[b]Chen![/b]

"She's adorable!" Cyanis declared, yanking Chen's scarf up and pulling the ends tight so that it gagged her. "I love her! Almost enough to overlook the fact that she comes packaged with some sort of ancient world monster hot on the chase. W-O-W guys, you were just gonna dump that live grenade on me and split town?" Her eyes widened and her lip trembled. "Betrayed, on my very first Princess purchase? You were just gonna take advantage of my [i]seiso[/i] heart and throw me to the robot wolves where I'd be captured and bound and made the plaything of the entire pack?"

"Woah, no, Cyanis we were totally going to tell you -" said Elkibrant, but was immediately cut off because Cyanis wasn't even close to done yet.

"And then, after months and months of the [i]cruelest[/i] torture, and no less than five failed escape attempts, each of which is punished more severely and extensively than the last, pushed to my absolute physical and mental limits and in the end when I'm of no more use, you'd see me dumped shivering and gasping on the edge of the woods with nothing but my tails!?"

Only the faint thump of fluff hitting metal indicated that her tails were wagging. Her face maintained its betrayed and distraught look.

"So, uh..." said Elkibrant. "I swear, I wasn't going to - I mean, I had a technomancer distract her -"

"Two months good fortune," said Cyanis. "Final offer."

"Two months!? This is one of the most valuable Princesses in the world!"

"Oh, I'd be delighted to stay and haggle," said Cyanis, thump-thumping on the roof picking up tempo. "You know. If you don't think that big ol' monster you've just set on me isn't the kind of problem you need a head start getting away from."

"This is daylight robbery!"

"Chen, snookums, didn't you say there were other Princesses in the area too? Mumble once for yes."

With much ferocious grumbling, the fox contract is signed and you, Princess Chen, are dumped out onto the soft grass in front of Cyanis' crumbling temple, left in the spreading dust of the departing car.

"So anyway," said Cyanis happily, putting her feet up on top of you. "I hear that you're the kind of Princess who enjoys being captured, dressed as a maid, and being ordered around. What's all that about? Hard work is [i]miserable[/i]! Anyway, I'll help you with your wish, you just need to promise to help clean out an itty-bitty amount of dirt from inside my awesome new temple. Sound fair?"

[b]Rose![/b]

"And this is what we are to each other now, then, Rose?" said Yin, as much to herself as to you. "Princess and monk. Condemned by fate. Severed so utterly that we might only know each other with harsh words and with battle."

She draws her sword with the determination of an executioner - or the condemned.

"Well, then, Rose," she said with weary voice and steely eyes. No bright magic or wicked wolves or choir of horrors plays court to her this time, she faces you as powerless as any other maiden. "Step from my path or force me from it. You have held my life in your hands too many times for me to fear you - and you know too much of my capabilities for you not to fear me. Do you think you could hold to your ideals were you my prisoner? Of course not. You fled the Radiant Lands because it was only a matter of time before you realized that love matters more than freedom. If you do not flee again now I will see to it that your heart catches up to you at last."

[b]Yue![/b]

Water is rot. Water is ruin. Water is pollution. Water is danger. These are the lessons children are taught, and taught for good reason, but they lay the blame at the wrong feet.

Water is purification. Water is rebirth. Water is motion.

It is because of water's purity that it accepted every evil cast into it. It is because of water's selflessness it flowed uncomplaining as it became choked with polymers and tin and glass. Water bore all the weight of the world's evils uncomplaining until it was so full of choking toxins it clung to itself and forgot how to move. Forgot that it was water at all. Forgot that it was beautiful. Forgot that it was loved.

But, like a princess, all it ever needed was a reminder.

When water remembers how to move, oh how does it move. It shifts slowly and then gains speed, faster and faster, roaring and racing and once again carrying the thick of evil away to the deep places below the earth from whence it came. And, like a princess, it offers no extended warranty plan for this service and instead just shines as a light to guide weary hearts. 

Throughout the tombs the waterfalls erupt. Steady drips become rushing flows. Fetid pools become gleaming lakes. Ugly muck-creatures in the depths are washed away to become glittering carp, goggling in fishy amazement at each other's forest-fire colours so long concealed. 

And in a single beam of sunlight stands one more similarly purified creature. One shouldering colours of the sea in a world that has forgotten that the sea could have such colours.

Scales drip in blue silver and sea gold, so smooth and sleek and cutting, set with faint lines of coral-gems - deep magenta, glacier blue, squid black. The armour trails down in elegant and asymmetric angles, rising bands of metal wrapping around the right shoulder in bands of woven adamant. It is unbalanced in the most graceful way, the precisely placed protection of a swordswoman who knows exactly where a blade might fall and eschewed protection on places where it might not. It is armour that does not make sense until one is in a duelling pose - and there it seems unbreakable. At its base, empty guards on the shin and knee taper away to shoes of living, shifting sand - at times becoming as hard and clear and brilliant as slippers as glass, at others as flowing and mobile and comfortable to walk upon as the loose-packed sand upon a beach.

Above the armour, wrapped comfortably around its shoulders, is a kimono of sunset daisy yellow contrasted against patterns of twining black branches heavy with blossoms. In stillness it is subtle, gentle, as serene as a flower in the garden - but when it moves the edges flash with orange and magenta and it seems as though the sun dances back and forth upon the horizon, colours that would be chaos if not set against the eternal branches of that blossoming tree.

The armour-dress has no wearer - the princess who wore this died happily and departed oh so long ago. What animates it now is not evil or wickedness or corruption or craving. It's joy - memories of joy worn so deep into steel and fabric, memories of love found while dancing and dueling, passion that burned so bright for so long how could it do anything other than leap to life with drawn sword upon the arrival of a maiden of pure heart? It raises its sword in ready salute - a gesture performed so often it's as much a part of the dress as the shoes or gems - and offers its blade and hand for one more dance. 

[i]Please take what I have to give for this joy is too much for me alone.[/i]