could tell a lot about Eupheria just looking at this table.

But you also didn't need to. You could tell almost as much from the bursting ripples of laughter spurting out of her mouth as she points at Mittens, doubling over and filling the entire car with her thunderous squeaks and, if Mittens' sharp triangles did not deceive her, the haughty trills of one (1) Azora Howl. Mittens glares reproachfully, but soon she's giggling too because the looks she's getting remind her so much of Freesia and Jessamine that every prank she's ever had pulled on her comes rushing back up to the top of her memories and there's a second where she can even remember her name starts with an A. That's! That's important! Don't forget that, A... Mittens. Rivers.

There's only one person here not laughing, and you can guess who it is. Mittens' delight curdles when she sees the look on old Adila's face. Get back to work, princess. This is what you fought for, now don't waste it. A spark of green light flares back to life in her emerald eyes, and Mittens swings her attentions back to Eupheria as she sits down at the table.

Properly, of course. Mittens is careful to curtsy and ask permission before seating herself, and doesn't take a single offered treat until the hostess has handed something out to everybody else. She thanks Eupheria politely and keeps her hands daintily folded in her lap when she doesn't need them for a fork or a cup. She observes every nicety, because... yes, there it is. Eupheria's only really got eyes for her right now. And after that fiasco with the floofy dress, she knows exactly why. Brrr, is it getting cold in here now?

"So!" Mittens chirps brightly, with only the tiniest hint of a wobble, "I've, erm..."

Yes? Come on Mittens, you can do this. For Momma, and for everyone else.

"Oh! Yes. I've heard that before you, that is, what I mean to say is when you were a Princess-Promised, I was told you put on a lot of puppet shows. You kept that up after, um, taking your crown, right? Talents beg to be used, after all."

This was, this was okay. It was exciting! Kathelia's glasses were steaming up again and her attention was all over the place, and keep it together, this is just like...like a bunch of other times in your life and... okay no she's not keeping it together. She has to...has to...ugh you know what, forget it! She grabs Kyouko in a hug because she is on top of her and she can't really see anything else anyway and...and her body is just working that way, just let her have this moment for one second, okay!

In a moment, Kazelia Swiftlance will start to think about a lot of things. About what to expect from Eska. How to escape the laser trap pit (which probably has an extremely neat pattern in its timing that she can figure out), and how to start thinking about this curse that Eupheria has cast and the metaphysical dimensions of the space they're in. Because she's getting really tired of running this maze and tired of being cursed while she's doing it, and Eupheria has left them alone, which means it is time to start thinking about how to cheat at a rigged game.

In a moment, she'll think about all of those things. She might dodge some lasers too, or spar with Eska, or tell Eska to get it together and partner up to await her sudden yet inevitable betrayal.

In a moment! Right now, she's hugging a fox cheerleader on top of her who's pressing down on the straps of her overalls in a way that makes it way too hard to think about anything else, so she's just going to enjoy that fuzzy fur and pressed uniform and the scent of Kyouko's body mixed with her perfume. Then! Then she'll think about things.

Adila!

A labyrinth is unicursal. There is one way through, no branching paths. You picked that factoid up as a child; it was part of a theological debate about the nature of the future, as to whether it was a maze with so many different branching paths that a princess must choose between, or whether it was a labyrinth that wound through strange twists and turns of fate to the place where you were always going to end up.

Language matters. Eupheria called this a nightmare labyrinth. She probably just means it’s full of twists and turns and you’re supposed to stay confused and discombobulated, but... but maybe it’s another layer of her jokes. That you’re all going to end up at the same place, one way or another.

The contrast between the cold, brackish water and your warm scales is one that it is easy to lose yourself in. There isn’t silence, because there’s cricket-song and frog-song and the beat of Dandy’s heart, which settles into the same pace as yours as she lies on your back, head down to keep her mane of frizzy hair from being seen. Her chest barely rises and falls as your hearts beat a slow dance through the swamp.

Dandy doesn’t mold herself to the expectations of other people. She opens herself up and shows them that they are part of her experience, too. Whenever you breathe out a plume of fire, Dandy is already heaving out a silent sigh alongside you. Together, the two of you meditate, and beat in time, and exist.

You don’t need to look up to know that Dandy has a serene, satisfied smile on her face, and you don’t need to ask her to know that the two of you are somehow aligning chakras. It’s part of knowing her for so long, and it’s a part of emptying out your mind, too, letting knowledge like that surface from inside you.

Adila’s not here right now. The first Adila. The empty space inside you is hard to resist prodding, like the space where a baby tooth’s fallen out. If Dandy wasn’t here, and it was just you drifting through the swamp alone, you might get lost in that prodding, but the faint rise and fall of Dandy’s chest keeps your mind clear and receptive to thoughts that bob up out of you. Like labyrinths.

The swamp is guiding you not out towards an exit, but towards the center. You go along with it, taking the path of least resistance, and go along the labyrinth inside the labyrinth. No branching paths, no choices to make, just one path leading you in towards the center. Towards the standing stones.

It’s the drums that make you lift your heads in unison, ever so slightly. The gremlins swarming around the standing stones have stone spears and grass loincloths, and have raised a very abstract idol, all dizzying spirals. They dance and chant around it, and one of them is doing a perfect soprano, its head thrown all the way back, its teeth all pointing up at the sky.

This is because they are preparing a human sacrifice. Probably not really intending to carry it out? Like, at most they’ll dunk their captives in the water over and over again or poke them with stone knives until they’re bruised all over, but still, what a terrible fate!

The bright red hair of the Jedadi warrior chained to a boulder, wearing an impractical chain mail two-piece and veil set, is vaguely familiar. But more familiar is the struggling, panicking form of Mimsley Trotter, hapless Watchwoman, next to her. Though the Mimsley you knew and loved didn’t have mouse ears and little whiskers on her bulging cheeks.

You’re completely unseen, nothing more than a moss-covered log. You’re invisible. You’re a shadow. You have the element of surprise.

***

Mittens!

Adila I cradles the back of your head and smooshes her mouth against yours to the sound of Azora’s giddy laughter and applause.

“And Ansila and Marina lived happily ever after,” Eupheria says, her voice aglow with the joy of performing. The little pony between you and Adila whinnies and keeps chewing the carpet serenely. The Queen, meanwhile, is draped like a snake over the dining car’s elegant glass-and-crystal chandelier, her many hands wriggling like centipedes as she directs the two of you with a plethora of fingers.

Being a puppet is weird. It would probably be even weirder if you were actually made of wood and glitter and glass, but thankfully Eupheria didn’t think of that. Yet. Please don’t give her any ideas, Azora. It’s more like your whole body relaxed and stopped paying attention to what you wanted to do, and now every muscle impulse and twitch is alien, an impulse from Eupheria’s fingers. A multitude of nearly-invisible magic strings extend from every part of your body, passing through each other instead of tangling up, jerking and twitching as you move, each one wrapped around a different finger.

