There's a little less mystery in the world than before. Secrets pass, the kind of little stories you can only tell someone who is interested to hear and know everything about you. You learn that Hyra is from a little sun-kissed barrow in the Western Plains, dead in the centre of hurricane country. Their homes were the old sweltering near-surface slums of a great Burrower city, but for half the year it was safe to go up above. Two rhythms, then, defined Hyra's life - patience and exploration.

When below, she studied magic to the exclusion of other hobbies. She learned tricks to fly, to become a wolf, a bird, to run at the speed of the wind and to drive all manner of vehicles. The one thing she never studied was maps - she found the idea faintly offensive, like giving someone spoilers for a book. She wanted to explore all of it herself. She wanted to see it all for the first time, discover everything anew, and then make her own maps that were just for her. She thought in spirals, and just orbited out in larger and larger circles from her starting place, determined to trawl through as much of the world up as possible before the storms came again and it was time to go home.

And when she was home, she liked basil and loved cinnamon and craved cardamon. Her hands are always warm and she always feels cold, and so wears gloves at any temperature lower than twenty. She has a scar she conceals under her hairline from a time she flew into a glass window while shapeshifted into a bird and she knows all the words to The Lion King - musical and movie - by heart. She can't sing, but she does use an old synthesizer she uses to make weird mechanical music that hints at an entirely incomprehensible side of her. How strange must her mind be to have those secrets in it?

She wants to climb a space elevator. She loves manga about sentai teams but she'd never want to be a part of one herself. She was afraid of robots, but it was the fascinated kind of fear where she'd seek it out in movies and books so she could flinch away from it. She'd never had a pet, but she was incredibly good at providing pats - being able to sustain a calming, repetitive motion until well after whatever she was stroking drifted away into a contented sleep. She has a plush two-headed hydra toy named Snake that she will talk to, and then do a voice and talk back. Snake's personality is extremely wicked and sinister, but he's been with her all her life so you'll just have to make your peace with him. She pronounces 'Ability' 'Able-eye-tie' and thinks that's normal.

Step by step, late night conversation by conversation, she opens up and reveals all the ways that she's a person. She has a story that meanders back over years and surprises and thoughts that have grown unspoken inside her for a long time. Being a friend is half of being a girlfriend, and so there needs to be some time for that to grow in along with the kisses.

But there are a great many kisses. Endless kisses. Do not underestimate the quantity of kisses. Kissing feels like a natural equilibrium to which all moments return if left unattended for very long. See her make a million, you just watch!

S'funny how stories work sometimes. I mean honestly, S'funny how love works too, come to think. Like, you'd think after everything that's happened that she wouldn't have any secrets left, right? Or if she did, they'd be really easy to let out into the world at this point, wouldn't they? Not even the world! Just Hyra! All she's gotta do is let her last bits of mystery seep into those fluffy, attentive ears and then that's it. It's done. They don't have to go any farther than that. And if she can't trust the woman she gave her body to with her secrets, what's even the point?

But. In the spaces between mysteries disappearing and the kissing, she's quiet. Or no, she's not quiet. She's got plenty to say, but it's all about Hyra. About how cool her home sounds or wondering in amazement about making your own maps or about how now that she knows about that scar it's her mission to find it and kiss it, and no, the way that she got it doesn't make it any less sexy. And also, meep! She's using that word right, right? She is! Meep!!

But when it's her turn, she's quiet. She sits there smiling, maybe sipping some tea or some water or some fizzy drink with a ridiculous name she can't pronounce, in varying states of undress given what happened most recently (once in just a towel! Spa trips're nice~), and she doesn't say a word while she waits for Hyra to reveal some new amazing part of herself. The good that you can say for her is that she never stops being amazed. She even takes 'able-eye-tie' in stride, sorta kinda, rapid-blinking for a few seconds after a single "I'm sorry, what was that again?" At least her giggles are very good natured, I'll have you know. And she doesn't correct or insist on changes, except to explain that where she's from they say it thisaways.

Then come the questions. And these, probably, are why 55% of marriages end in divorce. Or wait, they're not married. Also how old is that number? Seems like it oughta've stayed buried with the Old Ones. Er, the uh, the Burrowers I mean. Sounds like a Them number, to me. Can't be right, can it? Nah. Definitely not. But anyway, the questions. They're hard, and they hurt, and they make Yue think this isn't gonna work out after all, which is enough to make them the worst thing that's ever happened to her.

Tell me about yourself? Dunno where to start. Well how about the Terraced Lake, what's it like there? Nothin' to tell, you saw pretty much all of it comin' to pick me up. Well no, but aren't there big floating cities down at the bottom of the waterfalls? What're those like? Dunno, never been. Never been? Never been. Well why not? Dunno. Never felt like it, too far to walk, too much to do, never seemed important, what would even be there for her, she's always kinda hated cities actually. But you loved the sky castle, didn't you? Well yeah but. And doesn't your sister live down there? Well yeah but!

S'funny. It starts with... oh, right. I should mention, that's not a contrack... thing. I don't mean "it's funny". It's a word, S'funny is, or leastwise it's a word in Yue's house. It's Gran Gran's word, from when she was around, or maybe it was made even earlier than that. What do I look like, a linguar? Ist? Anyway it's a word. Sad-funny. S'funny. Means when somethin's out there makes you wanna laugh but it hurts your heart to do it all the same.

Anyway where was I? Oh right, it starts with a confession. She lied just now, sorry. Of course she loves cities! Of course she does! Or, the idea of them, at least. She's had so little experience, she guesses she just doesn't know how she'd actually feel bein' in one all the time. But she knows how they make her feel, thinkin' about 'em. That's where the stories all come from. The fancy clothes and the nice pots and pans and the people who can read good and do math without having to stop and tick off their fingers to make sure they didn't lose their place partway in. It's where the songs all come from and she loves songs. But when she thinks about life in her tiny village and tries to map it onto living somewhere huge and glittering like that it makes her brain hurt, y'know?

And besides. She has a rule. She... had a rule. There was a rule in her house. Don't go far, Yue. Wherever you go, make sure you can walk home again while the moon's still young. And gettin' all the way down the terraces and all the way back up took way longer than a day, least on foot, so she never went. Sis went for her, and brought back all the stuff that wound up being her favorite stuff in the house. 'Cause Sis didn't have that rule, see? She was free. Yue's the one who needed to be careful, though she never really got why. But she didn't question it for serious. It's a rule. Was a rule. So she followed it.

She could spend all day in the village, but bein' around people for a lot was hard and none of 'em ever seemed to like her the way that Sis did, so she poked around in grasses and the woods instead. Everything she knows about herbs and cooking and animals is self taught. Ok that's a lie too. The plants and animals taught her. Not like it's hard to listen to 'em, if you've got a mind to. She'd help them with her problems, and they'd help her with hers. Wolves 'n foxes and... actually, can you keep a secret? In the village, they laugh all the time about Nature Girl Yue. Yue the Sun Farmer, what a ridiculous little girl. Not even vegan, can you imagine? How could she go frolic with the water deer all day and then come home and eat one? Well it's not... it's a part of, of life y'know and, and, her best friends all eat meat so like. It always made sense to her. She never let it get to her. Except when she wondered if that was why she had no friends. Which she doesn't. Didn't. Things are so different now, it's weird.

And even then, which is to say, even now. Right here. With Hyra. She tries to stay quiet. There's nothing else interesting to know. Her life was a loop of wandering the same few kilometers of land, popping in the same dens and warrens and copses, picking the same flowers, finding the best tea leaves, teaching herself about sunshine until she figured out how to bottle it, which she thought was gonna be her Thing but then nobody ever cared so it's just, it's just, just Yue, just the same old, plain old Yue stuck at home following her rules and never doing anything different or worth sharing and that's all there is to her, that's the whole story, if she keeps talking then all that'll happen is that Hyra will realize what a terribly boring person she's decided to love. And she'll leave. They always do.

Her parents left before she ever even knew them. Gran Gran never wanted to talk about what happened to them and got that dusty look in her eye when she tried that made Yue tell her nevermind, it's ok, it doesn't bother her really. And Sis said it was better not knowin' and that Yue was lucky to not remember 'em at all, so why hurt herself diggin' it up? And then Gran Gran left 'cause she was old and eventually it's your time, and that was the saddest day of her life. And then Yue went and got herself all grown up and Sis left too, the only other kind've leaving there is when you pack a bag and say goodbye instead of making weird people burn you and scatter the ashes through the streets. Which she guesses is kinda worse 'cause you always think they might come back, but they never do. Sis went down to the city one last time 'cause she loved it and now she's prob'ly married to some fancy noble, like why wouldn't she be as pretty and amazing as she is and that's all that...

Hm? Her name? Sis' name? Oh, it's uh... um. What was it again? Xiu! Yeah, Sis' name is Xiu. How come she had to think about it so hard? Well it's, like, y'know, she never had to say it. Sis is Sis, and if she said that then everybody knew who she meant. D'you keep old useless names in your head to collect dust just for fun? Just how it is. And actually there's... there's...

What there is is tears. The mystery of Yue, Just Yue, shrinks into a sniffling, blubbering mess who's so greedy she'd throw her arms around her girlfriend without even askin' permission, even after bein' so boring and not even trusting her with the little stories until they got dragged out of her piece by piece 'cause even in love she was so afraid to be a disappointment, had so little clue how people actually work and she's sorry, she's sorry, please tell her it's ok and please just. Please. Please.

...Kisses are nice even when your eyes are leaking and you keep hiccupping in the middle of them. And when a girl can kiss you mid-sniffle and even lick your lips after, with her eyes shining like starlight while she does it? Oh man. Like I was saying, that divorce number's made up. Don't even worry about it.

The rest spills out of her in the middle of tears. Did you know, she had no idea it was called 'manga' until... well until she heard Princess Jessic, actually? They were 'the stories' all her life. And there were six of 'em, as far as she knew. Her favorite was the one about the traveling sorceress who went around solving people's problems and then charging them silly amounts of money after. She always wondered what it'd be like to have a ton of money, even now when the idea had sorta shriveled to be like what never havin' to haggle in a market and always gettin' what you want must feel like. It'd be neat if she had all the fancy things in life like a phone and... no of course she doesn't have a phone, where would she have found one of those? Didn't even know they were a thing until she saw Chen's, and that made her head start spinnin' and it's all just... w-well anyway, animals don't care how fancy your stuff is, they only care if you smell nice and if you brought treats. So it's... well, it doesn't really matter, does it?

You could fill a book with all the stuff in the world she doesn't know about. And another ten with the stuff she does, but doesn't know is real. She can only sleep curled up on her right side. Yes, that's why she has to be the little spoon. No, she doesn't know what that means. Does it? Oh. Goshies. She always steeps her tea ten minutes longer than she should, even when the manual Sis brought home for her said that meant you'd be eaten by cave trolls for your crimes (by the way, this is why she's never gone inside a cave for any reason since she was seven years old). She's never seen the Lion King. She didn't know that lions could be kings. She knows parts of one hundred and five songs, but can't sing along to all of any of them. She makes all of her cookies with spice, almost, because when something's sweet but also burns her tongue it makes her toes curl up all happy-like. Also, she curls her toes when she's happy, is that weird?

She doesn't know. There's a whole world she doesn't know, because her whole world was a village with a handful of anime nights, some manga she didn't know were called that, and a tiny sphere of places by the river but not so close as to be dangerous where she could ask the local animals how their days were going and what they knew about the outside world. And that's all. It's that and what Sis taught her for 'school'. There's probably more for her to tell, but she doesn't know what it is just yet. She'll have to find it out herself and then tell it later. She thinks about her little house a lot, by the way. She hopes nobody's mad at her for breaking the rule as badly as she has.

She'd like to go back and see, if she's being honest. But she knows that if she does, the adventure will be over. Just getting the one was hard enough, if she gives it up she'll never see another. And she has so much left to do. She's gotta help Chen and Rose, and she's gotta go see your home, Hyra, and all of the places that are special to you, and she's gotta see the city, and she's gotta... she's gotta.

She's sorry. She's sorry, y'know? She doesn't actually know how to talk about stuff and not have it turn into a whole thing. She's just got so little practice.

This little group had traveled together before, but when everybody is dating it's just different, you know? So many stories spend all their time just teasing and showing missed opportunities. Chen would know, she'd just watched a bunch of anime that hadn't been willing to show a full on kiss even though the characters were perfect for each other. But, there's something special about being together when everyone knows you're together.

It's the little things. It's the way that Hyra puts her hand possessively around Yue's waist when they're standing and looking over the hill they just hiked up in the late afternoon to look at the terraced lake. It's the way that Chen plays with one of Rose's curls that falls into her face as they stare at the sunset, absent-mindedly twirling it around her finger because it's there for her. It's the way that Rose holds out her arm and lets Chen snuggle into the space by her side and rest her head with the hair draping over that arm like it's the safest place in the world.

These things are the magic of being in love, the magic of happily ever after even if it's not actually ever after yet. And it's an infectious kind of magic. See how Chen and Rose grin when they catch Yue and Hyra sneaking a kiss? It's like being in on the joke. Look at the way Hyra and Yue's eyes sparkle and their cheeks rise in laughter when Rose sweeps Chen off her feet entirely and puts her on her shoulder to get a better view of the sunset and then insists on keeping her on the shoulder all the way back down the hill.

