What is Love?

Luna slept in again that morning. Stella had told her the previous day that since she didn’t have any interest in helping with the crepes, she’d be staying in again and having Ava bring her something then prepping lunch after the early risers were gone. That meant they needed a bit more time to get ready, especially given Ava’s habit of sleeping in all morning if she was allowed to. After her slow morning, she stopped by for something Genet had called the Tofu Terrifier, which had had a fantastic kick to it. When she was done, she thanked the host and walked over to her friend’s place.

Ava let her in and they walked through the coral-lit hall to see Stella. The shyest member of the group had borrowed one of Luna’s tank tops and it fit her awkwardly. She seemed aware of that, but still welcomed her closest friend in.

“Good morning Luna. Are you sure this is alright? I have a T-shirt I can change into.”

What Stella was saying had her usual expression of uncertainty, of trying to get out of the way. But her voice came out clear, without any stuttering or stammering.

“You can have anything in my closet you need. We’re all getting things figured out.” She looked over to Ava. . “Have either of you heard when Felicia will be over?”

Ava answered. “She said she’d be over when she was done working. She’s finally willing to make a second deck. It’s supposed to be less salty than Nobody. Hopefully that shouldn’t take her more than an hour? We can still get in a game before she arrives as long as we have nature or emotion based decks. Since Prometheus hasn’t been working for you lately, I can lend you one from my collection. Pan or Set might be good for you to start with.”

Luna tried to remember what those decks were like. She didn’t care about the game as much as Ava, Felicia, or Dick. “You can pick, you know this game better than me.”

***

An hour later, they’d finished the first game. Ava had won pretty easily, Luna wasn’t experienced enough with the deck to time the discards Pan rewarded properly, and without either Felicia’s control pieces to rein her in or one of Richard’s aggro decks to interrupt her ramping, Ava had been able to flood the board with her sea monsters.

Felicia still hadn’t shown up. Ava suggested playing one more game before they checked on her, and Stella was just starting her second turn.

“I’ll play my temple of order, then tap that and my temple of nature to play a divine signet. I’ll use that to play a prayer ring, and tap that for two for the compass of Ra. I’ll end my turn there.”

Luna looked at her starting hand. “I’ll play a temple of emotion, then tap that and my nature temple for sylvan celebrant.”

“Cool.” Ava said. “I’ll play my temple of knowledge, then play proselytize to the pinecones to pull another nature temple to the field and a knowledge temple to my hand from my deck. Pass.”

They went around another turn. Stella and Luna were able to bring out their idols, and Ava kept trying to ramp. By the end of her third turn she had seven piety she had access to, so if all went well Jörmungandr might be able to come out next turn. But before she passed her turn, she had a question for Luna.

“How do you know the difference between a crush and being in love?”

That’d come out of nowhere. “What makes you think of that?” The latina replied.

“Well, we’re supposed to be on a dating show, right? Genet wants us all to fall in love with him by the time this ends. How do you know when you’re in love?”

“It’s kind of different for everyone. What it might feel like for you would be different from what it’d be like for other people.“

Not wanting the conversation to get uncomfortable, Stella tried to distract her younger friend. “Can I take my turn?”

“I’ll tap out my temples to summon two treefolk, then attack you with Idunn.” She directed at Ava. “Any response?”

“It’s only three damage?”

“That’s all.”

“I’ll let it through.”

“Your turn Luna.”

Luna looked over her hand. Pan was shitty at anything defensive, so she decided to start going all out early. “I’ll play equine kickboxer, then discard wave of wine to pump up my creatures. Since the kickboxer has haste, I’ll swing at you with everything. That’ll be eight attack from the celebrant, nine from Pan for idol damage, and eleven from the kickboxer.” After how badly she’d been beaten the last game, she wanted to be more aggressive.

But Ava had accepted the small attack from Stella for a reason. “I’ll tap a nature for fog to cancel combat damage for the turn.”

“Then I guess I’ll have to pass.”

“Cool. I’ll tap a temple for prayer ring, another temple for prayer crypt, and tap all but two knowledge to bring out Jörmungandr. I can’t do anything else.” But she didn’t actually pass the turn. “What does it feel like when you’ve been in love?” She asked Luna.

“I don’t know.”

“What do you mean?”

Stella wanted to move on. “For my turn, after I play another temple I’ll summon the Great Wall. That’s a zero/eight wall that’ll create two zero/sixes when it enters. I’ll use everything to create six apples. Next turn those can give me twenty-four more life. Pass.” Hopefully announcing things that clearly would stop Ava from digging any deeper.

“Ok. I’ll play trampling the wedding. That’ll-“

Ava tapped the temples she’d left open. “Counterspell.”

