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Owner	Pose
Hiromi	The present scene on the beach:     Lilian has used alchemy to create a four-story castle with a moat. Regulus created an ordinary four-bucket sand castle, then used a supplied talisman to build a larger castle protecting it. Chuyao He has crafted both defensible terrain and the walls of a fort, in miniature. Haseo made something resembling a cathedral from a game probably no one else played so they can't pin it on him. Arthur has used a section of the beach to make a sand galaxy, though it's too close to the water.     Ember transformed and formed up a central citadel of sand with a surrounding wall. Petra used Nika's borrowed power to build up an ornate castle people can walk inside, though the interior gets chaotic. Marcus and Greta made an ordinary sandcastle while Marcus was distracted with self-defense tips. Nika has not made her own stuff, as yet.     There is a monstrous crustacean a few stories tall being cooked in its shell, and a flat stone over a separate fire grilling meat and vegetables for skewers, both being tended to by two wolf-miko, the more familiar Hisako and the older, less open Sumi. Chie, a younger wolf-miko bereft of responsibilities, has been running around and talking to people.
Hiromi	'Huh? Oh, it's an internet art forum.'     "Oh! It's a place for people to show their art," so she does know what an art forum is, "on the... Internet..." But maybe not that. She's got the look of someone who's going to research it later.     'I'm pretty sure it's the last one.'     Then she freezes up like a cat being picked up by the scruff.     Low and quiet, "There are dangers, <little godling>." The most specific and least immediately understandable thing she's said today that could be understood as a single term -- someone who is both 'a person' and 'a part of the definition of a world,' a part of the blueprint of existence in an abstract, yet material sense. "When you find confusion, seek me. I know these risks and roles."     'Ask nicely.'     Chie takes a few seconds to process Lilian's words, then brightens up with, "Okay!"
Hiromi	With every castle built -- ignoring a few exceptions, for those who haven't built and those who profess a lack of castling -- the competition is ready to begin. This is made obvious by Hiromi taking action, moving about the beach in a slow, strangely deliberate way, a rumble beneath the earth at each step, and then a shifting of the tides.     The difference is most remarkable in Chuyao's case, but the same treatment is given to anyone's creations who match an easily discernible rule, best illustrated by his miniature fortifications. The sand rises, obeying a command perhaps vaguely discernible through Nika's and Petra's sense of communication with it, in 'tone' and 'demeanor,' if not in 'language,' expanding while keeping shape, yet without changing texture and makeup. It is, still, grains of sand, even as each wall and step and gateway is raised to proportion with the one who built it. That proportion of usability is the apparent rule, with nothing needing to be done for a 'castle' that its owner can already enter.     The sea is swept back, the beach extending far out into it, the shape of the coastline changing dramatically in moments. Water shifts and flows, finding channels and surging in. Moats dug by hand are caught in new currents and altered, but not as much as might be expected. The sand is hardened, not quite fused, but more stone-like than before, unwilling to yield to water or gravity, but just as malleable to the talismans handed out by Hisako, along with the other abilities showcased in the last hour.     Sumi takes her turn at setup, traveling the -- now, far more considerable -- distance between each construction to hand out red cloths tied to long, bark-stripped sticks. They're a very ordinary sort of--"Flags. You know this game? Place them where you want."     'I dunno how to make ANYTHING PERMANENT or ANYTHING DEFENDING.'     Arthur's not excepted. Defending his indefensible sand galaxy is still being left up to him. Sumi nods to Chie on her way back to the food, the former adding, "Win or lose, food's after."     One hand raised for attention, Chie explains, like some of capture-the-flag expert (because she is, out of the three wolf-miko present), "Oooone! You can put your flag where you want, if it's in a castle! Twoooo! You can put it in another person's castle, if you're joining their team! Threee! If you seize a flag, you can take it to yours, and then no one's allowed to take it back! It's done!"     Not a lot of time for people to confer or plan is given before her hand drops with a shouted, "Go!"     The fact that people have already started fighting doesn't matter. They got a bit ahead of things, but Hiromi doesn't mind, so the smaller wolves don't, either. No rules about the level of allowed contact have been given, all of that being left to people to figure out on their own. One might make certain assumptions about why that's so.
Ember	Ember does not dismiss the coating of rock that has overtaken his form after creating a circle of quicksand to damage part of Petra's wall.  She damaged his walls, so he thought the return was good enough.  Taking the flag from Sumi, he dives into the earth and then back again near his citadel.   Entering the central building, he makes sure to put his flag as high up into the building as he can, without it being on the outside.  He doesn't know if anyone else besides himself can actually fly, but he wasn't going to chance it.  With his flag set up and his defenses hardened, he walks out to the front of his castle. He eyes the surrounding castles first.  Though it is possible Petra would come for revenge for her walls.  Instead, he decided to wait to see where people would go first.  He decides to play defensively, because if he went on the attack, nobody would be there to defend his castle while he was taking another's flag.   Who would make the first move, he wondered.
Arthur Lowell	> ==>     Arthur's small-yet-infinitely-large sand-galaxy is developing a concentric series of expansionist sand-civilizations, using faster-than-sand technology (bracing against the beach breeze), and are colonizing various solar systems, rising to tremendous sand-heights through great works and movements of people, and then decaying into sand-ruin through "great men" and movements of the powerful, in sand-cycles of Sand Dark Ages and Sand Golden Ages. Within the pocket sand-verse, thousands of sand-generations and dozens of sand-nations have come and gone. Sand-Dyson-Spheres lie derelict at the hearts of fallen sand-empires, while richly vibrant sand-cultural-tapestries thrive in diverse (multiple silicate types) sand-societies that uplift their sand-poorest for the betterment of all.     Anyway, that's what is somehow known by anyone who looks too close and too long at the minutiae of the sand galaxy. It's a bit fucked up that this is so close to the tidal line and will wash away at high tide. That must be the motivation, at least, for some of the sand-fleets of sand-von-Neumann Berserkers that have amassed at the rim of the sand-galaxy. They are proportionally tiny and proportionally vulnerable and, don't look too close but a sand-society has unified behind a lone sand-space commander of a young upstart sand-species to usurp the sand-von-Neumann Berserkers, who have been too cruel in their for-the-greater-sand-good efforts to defend the sandverse.
Storm Investigators	"oldquote"I also specifically created these with water crystals, "Water crystals... What a clever application." Marcus assumes based entirely on Ember's explanation, nodding thoughtfully after a moment. "I'll have to see if the Foundation has anything I could use for that. Perhaps... Would something in a hat be enough for being outside like we are now?" "Numbers? Are you having some sort of jump-off?" "Ah? O-oh, I meant regarding the Foundation lacking in double-jumpers." Marcus replies to Lilian quickly, briefly caught off guard before looking at her in awe. "There would be yourself, Miss Sonetto, Miss Matilda one day, perhaps myself after that..." A pause, as she tries to figure out who else works for to the Foundation AND is also capable of double-jumping. "Perhaps Miss Regulus, too, if she were to formally sign on after... Everything clears up." She adds, both audibly and visibly uncertain on that if. "I couldn't even begin to tell you about the intricacies of the politics of the Foundation at the adoption of policy level." "Even the politics of smaller groups can be intense. For something the size of the Foundation... I can only imagine how much worse it would be to navigate all that. Then I suppose... I should wish you all-" "That's a nasty accusation." "It'd be pretty tough for Vertin to know about much of what's going on while she's stuck sleeping forever, though.")] "Huh? Was it not a...?"  More confused than ever, Marcus looks from Lilian to Regulus. It doesn't take long to piece it together, and then there's a slightly deeper sag of her shoulders. "I-I see. Thank you for clarifying." The unease intensifies, and she doesn't know what to do with any of it besides wringing her hands into her jacket. "If Regulus starts double jumping all over you, Marcus, make sure you wear a helmet." Thankful for the diversion, Marcus turns to Petra with a rapid nod. "Y-yes, of course. I've already made sure to keep one nearby when I practice myself. Um... But I don't believe Miss Regulus would be so careless, right?" She still has some faith left!
Holly Asturias	A day at a beach sounded fantastic. Holly has never been to one! It sounds so novel and relaxing, and like a big change of scenery. After the Manus, the rebellion, and her own troubles back home...     She really can't refuse.     But she's late! She spent so long fussing about the swimsuit (it's her first! courtesy of White) and then packing sunscreen because Lilian seemed so certain she might *combust* in the heat of the beach sun (which is different from regular sun?) and...     "Gigantic sand castles..."     That's not what she was expecting at all! The Revenant is drawn by the scent of the cooking food, which would lure her visually even with no smell. Giant crab! Hard to miss.     As she approaches, with her basket full of banal sundries, she makes herself as hard to miss as the meal-to-be. Black and purple, as Petra predicted; her swimsuit is a slightly skirted top purple, with low-worn little sleeves just above her elbows, and a simple side-tied purple bottom with a short, almost fully transparent silky sarong over it. Black and gold sandals, the usual ribcage-like supports under her breasts like a metallic corset, and the whole of her collar piece too. The only gold she's missing is her crowd, replaced by a similarly shaped black hat instead.     It's Hisako and Sumi she'll be meeting first, setting her basket down and cheering towards the constructions.     "A million apologies for being late! But my, it seems the view'll be better from here anyway! A castle-building competition..."     Then the beach changes, and Sumi takes off to distribute red... flags? Are those flags? For the... game?     "Go Lilian! Go Petra!"     There's no one else especially familiar to cheer for!     And so she defaults to cheering for those two from the sidelines, and entirely happy to get to watch this from a safe distance.     Maybe even try some of that crab, after!
