#thus began the great donutmancy prank war of 838 PD 😌

[critrolesideblog]

"Essek, won't you come join us?" Jester was smiling at him as she walked up the beach toward him, her fangs gleaming in Catha's silvery moonlight. She was just outside of the fire glow, but Essek could clearly see her tail swishing mischievously behind her, the same way a cat's does when it's spotted its prey. He smiled at her affectionately.

"No."

"Awww, c'mon, man! Everyody's doing it!" She gestured broadly to the beach around them.

It was true that the shores of Nicodranas were quite crowded for the early midnight hour, which at least disproved Essek's earlier suspicion that this New Dawn tradition might be an elaborate prank. If it was, they had managed to get all of Nicodranas in on it.

He had happily participated in many of the Nein's varied New Dawn traditions over the course of the night. They had eaten long noodles for dinner (a Zadashian tradition adopted by Yasha) and apples dipped in honey (a Zemnian tradition). They had found kisses at midnight and released floating, paper lanterns into the sky festooned with wishes for the new year (Nicodranian and Kryn traditions respectively). But he was not jumping into the Lucidian Ocean in the middle of winter.

Absolutely not.

"It's good luck!" Jester insisted.

"I make my own luck." He replied smugly and took a sip from his cup of steaming rice wine.

"But this is luck you don't have to make."

"At the cost of catching my death of cold? No, thank you."

"CAY-LEB!" She shouted back over her shoulder.

"Ja?" Caleb's voice floated on the sea breeze, breathless.

"Tell your boyfriend, high risk, high reward!"

Essek choked on his wine as Caleb's laughter roared in with waves.

"It's not even that cold." She was leaning over him now, firelight shining in her eyes, dripping fat droplets of icy, salt water onto his new cloak. He tried to lean back away from her, prestidigitating the water away with a noise of annoyance.

"I seem to recall that you didn't think Eiselcross was that cold, and I remember what you were wear--" It was then that he noticed the curious, rising flow of water trailing behind her, blurred into the blue light of the night by her swishing tail until that moment. "Jester, no--"

Splash! The water crashed into him, drenching him and paralyzing him for a moment with cold.

"There!" Jester cackled. "Now, you've got good luck for your travels!"

"Jester!"

"If you want to get me back, you'll have to come into the water after me!" She called in her singsong voice as she half-danced, half-ran back toward the water.

"I will get you back, Jester Lavorre! Just you wait!" He called after her, laughing in spite himself as he prestidigitated himself dry.