Anarion

Huntresses of Hybrasil

All furnish’d, all in arms;
All plumed like estridges that with the wind
Baited like eagles having lately bathed;
Glittering in golden coats, like images;
As full of spirit as the month of May,
And gorgeous as the sun at midsummer;
Wanton as youthful goats, wild as young bulls.
-Shakespeare, History of Henry IV, Part I

Among all the stars in heaven, there is nothing quite like the feeling of sitting in the pilot’s chair as you start a mecha. The power of the crystal fire races through the machine, causing the metal to thrum deeply with it. The feeling rises up through a pilot, starting in the legs and the thighs and surging through their chest, until the heart wants to beat in time with it. The systems come to life and the pilot receives a rush of data. It feels like growing, or perhaps like the world shrinks. It feels as though nothing could really offer a threat. Not through iron skin and thrusters of blinding white light powered by the crystal fire.

In private, the temptation is equal parts desire to do nothing and to race. To bask in the power, to sit and experience it all, yet to sprint, to set the thrusters to max and fly as hard and as fast as possible to feel no less than the full thrill that the experience offers.

Now stack on the desire to pose for a cheering public, the thought of loved ones back home, and some pre-match jitters to get a slight taste of the feelings of each pilot at the start of an arena season.

The Arena is bejeweled for the beginning of its fifth season. The nanobots have been in constant buzz working upon Hybrasilian bio-engineered seedlings and the result is that the oft-sandblasted arena planet of Akar finds itself covered with the emeralds and sapphires of a lush forest dotted with rivers and lakes. The trees are massive, easily ten stories tall with layers of thick canopy that would allow an enterprising mech to set an ambush without even using a stealth generator. Travel is slow and limited with such low visibility though, causing command of the heights and the waterways to offer a pilot clear lines of sight for combat.

This is how things are arranged for the start of the season. A thousand hidden cameras with mobile AI are placed strategically throughout the forest and accompany every pilot to capture the action. With all new combatants, a hundred small fights will soon by breaking out across the planet. Word has spread not only in TC space so near to Akar, but all the way to the homeworlds of Hybrasil and Zaldaria that the season is starting!

The luckiest, wealthiest, and most cunning patrons of all species are here in Akar, packing the bars and the hotels of Akar Prime and Akar II so that they can watch the live feed ahead of the recordings being sent out by couriers and container ships across the jumps lanes. Word is also spreading that upon Akar Prime, a high fashion house is recruiting pilots to sponsor their clothes and that the competition has brought more than a few illicit interests out from hiding to participate.

Welcome, one and all, to the Arena!

Sunshards

There's something about the way Chen is bundled out of the car. She squeaks, but she's wearing an immaculate black suit cut curvy and busty to accent her breasts and her butt and she knows it. She stands in her little self with confidence and poise, not letting the ropes throw her balance despite having been bundled tightly into the car trunk with Rose.

She gives the foxes a look and they scurry, being careful as they're handling her not to stain or wrinkle her suit as they extract her. One fox offers a delicate hand to help Chen balance, another works her legs so that despite being extracted from the back of a kidnapping car, Chen looks for all the world like she's being assisted out of a carriage by her servants.

She's red and blushing too, but there's something about it that makes it seem like her fluster doesn't reach her core. Instead, she attempts a dainty step around her bonds, then nods at one of the foxes (Blackleaf by the markings, Chen seemed to like that one) and begins leaning on her as a walking aid while the other two start their extraction of Rose. Perhaps it's the serene smile on Chen's face despite her blush that makes her seem so confident as she carefully steps forward to survey the picnic and turns to gaze over her Rosepetal's extraction as well.

Her gaze for Petal is longing, and anyone looking can see that there will be more time alone for them after the picnic is done. Chen quite enjoyed by squeezed into a car trunk with her much larger girlfriend, pressed in tight against her as the ride bumped and bounced them to be even more entwined. There was going to be more time being all wrapped up with Petal to come. She would start slow there, she thought, first have Petal stroke her ears with a soft hand and tell her she's a good girl. But that was fun for later.