Storm Investigators	Eventually, the castles start to change, but Marcus doesn't notice right away. She does spot Hiromi moving around, but she doesn't quite make a connection between that and the rumbling at first. Greta does quirk an eyebrow slightly at the shifting sands. It's when the size of the castles change that both of them pay real attention, with Marcus backing up quickly to give the castles a wider berth than Greta does with her brief shuffle. With Chie stating the rules for the whole contest, the pair look at the castle that was mostly put together by Greta, and then they both head right on in through the single giant arch of a gate! "Marcus, castle assessment?" "Defensibility is low, even with just the one entrance. The walls can be scaled easily, and our ability to contest anyone else's in taking the flag is limited." "Mm. Flag assessment?" "The odds of losing the flag in these conditions is almost guaranteed.No matter where we put it, our flag will be a visible and easy target." "Good, keep going. What do you recommend?" "Hah? U-um... Our greatest chance of success would be to join with someone else in a more defensible position." And so, Greta and Marcus are off on a quest to find a stalwart ally with flag in hand! They approach Chuyao's fort first, with Greta carrying their trusty bucket full of tools while Marcus has been entrusted with the very important flag. "Brother Jianya! May we...? Er. Would you like to form a team for this... Contest?" She pauses, looking to Greta for clarification who nods slowly in return. "Marcus determined our position was indefensible, so we've come seeking an alliance."
Ember	'Water crystals... What a clever application.' Ember looks to Marcus before the capture the flag match to answer her questions and wonder.  "Well, it would keep your head cool.  You would need to apply the crystals to other clothing, but they're only going to do so much.  The material has to be right too, such as tan leather instead of black leather like I am wearing now." "The material is still very important.  The crystals can only modify the material in small ways.  If it's a material not made for heat or not reflective of the sun, then no amount of crystal can counteract that.  It's simple craftsmanship."
Petra Soroka	The fact that Petra has already begun attacking people is entirely for fun-- 'fun' as sincerely meant, not just a smokescreen for 'her own enjoyment'. This is sandcastles! One of the most important things you can do with sandcastles is throw little rocks to punch through the walls, and then fortify them enough until you can't!     Also, she finds Haseo and Ember really annoying, which is why they're her targets. Regulus annoyed her too, so the Silver cannon turns towards her as well, but she's polite enough to accept that the threat of violence prompted Regulus into actually building her castle properly. "As if you've never suffered for fashion. Miss 'slutty pirate'."     Standing on top of her towering sandcastle, Petra leans up against the hardened sand flagpole atop it-- not the one Sumi is handing out, but the one made purely out of sand planted on top of her castle like a playset, the grains automatically color-sorted to make the flag spotty yellow. She mimes out a hook with her hand, and the blob of Silver floating around her contorts into a big menacing hook along with it.     "All my suffering only makes me stronger! It's just correct to suffer for fashion if it makes you *more* contextually appropriate, but not less!"     She points in Ember's direction over top the slumped section of her walls, and the hook swipes through the air way too far away to do anything. "This means war, wet boy! But-- like, not until after I set up!"     Petra hops right off the roof of her castle, performing an unassisted double jump-- to flex on Regulus-- and landing in the sand with a paff. Grabbing her flag, she gets the bright idea to put it right into the throne room of her castle, and so scampers through the giant shell-encrusted front doors that raised out of the earth at her request. On the other side, though, she's just met with a maze of nonsensical passageways that curve in on themselves and slope up and down or end arbitrarily.     "Why'd I fuckin', make this Escherian dream froth shit-- um, ¶Door, please!/Open up!¶"     Once Petra plants the red flag in the heart of her castle, the archway she made closes up behind her. She pats the sand wall on the outside approvingly and says, "Try it like ¶Sand crabs/those little green guys¶ do." Then she blinks and double-takes at the sound of her own wordless speech. "Wait, those are called sand crabs?"     Now, her two enemies are Regulus and Ember, and her audience is Lilian, Nika, Hiromi, and Chie. She can safely assume that Regulus won't make a decisive move off the bat, so she drops out of her castle and runs towards Ember's, Silver streaking through the air behind her like drawn paint. Before reaching the walls of Ember's castle, she looks down at the sand that's undisturbed by anything but her own footprints.     "¶Hey!¶ Wanna ¶Get in on this/Join my team/Give me a lift¶?"     The sand under her feet lurches upwards and throws her mid-run, sending her spiraling through the air before she rights herself. Sailing over the walls and moat of Ember's castle, the Silver forms into the sand-trowel equivalent of an oversized anime sword, shovel handle clutched in hand and the tip burying into the sand wall of the upper floors of his castle when she impacts it.
Arthur Lowell	> Arthur: Plant a FLAG     Arthur plants his FLAG in the galactic core of his huge pocket-galaxy. The many sand-von-Neumann Berserkers are gathering around it, recognizing it as key to their sand-galaxy's survival. The sand-upstart-species and their sand-champion captain are undermining their work at all angles, but the sand-spacebeings are still working their vast machinations.     Anyway, Arthur picks the sand-captain's entire sector up and just lobs it directly at -- oh, Haseo's AFK or something. Alright, he cocks his head and fastballs him at Ember's citadel instead! > [S?] Chosen Sand Champion: Endure six-season Odysseus arc     Arthur's chunk of pocket dimension, wherever it may land in the fortress, is suddenly host to a spatially-compressed and time-compressed journey of desperate returns. Unless Ember can deflect the wandering sand-party, his sandcastle will be kaleidoscoped into a vast civilization-wide construct, casting Ember (or, more likely, Petra since she was right in the way) as the sole mind behind a grand megastructure defending the flag and/or trying to prevent the noble heroic sand-captain from returning home with his prize. Each piece of the structure and all things in it, as well as the items on their person, fractally unfold into vast macguffins with enough complexity to densely serialize an entire season, if used properly. > Sand von-Neumann Berserkers: Go independent     The array of von-Neumann Berserkers, seeing the flags as critical, have surged to attempt to attack Chuyao's fort, using titanic planet-killing weapons (they can disrupt inch-wide sand segments). As a sinister precursor species, they have also manipulated various small bugs on the surface of the beach into working for them, and make use of highly advanced faster-than-sand technology (leveraged breeze) and powerful wormholes (literal holes dug in the sand).     They, too, are on a desperate quest for the flag, understanding, vaguely, that the universal force behind their galaxy's shape will probably be giving more of a reward to whichever group makes more progress on flag-acquisition.
Regulus	''Sonetto can double jump?!'' "Sonetto can double jump??" Regulus startles. "Why hasn't she said anything? Is she, like, so totally effortless at the double jump that she doesn't even think it matters to talk about?" Regulus has no motivation to fight a 'sand galaxy'. She doens't even have much motivation to fight in general. Really, she's mostly motivated to fight when she thinks it's important or she's trying not to die and hse largely went ahead and made a sand castle with the talisman (and waves and sand-orcas and the like) because she was convinced to. Sure, smashing other people's castles are something that happens with sand castles but normally you can do that by kicking at it rather than engaging in open sandfare and she is not entirely convinced that if she gets too close to any of the sand castles she might just get crushed by all the sand. She doesn't have much faith that people are going to worry themselves about how fragile Reguluses tend to be. "Hey at this point the Foundation knows my price." Regulus tells Marcus. "But thanks. Are you friends with Sonetto? Are you two close? Sonetto mentioned introducing me to some friends of hers but it's gonna be a while and now I'm kind of wonderingf who they all are." ''But I don't believe MIss Regulus would be so careless, right?'' "Yeah!" Regulus reassures Marcus. "No way I'd do that until I'm pretty consistent with making the jumps." ''There's no one else especially familiar to cheer for!'' Regulus gives Holly a dire look for not cheering on Regulus, but it's immediately replaced by a goofy tongue out to the side and hapless shrug after. She doesn't actually need to be cheered for here. She does see Petra doublejump as a result, but she doesn't seem bothered by it. She does collect her flag and uses some double jumping of her own to reach the interior of her castle, plant a little flag, and then make her way out of there. ''Petra uses Knowledge: Regulus** to determine she won't take decisive action!'' Regulus doesn't take decisive action. Partly because she's still recovering from all that jumping around, and also because Regulus finds attacking anyone to be pretty daunting. She may be a pacifist but this is also, like, obviously not a real fight and she's trying to figure out how to do this without getting crushed by a galaxy worth of sand or being instantly obliterated by things like 'sand galaxies'.
Hiromi	Sumi's hands are busy as Holly walks up, but Hisako stands to give her a martial salute, back straight and fist not quite touching her opposite palm, both held before her chest. While they haven't met-- "Hello! You must be Holly Asturias." They've been given Concord briefings, in particular.     "Oh, did you bring...?" Standing next to Holly, it's more obvious how few of the wolf-women could be considered 'pale.' Certainly not Hiromi, though Chie, the only blonde, actually is. Whether it goes by age as a rule or by coincidence can't be made clear from this small set. More immediately relevant is the fact that Hisako doesn't recognize what sunscreen is, and is curiously trying, and failing, to read a bottle in an unfamiliar alphabet.     "Feasting's the reward for those who fight," Sumi says, on returning, "but if they decide to share..." So, that's the loophole in the rule.
