It takes a great many colours to make the western sky seem so colourless. The sky itself must be an indigo blue, so deep and absorbing that the only way to make it any darker would be to fill it with stars. The clouds must be a grey so mighty and dominating and varied that to look upon them is to feel the promised rainfall lash in imaginary waves across your skin. The mountains of the north must be the pitch black shadows they cast, the outlines of trees breaking up their jagged features, cloaked in a nondescript violet that matches perfectly with the rolling hills of the south. The moon must gleam in silver, haloed at its edges with an invisible light that renders the void of its shadow at the centre of a spotlight. Such painstaking attention to the sombre palette of twilight was a necessity. The splendour of the sunset in the west was rendered all the more magnificent because of how utterly it transcended the miracles of the east.

A cool summer's evening breeze ripples across the tall grass, the increasingly steady breath of evening. Carried in its lips are three red oak leaves, the first whisper of autumn. The distant hills are lit with gemstone lights, and here and there those light ascend directly upwards, the columns of red dots rising into the sky that speak the shape of the space elevators. The glass wreckage of broken suns form a ladder of refracted colours that descends all the way into the molten orange furnace of the east, passing behind veils of crimson red clouds in storm-rent patterns. Below the Terraced Lake reflected the colours of the sky in three levels, outline hazing with the patterns of waterfall.

The lights and leaves are tiny fragments against the scene itself, and yet they are transformative. They take this glorious act of cosmic beauty and render it a backdrop. They take all of these colours and lights and transform them into a blessing. They render the dance of mathematics and celestial mechanics a treasure to be appreciated by every weary farmer and yawning artist and pensive princess.

Princess Chen has been atop this hill for an hour now before her phone buzzes. A brief interruption that despite ending the moment of meditation does not feel like it has broken the otherworldly liminality of the moment

Qiu: hey
Qiu: nice evening
Qiu: you seeing this?

*

Daily Affirmation of the Way <3: "A masked king stood upon a beach and demanded the grains of sand tell him which of them was in charge."

The twilight breeze brings flames.

You are no stranger to fires at darkness. Though you are now the Rose from the River, though you are now centered utterly in the guidance of the Way, you once wore this aspect. Once you stood passionate and brilliant and inspired and all of the midnight electricity of the underground ran through you, and you ran through it. Once you burned in the knowledge of financial databases and viewership patterns and social network connections and the howling of cooling turbines was required to chill your pounding blood. Once you were a demon princess in your own way. No longer. Now you are devoted.

The Pyre of Inspiration has no such centre. She burns with all the glory of the darkening skies, all the fierceness of summer's night-time heat, all the direction of the wildfire. Purpose has been placed within her by the magic of Princess Qiu and she grasps for it like a masked king grasps for a peasant's wallet. Pity her.

She has come in the carnival of herself, the roaming celebration comprised of her joyous and bounding sub-souls; the broken aspects of her personality, vices so vast and craving that they could not be contained within a single body and soul. She sits on the throne wearing a mask of woven wire, red and blue and violet, as spiral-headed dancers cavort around her like halos of hypnotism. Three great sub-aspects lie at her knees, wearing as much fabric upon their faces as they do upon the rest of their bodies. You see here the Scales of Meaning, a naga with flowing white hair that turns into flowing white scales, horned head perfectly level as scales hang from each of her horns. The Secrets of the Stance is second, aspect of conflict, muzzled and trussed, still scratching pointlessly against her bonds that she might reach the blade that awaits her inches away. Finally the Voice of Ballet hangs upside-down by her ankles as spiral dancers sponge and wash and polish her gleaming crystal feet that already shine brighter than diamonds. Protestations cannot escape her gagged mouth and so she lets her fury be known with lashes of her tufted lion's tail.

Such is the Pyre; both ruler and landscape. She is each of these, and each of the dozens of demons that follow in train. She herself is as beyond mortal conversation as a mountain, her role is to rule and to laugh and to indulge endlessly as befits the great sovereign of Hell. And yet work must be done, and so it is to be done by her aspects - with a cry of mirth she plucks the gag from the mouth of the Scales of Meaning, breaks her chains with a flex of her slender wrists, and kicks her unceremoniously from the mobile throne dais. The Scales of Meaning lands in the mud and is trampled upon by two dozen laughing demons as they pass, many of whom take the time to ensure that they stomp upon her throat or back or tail and wipe their feet in her silver hair. When the demonic carnival has moved on and the Scales picks her disheveled, elegant form out of the mud transcendent fury and shattered longing burns in her eyes bright enough to see by. She will fulfill her task that she might return to her rightful place at her own feet and renew her hated humiliation.

And you, Rose from the River, watch in darkness. If there ever was a perversion of the Way, according to those fellow monks who do not regard you as a perversion of the Way, it is the Pyre of Inspiration. Her carnival has been sweeping the Terraced Lake hunting for a girl seen only in the sketches of wanted posters, and the Scales of Meaning is the leader of this hunt. Your goal in all of this has yet to be revealed to you by the Way. Is it to rescue the hunted girl? Is it to defeat the Pyre of Inspiration in glorious battle, one against one-that-is-an-army? Is it to hang upside-down from the dais as the Scales of Meaning weighs your heart and determines if you are to take the place of the Pyre of Inspiration as great ruler of hell?

What is certain is that you will find answers within the dances of the Demon of Knowledge.

*

It seemed like a joke. Your face on a wanted poster, Yue? Perhaps your sister had been behind it. What was definitely a joke was the reward - a dance with Princess Qiu the Threeshard Sovereign, or equivalent, for whoever brings you in. As though you would be worth so much as a wink from her! An easy enough thing to laugh off, and easy enough to assume the uncomfortable number of the posters around the market was simply tasteless over-commitment to a joke. Biao Biao the woodswoman definitely seemed to think so, roaring with laughter and slapping you on the back and asking what crimes against the throne you'd gotten yourself into this time.

It had been a happy day, and a happy walk home. The sunset was too beautiful to care about the lateness of the hour or the deepening shadows. Right up until you saw something in them.

Rivers, for all their beauty and value, were ever things of peril and fairy-tale warning. One walks with one's wagon in between them and the water so that no grasping demons might pull you below. A silly warning, a silly habit, but it saved you - demon soldiers with spiral faces erupted from the depths and surged to catch you, and only the barrier of that heavy wagon bought you enough time to let out your scream and run. Over the darkening hills you ran, silhouetted against the setting sun, the pounding of wet and evil feet slapping behind you as froglike creatures pursued. You ran and you ran to the sound of demonic burbling and a fearfully yipping fox to accompany you, all the way back to your home where you dived inside, slammed the door and drew the curtains.

And then, as your heart still pounded, you noticed someone sitting in your grandmother's chair.

Silver haired, silver smiled, silver eared, silver tailed, leather of brown and black, eyes of red and hunger. For a moment it seemed like you had fallen into the arms of something even more terrifying than the demons outside. She stood in a smooth motion and stepped forwards, and again as you stepped back into a wall. She put one hand beside your head and leaned down a little so her eyes rather than her fangs were level with your face. "Don't worry, little dove," said the wolf, "My name is Hyra, and I have been sent by my princess to keep you safe."

"Oh please don't eat me please don't eat me please, please, please don't eat me! Whatever I did, I'm sorry! I'll do anything! Wh-whatever you want! So just, just please, please don't eat me!"

If Yue could sink any deeper into the wall, she would. Anything to put just that little bit of extra distance between her and this silver terror. Unfortunately, it's as solid as it's ever been. Even more unfortunately, it's exemplary wall-like properties are the only thing right now keeping all those scary river-demons from snatching her off to who-knows-where, so she can't even be mad about it! How did she get herself into this mess? Is this because she picked those berries without a permit? Is that a thing? Do you need permits to pick berries nowadays?

She flinches and nearly has her legs knocked out from underneath her as a fluffy green blur zips out from between them, yipping pitifully. Brave little Kat, always so reliable when circumstances are dire, crosses the space between Yue and the intruder in a single bound. And then the next one carries the little fox between her legs too. It only takes her another four scrabbling, panicky leaps to reach the Perfect Ultimate Safety of the moth eaten blanket she won't let Yue get rid of (or fix) and disappears under it, invisible but for the constant trembling of her tiny body. Little traitor! You could have at least been brave enough to go for help, but nooooo!

Yue can't bear to watch, but even still she's too frightened to shut her eyes. Everyone knows you can't look a demon in the eyes or they can cast all kinds of spells on you, but it's just as dangerous to look away from them altogether. But her heart is fluttering so badly she feels like she could faint! It's good enough to just look at that hand, right? It's right by her face, so it's... important t-to... um.

Oh. Oh wow. Why didn't anybody tell her that demons had such beautiful nails? So sharp and... and, what made them black like that? Were they painted? Did they grow like that on their own? But even more amazing are the fingers attached to them: so slender and pale, like moonbeams wrapped around serpents, and... wow. Wow. Gosh. Wow.

In the night air I'll chase you
My Darling, My Darling...

