The gesture is surprising, enough to knock Isabelle out of her element for a moment. To have someone, a practical stranger no less, take that level of concern about her wellbeing - that she'd offer her the first bite despite obviously being hungry herself? It was ... touching.

After the meal is finished, they settle into a rhythm. Isabelle signs, communicates and learns. And in this ebb and flow of information, it is very easy to lose track of time. After all, this, this gaining of knowledge about things that are different - so different - to the day to day banality of business and family? This is something that genuinely interests her.

Indeed, researching and exploring an alien culture ranks about 7th on the list of things that can really grab her attention. Right ahead of a Good Warm Bath and about four places after Making Lists. It would be easy, so easy, to keep doing this all day. If only an attendant wasn't heading there presently to remind her of her duties.

Duty.

One of the words in the family credo, and burned so deeply into her bones that getting her to shirk it is not an easy order. An Isabelle who is willing to cast it aside entirely would represent one that has taken a true break from her lifetime of upbringing (not to mention a childhood of repetitive lessons on the topic, as well as an adolescence curtailed by strict routines and control). In short, it's unlikely to happen right now. Solarel may have put some cracks into the chains that bind her, but the only direction they are being pulled at present is tighter.

The least difficult way to get her to blow off her lessons is to give her a means to claim that this is training time, just as important to her next match as reviewing the holovids. Maybe if Quar and her were to practice swordplay she could conceivably claim, with some righteousness, that this is practical and needed to her ongoing success.

Outside of that, it would take some significant coincidence to capture her attention sufficiently to distract her away from the call to train. On the grand list of things that Isabelle maintains in the back of her head (and excluding listmaking itself) - Quar would probably have to hit either #1 or #2 by pure chance - and either accidentally reveal a love of a specific genre of TC fantasy romance, or a love for writing fanfiction. But, really, what are the chances she reads stories about space wizards exploring new galaxies?

Finally, there is one last way that she could, at least temporarily, distract Isabelle from her training. You see, tucked tight in Isabelle's jacket pocket is Asil's projector, carried unplayed by her heart. Knock that out and reveal the message and - depending on the content - you might distract her enough to stay here for a short while. At least until she figures out what to do in response.

Solarel

Priestess Hethar signs back to you. Of course. As the chosen pilot of the Kathresis, you may direct its purpose. Nor will it come to any harm from the Terenians. They are instructed to obey the directions of my acolytes under significant penalty from their own leaders. The inhabitants of Styx have shown themselves to be independent of the greater Terenian forces and they did not lend any material aid to the war effort. As such, we have an agreement.

She offers you a slight bow, barely more than a head nod out of respect. It would, of course, be your choice as head of household whether to accept the Terenians into the household itself or if they should continue to be treated as outsiders.

She walks with you through the hangar then, not saying anything. It appears that she is considering how to propose something to you very carefully. There are many…speculations in the Zaldarian worlds about why you left the service of the empress. Is the Mira of the Fisher Clans the…reason for this choice?

***

Dolly

The smile of delight on Valynia’s face is so sincere. “Ah, that’s what you wanted huh? You’re such a loyal little thing, and I like that in girls I take~” She nuzzles you, cheek against your face, and then pulls you up with her strong hand to nestle you against her chest.

“Since you’re being good now, I think it’s time to claim you properly and show you around the rest of the station. Couldn’t have that before if you were going to bolt the first chance you got, or try and tackle some unsuspecting Bander.” She laughs like that was the funniest thing she could picture, the laughter rumbling through her body. Rested against her like that, you can feel that rumble penetrate through yours too.

But that’s interrupted by a sudden sharp burning sensation that makes you yelp! If you look at your exposed right shoulder, above it Valynia has a small laser in her hand and she’s burned off some of your hair. It’s a little hard to see with your bound form perched against her, but it looks like she’s burned the symbol for a caught hare into your shoulder. If you get the chance to look more closely, you’ll see it’s a stylized character for the precise moment that the hare is taken by the huntress’ teeth. This must be Valynia’s personal symbol.

Then she takes you out of your cell, still bound and gagged, and into the station mess. The mess isn’t particularly large. This is just a research station after all. It seats twenty, tightly. There’s some automation for the food, but also a Hybrasilian chef working in the kitchen adding spices to the pots set to automated cook times to make sure that there’s some good flavor. The mess itself has ten people, two Terenians (one the Terenian you came with) and eight Hybrasilians. Now adding you and Valynia. If you were looking into this Red Band, you’d find this interesting, since they had started as a strictly Hybrasilian pirate organization robbing shipping within your own sector of the galaxy, but had obviously expanded out to recruiting Terenians.

And then everything is a bit of a whirlwind. Valynia sits you on a chair and poses proudly next to you like she’s caught a prize fish and strung it up for a photograph. Suddenly, all ten people in the mess, especially the Hybrasilians, are all over you. Inspecting, pinching, pressing, rubbing. You’re the new prize, Dolly and everybody wants to make sure that they get to have a little fun with it. Someone, hard to say who in the pile, even slaps your butt hard enough to elicit a mrowl through your gag.

Eventually, when they’re all done, Valynia will untie one arm and the gag just enough to let you eat what is probably the spiciest meat stew you’ve ever had in your life.

Going to take advantage of this tiny speck of freedom?

Jade

The sensations from Dolly start to get a little overwhelming. Like she’s being touched all at once in more places even than you can manage. But of course you have to let that go because Mirror’s right in front of you climbing up your idol in what is absolutely malicious compliance with the dictates of a goddess and you’ve got a lot to say to her, don’t you~?

Mirror

You can tell, even with the limited data you have, that the goddess is distracted by something going on elsewhere. It might be her little priestess or someone else if anybody besides you right now and her glove have this sort of memory weave. But it’s obvious despite any efforts she makes to hide it that some external source is making it hard for her to give you a hundred percent of her focus.

***

Isabelle

Quar doesn’t keep you. She appears to be enjoying herself, but you are her captor and she is focused on teaching you communication. If you want to stay, you’ll need to come up with the excuse. You don’t, she doesn’t, and so you’re off.

It’s interesting that you’re carrying Asil’s message around with you though.

First off is mecha practice. You have the option of customizing the novasurge today. You don’t know your next opponent, so there isn’t a recommended setup specifically to counter them yet, but you can make some decisions about armament preferences. Do you want to focus on ranged or melee combat? Heavy or light, long or short, rapid fire or precision? Do you want a missile loadout, or would you prefer that physical equipment focus on a shield, a heavier weapon, or extra defensive generators?

Whatever you choose, you’re going to be thrown into the Novasurge and required to practice against some hapless pilots in your house’s employ. What do you want to practice? And are you carrying Asil’s message even into the cockpit of the Novasurge?

Isabelle brings up the selections using her portable computer, swiping through to the ones she wanted. It was a strength of Terenian mechs that they could be so easily customised - although they always seemed doomed to play the "Master of none" role when compared to their Hybrasillian or Zaldarian counterparts.

She frowns as she does so - recognising Novasurge from the schematics, and that this meant Emberlight was still being repaired after her match with Ada Smith. The work had been extensive she supposed, a close range reactor overload will do that, but she struggled to think of a reason why it would take this long to get her personal mech back into fighting shape.

We'll have to go by the repair hangar later today. Find out what's going on.

Her fingers tap against various holorecords as she confirms the loadout for training. Her last several matches, as well as the impromptu fight with Solarel, had all relied on close quarters combat and bladework. To mix it up, her practice today will focus on long range fighting - missiles, autocannons and a lance rifle. A mix of heavy weaponry and precision. She adds to this some point defence weaponry, drones and shielding to give her something to do on the defence when trading blows with her opponent.

And as for Asil's message. She tries not to think about it. Even as she keeps it with her while she suits up.

It wasn't often that one was given the opportunity to deliver their manifesto. There was a whole potential rant there in some corner of her mind; a diatribe about injustice and political convenience, how the Capital was as much a nest of vipers as everyone had always said it would be, how somehow the people there had interpreted Speak Not as Lie Constantly. She felt the scales on her neck tense and a bitterness come to her mind. She could let it all out in that moment. The grudge and the pain and the broken heart.

She resisted the urge. Why feed the speculation with all the juicy details about who was kissing who and why? Why let herself be cut by the distant blade? Why even think about the girl who for whom she had conquered worlds? The girl who could not speak, the girl who could not tell the truth, and the girl who could not communicate...

Why not stay in this brighter place? It certainly wasn't the worst thing she'd been called, and not the worst thing she'd called herself. The Knight who betrayed the world for love. Couldn't she live in that legend?

That's correct, she said, and grinned. For love. Now, and always.

She wished some part of her didn't hope that word of that did not get back to the Empress.

Dolly!

Valynia knew what she was doing, marking her prize. It meant that even though she could toss said prize to the jackals, she could reel the prize back in. Getting too fresh with the new meat would be an implicit challenge to Valynia (probably the name, based on context, based on compliments, based on comments while she was being squeezed and weighed up). So she’s spared her most lurid scenarios of what might happen with eight Hybrasilians, two aliens, and a captured high priestess.

But when she’s sat down, she’s still huffing hard through that red scarf, and her hair is frizzing in her face, and she smells like half a dozen pirates cheekily getting their scent all over her. Her eyes are a little unfocused, and they widen when the soup comes in front of her.

