Have you ever seen anything so green? The sun-dappled grass! The canopy of leaves not-so-far overhead! There, look how they're swaying! Even the rocks are grown over with moss and lichens and it's all! It's sooooo beautiful! The sunlight itself is tinted like emeralds, except for where it pushes into the grove in visible, cloudy beams that pool in yellowish patches that turn the sunning rocks to gold. Yue shivers in the middle of her little treasure vault, and sneezes. A dozen lizard heads turn in her direction, and she giggles her apology. It's not so warm in the shade, you know? Not the way she's, erm, dressed.

But what does that matter, when the air is so clean that just breathing it feels like waking up from the best night's sleep ever? And really, it's not like the air is exactly dirty anywhere else, you know? But farmers till the earth and kick up all sorts of things, and the village is filled with heat from the glass blower's, and somebody, whoever really, it's different every time, but somebody is always making soup and as pleasant as all of those things are it's just not the same. There's no deeper, cleaner breath you'll take in your entire life than the one that's surrounded on every side by healthy plants, out on their own and singing their song. Here friends, let's trade, ahaha!

Yue traipses across the scene on the tips of her toes, spinning nimbly around the tiny blossoms where they sprout up among the grass. Little bits and bars of about five different songs hum their way across the juice-stained smile that's parked itself permanently on her face. As if the night could not touch her, anymore. As if the night had not happened at all. She dances and she hums and she makes her way to a huge(ish) column of marble that had been cut in half on an angle long enough ago for the mosses to start overtaking the break. What was it's story, anyway? Did some travelling swordswoman come here and test her edge against this stone, as part of her training? Or was this a wonder of the old world that fell and broke on its way to Heaven? What was it for, anyway? Did they worship its beauty, or charm small gods to their presence with the promise of a perfect home? In any case there were no gods here now, unless you counted big(ish) lizards. Yue offers the King of the Pillar a respectful curtsy. 

"Greetings, Your Majesty! Do you think I might borrow a tiiiiny bit of space on your... eep!"

Sunning lizards can be quick biters, especially when they're defending a basking spot from evil intruding fingers (their only known natural predator!). But as fast as this one snaps and clicks its proud little lizard clicks, it's no match for Yue, who snatches her hand and the glass bead she's holding in it out of range with centimeters to spare between her and discovering if this particular fellow was venomous. Oof! She goes tumbling gracelessly backwards and falls onto her butt. She lifts both hands to gather long strands her hair out of her face, and laughs.

"Whoops, hahaha, guess not! That's ok friend, I know you were here first. I was only, well, I guess a fellow sun farmer like you understands! Happy hunting, aha... hm?"

Hromp! Yue squeaks when a mouthful of vicious fangs sink into her arm. It takes several full chomps before she realizes that the mighty huntress currently chewing her to death is none other than Kat, who growls indignantly at the soft smile of her mistress and switches in the space of a single tail swish from angy bite-bites to haughtily turning her nose in the air and admiring the non-Yue parts of the woods.

"Awww, are you still mad at me for putting you in the bag?"

Ha, as if! If you think you deserves [i]talkies[/i] after what you did, you've got another thing coming! Kat sniffs dismissively and busies herself watching a Really Cool Bug off in the middle distance. Yue clicks her tongue in a soothing pattern, but it only earns her a tiny bit of curious ear twitching and a few pitty baps from her chocolatey brown vixen mittens. So, so there!

"I'm sorry, ok? I don't know if you noticed, Miss Fussypants, but we had to run from a bunch of scary demons and you have very tiny legs! What did you want me to do, leave you behind?"

Arf, she arfs! Arf arf arf, and furthermore, yip yip arf! You fiend! You villain! You, you... what are you doing with that hand? Hey what no, no uppies! No! Arf arf rrrrrrrr! If you think you can buy your way out of this with ear rubs, then... o-oh gosh, squishies. I mean, no! No no no, you... meanieface! You, oh gosh yes, there there there!

"Uhuh? Uhuh? What else, sweetiebeans? Did I squish your delicate little tumtum? Did I muss up your pretty green floof? Yeah, I know~ You can't be a flooferdoodle without you cutiefloof! Here you go, here you go! Let me fix you aaaalll up!"

It turns out Yue doesn't need two hands to find all the right spots. Inside the ears, under the chin, riiiiiight at the creamy little poof on her chest, yup yup yup! Kat tries her best to maintain dignity in the face of this assault. It lasts all of fifteen seconds, and then? She melts. Her haughty snuffles turn into delirious vixen giggles as she stretches her teeny little body across Yue's lap. Eheh! Ehehehehe! More, more! Rub here, scritch! Scritch here! 

"There you go! Whoosa pretty girl, hm? Who's my precious snugglemuffin? It's you! It's you, Miss Fluffybiscuits! Awww, you're so pretty, yes you are! You're so dignified, yes you are! Yue is so sorry she didn't carry you gently, ok? Good girl! What a good girl!"

Wolves, it turns out, cannot laugh. But they [i]can[/i] roll their eyes. And, oh gosh, does Hyra know how to stare. Yue smiles sheepishly and blushes deeper than a blood lily. But she doesn't move except to trace her finger in soft circles on Kat's forehead, because she's earned herself the Purr of Forgiveness, and you don't disrespect that by [i]stopping.[/i]

"She... she likes it when you treat her like a princess."

Hyra's head tilt is more savage than an entire host of Yin's chanting shadows. Yue flinches so sharply it seems like she'd been hit by an arrow. Or ten.

"Is that... do you not... um. Is this not the way you talk to princesses?"

This is the kind of stare down that poets will fight over to get the chance to write about. Yue stammers and squeaks and very nearly makes the potentially lethal mistake of offering to give Hyra pats too, as if she were jealous or something, but just before her fate is sealed forever, she's saved by the click-click-click of a contented lizard scuttling down from its pillar throne to mingle among the commoners.

It stares at Yue for a long moment. Then it blinks its eyes. And then, the miracle, are you ready? It nods. Yue gasps with joy, this whole little... incident forgotten in a flash, offers the lizard its own grateful nod in turn. She gently lifts herself off the ground and goes to place her beads on the sunlit pillar. 

"I, uh, no, I... yeah. I know. I know, but. Just a little longer, ok? The sunlight here is so [i]peaceful[/i] that I just, well, I don't know that much about curses so I, that is, I don't want to make promises, but maybe I could, if you could just let me..."

Hyra pads softly over to Yue before she can um herself to death and leans against the girl in lieu of words. Yue flashes her a tiny smile, only a little bit wet, and together they share a moment watching the sunlight.