There’s nothing quite like the water on the hot rocks. The steam, the pleasant hiss, the warmth given to the whole room: what could be better than that?

Rose’s skin is… smoother, now. Not as rough, now that she’s found someone she wants to touch her. But when Chen rubs one hand along her shoulder, her fingers still feel the slight roughness, the quiet reminder that her girlfriend isn’t human. Her hair’s a little more natural, less obviously moss, but the flowers still bloom in her locks. She is still tall, still strong, but now she feels confident enough to not present herself as a warrior of warriors. Confident that she’s not faking. That she can be this, and not a weapon. That if Yue, unthinkably, tried to control her… well, Chen wouldn’t let that happen.

As long as Chen’s by her side, she can ignore the Way. She sits in Chen’s grasp and feels pretty in a way that doesn’t require her to be small or effortlessly domineering, and she lets herself just relax, not thinking about all the problems she could be solving, should be solving right now. Not thinking about them at all. About the great responsibility given to those with great power. She’s too busy. Because she’s watching her friends.

Hyra lounges like a wolf; she takes up space in a way that Rose finds very familiar. She doesn’t do it just to make a point, though. Rather, it’s that she can relax when she’s with Yue, in a way that is intensely relatable. But she still sits between the lovers and her Yue. No funny business, not from a princess or her, her [i]rosepetal.[/i] No teasing Yue or making her suddenly self-conscious!

Because Yue is so incredibly unconscious. Her nakedness is only and simply that, and when she sinks down low into the water and lets her brown curls surround her like a halo, like a sun and its rays, it’s with the air of someone who really, really enjoys a hot bath. Her smile! It’s effortless, practically spilling off her face. Her laugh! Endearingly dorky, particularly when you consider that it belongs to a very special heroine indeed. If anyone could be trusted with carrying around the fortune of the Burrows in her head, it would be her, and best not to tell her; she’d just worry, the poor thing. The longer she goes without finding out, the more peace there’ll be in the world, and more importantly, the more peace there’ll be in her heart.

Yue submerges beneath the water for a moment, only her eyes visible, like the great whale who swims in the depths of the Terrace Lakes, and then— fssst! Out the water sprays from her mouth, shooting like a jet at Chen, who squeaks and tries to hide behind Rose. (Rose finds herself trying to catch the water, to be a good… a g-good handmaid. A thing she’s never gotten the chance to be before. How do you know whether you’re doing it right if you’ve never had the chance to practice?)

Chen. Chen, who snuggles up to her Rose, who doesn’t leer but who isn’t ashamed of herself, either. (Why should she be? She’s had her whole life to get comfortable in one body. Of course she’s not worrying about whether she got it right.) Chen, with her beautiful laugh. Chen, young and vital and full to bursting with energy. (They’d be close, with Rose not too much her elder, if she could pretend the long sleep of centuries didn’t count at all. Surely years spent in dark and dreamless sleep didn’t count? She wasn’t robbing the cradle, right?) Chen, still childish enough to splash Yue back with her feet, and then to command: “Rose, get her!”

For a moment, Rose freezes up. Just for a moment. Long enough for Chen to look at her, and then look at her again. Then Rose breathes out, intentionally, trying to say without saying anything that she’ll be okay. You didn’t mean it, and— besides, watch this!

Her hand skims the surface of the water at a precise angle, and from it erupts a great spray. Yue, with a delighted shriek, ducks underneath the surface of the water, which means that it ends up hitting Hyra with a full blast and an undignified yelp.

And the rest of the spray hits the coals and becomes a great, relaxing cloud of steam.

***

“Yue,” she says, as they walk back to the bed-and-breakfast in the long, beautiful twilight, right in the middle of the road, and to their left a crumbling old wall barely at thigh height, and beyond it rolling half-wild fruit orchards, which will provide their breakfast. She doesn’t quite stick it, and she coughs to give herself an excuse for the upwards inflection she thought she’d try. “Yue,” she says, in a more reliable voice. “It would be very silly if a handmaiden was looking out for you without being assigned the task,” she explains. “I told you that I was going to look out for you. Protect you from the Princesses, from Qiu and Chen and Yin. But…” She spares a glance for Hyra, who’s part of why she’s saying this. But then her attention returns to Yue, and she gives her the most sincere smile she can find, only drawing a little from old (bad) memories for what that should look like.

