"Oooohhh... last week for some reason felt like a blur..." says Histoire rubbing her temple. "What would today's session be, I wonder. I'm just glad they haven't asked me about the game while outside of our sessions, but I would still hear them talking about it every so often..."
Histoire drinks a glass of water, checking the time. It's almost time for the session, and she's still somehow on the fence about how to introduce their next major encounter. Perhaps this would be a decent way to introduce them to the notion of running away, properly this time, that not all battles are to be won and they can be fled from. She looks around the table to see who else is here, and it looks to be that Nepune will be arriving shortly, along with Nepgear.
The two sisters take their usual seats, and as usual, Histoire hands them their sheets. The two accept their sheets and read them again to refresh their memory about their characters. While Neptune only has a few sheets, Nepgear has a few more sheets in comparison, but Histoire knows both of them will have more or less an equal amount soon enough, once more magic becomes unlocked. Histoire lets the two of them read through their sheets in silence, while she herself mentally prepares for the upcoming session. Even though she has done this for a few months already, it's still nerve-wracking.
"Hey Histy, what do you think would happen this session?"
Histoire jumps slightly in her seat. "Ah, that would be decided by your decisions, of course. It's not like we stopped on a combat scenario."
"Oh, that's true. Last week was all about Uni, right? She saw that gigantic worm creature. Now, we've actually been discussing the whole week what we want to do about that."
"What's the consensus then, Neptune?"
"Absolutely nothing. Still can't get a proper agreement."
Histoire grimaces. "I see. Hopefully our whole session this week isn't everyone just discussing what wants to be done..."
"Miss Histoire," says Nepgear, looking up from her sheet, "I spoke with Uni a few days ago, and I think she mentioned something about wanting to check the village again."
Neptune sighs a bit. "Hrm, another solo session?"
"Well, I personally hope not," says Histoire, "Solo sessions are fun every now and then but not like this. And I don't want to host literal solo sessions. Just me and one of you. Either way, if that's the plan, it's possible to make it shorter for brevity."
Histoire says that but she remembers, that she would like to make use of that mind altering effect, although the effect of it would most likely be quickly meta-game'd, so she decides to scrap it, and leave it for another session. It would have been nice to suddenly introduce the skeleton infested town as a sudden, utopia-esque place, where everyone is rich and wealthy beyond comprehension. She sighs to herself, and as she gets lost in her thoughts, the sound the elevator indicating its arrival interrupts her.
"Oh!" Neptune jumps up from her seat, "That must be them!"
The elevator doors open and the rest of the goddesses arrive. Neptune tilts her head upon noticing that the usual black haired sisters are missing from the group. She tries to see if perhaps they're just hiding behind Vert, but there's no one behind her.
"Huh?" says Neptune out loud. "Where's Noire and Uni?"
Vert places a palm on her cheek and frowns. "Well, we went to pick them up, but Noire said that she won't be able to make it, because Uni caught a fever, and she wouldn't want to leave her sister alone."
"I see," says Neptune with a slight pout. "Well, I do hope that Uni gets better soon. I'm sure she'll be fine, Noire's there to take care of her."
"Huh, I was just with her a few days ago," muses Nepgear. "I hope I somehow didn't catch it as well..."
"Well, Miss Nepgear, do you feel any different recently? Actually, no, don't think about it, the nocebo effect might actually hurt you further."
"Nocebo?" says Nepgear, looking slightly pale, upon hearing the unknown word.
"It's just the opposite of the word placebo, Miss Nepgear. Just thinking about getting sick, you may actually get symptoms even if you aren't sick."
"Oh, okay, that's a relief, so, um, what do we do now Miss Histoire?"
"Honestly, I'm quite unsure. Something like this is expected with the amount of people we have playing, but it's quite unfortunate for this to happen during a critical moment. Would anyone want to do something else for now, try to continue with the game, or should we just call it?"
Neptune places a hand on her chin with a 'hmm'. The rest of the table follow suit. A few minutes later, Nepgear speaks up, breaking the silence.