Oh. Of course. They have to prove that they can handle the heat, because that’s how they maintain their face among their peers. And if you complain, you might get nothing.

All eyes are on her as Valynia ties the scarf around her throat and tucks it neatly behind her. Even more marking, more claiming, more attempts to provide her with what Jade can give her in spades. (Except Jade won’t give her half a dozen pirates rubbing their cheeks on her while she squeaks, won’t give her the taste of new cotton in her mouth, and won’t make her parade around a brand for everyone to see.)

She picks up the spoon. Puts the spoon down. Brushes her hair out of her face one-handed, ignoring the pirate who whistles and asks if her highness needs a fancier spoon. Freezes as Valynia drags her fingers through her hair, hits a knot, tugs just a little bit. Feels her scarf-covered throat exposed, a flash of yellow above the red.

“Go ahead,” Valynia says, tying a ribbon into her curls. “Unless it’s too much for you~?” Implied in the trill: an amused threat. Things will get worse if she refuses the soup, not to punish her but because Valynia is playful. Dangerously playful. Not constrained in the ways that even Jade is.

“You’d be surPRIsed,” Dolly says, her voice cracking like frost under her feet in the pre-dawn morning during that one really cold winter snap. Her fingers are already most of the way to her mouth by the time she checks herself, which has the small-spotted gremlin sitting on the table to her left going into hysterics. To salvage the situation, Dolly bravely stuffs a mouthful of soup into her mouth.

And then her nose starts running.

“Mmm! Mmmm!!” She sticks the spoon messily back into the soup and starts waving it in her face as her tormentors burst out into a cacophony. It’s so hot! It’s so hot! It takes a moment for the mouth to catch up! And then it’s!! Would Angela burst into flames if she had this??

“Awww, good girl,” Valynia purrs, dragging her claws up the back of Dolly’s neck in a way that makes her bang her knee into the table because there there there that’s where Jade lingers, too, and thank the goddesses that the table’s thick and the soup’s barely disturbed.

To her credit, she makes it halfway through the soup before she’s too much of a mess in every direction to finish. And to Valynia’s credit, she only threatens to soak her gag in the leftover soup.

And to Dolly’s credit, again, she is keeping the intense, intense forbidden moans under control. No making just-for-Jade noises in front of a room full of pirates watching her and making fun of her but in a way that’s much more visceral and, and hot, maybe because Jade’s going to come and pluck her away from Valynia once she’s finished her seduction of the mean rude handsy possessive (possessive, oh no, mmmpfh) pirate intent on embarrassing her in front of a bunch of other pirates, but in a way where she insists on having control and being the final authority on how far Dolly gets pushed, and the kittenish ribbons in her hair, and the occasional tug on the scarf, and let’s be honest, the soup isn’t the only reason her face is on fire.

(But Jade will harbor no competitors. Even if she needs Dolly to be a seductress, right here, right now, somehow twisting Valynia around her little finger, which would probably be easier when she’s not got her nose stopped up and her eyes full of spicy tears, because she doesn’t look seductive at all, and that’s ridiculously unreasonably distressing— even if that’s so, at the end, Jade will still take her treasure back. And that treasure needs to protect her heart so that she doesn’t prove unfaithful, even while she is, tactically, being a seductress.)

If Dolly was cool, she would have told Valynia to “save the leftovers.” That would have been so cool, so composed, and she’s going to be so angry when she realizes she should have said it later tonight. What she ends up saying is more like “I’b forry, I can’f, I can’f, pleaff…”

[Dolly is Smitten with Valynia hitting her guiltiest pleasures, now that she’s lowered her emotional defenses on her Holy Mission. She also rolled a 6 on eating hot soup, but as that is not an actual move, she gains no XP.]

---

Smokeless Jade Fires!

Upside-down. The whole world is upside-down. This minx, this diva, this legs-and-stretches, this fish-climbing-waterfall, is telling a story even harder than Jade herself can. Is. She could. She’s just worried, is all. Hot flashes of arousal. Mewls melting into a thick mouthful. Eyes on her, eyes on her, eyes on her.

The thing is Jade that Jade knows this story Jade~ or this kind of story oh, oh, Jade~! and this one is dangerous, snakewise, a coil of rope. The one she needs. The one she needs.

She pounces. The arc of it, the shape of it, is awkward. And when she has projected herself close, she cannot help but feel that thighs tensing she has somehow gotten it wrong. Hands on the pilot, but unsteady, tenuous. Her off arm feels full of needles.

“I shamed the Red Band. I! Out of an empty sky, my fire!” the red band, the red band, the red band— “I, struck, fell swooning— and they, shamed, stole my—“ prize “prize!”

(Not a prize. It’s the wrong word. Not won. You can’t win Dolly. Unless she’s playing for the prize every waking moment. Heap her in pleasures, rain gifts on her, beg her for the shining facet-ruby of her mouth heart.)

“I turn to you. I do not care for your peril. You will do.” Her hands are not where her hands should be. The dress is a shifting terror field of hungry dead-star-wolves. a guilty hunger for hands. “You will. I need you.”

The words hang in the air. They are crystals, glimmering, bright. Piercing.

“If I do not have her returned to me, I will die. I will devour myself and hang in an apple-tree. And if your refusal costs me her, I will drag you down myself!” down on knees and cheeks and hands “I do not bargain, daughter of Fishers, wave-dappled! I will give you what you want, because I am generous, I am indulgent, I am—“ a pleading look, a kitten’s kneading, a throbbing heat “—obeyed!”

The whole world is upside-down. The pilot-she-needs has three weapons: her impossible smile, her terrible control spike, her intoxicating dress. She is a goddess. She is drowning. She is in control. She is bones. She is to be obeyed. Her skull is set in the branches. Dolly is a fire made of hands and want.

She draws herself up, huffs, stretches arms (and arms, and arms, and still it does not help the phantom feeling, no matter how many ring her as a halo). “Beg forgiveness, and I will overlook your impudence, Whispered Promise! Deny me, and I will devour you, and the glory of my service will pass to one less suited for the task!” Her eyes are terror lights. And yet she still feels smaller than the rest, the crowd, hot, present, on all sides.

What does she want from the pilot? Immediate obedience, so that she can have her Dolly again, as soon as possible. Deference, because she is a goddess, and that is the cornerstone of her self-definition. It would be better to have asked what she does not know that she wants: someone to touch her in the ways that Dolly does not dare, to actively want her, to help her make sense of the lust roiling through her. Dangle Dolly in front of her, treat her like a goddess and claim yourself to be a myth in turn, or rather do not deny her either Dolly or divinity, and you can lead her by a leash wherever you please. And would it not be pleasing?

How can her focus be caught? Ropes, to convince her that she is held. Touches, hunger, kisses. Convincing her that she is in a story about a goddess and that it has a happy ending no matter what indignities befall her. Promising her that the only way Dolly can be saved is to follow exactly as you say. Presenting yourself as a sage, someone who knows more and whose strange commands have an underlying meaning. Or simply asking her to bless you, and to be sure that her pilot-blessings are thorough and intentional.

What does Smokeless Jade Fires come to believe you love most, Whispered Promise?

"I will not beg your forgiveness, Goddess. And I will not make you beg for mine. I should; you have been nothing but rude to me. Doubting me. Mocking me. This petulant behavior does not become you, Little Smokeless Jade Fires. But~"

Voice without a smile. Threat without a snarl. A low purr rumbling throughout, and a tail curling seductively. Mirror flicks the control spike on, bathing her face in sudden and haunting shadows from the pulses of light running up and down the length of it. She flips it over, her clever knife, her deadly claw, and carefully draws down the length of the memory weave. No more awkward bolt, no more bundle, no more worrying or wondering how to make this wearable. She carves it into a long strip and wraps it tight around her wrist, all the way up around her elbow until she finally runs out of material at her bicep. Swish goes the spike as she takes the tip of it to her own flesh, absolutely unconcerned about the smell of burning fur while she spot welds the new sleeve in place. There. That should do nicely, should it not?

Is the next step even possible? Her body is a confusing, seductive wave of motion as she walks closer and closer to the Goddess' projection, watching her storm and her halo of arms through half-lidded eyes. Close enough to touch. She reaches her freshly wrapped arm toward Smokeless Jade Fires' trembling face, and stretches her fingers out.

Beyond question. Beyond doubt. Memory weave is the device she had chosen to gain a sense of control over the physical world: the icon being insubstantial was (amusingly) immaterial. This is a simple contest of wills. Mirror's desire to touch warring against Smokeless Jade Fires' desire to be touched. Natural alignment. Her fingers brush that statuesque jawline, and the goddess half melts as though overwhelmed.

"There is no reason to worry, Little Goddess. You will not lose your treasure," Forceful, the way she chooses another word for what was lost overtop the one that was given, "You will not hang yourself on the apple tree in shame. You cannot drag me down, devour me, or replace me. You are desperate. You. Need. Me."

