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Stamina: 17/25
Damage: 13
Ribbons: 15

This time he ran all the way! Was there anything like the thrill of running to see someone you-

Didn't know?

"What? But where's Elidae?" Nucleo froze upon seeing a different troll manning the booth. It was that guy. He didn't understand. Where had he been yesterday, hadn't that been because he wasn't really a part of this stand?

Kursha either didn't know or didn't care and slapped a blindfold over his eyes before shoving a bat in his hands. Then he spun the boy around and all but threw him towards the pinata.

'Something's weird...' Nucleo thought to himself as he vented his confused frustration on the pinata. His first hit was so solid that it knocked the pinata backwards and caused him to miss on his second swing. Then the pinata came crashing back towards him and knocked him over! Embarrassed, Nucleo growled and pushed up off the ground once more to finish with an angry bashing!


Name: Nucleo
Number: 98

Okay, so she wasn't going to lose to a lollipop. It felt kind of petty, but she needed to prove it to herself. She could just pick the right one once, and be done with it. Cool? Cool. Luxara flounced over to the yellow booth, and-

Oh wait.

Oh s**t.

That was not the yellowblood from last night. Or anyone else on the planet that she'd rather see. Luxara felt like an antlerbeast right in the crosshairs, but all she did was glance at Kursha as she passed by him. She was already bee-lining for that stupid board, and she couldn't cut and run now. There was no way he could tell it was her. She had taken pains to hide everything. Right? Right.

She stepped up to the board. Pulled out a lollipop with an admittedly shaky hand. Oh, she won something? Okay. On stiff legs, she quick grabbed a flower to take back to the swamp with her and hand off to her favorite buff tree. Man, if only he was here right now. Or Rasali. Or Aerona. Or Etsali. Or, hell, Forera just so she could hold someone's hand.

She wasn't sure if she was trying to keep her nerve or try to avoid vaulting into the stall and driving one of these awful heels in his eye.

But she was gone. Going, going, out.

At least he looked like utter s**t.

"You are absolutely ASININE. Listen to me!" he had his hands clapped together, swinging towards with each syllable like a sickle to the hay. "Do you expect that to be convincing?! BOMBEE that IS not CONVINCING anyone!"

Jesus christ. Muerte had to do ********, didn't he? Evidently. Evidently. "Let's try this again, tell me I'm pretty." he deposited the snowflake down on the table (after hastily writing his "name"). "Oh, look at that, you won. I want the lollypop. No the big one." Leaning forward, he plucked his own...

GASP! (See Aprife, THIS was acting.)

"Look at this Bombee. Look." he was already fishing out the snowflake keychain, holding it in his hands. "Look at this. It isn't rocket science. I would know."

Very daintily, he reached out to grab the yellowblood's hand, placing the keychain within it. "It's a gift," he said, captivating minus the cherry blossoms (except not even in the slightest) "You're going to cherish it." (oh).

He was all but ready to beeline (hah) it to another booth, when Kursha caught his eye manning the stand. That was certainly a twist. Now, he needed a covert way to get Aprife's attention...

kick

His foot nudged at Aprife's leg haphazardly, refusing to look over and make any direct eye contact with the booth's new tender. Instead, growing impatient, he grabbed the yellowbloods hand and hurriedly set to work spelling a message in his hand, the mission. Due left with his fingertip against his palm.

"Invasi," he hissed quietly, but somewhat giddy? "I've figured out an astute method of communication. Squeeze once for yes, twice for no. I'll be relaying messages. Do you understand? Of course you do."

Yes, Aprife was listening. No, he didn't look up from his newly drawn luckypop to make it look that way. It was like he mentioned earlier, he was always listening. It was a side effect of his need to know everything and, to be fair, it fit in with his job pretty damn flawlessly. Oh, and let's not forget, the point still stood that shutting out what the greenblood had to say was grounds for never living it down and that was something Aprife just didn't feel like dealing with on a nightly basis.

"I told you it was pretty and I meant it, what more is there?" he asked, almost fearing the answer. At this point, he was pretty positive the only one unconvinced with his performance was Muerte, because who the heck was even listening in close enough to scrutinize their instantly deep relationship.

