S'funny how stories work sometimes. I mean honestly, S'funny how love works too, come to think. Like, you'd think after everything that's happened that she wouldn't have any secrets left, right? Or if she did, they'd be really easy to let out into the world at this point, wouldn't they? Not even the world! Just Hyra! All she's gotta do is let her last bits of mystery seep into those fluffy, attentive ears and then that's it. It's done. They don't have to go any farther than that. And if she can't trust the woman she gave her body to with her secrets, what's even the point?

But. In the spaces between mysteries disappearing and the kissing, she's quiet. Or no, she's not quiet. She's got plenty to say, but it's all about Hyra. About how cool her home sounds or wondering in amazement about making your own maps or about how now that she knows about that scar it's her mission to find it and kiss it, and no, the way that she got it [i]doesn't[/i] make it any less sexy. And also, meep! She's using that word right, right? She is! Meep!!

But when it's her turn, she's quiet. She sits there smiling, maybe sipping some tea or some water or some fizzy drink with a ridiculous name she can't pronounce, in varying states of undress given what happened most recently (once in just a towel! Spa trips're nice~), and she doesn't say a word while she waits for Hyra to reveal some new amazing part of herself. The good that you can say for her is that she never stops being amazed. She even takes 'able-eye-tie' in stride, sorta kinda, rapid-blinking for a few seconds after a single "I'm sorry, what was that again?" At least her giggles are very good natured, I'll have you know. And she doesn't correct or insist on changes, except to explain that where she's from they say it thisaways. 

Then come the questions. And these, probably, are why 55% of marriages end in divorce. Or wait, they're not married. Also how old is that number? Seems like it oughta've stayed buried with the Old Ones. Er, the uh, the Burrowers I mean. Sounds like a Them number, to me. Can't be right, can it? Nah. Definitely not. But anyway, the questions. They're hard, and they hurt, and they make Yue think this isn't gonna work out after all, which is enough to make them the worst thing that's ever happened to her. 

Tell me about yourself? Dunno where to start. Well how about the Terraced Lake, what's it like there? Nothin' to tell, you saw pretty much all of it comin' to pick me up. Well no, but aren't there big floating cities down at the bottom of the waterfalls? What're those like? Dunno, never been. Never been? Never been. Well why not? Dunno. Never felt like it, too far to walk, too much to do, never seemed important, what would even be there for her, she's always kinda hated cities actually. But you loved the sky castle, didn't you? Well yeah but. And doesn't your sister live down there? Well yeah but!

S'funny. It starts with... oh, right. I should mention, that's not a contrack... thing. I don't mean "it's funny". It's a word, S'funny is, or leastwise it's a word in Yue's house. It's Gran Gran's word, from when she was around, or maybe it was made even earlier than that. What do I look like, a linguar? Ist? Anyway it's a word. Sad-funny. S'funny. Means when somethin's out there makes you wanna laugh but it hurts your heart to do it all the same. 

Anyway where was I? Oh right, it starts with a confession. She lied just now, sorry. Of course she loves cities! Of course she does! Or, the idea of them, at least. She's had so little experience, she guesses she just doesn't know how she'd actually feel bein' in one all the time. But she knows how they make her feel, thinkin' about 'em. That's where the stories all come from. The fancy clothes and the nice pots and pans and the people who can read good and do math without having to stop and tick off their fingers to make sure they didn't lose their place partway in. It's where the songs all come from and she [i]loves[/i] songs. But when she thinks about life in her tiny village and tries to map it onto living somewhere huge and glittering like that it makes her brain hurt, y'know? 

And besides. She has a rule. She... [i]had[/i] a rule. There was a rule in her house. Don't go far, Yue. Wherever you go, make sure you can walk home again while the moon's still young. And gettin' all the way down the terraces and all the way back up took way longer than a day, least on foot, so she never went. Sis went for her, and brought back all the stuff that wound up being her favorite stuff in the house. 'Cause Sis didn't have that rule, see? She was free. Yue's the one who needed to be careful, though she never really got why. But she didn't question it for serious. It's a rule. Was a rule. So she followed it. 

She could spend all day in the village, but bein' around people for a lot was hard and none of 'em ever seemed to like her the way that Sis did, so she poked around in grasses and the woods instead. Everything she knows about herbs and cooking and animals is self taught. Ok that's a lie too. The plants and animals taught her. Not like it's hard to listen to 'em, if you've got a mind to. She'd help them with her problems, and they'd help her with hers. Wolves 'n foxes and... actually, can you keep a secret? In the village, they laugh all the time about Nature Girl Yue. Yue the [i]Sun Farmer[/i], what a ridiculous little girl. Not even vegan, can you imagine? How could she go frolic with the water deer all day and then come home and eat one? Well it's not... it's a part of, of life y'know and, and, her best friends all eat meat so like. It always made sense to her. She never let it get to her. Except when she wondered if that was why she had no friends. Which she doesn't. Didn't. Things are so different now, it's weird. 