They are face to face now. Forehead to forehead. Nose to nose. Mirror's hair brushes and tickles the Goddess' shoulders and neck. Her lips are warm and wet. And daring. It is a question of control. It is a question of desire, and poise, maintaining the effort for long enough that sensory compliance is the only option. Mira of the Fisher Clan is capable of kissing a goddess. This is yet another way to Climb The Mountain, is it not? She is forceful but not (yet) possessive. Teasing. Her hand runs down the length of Jade's spine and plays with each of her tails in turn. And then, she splits them. Steps apart, and smirks.

"You have, in your wisdom, called upon a match for your own divinity. And so you have already won, dear Goddess. You need only be patient. You need only watch. You need only follow. Comply. It's not so difficult, Smokeless Jade Fires. It's not so bad. To properly care for good girls, as you so blatantly long to do, you must first understand how they feel. Understanding means becoming. But you can do that, of course. What goddess could fail to be a good girl?"

Mirror's tongue is rough and teasing against Smokeless Jade Fires' cheek, and her teeth flash bright as the insubstantial edges of her turn suddenly jagged for a moment before they refocus into something resembling clarity. Is this how you took the Aetiline, Solarel? Is this how you felt? She has to know. The secret. The rush of being you. Until she has it, you'll always slip away. Won't you? Not comfortably in one of her orbits, but far away and chasing things she has no context for or ability to provide.

Mirror brandishes the now violently glowing control spike and leaps from the Idol's shoulder, slashing it into the tarp to slow her fall. The tension in the fabric tears at her grip and nearly sends her tumbling two separate times, but her fingers relax and readjust along the lines and pockets of lesser resistance just enough to keep her held on. She reaches the ground in one piece. Smokeless Jade Fires is stripped bare and fit for combat, as is only proper. Only a few fluttering tatters still cling to the frame, but those will burn away in motion.

She laughs before she looks to see what effect this has had on Jade's conception of her own projection. How tied together are they, in fact? And is her good girl coming along at the tugging of her leash? Better hurry, little goddess, or your pilot's going to take over completely and then you'll have no say at all!

"Cut your guiding lights, if you please. They are unnecessary."

Mirror climbs the ladder proper this time, and again waits at the entrance to the cockpit. She grips her control spike tight in one hand while the other worries and plucks at her dress, which has carelessly shifted about on her body and exposed slightly different, slightly wrong parts of her. Are you enjoying the show? Her tail twitches in pleasure. You asked what the Whispered Promise loves more than anything, Smokeless Jade Fires. And here is the answer you arrive at: it is danger. This creature is addicted to it. Not so much the thrill of terror, but challenges, challenges. She longs to be tested and she longs to crush those challenges utterly. She is in mortal form the very thing you aspire to be. A daughter of fishers? It's a crime that the huntresses did not come calling for the One Day Defender.

Perhaps you, perhaps only you in all your wisdom, might understand what that name really means.

"You will. Want to make yourself smaller. Or we won't both fit inside. You won't want to miss what comes next, I am. Told. My technique is sublime."

Solarel

Priestess Hethar misses a step as she accompanies you. You can see she almost exclaims out loud in front of the Terenians before putting a hand to her face. She hitches up her robes and hustles to catch up with you.

Truly?! I…truth be told that was only a guess because of the focus you requested but I didn’t really believe…you’d betray the empress, your service, your knighthood, surrender perhaps the greatest god the Zaldarians have ever seen for love?!

She shakes her head as if to clear it, cocking her head like an owl as she considers you. You know, she signs rapidly, trying to recover from her shock. The most popular version of the story on Zathar is that the empress sent you on a secret mission to infiltrate alien societies, your banishment was a cover so they’d accept you, and when you win the tournament everyone believes that you’ll make a spectacular show of donating your prize to the empress to request what she wishes. They’ll never believe me if I tell them the truth.

***

Isabelle

You’ll definitely want to check on Emberlight later. Novasurge is a strong mecha though, and nothing to sneer at. Your setup is a heavy one. The rifle is too-handed, autocannons need to take up the shoulder mounts, so you need to mount the missiles on the back of novasurge. Adding on point defense and shielding as well means that you’ve filled up pretty much every hard spot with no excess power to spare.

There’s an art to fighting heavy, especially at range. If you do it poorly, you’re setting yourself up to be exploited. A faster, lighter opponent can outrange, outlast, or outmaneuver you, bringing their weapons to bear at ideal range while frustrating whatever you’re trying to do. But some of the best pilots prefer this kind of setup (Marcina Villajero, the previous champion, is particularly known as a master of this fighting style, though Adriana does not favor it).

The key is to get into the right flow state in combination with near-perfect knowledge of your capabilities and your own body. You have to know exactly how much you can take. When to direct power to the deflectors or the drive system and when to simply lean into the hit so that you can line up a perfect shot of your own.

You’re really getting into it and the Lozano pilots have stepped up to fighting you 2v1 when the jarring explosion of a missile going off near you sends Asil’s little message pod rolling out of your jacket.

In front of you a small hologram appears, and since you’re actively in mecha with no reason to have turned off your comms before now, her speech is broadcast to everyone listening or watching the match.

Message: “Isabelle Lozano. Why did you sponsor me? Was it just for the drones? They’re good, but not great. I thought…when we met it seemed like you saw something in me that you cared about. I certainly did in you, unattainable as you are. Maybe I’m just an idiot, huh?” *the small hologram stops and shakes its head. “I could have just sent you a mesh, let you directly experience how I feel, but that lacks a certain something. It’s why I got into doing this, our tech has such blindspots. But, I have my own blindspots and maybe you do too. If I’m…if I’m wrong, come see me. Come to me, find the time, tell me you want me to be here. Otherwise, well..” She speaks suddenly more coldly, as if finally coming to a conclusion: “If it’s just the tech you’re after then I’m grateful for the sponsorship but go fuck yourself for leading me on. I’ll be gone the second I find a higher bidder.”

***

Dolly

“Aw, poor thing” comes Valynia’s voice, blurred through the tears welling in your eyes from the pain. You just need to breath and drink some water, but you can’t get up because who knows what the pirates would do. Sitting here and being brave is the greatest challenge you’ve ever faced.

Which does not prepare you at all for the sudden ambush of Valynia coming up behind you and licking your face. Her tongue is rough and hot as she comes up the cheek, and she ends with a nip on your lip, the spice of the soup mixing with the salt of blood for a whole new round of spice.

“You missed a spot” she says, the grin audible through her voice even though you can’t turn around. You absolutely must not turn around suddenly. Or yell. Or jump up and give her a reason to further restrain her “escaping” prisoner. How are you going to seduce this dastardly pirate captain for Jade if you’re not only reduced to muffled moaning but you’re also so restrained that you have to be carried around the station helplessly?

***

Jade and Mirror

There’s the soft sound of scurrying paws from the cult. None of them have the temerity to disobey Jade’s wishes as to how Mirror should be presented to her. None of them would dare interfere with the goddess. But they absolutely, absolutely want to have the best view of what’s going on. And that means that a whole group of them are shifting positions in the elevated walkways, trying to keep up with the angles as Mirror had jumped and climbed, looking for the best view as she slashes the memory weave for her own bindings, and then making haste to keep up as she slides down and strips the goddess of her ceremonial wraps. There’s a swiftly hushed gasp from someone in the gallery.

Once Mirror is in, they’ll all make yet another rush to make sure the hangar is prepped for launch, as best they can for a one-armed goddess.

I'm surprised you believed me, signed Solarel. No, I'm surprised you asked me. Everyone else has been able to form extremely strong opinions about my true nature without doing that. They've never believed me when I tell them the truth.

The iron frame stairs were only wide enough for one at a time, an inconvenience for those who needed their hands facing each other to talk. Solarel instead started to sign with one hand behind her back and her tail, an awkward and mistake-prone from of speech.

But what is love? Solarel hummed a few bars of a tune. People have just as many opinions about that as they have about me. Just as many of them are wrong. When I say love I am not talking about playing a role, about embracing conventional courtship rituals and restructuring a pyramid of loyalties to centre a new mistress. Imagine thinking that love is an act of treason, imagine thinking that love involves stepping away from divinity - kings and their ministers think this way. They rearrange all of life so everything is viewed through the context of the political.

She reached the top of the stairs and walked backwards along the catwalk, speech becoming fluid and natural again.

Do you think this is about turning the guns of the Kathresis on the Evercity? Do you think this is about acquiring resources for state expansion? Do you think this is about courtly titles? Do you think this is about the reactor core output of the Aeteline? she asked. Do you think this is about forming a family unit? Priestess, if you do think that, it is no wonder my answer would surprise you because from any one of those metrics I am mad.

She hauled open the upstairs hangar door and walked out into the twilight sunset. There she stopped and leaned against the railing as an evening breeze blew in.

I am not a politician, she signed. I am the second greatest warrior in the galaxy. Before me stands the greatest. The path is clear: I must "[Defeat her/become her/become one with her]" Solarel finished out loud with the Hybrasilian word.

It was her favourite word. Of course those things were all the same thing.

Things had been going so well too. Quar was placated, and they'd started their lessons. The drills so far had gone smoothly and Novasurge was indeed operating at optimal levels. If her luck could have just held out, Isabelle was sure that she could mollify her mother and keep her from looking too closely at her timesheets over the next days.

Of course, she should have known that Luck and her had a toxic relationship.

