1. BRYCE

Surrounded by twinkling lights and draped pink chiffon, we gathered. I sat on the floor as one corner of my small friend group. My poofy blue dress threatened to knock over the playing pieces on the board in the middle of us.

Most weeks we gathered around at one of our apartments to play a tabletop, or floor RPG. We were starting a new campaign.

"I worked hard on these," Princess Lysa, aka Cristian said. He was sat across from me, dressing in a flowing yellow dress. He always had the nicest princess dresses, and he always knew how to pair them with different fabrics to make them stand out better. This campaign had been his creation, we took it in turns. "Princess, are we ready to quest?"

Princess Zahra aka Jai made a hum as he stuffed his face with a pizza slice. "I'm ready to find a hot Daddy and force him to save me," he said through a mouthful of food.

"We always save the Daddies," Princess Mari aka Hugh said.

"Not this time," Princess Lysa said. "If you'll all be quiet, I'll read the quest."

Sometimes it felt like we were playing together for the first time all over again. We'd been friends and hanging out as princesses for almost two years now. We all met through one of the clubs in Manhattan, and realized the men there just watching us didn't really do anything for our desire to be taken care of, or at least my desire. I was Princess Valeria, and each quest we did built on the randomness we'd encountered before, or something we'd seen on TV or in any one of the princess books we'd come together and read. As much as we were all questing for Daddies in the real world, in our shared princess world, we only really needed each other.

I cuddled my companion, a large stuffed brown bear named Cuthbert. "I need to know what you've got in store for us," I said. "You've been teasing it in the group chat for days."

Princess Zahra giggled. "Has everyone got juice and pizza? I don't want to go in for another slice until everyone else has already had one. I worked through lunch."

Our roleplaying tabletop sessions were also an excuse to throw tea parties, which were less tea, and more juices with a little alcohol and pizza. Depending on whose apartment we were in, the pizza was cut with cookie cutters into cute shapes. We were in my apartment today because I had work later on tonight.

Princess Lysa stood and handed out small printed cards.

‘You are cordially invited to The Celestial Court.'

"What's The Celestial Court?" I asked.

He pressed a finger to his lips. We fell into quiet giggles. Princess Lysa was in storytelling mode, and very serious about it too.

"Four invites fall from the sky to the feet of the four absolutely precious and magically gifted princess," he said. "The princesses were fresh off battling the purple dragon of Scorn, and winning, saving the hamlet of Scorn, and the very single Prince who they fought over as the prize for saving his life was marrying him. Unfortunately, since the Prince of Scorn couldn't decide which of the gorgeously cute and absolutely sweet princesses, he decided to stay single forever." Princess Lysa shrugged. "His loss, I guess. But it's for the best because the princesses were required for a new adventure. The Celestial Court beckons them. Cue gasps."

We each gasped on cue for him.

"The four princesses, Lysa of the Moonlit Realm, Mari of the Crimson Isles, Zahra of the Sand Seas, and Valeria of the Crystal Kingdom glance to each other," he said, as we acted it out. Princess Mari putting more flair into it, the drama queen ahem princess. "The Celestial Court was believed to be a fiction, but as our princesses inspect their invitations, one of them decides to roll for investigation."

"Me!" I raised a hand. "Princess Valeria will do an investigation roll. I have the highest modify. It's intelligence, right?" We used Dungeons and Dragons as the base for our character sheets and information, but everything else was whatever we wanted. I grabbed my twenty-sided dice and rolled it in the small velvet dice tray.

"Thirteen," Princess Mari said, gasping. "I'm not sure if that—"

"Plus my modifier," I interrupted him. "That's plus three. Sixteen."

Still standing, Princess Lysa walked around the three of us, his gorgeous princess dress swishing by us. "You learn that the card is made from star dust. The Celestial Court is a real place. And as we all learn that information, four beams of bright light strike us where were are and teleport us."

In character we all let out screams and wobbled back and forth.

"After the light forced everyone to close their eyes, you open them," Princess Lysa said. "Blinking away the pain of the light, you all look ahead and see a large throne where a woman sits, her entire being is covered in yellow light. She's at least twenty feet tall from her seated position. She had a light brown wooden staff in hand where you can see the faint dark cracks appear at the base."

"Oh my god, she's so tall," Princess Zahra said in character.

