Oh, Chen. Your Rosepetal is holding you close, even down on her knees, bound by the chains of debt. She holds you so gently, even as her lower hands gouge furrows in the dais, trying desperately to hold fast in the face of this overwhelming will. It threatens to scour her clean, to upset her internal alchemy in a flood, to make her simply another of the satellites of the Pyre. But she holds you close until your heartbeat is a drum in her ears, and that steady rhythm is what gives her the strength to simply remain, still, herself. With you, she is so much more herself, after all. You give her the courage and the approval to shine like the pieces of a shattered sun. It is because she is holding you that she finds the strength to stand again, in rags that hide nothing; almost as a joke, her fingers lift her veil back into place. Because she is holding you, her fingers that could break stone as gentle as feathers on the back of your neck, she is able to curtsey like one of Keron’s handmaids should, low, her lower hands spreading an invisible skirt, without so much as letting you shift. And it is because she is holding you that her feet find their places, because the fire of your breath on her breastbone is licking through her bones like kindling, because she can feel your cheek pressed against her firm skin, because she knows how brave you were, how very brave indeed. She starts slowly, for you, knowing that you will be dizzy enough by the end, that you will be giddy and out of your head and clinging to her with your whole body once she is spinning and swaying, flicking her hips and rising onto the pads of her feet, showing the delights that she has learned in the Sky Castle. And as she does, her thumb strokes your cheek, and you feel the rise and fall of her chest as she breathes— no, as she allows air to cycle through her, her breaths long and slow and surprisingly deep, as if the air rushes through her to the tips of her fingers and the tips of her toes. And then, using your heart as her drum, she closes her eyes and dances as if the Way flows through her body again; as if every step is the only step she could have taken, every pinch of her fingers the correct one, every invitation to look long and hungrily at her a revelation of eudemonia. But she is not just flaunting her body, on full display for anyone to look at, the pitiful remnants of her special dress simply highlighting her nakedness; she is flaunting [i]you[/i], and isn’t [i]beloved[/i] a much better word than [i]prop[/i]? She holds you close until, suddenly, she lifts you over her head, or shifts you to her hip and dips you low, or even spins you over the back of her neck, head over heels, only to hold you close again, as if she would ever let you fall, as if she would [i]ever[/i] let you fall. You are a part of her dance, Chen of the Northern Wind, and she controls you as much as she controls herself, and you let her because your heart is bursting full, because you are small and easy to handle and because she is so confident with how to move you, because she is inviting you to be a part of [i]her[/i] delight. (She was like this that night at the Sky Castle, too, when she played you like an instrument, when she drew your eyes back up into your skull, when she flowed over you like the wave that swallows the shore, when she explored you and you melted into her hands, her tongue, her confidence, until you were small enough to be hidden behind a grain of sand and light enough to balance against a feather and shining more beautifully than any of Jessic’s treasures.) And then she sings, and her voice harmonizes with [i]itself[/i], until it’s as if three Roses all at once are singing out of one throat, one ducking above and under the other two playfully, and you don’t need to see her lips to know she’s grinning bright enough to outshine the very last sun. Don’t you remember, Chen? That voice, winding its way through the woods to you, that day when you first met Yue? And out of her [i]bursts:[/i] [i]if you ask her what it will look like when we know perfect satisfaction— she lifts her face and says, like this! when you ask her about the beauty of the suns which scoured the earth away— she smiles wide and says, like this! if you ask her how we will survive without stocks and bonds— she holds you high and says, like this! mistress, what do we owe each other? what is the address of Heaven? lean your head against me, keep it close as you breathe. like this. mistress, what do we owe each other? why are we one dreaming we are many? undo my sash, kiss me on the lips. like this.[/i] The silk is between your lips and hers. It is impossibly thin for something holding back an entire sea. It promises: you will receive more later, when I allow you to unveil me, when I blush and grind my fingers against my knees in yearning, when it is my turn to be undone— like this. [i]if you ask her how she thinks to stop you when she is at your mercy— she bites the silk and moans, like this! when you ask her how we will live if the banks did not— she forms a house and says, like this! if you ask her to reveal the secret names of the elevator and the burrow and the star and the demoness and the day and the night she traces them on you and says, like this! how did we survive? like this! how do we live? like this! why are you here? like this. like this.[/i] Her forehead rests on yours as her voices unravel into whispers, her audience forgotten, all for you, like this. like this. “Why are we here?” Rosepetal asks, and then, to educate the Pyre of Inspiration, kisses you until the world is full of the smell of new flowers and the sheen of her skin and your mouths intermingled on the silk, like this. like this. [Rose rolls a 9 on Mirror Ball, and Chen spends another string to bump it up to 10. Rose chooses that the Pyre of Inspiration is rapt and interested in Chen’s perspective. Chen may choose another benefit for her Rosepetal.]