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There was chaos in the palace today, because in just about each and every room was a green chicken. Each one was labeled with a number out of 9, and all the staff were quite taken with chasing all of them around because they never seemed to be able to sit still. Except the one in the study room, which was willing to stay still as long as someone was deliberately staring at it.
As the hours passed, there were two things missing that everyone was looking for. The 9th chicken, and the person that had most certainly been the one to bring them to the palace in the first place.
Being a Ninja it had been an easy feat indeed for Sunana to remain undetected throughout the day, stifling the giggles that ran through her each time she saw a chicken running past with a cadre of servants chasing after it. She couldn’t allow her laughter to give her away after all, and finally, at the end of the day…
Nanamo summoned her, finally giving into the servant’s desperate pleading to ask her where the final chicken was. She never turned down a summon from her dear Sultana, so she appeared immediately and attempted to not look too smug as she said, “Oh, you truly did not guess that aspect of my trickery?”
She didn’t elaborate, she simply looked at them expectantly. And finally, it was one of the newer servants that said with a sigh, “There’s only eight of them, isn’t there…”
“Quite correct!” Sunana said brightly as she finally let her laughter out, and Nanamo gave her a royal pout as she said, “First painting the ceiling with colors that could not be removed, now setting chickens free in the palace, did you not promise me you would include me in your pranking!?”
Oh that was a funny one recently, she covered the ceiling of the throne room in the brightest shades of orange and green that she could find and charmed it so they could not be removed without her magical help. Nanamo was correct that she had promised to include her, it was rather rude of her to exclude her from it…but she could rectify that.
She scooted a little closer, trying to keep her conversation quiet as she whispered, “I was intending to tie the cutlery in strings and hang them from the ceiling of the dining room and I could use help with-“
“Oh no you don’t, don’t touch my nice silverware!” The Miqo’te butler was rather protective of that, and apparently her ears had picked it up, which made Sunana frown before she said clearly, “Well I was not seeking your opinion in this matter, pray leave us to our secretive, intentionally hushed conversations!”
They hardly wanted to remain oblivious to the pranksters plotting but they had no choice when Nanamo intentionally dismissed them. And with them no longer in the room Sunana wrapped her arms around her dearest friend and said, “The ceiling painting trick really made me think back on that time as children when we colored their uniforms pink. Do you suppose we could do that again but with a wider variety of noticeable colors? They would look ravishing in a loud orange, don’t you think?”
“It occurs to me, dear Sun, that you must be exceptionally bored.” Nanamo replied with a smile, and Sunana gave a loud sigh and practically pushed all her weight on her friend as she groaned, “That be the truth, I have so little to do with the world safe and things calming over in the New World that I have precisely nothing to stimulate me! I may even be growing bored with inconveniencing the staff, perhaps I should widen my focus…”
“Well, if receiving the same reactions time and again is causing your disinterest then I suppose you’ve naught to do but seek unfamiliar reactions. But pray do not turn your mischief on me.” Nanamo added that last part with a laugh, and Sunana squeezed her as much as she could as she squealed, “Why would I prank my partner in crime!? If I seek new reactions, I may as well cast a wide net. Let us see how everyone in our fair city reacts to mischief…”
-
Sunana had been quite busy all night, and quite secretive as to why. So come morning she simply retired to bed and informed her retainers to wake her at precisely 10 to noon.
She didn’t particularly wish to rise with so few hours of sleep, but today was a big day and she could hardly afford for anyone to discover her presents…
Once she was well dressed in her old Exarchic Cloak with the circlet (change things up, always wearing the same thing was also boring) she hurried down to the Ruby Road Exchange, climbing up on the wall so she could get a good look at the main road of the Steps of Nald. She needed people to be next to her little presents when she set them off…
As she stalled she pulled out her tomestone, swiping it a few times to pull up the app she had developed for controlling the magitek toys she’d developed as a Machinist. She still used her turret and the camera attached to it quite often, but the reason she had pulled it up was because her presents were remote activated, and she just needed the right moment to set it off.
There, that spacing was perfect. It was time, and with a wide smile she tapped her phone.
