The scent of Princess Qiu this close is like fire and thick incense, and it's everything Chen can do not to sway and drop her art. When Qiu guides Chen's hands where they're supposed to go, it's forceful but not unkind and she feels like...oh gosh like she's floating and-and she's doing exactly what she ought to be and everything will be perfect. If she could, she'd just melt right here and let Qiu support her and twirl her about wherever she liked. Then she'd step up on her tippy toes and give Qiu the lightest little kiss and Qiu would lean into it and press her lips together harder and then maybe she'd take a bite and...

Chen's parry comes in the awkward needs of her things. Shard magic is powerful and it can change much. But for all that, it's not a simple thing, not even for three sunshards, to pull something out of a princess's hands when it's something she really cares about, something that she put time and effort into and filled with her excitement and her secret fears. That is Chen's canvas and her sketchbook, holding her most recent work and her older work, that she doesn't just show to anyone, that has the fear of being judged and admonished, and the hope of being loved, and the secret little pleasures of twilight and sunrise and perfect falling leaves. So she should be swept away to dance, but she's holding a canvas freshly painted and a bag with her sketches and her tools and so she can't just be swept up and she can't just focus on Qiu no matter how much she feels that pull.

She nods, of course. She understands, she absolutely wants it to be her having that dance. She doesn't even try to untangle the tail, but she does lean the wrong way. She puts her weight on her own feat, and leans into her bag and her painting. She moves, not strongly, but outside the dance steps. She makes to put her things down somewhere on the ship, she takes the hands that Qiu placed on her body and makes her own decisions about what to do with them, and its with those motions that she can think again. 

In her mind, her thought is [i]why?[/i] and in that word she means so many things. Why does Qiu need another princess to aid her at all? Why offer such a valuable prize for a handmaiden, even as a way to show off? Why call Chen for this? Why consult a demon as to who her handmaidens ought to be? Why push and even entice Chen to take on this task without telling her anything about it first? In that "why" were a thousand traps and stumbles that could be here for her. 

Her riposte is that she doesn't say any of those things and lets Qiu know it. She lets the tail stay in place, she leans back in, but now it's with a little more of her own strength, a bit more of her own center. "Of course" she says, looking Qiu directly in her serpentine eyes now. "Tell me all about her and I'll find you your new handmaiden." And maybe Qiu likes having an opponent that's more than she can eat in a single bite. 

[Chen is seduced by evil here (and she's agreeing to the favor), but she's also enticing Qiu in turn. 2+6+2+1=11. Chen gets a string and Qiu needs to pick one of the entice options as well.]