What’s not weird is that you’ve had an insight into Eupheria. You were right on the money. She’s not just a natural performer, she’s a multidisciplinary artist, as delighted to perform an intricate and intimately directed puppet show as she is to make her nightmare army and labyrinth of torment. As Azora makes an offering of delighted laughter, Eupheria lets out the most genuine and innocent laughter you’ve heard from her all day.

Then she spins you into an elegant ballet performance for an encore, a daring avant-grade variant on the end of Act I from The Swan Princess and Ourania. Adila I is the Swan Princess, taking you up on the high jumps, seducing you with the stretch of her legs and fluttering of her plumage, while you are Ourania, coy and elegant and... unexpectedly cruel, if we’re being honest, sending the Swan Princess sprawling with an expertly choreographed backhand.

It barely connected— again, expertly choreographed— but when Adila I looks up at you, extending one hand in vain supplication, her eyes are burning. The kind of look you give someone before you say “toss her in the web viper pit and nail down the trap door.” Or “dangle her out the window all night, upside down, and then invite our subjects to come and laugh at her.” The kind of look that would turn a lesser princess to quivering jelly.

I mean, she’s probably mad at you for bringing up puppet shows in the first place? Maybe she blames you for this whole thing? Maybe you have made an enemy for life? Meep.

“Oh, but silly me,” Eupheria adds, “the tea’s getting cold! Everyone, come and sit down!” And with a last flourish, Adila I is made to smoothly pull out your seat and bow, to which you reply with a perfect curtsey, before all the strings shoot back into Eupheria, who’s down to a much more manageable eight arms now.

“Now, go ahead, tell me your favorite parts so far,” she says, beaming at you. It looks like you’re expected to go first!

***

Kathelia!

When you look up, Kyouko’s looking down at you with a peachy flush to her cheeks and little hearts in her eyes. She wiggles on top of you, and she lowers her head, huffing softly as her lips part and—

ZAP!

You both are hit full force by a wind blast, Eska having knocked it out of alignment with one shiny limb, and you are sent tumbling into a heap together. She grins at you, her lips forced open into the rictus, and then does an acrobatic backflip into another set of crystals, which she also knocks out of alignment, pointing them straight at you.

Kyouko’s curse kicks in hard and she throws her arms around your head and screams for you to saaaaaaaaaaaave her, Kassie! She’s the cheerleader in distress who needs you to woman up and save the day and your face is being smushed into heavenly softness.

The part of you that is still a tactical genius and analytic mastermind slams into the part of you that is helpless and gay and being smothered to wonderful death in the perfect mental meet cute. Gosh, she smells wonderful, like an autumn morning when the sun’s out and you have a cup of cinnamon apple tea in your hands as you walk with her and— oh, right, a) Eska intends for this place to be your last room and b) you need to breathe.

She's never really meditated before. She's done the breathing exercises. She's sat still. She's tried not to think of anything. But meditation is more than that.

At first she thinks she's going to die.

A vision of hell erupts inside her heart, inside her eyes, inside her muscles. Rage and fear and pain just come pouring up out of her like steam through a geyser. Her heart pounds and her muscles clench and she wants to thrash and scream and scream and scream...

Stroke. Stroke. Midnight wings glide through water in beat with breath and heartbeat. The air is such a harsh mistress to fly in, but the water holds you up.

Her mind is untethered from her body now. It's shaking and weeping and so, so, so tired. It just wants to stop, wants to rest, wants to solve everything and do everything and have it be done. The exhaustion crashes into manic energy like a tidal wave hitting. Everything! Everything you've fallen behind on, Adila! Everything you could be better at, every problem yet to solve, you know exactly what to do - so erupt up and do it! You're ready, you're ready now! Do it! Do it all! And then you can rest!

Stroke. Stroke. Everything in slow motion, so slow that it's like she's not moving at all. The water is her timepiece - make no motion so sudden it breaks that surface. Glide through the water without the slightest splash, heartbeats slow. She can feel the point in her spine between her heart and the heart of her love. She can feel the hollow place in her mind that was thinking forever of danger.

It's not the meditation, the quiet, the dark that's created these feelings. It's all a product of her buzzing, deafening, talkative mind that's always been so noisy it could never keep its thoughts to itself. If her thoughts are so loud that others can hear them imagine being inside them. Even her silence had a character like the nothing-hum of shouted quiet. And they all seemed so important... That feeling, that overwhelmed, shattered feeling, that's always been there. It's not new. It's normal.

She feels like she's sinking. Not into the water - she still flows as steady as ever through the known unknowns, heart never missing a shared beat. She's sinking into herself. Her head stills and her perspective slides, slides, slides down the long curve of her graceful neck. Without the dominating sense of her so-precious eyes it didn't seem necessary to live inside her head. She wasn't her brain, after all. If she was then how was it that she was watching those chattering, exhausted, energetic, thrashing and uncontrollable thoughts still and fade away like dreams? Her mind came to a halt and still she swam, still she loved, invisible and one with her beloved and the darkness that wrapped them both. She could hear her two heartbeats and knew that was what she was, where her spirit lived, and that wild brain seemed nothing more than an organ for cooling the blood.

She emerged from the water without once tearing its velvet surface, washed clean of all her cares and chaos. She rises glistening in diamond black so clean that not even the patter of fallen water gives her away. She is the love within the darkness, an embracing nightmare so wonderful that it can only be invisible.

And she shares her gift.

In a motion all the more frighteningly swift for its thoughtless serenity, she lunges into the light for just long enough to knock the braziers into the water, plunging all the gremlins back into the shadows of Dandy and Adila.

Ugh. Blech. Ick! Pfthyeh! Notes for you in the back: being a puppet is awful. Awful! Kittens in a downpour, never ever let this happen to you! It's worse than being hypnotized, by a lot lot lot lot. At least then you get to drift through the fuzzy warm feeling that whatever it is you're doing is a thing you'd actually like to; this was more like being a hostage inside your own body. Your own body that's already been squished into a shape you know in your heart isn't right, by the way. Mittens could feel every sensation of her arms moving through the air and her legs dancing across the train car. She felt her hair bounce and her ears flatten expressively and her tail curl around her leg.

For a moment, she knew exactly what it felt like to be Princess Marina... if Marina were an Askaian princess. She was briefly the stuff of legends! And a toy at the same time, dancing around to make Azora Howl laugh her hea-- no, that's rude. Laugh herself silly. And then? And then the worst part of all! She had to kiss the old Adila! Fffbleurgh! Like sticking your lips on a phoenix-vulture's beak. Dry! Bleh! Rough! Urgh!! And now everything tastes like sandy ash!

