[b]Chen![/b]

Though the mood has changed this is no less a place of swords. The blade itself is gone from Princess Qiu's hand but that is because everything has become blades in its place. It's a thrust as she hands you her wine glass, the angle facing towards you the one with just a faint impression of her lipstick on the cup's edge, inviting an indirect kiss. It's a clash as she puts one arm around your shoulder and you can feel its strength, holding you down as firmly as in your fantasy even though it's but resting atop your skin and scarf. Your parry is too slow and her tail is around your waist just as you said and she's leaning you back with it as support and all the world is on the brink of dancing.

"[i]Good[/i]," said Princess Qiu, and oh, doesn't Princess Chen Tian have a ring to it?. "Because I've set a competition, see? A dance with me in exchange for some girl that the demon thinks would make a worthy handmaiden," she's leading, and she's leading with just enough pauses and breaks in the rhythm to stop it being a proper dance. Just enough to make your whole body hang on waiting for that moment when the music starts. "And I would be very disappointed if I wound up having to dance with just anybody. Having to let Princess Yin, or the Pyre put her hands," she moved your hands, "here," she said, "and [i]here[/i]. Wouldn't you rather it be you? I know I would..."

A dance was a valuable prize in a princess conflict; you could bring another leader into your aesthetics, move them to your beat, have them glorify you with their music. It was a way to win prestige and acclaim, and that was valuable coin indeed... if you could avoid from being swept up by your partner's skill and aesthetics. Perhaps that was why Princess Qiu had offered such a valuable prize for such a minor errand? Because she was confident that she would out-shine any partner who danced with her, despite them setting the beat.

Perhaps she might. If that was true she truly would be unstoppable, and that would be a pleasant enough way to find out. But maybe if it was you... maybe you could make her show her softer side, the part of her that was sunset text messages rather than blades and conquest.

[b]Rose![/b]

She would take your heart in an instant. That you know. Those titanium white fingernails flicker, itching for it, for this is the nature of the Scales of Meaning. She would reach between your breasts, part your ribs, pull forth your still-glowing heart and weigh it against a feather on the scales that hang from her horns. Though she came to you as a broken thing now she stands as clean as this evil river, dark judge of the underworld.

Ah, it is a crime indeed that she is here, in the moonlit world. Just as it was a crime then when she sat amidst a vast grid of thunder and told the masked lords exactly how much each empire was worth. As her long black epee comes up to aim perfectly at that heart she craves the full precision of the sentient heart of the stock exchange is on display. 

Its emotion and turbulence, too. For as long as the Scales of Meaning has stood on the threshold of twilight to terrify and judge human souls in unchanging calm, she has spent as long riding highs and lows, fears and frenzies. The empires she judged might lose their worth in instants or regain it with a speech. Though the scales on her head are rickety and medieval things, the circuitry inlaid in her horns flickers with high frequency emotions, making decisions and betrayals as fast as optics allow.

"I would purchase your services," said the Scales of Meaning. "My mistress has demanded a captive and I will return it to her. As you are bound by electronic laws, as you are of the river, as I am empowered by glorious digits I demand you tell me the price that I might buy you for my own."

She is offering what she thinks you want - money and purpose, like all beings of the ancient world.

[b]Yue![/b]

There's just a flick of a smirk that crosses Hyra's lips - that impossibly fine moment when someone realizes that if anyone even slightly less cool delivered a line like this they'd fall on their face. "I already have my dinner [i]right here[/i]," she said, letting her voice roll the word with just the right timing to cause your heart to skip a beat.

[i]Dangerous.[/i]

The lightning connecting that gaze to yours snaps and she pulls you aside as a lance slashes by you by a hair. The demons are here in the sky! Only... no, they're not flying. They've swarmed in their dozens, maybe hundreds, forming a black carpet on the ground below that is raising up into the sky like a ladder. They stand atop each other like a chain of ants, raising up in the perfect co-ordination of mindless to join you in the sky. The one sitting atop the chain of its kin has a helmet and shield and lance like a knight atop a thousand horses, and from all over the lands below more of the demons rush to join the swarm.

"Hold this for me," said Hyra, her predatory eyes narrowing in focus as she pushes her sword into your arms. Some princesses are said to fight with unique weapons - enchanted swords, swords that enchant, swords that are as intelligent and wise as their wielders. It is almost a relief that in this perilous situation this sword seems uncomplicated - straight, steel and set with sapphires. She's handed it aside to you as she draws a bow and arrow from her back and starts to line up her shot.

The ladder of demons realign themselves and rush at her again, and she rolls aside in the sky, evading the blow and pulling the danger from you. Again and again they clash and with each engagement Hyra loses a little more altitude, being driven down towards the ground and never quite finding the moment she needs to release her arrow. In this moment you're flying on your own and it's unsteady; you can descend easily, but to gain altitude it is like climbing stairs.