Lucia taunts Chris’s back, “White Maiden, are you turning your back on your enemy?” Chris plays it cool and simply tells her, “I await our next meeting.” But as she is riding away, she stops to add over her shoulder, “And stop calling me that. My name is Chris Lightfellow. Until next time.” Icy rebuke!

*drops mic*

Later, back at Ass Castle, Chris and Tootie are working late into the night. “I implore you to let our men rest,” Tootie tells his boss. “Someone must get more detailed information from [Sexay].” Chris doesn’t really seem to be listening–she’s too caught up in staring meaningfully out the window of their meeting room. But she breaks her frigid reverie to ask, “[Tootie], what are the Harmonians up to?” Tootie’s like, “How the fuck should I know?” Chris closes her eyes and grits her teeth again. “I see,” she responds. Why on earth she’d think that Tootie has any more of a clue about this than she does is beyond me. But Tootie, bless his sycophantic little heart, is still mostly concerned with Chris’s well being. “Do not worry, milady,” he tells her, like that will work. “Please rest. You’ve been pushing yourself too much lately.” But Chris cannot rest, not while she still has men out in the field, and not safely ensconced in her Ass Castle nest. Tootie replies, “I understand. However….” But whatever his reasonable objection was, the scene confusingly fades out and we never hear it.

I once again gain control of Chris in the meeting room, where she apparently spent all night staring out the window. She is free to dick around, because what Harmonian army? On her “rounds,” I guess, she almost immediately runs into Tootie at the western gate, tittering over a message from some Zexen redshirt. It turns out that Tootie had one of his boytoys “look into” the intel they got from the Zexen Council–remember, the intel that made them immediately call off Operation Great Hollow Bukkake. But maybe it was bullshit! Tootie sighs and tells her, “The Grassland invasion is real. The Harmonian army hadn’t made any moves for the last fifty years, but now….” Oh, so it wasn’t bullshit, and you spent all night doubting it for nothing? Good call.

More troubling, however, is what Tootie says next. “And, uh….” When Chris basically shouts, “Out with it, man!” he goes on, “It looks like the Council knew about the invasion beforehand….” The music gets all sinister as Chris asks, “How do you know?” He replies, “They sent back information so quickly after the Grassland invasion, they must have known about things all along.” Chris agrees that that is strange because they never “act in haste,” but I have to say, that doesn’t exactly sound like ironclad proof that the ruling council of the nation formed a conspiracy to cover up an enemy nation’s military movements. Chris asks if that means their attack on the Lizard Clan was “used as bait for the Harmonian invasion.” Tootie affirms this, and Chris gets her full righteous indignation on. “Those bastards!” she snarls. “How dare they use us like pawns?!” It would be unfair of me to get mad at Chris for ignoring the real problem, i.e. that Harmonia is invading Grassland for no justifiable reason, but she still comes off a bit petulant. In her anger, she decides to travel to Vinay del Sexay and read the Zexen Council the riot act for dragging her and her men into their bullshit. I don’t really see what this accomplishes other than wasting time and making Chris feel better, but it’s not like I have any say in the matter.

A cut later, Chris is mounted and ready to leave, despite Tootie’s protests that she should stay and just let things work themselves out. Things are obviously not going to work themselves out, but it’s not like yelling at the Council is going to do anything either. Chris insists, though, that it is her responsibility as captain to stare angrily at them like a Chopped judge who is served undercooked chicken. She also insists on going unguarded, I’m guessing because she doesn’t feel like dealing with Borus, who would probably spend the whole trip asking for advice about his “friend” who is exhausted from staying up all night to have secret buttsex with another “friend” while everyone else in the castle sleeps.

Nope! Their tree burned down!

But Chris hasn’t been on her impromptu road trip for more than five minutes when she complains to Boy, “Oh dear…I’m not…I don’t feel well….” Boy asks, “Are you ill, madam?” like he’s afraid Lady Chris just turned into the Crimson Maiden, because his squire training did not prepare him for that. “Probably not. Maybe just hot,” Chris replies. Boy doesn’t respond, but you can practically hear his brain whirring away. Hot flashes! That’s a lady thing, right? And she wants to go yell at a bunch of men! Oh God! Oh God!

