"'Empirically'? This has been tested?"

"Well, if you say the game is not 'chess' but 'chess according to this manual that exhaustively covers all the edge cases' then how is your opponent supposed to know whether that manual you've got conforms to the common understanding of the rules? It could just as easily say that black wins in case of a draw, or that on move thirteen white is allowed to promote their b pawn to a queen where it stands, or that the first person to cross their fingers and recite the alphabet backwards wins regardless of what's happening on the board. You know what they'll say? 'I want to play chess. C-H-E-S-S. 32 pieces, 64 squares, you lose when you're checkmated.'"

"They won't… read… the manual?"

"Nobody has enough time or patience to go through ninety pages of rules with a fine-tooth comb every time they want to play a game. Sometimes you have to make concessions, write out the unwritten rules to stop mind readers from reading minds, but even the Succession Tournament keeps the rules short so more people can play. Hold still."

"That—"

Shiro is unceremoniously yanked six inches to the side as Stephanie repositions her, falling into the bath in the process. She sits up, hissing and spitting, and loses her train of thought.

Oh, finally out of questions? That's a shame, because you're not clean yet.

His clothes have vanished.

That's okay! Here are your new clothes.

Sora is a jeans and T-shirt kind of guy. He doesn't own anything more formal than a rain jacket. The deep red dress coat, vest and trousers laid out for him are a bit much, by his standards. Whoever picked it out was kind enough to match the color with his crimson sneakers, which are conveniently tucked underneath. He gets dressed, feeling silly and overwrought.

Sora is also overdressed by the standards of most Elkians, but that's not what Stephanie was aiming for. His mother would say that he looks very handsome.

Sora goes hunting for his sister and Stephanie. This floor of the castle is dominated by the baths and doesn't have many other rooms; he should be able to find them in short order.

Yeah, if he's prepared to walk into what is presumably a women's locker room while they're using it.

It does not even occur to Sora that he might not want to do this.

Shiro is situated in front of a full-length mirror, arms held out at her sides while a young woman laces up the back of a comically elaborate ball gown studded with sapphires. The ultramarine fabric of the dress and the white trim complement his own outfit nicely. She looks extraordinarily unimpressed with this state of affairs.

The young woman gives the laces a final jerk, earning a cough and a twitch from Shiro, and moves on to fixing Shiro's hair. The rat's nest begins to disappear surprisingly quickly as she brushes it out in segments.

"Look at me. I'm a pretty princess."

What an impressive amount of disdain. You'd think she'd be over the moon, under the circumstances.

As it would with all young girls, the opportunity to wear a sparkly dress in a magical fantasy castle has reached into the back of Shiro's mind and activated some primal associations that are universal among that demographic. Unfortunately, Shiro's strongest association here is the day her mother took away her doll and told her to grow up.

At the age of five. Yes, there was only one doll.

This is still 'fun', from a certain point of view, but Shiro is primarily salty.

"That used to be my gown," says Stephanie, who is a foot and a half taller than Shiro. She's already dressed, this time in a significantly less formal evening dress, and looks obscenely pleased with herself.

"Is there a reason you've decided to disguise us as members of the gentry? I thought we wanted to avoid standing out."

"And you won't. Elkia has been shrinking for a very long time. All those displaced people had to go somewhere, and most of them came here. A lot of tournament participants will be the sort with hereditary wealth from back when their great-great-grandfather was a lord in some province we no longer control. You two will fit right in."

"Please hold still, miss!" the maid begs Shiro.

"Stop trying to scalp me!" Shiro cries, ineffectually batting at the hairbrush.

This reasoning is sound, and yet Sora cannot help but feel as though Stephanie is playing him.