Mittens is still quietly spitting and desperately slurping tea (politely) when she notices Eupheria watching her expectantly. Her? Say something good? About this? Mittens draws herself up and glares her most defiant glare, taking a deep breath to finally give the Evil Queen the lecture she deserves. But then...

But then she surprises herself by smiling softly, instead.

"My favorite?" she says softly, "Well that's... you."

She closes her eyes, still smiling her strange smile. The picture of the train car, the beautiful glass table and all its guests still shines clearly inside her mind, but when she turns her thought to Eupheria, it's Freesia she sees looking back at her. And yes, that's right. That's exactly right, isn't it? That's why she feels so full of hope right now.

"My... back home I have, well, maybe you already know this with your snakes stick and everything, but my little sister? Freesia? She makes glassworks. She did the casing on that silver flame you took from me. Wherever you've got it now. But, um, anyway. Every time she finishes making something, she gets that same look on her face that you do. She shows it to everyone she can find. 'Do you like this? Do you like that? What's your favorite part?'"

The smile on her face is as warm as Ourania's good friend the sun, even though nothing's really changed. She's still facing down a dangerous enemy, and even in this happy tea time she's one dumb word away from being burst into confetti or snap changed just like that into a three-headed kitten or whatever else Eupheria could think up on the spot. Nobody give her any ideas, Azora. She's got rivals on either side of her to boot, and probably? None of them care that Freesia lives for the praise that comes from a work of art. Mittens flashes her sharp princess teeth and sets her cup down.

"I thought of her just now, looking at you. But that's not what it is! It's, just now, just here, I really saw it. You're an artist. And, now that I'm looking for it, I can see that in everything that you've built. Even in stuff like your army and this labyrinth, there's all these... details! All these," she waves her hand in the air, "These flourishes and extra touches that I know are there because..."

Her eyes settle on Adila I. The smile falls off her face, and her hands fall back into her lap like they've been slapped. Mittens sighs.

"We're still enemies, ok? You're the Wicked Queen and I'm a Princess-Promised, whatever name you try to put on my collar. As long as you're hurting people, I have to try and stop you. But I... but even still I... to me, you're..."

With a flourish, Mittens pops back out of her chair. She turns and faces the Wicked Queen Eupheria, and then curtsies with the very specific smile she only uses with her family.

"If you've got a solo story or three to tell for an encore, I'd be happy to volunteer as your actress. What do you say?" she gestures around the table, "Let's not keep your adoring fans waiting!"

Eska!!!!!

Never has Kathelia been more angry at her sister. Not the time she blew up an entire room of equipment in Kathelia's face. Not the time she covered Kathelia's saddle with an invisible glue that made it impossible to get off of her pegasus. Not even the time she trapped Kathelia and Cassian in a crushing wall room just to see how they'd act when literally forced into each other's arms.

She and Kyouko were HAVING. A. MOMENT.

Well, you know what, too bad. Too bad Eska. Kathelia wasn't the same sister she was before and she doesn't care one bit about crystal lasers right now. For once, sister, you can just sit there and be ignored because everyone else in the room is busy right now. Maybe she'll realize that other people are important for once and she doesn't need to be the center of attention all the time. What? A girl can hope.

Kathelia puts up a hand, just one. The other one is still around Kyouko, wrapped around her shoulders, nestled in the small of her back to hold her weight, pressing her uniform gently into her fur with the center of her palm. The crystal shimmers, the laser fires, and it parts around the raised hand. Kathelia's magic reflecting and refracting it. There's a rainbow. Eska might not be sure if it's from the crystal light refracting around that hand or if Kathelia is adding the effect to go with her general glittery hearts aesthetic.

[Overcome: 4+4+1=9. The effect is temporary, but that's good enough.]

Kathelia leans forward and uses the hand on Kyouko's back to pull her close. Her glasses are unsteady and her overalls too tight, but she doesn't care right now. She's acting on an instinct that's deeper than Eupheria's curse. She pulls Kyouko close, and she breathes, maybe even hyperventilates a little, but she takes in that autumn scent with its hints of cinnamon and lets herself dream for a moment. Then she gives her fox a kiss. It's a gentle kiss. A little tentative. She's not as experienced as Alina and Rita at this sort of thing. It's probably a little chilly too, she's still got that Rider void within her. She presses the very center of her lips to Kyouko's, so there's just the hint of a touch. Pulls her a little closer, lets the sensation spread out, just a bit further. She parts her lips ever so slightly, lets out a breath, feels the warmth and the cold mix and tingle and come back to her and just holds the moment.

She knows this is the last moment she gets out of this. The analytical side of her brain is already starting to whir, her inner voice calculating the angle that she could deflect the crystal beam (she did super great on her trig homework, just so you know), but she gets this moment and nobody, but NOBODY is going to take it away.

Adila!

The gremlins go wild. Their shrieks are ear-piercing as they run back and forth in circles, waving their spears in a very unsafe manner. But you had the right instinct: even though they're eyeless, they can't resist the opportunity to be overdramatic little goofballs, just like their creator. It's taking all of your self-control not to herd them. Down, girl! Stay!

Then one, in an intimidating bone-and-feather headress, hops up onto a standing stone and begins a chant. One by one, the gremlins join in: BEEGA BORA! BEEGA BORA! BEEGA BORA! BEEGA BORA YOU FOUR AH!

A terrible black spine cuts through the water, the first sign of something very big, given the terrible ripples and the way the water is trembling in its wake. Mimsley is panicking, and once she sees what's coming, she'll probably faint dead away. Your advantage? Your speed, and the fact that Dandy is with you, and the two of you working together can overcome anything. Also, the gremlins are little goofballs that barely come up to your shins.

***

Mittens!

Everyone at the table stares at you in shock. Adila I looks like you slapped her across the face. Azora is slack-jawed. And Eupheria... it's so hard to read her, even as plastic as she is, because of those swirling, arresting eyes. But from the way one hand flutters against her bridal gown, and the way another hand intertwines bashfully around Caddy, it seems that you've actually managed to touch her. That'll likely last... well, until she thinks of something fun to do with you, or until you try to take Caddy away, but there it is, for everyone to see. A glimmer of the old Euphie.

Then she slams several of her palms on the table and leans forward, her grin manic. "Why, do I ever, sweetheart!" She pinches your cheeks, giving you some air kisses, and then spins you out into a tangle of puppet strings to start doing an avant-garde tap dance, more of her arms providing instrumentation with a hurdy-gurdy and a record wheel as Azora dumps handfuls of cookies onto her plate.

"What do you think, Addie?" For a moment... she forgets. "This one's all about flexibility and balance! How far down can you limbo while still managing to tap dance? And... there, the double backflip! Nobody's ever put one of those in a tap routine before, I'm pretty sure!!"

"It's... a dance, I guess?" Adila's arms are crossed, and she's doing her best not to watch, because even she would have to admit you're doing an amazing job under Eupheria's direction.

