Rosepetal knows better than to look at that candle. Even if its new wick wasn’t encoded for her, anything potent enough to stop the Pyre of Inspiration in her slithering tracks would almost certainly work on her, too. Cyanis is wily and impish and took such terrible advantage of her back on the Sky Castle, and behind her, she can hear the stillness of the Pyre, and beneath that incredible stillness, heated huffs of breath. But she still has a part to play. She can’t just sit around like a helpless damsel in distress who needs her Chen to save her, as appealing as the thought might be! No, her Chen trusted her to handle an army of foxes, and that includes fox tricks!

Her wrists are caught, but her fingers are free. If she can get the flame between two fingers… it will hurt. She is a thing of wood, and even if the living wood does not burn, it still fears the flame. But how better to prove her bravery? If there is anything that she still holds dear, it is Chen: Chen who freed her, Chen who saved her, Chen who came back for her.

So she digs the heels of her shoes in, and scoots back, inch by careful inch, as Kat cheerfully pretends to snooze on top of her. It is painstaking work. If she doesn’t lift her hips just so, she’ll either startle Kat or work her skirt right off, and she’s not going to let either of those things happen! She twists and rocks back and forth, seemingly helpless, getting grass stains all over her shoulder blades, not flinching a bit even as Hyra lays out her plan to cry havoc and let slip the foxes of chaos. She bites down on the sodden handkerchief filling her mouth, keeps scooting along, and comes closer and closer to the prize.

Then Cyanis laughs: a maniacal cutie laugh that promises mischief and mayhem, and directly brings those things about by perking up Kat’s ears. The little vixen lifts her head, sees that her prisoner of war is being sneaky, and she yells! Her war cry is squeaky and adorable, and her weapons are two flooferdoodle pawsies that she brings up and back down onto Rosepetal’s cheek, doing almost absolutely nothing.

Except for turning her head so that her gaze falls on the candle.

One hand cups her chin, and another wraps its fingers around her hair.

They’re not real, Rosepetal tries to tell herself. But her spine and her skin both betray her, as the candle’s flame coils around her cervical vertebrae. You are being held, they both say. Can’t you feel the pressure? The fingers tightening around your hair? How your jaw can’t move? You can’t look away.

More hands press down on her, pinning her arms against her torso, her legs to the grass, holding her heels together. It’s useless to try to struggle; they won’t let her slip an inch. She can’t even kick. She tries. She strains. But her brain won’t let her legs lift; after all, she’s being held down.

She takes a deep breath to try and call for help from… somebody. Anybody. Chen, with her clever sword’s singing tip, which could lash out and cut the candle in half, send it toppling to the grass. And the hands press over her mouth, more than one, the pressure sending a giddy shiver down her body as she’s stopped even from pleading for help. A pathetic, needy groan leaks through those strong fingers.

Then the sensations of hands slip under her clothes, and her eyes widen, and she tries to buck and yelp, but she can’t even do either! Her eyes flutter as hands work up and down her body, squeezing, pinching, rubbing, weighing, like a dozen eager Chens, and—

That may have been a mistake to think. Because now the candle’s got a name and a face and visible hands, drawing on Rosepetal’s own memories to fill in the blanks. Who knows what the Pyre of Inspiration is seeing, or whether she’s capable of imagining being caught by anything but her very own self, coiling around her, stifling her thoughts and making her a prisoner of her own thoughts.

“Did my silly little Rosepetal think she was going to be the hero~?” Chen purrs, her eyes a flickering flame, kicking her adorable heels behind her as she lies on the grass. She reaches out and boops her Rosepetal on the nose as her many, many grips tighten. “I can’t even leave you for a moment, can I?”

And Rosepetal, blood rushing to her cheeks, skin alight with the wicked intentions of a dozen imagined Chens, makes a valiant attempt to try to talk back, to defend herself, to do anything but melt into a blissful haze— and fails, utterly.

Kat, triumphant, curls back up on her cushioned bed, which has conveniently stopped trying to get around and is instead pleasantly vibrating in place. Another decisive cutie victory.

[Rosepetal rolls to Defy Disaster with Wits and hits a beautiful [b]5[/b].]