#MGChronicle [01:11:23:43] <Reikim>
"At the end of the day, we're all still human," is something Hikari likes to say. And nowhere is this more apparent than in downtime.
With the entire multiverse at their fingertips, perhaps it's a little odd that something as simple as *playing cards* would still be so popular. But they're all still human, at the end of the day; and humans are both social creatures and creatures of habit.
So on a regular basis, several of the Beacons of Prisma Lantern will get together around a table to pass around little slips of cardboard in a socialization ritual that they all understand, no matter where or when they come from.
The ringleader is Bonnie, who keeps tabs on when Meeting Room 4, one of the many meeting spaces arranged around the outside wall of the lighthouse tower, isn't being used.
She's also the one who brings the deck. The deck is a special one, used only within Beacon. There are five suits - one for each Founder: Fire, Wind, Water, Thunder, and Light.
For each suit, there are ten number cards; two Citadels; one Founder; and a Corrupted.
Beyond that…well.
Things change with the times. And they have a tendency to also get a little *regional*.
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Once everyone's sitting around the table, Bonnie starts to shuffle the cards. "So this is Kuroko," she says, indicating their newest recruit by waving the deck to her right. "Make sure you're nice to her, okay? I didn't bring her here to throw her to the sharks, ha!"
"Anyway," she says, "we should probably introduce ourselves, right? Otherwise this is gonna be awkward."
She deals herself in and, when her hand is freed, flips a wavy lock of sea-blue hair over her shoulder.
"I," she declares, with a grandiose air, "am called Bonnie."
Bonnie looks like she's about 18, and has the figure and grace of a water nymph; though not the attitude. She lounges professionally in her seat, managing to make it look good despite the obvious lack of decorum.
She has the kind of skin that's called "sun-kissed" in places where they don't get enough sun. She likes to stay transformed - and by the grace of magic or perhaps unfair luck, her flowing blue robes are always positioned *just right* to make her look like an art piece.
Her equally blue eyes have a permanent impish twinkle to them; she casts them left and deals in the girl on her left.
"Claire," this one introduces herself, getting right to the point and going no further.
She's much more restrained, especially next to Bonnie. She looks about the same age, but her hair is silver like someone five times her age, cut short and practical.
She wears a simple, dark outfit, somewhere close to being a school uniform but less formal. She picks up her hand and looks it over with a sharp eye - one, her left; the other, if it exists, is sealed behind a black eyepatch embroidered in silver with the Prisma Lantern spin on Beacon's logo.
Bonnie glares at her a little, waiting for more; then rolls her eyes and deals in the next person around the circle, sitting on Claire's left:

<Trimangle>	 The person sitting to Claire's left is…well, perhaps the word isn't 'unapproachable,' but 'standoffish,' like she isn't sure she should be here. Or, perhaps, where indeed she is.
Perhaps in contrast to the others seated around the table, she's co-opted a stool for tonight's purposes, a choice made in deference to the pair of wings that occupies her back, twitching occasionally in response to some unseen stimulus.
Her limpid blue eyes provide the ice to contrast the fire in her hair, a red mass that sprays unbound down her back. She glances left and right to her companions around the table, and her expression is somewhere between stern and simply observant.
She's dressed in what might be considered everyday clothes for where they are, but she seems uncomfortable in them for some reason, as though she weren't used to the style.
"I am Kara," she says at Bonnie's implied prompting, taking the cards she's dealt and looking them over, her brows furrowing as she studies them.
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#MGPnP [01:13:20:23] <MankeyBimb>
Next up at the table, to the left of Kara, sits a thin, pale girl with messy purple hair, wearing a just-slightly-too-large-for-her uniform jacket sporting the Beacon insignia. She sits together with the others at the table, but there’s a lonely aloofness in her placid demeanor of someone who keeps to themselves most of the time, for one reason or other.
As introductions go around, soft green eyes keep glancing at Kara’s magnificent wings. So fascinated is Lilith on these wings, that she doesn’t notice it’s her turn to introduce herself. A deafening moment of silence yanks Lilith’s attention out of her own head and back to the table and her companions. She coughs, and introduces herself.
 “Hi. I’m Lilith,” she says, giving the others at the table a polite nod. Her voice is quiet and gentle, reflecting her delicate – almost frail – physical appearance.