“Oh.” Luna had used both of her expensive cards she had access to, between wave last turn to feed Pan and the incantation she’d wanted to use as a more sustained buff before it got countered. She could feed Pan one of her cheaper cards to pump up a few creatures to send at Ava, but now that the snake was out she’d lose at least one creature and she’d need a defender for when the snake started swinging. “Pass.”

“I’ll summon colossal whale, then after I move to combat I’ll send Jörmungandr at Stella and the copy at Luna.” Stella had nothing to stop it and was **** to take the damage, while Luna had held the sylvan celebrant back to block it.

“But it’s hard to describe what being in love is like?”

Neither of them commented on Stella walking out of the room.

“It’d be hard to describe because I haven’t been in love before.”

Ava didn’t understand. “But what about all the boyfriends and girlfriends I’ve heard you talking to Felicia about? Did you not love any of them?”

“We weren’t dating. I don’t do “boyfriend and girlfriend”, they were just hookups. The whole point was to avoid attachments.”

“Why?”

“Because when I tried having more than hookups they’d start talking about settling down.”

“And that’s bad?”

“To me it is. I like my life, and I didn’t want to have to change for someone else.”

“Didn’t you change a lot of your life for Dick?” Ava pointed out.

“Yes, but only my work and moving to the capital. Anything I want to do for myself, I can do in any big city. He and I have always agreed we don’t need to talk about our personal lives as long as it doesn't interfere with work or school.”

Neither of them commented on the time Luna had needed to call in that agreement. Ava finally noticed that it was just the two of them. “What happened to Stella?”

“I think she was worried about us fighting and left the room. Let’s go bring her back.” The biggest extrovert of the group put her cards down on the bed.

“I know I’m asking a lot of stupid questions, but why would we be fighting?”

“"Why haven’t you settled down?” is usually a pretty divisive topic. It’s like the third biggest way to ruin thanksgiving. Stella and I have talked enough about this before that she probably thought that the love question would lead to the settle down question. She's seen me get mad at my moms once for asking and might've thought I'd react badly now.”

“Oh.” Ava hadn't been on the receiving end of the question before. She did remember Felicia getting pissed once when her dad asked on a visit. “I’m sorry, I wasn’t thinking.”

“It’s fine. You check the bathroom, I’ll check the closets.”

A couple minutes later, Luna slowly opened the door to the chef’s closet. The anxious chef was sitting on the floor, fiddling with a whisk.

“Are you ready to come back? We talked about it, and no one got angry.”

Stella looked up at her most trusted friend. “Can I have some time before coming back in?”

“Sure.” Luna agreed. “What’s for lunch?

“Genet asked me to do a white bean and ham soup. I’ve got a separate pot prepped for you with corn flour and paprika to help thicken it and substitute for the ham.”

“I appreciate that. You can come in when you’re ready. It’s your turn in the game but we can be patient.”

***

Felicia didn’t end up showing up to the Trident Cottage. Instead, They caught her as everyone else was finishing lunch and she took everything to go to follow her friends out.

She’d been talking about how badly her date had gone. Apparently he’d been sulking after she beat him at this obstacle course she’d bought from Genet and they’d barely talked all through dinner.

Or at least that’s what she said. Ava and Stella had some confusion about Dick reacting that badly, but they didn’t push back much. The blonde had no reason to lie, right?

Luna didn’t push back much either, but knew she was lying. She wouldn’t have needed a second jilling session if he’d been sulking all night, not that she would’ve thought it was true anyways with how stubborn her partner was.

But whatever happened, they’d gotten back to the Trident House after lunch for at least one more game.

“So what’d you decide on making?” Ava asked her best friend. “You’d been talking about building a midrange deck, right?”

“I had been, but something made me change my mind. I ended up building Cassandra, the Lonely Seer.”

“So you went from a combo prison deck to milling?”

“What’s milling?” Stella inquired.

“You know how you can lose if you run out of cards, but it almost never happens?”

Stella nodded.

“Milling is the term for a strategy designed to make the opponents run out of cards. Cassandra, for example, messes with your draws. Before you draw a card at the start of your turn you check the mana cost of your top card and mill that many, and only after that do you actually get your draw.”

“So it takes away the card you should’ve drawn?” Stella asked further.

“Kind of? The deck’s kind of supposed to be a black box, so you’re not usually supposed to know what you “should've drawn”. Milling doesn’t usually hurt you until you’re dead, and graveyard strategies can actually benefit from getting milled.”

“Like Richard’s aggro deck?” Luna chimed in. She’d heard milling getting explained before, but not the graveyard part.

“Yeah. If he was here, then his deck would be pretty good against something like Cassandra. His knights have a lot of natural ways to bring things back.”

“But he’s not here.” Felicia pointed out. “Can we get started?”

