Well Rose, we know you're good. Better than good, even. You're the best, and you're so strong you're even afraid to show it for some silly reason. Y'know where I come from? If you've got triangles, you wiggle 'em. If you've got a soft, fluffy tumtum you roll over and show it off. If you're fast, you zoomies. And if you're strong? Well I guess I just don't see the problem, Rosie. We established I could call you Rosie, right? Good. 'Cause I'mma gonna. 

Anywuzzle! Gettin' sidetracked, where was I goin' with this? Oh right! You're amazingly amazeful you are, so maybe this won't matter to you none but... normally? If you have to ask a fox for the rules, you've already lost. Name a [i]single[/i] time a fox has ever lost at anything! Yeah, you can't. Yip yip chormp. But you don't have to worry about that! The rules are super simple, fit for a silly country girl like Yue. The only thing I want you to do, the only rule you need to keep inside that pretty little head of yours is this: keep up. Here, lemme explain.

First of all: survive the First Form, Testing the Waters. Yue's grown as a swordfighter about as fast as willowherb in a sunlit field of topsoil, maybe even a little faster. But she's no Chen, and she's no... well, you. She doesn't insult you with sloppy strokes or wild, stupid footwork. Her stances are lifted straight out've the Demon Swordswoman's teachings, finally understood for what they are, and every thrust of her saber is graceful and fluid as the river that runs by her little home, dunno if you've seen it. She flows from one attack to the next, into defense, and back to attack. But she's slow. She's so slow she looks like she's meditating instead of dueling. She couldn't bop a sleeping housecat on its butt at these speeds. And her smile's brighter than the sun in the sky and her eyes are lit with challenge-glow, but she's keeping her distance, isn't she? You could fit twelve swords, or at least four and a half spears in the space she always backs off into, and sometimes even the space she attacks through. Like she's trying to anticipate a move that isn't coming and just sweep-slash-kick-hops through empty air into a twirl-lift-bow-hop and another grin. 

And I'll tell you why it's like this, but that's the rule. Keep up. Don't break the magic, Rosie. Don't worry about being serious enough to keep from insulting her and focus instead on following along. Let her see your new style, and how fast you can turn from blushing and squeaky at your sudden change of style to comfortable in the way it shows your love for your perfect girlfriend. 'Cause she [i]is[/i] a perfect girlfriend, isn't she Rosie? Don't forget, I was at every single one of those dates too. I saw. But anywhich. Which is like a sandwich except you can put anyth-- arf!! Sorry. Movin' along. Dance with Yue, please. Let her figure out your range and the power of your moves. Let her see new angles and dances and don't laugh when she tries to incorporate them into her style. She's from the Terraced Lake, ok? She can't help but be like water. So let her take in everything you give her, until she moves into

The Second Form: Hey, Would This Work? Ok, now we're dueling! Suddenly Yue's a lot closer, all up in your business Rosie. Her steps are erratic without bein' clumsy, if that makes any sense. Here she pops off a stool and bounces off of you from above. There she tries to tuck and roll between your feet and smack the side of her blade against your incredible, frosty toned butt with a giggle. Here she lifts a knee all the way up against her petite little chest before she suddenly stumbles forward and thrusts down at your toes to make you dance. Don't let any of it work! That's what it means to keep up with the Second Form. You've gotta be her teacher, Rosie. Show her the counters and the dodges, the holes in her ideas so that the ones she thinks of next are better ones. And more importantly, try to have as much fun comin' up with ways to do that as she is assaultin' you. If you laugh, she wins. But then again, so do you!

Finally, respect the Third Form: I Love You Very Much!. Yue's been slowly accelerating into her true fighting speed all this time. Now she's coming at you full on, sometimes even in flight. She's not tricky about it in quite the way Hyra would be, because she's too focused on making sure her technique is clean enough to make Chen proud, always returning at the end of every stroke to a position that establishes her Sphere of Defense or whatever you sword-and-thumb havin' folks call it. She doesn't dodge the way Chen does, she's more into parrying and sliding along your scimitar in ways that might surprise you, and giggling infectiously at the music your blades make as they kiss over and over. She's unpredictably predictable, you might say. But she fast. It's like I said, if you're fast then you zoomies. And Yue zoomies.

