So, a funny thing happened on the way to freedom.

Realistically speaking, it shouldn't have happened at all. After all, was anything really different? Sure, she's running just so, so fast. Fast enough to catch the moon, even! But running more swiftly than a song wouldn't make her heart do skipsies in her fluffy chest, right? She's known about the joy of zoomies for a while now, so as nice as it is to finally be moving about after all that time having her entire day spoken for her, it's still a little bit of old hat. Ear? Iono.

And it's not that Chen is shining and ready to do a real Double Super Princess Battle Thing, or that Rose is a one-woman whirlwind who's somehow bold and taunting and demure and teasing and quietly at peace with the whole pile all at once, either. Not that it isn't great to see them, mind you! It's amazing, and wonderful, and, and, and exciting and all that stuff! It is! But when your friends live up to the versions of themselves that you keep inside your chest it doesn't make you do flippy flops and tippy taps with your silly pawsies while you run and run and run away from them, no it does not! And it's, y'know, it's not the first time that either of them have been incredamazing, either. They've always got it in them. 

And if it's not that, maybe it's the feeling of being in the moment with them and doing something just as wonderful? But that doesn't feel right either, because she's certain she's felt the thing she's feeling right now before, too.

She looks at Hyra and she... well, she doesn't gasp. We've been over that. But she'd [i]like[/i] to. Suddenly she's not running anymore, not quite. She's hopping, skipping, bounding, almost flying for seconds at a time as she zooms alongside her girlfr-- wait a second. Her girlfriend! Is that what's different, all of a sudden? 

Oh goshies. Every other time she's gone running, it's just been her. Yue, freshly (or unfreshly) wolfed. Bewoofened. Flufflefied. Awooken. I've got a million of these, don't worry. The point is, she's been admired and smiled at as she's left people in the dust, and she's been chased and dueled and all've that's been super fun and thrilling, but nobody's run [i]with[/i] her before. She's, and Hyra's, she looks so, everything is, oh! Oh!! Gosh gosh [i]goshies![/i] Gosh. 

Hyra's smiling at her, warm and inviting and impossibly cocky at the same time. She's running with joyous speed with the same air about her that she'd have if she were setting down a plate of chocolate chip pancakes, and just! There it is! Right there, in her fluttery maiden's heart, the feeling she's felt just the one time before! Yue leaps as high and far as four legs can take her and throws her head back in the happiest howl anyone gathered here has ever heard, I promise you that much. 

How is it possible? She's already in love! How the heck does a body fall in love twice? And not even with a different person! Yue you sillyhead, you haven't even kissed her yet! Are you really going to fall in love with one girl three times in your life? More? Well, let's get you fitted for a wolf-appropriate (awolfriate?) wedding dress, 'cause honey you're doomed. In just... the best possible way. Honestly. This girl.

And the only way it could get any better is if it could match the way that they'd met, way back at the beginning of our little story. Do you remember? In the dead of night, with river demons surging every which way and turning the safest little house on earth into anything but, and a frightened, squeaky, oh-so-smitten girl slipping into those wiry-muscled arms because she couldn't keep up otherwise? It turned out that was the start of everything, really. And well, she looks a little different right now, but wouldn't it be perfect if it could be the start of something new, too? 

It's sweeter than honey when she jumps. It's warmer than cinnamon when she clings to Hyra's spare shoulder and lets her girlfriend take her weight into her spare arm. It's not the same as it was then, which somehow makes it better. She doesn't need it anymore. Now it's about wanting it. Now it's something she's [i]giving[/i] to her girlfriend. Now she's gently nipping Hyra's neck and promising she'll take the same. I-i-if that's something Hyra wants to give her. And it's choice, isn't it? It's trust that makes all the difference in the world, that makes it worth falling in love with her again every day for forever if she can manage it. And darn it, she's gonna try now.

The only thing that makes it not perfect is that she's not being princess carried, as I believe it's called, and double maybe also that she's being carried with someone else at the same time. And she could... fix that, y'know? Betcha five whole chickens if she nudged over all sly-like she'd boot Cyanis right off her perch and have Hyra's arms all to herself. Wouldn't even be hard. 

But she doesn't. Yue's job, whatever else she might pick up as a hobby, is to be the sweetiest of muffins. It's why we love her. But it's Hyra's job to be the daring, mischievous rogue. And this is all her plan anyway, isn't it? So, um, wh-whatever happens, will happen. Just like it was meant to. Or maybe she's wingin' it! Can never tell what's going on behind those luscious, beautiful, perfect red eyes of hers. But if she means to or no, Hyra's in the business of making miracles happen. Sometimes those require, mmmmm, sacrifices? Every now and again?

I guess we'll see~