They got their third game going. The first two turns proceed slowly as usual, everyone just bringing out small summons or trying to ramp up for later. On the third turn both Luna and Felicia were able to bring out their idols.

That meant that on Ava's first turn she was going to start getting milled. “So if I reveal my top card… that’s Scylla, Sailor Eater. So I have to mill that and six more. Then I’ll draw a knowledge, play that and shrimp scrapper. Pass”

Stella flipped over her top card. “Chariot cat, so that’s only two. After that I’ll play candy castle.”

Luna ended up needing to mill four, and then was able to was able to spread out four to six damage to everyone else.

Felicia got to ignore he own card’s effect and added Diogenes the Bowlless to her field.

“What’s that do?” Luna asked.

“Any time you’d summon a creature, you have to mill equivalent to that creature’s cost.” Felicia explained.

“You do know that I need to target you now, right? That’s two cards that punish high costs, and my average creature is over five.” Ava warned.

“Sure, attack me if you can.”

Ava had needed to mill six after revealing wave wrecker. She played a nature temple then milled nine more after bringing our her idol. She decided to let the shrimp scrapper test out Felicia’s defenses. Felicia let the three damage through, providing no clues as to whether her diminutive friend was bluffing. “Pass. Would either of you be comfortable with my question from earlier?”

Stella quietly took her turn. She milled five more cards and put a giant snail down.

“What was the question?” Felicia asked.

“She wanted to know what love feels like.”

“Oh, that’s easy. When you’re in love with someone you notice every little thing the other person does. No matter how much they annoy you, their smile makes you feel warm and embarrassed.”

“It sounds like you’re just quoting some anime tsundere.” Ava teased.

“Am not. Whose turn is it anyways?”

“Yours.” Luna said. “I summoned two more creatures and milled ten.”

“Alright then. I’ll play another knowledge temple and the rule card brain drain. Whenever y’all mill, you’ll have to mill twice that. Pass.”

Ava flipped over her top card, preparing for the worst. It came, as the seven cost Yuki-Onna showed up. It was the best defensive creature in the deck, but now the high cost meant she’d be losing it and thirteen more cards. Instead she drew a nature temple, and she set it down and attached a prophecy of doom to Jörmungandr before swinging everything at Felicia. “That’s three damage from the shrimp and with Jörmungandr’s aura he’ll do seven damage and afterwards you’ll lose half your health if he makes contact. Copies without the contact trigger will be coming at both of you two.” She mentioned to the other players.

“Is that everything?” Felicia asked.

“Did you want more? Luna can finish you off unless you let everything you have die on block.”

Felicia smirked. “I just wanted to see if you had anything else to try before I played sludge of Lethe.”

“Shit.”

“What’s that do?” Came from Luna.

“We all either sacrifice our creatures or mill equivalent to their attack. That’d be twenty-four for me, nine for you, six for Felicia, and three for Stella. Then Diogenes will double all of that.”

Everyone looked down at their boards. Felicia and Stella both just accepted their milling. Luna kept Pan, and took the small losses in either direction. Ava had the hardest choice. She ended up letting the copies die and went through with her attack on Felicia. She may not survive needing long enough to regrow her board, and if Luna could put out the last burst of damage everything would be fine.

Stella kept along with her game plan. She milled a few more and climbed up to seventy-four life.

Luna wasn’t her saving grace. The Wonders expert of the group watched as the lawyer silently counted something, then set her cards down. “Pass.”

“Great.” Felicia said as she started her turn. “I’ll tap everything for soul funeral. Everyone mills equal to the amount of cards in their graveyard.”

Ava didn’t need to count. Her stack of milled cards was bigger than what was left to mill. “I’m out”. The other two counted out their cards and moved on. They had two or three turns before they’d have to be worried.

Stella started her turn, and as she calculated how much life she’d be able to reach Ava decided to see if she’d be comfortable giving advice. “On the love question, is that something you’d be comfortable with?”

Stella paused for a moment. She took her socks off before answering. “When you love someone, you feel safer around them. You trust them not to shout, and you know he won’t hurt you.” Stella finished her turn after letting everyone know that she was up to ninety-four life.

Luna fed two of her cards to Pan and used it to finish off Felicia. Stella’s life total kept climbing, and Luna had been neutered too badly by sludge of Lethe to stop her from passing the hundred and eleven life total she needed to win.

“After I switch decks, do you mind if we play one more game before dinner?” Ava asked her friends.

Stella and Felicia nodded. “Did your Zeus deck come when Genet took the rest of your collection? I’d like to try that one next.” Luna said.

“I’ll grab that and Anubis. It'll be interesting to see a storm deck in play.” Ava left the room to get ready for the last match of the night.