There’s a certain type of story that everyone loves, Yue (and Kat, we can’t forget you). Everybody loves a story about a kind-hearted fool who does impossible things simply because she doesn’t know that they’re impossible. The girl who climbs up the glass mountain blindfolded because she thinks she’s walking home! The girl who spends all night in the haunted Burrow ruins and thinks she’s playing twenty questions with her bestie who’s already been apprehended by site security, and convinces them to let both girls go all on accident! The girl who has tea with the last sun and the moon all unsuspecting and tells them, no, I didn’t drop that silver sword [i]or[/i] that gold sword!

The girl who lets out the huntress in Rose’s heart by short-circuiting her brain!

She was doing so well, too, trying to make herself small! Demure, treating every perfect parry and bit of footwork like it’s a quiet bit of handmaidening, like she’s the training robot helping you fence, except you put the thing on Expert by mistake and it’s not letting you get a hit in! Because she’s not just representing herself, no, she’s representing Princess Chen of the North Wind and how well-behaved her handmaiden must be!

But even there she couldn’t help but put an extra challenge in front of herself, because she really is very, very good. She’s been putting extra swish into her parries, trying to make her bracelets and her beads dance, and putting on a little show, because she really is a performer at heart, isn’t she? Even when she was a shapeshifting secret policepuppy, she was all about that moment when she let the disguise fall and got to see everyone react to her reveal. When she was a monk, she tried to turn being a conflicted and zealous monk into a performance, with the Princesses as her antagonists. And when she was Keron’s slave-girl, she turned [i]that[/i] into a jaw-dropping performance. Even now, when she is scared of everybody seeing she’s still strong, she wants everybody to be watching her. To reassure her that they care about her. And that’s why your gift of utter flusterment is so valuable, dear Yue-and-Kat!

Because she can’t think about meeting Chen’s parents [i]and[/i] hold back!

“We, that is, I,” Rose stammers, and her flourishes become a little more animated, and when she parries a blow she straight-up reverses the energy to send Yue stumbling back with all the power she’d hopped forward with, “I was hoping, she? Because I’ve never actually, Yin, she was, and before that— and besides, she’s known them for her whole life, and it’s not a handmaiden’s place to decide what— but we haven’t—“

Even in that floofy pair of trousers, being caught by one of her legs and sent flying is a hell of a thing. Bounce, bounce, scamper back up, Yue! Rose barely even stops to fret about you, she’s so busy fretting over what Chen’s parents are going to think!

[i]”—I don’t think a lapsed monk is the sort of inconstant person our daughter should be fraternizing with—“[/i]
[i]”—the outfit is tacky, what were you thinking, trying to ape our fashions without understanding the cultural context—“[/i]
[i]”—and you haven’t been socialized properly, Yin made you into a man and you still haven’t learned how to really be a woman outside of Keron’s training, and that only makes silly girls good for one thing—“[/i]
[i]”—you can keep her as a handmaiden and a toy but we really need to talk about arranging a marriage to one of your peers, sweetie—“[/i]
[i]”—and, come to think of it, aren’t you a few thousand years too old for our daughter?”[/i]

She’s supposed to be swordfighting, so she swordfights (and starts methodically closing off escape avenues with big flourishes and footwork that’s about as dangerous as Hyra’s), but she’s sneaking glances over to Chen in the stands. Was this a mistake? Is she the sort of creature that’s allowed to be liked by mothers? What if she’s too strong? What if she’s too weak? What if she’s too sexual? What if she’s too rustic? What shape do they want her to be?

