Pieri stomped her
foot, her pink and blue pigtails bobbing angrily as she adopted the
childish pout she was known for. “Pieri is hungry,”
she shouted to no one in particular. “It is past Pieri's dinner
time and no one has fed her!”
Understandably,
no one answered; but that was probably because there was no one in
the room with her. Or many people awake in the castle at all, at the
moment- it was some unknown hour in the night, or perhaps even
morning, truthfully, and no time for dinner

The sun was on the latter half of its
arc, descending over the horizon and beginning to sink into obscurity
for the evening. The orange glow it cast on the Ylissian army's camp
illuminated the young pegasus knight Sumia, stumbling her way into
the stables with a long brush in one hand and a bucket of soapy water
in the other. Each wobbling step she took made her long, brown hair
swish from side to side, and the somewhat jerky movements were
causing her violet skirt to bob teasingly high, showing

In a brilliant flash
of insight that came just a little bit too late, it occurred to Anna
that Tiki was genuinely angry at her deceit. The oracle was clutching
a dragonstone in hand while staring the hapless merchant down,
carefully-manicured nails clicking against the smooth surface of the
magical weapon as she contemplated what needed to be done to punish
the girl for her trickery.
“Look, Tiki, it's
all about spreading your message, right?” Anna stammered,
attempting to show a disarming s