Bigger things were fun for even later than that. A smile crosses Chen's face at the thought of a new adventure fighting an army of foxes. In fact, for a moment she simply can't stop grinning about Jessic's mad plan (because think about it, that means Keron is going to have to add handling hundreds of foxes to her sky castle duties and the image of that timebomb eventually going off is just too good not to be worth dwelling on).

And past that, there's the matter of Chen establishing her own little kingdom with her shard's warm glow letting people shift and change themselves to their fancy and all learning to live together that way. Qiu had certainly done something quite special by shaking things up as much as she had, all the princesses were going to be shifting who was doing what (and thank the suns Yin was formally retiring, she was not up to the pressure). Chen would have a front row seat at the table for that, tail swishing all the while.

But right now, there's a moment to live in here. There's a whole picnic laid out with Yue, Hyra, and Kat (who is certainly helping with the setup and has not stolen herself a slice of baloney, stop looking at her mouth that could have been anything, foxes lick their lips for no reason all the time!). There's someone new too, someone who looks like she might be an older, slightly thicker version of Yue, and at that Chen lets out a little squeal of delight! She taps Blackleaf, who nods once and undoes Chen's ropes so she can run over and give Yue a hug, dragging along Petal (whose ropes are distinctly not undone, forcing her into a rapid hop to keep up). "Is...is this? Is this her?!" she cries, wrapping up the taller girl suddenly and tightly.

Only then does she see the huge burrower mask leaning against the wall and do a double take, her ears going up and her tail shooting out. But she doesn't let Yue out of the hug, and her eyes are questioning but sincere. Because right now she's got her Rosepetal, and her friends, and this is going to be the perfect picnic. It might even be a place to make new friends!

TSL: The Excess of Flowers

Giri finishes relaying the meaning of the viewing (though Kayala might well have gotten the gist already, the meaning was not exactly subtle). She does smile when she's done. "All those divinings and you had the gods lining up to give you signs, you just had to look up from the teacup." She puts an arm over Kalaya's shoulders then, her collar jingling again but forgotten for the moment. "I'm sorry though. I wouldn't wish my worst enemy to be at the center of Mars' fate and yet here you stand at the center of the signs. The war goddess of the Dominion has placed you in the heart of things and you've got few options left to you. Ven even fewer. The funny thing about fates though is that reading them also changes them. Perhaps you'll do something much more random now because of this information. Or perhaps we've fixed it into being with all the gods lined up so."

Giri pauses for a moment, her arm about Kalaya as the boat swirls over the water and the rains return to their strength. "Know this, when the time comes. I place my friendship above my service. If you call me, I will come if I can. Even if I disapprove of your girlfriend's choices in magic."

As for Red Wolf, she gets the abridged version. They can hardly ignore the whole thing with all the scrying implements out and the extremely conspicuous break in the storm for no other reason. But what Red Wolf hears is much simpler. She and Uusha and Ven will all be vying, Uusha will defeat Ven, Kalaya will side with Red Wolf, and Mars has blessed the whole matter. None of that is false, and of course Red Wolf will draw her own conclusions, conclusions that she almost certainly had drawn already anyway. It will please her to hear that Mars has weighed in on the matter. She doesn't need to worry about Venus, or about how the Rakshasa might influence matters, or about wedding decorations just yet. Those are personal details for the recipient of the signs.

Sunshards

"Jessic!" Chen manages to shout, leaping up with her empty teacup and sprinting out of the cabin to see what's happening. She considers pulling out her phone and texting in righteous outrage, or leaping over the bannister and flying right in Jessic's face perhaps. But then the lightning breath shoots out with a loud crack and the smell of ozone as a whole line of foxes finds themselves grounded and twitching. Chen's heart goes out to them as their poor fluffy tails fly all out of sorts with massive static, poofing up sharply without the regular lustrous sheen of a fully fluffed fox tail. Truly a dire fate.