"I'm obsessed with her," Princess Mari said.

"Is it just us five here? And are we going to be rolling for initiative? I really don't think I want to fight her," I grumbled.

Princess Lysa giggled. "The woman claps once, sending a single boom through the air. It feels like all the air is being sucked out of room. It sends the four princess to bend and bow. After bowing, she speaks. I am Giselda the Goddess of Magical Matter, your four princesses have long since been bestowed with magical gifts. It is now time to repay your Goddess. "

"Approaches the Goddess," Princess Mari said. "Introduces myself, bows again. How can we help?"

"The Goddess thanks you," Princess Lysa said on her behalf. " As you can see, the crystal from my staff has been stolen. With my power as creator of magical matter in the hands of someone else, stars will begin to vanish, power between realms to weaken and threaten the stability of all the kingdoms. Together, you must investigate and find out who stole the sun and moon crystal from my staff. We don't have long until the world is thrown into chaos. You four princesses have a reputation for excellence, you are my last hope . And then she does a dramatic cough that sprays the room in glitter sparkle dust. She says, a last blessing to help you travel, a pinch of dust between your fingers and point to a space on a map. I wish you all the luck. She coughs a final time before disappearing in a large dust of glitter."

The scene was set, the story was out there now.

Princess Lysa took her seat, filling the spot between me and Princess Zahra. "Ok," he said. "I told you all it was going to be a fun storyline."

"And what if fail?" I asked. "Do we lose our powers? Do we stop being princess?"

He shrugged. "I don't know. We'll have to find out."

"Did she just die?" Princess Zahra asked. "Because people don't just explode into glitter."

"She didn't explode," Princess Lysa said. "She teleported and left us more glitter dust. We need to gather it. Fill our pouches with it. We need to formulate a plan." He pulled out a deck of cards. As a day job, Cristian was a graphic designer and had access to creating high end looking equipment, like cards.

We played by our own rules and format. We took elements from our favorite tabletop RPG games. We didn't have a dungeon master, or dungeon Daddy as we giggle about. Instead, we generated what happened next through randomly picking at cards to decide encounters and rooms we found as we dove through dungeons.

Each of our characters had unique gifts. Princess Valeria in her regal blue gown from the cold and icy Crystal Kingdom had abilities over ice and some abilities over time, specifically causing a single enemy not to move for a number of turns determined by a dice roll. My character also had high intelligence and used it to figure out what secrets rooms held.

After four hours of playing, we'd defeated four dark sprites, the minion enemy of the campaign, and we'd gone deep into a dungeon out of The Celestial Court. We paused when we found a secure room to take a long rest in and recoup HP. It was perfect timing too, it was almost time for me to head out to work.

I was a freelance music producer and a DJ. I worked with a lot of drag queens to create music and mix tapes for them to perform, and quite a few of them had even appeared on drag competition TV shows. My main source of income was a regular DJ set I had at Hive in Brooklyn, a nightclub.

Out of their princess dresses, Cristian, Hugh, and Jai helped me get ready. I didn't do drag, but I did DJ in princess gown and with a light touch of make up and glitter.

"I'm always jealous of your place when I visit," Jai said, heading over to the red draped off area in the corner of the loft apartment. "And I know I'm not allowed to touch, but I can't help wanting to."

"After the amount of slices you are, you better not get your greasy mitts on anything," I told him. "Hands off the drapes too! In fact, please go wash them."

It was a converted industrial space with very high ceilings, large windows, and an open layout that I used sliders on the ceiling and drapes to section rooms out. It worked for me, although sometimes it felt like I was living in an art installation, and there was absolutely nothing wrong with that..

"I already did," he groaned. "They're clean."

Cristian was carefully dotting glitter like it was his life's work to my cheeks. "Don't be mean," he whispered. "He left a grease stain once on those hideous skin colors drapes and you've never forgot."

"Oh my god. They were cream, not skin color."

"I agree!" Jai said, walking back. "Skin color is a bit of a loaded term."

"Obviously, not your skin," Hugh said. "But if he installed some gorgeous brown drapes, we'd say the same for your benefit."

He laughed. "Ok, but I actually agree, those cream colors were skin color," Jai said, flip-flopping. "I think it's because they had like a pink tint to them as well."

