Danae gives me the skinny:

“My fifteenth birthday was November fifteenth. I wasn’t the youngest person brought to the world, but I was within a couple months of the youngest they brought without training.

“My daddy was a bit of a racial equality firebrand. But he wasn't one of the social justice types. When I was growing up, it was always Williams sisters this, Tiger Woods that. He was always going on about Jessie Owens and Jackie Robinson and Gabby Douglas. The trailblazer champions who brought us black folks into a sport by being better than the rest.

She continues talking about her dad and his opinions, “ “Social justice is bullshit.” That’s how he’d say it. “If you want results, you get better, and you take them results. Waiting for white folks to give them to you is bein' a slave, beggin' to your master. We fought a war to eliminate slavery from this great nation, and you, Danae, are no slave.”  He was a lot more Malcolm X than Jesse Jackson.“

“So he pushed me to be good at stuff. And he pushed some more so I'd be great. The sport I loved was roping. I mean, really, anything with a rope. When I was little, I did ribbon gymnastics and some martial arts too, but roping was where my heart was."

“So, there I was in my first real competitive season. We read about tennis and golf and gymnastics back in the 2000s. Roping was that white in the 50s. I was the one breaking in. It wasn't all sunshine and roses, but I was kicking butt and taking names. I was faster, stronger, better with my rope, and I had a good horse. I was gonna win the junior circuit. And then the dang world ended.

“So here I am. I got a horse and a rope. And I’m gonna eliminate slavery from this world too.”

I’m surprised, to say the least. “So you’re some kind of world champion athlete?”

“I was on track to be junior national champion.”

“And you’re a rope magician? You can climb up the rope and disappear?”

She laughs. “I never thought of that.” She makes the rope stand up straight, then climbs it like a ladder, and stands on top. Then she slides back down. “Fun. Now I just need to hide. Or pull the rope up after me.”

I prompt her for more, “I’ve never seen someone so good with any weapon before, much less a rope.”

“I’ve been throwin’ lassos since I could stand up. We lived on a ranch, and my daddy was busy a lot. He set up some targets, and showed me how to throw a rope. I had a lot of time, and ropin’ is fun. Anything is fun with rope. Just the way it moves, ya' know?”

She’s oddly fascinating. “And then you got to the new world?”

“Yeah. Daddy and I stayed until new years, taking care of the ranch. Whole rodeo season went to seed. And then boom, here I am, talking to a magic weed.”

I say, “I got kinda fond of my magic weed. He went by Alex. He was actually pretty helpful.”

“Mine was Alice. We got to talking, and she helped me out with magic and getting tougher. Going through all the options, we almost picked rope magic, but then we thought of something better. You know how they said that the more specific you are with your magic, the better things are? I kinda cheated.” She stops.

“You can’t stop there, that’s even worse cheating.”

“Hadta make you ask.” She grins. “I got hair magic. I can control my hair. Notice anything about the rope?”

“It’s the right color. Is it?”

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She smiles triumphantly, “Yep. The rope is made of my hair too. All of them are.”

“How?”

“I think Alice was soft on me. I was thinking all Rapunzel and stuff with my magic, but then she sat me down and we figgered a bit, and figured we could get everything we wanted. We had three tricks.” She pauses.

“Come on, D., you’re killin’ me.”

“It's Danae. First trick was that I asked about the ability to control how fast my hair grows. Since that was a cosmetic change, it was only a couple thaums.”

I’m on the edge of my figurative seat. This young lady can tell a story. “And?”

“Our second trick was to get hair magic. That wasn’t much of a trick. But it lets me control the hair so I can climb it or whatever. Also, I can grow it long, then make it into ropes, then have the rope whatever length I need.” She pauses again, grinning impishly.

“Come on. You’re not even fair, dude.” She's teasing me.

“The last trick was really the cheat. You know, you don’t have to take all of a bonus point in all your body. You can make just your legs faster, and then you run fast, but can't drum fast or whatever.”

“Yeah, man. I spent some upgrades on perception. I can hear a lot better, but I can’t see any better than I used to.”

“I put six points into toughness. All of it went only into hair toughness. Because hair is such a small part of the body, each point doubled the toughness of my hair.”

“So, how hard is your hair?”

“Keratin is pretty tough to start with. Depending what I do with it, whether I want it stretchy-hard or solid-hard, it’s pretty serious. I had to ask Alice a lot of questions. It’s a lot tougher than kevlar for stretchy-strength. Almost, but not quite diamond-level hardness if I push it that way.”

“You fight with a magic diamond rope? Are you Wonder Woman?”

“I’d tell you but then I’d have to kill you.” She manages a straight face for two and a half seconds before giggling.

“No. Really. You magically control your rope, it’s as hard as diamond…”

“Not diamond. Alice said it's like corundum. That’s ruby or sapphire. Well, it's a little harder than that.”

“So you’re fighting with a magically controlled diamond rope made out of your hair that you’ve been practicing with for more than ten years...and you’re a world champion roper?”

“National, and I didn’t win because the season ended.”

“And you have other practice with rope?”

“I did rhythmic gymnastics for a couple years when I wanted to be Simone Biles, and I focused on ribbon. And I have about eighteen months of studying the rope dart. But they wouldn’t let me start rope dart until I was good with chain whip. That took a year. And before that, it was just plain old kung fu.”

“You have six years of martial arts, you have been using ropes as weapons for your entire life, and you have half a dozen different rope techniques to go with your wonder-woman diamond lasso?”

“Not so many. Just rope dart and chain whip. Well, I learned a little meteor hammer. Flying claw really doesn’t apply here. Fei tou is basically meteor hammer. Maybe four, if you stretch.”

“And roping.”

“Okay, five. But that’s not six.”

“You’re probably the most dangerous person I’ve met in this world. How long does it take for you to grow a rope?”

“A couple-three hours for a 35 footer.”

“Wow. I'm ... wow. Thanks.”

“Sure.”

“While that’s not why I was coming over here, I’m glad I asked.”

“What do you want, then?”

“It’s not what I want. It’s what you want. Why’d you come save me?”

“I heard there were people being enslaved. I don’t do slavery. So I came to stop it.”

“Only six of you, though?”

“It was seven hundred miles away. Couldn’t get anyone else on short notice.”

“Did you know there were only gonna be six of you?”

“They needed to be stopped. So I came. I’d’ve come by myself once I heard.”

“And you’d probably have won. You really are a white knight. That’s crazy.”

“Black knight.”

“Right, sorry.”

She giggles again. “So whaddya want?”

“I owe you my life. I came to ask if there’s anything I can do for you.”

“Are you serious?”

“Deadly. WIthout your help, I'd've been a slave for the rest of my rather short life.”

“Okay. Then yes, there is.”