Finally, Rose finds herself in the middle of the tableau she had watched from afar, on a dark hillside, on a night both not so long ago and unfathomably long ago. Rose stands beneath the regard of that woven-wire mask, in the middle of that crowd of attention, wearing the outfit of her dreams. And if all she had to hold onto was the promise that all would be well if she closed her eyes and trusted in the quiet voice of the Way leading her to the greatest happiness for all people, she would be doomed. You can’t hold universal happiness in your arms; you can’t imagine its smile, the way it hums to itself when it thinks no one is listening, the sparkle in its eyes when it talks about wanting to be a snow leopard. All you can do is tear yourself in half between the guilt of having desires and the fulfillment dangled in front of you. Rose from the River, Pilgrim of the Way, would be terrified of how badly she wanted to be forced to watch a city fall while being told how she was too pathetic to save it, displayed as a humiliated pet by a strength even she could yield herself to.

But little Rosepetal wants something even more. She wants to hear the relief in her Princess’s voice when the city is saved. She wants to be reassured that Chen never once thought of commanding her to be an unstoppable demon warrior. And if she’s going to be humiliated into the dirt, she wants Chen to do it and then cuddle with her afterwards.

So for Chen’s sake, and for the sake of the Pyre herself, Rose steps forward, despite the pull of the digital shackles telling her to go into standby, pinching and squeezing the parts of her bones that haven’t changed enough yet. Yes, for the sake of the Pyre, who can’t find an ocean big enough to fill the hole inside her, and so Qiu holds her by the emptiness and won’t let her go.

“I was not happy,” she says. “I was controlled and so I was not happy. I broke free, and I was not happy. I had a hollow place inside me that I could not fill with my own hands.”

Her hands, gentle, soft, take the hand of the Scales of Meaning, and the hand of Secrets of the Stance, and between the two she kneels, and the soft shivering squeeze she gives to both of them is her gift to them. Her body aches and roars for her to stop. But this is also a way that she can be strong.

Strong enough to hold her Chen safe, and not be feared for it.

“You are unhappy, my Leaseholder. And none of your hands can fill the hole which Qiu holds you fast by. I have tried feasting, I have tried fasting, I have tried following orders, I have tried to carve myself into an acceptable shape. Nothing satisfied my aching. Not until I was loved.”

It will not work. But what else can she do? It is better to do something that is right than to rage, or yield to despair, or bargain.

“My love saw me and loved me for my strength and for my weakness. When she looks at me, she doesn’t see a weapon or a monster; she sees a woman. The woman I want to be. She thinks I can do anything, but also that she can make me small and helpless with a touch, a word, a promise. And the way she wants me fills me up and makes me whole,” Rose says, and her voice is soft and sincere and not boastful at all. Would Scales of Meaning even recognize her now?

“My love is small and tired and loves this city. Every part of it. It is her childhood, her mother’s joy, and her hope to stand against Qiu.” She knows what she has to say. For her Chen. For her love. She has to be good for Chen. “Destroying this city will not make you happy. Following Qiu will not make you happy. Only the love of another, freely given.”

And she offers the Pyre her hand.

“Let me help you find it.”

[Rose attempts to Emotionally Support the Pyres of Meaning, but her lingering guilt makes it a 7, thank you Annie. The Pyre has to choose: if they validate Chen’s love, Rose marks XP; if they deny it, Rose takes a string on them.]

Rose!

The Pyre of Inspiration has been Hopeless for a long time. Her Hopelessness has manifested in the Voice of Ballet, the voice of control who could say with nightmare authority: No! There are no better ways than this! There is no direction for souls but down!

And, with a thunderclap, your words undo that despair. The Voice of Ballet vanishes in a moment, undone by wisdom, for she herself was only ever the void where wisdom had yet to flow. A princess amongst demons is undone as the Pyre clears the condition of Hopeless, and her legions recoil and fall backwards.

But then you must turn your hand to violence or you will lose it.

The Secrets of the Stance has come forth to strike you down, unmuzzled and unrepentant. A hurricane of blades falls down on you, the jagged black edge of Anger sharp enough to sever even the nanomachines that dance to form your shape. "You speak of love!" roars the Secrets of the Stance. "Then where is it? Where does it hide? What good is it if I shall never possess it!?"

The Secrets of the Stance denies the Way and Love, for all the good denial does her.

Chen!

"Warfare," said Princess Ysel, "is not about giving your opponents what they want." She pats you on the head affectionately, Chen. "Warfare is about holding true to your vision, no matter what your opponents say! No matter what the world says! You need confidence, Chen. You can't let what might happen or what your opponent might do hold you down. You can't waste your time thinking about what they want. That's something you'll never be able to control and if you spend your time worrying about things you can't control you'll go mad. Take it from me: Perfect yourself, and everything else will fall as it will."

And she's sincere. She always is. For Princess Ysel, taking the time to think about what other people want will drive her mad - not because she's an egotist, but because she's deep down the opposite. A defensive shell of prideful hubris is what keeps her from paralysis, the idea that sufficiently hard commitment to the bit is a valid substitute for psychotherapy.

In a sense, she is a good follower of the Way - she is refusing to let a fallible world dictate her emotions. In another sense she's a disaster because she's grasping to her idea of herself even if it cuts herself off from the world. Her smile is not unkind as she raises her sword over her head for her troops.

"Soldiers of Ys! Our shared identity has bought us victory! It may yet bring us defeat! Qiu is a fearsome foe, and yet, her secret is that she has perfected herself! If we fight as our perfect selves we shall match her, nay, exceed her! All that is left to us is to turn inwards and fight like we rehearsed, hearts untroubled by fear or doubt!"

Yue!

As you snatch the Radiant Knight's helmet she ducks and turns away, covering her face. The rest of the Knights surge in to catch her and support her, surrounding her in close formation as you deliver your finishing demand. For a moment there's silence as the light and energy of the moment drains away, leaving you staring down four helmeted Knights as they cover for their colleague.

Then, as one, all of the knights raise their right hands and snap their fingers.

Synchronized, the four get to their feet, each long and sweeping step accompanied by a fingersnap. Snap! Snap! They're invoking a beat, and as they spread out around their downed colleague, music begins to build alongside it, attuned to the power of Princess Yin's Sunshard. Snap! Snap! These are dance moves, gradually gaining momentum and fluidity. To move like this is not becoming of a Guard, but even backup dancers have secrets they've been working on.

The helmetless knight drops to all fours. She arches her back. And when she screams it's not a sound of pain, it's the culmination of the beat that the others have raised. She flexes and her armour tears away, clashing to the ground like an earthquake hitting a blacksmith's shop. And then the Knight swings around, revealing at last her true nature.

Beneath the armour is a tigress, slashes of orange and black and a golden eyed symmetry. Leather armour straps snap as her muscles flex and her talons leave deep slashes in the earth and carve through her fallen shield just as easily. She rounds on you as a beast, sword seeming incongruous in her talons, but is held at swordpoint by the Knights and backs off with a snarl. Princess Yin builds her story off the contrast between dark and light, and her Knights are no different.

Now the Knights take stances like they're fighting the tigress too, noble defenders against her monstrosity, but it's an illusion - it's another step in the dance. The way the Knights move to engage the tigress will block you from retreat, what looks like an attempt to interpose between you and she turns into a way for her to launch herself forwards all the more fiercely. You are not allied with four knights against one monster, you are against the story of monster-slaying knights, and if they have their way your defeat will only serve to emphasize the threat and raise the glory of their victory.

Now, Yue Sunfarmer, you are fighting the Radiant Knights at their utmost, in the style that they prepared for. You have drawn the best out of your opponents once again. And once again you must survive it.

[The Knights create an opportunity for their ally to take on her true form]

Here, deep in the land of Ys, a cold wind blows. It pulls at the billowing skirts and sleeves of a young maiden until it teases a shiver out of her spine. It whips her braided hair one way and another and another again. It stings her eyes with bits of grit and dust until tears well up in them whether she's trying to be brave or no. In front of her, a savage tigress prowls. Jaws slavering, teeth glinting in the moonlight.

Of course there is moonlight, whatever the time of day. Of course there is a cold wind, no matter the true heart of the land. Of course there are sharp teeth to glisten, as surely as there are beautiful knights to form ranks and circle beast and maiden both. A princess commanded these things to be true. The moon, the wind, the beasts and the knights, they all know better than to disappoint a woman who brought a sun to heel. If she asked the land and the sky to change places, they would. At least for as long as she was paying attention.

The tigress snarls. The maiden draws back a step on trembling feet attached to slender, dainty ankles unfit to run away. The dance repeats, a step and retreat. The maiden shivers, even sniffles. The tiger pulls her sword with a grand swipe that summons sparks and clouds of fresh dust even as it leaves fresh scars to mark her passing. The maiden retreats until she feels the ungiving metal of a shield press into her back. A Radiant Knight thrusts her strong arm forward, and flings the maiden toward the tigress.

She catches herself with the hilt of her sword just in the nick of time. Above her, two knights in glittering mail cross through the sky and land with a flurry of blows worthy of a documentary on choreography. The knights and the beast are a whirlwind of blades and fangs and claw, always seeming to swing with power enough to crack the earth in half but never quite committing. Where they part the tigress pounces on the trembling maiden again, and all that she can do to keep her head is drop to the ground and scramble wildly away.

Each moment precise. Each beat matched perfectly to the music carried in the wind. Of course there would be music. A princess commanded this to be true. If she asked a story to be written in whole cloth then the words and steps and moves would pull themselves from a thousand hearts just to roll for her pleasure. At least for as long as she was paying attention.

The maiden wipes the sweat from her brow with a trembling hand. Her fingers come away grimy with slick dirt and blood. She closes her eyes and pulls in a long slow breath as she might water from a deep well. She holds it with the patience of a monk as she pulls her sword free. It flashes in the moonlight in her flourish, drifting like a fan in a slow half circle from knee up to her forehead. She opens her eyes, flips the blade to show the sharpness to the tigress and her own face both at once. She lets the air go with one sharp puff.

And she smiles. She can do this. She has to do this. She has things she must accomplish, but these beautiful people deserve nothing less from her than her best. So they'll get it. She lifts her sword and twirls it as easily as if it were a prop. Her feet lift her in steps that turn into hops, hops that turn into leaps, and leaps that turn into beautiful circles that call to mind the moon's reflection resting on a mirror lake. Four knights and a tigress... no, sorry. Five knights, one of whom happens to be a tigress at the moment, stop as one and hide their mouths before they fall agape. The maiden parts her lips, and confronts her deepest held fear.

...She sings. In front of a crowd!

"The pitch black night The lone cry of the moon
Will I blossom and wither following that light
Moving backwards in time
Like those birds, flying as high as I can
The beautiful moment when my heart trembled"

Yue's voice is high and thin, and it warbles when she reaches for high notes. It's not something even I could really call pretty, though I'd like you to know that the secret bits of crooning she does alone in her room when she thinks there's no one around to hear her are sweeter and more lovely than a fresh spring rain.