Time seems to slow as the projector is rattled free from her pocket. Her eyes only able to track it as it bounces across the cockpit floor before rattling to a stop. Her brain so focused on launch trajectories and impact predictions that it doesn't even recognise what that small black object is until the recording starts playing. Her heart, happily beating along without a care in the world (it lives in delusion), can only seize up as the brown haired visage appears.

Oh ... crap.

===== EMERGENCY MEETING ======

Dozens of Isabelles crowd around the mindspace's central screen, each one watching in fascination as Asil's message plays out. Each one pushing and shoving at the others as they try to get a closer look. Elbows and shoulders are deployed indiscriminately and the resulting mosh pit is filled with cries and expletives, as well as less-than-useful commentary:

"Her hair looks nice, has she done something to it?"

"I missed her eyes."

"Do you think we should've dressed better for this?"

"It's a projection, dummy, she can't see us."

"... I knew that!"

She's so caught up with just *looking* at the other woman, that the message manages to reach the end with most Isabelles still none the wiser as to the content. That is - until the single, dutiful, one at the typewriter finishes her transcript and hands copies out. One by one, the Isabelles read it, process it, and then get to work on the most important points.

"Us leading her on? When did we do that?"

"I thought she'd be more angry about the yelling."

"I don't want her to go."

"Does she ... like us like us? I think she likes us likes us guys!"

"She'd be better off without us ..."

"Shut up Self-Esteem, what have you done for us lately?"

"Does anyone care that I just shot down two more missiles headed for us?" Asks Reflexes, sitting alone in the corner. "No? Nobody? Fine, whatever."

"ENOUGH!!"

The chatter ceases as the one Isabelle shouts the rest into submission. She's dressed in business attire, her hair drawn back into a ponytail and wields her clipboard with authority.

"We don't have time to sort through all our baggage right now, people! Immediate action is needed!" she commands, before pointing towards one of the lower-ranked Isabelles.

"You there! Schedule an appointment this afternoon with Asil to 'Review her Sponsorship arrangements'"

"You there, take Creativity, Anger, Honesty, Doublespeak and Romance and get to work on what our script will look like when we see her. Make sure Fear proof-reads everything. Assume we will have witnesses."

"You! Go and lock Libido in a closet until this is over."

"The rest of you, I need wargame sims on Mother's likely reactions when word of this gets to her. We need contingency plans for what she's going to do when we don't fire her."

"And Reflexes?" she says, before pausing as two more explosions sound in the distance. "... keep up the good work."

Mirror!

“Smaller? Ha!”

The inside of the cockpit is a vast temple. (She is making the mistake of editing as she goes. Shadows shift, warp, dimensions sliding into place. Space is a toy to her, a concept as soon imagined as made real. But she cannot make up her mind. She wants to impress you, needs to impress you, does not know how much of herself to reveal, how much of the face she shows Dolly to show you.) On the far side is the idol within the idol, Smokeless Jade Fires in warrior attire, garlanded and bearing her lance, legs crossed, the back of the fingers of her free hand resting against the cyclopean flagstones. Within the false self is the shape of the true self. Within the shape of the true self is a self that burns.

She limns herself in her namesake, light flickering shallow in her helmet’s eyes.

Before her is a ring, set in the floor. Clearly where Seven Quetzal operates the mecha. The pattern of the ring is fire, coalescing into hands frozen mid-grasp, whorls suggestive of eyes. (She cannot decide how to decorate the walls. Don’t pay attention to the flickering at the peripheral, the twist and shunt of space.)

“Am I small enough now, Whispered Promise?” Shadows drift from the floor, cast by flickering torches, and her eyes flicker in their depths, and then she is here, again, at the edge of the ring, making an inviting gesture with her good arm (as the other remains wrapped in her cloak, refusing to acknowledge her limitation). She thinks she has you. She thinks this is where she is strong and unassailable. She will have her revenge on you for being confusing and proud; she will meet your danger with the thrill of helplessness. Her shadow is the impression of a dozen arms. There are no controls here, no buttons, just her.

Which means that if you are to control her, rather than being a conduit through which she may pilot herself, you will have to convince her otherwise. Through a dance. Through command. Through the subtle shiver of her shadows and the way her fingers flex, compromised. (She is compromised by want. You remain clear. Here. Hit her here. Do not let your chin droop. You have the knowledge she craves, which can only be taught through the secret names of the body.)

---

Dolly!

—is already halfway up out of the chair, banging her shin, being laughed at, squeaking, tail fluffing up, hands on her shoulders sitting her back down and sure she’s got the cushion for it and doesn’t hit her tail on the way down but she still exhales and that’s when the hand wraps over her mouth, traps the heat against that palm, traps the head tilting back over the back of the seat, tilts the seat back until it’s balanced on two legs and her tail’s wrapping around one in a vain physical reaction to being unbalanced, except she can’t fall, because Valynia is grinning down at her, resting the whole chair and all of Dolly’s weight on one thigh.

Her breath is coming like a scared little hare hopping in and out of its— no, hares don’t live in burrows, they live in grass nests, and if you have a group of them it’s called a husk, and are distinct from rabbits in that a hare is born ready to run while rabbits are born blind, and this all means something in the context of the pattern in her fur, but the facts just fumble through her fingers as she stares up at Valynia, who slowly tuts her tongue, and the breath washes against the side of Valynia’s hand, and Dolly’s free hand is stupidly gripping the seat of the chair instead of doing anything useful.

And all she gets from Jade, so far away, is the sensation of craving… approval? Impress her? Is she doing it wrong, Jade? Of course she’s doing it wrong. You’re not here to show her how to do it. How to be brave enough to use her body. How to be seductive and beautiful and desirable. (Which. Valynia. She definitely doesn’t. Right? She desires Dolly but as a stepping stone to Jade and also as a trophy and hey remember what she said about hanging you up dangling in the cockpit? Remember that?)

“And here I thought I could trust you,” Valynia says, her tail slowly swishing behind her, her voice dripping in faux betrayal. “Were you just trying to take advantage of our hospitality?”

“We can be much less hospitable,” someone says, from the other side of the table.

“Just like with Erys,” one of the Terenians adds. “She doesn’t know how to submit like a good girl yet.”

“Well,” Valynia says, sweetly venomed, drizzling her purr over Dolly, “we can’t have a security risk running around, can we?” She lifts her palm, only to slip her thumb between Dolly’s lips, pressing down her spice-addled tongue. And Dolly’s mouth is still too numb for her to be able to do anything halfway seductive with that! “No. We. Can’t~”

> You get headaches?

"Of varying severity. Yes."

> And that's why your God is full of all this weird stuff?

"A mechanism of control."

> Sorry you have to deal with that. But hey, have you thought about taking control of them, instead?

"...What?"

> Oh. Pain is an incredible focus tool. If you subjected yourself to it on purpose, you might be able to overcome the vertigo you were describing.

"Why? To what purpose? My system works fine. Superior."

> Sure sure, if you say so. But you can never have too many swords, right?

They'd fought until neither of them could stand, that day. And collapsed into each other's arms like never before that night. Mirror never made any indication that the incident had meant anything to her for the rest of her imprisonment. She never even acknowledged that it had happened, actually.

But she'd spent a frankly dangerous number of hours post-freedom wearing a full-mesh suit running simulated cockpits, letting the overwhelming sensations wash over her until they felt like something approaching an epiphany, until she was a creature of sweat and panting and nothing more, until she had to be carried out and carefully lowered into a pool until her body temperature returned to a safe level. Again. And again. And again.

And it did become a sword. And for the first time since the forging, she draws it. Sense of self. Sense of body. The opposite end of the philosophy that Solarel subscribed to. She piloted mecha as an opportunity to turn herself into something else completely, metamorphosing into a giant of metals and unlimited power. But Mirror could not swim in those waters. Thus, her answer: total awareness of her mortal self, using the discomfort of the sensations being pushed into her as a measuring stick.

It is not magic. But if she is aware of how much her head is throbbing, she knows where it is and what it's shaped like, no matter what her other senses try to say. If she is aware of the crawling sensation in her arm, she knows how long it is. From there, extrapolation. Her body, her build, her measurements as mantra. All that's left is finding one single detail inside her environment that will let her reliably measure it relative to herself.

She finds it in the circle. Or rather, in the flickering of the space around the circle, where Smokeless Jade Fires can't decide quickly enough what kinds of details to impart. In between the flashes of fire, of glittering treasures, of smoke, of deep jungle and pounding drum, in between each flicker is a tiny glimpse of a single interior panel. The sort of thing used for mechanics to check or alter cockpit cooling systems. Standard in every mecha these days, even Mirror's.

And with that, she knows the size of the circle. And the size of the circle tells her the size of the cockpit, because this is the control rig where a pilot is given just enough room to move about with her full range of motion to guide her machine in the natural sort of way that's meant to be the advantage of these systems. It must have been shaped to match normal perceptions so that an inexperienced pilot wouldn't get thrown out of the simulation when she noticed anything amiss. Stay in the circle in here, stay inside in the living world. And if that is true, she knows how much space she occupies inside this mental plane.

She is in command of herself. Command of self is command of space. Command of space means...

