The Conciliatory Ice-Star Blade flashes into Rose’s hands, but it does not become a sword. Instead it is a long, pale staff, a tool first of defense. And this is how Rose fights: with a swirl of her hips and a spin of the staff, fending off the hurricane with stave-butt and footwork, yielding ground.

It would be easier if she met power with power. All of these perilous blades, torn aside, scattered to form a wasteland around the two of them. It would be easy to redirect every one of them into the earth, to dig long scores through the streets of Ys, to disarm the Secrets of the Stance decisively. But that’s not how our dear Rosebud fights.

The storm is all around her and she diverts it only slightly, like a spur jutting from the surface of a stream; the storm is contained about her, and the space of safety grows claustrophobic and tight, inconstant and flickering. She sways reedlike, becomes the water that trickles through the gaps, silver staff flashing beneath her dark fingers. But she can’t do anything more, or won’t do anything more. She remains passive, acted upon, like water, which molds itself into new shapes.

“Love is nowhere it is sought,” Rose murmurs, her voice as delicate as a hope, her breath only faintly stirring her veil. “Dig up the mountains, dive in the rivers, count through a hoard, but you will not find so much as a speck of love. It cannot be bought or sold, has no mass or volume, and defies the one who goes looking.”

Yin, her face lighting up as he makes adjustments, as he sharpens his cheeks and lids his eyes, as he makes his hair as fair as gold. Yin, snapping at him, furious that he would dare to pick her up, bring her in for the kiss he thought she wanted— but only on her terms, with her dignity, at her time.

A sword flickers through her silk, kissing her side with that wicked edge, and the noise that is squeezed out of her is one that she learned from Yue. The space grows tighter all around her; she is backed up to the very throne of the Pyre. She wriggles like a maiden trapped as silk is slashed, ties undone, her top giving way on one shoulder. But that’s enough to distract the Secrets of the Stance for a moment, just a moment, unable to tear her eyes away from the firm muscle and the softness revealed by her plunging top.

And the Conciliatory Ice-Star Blade raps her knuckles hard enough to make even her, the wrath and rage of a demon queen, hiss through her teeth. And Rose twirls, her slashed belt trailing like a tail, and hems in the Secrets of the Stance with one, two, three— now those black blades are trying to knock that shivering sliver of moonlight aside, keep Rose from driving it somewhere soft.

“It comes like catastrophe out of clear skies; it tumbles to your feet in a flutter of scarf and silk. It disarms you, blade by blade, until you are helpless.” Clack! Crack! Clang! Two swords bounce where they hit the ground. Rose sets her staff and lifts herself up, throws one billowing leg over the shoulder of Secrets from the Stance, flips her head over heels while sliding down its length, and Secrets from the Stance bounces, too.

But then she sets her feet under her and flings herself at Rose again, and Rose is on the ground fending off those wicked edges, one, two, three, each one met by the length which does not yield underneath them. What could hope to change the sword fallen from the inconstant moon except for its own heart?

What could hope to change Rose, but her own?

“Then you are caught in a net.” Rose sweeps one leg out, forces Secrets of the Stance to hop up and put all of her weight on the staff, all the better to send her up and over Rose’s head, already turned to face her when she hits the ground, just enough time to get up on one knee. “But the net clings to you, grows with you; when it catches on a nail, you cry out as it digs into you, but for its sake, not your own. Then one day you find it is not a net but the finest gown.”

Her parries are executed with the sort of precision that even Chen, the prodigy of swordplay, might be impressed by. Each blow is met as if the handmaiden were attempting to 100% a rhythm game unearthed from the deep places of the world. And in her fury, Secrets of the Stance pushes harder, and that is all the opening Rose needs. She twists, spins upright, knocks two more swords away, and in that moment both know: the opening is there. Rose may bring her staff down on the head of Secrets of the Stance with a terrible crack, and it will not be the staff that yields, and Secrets of the Stance will deserve it.

Rose lets the opening pass; she steps back, her footfall as dainty as if she were stepping across a lake on the heads of lotus blossoms, and she bows dangerously low given the state of her precious outfit, the Conciliatory Ice-Star Blade held out to one side.

“Love came upon me like a thief in the night; it took my path, my quest, my dignity, and used them to line its own pockets; it bound me fast and locked a collar at my throat. Love has taken everything from me, and I am its helpless slave. It has turned me from a tool of universal beneficence willing to sacrifice my own happiness for the sake of all existence to a selfish creature whose whole world is a laugh, a smile, a choice repeated every heartbeat. If you are unwilling to surrender these things likewise, if you value your dignity and power over the smiling joy of the beloved, then small wonder Love eludes you no matter what you tear apart to find it. Look then in the atom, if you like, if you will not surrender yourself.”

Rose straightens, and holds the staff out in front of her, set firmly on the ground, and lets the wind set her ornaments to gentle chiming. And under her veil, she smiles, trusting in the Rosebud that Chen sees.

[Rose rolls a [b]6.[/b] Instead of acting with Daring to boost it to an 8, she acts with Grace, and spends her String on Secrets from the Stance immediately to add one to the roll. She chooses to inflict a Condition by refusing violence against Secrets from the Stance, and creates an opportunity for an ally— who, she does not yet know. Secrets from the Stance chooses an option against her in turn.]