Moreover, there's Prim, Quick Ji and Blackleaf already carrying darling Rosepetal partially bound on the deck. Gosh and they're working overtime to double up the ropes and make it believable that they've really got her contained. Oh and there's an army of foxes advancing on the both of them, half of them somehow dressed in old-fashioned gangster suits and ties that had been in one of Jessic's animes Chen had briefly watched. Everybody in that one had been really well-dressed but they also drank a lot of alchohol, like a lot, yet never seemed to be bothered by it, and they all had a weird accent and acted all tough. Which is probably why the fox conspiracy had gone for the aesthetic, come to think of it. But the point was, the trio already had Rose and a gang of fox mafia were advancing on Chen.

"We surrender!" she shouted, sheathing her sword and putting her hands down by her side. It was the only thing to do really. The one sure way to minimize electrocuted fox devastation, ensure that Jessic calmed down enough to talk, and get to dress up Rosepetal as a bonus.

Chen flung herself into Blackleaf's arms (she thought it was blackleaf at any rate. She hadn't actually gotten which one was which from Petal, but she figured that Blackleaf was the one with little black tufts on her ears and a black streak down one side of her fiery hair and at any rate she was cute enough to be flung into to preempt the advancing mob). She curled her tail around the fox's leg and gave her a smile that only looked a tiny bit predatory.

"We surrender!" she said again, louder. "Hurry, get us dressed as gifts for Princess Jessic as quickly as possible, before she breathes lightning again. You'll want a palanquin, or at least a platform so you can hold us up over you and she won't attack you first. Oh yes, and you'll need to dress us up. I have it on very good, extremely reliable authority that proper offerings to a dragon have to be dressed up properly. Now last time, my sweet petal was a dainty little shrine maiden and I was dressed up in the poofiest princess dress, but that really doesn't fit the theme you've all got going on. Hm, no what I think Petal needs is a...um...what was it called in the anime, a 'flapper' dress. Made of silk, of course. I see you're already working on gagging her, that's good." Chen leans down from Blackleaf's arms and gives her Petal a gentle pat.

"Don't bother unbinding her, she can hop into any dress you've got for her. Don't make it too long either, stop right at the waist with just some thin silver tassel to really highlight her legs." Now Chen is touching those wonderful, strong legs for demonstration purposes, pulling Blackleaf with her because she's still in a state of surrender of course. "and what color for the main dress, hmm? We could do all silver, but I think it needs a little something more. How about Rose gold for your namesake, my sweet handmaiden? Rose gold with silver tassel, Jessic won't be able to resist a treasure like that. And I know you foxes do wish granting, so be sure that Petal gets all the fanciest embroidery and lace on her body, and I know she'll want it thin and diaphanous hanging on her. Give her a shawl too, but one that doesn't really cover anything, just more thin silk that adds to the mystique. And a headband with a silk veil to cover her face above the gag."

Chen ponders, putting a finger to her chin and twitching her ears as foxes are already scrambling to fetch materials from below decks. "I'll take a suit. I think it's the right thing for this sort of offering, my vacation shirt is too casual. Black please, cut it thin at the waist and wide at the breasts and the butt. One button, no vest, but high collar shirt that's tight and shows off my curves. And don't make the pants legs too long, everybody always makes the pants legs too long for me! Also, get me a tie the same color as the twilight sky, you can manage that right? You'll need to bind me over all that of course, but it's important that I look formal for our dragon princess."

Chen settles herself into her surrender, tail still wrapped around Blackleaf's leg. "Alright, there we go girls, come on, come on, you've got a dragon waiting on you!"

Sunshards

A warm glow suffuses outward from Chen as she reaches out a hand and slowly curls it around the handle of the teacup, smiling at her Rosepetal. She takes her time, lifting the cup daintily, blowing on the steam and letting the warmth of the tea flow into the warmth coming off her face, and only then taking a delicate little sip. Her excited wiggling ears give the game away though, and it's obvious to all involved that she simply wants to stretch out the time that her Petal is held before her like this so that she can take her all in. The way that he skin shimmers under the light of the shard is something special, and not the sort of thing that Chen can get anytime she wants. She grins as she imagines ordering Petal to pose for her the entire time they're entertaining until she can salvage the rest of her paints. But of course she wouldn't deny her or Prim, Quick Ji and Blackleaf from their promised fun.

