[b]Chen and Rose![/b]

Blades clash. Hearts sing! The wild horses gallop away and the North Wind wraps and whips and howls! This is war, here amidst the mountains and the yellow flowers on the blade edge of coming nightfall! Be wary of the falling sun as you fight, maidens, for he will blind you as surely as he hopes to blind any archers who look his way.

Blinded by sunlight, blinded by passion, blinded by each other, neither of you see the Scales of Meaning slip away. She scrambles over the edge of a cliff and dives into a cool mountain stream below, letting the white-rushing waters carry her like a dart away. Perhaps if you were not blind you might have seen her glance behind her, torn by a desire to stay and watch the duel, but she cannot yet calculate the value of this scene and so she pays the coin of regret in leaving.

[b]Yue![/b]

She comes in white. This is an absolute. Colours only exist in relation to each other; a white dress at sunset will be tainted with red and orange and shadow. Unacceptable! To allow herself to be defined by her environment? To let the purity of her heart be contingent on circumstances? Never! She comes in [i]white[/i]. If that means the world must be darkened around her, then so be it. That is why Princesses invented Sunshards.

She comes riding a black stag, antlers woven through with the strings of a crystal dreamcatcher. She rides him sidesaddle, one hand resting on the quiver of arrows, the other on the scabbard that holds her diamond thread bow. Is not a bow the ultimate weapon of a princess, by which she might shoot down a hateful sun? She comes with dark eyes and flowing black hair and a cape of mirror-ribbons that flows around her shoulders like the pelt of some divine animal. She comes with crystal slippers that have never known the touch of mud, with a single orbiting light like her own tame sun that floats behind her head to provide her with a halo. It hides her face and casts you deep in her wide and looming shadow.

And you are not the only thing in those shadows. Eyes glint. Terrible shapes flick and move in low, savage dances. Faint flows of that deep violet curse magic drifts around you in all direction, reaching out for Hyra of the Wolves, as the ocean reaches for a raindrop.

[i]"Princess Yin,"[/i] the shadows hiss like a chorus, whispered heralds of royalty. [i]"Princess Yin. Princess Yin. Do your best, if you dare."[/i]

She holds up a hand imperiously and the whispers fade into the background. She stares down at you for a moment, and then her gaze flicks across to Hyra. "Fetch," she said. "Bring."

A rough hand, glowing with curse light - was this really that hand that touched your chin so gently a moment before? - grabs you by the shoulders and drags you forwards. Hyra's red eyes are locked on Princess Yin like she can't look at anything else. You're pulled up far too close to the Princess, far too roughly, far too like a captive. And Princess Yin is no easier to look at this close.

[i]"Princess Yin,"[/i] the shadows hiss again, all around you. [i]"Princess Yin. Princess Yin. She'll catch your dreams, if you dare."[/i]

"And what," she asks, voice heavy with contempt, "makes [i]you[/i] so important, I wonder?"