Princess Chen is enraptured. There is no other word for it. Jessic has shown her something beautiful. And not just beautiful, but focused, niche, special. That people had these stories in their hearts, such specific people doing such absurd and specific things. Of course, she had known, that was after all how so many different princesses had their sunshards. But, she had understood this sort of vision only with her mind, not with her heart. Honestly, she hadn’t even really understood with her mind. When your main points of personal experience were Qiu, Yin, and your parents training you, it didn’t exactly make the idea of this kind of story enticing.

Imagine, if you will, growing up and thinking to yourself, in a world full of magic, “my job is to keep everything just as it is” and practicing with the sword for such a purpose. There is still wonder, so many things to discover, but there is no drive there, only a sort of fear and a forgetfulness of the self. 

So Chen is enraptured. She can’t tear herself away from these stories that match the ideas budding in her heart. But even as they end, she finds her mind carrying them on. She finds herself daydreaming during breaks, imagining during meals, and dreaming to herself of fantasies at night. She dreams not of the sort of force that Yin creates, or even the wild and free plains that Jezara has worked, but of something different, of cities filled with people who can change their shape at will, of sword flying with little wind leopards and being carried about by a Rose in full throated joy of herself, and a place where everyone can have a companion of any sort they wish. 

It is not that she has convinced anyone of her vision yet, or suddenly escaped the dreams of every other person in her life. But as days pass, there is a new sort of conviction forming about what Chen wants in the world, one that might carry her against the pressures she faces. An underlying dream that suffuses her as she blinks in the sunlight of the sky castle, dazed and happy in a way she had quite nearly forgotten she could feel.