Phoe

Masks: Resurrection Roundabout

It's a lucky thing Euna wasn't eating any more ice cream just now, or it'd be everywhere. As it is, the sound of a breath catching in her throat is audible: this warbly little squeak settling in just under Sara's enthusiastic dessert enjoyment noises. Her eyes open as wide as they'll go as her pupils dilate to match. The blush starts at her nose, spreads to her cheeks, and climbs down to her neck and up to her ears at the same time. For a second, she can't move except to make funny little sniffs. Her mouth's even caught hanging open a little bit.

Oh no. Oh no, she's picturing it. Oh no everybody's watching and she can't stop picturing it. Why did she think this was a good idea? Who teases a tiger in public? There's a terrified grin spreading across her face. Her hands sneak up with skillwire precision to cover her mouth. Then her entire face. She hunches down until the face/hand combo meets her knees, and in that instant nobody in a thousand meter radius is going to wonder at all who was going to wind up on the bottom. Hypothetically squeaking. SPEAKING!

"Th-th-th-that's not fair!" she barely more than mumbles as her entire torso trembles with embarrassment.

She sits back up with superhuman effort, but the damage is done. She can't look Sara in the face right now. Hell, she can't look anyone in the face.

"I..." her eyes focus on a spot next to Sara's chair. Her hands clench into fists on her lap. Her blush, impossibly, grows deeper, "Th-there, I mean. Um. I-I don't... think, uh, a-any part of you isn't (gulp) isn't pretty."

Three. Two. One.

"UM! I MEAN! UH, GOSH WHAT AN INTERESTING QUESTION FE--" inside voices you moron, literally everyone is staring, "Er.. Fe, Ferra. Yeah. You know. Obviously. Yup! Of course she's proud. I mean I'm proud! We're... it. No, um. You know?"

Dear god, something or somebody save her.

Princess-Champions of Hyperborea

"Um, Azora, I don't think this is such a good... eep!"

Mittens squirms. She tugs, and she pulls. She struggles with every ounce of her kitten might! All that gets her is a stern look and a magical swat on the butt. She squeaks and goes limp as she's dragged helplessly through the hallway toward the most obvious trap in the universe. It's weirdly comfortable, being carried by the scruff of her neck. It's a strange sensation, helpless and safe at the same time. And it makes her continued squirming all the more heroic.

The thing that stung the most in all of this is that Mittens could tell exactly what Azora was thinking. Curse or no curse, it's not like she'd suddenly become an idiot. It's just, Mittens knew she didn't care. That total confidence that she was more than good enough to get past the trap and get what she wanted anyway. The bratty, selfish insistence that this belonged to her in the first place. She might not have been this bad about it, but it still felt like staring at a reflection of her younger self. A reflection that was dragging her into danger, that she was powerless against. Stupid Azora, getting to be so tall.

"J-just think! Where did the others who took the apples go? We need to figure out a smarter way to--"

"Kitty if you don't quiet down I'm going to pack you so full of snakerchiefs they're going to start slithering out your ears. Is that what you want? Mew mew mew, I'm sorry princess! I'll be such a good girl like I promised, you're my best friend!"

Mittens blushes. She didn't have to smoosh her face and move her lips for her like that.

Her emerald eyes dart across the room, back to Kazelia. Her last hope for sense in all of this. It's no good, she needs more time to figure out the point of this room and find the hidden way through it. And there's only one way Mittens can see to buy that time for her.

"Mew!"

...Honestly, thank goodness. For the first time, thank goodness for these curses. Without their subtle tug and pull, this would never work. Mittens paps her paw on Azora's shoulder and stares into her face with the brightest, cutest, most soulful eyes she can manage.

"Please," she begs in a voice as sweet as sugar, "I just wanna protect you! Just... just let me go first! A-and if it's safe, you can follow! It'll be like a test!"