Is this magic? Her heart keeps stuttering like it's forgetting how to work? The air feels all warm, and, and her face feels so hot, and... her eyes! She can't keep from looking, just a bit more. Across the wiry muscles of the arm that's got her trapped, around the shoulder that looks strong and steady enough to carry her weight all by itself, a-a-and... dipping below, where the tight leathers loosen and dip to show soft pillows of moonlit flesh, and around to the body that's so much bigger than hers, and so strong, and yet so... elegant, like with all her power had given her the ability to shape herself however she saw fit, and in her wisdom she'd chosen the natural strength and beauty of the wolf.

Yue swallows, an act made ten times more difficult by the fact that her mouth has completely forgotten how to be anything other than a desert. Her eyes flicker up of their own accord and do the one thing she knew she must never risk. She gazes on the silver orbs set so precisely in front of hers, risking every evil charm she's ever read about in the process. Her frizzy, tired hair chooses this exact moment to go 'flumphing' across her face, which is suddenly burning fever-hot. Her hand trembles worse than Kat as she fights to brush it back out of her eyes without touching the silver wonder in front of her. A goofy smile steals its way across her face, awkward and adorable and showing off almost all of her (much flatter and less impressive) teeth.

She's doomed. Incredibly, horribly, awfully doomed. The stories all agree. Which is definitely, definitely why she can't stop giggling. Right?

"Oh," she stammers, "Um. Well. I g-guess... you could eat me just a little bit. Um. If... if you wanted to. Th-that'd be ok."

At first, Chen ignores her phone. She's got it face down on top of the thin but stubborn little moss that makes its home on every little rock and bare spot amid the tall grass. It's the perfect phone perch: she'll know that it buzzed, but the moss is soft and fluffy so it's muffled, not too startling even though it's within easy reach. There's no message from anyone, anyone in the whole wide world, that's such an emergency that it can't wait for her to touch up a few things before she looks at it. Anybody who thought they were that important was way too full of themselves.

She glances back up at the horizon as the red leaves pass her, settling somewhere on the hillside below. She has to get that down on her paper while the image is fresh in her mind. She takes her brush, licks it between her lips to get the little fibers just so. She knew she wasn't supposed to use her mouth with the brushes that way, but it felt good and her paints were all made from natural materials and weren't poisonous so she had decided it was perfectly fine. Besides, her indigo paint tasted like a tart little berry and she liked it. A little dot of indigo gets on her chin though. She'd have to remember to wash that off on the way back or her mother would give her that withering glance that made her want to shrink into nothing and pray the floor would open up to swallow what was left.

No time to think about that, she had to paint the leaves! She dips her brush into the little palette and fills it with red. Hers is bright red, like a fresh fall apple. They'll get those soon with leaves like these, but the flying oak leaf on indigo is a little darker, not so bright. So she adds just a touch of gray, transforming her red with that odd glorious gray of twilight that was made up of a thousand other colors. She adds the leaves to her little easel in a few quick, steady strokes as she breathes out. There, there, and there, and now it was perfect, that little bit of pastoral essence over the strange space elevators in the background capturing the soul of the world. She'd have to title it. "Fall Leaves" was the first thing coming to her, probably because that was the last thing she'd just painted, but that was so boring it made her want to smack herself for even letting the idea cross her mind. "Electric Twilight?" Too pretentious. "Imperial Autumn" was just as bad and worse her mother would probably like that one. Maybe...oh right the phone, she was just letting her mind wander now.

With a sigh, she lifts it up to see who messaged her. Then with a sudden start, Chen's head snaps up. Her raven black hair (tied back in a tight ponytail so it wouldn't blow into her easel) bounces up in response and her fluffy red scarf (nearly the same red as the leaves) loosens a little, one tail falling over her shoulder. Was Qiu here somewhere? Chen wasn't in any state for a dance off, her hands were freezing and she was stiff from sitting in the same place for an hour even with her warm wool coat and fur-lined boots. Seeing no doom instantly descending on her though, she turns to the phone at last.

Chen: yeah, I saw it
Chen: did a really good painting
Chen: like
Chen: seriously good
Chen: but I dunno what to call it...
Chen: uh where are you?

The sweep of the hillside is peppered with thickets: stiff, brown-edged grasses; trees hunched low like grandmothers in their gardens; bushes beloved of the sheep that pass on by in their roving herds. Here and there are flowers in the soft pink of dawn. But it is dusk, and the slow embrace of night draws a curtain of velvet shadow over the thickets, making them mere suggestions of form, a deeper dark against the grey. From this distance, there is no reflected glint from the lens.

If you came quite close, shielding your eyes from the joyful lights of the Pyre, and let your eyes become accustomed to the subtle distinctions of the gloaming, you might distinguish, here, among the low branches, a long-forgotten tablet. Time has allowed roots to tangle around it, back facing the road, which (should you inspect it quite carefully indeed) is strange, given that it is refurbished in leather and brass, the case distinctly Ysian in its fusion of disparate design elements. It must have been tossed aside immediately after it was made. Who would be so careless? By it lies a fallen tree, bush-buried, something to step over carefully lest there be a serpent slumbering beneath.

One silent, unblinking eye watches the procession. Occasionally, there is the muted chirp of a silenced camera, lost in the sound of night-birds and crickets at play. The wind makes the branches of the trees overhead shudder and clutch at themselves as if pulling a shawl tighter over bony shoulders. Above, Archer’s Ladder shines, almost as bright as the procession and the fires of understanding.

Below, the bells and drums swell to climax and then recede into the distance, leaving behind a mud-trampled serpentess. The lidless eye watches her as she pulls herself up, hissing and cursing the air scarlet, redistributing the filth on her face with each angry smear across her cheeks. Perhaps she suspects the observation from how she glances about, but the world all around is soft and shifting shadow. Then she slithers away, on her own path, seeking Yue of the Terraced Lake. Then there is deep indigo dusk, and a rabbit content to graze in the stillness, and for a time there is nothing here to hold the eye.

If there was anyone here, peering into the dark, staring at the lost tablet, they would be very suddenly surprised. The effect is much like suddenly seeing a picture within a picture, or a young woman in the portrait of the old; various elements and shadows cohere all at once, no longer harmonizing with the world around them. What seemed for all the world roots were truly braids, which whip and entwine of their own volition, releasing the tablet now taken up in mottled hands, slowly bleeding away the pattern of light and shadow that broke form and outline. The moon’s thin light catches teeth as white as mountain snow, bared in a triumphant grin. “Got you,” Rose from the River says, flicking through her gallery.

Here it is: the gaudy, enticing carnival of desire, whirling and whorled, a familiar expression of excess. In another life, on another path, they would be rivals. Goblin-bushes and hunting-stags would harry the Pyre and trap stolen sub-souls in prisons of vine and flower, all for the glory of the Princess of Undermountains, crowned in the full glory of spring. And instead Rose stands on a hillside, alone but for the distant rabbit, and leans against a twisted trunk as she lets herself be briefly enticed by the colors, the cloths and silks, the gags— she exhales quick through her nose, imagining the lovely sensation of a full mouth and a soft cloth pulled tight over her lips. A shudder runs through her braids, flowers unfurling their petals and retracting in turn, all shades of dawn muted in the moonlight. Then, in reflexive embarrassment, she glances to either side, and then back to her task.

Having been a prisoner trapped in unquiet sleep for centuries gives one a complex relationship with restraint. So does not knowing if your desires were written into you as a means of control by your creators. So does not having a private space any more to experiment with one’s new body. Say what you would about Yin, but at least she was willing to tie her knight down...

(When it didn’t feel wrong. When her body didn’t feel too heavy, too ill-made. When their schedules coincided. When the Knight made himself open for her.)

But self-indulgence for the sake of self-indulgence is selfish. While not the worst of sins, sloth and excessive self-pleasure are dangerous enticers that keep many pilgrims from pursuit of the Way. There is work for her to do, heroics to enact if she plays her part, people to help. Taking the place of the Voice of Ballet, dressed like a Ysian concubine, is a thought that will keep her company when she lays down to sleep tonight, but it is only a fantasy, and one to only lightly indulge in lest it cause her to falter in the face of the Pyre.

A moment’s consideration, pausing on a shot of the Scales of Meaning. Here. A smaller, more comprehensible aspect of the Pyre. As inviting as the wild carnival may be, her instincts are telling her that her own path is entangled with that of the serpent. (A fellow serpent, even. It’s been some time since she took on a serpentine aspect, but she was still fondest of her eyes.)

The tablet is holstered in one of her pack’s outermost pockets. A fine silver wand is retrieved from another pocket, where it lay hidden from the moonlight. A wave, and it becomes a walking stick, light but steady. Thus armed, Rose from the River begins to follow her quarry, humming a half-remembered jingle from a neon-shadowed ramen bar. The rabbit raises its head and scurries away.

Chen!

Qiu: look at the lake

The lake is vast and the colours either muted by the shadows of mountains or radiantly reflective in the colours of sunset. The ships are jagged shapes on the smooth glass of the surface, triangles to catch the wind. But this timeless vista is broken by a single firework arising from a single boat, one that bursts into a heart shape on detonation. It hangs in the air, glittering and vibrant red that fades into purple and then into blue before vanishing together.