Lilian Rook	'There are dangers, <little godling>.'     Nika, still staring at Hiromi as if her name may or may not have just been called in class and she's waiting for the teacher to either ignore her or get fussy and repeat it, replies "Okay." like any of it made perfect sense to her. "There's four of us ¶little godlings/world-seeds/celestial mechanics¶ though so is it okay if I ask about their ¶rootlessness¶ as well?"     Shortly after, Chie is pogging about the whole thing, Lilian is putting Nika down and letting her run off again, and today's 'play' is finally announced. Which makes Lilian, at least, worry.     A diagnosable degree of restless paranoid boredom had resulted in her absurd little geomantic castle design (for a certain definition of 'little'. Wanting to see the payoff to that hard work had brought her this far, but she really was not at all sure what she'd be doing with it afterwards. Short-lived in her satisfaction, brief in brushing off a thankful Oreshnika, Hiromi pacing around the beach puts Lilian back on edge like before she'd even come here. She finds herself holding her breath in weighty anticipation, right up to--     'Oooone! You can put your flag where you want, if it's in a castle! Twoooo! You can put it in another person's castle, if you're joining their team! Threee! If you seize a flag, you can take it to yours, and then no one's allowed to take it back! It's done!'     "Oh it's sports!" Lilian says, heaving a sigh of relief.     "Oh. It's sports." she says, a second later. Her relief drains away, and leaves only the dregs of a smile.     She looks to Regulus, then Petra, then Arthur, and then even searches for something in Holly for a little while. Then she raises her voice, with a wincing look on her face, and says "Isn't it a bit unfair for me to be here?"     'Go!'     Lilian makes a noise with her tongue, then breathes back in through her teeth. "I suppose I'll just . . ." She trails off while still holding her flag; just before Nika comes running back up.     "Hey Lilian I've got an idea!"     "Hm?"     "Can I touch the flag?"     "I suppose? What do you mean though?"     "Just watch!"     Nika reaches out. Lilian holds out the end of her flag, watching curiously as Nika picks it up, trots over into Petra's castle, and then sticks her head out of an upper storey window to yell--     "Flag captured! Now you don't gotta play!"     "What do-- What the fuck Nika?!"     "Fell for it!"     "I didn't even say I'd play!"     "Cope."     "I didn't even plant it!"     "Yeah you were literally holding it and I still got it so I guess you're not ¶all-powerful¶ enough to get banned from sports."     "How is that the point?! That's only because--"     "Nope. Too bad. ¶Play lame, win games¶!"     As an absolute afterthought, Nika leans further out to yell "Petra! I'm on your ¶team/wolfpack¶!" in case that wasn't obvious.
Ember	Almost immediately, he's attacked.  The first attack was made by the obvious threat: Petra.  He considers how to deal with her flinging herself to the highest levels of his castle, and obviously looking for the flag itself.  Of course, he's NOT prepared for the second attack, the Heroic Sand Chosen flying straight at his castle.   The last thing he needs is someone running a Greek Epic in his castle.  So first things first... he simply stands in the way of the Chosen, pulling out a knife in his hands, and interposes himself between the Chosen and his goal.  He swings the blade up, aiming to use the flat of the blade to catch him, and using the momentum of the throw to spin around.   The launch is aimed at doing one thing: redirecting him towards another castle, so he can have his seven-season HBO special somewhere else.  Unfortunately, the force is enough to carry him back INTO his own castle.  So, regardless of where the deflection happened, he's now in his base.   Worse, this leaves Petra alone to nail herself into his base.  Leaving either of these people alone is something he doesn't like.  It's also the unfortunate angle that he can't exactly unleash Titan in his own building without destroying it.  Not something he wants to do right now, or if possible at all.   Instead, he charges at the Champion first.  The very ground itself rises to try and throw him out the front door of the castle before he crashes into them.  Right now, he can throw his weight around quite a bit, and he hopes to be able to do that to get that Champion to take his HBO rear somewhere else to have an epic journey.   Blade still in hand, he tosses it straight up towards Petra. However, it will miss by a close bit.  This is because hitting her wasn't the challenge; instead, he disappears from the ground where he was a second ago.  He reappears directly above her, hand gripping the blade he just threw.  Gravity kicks in about this time, as he comes crashing down at her, aiming to try and kick her off the side of his building.
Holly Asturias	"Oh, did you bring...?"     "Why yes! Sunscreen in industrial quantities. I was told I might burn without it?" She probably would. She just wouldn't quite show it, or feel it until the next day for that matter! "Feasting's the reward for those who fight,"     "Quite fair! How dreadful it would be to deny them their just rewards! I'll be content with leftovers, don't worry."     Regulus gives Holly a look, and the Revenant waves excitedly at the pirate, only now spotting her. "Reguluuuuus! Please protect your head!" Head injuries are a SERIOUS problem! "Isn't it a bit unfair for me to be here?"     "Is it?" Holly has no idea what Lilian means by that, but winces when Nika takes her flag so easily. "How kind of you to give them all a chance by dropping out so quickly~." She sounds sincere! She *means* it! That might be worse than if it were sarcasm.     Hands on her hip, she glances up in the vague direction of the sun, shielded by her large hat.     "This isn't quite as deadly as you'd expected. I'm happy to report I may not burst into flames after all. But if you'd like any sunscreen, do help yourself to the stash. It'd be such a shame if that golden tattoo of yours scorched."     Not that Holly is without her own, those red marks on her right arm have spread across the whole of it, since last time Lilian saw them. But she seems quite unconcerned with shielding them, from the sun or from sight.
Storm Investigators	During their quest to seek sanctuary within Chuyao's domain, Greta and Marcus find themselves accosted by something truly incomprehensible: Tiny sand berserkers! No, really, they have no idea what they're even looking at. The sight of them all just seems incredibly confusing to the pair, and it's only the knowledge that this is a beach episode rather than a fighting contest keeps Greta from unloading on them outright. "Madam Hofmann? Do you know what those are?" "No. It should be safe enough to engage. Marcus, read and fend them off at will." And so, with her mentor's permission, Marcus gets her reading on! She's just expecting a few pages on sapient sand mites or something, so getting hit with a sandtury's worth of history and society spanning an entire tiny glalaxy all at once gives her absolute decision paralysis on where to actually start reading. Does she start with their greatest figures and heroes? History at the height of their sandciety? The ever-tantalizing dark ages? Perhaps even the very beginning, knowing full well there's no chance she'd have enough time to finish it all before the tide comes in? Would it be right to deny them their dreams, knowing how little time they have left? Would it be insulting to just hand it to them on a silver platter? "How cruel can fate be to them...?" Marcus murmurs with quiet whine, drawing a confused eyebrow raise from Greta as she wipes her face off with a thin jacket sleeve. "I'll handle this, Madam Hofmann. They... They deserve that much." Greta's certainly not going to interfere there, although it's less because of Marcus' apparent resolve and more just being plain curious where she's going with that. For the junior investigator, seeing the vastness of it all is enough for her to answer them honestly, and she raises her tiny flag forward like some kind of defiant declaration to the berserkers. "I... I will answer you, then. Let us have a fair con-ah!" Despite her words, it doesn't really take a lot for the sand-von-Neumann Berserkers to claim the flag from Marcus. As much as she'd like to give them a proper battle, she's only one easily-cowed bookworm against their entire force! Also, she trips up really easily in the face of all their sand hole tech.
Hiromi	'...so is it okay if I ask about their ¶rootlessness¶ as well?'     "Yes."     Chie understands only half of this exchange, but she's used to things happening that will be explained later, so she doesn't question it now. She has a different role to fill, if needed, just after everything starts.     . . .     Hiromi steps away from each confrontation, walking about and observing, her footsteps no longer causing rumbles deep within the earth. They barely even leave prints in the sand, far too light for her stature.     'Isn't it a bit unfair for me to be here?'     She must have been heard. Lilian is well aware of the sensitivity of supernatural women with tall ears. But no one's telling her she can't. There's no rule against it. In fact, with only three given, there's no rule against a lot of things people might think to try. There's no end state given, no prohibition against acting after one's flag is captured -- only the forming of teams and the end-motion of flags.     'Nope. Too bad. ¶Play lame, win games¶!'     'Petra! I'm on your ¶team/wolfpack¶!'     She's avoided mentioning, as well, any judgment of people's castles. Those will come out in practice, whether their defensiveness has worth.     "Cope." Her tongue tastes the word, trying it out like a deeply foreign dish, without context to associate scents and colors to taste and texture. When she repeats it, it doesn't even sound like a word, but a double puff of captured air and low, tonal growl. <The final proofs of all claims are found in action. That which happens has happened, and that which was theorized to be possible is found untrue, contradicted by what was overlooked.>     There's some approval, finally, as she passes Nika-in-the-tower. It is, specifically, something to do with her having joined Petra's castle. What can't be put into words is still clearly readable in form. <Joining another's pack surrenders leadership//authority, but not one's self//direction, nor personal victory//fulfillment. This understanding is fundamental to wisdom.> The degree to which this relates to sandcastle war isn't made clear, and not part of the message. Hiromi didn't, in fact, set the rules for that, even if she approved them.
Arthur Lowell	> ==>     Deflection seems a failure! The captain lands his fractal mess of universe square in Ember's sandcastle, leaving him stuck with a chunk of errant sandverse! His deflection turned into two seasons of sinister maneuvers to prevent Captain Sanderd from reaching the flag he's after, full of twists and turns, plights and betrayals. And once he's acquired the flag (an ancient artifact of the forces that crafted this universe), his efforts to return home are harried and hectored by blades and the warping of the ground itself (a season spent trapped in a space-loop, two seasons of primarily rare swashbuckling combat interspersed with tense bouts of particularly annoying dad drama like Lieutenant Sandstone's powerful sand-psychics going haywire during sandstance abuse episodes, a final dramatic season of trying to go to a precursor wormhole, the door out).     He has something to deal with on the way there, though. Petra was in the blast radius of this reality-chunk and you know how she is with cosmic couch cushions. Undoubtedly at least some of this is going to go off-rails, and who knows if that leaves Ember's flag in Arthur's galaxy or in Petra's hands.
