“Can you explain what the basic rules are?” I ask to my girlfriend as she puts the balls in the sand and starts drawing a court with the heel of her foot.
“I’ll explain.” My sister raises her hand. “It’s really easy to understand so don’t worry to much about it.”
“It’s a game that anyone can play, from children to elderly people.” Nikki ads.
“Okay, so the basic premise of this game. We decide which team goes first, one of them will draw a small circle from which we will throw the balls. After that, that same team throws out the small ball into the playing field, the small ball is also called the cochonnet. But since you like to name your one spell, the big blue ball of death, the small ball of wood will do just fine.” My sister gives me a wink.
Her joke does make me giggle a little.
“After this small ball has been thrown into the field, that same team can start throwing their first ball. After that, it’s the other team who throws a ball. Since it’s the goal of the game to get your team’s balls closer to the small ball, that means the team that’s closest to the little ball has the ‘point’ after these first two throws. The other team, the one that doesn’t have the ‘point’ can then continue throwing their balls until they manage to get their balls closer to the small ball. If that happens, they get the ‘point’ and it switches to the other team. This keeps happening until you run out of balls. There’s some special rules in the situation where the teams are the same distance away from the small ball, but we’ll explain that when we get there.”
“Oh I see.” I nod. “And how do the points work?”
“For example.” Nikki continues. “If team 1 has two balls that are closer to the small ball, than that team will score two points in that round. So a ball of the enemy team ‘interrupts’ the score line. If you understand what I’m saying.”
“Uhm, so, if I would throw a ball in between those two, then you’d only get one point.”
“Yes.” Both Nikki and my sister give me a nod.
“And I take it once all the balls are thrown, that that’s one complete round.”
“Indeed.” Sam returns after having drawn a pretty sizeable area in which we can play. “Normally it’s the first team who reaches thirteen points who wins the game.”
“Lucky number thirteen.”
“Yep.” She laughs. “But after each round, the small ball gets thrown out again by the team that won that round.”
“And since there’s twelve balls we all throw three?”
“Pretty much.” Sam takes three balls from the ground and gives them to me.”We just need to make sure we have sets of patterned balls, so we don’t get ours mixed with theirs.”
“I see you already made your teams.” My sister grins.
“Well…” Sam blushes a little. “If you want to team up with Ami…”
“Nono, this is fine. We can play a couple of times and switch up the teams. But I would like to add an extra rule for you?”
“F-for me?” Sam stutters.
“Don’t think I’ve forgotten that you are particularly good with seeing trajectories.”
“Oh… right…”
“And since none of us are really gifted with that, I’d like to propose a disadvantage.”
Sam now doesn’t look as shocked anymore. She crosses her arms and gives my sister a nod. “Okay… That sounds fair to me, what would you propose?”
“If your team goes first, I want Ami to throw the small ball, and to also throw the first ball.”
“Fair.”
“And, if it’s your turn to throw, I want you to do it without looking.”
“That sounds a bit… harsh, doesn’t it?” Nikki replies.
“She’s an archer, she’s allowed to look where the balls are first, she just needs to have her eyes closed when she’s throwing. Her posture should still be plenty okay to make a good throw.”
This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it
“Hmm.” Sam thinks for a second, closing her eyes for a bit. “Okay… but I want to practice five minutes first to see if I can do it.”
“Good for me.” My sister nods. “It’s going to be more fun if we all have a chance at winning, right?”
“That’s true. I’m not denying that. It would honestly suck quite a bit if I just won without a challenge.” Sam agrees and takes a couple of balls. “Do you mind if I practice a bit now?”
“Not at all.” I give her a smile.
“Alright, then you can watch that I’m not cheating.”
“You’d never.” I give her a kiss on her cheek. “I know you wouldn’t forgive yourself.”
“Cute.” Nikki comments with a giggle while Sam gets to work on her short practice.
Even with the rules imposed on her by my sister, during her practice Sam is still pretty accurate, she’s not spot-on all the time, definitely not. But I suppose that was the entire point of the impairment.
“Alright, I think I’m ready now.” Sam goes to collect the balls again and then comes to stand next to us.
“Happy with our deal?” My sister asks.
