"The new Count of Circle Orchard, Sorrel Rumex." Almost the entire rest of the night was a blur, drowned out by that one sentence. That one word, which I was certainly not expecting. Only the Dance the three of us shared truly stood out.

Not the meals prepared by the best chefs in the kingdom. Not the acclaim I received for the desserts that I made personally. Certainly not the hours of small talk, and countless faces, names or titles. Not all the entertainments provided by the Court.

Not even the gasps of the Mages in the crowd as I cast my most difficult and draining spell; there was no noble or grand reason for it, but simply so that I could share a few dances with the women I love. Not even the music left an impression, we were moving to the song in our hearts more than anything. I didn't see or hear the notifications from System-chan about my Control growing until long after our dance ended.

I close my eyes and visualize it once more, still too overwhelmed to fall asleep. The dance floor to ourselves, a single spotlight catching and glinting off of hundreds of Mana Stones as they float in the air around us. Sending colored sparkles of light around the room until they slowly faded away into nothingness while we twirled and spun the night away. Other couples may have joined us on the ballroom floor, but they were as ephemeral to us as mist.

Then, after longer than I had dared to hope for, the last of the stones finally disappeared. I pulled my girls in close and whispered those three simple words. Words that have more magic in them than I could conjure in a hundred lifetimes.

"You still awake, babe?" Amelia says groggily from next to me.

"How could I sleep after that." I roll over and pull her close.

"I know, a barony was bad enough-"

"Not that. The dance." I interrupt her. "Every time I try to close my eyes, it's all I can see."

"That was a good dance." Apricot says from the pillow besides us. "You've got some moves, but we already knew that." She lets out a low laugh.

"It was amazing." Amelia agrees. "How long did we dance for? It felt like it went on for hours."

"That's actually a good question." I think it over and realize that even with all those stones, I shouldn't have been able to hold the spell for that long. "Oh, System-chan. You are the best. You ever want or need anything, you just ask." I tell her after I spot what she did.

*Ding*

"Chocolate? Take it, I've still got kilograms, even after offloading as much as I could at the Guild. And, it's not like I can't always make more."

"What?" - "What did she do?" The girls ask one right after the other.

"I'm level six now, she even allocated all the free points into mental stats, like I usually do."

"Temmie!" Amelia starts tearing up. "You really are the best. You want chocolate? Take my whole stash."

"I'd give you mine too..." Apricot trails off.

""But, you already ate it."" We finish for her, giggling.

***

"So, what do you want to do today?" Amelia says while petting Mittens in bed next to me.

"Stay in bed until tomorrow?" I stretch out to loosen my muscles. "It's already after noon, so it's not like we'll have to wait long."

"He's got the right idea." Apricot backs me up from her pillow before flying over to land on my chest. "I wouldn't have missed our dance for the world, but your parents were smart to head out after dinner was done. That was one long night."

"Not exactly like we could have cut out early, guests of honor and all that." I rub a finger down her spine, between her wings. "The Queen had to show off Her new Count, and his Countesses, after all."

"Mmm, yeah. Right there." She moans. "I don't know who was more surprised. You two. Or the rest of the court."

"Yeah, where did that come from? And, what was with her talking you up like that?" Amelia shakes her head. "It's like when you said 'the Carrot and the Stick' she heard..."

"Shock and Awe?" I offer up a phrase from my old world.

"Exactly!"

"She obviously had her reasons." I groan while thinking of what they might be. "I just hope they aren't as bad as I imagine. And, I'm sure we'll find out in due time. But hey, at least she didn't name me Archduke and announce my betrothal to Princess Faye."

"Ugh!" Amelia groans. "This better not throw our plans for a small wedding out the window."

"That probably depends entirely on The Queen, and whether she wants to show us off some more." I groan right along with her. "Wanna run away and go back to live in the woods?" I only half joke.

"If only." She sighs.

"Ah, you lunkers worry too much." Our pixie chastises us. "Whatever happens, will happen. And, we will deal with it together. Now, as much as I'd love to stay in bed all day long while Sorrel plays his fingers down my back. We're obviously forgetting about something vitally important."

"Hmm?" - "Huh?" We murmur, worriedly.

"Breakfast!" Her stomach chooses that moment to growl loud enough to startle Mittens.

***

"What'cha working on?" Apricot flies up to peer at my new project. "It's me sized, but doesn't look complex enough for a movie player. And what's this stick for?" She tilts her head trying to decipher it's function. Small enough to fit in her hands, and has a square base with a button in one corner and a short rod sticking up from the middle.

"Yeah, I didn't feel like working on the phones right now. And, the biggest problem with the movie player is actually storing the movies on it. I've got half an idea on how to deal with that, but it needs more time took incubate in the back of my head." I explain. "So, I thought I'd work on something a bit more fun, and get some practice miniaturizing runes while I was at it."