When they get down and go for dinner at the only little inn at the nearby town, they smile and lean in close to each other. They get to enjoy a gentle fire and the manic contrast of the inn's small radio, playing some old world CDs with high energy girl group music that doesn't seem appropriate for a relaxing dinner after a hike. But it also must be the only songs the place has or that can be found for miles and so they have a special quaintness to them. They get to try each other's food and share a special custard that's the innkeeper's custom recipe that she won't give out no matter how much Chen begs to be able to take it back to the kitchens of Ys.

For a little while on a date like this, everybody gets to be free. To be more themselves than maybe they've ever had the chance to be, and to not have to worry about what anyone else thinks at all. It's even all the sweeter for knowing that there's more to do after it as they hold the whole of the world at bay to make time for each other.

There’s nothing quite like the water on the hot rocks. The steam, the pleasant hiss, the warmth given to the whole room: what could be better than that?

Rose’s skin is… smoother, now. Not as rough, now that she’s found someone she wants to touch her. But when Chen rubs one hand along her shoulder, her fingers still feel the slight roughness, the quiet reminder that her girlfriend isn’t human. Her hair’s a little more natural, less obviously moss, but the flowers still bloom in her locks. She is still tall, still strong, but now she feels confident enough to not present herself as a warrior of warriors. Confident that she’s not faking. That she can be this, and not a weapon. That if Yue, unthinkably, tried to control her… well, Chen wouldn’t let that happen.

As long as Chen’s by her side, she can ignore the Way. She sits in Chen’s grasp and feels pretty in a way that doesn’t require her to be small or effortlessly domineering, and she lets herself just relax, not thinking about all the problems she could be solving, should be solving right now. Not thinking about them at all. About the great responsibility given to those with great power. She’s too busy. Because she’s watching her friends.

Hyra lounges like a wolf; she takes up space in a way that Rose finds very familiar. She doesn’t do it just to make a point, though. Rather, it’s that she can relax when she’s with Yue, in a way that is intensely relatable. But she still sits between the lovers and her Yue. No funny business, not from a princess or her, her rosepetal. No teasing Yue or making her suddenly self-conscious!

Because Yue is so incredibly unconscious. Her nakedness is only and simply that, and when she sinks down low into the water and lets her brown curls surround her like a halo, like a sun and its rays, it’s with the air of someone who really, really enjoys a hot bath. Her smile! It’s effortless, practically spilling off her face. Her laugh! Endearingly dorky, particularly when you consider that it belongs to a very special heroine indeed. If anyone could be trusted with carrying around the fortune of the Burrows in her head, it would be her, and best not to tell her; she’d just worry, the poor thing. The longer she goes without finding out, the more peace there’ll be in the world, and more importantly, the more peace there’ll be in her heart.

Yue submerges beneath the water for a moment, only her eyes visible, like the great whale who swims in the depths of the Terrace Lakes, and then— fssst! Out the water sprays from her mouth, shooting like a jet at Chen, who squeaks and tries to hide behind Rose. (Rose finds herself trying to catch the water, to be a good… a g-good handmaid. A thing she’s never gotten the chance to be before. How do you know whether you’re doing it right if you’ve never had the chance to practice?)

Chen. Chen, who snuggles up to her Rose, who doesn’t leer but who isn’t ashamed of herself, either. (Why should she be? She’s had her whole life to get comfortable in one body. Of course she’s not worrying about whether she got it right.) Chen, with her beautiful laugh. Chen, young and vital and full to bursting with energy. (They’d be close, with Rose not too much her elder, if she could pretend the long sleep of centuries didn’t count at all. Surely years spent in dark and dreamless sleep didn’t count? She wasn’t robbing the cradle, right?) Chen, still childish enough to splash Yue back with her feet, and then to command: “Rose, get her!”

For a moment, Rose freezes up. Just for a moment. Long enough for Chen to look at her, and then look at her again. Then Rose breathes out, intentionally, trying to say without saying anything that she’ll be okay. You didn’t mean it, and— besides, watch this!

Her hand skims the surface of the water at a precise angle, and from it erupts a great spray. Yue, with a delighted shriek, ducks underneath the surface of the water, which means that it ends up hitting Hyra with a full blast and an undignified yelp.

And the rest of the spray hits the coals and becomes a great, relaxing cloud of steam.

***

“Yue,” she says, as they walk back to the bed-and-breakfast in the long, beautiful twilight, right in the middle of the road, and to their left a crumbling old wall barely at thigh height, and beyond it rolling half-wild fruit orchards, which will provide their breakfast. She doesn’t quite stick it, and she coughs to give herself an excuse for the upwards inflection she thought she’d try. “Yue,” she says, in a more reliable voice. “It would be very silly if a handmaiden was looking out for you without being assigned the task,” she explains. “I told you that I was going to look out for you. Protect you from the Princesses, from Qiu and Chen and Yin. But…” She spares a glance for Hyra, who’s part of why she’s saying this. But then her attention returns to Yue, and she gives her the most sincere smile she can find, only drawing a little from old (bad) memories for what that should look like.

“You don’t need me to protect you any more,” she says. “Not the Wolf of the Sky Castle. Not the same Yue who proved her worth in the arena. Not the same Yue who helped save Princess Chen and I. If I insisted on looking out for you now, I’d just step on your toes.” She’s too self-conscious to try to laugh in a more Rose way, and one of Rose from the River’s condescending, fond chuckles wouldn’t work. So she just adds: “Please, accept my resignation as your guardian.”

And she takes a moment to curtsey, hoping that the next time Yue needs confidence in herself, she’ll remember Rose telling her that she doesn’t need protection (from her) anymore.

***

This is the most self-conscious she’s ever been in an outfit. Ever.

When she was the HUNTER-Class 猎犬, clothing was something that it created out of its own flesh. Part of a disguise. Learn what people wear, what will give it away: what brands are appropriate for what social class, what modifications are usually made after purchase, how much plausible deniability it had in baring skin (and how important a flash of bare stomach might be while stretching) to arouse and thus distract a target. Nobody thinks with a clear head when they’re controlled by lust. (Not even her, she treacherously thinks.)

Then when she was First of the Radiants, he dressed to Princess Yin’s standards. Tight, constricting, monochrome suits. Gloves, ties, breastplates. Layer on layer on layer until he might as well have been trapped in the Coffin again. Faced with the most petty choices in what was appropriate for a gentleman of his station to wear: which precise combination of jacket and shoes, tie and cufflinks, scabbard and greaves? Variations on a cloying theme.

Then, the Briar Pilgrim, dressed to announce her new femininity in the most deniable of ways. A bared midriff, bare feet, all concessions to simplicity, surely. Dark, muted hues, because if she dressed to attract attention she’d have to admit that she wanted attention. Attention it wasn’t safe for a monster like her to want. Attention that would entice others to ask her to stay, to break her promise to the Way, to be bad. Or, worse, if she tried to dress like that, what if others told her she was trying too hard?

Trying too hard.

That’s why she doesn’t look Chen in the eye when she comes out of the booth. Because she chose every part of the outfit. She can’t hide behind Keron this time. She’s the one who picked out the pink, baggy trousers, reminiscent of the much more translucent pair she wore on the Sky Castle, with her sword hiding in plain sight as a Rose-sized flute on the belt; she’s the one who picked out the top with the faux rose gold beading, the one that shows off her cleavage and leaves her toned stomach on display, and she can’t hide behind practicality and lightweightness as an excuse, not with the way it jingles with every sway. No, she picked this out, just like she picked out the shoulderless sleeves hugging her biceps, the ones going down to a ring on either middle finger, just like she picked out the earrings (no monk-prizes these, cheap hoops for a girl relying on her girlfriend’s credit), just like she picked out the flat-heeled sandals. Just like she picked out the veil.

The one she’s trying to hide, too shy to wear. Because it would be trying too much. Because it would make Chen frown and ask her what she’s doing, dressing up like that, like she’s a real Ysian. Are you that desperate to be someone’s girlfriend, Rose? Go back and—

“Kneel,” Chen says.

A shiver runs through Rose as she, with surprising awkwardness, gets down on her knees, and her flute-sword raps once against the floor. Yue’s talking to the owner of the shop, nobody’s paying attention, it’s just her and Chen, why does she want somebody to look at her following orders as much as she’s mortified by it? Because maybe they’d approve. Because maybe it’s allowed and it’s been allowed the whole time.

“Let me see what you have there, rosebud~” Rose tries to find someplace that’s safe to look as she hands the silly, exciting pink thing over. You were going to put it back. Just say you were going to put it back! If you’ve left the Way behind like a selfish girl, you might as well go all the way and start getting used to—

It’s so soft on her face.

It’s so soft, the way Chen touches her.

“There we go,” Chen says, guiding Rose’s face up to look at her, and Rose blinks, and blinks again, not really understanding why she’s tearing up.

Chen leans forward on her tiptoes and kisses her rosebud on the head. “Yeah, there we go,” she says, and it’s so kind that Rose can’t stand it. “That’s the perfect look for my Rose.”

And then Yue does look over and notice, but that’s just because of the noise Chen made when Rose picked her up to hold her so, so close, and she’s got her face buried in Chen’s shoulder, so she’s got time to compose herself before she shows herself off again and practices wearing things that make her happy.

The roads to Ys are jammed with traffic.

It's the migration of tourists, people from every corner of the Nine Kingdoms, bumper to bumper in places. The rains have been heavy this year and parts of the road are flooded or muddy, and the convoy grinds to a halt as people get out of their cars to help push. You're in the middle of all the people in the world, united by the common trials of travel.

There upon the rooftop of his car sits a grinning man in a hideous black and white hawaiian shirt and mirrorshades, huge map spilling over the side of his knees. The car is driven by a tall, slender and nervous man with scales of blue and the kimono of a high lord. Past them walks an ancient giant, ten feet tall even in his hunch with a flowing white beard that drapes along the floor. He sets his shoulder alongside two women in lab coats pushing the car - one young, fierce, with violet hair and one old, wily, in black - and puts his shoulder into the work. From the interior of the car a man with a chiseled politician's smile and red-and-white prize ribbon on his shirt leans out to give them a grin and thumbs up. In the passenger seat, the lady in the silver suit meditates with her eyes closed.

An angel flies overhead, armour of gold and a cascade of gemstones, holding a strange green rabbit in his arms. A tired looking man in a black vest sits side by side with a glowing suit of Burrower armour, skipping stones across the floodwater. Before their stones lose their momentum they're shot from the air and disintegrated into flashes of steam by the laser sniper rifle of the blonde woman who kneels on the distant hill. A beautiful captain, uniform blue and braid against ebony skin, rubs his bald palette awkwardly as his compliment to the elegant blue-suited woman in a gas mask falls flat. A duelist in white leather tosses a dagger back and forth to an enormous woman in a fur cloak and crimson flame hairpiece. In the distance, down the line of cars, comes the sound of music from a band of squidlike monsters. An engineer in crystal works on laying the structure for a bridge as a man in a brown suit takes measurements and provides suggestions. A queen with a half her face hidden behind terrible scar tissue chats with a young soldier with a skull mask and a teenager with eyes of murder. The sky is thick with flight - a woman in red with the wings of a phoenix, a boy with the wings of an insect, winged horses in purple, in yellow, in white. Bears in armour haul wagons filled with kobolds in the colours of the rainbow, gazing in awe at everything they see and reporting hurriedly back to a wolf in gold. All these characters and thousands besides, all on the road to Ys.

They are going because of the war, of course. This is the greatest show on earth - Princess Qiu against the combined forces of Princess Ysel, Princess Yin and Princess Jezara. This will be a contest of armies and technique the likes of which the realms rarely see. And so comes this crowd, the splendour of their lives and stories distant but inspirational, to see what new marvels will bless the Nine Kingdoms.

You drive through a crowd of ex-champions and forgotten legends. You wait in line with them and share their stories for a moment.

When it comes time for your own story to end you know that you'll be welcome into these exalted ranks. But until then, they're all cheering for you.

She'd like to know everybody's stories, please! She'd never in her wildest dreams guessed there'd be so many to hear! Was she really the only one who sat around... ok well no, but was her village really the only one in the whole entire world that was as sleepy as she thought it was? Goshies.

There's a young swordsman kneeling by the side of the road sipping a cup of tea, and she'd like to ask him if it means anything that his hair is so long and silky. She'd also like to ask him if it means anything that he's carrying... what is that, six swords? But he, if you can believe it, asks for her story. And after that she's already holding up her friends, traffic jam or no. So she never finds out. It probably would've been rude to ask, anyway.

There's a woman sitting on the hood of a convertible with her legs tucked into her chest who somehow looks like she's drowning out here on the road to Ys, or she... already drowned, or just got back from drowning or, y'know, something kinda like that. She's got seaweed in her hair and damp, clumpy robes and a, like, 10,000 meter stare or something, 'cause wowzers. Goshies. And Yue'd really like to ask, among other things, if she's ok and would she like a blanket and how is she dripping wet all the way out here?! But she opens her mouth to start asking things and the woman starts up and, well actually? She doesn't say anything at all. But Yue feels the strangest pressure in the back of her head that she's gotta tell her story again, so she does and then she's out of time again.