But here, her little heart is fluttering about inside of her and her stomach is twisting itself in knots at the thought of baring herself like this in front of so many (beautiful) strangers. Of reaching into the corners of her memory to pull out one of Sis' songs and give it as a gift. It's a pretty vulnberable thing to do, y'know?

"Flow with the rhythm of time
Flow with the wind, an emptiness remains where you left
You are like a lonely blossoming flower
Wishing the black clouds to cover the moonlight"

She botches so many of the notes because she's sucking down air while she sings, too. Because of course she's not just singing. I said she owed them her best, didn't I? So she sings, for these knights, and she duels them at the same time. Her fighting style becomes a thing of wheels and ribbon twirls, with her shimmering sleeves taking the place of the dancer's gear she doesn't have, not even tucked inside that magic bag of hers. I mean, I've heard her say it's not really magic, but if that's true then explain to me how it's always filled with treats? Checkmate. Anyway, Yue.

Her sword flashes as she moves, blade cuts quicker than lightning that clash with a tigress like a knight and with a bunch of knights like they're tigresses. She ducks and dives and steps inside of openings just so she can smile and wave before she dodges back out of the closing noose just in the nick of time. She stabs her blade with the sureness of a sparrow just to get a shield scrambling in front of her so she can plant her foot on the smooth metal. She kickflips off of it and nudges her tigress foe into the now-stumbling knight and grins at the chaos as she flies overhead. Her hands flit from form to form with smoothness she's never managed without the pressure of performance on her and she takes to the sky to kiss the moon before she dives down with a hammer blow. Can you fight a waterfall, dear knights?

"Just like the blinding light that blossomed at the darkest of the night
Like the flower that blossomed to show its love to the moonlight
Like a one night’s dream that disappeared all of a sudden
I won’t go far following the stars."

You didn't really think it was the vicious animal form part that was scaring her, did you? Surely not, after all of that stuff we said to Rosie. There's not a single thing this brave lady could have turned out to be that she would have found more perfect than a wild tiger. If claw marks and a trip to the hospital and a month with her arm in a fresh sling were the price of getting such a pretty new dance partner, then by goshies that's a sacrifice she'd make twelve times outta ten.

"Just like the blinding light that blossomed at the darkest of the night
Like the flower that blossomed to show its love to the moonlight
Like a one night’s dream that disappeared all of a sudden."

She doesn't twist the story to suit herself. If she did, she'd be the only one who came out feelin' happy, and that'd mean she didn't wind up happy either. A river flows in one direction, and it carries everyone and everything with it for as long as they want to ride. So she doesn't tell the story of a maiden wreathed in victory and sunset who batters about knights and banishes monsters to show the foolishness of both. Who wants to hear about that?

Yue dances and she sings for people she's only just met, and whose only action has been standin' in her way keepin' her from the things and the person she's really after right now. Which is why she can't give them what they told her they want, not in the way they want it. But this is who she is: you become a sun farmer in the first place because deep down some part of you wants to share the light with everyone. So she goes the extra mile. She dances and smiles, and she nudges by her positioning and her swordplay to tell the world why animals are beautiful and why knights are beautiful to want to test themselves against them.

The six of them duel in a tangle of thread, bodies, and ideas. The are a wheel, pushing down and pulling up and reflecting all of their most beautiful pieces up to the moon, who's here anyway so she might as well enjoy the show. Six swords cross at once, and the clash lifts Yue up into the air, where she flips once, then twice. Yue can't move like this for herself. Skills like this only unlock in service to somebody else's dream.

She lands with a sweeping crescent slash. Five bodies tumble to the earth. Yue totters on her tiptoes for a second when she doesn't quiiiiiite stick the landing, and she hops backward one, two, three steps before stopping. She beams brightly enough to recall a sky full of too many suns, before she dips into a bow. She closes her eyes gently, and pretends she's in her room with no one around to hear her. Her voice is sweeter and more lovely than a fresh spring rain.

"You are so beautiful under the moonlight."

[Defy Disaster with Heart is a 9. Yue will spend her fresh String to bump it to a 10. At the GM's discretion, stuff happens idk. maybe new strings? who knows!]

[ignore this, wrong thread]

The Conciliatory Ice-Star Blade flashes into Rose’s hands, but it does not become a sword. Instead it is a long, pale staff, a tool first of defense. And this is how Rose fights: with a swirl of her hips and a spin of the staff, fending off the hurricane with stave-butt and footwork, yielding ground.

It would be easier if she met power with power. All of these perilous blades, torn aside, scattered to form a wasteland around the two of them. It would be easy to redirect every one of them into the earth, to dig long scores through the streets of Ys, to disarm the Secrets of the Stance decisively. But that’s not how our dear Rosebud fights.

The storm is all around her and she diverts it only slightly, like a spur jutting from the surface of a stream; the storm is contained about her, and the space of safety grows claustrophobic and tight, inconstant and flickering. She sways reedlike, becomes the water that trickles through the gaps, silver staff flashing beneath her dark fingers. But she can’t do anything more, or won’t do anything more. She remains passive, acted upon, like water, which molds itself into new shapes.

“Love is nowhere it is sought,” Rose murmurs, her voice as delicate as a hope, her breath only faintly stirring her veil. “Dig up the mountains, dive in the rivers, count through a hoard, but you will not find so much as a speck of love. It cannot be bought or sold, has no mass or volume, and defies the one who goes looking.”

Yin, her face lighting up as he makes adjustments, as he sharpens his cheeks and lids his eyes, as he makes his hair as fair as gold. Yin, snapping at him, furious that he would dare to pick her up, bring her in for the kiss he thought she wanted— but only on her terms, with her dignity, at her time.

A sword flickers through her silk, kissing her side with that wicked edge, and the noise that is squeezed out of her is one that she learned from Yue. The space grows tighter all around her; she is backed up to the very throne of the Pyre. She wriggles like a maiden trapped as silk is slashed, ties undone, her top giving way on one shoulder. But that’s enough to distract the Secrets of the Stance for a moment, just a moment, unable to tear her eyes away from the firm muscle and the softness revealed by her plunging top.

And the Conciliatory Ice-Star Blade raps her knuckles hard enough to make even her, the wrath and rage of a demon queen, hiss through her teeth. And Rose twirls, her slashed belt trailing like a tail, and hems in the Secrets of the Stance with one, two, three— now those black blades are trying to knock that shivering sliver of moonlight aside, keep Rose from driving it somewhere soft.

“It comes like catastrophe out of clear skies; it tumbles to your feet in a flutter of scarf and silk. It disarms you, blade by blade, until you are helpless.” Clack! Crack! Clang! Two swords bounce where they hit the ground. Rose sets her staff and lifts herself up, throws one billowing leg over the shoulder of Secrets from the Stance, flips her head over heels while sliding down its length, and Secrets from the Stance bounces, too.

But then she sets her feet under her and flings herself at Rose again, and Rose is on the ground fending off those wicked edges, one, two, three, each one met by the length which does not yield underneath them. What could hope to change the sword fallen from the inconstant moon except for its own heart?

What could hope to change Rose, but her own?

“Then you are caught in a net.” Rose sweeps one leg out, forces Secrets of the Stance to hop up and put all of her weight on the staff, all the better to send her up and over Rose’s head, already turned to face her when she hits the ground, just enough time to get up on one knee. “But the net clings to you, grows with you; when it catches on a nail, you cry out as it digs into you, but for its sake, not your own. Then one day you find it is not a net but the finest gown.”

Her parries are executed with the sort of precision that even Chen, the prodigy of swordplay, might be impressed by. Each blow is met as if the handmaiden were attempting to 100% a rhythm game unearthed from the deep places of the world. And in her fury, Secrets of the Stance pushes harder, and that is all the opening Rose needs. She twists, spins upright, knocks two more swords away, and in that moment both know: the opening is there. Rose may bring her staff down on the head of Secrets of the Stance with a terrible crack, and it will not be the staff that yields, and Secrets of the Stance will deserve it.

Rose lets the opening pass; she steps back, her footfall as dainty as if she were stepping across a lake on the heads of lotus blossoms, and she bows dangerously low given the state of her precious outfit, the Conciliatory Ice-Star Blade held out to one side.

“Love came upon me like a thief in the night; it took my path, my quest, my dignity, and used them to line its own pockets; it bound me fast and locked a collar at my throat. Love has taken everything from me, and I am its helpless slave. It has turned me from a tool of universal beneficence willing to sacrifice my own happiness for the sake of all existence to a selfish creature whose whole world is a laugh, a smile, a choice repeated every heartbeat. If you are unwilling to surrender these things likewise, if you value your dignity and power over the smiling joy of the beloved, then small wonder Love eludes you no matter what you tear apart to find it. Look then in the atom, if you like, if you will not surrender yourself.”

Rose straightens, and holds the staff out in front of her, set firmly on the ground, and lets the wind set her ornaments to gentle chiming. And under her veil, she smiles, trusting in the Rosebud that Chen sees.

[Rose rolls a 6. Instead of acting with Daring to boost it to an 8, she acts with Grace, and spends her String on Secrets from the Stance immediately to add one to the roll. She chooses to inflict a Condition by refusing violence against Secrets from the Stance, and creates an opportunity for an ally— who, she does not yet know. Secrets from the Stance chooses an option against her in turn.]

“You need confidence Chen”

Her mommy’s words hung in the air, floating in Chen’s mind. Ysel’s hand was patting Chen patronizingly like all she needed was a bit of reassurance and she’d fall in line. It felt like she was in one of those trap rooms that sometimes appeared in ruins where you step on the wrong switch and the ceiling starts lowering on you until you’re crushed.

Chen had grown up with Ysel as her mommy. They had lived together for years and even after Hestia and Ysel found that they were such different people that they couldn’t function under the same roof, Chen had spent years of her life in Ys, the place that Ysel controlled utterly and absolutely. Everyone in the palace knew their role and followed it to a tee, some to earn favor, some because they liked things being well run and were happy to be a part of it. The streets, built of everything that Ysel had collected for her rule might seem brought together in a mad hodgepodge, but fundamentally reflected the likes and dislikes of the woman who ruled them.

Chen knew these things, this place. These patterns that her mommy pressed into everyone around her were grooved into Chen’s mind. Ysel knew that too. It’s why she thought she could react this way. Years of call and response were here. The times when Chen had missed a step in her sword forms and Ysel had responded with a disapproving purse of the lips. The times that Chen had snuck out to paint (something that Hestia at least endorsed as a hobby) and been met despite the Ysian heat with her mommy’s cold voice upon her return. There was even the time that Chen had just wanted to spend the day with Ysel, had begged to skip her lessons and just get food together, had told her mommy about some incredible azuki bean buns that she had tried in the streets and asked if they could just go enjoy them together. Ysel had politely asked the vendor to relocate to a neighboring village, out of Chen’s travel reach at the time, and it was done and that had been the last time Chen had ever told her mother she liked anything.

