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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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