Petra Soroka	"Go Petra!"     "Yes! Go me!" Petra crows from her position on top of Ember's battlements, two-handed shovel buried in the sand. Then she looks around in confusion. "Wait, who said th--" > Endure six-season Odysseus arc     No!!!!     It's Ember's castle and flag that are enveloped in Arthur's sand galaxy, but Petra is literally standing right there! In the grand narrative untangling of the unfathomable superstructure and the mythical serialized journey to surmount it, Petra tumbles off of what was once just the 'top floor of a castle' and now has become 'the climactic series finale'. Thus dethroned, Petra topples all the way down from villainous importance, to landing on the sand-ship of the sand-captain on a sand-quest to defeat and conquer her place of former standing.     Sitting on the deck of the sand-ship, with a sand-bucket flipped up onto her head from the fall, sand-broom thrust in her hand to swab the futuristic-sand-poop-deck, Petra contemplates whether this is some kind of divine karma for being so smug about the pirate thing. Deep within the swirling sand galaxy, there comes a distant, frustrated "FUCK!"     In terms of couch cushions, this one ranks somewhere below the Infinity Train in suffering. It's fine. Frankly, Odysseus would've had a pretty easy time on his journey if executive meddling cut all of his later seasons short too. By the time the sand-ship reaches the Crystal Galaxy at the height of the Seven Heavens, where the dreaded Ember of the Forbidden Flame holds the Sacred Crimson Tapestry captive for some grim ritual, it's Petra sand-captaining the ship instead.     The mutiny was at the end of season two. She doesn't wanna talk about it.     So, twice over, it's Petra versus Ember, having supplanted the sand-champion herself. Pirate Captain-ified, Petra now has some weird sort of bullshit sand-tool shaped like a gauntlet over one arm, hovering off of her skin. It is, of course, entirely made of sand, and out of a glyph over the back of her hand, it fabricates layers of sand that prints out a blob identifiable as a grenade, also made entirely of sand. This grenade is lobbed at Ember, and explodes like a grenade, except all the smoke is sand and the kinetic impact of the explosion is sand too.     Stepping back out into the real world only seconds after she was hit by Arthur's bullshit, Petra is wearing a tricorn pirate hat made entirely out of sand with a glasslike space suit bubble visor shielding her face. She pulls the hat off of her head and wheels around to Arthur, jabbing her finger at him accusingly. "What the fuck, dude?!"     Before the intersection of two realities fully diverges again, she gives the sand pirate crew a final wave through the port windows of their sand spaceship. "Fly safely, you guys. Take good care of the SSV Normsandy for me."     After that, she sighs and dusts her hands together, knocking off layers of caked-on sand. She looks at her sand-covered body for a second, brushes some of it off experimentally, and then groans loudly with her fists clenched, shaking them at Ember. "Fuck, dude! One of the only things that wasn't sand in there was one of your fucking water crystals turned into a whole ass water planet! So fine, you win this time, wet boy!"     She marches down the side of Ember's castle, deciding to just leave him to it for now. With a word, she asks all the rest of the sand to floomf right off of her in one cartoon silhouette, and looks down at it with a weirdly fond expression. "Like a bee getting stuck in a car and ending up in another country. ... Uh, where were we?"
Petra Soroka	"Petra! I'm on your ¶team/wolfpack¶!"     "Oh! Good! Yayyyyy Nika!" Petra places the pirate hat back on her head, retracting the visor, and scampers back to her castle to join Nika.     Looking over at Lilian, Petra cockily flicks the underside of her sand-hat, hand on her hip. "Looks like Team Normsandy's already vanquished one enemy. Um-- what do you wanna do now, Lilian? Wanna keep playing around or go and eat?"
Chuyao He	Chuyao's brow lifts in surprise as Hiromi raises his coastal fortress to life-size proportion, taking a step back. After overcoming his surprise, he listens to Chie's explanation, nods, and takes the flag. Brother Jianya! May we...? Er. Would you like to form a team for this... Contest?     Chuyao smiles and nods. "But of course, junior sister. In fact, such a place is meant to be defended by an organized unit, and it would be this lowly scholar's delight to demonstrate, even in such flawed a fashion as I am able. Junior sister Marcus, junior sister Greta, if one of you were to man the stairway and another take up a position on one of the bridges, this would give us the best chance at success."     "Tss!" A momentary flex of his muscles, a controlled breath and the lightest movement of his calves, feet, and thighs, and he is soaring across the river, nearly landing on the far side of the delta he dug out. Twisting in midair to put his midsection parallel with the ground, he swipes laterally with Two Rivers, creating a gust of wind that propels him all the way to the foot of the stairs.     He's scarcely landed before he turns to the sheer cliff wall atop which his fortress sits, and with another hiss of controlled air, runs vertically along its surface. At the apex of his ascent, he tucks into a frontflip, landing in the walled courtyard. Throwing the flag into the air, he turns, and in the same motion, closes Two Rivers, striking the flag with the fan and sending it flying like a spear to lodge into the inner wall of his fortress.     The same impressive vertical ascent carries him up the side of the central garrison, atop which he lands, taking a moment to let the wind caress his billowy, light beach robe and blow his long hair, one arm tucked behind his back, the other flipping Two Rivers back open to fan himself reservedly. From his vantage point, he can spot... something? Arthur's berserkers are very small.     "A disruption near the stairwell, sisters! Man the countermeasures at the gate!" It would normally be oil, but Chuyao doesn't want to give anyone third degree burns, so water to make anyone attempting to clear have to deal with slippery stairs is enough.     "...alas, junior sister is overcome--sister Greta, shift to my position and guard the fortress, this unrefined scholar shall retrieve it..!"     While the berserkers are hard to see from his vantage point, the flag isn't, thanks to its colors--he leaps from the roof of the fortress and runs along the crenellations of the surrounding wall, then leaps across a gap to the rail of a fortified bridge, unfolding Two Rivers. "Hoh!" A strong gust of wind coaxed forth by the fan rips into the flag with surprising strength, attempting to lift it up and away from the berserkers, and back into the walls of the fortress!
Hiromi	'Why yes! Sunscreen in industrial quantities. I was told I might burn without it?'     Hisako mouths 'sun screen' and tries to map those concepts against 'something that comes in bottles.' Finally, "Oh, I see! It's a protective ointment." Nod, nod.     Being this close to grilled skewers being made would be hell on many people, but both wolves take Holly at her word for being fine with leftovers.     And now, back to Chie.     "You!" she cries, drawing out the syllable, and pointing at Regulus. Visibly, she searches her memory to remember her name being called. "Regulus!" (They've met. It was the day Petra gave her a spear, which occupies a lot more of her memory space than most of the people who also fought that day.)     "If you won't come out, then--you won't get any exercise! You won't be able to hunt, and you'll starve! Or--or maybe you'll still find food, but you'll become fat and lazy and deck-ay-dent! That's not allowed, you know. Thus! I, Chie! Will save you!" Proudly, having made up a speech on the spot, Chie charges at Regulus's sand-barge to force her into a fight over her flag, utilizing her previously demonstrated speed, agility, and willingness to kick people's legs out from under them.
Lilian Rook	'Is it?'     Lilian stares at Holly. Her expression radiates 'is this brain damage, did she not pay attention, or is this all a bit?', equibalanced between all three options.     'How kind of you to give them all a chance by dropping out so quickly~.'     Now she just looks pissed off. Thirty seconds ago, Lilian was considering whether she should politely drop out or find some way to awkwardly handicap herself, but now it's all about her getting owned instead; in a way that's totally bullshit!! But, also!! She can't think of any support for that accusation, because she was the one who loudly declared there were no rules against it!!!     'This isn't quite as deadly as you'd expected. I'm happy to report I may not burst into flames after all.'     "I suppose you're not pale enough for it." Lilian mutters, trying to remember if Yuuki had that parasol for tangible reasons or just for gothic lolita aesthetic. "I appreciate your concern, but it's really not that fragile." she says, still mad, still bratty about it. "Besides. I put it on before I left. Do you think I'd leave Petra to it?" Here? With all these freaks nearby?     Lilian is clearly eyeballing Holly's arm, though. She can't quite remember whether it was that bad when she saw it in the hotspring, but she's fairly sure that it wasn't. A million things she would hate hearing in her position flit through her mind, subsequentially turned sideways and dumped out the bottom, sifting out the tolerable ones. Like, "Bad day?" and a vague gesture towards it.     'Cope.'     "Oh come on! Not you too!" Lilian whine-shouts at the Archwolf, as if that were somehow a normal thing to do. "I get it! Don't go applying Darwnian Law to my being wishy-washy and, god forbid, not being paranoid and acting sweaty-palmed and uptight around a woman!" If someone can make a big enough sand-screen, they can all watch movies tonight with Lilian's expertise at projecting.     "Yay! I'm ¶wise¶!"     "Oh my god I'm never taking you anywhere again!"     "You are. You're so mad you're gonna have to. It's like a ¶knight's honour/mathematical proof¶ thing now. I got you."     "Couldn't you just act the part and be all quiet and shy today?!"     "Nope."     'Oh! Good! Yayyyyy Nika!'     "You mean yay you! SSS pull!" Nika giggles, deeply entrenched in some garbage internet joke between the two of them. "Lucksacks explode!"     'Looks like Team Normsandy's already vanquished one enemy. Um-- what do you wanna do now, Lilian? Wanna keep playing around or go and eat?'     "I'm not eating anything." Lilian huffs, crossing her arm and snootily looking away. "I didn't even play after all. It'd be inappropriate." Brat. Seether. Her face is all red and she's so embarrassed and annoyed it's just totally ridiculous. "Huh? I wanna keep playing."
