[b]Chen![/b]

"I'm new!" said Cyanis. She's already bounded onto the top of the car after it stopped and her head is upside-down in the window. She extends a hand awkwardly in through the window to shake one of your tied hands. "Cyanis! Two-tails! Just getting started!"

"Well, feel like getting started with an actual for-real Princess?" said Elkibrant, spinning the roller so he could look out the window at her. "This here's Chen. Absolute softie. I reckon you could have her wrapped around your tails in a matter of hours."

"Oh! Wow!" Cyanis said, half-clambering in through the window to get a better look at Chen. "An actual - already? A real - was this because of my fliers?" she looks at Elkibrant with amazement. "Those were my idea, by the way! J'el said that advertising was undignified and burrowery but I thought that maybe if I let people know I was going to grant wishes then I might get more business! And I was right!!" she somehow props herself up on her elbows on the base of the window while her legs and tails were still firmly settled on the roof of the car. She looks genuinely shocked and amazed that her idea had [i]worked[/i]. 

"Yeah - well word certainly got around," said Elkibrant. "You've got the monks hot on our heels behind this, so you want to do this deal quickly?"

Cyanis didn't seem to hear him, focusing in on Chen, and letting her hand trail down to toy with her scarf. "Are you [i]really[/i] Princess Chen?" she said. "Aren't you the unstoppable mega-Princess who is going to save the world from Princess Qiu? How did [i]these guys[/i] catch you?"

[b]Rose![/b]

In the darkness of night, Princess Yin is a radiant star brighter than any other. In the brightness of day she seems an exhausted echo. She runs her Shard harder than any other Princess for her needs are greater than any other Princess, and so too does she demand a level of perfection from herself that never was sustainable. When she comes walking the forest path, dress torn and scorched from clashing blades with a devil, she is not that goddess of that darkens the world to properly contrast her brilliance. Instead she is drab and downcast and burned-out, eyes bloodshot from staring too long at her own light.

Her woven-antlered stag too follows at the most gradual pace, head nodding and crystals chiming as it borders on exhaustion. Travel, too, has its prices and even a mythical beast like hers may tire. The main thing keeping the two of them awake is the music playing from Princess Yin's phone - one headphone in her own ear, one headphone in the ear of the stag. The surprisingly low-quality cabled things bleed music into the surrounding softness of the forest, at this distance no more than a tinny echo of some goth-rock opera. 

As they near where you have hidden yourself, Princess Yin pauses to yawn, stretch and sniff the air. Even odds to if she winds up noticing you or not, but for now you have the drop on her.

[b]Yue![/b]

This ghost is not an echo of words, it's an echo of sensation. Some monks say that there are two souls; the higher, that dwells in the crown and deals with thought open to the sky, and the lower, which dwells in the stomach and deals with senses deep like the base of the mountain. It does not tell you a story, because stories are things of words and thought. It shares with you a memory, real and visceral and drawn from every nerve and sensation. 

You feel the shift coming when you say [i]you are pretty[/i]. A deep sense of uncertainty wells up within you; an eruption of butterflies and doubt and defense and denial. Hot blood flushes the cheeks like rain after a drought, the throat swallows air and imagines it to be a frog, the heart remembers to tell you how hard it is beating. The sunlight is bright and the view is familiar and yet not - the enormous steps of the Terraced Lake before the Red Dam had broken. Instead of the blue cascading water and constant waterfalls that seemed an eternal part of your home you see oceans of green and brown criss-crossed with lines. Rice-paddy fields fill the entire three-tiered crater, roads winding between them like serpents. You can hear, too, the flapping of the tall war-banners - ten thousand of them and all of them black and red, the colours of the Warlord. They rise above the valley and in their shadows stand figures of hard edges and long swords. An army to watch a people enslaved in the shadow of a puzzle-box fairy-tale castle, alight with plum blossoms whose purple flowers blow though the valley and into your hair.

You were young. You were unsure of everything but the blade at your side. This was a time when the lower soul ruled you and all that you thought of was trading for the rice that would fill your belly. But then she said that you were pretty. And then the wind picked up and the sun shined brightly and for a moment you felt yourself recognized for something other than the blade that made others call you the Demon Swordswoman. In this moment on this hilltop in the shadow of war you received a smile from someone who did not want or need you to draw your blade.

The sword still came to your hand in the end. You couldn't keep it away, it was as much a part of you as your fingernails and even if you cut it short it would grow back. But a fingernail did not need to be a weapon - a thing of tearing and clawing. It could be painted. It could be coloured. It could be brilliant. It could be sexual. Could not that apply to this sword that you had sculpted your hands to carry? If you had the skill to kill any opponent could you not instead use your blade to write a story? Could you not use it to express a heart that could never find its way through uncertain words?

Could you not teach others to do the same?

Could you not mAke A sUccessfUl bUsIness OUt Of It reAsOnAble rAtes ApplY $39.99 fOr the fIrst twO lessOns BARGAIN BARGAIN BARGAIN BARGAIN

The memory falls apart and the offensive redoubles. The dress comes at you harder, faster, fiercer - still not looking to hurt but determined to make you feel like you're getting your money's worth. Toxic hijacked messages blare at you from all directions, from the walls, from hidden speakers. LOOK at how out of shape you are YOU NEED THIS. LOOK at how pretty you can be - green shards of broken glassy crystal light up in the muck clinging to the dress giving it an eerie air - YOU WANT THIS. LOOK at how DANGEROUS the world can be DONT LET IT PUNCH YOU WHEN YOU CAN STAB IT FIRST. LEARN TO BEAT ANYONE WITH THIS WEIRD TRICK - SAMURAI HATE IT!