“It’s not hard to tell you’re security,” the fox says to him with the same cocky sort of look that half the princesses— no, Princesses. There’s a difference in how it’s written and how it’s said. But half the Princesses have that arrogant, knowing look on lockdown, like they have all the answers already. Like they’ve seen everything before them and dismissed any possible danger with a floof and a fluff, and for all that this world doesn’t have many dangers left, it still feels presumptuous to him. He sighs, looking her up and down; she’s all frills and lilac lace, the bustle of her ballgown hiding the number of her tails. Ruddy orange-brown ears poke out of her coiffed hair, and when they are straight up, they peek just above his head; he suspects heels. He is a tower looking over the ebb and flow of the party, and here comes a fox to pull his eyes away, like he isn’t trained to thread sensory data.

“Whatever gives you that impression?” Probably the suit. It is a very carefully chosen indigo, a suggestion of color that will become darker than black when his Lady flares her heart. The contrast with his alabaster skin and white-gold hair is pleasing to her, and First of the Radiants lives to please her, in any way that she desires. He is the sword that fits perfectly in her hand; he is the sanctified monster that she keeps on a holy leash.

“You’re so stiff,” she purrs. The look he gives her is flat. The worst pickup line he’s heard in… no. Posture. Ah. Maybe he is. But isn’t a knight supposed to be at the ready? The festivities are loud and garish. Ysian dancers dominate the ballroom, half-dressed and gyrating to the beat of drums and flutes from a dozen different cultures. An obvious distraction from Ysel. Princess Ysel. The real challenge of the evening will be watching for her move: where her soldiers will storm the ballroom, where they will attempt to cut off exits, the shortest path that he can take to Yin to defend her while she casts Ysel down and defeats the army by cutting off the head. And thinking about his posture is going to distract him. But the perfect knight has to be able to show courtesy. Another test. One he will pass. He will earn this.

“You will have to forgive my ignorance,” he says, arching an eyebrow. “What, exactly, do you foxes… do?” The implication is vicious enough. I am a trusted knight, a Handmaiden, who is on a path to become the Countess of the Radiant Lands. You are a fuzzy little trickster and I see through you, even if I don’t know the specifics. There’s a dizzying amount to learn about this new world, after all, and foxes weren’t quite at the top of the list. And, like clockwork, the fox (vixen?) puts one hand (paw?) on her chest and gives him a dramatically offended look.

“Why, you don’t know?” By Yin’s elbow, a dancer comes perhaps too close; a shadow lingers just a moment too long at a window; the maddening whirl demands more and more processing as the drums swell. “We grant wishes. Whatever the heart wants most. And since you are a very special someone indeed, I might be persuaded to give you a free sample.” The lure is transparent. His eyes flutter up for a moment in exasperation.

“So if I were to tell you that my heart’s deepest desire is to be ready to defend my Lady Yin? Surely there isn’t anything you can give me that I don’t already have.” He does have it all. Shining armor. Squires. The love of a Princess. Anything he wants is at his disposal, as Yin’s consort-in-training. Through her generosity, he could have pearls, white rings, a cape in furs and cloth-of-gold, jewels; if he expresses dissatisfaction with anything, she will order it removed and changed for him, and that is why he does not express dissatisfaction with anything. That and that there is nothing to be dissatisfied with, yes. Yes.

On the bandstand, an electric sitar begins to play, jaunty and full of bounce, played by a heavy young woman with golden bangles and a broad grin. A Baron, and one of some repute, if the wild cheering is any indication. The noise is enough that no one can hear the whisper of the fox, as she leans into his shoulder, fingers taking his hand and squeezing, not maliciously, but with some strangely overfamiliar tenderness. Perhaps he has misjudged her, he thinks for just a moment; she is not attempting to distract him, but rather she is the sort of wild fool who thinks that she can seduce the chosen of Princess Yin, perfect and radiant, the Anahata of the Radiant Mercy School, the auspicious ruler chosen by Heaven. Then he hears her whisper: “I know why you won’t let yourself look at the dancers.”