So, instead she finishes her sip of tea, sighs in contentment, and smiles again. "Of course Petal, take your time, I'll come get you later. But not for a while."

As for the light of that shard. Well, originally she had imagined that she'd do some kind of big shardsplosion. Like, the boat would pull up near the shore, and a thousand monks would all double backflip three sixty on the deck like Master Omets had done initially, and there'd be all this chaos as the foxes tried to throw each other in harms way to make their escape, and then Chen would do a pose and there'd be a big light explosion and suddenly, well she didn't know what exactly, but she thought maybe some of the monks would grow ears and a tail like her, or some of them would suddenly find themselves in different clothes or slightly different bodies maybe. Maybe some of them would just have something new suddenly in their hands, or they'd decide that they had better things to do. While meanwhile all the foxes would go chasing after their thousand and one beautiful dreams and be too busy doing that to hurt each other as they raced off the boat. It wasn't a perfect plan, she was sure some of the monks really wanted to be monks and some of the foxes really wanted to be maniacal fox girls, but she had figured that it would shake things up so much that the ship could dock and they'd get everybody off and running for the hills.

But instead it hadn't gone like that. Chen was still rather fuzzy on the details actually, but she and Rose had raced about the ship putting out fires and addressing cackling foxes and somehow the monks had just all checked their phones and decided that actually this was fine. Chen hadn't seen Master Omet's phone like Rose had, but she got that something had been shared among them all and they were in agreement.

So, that left Chen with all this built up sunshard energy and instead of being a sunsplosion, it had become something more like a suffusion. Gentle rays of golden light were pouring off the tiara on her brow, casting everything in an angelic glow. It was most intense right with her, but even there it wasn't burningly bright. It was a happy, gentle yellow-orange that gave off a friendly pulse every few seconds and warmed everything nearby. It had started with just the ship, but had spread all across it, below decks, and even to the surface. It didn't really seem to be doing anything drastic either. The best Chen could say is that the shrieking, screaming, scampering foxes seem to have managed a more effective departure from the ship than might have been expected despite all the scampering and screaming in the process. But, it did make the tea taste good. Spicy, like she was drinking chai with cinnamon, cardamom, and a little brown sugar, even though there hadn't been time to properly boil those sorts of ingredients.

So, that leaves her sipping her inexplicable chai across from Master Omets, simultaneously completely certain about the place she's made for herself in the world and entirely uncertain about what comes next. "So..." she manages, then fidgets into a different position. "So, it's done then. I um, kept my promise to Cyanis and it was a lot of fun. And I, um, kind of expected thousands of monks to assault the ship, but you didn't, which was really nice. So, Master um, Omets. What now?"

Sunshards

Stop, drop, and roll! Chen clutches the painting to her chest and flings herself on the ship deck around her, landing hard on her shoulder and rolling about like a big cylinder with her prize clutched against her protected by her tightly wrapped arms. In a momen when she's done putting out the fire and protecting what she can of the painting, she breathes again and tries to let her brain catch up to her intinct.

Chen begins taking a look around, the sun on her head still blazing brightly. Okay, half the ship is an inferno. Well, she did take her eyes off all the monks and foxes for who knows how long so she can't really say this result was unexpected. Did she help start it as part of waking her sun up, or was the fox conspiracy as ready with arson as they were with kidnapping? Not that it mattered all that much, as the shrieking of foxes and the crackling roar of the blaze merge together into a general bedlam.