And, uh, lemme stop you here for a second, 'cause I'm sure you see where this is goin'. There's a lot of people on the road, and all of 'em have time to hear about Yue, or leastwise most of 'em do. But not a floofleheckin' one of 'em's got even half a minute to talk about themselves. This ain't their time, see? Maybe if Yue was a wandering historian things'd be different. This'd be a golden moment in the land of anthr... uh. Anthropomommy... um? Boring people history stuff. But she's not, is she? She's Yue, the wandering swordswoman. The Wolf of the Sky Castle. This is her story, her and her friends'. These lot're all, uh, whaddyacallem... camelos! Nice. Take that, literacy courses!

So let's skip the part where Yue walks away from everyone just a pinch disappointed. We don't got all day, so let's just go over a few of the sights and get back to bein' stuck, mmkay? Yeah.

She sees an angel with feathery wings that shine in the sun and metal skin that shines even brighter, arm wrestling a child dressed half in animal pelts and half in some high-fashion military uniform whatsit. The angel loses four times before she loses her temper and kicks up a storm of dust so thick she's never seen again by anyone (who's in this story). She sees a priestess in the whole getup playing Wolf Go with a titanic white wolf in snazzy leather armor. It's hard to tell from a distance, but she looks like she's even better at the game than Cyanis! I mean, she's fully dressed and they must've been stuck here for who knows how long. But then again, the way that big ol' wolf is smirking (wait what how) at her... maybe not.

A pretty girl with a guitar and purple highlights in her hair leans against the shady side of a rock and plays folk rock for anybody with time to stop and listen. A smaller, scarier, darker-dressed girl sneers at her and drowns her out with waves of heavy metal. A cosplayer in straight-out-of-anime schoolgirl clothes duels a leather-clad biker chick pool cue to naginata for the right to be named Sasha. A knight in full, heavy looking armor with a crippled left arm plays cards with an endless line of would-be challengers. Every one of them walks away handing something shiny and valuable looking to the woman with the ridiculous neck ruff standing behind her, who smells like she's made of cologne.

Overhead and impossibly loud, a figure in black goes screaming by hooked up to some kind of Burrower tech and what I hope to gosh are homemade wings. An elven woman with hair dyed in every color of the rainbow and so many guns strapped to her person it makes the six-swords question from earlier seem quaint watched the black streak blow by, and laughs so hard she drops to the ground. Another woman (gosh there are a lot of women here, isn't that weird) hangs out the window of a car looking like she's about to lose a long fight with the hangover fairy. The tan driver smiles and gives her a little kiss on the back of the neck, for... luck.

There are heroes and villains and kisses and cuddles and a dozen things besides, and to make it past them all, Yue need to tell the story of how she, of all possible people, got here so many times that she loses her voice in the process. But even that sacrifice's got its blessings, because there's a detail in that story that's missing that she hadn't paid enough attention to before now. How could she have let this happened? She almost ruined the whole trip!

With a blush and a smile on her face, Yue sneaks up on Rose. She draws her sword with all the skill and poise these weeks of practice will let her have, and... taps it playfully against the side of the Conciliatory Ice-Star, uh, Flute. Upon her shoulder, and adorable and pretty princess forest fox yips like she's trying to take over for her mistress' missing voice. And if I say so myself she does an amazing job of it.

Hey. Hey Rose. Rosie. Hey. Hey. Hey. Rose. Rose. Rosalyn. Can I call you Rosalyn? Can I... no. Ok. Hey. Hey. But, hey! We should duel. C'mon! Just for fun, just to learn, just to see! You're the only one, y'know? The only friend that Yue's got who she's never had a match with. We gotta fix it. We gotta fix it, Rosie! Rose~~! Whaddya say, Rose? With all these people watching? A thousand faces from a thousand stories are waiting to see what we new girls can do when we dance! C'mon! C'mon c'mon c'mon, you won't break her, it's ok! Not you! Not her! She promises, she's not being greedy! She promises, she doesn't need to win! She promises, which is to say she promised, you'd share your stories together! So c'mon! C'mon Rose! Rose! Yip! Arf arf yip!

A temporarily muted cutie swordswoman smiles with a look that's halfway between saying sorry and begging. Maybe she doesn't need a guardian. But she'd love a teacher, even if it's just for one lesson. And there's no better place to learn, than on a stopped-dead road with an audience beyond description. Y'know?

When Yue challenges Rose, the new handmaiden is coming back from cards at Rahn’s place, which is to say, she’s coming back from that great big cat with the windows in the sides, almost like some sort of bus. It’s warm inside (like you’d expect), and the black rabbits vet everyone who tries to climb in for their Burrow bonafides. You gotta be somebody to get into Rahn’s— a leftover, an archeologist, a collector, a rube, or eye candy, because Rahn’s not just a Burrows demon, she’s also a disaster lesbian. When Rose tried to sneak in this time, Rahn hopped up on the sales counter on one side of the long damp room and wolf-whistled and applauded until everybody’s attention was on the pretty little handmaiden who just came in.

Of course, some of them just took it as Rahn being Rahn. She’s got a few screws loose; the treatments she took for the contamination in her blood, leftovers from cut corners in her production, were intense. You have to be patient with her, whether she’s in a high manic mood right now or in one of her sullen fits, gnawing her blackened fingernails down to the quick. That’s one of the unspoken rules of Rahn’s. Follow it or the rabbits will fucking get you.

So that’s why some of the guests here to look through Rahn’s antiques turned back to their business pretty quick: an architect in a pretty nice suit discussing tech with one of Jezara’s salukis, also in a pretty nice suit, with the hulking demon serving as one of their bodyguards playing with the bat on his shoulder; the bitter old man talking about his hunting and trapping during the first winters as he turns a 3D model of a tree over in his hands, and the black-eyed man listening with complete, vast and unearned gentleness; the brawny man with a massive hammer on his back, discussing repairs with a half-horse engineer and an imposing eagle-woman in a suit of High Burrows armor. They had their own business to attend to, after all. And a good thing, too. When Rose met those black eyes for a fleeting moment, she took them for a lightless planet, and shivered, knowing she wasn’t the most powerful being in the room.

That’s Rahn’s for you. It’s the kind of place where you can find peers if you’re a leftover super-soldier or a sword saint or an attempt to make a god.

She ends up at the card tables on the other side of the room, looking for approval from one of the regulars. One of the few people in the world she’s jealous of. And when The Duke saw her, they (no, leaning he today) gave her one of those dazzling smiles and told her to take a seat. And when she did, he asked her with mock seriousness to blow on his cards for good luck, those vivid green cat’s-eyes dancing (not literally, you have to specify with him) as he reached one hand around and gave one thigh a flattering squeeze that made Rose feel pretty and silly and enviable.

That’s not the only reason she’s jealous, the way that The Duke seems to effortlessly know what someone needs to be validated and encouraged. There’s also the way that his shapeshifting is a lot more sophisticated than hers; when he wants to lean female, she just flows. She can try out new bodies and styles like she’s trying on clothes, and that’s before she turns into technicolor canines or almost-perfect copies of people, keeping the eyes as a deliberate affectation. And there’s also the way that he shrugs off everybody’s expectations of what a Burrow relic should do with their life, and the smile that makes even Rose’s heart skip a beat, and the way he seems to know everybody who’s anybody. Even monsters have their role models.

“So who’s the lucky girl?” He asked, and everybody got to see Rose from the River, the Thorn Pilgrim, squirm and stammer and smile helplessly as he laid down his cards. And hardly anybody minded that he’d bluffed them out on two pair, not when Rose was playing with her hair and trying to explain, see, there’s this princess…

There even was a princess at the table! At least, a self-claimed princess: Rahnya (no relation), from a city without a name, far away, that had something to do with tigers. Very nice girl, somewhat sleepy. And there’s a warden-witch, too nice to hate, her blonde curls getting everywhere; and there’s Fayruz, wait, no, Dr. Fayruz now, she got her medical license recognized in Pasalkhen and she’s headed to Ys just in case someone needs the best damn medical care in the Nine Kingdoms (anything up to and including death’s door); and there’s Nova, who works for Kikil now, looking good with her shock of blue hair standing out against the Tesla jumpsuit; and even Sainbec, shirtless and more cat than ever, betting some of his outrageously gaudy rings against The Duke’s stake.

But that’s not what Rose is always going to remember from visiting Rahn’s again. No, it’s The Duke off-handedly mentioning that he always knew. And Rose asked: that I’d lose to a princess? And she let her hair down loose, all silver-and-black, and filled out her silver-and-black vest, and gave Rose a ladykiller of a look, and smiled: not the gaudy smile, not the completely self-assured smile, not the we-can-figure-this-out-without-resorting-to-violence smile, but the kindest, gentlest smile she had on tap.

“You know what I mean,” she said, and then touched her cards to Rose’s veil in a way that made her brain overheat. That’s The Duke for you. She could run her own kingdom if she was into that these days. But it’d be impossible to extricate the part of her that didn’t want that responsibility and still have The Duke, so here she is, playing hands in Rahn’s.

Which is why, when she’s ambushed on her way back, almost floating on air, her first reaction to being challenged to a duel is an unreasonable spike of fear. What if Yue is insulted that Rose won’t go all out? But what if Rose does go all out, in front of a crowd, no less, and then everybody knows about Princess Chen’s amazing swordwoman bodyguard who probably needs to be encouraged to work for them by putting Chen in peril? What if she’s too strong for this to last? What if, what if, what if? Does she even deserve to use this sword?

But that plea in Yue’s face is too precious, too earnest, to refuse. “All right,” she says, with a curtsey. “I am happy to serve,” she adds, with another little thrill. Then, to Katherine Isabella Fluffybiscuits, she bows and asks: “what are the rules?” Because if she has rules, she can stay within them. If she has rules, then she can be an ordinary sort of swordswoman, maybe even a cute one. If she’s allowed to be just an exceptional handmaiden, oh, wouldn’t that be wonderful? Not a weapon that any of these travelers would kill to possess, but just the best Rose that Chen could ask for?

Besides, everyone knows that foxes give out reasonable rules and requests. Everybody. No further questions about Rose and foxes are allowed at this time! None!!

She flicks her wrist in that special way— still got it!— and the sword becomes—

It’s a scimitar. A very Ysian scimitar. With a snowflake-patterned guard, and thorns worked up and down the blade. A sword for Chen’s Rose. Behind her veil, Rose bites her lip and lets out the tiniest squeak over how her own sword has betrayed her. How dare you, moon sword? This is a completely unjustified betrayal, and now she’s going to have to change her style completely!!

It’s an odd experience for Chen coming into all this. She’s spent a lot of her life moving in the top Princess circles, shown off by her parents when she was younger, the hope of the Princess Alliance against Qiu, a point of dispute when Hestia and Ysel split up, and now having been completely missing for a season (though she assumed the sky castle must have sent some word to broadcast their victory and it was possible that Jessic, Keon, and Qiu had even worked together on letting her stay there with no grief considering how everything had gone down).

But now she’s reappearing with a new handmaiden and a highly unusual entourage. She had thought that perhaps people wouldn’t recognize her. After all, aside from her frillier maid outfits (which to be crystal clear, she is not wearing right now) she isn’t particularly strong or memorable in her choice of dress. She’s a short little princess who dresses in cute and sometimes bold colors and styles that change depending on where she’s staying. She hasn’t even worn her distinctive long scarf in months! That isn’t to say she was against looking pretty (and she certainly enjoyed special clothes quite a lot) but just that her personal style wasn’t especially unique and she’d always aimed to stand out for her skills and her movements more than her looks.

But, people do recognize her! Maybe it’s because word spread of their group exploits at the Sky Castle and the duel with Keron and Jessic? Or their confrontation with Qiu even if it wasn’t a winning one? Or maybe they just know her better than she had realized. Or maybe…

“Um…i-is it true that your new handmaiden picks you up and carries your around on her shoulders all the time?” Asked a brave girl who had stepped forward despite the timidity in her voice and who seemed to have a glow of iron about her? And Chen had to nod and blush in front of several onlookers gathered around an old-fashioned covered wooden wagon because of course that was something Rose had done in every town they’d entered since coming down from the Sky Castle. In fact, she’d made quite the point of parading her Princess about for all to see. A gentleman wearing an old-fashioned style suit with the most silly accent chimed in that he’d heard it too, and suddenly there was a small crowd surrounding Chen as she sat on the end of the wagon all coming up and asking her all about her new handmaid and what they did together, and what different ways Chen liked being carried around! She really couldn’t do anything but squirm in place on her perch, blushing and nodding, as the crowd was having the best of times speculating how she’d found the new handmaiden with a relationship like this.

