“WAKE UP!!!!!” Our narrator, Faith Roos, the world’s most pouty girl (HMPH! AND DON’T EVER FORGET IT!), smacks the table and shakes her fist at her dozing brother. “DOPEY DEE!!!”

Deacon “Dee” Roos must have fallen asleep several pages ago…

Faith’s most loyal pet mouse, Cherry, with a bow on her head, mimics Faith and bops Faith’s laziest pet mouse, Chili, the one with a bow on his chest. 

Chili tends to be in sync with Dee and therefore had dozed off too, perhaps even several pages before him…

*YAWN* “Huh, wha? Is the story over?” Dee rubs his eyes. “...finally…Jeeeeeeezzzzzus…”

“FINALLY!?” Faith crosses her arms. “...I was just getting to the good part…” 

“...what good part?” Dee picks his ears. “I lost interest during that scene where you kept snorting like a piggy while you described in extreme detail the water dripping off the Prince’s muscles after he rescued the Princess from the river…”

Chili giggles. 

Faith growls and pouts. Cherry squeaks and pouts with her and bops Chili again.

“Why I never…” Faith’s thick country-girl-style accent (typical for the town of Peachmane) kicks in. *cough* *cough* “Well…yew really should be paying attention through ALL of it! Especially when talking ’bout the Princess.” She flaunts her hair. “Knowin’ how to talk to a fair maiden like may is important information~❤️”

Cherry flaunts her fur.

 “...umm…about that…” Dee scratches his head. “...I have a question about her…”

Faith raises her eyebrow. “Go on.”

Cherry raises a mousey eyebrow.

“Is the Princess supposed to be you?” Dee asks.

Faith is shocked and turns away. “...nooooo…of course not…” She snaps her fingers. “Do yew think that because she’s gorgeous and sweet like me~❤️”

Cherry squeaks and nods yeah.

“...well, I don’t know about ‘sweet,’ but she is beautiful…” Dee says.

Faith and Cherry accept the compliment with immense pride.

“Buuuuuuuuuuuut not you.” Dee shrugs. “Nope, nuh uh, not at all.”

Faith and Cherry nearly topple over. 

“The thing is, she’s perfectly pretty, perfectly sweet (kind of), and seems to perfectly get all the things YOU want. It’s like she’s exactly what you wish you were and pretend to be…” Dee sighs. “I mean, even the ‘Prince’ sounds familiar too…”

Chili squeaks and sighs, nodding yes, along with Dee’s expert estimation.

“WHUUUUUUUUUUUTTTTTT IN TARNATION DID YEEEEEEWWWWWWW JUST SAAAAAAAAY!?!?!?!?” Faith smacks the table again. 

“Ms. Halloshade said it’s called a ‘self-insert’ character in a ‘wish-fulfillment’ fantasy. A common literary device for lonely, desperate women!” Dee gives a thumbs up.

Chili claps.

“EHHHHHHH!?!?!? Last I checked, I don’t have a tail!” Faith wags her finger. “But I think having pointy ears would make me extra cute~❤️ Even more than I already am~❤️”

Cherry wags her tail. She has a tail and is always cute~❤️

“You’re definitely thinking about it, though.” Dee peers at a piece of paper he pulled from his pocket. “This drawing says ‘Princess Faith: The Prettiest Prettiest Princess,’ and it has several versions of you with different types of tails…”

Chili looks at it with him. Wow! One of Princess Faith’s tails is a mouse tail! 

“GIVE ME THAT!” Faith swipes the drawing back, holds back tears, and wants to die. “How dare yew steal a maiden’s precious treasure…”

Cherry can’t hold in her mousey tears and squeaks several scolding squeaks at Chili and Dee. 

“If Ms. Halloshade told him that, it must be true…” Faith sniffles. “I must convince Papa to pull him out of her class…” Faith sniffles again.

“By the way, Ms. Halloshade thought that drawing of ‘Princess Faith’ was super cute!” Dee gives two thumbs up.

Faith squeezes herself and definitely wants to die. She turns away to allow the tears to flow free from her face to the floor.

Cherry flails her mousey arms with extremely squeaky scolding at Chili and Dee.

In between the tears, Faith looks up at the clock on the wall. She perks up. “Oh! Aw, shoooot, forget the literature for now. It’s game time~❤️” Faith skips over to the corner of the room.

Dee gulps and looks at Chili. “...game time?”

Chili squeaks a nervous squeak. Cherry squeaks with smugness because soon it will be time to get revenge on these boys for insulting Faith.