Storm Investigators	VAGUELY EARLIER "The material has to be right too, such as tan leather instead of black leather like I am wearing now." Marcus looks up at her hat of gray and fabric. "Oh... That may be too much to request. I will have to look into this further, then. Maybe a lighter jacket, or a coat with something like that...?" "Are you friends with Sonetto? Are you two close?" "Oh. Um. We have not spoken that often, but I..." Marcus trails off, once again made to think! Are they friends? Would Sonetto want to be friends with her? Would it be too forward of her to think so? The indecision is clear on her face while she tries to figure that one out. Still, if Sonetto did want to introduce her to Regulus, then... Then that would be a yes, wouldn't it? But if Marcus barely knows anything about Sonetto, wouldn't that make her a bad friend? All these thoughts (and more) keep running through her head as she waffles about, unable to really answer Regulus properly! "Junior sister Marcus, junior sister Greta, if one of you were to man the stairway and another take up a position on one of the bridges" "Thank you, brother! I don't believe your methods would be nearly as flawed, if you were able to construct something this magnificent alone. Ah... Shall we, Madam Hofmann? I can take the st-" "The bridge. I can get up and down the stairs more quickly." "Eh? O-oh! Yes, alright." Greta won't admit it's because she doesn't want Marcus screwing around near the stairs, of course, but it most certainly is. Plus, it's a chance for her to see how well Marcus can handle herself in a controlled-enough and low-risk environment. They're also both taken off-guard briefly when Chuyao goes right into the air with that single breath, and they just sort of watch him for a while. Marcus in particular pays attention to the way he's moving through the air, murmuring "Forward, not upwards..." to herself all the while. VERY NOW "-sister Greta, shift to my position and guard the fortress, this unrefined scholar shall retrieve it..!" With Marcus firmly routed despite her efforts, Greta's already ready to switch gears with Chuyao and man the defenses within! "Understood. Marcus, brush yourself off and protect the gates. And..." Right, the 'oil'. "... Mind the water." She warns her charge, then goes on a short jog and a bit of a climb to get to where Chuyao was parked on the garrison. It lets her keep an eye on where he's embedded the flag while also getting ready to dump water on whomever approaches the gate!
Arthur Lowell	> ==>     Arthur's sand-von-Neumann Berserkers find themselves set upon by titanic foes matching and exceeding the scale of their self-sand-replicating society, as if from some other plane of existence or some other dimension or, you know, not being made of sand. As they wage a titanic war in the outer rim of the galaxy, they manage to acquire one (1) flag, immediately integrating it into their intergalactic megastructure flagship and turning it into a long-gauntlet challenge for any wandering hero to--     Never mind, a massive space warp -- that is, a huge gust of wind -- just tore the main ship in half dramatically -- that is, blew it onto its side with a wet flop. It also lifted and took the flag, in spite of the best efforts of the larger fleet! It would seem Chuyao has broken the morale(?) of the vast self-replicating hordes, many of whom are starting to turn against Petra's quest, figuring it's probably easier to poach someone else's flag while it's in motion. And, frankly, Petra's situation always needs more third-parties, fourth-parties, and fifth-parties.
Ember	Ember swears that the moment he gets out of this sandverse, he's going to knock Arthur the fuck out. In whatever warped adventure that half of the sandverse has got him trapped in, he's now playing villain instead of hero.  Between having to deal with being blasted in the face by a sand grenade, or having to deal with sand food, sand ships, and sand water for who knows how actual the fuck long. This leaves his flag out of his hands and into the hands of the sandverse chunk.  This REALLY puts a bad taste in his mouth.   Petra nopes out of this sandverse thing, which leaves his flag in the retreating form of the sandverse.  So that just means he loses because it's in that stupid sandverse?   "What a load of shit."
Chuyao He	The jeopardized flag sails through the air into Chuyao's outstretched hand. He turns atop the battlements and calls, "Junior sister Greta!" Before tossing the flag into the air, turning without so much as a stumble on the shingles atop the bridge's railing, and striking the flag with a low swat of the quickly closed-again Two Rivers. The flag goes flying for the main garrison, on a clean trajectory for Greta to easily catch.
Regulus	''Regulus!'' Regulus also got whalloped in the gut by Chie today which is actually preoccupying more of Regulus's thoughts right now than some fight from who knows when ago. Regulus's stomach hurts just from Chie shouting at her name. Of course, what Chie says next is actually kind of endearing and to Marcus's benefit, really probably keeps Regulus from trying to figure out if Marcus said yes or no to her question and then realize Marcus couldn't figure out the answer in time thus saving Marcus from future embarrassment when Regulus inevitably asked 'what the heck you don't know??'. "Okay I like you a lot and I will excercise for you." Regulus tells Chie instead. "But I won't make it uh... easy ... to ... save me?" She frowns. "Wait that doesn't sound good let me try agai--ahhh!" She runs from one side of the barge but Regulus's issue is less a lack of exercise (even if it doesn't really compare to like half the people's here regimens) and more the fact that she eats a lot of crap. She does move around a lot and has been taking on a routine, motivated--by the idea of people making fun of her less for not working out that often! Also maybe not being in mortal danger quite so much! But, yeah, she pounds Dr. Pepper and beef like all the time and her recent concession to health was to 'occassionally eat vegetables' so Chie catches up to her easily and knocks the feet out from Regulus. There's another issue though. That issue is that she kind of wants to lose to Chie because she said she wanted to save her... But it dawns on Regulus that this is counterproductive since Regulus wants her to like--fight back apparently? She attempts to scramble away from Chie while whistling with two fingers in her mouth. "Go Sand Orca!" And then she spends a while hacking out sand and spitting it out over across the side as her semi-autonomous Sand Orca attempts to orca jump over the sand barge and catch Chie in her mouth and pull her to the sand waves! "Don't take this the wrong way, I think you're really great!" She shouts.
Arthur Lowell	> Arthur: What the fuck, dude?!     "COUCHMAXXING AND CUSHIONMODED. You have POCKET UNIVERSE MAGNETIC FIELD. You're like a MONOPOLE for REALITY." Arthur declares, still sculpting bits of new stars. "Don't worry, I'm PRETTY SURE any of the FORMATIVE SAND-EXPERIENCES AND SAND-CHARACTER-ARCS OR WHATEVER are made of SAND too. You'll be FINE! Just, like, SHOWER LONGER or whatever."     One hundred tiny Sand-von-Neumann Berserkers loudly swarm her ankles from nowhere in particular, shooting tiny sand lasers to no effect.
Storm Investigators	"Junior sister Greta!" That puts a new question into both of the Investigators' minds: Just how old is Chuyao? Marcus also starts to wonder how old Greta is, but she dares not read either of them without their permission, especially if it's just to answer something she could find out by asking them. Still, it'd be rude to ask either of them about that, wouldn't it? And it'd be especially awkward to ask Greta now of all times, considering both Chuyao's title for her and also studying under her for this long already. Greta, meanwhile, isn't so bothered by things like that, and she just looks towards Chuyao when he signals the flag toss. "In position, Jianya. How old are you, anyway?" She asks plainly and unbothered, clapping her hands together around the flag once it's in range and swinging them back briefly to minimize the impact. Marcus, meanwhile, finally picks herself up out of the sandy hole she'd been stuck in from the berserkers and finally falls back towards Chuyao's magnificent fort. "Th.. Thank you, brother Jianya! That breathing technique of yours... The one that let you fly. Where did you learn that?" Even now, she's still thinking about the double-jumps.
Holly Asturias	"Oh, I see! It's a protective ointment."     "For the skin, yes!" It's not nearly as interesting a topic as-- "If you won't come out, then--you won't get any exercise!"     "Oh no! Regulus, quick! You must exercise, you'll never make it as a rock star if your body isn't at the peak of physical health! Think of all that time spent moving on a stage under the harsh spotlights! The dancing, and your precious throat!" Chie CHARGES, and Holly claps her hands happily. "Is this how every one of these parties go? This seems so exhausting to do often. Oh! Regulus, watch out!!" It's okay, she has an orca of some kind. "Do you think I'd leave Petra to it?"     "Why not? Reaching the back on your own is quite troublesome, isn't it? It pays to have willing hands ready to assist." Willing is surely part of the problem. "Not pale enough, though? You sound as if you've seen it happen." She reaches into her basket, to produce a can of pineapple juice, offering it to Lilian even as she crosses her arms to brat it out.     "A drink? It isn't the sake you so enjoyed, but I was told this was an appropriate one for this?" "Bad day?"     A quick look down, at her arm, before smiling and shaking her head. "An accumulation of them, more like. Nothing I can't cure - eventually. A matter I'd like to speak to you about, actually, but let's not bring work here. It isn't urgent, or painful." Right now, anyway. "Couldn't you just act the part and be all quiet and shy today?!"     Holly hums happily. The energy is contagious. "It's oh-so nice to be amongst such a crowd in-between more dire matters. Is she a... colleague, of yours? Or just a very good friend?"     No judgment in her gaze. Practically never is.     Curiosity, if anything. The allure of social time and small talk that she lacks entirely too much, otherwise.