"Oh, you're no fun!" Euphie sticks her tongue out, even as you do a perfect high jump. "That's why I have so much planned for you, you know. I'll put a smile on that face one way or another!"

***

Kathelia!

The only problem there, sport, is that you didn't expect Kyouko to grab your head (still holding her pompoms) and kiss you back in such a way that makes it clear she's very, very happy to be kissed by you. She's... gosh!! Toe-curling! She's the best at kissing. Like, she's kissing the way that your books suggested kisses were like! She kisses you until you have to frantically pat her because you need to come up for air, and even then, she rests her forehead against yours and giggles breathily and, gosh, wow, why did it take you so long? Quick, ask her out!

Sure, Eska's got the rest of the chamber aligned just so and is about to wipe you off the face of Hyperborea, but do you want to go to your doom knowing you didn't shoot your shot? Just do it! Or, you know, do your best to escape, possibly using her ninja cheerleader skills to get both of you up to a vertical passageway up above your heads, and then ask her to go to prom with you! Wait, you already did that. Um, ask her if you can find a quiet room in the labyrinth for more kissing practice! Or something! Just do it already!

Once when she was a little kitt-- girl! When she was a little girl, Mittens went to a performance of the Royal Ballet with both of her mothers. It was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen in her entire life! The costumes! The music! The pageantry! That night she danced all the way back to the palace, and that morning and ever after nobody could convince her she wanted to be anything other than a dancer. She'd never practiced anything as hard as she practiced ballet that summer! Nor, for that matter, had she ever slacked off more in her princess lessons. The extra naps meant she had more energy for dancing!

Mommy was... not happy. It was one of two or three times Mittens can remember her yelling. But Momma thought she saw something, and pushed Mittens to try her best. Come the turning of the leaves, Mittens was back to wanting to be a Princess first and foremost, but from that moment on her every last movement came with the magical poise and grace she became famous for as she got older. It was never just her magic that made her that way; it happened because she worked hard to make it that way, until eventually it was something it was so much a part of her that she moved like that without meaning to sometimes, or even accidentally. Because her dream wasn't to have a tall handsome princess sweep her off her feet and carry her off into the night on a white horse to marry her beneath a waterfall. It was to make people look at her, tiny little Alina Mittens, and feel their spirits lift up because she'd made them see something beautiful.

Dancing now, she's sure straight to the unbreakable core of her heart that Euphie is the same way, just pushed through a different hobby. Together, they move in a way that maybe nobody in Hyperborea ever has before. As she dances, Mittens opens her eyes wider than she knew she could. Wide enough, even, to see the curve of the labyrinth. It's just for a moment, and maybe it's just a maybe, but she's sure she sees the twisting, glittery glass path she has to walk to leave this place a winner. A real one.

But first, there is dancing. Her sultry boots change to tap shoes on her feet, and she feels the strings tug her feet into the rapid clicking, swishing, spinning, and jumping that the style is known for. When Euphie drops her under a sudden limbo bar she squeaks, but her feet never stop their fanciful click-clack sliding about even as she slips under a bar so low she winds up wrapping her tail around it as she pops back up on the other side. Suddenly it's a cane! She twirls her fancy new limbo-can, kicks off the ground on it, and then plants it in front of her so she can run up it like a wall to do her graceful double back flip!

Next comes the ballet. Mittens' suit poofs in an instant into a blue and white tutu and slippers that mean she's about to perform the Dance of the First Queen: a truly ancient performance that tells the tale of the first Illuminan born with a bright enough heart to wear the crown of lights without breaking underneath it. She was the first woman to speak with the River King instead of running from him, an act which touched the great fish's heart so much that he swore himself to making sure that every queen that came after the First was just as worthy of the legacy as she was. It was a moment that changed Illumina forever, and it had a very complicated dance to tell the story. But the surprising thing to Mittens was that even though she danced on strings and had no control over her body... there was a moment where the strings tried to pull her into a grande jeté when she knew the move was actually tour en l'air, and suddenly the felt the strings go slack and Eupheria let her do the move properly on her own before resuming her interpretation. They never said a word to each other. But that was... just for a second, they were one dancer.

After that came the big tumbling routine. Her tutu morphed in a second into a leotard in gaudy reds, yellows, and a stripe of purple across her petite chest, and Euphie made her perform a gymnastics set that even she would never have dreamed of attempting. There were handstands and cartwheels, vaults that turned into double-flip double-twists that bounced back into slow arcing backflips, and all the sorts things she loved seeing and doing. But what really made it special was the way that Euphie chained the moves together. Normally even a princess would want to stake her spot and build up a running start to be able to perform her routine. But here there was no need; every delicate set of flips and tumbles was connected by light stepping that spun her about this way and that. The complicated steps and flourishes with her arms swam seamlessly into her tumbles and for the first time ever, Mittens felt like this was truly dancing.

Now she's standing there in front of everyone assembled, heaving for breath while her fuzzy lavender triangles twitch excitedly on top of her head. Waiting for a word from Old Adila or even Azora with a similar sort of wide-eyed hope she'd caught on Eupheria earlier. And she grins because, truly, in spite of everything this was the most fun she's had since before the Crystal Gala. Still... she really hopes she's going to get her suit back at the end of this. She holds up one hand, palm held out, toward the table and the three women gathered there. Her eyes twinkle with a sharp and mysterious light.

"In payment for my dancing, I would ask a question. I've been wondering and wandering for years, but I've never had the chance to ask a group of people with hearts as... sharp and, and unique," she swallows, "As all of yours. So, please, answer me this: what do you think about love? Is it something you can run out of? Do you need to guard it and save it so that you have enough left over for the people or things that truly need it? Or is it something that grows the more you need it? Where does love end?"

She really didn't expect Kyouko to react this way. Kathelia is blushing furiously! She's never been this purple in her life! Her glasses are so steamy that she can barely see, her long white hair is all tangled up, one of the bands on the pigtails seems to be coming loose and bits are tangled in Kyouko's fur and the fox puts both arms (pompoms and all) around Kathelia and hugs her tightly as she buries her in kisses. It's a special kind of heaven, one that she never thought was hers to have.

As the fireworks are going off and the pompoms are shaking very fast, Eska is busy trying to set up every crystal in the room to show that she will NOT be ignored. This, the analytical side of Kathelia is saying to herself, is a mistake. One crystal laser is annoying, and it takes power to deflect. It would eventually disrupt Kathelia and Kyouko. A couple at a time might even speed that up, make it more difficult to deflect, up the math requirement perhaps. But Eska isn't doing that. She's furious at being ignored. She could have just gone for the head start through the maze, but she has to have attention and so she's wound herself up and up and up until she's trying to show off by causing every laser and crystal formation in the room to bounce, refract, and focus on Kathelia and Kyouko in one fell swoop. And that's silly of her because trying to concentrate all that power means that if just one little thing goes wrong, it will blow up in her face.

