Bears Armed vs. East Ares
Venue: Duran Palace, Valanari, Valanora.
Score: 2-0. (Bears Armed wins.)
Goals
Bears Armed (2): Thunderbolt (#10) @ 28’ (assist: Norr-Vurra [#5]); Grearh’hratch (#7) @ 51’ (assist: Lightning [#6]).
East Ares (0): (none)
Red Cards
(none)
Substitutions due to Injury
(none)
Location: Valanora _ Valanari _ the hotel in which the Belles are currently staying.
Time: Early morning, a little while before what most people would probably think of as ‘breakfast time, on the day after the match that’s reported above.
Karra Brent had woken up a few moments ago, and was now considering whether to take a few more moments of rest or to get out of bed and get ready for the day. Somebody knocks, definitely but quite gently, on the outer door of her room…
(Karra) “Just a mo’.”
She scrambles out from under the duvet and to her feet, throws the duvet roughly back into place, pulls on a robe, walks across to the door, and opens it. Standing in the corridor just outside, facing her, is former ‘Belles’ player — and Karra’s best friend since before they had even reached their teens — Lurrsee Fane, with her young daughter Errisabearr sitting on her shoulders and peering over to the top of her head — onto which she’s holding — from behind.
(Lurrsee Fane) “Surprise!”
(Errisabearrh)“S’prise, Ka’ha!”
(Karra) “Lurrs’! Hrarroom! (1) This is a surprise! I thought that you and Jammy(2) were going to be busy with that job in the ‘New Territories’ (3) for around a couple more weeks…”
(Errisabearrh) “Hrarroom, Ka’ha!”
(Karra) “and, of course, ‘Hrarroom! to you, as well, princess…”
(Lurrsee) “Ayyuh, well, that job had to be left unfinished for now… for ‘reasons’, “need to know”, and all that… so here we are, instead, after all. Jammy’s just completing the check-in, and getting our luggage brought up, so that we can do some hrrecoverring from the journey today, here, before everybody moves on to Gladerial…
“And as I haven’t seen you in ages, I decided that we would stop by and catch up — if you are awake enough, that is — hwhile he’s doing that.”
(Karra) Ayyuh, of course I’m wake enough. If you set Errie down in the middle of that couch then we can sit on either side and stop her wandering off hwhile we talk… Ur’rmm, unless maybeso she’s started flying (4) by now, anyhows?
“Let’s sniff(5), the last time we spoke was before I got offered this ‘Apprentice Coach’ job and hwhile I was still living in LakePort… Hrright?”
Lurrsee carefully lifts Errisabearrh over her head and lowers her onto the couch, then sits down herself with a sigh of relief.
(Lurrsee) “No flying, not yet anyhows, thank the Good Spirits… My little princess can be hard enough to keep in one place as it is! Her wings seem to act as stabilisers, so that she can run on two feet than most other cubs of that age, and she gets curious about things.
“Ayyuh, that’s hrright. So, ‘Apprentice Coach’ now, and relocated from LakePort to Khamm’s-den(6), hwhat’s the story behind that? Are you even still on the Lionesses’ team hrrolls at all?”
(Karra) “Hokay, you do hrremember me talking about a possible move into coaching eventually, hrright? Well, so hwhen I was offered the chance to start training for that rrole early, hwhile I’m still playing in the Belles’ senior team, and the rreasons for the offer hwhere explained to me, accepting smelled(5) like a good idea… but combining these two rroles meant that I’d have to spend more of my time at Wimbley, so moving closer to it made sense… and means that I wouldn’t have been able to do much playing for the Lionesses anyhows, so that trying to hold onto a place in the main squad wouldn’t have been fair on the other players. I’m still on the team hrrolls as a possible hrreservist, but that’s hrreally just for serious emergencies… and in case the World Cup Committee ever decides to insist that every player in anational team must be hrrgeistered with a club as well in order to qualify for inclusion.”
(Lurrsee) “Caught it. Hrright, that makes sense, I guess. And they wanted you to start training as a Coach now, because?”
(Karra) “Firstly, simply so that I’m more likely to be hrready if the Belles actually need another Coach while we’re too far from home to borrow an established one from a local club; secondly, so that I’ll be in better a position to help evaluate the new hrrecruits from a “younger” viewpoint than that of the other coaches; and thirdly, because the bosses hope that as I’m hrrather closer in age to the current crop of ‘U-TwentyOne’ players than the “proper coaches are I’ll be able to help as an intermediary between those two groups.”
She notices that Errisabearrh has slipped down from the couch while this conversation was passing over her head, and is now wandering towards the nearest window.
“Heyy, Errie, come back here!”
