Bud? Bud. Do you see the fire? It’s a nice fire. Big enough for two. She built it that way, you know. Could’ve made it all small and smokeless but nope! It’s big and blazing and crackling away. And look! See how many trees they’ve got to hide under? Absolutely spoiled for shelter. There are so, so many places you could sit right now, and any of them are fine. Honest. She won’t be broken up if you sit anywhere else. You don’t have to. Um. Sit [i]with[/i] her. But - okay. Alright. Yes, you’re wriggling closer. That’s. Your choice? Right? You’re...choosing to curl up beside her, like she’s the only shelter you have from the storm. 

What in the mother’s own name is she supposed to do with that?!

...is what she’d say, if the thought didn’t keep slipping straight through her fingers. She shifts against the tree, feels the priestess nestle up closer, but before her surprise turns to panic it has to contend with that voice. More than rain, more than the scent of flowers, it fills the air to bursting and falls all about her. [i]Don’t you know?[/i] It whispers. [i]Haven’t you heard? This is the time for stories. Here is the place of rest. Stay. Be still awhile. You are safe, little one.[/i] What worry can survive such an assault? Fear falls away, and all that’s left is warmth. Of the fire, of a pretty little priestess by her side, of a world gone still with her still in it. 

The Thunder Dragon. Maybe she ought to have paid more attention to the legends, in hindsight. But in her defense, how was she supposed to connect the dots on her own? A Thunder Dragon, whose scales became flowers, and whose daughters breathe fire? What?! How did that make any sense? The rest though…a hero, here to save the Kingdoms in their hour of need. A daughter of dragons, mighty and powerful. One would would not let anyone take what was rightfully hers. 

A hard-beaten heart, wounded from a long and trying day, takes in these treasures and perches proudly atop them. A hero. Saviour of the Kingdoms. Mighty! Powerful! Don’t take her stuff! Her stuff. Hers…

She didn’t remember turning to look. Or, deciding to. One moment, there was a story. The next, there was her. Bright blue hair, framing glasses, framing painted shadows, framing long lashes, framing rich, earthy, sparkling brown eyes. Her silk veil flutters in the wind, whispering suggestions of jaw and lips beneath. People that, wow, like [i]that[/i] couldn’t really exist. Impossible, for them to exist this. Close. So close, to her. For her. Trusting, and snuggling, and admiring with eyes bright and shining, and she chose her. [i]Her.[/i]

Would she choose to draw even closer?

Would she…

The priestess turns to the fire. Han turns to the fire, sharply, and her faces turns to fire. Would she [i]what[/i], Han? What [i]exactly[/i] would she?! With her! And! Well! What?! Get it together already! You don’t just go thinking like [i]that[/i] about somebody you just met. You don’t even know her name! She’s just a lost little priestess who needed a bodyguard, and recognized talent when she saw it. Don’t go reading anything else into it like, like some kind of creep. What are you, desperate? 

(Yes.)

Anyway. Han clears her throat. Stares long into the fire, letting it cast her face into deep, blush-concealing shadow. Her voice isn’t as pretty or as fancy as some, but you don’t travel as much as her without learning how to tell a good story. And of the N’yari, she has stories to tell.

“Far away, on the very edges of the Flower Kingdom, in the heights of the Highlands, stands Mount Fang. If you could climb the sheer cliffs, stand against the howling winds, and plow through the waist-deep snow, you might stand atop the peaks. But you will not be able to escape the tribe of the Oei. Their eyes can track a butterfly through a typhoon at midnight. They can leap over a house in a single bound. And the smallest of them can throw a soldier - in full gear - over their shoulder like it was nothing.” 

She says, with the confidence of one who’s seen it happen. Multiple times. 

“They come down from their mountain lairs to raid the Flower Kingdoms. They love gold, and jewels, and spices, but most of all?” A knowing glance, to her captive audience. “They love pretty girls. Anyone who catches their fancy, they bind, and gag, and carry off to their mountain, and that will be the last sunlight they see for months. Maybe even years. Unless the N’yari decide to take their [i]pets[/i] for a walk.” Which was something she hadn’t seen for herself, and with any luck, she never would. “Once you’re under the mountain, you belong to the N’yari. They’d have had you cooking, cleaning, entertaining, whatever strikes their fancy and whatever they’re too lazy to do themselves. If you’re good, they might dress you up in their frilliest outfits for a uniform. If you’re bad, they might just do it anyway. Or maybe they’ll tie you so tightly that you can’t move a muscle, and make you promise a hundred times over not to make anymore ‘silly mistakes.’ All while they sit on you and tickle your face with their tail. Anything to make you never forget; you belong to them, now.”

Memories spring unbidden to mind without the soothing guard of a priestess’ voice. A ghost of a taste dances on her tongue. Han draws within herself, just a bit tighter.

“Escape is impossible. No one but the Oei know the ways through their twisting caverns. Your sentence is up when they get bored of you. One day, without warning, they tie you up from head to toe, carry you back to the Highlands, and drop you off somewhere you can hobble back to a village. All the while they watch from the trees. One last show, before they go.” Bitterness. Anger. Spat into the air, and stabbed to her own heart. “They raid the Highlands because we’re easy pickings. Because no Kingdom keeps enough trouble here to challenge them. So. I make my own trouble. For any N’yari that thinks they can mess with [i]my[/i] home and get away with it. If they want new maids to play with?”

Her eyes narrow to burning slits.

“They’ll have to take ‘em from [i]me.”[/i]

[Rolling to Entice with stories of bravery and binding: 3 + 5 - 3 = 5. The XP race continues….]