"Should we be worried that you took Princess Valeria out for a spin and came back after flaying some poor townspeople?" Hugh snorted, the back of a hand to his head. "Oh, the horror, as Princess Valeria turns on the other princess in the party. And they never saw it coming. After a while, the drapes begin to look a lot like—a lot like—ahhhh, former friends." He dipped to the ground, letting out a wailing scream.

Cristian went in with a brush, tapping it on the tip of my nose. "You're glowing," he said. "Just need to set it in place and you're ready to go stand in a room of sweaty people as they do drugs and dance."

"Not everyone who comes to the nightclub does drugs," I said. "I'm sure some of them do, but I'm not in charge of what they do. I'm just there to spread vibes through music, and look like a princess while I do it."

"Ok, I've gotta go," Jai said, gathering up his coat and bag. "Or I'll miss my train home. I had so much fun today. Thank you, Cristian for the new campaign, I'm excited to see what happens when the princesses return. But I swear, if the encounter card uncovers another owlbear, I'm going to scream." He wrapped a scarf around his neck.

We'd all had our near character deaths from owlbear encounters. They were not for the faint of heart. "I'll probably see you sometime in the week," I said. "If we're still on for lunch. And text the group when you're home safe."

"I will," he said. "And yes, lunch. I'm seeing my parents on the Tuesday for dinner, so I'llsee if they've got any leftover samosas."

My mouth watered at the offer. "Please do, and tell your dad I need the recipe."

"And you know he's not going to ever part with it," he said. "I don't think he'll even tell me until he's one foot in the grave."

Once Jai left, Hugh soon followed. It was a Friday, and none of us had boyfriends or anywhere else to be. It's why it was perfect to spend it role playing as our fabulous alter egos.

"Tell me the truth," Cristian said when we were alone. He was still precariously applying dots of shimmer to me. "How was the story? I didn't want it to be too OP, you know, but the idea of being transported and facing mega powerful people was so exciting."

"I loved it. Are you kidding? I thought it was great. Although I wish Hugh, Princess Mari would use more weapons. They don't have the strongest magic like we do, so failing fire ball twice was annoying," I grumbled.

He laughed. "Hugh said the other week about hating all the blood Princess Mari got on their dresses. I think that's why he's choosing to put the sword down."

"Well, can he pick it up again? He has the crimson sword, crimson, red, blood. His dress is red."

"Don't say that in front of him. It's deep pink."

"He's so dramatic," I laughed.

"But that's what makes him perfect as Princess Mari," he said. "Speaking of him being dramatic, he invited me to the preview of his performance in the play. Apparently, he invited you and Jai too, but you've got a DJ set that night and it's across town, and Jai has family coming from India, so he can't."

I understood his pain. I'd once attended a preview for a local playhouse Hugh performed at and it was full of theatre people who gave me a migraine. Together, as friends, we loved hanging out, but we also had things in our lives that we didn't cross over into so well. I had music festivals, Hugh had the theater, Cristian had comic book conventions, and Jai had Ren Faires. As a four, we were a support system that could attend those things together, but only as a solid four.

"Perfect," Cristian said, holding a mirror up to me. "You're gonna catch the light wherever it hits you. Make sure to take pictures in the booth, or whatever it's called."

"Will do."

"And maybe when you're spinning fire on the deck, it'll catch the eye of a hot guy desperate to use his firehose on you," he said, snorting. "That's what you say, right. Spinning fire."

I laughed so hard, I almost shed a tear. "Manifesting it now," I told him. "If it happens, it happens. And you can say spinning fire, but please, don't say it to any other DJ."

Cristian gestured with a small tick in the air. "Ten out of ten, will say again."

Cristian lived closest than the others, and close to the venue I was performing at. Once I had my kit packed up for the night to take with me, we took an Uber together, dropping me off at Hive, the nightclub. There was already a very long queue forming. The Uber almost dropped me off into the queue.

"Good luck," he called out as I got out of the car, hauling my bag on my back. "And don't fuck it up."

A small cheer erupted from the queue.

The blue princess dress and plastic silver tiara were well-known in the scene. I also had a small wand that I attached a pot of glitter too and would dust the crowd closest to the DJ decks when I was in the booth.

The unpredictable New York City September weather was warm with a cool chill. I knew tonight was going to be a great night. There was no doubt about it. Fridays had a certain energy about them, it was inspiring.