[Finish with doom: 6+3+2=11]

It only takes that little bit of shifting. Kathelia watches the lasers coalesce out of the corner of her eye. Leans into Kyouko, buries her head in that soft, soft neck fur and nuzzles her, and as she's looking to the side, she waives a hand and the last crystal near Eska shifts out of alignment. All that laser energy comes together and oops, there's no focusing lens to send it at Kathelia and Kyouko! Eska might realize what's happening, but it's too much energy too late for her to get out of the way. Instead it has to release somewhere and that happens right where she is in a big glittery crystal laser explosion! Victory for the heroes!

Slowly, Kathelia and Kyouko extricate themselves from each other. They do need to breathe, and they are still trapped and cursed in a maze. They can't just sit here forever, much as they'd like to. It's been a few minutes though. The crystals are mostly exhausted and there's a hole blown in the wall. Kathelia finally does look over at Eska, who seems to be out for the count here, her clothing a slightly smoking swirl of rainbow patterns as the laser explosion impacted her.

"Well," she says, pulling her glasses down. "I'd thay the flaw in your plan wath crythtal...uh wait. Technically, a flaw ith the part of the crythtal that ithn't clear so...the flaw would be cloudy but...argh, no that'th no good! The crythal ith clear! Which meanth we can thee the flaw, stho I mean, your plan wath clearly bad! And it had lotth of flawth, which meanth it wathn't really clear at all! Your plan wath a...um...a cloudy crystal...er...I gueth?"

Adila!

The gremlins go wild. Their shrieks are ear-piercing as they run back and forth in circles, waving their spears in a very unsafe manner. But you had the right instinct: even though they're eyeless, they can't resist the opportunity to be overdramatic little goofballs, just like their creator. It's taking all of your self-control not to herd them. Down, girl! Stay!

Then one, in an intimidating bone-and-feather headress, hops up onto a standing stone and begins a chant. One by one, the gremlins join in: BEEGA BORA! BEEGA BORA! BEEGA BORA! BEEGA BORA YOU FOUR AH!

A terrible black spine cuts through the water, the first sign of something very big, given the terrible ripples and the way the water is trembling in its wake. Mimsley is panicking, and once she sees what's coming, she'll probably faint dead away. Your advantage? Your speed, and the fact that Dandy is with you, and the two of you working together can overcome anything. Also, the gremlins are little goofballs that barely come up to your shins.

Princess Adila relaxed, calmed, centred. She can take everything in stride right now. Easy as pats. Now she's around the left and a snarl leaves her, and now she's around the right with a single firm bark. Excellent posture. Excellent discipline. She's in control of herself and she shares that control with the gremlins, bringing order to their chaos as she snaps and pounces and suddenly dramatically spreads her wings and looms over them. Forwards! Back! Stand up straight! Woof!

She then sits back and proudly looks at the rows of gremlins she's herded back into a perfect pike square, an absolute picture of military efficiency.

[Rolled a 4]

Mittens!

Eupheria's laugh is as clear and sharp and fragile as the finest crystal glass. She rears back and holds one hand to her mouth, laughing like your Momma laughs when you tell her a joke while doing a handstand, but... harsher. There's less fun and more anger in it, and your little stomach sinks hearing it. She's not going to give you the answer you were hoping for, or even the answer buried deep in her heart. She's going to share some of her pain with you.

"When I was your age, Mittens," she says, with a grand wave of her hand, "I thought love was the best thing that had ever happened to Hyperborea! I thought it was multiplicative, that the more I gave out the more came back to me, and that would just make the world better and better and better!" She stands and does a twirl in her beautiful bride's gown, and the only thing that spoils it is her smile, until she opens her eyes and they're just as jagged and bitter. "Then I met this wonderful, lovely pit of love! The more I shoveled in, the more convinced I became that eventually, sooner or later, I'd get something, anything back! Yes, she taught me the most important lesson about love: it's a hilarious farce!"

The look on Old Adila's face before the wall of careful indifference comes down is almost tragic. Of course she feels terrible about it. She still has a conscience, after all, buried deep (deeeeeep) down.

"Everybody falls for it! Oh, I'll do anything for love, they say. Ha! Love isn't this special, unbreakable force! It's a bridge between two people, and sooner or later, a heavy enough weight will make it snap!" She twirls Caddy, and the sound of cables snapping under terrible strain fills the entire compartment in high fidelity audio.

"But you don't have to take my word for it," she adds, quite rightly anticipating your objections. She snaps her fingers, and the door on the right side of the cabin slams open in a howling gale. There is nothing beyond but sideways rain and shrieking wind and the terrible, ear-splitting cry of the Roc. Then, Eupheria uncurls one hand next to you and offers you Gold: shining, glorious Gold.

"You can have our Gold, Mittens," she purrs. "Just tell me I can do whatever I want with your Rita, and you can have it back. It'll make your next room-- all the rooms-- a pleasant stroll in the park. It's practically cheating!" Her fingers start to curl shut, silently putting you on a very short time limit. You're on the spot and she's got five hands on your shoulders and back pushing you to the door, it's getting closer and closer and your lights can't overcome the horrible, hungry darkness beyond the doorway and Gold's right there...

***

Kathelia!

The way out of the next room is very obvious. It's a giant door in one side of the massive wheel of the room, with a delicate series of keyholes in its center. The trick is going to be getting the keys, or, rather, buying them. The room itself seems to be the Bazaar folded in on itself: the shops and the spires, the rope ladders and the towers, the stalls and the fountains and the streets, stretching below you and above you, and ropes spun carefully between either side of the wheel serving as a second highway, and it is here that the Nightmare Army is going on a shopping and bartering spree.

The first order of the day is going to be figuring out which vendor is selling the actual keys, because it seems like every other stall has a different set of keys on sale, and then the second order of the day is going to be haggling for them, and then the third order of the day is absolutely going to be figuring out how to pay for them. The fourth order of the day is figuring out how to do a three-legged race with a cheerleader fox who is clinging to you and purring happily, her tail swishing and knocking gremlin porters head over heels, her arm wrapped firmly around yours (seeing as she's holding pompoms), and gosh is this the curse or is Kyouko just enjoying not having to be the "villain" now that she has a bit of plausible deniability??

Okay, she's covering your mouth with her tail when you try to speak and then giggling until she doubles over. She's definitely still a little bit "villain" mode.

***

Adila!

What emerges from the muck is not the snake-husband. The snake-husband was made out of stone, you see, and was similar to a cobra, and also had laser eyes. This giant sea snake is made out of glass, and is -- as mentioned before -- a sea snake with rippling feathery sides, and also she has poisoned laser eyes. She also has a really wet, detailed mouth, and while you're pretty sure letting her swallow the Jedadi mercenary and the Watchwoman wouldn't be fatal at all, it would be, well, like being trapped in a giant, wet, rippling tunnel, and it strikes you that there is absolutely something worse than being tied up. Oh, gosh. Just infinitely worse.

