Once upon a time, Yue thought she knew the sun. 

Of course she did, y'know? The sun's been her life for basically ever! She pays more attention to the one that still cuts across the sky than anybody I know. How it moves, when it rises and when it sets and even when those things start changing. She's studied what angles make the best light and what that light is like on leaves and rocks and tum-tums and grass and even bare patches of dirt, just to be safe.

She knows how to use it to cure aches and pains, and she knows how to use it to add a little extra zest in a good cup of tea. She knows how to use it to spark a bit of inspiration for a practicing artist, and she knows how to use it to help a really poor sleeper finally take a nap. She knows how to use it to brighten a room, even at night! She knows a thousand plus a hundred little miracles you can do with sunshine, and how long and where to gather the sunlight into her precious beads to make each one of 'em happen. She even knows how to jar it once captured for long lasting magic you can use or sell on the go. Can [i]you[/i] pickle sunshine? Yeah, lemme see your recipe. 

But the silly thing about anybody who makes a long study of anything, no matter how careful their notes may be [i]or[/i] how many cute animals they doodle in the margins when they get bored, is that they get sucked into this notion that there isn't much else for them to learn about it. Which in her case is even sillier than Chen, don't you think? You think so, right Chen? What a sillyhead our Yue is! There's, like, what? Ten whole suns! Or there were, anyway, and the legends all say every one of 'em was special in their own way. 

But still. But still. Jessic's sunshard is warm. It's [i]warm[/i]. She thought she knew sunlight warm, but this, not even touching it she's so, all at once it overflows from Hyra into her and she's so, it's like, sweaters and snuggles and, just, every little muscle going all, and, y'know it's, but really there's, it's just so, she might've taken a hundred naps just now and not even known about it! It's warm and it's warm, and it's, well, it's warm too, if you can believe that. Her fur is all tingly nice like she just had a bath and a towel and her brain's all fuzzy happy like she'd just seen Chen cut an arrow in half out of the air or something and...

Actually, wait. Hold on. She [i]did[/i] see that! Amazing! Amazefully amazing! How did, what the, you can [i]do[/i] that??? Oh she is writing that one down just about as soon as she's got thumbs again, don't you even worry about that. Imagine having friends. Just imagine that! And then imagine having your friends be the most incredible people on the earth today. No, no, you're not imagining it hard enough, you can do better than that! You have to imagine the warmth, the warmth of a whole entire sunshard that's hotter and somehow also softer than twenty, no, thirty jars of perfectly farmed beads. Years of work, dwarfed in an instant by the ultimate treasure and you can't even be mad about it. Now, you have to take all that warmth and stuff it inside your heart so that it's too full and keeps sparking any time you look at your dear, perfect friends. And that is what it's like. 

It's bright, too. And bright is very good for seeing stuff, whether you were looking for it or not. If you gave her a dozen dozen guesses (which I think is called a... yuck? An ick? Something), Yue wouldn't have gotten close to suggesting her journey would have her glimpsing so much as the tips of the tails of a bunch of dreams. But here they are. They put a naginata in a dragon's tail and made the whole thing feel impossibly majestic. They broke a countess' breastplate with a masterstroke so pure they should make snowflakes out of it, and didn't break a single heart with it for all of its grand strength. They put giggling, teasing softness into the strongest set of arms that have ever gripped a sword in recorded history, and mixed silks and sighs and longing touches with a hurricane to make something so beautiful you can't help but want to see it turn and dance forever. 

And it's, there's, Hyra at the center of everything. She's... smiling. Oh gosh, she's smiling. She's holding Yue in both her arms, soft and firm and snug, in a way that makes her woofen body feel seen and even teasingly squeezed and just so perfectly lovely she could gasp out loud. If, y'know, she could gasp out loud. Which she can't. We've been over this. She whines this time, instead. It's the happiest noise since that howl she just howled a little while back. She twists her neck and turns her soft blue eyes toward Hyra's dazzling reds. If only she could smile properly. If only she had words. If only.

What's that? A wish?

Well, she's got a bunch of those. Fifty... three? Give or take. There are more, actually, but she's got no need to wish for freedom when she's either got that or is about to get it just from the luck of who she is and who she knows. She shouldn't blow a wish on something stupid like a brand new tea kettle, even if hers is horribly dented and doesn't whistle properly these days. That would be silly, petty, and entirely too selfish for a wish from the heart made on a glowing stone filled with dragon dreams. And really there are more, stretching into infinity, but she doesn't need to get rich (or die trying) or be granted any fancy titles, and she's good on swords and teachers thank you very much, and there's no adventure you could tempt her with that's even one fifth as good as this one. So yeah. Just the fifty three little wishes. And they all compress down to just one.

I... I want to share a meal with Hyra. I want someone to cook for us and I want to sit across a table from her and look in her eyes and play footsies while we grab our chopsticks and talk until the sun goes down about how good it is. I want to see her face in the daylight, and I want her to see mine. I want. I want to hold her like she deserves to be held. I want her to hold me like [i]I[/i] deserve to be held. I want! I want to reach her with my hand and brush her hair smooth around her ears! I want to find a market and waste a whole day trying on clothes with her that neither of us can actually afford!

"And I want to kiss you!" she screams with her very human voice as she flails her very human arms, not really thinking through what that means, "I want to feel your lips and I wanna do that thing where I find out what your teeth taste like with my tongue while we do it! I want you to touch me! I want you to see me! And I wanna see you! I wanna learn every little thing there is to know about your body, and for you to know every part've mine!"

Yue's sliding down a wave of diamonds now with her arms wrapped tight around Hyra's neck. She's burning bright with the light and warmth of a sunshard (probably) and her feet hurt a little bit, but you must admit she cuts a very dramtic, gorgeous figure with her beautiful battle dress fluttering behind her as she flies. Which, of course it does. You think it wouldn't know when she really needed it the most? There's magic in those clothes, you mark my words. Go on, mark 'em! Don't come back till you do!

"I wanna be with you, Hyra! Every day and always! And I want us to have more adventures with my friends, but most of all I want them to start and end each day and night with you! And me! K-ki... oh no."

Yue burns brighter than ten whole suns that turned the earth into whatever wasteland it was before a Princess wise enough to say "That's too many suns" finally turned up and did something about it. She shakes like a freshly planted sapling forest in an autumn breeze. Her two silly, skinny legs almost drop out from under her if not for the timely intervention of Hyra of the Wolves. Who grins, wolfishly. But humanly too. She's perfect like that.

This is a moment. It's not [i]the[/i] moment the whole story's been building to, because whatever that is, there's a part in it for everybody. But it's a big moment, just the same. Before she can say something stupid like, 'I wish I was dead' or 'I wish I'd never said anything at all', Hyra grabs her by the back of the head and pulls her in face to face.

And they kiss, y'know? Here and now in front of everybody. Little Yue's first real kiss, and she's lucky enough to get it from the love of her life. And it's. Well. Actually?

Why don't y'all tell [i]me[/i] about it? What's it like from where you're sittin', hmm?