Alluka & Nanika Zoldyck

The horn blew, signalling their rest period being over. Alluka looked up from rebraiding her hair as another Hunter—this one a girl, with hair in strange spikes, shorts, and a t-shirt waved to get their attention.

"Hello, everyone!" she called. "Congrats on making it through the first test! We've lost some of you but who cares about that? We're focused on you lot!"

Alluka swallowed a giggle, casting a side-long look at Ringo.

The run up the mountain hadn’t been that hard, not really, once they'd gotten the hang of looking out for ice patches that led to loose rock and avalanches. The trees and roots and even the wildlife hadn't bothered them much.

"Some of you tried to get around to the other side of the mountain," the Hunter continued, "and today you're going to see why we didn't let you! Come on, get up, follow me!"

They were led, with some rumblings of discontent due to the slow start of the exam, to a river that poured out of an ice-peak of the volcano. Alluka was pretty sure that didn't work at all by how volcanos worked back on the island, but no one else seemed to have a problem with it, so she figured that was how it worked around here. Also laid out, on their side of the river, were a series of rafts.

"Each of you grab a raft," the Hunter said, "and get to the bottom of the river in twelve hours. Your raft must be in one piece and still able to float by the time you get down there or you're automatically disqualified. And your twelve hours starts… NOW!"

The horn sounded again.

Alluka… Alluka had a package! And that usually wasn't scary, since she tended to get orders in for new clothes pretty frequently, but today's package hadn't had the last skirt she'd bought, or the newest pair of cute shoes that had caught her eye.

(She, she kind of thought, maybe, that she'd have rathered her package be either of those things.)

But now she, and her bunny, and her arms full of a box that was open, and full of papers, was outside of Ringo's door.

"Ringo," she called, knocking. "Ringo, are you there?"

She bounced a little on her feet, both anxious and excited and not really sure how to deal with the nerves fizzling under her skin.

This was really, really happening.

[For she whose room this is!]

Alluka was ever, ever, ever so delighted to finally be free from Portalocity's clutches--the last week had been extremely trying-- that when she stepped out at their destination it took a moment for it to sink in that…

That this… wasn't… a city.

She'd never seen Yorknew City in person before, but none of the brochures had indicated anything that looked… quite like this small, fish-smelling little town.

"Ringo!" she complained. "We're not here!"

Again!

Were they in the right world at least? Alluka dropped her bags and dug out her phone to check.

[For the travel buddy!]

Alluka had her own room, it was true, and most of her friends were at that room, back in the dorms, but her Papas had their own house too, and since they were her Papas, that meant she was allowed to be there as well.

Even if she didn't have a lot of reason. Or… well, not much of a reason. (Okay, she had a reason.)

Even if she was spending her time cuddled up against Papa Jono's side and reading a book on sewing techniques. (They were too advanced for her, but she liked looking at the things she might be able to do one day.)

She sighed a little. She should probably talk to at least one of her Papas about the reason why she'd come, but Alluka liked avoidance too. It was cozy.

[Open for he who is modded, the other he whose house this is, and phone calls!]

It was pie giving day again!

This was good, since Alluka had gotten a message from Kathy, and this kept her from thinking things like 'maybe Kathy is sick because Anders said I couldn't send a friend for her to hug', which was a completely illogical thought, but one that kept sneaking in around things. She'd tuned out about half a minute into the talk about zombies (boooring; she didn't want to listen to Kathy lecture her on something like that!) and even though Kathy had looked really sick, she believed her when Kathy had said she'd be better soon.

Kathy had never lied to her.

But still, Alluka felt funny and antsy if she thought about Kathy for too long, so pie day? Best day ever! To the locker!

"Do you think the locker will like the apple cranberry pie we made for it?" she asked Mabel.

[For Mabel only, please!]

The bus wound through the mountain path, which was lush with greenery, until they approached the mountain. The tour guide spoke up again, once they'd all gotten off the bus. Tourists were taking pictures in front of the doors and laughing and talking amongst themselves.

"This is the front gate of the Zoldyck estate! Also known as the Door to Hades because no one who's entered has ever returned alive. To enter, you must pass through the door beside the security checkpoint. But the area beyond the gate is private property, so we can't proceed."

