[i]Good girl.[/i] A thrill runs through Rose from her toes all the way up to her head; her hair floofs in a perfect and impossible way as the shudder reaches the top of her. Yes. Yes! Another piece of the puzzle fits into place with an almost audible click: she’s weak, fragile, useless, Chen’s girlfriend, and she is a [i]good girl.[/i] A good girl: is good, is a girl, does her best to keep quiet when punished, check, check, check. And her mouth is for pleasing her mistress (in her silks and fluffy scarf and shining eyes that see the beauty in everything) and she won’t use it for anything else unless she wants to be punished.

(Does she want to be punished? That’s a prickly question. Punishment is bad. Punishment is... dark, and sleep, and loneliness, and she can’t remember what the temple did if that’s what she remembers of it, and the thought hurts. Punishment hurts. It hurts so much. Is that what Keron will do to her if she is a bad girl? Will she make Rose fall asleep and bury her forever under the castle? Then how will Chen find her? Please, please, Chen, if that happens, you have to find her, [i]please.[/i])

So she has to use her mouth to make her Chen pleased. And what would please Chen? Rose thinks as hard as she can, Keron’s stare hot and hard on her. Then she speaks, looking up with eyes like gold and onyx.

“Princess Chen tries so hard,” she blurts out. “When she laughs, the world lights up all around me. I used to think princesses were no good, were power-hungry, needed somebody to keep them in line— not me, of course,” she squeaks, squirming. “But I don’t want anyone to stop Chen from smiling. She does that enough herself. She deserves someone big and strong to look after her and keep her safe and hold her and instead she picked [i]me[/i] and every day she makes me feel a little more like she made the right choice. Because that’s what she does. She sees the beautiful things in landscapes and draws them out, and she sees the beautiful things in all these silly princesses and draws them out, and she sees the beautiful things in useless, weak girls who can’t even use a sword... and she makes it so that everyone else can see them, too.”

And then her mouth clamps shut, because begging someone else for reassurance wouldn’t be pleasing to Chen! She’d want to know that her fragile little Rose never lost faith in her, and no matter how much she wants to be called a good girl again, she can’t [i]ask.[/i] And, and, and! And the look that Keron is giving her makes her feel all the more useless, useless, useless, because her heart’s hammering and she’s all hot and she’s being held in place by a handmaiden who can move [i]her[/i] around, and, and, and if her mouth is only for Chen’s kisses she shouldn’t want Keron to steal one from her mouth anyway! That’s not a good girl thought, right? R-right? She doesn’t know the words for [i]that[/i] kind of girl, but they’re probably... w-whatever the opposite of a good girl is!

No, a good girl is... someone who Chen would be proud to save. And that sort of girl would tilt her head like this— before Keron can decide her fate— and let out a little “hmmph!” of defiance, like Keron [i]doesn’t[/i] make her scared and excited and weak and useless, like she [i]wants[/i] to be punished, and even though she’s scared, she can’t stop herself from trying to be the most like Chen’s girlfriend she can be.

Because Rose is a [i]good girl.[/i]

[Despite herself, Rose is [i]Smitten[/i] with the Countess. She may take a String, herself, on Rose; and if she tugs that String, she will tug Rose helpless and all confuzzled and thirsty with it.]