[Hope]

Hope RAN. She was gonna keep running, too, until she found someone Inarian to meet so she could show them how good Gemini and the royal family were. She ran and ran, past boring stupid flowers, and a boring stupid babbling brook (that wasn't NEARLY as tranquil as the ones in Gemini, she was sure, despite having never felt tranquil in her life.) She also ran past a boring lake and a boring porcupine WAIT - 

She stopped so hard, she tripped over herself, slamming down on the rocks and dirt with a force that only an idiotic child could brush off. She yowled in pain but mostly in ANGER because this creature had DONE HER WRONG. He'd distracted her! Well, this could be the first Inarian she'd teach a lesson. She was a......representative.....of GEMINI!!!! In a fraction of a second she was back on her feet, bouncing straight up from her fall like a rubber ball. 

The porcupine glanced over at her. It chewed on a leaf. It waddled like, two steps maybe. It kept chewing the leaf. What a fucking bastard.....

"Oh buddy, you made a BIG MISTAKE. You're messing with the WRONG PRINCESS." The girl said. Her brow furrowed. She began to stalk the porcupine, like a cat would stalk its prey, hidden in the cover of the tall prairie grass. Except there was no tall grass, and she wasn't hidden, the porcupine already knew she was there, and was watching her. And also the porcupine was bigger than she was an covered in spines, so it wasn't really prey. And Hope was not a cat, no matter how she wiggled her butt. She was pretty sure she'd seen Jonas do this once and so it made sense for her to also do this.

"Your head will be added to the wall, like all who shame my family!" She shouted. She took another step forward. Time to die, fucker!!!

[Pareidolia]

“Ohhh, what a pretty coat you’ve got...”

It was that coo of admiration that invaded the scene and therefore Hope’s dire concentration on harassing an animal covered with needle-sharp quills. Hey, you know children — they’re foolhardy little idiots by design. They always sort that out in the end, except of course when they don’t.

Pareidolia wasn’t looking at the waddling beast, though it was impossible not to notice the odd, pungent smell of it. When she stepped from the brush, it was Hope who would find herself being gazed upon by a young girl with eyes like emeralds and leaf litter tangled in her thick fur.

“Some of you gems are funny looking,” the princess went on, coveting with a sigh, like a woman who’d found a lovely oriental blanket far out of her price range. “But definitely not you. Maybe you’re a princess where you come from, too...?”

She looked like someone loved her, anyway, and Doli had never been choosy about her playmates. Royal, unroyal, they were all fair game so long as they weren’t assholes.

The porcupine, then. It paid neither girl any mind. Doli took up a hunting stance and began to stalk the creature, more in curiosity than hunger... not that she wouldn’t totally eat it if given the opportunity. She was spoiled, but not so pampered that she could not recognize the value of good protein.

“Wanna get him, gem kid?”