The ones in front of her went off first. Out of nowhere came the sound of an explosion that made people shriek, but rather than being covered in fire or debris they found themselves and everything around them covered in ilms of glittery confetti.
But once those went off, it started a chain. It went right, setting off confetti bomb after confetti bomb in a clockwise circle through the entire city.
Now that the entire city was filled with glittery paper and intensely confused people Sunana felt it was time to reveal her intentions, so she activated her turret and used the communicator to send out a very loud message. The speaker it had was very good, so just about everyone should have heard:
“The Court Sorceress has grown bored of tormenting the staff in the palace, so she seeks entertainment elsewhere! Be prepared for the most chaotic week of your lives!”
She ended with her classic maniacal sorceress laugh, then promptly recalled her turret and set off back to her office. She had a lot to do to make this week a memorable one, after all…
-
Sunana had started in the middle of the 8 day week, so her work began in earnest on Firesday. And she was quite happy to pull out the flames, she cast a wide ranging spell to plant fire in the cracks of the walk ways. At precisely daybreak the fire started seeping out of the cracks, turning purple and chasing people around before melting back into the cracks. It lasted all day, and Sunana spent much of it sitting on the royal balcony and observing the terrified yells and shrieks of those unlucky enough to be the target of her misbehaving fires.
It was more than mildly entertaining to her, actually. She had brought a book and tea but apparently didn’t need extra stimulation. All she wanted was to watch the panic on random citizens’ faces as they ran in terror.
“Isn’t this a bit of a harmful prank?”
Sunana looked over at Pipin and Nanamo, sipping her tea gently as she replied, “The fire is harmless, if it does catch them they won’t feel anything. But they don’t know that yet, and until they figure it out I will enjoy watching them panic.”
“You truly enjoy instilling fear in others,” Pipin teased, and she giggled and replied, “Of course! I wonder how long it will take them to realize, would anyone like to cast bets upon it?”
“What!? You would have us gamble!?” shouted Nanamo in disappointment, but Sunana hardly noticed and placed her bet. “I would say once we draw close to evening they will be too tired to run.”
“I disagree, someone is bound to trip eventually. I think noon more likely.” Pipin had hopped up next to her to search for some evidence to support his bet, but eventually they both looked back at Nanamo with expectant gazes. And after a bit of shifting around she finally gave in. “I hardly think it will even take that long, I hold my subjects in high regard. Before noon holds my endorsement.”
“Very well, I shall keep watch should you both grow busy. As for a prize…I shall place low stakes upon this and promise a coffee cake.”
Sunana had really tried to win that, despite the low stakes. The others claimed it was cheating to force the fire to move erratically or suddenly pull back. Yet she did not win that, nor did any of them really as it was in the mystery period of late afternoon that someone finally got a face full of flames and let everyone know it was completely harmless. It was too late to be noon, and too early to be evening, so they threw their hands up and nobody got a coffee cake.
-
The next day was Earthsday, and she chose to watch this one from the shadows. She was roaming through the city undetected, setting off random earthquakes so she could watch people tumble off their chairs with startled yelps. As she wandered in the shadows she could see that this was actually bringing people together. She could see groups of disheveled people trying to guess where safe places might be, as if the phrase “lightning never strikes the same place twice” applied to earthquakes. And when they did strike she saw people grabbing onto each other, trying to keep others from falling. It was heartwarming really, and quite entertaining to hear everyone’s panicked shrieks when they almost lost their footing.
-
The next day was Lightsday, and she had a fun, not at all terrifying one. It was more just to confuse everyone, and that was she covered every indoor lantern in rotating paper balls with holes and enchanted the fire in multiple colors to make every room into a party room. Though she saw no looks of fear it made her smile to see everyone looking up at them in utter confusion and awe.
-
The next day was Darksday, and everyone was a little jumpy because throughout the day there weren’t any pranks. She was waiting for night time.
After dark fell, all at once, every single light in the city suddenly went dark. It was a cloudy night so there was no starlight, little moonlight, and no lanterns so as the world went completely dark she finally heard the screams that she had missed yesterday. And the second everyone screamed, the light came back.