Sharp eyes try to pierce her soul. Azora holds Mittens at arms' length and looks up and down every inch of the princess trying to shine through the cat. And, it's weird. Maybe Mittens' eyes are playing tricks on her, or maybe she's so desperate for something to put her hope in that she's forcing herself to think it means anything. But she could swear Azora's expression looks conflicted for a second.

"Do you promise me you won't take the Caduceus? No matter what, you won't use it or run off with it?"

Mittens hesitates. She looks back down to the end of the corridor, where Kazelia is staring at her with a definite edge of worry behind her bespectacled eyes. It's hard to tell from this far away, but is she shaking her head? Mittens smiles.

"Of course I promise. Aren't we friends?" Mittens turns her head just enough to where it's hard to tell whether she's looking at Kazelia or Azora, "I'm counting on you! Alright?"

She hops away and reaches for the Caduceus before her stupid cowardly heart can make her flinch away from it. This is the final step to finish casting her spell. She hopes.

Before her paw can close around the staff there's a flash of blinding blue light. When it fades, the only sign that Mittens had been there at all was a jingly green collar dropping noisily to the floor.

[Talk Sense with Wisdom: 9]

Masks: Resurrection Roundabout

"...A hideout?"

To say that Euna looks perplexed would be to call this week's forecast "a little wet". She is, all of a sudden, out of her depth. Baffled. Nonplussed. She is a goldfish dropped in the middle of a discussion about Kantian ethics. She's the Adventuring Scientist Lily Mason trapped in a conference room full of sphinxes. Oh, you haven't seen that one? Well let me just... ahem.

A moment later the spark of realization flashes in her eyes, and Euna suddenly looks thoughtful. Way more thoughtful than a comment like that should need. She taps a finger to her lips a couple times, then she shakes her head and smiles.

"Honestly... yeah. You bring up a good point: I can't really stay in the AEGIS dorms anymore, can I? Or, well, I mean, I could. I'm sure they'd let me. But it'd be weird, right? All that shooting at each other we did. Awkward dinner conversation. Nah, you're right, I should find somewhere else to live. But, I think..."

She smiles, full of mirth, and reaches across the table to grab a heaping, messy spoonful of Sara's own dessert. She pops it in her mouth and closes her eyes as she shivers in bliss. Then she sits there for a bit, spoon in her mouth, watching Sara watch her. She grins.

"Yeah. I'm hoping to make other arrangements."

Princess-Champions of Hyperborea

Mittens is as good a kitty as her word. And not just because she has to be! She'd made a very open ended promise, you know. Really, she'd have been well within her rights to focus on being a good kitty: sitting on this broom looking oh-so-pretty, keeping herself groomed, and purring when her... ahem, 'good friend' pet her (even though Azora is the single worst person Mittens has ever seen at handling cats). There's nothing in this magic that says she has to shield Azora from harm, no extra verse that compels her to, as a random example, lasso a light around the mouth of this super scary looking dragon head and yank it down to the ground before it can chomp Azora. She does that because she wants to!

She plays it just like she did for Heist! She's an acrobatic whirlwind of pure defense, never letting a single wing, claw, or snappy glass head bring harm to the Princess player. But for all her whirling and twirling with her shining red light, she never once makes a move that would make Azora feel like she's not the one executing... whatever grand plan it is she's up to. Mittens plugs up the holes, guards the openings, and then when it's time to strike back she zips back up and presents her head for pats, soulful eyes and adorably jingling collar begging for the attention. Let Azora have fun, that's fine. Let her have an apple, even, that's fine too.

Every second weaves the trap tighter. Azora Howl made a huge mistake when she invoked promise magic without really understanding how it works. Any old princess can play clever word games and wriggle out of a poorly worded deal. As a guard against those things, a geas is barely better than an umbrella in a surging river. But a promise made in good faith and followed through on with a girl's whole heart? That binds deeply indeed. There may come a time, and soon, when she regrets letting silly little Mittens get so close.

