[h3]At an izakaya, serving pancakes[/h3]

Let’s get one thing straight. Chen absolutely expected the Pyre to have a little fun with her Rosepetal while she was cooking. That was part of leaving her! Part of the maid experience. Chen was the skilled maid who was directing the experience, Rose was the bimbo maid who was there to be teased and silly even when she was unexpectedly competent. So Chen ducking out of the scene to cook the pancakes wasn’t just abandoning Rose to the Pyre’s machinations, it was an invitation! That was the fun of it all!

Even so, Chen had to stop as she exited the kitchen with her plate heaping full of chocolate chip pancakes, whip creamed bottle tucked into her skirt to draw the smiley faces. She has to stifle a laugh and a blush, and she can’t stifle the grin. Uh oh Rose, the Pyre had gotten straight to the cuffs and now you were locked up oh so tight! Tighter than Chen had been when you’d wrapped her hands in the old world caution tape and trussed her up on a stick! Don’t think she’s forgotten! In fact, her first thought is that she’s going to have to get you back for that trussing while you’re like this and put you up on a pole for people to play with. Oh oh, or maybe over a fire pit as though you’re going to be a sacrifice to the nearest deity. In fact, she would bet that the nearby deity would come down just to tease you, oh yes that will be great! Just add that one to the idea bin that occupies a small corner of her brain. 

But Chen has pancakes to serve and smiley faces to draw! So, she slides out of the kitchen, her feet in their heels perkily clicking as she crosses the floor to you both. She sets down the plates oh so gently, and pulls out the can of whipped cream with a flourish to properly shake it. She smiles, and a little blush enters her cheeks as she looks at her Rosepetal over the Pyre’s lap, but she stays strong and makes her follow through on the flourish by putting the cherry down daintily to complete the pancake presentation. 

Only then, only after things are served and she’s curtseyed properly to her mistress, does she calmly suggest “Mistress, if it please you, I can take my co-maid off your hands while you eat.” Because it will obviously please the Pyre, she’s already sliding Rosepetal off the Pyre’s lap and onto the plush lime green cushions of the booth seating on one side of the table. She’s not taking the cuffs apart though, not yet. Instead, she takes her own seat as the Pyre begins on the pancakes. 

Chen tuts. “Petal, goodness, I can’t leave you for a moment can I?” She puts a hand over Rose’s mouth, shushing even her moans and pressing her gag in more firmly. “No no, I come back and you’re all tangled up!” Chen smiles as she brushes a hand over Rose’s wrists. Her touch is gentle, not enough to pull them apart, but more than enough to make the skin prickle and the sensation rush through Rose’s body. Then she runs that hand down the legs, over the bare skin and the high socks and down to the ankles, feeling those tensed muscles held together by the cuffs. The soft rustle of fabric fills the space between the two and nestles in Rose’s ears as Chen enjoys the feeling of touching her over these lovely clothes. For a moment that the light rustle of a hand running over the fabric and nearby the clink of the Pyre’s silverware are the only sounds. Chen lets it linger before she speaks, “maybe I should leave you like this, hm? Suggest that the Pyre command you to follow us without separating your legs or hands. That would remind you how to be a good girl, wouldn’t it? Wouldn’t it be fun to be desperately trying to keep up and falling all over yourself hopelessly?” She grins. Does she mean it Rose? The Pyre isn’t going to be eating forever and Chen seems to be quite enjoying her freedom running that hand up and down your thighs and along the inside of your belly. She’s thinking about whether she ought to feed you first, the servants’ meal while the Pyre enjoys a drink, but she ultimately decides better of it. There is work to do after all and she doesn’t have time to do all that work with your gag. “Well, my silly handmaiden, lucky for you today that there’s still an order of knights that we need to clean up. So I guess I’ll have to free you. But we’re making up for lost time later and you’re absolutely forbidden from taking those cuffs off until I say so.” Thus at last Chen grins and slowly, gently, pulls your wrists apart and then your legs, making no effort to avoid leaning her small but ample chest right into you while she’s doing it. 

[h3]Fireworks over Ys[/h3]

The little group leaves the Izakaya and heads towards the walls. It’s not far, they were nearly there already from their route catching demons before they reached the Izakaya. They do need to deal with the knights and Yin. Chen’s plan had been to simply roll that into the maid routine, part of the city cleanup, so to speak. She was going to high heel drop kick Yin when she saw her because oh boy did that Princess have it coming. Chen assumed that her Mommy’s forces would have already thundered down the main causeway while she had been busy and then fanned out along the walls, so they would have a fairly easy time. Or if they hadn’t they would be soon. Mommy Ysel did have a knack for timing if nothing else, and she might be waiting until the sunset just to make sure that the light gleamed off the soldiers in their regalia properly. It had to be set up so the minstrels and bards described them as the spirits of legend come down to Ys in their gleaming ranks, the twilight air blurring them with the heavens. Something like that at any rate. Maybe Chen was just feeling dreamy with how everything was going. 