She kept doing that through the night, repeatedly snuffing the lights and lighting them again when she heard screams. At least until it was late enough that just about everyone was in bed and therefore wouldn’t care about the lights going out. Then she went to bed, getting some quick rest because her prank tomorrow was one she needed to be up early to do.
-
Iceday she performed a feat nobody thought was possible in a desert.
She covered the entirety of the Steps of Nald in a layer of unmeltable ice.
Most everyone in Ul’dah had little or absolutely no experience walking on ice, especially on the stairs. She spent the morning hours enjoying the startled screams when people slipped or the silly view of people that were trying to run and just ended up running in place before falling on their faces. But by noon she was tired again from the incredible amount of magic required for that spell and the lack of sleep, so she took a nap.
She woke in the evening, and by now a lot of people had sort of figured out how to walk on ice. Some even managed to figure out how to do controlled slides, like ice skating with your shoes. She and Pipin were used to ice from Garlemald so she lured him from his paperwork for a moment to ice skate with him, though she fell victim to her own prank because she actually ended up slipping once or twice…or five times.
-
Watersday was filled with anxiety, because everyone could see that in the sky were really really big balloons. And she let everyone hang in that anxiety for a couple hours before she began her day of terror. Every single hour she would drop one of her water balloons, drenching everyone in a fifty yalm radius.
Every time people saw one start dropping they would try to find somewhere to hide, though most wouldn’t make it and she would hear them scream from the balloon popping on their heads and the feeling of cold water covering them. Though she noticed that as the noon day sun came to its height there were actually people gathering under the balloons, hoping for a drenching of cold water to stave off the desert heat. They guessed which one would drop next correctly one time, but not the next to their disappointment, and their disappointed faces made her laugh so much that she felt they deserved it and swept one of the balloons over to drop it on them. That meant that there was one less hour she could do this for, but it was kinda nice to hear them actually cheer about how refreshing it was after the initial sting of the balloon popping.
-
Windsday was an annoying day for everyone, because she had cooked up some magitek bomb anti-gravity traps. She set them up overnight, took a quick nap and went out in the city to see how many people had fallen victim.
They weren’t meant to fade until about a bell had gone by, so there were quite a few very annoyed and very bored citizens stuck in the air complaining about wasting time. She walked past one and got quite a few people yelling at her to undo it, which she ignored. They had set off almost all of her traps so she spent the late afternoon sneaking in the shadows and rolling her bombs between the feet of groups or the casual preoccupied person strolling down the street. Honestly she couldn’t tell which was more fun, waiting for people to walk into preset traps or watching their faces when she sent them into the air herself.
-
It was the final day of her reign, Lightningday. Her prank wasn’t the zenith of her creativity, it was about the same as every other day. She put lightning in all of the street lamps so when people walked by they would get a shock that filled them with static. Anyone they then touched would get a static shock, and she was finding it very amusing that many people were taking advantage of this and just chasing their fellows around the streets trying to shock them. By the end of the day everyone was so exhausted from the lightning and trying to avoid the pranksters chasing everyone around that many ended up sprawled in the streets just knocked out.
-
Though yesterday was to be her final day, she couldn’t help but feel like it was a lackluster end to her reign. She intended to go out with a bang, like she had come in with. So she decided that today was a day…for paint!
She was an experienced Pictomancer, all she had to do was draw the right thing. So she picked a modified moogle beam and placed herself in front of the Ruby Road Exchange.
She pulled out her palette and faced towards the Flame Headquarters and Pugilists guild, sending a very obvious grin to Wymond because he was going to be the first to get hit. She saw the fear in his eyes, then painted a giant sketch of a moogle holding a paint can of pink and orange and let the whole street have it.
It went all the way up the steps and covered the Coliseum entrance and the fountain in front of the Ossuary, and when she had a good view of everyone dripping in paint with utter disbelief on their faces she threw her turret up to announce, “It’s been a pleasure to witness all of your reactions to my little tastes of chaos, we should do this again someday!”
She spun on her heel, turning her head up to the sky with a grin as she listened to the whole city groan, and there was truly a pep in her step as she thought of what else she could possibly do to everyone next time she was bored enough to go on a prank rampage.