Quincunx

Rydia grins evilly. "I have only one thing to say: Dora dull and not so nice--" She's interrupted by a horde of banquetteers fleeing the Pen, hands over their ears and screaming to block out the noise.

Tzimfemme trotted along the edge of the stage with a scratchpad, cross-checking some of the bachelors on display with the Angels of Apocalypse informal male divvying-up agreement: Elrohir (Peredhil territory of Signe, however--if Elrohir is an Uninterested, territory of Tzimfemme. Inquire) Gyrfalcon (territory of Signe, however she's willing to share) Nuncio (see also Elrohir, keyword Unmarriageable) Orlan (territory of SteelDragon) (scratched out--And I never paid for it in my life) Peredhil (managed to be claimed by all, by bowing out of consideration--and thus territory for the one who was out of previous consideration. Territory of Signe by general early Pen custom) Regel (territory of Wench--perhaps bribable with chocolate instead of extra geld?) (in a smaller hand) Wyvern (territory of Signe, also pet) Along the margin was the rough work for calculating tips, an EQ-bid-point-to-geld conversion, "Toblerone 0.9g/g?", and a note to self to get more income-providing territory.

Well, that's what comes of trying to pass off Carp's work as my own, I suppose. *writes "Plagiarism is bad" on a scrap of paper, later to be inserted into the Tips jar* Call me Tzim, Rydia, Minta, be weird and call me Rose, just don't call me late to dinner.

Hmm hmm hmm. . .Before I get my heart set on bidding for a character, is there a color limit per figurine? or are they painted and therefore the question is silly?

Sonnetician for hire. (Yes, I fabricated that word, but it's in iambics, so pphhhhffft.) I disobey rhyme schemes in Petrarchan sonnets and hate the abrupt feel of the Shakespearean, therefore am applying for contemporary, to see what the looser form might accomplish. Give me a topic, I will add to it, with mysticism or pedagogue.

. . . . ! ...; .--..., ... . . [Edit: I apologize, but so far there is no forum for Mr. Bunny's language in the Manor of Tongues, so this goes here.]

Higgeldy-piggeldy Name is quite dactyly Unless you speak like she Does, then it's not-- If she's not known to thee, Go read of Araby, Whimsical rounds with he Who's better forgot. ***** One son of the wind, Who urges the words' wind to howl Inside our skulls.

Rydia smiles and holds up a light green silk scarf and a tightly rolled parchment. "I bet I can hit the target blinded AND with the target obscured!" she announces. Ayshela looked dubiously at the winged elf but nodded and pushed the jar forward. Rydia picked out a newly minted coin from her pouch, buffed it with the cloth, admired the shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiny finish, put it back in her pouch, selected and buffed a less enthralling coin, and paid. She then stepped to the target and pinned the unrolled parchment onto it, written side outwards; she went back to the throwing line and knotted the scarf over her eyes, leaving her long, keen ears free. She speared the first ball on her right ear and picked a cloisonne carp off of her outfit. "SPAM!" she shouted, flicking her ear forward and tossing the trinket into the air. It twisted and transformed into the Anti-Spam Carp, which turned tail-upwards and batted the ball squarely into the parchment. Stick jabbed his stick into the backdrop and hung on desperately, only dropping to waist-depth in the water, while Wyvern grabbed at Stick's belt to keep from going under completely yet again.

Tzimfemme scribbles "don't spit into the wind" onto a scrap of parchment and inserts it into the Tips jar.

Wine Me, Dine Me. . . (dedicated to Death Rock) I took him to a restaurant with atmosphere to spare, I could've had a better time by watching passing air, His hands were big as dinner plates, he ate the portions whole, He looked me in the eye and grumbled "babe, this place's a hole." The waiter tiptoed with dessert, I swore that I would pass, But he kicked over the table, put those hands upon my ass, He grabbed a slice of chocolate mousse and shoved it in his face, He looked me in the eye and rumbled "babe, i hate this place." I tasted musk and chocolate as we kissed to stop the sea, He tossed me on the table and we shattered crockery, I went straight for his denims and I heard the zipper go, He looked me in the eye and told me-- you don't need to know!