Petra Soroka	"Couldn't you just act the part and be all quiet and shy today?!"     Petra slides right up against Nika's side to adjoin her in going back and forth with Lilian, not in a ganging-up way but in a 'we liked your vibe from across the playground' kind of way. "But this is good! This is ¶picked first for dodgeball¶! That's just how you make friends!"     She waggles a finger overeagerly at Lilian, unsatisfied with her answer. "You've gotta eat, so you've gotta play too. It's ¶lonely/dissatisfying¶ not to! But, uh-- if you want-- I've got an idea, if you wanna join *our* team."     Petra turns around and holds a suddenly-formed Silver megaphone in front of her mouth, aiming it towards where a war is being waged between the sand-von-Neumann Berserkers and the sand-ship that currently has Ember's flag held captive. "¶Boyyyyyyssssss/Crew¶!!!! ¶Lend me your arms/One Last Job¶ and I'll make sure you beat Ember!"     The blurry boundary between what constitutes a conscious person within Arthur's sand universe and what constitutes just sand, becomes only more confusing when Petra's ¶words are responded to by a massive shift in the sand within Arthur's narrative. The powerful cannons lining the pirate-destroyer hull of the Champion's ship are lifted up and out, accumulating more sand in-flight to become full sized weapons that land right on top of Petra's castle. Multiple story tall sand-cannons, meant for blasting apart sand-space-stations and decimating sand-fleets, are now controlled by a sand-console in the throne room of Petra's castle. "You mean yay you! SSS pull!"     Incredibly obnoxiously, Petra flicks the brim of her sand-hat another time. The look on her face, while all this is happening around her, is just unbearably excited to show off. Her best cocky smirk is shattered by giggles.     "It's a whole new outfit for me. Oh my god, that was some fucking nonsense. You should see-- oh, wait!" Petra waves up at the spaceship cannons in the process of glueing themselves to Petra and Nika's castle, then points at Nika. "¶Hey!¶ This is my ¶Bestie/First Mate¶!"     Petra fumbles a bit with her hands, attempting to communicate something to Nika about the state of the universe Arthur created. "They're ¶Babies/New car smell¶? It's kind of ¶watch it for an episode¶ so it's sort of cute."     With the cannons ready, Petra holds out an arm to Nika and Lilian, gesturing them towards the castle. At her motion and words, an archway opens up to lead them into the throne room slash command center. "Anyways, um, ¶Ladies first¶."
Hiromi	'I didn't even play after all. It'd be inappropriate.'     "You played," Sumi says. "Or else you couldn't have lost."     She grins. It might be, to Lilian, infuriating. It is, either way, kind of inherently, dangerously feral. It's not an expression that really fits the common conceptualization of 'miko,' but Sumi is like this.     "'Win or lose.' That's the rule, remember? But if you want to keep going, there's no rule stopping you."     Meanwhile, Chie aggresses Regulus. Lacking any kind of weapon, even a pair of gauntlets like Hisako favors, she's only got her quick speed and -- not wits, exactly, but reflexes, honed in the heavens only know how much family roughhousing -- to save her from pulled under the sand waves. She twists mid-air, planting a foot on the sand-orca to kick down. While the talisman Regulus holds ensures a workable level of hardness to whatever it makes, that which lets sand floors be used as a platform also lets sand-creatures be kicked off of, getting Chie some distance. Once away from the first ambush, she's hard to catch again.     Regulus, unfortunately for her, is easy for Chie to catch again. And again. And again. She just keeps knocking her down, then rushing over to pick her up and shove her off balance. And then kick her legs out again! Almost like she was doing the same two moves over and over to wait for Regulus to figure it out, but in a way that's unfortunately really disorienting and exhausting if you miss it the first three times.     Once her victory is assured, Chie lets Regulus lay down for the seconds long enough for her to get in and pull out the flag. Having no castle to return it to, Chie instead rushes out into the the middle of the field and throws the flag into the air, aimed to land well between several castles, where anyone could grab it.
Regulus	Regulus says, "Ah! Fuck! You beat my sand orca!" Regulus says. What follows is Regulus getting constantly knocked over, sweeped, and caught before she runs away again and then gets caught again. It's like Chie is playing catch with a ball, a ball that runs away, but like--definitely easily captureable by Chie again and again and again. But hey, Regulus IS getting a workout becuase it turns out running from one side to the barge to the other only to try and dodge getting bowled over and fail over and over again certainly counts as cardio. Eventually she is flopped on the ground, dizzied, as Chie takes her flag. "Oggghh... I guess I lost--" Wait, Regulus blinks, noticing that her flag is in the middle of nowhere and not at captured by anyone in particular. "Wait--I'm still in it!!" Regulus summons a light platform, jumps at it, hacking and coughing from exertion only to fail to recover in time for a second jump sending her plummeting towards her own sand-waves. "Ah shit shit shit!" She manages to summon a second platform underneath her and roll off it before she gets taken out by her own trap. "Oughh..." She hobbles towards her flag and-- Wait, couldn't she just lose and then not have to do all this running anymore? Regulus hesitates to strongly consider this. "No... Chie is...too fab... to disappoint--" She hobbles and ows over and over again before she can reconsider Chie's level of fabness. No no no, she learned her lesson with Ahn, if she gets mad about this she'll have to clean Chie's room and she bets Hiromi won't even WARN her about the death zones like Ahn would.
Ember	Petra declares that she'll aid the sand people to beat him.  He was already about ready to just shrug it off, but that particular phrase pisses him off.   Especially when he came under fire from Petra's sand cannons.  Covered in sand and dust, he opened his eyes and wiped a hand over his face to clear the sand.   "You know what?  To hell with you," He says defiantly, and throws his dagger into the air above the retreating sand universe.  Once more vanishing, he appears gripping the blade in mid-air again, high in the air.  It's not long before gravity takes over, as he's still covered in earth, having never released Titan.   He crashes down, aiming to land in the world.  At the same time, he releases Titan, but does not dismiss it.  Instead, he unleashes its power, creating an extremely powerful earthquake in the world to try and stop it and recover his damned flag.
Hiromi	'Is this how every one of these parties go? This seems so exhausting to do often.'     "Oh, we haven't done this before, but Chie was excited to try it after learning about it, so she..." ...talked to her sisters and said enough for Hiromi to become interested, which snowballed into the present situation. Hisako doesn't actually explain that, just trailing off. "So, that's how it is."     "Exhausting? They need to run around at least this much, once in a while. Even the older ones. Look at that one, who got her flag taken by sand mites." Sumi doesn't know what a Von Neumann is but is sure it's not important. "She looks like she's a professional at something, but even though her role leads her to travel and conflict, she's still like this. Calling fitness a basic precaution is the worst understatement, but, you see? She'd save herself more trouble by losing at games." A few more words would make that claim a lot clearer, but that's where she leaves it.
Chuyao He	In position, Jianya. How old are you, anyway?     "Thirty, junior sister," Chuyao calls back from across the fortress. Where did you learn that?     "Lightness method is among the more common skills taught in the rivers and lakes," Chuyao calls as Marcus approaches down below. <J-IC-Scene> Ember says, "I'm going to punch you in the face, loud man." <J-IC-Scene> Chuyao He says, "You see? This is the consequence of mantling 'Idiots,' brother." <J-IC-Scene> Arthur Lowell says, "Hey! I kept my FLAG, that's BASICALLY WINNING! I guess nobody wanted to go into the DIMENSION OF SAND...?" <J-IC-Scene> Chie says to Arthur, "Are you not fighting anyone? Then I, Chie, will--!" <J-IC-Scene> Sumi says, "He's sending his sand mites to fight people. It's fine." <J-IC-Scene> Arthur Lowell says, "Really, they mostly sent themselves. UNIVERSES! Can't even STOP the things from DOING STUFF, sheesh." <J-IC-Scene> Chie says, after thinking about it for a bit, "That sounds lazy." <J-IC-Scene> Chuyao He says, "Brother Arthur describes the principle of wu wei." <J-IC-Scene> Chie says, "Shouldn't you take responsibility for the stuff you make? And, and also! Shouldn't you move more?" After a series of kiai shouts that should have been muted, "I'll be right there--next!" <J-IC-Scene> Arthur Lowell says, "You make a UNIVERSE, you gotta LET IT BREATHE. It's gotta be FREE TO LIVE!" <J-IC-Scene> Chuyao He says, "Zhuangzi writes, 'His works affect all under Heaven, yet he seems to do nothing.' In fact, brother Arthur may be a Daoist chief..." <J-IC-Scene> Chuyao He says, "It appears this unrefined scholar shall test whether he grasps your Dao!"     "Sisters! 'The wind that blows September's leaves can open February flowers!' I shall strike now, remain in position and cover my retreat!" Chuyao leaps from the bridge to slide down the sheer wall of the cliff face upon which the fortress courtyard sits. A leap from the foot of the stairs carries him to the edge of the islet, and another carries him across the river delta.     While the sandverse's berserkers and Petra are occupied with the struggle to capture Ember's flag, Chuyao storms the sandverse in search of Arthur's!
