Bella did not, in fact, have any idea what she was going to do with all of these sharks. Already they had overtaken the bag she'd won, and now her arms were filling up with the things. She had no room to put them in. She hadn't even gotten around to taking her cup back from that sheep just yet for that very same reason. But she can't seem to stop herself. Every time she turns her head there's a new game waiting for her and Redana to play. And every prize booth has a new shark she hasn't seen before. 

All she understands is that whenever her eyes pass across a new stitched together toothy smile or meets a pair of shiny bead-eyes, she is filled with an overwhelming sense that it has been waiting here, possibly for hundreds of years, for her to come and rescue it. Only for her. It's a weaker impulse version of the lurching in her stomach that happened whenever Dany would wander too far off when they were children, or when she'd noticed her temple sisters (and especially Mynx) getting into trouble. Her genetically engineered guardian programming must have been overtuned at some point. That's all it was.

It was the vendor's fault in the first place for suggesting a plush shark could need rescuing in the first place. And now she'd found one locked behind a 'firing range', soft and blue and guileless, the practically as long as the Princess was tall, and she feels her heart tweak fresh all over again. She is doomed, for perhaps the fifth dozenth time since they'd wandered into the carnival. 

The games, she'd noticed, were all patterned after various arts of ritual and warcraft. Many had been rendered down to be so easy it was almost insulting, but Bella was certain there was a test involved to this, as well. To obey each priest or priestess commanded to the letter was a trap: you could only show your alignment with the god each temple game prayed to by figuring out how to exceed every expectation. The limiting nature of the equipment they provided for each task only proved she had the right of it. 

"...Redana, hold these."

Off go the sharks, to the only other person they... that is, that [i]she[/i] trusts. These are sacred treasures of the God of the Dead, after all. They can't be allowed to touch the floor, even clean as it is.

She steps toward the crude booth and picks up the rickety SP rifle. This was as an obvious a temple of Artemis as she could ever hope to come across. Good. She owed the goddess an apology, and had yet to figure out a proper way to pray ever since she'd learned about what their relationship with each other actually was. There were myths, fragments really, buried in Redana's old textbooks and lessons that talked about "Archery" as a concept relating to the Goddess of the Hunt, and this probably had something to do with that. 

It was hardly more than 20 meters to the targets. She could spit farther than that (if she thought nobody was looking). What was the trick, then? She eyed the rifle with apprehension, and raised it to her shoulder. It must make the most [i]dreadful[/i] noises. Her ears were sure to be bleeding after. But for this largest and therefore kingliest of the sharks, it was worth it. In the end she was just no good at leaving anybody behind. That was what got her in this whole fucking mess to begin with. She winces as she squeezes the trigger, turning her head away and squeezing her eyes shut to mitigate some of the noise and the inevitable blowback of smoke.

There's a soft click, and a dull whoosh of air from the rifle. A tiny pellet flits out at speeds slow enough to watch and pops a balloon on the far end of the range with similarly little fanfare. Bella lifts the gun up to eye level and stares at it with amazement.

Aha! So it's a form of self restriction! They must have used these to hide their numbers while the phalanx advanced on the enemy, carrying balloons like these ones filled with all kinds of chemicals. Right? And with the smoke pouring over everyone you could invoke Artemis even in the middle of a war!

"I get it now, I see! Ha! Watch me, Dany!"

Her fear is gone in an instant, replaced with swaggering confidence. Bella lifts the ancient tool of this brilliant-yet-vanished civilization (...they must have done something truly terrible, at the end of things) and empties row after row of pellets into the range with the swiftness and surety of a creature that can finish aiming before she's begun. Almost all at once she strikes an entire wall of balloons, several round discs with painted concentric circles, and a stack of bottles that fall over with a loud clatter.

And there at last spew the tickets. HA! There at last had been the secret SP target she was meant to find! She passed the test, O Goddess! Were you watching? She has not forsaken you, do you see? If only she'd put the pieces together sooner, she bets she would've won at least twice this many. As it was she'd barely gotten enough to rescue a second King Shark for Redana's sake.

But even still, there's a spark in her heart that doesn't seem to want to go out. A smile flashes across her face and she twirls with girlish glee toward the woman she loves more than anyone in the universe, happy to be here, happy to dance forever, happy to do whatever so long as it's...

She stops, catching her reflection. And Redana's reflection. And at last, the absurdity of the size of her collection sinks in. Instantly, her posture changes. Her back straightens to perfect rigidity. She turns her head and coughs. Smooths out her dress as best she can holding such large animals in each arm. And she blushes, beautiful as the stars themselves.

"...This did [i]not[/i] happen, ok?" she snarls, but in a voice that could only belong to the fussy Bella who used to inhabit the Imperial Palace, "You begged me for these. Fucking begged! They were gifts! We never got them! If anyone asks, we tell them about the paintings and the performers! We found these at our picnic and brought them back as... as... damn it Redana stop laughing! I'm a Praetor now, I've got a [i]reputation![/i]"