Chris grits her way through her discomfort and travels through Zexen Forest, but near the forest’s western edge she starts to experience black spots in her vision. She can barely utter the classic Mary Sue line, “What’s happening to me?” before fainting dead away and falling off her horse. Boy fusses over her as we fade to black.

Of course, people don’t faint for no reason in this series, so Chris has to have a plot-relevant dream while lying unconscious in the dirt. In the sepia-toned Lightfellow Manor–seen from a child’s height, so this is a highly exciting first-person view of chairs and table legs–baby Chris asks petulantly, “Where is daddy? He promised me he’d be back today. Why isn’t he home yet?” Baby Chris sounds a lot like adult Lilly. Quelle surprise. Miles Standish tries to get her to shut up with a Jameson popsicle, but she’s not having it. “Why isn’t he here? He IS coming back today, isn’t he?” she whines. “Lord Wyatt has more business to attend to in the Grasslands today,” Miles replies, sticking to the boss’s provided code for “Daddy is tanning with his boyfriends on Fire Island.” Chris just derps, “Grassland?” like the ignorant little boob she is as the dream ends.

When Chris comes to, she’s back at Ass Castle with Boy hovering over her. “Oh, thank the Goddess! You’re awake!” he squeals. As Chris clanks upright–because, thank God, no one bothered removing her armor while she slept–she asks again what happened to her. Boy decides to scold her like a little Tootie in training: “You gave me quite a fright! All of a sudden you fainted! Lord [Tootie] is right, milady. You work too hard! Please take some rest!” Chris just stares at him through this whole speech like, “Oh, honey, no.” She does manage to mumble an apology to the poor boy for having to drag her back to civilization like a sack of potatoes.

Over her temporary lack of iciness, she turns to her devoted knights, after a camera pan reveals that they’re all also hovering over her bed like creeps. “And you, what are you doing here?” They all more or less just stammer about being worried about her, but Percy holds his chin in his fingers, looking even more like Phoenix Wright than usual, and snarks, “Hah! They’ve been coming ’round to gawk at you lying there. They say it’s to check up on you.” Borus is all, “Percival!” like he just accused him of being attracted to a woman, which I guess he did.

But Percy goes on, in maybe the saddest effort yet by these knights to appear to be in love with Chris, “What’s more, they almost bit my head off when I tried to take off your armor to make you comfortable.” Bubba grouses, while looking like he’s sniffing Percy’s hair, “We weren’t mad. It’s just that Percival shouldn’t have been the one to do it.” Roland goes “Precisely!” while Borus tries to blend into the wall, since he’s probably the group’s worst liar.

‘Is that your new pina colada conditioner?’

Look. Chris seems to buy their concern and their efforts to “help” her, but I don’t. The fact is, if they really did want her to be comfortable, even if they were all fighting for the right to briefly touch her panties, they would have gotten someone else, like a maid, to do it. As it stands, Chris remained in her armor the whole time, because they probably drew straws to undress her, except in a show of collective subconscious fear, no one ever added a short straw, so they all just stood there, put on their saddest looks over “losing” the right to see a naked woman, and tried really hard not to make out with each other.

Anyway. Chris doesn’t see Tootie professing his desire to look at her naked, so she asks where he is. Turns out he went to Vinay del Sexay in her place to yell at the Council. Boy tells her not to “fret” because he’s sure Tootie’s fine. She suppresses her annoyance that she lost her opportunity to scream at those dickweed politicians, and snits instead, “He’s the one who worries!” So true. It’s kind of amazing he managed to tear himself away from making Chris soup (with extra sausage) and putting cold compresses on her forehead. Of all of them, he’s the one I mostly buy as being in love with Chris, but that’s probably because he’s the odd man out of all my favorite hoyay pairings.

Braaaaains

The knights decide to take their leave because, as Roland says, “There is no point in staying if Lady Chris doesn’t need us.” Translation: he booked them all time in the sauna and they are not missing that appointment. All of them, Boy included, creepily stare at her in unison, asking permission with their big puppy dog eyes to go mack on each other out of her sight.

Awkward.