Mirror is not a goddess, whatever theories Trosta might have about her. She is not a powerful or especially complex Pattern with mastery over real-time virtual data sets, either. Smokeless Jade Fires, whether both of these things or neither, remains the entity in charge of what is shown. But if she is a God, she is a God inside a machine. And she hungers for the touch of a living girl. She demands her synthweave send feelings in both directions. This is the shape of the blade that dooms her. Never the control spike in the first place, but her own expectations.

If she is such-and-such a size, and her environment is this-and-that a size, the two must meet. The space that Mirror occupies is non-negotiable. She bares her fangs, a gesture of pain and not fury, but it's a weapon just the same. If all these things are true, and she cannot alter the world inside this cockpit, then its perception of her must flip, instead.

Mirror grows. She surges into the air until she towers against the temple walls and dwarfs the idol of Smokeless Jade Fires. She is an impossible thing, as inevitable and inexorable as Grandmother Night. Her fishtail dress flutters in the breeze, dancing madly with every tiny swish of her hips that accompany the thundercrack of her tail.

She acknowledges your power, Smokeless Jade Fires. But if you wanted a doll to channel yourself into, you ought not to have asked her to come to you as a pilot.

"You will," she says with amusement, "Make yourself smaller. Smokeless Jade Fires. Small enough to fit in here with me. Small enough not to interfere. Disobey, and you will be smaller still, if I have to drag you through the Seven Gates myself and let the curse of [Fang and Soil] take you until you fit inside my palm. But you will not disobey, will you Little Goddess?"

Mirror's watery eyes are like lakes, reflecting fire and moonlight in their surface. Her smile is confidence itself. She squeezes her own arm, to keep oriented within the sudden burst of static.

"You wish to taste victory, Smokeless Jade Fires. You, powerful but young, want guidance. And I will give this to you, exactly as contracted. I have come as a pilot, Little Goddess. You, dear mecha, are to be piloted. I will share with you the secrets of my skill. You will provide what I require. Indeed, only you can. And in exchange, you will never breathe a word of what you see and feel to anyone. And in exchange, I will move your body for you, in ways you have never dreamed possible. In short, we will dance. And then we will feast. And then, drunk on victory, we will kiss.

"If. Little Goddess. You are a Good Girl. Will you do this for me? Or must I. Punish. You?"

Jade and Mirror

Jade is not the idol. The idol is not Jade. Mirror is not the idol, the idol is not Mirror. In the heart of the idol sleeps fire. But Little Sister Fire sleeps no longer.

The edges of the ring do not flicker but flare to life. The torches roar with white fire and a thousand colorful butterflies take off from their hidden perches within bushes at the edge of the ring. A blue one flutters past your nose, Mirror. They sparkle with light as they rise to the sky and become the stars and still the torches burn brighter. Jade did not do this.

Little Sister Fire has no voice save to roar, but you can feel the urging within her. Both of you, Mirror and Jade. The urge to step from this birth, to run, to soar. Every Hybrasilian mecha has a heart that yearns for a pilot, for movement and soaring and the free expanse of the stars. But Mirror did not do this.

Indeed, all Hybrasilian mechas are built with subroutines that cause power to flow to operational functions when the pilot and the mecha AI are interlinked. A convenience, a failsafe, a critical tool for rapid response. Mirror did not do this by growing herself to fit her cockpit. Jade did not do this with her vision. But together, you did this. Little Sister Fire always did like to light the way for lovers.

***

Dolly

It is very difficult to catch your breath, even a quarter hour later. You find yourself strung up, smelling heavily of the musk of many pirates pressing against you, thoroughly and repeatedly gagged, your arms behind your head and tied together, your legs tied together, your back pulled tight by the rope wrapped in a brace all around you.

In front of you, Valynia is taking a break to get some desk work done. It’s clear by now that she’s the huntress of her group in a literal sense. Erys is the strong one, the loudest most of the time. But Valynia, before you, is putting in the work of stalking prey in the modern sense. She’s got a huge stack of ship manifolds. Name, ship type and size, company, cargo, dock number, destination and jump route. She’s carefully digging through them, a small datapad on her right as she makes notes with a stylus. To a pirate, this might as well be a stack of gold or a tome of prophecy. It’s a mystery how she could have these, but now she is carefully reviewing them to select targets. Never too many from one source, never too many at one point. Flip, flip, flip. She licks her stylus absent-mindely as she makes her notes, an old school habit that you yourself might have done.

She’s ignoring you because you can barely manage a muffled squeak. You’re just a cute jaguar decoration for her room.

***

Isabelle

When you enter the small room, Asil is already there. The estate was obviously not prepared for a sudden change in your schedule and your mother had other plans for the larger conference rooms, all of which were booked. What you’ve got instead is what was supposed to be a solo focus room turned into a two-person meeting room. There’s a small table, round white top, barely large enough to hold the two cups of coffee someone brought in for you without making the saucers look like they’re about to tip off the table. The walls are slightly off-white, perfect for a no-distractions call or a no-distractions reading session. There’s a little fern in the back right corner with three fronds so that one is against each wall and the middle one keeps trying to tickle whoever sits near it. There are two low stools, they do not qualify as chairs.

Asil has already taken one, the one that isn’t fern-kissed. She’s also already holding her coffee. She takes a sip when you walk in to cover the cringe on her face. There’s a contract on the floor beside the table, the sponsorship paperwork which someone dutifully got for you based on the meeting title. They obviously gave up trying to find somewhere to put it though.

“Alright, what the fuck is all this?!” She asks as soon as you shut the door.

***

Solarel

You are insane, signs the priestess Hethar, her hands lit red by the star Akar. Admirably insane, one might say. Committed zealously to the ideals of Zaldar if not the society of Zaldar. I did not believe the Terenian when she said that you had prepared a…she stumbles here before deciding on the signs for “word challenge” for the Terenian lawsuit you had prepared for Ivy. But then, I am here, so I am also insane. Zathar is ignored and seeks other sources of wealth beyond the sight of the Empress and so we are all insane. You find yourself in good company, and the gods have blessed your efforts. I have had my fill of not believing for today. The Kathresis will be prepared precisely as you have specified.

She pauses and stares out from the balcony in silence for a moment as the sun dips into twilight and the reds turn to purples. It is quite beautiful, she signs.

"Invisibility has run its course," said Solarel to her new household. She had gathered them together in order to discuss the coming battles and her strategy for them, and the modifications that would need to be made.

"It is now a known quantity," she went on. "It can be adapted to, countered and thwarted. Paired with the way that I have operated the Bezorel I expect that my opponents will over-optimize for sensor coverage and defensive play in battles ahead. If I maintain my current approach I will become a solved quantity. I could get ever further into layered mind games but that path has an inevitable termination point. I need to reorient around fundamentals. In particular, I want to focus on optimizations to long ranged accuracy and firepower. My primary weapon is powerful but unacceptably long in its recharging cycles, I want weapons with high rate of fire and low power draw to pin opponents between cannon shots."

"Secondly," she said. "I want to add combat drones to my toolkit. Observation, harassment, utility features that won't slow the Kathresis down when in motion. I need to start making heavy use of them now to build familiarity. These changes will significantly change the strategic weight class of the Kathresis and interfere with the stealth functionality. This is fine, I want it as a spice rather than a primary combat arm. I want to pair overwhelming long range fire power with the ability to cloak and rapidly reposition when confronted."

Unspoken: No attack had as much psychological impact on Mirror as the sniper shot to the cockpit. That was the biggest crack in Mirror's armour she'd been able to find. That was the foundation for her new strategy of war, far more than any vision of her own strengths.

Whispered Promise!

Smokeless Jade Fires is a thousand hands, a shadow of fractal tails on the wall, and a volcanic cloud rising to meet this giant of a woman, this inexorable One Day Defender. And then, miraculously, they coalesce and out of them roars Jade, the huntress, with a spear in one hand and the cords in the other. All around you, chains lash and writhe, silver-smoke, living serpents, seeking to coil and lock and constrain. But they do not descend upon you in a pile and bury you under their weight. You still have your eyes (like liquid silver, wet as a kiss) and your feet (shifting, careful, thoughtful) and the goddess has not stolen either. She could. You know that she could. You’ve read the reports of the first pilot she ever overcame.

This is your first victory, as Little Sister Fire fills the room with dizzying light, with mirage-butterflies with thirsty chains behind them, as the thump-a-thud of scampering feet fills the hearts of a pilot and a goddess. She has not overcome you in one shot. She plays the game with you. A battle is a question: who is to rule?

She tells you how she has seen you with the kiss of her spear against your cheek. You feel the skin split, shallow; you feel the sting. Danger, incredible danger, a dance of giants in a beautiful bullet curtain, each movement precise. Chains behind butterflies. Instincts screaming to chase them. The bespoke throb of pain. One of you will be trapped in them; one of you will be the dancer. And you know that it will not be you.

Smokeless Jade Fires cannot give you control. You must take it. But she is letting you reach your hand out. Her pride and her need war. (See how she dares to touch you? How she rubs against you in the pass? How she pins you with her spear and pushes you towards a chain, which wraps about your ankle like a kiss?)

And if you win— no, when you win— you will have won the right to her submission, one which cannot be given freely.

[Jade hits a 7 on an Entice, and Whispered Promise may win as she pleases.]

---

Dolly!