Her musing is interrupted by the sudden whistle boom of fireworks overhead. A whole series of them suddenly go off in sequence, red and white one after another in the shapes of starbursts and flowers in the sky. But Yin’s colors were black and white, her stark radiance night and day thing. Red and white were Hyra’s colors which meant…it’s then that Chen sees her. Wordlessly she taps Rose and points, gesturing upwards to the sky past the walls. There she was, hovering over a little hill with a shrine and a fountain from which a small waterfall pours down the hillside. A less enraptured Chen would have found the scene odd because she was sure such a hill shrine had never been there before in all the years she’d spent in Ys. But the sight is mesmerizing and Chen has no attention for such observations. The sunshard illuminates Hyra with an ethereal light, merging with the deep blues of the sunset to make her look transcendent, as though she were infused with all of reality, spotlit from within. 

Chen simply stares for a moment, trying to commit the sight into her memory, to burn the ghostly image of Hyra above that hilltop into her brain. She is going to paint this, from the war topknot in lunar white to the deepest blues of the steel merging with the sky behind. Oh, oh if only she had all her painting things now she’d pull them out immediately, at least mix colors until she got the hues just right before going up there. She could keep the pigments, bottle them up for later. But she hasn’t been carrying her paints and her brushes since all that time ago when she left them with Qiu, and besides she couldn’t have kept them on her anyway when changing into a maid dress. 

“Come mistress, we should go see about the commotion, I’m sure there’s quite a story up there.” Chen offers the Pyre another curtsy, and gestures for Rose to follow as well (Rose, of course, does not receive a formal address since she is the lower-ranked maid at this point, but Chen does give her another warm smile and a gentle tug). Then Chen draws her sword and begins a lazy flight up toward the hill, trying to see what there is to see without outpacing Rose or the Pyre as they work their way up.

[h3]A hill shrine held by an army[/h3]

As Chen gets a look at the hilltop, the first thing she sees is the cast of characters all spread out. Yue is tied up and gagged, placed against a little pine tree near the shrine entrance and looking full damsel in distress. Yin is at the base of the shrine, unbound but begging for mercy and bowing before her new master high above. And near her, lying on the open ground, is Qiu who is also tied and gagged. She’s got her tail up with the tip coming out past the top of the ropes. That tail is twitching as she’s squirming against the bonds in a way that says I’ve got this under control but also involves some very active rolling about. Above them is Hyra, with her moonlight armor, her gorgeous new hairstyle, and her flashing sword, as lightning bolts cut through the sky to backlight her. Last, in front of them all, holding the hilltop and looking as fierce as Chen has ever seen her (ignore the breadcrumbs around her mouth), the illustrious Katherine Isabella Fluffybiscuits. Chen gives that fox one look, meeps out loud and races back down from her flight to hide herself in a hug with Rose! 

Now, she might also be smiling and giggling a little, and this might actually be an excuse to give Rose a big squeezy hug in the process. But what’s important is that Chen understands that the hilltop is being held by a very powerful army and that anyone who underestimated Kat was in for the chormping of a lifetime! 

So Chen snuggles into Rose and looks up at her with the biggest saucer eyes. “Oh Petal. Hyra’s defeated all the other princesses and seized a sunshard and and and she’s got a fierce and terrible army holding the hilltop. The most fierce. Only you can distract them and make an opening for me to duel Hyra for the safety of Ys and freedom for Yue and Qiu! Pleeease!”

[h3]On the matter of wolf princesses with very hot armor[/h3]

Now, let’s be clear here. Does Chen think that Hyra could have taken Yin and stolen her shard? Absolutely. In fact, if you thought about what happened at the Sky Castle, it probably wasn’t even hard. Yin might be the single easiest Princess to distract in all the nine kingdoms. So count that as one problem solved. Chen is only a teensy bit disappointed that this is not an appropriate situation for a maid drop kick. 

But Chen does not believe for a second that Hyra would ever hurt Yue and she’s pretty darn skeptical that either of them could get Qiu into that spot if Qiu didn’t want to be in it. Not to mention that there’s no way that Kat would be guarding the hilltop if Yue were in real danger. 

But! But but but! It was clear that a duel was required! Hyra didn’t get all dressed up like that just to pose for a photoshoot! And whoever had masterminded this little stunt (Yue, it was obviously Yue, Yue did it) wanted to see a proper duel with all her heart. Which meant that Chen, all dressed in her maid outfit with her sword gleaming in her hand, was going to need to go for Hyra one on one while Rose distracted Kat. 

Gosh, had Chen ever told Yue this particular fantasy? Yue had seen her in the maid outfit working for Cyanis of course. That’s how they’d met, Chen blushing for all she was worth while offering Yue her sword in the face of a whole countryside racing after Qiu’s bounty. But the duel as a maid part? Chen hadn’t even really been anticipating that, she was so confident in Yue that getting to Qiu had been the very last thing to do on her list for today and nobody else had been all that likely to offer a proper duel. But maybe Yue had simply understood it from all their training together, and the precise way Chen moved in that little maid dress cleaning that simple shrine months ago. Yue had seen Chen’s heart and realized that Chen wanted a showdown like this to get her first shard more than anything. 

The Pyre of Inspiration, of course, was going to get a front row seat to the action. And sure, that did mean that if it all went wrong then Hyra might seize three sunshards all for herself and become the new and terrible wolf princess overlord of the nine kingdoms. But really, that didn’t sound too bad either. Not that Chen was about to let it happen. She had a duel to fight! R-right after Rose distracted the army standing in the way!