There had been as well the rare smile, when Chen mastered something particularly hard. She once got a head pat for doing a sword form she had fallen in love with and adding a move to it, a true moment of following her heart that lined up with what Ysel had wanted. Because that was the thing with her mommy. The praise came when you fell into the place that Ysel had set for you. And so years of that life made it almost rote for Chen to blush, to nod, to move into line and get on a horse like she was being told to do.

But Chen had been away from home for a long time now. She didn’t want to come back to this. Especially this. This feeling of being pressed until you fit in the slot that was laid out for you, crushed into place. It wasn’t right. It wasn’t fair! Chen wanted a mommy who loved her unconditionally, not one who loved when Chen fit her mold. She wanted a mommy whose delight came from seeing her daughter find the things she loved, not who was only delighted at the success of her own plans. Chen wanted a mommy who would see her after months of being away and be happy that Chen was there, not one who saw a game piece to move onto the board for a flank! She stared at Ysel like a poison dagger that had just stabbed her, half in disbelief and half in revulsion. And then…

“I won’t!”

The shout burst from Chen’s mouth before she even realized it. She tried to breathe, to calm herself, but it felt heavy and labored. Her eyes were hot and she could feel tears pooling at the corners, though she didn’t cry or sob. Yes, this hurt. It hurt because she wanted something so badly and it wasn’t that way. It was never going to be that way. She couldn’t make Ysel into the mommy she wanted and no amount of being a good girl and behaving as she was told was going to change that. That was the pain she was feeling now. The pain of growing, of coming back and not being able to fit into where she had at least been comfortable, but not having things change the way she wanted. That was the pain that was burning its way through her heart just now. That screamed inside of her until she had to scream with it.

“I won’t! I won’t! I won’t! I will NOT fall in line or command your army, or or get on a horse for you!”

Then Chen could breathe. She had to catch her breath. Her eyes were on Ysel’s eyes. The rest of the assembled all but forgotten, no care at all for the public moment this made. Perhaps Ysel was embarrassed that her daughter would behave so rudely in public, though if Chen had the head to think about it, that sort of reaction was much for Hestia’s than Ysel’s. Ysel was the mother who indulged, who made freedom and power one and the same. If you wanted to follow your own whims, you needed the power to do it. That was her bit, her advice even here. It was like a whirlpool, pulling you into it.

Now that Chen could breathe, she felt it too. You need confidence Chen. Was that all this was? Was she just fitting into her mommy’s view of the world even now? Was her growth just gaining enough confidence to confront Ysel? Was it really just enough strength in her sword arm, magic at her fingertips and shouting in her throat that moved her from a pawn to demanding her role?

No.

No. Now that the first explosion had escaped her, Chen could breathe. She didn’t just want to become like Ysel or to reject Ysel and demand that only her world and her choices were the right one. She wanted to be better.

For a moment, Chen remembered one of her practice duels with Yue. It had been in the heart of winter, a while after they’d started, and because Keron had a sense of theatrics and it was good training, they were dueling outside in the keep’s courtyard as a light snow fell. Yue was getting better then, and they were using real metal swords (dull for safety, of course) and going faster than they had been before. There was something magical about it. Chen had taken to the air freely then, and while Yue still didn’t totally have her flight down, she’d tried the same and it had been like, like they dancing snowflakes themselves.

Chen had lost herself in the wind, her moves coming faster and faster, the clang of the metal like the beats of the dance as they parted and swirled. And somehow Yue had kept up. She wasn’t moving as far as Chen was, and if Chen hadn’t been so lost in reveling in the world, she might have noticed a brief look of panic on her friend’s face as things got faster and faster, but somehow Yue had set her chin and her stance and had managed at least the series of parries, almost like Chen was on a string flying in and out and back in to Yue again and again. Chen even began to twirl and lift her legs as she went in and out, truly dancing in the storm. They had dueled to a standstill until exhaustion overtook Chen, and she finally noticed that Yue was shivering all over and holding her sword in quivering hands, like all her muscles had turned to jelly, but she had the biggest smile on her face and it almost seemed like she wanted to be wagging a tail she didn’t have.

It was only then that Chen realized what had happened, how fast and how long they’d been going. But when she’d blushed and apologized, saying how sorry she was, Yue had smiled, and said that she’d never seen her friend so beautiful. And on top of that, she hadn’t even known she could do that, but she couldn’t let the dance end early, she just couldn’t and so she’d managed to keep up her end of it. Because it was beautiful. Chen had cried then because she’d never had anyone say something like that in all her years training with the sword.

That was the start of it. There had been the anime with Jessic too. And the sessions training with Rose as a handmaiden, and also “training” with Rose as a handmaiden. Those had been how Chen learned new stories and skills. That had been how she had started practicing, herself, how to make her girlfriend feel beautiful, and how good it had felt to have Rose undress her and for her to undress her little Rosepetal and have that thick, strong body melt beneath her hands. That was how she had formed her dreams, was still forming her dreams. But she remembered as she dreamed those dreams the way that Yue had helped her live her own and part of Chen’s dream was to do that for her friends. No, not just her friends. For everyone that came into her care, for everyone that she could help. That meant Qiu even when she was being a meanie because she was only doing that because she couldn’t find anyone to help her feel the way she wanted to feel. And that meant Ysel too, even if…even if she made Chen hurt and couldn’t find a way to see past the way she had been living. Even then.

That was why, then, Chen finished her breaths and she took up speaking again, to Ysel, to the generals, to the people below the palace steps because this was for Ys too.

“Mommy, I won’t be your general because you’ve got the wrong plan. You’re doing the wrong thing for Ys, and for Qiu, and f-for me. I…I can’t claim that I’ve got this all figured out. But I know there’s more than just coming up with a vision and being confident in it. What you want, it makes everyone in your kingdom have to serve you. If it works, it will hurt Qiu and leave her sad and lonely. If it doesn’t, she still won’t get what she wants and she’ll bury this whole city in her rage.”

Chen took a deep breath, and continued, “And…and it won’t make me happy either. Because. Because I want to do better. I want to give Qiu the duel she deserves and save Ys. We can do that. We can do both. I want to fly, not ride because that’s what I love. I want to pick up the sword and save Ys because I love the sword and I love this kingdom, it’s one of my homes. I don’t want to do it because it matches your plan or because you think that’s the best role for me.”

Chen sighs then. “I don’t…I don’t think it’s wrong that you want an army either, mommy! I don’t…like I said I haven’t figured it all out. You don’t have to give up your dreams to let me have mine. D-don’t you dare! I just, I know that we can do more. That we can find a way to have dreams together and sometimes that will mean that everyone else doesn’t do exactly what you want, but that can be okay and you can still have your dream, it won’t disappear. Because a princess…a princess has to inspire people, not just command them. That’s what I think. A princess has to have dreams of her own and she has to make other people feel beautiful and that’s the only way it can be. S-so, I’m going to go help my friends, and you can take your army to face Yin’s knights, but please don’t try to force this on Qiu. Or on Yin. Or…or on me again.”

Then Chen walked right up to Ysel and gave her the hug that needed to happen, offering one last whisper just for mommy. “We can do better Mommy. I love you.”

Chen!

"Imagine something for me, Chen," said Ysel. "Imagine if every word you said came out as a command. Imagine if you could not ask without being obeyed. Imagine if you were the only one who stood tall in a world that bowed. Pressing your case becomes verbal assault, being excited for something translates to issuing an ultimatum. This is the only way I know how to speak and it has ruined every relationship I have been in. I step on people but do not know how to stop them from casting themselves beneath my feet."

She returns the hug. Stiff, awkward, but sincere.

"I always wanted you to be your own woman," she said. "And the only way I could thought to do that was command you to become strong and independent enough that you were beyond my commands. That day has come, and it is nowhere near as terrifying as I expected it to be."

Rose!

The Pyre of Inspiration has been Angry for an age. This is the lowest of the hells: the passion that causes cruelty where there should be kindness, rejection when there should be acceptance. That Anger makes itself known through the blade, through the dissection of mistake, through the destruction of the unworthy. It is not enough to know that a foe is wrong, anger declares that their flaws will live within you too. If there is love, what is its opposite but wrath?

The Secrets of the Stance has taken all the flaws of the world into herself, drinking them like the ocean. Every time the world has failed her she became that failure. And now her blade recites that litany back at you, crushing blow after blow, striking to hurt, to shame, to humiliate, to give expression to the hurt, shame and humiliation that dwell within the Stance.

But she cannot express her anger, not against that staff, not against that serenity. There is no way through for her blade, no hole in your conviction for her words. So instead she gives you the anger itself. The blade demon dissolves into the thrashing, red mist of pure wrath and surges through your defense to merge with you. It is a rush of suffering: every sin against her, every grudge, every failing of the world is poured into your shining heart. Can you endure it, Rose? Did you not, sleepless beneath the earth, swear vengeance upon humanity? How can you let pain like this go? Mark Angry, but with that, the Pyre of Inspiration's own Anger is undone.

As for your opportunity? Your ally? The Pyre of Inspiration does not act, does not rise from her throne. But she is watching with a strangely human curiosity, paying a new and focused attention to everything you do even as the Scales of Meaning moves to shield her from you.

Yue!

And in a moment you are alone on the walls of Ys. The stage is cleared around you. There is a distant audience on yon hilltop, watching everything, but they are too far in time and space to tell you what they think. And it'll be nice when they eventually do - but in this rare moment, that's all it will be. Nice. Not necessary. Because in this moment, your song, your dance, your victory is its own triumph. Without being told, you know you did it.

From up here you can see the distant banners. You can see the colours of Ysel, of the Pyre, even of Princess Yin. You can see the flash and crack of the spooky powers of the Ghost Sun all about. But you also see, distant, almost apart from the battle the slowly moving flag of Princess Qiu.

It's a long way to get there, including your first time in the biggest city of them all! People always said that visiting Ys is like getting to visit every other city put together, and the operations of the city hasn't shut down just because there's a war on. In fact, this is more like a carnival atmosphere - people are out on the streets selling lunches and souvenirs, people pose for photographs with Assault Ribbons pretending to be strangled or bound up in knots, and large television screens and movie projectors all about show key moments from the battles across the entire city. At the same time, some people take up swords themselves and go out into the street to stand against demons or Radiant Knights. This battle belongs to everyone, after all, and everyone is invited.

"Y'know, the least she could do is show up to her own stupid conquest. Nobody in the stories ever had to walk across an entire city after they start a fight just to get to the person they're supposed to be... well, I guess I'm not really. I mean. I dunno. I'm. It's just... rude, is all. I think, if you're gonna take somethin' from someone, it's only fair that you show up and do it yourself. Like, I know assault ribbons are, like, her thing or whatever, but this is like, she's not even, it's almost like she's, y'know? Right, Kat?"