One would be forgiven for thinking that Chen might be panicking at this point. Her very large on-loan cruise ship is significantly more on fire than a few moments ago and everything is in chaos. But no. Chen's grinning. This is, well, it's a problem she can try and tackle by racing about like the wind, and working with Rose. She might not fix it all, sure, but it's just so absolutely physical in nature that she can just go at it the best she can and if that's not enough then that's okay too, they'll pull the foxes out of the water in life rafts for the last leg, just you watch her!

As she takes in the scene, Chen also sees Rose coming around the ship deck, gesturing for the old monk who had landed with her to go indoors. And mmm, she looks so good with her scarf and her bare muscles doing that maid's polite gesture for him to go ahead. Chen wants to linger there and just take in the sight, and gosh wouldn't it be nice to let Rose handle everything? But she figures Rose is imagining the same thing and besides she can't just pull up a beach chair by the pool full of foxes, pull her sunglasses down, and tan to the roaring fire, now can she?

All of that took only a few seconds once she was off the ground, and then a few more for the admiring gaze of Rose. Then, Chen's off like a bolt, blasting across the ship deck at top speed as she flings herself to the main building wall of the ship where there's emergency fire suppression equipment. She slows enough to rest the painting against a wall that's not on fire. She doesn't want it to burn down, but it's fine if the foxes or the monks steal it, so as long as it's not destroyed she's good. Then she lowers her sunglasses (eye protection always important, even in a pinch!), grabs her sword hilt and smashes the glass open, pulling out a huge hose and cranking on the water. The big thing is nearly as big as she is, and as she hefts it over her shoulder, she looks rather like a scaled up version of a little girl trying to heft a garden hose to water some flowers. But this is the whole ship deck and Chen's got magic on her side. She hefts the hose more firmly over her shoulder and takes off into the air riding atop her sword as the water starts rushing through the hose. Surfing on the sword blade, Chen begins spraying across the deck, dousing wood and foxes alike as though a geyser has sprung into being in midair ten feet above the ship deck. She starts working across the deck systemically, first putting out the small fires to contain it, and then working her way towards the core of the blaze.

All the while she's not speaking, but there's a grin on her face and as she goes, she starts laughing and giggling like a madwoman as she hose scours the surface of the ship! All the while, the shard upon her head is glowing and pulsing, gaining strength.

[Chen will defy disaster. She was putting the ship at risk if she didn't do a good enough job, but with showing off her legendary skill as the chosen, the result is a 10 (6+1+2+1).]

TSL: The Excess of Flowers

Giri breathes out through her nose, smiling. Almost laughing. It's not that Kalaya said anything funny exactly, but she just really nailed what Giri was worried about, saw right through her in fact. So she had to feel kind of rueful about it. That yeah you got me emotion just written on her face for the world to see in this moment.

"Ha you're right." And she finishes breathing out and says it again, really meaning it. "You're right, really right. I worry so much about what people think of me, of my career of my choices, of all the things that others do and have done who share my path that forget I'm just me sometimes. But, you're absolutely right. I don't need to be anybody's curse or their prize, I get to choose for myself what's right."

[clearing Insecure]

Giri walks over to the tea set then, her stance finally a little more relaxed, her collar jingling in time with her natural movements but her attention firmly on Kalaya's tea set. "You know, I don't think the gods abandoned you at all. You called for them and they brought us together, and in a moment of quiet, in a garden even amid a Dominion ship. That's the sign of the flower kingdoms being behind us if I've ever seen it. In fact if what you just said about the Rakshasa is exactly accurate, you've set my mind quite at ease. I was still afraid it might be on the ship, under our noses, but if it's wreaking havoc out there gestures with an expansive hand then it's made a terrible mistake. Because that means we're safe, this crew is safe, and we can figure out a way to hunt it."

Giri looks back at the tea cups again. "Tea reading is one of my specialties, but the trick with divination is that the signs are everywhere. The world is full of gods and spirits, and the heavens above always look down on us. Even if oddly at times" she adds, thinking of Fengye. "So, let's take one more look, shall we?" And Giri takes Kalaya's hand then with her own larger one, bringing the girl to the table as she picks up the little teacup and flings its contents overboard, collar jingle jangling madly with the motion even after she stops. She looks up and she looks out. At the wind, the clouds, the stars, the flight of birds, the sound of her own merry tinkling and she looks for all the signs of Kalaya's fate.

