"Backwards four," Steve looks between the card in his hand and Diana, dismayed. "No."
"Yes." Her simple reply only makes the directions feel even more ridiculous.
"It's a Safe Zone!" He sputters, jabbing a finger at the little blue section of board leading up to the round space marked Home. "You shouldn't be able to back out of a Safe Zone!"
"You can and you will."
Without waiting for him to actually move - and it wasn't as if he had a decision to make on the matter, only having one piece out of Start to move around - Diana grabs a card of her own, tapping one of her red pieces in the correct direction as he finally releases his hold on the offending card. He scoots his own piece back and out of safety, glaring daggers at the draw pile, the pawns, well, everything really.
"Oh but you can move forward five?"
"That is what a five does, yes." Her smile is innocent enough, but he knows better. She is enjoying this.
Luckily, his next card is a seven.
"See? You can move back to safe now."
"Yeah yeah."
Of course, she draws an eleven. The woman who has two of four pieces in Home, who has already won three other games prior to this one, gets to move forward eleven whole spaces.
And he, who is only working with one piece at the moment and can only move a maximum of two spaces forward, gets a useless eight. He hopes she gets a backwards four, or even just a forward one. Although, the one would be nice for him to get, since he could then get another piece out of Start...
But no, she gets a seven, and sevens can be split, and she splits it to get a third piece in Home.
Would it be too much to throw a pillow? Probably.
When he makes his next pick, he is already dreading what it's going to be, some kind of backwards fourteen or something, even though nothing above a twelve was meant to be in the deck. So he is more than surprised when it is not just a good card, but a great card, a useful one. He's drawn a Sorry! card. Finally, finally, he has a chance.
He plucks up one of his pieces from Start, swaps it with Diana's last man standing, and drops her piece back in her Start, all the while grinning like he's just won the lottery.
A grin that was quickly returned after Diana picks up her next card, presenting it to him and reversing his last move.
"No." But it does no good.
She just had to get a Sorry! card.
"Yes." And there was that innocent look again, as if she was fresh from Themyscira and not utterly destroying him at almost every board game they were attempting.
"You've rigged it, somehow, I know it." It was a weak protest, one they could both easily see through.
She raised an eyebrow, amused.
"Want to shuffle the cards again?"
Not one to back down, he did just that, holding her gaze until he sat the deck back down, turning the top card face up.
Forward ten. Or, if move is not possible, backwards one.
Diana's laughter echoes pleasantly through the room. It's a nice sound, sure, but it doesn't change the fact that he is never going to play Sorry! again.