"Arf!"

"Haha, yeah. When we get there I'm gonna tell her that."

"Yip!"

"Do you not want credit? I thought it was funny!"

"Mew..."

"Ok, ok, fine! I won't tell her it's from you! Sheesh. Foxes, I swear."

A pat on the head, a bit of foxnip, and that's that. Argument ended. Yue thinks she's in charge, but she's never won one of these even once. That's why she's the one walking through Ys on her way to do... whatever the heck it is she thinks she's going to manage with Qiu while I'm sittin' pretty in a luxury handbag doing none of the work.

Yue fumbles through her flight spell again, but it's not 'cause she's flustered or upset or worried or any of the stuff you might be thinkin' she is. No it's just, funnily enough, my girl learned to fight before she could jump and now she's gotta improvise. When she goes to leap off the wall she hesitates for a moment and shifts her weight like she's gonna back off for another loop, when outta nowhere she just--

"Woooooo!"

Aaaaaaah oh goshies goshies gosh! Falling, falling, help me help me help me I-- oh hey! What a beautiful three point landing, good work girl! I, uh, knew you had it in you the whole time. Sheesh. Girls, I swear.

But! Oh!! When they see her, the looks on their faces! Looking up at the walls, stepping out into the streets, in their colorful silks, the people of Ys! They look at her. They look at plain ol' Yue from the Terraced Lake, and they look at her dress and her hair swept up in the hot wind, and they look at the glinting edge of the sword in her hand, and they look at the steely flash of determination in her eyes, and they gawk like... well honestly, like Chen did. Way back when they first met, remember? Yue had this... look about her, and Chen thought she was some kinda legendary warrior and seemed like she was half about to get on one knee and worship her. It was kinda amazin', and these people look just like she did right now.

But, like then, it'll be over the instant she opens her mouth. When she smiles her sillyhead smile at that little boy over by that doorframe, they'll realize their mistake. See, there she goes, beaming like a tiny sun and givin' everyone that goofy little wave. There's no heroic entrance on this earth that could survive Yue's personality.

"Hiya! Nice to meet everyone! My name's Yue and I'm... oh, well I guess it's complicated? See I'm tryin' to make it waaaaaay over yonder where Princess Qiu's at? She and I've got, mmf, words to. Or maybe she doesn't, iono, but I sure as sunshine do. And anyway it's also kinda my first time in the big city like this and I was just kinda wonderin' if anyone's got, like, directions on the fastest way through? But also stuff around here that I don't wanna miss? I just, kinda, dunno if I'm gonna make it back this way and I'm tryin' to make the most of the one pass through, y'know?"

This is where the miracle happens. All those hero worshipping faces? They stay just the way they were. If anything they light up even more. Nobody bats an eye at her silly accent or her soft, sweetie voice or the way she's comboing the heroism and the tourism parts of her trip right to their faces. Nobody flicks their eyes up at her hair and notices the way it's actually frizzy and unkempt instead of flowing like heroic mercury and beautiful the way a battle goddess should be. They wave back!

"Oh! Well if you want to go to the far gate it's a bit of a maze through this way so you'll need to make sure you keep your bearings, Miss."

"I recommend keeping your sword hand to the Sunset Wall here!"

"Oh and keep an eye on it when you pass the Mirror Pool, Miss! The colors that pop up around there when the light's just right are almost as pretty as your dress! Perfect for painting, if that's your thing."

"Or a selfie, which is way quicker!"

"Yeah, and passing that way you'll hit the Bazaar, which..."

"You mean the one in the thatched hut district with the fried noodle bar you'd kill a friend for?"

"No no no, other side of the street! With the lapis gate where they've got the dancing square set up!"

"Oh, right! I think they sell refurbished phones over that way. Dahlia picked one up for herself the other week and she's been over the moon about it since!"

"Yeah, 'cause the tinkers across the street makes all of these glassworks and music boxes and stuff, and it's all bluetooth enabled. Can't imagine what you're missing until you see the light and music shows those things can do with a little help from a nice phone."

"Honestly, Miss, you can make a whole afternoon out of bartering your way across the districts if you've got anything fun to get you started!"

"But make sure you finish at the phone shop, ok? That's the last place that's actually on your way."

"And when you're done you can take some lovely photos of the Cathedral as you pass."

"Oh yeah! With your jumping skills, Miss, I bet you could snag a really great one from the top of the wall! Just, uh, mind the assault ribbons while you're out."

"They're not normally about! Don't judge our city by them please!"

"Have a wonderful trip, Miss!"

"Welcome to Ys, Miss!"

It's enough to make a girl cry. Or sniffle through her smile, at least. And even that doesn't turn these faces against her. You wanna know why? Because they've seen her in action. Yue's not the Demon Swordswoman, she's the Girl From the TV just now. She's a stranger in strange fashions who showed up to the party and danced with the Radiant Knights atop the city walls. When that's your first impression, you don't unmake that with a bit of sillyhead talk and askin' for directions, no you do not.

Yue's in the big city. Yue's in the Big City! The biggest city of 'em all, in fact! She's so beside herself with glee she has to bargain with herself just to stop herself from gawking like the awkward village girl she is and actually get goin'. Spend an afternoon? She could take a week! Every time she thinks she's seen the prettiest thing ever she rounds a corner and the whole look of the streets changes before her eyes. Ys: a shimmering collection of beautiful mirages that came together so they could become a real story together.

She fights as she walks. She stops for noodles as she fights. She duels a knight, tricks a column of water demons out of the Mirror Pool and dives her way through the center of 'em with her sword held out bravely and beautifully in front of her like a certain Special Someone showed her what feels like a lifetime ago. She frowns when she finds out they make tanghulu with strawberries at what claimed it was a Terraced Lake style food truck, but her frown turns to a smile when she crunches down into what turns out to be surprisingly tart sugar glass around the sweet fruit. Huh! Woulda never thought to do it that way!

She zips about a trio of assault ribbons carrying a hot cup of lapsang in her palm, blowing away the steam while she casually flips over a stall selling watches and novelty umbrellas. It's funny, because she's got no idea how amazing she is just now. If she did, she probably couldn't be. She's simply too caught up in admiring the city and all of its pretty silk garbed people (and imagining Hyra dressed up for her like this, rawr~!) to think about how impossible her beyond her skill level any of her acts of swordsmanship are supposed to be.

She disarms a knight in front of the phone shop with a river-quick flourish of her sword into a sweeping dragon kick, and the show's good enough to get her in the door on a deal for her very first phone just off the back of her jars of sunlight, which back home nobody ever really had the time of day for short of an aching back or some kinda impossible hangover. She works her way up to a glass wolf figurine that plugs into the top of it and glows all the colors of the aurora when you play it music, and she just knows she's gonna lose entire evenings watchin' it do its thing.

She's saved from an ambush by a pair of scrawny looking pre-teens in matching tight-wrapped silks holding sticks instead of swords to protect their neighborhood. She gives them both a hug and hops up, up, up to carry them to the top of the wall so they can all three get a picture together (can you show her how real quick, please?) with the Cathedral underneath them.

...She's gotta remind herself to be mad again as she nears the far gate. She has to remind herself what she's really here for. But then she twirls as she passes and she ruins it all with a song that won't stop bursting its way out of her heart.

'Cause this is Ys. This is a place where she can be a hero without ever tripping over her own feet, or even if she does, 'cause right now this place is a battleground and a show and everyone's invited. Everyone means her too. Everyone means that anyone can be a hero, at any moment.

And the further she goes, the more TVs along the street she pops up on. Her. Her. Her! Yue!!

She can do it all, if only for this one fleeting moment longer, because she's lifted on the wind kicked up by every amazing person she's ever met.

Rose crumples into a shuddering heap of torn silk, the Conciliatory Ice-Star Blade clattering to the ground, forgotten. The world around her fades away as her blood boils from within, scorches her veins, her teeth lengthening, the slit of her eyes widening until it swallows everything, as she sees the parade. Not that of the Pyre of Meaning, not this time.

First comes King Oja, borne on a motorized throne, his mask hanging to his knees. His dark hands are speckled with age— no, they are thin claws beneath his gloves, folded on his lap. Tear him open and you could sort the few remnants of what he was born with out from the replacements, organs born from the same nano-alchemy that created Rose. (Rose tears a gouge into the ground, blind.) So fragile. So vulnerable. Dragon curled on his hoard of numbers and papers and dirty little secrets, leaning on his cane, his face small and pinched when his attendants lift the mask from his face, his white curls cut close to the head. So many enemies! Anarchists, communists, union organizers! Abolitionists, activists, assassins! Kill him and his dead man’s switch goes off; kill him and the other kings tear themselves apart over the secrets poured out of his hoard.

It— no, she, she meant to scare him. She’d meant to show him that nowhere was safe. She’d meant all kinds of things. When she stood beside him wearing a mask beneath her mask, helped him with the buttons he could no longer undo, she told herself that she would force him to rescind his orders to hunt her and harry her, would make him understand that if she wanted him dead he would be dead, only too late to realize that it was what she wanted, now that she stood in front of the man who had commissioned her, the man who had used her as his hunting-hound, the man who wanted her to stay a pliable animal without volition, taking on shapes and identities pressed into her like a mold, a monster in the dark that would never turn on her handlers.

He had been paper-thin under her claws, her drooling jaws; he had choked on the scream, and when his bodyguards broke the door open they found her there, as his hoard of secrets poured out electronically, if you are receiving this message—, and she should have been covered in his blood, drenched in it, but there wasn’t enough, he was so dry, like biting through a wasp’s nest, and she licked it from her lips as she stood before them and flexed her claws. (Her eyes dart from side to side, but they are all black, impossible for even the Scales to read.)

With Oja come the Burrowers, with their riot shields and their pristine labcoats, with their designer drugs and their loan collections, with their memetic jingles and their sonic dispersal units, with their sweatshop heels and their steel-tipped boots, and with them the prison laborers, shaved and barcoded and muzzled, staring hatefully at her, betrayer, skinthief, tool, stealer of kisses in nightclubs, the king’s relentless hound, hated by those she’d never saved.

Then, the Eight Trigrams Coffin. Huge, its energy flows aligned to ground and dissipate anything that could rouse her to wakefulness, its mouth open and empty and hungry. And riding inside of it, hair flowing down her bare shoulders: Yin. The Radiant Knights carry it on their shoulders, just like they carried it into Yin’s armory, a weapon— but not for such a well-behaved knight, never again, don’t you worry, First. But she never destroyed it. Never let First destroy it. Too useful.

The spotlights are all on Yin as she stares at Rose and purses her lips. Then, she says: “Fine. Be a girl if you want, First. But be my girl.” (“That’s not my name,” Rose drools through her fangs.) “All this nonsense about the monks of the Way— you don’t know what you’re talking about. You need me to explain. Don’t you get I’m doing you a favor? Don’t you remember who pulled you out of here? Do you want me to put you back?”

