Gemma motions around the room, “We are down to our final three. Before we continue, are there any of the sisters who are opposed to these names as our final options?”

Silence descends upon the room.

“Then, prepare the field!” Gemma orders.

There is another flurry of room rearrangement and one of the far walls now hosts the three banners.

On the left is Lucien with Tatiana, Sylvia, Merrygold, Arebella, and Niamh. One hand of pretties.

In the center is Idris with Aaliyah, Esmeralda, Violet, and Gwen. One hand, no thumb, of pretties.

Finally, on the right is Raiden with Linshee, Ingrid, Sakura, Nia, and Greyward. Another hand of pretties.

I’m front and center of the big room. Behind my nap box are all the couches and tables arranged to watch the show.

Everyone seems to be waiting for something, but I don’t know what, so I point at Struuwb, “Wa waaaa wooo!” Strawberry giggles and comes over to feed me.

While enjoying my fruit-smell-flavored food, Patricia, Peach, Hilda, and Ruth return with carts filled with food and drinks. Most of it smells really yummy. The drinks smell ugh, but they seem to like it and it makes them funny when they drink it… even if their breath is smelly.

The pretties along the wall pause in their posturing and making faces and poses at each other to come eat food. There’s a lot of talk going around, some throwing out new name ideas, most getting discarded right away. Mostly though it seems that everyone is trying to come up with ideas of how to destroy the different names, or make them sound bad, but no one seems to have any good ideas.

After the meal, and my short nap, the teams are reordered, snacks are laid out, and everyone sits down to watch the show. Gwab and Meywibode are both making hitting motions at each other, which makes me giggle because Meywibode’s head is barely above Gwab’s knee.

Gemma moves forward, but stays off to the side to not get in the way. “For our final three names, we have communally elected a new set of rules. This will be a battle royale. Anyone of our sisters can come up and argue on behalf of, or against, any of these names. New names can be suggested if thought of, but five boos takes it out of the running. If it doesn’t get five boos within ten minutes a banner gets made and it joins the contest. So long as one sister is supporting a banner it remains in the game.

“Interruptions, etiquette, decorum, mean nothing here! Reeeaaaaadddy…? FIGHT!”

Merrygold physically leaps at Greyward, catching her completely by surprise, and proceeds to swiftly climb up her and sit on her head before the much larger woman can even register the movement.

That’s when everything breaks loose. There are whistles from behind me, cheering, jeering, booing, and throwing of stuff. The pretties under the banners grab each other and start pulling on clothing, or pulling off clothing, pulling hair, and talking so fast I can’t make sense of it.

Oh no! Why are they fighting? I look around with panicked eyes, only to see all the other pretties laughing and hooting and hollering. I look back, and that’s when I realize it - I don’t feel any mean feeling from them.

Watching closer I notice that the hair pulling isn’t even as hard as I do it. The clothes are either coming off because they're stealing each other's belts and running away with them, or they’re grabbing clothes to talk really fast, really close, while laughing.

Dashing between and around them are Amy and Fia. Each of them are tapping hands and breaking up the fight - but they also seem to be pointing the different gladiators at new targets to keep up the show.

While the play fighting is happening they’re shouting stuff like, “I’ll kill you Lucian!” and “Idris is a girl's name.” or “Raiden my dick!” While shouting back “I’d light to see you try.” and “Go read a book.” or just “Your mom!”

The room is pandemonium. The throwing, the shouting, the yelling. After a while I see some of the pretties on the couch get up, run over, and tap on one of the pretties looking tired. That pretty and the ones ‘fighting’ her pause, swap places with the new pretty - which is hilarious to watch because of the size differences - and then everything continues as if it had always been the new pretty. The ‘tapped out’ pretty goes and gets some food, drink, or rest for a bit, before getting back up and roaring back in.

The byplay continues for hours. New names are added in, banners get made. Banners get ripped down. But Lucian, Idris, and Raiden stay up the whole time. It looks like the winner is going to be whichever name simply outlasts the other ones.

While this is really fun, I’ve been standing and watching for far too long and I’m getting sleepy. I take a big yawn, fall over, and go right to sleep.

— — —

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

I open my eyes to find all the pretties out on the floor fighting, climbing, kicking, and swinging pillows at each other. Not a one of them has any clothes left on at this point. I look over through a window and see the sky is a pretty color and know it will be dark soon.

They have been at this all day!

I start clapping and squeeing, rooting for all of them and wishing I could play too, but I’m too small.

“STOP!” Gemma hollers. Oh, she’s still dressed. And so are Fwa and Amwee.

Everyone freezes in mid motion - but the pillows don’t. ‘Poumphs’ and ‘bwahas’ echo in the sudden silence.

“Bwha?” I query of the room, wondering what’s going on and why they stopped.

Gemma’s arm reaches underneath me and makes a smooth motion.

Woosh~

I am flying through the air, arms and legs wide and spinning as I’m moving quickly, face first, at the press of bodies.

Chaos ensues.

The pretties blur in motion, tripping, shoving, hip-checking, and climbing each other to be the one to catch me.

Just before I get within arms reach they all stop moving.

Cosmia quickly becomes huge as I fly right at her. Her arms thrust out, grab me under the armpits, and pull me fast and smoothly into her chest. Instead of feeling the thud I’m expecting, or even the bounce, she’s falling backwards as I continue smoothly falling on top of her, squished into her food squishies.

