The day had started with a usual routine. Get up, get food, bake something (if a kitchen was available) then explore whatever was nearby. Normally this routine was completed in the wilderness with a campfire and his girlfriend Hana. But she had a family emergency to discuss with her mother. The last he heard of it, there was a flock of crazy birds on the loose but that is all Hana mentioned. He chose to wait for her in a town inside the Viren's forest before moving on to the next adventure. The inn he was staying at had a lovely kitchen and enough supplies for him to work on his baking and treat making.

His promises to share whatever he made with the inn's customers allowed him special privileges to the kitchen. The first recipe he decided to work on was some buttermilk cinnamon rolls with sugary icing on the top. In almost an hour, the entire inn and kitchen smelled of delicious cinnamon and the sweet smell of sugar. A few inn guests wandered into the kitchen but Wesley barely noticed them. His attention was purely on the baked goods and carefully working the dough so it would be just right for the next batch. After all the flour sifting, stirring of the pot, holding up items, and all the additional work that went into baking, he was starting to work up a sweat. Right after he took out the last batch of cinnamon rolls and placed them on the table, he finally noticed the sound of laughter that reminded him of the sound of a mischievous fairy.

"GET HIM!" was all he heard before a bag was shoved over his head. He began to pull the bag off his head since the girl holding it over him wasn't as strong as he was. But to his surprise, there were more people with the same evil little giggles. They ended up dogpiling him with multiple people. They managed to stuff him into the bag and tied it shut, then dragged him out of the kitchen. He thought about shouting for help but he realized that the moment Hana found out he got kidnapped, she would not only destroy the town to rescue him but also tease him about how many times this sort of thing has happened. So he stayed quiet and decided to wait until he had an opportunity to escape.

By the time they arrived at the kidnapper's destination, he had acquired several bruises from the rocks that the group had dragged him over. They finally dumped him out of the bag and he was able to see his kidnappers for the first time. They were,

"Raine?!" He exclaimed in surprise.

They were all pink-haired rainbow-eyed girls who he had seen on one of his trips to Angela's home. Why on Revaliir were there so many?! And what were they doing here? All of them, clearly distracted by their devious plan to even recognized him, one Raine held up a sign to his face that read -Bird Rights!-.

"Don't worry hostage! We've only taken you so we can get our bird rights. You'll be returned once the town's leader complies with our demands!" The first Raine said.

A second Raine burst into the clearing of the forest while another Raine began tying Wesley to a tree.

"Captain! The leader won't comply!" The second Raine declared.

"Darn! We'll just have to get more hostages." Captain Raine said, "Let's go get some!"

The herd of Raines marched off to find more captives, leaving a confused Wesley tied to a tree.

It was a while since she had traveled this far out in Canelux, but Nui wasn't worried. The trip from Arri to Adeluna and back took a few weeks if you went by land. As Kite ran the clothing side of the business, the fox decided she would handle the accessories. And any salesperson worth their salt knew it was important to know the latest trends. After doing some serious window shopping, she was heading back with an armful of design ideas when she overheard trouble was brewing on the kingdom outskirts. There was the mention of a hostage situation going on, and she was a busybody.  Thanks to her keen vulpine senses (and eavesdropping skills), Nui traced the source of the ruckus to a small town with not much reason for ransom. Snooping around with an invisibility talisman was handy, as she noticed the chaos that was turning the town upside-down. Following the mob of pink-haired girls, Nui discovered a poor guy tied to a tree. He didn't look like he did anything wrong, so why was he here? Were these strange girls kidnapping people for leverage? Come to think of it, the girls looked so similar that Nui thought they were a cult. She wasn't going to let an innocent guy minding his own business get put into a weird ritual!

Once the girls were gone, she snuck up to Wesley and removed her paper talisman, appearing out of thin air. Her ears moved around to check if the coast was clear before whispering loudly to him. "Hey, psst! Need some help getting out of here? Who tied you up, and what do they want?" A girl with white hair in a bob crossed her arms as a fan of several puffy, white tails swayed behind her. "Name's Nui, by the way." Every so often she would glance over her shoulder in case the strange pink-haired mob was coming back. She wasn't sure how long they'd be gone, and she didn't want to end up as a hostage too. Just coming here was risking her neck. The height difference was obvious, with the captive young man towering over the small fox. And for some reason he smelled…really good? It was making her mouth water a little.