"Honestly, I'd go with cute. You're pretty cute," he admitted, meaning it just as much as he'd meant it about the snowflake. Which is to say, he might've thought about this before. Picking out a giant lollipop from the prize pool, he twirled it between his fingers. The only free hand he had left was quickly occupied by whatever it was Muerte had just reached over to claim. It made the gentlest jingling sound as it was left in his palm.

"Wait," came the quick counter. "And this is for you." Muerte's now empty hand would find the giant lollipop he'd wanted. With a small smile, he mirrored the greenblood's sentiment. "I'll cherish it." And it sounded genuine. No one could accuse Aprife of being a piss poor actor now, could they? Then again, Tete always found a way.

"Hold on a second, just one more thing." The ribbons were his only back up in case his luck wasn't up to snuff when it came to those lollipops. He made a quick guess at the star count.



Name: Bombee (Aprife Invasi)
Number: 109


"Alright, let's g-" The words caught in his throat at the surprise tickle against his hand. The kick had been more like a vague annoyance, one he was willing to pretend to ignore in favor of getting on with the mission, but then he was fighting back a small shudder at the delicate touch instead.

It took a moment to understand, but Aprife was sharp enough to pick up on the slow, deliberately drawn letters against his palm. His lips drew into a thin line as he looked, just as instructed, and found one Kursha Vidari had taken that bubbly yellowblood's place behind the counter. Elidae Bonbon, that had been her name. And it looked like the bobblehead hadn't been a coincidence after all. It was hard to believe Vidari cared enough about things like this to run a booth, but maybe the truth was in the who and not the what. Maybe Kursha had a connection to Elidae. Aprife grinned.

"Good catch," he whispered for Muerte's benefit only, but that was about all he got out before yet another grand idea was presented to him, one that he had to admit sounded pretty decent as far as covert methods of communication were concerned. The only caveat to that plan was a simple one: there really wasn't a way for them to keep that channel open unless they were holding hands. Faux Matespritship: 1. The Actual Mission: 0.

"So you wanna hold hands the whole time?"

While that was being dealt with, he scribbled his guess for the jar of paper on one of the little slips. Then it was time to - finally - enter the fray for this...uh.

He didn't really know what the hell this thing was supposed to be. A very misshapen roll of extremely colorful shredded toilet paper? That they were beating up? While blindfolded?

He wasn't sure what practical use this had, but he guessed he could do it. His first hit smacked resoundingly into the center of the toilet paper roll, but it wasn't particularly hard. That was okay: he'd hit harder now that he knew where it was.

...or, uh, he'd meant to hit harder. Okay, okay, he did manage to get the toilet paper beast (?), and pretty hard, too, but he also took a stumble while it happened. Far too many trolls had been walking here today: the snow had been compressed into thick, slippery ice. That...was Alifax's cue to fall flat on his face, apparently. But that was also okay, because he had a third shot to go, and also Alifax was, well, pretty resilient, as far as trolls went. He got back to his feet and blindly poked around with a free hand until he was vaguely facing the toilet paper again. Another swing, more reserved this time: he skidded on the ice slightly, and banged into what was probably the wall of the booth, but at least he hadn't fallen again.

"Bye," said Alifax flatly.

STAMINA: 19
DAMAGE DONE: 11
RIBBONS: 0 + 4 = 4

Unaru
Aura
Wanda
Dou
Glitch
Mels
Hues
Pope

Name: Lorata Gorgos
Number: 112

Another night to give it another try! Lorata wasn't sure how she felt about Kursha not being there again, wobbling between disappointed and relieved that he wouldn't see if things got messed up again, but it was always nice to see Elidae so she waved as she made her way over to the usual starting games! First off, luckypop. She took her time picking the best looking sucker, drew it out, and frowned again. Low tier prize. It was like her rate of progress had decided it would rather do a loop de loop!

Sighing, she popped the sucker into her mouth, collected some pop rocks for later, and turned to give a good guess at the paper stars.