There we go. That’s her girl. Look at those soft cheeks go all flushed just for her. Even tied up and barely dressed, Rose has Chen wrapped around her little finger, and what a rush that is.

Rose from the River’s helplessness is tempered, rather strongly, by her self-assurance. When she luxuriates in Chen’s flustered reaction, it’s from a much more centered place to stand than silly little Rose, and when she turns her head and looks, properly, at Yue— just there, as Yue points to the stands, as she’s limned by magic— there’s experience in her nod, an acknowledgement of how Yue has already grown, how (unlike the careless strength of Rose from the River herself) Yue has [i]put in the work.[/i] Receive now the approval of the demon of the ancient world, bought and sold, yours to command if you dare. She is ancient, unflappable, and proud of her companions. A thousand blessings on the Way for carrying them into her life!

Then she is smacked on her curvy little rump and she squeaks and squirms and reacts, flustered and embarrassed, like a blushing girl just out of her village, and it’s only half an act. And maybe it’s Yue who sees (though perhaps without recognizing) the way that the formerly big and formerly scary shapeshifter melts into her performance, trying to sell to everyone (and most especially herself) that she’s in need of being rescued, that Chen is the heroine today and that Rose is the damsel in [i]such[/i] blushy, jingly, tight distress!

Is it not said:
[i]There is no weakness like that
of the mountain that shrugs free the sky;
there is no freedom like that
of the woman who chooses to close her eyes.[/i]