She sneaks a glance over to Chen, all doe-eyed and hiding her inner turmoil behind that veil she picked out just for herself, and oh, you think that’s the perfect time to go in for a butt smack, don’t even try to hide it. She knows you’re there not in her thinking brain but in her snake brain, and there’s no thinking as she:

1. grabs your wrist
2. sweeps your ankles out from under you
3. sends you down to the ground on your butt
4. falls on you like a wave on the Terraced Lake sweeping over a sandcastle on the shore, but with more butt on your stomach
5. flips you up into the air over her in one fluid movement
6. so she can bring you back down to the ground again and end up on top of you [i]again[/i]
7. except this time she’s lying on top of you, all deceptively soft and smooth and big, big like the kind of snakes that swallow lambs whole and then go to sleep for a month to digest
8. with her sword underneath your chin with the sharp edge resting against your throat
9. and she’s heavy and her hips are pinning you against the ground and her veil’s brushing against your chin and you can hear her breathing, so steady, like that wasn’t even a workout for her
10. because she was created a very long time ago to be a creature that hunts silly girls
11. and ties them up and makes it so that they can’t even squeak and have to plead with their eyes
12. as she sends them to jail
13. and it’s really lucky for Cyanis that Chen made Rose let her go, because just imagine being picked up by the arms hemming in your arms with those elbows and knowing that the bondage was a very enjoyable formality for her

And then she wakes up and notices that she brought you from respectable duelist to pinned cutie in about as much time as it takes to fill up Kat’s bowl in the morning, and the embarrassment, the shame at being so big, being so much herself, just radiates off her in waves.

But then the applause starts. And you can feel it, like your hearts are right up next to each other, nuzzled so close. Rose from the River was so big and flashy and showy because she needed to convince everybody to respect her and the way she was trying to be safe for them. She wanted to show off how in control she was through the Way, how she’d definitely made the right choice of philosophies to help her rebound after having her heart break into so many pieces, how her decision to be a girl was just making her stronger but safer than ever. How you only would have to be afraid of her if you were doing things against the Way of All Happiness, and even then she’d really be fighting for your happiness too.

Rose wants to be loved. She wants people to look at her and double-take because she’s so pretty, and she’s embarrassed by wanting it. She wants Chen to lead her around and stand between everyone who might want to turn her into a weapon again, and she wants everybody to watch her and envy Chen for having such a hot and awesome girlfriend. And she wants people to see her swordfight and be delighted, not scared or jealous or scheming about how to make her into something she hated being again.

But she also sees the honest happiness spreading across your face, doesn’t she? And she feels your heart beating hard and fast, too, and she’s listening as hard as she can to what she’s getting from it. Can you tell her? Can you tell her how you feel about her now, and maybe, if you feel like it, when you stopped being afraid of her? Because she doesn’t know how she deserved it, even now.

So she follows the applause and scoops you up, spins you around, squishes you close to her and sashays over to where Chen is sitting, and sure, you’ve got your sword, but the most you could do with it is smack her thigh a little bit, and you can feel her heart racing with excitement, and you did it, Yue! You did it!

“Would you like your present now,” Rose says, showing you off to Chen, “or would you like me to put on more of a show, my— my Princess?” A ripple runs through the crowd, and if she had a tail, you just know that Rose would be wag wag wagging it. “Don’t worry,” she adds, with a little wiggle, “I’ll be [i]sure[/i] to package the present for you~”

And when you open your mouth to add something, whoops, no you don’t! Rose’s hand smells good, like the kind of perfume you get from trees, and it’s big and firm and you can hardly get a squeak out through it, probably! Don’t worry about falling, her other arm’s got you around your arms and chest [i]so[/i] safely.

“She might make a good present for your mothers, if you want to regift her,” Rose adds, and it’s a joke for the crowd and also a way of letting Chen know how much she’s scared of making a bad impression and she’s [i]probably[/i] not serious, actually. After all, then she’d have to fight Hyra! Like a for serious fight! And she probably wouldn’t get anywhere trying to talk Hyra into being packaged up [i]with[/i] you, but you can go ahead and think about [i]that[/i] anyway! “After all, who wouldn’t want to have the cutest sun farmer from here to the Elevators as a handmaiden? Do you think she’ll look better in furs or as another dancing-girl~?”

[Questions hopefully answered, and another one (or maybe sneakily two) asked in return. Also, that one Yue string gets spent… to add 1 to an Entice, making it a [b]10[/b], if Yue is at [i]all[/i] into this, just maybe.]