Terror in white fog. Nothing solid, nothing sane-- Only you are real.

Tarot Yes! True, my lord, the deck can cut both ways, It's sharpened twice, a cold judicial sword Now pointed at those traitors and their siege, As you have come to gloatingly foresee, For you are here, and just as blind as me-- no, we're not equal--it's a turn of phrase-- my fingers slipped, the deck has flipped--my lord, that's not the card I meant to draw, my liege! (I preened him with a different card in hand, can't bear to look--what landed up, instead? I've done this for three lords and twenty years and it was never lawful in this land. I've seen their righteous deaths on rebel spears but said it not, and now they'll spear my head.)

Tzimfemme reappears on the carnival grounds with eight empty pie tins. These being stacked neatly on the Kissing and Carousing booth counter, she turns her attention to the auction board, and tacks up a new notice: Wanting To Bid upon: Persona rentals--to sample a person's soul for X hours where X = geld/5. Long term persona rental price sheets upon request.

eeeeeeeeeEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE The sugar golem's voice dopplered back up the scale, then dashed past the booth again with Minta an' one of her favorite spectres in pursuit! "Come back sugargolem! You're not one of those icky cootieplane sugargolems are you?" she squeaked, waving around a blob of conjured darkness while trying to line up a shot.

"AAAAAAAAAUGH!!" Tzimfemme flung herself at the stack of chocolate cream pies awaiting a target. "You're wasting perfectly good chocolate! This can't go on!" She hastily loaded the entire stack of pies into a mini-portal that popped into existence, tossed 80 gold at the jar without really aiming, stretched the portal out to human size, and hopped through it.

Harr harr! On the first reading of this, I thought that the narrator was actually part of a scam! I mistook the misgivings when she called David for the third time. It's a misperception that cleared up on the second reading, but keeps coloring my view of the story.

(At this point, the entire scene in the Recruitment Office draws back to simply be an image projected on a screen, projected by fiber optic mana impulses passing through the eye-piece of recording, cross-referencing, self-speculating binoculars. All of this is perched atop a lab table in the Pen's science tower, along with Dr. Tzimfemmestien in a push-up labcoat ((and not much else)).) Now here we are seeing the Inverse formation of the poetries! It is of the same pattern as the poem about writer's block, or the poem about not wanting to sing! Very well established, it is! (She thwacks the image of the application with a wooden pointer. Wind whooshes through the Recruiter's Office from the pointer's invisible passing, startling Xanthus, but not having much effect on scaly Wyvern.) However! More established it is for Wyvern to extract gold by all means possible, also by multiple means which are not possible! We have not seen him be dissuaded by less than the Anti-Wyvern Mallet, most lately in the hands of Melba the secretary, of which negotiations for the using of the mallet are as hazardous as separating Wyvern from geld! Reverse the hyperoculars and we shall see! (The image on the wall wavers, then flickers backwards in 8-mm film quality, replaying the hundreds of schemes Wyvern has deployed in the Recruiter's Office, and the hundreds of ways they've failed. . .with poor Xanthus still being displayed seated and bewildered in the chair as it blows up around him, disintegrates from underneath him, gets pawned for bail money, tagged as evidence, carted away by men in black coats while leaving him behind, carted away by men in white coats while leaving him behind. . .)

