You’re the first person, Chen. Did you know that? Of course, you got here out of luck; if Yue was here, you would have been beaten to it! Nothing can stop that girl from giving hugs to big scary monsters so that they’ll stop being so scary. But you’re here and she isn’t, and you’ve got a different reason to look at her when she’s at her most monstrous, a thing of thorns and scales and power and fury, and still choose her, still try to hold her, still refuse to give her up: it’s because you love her.

So Rose bellows through a mouthful of teeth that could take your arm off, and she lashes out with her sword in a way that means you can feel her muscles rippling beneath you, like a bed of snakes, but she doesn’t reach up with her claws, and instead your words trickle into her like water reaching the roots of a flower, and she drinks, because that is her nature. She is a thing of flowering wood, here and now, growing and learning, pliant and yearning.

[i]The heart is a flowering rose,
its roots spread wide and thirsting.
Good counsel will see it bloom;
a cruel word, see it die.[/i]

Her transformation is slow. It always has been. She doesn’t just let all the thorns zip back into her, she doesn’t suddenly shrink and pop into your arms all smooth and soft and pretty again. The thorns sink slowly, becoming nubs, then simple patterns on her skin; she diminishes with a creaking like a tree in the wind, and her steps become slow and clumsy. Then she topples, felled, onto her knees.

Her hands slowly reach up and hold you close, her sword again forgotten. She lowers her head, breathes in deeply, shudders. Her face is wet.

“I’m here,” she says. Then she says it again, loud enough to be heard. “I’m here.” Her fingers stroke the back of your head. She shudders again. “I’m here. You’re here. You won’t let me hurt anyone.” Her nails scrape the back of your scalp, almost possessively.

Then she hesitates. She is underneath the gaze of the Pyre of Inspiration. This is not the time for words she does not mean. Her other hand drifts along your ruined, bramble-torn dress; a host of regrets and sins roar in the back of her head. Then you hiccup. She blinks back tears and finds herself smiling through dry lips, undone utterly.

“…I love you, Chen.” Rose says. “You didn’t run away.” Not from the skill and power of the Thorn Pilgrim. Not from the sensual promises of Rose. Not from Rose from the River in all her pain and fury. “I love you, I love you, I love you.”

She finally looks up, meets the eyes of Scales of Meaning and the Pyre of Inspiration, holds you closer. And there’s both embarrassment and resolve in those golden eyes, isn’t there? Rose from the River, being saved by her hiccuping, clinging girlfriend; changing from a monster of ancient wrath that could challenge the Pyre to a very disheveled little concubine, hugging you close with all four of her arms. Go on, those eyes say. I know you could make fun of me forever, but touch one hair on her head and I’ll show [i]you.[/i]

She’s so serious, she’s not even squirming thinking about [i]all[/i] the ways Scales of Meaning could cash in her remaining service time with a silly little princess and a mostly-naked monk. Usually that would wreck her, imagining being forced to tie you up oh so apologetically, kissing you tenderly before silencing you and then being tied up with you before the throne of the Pyre. But you’re here and you’re saving her, and she’s here and she’s protecting you, and that means so much more to her. Because you came back, Chen. You saved her. For the first time, [i]you came back.[/i]

When she exhales, she breathes out smog and acid smoke and burning batteries. When she exhales, she breathes out hate, and shivers as if suddenly cold under your hands, and you squeeze her tighter until she feels like she could burst like fireworks forever across the sky, lights gleaming off the Sunshards.

And that’s how she knows, isn’t it?

[Rose chooses to open up to Chen, the best girlfriend in the whole wide world (sorry, Hyra). She clears ANGRY and receives an insight.]