It was about when the crowd was on their third round of ideas, this one being that Rose had been assigned by Keron as Chen’s minder to kidnap her again if she ever spoke ill of the Sky Castle, that a few different voices started coming up. One tall woman with blue skin and long white hair falling over a spear strapped to her back walked up near Chen and put a gentle hand on her leg as she asked quietly: “I heard you actually fought Qiu once and you’re going to try again.” Another woman with a mystical air about her, dressed in a scarlet evening gown like she was ready for a ball came up among the crowd too and stood in front of Chen as she added, “I heard you fought Princess Qiu because she tried to recruit you and you refused.” Another, a young man wearing a suit and a snow leopard print hoodie and tail, stepped in front of them like a barker and added “I heard Princess Chen was supposed to have the winning dance in Qiu’s contest last season, but she revoked it after they fought and she wouldn’t dance with anyone!” He grins a feral grin and turns to give Chen a kiss on the back of her hand as the rumors start spreading through the audience that somehow Chen is taking a stand against Qiu, that there’s going to be a big showdown or a grudge map, or maybe some kind of group fight, or even a boss gauntlet for Qiu to take on to wear her down, with Chen and her new entourage near the end of it.

Chen finds herself the center of attention of the crowd, blushing scarlet in equal parts taking in praise and wishing she could sink into the ground and disappear forever as rumors swirl. At least until Yue, the most beautiful and perfect salvation in girl form to have ever existed, taps Rose’s blade with her own and Rose responds with her own blade leaping out to become a Ysian scimitar (which would also have made Chen blush if she weren’t in it so bad already!) to signal that a duel will be happening.

Which, well, everybody knows that a duel is the most important thing for everybody’s attention to be on compared to anything else. So Chen has the honor and privilege of being allowed to catch her breath and have a little space as the crowd (and Chen!) all turn their attention to Rose and Yue. In fact, helping the rumors not even the slightest, Chen gives a squeak and a little clap of joy when she sees Rose rise to the challenge. This is going to be so good, she’s already got a huge grin on her face and she’s forgetting her embarrassment, mostly. She can’t wait to watch!

[I rolled a 13 on Don’t you Know Who I Am? I’m applying it to several individuals within the group speaking with her, which I hope is okay. I am also, after all this time, invoking the Chosen’s Destiny with Arch-nemesis as Chen’s return and rumors about her are painting her in that role and bringing her destiny closer, probably soon reaching her parents and/or Qiu.]

Well Rose, we know you're good. Better than good, even. You're the best, and you're so strong you're even afraid to show it for some silly reason. Y'know where I come from? If you've got triangles, you wiggle 'em. If you've got a soft, fluffy tumtum you roll over and show it off. If you're fast, you zoomies. And if you're strong? Well I guess I just don't see the problem, Rosie. We established I could call you Rosie, right? Good. 'Cause I'mma gonna.

Anywuzzle! Gettin' sidetracked, where was I goin' with this? Oh right! You're amazingly amazeful you are, so maybe this won't matter to you none but... normally? If you have to ask a fox for the rules, you've already lost. Name a single time a fox has ever lost at anything! Yeah, you can't. Yip yip chormp. But you don't have to worry about that! The rules are super simple, fit for a silly country girl like Yue. The only thing I want you to do, the only rule you need to keep inside that pretty little head of yours is this: keep up. Here, lemme explain.

First of all: survive the First Form, Testing the Waters. Yue's grown as a swordfighter about as fast as willowherb in a sunlit field of topsoil, maybe even a little faster. But she's no Chen, and she's no... well, you. She doesn't insult you with sloppy strokes or wild, stupid footwork. Her stances are lifted straight out've the Demon Swordswoman's teachings, finally understood for what they are, and every thrust of her saber is graceful and fluid as the river that runs by her little home, dunno if you've seen it. She flows from one attack to the next, into defense, and back to attack. But she's slow. She's so slow she looks like she's meditating instead of dueling. She couldn't bop a sleeping housecat on its butt at these speeds. And her smile's brighter than the sun in the sky and her eyes are lit with challenge-glow, but she's keeping her distance, isn't she? You could fit twelve swords, or at least four and a half spears in the space she always backs off into, and sometimes even the space she attacks through. Like she's trying to anticipate a move that isn't coming and just sweep-slash-kick-hops through empty air into a twirl-lift-bow-hop and another grin.

And I'll tell you why it's like this, but that's the rule. Keep up. Don't break the magic, Rosie. Don't worry about being serious enough to keep from insulting her and focus instead on following along. Let her see your new style, and how fast you can turn from blushing and squeaky at your sudden change of style to comfortable in the way it shows your love for your perfect girlfriend. 'Cause she is a perfect girlfriend, isn't she Rosie? Don't forget, I was at every single one of those dates too. I saw. But anywhich. Which is like a sandwich except you can put anyth-- arf!! Sorry. Movin' along. Dance with Yue, please. Let her figure out your range and the power of your moves. Let her see new angles and dances and don't laugh when she tries to incorporate them into her style. She's from the Terraced Lake, ok? She can't help but be like water. So let her take in everything you give her, until she moves into

The Second Form: Hey, Would This Work? Ok, now we're dueling! Suddenly Yue's a lot closer, all up in your business Rosie. Her steps are erratic without bein' clumsy, if that makes any sense. Here she pops off a stool and bounces off of you from above. There she tries to tuck and roll between your feet and smack the side of her blade against your incredible, frosty toned butt with a giggle. Here she lifts a knee all the way up against her petite little chest before she suddenly stumbles forward and thrusts down at your toes to make you dance. Don't let any of it work! That's what it means to keep up with the Second Form. You've gotta be her teacher, Rosie. Show her the counters and the dodges, the holes in her ideas so that the ones she thinks of next are better ones. And more importantly, try to have as much fun comin' up with ways to do that as she is assaultin' you. If you laugh, she wins. But then again, so do you!

Finally, respect the Third Form: I Love You Very Much!. Yue's been slowly accelerating into her true fighting speed all this time. Now she's coming at you full on, sometimes even in flight. She's not tricky about it in quite the way Hyra would be, because she's too focused on making sure her technique is clean enough to make Chen proud, always returning at the end of every stroke to a position that establishes her Sphere of Defense or whatever you sword-and-thumb havin' folks call it. She doesn't dodge the way Chen does, she's more into parrying and sliding along your scimitar in ways that might surprise you, and giggling infectiously at the music your blades make as they kiss over and over. She's unpredictably predictable, you might say. But she fast. It's like I said, if you're fast then you zoomies. And Yue zoomies.

So keep up, Rosie! Don't get so caught up in the old slowness and silliness that you fall behind! You have to show what a good girl... er, handmaiden you are for your Chen, after all! When she speeds up, you do it too. When she flows, you ebb. Show her nothing less than the shape of your heart while you fight, Rosie, and then you'll have followed the rules. Oh, and when you smack her in the middle of a windup and send her skidding across the floor, don't feel bad! Just look at her smile! Listen to her laugh! She's having the time of her life!

"...Ok, that's one point for you! But I, oh hey!" she chirps, "My voice! Well that's just perfect, isn't it?"

Yue hops to her feet as light as a pound of feathers woven into the shape of a pound of rocks and zips across the space you opened up quicker than blinkin'.

"'Cause I've been thinking!"

High slash! She leaps and aims too high, but her momentum carries her around in a circle and as her feet touch down, she pivots all that circle zoomies power into another one at your feet. She grins and watches you rise above it, but that's when she crouches low and drags another circle so that her leg's like a tail that won't get out of your way and you've got no choice but to land in an undignified heap on top of her.

"We're gonna go see Chen's parents, right? Or one of 'em, at least? How're you hopin' that's gonna go? 'Cause I'm like... well I know there's all that war stuff or whatever but I had a dream last night, y'know? And I think I mighta heard wedding bells~"

Now it's your turn! Tell us what kind of phenomenal, earth cracking power the Rosie Pilgrim brings against Yue, the Wolf of the Sky Castle and how she manages to not disintegrate under it. But gee, you were holding back right? Of course you were, sillyhead. There's no way Yue could be managing you for realsies, is there?

"Or! Maybe! You've got other plans? Like I don't... know so much about parents. Or meeting 'em so like, were you wantin' to announce a romantic kidnapping? Have a cozy dinner? You gonna call her 'mom', or is that too silly? I'm just wonderin', have you been thinkin' about it all too? What d'you wanna come out of this?"

She giggles, but it's not mean in the slightest. She loves you, Rosie. She's watched you and admired you, and now you're her family as sure as Sis is. That's why she's fighting you so hard now. Mind you, she's still got her Secret Swords. Those special techniques that come from her life instead of what she's been taught so they're so full of Yue that nobody else could ever master 'em. But she hasn't revealed most any of those, and she won't today either. Those are for fights where winnin's more important than anything else. And, wanna know a secret?

That's actually up to you, Rosie. How this fight ends, I mean. If this is the duel where Yue's blade lifts your chin ever so gentle-like and makes you blush like a maiden while she smirks and gets the ropes to truss you up like a pretty lil' present for your beautiful princess girlfriend, and proves that maybe she's got what it takes to be a princess too, then you'll be the one that picks that ending and tell us all how she managed it. Or! If you want to just play and play and play until her twiggy human body runs out of energy and she's gotta call it so she can get an anywhich and a soda (and find Hyra for a bath after, I bet~), then that's just as valid and wonderful and I know we all wanna hear how your perfect ancient weapon body won by technicality and met all of your secret goals.

OR! Or or or! You can whip her little butt good. You can draw on, like, Iono, fifty percent of your true power? I think that's the expression? You can smash and frighten and embarrass Yue and prove to her that her journey's just beginning and she's a thousand years too young to be tryin' anything with you and that'll be somethin' special too, 'cause then you'll see the way she doesn't break at all, and how she'll laugh and pop back off the ground to tell you thank you and good fight and how much fun she had, what a wonderful duelist you really are. That's a possible future too. Go ahead and learn that the monster's got a place to call home, and she doesn't have to hide herself one bit. Yue's used to chormps from very dangerous creatures, I promise you.

But pick your future. Pick the end of this little duel, Rosie. What's the path that'll make you feel loved? What dream for the future are we planting the seeds for today? The world waits with baited breath. Erm. Bated. I-i-it doesn't smell a thing like bait, who told you!?

[Figure Out: 2, 5: 7 Yue's asked her questions, plus her Truth of Heart and Blade. ask your question back]

There’s a certain type of story that everyone loves, Yue (and Kat, we can’t forget you). Everybody loves a story about a kind-hearted fool who does impossible things simply because she doesn’t know that they’re impossible. The girl who climbs up the glass mountain blindfolded because she thinks she’s walking home! The girl who spends all night in the haunted Burrow ruins and thinks she’s playing twenty questions with her bestie who’s already been apprehended by site security, and convinces them to let both girls go all on accident! The girl who has tea with the last sun and the moon all unsuspecting and tells them, no, I didn’t drop that silver sword or that gold sword!

The girl who lets out the huntress in Rose’s heart by short-circuiting her brain!

She was doing so well, too, trying to make herself small! Demure, treating every perfect parry and bit of footwork like it’s a quiet bit of handmaidening, like she’s the training robot helping you fence, except you put the thing on Expert by mistake and it’s not letting you get a hit in! Because she’s not just representing herself, no, she’s representing Princess Chen of the North Wind and how well-behaved her handmaiden must be!

But even there she couldn’t help but put an extra challenge in front of herself, because she really is very, very good. She’s been putting extra swish into her parries, trying to make her bracelets and her beads dance, and putting on a little show, because she really is a performer at heart, isn’t she? Even when she was a shapeshifting secret policepuppy, she was all about that moment when she let the disguise fall and got to see everyone react to her reveal. When she was a monk, she tried to turn being a conflicted and zealous monk into a performance, with the Princesses as her antagonists. And when she was Keron’s slave-girl, she turned that into a jaw-dropping performance. Even now, when she is scared of everybody seeing she’s still strong, she wants everybody to be watching her. To reassure her that they care about her. And that’s why your gift of utter flusterment is so valuable, dear Yue-and-Kat!

Because she can’t think about meeting Chen’s parents and hold back!

“We, that is, I,” Rose stammers, and her flourishes become a little more animated, and when she parries a blow she straight-up reverses the energy to send Yue stumbling back with all the power she’d hopped forward with, “I was hoping, she? Because I’ve never actually, Yin, she was, and before that— and besides, she’s known them for her whole life, and it’s not a handmaiden’s place to decide what— but we haven’t—“

Even in that floofy pair of trousers, being caught by one of her legs and sent flying is a hell of a thing. Bounce, bounce, scamper back up, Yue! Rose barely even stops to fret about you, she’s so busy fretting over what Chen’s parents are going to think!

”—I don’t think a lapsed monk is the sort of inconstant person our daughter should be fraternizing with—“
”—the outfit is tacky, what were you thinking, trying to ape our fashions without understanding the cultural context—“
”—and you haven’t been socialized properly, Yin made you into a man and you still haven’t learned how to really be a woman outside of Keron’s training, and that only makes silly girls good for one thing—“
”—you can keep her as a handmaiden and a toy but we really need to talk about arranging a marriage to one of your peers, sweetie—“
”—and, come to think of it, aren’t you a few thousand years too old for our daughter?”

