Hey! What? No! You can't just... what does any of that even, we were just getting to the good part! What is, why are, how dare you? How dare you, how dare you, how dare you do this to her? Don't you feel the slightest bit of shame just spewing all that... all that... [i]nonsense[/i] at her all the time? Look what you're doing! And, a-and is it 39 or is it 99?! 39 or 99 [i]what?![/i]

Anger flashes in Yue's eyes like it hasn't in her entire life. Not even that time when Sis borrowed her best dress without asking and wound up ruining it by going firewalking on a dare. Not even that other time when she was at the market and the chicken-seller insisted he was only trading for butt pinches, or any other silly story she can call to mind. No, not even then! She's never had a reason to burn like this before, and she's never had anything to burn [i]at[/i] that she wasn't too afraid of hurting to really let it show like this even if she had. 

Kat's heart would break on the spot if she ever saw her Yue like this, but these [i]ads[/i], these buzzing little flies, all hot swordswomen in her area and galaxy lights with oddly satisfying skin masks, hey this blew up! Wanna become famous? Buy followers and subs at bogfellows dot com! Buzzing, droning, swallowing consuming, just what in the heck is a credit chit to begin with? It must have served a purpose to somebody, once upon a time, and maybe even it was considered beautiful. But there's so much of it here piled up so high it's toppling over in on itself and the only thing it's causing is pain. That'd get anybody's eyes to angry burn, just you see if it wouldn't.

"I can't!" she cries, "I won't! Just, just stop it! Stop it! Stop it!"

Yue's fully free of the dance, now. So when she suddenly lunges and throws a wild diagonal slash at the floating dress, it's the first move in the entire set of duels she's picked for herself. Cross! Thrust! Slide and stab! Like this and like this, finishing like this, but now pivot and slash again! It isn't elegant or masterful, all she's doing is copying the muscle memories of somebody smarter and better and prettier than her. But in the end it doesn't matter, because it's her heart and her body that's choosing each move. This is her dance. She swats at the blade held opposite her again and again and again. Even though her arms are burning, again! Even though her lungs are screaming, again! Clack, clack, clatter clack, again, again, again! Again, until the sounds of the fight are loud enough that nobody can talk to her about the expiring warranty on her car and she can finally, finally, [i]finally[/i] think straight!

What's a girl to do? If she were a magician then maybe she could purge this place with a spell or six and return to the beautiful and natural state it belonged in. Maybe that would fix everything. But she's not. She's a sun farmer and she couldn't tease so much as half a handmaiden's worth of spellcraft out of a whole bag of her best beads even if she were brave enough to try. If she were a brilliant swordswoman like her ghost friend was in life then maybe she could win so hard it'd strike the heart of this lower spirit and satisfy her all the way to her final well deserved resting place even through the muck and ick and if you sing or dance you lose (very hard for multistans!). But obviously if she were [i]that[/i] she wouldn't have needed this girl's lessons in the first place. 

Maybe she should have been a monk. Then at least she'd understand all of this upper lower higher, uh... l-lower silliness that keeps flashing around inside her head, and she might know the right words or poems to be able to speak her heart. It wouldn't fix the problem, not unless it would, but at least she'd have a language more potent than her own stupid words to convey all the love and hurt and want she's felt today. Or would she? Maybe being a monk would mean she wouldn't have felt any of those feelings, in which case that was good and useless, wasn't it? But in any case here she is, spinning and clacking away with her wooden sword with another ten minutes left in her, tops, and no plans at all for how to fix any of this.

But, it turns out? You should never ask for a miracle until you've asked nature for her advice. It's a total accident that she catches it at all, actually. Yue's ears are straining so much already just because every other part of her is that she can't help but push her hearing too, and that's the only reason she catches it.

Caw CAW! The throaty croak of a silken-feathered raven. Caw CAW! There's a chorus of them, somewhere up above her just hacking and hemming and singing their terribly ugly song maybe just for her. Or maybe because they just want to drown out all the drivel, too. But in either care, isn't it strange? Ravens are supposed to be kingly birds, all sorts of stories agree. What would they be doing in such a broken rotting place unless there was..?

She twists her head to find them and catches the flat of a sword on her ribs for her trouble. She yelps and topples over, but in the space it takes what's left of her puppet's string to pull her back up, she's spotted them. Caw CAW, friends! Hello! They're gathered up above her, by a patch of shaped stone that seems different from all the rest. She squints and strains and by luck more than anything catches the glint of a valve.

"Oh... thank you friends! Thank you so much! I can... j-j-just... hold on, ok? I can... fix this! I can! I know I can fix this! So please, give me... let... eep! EEP!"

