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No. 152947
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"... Very well. If you will not take my offer, then I would know what you consider reasonable, Bridge Princess, as a toll to cross and return."Cha d10=10
"You might have started off there, with the negotiations. Instead of going out of your way to piss me off." Parsee said, instead of following up on the opening.
"It was a perfectly reasonable offer." Tabuki protests.
"The hell. It was." Parsee bit off. "Do I walk up into your house out of the blue and go 'Hey, tiny bitch I met all of once, I need you to piss off while I do stuff in your bedroom, have a keg and leg it'?"
"That's not what I said."
"That's exactly what you said." Parsee counters. "Without so much as a how-do-you-do."
"You're going to insist on being difficult about this, aren't you." Tabuki grumbles. "I'm not sure why I'm even bothering. But have it your way."
".... I'm the one being difficult about things."
"I'll offer you a silver for every round trip of two fairies under my command." Tabuki says, ignoring the flat words. "Or a bottle of ale for the round trip of a half dozen."
Parsee is staring at Tabuki now, as though contemplating how much distance she might clear with a solid kick.
"... I'm the Bridgekeeper." She says, arms crossed. "I keep this passage secured, and the spirits below from screwing around with the bridge. As it turns out, how I deal with travelers is more or less at my own discretion. Some ways are preferred, yeah. But I have options, and I use them."
"I'm not sure what you're saying, here." Tabuki replies.
"What I'm saying is: If I like you, I can make travel easy for you, through here. If I don't, I can make it a pain." Parsee says, eyes narrowing. "And you are not giving me a whole lot of reasons to like you."
"That's an unfair accusation!"
"Shut up. We first met, you blast me in the face with fire. Then you try to use me to keep your enemy occupied, don't think I don't know how you were hoping that would go. I let it slide then because the both of us called you on that right away." Parsee snapped.
"That's not it at all! I-"
"And now you come to my bridge." Parsee continues strong. "Full of grandstanding arrogance, first making demands, and only after I tell you where you can stick them, you start nosing about negotiations, and offering token payment at best. Oh, you've not yet begun to see me being difficult. But if you insist, then I'll happily oblige you. I'll let your armies cross, for whatever it is you want to have them do in the main passage. For twenty silvers a head."
Tabuki spends a moment floundering at the outrageous price stated per fairy.
"That isn't-"
"You aren't happy with my toll?" Parsee almost hummed, eyes glinting. "Why that's just... regrettable, isn't it. Of course you are welcome to try and cross by force."
Parsee is smiling widely. Showing a number of her teeth.
"... Bah." Tabuki says, seeing where the bridge princess might have a point here and there, but being completely unwilling by this point to admit to it aloud. Still, probably better to leave before more heated words were thrown about. "My apologies, then for wasting your time. Since it seems to be in such high demand."
Parsee's grin twists.
"... That's right, I remember that too, now. A couple of the fairies were mumbling about things that 'Sunny Milk' was doing around the entrance. I wasn't interested in hearing it. I wonder if it means anything to you?"
"I don't see why you'd care if it did." Tabuki snapped.
"Honestly? I don't. But I hoped it would infuriate you. Oh well. Now get out of my sight, before I decide you're trying to take a shot at brute forcing your way through."
Tabuki was half tempted to go ahead and do just that. And she didn't much feel like skulking away as though Parsee's own demands held any sway. But after a moment, she bit down the urge to either swear or fling firebolts around, turned, and stalked away.
---
The long walk through and around the caverns and tunnels, to deliver messages and ensure they would be passed on properly gives Tabuki enough time to cool down, as she dragged Cirno's messenger to Yuugi's bar and handed off bottled drinks. The fairy would manage to deliver them, despite the slight wobble in carting them off.
"I wonder if she's always like that..." Tabuki mumbles to herself.
"Who?" Yuugi chimes in.
"That... ugh. Witch of a bridgekeeper." Tabuki grumbles, continuing on to explain the encounter after Yuugi motioned her on.
"... Huh. Well, just me saying, but you got off kind of light. Especially since she was kind of in the right, there." Yuugi muses. "Pissing her off like that, you're lucky she didn't pick you up and squeeze until you passed out, then drop what was left of you over the side of the bridge."
"Tch. Unstable and violent too..."
"No, like I said, she was in the right here." Yuugi pointed out. "I'm not just saying it because I get along all right with her, either. You did everything she accused you of, or at least looked a whole lot like it from the outside. You might as well have been going out of your way to slap her in the face and insult her, when it comes down to it."
"Wh.... but!"
"It's going to be a hard lesson, kid... but not everyone in the world is just going to bend over backwards to help you out with every little thing you think of just because you want them to." Yuugi continued, in an aggravatingly patronizing tone. The sort you use in speaking to a headstrong and foolish child. "In all seriousness? You wanted to make talks about that sort of thing, you'd have done a whole lot better to bring a gift to butter her up with, today. Probably an apology too, if you actually felt bad about anything you did. She'd know you didn't if you didn't bother to apologize, of course, but she's not the sort you lie to, even for those sorts that say one thing and mean any of a dozen others. But bring, like, a cask of ale. And then, you back off, let her relax with your gift, and come back a few days later with another cask, after she's drunk through a fair bit of the first and started to realize she's running out, and then, once she has that, you start suggesting about this thing you want to do. She'd probably have been a whole lot happier to hear you out, then."
"... Do you think that would still work?" Tabuki said, thoughtfully.
"Not a chance in hell." Yuugi denies, emphatically. "You had your chance, and fucked it up, kid, even with her giving you the benefit of the doubt over your first meeting. You're stuck, now, and it's going to be a hard, uphill fight to get anywhere with her."
"Hm..." Tabuki said, thinking it over.
"Hey. You doubting my Oni honesty, here?" Yuugi said, feigning insult. "I may not play the game too much, but that doesn't mean I can't know the rules. There's no chance, by this point."
"Alright then.... but tell me, those four Oni you've been pushing back into shape. Are they doing well?" Tabuki asks.
"Eh, none of them have died yet, if that's what you're asking." Yuugi says dismissively. "They're nowhere near their old fighting form, of course, but they should definitely be up to swatting a few fairies again, these days."
Yuugi pauses, and a slow grin crosses her face.
".... In fact. I'd bet on it." She says, smirking. "If you're willing to throw your fairies into another match-up against them, anyway, to see how far they've clawed their way back up personally."
"Hm.... I'll have to think about that." Tabuki says, not completely certain.
"Well, if you decide to give it a go, feel free to make a wager. I think I have more than enough silvers to match what you might bring to the table." Yuugi says. "I'll cap it at a bet of a thousand, though, and the winner takes all. Or if you think up something else suitable, we can talk."
"If I do decide on something like that, you'll be sure to hear of it." Tabuki said. "I should probably go now, though. Time to head back to the Palace, and all."
"Yeah, you head off." Yuugi says, turning back to the afternoon crowd.
There's enough time, Tabuki thinks, to read a book. It will likely keep her up until later at night, though.
---
[ ] Pick a book [5 silvers]
New:
-Oni Rematch, Oni x4, HP 120, Damage 26-75, 50% chance of spreading damage through up to 4 opponents.
--Wager with Yuugi on outcome: Yuugi will match up to a 1000 silver bet. Non-monetary wagers must be discussed personally.
Delaying turning day over because I need to sleep sometime tonight, and I'd rather not spend all of it putting things in order
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