She’s supposed to be swordfighting, so she swordfights (and starts methodically closing off escape avenues with big flourishes and footwork that’s about as dangerous as Hyra’s), but she’s sneaking glances over to Chen in the stands. Was this a mistake? Is she the sort of creature that’s allowed to be liked by mothers? What if she’s too strong? What if she’s too weak? What if she’s too sexual? What if she’s too rustic? What shape do they want her to be?

She sneaks a glance over to Chen, all doe-eyed and hiding her inner turmoil behind that veil she picked out just for herself, and oh, you think that’s the perfect time to go in for a butt smack, don’t even try to hide it. She knows you’re there not in her thinking brain but in her snake brain, and there’s no thinking as she:

1. grabs your wrist
2. sweeps your ankles out from under you
3. sends you down to the ground on your butt
4. falls on you like a wave on the Terraced Lake sweeping over a sandcastle on the shore, but with more butt on your stomach
5. flips you up into the air over her in one fluid movement
6. so she can bring you back down to the ground again and end up on top of you again
7. except this time she’s lying on top of you, all deceptively soft and smooth and big, big like the kind of snakes that swallow lambs whole and then go to sleep for a month to digest
8. with her sword underneath your chin with the sharp edge resting against your throat
9. and she’s heavy and her hips are pinning you against the ground and her veil’s brushing against your chin and you can hear her breathing, so steady, like that wasn’t even a workout for her
10. because she was created a very long time ago to be a creature that hunts silly girls
11. and ties them up and makes it so that they can’t even squeak and have to plead with their eyes
12. as she sends them to jail
13. and it’s really lucky for Cyanis that Chen made Rose let her go, because just imagine being picked up by the arms hemming in your arms with those elbows and knowing that the bondage was a very enjoyable formality for her

And then she wakes up and notices that she brought you from respectable duelist to pinned cutie in about as much time as it takes to fill up Kat’s bowl in the morning, and the embarrassment, the shame at being so big, being so much herself, just radiates off her in waves.

But then the applause starts. And you can feel it, like your hearts are right up next to each other, nuzzled so close. Rose from the River was so big and flashy and showy because she needed to convince everybody to respect her and the way she was trying to be safe for them. She wanted to show off how in control she was through the Way, how she’d definitely made the right choice of philosophies to help her rebound after having her heart break into so many pieces, how her decision to be a girl was just making her stronger but safer than ever. How you only would have to be afraid of her if you were doing things against the Way of All Happiness, and even then she’d really be fighting for your happiness too.

Rose wants to be loved. She wants people to look at her and double-take because she’s so pretty, and she’s embarrassed by wanting it. She wants Chen to lead her around and stand between everyone who might want to turn her into a weapon again, and she wants everybody to watch her and envy Chen for having such a hot and awesome girlfriend. And she wants people to see her swordfight and be delighted, not scared or jealous or scheming about how to make her into something she hated being again.

But she also sees the honest happiness spreading across your face, doesn’t she? And she feels your heart beating hard and fast, too, and she’s listening as hard as she can to what she’s getting from it. Can you tell her? Can you tell her how you feel about her now, and maybe, if you feel like it, when you stopped being afraid of her? Because she doesn’t know how she deserved it, even now.

So she follows the applause and scoops you up, spins you around, squishes you close to her and sashays over to where Chen is sitting, and sure, you’ve got your sword, but the most you could do with it is smack her thigh a little bit, and you can feel her heart racing with excitement, and you did it, Yue! You did it!

“Would you like your present now,” Rose says, showing you off to Chen, “or would you like me to put on more of a show, my— my Princess?” A ripple runs through the crowd, and if she had a tail, you just know that Rose would be wag wag wagging it. “Don’t worry,” she adds, with a little wiggle, “I’ll be sure to package the present for you~”

And when you open your mouth to add something, whoops, no you don’t! Rose’s hand smells good, like the kind of perfume you get from trees, and it’s big and firm and you can hardly get a squeak out through it, probably! Don’t worry about falling, her other arm’s got you around your arms and chest so safely.

“She might make a good present for your mothers, if you want to regift her,” Rose adds, and it’s a joke for the crowd and also a way of letting Chen know how much she’s scared of making a bad impression and she’s probably not serious, actually. After all, then she’d have to fight Hyra! Like a for serious fight! And she probably wouldn’t get anywhere trying to talk Hyra into being packaged up with you, but you can go ahead and think about that anyway! “After all, who wouldn’t want to have the cutest sun farmer from here to the Elevators as a handmaiden? Do you think she’ll look better in furs or as another dancing-girl~?”

[Questions hopefully answered, and another one (or maybe sneakily two) asked in return. Also, that one Yue string gets spent… to add 1 to an Entice, making it a 10, if Yue is at all into this, just maybe.]

Do you know how hard it is sitting and watching a really good duel? It's sooo hard! You've got to have laser focus and you need to manage to stay in your seat even though you're so into it that you're swinging and swaying and gesturing for a move and trying for a parry and thinking about what openings there might be! And if your little butt leaps out of the seat and maybe you swing your arms in a cutting gesture that very nearly takes the wide-brimmed straw sun hat right off the head of the poor traveler sitting next to you as you let out a "woooo!" well, hopefully you can be forgiven because they understand just how hard it is to sit there.

Chen's watching this duel like a hawk. Eyes darting back and forth to the combatants. They're not evenly matched, but they are evenly paired, if that makes sense? Like, if Chen sat down to explain it to you, it's like, this is a duel where it's obvious who's got the sword winning happening, but the conversation of the fight is extremely close, edge of your seat tension. And not just like the words part of the conversation (that too though, Chen tenses when Yue brings up her parents, but of course she does need to think about them). But like, the flow of the fight. It's a conversation about how Yue's coming along, and how Rose wants to present herself, and how Yue pulls Rose into letting herself go, and how Rose shows off those thick, sweaty, gleaming muscles (Chen swoons a little, who wouldn't, come on).

For a minute it's really going Rose's way. You can see her playing with Yue, stringing her along, matching the pace, speeding up the pace, really giving the crowd her show as the powerful and controlled handmaiden. But then, Yue lands the killing blow...emotionally! And Rose is stammering and thinking and you can see how she lets herself go. Chen's watching the moves, watching Rose forget herself and be more free and a part of her brain is thinking about what to call Yue's secret technique as Rose starts stammering and moves with her snake instincts, grace and flow and beauty unleashed for everyone to devour with their eyes (and for Chen to devour later with other body parts). It's so good, it's incredible. Yue's caught and pinned and reduced to meeps and squirms of the best sort and she looks like she's having the best time. And on top of that, the whole time, Chen is thinking to herself what name she might give Yue's secret technique. It needs to be cool, but also Yue style (Yue style, Chen has decided, is two parts sunshine, one part floof, one part frizz, and five parts goofy earnest joy).

So, when Rose makes her big presentation, the first thing out of Chen's mouth is "Secret Technique: Irresistible Emotional Support Giggle Questions!" and then she blushes and giggles herself because that part of her brain was running so far ahead of everything else happening that there was no catching it. Again, being a good spectator is really hard!

She looks down, smooths out her dress, and meets Rose's eyes again. "That's, uh, Yue's technique name, I think. What it should be. As for my offering, well." And here she grins, Yue. The most wicked princess grin you've ever seen out of Chen, who reaches out and up up up on her tipptytoes (despite Rose bowing) to give Rose a good girl pat on the head. "Well, my sweet handmaiden, I think Yue is already spoken for, so I command you to make a present of her to Hyra. I'm confident..." here she only slips slightly as she thinks of her parents, though it's not because of you Rose, don't think that for a second, "I'm confident that word of this duel and the rumors of our plans will be a better gift for my mothers than any present we could offer up to them. But as for this little gift, well she needs to be a proper present, she's not nearly well-prepared enough for presentation to her lady. I'm going to need you to prepare her as...hmm yeah I like your dancing girl suggestion, Petal. Good girl!" and she gives Rose another pat. "Yes, prepare our prize as a proper dancing girl, with wolf accessories given who you're giving her to and then present her as a gift from the Princess Chen and her loyal handmaiden to Hyra of the Wolves to do with as she pleases." And Chen is trying to look just a little imperious, but she's grinning soooo wide. She's just gonna have to own that, the only way she can manage is to lean into her fun.

Good luck you two, she can't wait to see how you end up.

Oh. Uh. Hm. W-well then. Not, erm... yeah not gonna lie, I thought, well, y'know, haha, it was gonna be a little closer than that. Ha. Ehe. Hoho. Ah. Oh dear.

Oh, but don't worry about it, you did everything exactly right, Rosie! It's just, well, goshies I don't even know how to put this. Imagine, me at a loss for words! That's almost, no scratch that, that's ten times more impressive than beating Yue so soundly! But gosh, what to do? I thought this was gonna be a bit of a project for... oh nevermind! Like I said, don't worry about it!

You see it in her eyes, right? Or at least, the eyes she had before you picked her up and clamped your pretty, sweet smelling hand over her face and reduced her to muffled squeaking. Yue's the kind of girl who celebrates every little milestone like it's a victory by itself. If she ever duels you again and coaxes a single extra move in your little finisher combo she'll celebrate like she just won a superb owl. Which I don't... see what's so great about those, but that's the expression right? Oh well. Just saying, a cute fox would be better.

And anyway, she totally... well, I guess it doesn't matter, does it? She's in your hands now, wriggling like a little fishie and just blushing more and more and more the longer she tries to suck air through her fingers. She's so cute when her eyelids start doing that little flutter-flutter thingy, don't you think? I also like the way she squeezes those dainty thighs of hers so tight together when she squirms, as if that'll help her break free any faster. Sorry sweetie, you are s-t-u-c-k! Hey, hey! Can you get her fingers over... yeah, get her behind the ears! Give her a lil' scritchie and see how she likes it! For me? Awww, whoosa good girl, Yue? Whoosa good, good girl! You are, yes it's you~! Heeeeeeeeeeeee, this is the best! How about we get you caught more often, sweetie?

...O-oh, I'm sorry, you had a question didn't you? I dunno, it's a silly question. When did Yue stop being scared of you? I mean it's like... Rosie you goof, when was the last time you looked in a mirror? Were you not paying attention? Yes, you're big and strong and old, but so what? So're the suns. So's a mountain. So's a river. Are those some kinda horrible whatsits that nobody's ever managed to love before? C'mon, sillyhead.

Oh what, you're more like a giant, vicious demon serpent or something? Pssssh, whatever. Yue's got me, but do you think that means all her friends before now were adorable little forest creatures? My girl's hung out with wild dogs the size of hills, she even helped one birth a litter of puppies once! She once had tea with a 350 year old boar. She's been bit and scratched and trampled by deer who didn't care for her jokes, lemme tell you. Some sneaky jerks of berries have poisoned her and turned her insides almost out for like a week. One time she almost lost her arm to a monster fish, and she spent a whole month in bed recovering from broken bones (and a long time after that too I promise you, just... not in bed) when she wound up in a bad disagreement with that thing she'll only call "the Forest God". Is a muscle-girl gonna be a monster too far for her to handle? Puh-leaze.

Here, lemme be less mean about it. You bein' a person does make a lil' more difficult sometimes, after all. But... it's like this, see? Y'know how you did the spooky thing when she tried to share sunlight with you and she got a bit rattled? Well that was your big moment. And ever since then you've been... well, you've been a lotta things, haven't you? You've been protective and teasing, you've been small and clumsy and sweet, you've been big and bashful and beautiful. Graceful and, yeah don't we know it, in looooove~. The most I can say about your scary cred is that you clearly know some sorta secret about my girl that for whatever reason you're keepin' tucked inside your sports bra. As if you need the padding.

So let's compare you to your old partner, howsabout? Sorry to drag history into this, but it's important. Yi...er... princess... oh heck it. Yinny. Now she knows how to be a monster, get me? After sendin' out her own handmaiden to scoop up poor Yue in a whole silly storm of demons, she goes and shows up in Maximum Spook Mode and decides for herself that actually the perfect capture of her target's not good enough 'cause Hyra's maybe a little sweeter on ya girl than on Yinny. Imagine that! So she turns a beautiful, brave, special girl into a wolf just to punish her, tries to turn Yue into a mouse for complainin' about it, and at the end of all of it she's even got the audacity to turn to little Chen and act like she's supposed to be totally on board with the whole thing! Like it's normal! Like oh, your mom said we're working together so obviously everything I'm doing is fine, clearly, look at me and how pretty and strong and spooky I am oh ho ho ho ho.

See the difference? It's not about how strong you are, Rosie. If it was, then Yue'd be hitchhiking back to her tiny little house and locking the door forever at the idea of standing up to Qiu. It's about how you carry all that strength. It's about how you choose to wear it. And you, you brave wonderful amazingly amazeful sweetiebiscuit, turned yourself into a Monk so that princesses'd feel safe around you while you tried to do the stuff that made you feel good. And like, I don't mean to talk smack about The Way or anythin', but when that wasn't cuttin' it either you opened up your heart and let yourself grow until you were soft enough to be somebody's... heeeeeee, "petal". How's Yue, my precious little splash of moonlight, supposed to be afraid of a monster who voluntarily wraps herself in ribbons? No. You don't deserve to have people be scared of you, and we both know it's not what you want. So it's ok, be strong. Be as strong as you want, whenever you want. And be a silly little klutz when that suits you better, too. Around your friends, even if nowhere else, you don't have to worry about hiding who you are. Yue knows: you're a good person.

