Desire breaks as much as anything. She didn't know what she wanted, didn't know the small wants that would take her to her big wants, didn't know if she should want or how to damn it aah [i]aaah[/i]

She was in Iopeter's domain and she hated it, she feared it, her heart thundered louder than the storm as she ran and ran and ran and scratched at her stone mask in frenzy as the emotion raised to crush in through the walls of reality like the moment in the dream before the dreamer escapes her entire constructed reality in horror -

And then the mask comes off. It takes effort to pull off. There is that deep gasp, the gasp of someone who was thinking too fast to even breathe. And Zhaojun draws everything she is up with the mask. The robes, the blue ghost fires, the hair, everything that she is is drawn into the mask as it comes off, folding away inside the stone interior and disappearing. With it goes the thunder, the peril, the emotion, the [i]fear[/i]. 

Her face is uncovered for a moment before the rain covers it in place of the mask. And then she falls to the ground; a fall at once graceless and practiced.

She lies on the soft and soaking earth, feeling the water soak into their comfortable clothes; a white shoulder cloak above a cheap and comfortable striped green throat-to-ankles dress. It's a sight you'll see in any province in the Flower Kingdoms, sitting at the left hand of the local authority. A scribe, a bureaucrat, centrally trained in the Bandri River University and issued like commodities to assist in all forms of administration. The girl is even less noticeable than the dress, slight and modest, all in brown and black. Her breath takes a while to settle, but settle it does with a strange air of... exasperation? Familiarity? The patience of the resigned.

Then she sits up. Looks around. Wipes a cascade of water off her face. Takes her first truly steady, serene breath. Then, hand over hand, she starts to pull herself through the mud, dragging limp and unresponsive legs behind her.

She reaches a tree and combines gripping it on one side with the leverage from her umbrella - still held tightly even through all her flight. It's not the sort of thing you forget you need once you've learned to need it. Standing is a long and arduous process, but it too is practiced. It's not that her legs do not work at all; instead, the mechanism of the knee is weak. Once she is on her feet she will be able to shuffle at half the speed of a normal person, but the trick is getting there. 

On her third failed attempt - the ground is too soft for her to properly brace her umbrella and she keeps slipping - she stops and looks at the mask. Her lips purse and her fingers tap the slick wet surface pensively. She's filled with thoughts but she doesn't speak them out loud.

Then she hears the noise of something approaching and hastily tucks the mask away inside her robe. She curses softly and half reaches for it again - [i]what if it's a tiger?[/i] But she freezes, when instead she sees...