Qiu: there <3
Qiu: where are you? i want to come see this painting/defeat you in glorious single combat
Qiu: but failing that, i've got a problem and i'd love your help with it <3

With that last heart-emoji, another heart-shaped firework launches from the Threeshard Princess' boat, establishing firmly that she was in fact that extra.

Rose!

The Scales of Meaning, the Demon of Appraisal, the Weigher of Hearts. As the Pyre of Inspiration is knowledge of all things, the Scales of Meaning is the aspect that holds the knowledge of value. She knows both individual desire and objective worth and can separate wheat from chaff. She is perilous to pursue for you would stand out to her from your surroundings like a bonfire. This itself is a sin against the Way, an act of violence against the unity of all things.

But it is not for you her assessing eyes seek. Instead her path takes her directly to a moonlit stream where she washes away the mud and sweat granted to her by the Pyre. She splashes through the water like a mermaid, serpentine body letting her cut through the water like a curved knife.

This is duty at war with temptation, Rose. Do you watch the demon in the water, that she cannot escape you? Do you avert your eyes so that you might continue your hunt with a clear head and heart? If the former, give the Scales a string. If the latter, your eyes will open to find that she has snuck up behind you and placed her crystalline sword at your throat, blade and hair still wet with river-water.

Yue!

"Oh? Just a little bit?" murmured the wolf, leaning in closer, closer. "I would not be much of a wolf if I didn't want to..."

Sharpness - the faintest flick of pain. Teeth on your jawline, just hard enough to leave a mark. Not quite a first kiss. Too base for that, and at once too respectful for that. Just enough control to resist stealing a kiss but not enough to resist taking a bite. You see teeth flash again in the moonlight, and this time they're teeth that know your taste, teeth that are being licked because they liked it.

There's a moment to consider, and then a scraping at the door. Those fluffy ears twitch in irritation, shifting of their own accord to focus on the interruption.

"But you're in danger from more than just wolves," she said. "I need to get you out from here. You can either run..." she turns her head and lowers her gaze, shamelessly glancing at your legs in an appraising way, "...or I could carry you."

They don't sing songs about the gentle nipping of teeth against your neck. Why don't they sing songs about this? The world needs to know!

The stories always say that the wolf eats the maiden unless she's rescued by some brave, shining hero. Which she always is, but it's still awful and scary waiting to find out! But this is... there's no verse that describes the feeling of fangs nipping at your neck. No stories say anything about how the sharp nick of pain fades so fast and how, when it goes, it starts spreading this incredible, amazing, meltyful, uh... warmth that's just like the hot, steamy breath she's blowing onto your skin, but... but... y'know, more, and and inside 'cause it's seeping down down down into your body!

Where's the carefully penned prose for her to keep on her shelf about the sensation of those long fairy fingers and their beautiful, sharp, black-painted claws lifting her head up, up, up with nothing more than the faintest suggestion of force? They didn't write about how soft it is! How safe it feels! Somebody, please have the imagination or the wherewithal to notice the way a wolf's thumb can brush against your collar bone and all of a sudden your eyelids are going flicker-flicker-blink and you can't stop making these tiny little gasps or pushing up your lips like you're begging the sky to be the one to steal your first kiss! Is she gonna have to do this all herself? Well, fine, but that's a shame. She's really got no talent with words, y'know?

It wouldn't even take a light shove to knock Yue over, just now. Even just the word 'breeze' might be enough to send her tipping, swooning so that those long, strong arms have to catch her, and squeeze her, and hold her tight enough against those leathers for her to find out what they smell like and feel the softness of that chest against her cheeks to find out for herself what whoooooops, there she goes.

"Aish," she trills with very real fake distress, "I guess I'm so tired from running all the way home, ehehe! My legs don't wanna carry me any farther!"

Now, here's the thing. Yue doesn't have a seductive bone in her body. When you grow up in a tiny village with nobody but your family for company most days you don't get a lot of chances to perfect your art. And when your best friend is a cuddly little fox you rescued from the woods when she was just so teeny tiny (the most teeny tiny, to be precise), you don't even get a chance to practice kissing like a normal girl. But her smile is just as soft and sweet as any doe you could hope to meet's, and she's even silly enough to hike her dress up to her knees to show the smoothness of her calves, as if that was somehow proof of how tired and useless they were.

"I think I even twisted my ankle, see? I gueesss, ehehehe, you'll just have to carry me~"

...There are stories, you know. Stories about travelling warriors loyal to crowns, the kind of people who swoop in onto balconies from the tops of bamboo fields to rescue maidens from the wolves nobody's writing about. And those great warriors don't usually get their happily ever after no matter how beautiful and wily the girl they save might be. They've got responsibilities, y'know? princesses or even Princesses to serve and other adventures to have and monsters to slay and many, many, many horizons to cross.

Maybe the point of Sis' old song is that you can't know for sure if you're the moon being chased across the sky or the wanderer running after it to prove her love. Or maybe it's something else, something so smart you'd have to be a sophisticated city-girl just to have a chance at getting it. But right now it doesn't matter, see? Because the pattering of Yue's heart right now is real. The warmth in her cheeks and her chest have to mean something, because nobody has ever come and not-quite-kissed her before or given her all of these new feelings to hold in her arms in any of the years she's walked this earth.

And that feeling. It must be love, right? And love is something you have to follow. Isn't it?

[Yue has become Smitten with Hyra]

Water. Stillness, broken by motion. Moonlight on rippling scales, dreamlike in the middle hours of the night. Hair hangs heavy, shining pale. One look was too much; when Rose from the River looks away and closes her eyes, all she finds hidden underneath them is silver light and entwining motions. Either way, she is trapped.

So where is the harm in watching?

If she is to see either way, let her see with her eyes open, free of all desire but to witness. She empties herself and stands hollow by the riverside, and allows black and silver to fill her with rippling motion.

And then, so filled, her clothing scatters on the riverbank, strewn about her mendicant’s pack. Rose strikes the water and sinks, heavy, to the bottom. The water is deeper than it looks. Down there, she glitters, gills fluttering feather-soft, the necessary counter-balance to Scales playing upon the surface.

Ah, perhaps this was the harm in watching.

Does Scales of Meaning descend to speak through twisting coil-whorls and sword-dance underneath the water, or does she withdraw to the bank until Rose from the River rediscovers buoyancy?

[A String, offered.]

Chen: painting yes but pass on single combat
Chen: problem maybe tell me first
Chen: and you'll owe me a favor if I help
Chen: also if this is an elaborate attempt to kidnap me, good timing =P
Chen: be down in a sec :curious tiny leopard:

The sunset and the painting have Chen in a good mood. Good enough to hop down and share her work. Nowhere near good enough to give Qui her epic fight though (If that mood existed, she was pretty sure it would cause linguists to create some kind of new word to describe the ultimate charity it represented). She grimaces when the second heart-shaped firework goes off. Was that really necessary? Really?

With a sigh that can't quite dim her excitement at the evening's work, Chen gathers her brushes, drying them on the grass, and her easel, which folds up, and places them both in a light tan leather bag that she slings over her shoulder. With the bag arm, she carefully takes her canvas and cradles it between arm and elbow, and with the other she takes hold of her crystal sword. The light within it dances in excitement, zipping up and down along the length of the blade and shimmering with a whitish glow tempered to lavender by the glorious notes of twilight. She holds the slim sword aloft, calling on the wind that is her family's ancestor and then points it forward and arches her body.

If one of the bystanders had just returned from space, knowing nothing of sunshards and Princesses, they might think Chen drunk and falling to her certain doom as she leans off the cliff. But anyone who knows anything about swords and Princesses knows that sword flight is one of the keen markings of a Princess of high rank. Though she might not enjoy the role, Chen is more than talented enough for it, and so as she slides from the cliff, the wind takes her gently and her sword guides her forward in a swift but gentle arc down to the boat with the second heart-shaped firework.

In less than a minute, she glides down to the deck of the boat, first her sword hand coming over the prow, then one fur-lined foot, the other still held aloft with her white wool coat flapping around the leg and her ponytail flying behind her. As she comes to rest, she lowers her sword and brings her back leg down with a practiced grace as the wind calms and her hair settles. For just a moment as she focuses on herself and her motions, she looks every bit the regal daughter her mothers would both want. Poised, graceful, and prepared to take on any challenge. When she's done though, she ruins it with a worried glance down at her canvas to make sure that the paints dried and not a drop was smeared. And, of course, she forgot to wipe off the dot of indigo on her lower lip in her hurry.

Chen!

You have stepped into a world of blades.

One Sunshard can rearrange cities and alter the aesthetics of a kingdom. With three reality is frighteningly malleable. Three focusing crystals - the mystic link to the car-sized immense crystal shards hidden in distant vaults - blaze atop Princess Qiu's tiara and you feel their pressure for a moment, like moving through water rather than air. Your coat and scarf burn away into lighter and less concealing silks - the garb you wear when you're at your mother's southern desert palace. You feel lighter, stronger, invigorated, like you've spent time stretching and gently bringing yourself up to optimal physical performance rather than sitting and painting.

