Rose from the River should not care whether she is the object of mockery or not. Only the fool heeds the chittering of monkeys, and only the vain desire to be revered and respected by all. But there's something in how Chen almost falls over looking at her, how Hyra is carefully not looking at her, how Cyanis is radiating pure innocence...

So Rose from the River inspects herself carefully. It cannot be a sign that Cyanis has put on her back, given that Chen cannot see her back (nor can anyone else, given her braids). It is not something that she can see-- ah, when she looks down, something digs into her jaw. Something familiar. Something humiliating. Her grip on Cyanis tightens, and for a moment she considers punting the fox over a mountain, or at the very least onto the other side of the river. Instead she takes Cyanis with both hands and swings her, one, two, three, then sends her flailing into the water.

"Just a fox trick," she says, unbuckl-- hmm. This is. How does this mechanism work? She could tear it off, but that would be... admitting defeat. Yes. Except the longer she tries to figure out how to unbuckle this, the longer it might seem that she is either too incompetent to do so or does not want to do so, and so she tries to casually seem as if she was stretching, not trying to take it off. "This is why [i]someone[/i] is going to Cutie Jail."

Then, calmly, rationally, as a response to Chen nearly dunking her head in the water doubling over with giggles, and as a response to the most shit-eating grin from a soaked Cyanis sitting up in the water with her hair in her face, Rose from the River wades [i]into[/i] the river, spins her staff, and with a single blow reverses the flow of the water back on top of Chen and Cyanis in a mighty wave. Behold, the martial skill of the Thorn Pilgrim, defeater of rivers [i]and[/i] giggling foxes and princesses! Let nobody challenge her who does not wish to be defeated, yes, not even Qiu, because that first battle was a fluke and [i]next time[/i] the collar will be on the other throat!