Chen lets the cool breeze of the sky castle blow through her morning bedhead. She's been sleeping in a room next to Jessic's quarters, and came over this morning in her jammies (the sky castle being chilly, she has a set of fleece pants and a fluffy pink t-shirt) to sit on the balcony and chat before they got into the day's studies. There's supposed to be a fighting tournament too, or maybe it's been going on already? She lost track of time, but probably should check in on her friends at some point. She hasn't seen Rose either, but surely by now the candle had burned down and Rose was fine and just biding her time. Still, she should check in.

But for the moment, she was sipping hot cocoa and sitting on a nice stone deck looking out over the vastness of an open sky. She felt comfortable with Jessic. Comfortable enough to skip dressing or brushing her hair. Maybe it was just that she'd already been trussed up and dangled for the whole town? Or more likely, it was that they'd been sitting and watching anime together and you stopped caring when it got late into the night and early in the morning. There was just, Chen didn't know, just something about those times of day that said you didn't have to be all put together and pretty yet. 

She breathed in the steam and took another sip. She loved that Jessic loved warm drinks, and warm clothes and warm things. It was incredibly sweet, and somehow cuter because she was such a big powerful dragon. She wondered if that was part of the story Jessic was telling? All these thought about art and culture. Was everything part of someone's story? Maybe that wasn't the right way to look at it. Maybe it was the other way around: you thought and you felt and you believed things and the stuff that you cared about sincerely is what [i]became[/i] your story. That seemed more right to Chen. She was inspired by how sincerely Yue seemed to love learning about this world. And even more so by how much Rose had enjoyed their play. And the face she had made when they were brought up here, the blush in her cheeks, that was the real Rose for sure. It made Chen blush a little thinking about it, and she hid it in the steam and the whipped cream of her cup (because obviously hot cocoa came with whipped cream, Jessic wasn't a monster). 

"I think you're right." She said presently, looking over her cup. "I think, there are things I've cared about, but watching anime, learning about all these different stories that people have made, I feel like it's giving me things to think about. Being told that you can do anything you want with a sunshard isn't that helpful, you know? 'Anything' is so many things that trying to pull something out of thin air just ends up being nothing. Or it ends up being some big monster thing like my moms did to train me or maybe like Yin does. Or it's like, a good cup of hot cocoa and a relaxing bath or something. Which is okay, but I feel like there could be so much more."

She sips for a second. "Why do you think some of the princesses push their stories so hard though? I mean, I understand that when, or if I get a shard, I get to make my own domain. A-and since I'm deciding, I get to make stuff in my domain how I want just like you do here. But some of them, it feels like they try to force everybody into their story. That's kind of what Qiu does, and I get there's a way to work with her that's like letting her be important and giving her the special fight without just being sad and angry. But it's still like she's getting the shards to force everyone to have the fight she wants. And I think, like, Mommy Ysel used to be like that and kind of still is, she just decided that she was good with Ys and its vassals and doesn't go off and fight so much any more. And Yin is kind of...like she turned Hyra into a wolf because Hyra upset her. She didn't ask if Hyra wanted that, or see how it worked out, she just left in a huff when I wouldn't help her and I think she's probably still mad at me about that. But like, she's sooo pushy. I think that having that kind of power should be like, you offer your vision to the world and people get to choose how they want to live in it. It shouldn't be like, like forcing people to be something they don't want to be." 

Chen thought for a second. "Or even, I think, that forcing people is the thing that's bad. Like, what made me feel so bad is that when I found that I really liked some of the important princess stuff, my moms were forcing me to to be what I wanted to be. Like it stopped being my thing and became the thing they were forcing on me. Even though I wanted it! That's different from, y'know, all the kidnapping and play and stuff that we all do. I mean, sure you hung me over the square so I could wiggle and squirm to entertain everyone cuz I was captured, but that was, was because I wanted to be that role and it was fun, and I knew it was part of the role I took on and was okay with it."

Chen thought for several more seconds, a space that Jessic was giving her to work through her own mind, she realized. "I want to come up with a beautiful story that makes me happy and that inspires other people to join me. I want to fit in the other princesses stories too and make them happy, but I don't want to force people into them, I don't want people to be hurt and sad. And, I'm gonna stand up for anyone who needs help." She nodded once, emphatically, and then emptied the rest of her hot chocolate.