And of course your blade is in your hand. Where else could it be? What else could your mind think about other than the press and clash, the subtleties of stance and form? What more relevant data could there be to process other than your opponent and her own blade? You can almost see the equations, the fencing manual diagrams, the years of practice buzzing around you in montages as you consider your opponent.

She wears a tight fitting dress of red, interwoven with elaborate golden Lung dragons twisting and weaving all about her, shining golden heads resting just above her waist like obedient dogs with their heads in her lap. Her arms are bare to reveal a slightly sunburned right and a cascading waterfall tattoo in spectacular blacks and blues cascading down her left, pale skin making a perfect canvas. Her hair is done up in an intricate bun with three long golden needles holding it firmly in place. Her wealth and taste imposes, but this is not her - her true nature can only be seen in the serpentine eyes, the narrow smile with just a hint of fangs, and the elegantly coiled dragon tail that cups a wine glass just slightly in front of her.

She stands alone. No guards, no demons, no court or handmaidens or countesses. She is, too, surrounded - the people of the Terraced Lake, the barons of art and the common people to be won over, but these are not loyalists. They're the audience and their eyes is locked on the space between you as it crackles.

"You want a favour?" said Princess Qiu. She holds out her hand absently and the world puts a blade in it. "How dare you?" she's smiling a little wider. "Asking me for a trade as though you were an equal? So disrespectful. Wouldn't it feel so much better to do it just because you wanted to do what I say?"

[Offering a generic string: Take an XP if you do what she wants]

Rose!

Water like this is an ancient element, the lifeblood of subterranean empires. Here in the depths dark things move, darker than mere demons. In this moment you are in harmony with the world, which means that you are not in harmony with what was made of the world. Ancient things stir, drawn to the Way like bees swarm a hornet.

Your vision lights up in the depths with ancient overlays. Corporate brands and autoplaying advertisements for the weapon systems that are being deployed here clutter your mind and ears. Mumbai Light and Magic, those ancient cinematographers who even in death can't resist rising to snatch a demon or a monster to add to their collection. And here are both.

The Autohalagian Binding Circle Mechanism is a huge underwater construct, a bulky cube the size of a house. Its front surface is a flat cube displaying a full alchemical binding circle and from the sides protrude dozens of thick, snapping robotic crab claws. It has a simple process - to grasp a magical entity in its claws and place it within the binding circle so that it may not escape. This prison might even hold you, if you are unlucky.

With a flash of water and scales above you, the Scales of Meaning moves rapidly towards the shoreline. Is this a trap laid for you, or an unhappy accident for her? A question to confront her with, if you are not pulled below to be returned to your box.

Yue!

Magic has a settled place in this world, cozy and familiar. Magic spells sometimes appear next to recipes for strawberry cake or get traded between children in playgrounds. They're fiendishly tricky to get right, like mastering a really complicated yo-yo trick, and so if you want to learn how to make sheep turn pink or make a glass of water freeze to ice you've got to sacrifice a good many summer afternoons to practice. Some people learn a lot, some people don't bother to learn any, but neither kind of person is a magician. In fact, there's not really a firm definition for when someone stops being kind of ordinary and starts being a magician - but if there was a line, perhaps it would be knowing how to fly.

Black nails touch your forehead, tracing lines along to your temples, across your nose, to your neck - and then in a motion so sudden you almost feel like you've been thrown to the floor they run all the way down your body to the tips of your feet. Hyra has dropped to her knees in front of you leaving invisible hot lines of fire all down your body, and then finishes it off with swift circles of your ankles. There's a moment of a pink glow and you feel light in addition to light-headed. And then your feet lift off the ground.

Before you have time to wonder, Hyra throws the window open and pulls the two of you out through it. Her blade flashes twice, causing spiral demons to turn into mist in perfect time with an inaudible music, and then you're out through it together. And the hill below you starts falling away.

And just like that you're flying.

Not far or fast - it's more like walking on the air, or taking a jump in a dream, the kind of jump that just seems to go on forever without landing. And then Hyra comes up behind you, snatching you up into her arms and pulling you against her. Even as your heart goes wild and every sensation and instinct says that you're falling, falling, falling, you're held safe and steady in the jaws of the wolf.

Behind you, spiral demons are in pursuit, blackening the hillside as they run after you. Power begins to build in Hyra's legs and you lower an irrelevant inch towards the ground as she crouches to begin sprinting through the sky.

"Oh gosh! This is! Are we? Are you? Oh! Wow!!"

Yue shouts and laughs as though she's trying to be heard over a hurricane. It's not really necessary, of course, the air kicked up by her sudden, unexpected flight is no more than a gentle breeze. It tickles her face and plays with her heavy hair, but only enough to gentle wave it a little. A single forget-me-not blows loose from where she'd tied it into her hair: her gift to the demons giving chase below her. She pays them as much mind as she would a dream. There's so much more than them to look at!

How could she be afraid when she's so completely safe and snug? The warmth of Hyra's body shields her from the night chill as she hugs a small tattered blanket close to her own chest until a curious little nose finally pokes it's way out. The three of them make a nesting doll of comfort and contentment. Yue's smile is as dazzled as it is dazzling. Look, Kat, look! Can you believe how much there is to see?!

All her life she'd dreamed of what this would feel like, but never dared to hope she'd find out. The birds she asked were useless, of course. Never ask a bird anything, to be quite honest, but absolutely don't ask them what it's like to fly! Sure, they're masters of the craft. Nobody's arguing that. But they won't tell you what you need to hear. They don't understand. How's a bird supposed to make you understand all the wonder of a thing that's just another chore to them? Might as well ask a child to tell you how wonderful it is to gather firewood, y'know?

But this? This! To her, this is! Oh! OH! You know? The way the blades of grass retreat into rolling green waves like the shores of the Terraced Lake! Who could have guessed? Or how everything has its own shadow even in the moonlight, and the way they dance and bend and follow as you pass over like they're stopping to wave hello! The night air tugging at your dress and tickling your nose even though it's been so still all the day long! And! And, and, oh! Oh!

She never knew. She couldn't have known. It's so beautiful it steals her breath away. To see so much of the river all at once, to watch it wind it's way down the hill, so gently seeking the easiest way there until it feeds into the Lake, where... gosh, wow. There's a whole extra night sky in the Lake, shimmering and rippling on the surface so that the Moon and ever star in her court has a twin brother or sister they can laugh and gossip with all night. And they'll have so much to talk about tonight, won't they?

And still, somehow this isn't even the best part. By far, it's the feeling of the motion itself. It's the steady rhythm of the sprint that dips her almost imperceptibly up and down through the air without ever really so much as considering a return to the soft earth waiting beneath them. It's the way the leather bends and brushes on her skin with every little motion and how it lets her feel the shifting of those powerful muscles and the softness of the skin beneath it as surely as if these feelings belonged to her, as though she could capture them as easily as sunshine and use their powers to create real miracles. And better even than that: the beating of another heart against her ear, so that it pounds its way inside her head and crawls down deep inside her to live in her stomach where the hummingbirds are flitting about and gathering their nectar.

That's how she knows this isn't a dream, see? Maybe she could conjure up the sights and sounds rushing beneath her, if she'd had a particularly nice day and took the time to ask the plants and fish to sing for her while she went about her work. She'd get the details wrong, that's obvious, but she'd get close enough to trick herself for sure. But she could never ever ever, even if you gave her a million years, even if you promised she could be the one to win a dance with Princess Qiu, she couldn't possibly tell you what it felt like to be held like this and feel so deeply possessed by a woman like Hyra. She couldn't imagine Hyra at all.

Yue glances away from the wonders of the world to behold the wonders of her savior. Quicksilver! The hair, the lips, the liquid smoothness of her movement and her impossibly beautiful face. The focus in those enchanting red eyes that maybe doesn't even notice the way that Yue's own blue pools are staring so intently at her. The warmth of this moment nestles in Yue's cheeks, and she shyly looks away.

"You're incredible! You're amazing! You're so... wowies! I've never, uh, I-I mean! Um! Well, I! Th-that is, I never, y'know, said thank you! So... yeah! Thanks! I still don't, um, gosh, wow. I mean, what makes me worth... er, um, n-no, I! Could I? I-is it ok if? Er! Um! Wh-what I mean is, w-would you like, um? Dinner?"

Ancient claws grasp at Rose from the River, holding her fast by the neck, the arms, the waist, and with a deep trill of triumph, the ABC Mechanism drags its prize in.

That is its intent, at least. But Rose from the River does not move. She has dug herself into place, her toes and heels spreading into the riverbed below. As the leviathan pulls at her, losing the battle against her roots, two new arms define themselves and unfold from her torso, unseen by its primitive cameras. (Down here, poor thing, it is half-blind. All it can see is magic, and that like a woman groping towards sunlight from her bed.) And in them she grasps the Conciliatory Ice-Star Blade, which with a flick of her wrist becomes a thick-bladed cleaver, keen to a sorrowful edge.