He should say something. He can’t. His throat just isn’t working. She has him by the hand. Everything, the whole of it, there was nothing dangerous in here expect for her all along. She’s tempting him. Leading him out into open air. He can’t. He shouldn’t. What would Yin say? What would Yin say about what, exactly? What does he think she’s offering him? What does she think he wants? Maybe she thinks he’s guilty of a wandering eye. She’s going to flash her navel at him and offer to let him collar her. He can say no to that. If that’s all. He knows he is owned. He is pure in that he is only used by one. She has taught him so much. What is the fox offering?

“Come with me,” she says, laying out her trap so neatly. And he doesn’t know yet if it’s one that he can escape. He shouldn’t take that step. It won’t be what he is eagerly terrified it is. Then the traitor-thought envelops him like a serpent: if it is not a trap that can catch him, then he will seize the fox that thought herself clever and present her to Yin as a gift. Perhaps some time as a songbird will make the fox eager to sing about her employers. Following her is the clever thing to do. It’s not wrong. He can make it right.

But he is half-blind as she leads him by the hand, so obsessed with the fear that he will be seen and marked that he only slowly realizes that she has indeed taken him backstage. There are no stagehands; did she arrange this, or is it simply luck? There are rooms set aside for Barons here, and it is to one that she draws him. The room is dark; she only opens the door a crack and pulls him inside, slamming it shut behind them. He flexes and takes her wrist in his hand, ready to fight both her and whoever she has with her, ready to take her by the ears and beg for mercy. He is a fine knight, but he was born a better hunter.

Then, with a wave of her hand, the soft lighting flickers on. It is shadowy, low, and makes the narrow room seem like it could contain multitudes. And the amethysts drink in that light. His grip tightens but now he is holding onto her for support. He’s going to fall over. His heart is throbbing, almost painful. It’s impossible and frightening because of how much he wants. He’s not supposed to want. He’s supposed to be what she needs him to be. She saved him. “I can’t,” he stammers. His ears pulse with heat.

“You can,” the fox says. “I know wishes. And your heart sings in the empty places you deny yourself, because if you let yourself want things, you’d risk wanting things that she doesn’t want. Isn’t that right?” Her fingers slip down his chest, and buttons come undone as smoothly as if she’d cut them with a knife, an impossible magic.

It isn’t until she comes to his belt that he blurts out, again, cheeks ruddy with betraying fire, “I can’t. I won’t…”

The slim trousers snake down his legs. The fox stops and cocks her head.

“Oh,” she says, and he can hear the suppressed laughter. It hurts. He tries to push her back.

“I’m not going to be a joke, fox--”

She lays one finger on his lips.

“You’re not going to be.” She cups him, pushes Yin’s delight back against his legs. “Trust your Auntie Sa-chan. I promise you that you will look just like you always wanted. Not a joke. Not a billboard.” So she’s seen those, too. Down in the Burrows. “I am a fox, darling. And we work in wishes. And you don’t want to be laughed at.” She guides him to step into some unusually thick undergarments, and when she pulls them up to his hips, he’s flat, not sexless as he once was but… “You want to be beautiful.” She smiles, like she’s sharing a joke between the two of them. “And we can’t have your Princess hogging all the beauty for herself, now, can we?”

She guides him over to the mannequin. The thin silk is the color of spring flowers, lavender and vervain. He’s uselessly thinking that over and over as she helps him into it. Lavender and vervain and plum-flowers. It whispers against his smooth skin, loose and revealing, decorative. As if he was just another of the dancers offering a distraction. Just a decoration. And that’s not how he thinks of, of the Princesses, but… but he wants to think it of the dancers. Because he wants to be one of them. He always has, from the first time he saw them in this soft and gentle new world, because they are something delicate and lovely and kept close, because they are beloved but objectified, and he’s never been allowed to simply be the figure of want, all eyes on him. Except that’s not quite right, is it? He’s Yin’s trophy. But the shape is wrong. His shape is wrong. And this… this is right. It makes him feel almost right.

