Sometimes, there are moments that come along that you find you were born for. Moments so specific to your heart that when they come everything flashes before your eyes just to show you the way in which every encounter, every lesson, every choice, and every experience has lead up to preparing you just for this. And in those moments, you feel strong. In those moments you always find the confidence that comes from knowing that you, and possibly nobody else, are ready for this thing that is happening. After all, it's your moment?

Buuuuuuuut~

Other times? Well, let's just say that other times you are Yue the Sun Farmer. Because! She! But then! There's a! A, a, a, a, [i]woman![/i] Bowing all wowies gosh gosh gosh! And! And she! She's talking all fancy city-like! Th-that's how city folk talk, right? It's gotta be! That's who writes all the stories on her shelves, and everybody in those talks just like this! And she's, she's going on about ten-thousand paths and blades set aside while she's [i]kneeling[/i] and oh good heavens those back muscles could crush melons, gulp and gosh and wow. 

What's she, what's she, wh-what's she supposed to do? Gasp, right? Yeah, this is a good time for gasping. One of those deep, full body gasps that requires every blushing maiden worth the title to bring her hands to her mouth to preserve her modesty. That's the only way to show the incredible weight of the moment, y'know? But when her arms pull up to make the gesture, they get stuck. There's a growl that she feels more than she hears rumbling out of Hyra, whose hands her fingers are very super stuck in. 

She tugs again, just to ask again for her hands back, all polite-like. Hyra's iron, claw-tipped fingers squeeze her own bony ones like serpents and pull back down with enough force that it stops looking like Yue is trying to move at... oh whoops, no! She's actually going the other way, see? Hyra pulls with the unstoppable power and pressure that made Yue's heart fall for her in the first place and then very very suddenly Cyanis has dropped off the back of her with a whiny squawk and eeeeeeeep! Yue goes tumbling up and over Hyra to land in her lap, where the wolf girl wraps both arms around her body and strokes her hair as though she's trying to rub an invisible pair of ears on top of Yue's head that she honestly very much wishes would sprout up there right about now. 

Yue blushes like the dawning sun, and squirms helplessly. This is how she meets her moment instead.

"I'm not..." she murmurs to quiet to hear, before she clears her throat and tries again, "I'm not scared [i]of[/i] you! If you were actually a monster like you said you are then there's just, I... nuh uh. Chen'd never look at you the way she does. I'm just not, y'know, used to all this fancy educated city stuff and then the, that stone really surprised me so..."

She looks at Rose for a very long and quiet moment. Then she turns and looks at Chen. And whatever she sees, it makes her smile more warmly than her jar of sunshine. And keep blushing, just a little. 

"You're asking if I wanna be your friend too, right? Gosh gosh gosh, what a day! [i]Two[/i] whole people asking me that!" She twists her neck to shoot Cyanis a hopeful look, but Hyra's arms stop her from going any further, "Of course we can, of course! You're so polite and smart and look how calm Kat is! No no no, of course we can be friends! Let demons kidnap me if I'm lying!"

It's a perfect moment, filled with smiles and fox laughter and wolf snuggles and more tails than you could shake a, um, another tail at, despite three whole entire people at the little fireside party not having any to speak of at the moment. Yue smiles with the quiet kind of satisfaction that comes from knowing you've done something exactly right without ever even practicing for it. Her heart beats slowly and contentedly as she snuggles deeper into Hyra's embrace to feel her pulse in turn. Her eyes drift shut with the absolute safety of the moment. And they stay that way for one. Two. Three.

"Oh!"

Her eyes snap open with a sudden surge of energy that scholars normally call an epiphany. It goes like this: Rose from the River is obviously a nickname, right? Or maybe 'the River' is a nickname for a really big fancy place just [i]full[/i] of people and books and songs and stories, but either way there's only one other class of people she's met that move and act and talk at all like this, and those people are all Princesses. 

So Qiu is... dramatic. And possibly a bit of a jerk. But maybe it's just 'cause she's got all that big flashy fancy background teaching her to treat everything like that? The math checks out! Probably! 'Cause, y'know, 'cause Princess Yin wanted this to happen, and Hyra started this whole adventure off by wanting this to happen, and Princess Chen wanted this to happen, and she never said as much but she'd bet three whole jars of dusklight that Princess Rose from the River wanted this to happen, too. 'Cause, what was it all? About learning magic and flying and dueling, right? And the duel was about the duel, and... and that meant...

"I still don't really wanna be a handmaiden. I'm not sayin' that, ok? But actually I think, um, w-would it be ok if I asked you all a favor? 'Cause I... I think I wanna go tell this Princess myself. It's a job offer, right? Just a, a, a... really weird one. And when people offer you stuff it's rude to run away and not even tell 'em why. So, um, if you wouldn't mind, could we please go back to my house? I wanna..."

She pauses, and feels a wave of warmth wash over her dress. It squeezes her at the shoulder, and she knows without understanding why that she's making the right decision. 

"I need my steaming baskets if I'm gonna be adventuring. And I wanna make the Princess some tanghulu as an apology. She's a Princes, y'know? A [i]triple princess![/i] She... deserves to hear it from my mouth, at least. Or would... you've met her, right? Would she prefer something sweeter?"