"Okay." She nods. "So what is it?"

"Well, we had a lot of games back on Dirt." I use my nickname for my old Earth. "There was one called *Tennis*. The Polyglot skill says the nearest translation would be an old word for receive, but 'tennis' sounds alright. A lot better that *Earth* does, at least." I conjure an movie of a tennis match for her.

"Yeah, looks great and all. But, what does it have to do with a wiggly stick." She doesn't seem impressed.

"I'm getting there." I roll my eyes at the impatient little thing. "So, anyways. People made a table sized version called, rather unimaginatively, table tennis. Or just 'ping pong' for the noise the balls made." She makes a 'wrap it up already' gesture. "Fine, fine. So, once technology got better we started making video games. And that wiggly stick will let you play my recreated version of one of the earliest, called simply Pong."

The original pong was played with a wheel to control the paddle, but I went with an old Atari controller, so I could re-use it to make other simple games.

"You know, if you wanted me to play with your stick. All you had to do was ask." She titters, and Temmie joins in with a few *Dings*.

"We get enough practice doing that as it is." I chortle along. "I need practice making smaller, more complex Enchantments. I had a hell of a time just getting the basic controller functions working in that. I had to put all the complex stuff in this box here. Wanna see if it works?" I pick up another controller and push a button on the "console", waiting for an indicator light. "Good, looks like they synced properly. Let's start it up."

A black screen appears in mid air, a foot above the box. A dashed vertical line divides it into two equal halves, with a large '0' in the top center of each. While a tiny white dot bounces around the screen.

"Uh, babe. It's not exactly up to your usual standards." Apricot flies over to pat me on the hand, and gives me a 'you did your best' look.

"It's a classic! You just don't understand my art." I scoff with pretend outrage, making her giggle.

"So, how do we play?" She changes tone and asks eagerly.

"Push the button when you're ready to play, then use the stick to move your paddle. The first one to get ten balls past the other person wins."

Two 'bips' and a 'buzz' later, and she's screaming. "No fair, I wasn't ready!" Bip, buzz. "Dammit, quit cheating." Buzz. "No! I had it that time." She's jerking her stick up and down making her paddle bounce from the top of the screen to the bottom, not even trying to follow the ball.

"What is going on in here?" Amelia comes walking in with a smile on her face for Apricot's antics.

"Amelia stop him!" The pixie cries. "He's not playing fair." Buzz. "Noooo! What happened? How did I lose already?"

"I found Apricot's next addiction." She flies at my face and kicks me in the jaw with all the force of an anemic kitten. "Hahaha. Here, why don't you give it a try?" I hand Amelia the controller. "Just move the paddle around to block the ball and try to get it past hers."

"Hah! I got one." Apricot crows about scoring a point while I wasn't even holding the controls. "Suck that you lunker!"

"Playing her first video game ever and she's already started in with the trash talk." I shake my head in disappointment.

Bip, bip, buzz. "Oh, this is fun!" Amelia cheers. "It's called a video game?" Bip, bip, bip, bip. The girls manage to bounce it back and forth a couple times, more by luck than anything else. Bip, buzz. "Yay, I got another point."

"That's what they were called back on Dirt, but I think I'll call them Rune games here."

"Noo!" Apricot stamps her foot. "There's something wrong with my paddle. Sorrel screwed something up when he was making it."

"Oh, really?" I levitate it out of her hands and use it to trounce Amelia via air magic, quickly reversing the point gap. "Seems fine to me." I give it back.

"Hey, no helping her. I was about to win." Amelia pouts.

"See, you just have to put the paddle where the ball is going to be, instead of jerking it up and down like crazy." I smirk. "That only works in the bedroom." *Ding**Ding**Ding* "Well Temmie likes my jokes, at least." Now, I'm the one who's pouting.

"Hush" Amelia shushes me. "We're tied up with just one point to go." A long series of bips before a final buzz. "Not fair. Sorrel distracted me."

"Care to try again? I dare you to match my pixie superiority now that Sorrel fixed my controls." She completely ignores that she just plain sucked at the game before I told her how to play.

"Oh, you're on!"

"What have I created?" I have to shake my head again. "You girls have fun, I'm gonna go get started on dinner."

"Uh huh. Sure, babe." Amelia says distractedly. "Come on, I had that! That's it, you're going down sister."

***

I'm in the kitchen a few minutes later, making dinner by hand. I can prepare and cook everything with magic, but sometimes it's good to just slow down and do things the hard way.

""Sorrel!"" The girls whine in unison while entering the kitchen.

"We're too good. Neither of us can score a point anymore." Amelia complains, holding up the console.

