(Updating this every two years or so seems about right.)
THE CIRNIAD
CANTO I
A gentle Knight was loitering by a lake
Bedecked in rusty arms and dented shield,
"Methinks," he said, "I've made some slight mistake;
This doesn't seem to be Fornovo field."
He'd seen a Gap, and for his Captain's sake
Had charged the monstrous eyes, his courage steeled,
This doughty condottiere of the doge!
Then Cirno froze him like a tin of OJ.
Triumphantly she crew unto the land,
"I won!" and "I'm the strongest!" How the fairy
Paraded, and behind her blared a band
Of mighty trumpets, all imaginary.
Alas, a sad reversal was at hand!
Her strike had robbed her elders of their quarry.
One tapped her shoulder, grinning all the while;
An angler-fish might call that grin a smile.
(To steal a kiss may bring a blush demure,
A box upon the ear, a chiding laugh...
To steal a kill is far less popular
Because it cuts the XP gain in half.
This smacks of braggadocio and pure
Arrogance. Do I need to draw a graph?
No-one much likes to think themselves outsmarted,
Or see their loot and sweetest drops bogarted.)
"How rude!" Kazami cried, and Cirno shivered
And thought of a decapitated daisy.
Our heroine was never lily-livered,
But understand that Yuuka's batshit crazy.
"I'll kill you! <3" The flowers quivered
In readiness, although her grin was lazy.
(The meter is as proper as can be,
If we pronounce those symbols "less-than-three.")
But fortune smiled upon our heroine.
Yukari, maker of the fatal portal
Appeared from nowhere, drew Kazami in
To fight a duel, and, with a girlish chortle
(That she was much too old for) and a grin,
She gave the fairy time to scape the mortal
Peril in a flash of - What the hell? A
Shadow just beaned me with an umbrella.
Swiftly fled Cirno, exiled evermore
From what had been her home, the tranquil pool
By Yuuka's flower field. I needn't bore
With long and sad accounts of how the cruel
And blazing sun drove Cirno to the shore
Of Scarlet Lake -- mist-shrouded, dark, and cool.
To chronicle her wanderings would busy us
But needlessly. Leave such tales for Odysseus.
"I like this place!" said Cirno, unaware
That these half-hidden manorlands and lakes
Belonged to Vampyres, scourges of the air,
Drinkers of blood, eaters of tiny cakes,
Weavers of fate, the Sisters of Despair!
Invincible? No! Flandre must take breaks
For tea, some bread, a bowl of minestrone,
Whenever she slays more than twenty oni.
In dauntlessness, this fairy has no equal:
She vowed to make the foggy lake her own.
Although she's heading up a certain creek, we'll
Leave her now, her final fate unknown.
It's just as well. I needn't write a sequel
If she engages with such foes alone.
And yet, I've set this ere the games begin --
Canonically, we know she ought to win.
I've written myself into quite a corner!
What means can Cirno use to win the day?
I wish to heroize her, not to mourn her;
Dead Cirno verse seems needlessly outr?,
And to such elegies, I am a foreigner --
These lips were born to sing a gladder lay.
Perhaps I was mistaken to begin this;
I've no idea how she's going to win this.