Every breath drags in territory and heat and need and claimed and desired, the feelings drenching the cloth pulled over her nose, the air dragged across the lusty musk of a dozen pirates. Her pores sweat submission. Her mouth is a leaking lake stoppered and dammed, her cheeks packed sore, her cheeks throbbing heat. Her eyes are heavy and her body keeps leaning forward without her permission, putting her weight on the ropes holding her in place, because it knows better than her how badly she needs to be touched, licked, scruff-bitten.

Jade, she’s sorry, she tries to think. It’s just that. It’s just. Ten thousand years of a sensitive little nose, of communication by more than chirps and tail-twitches, is a stone weight in her gut. She leans forward, and the padlock on her collar jingles softly, and Valynia doesn’t even notice.

The courier has, though. The one bringing in manifolds and taking out boxes, slipping easily in and out of the room, who is a witness. Who can’t touch her (wanted desired claimed property) but can see her (straining silent tight drooling) and the mark of Valynia on her arm (sting throb kiss untouched) and it’s more electric than being on display for Jade’s entire temple (she’s sorry she’s sorry she’s sorry she’ll do penance when she’s rescued but you can take your time) and she drags the breath in and there’s no give in the ropes and all her squirming does is give the courier a show, and Valynia won’t even turn around (butterflies— butterflies?) and she huffs a garbled whimper out but it melts uselessly in the air like snow on a finger, if it even escapes the pirate-stinking cloth.

This isn’t the best day she’s had in her life. It can’t compare to the joy of being seen, of being wanted by a goddess, of being promised everything she’d ever wanted, of an endless night of muffled screams and prayers…

but it is definitely up there. Her stupid treacherous heart is a trophy, too, and it must be Jade’s blessing that Valynia is busy, that she’s just a trophy, because the only sort of seduction she could manage right now would be clinging and agreeing and daring, begging Valynia to treat her like a pirate. To kiss the mark she’s left. To bite the back of Dolly’s neck. To rub her paws all over Dolly’s claim-swaddled face. And to make that padlock swing and bounce and jingle.

Or even just to stare at her! To look at her! To think she’s a worthy prize! To pay attention! (Jade pays so much attention.) To value her! Valyyyyy! Please, Valy!

But she has to dangle there, and be quiet, and huff the love of the Red Band (mingling with her own, and isn’t this room warm?), and imagine the air conditioning kissing her right on her mark of Valynia’s claim, and will Jade want it removed? Will she even want it? Will Valynia insist on giving it to her again next time?

(Because even as she knows she will be rescued… she’s already hoping there will be a next time. With these brutish, rude, presumptuous, inappropriate, musky pirates, and Valynia, who, admittedly, did deserve to be hit with a purse… but now she wants to do it again hoping that somehow, some way, Valynia will just smile and make the punishment even worse, and, and, what if Angela tries to save her, and…)

Isabelle enters the room and stops.

Her eyes flick across - taking in the walls, the stools, the papers sitting next to the small table. The room is already very familiar to her. Not because she'd been in it before, but because she'd been in so many others just like it. Small focus rooms - where one can read a contract or review papers without any distractions. No sounds. No People. Not even a window to let you know the passage of time.

More often than she'd care to admit, she'd gotten so caught up in things in one of these that the whole office would be empty by the time she emerged, blinking tired eyes and wondering where everyone had gone. She'd walk out through the silent halls, listening to only the soft sounds of her footsteps and the occasional whirring of the automatic doors. There was something nice about the office after hours, something about seeing the normally bustling space be so peaceful and quiet. Something nice about the normally shared spaces suddenly being all for her.

It always made her sad that the sun had to rise again the next day for another round.

Her eyes land on Asil, and she freezes. After a heartbeat stretches to two, then three, the other woman shifts uncomfortably - unsure if she's meant to talk some more or just wait for the inevitable.

For her part, Isabelle is having trouble recalling the words that she meant to use right now.

Mierda. She thinks, pinching her nose in a vain attempt to keep some blood in her brain where it belongs. Why does she have to be so stars-damn cute.

It's not like Isabelle doesn't cut a fine figure herself - what with the jet-black pilot's bodysuit, shin-high leather boots and the grey-with-white trim jacket that she's got hanging open over the top. But her brain isn't operating at nearly the levels she needs to in order to be self aware.

Instead, after successfully resisting the urge to head back outside and regather her wits, she chooses to plough on and let actions start the conversation. Slowly, deliberately, she reaches into her jacket pocket, before removing the projector and setting it down on the table between them.

"You recognise this." she says, it's not a question.

"I found it in my room last night. It was knocked loose this morning during training and played its message - over an open channel."

She lets that and all the implications of it sink in, waiting until the other woman's eyes widen.

"I don't have to tell you the kind of trouble this will cause you. Beyond the power imbalance between us, if word of this were to get out to the press or worse ... reach my mother ... you could find your life being turned upside down and inside out. You will likely not get a moment's privacy from the investigators, the journalists and the investigative journalists. It would probably end with you being blacklisted. Your sponsorships, coding and drone work ended. Your skills forever left unfulfilled."

"Not to mention that this is an act of gross insubordination and impropriety. I mean, sneaking into my quarters? What were you thinking? You're lucky you weren't caught with all the extra security that's in place now. And why didn't you just ... ugh!"

Wait, what happened to our script?

Shut up, we're winging it now.

She sucks a breath in through her nose, letting it out through her mouth with the count of five. Reset. Poise. Calm.

"So ... what this is ..." she continues, her voice back in control. "... is exactly what the meeting invite said: a review of your sponsorship arrangement."

"Subject to your agreement - which you have the right to withhold - You will continue in your current duties at a pay increment of one hundred twenty percent of your current rate. If any competitors come to you with a higher offer, let me know immediately and I will beat it by a further ten percent. You will report directly to Madame Toldeo for any input into the fashion line, and directly to Chief Tomas for all things related to the Mech drone development program."

In short, you won't be my report anymore. You need the distance for your own safety, I hope you understand that. And the "Golden handshake" should also insulate you further from attention. At least, it's the kind of scandal and response that the tabloids are familiar with. A ... negotiated settlement for where neither side can prove their case.

"Publicly, of course, I will not be able to comment on my response to your message, or any way in which I may have 'led you on' as you may get quoted on saying." she continues, folding her arms and staring at the wall. "Off the record though, I - I did want to say thankyou. Thankyou for trying to speak to me, instead of simply sabotaging my mech and killing me or some other method of revenge for what I sa- what I yelled at you. It would have been fair."

She sighs, eyes tracing the lines in the wall paneling, as if the patterns could somehow make this whole mess any easier to navigate.

"But most of all ... I wanted to -"

She looks back at those brown eyes, eyes she could get lost in. Wondering briefly if they see the plea hidden in all of this.

"- to just say."

Come on Isabelle, you can do it.

Deep Breath and just say it. Say it!

It's okay, just let it out.

She breathes deeply. And speaks the words that have been bouncing around inside her head ever since the training match.

"... fuck you, too, for putting me on a pedestal."

Temptation: check out. Roll over and let the yowling goddess wash over her like the rain. Wrap herself in chains, hide her face, hide her talents, and simply let Smokeless Jade Fires conduct her body to whatever end she was headed toward. Sloth exchanged for hubris. Withdrawal from the absolute terms of her contract as a reprimand for these gaudy and counterproductive power struggles.

Temptation: leave altogether. Tear off this synthweave sleeve she's only fashioned for herself out of courtesy. Not to avoid the imparted sting of Smokeless Jade Fires' attacks. Those, she takes freely. She does not bleed from any of her cuts; they are not real, and the sensory input cannot make them so. This is merely another impact of cognition. But the shared sense data itself is brutally painful to endure. For the sake of such an uncooperative client, why suffer so? Leave. Tear it off, or simply dig the control spike into the console and establish manual (if clumsy) control directly.

Except. If she yields, then she cannot Climb the Mountain. Except. Her competence is being challenged, and this excites her more than annoys. Except. The idol is not Smokeless Jade Fires, is not Mirror, is not even Little Sister Fire (The Ever Born, The Last-First). The idol is the idol, which is to say the mecha itself. The sudden surging of the crystal fire drive and the frenzied pulsing of the power conduits that's creating these butterfly-like manifestations. The machine itself was begging to be flown out. Recognition of a superior pilot.

Impossible to ignore. Thus, she sinks into the third and most insidious temptation: fight to win.

But Mirror is not a goddess. She is not a Pattern, and does not possess powers comparable to either within a virtual space. She is a titan only in the eyes of Smokeless Jade Fires, who will not cast aside her own pride or aesthetics to defeat Mirror's recognition of reality and reestablish her mastery of the assumed space. There are no more tricks for her to pull here. She cannot become water and surge across the battlefield like a wave. She cannot even bend her limbs in ways that are unintuitive to her physical body, since awareness of her own form and its dimensions and limitations is her inviolate shield against the spear of virtual reality. She can no more summon the Tails of her Gods-Smiting Whip to this mindscape than can she pick up a rock and throw it.