[Divination: 4+3+2=9. Giri learns a truth about Kalaya's fate that Kalaya doesn't know. Kalaya also learns the truth and may clear another condition.]

Sunshards

Chen (kitty):@Princess Kyoo oh that's perfect! @Jessic, no no no, not kidnapped. I'm freeing the foxes! =D
Chen (kitty):it's gonna be great, there will be so many fox wishes and so much to do! also I promised Cyanis I'd do it don't tell Keron till later!
Chen (kitty):the monks and gods think it's not the best though and there's like a thousand of them all waiting on shore
Chen (kitty):oh and one just backflipped onto the ship and he's giving Petal a maid challenge!
Chen (kitty):omg, this is so good, let me take a picture
Chen (kitty):[maidchallenge.jpg]

Okay, look this was all very distracting, but Chen also needed to talk to her sun and rouse it a little. She figured that was sort of a personal thing. Like how her ancestors got to know the wind or the way it had all happened when she was dueling Hyra. Like, she could just start talking out loud to her circlet gemstone and that would kinda do something, but she understood in the way she understood sword dueling and maid contests that you had to live it, not just say it. If you wanted to rouse a Big Spirit you had to put your whole self into it. That meant different things for different people. Like maybe for Qiu it was all about the big dramatics, like why she'd done the organ on a pyramid and the helicopter chase when she was on top of her game. And for Jessic it was the training and the joy of flight, that feeling of a body whose power was not only innate but intensely built up through skill and practice so hard that you could feel it just by being near her.

So for Chen, that was flow. It wasn't always the same flow, but it was some kind of flow. The dance, the duel, the act, it was always something. And actually, talking to it wasn't a bad start if she needed to find that here. "Hey" she said, phone still in one hand, the other tapping her circlet. "So like, you're in there sleeping huh? One of the suns in the sky. You got me these ears and this tail cuz of how right it felt to be this when Hyra and I were living out our dreams there. That was like super cool."

Chen looks up at the sky, vast and distant, full of faint twinkling stars set on purple velvet, washing along in their own rivers of light. "This world, it's too beautiful for all these folks to be cooped up and running along just one route. I mean, you know not just running, but flipping and squirming and dashing and getting tied up, but like it can't all be one big precept of The Way like that. It can be a way, just like everyone can have a wish but there isn't just one wish. I want them all to get to feel that. Like what happened with me, kind of like the foxes do but softer, more personal, more lasting. Not that sort of helpless coercion (e-even if some people want that) but more like getting to see what's in their own heart and make it real. That's what I want from a sun, is for each of them to get to be a little bit more of what they want than they could on their own. To have the body they want, the clothes they want, to show people the heart and soul and beautiful little light shining from inside of them just like all those stars up there. So...think you could do something like that?"

And you know, come to think of it, Chen hadn't painted anything in a while. And of course she shouldn't really be painting right now. She was going to get kidnapped by foxes any second despite what she'd told Jessic. Or beset by monks now that Petal was occupied. Maybe both, which sounded exciting! But sometimes the time was now and you just had to do something. She was in the eye of the hurricane after all, best not waste it. So, she ducked into a cabin and got out her art supplies (because this time she'd brought stuff since they had a whole ship!) and she pulled out a little canvas that would be easy to move around, just like the size of a big book. And she started mixing a little color. Some purple mixed with just a bit of white to lighten it up and get that purple velvet sky, lighter at the edges where the one shy sun loved to hang out and watch the world peeking over a counter. It didn't matter if she finished right now, or what happened next, it just mattered that she started. Everything else would flow from there.

TSL: The Excess of Flowers

A frown furrows Giri's brow as she catches the shadows upon Kalaya's face, but she returns the hug with force enough to make it difficult to breathe, expressing an urgent need for a different sort of human contact than what Red Wolf was offering.