The Great (and by turns, Ridiculous) Glass Dragon falls before Azora's obviously perfect onslaught. Mittens sits beside her, purring her victory purr and fighting off the gross feelings telling her to stop this before it's too late. And that's when she sees the most beautiful thing she's ever laid eyes on in her entire life.

The Illuminan Water Dance is a prayer for a bountiful rainy season. It's also one of the most technically difficult dances in all of Hyperborea. But Rita isn't missing a step. She prances across the field on the balls of her feet, swerving and swaying like her whole body's turned to liquid as she slips out of shadow bindings, bends out of the way of giant crashing wings, and sails over the sleekest and most impressive of the dragon's four heads. Mittens pulls her paws up to her mouth and gasps out loud when she sees Rita's dark and luxurious hair come trailing through the air behind her after a particularly graceful leap. The curve of her hips, that cute flash of her belly, the dancing silk scarves she weaves through the air to mimic the patterns of a river... oh, whiskers. She's falling in love all over again.

There's no stopping her. Rita sways and spins her way right to the apples and snatches one up, daring as you please. She winks, lifts her veil just enough to tease the outline of her lips and blows a tender kiss straight at Mittens (!!!) with deadly accuracy. Oh naps on a sunny couch, she's beautiful.

"Did my dancing please you, my heart? My sun and stars, my dew-kissed morning light?"

Mittens blushes straight through her fur and buries her face in her paws. All of a sudden, there aren't enough apples to go around. She's in deep trouble. But, right this second? Her heart is so incredibly full of love that she can't bring herself to care.

Masks: Resurrection Roundabout

Errant idly twirls the handcuffs around one finger with a curious look settled on her face. Delaying the moment of gratification. Or, maybe trying to decide if it's really her moment to take. She shakes her head and laughs, just three breathy notes.

"You know, for the record?" her voice is light and casual. She could easily be settled in for another round of poker against Victoria right now, "I caught my ghost. Took her down. We're gonna do a movie night in a bit here, actually, she and I and all of my friends who wanna come. Gonna be a rain chic/romance marathon, all the classics. You know them?"

She flicks her hand lazily, and the cuffs click down around Victoria's wrists. Errant leans in, her smile so smug and vindictive it couldn't help but haunt Victoria's dreams tonight. It's actually scary how much Sara she's channeling right now.

"Tell me, how's the whole 'ruthless bitch' act working out for you? Pretty great, right? I mean sure, you tossed away your entire empire... oh sorry, your grandfather's empire like it was trash to get here, but hey! Don't get anywhere by being sentimental, know what I mean? You got to be my boss for... what, a week? Week and a half? I mean, damn. Must be some kind of record."

She gives her dear CEO a soft pat on the back, and waves at her as she's led away.

***

The way Euna eats ice cream is obnoxious. First she takes her time measuring her her spoonful so that she's got a very particular dome shape going on, always the same size every time. Then she brings the spoon up to her and holds it inside until all of the ice cream has melted in her mouth. She swallows, pulls the spoon out without parting her lips, and measures out another scoop. The end result of this is that Sara has probably eaten more of her bowl than she has.

Oh, and she ordered plain green tea ice cream without a single topping. Who does that? Does she think she's going to impress the Shogun by ordering her old favorite? Actually, don't judge her too harshly. She's eaten two cakes today. That's... it, really. No more sweet stuff. Please.

She sets the spoon down entirely, and stares at Victor in silence. The beginnings of a lot of different thoughts flicker across her face, but none of them make the leap to being words. She just watches, and listens. And waits. She sighs.

"I don't know." she says at last.

She sets her spoon down with the tiniest of plink noises and reaches across the table to take his hand. She gives it a squeeze, and there's a real spark of sadness in her eyes for a moment.

"I don't know," she repeats, "Maybe. It's possible, but..."

She sighs again, deeper than before. Shakes her head.