One, two! One, two! Claws are torn from the body by the strain of Rose’s wiry arms. (Her change is slower, now, a thing of breath and growth, but every moment makes those arms stronger and more generously fleshed.) She stands fixed, unmovable by heaven or hell. And so the ABC fulfills its programming the only way it can, so maimed, its cast-off limbs settling all around them: it flings itself forward and traps Rose from the River in the cube like a girl trapping a butterfly underneath a cup. This is a strong yet humiliating move, were there any to witness; it presses its sensors into the packed river-mud, pushing its weight down to prevent Rose from lifting it off of her. Now it only needs wait until the circle cuts off Rose from her roots, forcing her to withdraw completely into the prison.

But even as it constricts around her, Rose from the River (now lit by the soft white glow issuing from the sides of the cube, a figure of darkness within the gentle and invasive light) flicks the ogre’s knife she holds once, and it narrows, lengthens, becomes a gleaming victory spear with a fin-curved head. She gathers her strength, even as her essence without the cube withers away, crumbling and retracting, and takes a breath, fills herself with potential energy until it is enough to consume her if left unreleased.

Dear Thorn Pilgrim! As the jaws of the trap close around her, her spirit shines all the brighter! She takes her weapon, fallen from the strange and pale moon which is the doorstep of heaven, and with it performs the Royal kata, which is a continuous cutting motion. In one flourish, her feet still rooted in the earth, she circumscribes the binding cube from within one hundred and eight times.

This done, she takes her victory spear and moves into the presentation kata. Ten heartbeats pass. Then the cube unravels, torn into one continuous skin, the binding circle translated into a pattern of preservation. Limbs fall ascatter all about, even as the thing that once was a cube twists and attempts to understand its transcription into something different. (If washed up onto a village bank somewhere, it would be a strange wonder, indivisible and singular.)

Rose from the River pulls her feet from the riverbed, flicks the Conciliatory Ice-Star Blade into the shape of a pin, and ties her braids about it. Then she kicks upwards and scrambles artfully onto the bank, water gleaming moonish on her eel-dark skin, her blade lit from within by its own virtue where it holds her hair in place, all four arms well-shaped and strong.

Dear Thorn Pilgrim! She looks more like Love, Rising From The Waves than a human; the lap of water on the bank is her shell and her choir of heavenly spirits. Her eyes are molten gold, pierced by thorns; who can meet them? Her hips could crack mountains in the swing. The effect is only slightly ruined when she coughs and has to massage her gills into her skin before she suffocates on dry land. But even her cough is deep, a thing like home-brewed coffee.

Now let the Scales decide whether she is to avert her eyes from the shameless nakedness of this river-nymph or let herself be entranced in turn.

[Rose from the River Defies Disaster with a 12, willing to sacrifice her freedom in order to undo the Mechanism from within. This being done, and done with style, she emerges from the water and offers Scales of Meaning an Enticement with a 7. Is Scales of Meaning interested with what is offered?]

Chen's first thought as she settles her feet upon the ship is...well actually her first thought is that that those shiny golden dragons are extremely effective for confusing an attacker because of the way they weave about and reflect the light. Someone rushing at Qiu would find herself dazzled and it would be hard to keep her eyes focused on any one body part.

Once she resists the initial urge to rush into a duel (it helps that Qiu is boasting and not pushing for the fight) her first thought is that the dress is really really hot. That red dress shining with gold as the blue waterfall rushes past it with each move of Qiu's arm. It flexes and Chen imagines herself being held down by that waterfall bicep, pressing up on her stomach and into her chest.

She blushes, tries to hold onto her bag and her canvas all at once, and takes her eyes off her opponent. She's not...she can't, the scandal if Qiu were to kidnap her alone, both her mother's would be furious! They'd never let her go outside again. B-besides, there's no way the favor that Qiu wanted was anything like t-that. So she tries to put that out of her mind, ignore her own flush (it's just because she got switched from cold climate to warm climate all at once!) and look back up at those beautiful serpentine eyes and that tail luxuriously curled around a slender glass like it could be curled around her waist and slipping down to tickle her legs. Oh...gosh.

"I um...I do, I mean, I want to. T-to do you a favor! Of course!"

[Chen will take the XP and do what Qiu wants. She is also Smitten, but it could never work because they're opposing princesses and Chen's mothers would both never allow it the second they found out.]

Chen!

Though the mood has changed this is no less a place of swords. The blade itself is gone from Princess Qiu's hand but that is because everything has become blades in its place. It's a thrust as she hands you her wine glass, the angle facing towards you the one with just a faint impression of her lipstick on the cup's edge, inviting an indirect kiss. It's a clash as she puts one arm around your shoulder and you can feel its strength, holding you down as firmly as in your fantasy even though it's but resting atop your skin and scarf. Your parry is too slow and her tail is around your waist just as you said and she's leaning you back with it as support and all the world is on the brink of dancing.

"Good," said Princess Qiu, and oh, doesn't Princess Chen Tian have a ring to it?. "Because I've set a competition, see? A dance with me in exchange for some girl that the demon thinks would make a worthy handmaiden," she's leading, and she's leading with just enough pauses and breaks in the rhythm to stop it being a proper dance. Just enough to make your whole body hang on waiting for that moment when the music starts. "And I would be very disappointed if I wound up having to dance with just anybody. Having to let Princess Yin, or the Pyre put her hands," she moved your hands, "here," she said, "and here. Wouldn't you rather it be you? I know I would..."

A dance was a valuable prize in a princess conflict; you could bring another leader into your aesthetics, move them to your beat, have them glorify you with their music. It was a way to win prestige and acclaim, and that was valuable coin indeed... if you could avoid from being swept up by your partner's skill and aesthetics. Perhaps that was why Princess Qiu had offered such a valuable prize for such a minor errand? Because she was confident that she would out-shine any partner who danced with her, despite them setting the beat.

Perhaps she might. If that was true she truly would be unstoppable, and that would be a pleasant enough way to find out. But maybe if it was you... maybe you could make her show her softer side, the part of her that was sunset text messages rather than blades and conquest.

Rose!

She would take your heart in an instant. That you know. Those titanium white fingernails flicker, itching for it, for this is the nature of the Scales of Meaning. She would reach between your breasts, part your ribs, pull forth your still-glowing heart and weigh it against a feather on the scales that hang from her horns. Though she came to you as a broken thing now she stands as clean as this evil river, dark judge of the underworld.

Ah, it is a crime indeed that she is here, in the moonlit world. Just as it was a crime then when she sat amidst a vast grid of thunder and told the masked lords exactly how much each empire was worth. As her long black epee comes up to aim perfectly at that heart she craves the full precision of the sentient heart of the stock exchange is on display.

Its emotion and turbulence, too. For as long as the Scales of Meaning has stood on the threshold of twilight to terrify and judge human souls in unchanging calm, she has spent as long riding highs and lows, fears and frenzies. The empires she judged might lose their worth in instants or regain it with a speech. Though the scales on her head are rickety and medieval things, the circuitry inlaid in her horns flickers with high frequency emotions, making decisions and betrayals as fast as optics allow.

"I would purchase your services," said the Scales of Meaning. "My mistress has demanded a captive and I will return it to her. As you are bound by electronic laws, as you are of the river, as I am empowered by glorious digits I demand you tell me the price that I might buy you for my own."

She is offering what she thinks you want - money and purpose, like all beings of the ancient world.

Yue!

There's just a flick of a smirk that crosses Hyra's lips - that impossibly fine moment when someone realizes that if anyone even slightly less cool delivered a line like this they'd fall on their face. "I already have my dinner right here," she said, letting her voice roll the word with just the right timing to cause your heart to skip a beat.

Dangerous.

The lightning connecting that gaze to yours snaps and she pulls you aside as a lance slashes by you by a hair. The demons are here in the sky! Only... no, they're not flying. They've swarmed in their dozens, maybe hundreds, forming a black carpet on the ground below that is raising up into the sky like a ladder. They stand atop each other like a chain of ants, raising up in the perfect co-ordination of mindless to join you in the sky. The one sitting atop the chain of its kin has a helmet and shield and lance like a knight atop a thousand horses, and from all over the lands below more of the demons rush to join the swarm.

"Hold this for me," said Hyra, her predatory eyes narrowing in focus as she pushes her sword into your arms. Some princesses are said to fight with unique weapons - enchanted swords, swords that enchant, swords that are as intelligent and wise as their wielders. It is almost a relief that in this perilous situation this sword seems uncomplicated - straight, steel and set with sapphires. She's handed it aside to you as she draws a bow and arrow from her back and starts to line up her shot.

The ladder of demons realign themselves and rush at her again, and she rolls aside in the sky, evading the blow and pulling the danger from you. Again and again they clash and with each engagement Hyra loses a little more altitude, being driven down towards the ground and never quite finding the moment she needs to release her arrow. In this moment you're flying on your own and it's unsteady; you can descend easily, but to gain altitude it is like climbing stairs.

The scent of Princess Qiu this close is like fire and thick incense, and it's everything Chen can do not to sway and drop her art. When Qiu guides Chen's hands where they're supposed to go, it's forceful but not unkind and she feels like...oh gosh like she's floating and-and she's doing exactly what she ought to be and everything will be perfect. If she could, she'd just melt right here and let Qiu support her and twirl her about wherever she liked. Then she'd step up on her tippy toes and give Qiu the lightest little kiss and Qiu would lean into it and press her lips together harder and then maybe she'd take a bite and...

