#babycorn gets a full course meal when she goes to the triple triad tournament

[hqmillioncorn]

The Sweet Taste of Victory

On a seemingly normal summer day Tilika walked in to see Babycorn and Cherrypit having thrown all of their triple triad cards all over the floor of her apartment. Normally this kind of behavior would have had Tilika asking many questions but nowadays it just seemed like a regular day when it came to both Starsingers. Despite that, Tilika couldn’t help herself. “Any reason why you have your cards all over the floor?” Other than just for fun. Babycorn looked up at Tilika, a card in her mouth. “We’re just ranking them by how good they taste!”  Now that Tilika noticed, there were several triple triad cards that had a clear bite mark. Some even had more than one.  “That tracks…” She would have to remind them cards aren’t for eating.

ffxiv write day 20: duel with @windupnamazu 's Yeyema !

yeyema teaches babycorn how to play triple triad but uh ...

Babycorn laid her head on the small little table in front of her, making her already messy hair even messier. She tilted her head in all sorts of different directions to get a good look at the cards laid up all over the table. “Ooooh! Aaahh!” She had never seen anything like them! 

All the different pictures and symbols on them were blowing Babycorn’s mind. A thousand little questions about them zipped and zapped through her mind. “Neato…” Babycorn said, tilting her head on the table again. 

And Yeyema held the corner of the table with her one free hand to make sure Babycorn didn’t tilt the table off balance. Again. She was quickly growing tired of it. So quickly that it had been less than a minute. 

Yeyema put her hand on Babycorn’s messy hair and pushed her away. “Get off!” Couldn’t Babycorn see she was busy? “You’re messing up my cards!” 

The answer was that unfortunately, no, Babycorn could not. 

Right after being pushed away from one side of the table, Babycorn popped up on the opposite side. Yeyema whipped her head from side to side wondering just how in the world Babycorn had managed to pull that off. Both had only known each other for just less than a month so poor Yeyema was still getting accustomed to Babycorn’s weirdness. 

“What’re you playin’?” Babycorn asked. The table tilted to the other side again when Babycorn rested her head on it. 

Yeyema moved her cards out of the way just in time before they could slide right off. “I’m not playing anything!” She elaborated,  “I’m just looking at my cards.” It was a pretty slow day with nothing much to do except watch Cherrypit crawl around like a bug. 

“What’s a card?” Babycorn had never heard of anything like it before. 

Yeyema let out a small giggle, “These are cards silly!” She held up a card with a Chocobo on it for Babycorn. “See?” 

“Woaaah!!” Babycorn had never seen anything like it! Except pretty much everywhere in Ul’dah but she had no idea those things had names! That was amazing, the most amazing thing that Babycorn had heard today. “Why are they named cards?” 

“I dunno!” Yeyema answered. 

Babycorn was floored. “What?! But you know everything Yeyema!”

“I don’t know everything!” Yeyema laughed. “But it's called triple triad! It’s really fun to play!”

“Tiple Traid…” Babycorn repeated to herself. It sounded so cool and magical! She had never heard of the game before. How long had it been around? Had she been living in a world with triple triad all her life?! That was amazing to think about. 

“Can you teach me how to play?!” Babycorn’s eyes lit up, she hopped up and down. “It looks like fun!!”

“Hmm…” Yeyema looked at Babycorn, tilting her head.  

Yeyema wasn’t thinking over whether she wanted to teach her or anything. She was just wondering how fast Babycorn could jump. After watching Babycorn bouncing for a few minutes Yeyema stretched her arm out and put her hand on top of Babycorn’s head to try and keep her still. 

“Hehe.” Babycorn stopped bouncing and changed to wiggle around from side to side. 

Yeyema’s eyes widened. Her new friend was so strange, but she was also pretty funny. “Okay Babycorn! I’ll teach you!” It would be fun to have someone else to play with. And also to win against. 

“Yay!” Babycorn cheered.

Cherrypit, who had been here the entire time, also raised his hands in the air. “Yay!” he let out his own little cheer even if he had little idea of what was going on. 

Babycorn grabbed Cherrypit and ran uncomfortably close to Yeyema’s side. “Hi Yeyema!” A smaller voice echoed underneath the table. “Hi Yeye!” Cherrypit was crawling all over the floor, eating some rocks someone had left behind. 

“How do I play?! How do I play?!” 

“It’s easy!” Yeyema kicked her legs in excitement, “Look see!” She held up a Sabotender card and showed it to her friend. Babycorn’s eyes sparkled with excitement and a bit of drool. Surely that was normal. 

“The pictures are nice but it's the numbers that really matter! Because you see-” 

All of a sudden Babycorn lunged forward, biting down on the card in Yeyema’s hand. Narrowly missing Yeyema’s fingers by just a few ilms. 

Yeyema let out a scream and tried to wrestle the card out of Babycorn’s mouth. “Spit that out! Out! You don’t eat cards!” Babycorn growled and pulled the card back towards her like her life depended on it. Both girls scrambled around their little space, knocking whatever wasn’t nailed down over. 

Yeyema pulled as hard as she could one last time. “Spit! It! Out!” That last tug was strong enough to make Babycorn let go of the card. 

“Pwah?” 

Yeyema fell backwards and watched as Babycorn tumbled all the way into a wall despite not having any momentum built up. “Babycorn! You don’t eat cards!” Yeyema pleaded to her friend. “You don’t put em’ in your mouth either!” Next time Yeyema would show something cool to Babycorn she would make sure to keep it far FAR away from her mouth. 

Babycorn stared up at Yeyema, wondering how she had turned herself upside down. When really, it was her that landed up upside down. 

“So I didn’t wins?” 

“Congrats to today’s Triple Triad tournament champion-! Babycorn Corn Starsinger!!” 

The crowd erupted in applause and abject confusion. Nobody had ever expected Babycorn to ever win this tournament. Especially when she had shown her deck to everyone prior to the event. 

Her cards were pretty pathetic. She had gotten them all in a starter deck just hours before the tournament. 

Nevertheless, Babycorn and Cherrypit prevailed making it all the way to the championship. Where they swept the last competitor and won it all. 

Babycorn took the trophy from the judge and smiled. Cherrypit let out a shrill shriek and jumped up and down. “Thank you everyone!” He cheered. Having known Babycorn his whole life he knew that she was deathly afraid of speaking in front of crowds. 

On the other hand, she was a little less scared when she could recognize someone she knew in said audience. Babycorn looked down and noticed Lunya looking at her, clapping for her just like the rest. Lunya hadn’t been in the tournament this time, only showing up to cheer Babycorn on in her journey. 

Babycorn smiled, “I wanna thank my friend! Lunya Lanya! She taught me everything I know!” 

Suddenly a couple hundred eyes were on Lunya. And then just as quickly as they were on her, they were off. Because most people knew not to get on Lunya Lanya’s bad side. 

“Amateurs…” Lunya scoffed.

It wasn’t her fault that no one had a counter planned in case their opponent ate all their cards.