Time passes. . .more time passes. . .good grief, quite a lot of time passes. . . Tzimfemme broke the surface of the chocolate lake, gasping, "Much as I hate to admit it. . .I can't exist on chocolate alone. . .air. Air has to come into the equation somewhere. . ." She latched onto Orlan's leg and patted one hand on her chest, either choking or utterly fehrklempt. Orlan looked down at her in sexy, sexy incomprehension, then looked over at his pants. Stick had raced back to the pool, lifting double-handfuls of chocolate and pouring it into random suit pockets, panting, "must! save! the chocolate!!!!!!!" first very rapidly, then drawling out each word over a full minute. Wench lay at poolside with a towel wrapped around her head, a white chocolate facial-mask, and Mr. Bunny sprawled out in her lap, getting scratched behind his ears. He lifted his right ear and remarked, ". . ." "I don't think he is," Wench frowned, and sipped on a frozen Sucker Punch cocktail. Mr. Bunny was proven right when a pod of orcas surfaced in the chocolate, balanced Orlan and Tzimfemme gently on their snouts, pushed them out at poolside, and began patrolling the perimeter of the pool. Tzimfemme dived back in and rode out again on a chocolate spray from a well-timed surfacing. She lunged at the chocolate again and was flipped back on shore by a tail fluke. Orlan turned up the charm and waded. . .I mean strutted out into the pool, where lovestruck female orcas swept him up between their fins and propelled him out to deep waters for a tete-a-tete. The naked mage was left staring out over the chocolate waters, thwarted by not knowing how to swim. "Hell with this. I'm going to grab a glass of punch," she muttered, to save face. ***** Princess sat on one end of buffet table #12, moodily slurping a giant turreen of live mutant pirahna gumbo. The young draconian's brothers and sisters all got cool dragon hoard names--Adamantite, Goldbullion, Magicfirestick--but she was the last in the family, and the squishy human was the only thing left. Plus all the auraks kept playing pranks on her, like door illusions in solid walls, and teleporting her to all sorts of random places which most of the time were just illusions anyway. A wyvern at the mercy of a group of trolls grunting "Wes not gets PAID enough for dis"?! Those aurak dorks didn't even try to fool her any more. ***** Rydia admired WrenWind's glossy yet surprisingly active hairdo. Her curls were scurrying about and rearranging themselves constantly, spurred to hyperactivity by the thin coat of congealed Sucker Punch Xaious had used for a styling aid. Starlight's hair was perfect as always, with echoes of his doppelganger's DEP, despite being constantly flattened under his hood. Appy's hair towered higher than Rydia could reach and the bluebirds twittered at random, fluttering and shedding bright downfeathers which now flecked her hair with blue. Even Zool's toupee was friskier than usual, rippling left and right and, yes, even doing the macarena to the subsonic heavy-metal rhythms. She checked her reflection in the surface of a nearby shiny. . .OOOooOoooOOOooooo, shiiiiiiiiny. . .her hair was piled perfectly, but seemed so. . .lifeless by comparison. This wouldn't do! She disengaged herself distractedly from the dance and made a beeline for the nearest bathroom, rummaging in her purse and not paying much attention to the carousel in the way. ***** Something pursued Elvish out of the Conservatory doors, seized him from behind, and dragged him back into the party with a single slimy-skinned arm. It cast a broad, 20-foot-tall, ichor-dribbling (Elvish flipped through his deck of cards with mounting urgency), heavily-breathing, greatsword-wielding (oh damn, it was a pinochle deck, he'd taken out the dispell cards), pink-sugar-shedding shadow. Also, the topmost bit of the shadow was poking him with a sticky, sugary pole. "Elvish!" Minta squeaked. "Can do one of your Norrath spells pleaseplease! I wanna be grown into a GIANT GNOMIEZILLA! Me an' Double Frubble are gonna oooooooooooo whozat!" She swiveled around, catching