<~Wander>	 “Hitomi Kuroko,” the newcomer coolly supplies, finishing out the introductions, even though Bonnie already supplied her name.  Her voice is soft, though not so quiet that it would qualify as a whisper. “…I usually go by Kuroko.”
The slim, stiff-postured girl looks about fifteen, with dark hair and crimson eyes.  Her features suggest she’s Japanese, though pale enough that one might question whether she’s familiar with the concept of sunlight.  A pair of dark, pointed horns jut upward from beneath her bangs and she has a prominent scar slashed down over her left eye from brow to cheek.
Presently, the girl’s clothes are the standard Beacon robes rather than a transformation.  Standard, but ill-fitting. The sleeves are too long, the collar and chest too loose.  Hand-me-downs, presumably.
Her lips are drawn flat, a little closer to a frown than a smile, but she closes her eyes and bows her head in greeting all the same.  A strange girl, though here at Prisma Lantern, hardly the strangest there is.
Her expression doesn’t change as she looks at the cards she’s been dealt.  It’s doubtful that she knows the preferred rules of play, particularly here.

<Reikim>	 After dealing everyone in, Bonnie passes the deck to Claire, who cuts it with one quick, precise motion, and passes it back. She puts it in the center of the table.
"You've played this at other bases, right?" Bonnie asks Kuroko. "It's basically the same."
"Ten cards max and aces high," Claire adds. She examines her hand.
"Well, even if you haven't," says Bonnie, as Claire discards a three of flames and draws, "Lilith's still learning, so it's not like you're *guaranteed* last place!" She snickers.
"Lilith's pretty new, too; Kara's been here almost as long as me."

<Trimangle>	 The latter girl nods, plucking a card from the group she was dealt and placing it on the table, the Two of Light. "And yet, this game of cards has never been my strength," she laments, shaking her head. "I'm more experienced with *hnefatafl*." She makes a face, shaking her head. "…Consider it a relative of your 'chess.'"

<MankeyBimb>	 Lilith's face is obscured by her cards, fanned out in front of her as she studies them with serious intent. She glances at the Two of Light Kara just discarded, and then at her hand, and then back at the Two of Light.
Keep your head in the game… and out of other people’s heads. Card games were something she rarely participated in back home, on Earth, where normal humans got angry if you so much as read even a single card in their hand.
An impossible task, ultimately, but Dr. Shaw had encouraged Lilith to socialize a bit, despite the girl’s natural reluctance. It wasn’t entirely uncommon for psychics, especially young and particularly sensitive ones like Lilith, to see specialists – experts in the field of ESP, such as Dr. Shaw – to help manage and cope with such powerful abilities on a daily basis.
And so, here she was, “putting herself out there,” as the good doctor had recommended. She reaches out and scoops up the discarded Two of Light, replacing it with a card from her hand.

<~Wander>	 “Maybe once or twice,” Kuroko tells Bonnie. “I recall getting an unclear explanation at the time, but I at least understand it’s one action per turn.”
She plays the Eight of Waves, then nods once to herself. “It seemed like it wasn’t *entirely* a game of chance, though luck is still present enough that I anticipate being at a disadvantage.”

<Reikim>	 Bonnie snatches the eight, and lays it down with the nine and seven of waves. She grins.
"Just learn to roll with the waves~" she singsongs.
Claire discards an eight of storms and draws, then rearranges her hand. "The cards aren't cursed, if that's what you mean."
"And the Commander's not here, so nobody's going to try to cheat," adds Bonnie.