The problem is that you have made the gremlins practically invulnerable to being rushed, and as soon as the, well, let's call her a snake-wife, as soon as the snake-wife bends down they're just going to toss their sacrificial captives into her mouth! Bull-rushing them is out of the question, and you don't have very much time at all before the two of them meet a slimy, disgusting doom.

Also, you're trying to think of something while desperately trying to duck out of the way of green laser blasts that leave the swamp bubbling noxiously and make any stray gremlins hit by it keel over groaning and clutching their stomachs. There's always "plan: punch a hole right through her," but that seems really uncomfortable after what happened with the snake-husband, and if you hurt her how will you ever manage to coax her onto a date with the snake-husband???

The furious cry of the Roc and the shrieking wind mingle with a pitiful moan inside the train car. Mittens doesn't even realize it's coming from her until she also starts shrinking into Eupheria's many arms as they try to push her toward the door. She's twisting, curling, struggling to bury herself in the Wicked Queen like a kitten seeking love and security from her Momma. The harder she gets pushed, the more she squirms and tries to find that comforting touch. Even a tiny brush! Even for just a second, just a teeny little pat. Her body trembles in the cruel absence.

Then Gold flashes in front of her eyes! The pulse of warmth washes over her, and for a moment she could swear she hears her Mommy's voice calling out to her. Encouraging her. It'll be ok. Everything will be ok! Gold will protect her through this whole awful maze. Then Eupheria would realize what a terrible mistake she'd made, but it'd be too late! Mittens and her Gold could save everybody, and wouldn't Rita understand that was for the best? Sometimes, even in love, you have to be willing to make sacrifices to find the winning move. She'd heard that somewhere once before, right? It sounds so wise. Mittens wants to be wise. She wants to be warm and not scared anymore. Her hand reaches up...

But a tear starts beading up against her eye. She thoughtlessly reaches to brush it away instead of reaching for Gold, and her finger brushes up against the hard diamond and emerald she sees the world through. And then her stomach drops all the way down to her knees in a single ugly swoop. Her blood runs packed with ice. Her skin prickles and crawls. She's shearing, all over again she's fracturing and falling to pieces and it is the worst sort of pain there is, because nobody did this to her but herself, and you'd think she'd have learned her lesson by now, wouldn't you?

Mittens yanks herself away from Eupheria and stands in front of the portal. Her ears are still flat against her skull and her tail is frazzled and standing on end, but the rest of her is poised and resolute. She stares into the hard driving rain and wills herself to see it. Forces herself not see the nightmare, but the memory. The Roc screams from a thousand worlds away; her ears only pick up the soft patter of Rita's feet dashing away from her in the night. Her legs tense underneath her, desperate to chase after her all over again and yell all of her words into the storm again even though there's nobody there to hear them, and... good. Good. This is how it should be.

All at once she whirls about and snatches the hand Euphie's curling around Gold, quick as you please. But she doesn't take the light, or even make an attempt at it. Instead, she grabs Euphie by the wrist, and forces that hand further backwards toward her chest so that there's no offer being made here at all. Her eyes are fiercer than a dragon's.

"You're wrong." she hisses.

Her tail flicks away her displeasure. Mittens Alina Cascade turns away from her great-grandmother and walks toward her nightmare of her own accord.

"You're wrong about me and you're wrong about love," she repeats, "And if you offered me the Caduceus itself I wouldn't let you touch a single hair on Rita's head."

She throws two sharp glares across the room at Azora and Old Adila each, and then she stalks with purpose and purpose into the biting storm.

Adila!

What emerges from the muck is not the snake-husband. The snake-husband was made out of stone, you see, and was similar to a cobra, and also had laser eyes. This giant sea snake is made out of glass, and is -- as mentioned before -- a sea snake with rippling feathery sides, and also she has poisoned laser eyes. She also has a really wet, detailed mouth, and while you're pretty sure letting her swallow the Jedadi mercenary and the Watchwoman wouldn't be fatal at all, it would be, well, like being trapped in a giant, wet, rippling tunnel, and it strikes you that there is absolutely something worse than being tied up. Oh, gosh. Just infinitely worse.

The problem is that you have made the gremlins practically invulnerable to being rushed, and as soon as the, well, let's call her a snake-wife, as soon as the snake-wife bends down they're just going to toss their sacrificial captives into her mouth! Bull-rushing them is out of the question, and you don't have very much time at all before the two of them meet a slimy, disgusting doom.

Also, you're trying to think of something while desperately trying to duck out of the way of green laser blasts that leave the swamp bubbling noxiously and make any stray gremlins hit by it keel over groaning and clutching their stomachs. There's always "plan: punch a hole right through her," but that seems really uncomfortable after what happened with the snake-husband, and if you hurt her how will you ever manage to coax her onto a date with the snake-husband???

Princess Adila is in no position to think of cunning plans. Princess Adila is in no position to be graceful or elegant. Princess Adila is in a position to do exactly one thing, and you know exactly what it is, damn your eyes.

Princess Adila leaps into the open mouth of the Snake Wife before any of the prisoners can be thrown into it.

She expands her wings and braces herself as best she can, getting lodged into the serpent's mouth, two dripping poisonous fangs braced against her shoulders. Her talons scrabble for purchase against slippery gums like a dog trying to climb a waterslide. It takes all her strength to keep those jaws from snapping shut. But there's a silver lining here: laser poison eyes can't shoot you if you're being eaten. How, exactly, Princess Adila feels about the physical experience of being inside the Snake-Wife's mouth is left as an exercise for the reader.

+I... really hope you've got a better plan than I do,+ Princess Adila thinks to Princess Dandy.

[Keeping Her Busy on a 9. This is a temporary solution.]

Oh no. A trading quest! Kathelia hated trading quests. They were sooooo boring. You had to play errand girl to everyone and their mother. First one place, then the other, then backtrack, then backtrack again, on and on and on. It felt too much like what her sisters wanted her to be doing. And beyond that it took forever and there wasn't any challenge or strategy to it! You just had to look everywhere, talk to everyone, and write it all down and eventually you'd figure out who to talk to for each thing you needed until you got your ultimate result, which was a bunch of stupid keys in this case.

Kathelia just put her head in her hands and leaned on Kyouko for support as she despaired at this.
[Look closely: 3+2=5. Miss. My question is "What will happen if I systematically talk to each merchant and ask about the keys for the door?" I find out the hard way. Also the curse advances.]

Alina!

This is miserable. You take one step into the storm and it is the worst step. You take another step into the storm and it is the new worst step. You take another step into the storm and it is the new worst step.

