[i]”Yin?” he hisses, maneuvering his horse between his charge and her pack, ever too chivalrous to expose her weakness. “Yin, you are exhausted. You need to call it here.” Her hair is sticking limply to her forehead and her eyes are struggling to remain focused and present. The shadow-ape pack had fought like demons, wrenching at her leg in the last pass and nearly unhorsing her; he’d had to flare his light and burn them with the sword’s edge. But the hunt isn’t over yet. Not while the alpha isn’t downed.

“What kind of Anahata would give up now?” Yin snaps back under her breath. “This is my kingdom, First.” Unspoken: and I know it better than you. I rode these shadowed hillsides while you, First, lay in your archaeotech tomb. He grips the bridle tighter.

“And your kingdom will be served by their Princess being pulled off her mount and beaten with stones until she needs to be carried back to the Pelican?” He can already feel her blood trickling down his luminous plate, holding her close with one hand while she burns the last scraps of her power to stay alive, their knights forming a flickering rearguard as he races for another coffin of ancient days. Even death can be bound and muzzled in the Radiant Lands, but First, here and now, does not want to race that rider. Again.

Yin is silent a moment, and then digs in her heels. Her mount goes bounding forward sure-footed into the dark. And First, furious, follows as fast as he can safely go, as she knew he would.[/i]

***

“Let me give you the advice your monks wouldn’t, Yin.” Rose from the River only agonized and let her heart tear at itself for a moment. Fire consumes itself, but living wood remains strong when the fire passes. “Yue the Shepherdess’s path doesn’t lead to you, nor yours to her.” Which you would [i]know[/i] if you listened to the subtle stirrings of the Way instead of being so self-assured that the roar of your own passions was its voice. Then again, it would take a much wiser Princess to shut her ears to the chorus of praise and adulation all about. Righteousness is a heady cup.

The birds are still quiet. The stag’s horns gently chime as it shifts its weight. Rose from the River dares to offer one hand, palm up, her other holding her staff in a loose grip. “But if you can promise me you’re going home, I can make it easier for you. Because as you are right now?” Exhausted, singed, and alone, low on light and power, a note held too long. “You’d be lucky to overcome the shepherdess, let alone a Pilgrim of the Way who’s, well, standing in [i]your[/i] way.” There it is. Implicit challenge. The kind of putting her foot down that First never could get away with.

Because Rose from the River is not going to let the first person she ever really tried to love make a fool of herself in front of others. Either Yin can do the smart thing for once, please, or Rose can send her home tossed over the stag’s saddle, because her duty is to get in Yin’s way and stop her from reaching Yue. But it doesn’t have to be humiliating, Yin. Just take Rose’s hand, and she’ll soothe you for your road home; she’ll wipe those bruises away and clear the clogged channels of your body and leave you as radiant as ever. 

Even if seven to one says that Yin will start the fight again about how the highest service to the Way is service to the Anahata; even if Rose is leaving herself vulnerable to having her rescue thrown back in her face again; even if Yin tries to guilt or seduce or capture her into coming back and being her Rose in the Light. Rose from the River still has to try, no matter how exposed she feels, how open to injury, how full of regret that Yin couldn’t have been happy for her. She has her path to follow, and it demands nothing but the best from her, and she has to scramble to live up to it.