Here is what it is to flinch. It is to leave cards on the table. It is to leave possibilities unexplored. It is to be unfaithful to yourself. Flinching is to make a decision with your head in a moment when you are called upon to make a decision with your heart. 

Countess Keron does not flinch, at least not here. There is no hesitation when she lets go of the naginata, when she switches all of her attention to her clawed gauntlets. And as she lunges [i]into[/i] your faltering charge you're left to wonder: what would have happened if I gave it my all? Because when you're holding yourself back and losing as a result then you're being unfaithful to the moment. You're deciding before you know. You think, Princess Chen, that if you fought at your full strength you would have beaten Countess Keron.

She disagrees.

The way her hand snaps out to catch your throat in mid air. Clawed fingers tighten around your neck. The force of her momentum crashes, angled just so, against your blade, sending it skidding off her plate before the impact sends it out of your hands entirely. Did you ever have a chance? Was it the case that you were simply up against the better swordswoman, someone whose numbers were bigger than yours? Or was it the reverse, that you would have won easily if you'd simply tried harder?

And you see in the flash of iron eyes that this is the truth: [i]You will never find out[/i]. That question will go unanswered. You see Qiu in that move, catching your blade in her teeth - [i]don't waste my time![/i] Because this moment, this unanswered question, was the point. There was no script, no agreement in advance on how this should go. A Princess is not an actor and duels are not staged. This conflict is a search for the truth of hearts in flashing steel, and when you hold back then you are deciding in advance what the truth is. When you hold back you are rendering a creature as powerful and prideful as Countess Keron a pawn in your story against her will. [i]How dare you disrespect me like that?[/i] her gaze demands of you. [i]Do you really think that things would have gone any different if you had tried your best?[/i]

But then she tosses her hair, eyes glinting red in the light, with a grin only a fallen angel could manage touching her lips. Suddenly she's nothing like Princess Qiu at all. Because while Qiu was genuinely hurt by that moment, Countess Keron is a different sort of person. More vicious. More confident. And with a much clearer idea of how to teach troublesome girls respect. Qiu may aspire to draconic ideals, but Countess Keron lives them.

Her armoured foot steps down on the haft of her naginata, flicking it out of the sand. She catches it by the neck and spins it around to place the tip of it just under your chin even as she holds your struggling body aloft one-handed.

"Pathetic," she says, and she means it. She means it with contempt, but it's a delicious contempt. It's the kind of contempt that earns girls like her devoted and flustered-to-speechless followings from girls like you. "I thought your girlfriend was useless, but you somehow know even less than her, don't you? All of that incredible ability wasted because you don't know what you're fighting for? Perhaps learning to fulfil someone else's desires for a while will fix that..."

And with that she stabs her naginata into the ground and tosses you over one shoulder like a trophy, jagged gauntlet cupping your behind. And then she starts to walk, tall and mighty and unquenchable, from the arena.

And then she stops. She looks down at Yue, towering above her like a monolith. A breeze makes her long black hair flutter and those red slitted eyes look down at the thin little waif curled up on the arena sand below her. And she's got that smirk of contempt there too, delicious and dangerous and all for you, no one else. And she says, "You, though?" she said. "[i]You[/i] have potential."

She reaches down and takes hold of Yue's hair, talons practiced enough to put enough of the pressure on her head so it doesn't hurt too much when she starts dragging her along with her out of the arena. "I wonder if your girlfriend will have better luck rescuing you than this one did," said Countess Keron, as she carried the two girls away to the dungeons. "Or if I'll need to make the time to train her too..."

Taken seriously indeed. 

It's going to be a long winter.