"You know what? It doesn't matter. You're not going to feel better about it if I told you it was the only way. You made the move you though you had to make, and that's all there is to it. But you know, no matter if I think what you did was wrong... you're still a good person. You know how I know that? Because we're sitting here in a busted up ice cream parlor and you're still thinking about what happened. If you ask me that matters a lot more than whether or not you made the best choice. Or the only choice. Or whatever."

She flashes a tired smile, and picks up her spoon again.

"When Victoria used AEGIS to try and get me to sell you out, I chose to trust you over them. Then they shot at me. A lot. You can ask Sara if you don't believe me. There was a hot minute there where she was the only person I knew who wasn't actively trying to kill me. And after everything that's gone on today... I'd make that same choice again. Because even when you make mistakes, no matter how big those wind up being, you never stop trying to fix things. I'm proud to call you my friend.

So just... eat your god damn dessert already. Trust me, the whole mopey starving routine doesn't help."

Princess-Champions of Hyperborea

There's a low growl building in Mittens' throat, and she can't get it to stop. Azora probably thinks its a purr, the dumb brat. Mittens glares at her with barely restrained loathing as her hair gets mussed up almost as badly as her fur. At least, she's trying her best to get that across. It's really hard to get a good glare on when your face keeps getting scrunched up and your head flopped from side to side on somebody's lap, just in case you've never been in that position. So that low, warbly rrrrRrrrrrRRRrrrrr is what she has to rely on.

Eupheria's curses are pretty hit or miss, anybody would agree. Mostly miss. They're all cruel and pointless attempts at humiliation with only barely more effort than the old "party favor filled with snakerchiefs" gag. Was Rita's curse meant to make Mittens love her any less? Pointless. Petty. Ridiculous. But ohhhhh, scritches and warm sunny days, did she ever nail Azora. Selfish, greedy, short-sighted, petty, and utterly devoted to the only person anywhere in Hyperborea who didn't deserve that kind of loyalty. Mittens tried her best to feel bad for Azora, being cursed the same as the rest of them. She even tried laying out the groundwork to win her over and give her the chance to start atoning and fit in like a princess ought to. For Kazelia's sake. She tried harder than almost anybody would have asked of her.

RRRRRRRRrrrrrrrrrr. Every stab of pity is met with a fresh surge of vindication. This was too nice a punishment for what she did to Rita. Rrrrrrrrrrrrrrr! Her lips curl up and she shows her sharp teeth. Learn how to pet a cat! RRRRR! Gonna bite you! Gonna hiss so much! Gonna bite while hissing and you're gonna deserve the itchy mark on your hand!

...A Princess is always beautiful, Mittens.

She forces the growl to stop. Covers her teeth again like the goodest of girls. And then she looks up at her tormentor with the sweetest, my soulful eyes she's ever used in her life. Even Momma's never seen her lay it on this thick.

"Well obviously I'd only want to sit in the best lap in all of Hyperborea," she sings with vapid sweetness, "But that'll never happen if we can't both get those apples before someone else does!"

Oh no! Queen Halcyon please hire a royal acting coach, nobody would ever be stupid enough to buy this.

"Come on, weren't we the best team in history? We won even with dumb old Adila weighing us down! And aren't I your faaaaaaavorite kitty? Don't you want to be allowed to keep me? Come on, all you have to do is let me up and it'll be as easy as taking crown jewels from Jedad. Because we're partners, you and me. Princess and her knight. Doesn't that... doesn't that make us... friends?"

Mittens flashes as dazzling and charming a smile as she's capable of, while her lights twinkle for that little extra something. Bit by bit, chip by chip, if it takes her another hundred years in this labyrinth, even if it's only possible because of these curses... she's gonna find her way inside that heart. And that is how she'll get her revenge.

Masks: Resurrection Roundabout

"I, I, I, I... uh... um."