“Yep.” Sam smiles. “I’m pretty sure this can even improve my archery skills in a way. It definitely changes the way you think about moving your body when you can’t see anything.”
“Alrighty, then let’s get our little game going shall we.” My sis enthusiastically claps in her hands. “Let’s do a coin toss to see who goes first.” My sister takes a golden Dwargon out of her inventory and puts it in her hand. “Alright, head or tail?”
“Ami?” Sam looks at me.
“Uh, heads.”
“Alright.” My sister takes the count out of her hand with a smile and spins it around in her fingers before throwing, yet before she does, she freezes. “Oh.”
“What’s wrong?” Nikki asks.
“I guess I should’ve looked if the coin had two different sides to begin with.” She starts laughing really loud and then shows us the coin. It does in fact just have the same drawing stamped upon it on both sides.
-That’s actually pretty funny.- I start giggling as well.
“Use this instead.” Sam picks a shell up from the beach and hands it to my sister.
“Smart.” Lise gives her a thumbs up. “So, top of bottom?”
“That’s a lewd question.” Nikki chuckles.
“I know, I did it on purpose.” Lise gives her girlfriend a wink.
“Well, if you are the one tossing it, bottom.” Nikki replies.
“And what does that mean?!”
“Sis, you brought this upon yourself.”
“I’m fine with top, so just toss it Miss Bottom.” Sam teases my sister even more.
My sister smiles and rolls her eyes after which she throws the shell into the air. It lands… with the top facing the sky.
“That means we are going first.” Sam shakes her fist in victory. “Well… that means you’ll be going first.” Sam hands the little wooden ball to me.
-Why do I suddenly feel as if all the pressure is on me…-
I don’t think my first throw was too bad… but it could definitely have gone a lot better. Luckily my sister and Nikki only manage to toss a ball closer to the little one on their third throw, after which it’s Sam’s turn.
Sam, with her eyes closed, manages to get closer on her second throw.
After this we switch turns two more times before it’s my sister’s turn to throw the last ball.
“I’m going to try something risky, but no guts, no glory.” My sister throws her ball which hits one of ours that’s closest to the little wooden ball, which then deflects into another one of our balls. My sister raises her arm in victory. “Yes! That’s three points for us!”
“She’s allowed to do that?” I ask.
Sam’s clapping for my sister, as it was a pretty impressive throw. “Yep, you can deflect the other team’s balls, there’s no rule against it. It was a very smart play.”
“Oh.”
“She just got lucky, Ami.” Nikki pats me on the shoulder.
“Nah! No luck! Pure skills!” My sister flexes, it’s actually quite funny.
“We’ll get them in the next round.” Sam assures me and gives me a kiss on the cheek.
“I don’t really mind if we lose.” I shrug. “I just like having fun.”
“No, but I want to wipe the smug look of your sister’s face.”
“That’s fair enough.”
“Come at me if you think you are hot enough.” Lise playfully sticks out her tongue.
“Oh! My girlfriend is definitely hot enough!” I reply. “She’s like, super hot!”
“Thanks, Ami.” Sam laughs. “You heard her! Let’s finish this!”
We don’t exactly ‘finish it’ as we still have quite a few rounds to play, but in the end it does all come down to the last game, we are at twelve points each, so the team that gets closest to the ball now wins. During the first throw of this round Hilda had come back from her spear fishing and is spectating us play.
“You can do this, Amicia.” Hilda says to me, as I have our last ball in my hand. My sister and Nikki have already thrown their last so it really comes down to me to claim victory or to lay down in defeat. Either way, it has been very fun.
“Thanks, I’ll try.” I give her a nod.
“Here, a good luck kiss.” Sam kisses me on my cheek.
-Nothing can stop me now!- I wind up and throw the ball in the playing field, it looks like I aimed a bit too short, but the ball keeps rolling just long enough to pass the ball that my sister had thrown.
“Nice!” Hilda cheers.
Sam picks me up from my waist and twirls me around before we both tumble down on the sand. Me landing on top of her. “Good job, Ami.” Sam kisses me on the lips.
-Does victory always taste so sweet? Because in that case I will start liking losing a lot less…-