(After she’d snapped it, one hand on First’s chest, teeth bared, the look on First’s face had jarred her back to shame. She’d teared up before he could, every part of him frozen and screaming as she bawled and asked why he’d made her say something that awful. This Yin does not.)

Behind Yin looms an allegory in the form of a space elevator. Do you know how to escape from orbit, Rose from the River? Unburdened. You must shed everything that weighs you down; you must be content to serve everyone with your strength, to surrender all the things that bring misery through desire: possessive love most of all. You must be free to walk away and leave everything behind if you are to play your part in bringing about universal happiness, whether that be the joy of fighting or the collar of a princess. You must turn yourself into a mirror that reflects the world for a time and then is gone, like the rose that grows from the mud of the river, swept away on the current, rootless, unwilting, glimpsed by many to their delight, never selfishly held.

Because you are a monster, Rose from the River. And the only way for a monster to be a good girl is to learn the Way, give up its selfish desires, and work towards the happiness of everyone without complaint. But you failed, Rose from the River. You have let yourself be bogged down. You compromise because you cannot overcome your desire to be beloved. (“I want to be loved,” Rose admits, small, broken. “please. let me be hers. just for a little while. let me be small and helpless and loved. she knows what I am and she loves me anyway, can’t I have this, please?”)

Once there was a king who gave stock options to three vassals. (“no. stop. please.”) And one used them as collateral to get an interdepartmental loan, and enriched his corporation thereby, and was promoted to manager. And one cashed them in in order to buy a better class of consumer goods, and through this proved the largesse of his king, and was promoted to assistant manager. And the third clung selfishly to them in fear of poverty, not trusting in her king’s largesse, and when the time came to account for them, she was found to Not Meet Expectations and had the stock options and her annual bonus revoked.

What will you do with your strength, Rose from the River? Will you hoard it and refuse to use it simply because pretending to be weak makes you wet? Or will you act under the direction of universal eudaimonia? Will you reach paradise through violence?

…

Scales of Meaning makes the mistake of coming too close, and Rose from the River is a sudden blur, and the sword in her hands protests as she twists it into its blade again. She is sobbing, fighting blind, lashing out at the world that she is unworthy of, that demands so much of her to be a good person.

She came so close. But Rose needs help. She can’t fight this battle alone. Which is to say, she shouldn’t; she can defeat the Scales of Meaning, she can overthrow the Pyre, but like this? Her skin like scales, her eyes dark, her hair lashing and digging at the ground, tears falling from her chin, veil dangling from one ear, clothes sloughing off of her as she becomes more serpentine, more thorned, more a monster to rival the Pyre herself? No. Please, no.

Only two ribbons hold her above an abyss. Imagine them: a pale blue-white ribbon, the lace digging into her wrist, soft and insistent and holding all of her weight, and braided around it, a simple brown ribbon, as a country girl might use to tie up her curls.

[Rose hits a 12 to Fight against the Scales of Meaning: inflicting a condition, stealing a String (perhaps because she can tell Rose is barely holding herself back), and opening an opportunity for aid once again.]

Chen blushes. "Mommy, I, um...thank you" She holds the hug another moment, and then lets them part. There were still a lot of things to be said. She kind of wanted to go talk to other people around the city and understand why they all jumped over themselves to please Ysel. She had her own stories, that feeling of how much it hurt when Ysel disapproved and how hard won her approval was. But was that everybody's experience? Chen had always thought that she was treated uniquely because she was Ysel's and Hestia's heir. The twinshard princess and all that. It had never occurred to her that everyone else might have felt the same way about Ysel, or that Ysel might have felt like the whole world was the same and been hoping and praying that her daughter, at least, would rise above it. They would need to work on that together. Maybe Ysel could take a vacation after this and share some photos of her having fun (assuming her fun did not involve only destroying other people in the locales choice of hot or cold weather sports at least). Well, they'd figure something out after all this. It just felt, well, it felt to Chen like she wanted to be Ysel's daughter for the first time in a really long time and that was really special.

But, now her family was safe and she needed to get back and find Rose and get to Yue. Chen had gone and rushed off and she had thought Rose was right behind her, but she'd landed without her sweet handmaiden so, that was going to be the first order of business. One of the things Chen loved about Rose was how even though she was silly and vulnerable and wanted to taken care of no matter, she had the capacity to be strong and tough, so Chen could rely on her when she needed help. So Chen figured Rose would be fine even if she had been trying to throw herself into trouble to delay for her princess like a sillyhead.

"Mommy, if you want my, um...tactical advice...tactical's the right word right?...anyway um, go fight off Yin's forces and Qiu's regular army, and avoid the big burrow demons and Qiu herself. I'm gonna find my handmaiden and we're gonna stop Qiu." Then she smiled and flew up to survey the field.

***

When Chen first looked over the concourse and saw not only the Pyre of Inspiration with all her circus but a new lamia-like beast ringed with thorns and briars, she wasn't sure exactly what to make of it. It was scary, but the one that was definitely her little Rosepetal looked like she was winning! And while Chen couldn't necessarily have told you in advance that Rose was capable of kaiju battle, if you'd asked her, she wouldn't have said that Rose wasn't capable of it because in addition to being a silly little handmaiden who needed a firm hand to guide her, she was also a powerful giant magic woman and so why not, right? Maybe this was just how powerful old world creatures went at it and her petal would just do that once in a great while and would be mad at Chen for interfering? Maybe she'd even want to play a game of the mouse bringing down the titan if they could find a large and private enough space~

But there was also a myth about this sort of thing in Sourcefall. They used to say that there were spirits of the old world, demonic things of anger and hatred that could take over a person and turn them into an oni, a great ogre driven only by obsession. These were cautionary tales. The old spirits could only take you like that if you became obsessed and forgot how to be a person. They were lessons for children to teach them to become well-rounded adults. If they became too obsessed with fighting, or dancing, or any of their passions, they might forget why they were doing it at all and invite in a dark spirit that would turn them into an oni. Then they would attack the people they once cared about or anyone else who tried to stop them from doing what they were meant to do.

There was one story that had been made into a stage play that Chen had seen. It was set generations back, too long ago to be remembered properly. A princess had lost someone she loved very much and had found fighting to be the only thing that brought her any comfort. She had trained her own daughter to fight, and had trained her in unusual techniques for facing large monsters, even though such things were quite rare and not typically needed for a princess in training. The old princess, once she had finished the years of her daughter's training, went off to meditate and train alone because she was tired and she wanted nothing more than to dance with her sword. A year later, a great oni had appeared in Sourcefall from the north. A strange beast that stood as tall as a house, with a great blade of ice that could not melt and long frozen hair that ran down its body and wrapped it about like a sash. It had come and begun tearing down the outer villages, running and smashing and shouting wordlessly to be faced. It rejected all but the younger princess, who had been summoned from the castle with her retinue to face the beast. It's said that when she saw it, she began to cry, for she knew it was her mother and that her mother had known this would happen. Then their duel is shown on stage. The oni mother poses for the audience in a stance of power and charges, then the daughter moves, and they dance, a beast and a princess. The audience always loved this part, each choreographer would do their own version of the duel, it was never the same twice. But at the end, the daughter always landed her cut, and as the great oni fell, her mother said "thank you" and smiled.

Could that story have been based on creatures such as Rose and the Pyre?

So then, Chen first circled the air a bit, trying to understand the nature of what she was looking at and whether she could help or needed to help. Perhaps Rose was fine, perhaps she had lost herself, Chen needed to know. She realized the true nature of the problem when she got around to Rose's face. When she could see the tears. Then her eyes were drawn to the ribbons, hers and Yue's. That was the moment that her heart broke. That she knew how much Rose was hurting, that whatever this was, her sweet Rosepetal didn't want it. Oh Petal. What happened? She had thought you were doing fine! You'd done all that training with Keron, you'd worked together so well in the escape, like dancers who knew every step even as you improvised in real time! How could she have let this happen?!

At first, Chen wanted to beat herself up. Stupid little girl, Chen! She had taken her Rose for granted, been so concerned for her own worries that she'd rushed off as fast as she could and assumed that Rose wouldn't have any troubles or do anything silly! But Rose needed her! Rose was hurting and her own heart was breaking and that meant Chen didn't have the luxury of time to beat herself up! She had to reach Rose before she lost herself, before the tears stopped.

If Chen had entered the city as a comet, she is now a bolt of lightning streaking through a clear sky. She flies to Rose, heedless of the thorns that cut her, and latches onto her neck, her own momentum sending her swinging around the much larger lamia like a ring tossed about a pole as she settles into holding as much of her girlfriend as she can get her arounds around.

"Petal! Rose! My Rose!" she cries, as loud as her voice can shout through her little body! There are tears running down her cheeks and she shudders. "I'm sorry, Rose, I'm sorry! I shouldn't have left you alone! I..." She sobs, and clings to Rose tighter, even though some of the thorns are tearing at her own dress and ripping her sleeves. None of that matters. "Whatever you think you're doing, stop! Stop it! You don't have to do it for me. You don't have to hurt yourself for me, or or or for anyone! You're beautiful, and you're strong and weak and soft and hard all at once, and you're perfect! And, and you need to come back so we can buy you a new dress here in Ys, they have the best dresses, and your cute veil is all torn! And, m-maybe we can get matching outfits together, like Keron did, so we can look like the big and small version of the same theme cuz I think you're really cute and..." Chen is blabbering, like she does, just holding onto her Rose, ignoring the other demons, the circus, whatever Rose might have been doing. She clings as tight as she can, and buries her face in the soft space below Rose's chin. "Rose, I love you and I won't let you lose yourself. I won't! Come back to me! Please!"

[Chen will roll emotional support: 6+2+2=10. Since Chen and Rose are smitten, Rose can pick two options if she opens up.]

You’re the first person, Chen. Did you know that? Of course, you got here out of luck; if Yue was here, you would have been beaten to it! Nothing can stop that girl from giving hugs to big scary monsters so that they’ll stop being so scary. But you’re here and she isn’t, and you’ve got a different reason to look at her when she’s at her most monstrous, a thing of thorns and scales and power and fury, and still choose her, still try to hold her, still refuse to give her up: it’s because you love her.

So Rose bellows through a mouthful of teeth that could take your arm off, and she lashes out with her sword in a way that means you can feel her muscles rippling beneath you, like a bed of snakes, but she doesn’t reach up with her claws, and instead your words trickle into her like water reaching the roots of a flower, and she drinks, because that is her nature. She is a thing of flowering wood, here and now, growing and learning, pliant and yearning.

The heart is a flowering rose,
its roots spread wide and thirsting.
Good counsel will see it bloom;
a cruel word, see it die.

Her transformation is slow. It always has been. She doesn’t just let all the thorns zip back into her, she doesn’t suddenly shrink and pop into your arms all smooth and soft and pretty again. The thorns sink slowly, becoming nubs, then simple patterns on her skin; she diminishes with a creaking like a tree in the wind, and her steps become slow and clumsy. Then she topples, felled, onto her knees.

