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" Is there a King and Queen inside ?" Bishop asked curiously as she stared up at the building in question. It was a large concrete structure with the words " The ticket palace" on a sign in shiny purple lights. A palace should have a king and queen no matter what even if this was apparently just a place for kids to go and play games. They could be a pretend king and queen but they should be there.

Carol shrugged " I dunno honey, maybe" If so the woman felt bad for them. who wanted to dress up as a ticket queen or king, whatever costume was there could only be ridiculous, worse than any other kids place mascots outfit. A giant ticket perhaps or a man or woman in fancy clothes with a sash of noxious orange tickets to add flare.

Either way royalty or not the afternoon should be fun, as the pair walked into The ticket palace Carol couldn't help but smile. it was the grand opening of the place and thus everything was half off which was a perfect excuse for going now despite the large crowd. The lower price meant Carol could afford more tokens which would let Bishop plays more games.

Looking aroudn she noted that if Bishop got bored of the games there was also a huge ball pit and a series of tubes and netting to play in as well. All in all it looked like it should be a fun day.

Bishop merely grinned as she looked around at all there was to do. a bit nervous by the huge crowd she reached up to clutch her good luck charm. The small flower Kaimi had give her now encased in a special glass mold with enough holes to let it's scent continue to float about and calm her.

The smell of flowers flooded Bishop's nose only a split second after her brain registered the sound of Kaimi's voice. Bishop waved enthusiastically at the swiftly approaching other girl " Kaimi , I'm all better now." In fact her 'war wound' was now almost a distant memory.

Carol smiled in amusement, she remembered the girl from the park and the fun Bishop had had that day. She also remembered Bishop's attempt to fly but there was little chance she could get hurt here.

As she slid a bill across the front counter in exchange for some tokens the woman's eyes scanned the place for Naomi. it'd be nice to talk to her again, perhaps share more parenting experience stories.

Once again Bishop found herself being dragged about by Kaimi but as before she simply smiled. Kaimi was a nice girl and comforting to be around. That was part of why she kept the prize flower from her around her neck as a pendant.

Speaking of prizes " We have to get lots of tickets so we can get prizes" oh sure bishop liked Kaimi's mom as much as she could for barely knowing her. Still, the little girl had no intention of spending too long listening to adults talk, she did that enough at the store, not when there was prizes to be had.

Carol grinned at Naomi and then nodded to her plate " The food any good here ?" She was hungry but the thought of forking over money for greasy bland pizza was not appealing. It was best to check with someone else first. If all else failed there should be fries which was impossible to screw up.

" Over there with weird ball hoop thing." Even Bishop's wide imagination couldn't think of an appropriate fun term for skeeball. " There they are rolling the ball" she pointed just to be sure Kaimi knew where she meant, after all several games here had balls and hoops. With her free hand Bishop scooped up the tokens her mother held out to her.

" Those toppings are fine." Carol assured the other woman. " kinda putting your life in her hands though with the topping choices. I've seen kids put the strangest combinations together. At the store we have a slushie machine and gods the mixtures they make" she shuddered. Carol loved all her customers but the children and teenagers always astounded her with how different they were from her as a child.

Listening to the girls she grinned " and here I was sure they'd go off and play whack a mole or gator or whatever poor animal gets hits with a mallet theses days.." That game had Been Carol's favorite as a child and she'd always ended the day with a good round of pounding the heck of of the little plastic animals for what always seemed to be an unfair amount of tickets.

Bishop grinned as she was pulled through the the throng of people by Kaimi. It seemed to happen a lot but she didn't mind, she trusted her friend not to drag her into anything they couldn't handle.

Just as they reached the skeeball area a land opened up and Bishop Tugged Kaimi quickly over to it. Bishop just didn't have the patience to wait around and watch other have fun so this was a lucky break.

" I run a small convenience store over in the southern part of Durem. it's actually a more interesting job than you'd think and you can meet some rather peculiar characters , in fact the peculiar ones seem to be my regulars." The young woman laughed and shook her head. " It's no glamorous job but it works for me."

'Sure I'm gonna get the most points so we get lots of tickets" Bishop was confident that would be easily to roll a ball up the lane, not was easy as if they'd been allowed to throw it but that seemed to be a another game.

Picking up another of the wood balls Bishop rubbed her thumb over the grainy surface before swinging her arm backwards then forward again releasing the ball on the forward swing. She came just short of smacking her hand into the front panel of the lane and was thankful for that. her eyes narrowed and watched as the ball rolled swiftly down the lane and up off the ramp. The result was far from what was desired as the ball only manged to land in the ring indicating 20 points.

" You have to throw it hard, but don't hit your hand" Bishop warned looking at Kaimi. The owl girl liked to win but she also liked Kaimi and wanted her to do well.

" Everyone else is throwing it I think we hafta throw it too." Still, Kaimi's plan would surely work better, maybe they should only play one round of this game and then move to something easier.

Taking another ball she put it down on the plat form and shoved it forward, hoping for a better result. This sadly merely resulted in it just barely cresting the slop at the end and landing in the small 10 point ring. Still she giggled " Maybe this is a grownup game" After all the older people around them seem to be having few troubles.

" I dunno, maybe there's a portal that brings them back up here. Must be a magic portal. bishop said nodding, it was the only thing that made any sense, else the balls would be stuck down there forever and they'd have to make a lot of new ones and that would take a lot of trees.

With more force this time Bishop rolled her ball up the pathway but still failed to get more than 20 points. Unbeknownst to her her young age and small undeveloped muscles made this game hard to ace, her efforts were not futile but would never give her the results she wanted.