Agatha:

Certain things could only be learned by cohabiting. Such as the presence of a very familiar box. A cube of purple with grey features, tucked away and slightly out of normal notice. She knew that box. She used to have one just like it.

That was a Fantasy Gamecube.

She quickly investigated. There was just one game in there. Fantasy Animal Crossing. A game for up to four players.

She couldn’t help herself. She extracted her Fantasy Gamecube and her own savegame and managed to wrangle her transfer over to Angus’ village.

There. Now they could play together if they wanted.

He’d figure it out soon enough. Meanwhile, she could plant some peach trees in his orchards.

Angus:

Someone had been messing with his village. When he logged on, someone had already pulled all the weeds. There was a new house and some saplings in his orchard… and a letter in his mailbox.

_Dear Angus,_ it read, _I found your little secret and had to join mine with yours. Perhaps we can enter the fishing competition together, one day._

It was from Agatha.

Angus couldn’t help but smile. It was wonderful to know that the woman he loved also had a penchant for the drama-free meditative peace and quiet of Fantasy Animal Crossing.

Sno:

Her package had arrived! She daren’t open it at work, so she hid it behind her coat in her locker until it was time to knock off and head for home. Even then, she hid it inside her coat as she walked at a faster pace.

All the way to the tiny flat in an overcrowded apartment building with cardboard walls and neighbours who were living noise violations.

Only once she was locked inside her sanctuary did she dare take it out of hiding and open it up.

Her heart thundered, all the same, as she took the garment out of its protective packaging. Layer upon layer of frills and lace. Autumn-toned, but beautiful all the same. It was everything she’d craved.

Sno had had a lifetime of conforming to other people’s expectations. Being a refined and graceful Elf for her grandparents. Being one of the boys for the City Watch. Only when she was alone did she dare…

She stripped out of her uniform, all the way down to her underwear, and slid it on. Beautiful. Frilly. Lacy. Feminine. Steampunk skirt. The blouse was still under construction so she paired it with her Fantasy Steam Powered Giraffe shirt.

She twirled just to watch the layers flair out. Struck poses just to watch herself in the mirror and feel…

Just for a moment…

Like herself.

The curtains were drawn. The shutters were closed. The door was locked. Nobody else was going to see what was going on behind these closed doors. Mak’arune had retreated into privacy to get into her costume. La’ming retreated into her privacy, about to get dressed up in something fancy for her wife.

They’d agreed to this for their first anniversary. A quiet night in while each of them dressed up in what they felt sexiest in. It was an involved process for the both of them, taking some significant amount of time. It also required one or both of them to answer the door in concealing robes as the deliveries arrived.

Finally, all was ready. The last delivery arrived, the door was locked, and no more interruptions could happen. They set up the table, lit the candles, and braced themselves for the final reveal.

“All ready?” squeaked Mak’arune.

La’ming’s hand was so tight on the opening of her robe that it hurt. “All ready,” she quavered. “On three.”

They counted to three together. Four times. Laughing each time. The fourth one, though, was the charm. The robes came off.

“Wow,” Mak’arune said. “You look like a princess.”

“What are you wearing?”

Demure, constantly-covered Mak’arune who blushed at the word ‘underpants’ was dressed… pretty much in Fantasy Gaffa Tape[1]. There was more of Mak’arune showing right now than had ever been seen by any mortal eyes. Perhaps even on the day of her birth. “It’s a swimming costume.”

Meanwhile, normally brash, exhibitionist La’ming Ton is in the floofiest, frilliest, most ornate and concealing Lolita dress. Frilly socks, frilly pantaloons, frilly… everything. There was not an inch anywhere that wasn’t edged in lace. “It’s… Lolita. I like to feel like a princess.”

“You look adorable,” said Mak’arune.

“You look like you’re in for a lot of pain, tonight. Is that… actually tape?”

“Yes.”

“How do you take that off without removing half your lovely skin?”

“Warm oil sponge bath,” said Mak’arune. “I scent it with flower petals.”

“So on all those days when you smelled extra special…”

Mak’arune blushed as she nodded. “The day after. I had something like this on underneath my clothes.” She bit her lip. “And… on the days you were… extra bouncy?”

“I’d had a Princess Day, the day before. Yeah.”

Mak’arune wearing next to nothing, grasped the lace-gloved hands of La’ming. “We don’t need to hide this from each other, any more, do we?

[1] This is a thing. Google ‘Gaffa Tape Swimsuit’ and be amazed.

Kravitz sighed with concealed relief when he couldn’t find Taako in any of his standard places to hang around in. He had found the hidden room some time ago and, whenever Taako wasn’t around, had worked on it to turn it into his secret lair.

Taako thought Kravitz was a gentleman of quality and, for the most part, he was correct. Kravitz did enjoy the finer things in life. Wine, good music, better food, Taako, of course… but there was one little thing that he illogically loved and couldn’t get enough of. It was something not entirely great, not really. He loved it all the same but… He had to keep it his guilty little secret.

Kravitz put on his Fantasy Headphones and slid an album on the player. In mere moments, he was taken away into the rhythm and what passed for a melody. In a few more moments, he was singing along.

“…A twist of fate makes life worthwhile/ You are gold and silver/ I said I wasn’t gonna lose my head/ But then pop! Goes my heart…”

Completely unaware that Taako had found him and was listening in. The adoring smile might have showed Kravitz that Taako was loving this in a very goopy way, but… he wasn’t looking.