Her hands slowly reach up and hold you close, her sword again forgotten. She lowers her head, breathes in deeply, shudders. Her face is wet.

“I’m here,” she says. Then she says it again, loud enough to be heard. “I’m here.” Her fingers stroke the back of your head. She shudders again. “I’m here. You’re here. You won’t let me hurt anyone.” Her nails scrape the back of your scalp, almost possessively.

Then she hesitates. She is underneath the gaze of the Pyre of Inspiration. This is not the time for words she does not mean. Her other hand drifts along your ruined, bramble-torn dress; a host of regrets and sins roar in the back of her head. Then you hiccup. She blinks back tears and finds herself smiling through dry lips, undone utterly.

“…I love you, Chen.” Rose says. “You didn’t run away.” Not from the skill and power of the Thorn Pilgrim. Not from the sensual promises of Rose. Not from Rose from the River in all her pain and fury. “I love you, I love you, I love you.”

She finally looks up, meets the eyes of Scales of Meaning and the Pyre of Inspiration, holds you closer. And there’s both embarrassment and resolve in those golden eyes, isn’t there? Rose from the River, being saved by her hiccuping, clinging girlfriend; changing from a monster of ancient wrath that could challenge the Pyre to a very disheveled little concubine, hugging you close with all four of her arms. Go on, those eyes say. I know you could make fun of me forever, but touch one hair on her head and I’ll show you.

She’s so serious, she’s not even squirming thinking about all the ways Scales of Meaning could cash in her remaining service time with a silly little princess and a mostly-naked monk. Usually that would wreck her, imagining being forced to tie you up oh so apologetically, kissing you tenderly before silencing you and then being tied up with you before the throne of the Pyre. But you’re here and you’re saving her, and she’s here and she’s protecting you, and that means so much more to her. Because you came back, Chen. You saved her. For the first time, you came back.

When she exhales, she breathes out smog and acid smoke and burning batteries. When she exhales, she breathes out hate, and shivers as if suddenly cold under your hands, and you squeeze her tighter until she feels like she could burst like fireworks forever across the sky, lights gleaming off the Sunshards.

And that’s how she knows, isn’t it?

[Rose chooses to open up to Chen, the best girlfriend in the whole wide world (sorry, Hyra). She clears ANGRY and receives an insight.]

Chen and Rose!

You are not punished for your anger. You are punished by your anger. - Daily Affirmations of the Way <3

The rage within you is the Pyre of Meaning's anger. It is the grinding gears of a machine trying to solve love logically. It is the long end of the club, the momentum and force of some distant pain unleashed into crushing violence. All the cosmos' vice never satisfied the Pyre, and who was there to blame for that but the cosmos? And here, at the bottom of the wheel, it seems impossible that this downwards momentum could ever invert.

The Secrets of the Stance howls. She is the pearl that formed to protect the Pyre's ego. But, when words of love touch her, she is hollow - the grain of sand at her core undone.

Yue!

Princess Qiu is someone who introduced herself with a pipe organ symphony at the pinnacle of a black pyramid. Even though you only met her once, a bar was set. So, even though you don't know her well, you know enough to see that she is off her game.

You've met a lot of people on your journeys - demons, ghosts, dragons, princesses. People who you, Yue, should never been able to fight if we were looking at the relevant Challenge Rating grids. Princess Qiu, the Threeshard Princess, the conqueror of the Terraced Lake, should have been at the very top of the list of things that are impossible for a humble village girl and her fox companion to deal with.

And yet you know immediately in your heart that if you were to fight her now you'd win.

You are flying high and fast, born up on wings of community, tracing out the final exclamation point of a dance across a city of satisfied dance partners. Your heart is aflame and the world seems that kind of different that only happens when your mind is clear. And Princess Qiu, for all her reputation and legend, is not.

She wears black and black are her banners, black like a funeral. Her face is set with grim resolve. You haven't conquered any cities, Yue, but you think that if you ever did it should be fun. The kind of conflict that's reigning everywhere else, where everyone is enjoying themselves, saving each other, healing each other, learning what they can and can't fall down to. But somehow the person who set this all in motion is alone not a part of it.

If there's one truth about the world, and like, honestly there's a whole ton? For example! Brunch is just an excuse to put salmon and waffles on the same plate. Your keys are always in the last place you check, unless you forget you found them and keep checking. The sum of the square roots of the short ends of a right triangle are equal to the square root of the hippopotamoose. The louder anybody is about how they are a 'butt person' in discussions of the cutiest things about girls, the more likely it becomes that they are embarrassed to admit they like, or like that they have, small boobs. And so on.

But if you had to pick just one? Like, one truth that to be the most truestful? It's that nothing ever goes quite the way you expected it would. Like, even when you think you adjusted what you were expecting, the truth's just a little different, y'know? Even if what you were expecting is that you wouldn't know what to expect. Yue thought, back before she got to Ys, that Qiu would be doing something amazing and grand and secretly kinda thrilling. Then she saw the reality of it, and changed her mind. But she thought at the very least it'd be easy to come here and yell and chew her out and be mad and stuff.

Yue touches down on the ground as light as a feather in a shopping bag caught in an updraft. Her dress is just the same as it's ever been, really the only costume she can ever imagine needing to wear, but as it flutters in the Ysian winds she feels so majestic and full of life and power that it feels like somehow she's the conquering princess here. It's a fluttering, flittering little thought, here and gone about as fast as she can notice it, but it's there. She sighs, and sheathes her sword for the first time all day. She reaches up behind her and sticks the sheathe in the special straps she bought to hold it while she was down in the market a minute ago. There was a surprisingly high demand for her sunlight over there, ok? She stands there for a moment, right in front of Qiu, without even a tiny wobble in her legs or the teensiest pinch of fear on her face. And then she sighs, and fishes around inside her bag.

Never once. Never once did she stop and think that Qiu might be up here feeling sad. Idiot. Little dummy! Her fingers close around the container for another, more secret weapon that she prepared without ever knowing how or why it might be needed. Anyway it's like I said, stuff never goes quite how you picture it. But a lot of the time, you're more prepared than you think.

"Uh... hi."

Yue's smile is a little bit flustered. Now her leg twists nervously behind her while she frantically tries to figure out how close she's supposed to get in a moment like this. Is this too threatening? Not enough? Should she... should she hug her? Goshies. Threeshard princesses are a puzzle.

The first step is tiny and uncertain. The second is a little bigger, and the third drags along right after it. Four-five-six, she's face to face with the woman who upturned her entire life when she sicked a demon army on her for funsies. Who chased her out of house and home and said all sorts of meanie-tyrant stuff right to her face. And who still, still hadn't given her a straight answer about why any of it ever happened.

Yue's fingers close around the weapon in her bag. Her eyes glint like sparkling steel over a lake, sharp enough to cut down any foe. In this moment, at least. Invincible if you ignore the tremble in her hand, that's our Yue. She pulls her weapon from the bag. It's tupperware. She reaches out and puts the plastic box in Qiu's hands. But she doesn't take hers away; it's her opponent's choice to accept the offer or not.

"I, um. Made eclairs this time. I read about them while I was in the Sky Castle, see. They're not, I mean, I don't normally do anything this, that is, I'm a lot better at cookies, but, um, y'know, I just thought, like, maybe uh, I mean. Um. Th-the point was that I... oh gosh. No, I just. Erm. If I, well like, just did the same as before, y'know I'd, you'd, it'd be, like, right? You wouldn't... think I'd grown. Is that arrogant? That feels arrogant. I'm sorry. They're not... very good, anyway. I mean, you, be glad you didn't see the first try, I kept opening the oven 'cause I was worried about burning 'em and I guess it turns out you let out all the steam that way? And you... need that? I guess? The guy who's kitchen I borrowed was suuuuuper mad at me. Almost kicked me out. Had to promise I'd clean the whole kitchen after just to get him to let me try again. Did you know dust comes to life if it gets stuck under a fridge for more than a year? Whole little towns grow under there. They'll fight you!"

Yue giggles, and then out of nowhere stops. She blushes, and looks at the ground, ashamed and miserable.

"Sorry, forgot. You're a princess, you've probably got, like, a dozen people to do this stuff for you. Probably? Or no wait, you're a triple princess even so it's probably, uh, three dozens. Anyway I've seen your kitchen and it's cleaner than I left this one. I'm not made of mops. Erm. W-well. If you, if you want these. Here you go. There's. Um. Pistachio and coffee. Uh. Lemon and lavender. Mango and chocolate. And maybe... oh, please. Not that one. That one's a... a joke. I thought. It's. Uh? Peanut butter and... (oh goshies gosh), and tr-trout. Trout. I saw trout yogurt and I just, it was so funny! So I! Well. Yeah. Don't eat that please."

One step back. Two steps back. Three. Yue leaves the container with Qiu and sits on the nice soft ground to watch the battle unfold. Her back is turned to what should be the most terrifying opponent anybody could ever face. But it's like it hasn't occurred to her to worry about that. There's no threat here, that's what she's saying. You can come at her, Qiu. She thinks you'll miss. Or!

"So. Yin, huh? Princess Yin. What's up with that?"

[Comfort and Support: 11]

Chen is crying quietly as Rose slowly shrinks herself. Her voice at the end had fallen almost to a whisper, and her body was letting out small sobs in the ruins of her travel dress. It didn't matter, it didn't matter if her clothes were ruined coming in or that Rose's were ruined, or anything else. She had just run out of words, and so she sobbed and she held on, and she hiccupped a little because she was overcome.

Then she felt Rose shrinking, and that made her sobbed and hiccup again as she saw Rose come back to herself. She saw the tears fade from her eyes, and it made Chen smile even though the combination of trying to smile and sob and hiccup made her cheeks hurt. She clings on tightly as Rose returns so slowly, her whole body a mess, overcome with emotion. There's so much of it! All the tension and anxiety from the flight, and then her Mommy, and everything she'd just done, Chen was entirely out of any ability to make herself look big, strong, and mature in front of everyone. She didn't care, she didn't have eyes for them anyway.

And then, then Rose was saying "I'm here" and "I love you" and and and, that just sent Chen into new sobs and she clung on tighter. It is perhaps something of the true nature of their love that surrounded by all these demons, they have this moment for themselves, uninterrupted save for a distant howling of a demon with swords. Distant, though she stands next to them because Chen at least is simply lost in the release of holding Rose and letting all the feelings inside her burst out through tears and a runny nose until she can breathe again.

When she can breathe, at last, she gives Rose a gentle kiss. "I love you too, my Rosepetal. I'll love you forever and ever" and she smiles and ruins it with another hiccup because oops those didn't quite go away, and she blushes then as well because she's finally starting to take in their surroundings.