Lurrsee gets up, and runs towards Errisabearrh who hears her coming, giggles, and turns rapidly to run around the back of the couch instead. Karra gets up as well, goes around the other end of the couch, and crouches down so that she’s in position to grab Errie when she gets that far. Lurrsee catches up, and takes the child gratefully from Karra’s arms.
[/size](Errisabearrh) “Ka’ha!”
(Lurrsee) “Thanks. As I said, all it takes is an instant not giving the princess full attention and off she’s likely to go… Still, I think that she must be getting tired by now — you probably wouldn’t have caught her that easily otherwise, believe me — so hopefully she’ll sleep through this morning hwhile Jammy and I are sleeping too.
“An ‘intermediary’ between the hrrregular coaches and the players, uh-huh? Ayyuh, I can smell the usefulness of you having that hrrole… especially with three of the ‘Holy Terrors’(7) in this squad… At least those should hrrespect you, as an ‘Old Terror’(7) yourself and one hwho’s already earned such a rreputation as a player…”
(Karra) “Ahh, they’re all three of them good girls hrreally… just like we were…”
(Lurrssee, apparently remembering some incidents from their schooldays) “Hrright…”
She yawns.
Errisabearrh copies her, giggle, and then yawns again more genuinely.[size=120]
(Karra) “Sounds to me as though both of you are hrready for a nap. Just give me a couple of moments to freshen up, and then I’ll walk you to your room before going for my breakfast…
“We can chat some more on the train to good old Gladerial this afternoon, hokay?”
(Lurrsee) “Ayyuh, that smells good to me.
“Heyyuh, talking of Gladerial and “good”, isn’t it nice that the Belles have the verry same stadiums for their group-stage games in this Cup that we had last time around… Good omen, maybeso?”
(Karra) “Ayyuh, maybeso: We hope so, anyhows…
“But of course we aren’t going to hrrely on possible omens, we’re pushing the new girls to give it nine-eights in the yonkh(8) as well.”
OOC Footnotes
1. [i]“Hrarroom!” is an Ursine greeting.
2. “Jammy” is Lurrsee’s husband (and Errisaberrh’s father), Jamms Bearthorromew ‘Jammy’ Urrsen, who has already earned renown as a camera-bear despite his own relative youth. He appears to be their native reality’s counterpart to the person on another version of Earth — and in comic-books published on the Belles’ version of Earth’s comic-books — who has the same name and is also widely known as “SuperBear’s Pal”… and he recognises this fact.
(If you don’t get the reference, google ‘Jimmy Olsen’…)
3. Bears Armed is in the [NS] region called [region]International Democratic Union[/nation]: OOC, this acquired a new map late last year and various of the region’s member nations were then retconned as having been located in that reality all along… but the Bears IC still have their original lands back on the original map, with their holdings on the newer map just a newer acquisition (a few years ago) — which hasn’t yet been fully explored — instead. Some of the Bears, especially among those who (like the Belles) have travelled most widely, recognise that the other nations have been moved: Others don’t, and think now that those nations were “always” on the same world as the Bears’ ‘New Territories’.
4. Supernatural intervention turned the Belles into ‘Ponies’ (basically as per MLP…) for a few days during the WC84 qualifying stage. Lurrsee was already pregnant then, although she hadn’t yet recognised the fact, and when she became a ‘pegasus’ that change must also have affected the foetus… but, for some reason, the process that restored the Belles to their original forms didn’t work completely on Errisabearrh-to-be so — a few months after her birth — she sprouted a pair of small wings!
5. “Let’s sniff” = as we would say, “Let’s see”; “smelled” = “looked”.
6. Khamm’s-den is a former village that is now a suburb of Council Groves (this nation’s capital city), situated within that city’s administrative district and on the railway between the city itself & Wimbley. Khamm was a leader in the forces that defended that part of the country during the ‘Demon War’, a generation after the overthrow of the ‘Purple Empire’ that I’ve already mentioned in fairly recent RP.
7. “Holy Terrors” is a common nickname for the pupils of Holy Ternian’s School, which both Karra and Lurrsee attended, and hence is used [more specifically] for the members of that establishment’s own Soccer team; “Old Terrors”, therefore, is a colloquial term for the school’s former pupils.
(That school is basically an Ursine version of St Trinian’s…)
8. You remember that the Bears typically use base-eight arithmetic, rather than base ten? A ‘yonkh’ is eight squared, so “give it nine-eights in the yonkh” is basically comparable to the RL injunction to “give it 110%”…
Important Note
As the Cup’s present holders the Belles have, of course, brought it along with them. Unless the organisers object, they will be displaying it triumphantly during their pre-game ‘harrdiharr’. It has got some reliable Bears assigned for its protection.