Feudal Phase

Opka

"Oh!"

"Pe-"

"Ka!"

Aster's three fingered ka was trounced by a single oh, which was in turn trounced by a pe, going counter-clockwise around the circle from the initiator. If they had been just one seat over, they would have trounced this round and won. Aster insisted, "One more."

"Oh--"

"Pe--"

"Ka!"

Aster played ka again.To their right, Canela held up an oh, winning the round. Not one of them had actually revised their stance, so it was a straight run, no contentions. Playing like this, they'd tie all the way around. Aster leered.

"Why'd you play pe again?" their asked Canela.

"Because you play ka every single time," Canela responded, with a lazy smile.

Aster frowned. "It's the best one."

"There is no best one. They're hand gestures," Auran, the third member of the small circle, responded. A rash of clementine hair curled around their neck, a cascade of shades not unlike Cyspel's dawn-hued fins. Mimicry was not uncommon amongst the dependents, but Auran was really leaning into Cyspel's appearance.

Aster folded their arms. "Opeka's a boring game, anyways. Isn't there anything else we can play?"
"We'll be going down to the lake soon," Auran offered.

Aster threw their stick across the room, where it lodged itself in a hole in the door created by the last twenty times Aster had thrown their stick across their room. At the very least, they had some uncanny aim with the stick. "So we'll be here all day waiting for a bunch of fourteens to crawl out of their cradles, so the Siida can escort them nicely down to the river." Aster stuck out their tongue, miming disgust. "If it were up to me we'd leave 'em. I don't know what they even get out of going down there."

"We can't leave them. The Koda will kill them," Auran said.

Aster squinted at their stick from across the room. "They should at least walk down there themselves."

"They can't walk," Auran said.

"I was walking when I was a fourteen!" Aster snapped.

"We all know," Canela said. "We were there. You were a big bragger then, even before you could talk."

Aster scowled. "I had the right." They flexed their leg upwards from their sitting position, brandishing the scar. With a self-satisfied smile, they launched themself back onto their feet, head still tilted upwards to try to increase their otherwise petty height. "And I'm growing horns, too, so there."

"Who'd you hurt?" asked Auran.

"I saw a Koda scout and I bopped 'em right on the dumb head," Aster bragged.

"Liar," Auran said.

Aster took Auran's hands and placed them in Aster's own caramel hair. "Feel them! There are stumps there. I know you can feel them, Auran!" Auran jerked herself away just as the Covena came in. Cyspel, Sander, and Ocella all came in with armfuls of other dependents, some leaning on them or hanging from their backs, others just stuck stubbornly to a five-foot radius of the more mature threes and fours of the Covena. Aster huffed a sigh, "Took you long enough."

Cyspel rubbed Aster's hair just where the nubs of horns were growing in. "You three are some of the oldest. I would expect you to be old enough to understand why we need to take care of the little ones, and why sometimes, that means making sacrifices."