And you... uh, hey? Hold on, I missed something. Oh I missed something big, why's Yue turning so pink? What'd Chen say, what'd I miss, tell meeeeeeeeeee- oh! Ooh! Where are we going, Rosie? Where are we... oh. Oh gosh. Oh gosh gosh goshies.

S-so. Um. CH-changing the subject a little, s'funny. Um. O-ooh, speaking of changes, you uh... y-yeah. Eeep. Mrrrrp! Y-y-y-you'd think with the bath and all this wouldn't be such a big deal and all, r-right? L-l-like she's, um, sh-shown you everything already right? So why would, why should, wh-why's it suddenly so hard to sit still when you're getting all those clothes out f-for her? Why can't she stop squeaking even through the gag you've packed her mouth with while you get everything ready?

Is it... 'cause she's never had someone else dress her before? Is it 'cause... 'cause she sees how much fun you're havin'? M-maybe it's relief? 'C-cause when you were talkin' bout giving her all gift-like to Chen's moms she was really super squirmy and back-archy wiggly squeak squeak, y'know? Just 'cause she started picturin' Hyra in a matchin' outfit doesn't mean she was... y'know, looking forward to it or anythin', 'cause she... w-w-well. Um.

It's just. Actually it's not a relief at all, is it? 'Cause it's a lot easier. Meeeeeep. A... a lot lot easier to imagine bein' a gift for Hyra. She can't, oohh gosh goshies goshers, she can't stop thinkin' about it. Even before you start sliding 'em up her legs she can't keep her brain from thinking about Hyra's eyes on her flowing, translucent trousers that don't really cover her for beans, do they? And it's like, oh wow she's really never thought about this stuff before has she? How putting her body on display like this but with... l-like, the idea of covering it up makes her look and feel like she's supposed to be looked at? A-a-a-and that's... um. Well. She understands why you're enjoying it so much, Rosie.

She's... oh. Oh she's feeling so warm right now. Flushed and... and... eep! Th-that's a tiny top, she's never worn anything so, mmmf, how are you so gentle? And if you're so gentle how come all the squirming she's doing isn't making her any more free to run away? She's not even, I mean, the ropes are just... draped across her right now to so it's easier to get her ready, she could get out any time she wanted so h-h-h-how come she can't... do more than stretch without your permission? Did you put a spell oh her, Rosie?! I-is that a thing you can do? Or is it, is it, is it is it is it is it... meep!! Oh no no no, does she, is she excited about this? I-is that why she's so, so, why she can't stop thinking about t-tongues and lips and, erm, h-hey where is that tail gooIIIIInnnnggg~~

One present, ready for delivering. Yue, Just Yue, the dancing wolf girl in Ysian silks fit for fluttering while she shows off her hips and letting everyone see her skinny little tummy and her tiny, silly chest and her cute little shoulders and her hair all done up in pigtails and the... wow, Keron taught you a lot about makeup, didn't she? Yue is a treasure. She's a treasure. A darling little jewel. She's a prize that's been won, and presented and... gifted, with silly, fluffy ears on a pretty little handband and a cutie little tail that wags when she wiggles her butt and oh no, oh no, oh no she feels beautiful. What if she never, what if she can't be a swordsmaiden anymore 'cause she can't stop feeling like...

Meep! What are you?! D-don't tie those ropes around th-aaaaahhh! I-i-if you d-d-don't st-stop that she's not gonna, y-you... mmmmf, y-you'll have to carry her to Hyra now, 'cause she can only... um. Rosie? Wh-where'd you get a collar? And a, a, a, a, l-leash?! You're not. You wouldn't. You don't mean to bring her like... on...

W... walkies?!?

The road to Ys lights up in the twilight. Everybody’s got a light: the harsh LEDs of the Burrows, the warm flickering light of a lantern, sunstones in jars, and best of all, the light you only get spilling out of a food truck.

It’s to an okonomiyaki truck that Rose comes, accompanied by little Yue on her leash, and she’s so patient, isn’t she? She walks so slowly so that she doesn’t outpace Yue’s tiny, careful, jingling hops, feet together, fluffy pigtails and even fluffier tail bouncing as she practices her walkies. Well, her hoppies. Besides, it’s not just a cute show for everyone as they pass by in the gossamer light of twilight; it’s good footwork and coordination practice for swordfighting. And besides that, Yue’s got the perfect beanpole body for hopping without bouncing all over the place, like some dancing girls we could name.

So when Rose approaches the food truck, she waits for Yue to catch up and come into the light, so that the chef who’s flipping the patties on her grill with a couple of battered old spatulas, the honorable sidearms of the fry cook, can see how sparkly her eyelids are, how cute the flimsy little veil is going up and down with each hop, and how big the silly bell on her collar is. It’s so big, and round, and shiny, and even if she wasn’t on a leash, there’s no way that she could try to sneak off with stealthy hops wearing a bell like that!

Rose curtsies like she was born to do it, flowing like a wave. Then she playfully tugs on Yue’s leash, and the shepherdess… well, she tries her best, but with her hands all tied up behind her like that, it’s more of an adorable squat and butt wiggle, tail wagging behind her. Rose’s smile is a gentle reassurance that, yes, Yue did good. What a good girl.

“Octopus, please,” Rose says, and the cook (who has big, pudgy, cute arms) sprinkles a bunch of tentacles in the batter and slaps it on the grill, and then looks to Yue with a playful expectance. And Yue, pink, wide-eyed, mumbles into her gag. Rose helpfully steps in to translate: “She wants scritchies. She’s been a very good girl today.”

And the cook flips over a few patties so that she’s got the time to spare, turns the heat to low, and then comes back around to lean over the counter and get her short nails under Yue’s chin. “Good girl,” she says, and her voice is so husky it could pull a bobsled, her accent dredged right out of the mud of the Hante river. “You her owner?”

“This handmaiden,” Rose preens, “is merely bringing a queenly gift from Princess Chen of the Northern Wind, heir to the Crown of Ys, first among sword savants and saints, to the honored wolf-maiden, Hyra, who performed the princess a great service in the Sky Castle of Princess Jessic. This is one of the finest jewels the princess could offer.” Oh, Yue, between the dramatic praise talks and the fingers on the top of your head, you’re over the rainbow, aren’t you? Eyes fluttering and tail wagging and just melting into those ropes.

Now, we could talk about the presentation. About how intense Hyra looks for a moment, seeing her girlfriend all tied up like that, before she sees the wolf ears and the tail; how Rose does this low, low grovel, hands stretched out in front of her and butt up in the air, and treats Hyra like she’s a Countess; how Hyra scoops Yue up in her arms and orders Rose to leave in a growl that runs right through both dancing girls, and how Rose gets Very Controlled in her movements as she walks off.

How Hyra takes her time unwrapping her gift in the backseat of her car; how she makes that bell jingle; how she reassures Yue that nobody’s going to see them as long as Yue holds still, even while she gets down on the floorboards and unties Yue’s legs for spreading. How Hyra makes her pretty precious puppy howl, even though she’s the only one to hear.

But we both know that Yue’s going to treasure the moment she spends with Rose, sitting on the back step of a covered wagon, watching the sunset, as Rose helps Yue take a breather. A bottle of water recycled from an old wine bottle, with a bit of Khen cork that Rose has to pop open; her gag lying damp in her lap and her veil lowered so that she can lean forward and take adorably big bites out of the okonomiyaki, held up to her face on a fork; getting to snuggle up next to Rose and feel safe and cozy and just as pretty as a princess’s girlfriend. And it’s that moment that fills her up and makes her so warm and excited and supported that when she’s presented to Hyra, she’s even able to do her best attempt at sultry, batting her eyes like Rose would even through an industrial-sized blush and excited tail wags.

Because they’re friends now, and friends look out for each other. And you know what, Yue?

Rose is lucky to have a friend like you.

It was a simple fact: If she did not do this, it would not get done.

Princess Qiu stood outside the walls of Ys, gazing upon the Stolen City. An old and incoherent thing, the aesthetic of a collector, a testament to authority that had not been questioned and so did not feel like it had to justify itself. Ideas stacked on top of each other, piling up into the sky, following an artificial and controlling logic. For all its beauty it was a fragile thing, an exhausted thing, an inorganic thing. She felt like she could break it apart with but a flex of her shoulders, and that was a claustrophobic feeling.

She would not even need to do that, though. All she had to do was close her eyes and count.

One...

Princess Yin's Radiant Knights turned on heel and attacked the defenders of Ys. It was a betrayal, swift and mercilessly planned. Knights illuminated by the light of the ghost sun took the gatehouse and flung open the doors of the city.

Two...

The Pyre of Inspiration was there waiting with her demon carnival body. Carried aloft by her lesser selves, including once again the Scales of Meaning, she surges through the gates of the city, tossing aside and capturing the shapeshifters of the Western Plains.

Three...

Qiu's own army approaches the walls. Waves of assault ribbons soar to bind the defenders atop the fortifications, swiftly followed by clattering lines of grappling hooks as her soldiers began to pull their way up to the top.

And open.

Princess Ysel was as close to a hegemon as the Nine Kingdoms got. She had been a conqueror, in her prime. She had been a leader, a trend setter, a speaker of fact and law. And she was old. She was blinkered, chained to old paradigms, old mechanisms of control. And now Princess Qiu would take her and her city without even needing to draw her blade. There was no joy to be found in this. This was just worldbuilding - the setting of the stage, the clearing of the field, the act of ensuring that the conditions would be right.

That was why she'd formed her alliance with Yin, had promised her three shards of her own. Of course the Radiant Princess would spread her reign of fear to all of the lands of Ys and the Western Plains, and of course she would inevitably betray Qiu. She'd steal her shards and drive her out into the wilderness, outnumbered a million to one.

That's what this was all about, in the end - if she couldn't find a worthy opponent she'd create them. Yin was, in the end, really convincing. If you wanted to burn as bright as you could you needed a world of darkness to set yourself against. And if that meant suborning herself to the narrative of someone as toxic and controlling as Yin, well... it's not like anyone else was going to challenge her, right? So it was this, or it was nothing.

She swished her tail once, twice, thinking of a brown haired girl.

*

You stand amidst the crowd on the hill overlooking Ys as Qiu's army attacks. You watch as the white banners of the Radiant Lands raise above the walls, Yin's calligraphy of silver against the black. The battle is in full swing on a hundred different fronts and princesses are soon to make themselves known upon the field. It's the greatest show in the world.

She's been thinking about this moment for a long time, actually. Not a lot at first, there's been a lot of stuff on her mind if you can imagine that. But at least a little every day, ever since that helicopter chase. And a little bit more every day, until by the middle of her little road trip to Ys it was the first thing she thought about in every non-distracted moment of the day.

Guess she should've thought about it more than that. This isn't anything like what she imagined.

This worse than the night with the river demons. At least that was all pointed directly at her, y'know? And this is... not. Everywhere she looks there's something awful going on. Knights and soldiers climbing walls or just plain charging through the gates that were supposed to be stuck shut. She could hear the shouting from all the way over here, and the eerie light hangin' over everything so it was impossible not to think Yin was involved? Not... not great.

There's smoke and chaos and so many swords flashing in so many directions it's hard to tell what's what. And, bein' honest? Yue's a little bit short on stories where, like... war happens. There's a lot of stuff that could be goin' on down there that she just can't picture. And sister, if you want me to fill the gaps in for her you are arfin' up the wrong tree. It doesn't matter anyway. She doesn't need to know, and neither do I, and neither do you.

'Cause she can tell, can't she? What's really goin' on is that there's something what got put here that somebody... honestly really, lots of somebodies loved so much they decided to put it in the world in the first place. And even if it's old and a little weird and hard to make proper sense of, it's still... I mean, do outsiders really feel any different when they stumble across the upper villages at the Terraced Lake? Probably not. But all the same. If somebody came and just decided to... get rid of them, Yue would be in tears. It's her home. Her story started there. And this is Chen's home. Her story might not have started here, but it runs in and out and through it so many times that it hardly matters.

And now someone's got a whole army just to knock it down and take it away. They're gonna erase it and paint somethin' new here and not even care what came through before. Not carin' how anybody else feels about it, just, just... stepping in and saying in a big loud voice that they're the only opinion in the whole world that matters worth a darn! And it's not even just 'someone', that's the thing! It's not even Yin! If it was, that'd be... not ok, not by a long shot, but sorta understandable? But it's Qiu!

Qiu, who did conquer the Terraced Lake and knew better enough not to flip it upside down and turn it into a, like, dragon waterpark or whatever. Qiu, who was grand and terrifying but in a weirdly beautiful and approachable kind of way? Qiu, who understood instantly what it meant to not be offered the first cookie. That Qiu. This was all her fault and how could she, how could she, how could she?

Yue's hands ball into fists, and then they squeeze so tight they seem to turn pale enough to become little moons. She sniffs and snorts and no matter how many times she takes a breath she finds she doesn't have a word for any of it anywhere that she can reach. Nobody ever taught her words nasty enough for the ugly feelings brewing inside her just now. Which is just as well, if she knew what to say she'd only make herself feel bad, and it's super important that she focus.

