Ancient claws grasp at Rose from the River, holding her fast by the neck, the arms, the waist, and with a deep trill of triumph, the [i]ABC[/i] Mechanism drags its prize in.

That is its intent, at least. But Rose from the River does not move. She has dug herself into place, her toes and heels spreading into the riverbed below. As the leviathan pulls at her, losing the battle against her roots, two new arms define themselves and unfold from her torso, unseen by its primitive cameras. (Down here, poor thing, it is half-blind. All it can see is magic, and that like a woman groping towards sunlight from her bed.) And in them she grasps the Conciliatory Ice-Star Blade, which with a flick of her wrist becomes a thick-bladed cleaver, keen to a sorrowful edge.

One, two! One, two! Claws are torn from the body by the strain of Rose’s wiry arms. (Her change is slower, now, a thing of breath and growth, but every moment makes those arms stronger and more generously fleshed.) She stands fixed, unmovable by heaven or hell. And so the [i]ABC[/i] fulfills its programming the only way it can, so maimed, its cast-off limbs settling all around them: it flings itself forward and traps Rose from the River in the cube like a girl trapping a butterfly underneath a cup. This is a strong yet humiliating move, were there any to witness; it presses its sensors into the packed river-mud, pushing its weight down to prevent Rose from lifting it off of her. Now it only needs wait until the circle cuts off Rose from her roots, forcing her to withdraw completely into the prison.

But even as it constricts around her, Rose from the River (now lit by the soft white glow issuing from the sides of the cube, a figure of darkness within the gentle and invasive light) flicks the ogre’s knife she holds once, and it narrows, lengthens, becomes a gleaming victory spear with a fin-curved head. She gathers her strength, even as her essence without the cube withers away, crumbling and retracting, and takes a breath, fills herself with potential energy until it is enough to consume her if left unreleased.

Dear Thorn Pilgrim! As the jaws of the trap close around her, her spirit shines all the brighter! She takes her weapon, fallen from the strange and pale moon which is the doorstep of heaven, and with it performs the Royal kata, which is a continuous cutting motion. In one flourish, her feet still rooted in the earth, she circumscribes the binding cube from within one hundred and eight times.

This done, she takes her victory spear and moves into the presentation kata. Ten heartbeats pass. Then the cube unravels, torn into one continuous skin, the binding circle translated into a pattern of preservation. Limbs fall ascatter all about, even as the thing that once was a cube twists and attempts to understand its transcription into something different. (If washed up onto a village bank somewhere, it would be a strange wonder, indivisible and singular.)

Rose from the River pulls her feet from the riverbed, flicks the Conciliatory Ice-Star Blade into the shape of a pin, and ties her braids about it. Then she kicks upwards and scrambles artfully onto the bank, water gleaming moonish on her eel-dark skin, her blade lit from within by its own virtue where it holds her hair in place, all four arms well-shaped and strong.

Dear Thorn Pilgrim! She looks more like Love, Rising From The Waves than a human; the lap of water on the bank is her shell and her choir of heavenly spirits. Her eyes are molten gold, pierced by thorns; who can meet them? Her hips could crack mountains in the swing. The effect is only slightly ruined when she coughs and has to massage her gills into her skin before she suffocates on dry land. But even her cough is deep, a thing like home-brewed coffee.

Now let the Scales decide whether [i]she[/i] is to avert her eyes from the shameless nakedness of this river-nymph or let herself be entranced in turn.

[Rose from the River Defies Disaster with a 12, willing to sacrifice her freedom in order to undo the Mechanism from within. This being done, and done with style, she emerges from the water and offers Scales of Meaning an Enticement with a 7. Is Scales of Meaning interested with what is offered?]