<Trimangle>	 Kara's wings twitch as she looks down at the cards on the table, then back to her hand. Her eyes drift along her cards, then she plucks a card and sets it next to the Nine of Waves -- the Ten. "Why would the Commander being here lead people to try and cheat?" she asks, confused. "Is that not backwards?"

<MankeyBimb>	 Lilith's ears itch at the mention of cheating. A bead of sweat materializes on her forehead and she redoubles her effort to not think about any of the unseen cards in her neighbors' hands, shrinking into her chair a bit. She swallows and plays a card, trying to ignore the fuzzy mist of thoughts surrounding the table.

<~Wander>	 Kuroko fixes Bonnie with a brief stare at the theft of her card.  At least it was a good reminder that others’ cards could be appropriated for larger combos.  She declines to mention aloud that she’s pretty sure Kara just added to Bonnie’s strait rather than stealing it for herself.
“My luck is the disadvantage, not anything to do with the cards themselves” she supplies, laying out a four, five, and six of storms.

<Reikim>	 <As usual, Bonnie's mind is a steady pulse; gentle and calm, like the tide at dawn.>
Bonnie hums, discards a ten of bolts, and draws. "Doubt it, unless you're cursed too. If you are, you should see the doc about it."
Claire picks up the ten and lays it down with the eight and nine.
"Anyway," says Bonnie, turning her smile on Kara, "where've you been, Kara? Feels like I haven't seen you since before Nika…well, you know."

<Trimangle>	 Kara's wings twitch again, and she draws a card before turning to regard Bonnie. Her mind is quiet for now, but a red-hot thread pulses beneath it, and an iron resolve, a solidity of purpose. "The messenger who arrived for me -- the All-Father called for his shieldmaidens, and such a call cannot be ignored. There was a fell incursion on my world, and war was joined to repel it." She sits a little straighter, a little prouder.

<MankeyBimb>	 Lilith pops out from behind her cards to draw, inconspicuously starting a small combo of her own.

<~Wander>	 Kuroko watches  Claire effectively make the same sort of addition toward *her* cards that Kara did to Bonnie’s.  She isn’t actually sure who it benefitted, anymore.
*Before, Bonnie took her single card to bracket it on either side, so…*
*Hmm.*
*…Was there something about citadels doing something special because there are two per suit?*
*Shoot, this is actually a fair amount to keep track of.*
The horned girl sighs to herself and draws a card. “You’re a mythical valkyrie, then?” she asks Kara.

<Reikim>	 "Not to be confused with all the other valkyries," Bonnie jokes.
After some time spent looking at her hand, she discards the Citadel of Light - which happens to depict Prisma Lantern itself. She draws three.
Claire carefully considers her own hand. Unlike Bonnie, she sits very tightly; her cards carefully held so they can't be seen from any angle.
"I can vouch for her sword skills, at least," she says. She side-eyes Bonnie, then discards a Five of Waves and draws. The nymph tsks, and gives her a wry grin.

<Trimangle>	 Kara's gaze turns to Kuroko next. Her eyes are piercing, but in this moment, not cold. There's a warmth there belied by their icy-blue color. "I have heard that, yes. That the valkyr and our gods are the subject of myth and legend on other worlds…but as you can see, I am flesh and blood, no mere attestation." She glances back at her cards, discarding and drawing.
Then, she nods towards Claire. "I am also skilled in the art of the bow."

<~Wander>	 Kuroko nods. “Well yes, but my experience has been that most mythical beings turn out to be flesh and blood.  I meant more along the lines of… ferrying dead warriors to an afterlife?  Something like that?  Myths were never  something I studied in great detail…”
There’s a lengthy pause as she stares at her cards, frown deepening, then discards Corrupted Wind and draws to fill her hand.
*…Ah now, I remember why I’ve only ever tried to play this like twice, before.  The corrupted cards.*
*…And the time that girl rigged her dealing to give me all five Corrupted in my starting hand.  She was all smiles about it, too.*
*…For the thirty seconds she still had all her teeth.  Afterward, not so much.*
Kuroko holds her cards a bit closer, over her mouth.