[b]Chen and Rose![/b]

[i]You are not punished for your anger. You are punished by your anger.[/i] - Daily Affirmations of the Way <3

The rage within you is the Pyre of Meaning's anger. It is the grinding gears of a machine trying to solve love logically. It is the long end of the club, the momentum and force of some distant pain unleashed into crushing violence. All the cosmos' vice never satisfied the Pyre, and who was there to blame for that but the cosmos? And here, at the bottom of the wheel, it seems impossible that this downwards momentum could ever invert.

The Secrets of the Stance howls. She is the pearl that formed to protect the Pyre's ego. But, when words of love touch her, she is hollow - the grain of sand at her core undone.

[b]Yue![/b]

Princess Qiu is someone who introduced herself with a pipe organ symphony at the pinnacle of a black pyramid. Even though you only met her once, a bar was [i]set[/i]. So, even though you don't know her well, you know enough to see that she is off her game. 

You've met a lot of people on your journeys - demons, ghosts, dragons, princesses. People who you, Yue, should never been able to fight if we were looking at the relevant Challenge Rating grids. Princess Qiu, the Threeshard Princess, the conqueror of the Terraced Lake, should have been at the very top of the list of things that are impossible for a humble village girl and her fox companion to deal with.

And yet you know immediately in your heart that if you were to fight her now you'd win. 

You are flying high and fast, born up on wings of community, tracing out the final exclamation point of a dance across a city of satisfied dance partners. Your heart is aflame and the world seems that kind of different that only happens when your mind is clear. And Princess Qiu, for all her reputation and legend, is not.

She wears black and black are her banners, black like a funeral. Her face is set with grim resolve. You haven't conquered any cities, Yue, but you think that if you ever did it should be [i]fun[/i]. The kind of conflict that's reigning everywhere else, where everyone is enjoying themselves, saving each other, healing each other, learning what they can and can't fall down to. But somehow the person who set this all in motion is alone not a part of it.