She should be scared right now. Terrified out of her mind, in fact. Knees knocking together, full body shivering, heart pounding so hard inside her chest it makes her dizzy, hands blistering around the hilt of her sword because it's either that or drop the stupid thing and then it's gone forever in a sea of rotting knickknacks. Y'know, scared! And she is! She [i]absolutely[/i] is right now! But she's also not squeaking or screaming or running away, and that's because...

That's because there's something that looks an awful lot like courage welling up inside her, too. And it's funny, isn't it? How close that feeling is to love? 

This must have been the most beautiful place in the whole world, once upon a time. It must have been. It has to have been. Even now, when it's filled with blackish brownish greenish grossish water just kind of bubbling in ways that seem entirely unsavory and the walls are smothered with graffiti and strange advertisements that couldn't have been relevant even to the people of the old world, even with every third step interrupted by the crunching of an ancient rusted can or a broken toy or some misshapen lump of plastic, even with all of [i]that[/i] this place gave off a sense of beauty and nobility and grace like it shouldn't even be possible for it all to fit on one little ball of rock. 

Once upon a time, they were right not to fear the waters. Once upon a time, and now. Yes, and now. Though the river be full of demons, so walk always with your wagon between it and you, though eternal waterfalls someday stop and their sprays turned diseased, though it can be cold and cruel and crushing when it wants to be, though the rain can soak you through your dress down to your bones and leave you a miserable shivering wreck in the middle of the nicest picnic... what child of the Terraced Lake could [i]not[/i] love the water? That's why. That's why Yue can't help falling in love. 

And love is why she isn't running. And love is why it hurts so much to see such a beautiful place dragged so low. She didn't, actually she'd never, everything atop her tiny little world was new, see? It had all been made in the time after the first Princess shot down the suns. Long after that, even, well beyond the time when the Burrowers built their glittering golden staircases and walked away to be among the stars. Long after that too, everything she had and everything she owned and everything she saw was from a time and a place where there was too much plenty and too much freshness to let anything go to rot like this. So she's never seen something so beautiful get turned into a decaying shell of itself, not unless you counted Mr. Stuffles, whose crime was getting too many hugs until his stitching started to come loose enough that it was too hard to sew him back together so that he had to retire to the shelf opposite the fireplace to watch teatime and be cursed to never have another adventure even though his smile still begged for them occasionally. And for some reason nobody ever did seem to count Mr. Stuffles, so being here hits that much harder.

It's like some careless person wandered off from their beautiful castle and left the door open. It's like they left the door open and the wind blew in and knocked everything over. And even when people noticed the door was still open, they just shrugged and left it like that so that the rains could wash out all the colors. It's like they didn't even care when the goats started wandering in and chewing on everything. It's like... it's like no one cared. How horrible! Only it's worse than all of that because it's gone on for so long that the world itself was giving up on this place! You ever been so mad at something it made you squeak? Well take a look at Yue.

She doesn't have a sleeve to wipe her eyes on, so her arm's going to have to be good enough for the job. Yue cries openly, because whoever it is that was buried here, she must have been important. She must have been special beyond special. This was not the resting place of a simple handmaiden, even the greatest ever to wear the title. Not even the most beloved hero and servant of all time could have moved the world to remember her like it tried to. She must have been a Princess herself, or so much like one that it didn't matter, if her world lacked titles like Yue's had. And somebody so incredibly special and wonderful deserved to have people cry for her sake, because nobody seemed to have bothered for a dozen dozen dozen lifetimes.

And these are the feelings that surge through Yue's body as she trembles and holds her silly wooden sword in front of her as the machines of at least three bygone eras prior to her come shambling at her like jiangshi or something even worse like they'd put in a horror movie. And they're why even though she desperately wants to flinch, to run away from those ominously swinging clubs, she digs her feet into the ground and holds herself still... erm, steady, uh, in place. Yes. And it occurs to her like a flash of inspiration that in a moment like this she ought to say something. This is when warriors shout challenges, isn't it? To help them pluck up their courage before they go about the dirty business of fighting? Hyra's probably expecting her to, oh no, she'll be so disappointed if Yue can't come up with something cool! And doesn't she want to look cool in front of Cyanis so that she knows she's found a friend she can rely on and--

CLONK!!

"Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee~!"

Something! Something just hit her sword! And! And! Oh gosh oh no get awwaaaaaayyy!

Yue twists and scrambles and somehow goes leaping backward some twenty odd paces until she nearly lands in a pool of brackish filth, and [i]that[/i] sends her forward another five until she remembers, oh shoot, the robots, and when she looks up to scream some more that's when she notices that the one that was raising it's big metal fist at her has fallen over. Does that? Is this? Does he count as her first ever vanquished foe? Oh gosh! It must have stepped wrong when it tried to swing, so that when it smacked into her sword it toppled over! But that counts! That totally counts, doesn't it? Surely it must, if you've giving bonus points for holding the sword in front in the first place!

There's all sorts of things she's feeling at once. First, the tears that are rolling down her cheeks right now are made with the terror of being in a fight without an invincible swordmaiden to protect her. Second, the rising heat that turns those tears to steam: that's how embarrassed she feels knowing that anyone is watching her and realizing that she still has no idea what comes after Step 1 of Hyra's lessons. And finally, the shaky laugh of almost kind of pride that shatters into more screaming and flailing as she notices the truth.

This isn't a victory at all! The two club-wielders have taken advantage of her distraction, and now they're striking; not from the front, but from the sides! Ooh, clever girls! Yue flinches and shrinks in on herself and just barely manages to slip on a patch of algae in time to duck her head under the heavy swings before they can knock her senseless. She lands gracelessly on her butt and scrambles like a crab to avoid the WHUMP, WHUMP, THUD of clubs smashing at her every which way, until... yeeep! Something just grabbed her ankle! Yue twists her body swings wildly with her sword with her eyes squeezed shut so that she can't tell when she's hitting her attackers or the ground or (oh please no) an increasingly frustrated wolf.

All she knows is that she's doomed. All she knows is that she's in over her head. All she knows is, oh gosh, how in the [i]world[/i] is she going to get out of this one?