The smell of popcorn roused Lup from her usual night time coma. The other side of their bed was empty and she felt a vertiginous moment of terror that she was back inside her Umbrastaff. But no. The night light was glowing and there were other sense aids like the fluffy hanging on the wall and the tinkling of the wind chimes outside their window.

Enough to help ground her, he had said, in case he was on the shitter or something.

The light wasn’t on in the nearest privy. Lup got up and wrestled her nightshirt back down before stepping out into the otherwise quiet halls of their house.

No glow in the lab. Okay. Wait. The living room was alight? Lup padded silently towards it, her sharp Elven ears picking up on a low murmur of voices.

I swear to fuck, if he’s brought Death Criminals back over so he can grill them on their techniques again…

He wasn’t entertaining captured bounties. He was entertaining himself. With a big bowl of popcorn, some Fantasy Mountain Dew, and the Fantasy TV. Where some guy with hair like a half-sucked mango seed was explaining how the Starblaster and its crew was responsible for ninety percent of Faerun’s historical mysteries. With increasingly ludicrous proof.

Barry was enraptured.

Oh my gods, I can’t not love him more for this…

She smiled, watching him as he enjoyed bad food and worse Fantasy Television. Because she was who she was, though, she was also attempting to think of ways to use this to her advantage.

[TAZ Prompts Remaining: 11]

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Magnus:

Magnus put the mask on before he was out of sight of the travel orb but definitely after he had ditched the other two. Hood up, inconspicuous clothes on. Nobody need know it was him out here, headed for that place, doing these things.

In the unlikely event that anyone from the Bureau was here, they had enough plausible deniability to say they couldn’t be sure it was him.

Besides, he’d more or less earned this. Tough job, hard work. He really should have a day off like today. No questions asked. And if anyone did ask questions, he could probably flatten them.

He slunk into the side-entrance, taking all the covert byways into the heart of the business. Every city had a place like this, but this one was one of the better establishments.

“Welcome to Goldcliff Day Spa, anonymous sir,” chirped one of the clerks at the desk. “How may we ease your worries?”

Magnus hunkered up to the desk, hunching over and whispering. “I want the full body beauty treatment and that thing where ya soak in a tub of mud with cucumber on your eyes.”

“Certainly, sir. Would you like a mani-pedi with that?”

Merle:

Every now and then, a man has certain needs. It’s even more true for a Dwarf. He’d done everything he could to ditch his teammates in the thick of the crowds and then followed his nose to a discrete establishment down in the darker corners of Hunchback Lane.

Sure, these days, a Dwarf could fish or farm cattle and nobody would think less of them for it, but back in the ancient times? There were only two kinds of meat that a Dwarf could readily lay their hands on. Rat, and… call it ‘tunnel pork’.

There was something instinctual about it. Some kind of ancestral craving. Or harkening back to the remembrance festivals of his origin tribe when it was one of the tastes of his overlong childhood. Sometimes, you just had to go and get it.

They joked about it now. There was some smartass fella who had a whole book series with it as a running joke when mentioning Dwarven cuisine. Nevertheless, it wasn’t a popular joke and drove places like this -ha- even further underground.

He found it at last by the distinctive smell. Following his nose into the deeper-down of Little Khaz-Modan. On the other end of a twisty little alley that you had to know how to look for.

He poneyed up to the counter, put down his gold, and said, “One ratburger with all the mushrooms. And a large pot of mustard.”

Taako:

Nobody should ever know. Nobody could ever know. He’d evaded his teammates with superlative skill. Cast Disguise Self in order to purchase the cursed thing, and now made his way into a discrete Fantasy No-tell Motel where the rooms were rented by the hour and smelled like it too.

Fine. Fair enough. He wasn’t even planning to touch the beds.

He put the ‘do not disturb’ sign out, locked the door. Jammed a chair under the handle. Drew the curtains. Crept into the tiny bathroom and locked that door behind him, too.

Nobody would ever know…

Nevertheless, he ran a full Perception and Insight check before using his body to jam the door shut.

There, sitting on the cold and filthy tiles, he withdrew his illicit prize from his bag of holding. He was a five-star fucking chef. He could make these - and much better than these - in his fucking sleep. Nevertheless, there was something about the ones you could buy.

Maybe it was the mass manufactory. Maybe it was the way they tried to fancy it up with a fucking zigzag of cheap icing. Maybe it was the fucktons of sugar that also acted as a preservative. Maybe it was all the other preservatives.

Whatever it was, he had to have it.

The Fantasy Plastic cover cracked like thunder as he struggled with the ingenious seal. He flinched as it popped open, barely sparing it from the hideous floor.

He didn’t even peel the gigantic patty paper off the outside, just started digging into it with his manicured fingers. Shovelling it into his mouth handful by atrocious handful.

Cheap, yet rich chocolate assailed his senses. Taako moaned in pleasure, still trying to keep it down in spite of it all. The guilt of it. The need for it.

Nobody would ever know that the famous Taako from TV, five-star chef and once star of Sizzle it Up! With Taako had to occasionally indulge in cheap, crappy, store-bought, mass-produced chocolate cake.

He would eat the whole thing, and love it.

[TAZ Prompts Remaining: 12]

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