sight of Kaitlyn. "YAY! Somebody new to play with!" Minta reached down, pried open the death slaad's mouth with the brawlstick, grabbed hold of its tongue, and started to rappel down its front. Double Frubble, in the meanwhile, peered over everyone's shoulders, dropped Elvish, then shuffled to gain speed and shifted into a thunderous hopping gait. Knight had been a dominion once, and Minta hadn't told the slaad to stop hunting dominion. . . ***** One security ogre reached down to scratch his butt, forgetting about the frying pan underwear. SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAK SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAK SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAK The golden gosling panicked, leaped out of the wooden bowl (splattering borscht everywhere), and ran under Melba's polyester pant hems for protection. Melba just tut-tutted and kept on leafing through a photo album slightly older than the average elf, looking for a long-forgotten recipe from her circle, for a carrot cake large enough to last through an entire meeting. . . ***** Savage Dragon lurched by Rosemary, seized her, planted a kiss on her cheek, then wandered off looking puzzled, with a small army of frogs hopping at his heels. She frowned--none dared usually to approach so close--but was then caught off-guard by Mira stumbling past, kissing her hand, looking relieved, and proceeding along with a slightly smaller army of frogs hopping at his heels. Aleyn stared at her, looking as baffled as she, then edged up to her, tossed a kiss at her, and didn't stay around to notice where it landed. Rosemary looked troubled; no good could come if everyone continued to seek their being consumed by her. The night wore on, and every frog seeker in the building mistook her beaded cloak and dress for princesses' gowns. A lack of mystery collected in the air around her, a black hole of drunken disappointment. ***** "Allllllllwlwlwlright, you. Thingyperson. OFF! The stage," slurred Tzimfemme, leaning heavily on a microphone stand. Prince didn't even bother stopping his song to shoo her off. Tzimfemme was, however, nothing if not persistent. If she wanted the stage, she got the stage. If she wanted to steal someone's underwear, she stole someone's underwear. If someone vacated the stage because he was chasing his recently filched and flung underwear, and was trampled underneath a sea of stilettos and platform demi-boots whose owners fought over said underwear, that was simply economy of motion. "And remember. It's not the having, that matters. It's the GETTING!" She'd never drank alcohol before, and hadn't really intended to start tonight. Ever since the DEP incident, water and chocolate were her only beverages. However, the Sucker Punch had been heavy with sugar, and Tzimfemme had gulped it trying to clear her throat of the scalding taste. Now she was getting overlapping vision of the Pen universe, Archmage Terra, Norrath, and a few other places. It was disconcerting, and she felt a warm sympathy for Rosemary, for all the seers who talked out of her mouth, wasn't it all the same mouth really? "Wasn't everyone really the same at heart? Why can't we all just get along?" She hugged the microphone tightly, marveling at the relevance of that booming voice. It was talking about what she had been thinking about-- Jirah reached into the flames under a chafing dish on table #6, dawn over Lavastorm, a hellhound kennel, a wildfire in eastern Washington (Tzimfemme squinted, and managed to resolve her sight to him reaching through an indoor flame), and extracted a fine, shimmering saffron silk. Tzimfemme drew herself up haughtily, stepped off the stage, fell six feet to the floor without apparent injury, and weaved her way over to him. "Excuse me," she stated. She collected herself a bit before reaching for the fabric and burying her face in it. "Merelas. Being worn at the time," she announced, then pushed the briefs back at Jirah. "Would you be a, a gentleman, and give those back, I want a turn." Tzimfemme grinned, then flexed and cracked her fingers.