When she lets Kalaya go a moment later (hopefully with no bruised ribs) she lets out her own breath that she'd been holding and her shoulders relax just a hair. Her collar jingles with the movement and she meets Kalaya's eyes as she asks the question.

"Both? Neither?" Giri shrugs and the bells tinkle merrily again. "I was accused of wrongdoing in front of all the gathered guests and Piripiri, the girl from the teahouse who it seems was a dragon-blooded servant to Agata, showed off her injury, inflicted by me. What could I say against that truth? I consider it a fair punishment all told. And then again, this is something Agata gave me, something she put on me herself. I would be lying if I said that I did not want it, did not want her even still."

The way Giri says Agata, it's casual, you haven't heard anyone refer to her like that, none of her servants or staff, certainly not anyone trying to curry favor. You get the sense that even Giri hesitates over it a little, like she's sharing something in private with you, a stronger and truer sense of how she thinks than she would behave in a group.

There's an awkward silence then. Giri stands still so her collar doesn't ring and looks at Kalaya. Then she sighs and jingling takes the girl into another hug, softer this time. "We put too much on our shoulders, princess." This time she doesn't hesitate, it's how she remembers you Kalaya, and she's more free with it in this moment, speaking softly for just you to hear. "Neither of us ought to bear it alone, you least of all considering how much you've already lost."

[Giri rolls to comfort and support and gets a 13. If Kalaya opens up to her, they both get to pick an option. Giri will heal a condition if so.]

Sunshards

Chen takes a breath and is still.

The initial run of foxes had been fun. Lots of twirling and dancing, some tail twisting and flinging, and a bit of pool tossing. Chen loved the way she and Petal worked together, strength and motion and mixing as they danced in time. It never got old either. Sometimes one or the other could lead, and Petal could change her cadence so well, shifting her size and her coordination so that Chen might have to step in different ways. That was one of the things Chen really loved about swordplay and dancing. You got to mix training and instinct in all these amazing ways. All the work with feet and core balance gave you the kind of knowledge to understand how your body could move, it opened up possibilities. Then on top of that, you got to make the actual choices about what felt right, what felt strong or weak, agile or slow, what made your heart beat fast and your face grow hot. That was special. So, even though foxes didn't put up much of a fight, rounding them all up and just vibing with Petal made it incredibly special.

Then it had gone quiet and she had started to really understand what Keron's life must have been like. Tails flitting down the end of corridors. Whispered giggles, always distant. Locked doors and empty hallways. Never peaceful though because everything was on her and Petal to be ready to respond, to not let their guard down. She started to understand why Keron might have trained an entire castle worth of handmaidens and really spent that time working with them. If she hit just that right spot where she was molding them to her own vision but at the same time molding them the way they wanted to be molded, they'd be loyal and see into all the places she couldn't be. That was really smart. Also something that Chen did not have time for right now.

Then she strolls out onto the deck and her moment of delight at being near enough to the shore to make out distant figures is instantly quashed when she realizes that they're a giant monastic order there to stop her. Or well...orders. She can see a whole mixture of outfits and colors, only a handful wear the same uniforms, a lot are just in casual clothes. So, her plan must have gotten out. She wondered who the leak was (Cyanis), who could possibly have revealed all of this (Cyanis) just to make things harder and more fun (Cyanis did it).

So, as Rose settled herself on the deck in a waiting maid's pose, Chen simply watched and took a breath. Then, she settles her sunglasses over her eyes to reduce the glare of staring into the sunset, walks a few steps behind Rose to one of the top deck refreshment booths, and grabs an already prepared drink in a pineapple, which she begins to sip in one hand as she flips her phone out in her other hand, tail swishing as she leans back and begins typing.

Princess Connect
Chen (kitty): hey
Chen (kitty): can anyone get me up to speed on how to do a big sunshard thing in like five minutes?
Chen (kitty): like, a really big mobile magic zone centered on a cruise ship in the waters near cutie fox island
Chen (kitty): asking for a friend