The path is narrow and slick with rain, and the wind tears at you like frozen knives, like cruel fingers digging into your fur, like Oberon’s sword in your breast. It takes every bit of your incredible sense of balance and poise, not to mention the leg control of a dancer, not to get blown off your feet into the pounding, booming, horrible storm below.

And that’s when the Nightmare Roc swoops overhead. It’s... it’s worse than the real thing. You catch a glimpse of black glass illuminated by inner lightning, and huge yellow eyes large enough to drown in. Eupheria intends to punish you, to make an example of you.

The Nightmare Roc will wait until you have a glimmer of hope, and then it will descend on those huge wings and drown you in the storm. This is how this game works, little kitten.

***

Dandy!

Well, ain’t this a pickle and no mistake? Here you are, hooves sinking into the wet mud grass, and a bunch of poky pikes pointed at you, and Adila being slowly swallowed by a thrashing, furious giant glass snake.

You take a breath and let all the noise fade away. Don’t listen to Adila; your concern won’t save her alone. Don’t listen to the helpless pleas of the sacrificial victims; you can’t save them unless your head’s screwed on right.

You wade into the muck and then lower yourself into the water completely, until your hat’s left bobbing on the surface, and as your heartbeat slows and your held breath stills, and you know calmly that you could stay down here for half an hour if you needed to, but that you won’t be going back up on your own either, you push your arms up to the elbows in the mud below...

And your fingers curl around deep roots.

***

Adila!

Well. This is how you go. You have one claw clinging desperately to a forefang, even as the powerful muscles of the Snake Wife’s throat pulls you inexorably backwards to some terrible fate.

That’s when the swamp explodes upwards at the Snake Wife. There are branches grabbing at her, trees wrapping her in a bear hug, weeds lashing themselves into ropes and thorns nailing them down. You even have one tossed to you, blooming into fresh flowers!

This is Dandy throwing everything she’s got into this plan. She... she might not be coming back up. She’s probably stuck down there, weak as a day-old kitten, tangled up in roots. As soon as she’s pulled up, the plants will go still again, but... but she’s underwater and how long can she hold her breath, anyway???

Go ahead and roll to Finish the Snake-Wife with Sense.

***

Kathelia!

Okay. You examine the keys on offer at Hogarth’s House of Hot Hams, which are whittled from hambone, and relegate them to Subclass D in the notebook you bought at Sheets And More! to keep track of everything. This one is Volume IV. Volumes I-III are in your sparkly pegasus backpack. You rub your eyes exhaustedly, wondering just where Kyouko hopped off to. She was just here a minute ago...

“HEY! LISTEN UP! TEAM KAZELOUKO IS HERE TO WIN!”

Oh. She’s up there on an upside-down tower, shaking her pompoms, standing over... a trussed-up gremlin dangling upside-down over a treacherous drop.

“EVERY HOUR! WE DON’T GET THE KEYS! I WILL CATCH YOU! AND STING YOU WITH BEES! ANOTHER VICTIM, IT COULD BE YOU! IT’S UP TO YOU, WHAT YOU CHOOSE TO DO!!”

Stop gawking up her miniskirt, Kathelia, and pay attention to the fact that Kyouko just declared war against the entire market, and implicated you as her partner in crime. Everybody is staring at you, and a giant deer-centaur is snipping its claws menacingly as it clops dramatically towards you, followed by gremlins carrying carpets and ropes for wrapping you up in, and... oh dear. Where’s Shiva when you need a ride??

There are good storms. There are good storms. Water is Mittens' most special friend, so how can it keep betraying her like this? In Feloria, at the Gala... some of her most miserable memories now are linked to storms. She takes a step and it takes all of her strength not to get blown back another three.

The wind tears at her sodden, heavy hair so hard it feels like her neck might come off. The sleeves of her precious suit are sopping and wrap tightly around her wrists as they soak well beyond their ability to cling comfortably. Each drop of rain hits her with the force of a hailstone that explodes against her skin. The air is filled with cruel cold knives that freeze her down to the blood and bone. The howling of the wind makes her ears pin themselves against her head just to catch a break from the noise.

It's even worse when the Roc screams at her from the murky clouds above. Every blood curdling cry knocks her physically to her knees, clutching at her head and whimpering unintelligible pleas for it not to hurt her, please, she's sorry she's sorry so don't--!

Every so often, wing beats explode over top of her and whip the wind in a direction she's not expecting. That's when Mittens needs her dancer's grace more than ever, as she scrambles and twists and fights her way back onto the narrow land bridge. On either side of her is doom. Behind her is nothing, and impossibly far in front of her is a door to some new and probably worse form of punishment. This is a terrible game to be playing, but there's no choice but to play it. So take another step, Mittens. It's only the worst one in your entire life.

Her lights are little help and none. Violet has all sorts of ideas, but none of the strength or wisdom to carry them through. It tries to wrap her in a protective bubble like Blue might, but the shape of the thing is very different from the reality and all it manages to do is make Mittens glow while she gets stung through to her core by icy whips. It tries to be a shield she can carry in her arm instead, but whatever way it lifts itself the rain turns to come from the other direction. Next it forms a parasol but the wind crushes it almost instantly. Finally, with an almost defeated looking little flash, it turns into a vibrant purple cloak and wraps itself around Mittens' shoulders so she can at least be warm. She supposes the stinging sensation across her body is a good thing, tiny warmth meeting elemental cold to make her body sting all over at least means that she hasn't gone too numb to function. She pulls the form of the cloak tighter around her, like a hug. She can do this. She has to do this.

That's when the Roc attacks. The cry freezes her heart inside her chest and makes her legs feel broken, but it's nothing compared to sudden gale wind that smashes into her like a tornado balled up into a fist and knocks her straight off of her feet. She scrambles and flails her arms and legs as she careens through the air, but it's hopeless. She's not going to come near being able to grab the bridge again. This is how she dies.

Her cloak melts away, returning the full lash of the cold as she falls. But it's the bravest thing little Violet could do, trusting Indigo to save their princess instead. The grappling hook digs into the wall behind her, and Mittens slams into that with a wet oof. As she desperately tries to pull herself back up to the bridge so she can keep running, a war cry like she's never heard in her life fills up her entire being. Mittens flinches, and stares into the hateful glowing eyes of the Roc.

Terror fills Mittens like it never has before. It crawls across her entire frozen body. It pumps through her blood, faster and faster until it finds the vein of ice still lodged in her heart. And it squeezes. It squeezes so hard it hurts her physically. She grits her teeth and strains to keep from crying out, to keep holding on to her rope of light, as cold and deadly fear tries to crush her shining heart into nothing.

"That's enough." she says quietly. Her voice is so small and tired.

Her brain tells her fingers to let go, just fall, but they betray her. Her grip tightens. A second Violet beam leaps out to give Mittens another anchor and stabilize her long hang. Up above, the cliff face starts to crumble, sending bits of hard earth tumbling down on her face, but she shrugs it off without a flinch. The Roc screams again, and this close it feels like it's going to break her to pieces without even touching her.