All along the railings, stuck in place with dabs of freshly chewed gum, perched Happy Unbirthday balloons stuffed with whipped cream, marshmallow fluff, butterscotch syrup, caramel syrup, cherries in syrup, krispies, multicolored sugar sprinkles, chocolate sprinkles--Minta had exhausted seven zombies just having them inhale all the goodies and then exhale into the balloons--chopped mixed nuts, crumbled Oreos, chunks of cookie dough, whole marshmallows, coconut flakes, toffee chips, semisweet chocolate chips, white chocolate chips, peanut butter chips, and caffeinated peppermints. She leaned far over the railing, toes perched on the rail with a skellie holding her collar for balance, hugging an armful of balloons and waiting for Tzimmy to swim just a lil bit to the left. . . "OOOoooooooooooo hihihihihihihihi!" The neato necro gnomie girl waved wildly, seeing Tempestt and his dino-thingy scarfing down two ends of a roast beef, ham, and pastrami panini. The balloons slipped out of her grasp and soared away from the chocolate pool: one exploded on contact with Snake's face and drenched him in syrup, two popped on the sharp corners of Zool's frame, one bounced off of Mira's upturned elbow and landed all over Twister Green with a burst of multicolor sprinkles, one zipped through a briefly opened shadow path and rolled to a halt against barrier spells in Yui-chan's home. ***** Tzimfemme swam through the chocolate with lazy, open-mouthed strokes. Wonder if I could dredge up that nekkidness enchantment for the pool at least, she thought as she swam over to the dark chocolate tap and increased the flow. It wouldn't do to have this sullied by clothing. Grinch would roll over in his grave, or at least one of his feet would. 'Nekkid despite all the Whos down in Whoville' indeed. . .and so was most of Angels of Apocalypse. . .and so was most of A Tribe Called Joat, although that was less due to the Tzimcults than to getting eighty lunatics to agree on a uniform. . . .For that matter, Tzimfemme had never sworn allegiance to a guildleader that DID wear underwear. Funny, that. Her eyes were shut as she lay under the running tap, floating on her back, but she still turned her head when he stopped at poolside. Tzimfemme waded over to the stairs and stepped out of the pool. The chocolate was too thick to drip from her hair when she shook her head, instead puddling slightly at her feet as it ran down her skin. "Hey, Orlan." Orlan scooped her up (the chocolate refusing to stain his suit) and tossed her back into the pool a split second after she stole his underwear and winged it sideways into the undies pile, then dived in after her. His suit remained standing obediently at poolside. ***** Like the lifelines of a thousand spiders, the silver strands ran from person to person to Rosemary, feathery but becoming visible to a few others besides herself. Above the multitude of new princes and princesses, they clung together like cotton candy with a few significant holes in the floss. Demigods knotted together into a sign of power which floated across the wrong three dimensions. Even the stars lent threads to the party, moored to the telescopes and astrolabes as they were. She counted the beads along one spiral of her surcoat and judged the time until equinox, then hurried to each of the living nexuses: Peredhil standing in a gap between all, the perfect zero of a circle of a sphere of eternal centripetal being; Xaious adrift in time and multiverse, the only one here who could reach her own zero-point; the Dreamer, whose fusion she had witnessed, and maybe midwifed, if you so counted being a single female step away from that zero-point where the Zadowns had now never been. To each of these she drifted, and spoke, when the light overtakes the dark, watch over one. She left Minta's darkwood daggers sheathed safely in the lapels of Xaious' jacket, slipped Tzimfemme's flail into a pocket of unlaw tethered to the Dreamer, and presented Rydia's coiled whip to Peredhil with no concealment. ***** Forward right, step right, pivot, step left, backward left-- Rydia's skirt flared and sequins sparkled during the turn, flashing from above and below Starlight's arm. Boaz worked himself into the dance on the opposite side from Joat. Forward right, step right, pivot, step left, backward left-- "It's good to see you. . .two. . .here, thought you would still be in Norrath--" he began, while the few dozen froglok princes and princesses paired off in a line with the quartet-- Forward right, step right, pivot, step left, backward left-- "--but you must have come out to see me, 'cause you like me better than Joat." Forward right, step right! SLAPSLAPSLAPSLAPSLAP! Boaz and Joat failed to step along with the frogloks' leaps and were clobbered by several dozen webbed appendages. Starlight absently generated a forcefield which repelled amphibipeds, and they formed a wake of fallen dancers as the dance got more wild. ***** The golden gosling paddled around in one of the trolls' half-eaten borscht bowls. Melba would be livid when she found out Glogg had taken bites out of the bowl (and worse yet, not finished his supper), so he had, in a burst of trollish intellect, placed it behind her. Mother Goose hadn't noticed that either--she was incensed about the hundreds of partygoers who had materialized and not a ONE had offered the teensiest bit of courtesy, let alone admittance fee. These Pen duckies would let everything go to seed if she didn't help.

