"Consulting fees!"

Cyanis soars in a graceful arc up into the air, still clinging to a still life. She curls all of her limbs around it for dear life as she comes hurtling back down right into Rose's crushing grip, the monk having cleared a space around them with a two-handed sweep of her staff. She grimly bites down on it as Rose tries to shake it loose from her grip. No! No dropping the painting! It's hers!!

"Oh, really? And what exactly were you consulting on, little thief?" Rose carries her under one arm and runs nimbly down a handrail towards the waiting car where Yue and Hyra are scrambling in. The smile on Rose's face as she sees Yue managing to carry Hyra is the very eye of the storm, so sweet that hearts would melt just to see it. Unfortunately, she is fending off Assault Ribbons and dangling a very naughty fox from one arm, so there's no one there to witness her tenderness.

"Well, [i]as you know[/i]," Cyanis chirps haughtily, doing her best to balance necklaces on her tail without letting them fall off, "Princess Qiu intends to conquer the Nine Kingdoms and prove, once and for all, that she is the best! That is some top-notch villainy! So naturally she needed some advice on how to make her dreams come true, because that's all that we foxes do!" She leans her head back and beams pure, distraught innocence right into Rose's forehead chakra. "And then she paid me for my services because unlike some people she knows that all labor should be ethically compensateeeeeeeeeed!"

Up she goes, and back down she goes. Rose catches the frame of the painting and swings it around in a circle, warding off Assault Ribbons with a screaming foxgirl. Cyanis scrabbles on the frame until the centrifugal force is too much, and she is flung yowling into the air. Rose, for her part, tosses the painting to the Assault Ribbon creeping up on her and then races to catch Cyanis before she can hit the ground. She has to dive and curl up around her in a very rough and bumpy roll, but she manages to do it, fulfilling her commitment to both preventing fox crimes and protecting cuties. Then she has to run with Cyanis scrabbling and climbing around her face and shoulders, trying to distract her for the perfect escape, wailing as she trails her consulting fees in her wake, and in general being a huge distraction.

Rose tosses her into the car through a door graciously opened by Hyra. Cyanis doesn't even hit the ground before she's turned herself around and flings herself back out, right into Rose's arms. Rose buckles them both in with the same seatbelt and nods for Yue to hit it, before resting her head on the well-named headrest a moment too soon. Turns out that it's more of a head-smack when Yue's trying to figure out how to drive stick.

"Why in the name of the right path are you acting like this, fox?" Rose said, holding the suddenly very suspiciously unprotesting fox in her arms. "Just because you thought you could steal something from under my very nose? Or did you think you could escape [i]me?[/i]" The very thought! Even if it had been a test of all her skills to keep Cyanis in check while also managing to escape, she'd done it. She was the best at fulfilling the will of the Way and the law of the land.

"Should have known better," Cyanis said with feigned grumpiness, tail wagging between Rose's ankles. "Nothing gets past you." Her cutiebeans ears twitch just underneath the name tag: [i]~Rose~[/i] She may have been caught, but her honor as a fox remains pure. Sure, maybe Rose from the River will drag her off to cutie jail now, but she'll always remember the moment when she realizes Cyanis managed to collar her without her even noticing. She hums, the true mark of the unsuspicious, right up until the car accelerates and slams her head back into soft fluffy heaven.