[b]Chen![/b]

Rose from the River turns dressing you into a dance. Step, step, turn; step, step, lean. Twirl, little princess; the moment you feel like you’re going to spin out of control, you find Rose from the River there to hold you fast, and silk worked up around your hips, pulled snug over your curves, draped heavily over your face. She locks bracelets around your wrists while you are breathless and being suspended by one hand in the small of your back, keeping you from tumbling to the ground; she pulls you in close and taps the earrings you didn’t even notice her slipping in. She is showing off, incorrigible, just for you. Just so you know how much control she has, how much she can do all for you.

She spins you round and round, and then slowly, her grip on your wrists keeping your hands above your head, slows you down, tugs you up onto tiptoe, makes you show off how much you can stretch. Her hair whispers at the sides of your stomach, teasing, as she tilts your chin up, makes your veil drape itself over your features.

“Good girl,” she breathes.

Then, still holding you in place, she sets the gem in your navel, a sparkling amethyst, and runs one finger over its swell. Her chuckle is deep and indulgent. And when she looks over you, the strain of your muscles, the grace with which you hold the position, it’s with a delighted hunger.

She does not insult you by giving you anything less than her best. The ropes are thorough, folded back on themselves for safety, swaddling your arms behind your back, pulling them in close, wrists resting on the swell of your rear. Your legs she secures ankle to thigh, forcing you to kneel, but with knees so easily spread. And she frames you in the rope, pulling it snug in a net around your body, pulling your top tight against your skin, dimpling your sides, wrapping you up like a present.

And then… well. “Good luck paying me back double,” she breathes in your ear, packing even more silk between your lips, and pressed so tight against you, you can feel her wicked, monster’s heart beating like a drum. How she jumps when you huff through your nose! How delirious her smile grows when she dangles more packing in front of your face and watches your eyes widen! How she shivers when she leans forward to secure the knots behind your head, burying your face in her softness, and then leans back to take up another scarf from the stack! How vulnerable she is, for all that! A single sad shake of your head or crinkle of your forehead would destroy her.

But you don’t, do you? Because you want to see Rose bloom all for you; because the sparkle in her eyes over being allowed to control the scene is giddy and joyful and hiding behind the pretense of doing this for the Countess as if it were a gauzy silk sash draped over her body; because when she is done, she reaches down and tweaks you through your top just to check her work, and her fingers are so, so clever.

When she picks you up and sets you down on the couch, she might as well have been picking up a stray pillow; she is mighty, mighty, the kind of monster that could arm-wrestle Jessic for fun. When she climbs onto the couch and growls, drinking in the sight of you underneath her, it echoes in the small chamber.

“Now,” she purrs, and her teeth are almost fangs, and her eyes are too visible in the low light, “what [i]do[/i] I do with you now, you silly little slave-girl~?”

***

[b]Yue![/b]

Rose from the River gives you something that she has in abundance: she gives you her attention. She drinks it all in! The furrow of intense thought; the slow blossom of realization over your face like the sunrise; your judgment of being a [i]city girl[/i] that you lay upon her with such solemnity!

And then she curtseys again, still smiling that too, too clever smile, the one that says she’s got her own opinion as hot as five-alarm curry just simmering away. “Very good, ma’am,” she says, all prim and proper and inviting you to join in on the joke.

Then she does it, so smooth that it might as well have been choreographed—

Sorry, that it might as well have been practiced. Hopefully that’s better, dear.

She stops with her hand on the doorknob and turns back for just a moment to deliver the piledriver right to the heart, as best as she can, unable to escape the urging of the Way forever: “If you’ll forgive me for saying so, I think that your sister would appreciate a visit, should you ever escape the mistress’s grasp. You’ve got quite a few stories to tell her now, and a girlfriend to introduce her to. If you were my younger sister, I would want to hear the whole thing from you, start to finish.”

And she’s gone! But hopefully her words, they linger.

***

[b]Chen! Again![/b]

Rose from the River has been more mutable, hasn’t she? Ever since she had to lock her spirit away, she’s had a little more flexibility; like a young green sapling in the springtime which bends when the wind blows from the north.

Her braids snatch the sword out of midair, and there is a dizzying flourish as she tosses it up, to the squealing delight of her companions, and spins it around, catches it, makes it hum fast like a saw, and— lets it fall into her outstretched hand?

Four arms, again: two tied tight behind her back, two slender and smooth and quick and ready to fight. She doesn’t bother to undo the rope harness, just cuts away the rope about her legs and stands with a theatrical stretch, a faint groan, and then bows to the guards.

Look, she seems to say, the treasure is here for the taking, secured and silenced and swaying! Reach out and try to grab hold of her harness, if you dare! Her eyes are lidded, but not with playful distress, and her moans are ironically sharp. She is amused, and intends to enjoy herself; to prove herself so capable, she can win a fight seemingly while flailing about and squirming uselessly against her bonds. That stance is the stance of a master, and she is ready to prove that she could win against a host with two hands quite literally tied behind her back.