"We um, we need new dresses" she manages, looking at the tatters left to both of them without letting go of Rose. "And um, didn't they say that you, um, owed the demons time. Is that why you came here, Petal? M-maybe I can help. If we both serve them t-then it counts double right?" That was Chen's understanding of how debts worked, at any rate, and it wasn't like she hadn't played this way in the past, with some of the handmaidens, and that one time with Yin.

A deeper blush started rising through all of Chen's neck and cheeks, but she was determined and also she might have had dreams like this for years that she never ever (ever ever) thought would see the light of day but here she was. "I-if we both dress as m-maids together we could...um, show the demons what's it like to be treated pro-properly and um...then they'll stop threatening Ys right? And we could go help Yue. Don't you think that's a...um...a good idea, Petal?"

[Chen is marking XP for Rose opening up. This gets her a last second advance, which she will use for heart +3]

Rosepetal knows a little thing or two about how scary it is to chase your dreams. The ones you never ever thought would actually get to come true, the ones that make your soft cheeks grow red as a harvest moon. And Chen supports hers without any hesitation; the least that she can do is return the favor. So she stands, and lifts Chen into the air as she does so, resting her on one hip just to make her squeak. Every little bit helps when making your case, after all.

“I wish that I could make that decision, your highness,” Rosepetal says, Acting. “But I am just a simple, lowly slave to the whims of the Pyre of Inspiration. Only she can decide whether she wants the services of the cutest and most submissive maids in all of Ys.”

She cups Chen’s chin with two fingers and leans in closer, teasing a kiss. “I don’t think she will,” she adds, her hot breath washing on Chen’s lips. “She wants too much to be ordered about by the likes of Princess Qiu. She’d rather have the approval of a Princess using her for land development than have two of the most beautiful girls in the world,” a thing she only manages to say because it will obliterate her girlfriend, “washing her Scales of Meaning by hand. With those dainty little gloves, and brushes, and maybe even, if commanded, a little bit of tongue. She’d rather see more chaos, tumult and upheaval, in the hopes that maybe this time it will fill the hole in her heart, than the sublime flash of a maiden’s panties under a frilled skirt. A shame— I can speak from experience when I say that Chen of the North Wind, the Twinshard Princess, is the prettiest, most flusterable, and easily the most delightful maid from here to the Terraced Lake.”

She tsks her tongue and shoots the Scales of Meaning a look. “No, the Pyre of Inspiration is a good girl. She’s exhausted the depths of vice, and the thought of having a relic of the old world and a champion of the new willingly, eagerly submit to her most lewd and perverted desires doesn’t sway her heart at all. Such a shame. We’d do anything for her, we little maids. We really would.”

[Rose is spending a String in order to find out what would make the Pyre hire two maids instead of using Rose to continue the assault.]

Chen and Rose!

Once, atop the highest cloud in Heaven sat an Empress. She beheld a world in perfect order, all things administered with love and kindness, a system of beauty and grace stretching ever downwards. But as her eyes fell so did she perceive the limits of her kindness' reach. Beyond her grasp were those stepped in misery, and in their misery they cursed her.

The Empress saw the fault in the world and she swallowed it. This fault is mine. This suffering is my fault. This universe is my failing. And so, she took her first step down from the highest cloud, saying: "I will be happy when I have fixed this, and not before."

"Of course you would," said the Scales of Meaning, tilting her head so that the scales on her horns shifted slightly. "You are administered by fear. I have power and you do not, and so you are negotiating from an unequal position. It is quite simple," the Scales put her hand on the Pyre's head, smiling sadly. "You are simply saying what you think we want to hear."

And the Pyre raised her hand, and her will was a hurricane.

With two of her great Demons undone it might have seemed like the Pyre was fading, but she is not. She is in the utmost of her strength for all the lesser demons are but emanations. The true danger is this: Insecurity. The Insecurity that demands everything be weighed, measured, and found wanting. The fault in the soul that renders one's self hateful, a cold that is shield against any warmth that might be offered. From insecurity grows anger, hopelessness, fear and guilt.

It drives you to your knees, willing or not.

"Everything has value," said the Scales of Meaning. "And everything is a transaction. Every heart can be weighed and every sin can be quantified. Everyone is found wanting. The gods are blind, the Buddha is silent, and the Wheel spins out of control. The monetary value for two maids of your pedigree can be placed at $18.6kv for use of bioengineering resources and personality type psimapping. Your offer is a negotiating tactic to obscure your true financial value."

What would make the Pyre hire two maids instead of continuing the assault?

You'd need to find something more valuable than money.

Yue!

Princess Qiu wordlessly hands you a tupperware container in return. Inside is two slices of banana bread and a little butter packet with a magic glyph on the wrapping that heats the bread through when you tear it. It's surprisingly good - not magically Princesserily good, but the kind of good that comes when you make an old favourite recipe and don't push the envelope super hard. If a peanut butter and trout eclair is what you make when you're feeling bold enough to face a Threeshard Princess, banana bread and butter is what you make when you're nervous about disappointing a heroine from the Terraced Lake.

"Princess Yin," said Qiu, "is planning on conquering the world."

She keeps a very neutral face as she bites into the Forbidden Eclair, and surreptitiously takes a drink of water afterwards.

"She's got everything required to make it happen," said Qiu. "The army, the skill, the vision, the drive. She's got a line on some sort of ancient evil power. Even now her knights are infiltrating Pasalkhen to steal my Shards. She's going to be unstoppable. One big move here and she'll be the most powerful of all. She'll unleash monsters all across the land, and people will flock to her Knights as the only thing that can save them from the beasts."

Qiu took another bite at the edge of the eclair without thinking about it. No face this time, hardly even noticed she'd done it.

"And when that happens..." said Qiu, "... when that happens, only then will I have an opportunity to be a hero. Will I have a rival, a threat, someone to strive against. Yes, she's wicked, and cruel, and her heart is ugly, but she's the only person who can do this. Who wants to do this. Who will betray me in the way I need to be betrayed, who will fight me in the way I need to be fought. I don't like her, can't trust her, but maybe I can get what I need out of her by playing along."

Qiu finished the eclair, and in a very princessly fashion resisted the temptation to lick her fingers, and instead turned to a napkin. She briefly looks in the eclair box to see if there's a second one in that flavour.

"I can't be allowed to win here," said Qiu quietly. "I can't, because if I win it's over. I'm too good at the game and the plateau's in sight and it's so lonely up there. If I win here all that's left is consolidation until I get bored and retire and I'm not ready for that. There's still so much I haven't done. Still so much I need to say. So is it really so wrong to take my hands off the keyboard for a moment if that's what it takes to make it a game again?"

"That's what you think, huh? Sillyhead."

All things considered I think Yue should get a lot of credit for her restraint. 'Cause there's so much she could be saying right now, all of it very mean and very true. She could call Qiu a jerk to her face and yell at her for wrecking the world over this dumb childish desire to... iono what, exactly. Get spankies? But, like, earn them or something? I am but a humble cutiefox and cannot be expected to appreciate the complex desires of the two-legged.

Anywhich. She could be screaming about how much it hurt to have to go through all of the nonsense that she has, not that the adventure wasn't fun and fulfilling and stuff, but what was the point of the prophecy and the cookies and the pipe organ and the stupid rotten oh-come-on-are-you-kidding-me-with-this helicopter (something she still has little nightmares about, by the way!) if you weren't asking Yue to step up and try to be your rival? Do you honestly think she would have tried half as hard to improve if she didn't think you were expecting her to? Dummy! Just look at how bad she is at the rest of her hobbies! She would have been thrilled to never ascend beyond the level of that first duel with Tianic.

But she pushed herself until she was good enough to hang in the cold air with Princess Chen for hours. She pushed herself until she had an in on Rose from the River, and she hasn't stopped pushing herself since. She fought all the way through an entire city under siege just now and yes that was fun, of course it was fun, it was the most fun thing she's ever done! But she did it for you, you stupid jerkface! Do you have any idea how much it hurts to get here and find out you gave up on her before she even had a chance to try paying you back?

Yue doesn't bring any of that up, though. She doesn't even frown. Instead she calmly butters a slice of banana bread and watches with a smile as the warmth melts all that tasty, delicious, cutie-forbidden spread into every little nook. She takes a pair of big, sloppy bites and mmphs appreciatively.

"Dhey mhhk dhish whrr y'r frm? Sh'good. Brdsh'... mmf, bread's usually harder in my village. You have to dip it in soup or coffee or whatever first. We don't have a lot of... well. Anyway. This is nice, thank you."

She takes a smaller, maybe slightly more polite bite this time and chews by way of contem... deep thinkies. Far away, the battle rages on, and from here it's possible to look at it and not think of the people involved. Until you think about it like that, and then suddenly it's not again. But mostly it's a surge of colors and flashes of movement, and you'd be forgiven for not knowing who was winning or which ants you were supposed to root for.

"Shame about your career, though. I guess it's hard being at the top, I've really never thought about it before. When I met you I thought you were trying to be a villain. Now you're trying to be a hero? I guess if what you really want is some kind of... Iono, ultimate rival? Then a Super Princess Yin who's conquered the whole world'd be pretty good at that. But she's gonna make a lot of people very sad and very scared before she gets there. And after. You can eat all of those, by the way, they're for you."

Yue sets the tupperware with the other slice of banana bread to one side and lies down on the ground to stare up at the sky for a while. She crossed her hands behind her head and then, on sudden inspiration, sits up again to fish a stick of pocky out of her bag and holds it in her mouth like a reed before she lies back down again, arms crossed just like before.

"Anyway it's impossible. Like, I don't mean to brag but... Oh! Um. I-I'm not saying I would stop her! She and I are... I mean, my training's not really, well. It would. Be hard. For me. That's why I'm over here. Part of why, I mean. But Chen is down there. Rose is down there. And either one of them's more than enough to knock Princess Yin on her beautiful little butt and stop her conquest right here. Even if she managed to get every sunshard, my Hyra would just steal 'em back. And if you think they're not up to it, then... you just don't understand anything, I guess."

She's a cattish wolfish foxy sort of smile on her face now, does Yue. She turns her head to shine that sphinx-riddle grin right at Qiu, delighted to for once in her life be ahead of the question in the same place as someone so much smarter and more worldly than her. She's practically... no, scratch that, she is glowing with pleasure right now. A combination of pleasure and her pretty new music box, which her beautiful assistant has very helpfully nosed over to her so she could have something nice to savor this moment by.

She's got music, lights, a brand new phone to show off, and a sword glittering on her back in a weirdly comfortable sort of way. She's with the person who should be the most dangerous opponent in the world, but right now she's more comfortable than she's ever been in her entire life. Maybe she was made for this sort of thing, after all?

No. She wasn't made for anything. My Yue earned her spot fair and square, that's what makes this so nice.

"Are you sure this is what you want? 'Cause honestly it more sounds like you just wanna know what it's like to get your butt kicked. And if that's all you're after, then goshies, you should've just challenged me. I'd've happily smashed you, y'know. Lil' late now though, I think. I mean, look at you. You're right on the edge of getting everything you said you wanted, and you look like you need a hug more than anything. You're...

