Love is about timing, not planning. Zhaojun has done no thinking or preparation for how she will handle this scene or its outcomes and in truth she never has. Reality is but one timeless moment and one can navigate it simply fate - but even amidst one moment there are correct moments. A heart must open if it is to breathe, and a heart must be open if one is to stuff it shut with gags. She has simply to wait until the world breathes in.

In the meantime she is strong and feral and beautiful as only a N'yari can be, wrapped in a destiny of easy pleasures - and here are two right now. Witches, so soft and useless, nerds who study uselessly spiritual conundrums rather than practical skills like swordfighting or chewing through ball gags. She, Machi, has nothing to fear from whatever trickery these witches might pull. Her strength is in the flesh and it is from the flesh she will extract value from these girls -

But [i]wait[/i]. She [i]is[/i] a spirit and is [i]intensely[/i] vulnerable to sorcery. She grips her rampaging craving and pulls it back before it can master her; [i]no[/i]. She cannot fall in love with her own strength, not here, not with these girls. And so she restrains herself in the best way she knows; by allowing herself to fall for a different craving.

And so with an ease that leaves her a little giddy she hauls a boulder into the middle of the road and sits upon its warm stone surface with the casual danger of a feline who is pretending to sleep. She makes no move, but to pass by her boulder along the road is to come within arm's reach, and as many a sorrowful hound has learned it is a dangerous thing to try to walk past a cat.

Do you approach?