He knows he can’t become this. There are other shapes that are worrying at him. A Way, still here, still believed in despite all he did to stamp it out. Something older and truer than him. Much is called to those to whom is given much. And while the cult surrounding his Princess is wrong, laughably wrong, it is their intepretation and not… but he does not think about it. He lets himself believe, if only for a moment, that this is who he can be.

Finally she reveals her tails, so many of them, and each one is curled around a brush, a comb, a palette. He obediently closes his eyes and lets her drape spring over his lids, scatter stars in his lashes, dust his high cheeks with life, bring crushed plum to his lips. His stomach twists with delight as she gathers his pale hair.

When she guides him in front of the mirror and tells him to open his eyes, it is the bravest thing he has done since he awoke in this age. And when he does, it does not matter that he is tall, it does not matter that the silk lies flat on his chest, it does not matter that he is still in this form Yin breathed into him. He is radiant. The way he toys nervously with his fingers, the shy glance through glittering lashes, these things just make him feel more right. Happier. His hair lies in a tail draped against his neck, caught up with a jade barette, and amethysts radiate from his slim collar to his low neckline, caught on invisible threads, looking as if they are simply part of him, as if he is a princess’s doll. The billowing trousers are low on his hips, scandalously so, and a deep violet gem flashes in his navel.

“May I?” It is the first question that the fox-- that Sa-chan has offered him in some time. He should be worried about Yin. He should thank her for his… for this. He should leave and go and help her, doubtless under attack by Ysel’s ruffians, or soon to be. But the silk in her hands is the thickest that he would wear, perfect for hiding his lips, his nose, his chin, drawing all eyes to his eyes. He nods, still not trusting his voice, and she sets the loops carefully about his ears. He shivers and suddenly feels as if he is going to cry. And he can’t! He would ruin his eyeliner, not to say anything about his lashes!

So he stares and he stares and he turns from side to side and admires the slimness, the leanness, the way he is turned into a delectable sylph of a… of a dancer. If he walked out there right now, would they know? Would they see him? Or would they see a boyish young woman doing her best to draw attention to her femininity? Would he… he wouldn’t know the first thing about how to dance. He didn’t let himself watch. He’d end up shaking his ass in circles as everyone laughed at him. Better to stay here. Safe.

“Usually, I don’t do this for free,” Sa-chan says to him. “And I haven’t. I was paid quite a bit to draw off Yin’s bodyguard, you know. But that’s as much as I was paid for; you can still go and be the hero, if you want.” He turns, stupid, off-balance again, and finds her offering the hilt of his sword, thin and wicked silver. But when he reaches out on instinct, she lifts it ever-so-slightly out of reach. “You can, but you don’t have to.”

She meets his eyes, and there is a… there is a kindness there, hidden behind the glee at her own cleverness. One that says that she is happy at his happiness. That she did this for money and her own satisfaction and her own caprice, but that she is not quite done granting wishes, either.

And in the face of what she is offering, he cannot be strong and noble and chivalrous. He cannot take the blade and shove her aside and charge out like some sort of battle-dancer. Because she is giving him the choice to choose the dream he’d kept hidden and close tight inside of him. And he does not know if it is programming that makes his body light and airy, and he does not know if he is doing a right thing or a wrong thing, and all he knows is that he would regret it every day if he did anything else.

First of the Radiants offers her wrists to Sa-chan, who smiles like only a fox can.

“Good girl.”

And when the Radiant Knights arrive, they will take hours to find their redeemed captain, because none of them think that releasing the squirming, helpless dancers backstage is a priority when they have a captain and a Princess alike to save. And they will assume that he was hidden among the dancers so that they would not find him for a long time, and they will be very right; and they will assume that this was why First of the Radiants was dressed so, and they will be very wrong.