She hits the ground, but all I feel is a little bounce.

DO THAT AGAIN! I cackle madly into where I fell. That was cooler than the board thing!

“HEEE HEEE HEEE HEEE HEEE HEEE HEEE!!”

Noticing my absolute thrill at being a baby projectile, the pretties perk up - eyes meet, alliances are formed, and a game of pass the baby takes place.

The pretties set up relays for teams seeing what will make me squee the hardest.

One group, of whom I neither know nor care at this point, climbed as high as they could get on the furniture then tossed me.

Flying low to the ground I see the floor speed by and feel the wind. Just before I can hit the ground I’m caught by my legs, spun, and tossed straight up. The room is spinning end over end, up and down, up and down.

As I feel myself stop going up, just as I’m about to go down, I’m grabbed again and tossed straight up ass first.

I watch the ground fly away from me, getting really far as I go higher up than I’ve ever been before!

Just as I stop moving up, I feel my feet touch the top of the room - What? I’m that high?! - and start to fall back face first.

“Kee kee kee kekeke!” I scream.

As I start to pass the height of Gwab a blankey enters my vision. It scoops me up and has me fall on my back into the blankey all soft and safe and warm.

Just as I take a big breath, but before I can giggle, the blankey snaps open launching me across the room towards another blankey.

That one catches me then bounces me straight up. As I’m going up someone pushes my leg and now I’m spinning in circles as I go higher.

The ceiling spins and moves down, then spinning moves up, and I’m back in a blankey.

The blankey closes around me and I start to spin really really fast.

“EEEEEEEEEEEEEEeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee HEEEeeee!” I scream

The blankey opens and now I’m flying across the room again.

Mid fly Gwab snatches me out of the air, puts me between her squishes, and - landing - rolls across the floor.

She pops up on a knee, thrusting me forward - ooooooooo…. Spinny, dizzy, wheeee.e..e…e…

I vomit.

Woooooooo. Hic.

The door to the room bangs open as Lady Wisemore - sadly not shiny this time - stomps in.

“The kitchen just let me know that you’ve drank a whole months supply of alcohol, for an entire platoon. Care to tell me…” She pauses and really looks around the room.

I look at her, then around the room too. Pillows, blankies, and mattresses are set up as forts around the room. Clothes have been rolled into balls as projectiles. Food and drink are piled up behind the couches, which are barricade stacked to protect them.

The pretties are scattered around the room, all nakey, on top of bunks, under banners, mid wrestle, over furniture, and holding other blankeys. Gwab is kneeling on one knee holding me thrust out as far as possible, pointed away from her, while I just vomit on Ingrid… who was reaching to take me as part of the baby toss relay.

Lady Wisemore, to her credit, keeps it together long enough to close the door, lean against it, and - staring bewildered - finishes her question. “... what in the Abyss is going on here?”

Ruth, from under a pile of other pretties, calls out, “We’re competing to name the little one. What’s it look like we’re doing?”

That seems to be too much because the Lady’s brain obviously stops, her mouth falls open, and she just gapes around the room.

Wooo. I’m feeling much better. Can we go again?

“Wha, what name did you choose to throw a party like this?” She half mumbles out.

At this point I get scooped up, and am being cleaned. Ingrid is gagging as she cleans my spit up off her. Content I fart, loudly - which seems to be the right thing to do because everyone just starts laughing and hollering.

Amy steps forward. “No Lady, we haven’t picked a name. We narrowed it down to three, but since we couldn’t seem to agree on one we decided that the last sister standing under a banner would be the winner.”

The Lady - I dunno why they call her lady. Is it because she’s not as pretty? - looks around the room with panic in her eyes. “What? What banner?”

Amy looks around too and frowns, “Weird. I coulda sworn they were…” She trails off and I notice the blankies I was being tossed in were the pretty banners.

“Oh, well. I guess we got a touch carried away trying to figure out which one he would laugh the loudest for. The names were Lucian, Idris, and Raiden.” She waves at the banners.

Lady Wisemore looks around, frowns, stomps over to the barricade of couches, grabs Gwab’s flagon and downs the whole thing in a second.

“I want in!” she declares. The whole room whoops and the tossing of me starts back up.

— — —

“This child is impossible!” Lady Wisemore declares as I, arms and legs spread as far as I can get them, slap onto her chest.

Her food squishies are surprisingly squishy and nice. I thought they would be all hard and shiny like she was. I wonder what they taste like.

I grab one and slap my mouth on it and try to eat. Nothing happens. I look up at her, pout, and try again.

She pulls me away, thrusts me out as far as her arms will go, glowering fiercely at me.

I look her in the eyes, then look at her food squishies, then back to her eyes. She shakes her head at me. I blow a raspberry at her, ‘Pbbbthpb”

“Ratel!” She proclaims. The other pretties all look over at her confused. “It’s a kind of creature, a honey badger. They’re known for being absolutely fearless, even towards much larger predators that will eat them. This little one seems to hold no fear. Also, they have a stink gland at the base of their tail for when they’re scared and he definitely can be stinky.”

The pretties around the room all stop, look at each other, look at the banners, and then swarm me. “Ratel. His name will be Ratel. It fits.”