I don't want to be a bully. So I won't tell you what I think. Except that, as you are, you're not. Uh. How do they say it in the stories again? Oh, right. 'You're not worthy of my blade' erm. Qiu. Princess. Your Highmiss. But~"

Yue sits up with a smile, and reaches for the other slice of banana bread. She's even saved some butter, like a good, good girl.

"If you can find the girl who baked this, though? I'll dance with her all day. If. Erm. If she wanted to. If you wanted to."

Chen's tinkling laughter echoes up and down the causeway. It's not, you have to understand she's not laughing at the Scales of Meaning, but there's just so much tension and, well, Chen might have had variations of this dream since she first had a maid wait on her in Ys when she was seven and none of them, not a single one of them had a demon telling the audience that her services could be bought for 18 kilo dollar volts or whatever gibberish the Scales of Meaning had just said. And so being confronted with that after, well, after everything was just a little too much.

It's not that laughter is going to convince anyone of anything, but it is the sort of thing that takes one aback. Especially the kind of bright, happy, tension relieving laugher that Chen's feeling. The kind that lets her shoulders relax and causes her to shudder in Rose's arms and snuggle in tighter to avoid falling over. That may be a response that the Scales of Meaning has never seen in all her years. Or maybe it is and Chen's underestimating her, but either way she doesn't much care.

So Chen laughs and hiccups (because those never went away and laughing just makes them even worse!) and tries to get a hold of herself. And it's in that moment that she understands a little bit about these demons. She understands a little more why Rose might have been so tentative and why she might like it so much for it to be safe for her to to just become small and be told exactly what to do as silly as she can be. Rose understands the value in that, the freedom, the joy of just letting go and enjoying yourself without worrying about the cost or the consequences or any other silly things like that. But the demons don't. They don't even understand what was being offered, not really.

Oh...they don't understand. Oh, oh gosh. She was going to have to...to say it out loud w-wasn't she? A bright blush rises to Chen's face.

"You um...ha, haha...you're not paying for, um, for maid services from us. That's um, we're not offering you a trade or a negotiation or barter or um, that's not why Petal asked if you want us to...to dress up as maids and c-c-clean you." Chen falls into a squeak there and needs a moment to compose herself.

"We'd do that because it's um, like, really hot, and cute, and um kind of embarrassing but like in a way that makes me feel all tingly inside and um, I always wanted to do something like that with my girlfriend, I mean, you know if she was into it, but um Petal seemed pretty into it and like she'd have a lot of fun and even added her own um twist to it you know? Or well, you don't know that's the problem. The problem is that you don't know what we mean. But like, we're trying to offer you a little taste of that feeling that you can't find anywhere else, of being cared for and cared about! Of being teased and waited on and having someone dress up all special just for you. You can't buy that because it comes from the heart, silly! We have to offer it freely because we really care about you for some reason, even if it's just wanting you to stop hurting so much and to, to understand things a little better!" And Chen stamps her foot for emphasis before going back into it. "And well, that's a really nice and special and important thing to offer someone and you have to ask if someone actually wants it and is okay with it before you do it. Otherwise it's um, you know, it's kinda weird and maybe mean to just start teasing people and doing stuff to them if they're not okay with it. So...um...so we want to um get dressed up as, as maids and help you...that is...we're asking if you...um...if you want us to and oh, oh suns!"

It's at that point that Chen can't keep up with herself and her blush becomes terminal. Instead of continuing on speaking, she buries her face in Rose's chest and squeaks and shakes a little and is just kind of hoping that nobody else nearby is listening to any of this at all but also she's kind of nuzzling into you Rose like she does when she wants to play more privately and gosh she's really hoping the Pyre understand this even a little bit and says yes, the poor thing! Rose, your Chen needs you to bring this one home, help the Pyre understand what she's missing!

[Chen will spend a string on Rose to trigger her Dream Mirror.]

Oh, Chen. Your Rosepetal is holding you close, even down on her knees, bound by the chains of debt. She holds you so gently, even as her lower hands gouge furrows in the dais, trying desperately to hold fast in the face of this overwhelming will. It threatens to scour her clean, to upset her internal alchemy in a flood, to make her simply another of the satellites of the Pyre. But she holds you close until your heartbeat is a drum in her ears, and that steady rhythm is what gives her the strength to simply remain, still, herself. With you, she is so much more herself, after all. You give her the courage and the approval to shine like the pieces of a shattered sun.

It is because she is holding you that she finds the strength to stand again, in rags that hide nothing; almost as a joke, her fingers lift her veil back into place. Because she is holding you, her fingers that could break stone as gentle as feathers on the back of your neck, she is able to curtsey like one of Keron’s handmaids should, low, her lower hands spreading an invisible skirt, without so much as letting you shift. And it is because she is holding you that her feet find their places, because the fire of your breath on her breastbone is licking through her bones like kindling, because she can feel your cheek pressed against her firm skin, because she knows how brave you were, how very brave indeed.

She starts slowly, for you, knowing that you will be dizzy enough by the end, that you will be giddy and out of your head and clinging to her with your whole body once she is spinning and swaying, flicking her hips and rising onto the pads of her feet, showing the delights that she has learned in the Sky Castle. And as she does, her thumb strokes your cheek, and you feel the rise and fall of her chest as she breathes— no, as she allows air to cycle through her, her breaths long and slow and surprisingly deep, as if the air rushes through her to the tips of her fingers and the tips of her toes.

And then, using your heart as her drum, she closes her eyes and dances as if the Way flows through her body again; as if every step is the only step she could have taken, every pinch of her fingers the correct one, every invitation to look long and hungrily at her a revelation of eudemonia. But she is not just flaunting her body, on full display for anyone to look at, the pitiful remnants of her special dress simply highlighting her nakedness; she is flaunting you, and isn’t beloved a much better word than prop? She holds you close until, suddenly, she lifts you over her head, or shifts you to her hip and dips you low, or even spins you over the back of her neck, head over heels, only to hold you close again, as if she would ever let you fall, as if she would ever let you fall. You are a part of her dance, Chen of the Northern Wind, and she controls you as much as she controls herself, and you let her because your heart is bursting full, because you are small and easy to handle and because she is so confident with how to move you, because she is inviting you to be a part of her delight.

(She was like this that night at the Sky Castle, too, when she played you like an instrument, when she drew your eyes back up into your skull, when she flowed over you like the wave that swallows the shore, when she explored you and you melted into her hands, her tongue, her confidence, until you were small enough to be hidden behind a grain of sand and light enough to balance against a feather and shining more beautifully than any of Jessic’s treasures.)

And then she sings, and her voice harmonizes with itself, until it’s as if three Roses all at once are singing out of one throat, one ducking above and under the other two playfully, and you don’t need to see her lips to know she’s grinning bright enough to outshine the very last sun. Don’t you remember, Chen? That voice, winding its way through the woods to you, that day when you first met Yue?

And out of her bursts:

if you ask her
what it will look like
when we know perfect satisfaction—
she lifts her face
and says,

like this!

when you ask her
about the beauty of the suns
which scoured the earth away—
she smiles wide
and says,

like this!

if you ask her
how we will survive
without stocks and bonds—
she holds you high
and says,

like this!

mistress, what do we owe each other?
what is the address of Heaven?

lean your head against me,
keep it close as you breathe.

like this.

mistress, what do we owe each other?
why are we one dreaming we are many?

undo my sash,
kiss me on the lips.

like this.

The silk is between your lips and hers. It is impossibly thin for something holding back an entire sea. It promises: you will receive more later, when I allow you to unveil me, when I blush and grind my fingers against my knees in yearning, when it is my turn to be undone—

like this.

if you ask her
how she thinks to stop you
when she is at your mercy—
she bites the silk
and moans,

like this!

when you ask her
how we will live
if the banks did not—
she forms a house
and says,

like this!

if you ask her
to reveal the secret names
of the elevator and the burrow and the star and the demoness and the day and the night
she traces them on you
and says,

like this!

how did we survive?

like this!

how do we live?

like this!

why are you here?

like this. like this.

Her forehead rests on yours as her voices unravel into whispers, her audience forgotten, all for you,

like this. like this.

“Why are we here?” Rosepetal asks, and then, to educate the Pyre of Inspiration, kisses you until the world is full of the smell of new flowers and the sheen of her skin and your mouths intermingled on the silk,

like this. like this.

[Rose rolls a 9 on Mirror Ball, and Chen spends another string to bump it up to 10. Rose chooses that the Pyre of Inspiration is rapt and interested in Chen’s perspective. Chen may choose another benefit for her Rosepetal.]

Chen and Rose!

Insecurity is a a stone giant, unmoved, upon an eastwards hill. Each day as the sun arises, it groans and says - "you shine only out of pity. You were not here while I was in the dark, and now you come with guilty heart upon me? What joy may I get from this already-dying thing?" And then it says fie and gnaws the mountain and looks not over its shoulder at the marvels of the sunset. "No," it says, "that is not for me. More pity. Soon the sun shall tire of all this and shall arise no more. Just you watch, this very day was the last."

But the sun and the east wind are allies; as the gates of dawn open the east wind gallops out ahead. Day after day it hits the giant, some stronger, some weaker, but one day - strong enough. And on that hurricane day the giant will topple over backwards and lie facing westwards. And there, at last, will he see the beauty of the sun's farewell.

And, at last, the giant's eyes will fill with tears. The message was there for him every day but he never had the strength or will to turn his head to see. This certain oath of resurrection, sworn in cloudblood: this gift that had been laid out every day for a neck too frozen to turn. And, at last, the giant admits that this is true. That this can be forever.

And with an ancient breath, the Scales of Meaning reports herself to the Fiscal Judiciary Committee, for she at last can no longer balance the accounts, and dissolves away onto the wind.

And the Pyre of Inspiration blinks awake for the first time in a long, long time.

Yue!

"You?" said Princess Qiu. The words were arrogant, but the voice was curious - sounding out the shape of each one. "You think you can challenge me? You think you can stand before me? I don't think you understand who I am."

She stood up in a moment, bouncing on the tips of her heels, tail waving to balance. "This is my life, my reason, my core, my everything. I have fought the world's champions and won. I burn through maidens magnesium bright; my thoughts are storms; my focus unshakeable. Those who dance with me catch fire and melt away. I need no shards for I have the might of the sun within me. And who," at last she draws her blade, holding it out straight with even stance, kendo style. "Are you?"

It not a rhetorical question. It's serious, sincere, heartfelt. She wants to know. She wants to know in a way beyond asking. She wants to know in a way beyond knowing. The blade shifts in her hands and she moves to strike - a technique that is a whirl. A question in a storm of steel: who are you? Are you for real? Do you actually want this? Do you want this from me? With me? Can you keep up? Will you keep up?

Will you teach me something new?