It was a simple fact: If she did not do this, it would not get done.

Princess Qiu stood outside the walls of Ys, gazing upon the Stolen City. An old and incoherent thing, the aesthetic of a collector, a testament to authority that had not been questioned and so did not feel like it had to justify itself. Ideas stacked on top of each other, piling up into the sky, following an artificial and controlling logic. For all its beauty it was a fragile thing, an exhausted thing, an inorganic thing. She felt like she could break it apart with but a flex of her shoulders, and that was a claustrophobic feeling.

She would not even need to do that, though. All she had to do was close her eyes and count.

One...

Princess Yin's Radiant Knights turned on heel and attacked the defenders of Ys. It was a betrayal, swift and mercilessly planned. Knights illuminated by the light of the ghost sun took the gatehouse and flung open the doors of the city.

Two...

The Pyre of Inspiration was there waiting with her demon carnival body. Carried aloft by her lesser selves, including once again the Scales of Meaning, she surges through the gates of the city, tossing aside and capturing the shapeshifters of the Western Plains.

Three...

Qiu's own army approaches the walls. Waves of assault ribbons soar to bind the defenders atop the fortifications, swiftly followed by clattering lines of grappling hooks as her soldiers began to pull their way up to the top.

And open.

Princess Ysel was as close to a hegemon as the Nine Kingdoms got. She had been a conqueror, in her prime. She had been a leader, a trend setter, a speaker of fact and law. And she was old. She was blinkered, chained to old paradigms, old mechanisms of control. And now Princess Qiu would take her and her city without even needing to draw her blade. There was no joy to be found in this. This was just [i]worldbuilding[/i] - the setting of the stage, the clearing of the field, the act of ensuring that the conditions would be right. 

That was why she'd formed her alliance with Yin, had promised her three shards of her own. Of course the Radiant Princess would spread her reign of fear to all of the lands of Ys and the Western Plains, and of course she would inevitably betray Qiu. She'd steal her shards and drive her out into the wilderness, outnumbered a million to one.

That's what this was all about, in the end - if she couldn't find a worthy opponent she'd create them. Yin was, in the end, really convincing. If you wanted to burn as bright as you could you needed a world of darkness to set yourself against. And if that meant suborning herself to the narrative of someone as toxic and controlling as Yin, well... it's not like anyone else was going to challenge her, right? So it was this, or it was nothing.

She swished her tail once, twice, thinking of a brown haired girl. 

*

You stand amidst the crowd on the hill overlooking Ys as Qiu's army attacks. You watch as the white banners of the Radiant Lands raise above the walls, Yin's calligraphy of silver against the black. The battle is in full swing on a hundred different fronts and princesses are soon to make themselves known upon the field. It's the greatest show in the world.