Serenity is not effortless. Rather, it is a choice, an imposition on the world. Serenity in the face of a car being driven by a [i]young woman doing her best[/i] while holding close a fox who wants to be in the safest place in the car (i.e. Rose from the River’s exact location) is... challenging. Yes, let’s call it that. A challenge. Something to be met and overcome. [i]aum shantae aum. aum shantae aum. aum shantae nemo padhome aum.[/i]

Rose from the River wraps up her stress and her confusion and her desire to scream at someone and take control of the vehicle herself and wraps it all up in a blanket and cuddles it as furiously as she is cuddling the panicking fox in her arms. She smothers those emotions, which want her to charge down any road she can find, to take control of things and make her own decisions, in the cool resounding sound of her mantra.

The mantra, however, is not perfect. There are some things that even it cannot make right, some annoyances that even a follower of the Way cannot overcome. And for Rose from the River, that annoyance is Qiu showing up in a helicopter. If not for a certain someone getting tangled in her seatbelt, Rose would have climbed out the window, onto the roof, and taken the Conciliatory Ice-Star Blade in both hands, in a batter’s stance. The ostentatious [i]gall![/i] Was there ever any doubt that Qiu is being a huge drama queen about this?

As the car comes to another shuddering (and comparatively final) halt, Rose from the River growls, in a tone of voice most unbecoming of a monk and more becoming of a dangerously sultry monster, “Next time we see her, I’ll show [i]her[/i] rockets.” The [i]rockets[/i] carry the implication of physical discipline, at the very least.

Oh, how wonderfully easy it is to be pissy at Qiu, rather than admit that she is making a decent attempt at earning the adoration she demands, at wielding the monopoly-power of three Sunshards. How effortless to let the fire of competition spark, to imagine a world in which (assuming she even was interested, which she’s definitely not saying she was), she could yield to Qiu on her own terms. There is no safety in yielding to someone that Rose from the River could not defeat if she [i]chose[/i] to.

(And speaking of Chose, our little fox friend might notice a slight but distinct relaxing in the mighty monk’s stance if Chen manages to get over the broken bridge, possibly with her sword-surfing skills.)