"I'm..."

She opens her hands again and finds her fingers are trembling. Her sword rattles in her bag, longing for action she can't give it. She's learned so many things and grown so much in this short time, but none of it helps at all in a moment like this. Her heart is born for dueling, and that's where all of her practice went. Someone amazing like Chen is born for one-on-many battles, someone like Rose could spank a mountain if it was being naughty enough, and Hyra... Hyra could do anything she decided needed doing. Not Yue. Just the thought of zipping down among all those bodies and those radiant knights and being surrounded like that makes her heart skip beats and hide somewhere unpleasantly high up her throat.

She's shaking, poor girl. Poor, lovely flower in the breeze, my Yue. Little sliver of moonlight on a choppy lake. And she's burning with shame to feel this way, 'cause this is Chen's home. Her home! And how dare she go and make friends and then turn out to not be any help when the important stuff came down on 'em? She's got one single solitary thing she's good for and she can't even do that 'cause it's Qiu she's gotta do it to! But that's hardly an excuse, y'know?

She sniffles like the bravest of brave girls. Can't be brave if you're not scared. That's just doin' normal stuff. She wipes a tear away from her eye. Can't be strong if you can't cry. 'Cause bein' strong means opening your heart, that it does. And she turns and, outta nowhere, throws her arms around her besties and squeezes 'em together in a hug so tight it makes her bag start yipping for completely unrelated reasons.

"I'm going... gonna go down there and, and um. S-see Qiu. Ok? I. She. I just... there's stuff I've gotta do. Gotta, erm. Please. Um... don't... don't be mad ok? I, I'll see you in a, I mean. I still wanna have the tour and, and the tea and... I, see, see you. Later."

And she's so flustered, our Yue, that it takes her three shaky tries before her hands cooperate enough to get her flight spell working well enough to get her off the ground. Alone, right? She's supposed to do this alone. She floats there for a second, just starin' at her best friends and her girlfriend there beside 'em, with her watery blue eyes shimmering with what I refuse to call anything other than love. That's love, ok? The deep deep deep kind of love that burns forever for the people who showed her that magic was a thing she deserved to get to welcome into her life.

She gives them a smile, and a little wave, and it's... look. Don't laugh at me for sayin' this, but it's the single bravest thing you're gonna see from anybody all day, ok? 'Cause it's the kind of smile an ordinary sillyhead who's maybe halfway through her trainin', who's yet to beat a single one of her friends in a full-on duel, who's the first one to admit she's the least actual talent of any of 'em, who's got no chance in a real fight with the strongest princess in the world but who can't do what she's gotta do without drawing blades, probably maybe I'd bet you, who's clinging to anger that makes her feel icky to get past fear that'd paralyze her if she didn't, the kind of smile only a girl like that can make. And only when she's about to take all've that stuff and throw it out a window, at that. She's got a pretty smile, my Yue, but this one is... makes me wish I was a proper poet. But of course, I studied Cutie Law. So I just, I don't know how to make you see how bright and beautiful it is except by pointin' up at all that other stuff.

I wish I could tell you that Yue zips across the battlefield like a comet and dazzles everyone she speeds past on her way to a destined meeting. But really she floats kinda awkwardly like a dandelion in a breeze, or maybe a speck of foam bouncin' around the edge of a waterfall. She's still shaking, poor girl, and it's not good enough to make it as far as she needs to get safely. Which... actually, hm.

Yue lands, and plants her feet in a wide enough stance that her knees don't have room to knock together. She pulls her sword out of her bag (with just a lil' bit of help) and flourishes maybe a half-twirl too showy before she points it at the sky. But the breeze is warm and kind, and it flutters her gorgeous battle dress about her legs and arms like she was some kind of hero steppin' out of myth.

"My name's Yue!" she cries like very squeaky thunder, "And I'm here to see Princess Qiu and give her a piece of my goshing mind!"

Her heart surges bravely in her adorable chest. At last, she finds her footing, and plants them proudly. No more shaking like a leaf, Yue of the Terraced Lake slides into a battle stance far more terrifying than anything a person who uses a word like 'goshing' should be capable of. Atta girl!

"So if... if anyone's gotta problem with that! Then, then um. G-get in line! 'Cause I haven't learned how to fight more than one person at a time yet!"

The hug comes when Yue is working on the flight spell, hands trembling. It's all the speed Chen has to muster, wrapping herself around her friend and holding her tightly. "You've got this" she whispers up to Yue's ears, and her hands are so warm and soft as they cup Yue's trembling hand until it steadies and she can properly draw her flight runes. "We'll come join you as soon as we can, and then we'll have the best Ysian chai in the whole city." Chen smiles as Yue departs, and even manages a little wave.

It's only when Yue's gone and out of sight that Chen starts pacing the hill, taking in the scene. She's thinking quickly, her steps sharp and agitated. Her eyes dart over the scene, taking it in. She looks at the sunset glow of the radiant knights of Yin betraying Mommy Ysel like it was nothing. Her eyes snap to the menagerie of great cats and wolves and all manner of beasts flung aside by the Pyre of Inspiration in a great demonic parade. Then her gaze falls to the battlements, covered with assault ribbons as soldiers climb up ladders unopposed.

Damn it. Damn it this is her home, those people are her friends! Qiu didn't have to do this! Tears well in her eyes. For the briefest moment, she just wants to throw herself upon Rose and cry until her sweet, wonderful girlfriend takes her away from it all. This was all too much. All the weight of power being thrown around here, the mixing of the old world and the new all under Qiu's banner, all to ruin a bastion against her and, Chen understood at some level after her talks with Jessic, all to force the conflict that Qiu couldn't get for herself. It was awful and unhealthy and it wasn't fair that this had to be Chen's problem!

But then that instant passes. Because...ah, Yue, you're not here to see it and that's a pity. You'll just have to let Rose regale you later. But Chen doesn't give up because that fire of Princesses the world over is burning in her heart. She wants something for herself. She wants to save her family and her friends and push out Qiu and seize her own shard and see her dreams become reality. She's learned a lot about how to do that right, how to do it in a way that doesn't hurt other people the way that Qiu and Yin are doing right now. She doesn't claim to know how to do it all just right, but she knows how to try. And what matters is that the dream, that insistent little voice, is in her and it won't let her leave no matter how big it all seems in the moment.

Before she leaps into action, there's one other little nagging thought. Where was Ysel? Where was her mommy?! Shouldn't she be leaping to the battlements or roaring out from the palace in her tricked out car to slam straight into the pyre of inspiration music blaring? Well, if she wasn't coming, Chen would have to go to her.

Chen blinks back her tears and looks straight at Rose, those sparkling wet eyes earnest and serious, "Keep up, Rosepetal."

Chen draws her sword, metal gleaming in the twilight, and she's off like a flash. She's first falling and then flying as she works spells in motion, the magic of her training and her sword work. On a section of wall, a sudden streak of brilliant light cuts every soldier free of battle ribbons and drops every ladder. And then Chen strikes the battlefield exactly like a dazzling comet. A block of Qiu's soldiers, all standing in formation for their turn at the walls scatters apart in a crack of thunder and Chen is already moving again. A sudden tornado of blades and skirts smashes the radiant knights holding the gates, sending them flying away to land dazed on their backs. Even the Pyre's circus slows as a blazing sword bursts among the lesser demons bringing up the rear of the procession and they break and flee from the main body.

Chen surges past them all, a blur flying through city streets, over low roofs and around old buildings and hodgepodge construction stacked one atop another to whims of a thousand competing architects. She traces a perfect route to the palace, moving among the chaos with a speed and comfort that comes only from long years of familiarity. The grand palace gate, inlaid with desert rubies to catch the glittering reds of the sun so often on the horizon, she blows open before her with a wind from her blade, not stopping her flight nor slowing her speed as she races full tilt for the throne and what's become of her Mommy!

The city is doomed.

That’s the plain and simple of it, laid out for Rose in terms that she can see, even if Chen can’t. Yue definitely doesn’t see the moving pieces here: Yin’s Radiants, shining, glorious, arrayed in their invincible armors, even as their former allies fought desperately to stop them, but it won’t work, First of the Radiants trained them, he did it too well, all for the conditional love of someone who wanted him to be static for her, a stone to lean against, a statue to display. The Pyre of Meaning, burning, burning, and she could fight Scales of Meaning to a standstill but not every one of her sisters, and when she realized Yue was on the field there would be a confrontation and there’s only two ways that goes, and how’s Hyra supposed to keep her safe from that? And Qiu, arrogant, correct, the thought of her smirk sending terror down Rose’s spine, the pitying glance, the “oh. how cute.”

Everything is fallen apart and the Way’s withholding itself from her, she can’t feel it flowing through her, she’s too thick and heavy with love and desire and fear, and what is she supposed to do?

They’ll tie her up and show her the coffin and this time it’ll be worse because back then she didn’t care about anyone they were all pawns or fuel or enemies and she struggled for the sake of freedom but they’ll shut her up and she’ll never ever ever see Chen or Yue or Hyra or Cyanis ever ever ever again stuck in the nightmares again for another eternity—

The Way isn’t here for her. But Chen is. Rosepetal follows because the alternative is falling apart, a helpless little coward on the edge of the battlefield, feeling the walls of the coffin close in all around her. She follows and she turns the fear into a kind of dirty fuel, enough to make her feet strong and her legs powerful for leaps and she doesn’t care how silly she looks being strong while dressed for softness, and her sword is a staff in her hands.

Crack! Crack! Anyone who even tries to come close to the blazing star shooting across the battlefield has something else to think about very quickly, and while she’s not here to put people in the ground she’s only barely holding back. Assault Ribbons are swatted out of the sky, spears held by peasant conscripts are shattered below the heads, and in the center of it Rose moves like the sort of creature she’s trying not to be.

But she has to keep up. She has to be the kind of monster that Chen will value. And so she spins that staff so fast that it hums a warning-song, and every crack is the percussion, every fall a thunderbolt, every rap against the earth enough to shake it.

The Way isn’t here for her. She chose the misery of desire, instead. So all she can do is follow Chen, her heart on a leash, and repay her for every tenderness she offered the Equal Of Crowns.

Stand before her, Pyre! Bar her way, Yin! Try to stop Chen, you hordes! Rose will dance with you instead, buy Chen a sky to fly in, even if it’s a fight that even Rose cannot win. It will be enough to lose slowly enough for her—

And to hope that, maybe this time, when they bury her, Chen won’t stop until she breaks the coffin open with her own dainty, gentle hands. That maybe she’s been good enough that one of her friends won’t let her stay down in the dark to outlive them all. That somebody will care enough for Rosepetal to save her, where they didn’t care to save the HUNTER-Class 猎犬.

Rose!

Rose from the River, you made a deal, didn't you?

Two ninety minute ownership chits in a timeshare arrangement from Will0 WZP, subsoul and technodaemon of the Scales of Meaning. Demons never forget, and three hours can be a long time when it comes to a battle. For whatever fears you had of prison the tightest bindings are not the ones forced upon you but the ones you consent to.

You are called to attend, and as a creature of the ancient world, you must obey.

And so you come before the Secrets of the Stance, the daemonic mistress of battle, no longer muzzled, no longer trussed, with the broken blades of three Handmaidens hanging from her belt already. You come before the Voice of Ballet, ungagged and ascendant, singing the piercing musical tune that causes the Pyre's thousand selfish fragments to remember the selfishness that reigns above all. You come before the Scales of Meaning, she who holds your technological leash in the form of a pocketwatch that counts down your remaining period of servitude.

And so you come before the Pyre of Inspiration, the soul who has decided that life as the Demon Queen of the Underworld is the only way she shall be satisfied.

She is not, of course.

Imagine a bird. A simple thing, driven by instinct, but without karma. But this bird endures a harsh winter and it grows thin and knows hunger. The experience changes the bird, who thereafter hunts even when it is not hungry and chokes down each additional calorie in case it needs it. But the more it eats the more it fears the hunger, the more winters it endures the more it comes to hate them, and the more its life comes to be dominated by this craving. And then, at the end, as it fades, the bird's soul thinks: In this life I was not satisfied. In the next life I shall eat even more.

And so the bird is reborn as a pig. The pig gorges itself and grows fat, but this time it is not satisfied with its surroundings. At the end of its life the pig's soul thinks: In this life I was not satisfied. In the next life I shall live somewhere beautiful. And so the pig is reborn as a mouse, consuming the paper in the bookcases of a grand and ancient library.

In each life, craving compounds. In each life hunger grows. This is what it means to descend the wheel of karma. Ever more complex vices are found, more intricate cravings, and a tighter grasp on the things of the world. Craving leads to gluttony, to excess, to tyranny. The over-built nightmare of the Burrower Kingdoms was an attempt to slake the thirst of those souls who had drunk of every lifetime they could imagine experiencing but whose tongues still felt dry. In the next life, my total market capitalization shall exceed that of my rivals. In the next life people who have never met me shall dream of me. In the next life I will be carve my name on history itself.