Fortunately for him, Raine had never taken lessons on knot tying. With a bit of work, the knots would come undone but it would take him a few minutes. Suddenly, a voice whispered loudly out to him and he spotted the girl who had appeared out of nowhere. She had bobbed white hair and several puffy tails of the same shade behind her. The girl seemed anxious to be gone and avoid the Raines of terror.

"Help would be great." Wesley said with a sigh, "The knots are weak. One good pull on one of them should make the whole thing fall apart."

Just as he said, the knot fell apart quickly. Freed from the tree, Wesley stretched out his arms and legs. His green eyes wandered back to the village which was currently being occupied by a hoard of pink girls. At this rate, they would take the entire village hostage. There wouldn't be anybody to negotiate with once she was done with them. As he was wracking his brain for anything else he knew about Raine, Wesley realized he was being rude to Nui who had so graciously helped him out.

"Oh! Sorry. My name is Wesley Meas." He said, "The girls are all one person. A girl named Raine who normally serves under Miss Angela. The last time I checked, there was only one of her. I have no idea how on Revaliir she was able to make so many versions of herself. Or why she's ranting about bird rights."

Wesley realized this is what Hana was being called away for. A hoard of Raines was more than enough to cause destruction on all of Revaliir. He considered interrupting his girlfriend's meeting with news on the village but he knew they didn't like interruptions, even if it was an emergency. Besides, there was always the chance that the family had a plan to deal with this, though it would take a while. Wesley took a seat on the grass and watched the village's mayhem.

"It's a shame too. I was just going to try out a new recipe." He said to Nui, "Strawberry shortcake. I was going to add things to the recipe. There's this cream recipe that will complement the strawberries. Never too sweet but just enough to balance out the strawberries. However, the true secret of this recipe is to macerate the strawberries in rhubarb syrup. This will create a unique flavor to the strawberries and make them a bit more tart. Strawberries are naturally tart but one of the problems of shortcakes is that the cream and the cake are so sweet that the flavor of the strawberries gets left behind. That is why it's best to macerate them. This way the cake will be a delectable balance of that creamy sweetness and a fruity tartness."

When he started talking about the recipe he was casually speaking but as he delved more and more into the topic his excitement grew. His eyes lit up with passion and there was a big smile on his face as he explained all the details of this new recipe. At the end of the conversation, he seemed more and more like a puppy who was just excited to be there. Then he remembered the Raine of terror and his excitement fell along with that puppy-like smile.

"Oh well. I suppose I can wait some other time." He said with sad eyes.

Nui has a puzzled look when Wesley said the girls were actually the same person. "Wait, what?! How is that even possible?? Is she some kind of master of creating body doubles or something?!!" She wasn't the most familiar with the deities, but she did know Lady Angela was Kite's great-aunt on his mother's side. The completely missed the comment about 'bird rights' in trying to make sense of it. Wesley was pretty calm for someone who had just gotten kidnapped, but when he started talking about sweets, Nui's mouth began to water. Even if she didn't understand the process of making it, just thinking about how delicious it was sending the fox into another dimension. As she listened, her ears stood up and her nine tails began to slowly move from side to side in anticipation. Her mouth was wide open and she snapped out her daydreams before she started to drool. Despite her humanoid appearance, a fox was still a fox.

Unfortunately there would be no desserts to eat anytime soon, so she asked him something she forgot to bring up once he started talking about shortcake. "Oh right, I almost forgot–why is Raine kidnapping people? I don't think holding people hostage is in the list of stuff on most gods' agendas." Did the townspeople offend her or her goddess somehow? Is so, maybe they could try and convince her to stop with offerings as bribes? The spirits and things around Ataiyo were fickle and uptight, so learning to appease them unless you could knock them around was the first thing people learned to do. You either admitted they were the boss, or showed them they were wrong. Since this pink-haired girl could make multiples of herself, she must be very powerful. Nui felt her talismans probably wouldn't do much to help against sheer numbers. Speaking of bribes, what sort of thing would get Raine's approval? If it was her, Nui was sure it would be food. Nobody turned down food–it was the oldest trick in the book! Like how a swordsman got the upper hand over a giant serpent after he got it drunk.