You've made me like a form I usually don't like--all of the many line breaks in this poem feel natural, a slide show of phrases. On the first reading, didn't see much of a message, but thought that this fit with a poem about channel surfing. On the second reading, thought I caught a glimpse of a real life quandary. On the third reading, stopped the remote and studied the lines. . .Just two layers of reality but well-combined. I can only make one suggestion: As is, the poem might not age well with what I think are specific programs' names in the final lines (and is a tiny stumbling block even now, to this reader who is unfamiliar with current television). The rhyme is correct, I think the implications are correct: just know that the piece will be forever dated.

Question is, are those also your bass-playing pants?

Stranded! Tzimfemme jabbed her elbows into the seat, trying to prod some comfort out of it. Everything had gone as well as she could have hoped; one short sprint with her satchel swinging wide, one muttered apology as the satchel thudded into the drab's abdomen, and the child with Minta's genes was good as dead. This nonmagical world simply wasn't ready for true necromancy--and gods-be-damned, Minta belonged to her, not some subservient woman! So the little one was safe, yet Tzimfemme herself was tangled in clothes and forced to book passage on this world's dog-cart, back to the point where she'd been pulled into this world originally. She sat back (leaning was impossible) and let her mind drift to the better world: nights of AoA craziness where druideen defended the underside of his table against all comers, Wench prying gummy off of her lower leg with a crowbar, Signe and her muscular self-warming carpet of slaves, three months of nothing but troll-speak "Smash! Chocolate! Random BAD! SMASH!". Tzimfemme grinned for the first time in weeks. . .Wench's gift glowed and crackled. . .a connection grew. . . ZIP! "Zip?" "It's Malenko's fault," Tzimfemme supplied. Then she looked around. "Oh hallelujah, I'm back! WENCH! I haven't seen you in forever! How have you! Everybody! And new delicious orange chocolate! And--" Out of the corner of her eye, Tzimfemme spied the pile of underwear. The naked mage grinned maniacally, rose up from the floor, paused, and in a move inspired by countless Bugs Bunny cartoons, dove headfirst into the heap. A frog with a top hat peeped out of Melba's shellaced party hairdo and held up a 6.0 sign. The bluebirds of Appy's hair twittered angrily at the frog, raising a storm of shed downfeathers. Dean's feline familiar batted at a few feathers, then set his sights higher. . . ***** Left, left, right, spin out-- Joat kept pace with the dancing couple. "Rydia," he began, as she spun out to the end of Starlight's arm, glowing like a small sun-- Spin back. Left, left, right, spin out-- "I see that you like him best of all--" Spin back. Left, left, right, spin out-- "But you still like me better than Boaz, right?" Spin back, lean back dramatically with one bedazzling dance slipper at waist height. ***** "Mmmmm," mumbled Tzimfemme, coming up for air with some threads of the Silken Sweets stuck between her teeth. "Delicious. Spiffy. Wonderful. And enough people shirking from delivering their own undies means I'll have plenty to do later!" She leaned down and fished around in the pile, then extracted the bathrobe. "What I'm very interested in at the moment, though, is the justification for removing this, what--rule, exactly," and she laughed wildly. As the trolls scratched their heads and looked for where the No Undies Ogre had gone, Tzimfemme noticed the reek, incorrectly identified it as trollish instead of Happybuddhist, and slunk out of the area to clear her nose. Led by her nose, she wound her way around the Twister game ("Don't be so stressed, Finnius, I promise to not marry you"), upstairs ("Hi, Canid"--this to Tanuchan), among dozens of telescope arrays and one pair of magical recording-editing-x-ray binoculars ("Keeping away from Wyvern, Savage-Dragon? Smart idea, you two look alike to the intoxicated"), downstairs ("MINTA! Stop wasting perfectly good whipped cream! Put those balloons away!"), past the DJ booth with Falcon in tow (she handcuffed him to the turntable and shouted "PLAY 'THE LOVE ROCKET' OR THE POET GETS YOUR JOB!" to DJ Terra Nova), through the mosh pit ("DUDE! GNARLICH! YOUR BEARD'S COMBUSTING, MAN!"), and finally shot out of the mosh pit by the shore of a vast, virgin pool of chocolate, warm and thick as the finest wrestling mud. She tipped back her head and breathed deeply, giddy with chocolate. "I'm almost going to regret this," sighed the naked one, then took three steps' running start and bellyflopped into the pool, mouth wide open.