Chen's parry comes in the awkward needs of her things. Shard magic is powerful and it can change much. But for all that, it's not a simple thing, not even for three sunshards, to pull something out of a princess's hands when it's something she really cares about, something that she put time and effort into and filled with her excitement and her secret fears. That is Chen's canvas and her sketchbook, holding her most recent work and her older work, that she doesn't just show to anyone, that has the fear of being judged and admonished, and the hope of being loved, and the secret little pleasures of twilight and sunrise and perfect falling leaves. So she should be swept away to dance, but she's holding a canvas freshly painted and a bag with her sketches and her tools and so she can't just be swept up and she can't just focus on Qiu no matter how much she feels that pull.

She nods, of course. She understands, she absolutely wants it to be her having that dance. She doesn't even try to untangle the tail, but she does lean the wrong way. She puts her weight on her own feat, and leans into her bag and her painting. She moves, not strongly, but outside the dance steps. She makes to put her things down somewhere on the ship, she takes the hands that Qiu placed on her body and makes her own decisions about what to do with them, and its with those motions that she can think again.

In her mind, her thought is why? and in that word she means so many things. Why does Qiu need another princess to aid her at all? Why offer such a valuable prize for a handmaiden, even as a way to show off? Why call Chen for this? Why consult a demon as to who her handmaidens ought to be? Why push and even entice Chen to take on this task without telling her anything about it first? In that "why" were a thousand traps and stumbles that could be here for her.

Her riposte is that she doesn't say any of those things and lets Qiu know it. She lets the tail stay in place, she leans back in, but now it's with a little more of her own strength, a bit more of her own center. "Of course" she says, looking Qiu directly in her serpentine eyes now. "Tell me all about her and I'll find you your new handmaiden." And maybe Qiu likes having an opponent that's more than she can eat in a single bite.

[Chen is seduced by evil here (and she's agreeing to the favor), but she's also enticing Qiu in turn. 2+6+2+1=11. Chen gets a string and Qiu needs to pick one of the entice options as well.]

Money.

The third spiritual force. It descends into the gross physical form, Cash; it rises by degrees into the refined conceptual form, Credit; it is purified through acquisition into the Value of the mighty. The worthy find that it flows into their possession to become greater; the lowly can only hope to produce more of it for their superiors. And— fatally, for the Scales of Meaning— the creature that once had been was a bioalchemical creation brought forth from Money. It was not her place to make it herself; it was her role to clean the gears of the vast societal machine that was powered by it. Why should she want it?

(Leave unspoken, of course, that a spy and kidnapper who can be bought is a hiltless sword. Sooner or later, you will wound yourself upon it. And her king had. Never mind that she had just wanted to prove her worth.)

Money. The vital essence of the old world. And all too often, a blinder that weighs down the heart and deafens it from hearing the quiet whisper of the Way. Hoard, build, set yourself firm as stone against the currents of reality; that is the way of the masters of Value. Yet even the poorest insect sings.

Rose from the River pulls her pin from her hair and lets it fall in loose cords. Dear Thorn Pilgrim! With a flick of her wrist it becomes a long and elegant saber, held low at guard. Like a panthress she moves, her feet silent upon the grass. Does she reveal herself? Perhaps.

Perhaps the Scales of Meaning have heard of the pilgrim of the Way who carries the moon’s own sword. Perhaps she has not. Still, Rose from the River plays with revelation, flirts with it, dares boldness.

“You are glorious,” Rose from the River purrs. One step, another. Which of them is prey? “Your numbers are without limit. Surely you can tell me what my price must be. Name it, if you truly are the exalted Scales of Meaning, she who sits above the bull and the bear, and I will be yours seven times over. If you fail, then surely you cannot be the wise sage who tramples deception under her scales, and I will do with you what I please.”

The saber circles the epee. That smile! It is a quiet mockery. It is the suggestion of what Rose from the River may please— a reversal of servant and mistress. Does that not gall, Demon of the Second Exalted Rank?

Will you dance with the pilgrim clad in moonlight?

[Rose from the River works to Figure Out the inner workings of Scales of Meaning. With a 7, this is two and one. So, the first question: how would she feel if Rose from the River won?]

Yue has never held a real sword before. Of course she hasn't! Who would have given her one? The villagers have no need of weapons except to chase off the occasional too-bold animal, and a stick is much better for that than a sword, and easier to get to boot. Not to mention... well, haha, this is funny, see? You're gonna laugh when you hear this. But, you know, haha, one time Biao Biao asked her to help him chop some firewood, and um... she, haha, she made it as far as the backswing before she almost took his foot off. Yue has no business holding anything more dangerous than a kitchen knife, that's for sure.

And yet, here she is holding this gorgeous masterpiece of a blade. And it must be a masterpiece, this sword, because it's so obviously Hyra's. How else could it be so beautiful even though it's so bare and unadorned? A-and speaking of bare and unadorned, wouldn't Hyra look just... eep! No! Oh no oh no! Don't think about it, Yue! Don't let your mind wander! Stay focused on the here and the (image of those taut leathers all carelessly discarded and crumpled on the rocks. The spray of the waterfall soaking that quicksilver hair until it clings to the smooth skin like richest cream on her back, standing there in the water just as brazen as can be with that precious little smirk on her face, all of her lit only by the moonlight and...) now!

It's Hyra's sword in her hand. Precious, irreplaceable treasure. The weight of it shocks her. It's nothing at all like her silly, wooden thing, the one she carved and decorated and spent so many hours practicing with even though it felt so silly to do, just because it made her feel more centered. She'd always thought that maybe other swords would feel the same. Maybe balanced differently, or shapely and curved where hers was so straight and simple, but nothing like this. The weight of the blade drags her wrist down toward the ground, like it's pulling her toward Hyra and the battle she's fighting. The blade shines brilliantly around the sapphires and the length of the blade, but around the edges it seems positively dull. Is that right? Is that how such a thing should be? Yue brushes it with her finger, and nearly drops the sword with a frightened yelp as it splits her fingertip open so quickly that the pain doesn't come until after the blood. She whimpers and sticks the wounded finger in her mouth to suck on it. Her feet carry her unconsciously higher into the sky.

But even this, and the shiver of fright that's rooted somewhere in her stomach and keeps sending shivers and trembles all through her body whenever it pleases can't dull the look of absolute wonderment that's shining in her eyes. Who could have ever thought that she, silly little Yue of all people, would live to see a grand battle? This belongs to the poems, and yet... all for her! For her! Look at the way Hyra moves, like she's made of light as she bends and twists and twirls her way through the air in her wonderfully defiant dance that sends demons toppling this way and that without even striking a blow!

Even from here, the curve of her back is something worthy of all the art forms known to man. If she could, Yue would bring a painter here, and a songstress, a sculptor, a woodcarver, a, a, a... well, she just, a sight like this should be worshipped, y'know? What's an awkward, lonely village girl supposed to do to show reverence to those thighs and the sinewy muscles that pump them so beautifully you'd think she was born running? All she's got are her silly sunstones and the clothes on her back, and surely those aren't worth the treasures of Hyra's perfect fighting form?

Yue squeaks, maybe with fright, maybe with delight, maybe just because noises have to come bursting out of her poor overwhelmed heart right now, as she watches Hyra fly and fight and fly. Her arms have that bow bent back with perfect form (surely, yes? She can't imagine anyone could make it look better), and yet, and yet... she never shoots. Why doesn't she let it go? Obviously, because she is a huntress to her core and she won't release that legendary arrow until the shot presents itself that will bring down her foe once and for all with a single strike! Oh gosh! It's so, it's so...

So romantic! How's she supposed to pay this back? Well, she could, she should... in songs, fair maidens (ha! as if!) pay back beautiful warriors (yes yes yes yes definitely yes) with their hearts. And their lips. Yue's are clumsy, b-b-b-b-but maybe if she touched them to those weary muscles after the glory was won, she could, oh! Oh gosh! Oh no oh no oh no oh no!!

Yue's face flushes fever-hot, redder than a pomegranate. She buries her face in her hands (sword hilt and all!) and shyly twists about in the air, floating higher and higher on a string of fantasies without clear shape or purpose. This is a dream. It has to be a dream. She's going to wake up in the morning to Kat's hungry whining and she'll be snuggled up inside her bed just the same as always, just her and her plants and her precious furry friends, nothing different at all just you wait and see, and...

And it'll all be so. So disappointing. Is that fair? She's not a brave warrior-maiden or a special daughter of destiny. She's not a secret keeper of the Zhenren Arts or a fairy or some kind of secret princess. And she's happy with her lot in life, she is! So is it really right for her to hope that this is real? Is it ok to want to be caught up here on the edge of an adventure and get to see it all for herself?

Chen!

