[b]Cheeeeen![/b]

The smile on Rose from the River’s face is practically crocodilian. Not because it has too many teeth, or because she’s literally a crocodile, but that’s the only comparison that quite fits the delighted, victorious curl of her lips, the thin veneer of wicked (almost foxlike) scheming over her shared delight, and the way it slowly spreads even as you do your best to melt right through the floor.

“Well, Princess Chen of the Northern Wind,” she breathes, almost buzzing. “I’m afraid you’re too late.” One hand strokes down a shirt collar, stops at a button. The fiddling with it is intentional, artful. Maddening. “I’m under the Countess’s spell. She made me look deeply into her eyes…” Two fingers tilt your hot face up to look into her golden eyes, the lazy blink, the black slits. “And now I must do her bidding.”

She presses the advantage. Her knees flank you, trap your legs fast between them, even as she half sits on your own knees, leans her weight against them. She cradles your burning cheeks in her palms, body close enough for you to hold if only your hands were free, close enough for you to rest your face in paradise if your face wasn’t in her hands. It is like being held loosely in the coils of a serpent, knowing that it could tighten its grasp at any moment.

“I must obey my mistress,” Rose from the River asserts, the rules of the game laid out. “Once you are under [i]my[/i] spell, I am to prepare you for her. You must be [i]stripped,[/i]” she purrs, and a second pair of hands runs teasingly down your front, tugging lightly on fabric, cupping your soft stomach. “You must be dressed as befits a slave-girl,” she continues, and slowly pushes your head down to make you take a long, panning look over her body, and also, incidentally, her clothes. And, if you just glance over to the side, the clothes prepared just for you.

“And then I [i]must[/i] make you as helpless as I [i]long[/i] to be,” Rose from the River continues, and she cannot hide that slight nervous fidget. This is where she risks her story being too flimsy, being laughable, coming apart. If she doesn’t do this just right, you will surely see right through all her showmanship, or else miss her attempt at vulnerability completely. “I will [i]gag[/i] you until your pretty cheeks are packed and you can barely make a squeak. I will tie you fast until you can barely squirm, and even that will just make the ropes rub against you all the more. And then I will be allowed to do whatever I please with you until [i]our[/i] mistress arrives to put me in my place.”

A deep, softly jangling breath. Then, sibilant, hopeful, intentionally seductive: “Are you under [i]my[/i] spell now, Heiress? Or do you still have some daring escape up your sleeve?”

Because if she doesn’t give you the chance to say no, your yes won’t be meaningful. And how she hopes you’ll say yes, that you’ll play with her, that you validate her choice to play like this with you, choosing to try to be a girlfriend and not a monk, to hope that you will protect her from being just a weapon.

***

[b]Yue![/b]

Today, the seaweed-wrapped rice balls are brought in by someone familiar. She’s big again, but sleeker, and all dressed up in the sort of maid outfit that is definitely decorative, though it doesn’t exactly give a girl with a perfect girlfriend many places to safely look, what with that skirt and those stockings and all that frilly lace and both those heart-shaped cut-outs!

She sets the tray down, with the rice balls (each one with a fish surprise inside!) and the square salted crackers and the choco-cherry milkshake, and then she curtseys so low that really it’s a way of showing off how much control over her body she’s got.

“I hope your stay in the tower has been comfortable, Yue the Sun Farmer,” Rose from the River says, and it’s her again, so serious while pretending she’s not being a little sassy. When she looks up at you, there’s a twinkle in her snakey eyes. “It is the will of our lady, the Countess, that you be entirely comfortable while you train. If you have any complaints, please share them with me. After all, I [i]did[/i] say I would look after you, didn’t I?”

***

[b]A Photoshoot![/b]

Here is another thing that happened that winter.

The Countess let slip that Rose from the River, now quickly becoming one of her best girls (if her sass was silenced before it could start), was a shapeshifter, with increasing control over her body, discovering new ways that she could be a girl. And there is only one thing that must be done when a mighty dragon princess discovers that she has a shapeshifter at her beck and call.

Cosplay!!!

Imagine it, the process by which Rose from the River experiments with herself, with finding the balance between changing herself for others and staying true to herself. The printed-out screenshots of Ydian she meditates over while Jessic excitedly shares her backstory, the way her hair brightens into white-gold and forms faux curls, her flowers doing their best to blend in; how her now-smooth skin turns from rich riverbank black to Martian garnet-red, complete with the intricate white MagiSeal between her shoulder blades; how she treats the costume with the reverence of the raiment of a holy order.

Pose after pose! Set after set! They can’t stay cooped up in the castle! They need to go to one of the compact shrines looking out over the kingdoms, lugging the camera the whole way, so that Jessic can get a shot of Ydian preparing to consult her grandmother’s ghost; they need space in the park for the shots of Ydian calling upon the Power of Mystic Mars, channeling it through her bow, declaring that this time, [i]this time,[/i] Zeryn won’t get away…!

And, along the way, maybe some pictures of Ydian posing with a giddy princess and delighted children. Maybe a candid shot or two of Ydian smiling when she thinks nobody’s watching, reveling in the joy her performance is bringing to everyone else.

(Of course, then there are the pictures that Keron takes that evening, the ones she’s going to hold onto and make Jessic ask permission to see whenever she wants to look. The Fanservice ones: Ydian, topless, facing coyly away from the camera, one heel lifted; Ydian, captured by Zeryn along with this magical dragon girl OC she’s doing a crossover with, sharing a hopeless glance with the muzzled Jezzikyn; Ydian, offering the camera White Day chocolates in a dragon-shaped box with a coy blush. And those are special, too.)