Once she’s back on her feet, Chris is free to explore again, though Boy begs her not to push herself too hard. After doing some training with the castle bujutsu master, she finds Percival fiddling with his horse outside. Not like that. I hope. After asking her if she’s okay for the 50th time in an hour, he tells her, “You look much better. Your foundation is really hiding those huge bags under your eyes. How about a ride to Iksay Village?” Okay, I might have made a little of that up. Chris asks, “Iksay?” because that’s about as far away as Vinay del Sexay is, and she’s quite sure these massively overprotective underlings of hers would not be okay with that. But Percy, actually smiling for once, says, “Yes, it’s the time of the Harvest Festival.” I get to choose whether Chris accepts Percy’s bizarre date proposal, and figuring that Chris could probably do with a spa day and some shoe shopping, have her respond, “Right. It would be nice to relax for a change.” Percy adds that Borus thinks he shouldn’t get too carried away. They’ve been on their “date” for five seconds and he’s already talking about Borus. Just saying. Chris awkwardly responds, “Always a good plan. Ha ha.” They’re going to be staring at their feet and discussing the weather any minute now.

Once Percy has fetched Chris’s horse for her, like a gentleman, they leave via the western gate and head north, through the Yaza Plains, to reach Iksay Village. Since it’s festival time, it’s decidedly more bustling than it was when Frodo visited to recruit everyone in town. And there are whole roasted pigs and bottles of wine on every surface, so it actually seems like Percy was right to want to come. The Suikoclones all look like they’re having a blast, anyway. And surely nothing bad will happen.

As he leads Chris into town, Percy exposits, “There, look! This festival is a celebration of an abundant harvest and an expression of gratitude to the Goddess Sadie.” Their goddess they keep going on about has the same name as one of the Manson girls? Sure, why not. Chris asks why he knows so much about it, and Percy reveals that he was born here in Iksay. This isn’t what I would call the most interesting of facts, but Chris is so desperate for small talk that she jumps on it, saying with rare interest that she “never knew that.” Even Percy says, “Not much to tell, really.” Man, this is going great.

A rotund Suikoclone woman emerges from one of the houses and runs toward Percival. “My, my, if it isn’t little Percy, from Main Street! I mistook you for some VIP.” From Main Street? There’s only one street in the whole village! Not recognizing him and pointing out where he lived seems like something one would say to a kid from the neighborhood, but Percy confusingly calls the lady “mum” and she responds in kind that he’s her “baby.” Whatever. We’re only meeting this lady because her house is probably going to burn down. She adds, “You look so regal!” It’s that big city hair gel.

Turning to Chris, she cocks her head and says, “Who’s this lady? Is she your… Oh my! She looks familiar….” Percy says, “Er…” which is his massively subtle way of saying, “SHE’S NOT MY GIRLFRIEND!” In an aside to Chris, he says he has to go mingle with his high school buddies for a while. By himself. Naked. “You should try some sightseeing,” he adds, so she has something to do while he’s catching up with the football team. “There are fields beyond the hills over there, and the breeze is very pleasant this time of year.” I find it funny, and more than a little satisfying, that Percy asked for this outing and yet isn’t showing much interest in getting to know Chris, let alone in courting her. He’s treating this “date” like what it is–something the script said he needed to do. Even as the writers are trying to turn him into Chris’s love interest, they know it’s a total sham.

Let me know how that plan works out for you.

Good God, it’s not THAT good of a festival.

Percy continues, channeling his inner Tootie, “But do be careful. If they find out who you are, you’ll be mobbed.” Yeah, I’m sure no one will figure out that the lady with silver hair who showed up with Percival of the Zexen Six is Lady Chris. Good thinking. Chris is obviously on my wavelength and responds, with a coy little smile, “Thanks for the warning, Percy.” Hee! He’s obviously on the verge of telling her only Borus is allowed to call him that, but he settles for, “Um, certainly, milady.” He totally has Phoenix’s flop sweat face on, so he’s probably concerned that Chris is genuinely flirting with him on their completely legitimate romantic date.

With that, Percy leaves, and Chris can explore the town solo. In the item shop that used to belong to Gordon, a little girl hands Chris a Pale Gate Rune because she thought it would give her “the charisma of a gentleman,” but it did not in fact make her grow a penis. I can’t imagine why she thought it would, but I don’t really want to go down the rabbit hole of thinking about it. Across from the inn, a fat man who’s probably Percy’s dad is sitting cross-legged on the ground, and tells Chris, “Whooa…. I tell you, I’ve been boozing all day! I’m sitting in the breeze here sobering up. But we’ll be feasting tonight, oh yeah!” Mr. Fraulein seems like a fun guy.