The air changes, the pressure and the flow. Qiu's presence isn't crushing down on you now that you're swimming with it. You haven't challenged her and so this cannot be a duel, you haven't defied her so this cannot be a contest, you haven't questioned her so this cannot be a debate. There isn't just nowhere for her to strike at you, she definitively can't. By accepting her demand without complaint or reservation you have rendered yourself a part of her - and now all that fierce might isn't pushing at you but at your problems. She notices and acknowledges the awkwardness of your things and moves to accommodate them. She does not assert control when you change your positions and the nature of the half-dance; it is enough that she could.

"Yue - just Yue. A villager out on the edge of the Terraced Lake, and apparently the most valuable thing in all of my realms," said Qiu, relaxing into the moment. "There are wanted posters out for her already, so you'll have plenty of competition in finding her. You'll have to move fast..."

Her orange-red eyes blinked and glanced aside, at your sketchbook and canvas. "... but not too fast. I have a painting of my own to do, so I won't be getting up to any trouble."

Rose!

Ferocious, dissatisfied, rebellious - all feelings already present within the Scales of Meaning and unlikely to change if her mistress changes from her own ascendant self to you. You see within the divine naga a creature that can be conquered and bound, but one who will resist and resent and seek independence ever more.

You see too a creature that is doomed, at least if she stays within her own embrace. She can never defeat the Pyre of Meaning for all that she is exists within the Pyre's totality. No matter what plans, what armaments, what wealth and what allies she has when she approaches her greater soul she could no more overthrow herself than a wave could become the ocean. They are already one and the resistance and denial of this fact causes the Scales nothing but suffering.

This is a teaching of the Way - the suffering of all things stems from failure to embrace their universality. Demons are not beings to be feared, not eternal entities of darkness, they are merely souls so torn they cannot even accept that they themselves are one whole thing. It is a pitiable state, one to be healed as the sick are to be healed - but also a dangerous state, as the sick are dangerous. If she loses she will hate, but she is already imprisoned by hate, and so this feeling should not be given special consideration.

Her blade crosses yours.

"Of course I know," she purrs as your swords clash, as a twist of her elbow tries to pull your blade away and down. Combat exists so much in footwork and hers is impossible - her serpentine lower body allows her to advance and retreat in unreadable patterns and her long and lashing tail is always seeking your ankles. Her sword is long and thrusting, a distance and precision weapon, but this is an illusion. Her real weapons are the rippling muscles of her tail and shoulders, and if she can lure you in close she'll be around you as swiftly as swallowing. "But I want to hear you say it. I want to hear you accept your collar with your own lips. I want you to know how exactly unworthy and shameful those lips are before I claim them and gag them."

Be wary of daring the Scales of Meaning, for with her voice she charms the truth from unsuspecting lips.

Her question, in turn: What do you love most?

Yue!

Down and down Hyra goes. Down and down she is driven. Patiently, patiently she holds her arrow.

The demons swarm like ants, like acrobats. They leap and cavort and form chains of bodies that reach out like fingers or nets. They block, they condense, they imprison and enchain that ray of shining silver moonlight in tighter and tighter. Hyra moves in flashes and twists, a dance but a desperate one. Several shining silver hairs are sent scattering as she slips away from grasping claws, the edges of her clothes gather rents and tears from lance-strikes dodged by animal instinct. Down and down she goes until her feet touch the ground.

A flash of broken magic. One toe on the soft grass of the hilltop and her spell is broken and gravity is returned to her. She falls to her knees as the demon army raises above and around her, a dozen lances and a hundred blades and a wall of shields, exalting in triumph as the jaws of the trap swing shut around her.

And from a distance, through shadows and spirals and silver hair fallen across her face like a veil, you see the smile of a wolf.

For Hyra of the Wolves does not need magic to fly.

She leaps like you've never seen. It is an entirely different thing than air-walking, as different a motion as swimming. To walk in the sky down remains down, but not for Hyra here. She rotates in the air, legs coming up high over her head, arm extended straight down and holding the bow at full extension. Even now the demons are too confident in their victory to realize their vulnerability and they lash out rather than defend themselves - rather than defend that single critical bowl of water that rests upon the head of their master.

The arrow comes down and the clay pot shatters.

The demons lunge all at once for the spilled water, trying to catch the droplets with their fingers, to snatch the mist from the air. Then they scrabble at the ground like dogs, seeking to dig the water from the mud. Finally, howling in fright, they turn and race back towards the distant river in their full hundred like creatures dying of thirst.

And Hyra slumps against her longbow, tired and bleeding and shaking with cursed magical energy that pours off her in veins of black, red and violet.

And even now, Yue floats safely above everything that might try to hurt her. How can this be? Is Hyra maintaining her spell even though she's struggling to stand right now? Still? Is that a thing she needs to do? But she! But that's not! She can't!

It turns out? Even Yue can be a champion-level sprinter when she's got the right motivation. Though it helps that she's running downhill, so to speak. Her frizzy brown hair trails like a long scarf behind her as she scrambles down, down, down, with none of the grace of a huntress or the poise of a grand warrior or even the restraint of a handmaiden worthy of this impossibly perfect display. She clutches her travel bag tight against her stomach with one arm and her Kat-bundle to her chest with her other and doesn't give one bit of thought to how many times the beautiful silver sword smacks her thigh as she runs.

Down and down and down and down. Her feet hit the ground hard and she almost goes tumbling right onto her face when the burst of magic releases from her body. She darts her head nervously this way and that, still looking for new dangers in every corner of the darkening landscape despite the miracle she'd just seen with her own eyes. But then she's off like a shot, bounding through the grass, dropping all her stuff awkwardly on the ground as she goes so that her arms are free, just in time, just in time! Just in time to leap!

She throws her arms around Hyra and pulls her closer than she'd have ever dared even an hour ago. She takes her weight, her warmth, the creepy curse-magic pouring off her body, and doesn't even squeak when the longbow drops to the ground with a loud clatter. It's another miracle, just for her. Hyra's body, her strength and her softness and the absolutely luscious scent of exertion (oh gosh oh gosh is she a really for real wolf after all?? Oh!! Gosh!) coming from her all feels completely different from the way she did in the house, or the sky, or, or, or even just a moment ago as she fought.

All at once, this beautiful, perfect, impossible, wonderful woman is... heavy. Her body squishes against Yue's with a reckless sort of weakness that makes her heart stop beating and then start again at triple speed to make up for lost time. It's wonderful and amazing, this sense of helplessness, of vulnerability, this, this... you know? You know?? She's holding a song in her own two arms! Even as scary as everything is, it's so amazing that she can't keep the smile off her face.

"Can you stand?" she asks, "Can you walk? Just a bit and then we'll - oh gosh, you're kinda -- I-I mean! N-n-no!! You're fine it's fine everything's fine I gotcha! I do! You're the most perfect woman I've ever met in my life and your hurt and it's all my fault and I'm so so so so so soooooo sorry and I'm gonna fix it I promise but not here ok? Just a little further! Then we rest! Uhuh?"

The journey is long and difficult. It's so hard to find a proper tree for lying under that doesn't bring her close to water, you know? Leastwise, it's hard enough when a wolf woman is draped over your shoulders and you have to keep stopping to keep your travel bag looped around your ankle so you can drag it behind you and for some reason Kat thinks it's more important to bring the bow too so she's trotting around with it in her adorable little mouth like a stick and gosh darn it she looks so proud of herself and oh! Shoot! The sword!!

So she's more than a little bit sweaty herself when she finally drags this whole awkward procession to a place that's suitable for her needs. Cut her some slack, this is her first time being in love! There's a, y'know, a way to these things. Didn't somebody write a big fancy book about that? But even still, she takes the time to fish a soft blanket out of her bag and lays it out all nicefully on the ground before she finally sets Hyra down with her back propped against the trunk of the gingko tree she found growing on a small hill. Perfect!

Wood is never very far from hand here at the Terraced Lake, but Yue doesn't take the chance and fishes some old branches from her bag, tucked there months ago 'just in case'. She arranges them just so and then gently places a yellow glass bead underneath the pile, drawing a circle in the ground with her fingers until... fwoosh! She smiles at her merry little fire, and hangs a pot filled with old well-water that she tosses a mixture of fragrant herbs into with a soft little hum she can't keep off her lips.

Her dance begins in earnest now. Not the swift battle-dance of a legendary hero, but the quieter sort of dance that calls to mind a housewife on her way to market. She dips a linen cloth in the sweet smelling liquid and doesn't flinch even as her fingers dip into the boiling water. She needs to soak it thoroughly, y'know? She rolls it gently into a tube, careful not to wring it out, and wipes Hyra's forehead with a caress more delicate than the moonlight pouring across her body in the night sky. She wipes the silver maiden's cheeks, her neck, her arms, and hips, and legs. And even though she blushes a deeper red than Hyra's eyes, she manages to brave a tiny pair of scissors enough to cut away the leathers juuuuuust enough to wash her (firm and gorgeous, wow wow wow) tummy and the tops of her breasts, and... um. E-everywhere the evil magic pours, she follows.