"Hmm? It's probably your stats, that game wasn't made for Awakened, after all." I set my knife down next to the cutting board. "Here, let me see it." Amelia tosses it over and I use magic to pull it apart mid-air. "I just need to change this bit here... Might as well add a switch so regular people can still play... And, done." I reconstruct the game and toss it back. "See that knob on the side? Just twist that to whatever speed you like, and let me know if it needs to go higher than five times faster."

"You're the best." Amelia blows me a kiss. "Alright, come on Apricot. Time for me to kick your pixie butt again."

"You wish." She scoffs before flying over to give me a kiss on the cheek. "Thanks for the upgrade. But, it's time for me to show Amelia who's boss." She flies after the blonde, back into the sitting room.

"I've lost my girls to the video game menace." A deep sigh escapes my lungs as I pick my knife backup and start half-heartedly chopping vegetables.

***

"So, babe." Amelia says between bites of dinner. "When's the next one gonna be ready?" She's got her fork in one hand, and the controller in the other.

"Amelia. Please put that thing down, and focus on the meal Sorrel prepared for us." Her mother, Kaitlyn scolds her.

"Sorry mom." She ducks her head.

"Hate to break it to you." I give her a small smile. "But, that was the simplest game I could think of and it still took me all afternoon. I still need to finalize the phone design. Yes, I know they work, but they really do need a few changes."

"Like a way to tell your mother that you are in a meeting with The Queen. So, she doesn't make a fool of herself." Kaitlyn shoots her daughter a look.

"Sorry mom." She shrinks down even farther.

"And, once that's done." I ignore the interruption. "I'll need to make the rest of the relay towers and however many phones Her Majesty wants. Oh, don't get that look, you two. I've already got all the hard work done for Pong. I can probably repurpose that into another game tonight."

"You're the best, babe." - "Thanks Sorrel" They talk over each other.

"Anything to make my girls happy." I smile at them. "It'll be a single player game where you use the paddle and ball to clear bricks off of a screen." I display an image of Breakout. "You two will just have to compete to see who can clear the screens the fastest."

"I'll still win." Apricot states confidently.

"And, I can add more features in my free time too, over the next few days." I switch to an image of Arkanoid. Their eyes going wide when they see the effect the different power-ups have on the paddle. "But, that'll take time." The image poofs out of existence.

"Any chance we can try out these games?" Turner asks intrigued.

"Sure, I'll make you a copy of Pong after dinner. Since I know these two aren't gonna share." I laugh at the twin affronted looks that they adopt.

***

*Ding**Ding**Ding* The phone goes off.

"Nng." Amelia groans. "Turn the phone off, it's too early." She rolls over and covers her head with a pillow.

"It's an hour before noon." I say from a bedside chair. "You just stayed up late playing Breakout." I check the display and have to suppress my own groan. "You may want to wake up, it's from one of the castle phones."

"Nooo, I don't wanna." Amelia mumbles into her pillow.

"Good morning, Sorrel Rumex speaking. How may I help you?" I instantly fall back into the old 'office phone' voice that I picked up during my first internship.

"Ah, Sorrel. It's Oliver. The Queen was hoping that you could join us for lunch. She understands that you may have some questions about the unexpected promotion."

'That's putting it mildly.' I can't help but scoff silently.

"She wishes to take the opportunity to discus things with the three of you." He finishes.

"That would be lovely. What time should we expect the carriage?" I ask.

"Good, good. I just now sent it off, it should reach you in a quarter hour. I'll see you when you arrive." He disconnects the call.

"Come on Countess, time to get out of bed. The Queen awaits." I yank the covers away.

"Ugh! Is it too late to accept your plan to go and hide in the woods?" She pulls the pillow down away from her face and squints about the room. "Why doesn't she have to get up?" Amelia points to the still snoring pixie.

"Oh, I thought it would be much more fun to surprise her with the Princess." I laugh darkly. Every time I was about to fall asleep last night, Apricot would start shouting and making a racket because of the game. I eventually gave up and just put myself in a soundproof bubble. "Let's see how she likes having her sleep disturbed by a screaming Princess."

"Remind me never to get you really angry." Amelia laughs along with me. "Can you please get me dressed, and make some tea. Strong tea." She begs. "Mmm, thanks babe. Where's Mittens?" She looks around trying to spot the little ball of fluff.

"He's sunning himself in the yard, got tired of you ignoring him. It was funny watching him try to climb into your cleavage only to be brushed away with a mumbled "Not now Sorrel, I'm sleeping". But, I think he's a little miffed at you now."

"Oh, my poor baby." She rushes down stairs. Tea in one hand and a sweet roll in the other.

"Let's go sleeping beauty, you've got a play date with a Princess." I levitate the still unconscious pixie and follow Amelia.

***