Faith rummages through dusty shelves of board games and toys in the corner of this dimly lit attic of their home. She skips back to the table and drops a box on it. “I’ll set it all up~! Don’t choo worry about a thang~❤️”

“...yeah…sounds good to me…” Dee hangs his head down.

Chili lies down, bored.

Faith opens the wrinkled, crushed, and taped-up game box. There is a title scribbled on it, too, Royal Four-Ces Prototype Edition ver. 4 by Faith Roos (there are other version numbers from one to three, but they are all crossed out). 

That’s right! The very creator of that game is with us right now! 

Despite being labeled a “prototype,” you wouldn’t think that at first glance, the box has a fully illustrated logo and fantasy-style drawings. Wizards, witches, dragons, the usual suspects, but all drawn in Faith’s unique art style. She is a designer both on an artistic and technical level. Every square inch of this game was cobbled together by her country-girl self~❤️ 

Oh, and sorry to break it to ya, but she doesn’t accept commissions.

After removing the lid from the box, Faith pulls out poker cards and reveals four dice. Two are six-sided dice numbered 1-6. Faith put the actual numbers on there instead of the dots commonly found on other dice. Kids like Dee prefer seeing the big numbers. The other two dice are ten-sided, numbered 0-9. 

Faith quickly lays down hexagon-shaped wood tiles on her side of the table, is done in a flash, and now prepares to do Dee’s side-

*SNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORE* Dee and Chili dozed off again already.

“Em hem…” Faith shoves the box toward Dee. “I changed my mind. Yeeeeeeewwww can do yer side!” She pouts.

Cherry drops a tile in front of Chili, squeaks poutily, and scoots away from him.

Dee sighs and gets to work. “...you’re not sweet like a princess, but you surrrrrre are pouty like one…” Dee starts sniffing. “Bleh!” One at a time, with each hexagon-shaped wood tile he pulls from the box, the more it reminds Dee that this game makes him hate the smell of wood. 

“Shooooot, says yew, I’m sweet like sugah~❤️” Faith whistles to herself and shuffles the cards. 

Dee is known to be a “slow shuffler” and is skipped over for that. He lines up the hexagonal pieces on his side slightly faster than the other times he played recently. An unwitting “game tester” of his caliber has better experience setting this up by now. He lines up his tiles. “Let’s see, twelve across all the way…and three rows of four Symbol Tiles here…plenty of pawns too…”

“I want you to be SPADES again if that’s ok~?” Faith chimes in.

“…well, you already gave me the Spade tiles…” Dee holds up a tile with a Spade poker symbol. 

“…cuz the sworn fated foes of my kingdom must be vanquished…” Faith shows him one of hers, a tile with a Heart poker symbol. “I will lead the HEARTS like a majestic princess~❤️ Oh-ho-ho-ho!” Glitter surrounds the air around her. 

Cherry squeaks a mousey style of “oh-ho-ho-ho!” with mousey glitter.

“...mhmm…you only get to ‘lead’ the HEARTS because you always choose to be the HEARTS…” Dee shakes his head and finishes up. “...wannabe princess…”

Right on time, Faith deals out his twelfth card (she already has twelve) as Dee puts down the last tile.

Dee looks around. “Oh, You forgot the deck-

*SLAM* He got cut off…

-never mind…”  

Faith had slammed a deck of cards down with force on his side of the table. Dee could barely register the motion.

“Hm. Hm. Hm. Hurry up~❤️ Hm. Hm. Hm~❤️” Faith sings and bops her head left and right.

Cherry bounces with the beat.

Dee starts to arrange his twelve cards and props them up with tiny plastic stands. When the cards are stood up like this, it reminds him of Chess or that other popular game he and Faith play sometimes. What was that other game called? Struh-Tee-something? He can ask later, but if he is not cautious in directly comparing Faith’s game to others, she historically has gotten pouty about that. Some kind of creative respect thing, or she’s just pouty (likely). 

Dee’s twelve cards are on top of the Spade symbol tiles. He has three rows of these. The fourth row above has Roman numerals for I, II, III, and IV. Faith’s is nearly identical but with Heart symbols. Some other blank hexagons connect the two sides together. It now resembles a game board minus the “board.”

Dee looks disappointed when peeking at the cards.

Faith takes notice. “What’s wrong?”

“Awwww. Why can’t we use the special cards?”

“Cuz I’m saving those for a special day!” Faith winks.

They are both now ready to go, Faith more so than Dee. 

They both draw four cards.

Faith points at Dee. “Yew go first!”

“...bossy bossy…such a princess…” Dee rolls his eyes and draws another card from his deck. The way he figures it, the sooner he draws more cards, the sooner this game is over with…