The collar hits her lap with more weight than it should have— or is that simply Rose’s perception? She’s sitting up now, back to that simple black pillar. One finger runs along the simple, humiliating studs. (As if she were some dog! Not even the fine gold of Ys!) The name is written in the flourish of elegant curves, a reminder of a mistress’s refinement.

Then she is on her feet, and that tattered twilight-orange robe blossoms between the two of them. It takes Qiu only a moment to make a perfect cut right through, but that is moment enough for Rose to pull the Conciliatory Ice-Star Blade from the pillar with a scream of effort. Then it changes in her hands into a staff once more, and the collar swings jauntily on one end of it.

“Your offer is so sudden, your insufferableness,” Rose from the River says, hairs on the back of her neck standing on end. “You can hardly expect me to make a decision so weighty in haste! We’ll call it a draw for now, shall we?”

But both of them know that Qiu won, and that’s obvious as Qiu allows her to disengage, still carrying that collar on the end of her staff. Rose shows her the courtesy of walking backwards, keeping her eyes on Qiu, rather than showing the disrespect of turning and walking away. She might be impish in this moment of defeat, but she’s not that cocky. Not after a display of swordsmanship like that. As it is said,

[i]A sudden hiss, a coming to blows;
then the defeated leaves, tail lowered.
When cats come to blows, they show mercy;
shall their masters show anything less?[/i]