After a point reality simply cannot fulfill the craving of a tortured soul - and so the soul leaves reality behind and becomes a demon. Partaking in the impossibilities of the Demon City is not and cannot be enough either, and so there are eight billion demons. A soul passes through becoming eight billion demons like each is a step on the ladder, and it will not stop its descent until it is reborn as the Queen of Hell herself, a creature of such transcendent craving that it must break itself into a thousand hungry shards and engage in vice simultaneously with each of them to have a chance of satiating its hunger.

And of course it isn't enough. It can't be. Material excess, even on the level of the Queen of Hell, cannot satisfy a soul.

And so this is what it is to be on the bottom of the Wheel. And so, even in the Pyre's malevolent joy at being free upon the city of Ys, even with her three mighty sub-souls standing guard around her, even with the mighty HUNTER-Class 猎犬 chained by a ticking clock before her, the Pyre of Meaning is still not satisfied. Her beautiful face is frowning. The Scales of Meaning is distracted. Secrets of the Stance is still snarling, no happier from being free from her restraints.

"You are called to serve," announced the Scales of Meaning, though her voice was tired and there was no joy in it. "You are ours. You are mine."

Chen!

Princess Ysel is not broken. Not even discouraged. Her banner rises up all over the city, red and black against the white. And there, at the gates to the palace, she stands in her full battle radiance. Her onyx armour glitters with curling calligraphy of gold and her cloak scatters against the wind in Roman red. Her face is scarred and smiling as she surveys the chaos that has become of her home.

Ysel is a conqueror. Her legend is patterned after heroes like Iskandir the Great or Caesar; warriors who went to distant lands so that they might bring their ruination home to serve as trophies. Her blade is but a gladius but her weapon is the girls and horses under her command. Her city is breached, her forces are betrayed, and she's happier than you have seen her since she split with Hesha.

And her eyes are fixed on the distant white banners heading down the Parade, the banners of Princess Yin.

"Lieutenant Chen!" her voice bellows out, a storm announcing. "You are to deploy with the cavalry. I hope you remember your riding lessons! Qiu wants a fight? Well today I'll give her one, and you will be my lance. Follow my commands and I will break Yin, break Qiu, and give you a Shard and Kingdom of your own. To your position!"

Yue!

On your adventure, Yue, you have seen the battle techniques of ghosts, wolves, artists, thieves, princesses, foxes and handmaidens. But today you fight the Radiant Knights, the hand trained elite of Princess Yin.

Which is to say that: Of course they form a line. Knightly honour demands nothing less. With precise drill they step into a single file formation, shields to the left, swords raised in salute. Then the first one steps forwards.

This is an opponent wearing heavy armour, and more seriously, a helmet that covers their face. And that's a whole new category of trouble than anything you've found yourself in until now. The armour means that the Knight can slowly walk towards you and ignore your attacks while setting up a powerful blow of their own. The helmet means that you can't see if they're laughing or serious, can't tell if they're distracted or living their best moment. You're up against your first Guard, Yue, and in the wars of Princesses a Guard's role is somewhere between bouncer and backup dancer. You are not fighting someone whose heart is aflame, but you are fighting someone who will knock you on your ass if yours isn't.

But the radiant sunset oranges of the Demon Swordswoman's robe flow around you, and the legendary blade sits firm in your hands. The orchestra is quiet and the actors know their places. It's time for your first soliloquy, and five knights stand in good order waiting for you to set the tone.

Chen is flying full tilt, summing wind against the doors and then suddenly there's Ysel issuing commands like it's nothing. She pulls up suddenly, her momentum too great to stop, so she diverts upwards instead, shooting into the air and stopping herself, coming to rest with a wide puff of her dress and her sword above her in an impromptu but almost elegant defense.

Her frustrated grimace ruins the landing though. "I was coming here to save you, Mommy!" She pauses, tries to take a breath, tries to give herself some focus to an entire jumble of emotions all bubbling and boiling inside her. "I rushed here, leaving my new best friend to go face Qiu, and my new handmaiden somewhere in the city to make sure you were okay! And you were, what sitting in your palace getting everyone lined up for my arrival?"

Chen gestures with her sword at the assembled cavalry. "What are they going to do, exactly, huh mommy? Are you planning a charge down the middle of the city against a demon circus? Are they going to go toe to toe with Yin's knights right up until she turns them all into...into opossums? When was the last time you even saw Qiu? She wants a duel, mommy! She's overthrowing your entire kingdom just to get a good duel! If you throw an army at her, she'll drop them in a...a giant sand pit!"

This was easier than any other reaction. Chen couldn't take it all in otherwise. She'd rushed to the palace, heedless of anything else to protect her family and she finds this? Her mother doesn't even say hello! She doesn't ask about her daughter at all. Her daughter who's been gone for months with no cell reception (she probably got a note from Keron, but still!) who she hadn't even seen for a while before that, who just crashed her way like a meteor from heaven through the city to get here. Not a single comment. No I missed you, no wow, good job, no look how you've grown, not even a moment to hug her and have some kind of actual reunion. How was she supposed to handle that, huh? Hi Chen, get in line, knew you'd be here, earn your shard now. It...it wasn't fair. It wasn't fair that her mommy was like this, it wasn't fair to her or Hestia or...or even Ysel herself!

This was why she'd nearly had a meltdown the first time. Once Chen had started on the sword, once she'd shown some talent, Ysel and Hestia both simply had a place for her. She'd felt this way about Qiu too. There had been that moment of affection, but then when she was hurting, she just wanted a hug and Qiu wasn't able to do that. She had a role she wanted Chen to play, everybody had an idea for her. It was...it was what made Rose and Yue so special, wasn't it? How they actually saw her. How they thought about what she wanted and made her want to think about them.

She wanted to slap Ysel and hug her. She wanted to breathe a sigh of relief and scream all at once. She wanted to fly off and save her friends and she wanted to keep her family and her people safe all at the same time! The only thing she knew for sure she didn't want to do was get into the cavalry line, which was laughably stupid.

Have you ever had a moment in your life when you wish you had a little bit less than what you did? Like... I dunno, maybe your friends found a miniature golf course in some old ruins, and you show up with a putter your parents gave you when you were six? And a yellow ball you found a while back and kept because it was pretty? But you haven't, like... like... played in half a decade, but everyone's looking at you like wow, she didn't have to scavenge or borrow anything, she must be really good? And then when you miss every shot, they all make fun of you for a month? Two months? It comes up for basically the rest of your life any time anybody's reminded of it even a little bit? Like, even if you go back later and crush the whole stupid thing, they just spin it back to how you fell on your silly little butt before?

Just a... random example.

It's not like that's a perfect analogy, exactly. But if Yue's here thinkin' about putters and laughter and wonderin' if maybe it wouldn't have been better for her if she'd discovered the Demon Swordswoman's shrine at the end of this here story instead of way at the beginning? Like, yeah, she wouldn't have gotten this far without Her lessons carrying her through all the trials and tribblamations, but at the same time doesn't this flowing sunset robe and these astonishing glass sandals and this glittering silver sword and, heck, even the fact that her first instructor was a dead woman out of super legend imply she's... a lot more ready than she feels right now? These nice knights were so polite to line up for her just like she asked, and here's silly ol' Yue about to disappoint 'em.

The polite, sweet little smile on Yue's face freezes into diamond hard determination. She lifts her sword above her shoulder with the blade held parallel to the ground. She plants her feet for the length of a single tiny breath. She jumps forward with the speed of a poumcing fox, blade tilted in front of her like deadly blade and invincible shield at the same time, with full intent to end this first fight in a single stroke. She has four more to go, and a lot to say and do when they're done, after all.

And... maybe she'll manage that after all? 'Cause her blow never falls. When she leans in to start her big finisher swing, that's the same moment she takes a shield slam to the face and goes scrambling, spinning, tumble-flipping end over end until she has to plant her sword in the ground just to keep from flopping on her knees straight away. A little trickle of weirdly sexy-looking blood trickles from her lip. She shakes her head like a bell, whipping all that floofy milk-tea hair into a frenzy so that it flops over her eyes and makes pause to reach into her bag and grab a tie so she can braid it real super quick, hold on a moment.

"Owie. That was, nnnf, ok, ow. Ow ow ow. You're, eesh, pretty good! I'm, uh, mmmm. This is, uh, my... first time fighting someone with a shield. Believe it or not."

She tries to laugh as she picks up her sword, but even a complete dummy could see how rattled she is. Her next lunge is slower, more cautious, and 40% more battered by the slam that she at least pivots into taking to the ribs. Her third is slower still, and the gasp she makes when her attempt to pivot into a leg sweep gets countered with a leap that darn near turns her into a pancake is... oh, sweetie.

And. Look. I'm gonna zoom out here for a minute, if you don't mind. Don't underestimate my Yue. Don't you dare. Just because she's fallin' apart in the face of her first time fightin' a Guard doesn't mean you get to laugh at her! Don't you dare make her regret dressin' her best and tryin' to treat herself seriously for once! Don't you dare.

It isn't that her form is suddenly bad, or like she's forgotten everything she's been taught. Not her lessons from the Demon Swordswoman, not from Tianic, not from Keron, not from Hyra. Certainly not from Chen. And it's not that these knights and their extremely attractive, face obscuring helmets have her so thrown that she can't read their emotions and fit into the flow of their story the way she's used to. Well, it's not just that. It's not even that she's historically always been awful beyond reason whenever she tries anything new, no matter how similar it might be to something she got good at in the past.

No, she's gettin' knocked about right now because this means more to her than anything in her entire life. It's the first time, ever, she's let something that she wants be on the other side of a duel. She's fought plenty of times by now where she's wanted to win, but this is the first time where losin's not okay. So don't you dare laugh. Don't even snigger, less you want the chormping of a lifetime, pal. You can't know what that kinda pressure does to someone less you've lived it, and if you have you wouldn't laugh for a second. Besides, my girl always starts out slow.

See, look? Now she's giving up on the single-strike strategy! High slash, low thrust, bait and leap! Get 'em, girlie! And you can tell, you can tell, you can tell that Yue's got greatness in her, because the longer she goes? The more this drags out, while four Radiant Knights stand politely but aggressively in a series of power stances waiting for their turn to fight, the more Yue's face lights up. The more she grins, the more she laughs, the more she tries silly stuff like kick-flipping off of her opponent's shield so her braid will do that mermaid-flick thing like she's breaching out of the water with her back arched rainbow smooth before she snaps straight and falls to earth blade first like the world's prettiest arrow. Hey! Hey! Stop laughing! That was a perfectly fine turn of... whaddya mean she's "shaped like an arrow too"?! Rrrrrrgh!

The Radiant Knights are gorgeous, elegant, and extremely well trained. You can give some credit to Yue for bein' enough of those things herself to keep on her feet the entire time she's warmed into herself, but I think it's the chivalry of knights that really saves the day here. I'm pretty sure there's an ancient law that says she owes 'em each a kiss now? I'm not sure. Judges? Hey, judges! Anyway, they don't fight to injure or disarm. No, these knights have a hard, powerful style that's all about dazzling, about humiliation and capture of the target before they try to accomplish anything else. If it takes two of 'em to beat someone who asked for one then that's a crime, and if they can't take her and bend her over their knees for spankies with her sword still glued to her hand then they're failing their mistress. The path of the knight is to make her yield that sword in submission, and the way they try? Well, Yue can laugh and blush and squeak at the same time, ok? She's skilled!

"Oh hey, I know that move! I bet I know who taught you, that's so fun!!"

It's dangerous to let Yue figure you out. If you give her enough time, she'll find an opening. Most of her life that wouldn't've mattered for beans, because she'd've been too timid or slow or any number of other things to actually take that opening, or make it to the weak point if she did. How unlucky, to have met her now! We clash, blade on blade! Shield to shoulder, step then step then step then step! We move! Like this! Then like this! And then this! Finishing like...

For the briefest of instants, Yue moves like Chen might. The blade comes thrusting at her in a way that is not remotely suggestive, please and thank you, and Yue smiles. It reaches her, at last. Only she isn't there. A helmeted head turns up in confusion, and a sword arm dips with effort when they realize there is a girl in glass sandals standing on their sword. Yue grins, half-bobbles, almost tumbles face-first straight into the dirt, and recovers by reaching forward and snatching a knight's helmet straight off of their head with a poke of her sword, releasing a vision of loveliness that should never have been hidden for all the world to see, which is exactly what she meant to do the whole time.

Yue hops to the ground and tosses the helmet behind her with a casual giggle. She smirks as she straightens up, tapping her legendary sword off her shoulder as she reaches forward with uncharacteristic boldness to brush her fingers under her opponent's chin. Call this her Shadow Sword: Visions of a Rose.

"Hey there, cutie," Yue, goshies, where did you learn how to purr like that? "Are you gonna be good for me, or do I have to peel the rest off of you, too?"

They say a swordwoman's words are as important in a duel as her sword. And Yue's might have slayed five knights in a stroke. But if it hasn't, her sword is swift and confident, and her teachers have all been far too talented for there to be any doubt left who the winner will be. Besides, s'far as I know? She's never lost a strip duel in her life.

[Fight: 7. Yue flirts with her opponents to gain a String, and seizes their helmets (and possibly their armor, if they're a bunch of good girls). She takes a move in response]