She turns away and waves another pair of beads over a cup. There's a burst of sunlight and air so fresh and pure it makes you want to take a nap right then and there, gosh darn it, and then before you know it Yue's mustering up the rest of her courage to bring her trembling leaf hands close enough to bring her famous cherry-blossom-and-white-tea to Hyra's lips. Her blue eyes are liquid and trembling with a mixture of concern, and adoration.

"Does it... does it hurt? Still? Here, drink. It helps. C-can we rest a little bit? M-my legs are tired now and, um, it'll be... um. It'll, y'know, be f-fine 'cause Kat will guard us and... um. Um! You're very pre-- um!! I meant, brav, no, I. Um. What I mean is. Thank you. Sorry. Why?"

Slate-grey rain runs in rivulets down slate-grey buildings. Far, far above, the sea roars and crashes. Puddles gleam in neon shine. The world is made of blocks and blocks, monolithic buildings in their rows stretching out forever, and between them lie the dank, rotten alleyways. Step onto one, and the noise of the roar of railtraffic and adgrams is cut off, and instead there is harsh-edged wind roaring between the crustscrapers, bringing with it the smell of trash and mildew and stagnant water. Above there is another street, and below there is construction work, and crammed in here there are stalls and vendors advertising fifteen-minute lunches and five-minute fucks to the vassals of the towers; even thirty-minute grid realignment and reconsecration, for the desperate or those secure enough to have their own servants go to get phones repaired. Inside those blocks, lidless eyes watch the coming and going of office chattel, and chronofuries stalk the halls murmuring their numbers: minutes spent in the relief blocks, minutes spent speaking to each other outside of meetings, minutes spent with hands left idle. Keeping those numbers low is a matter of survival and continued employment, which are the same thing for those paying off their training debts; the plastic bottles stacked under their desks are often nicknamed the Furies’ Due. This is the world, and there’s nothing more to be said about it. Not when the hunt is on. Not when any mistake could alert its prey. Not when rival kingdoms might have their own spies watching for it. The world simply is. No more, no less.

The sword of Scales may be long, but with a flourish, the Conciliatory Ice-Star Blade is still longer: a graceful glaive, its shaft as slender as a bamboo rod, made of bronze that gleams under the fickle light of the moon. Two-handed she takes it, sweeping, seeking to catch a serpent’s tail underneath a hooked edge, but more than that, looking to dismay the demon so certain of victory. It is as if the blade is staying still, and it is Rose from the River who moves around its axis: an illusion, one that Scales of Meaning will see through easily, but may still admire for its artistry.

But it is not the sword that Rose from the River loves most. If she was called upon to cast it away, she would, even if it tore part of her heart away with it. It is not this that would make Rose from the River turn her face away from the Way. Look again, assessor of worth. Find what would not be sacrificed; find what is worth sacrifice in and of itself.

In the light, he is a hero. His hair is like white gold, expertly made, and he is slim and elfin, the kind of vulnerable and sensitive soul that made the hearts of young boys and girls flutter. There is an ancient sadness to him, but that just makes him more amazingly crushworthy, and every day he receives letters and tokens thanking him for his service as First of the Radiant Knights. He is beloved. He is a hero. He shares the bed of the beautiful princess who saved him. He has risen from the long sleep of the tomb into glory. And yet when the crystals dim and the lights die, when he is the only one awake, when he paces in Yin’s suite, the breathless letters of thanks feel like bars on a cage. He has to keep it up. He has to be their hero. He has to be an upstanding consort-in-training. And all too soon, the lights go out again. And the world is a black rag choking him out.

There is no audience here. Rose from the River does not flourish to entertain anyone else. She does not care whether anyone witnesses her victory. (Not that she wouldn’t mind, mind you. Not that she wouldn’t mind.) She used to be a hero, a celebrity, beloved by an entire kingdom and its commanding princess. And now she is this: river-nymph, flower-faunus, beautiful and quietly inhuman. What can you offer to Rose from the River that the Radiant Princess could not, o demoness?

Scales of Meaning feints, then rushes in, looking to overwhelm her opponent with a carefully calculated push. Rose from the River, in turn, plants her blade in the yielding earth and vaults over the demoness’s head. When her pole is batted to one side, Rose does a somersault and hops onto that shining-scaled back for a brief and impudent moment, before springing off onto the grass. Scales of Meaning coils around the wonderful glaive and seeks to put the Thorn Pilgrim on the back foot, despite knowing that if Rose from the River can get hold, she merely need press her weapon still firmer to her opponent to win concession...

There. There it is. The glance upwards, suddenly distracted away from battle, glorious opponent and all, her eyes fixed for the span of a chickadee’s wingbeat on the great and glittering belt that spans the sky. The huff of breath is a traitor; the fleeting reverie an opening of the gate to her heart.

Once, there was a queen who owned a songbird, born to the cage. She fed it delicacies from far-off lands and bid it sing for its supper. It knew no want. Yet when the queen opened the cage door for but a moment, the songbird was out the window and gone forever.

It is winter, says the crow; food is scarce and the winds are cold. What is there to love in the world outside your palace? I sing anyway, says the songbird, free.

Rose from the River loves the beauty that lies hidden beneath the currents of the river, the beauty which lies gleaming in the feathers of the violet and lavender doves singing tu-wit tu-wu from the berry-bush, the beauty which lies languorous beneath the swell of the mountains, the beauty which shines down broken in a great arc across the sky. She loves this beauty in the manner of a child, wide-eyed and excited to see quite ordinary things made wonderful by their novelty. There is no overfamiliarity, no contempt of long regard, in how Rose from the River approaches this ancient and remade world.

To defeat her, o frightful and wonderful demoness, draw her in with revelations. Shine with the patterns of dusk and dawn. Hide your pride behind the veil of the aurora playing on the mountain peaks. Promise her wonders beyond the turn in the road, known only to demons, who remember what others blithely forget. Take on the aspect of the world unexplored, with its mysteries and soft beauties, and Rose from the River will step into the waiting coils despite herself, and take the gag from your grasp to fix between her teeth with her own hands.

Feign compassion for her, and win her heart as well as the duel, again despite herself. She has always wanted to be loved for herself.

Or do none of these things, out of pride and an unwillingness to win by the virtue of a love that you can no more catch than seize the moon in your coils, o shard of the glorious Pyre. To trick the Thorn Pilgrim so is to admit that your coils could never have caught her on your own, and your lips not ensnare her but that they shine with the light of the broken suns high above. To admit yourself insufficient to the task.

This, then, is a second question: victory by guile, or striving to succeed by your own merits, Scales of Meaning? Which would you pick, if offered the choice?

The feeling is like coming up for air after being trapped in a rushing river. Equal parts exultation and relief flood through Chen and a pressure lifts from her chest that she hadn't known was there. She breathes, holds her breathe for a moment, and lets it out long and slowly as she settles.

It isn't that Chen of the Northern Wind had some master strategy in mind showing up with a painting and working ten moves ahead of her opponent. Quite the opposite, she still aches for that dance, for the warmth of that body, so fleeting where Qiu had guided her hands. It's just that her mothers had taught her about sunshards since she was old enough to walk. Their precious little Chen, daughter of grand Ys and Sourcefall was always going to be getting somebody's sunshard, after all. So she had played as soon as she could walk with mothers who reshaped the world to their whim and taught their daughter to wander their workings. A sunshard is a river of thought, an extension of the wielder's will, and it works just like a real river. Try to swim against the current and you end up nowhere. Swim straight on and you'll go too fast, lose control and find yourself trapped in hidden whirlpools and pulled under. But swim to the side and you kept control, let the current guide you as you made for a bank. So she had moved by heart and instinct trained from a lifetime: lacking her own sunshard to wield, Chen had made herself an important part of Qiu's story. With a moment to think as Qiu accomodated her, she could even start to see the shape of it, and it made her curious.

She glanced where Qiu was glancing and smiled. "Oh that's wonderful, I can't wait to see your work! And I'm sure the posters will give me everything I need to find her." Now Chen was smiling more than a little, imagining Qiu painting the wanted poster herself, though she had probably used magic or simply had it made. She relaxes into Qiu's motions, letting the other princess guide her or push her to go as she sees fit while Chen lets her mind wander. Or perhaps now she's even being a little teasing. "Oh, but poor Yue just Yue! The most valuable thing in all your realms with her face all over every town! She must be mobbed by every handmaiden and aspiring little princess this side of the lake! If she's really this valuable (and however did you find that out?) I think you ought to give her a dance to make up for the trouble she's going to have in getting to you, Princess Qiu."

It won't be lost on Qiu that this is the first time Chen has dared address the princess by name in this conversation, a sign of familiarity and comfort even with the Princess title. Perhaps too much comfort. Qiu might be thinking of ways to make Chen regret her boldness once she returns with Yue. Still, she's had an idea floated to her all of a sudden. Has she even thought about the sort of reception she plans to give Yue? It struck Chen that Qiu had called her "the most valuable thing" as though she were up for comparison against an antique sword or even a sunshard, and she wanted to know what the princess had to say about her plans once she had this new handmaiden. She's not sure yet if she'll get an answer or a joke though, and she's still letting Qiu guide where she goes. One push and she'll be off on her hunt, the moment Qiu wants her to leave. But not a moment before.