Lilian Rook	'Why not? Reaching the back on your own is quite troublesome, isn't it? It pays to have willing hands ready to assist.'     "I see. So you've embodied the sin by eliminating it from your mind altogether." Lilian says. "As per the principle of proof by negation, or perhaps definition by defining what is not."     'A drink?'     Well. Holly is just being a ditz, so Lilian can slink over here and snag the can out of her hand without it looking totally pathetic. She thinks. She tries.     'An accumulation of them, more like. Nothing I can't cure - eventually.'     "You shouldn't let them accumulate at all." Lilian says, ever so helpfully-- or, no, she actually sounds oddly serious. She pauses to crack the tab. "That sort of thing isn't like a backlog of work you can just put in overtime to fix. The more you let yourself get worn down, the more difficult it is to return to your original condition. Moments of laxness and impulsivity have a way of adding up like heavy metal poisoning."     'Is she a... colleague, of yours? Or just a very good friend?'     Lilian frowns, says, "It's complicated." and then excuses herself by drinking canned juice she doesn't particularly like.     'You've gotta eat, so you've gotta play too.'     "I can eat when I get home." says the hungriest bitch in the entire world that Petra knows. "And I didn't play any of that." Being 'the thing defined by the semantic essence of 'dodgeball' applies broadly to childhood athletic activities'. "Okay. I didn't go to school." Nika says, ruthlessly inserting herself into the dialogue with a put-out but patient stare on her chatbox portrait, leaving Lilian to figure out how to deal with that one.     Or she would, but instead she follows it up with "I think you're the ¶endling¶?" and that pushes a really long, frustrated, energy-draining sigh out of Lilian, and she vents the last of her aggression on the petty crime of littering, tossing an empty can on the sand over her shoulder. Nika looks at it, says, ¶Lazy little one / Asleep without a care / Come out to the fields / We can laze around there!¶ and the can abruptly flies up into her hand, crunches down to a flat disc no bigger than her thumb, and receives a tiny kiss on the forehead???     'Anyways, um, ÷Ladies first÷.'     'But if you want to keep going, there's no rule stopping you.'     "Fine, fine."     "Yesssss!"     Nika throws her arms up while on the ground, and finishes the 'S' sound on top of the castle. It takes all of her focus not to start jumping the second she finds her balance. "Okay okay! I ¶saw/thought of¶ this once so it's definitely gonna work!" Nika says, squishing the little tin-can disc between her fingers, fumbling with it for a few seconds, and successfully prying apart a fan of coin-sized aluminium pogs, each one still with pineapple yellow paint on one side.
Lilian Rook	Then she hurls them all up into the air, with no particular skill or coordination, except for the last, which she hands to Lilian and very hurriedly says "You have to ¶coinflip¶!" "What--?" "No time! You gotta!" while scrambling over to the cannons. Lilian, doutbful expression firmly in place, says, "Well, alright then . . .", gets her thumbnail under the can-pog, and flicks it up into the air with a stupidly satisfying metal ping noise.     Nika aims one of the full-sized sand cannons at the leading coin. Lilian's eyes suddenly widen. "Hang on, that's so--!"     A sand barrage of Captain Petra's finest sand firepower, also, strikes the beach-can-coin-pog with an extraordinarily satisfying 'ping' noise; all of the cannons in a row actually. The cloud of metal bits clumsily tumbling out of the sky off the top floor of Petra's castle definitely don't line up in any complicated mathematical way at all, but anyone would be forgiven for thinking so when the spinning of the lead 'coin' (worthless garbage) knocks multiverse-plus-powerscaled (sand-relative) beams into every single other coin (still worthless garbage) like god's own most poorly coded connect-the-dots and launches them at pretty much everybody else.
Arthur Lowell	> Arthur: Have graspable Dao     Okay, if you actually look at Arthur's universe-craft directly, it makes a lot of sense for a diviner, and for someone with a spiritual understanding of the cosmos. Get into that reality and it's pure geometries. Leylines are massive and everywhere, directions are numerous and meaningful, and... as Chuyao explores the vast universe -- travelling to a hundred sand-towns and knowing a thousand sand-people -- he finds that it lacks. Not in the fault of its creator but in the singular nature. It seems that Arthur's universe-craft only functions ideally when he's paired with three other heavenly creators, which, well, that could be a whole thing, there's probably scripture about that somewhere. But in the immediate sense it means that the fact that Arthur is missing these three friends means the universe is out of whack. If Chuyao were putting his all into this, that'd be a huge vulnerability to work with. Given it's play-fighting at the beach, it's just like miscounting the stairs and falling on your face.     Chuyao fails to find the flag, but like, mythologically-style beefing it. Something that's totally functional, foundational wisdom in the outside world just fucks his whole journey up somehow. Key spiritual and cosmic truths are missing here! Arthur is a decent world-crafting god but he just doesn't have his three fellow beings of Heaven.
Petra Soroka	Now, Petra has an obligation to her loyal sand crew. Floating in the vast regions of empty space that surround the Crystal Galaxy on the distant unexplored edges of the Sector-- like, a couple feet of open air in reality-- her newly beloved space pirate ship is only a few grains of sand large. Surrounding the meticulously detailed SSV Normsandy are a swarm of infintesimally small Berserkers suspended in the sand-universe, blasting sand-beams at it in a snowball that threatens to destroy them all instantly.     Petra holds out her arm and summons the sand-omni-tool again, which starts rapidly printing out a sphere of what seems to be pink colored play-doh. She squishes it flat between her palms, and then lowers it like an extinction event around the von-Neumann horde. Uncountable millions of the self-replicating ships get stuck to the play-doh, but she's struck by a laser that singes her hand slightly in return.     "Ffffhh-- ow! Hey! Arthurrrrrrrr, I'm gonna send you to *hell*!" She rolls the play-doh into a ball, and then beans it at Regulus's head, besetting her with the billions of Arthur's minions that got taken through a play-doh wormhole that brought them right to her.     Then, to truly protect her crew from Ember attempting to recover his flag, she must fight him on the same level. Back into the sandverse it is! Pirate hat on and visor bubbled over her face, Petra lands back on the outside deck of the SSV Normsandy, Silver cutlass drawn to combat Titan's earthquake. The sandy crew of the pirate ship is running to and fro handling exploding sand consoles and barking orders for repairs and shield malfunctions.     As Petra watches the shockwave compressions in the very substrate of sand-reality ripple towards her from Titan's magic, she considers how she expected this beach trip to go. With Hiromi, she expected, like, sand wrestling. Making sandcastle colosseums to fight in, maybe. Jumping over sand dunes and tackling and running around. Now she is very, very small, wearing a pirate hat, floating in space, and standing off against a sort of sand-supernova with a sword.     "C-c'mon, man. ¶Pretty please?¶"     The impact of Ember's earthquake is barely lessened by Petra's feeble plea. The SSV Normsandy, and the captured flag it contains, is thrown wildly through the galaxy by the force. Sand-lights explode and go dark, alarms blare, crew members are knocked against various pieces of furniture and fall to the ground while the camera shakes violently. Clutching to the handrail and barely struggling to her feet, Petra shouts at them to cut the engines and disengage sand-gravity.     In real-space, the tiny sand spaceship is carried meters by the force of Ember's magic, drifting through the air on the shockwave. The flag inches closer towards Petra's castle. In teeny tiny sandverse form, the only way for Petra to communicate with the outside reality is to speak with Nika as a grain of sand herself.     "¶Down here! / ··· ­­­ ···!¶!"
Arthur Lowell	> Arthur: Lend me your arms     Arthur's sand-universe responds really quickly to her. She's just got a knack for internalizing the structure of other worlds like this! She's like a negative reality monopole, or at least, the sandverse validates Arthur's claims as such by rallying the fundamental substrate of the world. She stole his shit!! And she doesn't even feel much resistance when the entire core narrative of the Sand Chosen One is just kind of stripped for parts. > Arthur: To hell with you     Well, with Ember being genuinely mad, Arthur's just got only a sandcastle! Or a sand-universe anyway. "Hey!" He shouts, when Ember crashes through the top of his geometric structure, smashing through and into the remaining fleet-worlds, rumbling and roiling the substrate of reality (that is, the beach) and knocking over planets and solar systems. With enough space-storms (shaking the beach) it's possible to take apart just about any sand construct, regardless of the dramatic density of the ships! They're just sand after all. Whether he gets his flag back will depend on the forces still on it, but at the very least, the sandverse won't be part of the obstruction. As for what happens next-- > Arthur: Coinshot     Arthur gets bonked on the head with a bounced coin. "Ow!!" He shouts, losing focus and stumbling for a moment, accidentally putting his hand down on a galactic arm and smushing it into sand. "Hey, fight with SAND, not METAL!" He complains, as if he had *remotely* adhered to the spirit of things before then. But anyway, clear path to his flag if Nika cared, but she sure kept him from going after that throne room with a counter-attack at least.
Chuyao He	"I have eyes to see, but cannot see Mount Tai... where on Earth is Arthur's flag?!" Dozens of sand-villages, roaming the sand-countryside, all of it has led him nowhere to nothing.     *It would seem I have not only failed to grasp Arthur's Dao, but left myself wide open to the Dame Commander's surprise attack. Rather than taking my enemy's provisions, I have filled the cart of another enemy. I must revisit the basics of strategy, for I have faltered in observing the five constant factors.*     *If the enemy is in superior strength, evade him. Therefore...*     Chuyao retreats from the sandverse, turning his back on his mission to dive through its infinite mystery and take form from the formless. Instead, he returns to the world where Arthur does not sit in Heaven, ignoring the ache in his back from the spot where the coin struck him.     The wind that blows September's leaves can open February flowers, "...can raise on the river three foot waves and bend ten thousand bamboo poles!" Cries Chuyao, leaping for Regulus' flag in a long soar guided by a flick of Two Rivers, hand outstretched to steal it.