“You don’t need me to protect you any more,” she says. “Not the Wolf of the Sky Castle. Not the same Yue who proved her worth in the arena. Not the same Yue who helped save Princess Chen and I. If I insisted on looking out for you now, I’d just step on your toes.” She’s too self-conscious to try to laugh in a more Rose way, and one of Rose from the River’s condescending, fond chuckles wouldn’t work. So she just adds: “Please, accept my resignation as your guardian.”

And she takes a moment to curtsey, hoping that the next time Yue needs confidence in herself, she’ll remember Rose telling her that she doesn’t need protection (from her) anymore.

***

This is the most self-conscious she’s ever been in an outfit. Ever.

When she was the HUNTER-Class 猎犬, clothing was something that it created out of its own flesh. Part of a disguise. Learn what people wear, what will give it away: what brands are appropriate for what social class, what modifications are usually made after purchase, how much plausible deniability it had in baring skin (and how important a flash of bare stomach might be while stretching) to arouse and thus distract a target. Nobody thinks with a clear head when they’re controlled by lust. (Not even her, she treacherously thinks.)

Then when she was First of the Radiants, he dressed to Princess Yin’s standards. Tight, constricting, monochrome suits. Gloves, ties, breastplates. Layer on layer on layer until he might as well have been trapped in the Coffin again. Faced with the most petty choices in what was appropriate for a gentleman of his station to wear: which precise combination of jacket and shoes, tie and cufflinks, scabbard and greaves? Variations on a cloying theme.

Then, the Briar Pilgrim, dressed to announce her new femininity in the most deniable of ways. A bared midriff, bare feet, all concessions to simplicity, surely. Dark, muted hues, because if she dressed to attract attention she’d have to admit that she [i]wanted[/i] attention. Attention it wasn’t safe for a monster like her to want. Attention that would entice others to ask her to stay, to break her promise to the Way, to be bad. Or, worse, if she tried to dress like that, what if others told her she was trying too [i]hard[/i]?

[i]Trying too hard.[/i]

That’s why she doesn’t look Chen in the eye when she comes out of the booth. Because she [i]chose[/i] every part of the outfit. She can’t hide behind Keron this time. She’s the one who picked out the pink, baggy trousers, reminiscent of the much more translucent pair she wore on the Sky Castle, with her sword hiding in plain sight as a Rose-sized flute on the belt; she’s the one who picked out the top with the faux rose gold beading, the one that shows off her cleavage and leaves her toned stomach on display, and she can’t hide behind practicality and lightweightness as an excuse, not with the way it jingles with every sway. No, she picked this out, just like she picked out the shoulderless sleeves hugging her biceps, the ones going down to a ring on either middle finger, just like she picked out the earrings (no monk-prizes these, cheap hoops for a girl relying on her girlfriend’s credit), just like she picked out the flat-heeled sandals. Just like she picked out the veil.

The one she’s trying to hide, too shy to wear. Because it would be [i]trying too much.[/i] Because it would make Chen frown and ask her what she’s doing, dressing up like that, like she’s a real Ysian. Are you that desperate to be someone’s girlfriend, Rose? Go back and—

“Kneel,” Chen says.

A shiver runs through Rose as she, with surprising awkwardness, gets down on her knees, and her flute-sword raps once against the floor. Yue’s talking to the owner of the shop, nobody’s paying attention, it’s just her and Chen, why does she want somebody to look at her following orders as much as she’s mortified by it? Because maybe they’d approve. Because maybe it’s allowed and it’s been allowed the whole time.

“Let me see what you have there, rosebud~” Rose tries to find someplace that’s safe to look as she hands the silly, exciting pink thing over. You were going to put it back. Just say you were going to put it back! If you’ve left the Way behind like a selfish girl, you might as well go all the way and start getting used to—

It’s so soft on her face.

It’s [i]so[/i] soft, the way Chen touches her.

“There we go,” Chen says, guiding Rose’s face up to look at her, and Rose blinks, and blinks again, not really understanding why she’s tearing up.

Chen leans forward on her tiptoes and kisses her rosebud on the head. “Yeah, there we go,” she says, and it’s [i]so[/i] kind that Rose can’t stand it. “That’s the [i]perfect[/i] look for my Rose.”

And then Yue does look over and notice, but that’s just because of the noise Chen made when Rose picked her up to hold her so, so close, and she’s got her face buried in Chen’s shoulder, so she’s got time to compose herself before she shows herself off again and practices wearing things that make [i]her[/i] happy.