And even then, which is to say, even now. Right here. With Hyra. She tries to stay quiet. There's nothing else interesting to know. Her life was a loop of wandering the same few kilometers of land, popping in the same dens and warrens and copses, picking the same flowers, finding the best tea leaves, teaching herself about sunshine until she figured out how to bottle it, which she thought was gonna be her Thing but then nobody ever cared so it's just, it's just, just Yue, just the same old, plain old Yue stuck at home following her rules and never doing anything different or worth sharing and that's all there is to her, that's the whole story, if she keeps talking then all that'll happen is that Hyra will realize what a terribly boring person she's decided to love. And she'll leave. They always do. 

Her parents left before she ever even knew them. Gran Gran never wanted to talk about what happened to them and got that dusty look in her eye when she tried that made Yue tell her nevermind, it's ok, it doesn't bother her really. And Sis said it was better not knowin' and that Yue was lucky to not remember 'em at all, so why hurt herself diggin' it up? And then Gran Gran left 'cause she was old and eventually it's your time, and that was the saddest day of her life. And then Yue went and got herself all grown up and Sis left too, the only other kind've leaving there is when you pack a bag and say goodbye instead of making weird people burn you and scatter the ashes through the streets. Which she guesses is kinda worse 'cause you always think they might come back, but they never do. Sis went down to the city one last time 'cause she loved it and now she's prob'ly married to some fancy noble, like why wouldn't she be as pretty and amazing as she is and that's all that...

Hm? Her name? Sis' name? Oh, it's uh... um. What was it again? Xiu! Yeah, Sis' name is Xiu. How come she had to think about it so hard? Well it's, like, y'know, she never had to say it. Sis is Sis, and if she said that then everybody knew who she meant. D'you keep old useless names in your head to collect dust just for fun? Just how it is. And actually there's... there's...

What there is is tears. The mystery of Yue, Just Yue, shrinks into a sniffling, blubbering mess who's so greedy she'd throw her arms around her girlfriend without even askin' permission, even after bein' so boring and not even trusting her with the little stories until they got dragged out of her piece by piece 'cause even in love she was so afraid to be a disappointment, had so little clue how [i]people[/i] actually work and she's sorry, she's sorry, please tell her it's ok and please just. Please. Please.

...Kisses are nice even when your eyes are leaking and you keep hiccupping in the middle of them. And when a girl can kiss you mid-sniffle and even lick your lips after, with her eyes shining like starlight while she does it? Oh man. Like I was saying, that divorce number's made up. Don't even worry about it. 

The rest spills out of her in the middle of tears. Did you know, she had no idea it was called 'manga' until... well until she heard Princess Jessic, actually? They were 'the stories' all her life. And there were six of 'em, as far as she knew. Her favorite was the one about the traveling sorceress who went around solving people's problems and then charging them silly amounts of money after. She always wondered what it'd be like to have a ton of money, even now when the idea had sorta shriveled to be like what never havin' to haggle in a market and always gettin' what you want must feel like. It'd be neat if she had all the fancy things in life like a phone and... no of course she doesn't have a phone, where would she have found one of [i]those?[/i] Didn't even know they were a thing until she saw Chen's, and that made her head start spinnin' and it's all just... w-well anyway, animals don't care how fancy your stuff is, they only care if you smell nice and if you brought treats. So it's... well, it doesn't really matter, does it?

You could fill a book with all the stuff in the world she doesn't know about. And another ten with the stuff she does, but doesn't know is real. She can only sleep curled up on her right side. Yes, that's why she has to be the little spoon. No, she doesn't know what that means. Does it? Oh. Goshies. She always steeps her tea ten minutes longer than she should, even when the manual Sis brought home for her said that meant you'd be eaten by cave trolls for your crimes (by the way, this is why she's never gone inside a cave for any reason since she was seven years old). She's never seen the Lion King. She didn't know that lions could be kings. She knows [i]parts[/i] of one hundred and five songs, but can't sing along to all of any of them. She makes all of her cookies with spice, almost, because when something's sweet but also burns her tongue it makes her toes curl up all happy-like. Also, she curls her toes when she's happy, is that weird?

She doesn't know. There's a whole world she doesn't know, because her whole world was a village with a handful of anime nights, some manga she didn't know were called that, and a tiny sphere of places by the river but not so close as to be dangerous where she could ask the local animals how their days were going and what they knew about the outside world. And that's all. It's that and what Sis taught her for 'school'. There's probably more for her to tell, but she doesn't know what it is just yet. She'll have to find it out herself and then tell it later. She thinks about her little house a lot, by the way. She hopes nobody's mad at her for breaking the rule as badly as she has.

She'd like to go back and see, if she's being honest. But she knows that if she does, the adventure will be over. Just getting the one was hard enough, if she gives it up she'll never see another. And she has so much left to do. She's gotta help Chen and Rose, and she's gotta go see your home, Hyra, and all of the places that are special to you, and she's gotta see the city, and she's gotta... she's gotta.

She's sorry. She's sorry, y'know? She doesn't actually know how to talk about stuff and not have it turn into a whole thing. She's just got so little practice.