Euna hasn't hit the same level of sweats that Sasha has, but that's only because that aura isn't being aimed directly at her right now. It turns out knowing the trick does precious little to help you avoid its effects. She can feel her hair growing damp and clinging to the back of her neck, and her uniform starts to feel sticky and unpleasant against every bit of her skin. Her heart pounds out staccato while her stomach feels like it's full of icy snakes. Fuck. This is a double shower day. Maybe even triple.

"Y-Your Excellency, I..."

Euna swallows while she (against her better judgment) starts undoing the Shogun's bindings. Show of trust, you know? But there's a lot of them, so it takes her a while. Thank goodness. She tries, harder than she's ever tried in her life, to smile. It... would be generous to say she gets even as close as a grimace.

"P-Princess Alina told me I should apologize to you!" she shouts. Great, now she's blushing on top of everything, "A-and... and she was right!"

The full weight of that stare comes swinging around to Euna. She takes it like a champ and manages to only throw up in her mouth. She swallows, exactly the kind of disgusting, acidic feeling you associate with talking about magical crystal princesses. Oh don't even raise that eyebrow, like you have any room to be skeptical, Ms. Floating And Fear Aura Inducing Daimyo!

"I mean it!" she chirps, a little more strongly this time, "On my last mission, I... you know what it doesn't matter! I should've, you know when I... y-y-you told me to take care of my heart. And, and, I, and I... didn't. Made you pay the price for it. M'sorry. But, uh, try, trying to fix it, and uh... I'm, trying to fix..."

She stops fumbling at the ropes long enough to drop into a full bow. One of those full on, head on the ground-type supplication thingies. She has no idea what she's doing, ok? Her form is terrible. It's probably more insulting than if she hadn't tried. Blushing, she shoots back up in the space of an eyeblink and snaps the ropes clean off with a knifehand.

"I wanna be friends," she blurts out stupidly, "That's all I've ever wanted since I was, like, six! So I beat her up for you! And we've been looking for you, together! And, and, and I don't wanna leave anymore and I... please! Please!"

She's got tears welling in her eyes yet a-fucking-gain, and they've got nothing to do fear or adrenaline. She stares straight into those impossibly red eyes and lets herself get burned all over again.

Princess-Champions of Hyperborea

Mittens stares blankly at the light sitting in her palm. What is... this? What is this, what is this, what is this? Violet flashes like a beacon while Indigo pulses in the spaces between that flare while Green swirls about inside of her eyes, singing the song of reunion and joy. Her fuzzy little ears flicker this way and that; she can just barely still hear crystal song, even though her heart is soft and beating again. Her tiny mewl is piteous.

She doesn't move, even when Kazelia slumps into the grass and the Cage That Walks starts carrying her away. Flowering vines squeeze themselves ever tighter around her slender frame, crushing her into submission as her Red blazes furiously in her palm. She's not struggling against it at all. She squeaks when her bindings start to crush her, but she just sits there, watching her Light watching her. Ribbons of red light start snaking their way around her waist, down her legs, up her arms. Where they touch her, vines are neatly snipped or burned away.

She squeezes her eyes shut. She must be the dumbest princess in the history of Hyperborea. What was she doing, giving up when her love was being threatened? What was she doing, sitting there when her precious friends and family were in trouble? What was she doing, trying to quit? Didn't she realize by now how bad at that she was?

She closes her paw around her Red. Adila is here with her, the dragon's strength surging through this fuzzy kitty body. She can still see Kazelia behind her, still so brave and beautiful no matter what Eupheria tries to do to her. Mittens takes a deep breath. She bares her fangs, and she stands up.

She flexes, and her bindings are no match for the strain. Her back arches and her right leg rises high into the air, flowers and leaves and chains flutter away from her in a little garden storm as she rises into a perfect vertical split. Her left leg tenses and she leaps, flips, and brings her sharp claws crashing through the floor of the cage. She drops through the new hole and goes rolling, rolling, rolling away from her mobile prison, back to where she needs to be right now. Back to Kazelia.

