Fate and Destiny looked over their gaming table, each deep in thought as they examined the various playing pieces scattered about in what looked to be a chaotic mess covered in chocolate milk and cotton candy.

“It’s your fault, you know,” groused Destiny, trying to wipe chocolate milk off the purple wings of a new game piece. “There’s a reason I don’t like to have food at our games. I haven’t even gotten to play this one yet. Why did you move those little fillies on your last turn?”

Fate did not immediately reply, being busy trying to dig a few loose milk duds off the bottom of the board with a paper towel. Finally, with a soggy ‘splurp,’ the last bit of sticky candy was dumped into the trash. “Well, I’m not the one who let those three mobile disaster areas run loose either. Lock up one evil god of chaos for a few centuries and they can be so spiteful when they get out. I mean, what were the odds against that again?”

“I don’t believe in odds,” came a third voice, soft and rich with potential as their gaming table became slightly more occupied. Fate and Destiny looked away in an attempt not to become ensnared by those haunting green eyes as Luck picked up three of their small playing pieces and examined them, before placing them carefully to one side to save for later. “I understand you two are having a disagreement about… griffons and ponies.”

“Not a disagreement,” said Destiny. “Conflict.”

“It is too a disagreement,” disagreed Fate. “I say it’s impossible for them to coexist.”

“It’s quite possible.” Destiny cleaned off another playing piece and placed it inside a large castle on a mountain next to a smaller piece. “Look at that. Right where they both belong.”

“Perhaps you two are lacking in scope.” The playing surface twisted, a crystalline city rising up to one side as the playing pieces scattered around the remaining table. On the revealed sparkling playing surface, dozens of new pieces glittered in the light.

“Oooh, pretty,” said Fate, the chocolate milk soaked towel in her grasp falling unnoticed to knock over a small rock formation in the Badlands that nopony would visit for years.

“Hey, wait a cotton-harvesting minute.” Destiny pulled out a well-worn rulebook and flipped a few pages forward. “Here we go. Section 104.7a ‘Revealing a previously concealed portion of the map requires the player to sacrifice a piece.’ You’re not a player, and you don’t have any pieces.”

“I’ve always been a player, and it doesn’t specify the sacrificed piece has to be one of mine. I’ll choose…this one.” A very small piece was selected and placed on the mountain fortress, and both other players gasped.

“That’s just… vile,” said Fate, looking a little green.

“You can’t do that. It has to say you can’t do that somewhere in here,” muttered Destiny with a serious amount of flipping through the rulebook.

“My move is over,” said the green-eyed player, sitting down after sweeping some popcorn out of her chair. “Your turn.”

“Pass,” said Fate almost instantly, looking over the board with a bitter expression.

“I think…” Destiny hesitated before reaching out to touch a pair of figures and move them slightly onto a different path. “Your sacrifice should not be in vain.”

“Are you sure you want to do that?” asked Fate, looking over a shoulder while chewing on an antacid pill. “Could get messy.”

“It’s already messy,” grumbled Destiny. “I just hope it’s worth it.”

Luck merely leaned forward and watched as their moves began to take effect.

“Likewise.”

The game continues in Diplomacy by Other Means where Pumpernickel and Laminia go on a diplomatic mission to a northern griffon tribe which is threatening war, only to find something in the mountains far worse than they could imagine, and their only chance for survival becomes a race to escape in a battle to the death.