"I SAID THAT'S ENOUGH!" she screams right back.

Yellow eyes watch her with barely restrained fury. But they watch her.

"That's enough," she says a third time, voice growing stronger with every word, "I won't play this game anymore. I've carried you, no. The fear of you inside of me my entire life. It's not fair for either of us to-- hey! HEY! Don't you scream at me when I'm talking to you, mister! We're done, you and I. Fly out of my heart and never bother me again! I'm not a little girl anymore, I don't have room for you in here!"

Overhead, the bridge gives way at last. Mittens twin lights zip back to her and she starts to plummet with a fresh look of terror in her face. But then a miracle happens, of a sort. She's slammed against the wall again, pinned there not by her own strength, but by the black glass talon of the Nightmare Roc. It squeezes shut around her, tearing through the stone with absurd ease.

"We are not enemies! I've met you! The real you. You're not this twisted story Eupheria's trying to spin you into. You're the bringer of storms, the wind and the rain that makes life worth living! So what that you're scary? Even the biggest monsters have their part to play! So if you're gonna kill me, then... nnnggh! Get on with it! I can't stop you. But I, nnnffff, I'm done being afraid of you. I'll die loving this rain, I will NEVER let you ruin it for me again! Do you hear me?"

Mittens' crystal eyes are smaller than the Roc's by too much to measure. But the light inside them is, if it's anything at all, sharper than the yellow pools it's cutting into.

[Finish with Wisdom: 10]

Adila!

Well. This is how you go. You have one claw clinging desperately to a forefang, even as the powerful muscles of the Snake Wife’s throat pulls you inexorably backwards to some terrible fate.

That’s when the swamp explodes upwards at the Snake Wife. There are branches grabbing at her, trees wrapping her in a bear hug, weeds lashing themselves into ropes and thorns nailing them down. You even have one tossed to you, blooming into fresh flowers!

This is Dandy throwing everything she’s got into this plan. She... she might not be coming back up. She’s probably stuck down there, weak as a day-old kitten, tangled up in roots. As soon as she’s pulled up, the plants will go still again, but... but she’s underwater and how long can she hold her breath, anyway???

Go ahead and roll to Finish the Snake-Wife with Sense.

Princess Adila is deep in the throes of the curse at this point. It's hard to think deeply, it's hard to think at all. Instead emotion and impulse is overpowering. She wants ball and pats and to bark at anyone who threatens her friends. She doesn't have the strength to overcome this with brute force, and she doesn't have the intelligence to overcome with a cunning plan, and she doesn't even have the constant drumbeat of the Operations Manual in the back of her head.

So she makes do with what she has.

She opens her mind and channels everything she's feeling up through the roof of the Snake Wife's mouth. She gathers all the uncertainty, confusion, protectiveness and love - especially the love because there's so much of it. She channels the uncomplicated desire for hugs and pats and warmth and comfort that is all the more powerful for being such a simple thing. She throws all of that up into the mind of the Snake-Wife... and then she summons just enough intelligence to add one final detail: the location of the Snake Husband.

[Finish: 9]

A part of Kathelia is thrilled at this turn of events. Kyouko was cutting the metaphorical Gordion knot here (hopefully not the real one though, that poor gremlin!). Hogarth's House of Hot Hams was still on the right side up part of the market, so they weren't even halfway through, never mind the backtracking. Just on this block alone there was Charlie's Checkered Cheeses and Marybelle's Mystical Menagerie and Merry-go-round, which had keys attached to some of the horses and required checking. (No Kathelia wasn't disappointed that this turn of events might mean she wouldn't get to ride the merry-go-round, shut up internal brain voice.)

Another part of her was feeling sad though. A whole mixed bundle of sadness. She liked this part of Eupheria's weird labyrinth. Her nightmare creatures were...well, not really that nightmarish. More outlandish than the typical Hyperborean resident, but compared to everything out there in the universe, they were perfectly fine. They were running shops here, doing business, being friendly. Kathelia felt like she was back in Jedad. The scents of exotic spices tickled her nose and even the cheese looked like it was flavored with some kind of spicy peppers, a big wheel outside the shop had little flecks of red running through it like tiny spicy grains of sand. Even if Eupheria personally was being a total meanie-head, that didn't mean all her creatures were all the time. They had a life and independence of their own, which really shouldn't have been that surprising. Eupheria was creative. Mean, as established, but she was obviously putting her heart and soul into all of this, so it shouldn't come as any surprise that her creations had heart and soul all their own.

"Kyouko, don't!" she shouted, as loud as she could manage through her braces and everything else. Ugh, why was this curse so frustrating? She was starting to see the shape of it though. The Caduceus was a reality warper, it changed the terrain, but that was a surface level thing (she tried not to smile at her own pun). It seemed like what it was really doing was changing the role of things according to the bearer's will. Eupheria saw Kathelia's role as a know-it-all and so it shaped her slowly but surely into that role as Eupheria saw it for her theater. It shaped Alina into the role of the cat that she was playing and Adila to the dog. Even a whole bazaar shifted towards Eupheria's imaginings and the creatures she made to fill it were filling holes in her imagination, making the place according to her vision.

It was breathtaking, addictive in a way that Kathelia could appreciate as she started to understand Ourania's warning. Even someone of the purest intentions couldn't help but think of the ways that everyone around her ought to fit into the way she imagined them. It was the nature of every being with a mind to do it. Perhaps the Caduceus had once been safe for some devil grandmother who was already used to the world being mutable to her will and had the iron focus to live in that manner. She almost laughed though. For Oberon, oh for Oberon it would be nothing. Worse than nothing. He, of all people in the grand and vast universe could not conceive of anything acting beyond his control. If he held the Caduceus, the world would turn to icy stillness anywhere that he didn't immediately focus. She'd have to tell Azora, she wondered if Daddy's little girl would be so eager knowing that even she would be lost the second his attention strayed from her.

And none of this was solving her immediate problem at all! But, it was helping. It was helping her focus and see the inhabitants of the labyrinth bazaar differently. As people. She turned to look at the centaur and the little gremlins. "I'll...I'll sthtop my friend from hurting anyone. Don't worry, okay? She's jutht cranky because it'th hot and we're worried. Your mathter, she's changing uth in wayths that we don't like, that hurt uth. I know she made you all thith wonderful plathe, and I bet you really enjoy her showth too, right? I don't want to change that. I jutht want to save my friendth and help her too. I think Eupheria ith really hurting. Tho...uh...do you think you could...maybe...help uth find our way patht the next door and I'll get Kyouko to sthop making thilly threatth?"

[Talk Sense with Wisdom: Alas 1+3+1=5. And the curse advances again.]