Yue stumbles backwards on both heels and barely manages to avoid the latest strike that might have knocked her legs out from under her for good and all. Goodness, that'd almost be nice, wouldn't it? She's so tired. She's just... oh, but it doesn't matter. There's work to do, and she'll never be able to smile at another waterfall for as long as she lives if she doesn't do everything she can right now. Her scrawny, gangly legs tense up with the poise and purpose of a warrior. She lunges with everything she has, basic flat thrust. She cringes physically when she feels the tip hit fabric, and hears a tiny tear that's somehow still more terrible than all the chanting and dazzling laughter Princess Yin could throw at her.

"I'm sorry! But you wouldn't! I just! I'm sorry!"

It buys her just enough space to let her run away. She cries fresh tears as she goes, though she doesn't have the breath to spare for any of them. She runs as her entire body burns with shame under the palpable aura of disappointment. This ghost misjudged her. The sense of betrayal is so raw it almost makes her turn around again. But she doesn't. Her legs beat as fast as they know how across the hard stone floor and the slippery blooms that cover it, because she needs every bit of speed she can find to make that jump.

She climbs. The answer is above her, so she climbs. Her raven helpers croak encouragement and add a mad flutter-flap of wingbeats to guide her along. They take flight before she reaches them, swooping away with their mad song ringing in her ears to divebomb the pursuing ghost, to silence Hyra's furious howls, and to terrify Kat just for the fun of it. Yue winces and knows she's just cost herself a month of vixietreats to undo the damage she's just caused. But at least she's reached her chance. She's so sorry, flooferdoodle.

It'd be impossible to believe these pipes could still pump water if you didn't live your life at the Terraced Lake. Sometimes a bad storm could clog the dam, and the waterfalls that so defined her home almost seemed to shut off. But when it happened nobody ever panicked, because the stuck up water always found a way. It just needed a might of encouraging, sometimes. Yue very nearly drops her sword as she reaches for the first valve, descending into a torrent of panicked squeaks as she very double nearly drops the blessed thing all the way back down into those awful puddles so full of muck she's not even sure she'd [i]want[/i] to fish it back out again, Hyra promises or no. It's a trickier thing than she'd expected to turn a rusted crank with her hands half full of sword.

"I'm not! Going! To let! You live like this! Anymore!"

Her muscles are fire now. Every inch of her including muscles she never knew existed is howling, shaking, and begging her to stop, but she squeezes and strains against the metal anyway. If you didn't want to work this hard, body, then you should have learned how to be a swords-wizard-monk by now!

"You! Deserve! To feel! Loved! Because! I!!"

There's a nasty creaking and crunching sound, and for a moment it seems like she's broken the valve off instead of turning it. But then, blessed squeaks. She pumps her arms for all they're worth, squeak squeak squeak! And... nothing. She slumps, defeated, and in her brilliant tactical defeated slumping notices the massive fortress of sludge and hair and total nastiness that's built up inside this pipe. Oh no. Oh gosh oh no oh gosh, please. Was this really not en-- eeeeuuuuuughaahck!

Such is the war cry of Yue. Just Yue, if you please. Her open hand digs in and, urp! Oh sweet sun in the sky, she's going to hurl. The [i]smell![/i] The [i]texture![/i] The... the... blorf!! And now her throat tastes like burning too, and you would not believe how not better that makes all of this. But she digs on. Her fist closes around a blob of, actually, she would really rather not know. She yanks it with every spare ounce of strength, even the bit she was saving to be able to lift chopsticks to her mouth for dinner tonight, and she gives zero thought or care to where the disgusting blob lands beneath her. There's more to dig, there's, urp, more to...

Bubble. Blurble. Gush and splort. Is that the sounds of..?

"Gack! Eeeerrrk! Phhhhbbbtt!"

The first water that hits her in the face is the most disgusting, foul smelling liquid mankind has ever beheld in all its time upon this rock. To be honest, probably on all the other rocks they've been on since, too. Yue squeaks, screams, and scrambles backwards to try and make it stop, but this is what she wanted, wasn't it? It follows her like an overexcited puppy, and enough of it winds up in her mouth that come to think of it the idea of dinner tonight is really not sounding like a thing that she wants to happen after all. 

It might have been thirty seconds like this. Or thirty lifetimes, or another hour plus like her training. She doesn't know! All she knows is muck and muck and spray and... oh joy! More muck! There is nothing but muck unless you count regret, in which case there is muck and regret. Until finally, mercifully, the waters of her homeland win out and the torrent that soaks her down to the bones is as clear and crystal-sparkling as anything she's ever seen.

It's so strong it knocks her right off her feet. She screams as she falls, tumbling and somehow also flailing back down to the main platform beneath the statuary she'd climbed up to be here. But, y'know? It's a great view to watch the first great waterfall of remembrance this place has seen in at least a dozen lifetimes as it starts to do what water's best at. If she wasn't scared and screaming for her life she might even have found it in her to smile at the way it started to wash away the filth and offer just a hint of what this place was meant to be. 

But then... but then? Well, what happened next?

[Yue is Defying Disaster and it doesn't really matter with what because she got a [b]10[/b]. This is what it looks like when she does something with style, ok?]