"Oh! What if we make some Get Well cards for Uni? I'm certain she might be feeling bad that she got sick, and thinking that she's holding up the game."
"You're right," says Vert, "she knows that the story wouldn't proceed without her, and now she's probably feeling guilty."
Rom and Ram look excited, and brought out crayons, after fiddling about in their coat pockets. Blanc glares at them, making the two flinch, but they respond with a chuckle. Blanc sighs and gives up. Neptune stands up, with Nepgear following behind her.
"I'll grab us some papers and other materials!"
"Lady Histoire, I'll prepare some refreshments for us then," says Vert, headed to the kitchen.
Only Blanc, her sisters and Histoire are left on the table. Blanc once again looks at her sisters, and sighs. "I hope you two weren't just hiding your crayons when you kept asking Mina to get you new crayons."
"No! Of course not! Isn't that right Rom?"
"Y-yes!" nods Rom.
"Good," nods Blanc. "We should bring Uni some sweets from Lowee as well when we all inevitably drop by."
"But wouldn't we also get sick if we do that...?" asks Rom.
"We'll be making a get well card for Uni, hand it over to Noire, and when she starts feeling better, we'll be visiting her with the sweets."
"Ooohhh! That makes sense!"
Histoire looks around and see the rest of the goddesses return to the table. Vert has a pot of tea and biscuits to snack on; Neptune returns with a ream of paper, construction paper, cardboard, and all sorts of different colored papers as well, and Nepgear has a small box of arts and crafts materials with her as well.
"Neptune, why exactly do we have a lot of these materials almost ready on-hand?"
"Oh Histy, did you forget already when P-ko visits?"
"...right, you two do leave a colorful mess when she visits... that makes sense."
"Speaking of-"
"I don't think I can add more players!" blurted out Histoire.
"Oh, um, well, I guess that kinda answers that, but that wasn't what I was thinking, it's more of, should we make one large card for Uni, or should we all make individual cards?"
"I know!" says Ram nearly jumping off her chair. "How about we make one large card and inside are smaller personalized cards?"
"Hmm," muses Blanc. "As long as the initial card isn't unwieldy to hold... I suppose that could work."
"Yay!" exclaims the twins.
"Let's all work on our individual cards first then," suggests Vert. "Then once we all have those down to pat, we'll all work on the larger card together."
The table lets out a collective cheer and quickly began to work on their individual cards. Histoire looks at everyone meticulously working on their cards, and felt that she should also make one, but now she's feeling conflicted, whether she should use magic to make one, or should she manually create one with her rather small stature. She looks at the materials, and some of them are quite literally her size.
"Are there even any scissors I can use...? Wait, I can just conjure them, but if I conjure them what's the difference of me just making it..." she whispers to herself, her hands slowly gripping the top of her head as her brow furrows and her mouth clench.
A few minutes of her mental struggle pass by, all the while everyone else is happily snipping, humming, and drawing on their own little projects. As Histoire is still stewing in her thoughts, Neptune notices Histoire's silence.
"Hey, Histy? Anything wrong? You've been just staring at the table but it feels like you're not even looking at it..."
"Oh, ah ... um. I'm looking at all of you working on the cards, and I feel slightly left out, mostly because I can't use regular sized scissors or any of the materials, but then I realized I could just materialize a card from seemingly nothing, but at the same time, I felt that would feel greatly impersonal..."
"Is that why? Wait, can't you just make the materials we have here your size?"
"..."
"..."
Neptune and Histoire stare at each other in relative silence, Histoire pursing her lips and looking away from Neptune's eyes. Neptune takes this as her cue to continue working on her own card.
"Well, if you need any help with anything Histy, we're all here!"
"R-right," says Histoire, looking slightly red. She takes a deep breath and sighs her silly worries away, takes a few of the materials on the table, and pours her magic in them to change them to a more comfortable size. Joining everyone else as they create their own cards, she smiles with satisfaction.