Yoyle City was as dead and abandoned as ever.
Pin cautiously walked along the desolate roads, keeping her head down to make sure she wouldn't accidentally step on anything sharp or otherwise rough. The wind was cold, the land was empty, and her soul was devoid of any positivity or cheer. Sometimes she'd angrily kick a stray pebble or two out of frustration, sometimes she'd mutter to herself about how much of her finite (hopefully) life she'd wasted, how much she could be if it wasn't for...
Ugh.
Her emotions were a whole slew of paradoxes. On one hand, she never felt so free, so liberated; nothing reminds you of the sheer *joy* of being alive quite like being threatened to have it taken away from you. After having survived an uncomfortably long time without her limbs to aid her (and, for a time, it was even *worse*), it felt like a miracle that she got them back. And for such a low cost too. Who needed her red tint anyway? She was still the same Pin everyone knew. The same old brave, heroic, courageous leader that does *everything* for her subordinates, her friends.
Friends.
On the other hand, Pin was now free to go wherever she pleased, and whenever she wanted, and yet at the same time she'd never felt so restricted. Her time spent among the limbless meant that she had to rely on her teammates, her associates, in order to stay in the game; and when the Battle for Dream Island (Again) inevitably sputtered out due to sheer incompetence, she needed them more just to keep on living. The one that held the reins for so long was made humble, completely at the whims of those that tolerate her. Frankly, she felt lucky that she didn't get eliminated as soon as she lost any and all capabilities, became useless.
But that was all in the past.
She was now back to being just as capable, just as skillful as all the others, and yet her... *alleged* friends aren't too keen on going back to that way of thinking. They continued to see her as a helpless soul that needed pampering all the time, someone that needed a guide anywhere and everywhere she went. It was embarrassing. It was infuriating. It angered her each and every time she remembered it, and she was reminded of it *always*. And whenever she voices even the slightest complaint about it, whenever she tells them that she can do things just fine and that they've got better things to do, they'll just remind her of everything they did for her, tell her to be more grateful, lest she go back to being that unliked dictator of the past.
*Ugh*.
Today started out like all the others: she woke up, and she had a grand total of several minutes before reality caught up to the fact that she was awake and promptly sent all sorts of troubles and tragedies her way. She saw Coiny right in the middle of doing something dumb, something that'll get them killed, and promptly told him off; they'd talk, then they'd bicker, then they'd argue, and eventually the coin creature did the usual trick of informing her of just how many times he'd bailed her out when she couldn't do anything helpful. She'd eventually storm off, briefly consider leaving Yoyle City, yet would know deep in her heart that she wouldn't. She *couldn't*. She was free, and yet she was chained. A whole new world was presented before her, and yet she was tethered to this lifeless, soulless place, a graveyard of some twisted definition, a monument to failure.
Pin *really* hesitated on talking about this with Golf Ball; out of all the contestants of BFDI, that team tyrant was one of the only ones that could be considered *more* bossy than she was. She also probably had other things to do, anyway. But she also knew more about the world and how it worked than everyone else, and so what little information she could give *might* be useful. Maybe.
When she finally figured it was worth a shot, entering the scene when she didn't look so busy, GB would miraculously go along with the conversation, understanding and sympathizing with her plight. Though the diminutive despot obviously couldn't help with much, she would comment that the best way to deal with an unavoidable problem is to distract yourself with something refreshing; she'd sketch out a little map, directing Pin to a place that was somehow more barren than the rest of the city, yet had plenty to do. Plenty to learn.