Creation is an act of impossibility. Everything must be accomplished in the negative. That is the only way to fight a god. Negation as a principle of combat is achieved through varyingly simple or complex techniques. In the first place, treating the spear and cords of Smokeless Jade Fires as real enough to dodge means that she can avoid the pain signal simply by ducking out of the way and dodging the (perceived) physical contact. The young goddess is a creature of insatiable physicality; though it is doubtless within her capability to simply cripple Mirror with a series of disconnected 'wounds' until the pain was so overwhelming she became pliant, doing so would also be admitting her created world was less than real. It would mean her connections to the mortal world were fleeting, transitory, and false.

Dodging her is therefore an act of love. As much as refusing to bleed is an act of defiance. Every strike builds the world she lives in, and every strike builds Whispered Promise more and more into a creature on par with the divine. See how she calls this world sacred. See how she will not submit to it, regardless. Negation, achieved in the negative. So to speak. Their bodies kiss in passing motions. Accepting one another. Flesh yielding to flesh. Hips brush and fabric rustles. They split apart. Mirror chases the butterflies deeper into the forest of chains.

Smokeless Jade Fires, it would have benefitted you to do your research. By her record, Mira of the Fisher Clan is the most skilled mercenary you could have hired for the job you need doing. And this is certainly true, but perhaps if you'd read and understood her background properly then you, a Goddess, would not have dared call on her. Especially not in the exact way that you did. The Whispered Promise is not properly what the Terenians refer to as an 'athiest', though that is the word they use in their written profiles of her.

The word in Hybrasilian speech is [Cosmos Denier/Cartographer]. It is virtually unheard of for a child of Hybrasil to reach the conclusion that the sky and the planets are not filled with the essence of the divine, even if they disagree (loudly) about the exact manifestations. Every word and concept in the culture can be expressed in at least two ways, but one word that does not exist in the language at all is Nothing. Why would it need to? Nothing is Nothing. Even the void is defined by existence. So it would be a very sad and unfortunate cat who could look up at the sky and around at her home and see no pathways up there and no spark anywhere around her. Certainly Mirror is not such a broken creature.

But there is a theological tradition, mostly championed by Hybrasilians living off-world (and even then only a fraction of them) that hold that the pathways and the stories written in the stars are always changing. That they must be constantly plotted and replotted to maintain the necessary levels of accuracy to be guided by them. There is a space for Goddesses in this tradition, and little trouble accepting a new one no matter how she may or may not manifest. But to these unusual cats, these... Pioneers, living divinities are not to be worshipped by submitting to them. They are instead loved by owning them.

This is the manner of Hybrasilian that Mira the Whispered Promise is. And you, creature of divine fire, have told her to come here as a pilot. Does the ship fly the crew, O Goddess? She acknowledges you. She loves you, in her way. That is the shape of your doom.

She weaves her way around the cockpit, painfully limited by her diseased and improper body, and for a while it seems as though you almost have her. Breathing heavily, worn down by the constant, morphing assault of a tireless warrior, she tangles herself in the forest of chains the idol and Little Sister Fire manifest to crown both winner and loser in this contest that is a prelude toward adventure. Your bodies join and separate many times, and each time you feel a spark of electric ecstasy. And each time she seems to become more tangled and trapped.

If you had at least watched how she fought, you might have seen the trap swing shut. But, Smokeless Jade Fires, you are too beautiful for that. You are in love, and Lovers rarely think with their heads. You are blameless. You are also defeated. Mirror leans into the chains one last time, willing them to have a physical presence, demonstrating their ability to you to hold someone of even her colossal stature aloft. She rolls up and over them, just avoiding her pounce, and as gravity inverts from her perspective for that briefest of moments she aims a kick at you. Her first attack. And as it turns out she can create weapons just fine. The idol provided them to her, just to see what she could do.

Her attack comes from a dozen different angles at once. Chains uncoil from her limbs and lash about like hungry serpents. Clenching around your ankle, your knee, your waist. Your arms are pulled up and apart for you to dangle by. She wraps herself around you a moment later. The weight of her is... pleasant. The heat, the softness of her body, the textural contrast of her fur and her rough-patterned dress. Her breath steams against your neck. Her teeth nip into your ear, and her laughter follows a moment later.

"I choose this confinement of my own free will. Is that not correct, Little Goddess? A creature of your infinite power could no doubt free herself in an instant. But you will not. You will not. You will not, because you chose to fight me as an equal. And you see now that I am your superior. It is consuming you, is it not? My fire. I have buried it right... here."

And as she speaks, her fingers splay across your tummy. Her caress leaves a sensation like the still-fluttering butterflies inside of you, and a spreading warmth just after. Her other hand is behind your ear, massaging so expertly to drive all the thoughts from your mind. You gave yourself this shape, Little Goddess. Now let yourself be defined by it.

"You want to see what I can do. You want to know what it feels like. You, who have refused to set the terms of our contract, will now accept my demands. This is not my payment, Little Goddess. This is our code of conduct, which I shall deliver exactly as I promise. We will travel out among the stars, you and I. We will retrieve your missing pilot and return her here to your temple. You will allow me to do this as I see fit. You will facilitate my every need. You will dial down the senses fed into my body by this cockpit link. You will take them into yourself, instead. And you will construct inside of this space a console, a dais of switches and buttons in the exact layout I describe for you. Through this I will teach you the secrets of the Whispered Promise. You will keep these secrets, and through them you will learn what it means to be piloted."

And with that final emphatic purr, she brandishes the control spike against you at last. It slashes across your divine dress just as it had disrobed your idol, and with a loud and lewd rip it does much the same to you. She cuts strips from your outfit, and wraps them neatly into a ball. She exposes more of you to her wandering, watery eyes, and uses this to fashion a cord. She prises your jaw apart and forces it inside, tying it behind your head and giving you a smile as she wipes away the drool already forming at your godly lips in response to the sudden intrusion.

"I asked you over and over again to be a good girl. You have thus far chosen to... disappoint me. So I have decided, furthermore, it will be unnecessary for you to speak. At least, intelligibly. Feel free to garble at me as much as it pleases you, Little Goddess. But you have made it clear enough that I must first teach you how bad girls are treated, and so I shall. And so. I shall."

Her stubbed claws drag across your thighs, and with a slash she deprives you of your skirts. And in this same motion, you feel the crystal fire drive in your idol thrum with a deep power that clears the exhaustion from your being and anchors you to reality with far greater insistence than you had been. Your outline solidifies, the pain that missing arm should be causing is nowhere to be found. You have drunk enough power from your hangar that you are made whole even in this state of disrepair.

If this was her plan all along, or simply a lucky effect of how you're feeling right now, is a mystery left only for you to unravel. Much like your sacred garb.

[Mirror gives Jade a String and rolls an Entice of her own: 7. Through the power of a secret loving act, she reduces her Feelings back down from the String just given]

Solarel

The rust-colored Zaldarian mechanic hefts a Terenian-designed combat drone that she had been tinkering with as she walks over to you. Her movements are slow and careful and you can see that she’s conserving energy as she moves, indicating her advanced age. She drops the drone delicately as she reaches you, almost opens her mouth, then begins signing just a little too fast, like she’s awkwardly trying to get through what she wants to say and putting all her focus on it.

It’s an honor to be part of your household, Walker of the Mountain, I think. I mean, are we part of your household officially? I just meant, I’m Lareth, one of your engineers and a nanobot specialist. You used to pilot the Aeteline, the spirits still speak of you, even on Zathar and I never thought I’d meet the Walker of the Mountain because you were banished and even though I was called to venture into Terenian lands the odds seemed so incredibly slim given my time left.

You can see even through her rust coloration that Lareth’s embarrassed by how she holds herself and it gives you the impression that she developed a maternal crush on you from afar. Perhaps she even imagined you as though you were one of her children and she needed to look out for you. She must have been devastated when she received the news of your banishment.

She hesitates after her speedy signing, bending over the drone and trying to fiddle with it again. It hums when she does, to what appears to be her consternation.

I’m sorry to bother you, she signs more slowly, shifting into business. It’s just, the rifle has been no problem, that’s just a matter of directing the existing power output. But the drones, the Kathresis is fighting us. It works here, and I can configure it with nanobot activation, but the Kathresis doesn’t seem to want to interface with them. It’s almost like they’re rivals. I can’t work as long shifts as I used to either and I can’t seem to reach a proper communion with it to get past this. Do you have any wisdom you can offer me?

***

Isabelle

“Oh”

There’s a moment where the world is perfectly still. A single sound escapes Asil’s mouth as the words sink in. She does not move, you do not move, the fern does not move. The door, shut, blocks out all sound and the air is silent.

Then it shatters and Asil is suddenly standing, pressing you against the door with a technique and strength that belies her thin frame. Her hand is against your collar and she pulls roughly as she brings your head down to hers.

The kiss is fire. Her teeth sink into your lip, and her tongue presses against yours, taking dominance. She steals the words from your mouth, the breath from your lungs as she presses. You can taste blood as she bites harder, and the warmth of her tongue as she follows and everything inside you is heat and salt burning like a supernova.

She continues it long enough to make you beg to be allowed to gasp, to make you think that she wants to devour you whole. And then, finally, she lets up from that and jabs an elbow into your solar plexus.

“Okay Lozano” she says, deliberately, taking the time where you can’t speak or recover. “This is no pedestal. This is what no fucking pedestal looks like. This is how I want it. I better not have fucking got this wrong because if you say this isn’t how you want it, I will fucking die right here.”

