[b]Rose[/b]

Little Chen is blushing and wiggling and squirming beneath you. She's hot and she's red, and her eyes grow so wide and sparkly when you start talking about all the things that you can do with gags. Because of course she wants this, she wants everything you'll do to her, she wants you to trust her and play with her, and most of all she wants [i]you[/i]. 

You could already be over the moon at this, but you stop and ask for something else, that moment where Chen chooses to be your girlfriend, to invite everything you're doing. When you do that, she stops moving too and she blushes even more and she bites her lip for a moment. Then she nods, slowly and shyly but with certainty. Because yes, she wants to be under your spell. She wants everything you're going to do. 

And even that could be the end of it and you could be exultant. But look at her eyes Rose, and the little smile on that shy face. Look very closely at that sparkle, and the curve of those lips and you might, just barely, see that your girlfriend, for all that she's drowning in you, has more presence of mind than you might have thought. You might be able to see that for just an instant, what she thought about was where you were putting your weight and how...front-heavy you were as you were sitting. How even a very tiny person can apply force at just the right angle and take advantage of a momentary disadvantage to move something...or someone much larger. How a sudden change in balance in a wrestling match can wind up flipping who's on top and who's in the pin. 

But of course, that's just a passing fancy. Her eyes are wide because of all your promises and her smile delighted and dreading and cute all at once. And besides, there's no way she chose not to do that just because she wanted both of you to share this even more. Right? 

Have fun, Rose. 

***

[b]Yue[/b]

That look! That little mischievous smile! Do you see Chen's reaction? Do you? Do you see Chen's utter, unabashed delight when you get that look, or are you already in motion floating above her? 

That's the look she had when she first dueled Rose. The look she had the first time she really got one over on her teacher, and then on her moms when she was younger. Because because because it's got so much happening. It's a look that proves you're having real honest to gosh can't fake or hide it fun! And it's a look that says that you feel comfortable. Not perfect, you understand, but [i]comfortable.[/i] Like you're okay in your own skin and you've forgotten to constantly pay attention to everything you're doing because you've got a trick up your sleeve. Comfortable like you think you came up with your own idea how to move and and and it's yours! It's not just copying somebody else or trying to keep up or matching something you saw in a book or an anime or that you heard in a story.

Of course, what you may not have heard yet is that the first time Chen dueled Rose, she wound up tied up tightly and bound to a stick. The first time you pulled this sort of stunt on her instructor, she landed a single hit and then got whapped thrice in the back because she had no recovery plan. The first time she pulled it on Ysel, she found herself with a solid hit only to wind up in a headlock, which was [i]not[/i] supposed to be legal in sword-fighting. And, well, the first time she'd tried it on Hestia she never even got the blow in, she just went flat on her face to the sort of elegant one inch sidestep that makes you not even realize you missed until it's too late to stop. 

So, you should count yourself lucky because she has something to teach you here, and because she doesn't want this lesson to hurt. One of the things she learned is that if you make it too harsh like her moms did, that's when the pressure really starts, when you start beating yourself up over this stuff. But no, what happens to you is that you get one really beautiful overhand strike with Chen on the back foot, where she makes the block still in motion, and for a second you're maybe thinking "yeah, this is it, I got her, I just need to give it one more solid hit while she's off-balance and I could really win!"

But then something impossible happens and Chen shifts with your blow in the air without touching down. The momentum of it works differently airborne, almost as though she's sliding backwards on ice, and you realize that with your spell as you've done it, you don't know how to follow her this way. She simply swishes right out of your grasp and she's got her sword out and, oh gosh, oh gosh you haven't finished righting yourself in the air, which is a lot harder to do when you're panicking and she's flying forward a [i]lot[/i] faster than when she's on the ground and suddenly her wooden sword hits with a *whap* right in your butt and you're tumbling end over end in the air like some kind of windmill, until Chen catches your ankle and holds you upside down, your face turned towards hers.

But she's smiling. She's smiling so wide she can't help herself. And when she says "first lesson of aerial combat, never leave your rear open to attack" you can tell that it's taking all her willpower to suppress a giggle fit. 

***

[b]An upper Skycastle garden, just Chen and Jessic[/b]

"I think I know what I need to do, but doing it still sounds really hard." 

Chen offered Jessic a bowl of fruit, bending very low so that her purple silks and her veil hung loosely on her. She didn't quite prefer the outfit as much as Rose did, but she'd learned enough about this sort of thing in Ys and it was rather fun playing the servant handmaid. Chen enjoyed slipping into a role like, knowing how she ought to act and being able to meet it reasonably well. 

They were alone in one of the upper gardens, Keron having selected Chen to wait on Jessic personally today. That was probably designed to humiliate her a bit, after she'd spent time with Jessic more as a peer. Something to really emphasize that Chen had lost a duel and now she was Keron's handmaid until such time as her training was complete. But it was also fun in a certain way, an opportunity to live differently, and this part of princessing had never much bothered Chen. 

After Chen had gotten her lady of the day properly set up with a seat and table, and something to eat, she took the privacy as an invitation to talk, though she was of course prepared for Jessic to interrupt her with more requests in her new role. A good handmaid had to be prepared to be a good girl at any moment. 

"I want to fight Qiu again and give her the sort of fight she was looking for, actually do the whole big archrival sword duel thing. But before that I need to talk to my moms and get them to see me differently. No more little double heir princess who's just there to be everything they want. It's just hard, you know? I'm not telling them to get lost or leave me alone. I'm trying to get them to, I don't know, to see me and not just this bundle of skills and training that they can move around however they want."

She sets down the fruit once Jessic has picked something and kneels to await a response.