At first, Yuki was serene, as the scene was serene. There was a moment where everything had simply come to a stop. Perhaps this was all part of Timtam's calculations. Or perhaps not, calculating exactly how multiple people behave is eminently doable but not with any sort of certainty. There is Eclair ripped out of her movements into sudden, surprised stillness. There is Yuki, with one hand cradling Eclair's shoulders as Eclair's head is pressed into the crook of Yuki's arm, while Yuki's other other arm is curled above Eclair's waist for balance and stability. And there is Timtam, who had been defending a series of blows with her fan staring at them both. Before Yuki calls for help, before anyone moves.

Yuki almost didn't break the spell, but confronted with all this, she just didn't know what to do but call for help, and so she did. And so Timtam started moving, and the knights started entering, and then there was the smoke bomb and the sudden jump that pushed Yuki backwards (though she had long ago learned how to set her feet properly for balance and so she did not fall or lose her grip). And then, then there is the sudden spike of a hearbeat, and the struggle, and that all important first moment when Yuki's arms both tense and she does not lose her grip and loose a wild and maddened beast into the room.

There is a way of holding someone that is just fundamentally natural to the human body. The space of our arms, our chests and our heads make a natural fit for another person. So when Yuki feels that start, she instinctively presses close. Brings her head down, her arm further over. It is the feeling of needing to protect someone, no, not even feeling but instinct, the sort of autonomous response that your body carries out without the need for thought. To be a shield. From the smoke and noise, from the fear, from the pain. 

Memories flash back to Yuki of her first adventure. Of two gangly youths. Yuki gallantly waving her sword about with no skill at all, while the young maid knight already took every step with the care and precision of a ballet dancer. Even though those steps were aimless and she kept stopping and changing direction, muttering, searching, then losing herself in a different thought, each one was perfect. Yuki remembered that so vividly. The way that Eclair broadcast distress with her body because it was so obvious how controlled and trained her motions were and yet how confused her mind was in directing them. All for a lost notebook. Eclair constantly retracing her steps in a mirror of Yuki's journey, teasing out details of her work as they met in different places, the need for Eclair to externalize her thoughts, to have confidence that she wouldn't lose them later, to be able to review with different thinking. While Yuki had charged bravely forward, finding the notebook over the course of trading through the Crevas markets and returning it to Eclair as a helpful friend, expecting nothing. Little had she known how far over her head she would be after Seli and Keli "helped" her into Azaza's fortress. And how the timely assistance of a maid with a mind sharper than sword would save them all. 

"Bitch!" echoes through the room as Eclair squirms and kicks and Yuki doubles down around her, twisting further to put her shoulder between Eclair and the source of the smoke, and the advancing paladins. The only motion from Yuki besides her tension is a single gentle rubbing, the hand on Eclairs back slowly, carefully massaging between the shoulder blades and down to the center of the back and then back up. Never releasing, but gently rubbing and soothing as much as she's able. 

"I'm sorry" she whispers, close to Eclair's ear. "I'm sorry, and I am not sorry, and I am so sorry." She says. And she says "shhhhh" and she is present. There will be questions, of course. Civelia gone! The Mystery Builder mysteriously in Yuki's arms, Yuki herself undressed and the civil attendant gone with a smoke bomb of all things before anyone was the wiser. But if there is one thing that Yuki is learning as a knight and...no as a person, as herself it is this: that when she's with someone and they desperately need help, everything else goes right out of her mind and she helps. 

She does not notice it herself, but she has begun to hum softly. She picked the first soothing song that came to her mind: Zelda's Lullaby.