Regulus	First Regulus is beset by pogs, sand blasts, and play-doha. But all this is doing is slowing Regulus down! Nobody's actually taking the flag FROM Regulus! Of course, it is basically eroding her heart and soul and making her seriously consider giving up just so she doesn't get hit, bowled over, or covered in sand anymore but, hey, she got a pog out of it but unfortunately Regulus doesn't know what pogs are so she just holds onto it as a key item. Determined to make it back to her flag before the game ends, she decides to get on the offensive even as numerous tiny sand people are crawling all over her which Regulus blasts off her body with a quick burst of light sent flashing right into her own face. Regulus is wearing sunglasses! And she closed her eyes! So she's only a little disoriented as tiny mindpeople fall from her body. Dear god, the casualties. "Sand Orca! Redemption Arc! Petravengence!" She points at Petra as she hopes the leaping orca trying to NOMPFH onto Petra will buy her enough time to grab her flag before someone else grabs it! "Never underestimate a real (radio) pirate!" But then out of the corner of her eye--Chuyao! She runs for the flag, intending to intercept him! Now, come on, Regulus isn't going to defeat Chuyao in a contest of martial artistry. BNut. ''I have eyes to see, but cannot see--'' Well that's an idea. She flicks the pog towards Chuyao as it rapidly bursts into a flashbang of light mid leap. Regulus grabs at the flag and books it. "One hundred thousand scampers away in sandles!" Regulus shouts back, figuring adding an extra ninety thousand to her technique will make it more effective.
Holly Asturias	"Oh, we haven't done this before,"     "No? You could have fooled me, with how..." The word organized hangs on her lips for half of a second, and she has the rare awareness to understand that's not entirely correct. "Put... together...? This all is. Food, entertainment and sports, all ready! Though it isn't as though I've been to proper beach before, so I'm a terrible reference frame! What a sight, the endless blue." And, you know, the giant sand castles, too.     "How right though. Working out promotes so many different beneficial processes in the body, one should always do a bit of it every day." Nevermind the importance of defending yourself. From Horrors or... in sandcastle wars? "I see. So you've embodied the sin by eliminating it from your mind altogether."     The large ? hanging over Holly's head as she tilts her head slightly and stares blankly at Lilian is practically a physical entity. "Sin? My, is it sinful to touch your back? I suppose with all the gold there it might be particularly sensitive? I'd be careful, doctor's honor." "You shouldn't let them accumulate at all."     Holly laughs, because it's the best she has. "Then I'll have quite the task ahead of me. Let's talk about it over a petri dish, sometime. You might be one of the only people I can entrust with this, after all I've overheard of your research on arcanists and their blood."     There's nothing else to say because Lilian is right, and that Lilian is right is abundantly clear in Holly's eyes. The laugh was a weak deflection, less painful than bringing the subject matter up enough to explain it. "It's complicated."     "Aren't all the best things in life?" NIKA SWEEP     The thundering of the cannons and the gusts of wind that ensue cause Holly to place a hand over her hat to hold it in place, immensely entertained (and maybe just a bit normal) about how much blood and sweat they're all pouring into a little friendly competition). "If I didn't know better I could swear that lives are at stake with how heavy the blows feel from here."
Ember	Ember has his flag in hand again, jumping out of the strange HBO world that Arthur had built.  Of course, his flag isn't safe, and he's still far from his castle.  This is troubling because he's got people who might see this as an opportunity.  "Bother..." he mutters to himself. Of course, he's fired upon by Nika and her cannons/trick shot.  Ember, this time, manages to switch to his knife again.  The sand cannonball is caught by the blade... Only to both knock him back from the blow and split into sand.  His face, coated in sand, causes him to spit out whatever sand he accidentally ate and to wipe his face again.  Spitting out a bit more sand, he's decided he's got to get his flag to safety first.   Channeling the powers of a guardian again, this time, green energy covers his form.  The wings of a bird and feathers coat his body now that he's channeling the guardian of Garuda.  He uses his enhanced speed to first replant the flag where it belongs.  The second thing he does is zip back to Arthur. He aims to punch the man and then jump into his planet to find the stupid flag.  He will at least make good on his promise.   Punching Arthur in the face for this stupid world-making crap instead of a godsdamed castle.
Lilian Rook	'Sin? My, is it sinful to touch your back?'     "She's a natural." Lilian says, half-joking, mostly for herself.     'I suppose with all the gold there it might be particularly sensitive? I'd be careful, doctor's honor.'     She swivels her head around as far as it'll go to stare at that. "Wait what?"     'after all I've overheard of your research on arcanists and their blood.'     Private-joking-thoughtful, then confused-alarmed, then distracted by everything else going on, and finally roused to action by Petra's and Nika's pleading, Lilian could hardly be paying any less attention when she says "Ours." But perhaps a little more when she blinks, shakes her head, and says "Ignore that. I lost track of what we were talking about."     'Aren't all the best things in life?'     Lilian looks from Nika over to Petra, and says "Well. Most of them."     'If I didn't know better I could swear that lives are at stake with how heavy the blows feel from here.'     "What's the point of getting stronger if you only ¶fight/compare to/learn from¶ ¶people/units¶ that're just as strong? If you really wanna know how ¶far you've come/much you've grown¶, you gotta go back and stomp on the level one goblins sometimes too!"
Hiromi	'Put... together...? This all is. Food, entertainment and sports, all ready!'     "Oh, that is simply from experience with festivals. We have to prepare those often, of course."     "Great way to let people know that everything's fine. Throw a festival, and they can be thankful for the food, the company, and that they're not being menaced by evil spirits in the fog, and laugh about it together." Sumi says this like it's normal.     "You need food where people gather." Hisako nods, like, 'of course.' "And to not eat until after training, or you'll hurt your stomach."     Regulus goes diving in against Chuyao and long-ranged attacks from Petra to retrieve her flag.     "Work hard! That's it, fight! Fight for it! Go!" Whoever wins... Chie already won.
Arthur Lowell	> Arthur: Get PUNCH     You can't get that drink right now. > Arthur: Receive BLOW     Not with this rating! > Arthur: Get PUNCH in FACE     You can't find that inside that thing. > Arthur: Take PUNCH     Sure. Arthur takes Ember's punch square on his face, and somehow, does not move. Or, rather, based on the motion Ember and others nearby will feel, what actually happened was that the light-cone of this orbital surface subsection was jolted in one direction -- that is, the equivalent of moving the planet slightly -- to deprive Ember's punch of momentum. When the fist pulls away, Ember will find that Arthur's big grin and stupid sunglasses have imparted the lightest possible shitty-grin-shaped impression on his hands, sort of like he slept on an obnoxious bully of a pillow, and that it takes *frustratingly long* to remove the Arthur's-face-shaped impression from his hand. But Arthur's flag remains safe, for now.     "HEY," He says. "This is a PARTY, dawg, we ain't about BOXING." He retrieves a squirt-gun from his pocket and tries to dramatically complete his bullying of Ember, but he forgot to load it so it makes a weird "wheek" sound when he pulls the trigger twice. "Ah, shit, just-- HOLD THERE while I FILL THIS." He mutters, awkwardly heading to the shoreline.
Ember	The punch wasn't as hard-hitting as he wanted, but he did shift to his speedy form, not his strong form.  Of course, this also leaves a weird imprint on his skin.  Shaking his hand, he tries to get it off to no avail.  This causes a frown to form. Of course, the complete attempt to bully Ember fails because of an oversight in not having enough water in his water pistol.   'This is a PARTY, dawg, we ain't about BOXING.' "And you were supposed to make a sand castle, and not whatever the hell this is," Waving at the sand world.  "You're not clever, you're annoying." Wait, why is he going to the water?  Something about the pistol he had? Stay there?   "No." Instead, he turns towards the sand world and double jumps into the air.  Accidentally styling on Regulus.   Of course, he's not done, aiming to form a tornado.  Not something that's going to cause a beach sandstorm or anything, but enough to try and swallow the world.   Let's see how the sand universe/world/HBO special holds up under the intense pressure of an outside tornado.
Arthur Lowell	> Arthur: How does sandverse hold up against an outside tornado?     Well, it falls over! It's sand.     "HEY, DAWG. THAT'S COLD." Arthur hollers from the shoreline, where he's filling the squirtgun. "I had this whole GALACTIC ARK thing they could BUILD using the CORE OF THE GALAXY and EVERYTHING, I had a whole ARC! AN ARK ARC!" He sourly grumbles, returning to Ember where he's landed in a plain shoreline of sand. No more sandverse! If the captain remains, anywhere, he sure is stranded. The flag's just sitting there too.
Ember	Ok, that was more satisfying than punching him, Ember thinks to himself.  He looks at the pile of sand that now holds a flag.  Arthur complains at him, and Ember shrugs.   Ember reaches over and picks up the Flag.  If someone wants to stop Ember, it would be about that time.   "YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO BUILD A CASTLE!" Ember shouts at Arthur again.
Arthur Lowell	> Arthur: You were supposed to build a castle!!     Arthur squirts the squirt gun at Ember's face and does that wretchedly obnoxious sunglasses gleam at him again, remaining grinning the whole time.
Ember	Ember gets a face full of water.   Arthur does a sunglass glint at him that's annoying.   Ember takes a breath, then finally shrugs.  He has Arthur's flag, and he just decides to let him have this one.
Hiromi	The fights are, for the most part, wrapping up. Chie cheers. Hiromi observes, unreadable outside of communicative flashes like Nika'd seen, but letting things speak for themselves, rather than repeat what's already been made clear.     The more human-like reactions are from the three miko, with Sumi declaring she's done cooking. Hisako unrolls, rather than plates, a collection of giant leaves she'd had wrapped in twine, passing food on these to whoever walks up. There's quite a collection of vegetables alternating the meat, all of which is almost, but not quite, identifiable for an Earth native.     Everyone can get some, that is, except Holly, who will only be fed if someone else shares with her. Rules are rules. Everyone else is getting seconds, at minimum.     One might expect the Archwolf to give some kind of concluding speech, after arranging all of this. Instead, she rubs Chie's head, makes a low sound, and inclines her head when Chie says, "Yeah! I did! It was great!" and bounces with her tail wagging.