When she pops up, she quickly snatches the snakerchief out of her mouth and smiles at its tiny squirms of frustration in her hand.

"Here, go bother someone else."

And with the tiniest flicker of mischief on her face, she reaches down and introduces her little friend to Kyouko. Ok! That's that problem solved forever, finally. She sits on the ground, watching the pair of sleeping princesses and huffing to catch her breath. Red gets exhausting pretty quickly when you've gotten used to not using it, ok? Just give her one minute, and she'll pluck these two up and carry them appleward. And then after that she'll--

Eugh. And agh. And yick. How did she get this dirty? Her ears twitch irritably, and she shakes her head once, twice. Bleh. Bleh, she says! Well if no one's watching, and she's catching her breath anyway...

Mittens' rough little tongue sneaks out of her mouth, and she starts licking her paw with barely a hint of shame. Lick, lick, lick! Then she brings it up to her face and rubs down the length, smoothing out her ruffled fur, unmussing her hair, generally setting things back to the way they're supposed to be.

Oh, and not looking up at all. Whyever would she need to?

[Overcome (with Hope, thanks Kazelia): 1, 4, 5 = 9. This is temporary]

Masks: Resurrection Roundabout

Euna feels so stupid right now.

Here she is, fist raised above her head and legs dropped low into a defensive stance, ready for a fight! With the most startled, frightened deer expression that has ever graced her awkward face. She tries to stand back up and stop presenting a threat when a burning lance of animalistic survival instinct goes shooting through her spine and makes her hunch down even tighter. She winds up half stepping forward and half stepping backward at the same time, scrambling like she's suddenly forgotten how her limbs work. She half turns her head to give Sasha a 'help me' look but ack! No no no, don't look away! She snaps right back to attention, heart pounding in her chest. This is how she dies, isn't it? After everything else, it's this.

She forces herself to take a cautious step forward. And then another one. She's acting like she's approaching a wounded predator, which in all honesty, she is. Ok, ok, ok. Come on, just one more step. Fuck's sake, cyberlimbs don't tremble like this, how does she do that?

Finally, she manages to kneel down. Her breathing's so shallow and panicked that it's starting to blur her vision. And in the end she has to flip to skillwires to get her hand to get close enough to work the ball gag out. She comes closer to failing than she should, given how wildly the Shogun is thrashing about.

"No--" WOAH WOAH WOAH NO NO DANGER ABORT EUNA KIM ABORT, "D'yuuuuhhhhhh, um, Y-Your Excellency? Are, are you ok?"

She helps the Shogun into a sitting position and stares very fixedly at that glorious shoulder. Her hand hovers over the rest of the ropes, hesitating before she risks unleashing freeing her personal hero.

Princess-Champions of Hyperborea

Mittens slumps against the back of the Cage That Walks. She can tell it's the back because of... oh, what does it matter?

Rita ran right past her. Rita looked into her eyes and didn't say a word. Rita forgot her. Rita...

She's so stupid. What a stupid cat you are, Mittens. She really, she, she, she really thought that, she--

What does it matter?

Rita forgot she loved Mittens. Mittens will forget she loves Rita before long, too.

There's just

no point

no point in

no point

no point in fighting anymore.

She doesn't cry. Tears are for people with hope.

She wishes this stupid light in her eyes would just go out

Just stop shining, you little idiot

stop

please just

stop

so she can rest.

Cat's as good as crystal, right?

Could've stopped this, Mittens.

Mommy gave her Gold. Trusted her with her invincible heart. And what did she do?

She let Momma forget her love, too.

Her fault. Her fault. Had the power.

Didn't stop it. Her fault.

Mittens slumps against the bars of the Cage That Walks, not bothering to struggle against her bonds. Catch her this many times and you get to keep her.

Everyone

forgot they loved her.

She tries to squeeze her eyes shut, but she can't do that right either. And that defiant green light dances wildly inside them.