[i]”Down.”

The silk is very thin. There might as well be nothing between her knees and the floor. But she kneels anyway. She is very, very good at kneeling, given her previous occupation and its meditative exercises. Qiu’s fingernails dig into the back of her scalp, sending shivers down her spine, and Rose in Gold groans blissfully, the sound as legible as that of soft rain out beyond heavy curtains.

“Good girl~!”[/i]

It is very obvious that Rose from the River is going through her breathing exercises. Her nostrils flare and her hair flexes, making a sound like wind rushing through a grove. She plants one foot heavily, drawing her other in a semicircle. With exaggerated care, she takes up her staff but does not change its shape.

“Of course?” The corner of her lips twitches. It took every part of her self-control to keep those words even and faintly amused. “Yes, assuming that you will win; that, even if I cannot win here and now, that I will not slip through your fingers; that even if you claim me as a prize I cannot outwit you; that I would ever set aside my quest without the blessing of the Way. You narrow the wide world into a binary, and doing so, make it so that every option I pick is held in one of your hands. To run away, or to fight hopelessly, and in defeat, to submit completely. As if you are the most important thing in the world!”

[i]She dances to the sound of Ysian flutes. Chen, sitting at Qiu’s feet, is beet red and peeking through her fingers at Rose in Gold, who leaves a trail of layers behind her. Her breath control; her incomparable precision; her body, closer to a full revelation with every shawl shrugged off and every veil undone; these are all her honors, her glories, and now she displays them for the glory of Qiu. She dances, and every eye on her is envious, and her heart races knowing that all of them want her, everyone wants her, but Qiu will decide who gets her as a prize tonight, and the thought frees her and lets her become the dance, the whirling eye of desire, her own mind a white-hot joy, and when she glances over her shoulder and lets the last shawl slip free, baring the rich, dark flesh of her own making, the sound that comes out from under Chen’s veil is indecent, incoherent, adoring; and Qiu leans down to whisper in her slave’s ear...[/i]

“And besides,” she adds, with forced lightness, “what do you think this is, [i]Roads in Autumn: The “Path” Cycles 2[/i]? That the horny monk is just looking for an opportunity to shuck her vows and be tied down, to be forced to stay? You’re no Aisling, o Your Graciousness, even if I do want— did want— happened to want what you’re dangling in front of me. If you’re insisting on making me decide between the two doors you’ve selected out of a hundred, at least sell them! Or are you hoping that I will be noble and walk away, leaving Yue the Sun Farmer defenseless in your grasp?”

[i]”I’m never going to hurt you,” Qiu whispers, holding the helpless ex-monk in her arms. The moonlight plays over Rose in Gold’s skin: the pinch of the ropes, the golden chain draped down to her knees, the monogrammed scarves pulled snug over her face. “And I’m [b]never[/b] going to make you hurt someone else.”

She cups a flower growing from her slave’s head as if the fate of the whole world is caught up in its petals. “You’re safe, little petal.”[/i]

One end of the Conciliatory Ice-Star Blade’s staff-form cracks furiously on the ground, a sudden provocation to see if Qiu so much as flinches. “Keep running that mouth,” Rose says, teetering on the edge of a precipice and daring Qiu to push her (metaphorically, which is necessary to point out, given the number of dramatic precipices around them). “See how deep you can dig!”

[Rose from the River is [b]Smitten[/b] with Princess Qiu. Use the String wisely.]