No time to tell it. I think it's *crackle* Minta's fault though. Rydia's long (but undecorated) ear curled into a question mark, then slumped in defeat. "Probably. . ." She accelerated past the world boundaries. . .again. . .and landed here. Terrible place. No teleportation, no magic generally, and *cracklecrackle* She winced and recoiled from the telescope, which was glinting from the static buildup. It arced from the lens to the table, shocking pink, then the reception cleared up once more. she must have found *crackle* damn me for a wreck of *cracklecrackle* didn't recognize that I was apologizing or why. *crackfizzzzzzzzzzzzzle* don't know the pathways between *crackle* not submit myself to that damned naming magic *fizzzzzzzle* The connection sputtered and died. Rydia was left with a deformed brass tube and the one lens that hadn't shattered from the pressure. She looked up from the slag and found Rosemary frowning, stringing a visible band of silver. . .mana?. . .between herself and the mess. The vampire counted each unmelted fitting, looked through her circled thumb and forefinger at Rydia's eye, counted her earrings aloud, announced, "All is zero, here," and drew another strand from between her pinched fingertips, connecting Rydia and the telescope. "We are connected still. Go, circulate, make everyone turn thoughtfully thus, and spin to us. We cannot peacefully draw together all." Rydia simply took the excuse to flee. ***** Minta woke up with a giant head-splitting yawn. Zombies which had been trying to tiptoe to freedom tumbled back to earth with more-than-inhuman groans of defeat. She rummaged under her mattress, poked a captive wight in the eye, and pulled out. . .seventeen lumps of stickypaper? "Dunno when I got this," she mumbled, and flattened it out over her knee. A few seconds later, she ricocheted out of the room squealing "party party PARTY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!! They're gonna have lotsa sugarsnacks an' fizzypop an' maybe a roller coaster! An' a merry-go-round an' would be neato if we got water balloon wars!" She dodged into a closet and emerged with boxes upon boxes of Happy Unbirthday balloons, then giggled and sprinted towards the elevator updrafts. ***** "Oo! What is this you are doing with the MPD-O-Matic coolant, miss Mara! It is dangerous liquid, it is!" Dr. Tzimfemmestien confiscated the flask and slurped the last few drops out of it, then passed it back to a befuddled Mara. "OOoOoOo, I think I am feeling a change already!" ***** "Tzigg SMASH!" The security trolls let out admiring air-ripping farts. No troll chick was hotter than one who could flatten EIGHT frogs in one swing. Of course, a few machismo trolls had to try for nine. . . .Tzigg tipped another bushel basket of frogs into the automatic pitching contraption. ***** "What is this I feel? I am not interested. You! Stop sniffing back there!" Cambronne perked up his ears but otherwise ignored Katzaniel. ***** Rydia sat on the lowest step of the staircase that led to the observatory, tugging off her usual boots and lacing up a pair of dancing shoes.

Rydia spat into a light green handkerchief, then polished two dust motes off of the lens of the nearest telescope. . .Perfect. . . "Shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiny." She dropped the cloth and admired her upside-down, twinkling reflection. It was a little less twinkly than it should have been, though. Quincuinox Decorations Budget had been slipped under her door earlier that day--blank on one side and Due to budgetary constraints, the birthday girls must provide for the party themselves on the back--and she'd pawned all of her sets of earrings in haste. Wasn't it fortunate that a traveling pawnbroker, with a coat strangely deformed at the back, came around not five minutes later? She stepped away from the freshly polished lens to survey her EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEK Rosemary had rearranged everything! No more uniform shiny glow! The entry queues made spirals and their blinking-light edging all ran towards the center! She'd unscrewed the floodlights from underneath the cut-crystal punch bowls and destroyed them! Game Six of the 5068th Blitzball Championships was now recreated to scale with the Nimball commemorative ice statues! Carp was nowhere to be found! Rosemary herself was advancing with a pocket telescope and jabbing it at her eyes! Rydia? *crackle* Dammit Rydia, give me some assistance here. Rydia's ears perked up in astonishment, then strained to catch the distant voice. She steadied the telescope and adjusted it until Tzimfemme came into focus, seated, clothed, clutching a satchel and swaying every so often. The scene around her either failed to focus or was the most unappetizing shade of grey ever. "Tzimfemme, what's going on???"

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