So keep up, Rosie! Don't get so caught up in the old slowness and silliness that you fall behind! You have to show what a good girl... er, handmaiden you are for your Chen, after all! When she speeds up, you do it too. When she flows, you ebb. Show her nothing less than the shape of your heart while you fight, Rosie, and then you'll have followed the rules. Oh, and when you smack her in the middle of a windup and send her skidding across the floor, don't feel bad! Just look at her smile! Listen to her laugh! She's having the time of her life!

"...Ok, that's one point for you! But I, oh hey!" she chirps, "My voice! Well that's just perfect, isn't it?"

Yue hops to her feet as light as a pound of feathers woven into the shape of a pound of rocks and zips across the space you opened up quicker than blinkin'. 

"'Cause I've been thinking!"

High slash! She leaps and aims too high, but her momentum carries her around in a circle and as her feet touch down, she pivots all that circle zoomies power into another one at your feet. She grins and watches you rise above it, but that's when she crouches low and drags another circle so that her leg's like a tail that won't get out of your way and you've got no choice but to land in an undignified heap on top of her. 

"We're gonna go see Chen's parents, right? Or one of 'em, at least? How're you hopin' that's gonna go? 'Cause I'm like... well I know there's all that war stuff or whatever but I had a dream last night, y'know? And I think I mighta heard wedding bells~"

Now it's your turn! Tell us what kind of phenomenal, earth cracking power the Rosie Pilgrim brings against Yue, the Wolf of the Sky Castle and how she manages to [i]not[/i] disintegrate under it. But gee, you were holding back right? Of course you were, sillyhead. There's no way [i]Yue[/i] could be managing you for realsies, is there? 

"Or! Maybe! You've got other plans? Like I don't... know so much about parents. Or meeting 'em so like, were you wantin' to announce a romantic kidnapping? Have a cozy dinner? You gonna call her 'mom', or is that too silly? I'm just wonderin', have you been thinkin' about it all too? What d'you wanna come out of this?"

She giggles, but it's not mean in the slightest. She loves you, Rosie. She's watched you and admired you, and now you're her family as sure as Sis is. That's why she's fighting you so hard now. Mind you, she's still got her Secret Swords. Those special techniques that come from her life instead of what she's been taught so they're so full of Yue that nobody else could ever master 'em. But she hasn't revealed most any of those, and she won't today either. Those are for fights where winnin's more important than anything else. And, wanna know a secret?

That's actually up to you, Rosie. How this fight ends, I mean. If this is the duel where Yue's blade lifts your chin ever so gentle-like and makes you blush like a maiden while she smirks and gets the ropes to truss you up like a pretty lil' present for your beautiful princess girlfriend, and proves that maybe she's got what it takes to be a princess too, then you'll be the one that picks that ending and tell us all how she managed it. Or! If you want to just play and play and play until her twiggy human body runs out of energy and she's gotta call it so she can get an anywhich and a soda (and find Hyra for a bath after, I bet~), then that's just as valid and wonderful and I know we all wanna hear how your perfect ancient weapon body won by technicality and met all of your secret goals.

OR! Or or or! You can whip her little butt [i]good[/i]. You can draw on, like, Iono, fifty percent of your true power? I think that's the expression? You can smash and frighten and embarrass Yue and prove to her that her journey's just beginning and she's a thousand years too young to be tryin' anything with you and that'll be somethin' special too, 'cause then you'll see the way she doesn't break at all, and how she'll laugh and pop back off the ground to tell you thank you and good fight and how much fun she had, what a wonderful duelist you really are. That's a possible future too. Go ahead and learn that the monster's got a place to call home, and she doesn't have to hide herself one bit. Yue's used to chormps from very dangerous creatures, I promise you. 

But pick your future. Pick the end of this little duel, Rosie. What's the path that'll make you feel loved? What dream for the future are we planting the seeds for today? The world waits with baited breath. Erm. Bated. I-i-it doesn't smell a [i]thing[/i] like bait, who told you!?

[Figure Out: 2, 5: [b]7[/b] Yue's asked her questions, plus her Truth of Heart and Blade. ask your question back]