Chen came skidding out of the cloud, landed with slide next to the stopped car, and offered her friends a wave. Then for a few moments, elation and exhausted cooperated hand in hand to make her dead to the world as she lay down headfirst in the grass and just let herself breathe. 

It was nice soft grass, and everybody was fine. There were sounds, something like an engine dying, air hissing, and a clang and clatter that sounded like a whole chunk of metal had just fallen off and knocked against the rest of the vehicle. They weren't important sounds though, much less important than the scent of fresh earth and the bundled touch of her dress and scarf spreading the tension from her muscles as she lay flat. 

Chen considered staying like that forever. The idea was very appealing. It was comfortable, relaxing, no annoying phone calls, and the grass was not lecturing her about her obligations or giving her hurt looks because she wasn't empathetic enough to it. As it turned out, however, forever was about two and a half minutes. That was long enough to start feeling the itchiness of all the smoke and dust covering her skin, to have a few blades of grass start tickling her thighs, and to hear the running water right in front of her.

"Mmmmph" said the grass girl into a face of grass as she slowly gathered her legs beneath her, collected her scarf, and worked herself to her feet. "I'm going in the river" she added to nobody in particular as she made her way to the edge, took off her pack, and, before she could have time for second thoughts, jumped in feet first with a splash! 

Chen came up for air quickly, throwing her head back to fling her soaked hair out of her eyes and wringing out her scarf as she just stood in the river and let the water flow against her chest and her open arms. She breathed out and it felt like she was dropping a whole mountain off her shoulders and letting it evaporate into the moonlight.

Only then did she look back at her friends properly. At Yue moving with Hyra out of the wreck and towards the water at a more measured pace, hands still slightly twitching and a wild look in her eyes. And at Rose carrying Cyanis by the scruff of her neck, and wearing a...Chen squinted, was that a pink dog collar with studs?! Rose hadn't been wearing that on the way in. A gift from Qiu then? She couldn't help a snicker. And here she thought Rose wanted to do all the capturing. But was she? Did she actually...?! Chen started laughing, great heaves of her shoulders as she nearly fell into the water, completely unable to help herself. Hopefully the others wouldn't think she'd gone mad or been cursed by the trapped stream!