At first, Chen thought that the guards backing up was her getting comfortable with her sword strokes, picking up a little speed, shaking off the stress that she had been under. But no, no that would be asking too much. No, the guards were backing off because Qiu was coming [i]in a helicopter[/i]!

Of course she was, of course, and that meant the small fry were backing off. At least, it seemed like Qiu was focused on the escaping car. That’s good, right? That’s...Chen shook her head. A small part of her was mad. Mad that Qiu didn’t respect her as an equal, mad that Qiu was chasing her friends and not her, mad that she was being ignored, and mad at herself for treating Qiu like what she wanted didn’t matter, which was almost certainly why this was happening this way. She felt guilty for feeling mad on top of that, why shouldn’t her friends get Qiu’s attention, this was good in every practical way, and anyway this was her own fault. So...so she just had to make do.

Chen tried to shake off her feelings and settle into a rhythm. She really did love flying and she hadn’t been able to do it freely in a long while, not since her quick little race back to the shrine to buy horses on the trip over and that had only been a few minutes. Here, now, there was a bit more to it. The world was chaos and uproar! Missiles were exploding, sending clouds of dirt and chunks of road flying up into the air, assault ribbons were still all over the place, starting to fall behind the princesses and vehicles, and Yue was turning the van into a belching cloud of smoke and soot that was, miraculously, swerving around and away from the missiles. 

Chen almost turned around to be a diversion but something stopped her. There was a framing to this scene and was Qiu slowing down? She wouldn’t but...maybe she wanted this to go a certain way. She seemed really intent, even from a distance Chen could see her body language hanging out of the helicopter and she was so focused. So, she didn’t. It felt wrong, like she’d break something. Instead she just, for a minute, let everything go and focused on her flying. The rest would sort itself out afterwards. 

So, for a precious moment, princess Chen simply went fast and let the wind on her face her. Away from the dust and the heat, towards the cool open air. She settled her crystal blade below her and balanced with her weight forward, urging it faster and faster. And when the big explosion hits the bridge and the car skids to a halt, Chen comes zooming out of the dust cloud, hair and dress covered with fine gray powder, but a great big smile on her face as she finally let the rest of the world go to shoot herself through an explosion.