( Yeah. Well. Apparently it didn't much matter to the Fandomites whether it was private property or not. )
[NFI, NFB. Pre-played with the most excellent soniaroadsqueen, rhymeswithtable, spin_kick_snap, never_dull, furnaceface, and not_every_mage!]

She, she was back in her room!

Mommy and Daddy had scolded her for being a bad girl but, after she'd explained, they patted her on the head and said they understood and that she hadn't been that bad. So they'd given her new toys, and new clothes, and walked her back down to her room.

She'd even gotten to hold her daddy's hand on the way down.

Her room was much the way she'd left it, though someone had cleaned up her tea party and put all her toys neatly on the shelves.

Alluka rubbed sleep out of her eyes and looked around her room and didn't know what to feel. She didn't want to play, though, so she got dressed, ate breakfast when it came, and then picked up one of her toys and hugged it to her chest.

It was really quiet, without anyone around. But she had to be good, and she'd promised to be good, and she liked her room a lot, she really did!

She took a seat amongst her toys and listened to them talk. They'd missed her. They wanted to know where her bunny had gone.

"Sorry," she said, hugging one of her new toys tighter. It still smelled new, rather than like her. "I, I didn't get a chance to bring the bunny back with me. Um, but, but there's people who'll look after him, so it's okay. And, and there are other friends who'll keep him company too. So, so he won't be lonely."

Oh. Her hands were shaking. She didn't know why. Alluka hugged her toys tighter and reminded herself that it was okay, everything was fine, and she was being good. That was for the best, right? It was.

It was.

[Establishy & NFB.]

It was glorious. There were banners and balloons, battlements and buttresses. And toys.

There were so many toys.

The two girls had known that they were in for an adventure when Locky had sucked them in, but they really hadn't predicted that they'd have a rubber duck escort to the castle of the ailing King Kaleidoscope, the somewhat colourful lord of the realm of the toys.

Not that they objected to any of this. Especially not with the way everyone treated them like they were long-lost friends, family even, that had to be welcomed back excitedly. They were friendly girls and people being friendly back only made sense to them, even when it was the King of Toylandia who greeted them as such.

"Is that at real crown?" Alluka had wanted to know. The King assured her that it was.

"Heey, nice," Mabel decided, leaning over to appreciate the bedazzling appreciatively. Mabel loved a good bedazzling. "And is that a real throne?"

The king assured her that it was quite real, as well.

Alluka duly admired that too. "Can, can we sit on it?"

The King thought about it and then took his crown off his head and broke it in two. They gasped in impressed surprise as the crown wriggled, and squiggled, and reformed into two separate bedazzled crowns and set one on each of their heads. Then he waved for them to go and sit on the throne.

The entire court stared in awe as the two girls both made their way to the throne, one boosting the other into the seat, and then getting a hand up into it herself.

The girls started in awe as, once they were settled, the entire court fell to their knees (or squeaky appendage equivalents) and bowed.

The king, meanwhile, did a little jig at the front of the room, clicking his heels together and everything before he made a beeline for the door.

"I'm finally free to go on that vacation to Candyland! Bye, suckers!"

A handful of lollipops in the old King's entourage began to silently weep.

With a trumpet in hand a herald (who was also a skip-it, that had eyes) announced: "The King is dead!" Even though he wasn't. "Long live the Queens!"

"Long live the Queens!" echoed the court.

The new Queens blinked.

[NFB! For the other queen! Er. The one who co-wrote this post. Not any other queens.]

Alluka had totally lost all track of time.

Which… wasn’t… really surprising, given how she’d grown up. It was like she’d blinked and weeks had gone by without her noticing.

…

Oh well. It probably wasn’t important anyway. Besides, there were more important things to do. Super important things! Sneaky things! She was the cleverest!

She crawled out from under her bed (why was she under her bed? The more important question was why wouldn’t she be under her bed!) and looked over at Mabel.

"Mabel!" she whispered. Loudly. "Mabel!"

[For ze roomie first, but open after, sure!]