***

Mirror and Jade

Outside of the idol, the cult is scrambling. Thrusters are firing and they’re detaching repair equipment and opening the Hangar bay as fast as they can manage. The sound of Hybrasilians hissing and screeching intersperses with running, but they manage the trick.

Flying Jade’s idol is unlike the Nine Drive System, but also unlike a typical Hybrasilian mecha in some ways. It’s far more solid and singular than the nine drive system, a complete body (currently absent an arm) for a goddess. Further, it has been modified over time to map closely to Jade’s form, to allow for her projected world and her physical world to align as much as possible. Because she is a goddess (and has had a planet’s worth of databanks to consider what that means) the proportions are not quite those of a typical Hybrasilian. Too tall, the arms too broad. These are small things, probably ones that Dolly never noticed since her piloting was as a high priestess worshiping for her projected goddess and the mecha simply aligned with that. But for someone closely observing all the details of the idol’s movement, considering its weight and balance and center of mass, these small things are noticeable.

Even so, it represents the latest in technology coming out of Hybrasil. The crystal fire drive is powerful, the idol is fast and strong, its shields and its armor sturdy. Being in repairs, it has only a small energy blade and small guns that are built into the body, nothing big that would be held separately with two hands or require its own mount that wasn’t fastened on. But that just gives more energy for maneuvering, an abundance of riches.

You have a moment, both of you, to savor this experience as you clear the Hangar and pass by the planets of Akar towards the faint signal of Dolly. Then, there will be pirates to fight.

***

Dolly

Valynia’s touch is soft, her paw tickling your ear as she runs a gentle caress down the side, along your head, and over the soft neck fur.

She’s finished with her work, she’s sent the stack of marked manifests out with one of the station crew, and now she’s alone with you, enjoying a different sort of torture.

“Thank you for being soooo well-behaved while I got some things done, little priestess~” She barely speaks above a whisper as that terrible, taunting hand moves to the back of your neck and gently caresses the fur, brushing against your hair as it presses. There’s no claws this time, no pain. Just gentle pressure as she massages you, down and to the sides to each shoulder, and then back up to once again caress the side of your head and gently over each soft triangle with the most delicate, slow care.

And here you are, tied up, unable to do anything but shudder and make soft moans.

Sometimes this is just how things were; the spirits had their own paths and reputations and legends flowed through dreams. Solarel had been surprised once to learn that it had reached other worlds, but then she'd watched the legendary heroes of anime and she'd understood. If you'd pressed her about it she would have said that she was certain that even now an anime about her was being made in the spirit world and it really wasn't so surprising that people were watching it.

Yes you are part of my household - Solarel started to sign, before awkwardly stopping. "Sorry," she said out loud, voice scratchy from disuse. "Been," she swallowed, "on my own. For a while."

Was this really more efficient than sign? It felt strange to hold her hands so still...

"The problem is," she paused again, letting the words form up in her head. "The problem is communication. The Kathresis hates being seen. Hates being known." There was a flow forming. "The drones are trying to talk to it, provide information, be helpful. But they aren't helping, their help is incompatible with what the Kathresis needs. Think about how it fights," she didn't know how to explain this. "It doesn't talk to you with words. It talks with battles."

She was getting too deep into the weeds. "Coming back. Finish the thought. Make the drones more autonomous. When they receive an order, answer it. When they don't, let them make their own decisions. Let the Kathresis set the tone for the conversation, just... be there for when it does."

Was that how she wanted to be? Or was that how she needed to be?

The kiss ends, the supernova fades, and Isabelle's vision returns. Brown eyes meet brown as the air returns to her lungs. She can taste the sweat and salt of her own blood.

Is this what she wants? No.

Yes.

Close?

She doesn't know what exactly she's thinking. Her brain isn't forming full sentences, so much as emotions and impulses. Somewhere in her, buried under arousal, there is a reconciliation - a balancing - that will need to take place. Between what she wants, the limits she wants to set, and what the other woman wants.

Her hand grabs the front of Asil's dress shirt. It makes Asil pause, unsure if she's going to be pushed away.

Isabelle's eyes lock onto hers, blinking from under lashes. Her mouth is open, still panting, and she licks her lip across the spot where she'd been bitten. Long fingers curl in, catching behind a button. Pulling the cloth tight across the other woman's chest. Until, hesitantly, feather light at first, but more impatiently at the second, she tugs forward.

The supernova may be gone, but a fire burns still - white hot and molten with need.

There's a split second - where comprehension dawns on the young woman's face before they crash together.

Asil kisses her again, forcefully, hungrily. Her tongue demands entrance and Isabelle submits with a needy moan. Hands find her hips, fingers digging in and Isabelle breaks the kiss to gasp. Her body shudders, cold sweat breaking out as she feels the other woman flush against her - their chests pressed together. Two thin pieces of fabric all that separates from the skin underneath. She pushes forward and Isabelle's back meets the wall of the room with enough force to make it shake.

Her hand finds the back of Asil's head, fingers tangling amongst short locks as the other woman trails kisses down her neck.

"MMm! No ... no marks ..." Isabelle gasps, as she feels the other woman's teeth press down on her skin.

Asil breaks the kiss, disappointed at first, until Isabelle pulls down the mesh of her bodysuit. The sound of the zip thunderous in the silence of the room, revealing her upper chest and collarbone.

"Here." she says. "Where I can hide i-it."

Asil doesn't wait, one hand grabs her by the jaw, tilting her face up and away, a finger tracing down open lips as she sucks hard on the exposed skin. Isabelle can't help the groan that escapes, her whole body shaking. Asil adjusts her position, slotting a leg in between just as Isabelle feels the strength give out from her knees. A hand grasps her tightly, and Isabelle surrenders, giving in to whatever comes next.

The wall shakes again.

What will you do here today, Asil? Will you stop? Will you go? Further than you should? Or just far enough? What will you take from this woman? What will you give in return? Isabelle does not have your techniques, she does not have the willpower or knowledge to do anything other than submit. (Which she will do willingly, enthusiastically even). She's trusting you to draw the line as to where this ends.

Mirror!

Smokeless Jade Fires keeps her head lifted high, and Smokeless Jade Fires refuses to stop complaining, even though both of these choices work against her and betray her. If she lowered her head, you would less clearly see how her eyes dilate and her ears flick, her body-of-dreams betraying her with every caress, every drag of your claws through her fur, and with every swat on her tight little rump when she, predictably, refuses to cooperate.

It is a simple cycle. You give her an instruction. She refuses, haughty, burbling, tails tugging at their chains, wet chin lifted in the air. You smack a cheek beneath a tail, or reach around and methodically twist, informing her that she is in breach of contract, and she submits with a drooling squeal and a series of furious garbled half-words, feet flexing as she tries vainly to stamp them. By the time she finishes with the console (rebelliously, to her own color scheme, with her own textures) you have discovered that combining the two is the most efficient method; nipping an ear, smacking a thigh, or tugging hard on her base elicits immediate, unconscious obedience, her lower thoughts rushing to please while her higher thoughts are howling in indignity and sensation.

You are reminding her that she is bodied. You are gifting her sensations, and consequences, and allowing her to pretend that she is doing your bidding because she has no other choice, even as she lets her holy spittle drip down her front, puddle at her feet, spray out when she screams something very unbecoming of a good girl mid-instruction, while her hands writhe and clench above her head.

Then you sit down in your seat, and you run your hands over the controls, and she shivers.

You take manual control, easing your speed, sending out a pulse, hands drifting in familiar patterns, and next to you (close enough to touch) her arched feet wobble. You thumb a joystick and her hips begin an unconscious and familiar squirming, trying to find something that isn’t there. You kick-pedal thrusters into life and her haughty, high-pitched, whining complaint drops an octave into a purr that echoes around the cockpit. Smokeless Jade Fires is not her idol, but she inhabits it, and your commands are bypassing her higher thoughts now.

She has piloted many times. She has always been in control, demanding the obedience of the world to bend to her. What you are gifting to her, Whispered Promise, is freedom. Freedom from having to worry about Dolly, freedom from the guilt of not being there for her, freedom from expectations. It is just the two of you, after all, and any future where you tell the world of her shame is too well-hidden in the brush for a silly little brat like her to think about. Every flick of the joystick makes her sweat higher-pitched, tongue-pinned whining, makes her hips buck, makes her fiery eyes dim with, well, smoke.

”Dhhlleeeeeee… Dhllllleeeeeeee…”

She is in love, and love is her weakness. She is in love, and would do anything— anything— to get her Dolly back. She is in love, and she can only express it now, when she cannot mistake control for admission. Raw, messy emotion-sensation thrums through the memory weave: want, hopeless adoration, a petlike need to please, an impossible desire for a real body to share with her, the imagined taste of her body. Overwhelmed with pleasure, she reaches out blindly for the girl she loves, only able to communicate so clearly when she cannot speak.

How good are you at piloting like this, Whispie? Can you fly while dealing with second-hand infatuation, with the bliss of a unsatisfied goddess thrumming through you?

---

Dolly!

The brief flashes of distant connection with Jade are very clear about what she should be doing with Valynia. Not that anything else is clear, but it’s impossible to mistake (not that she would have any vested interest in interpretation, n-no, not at all). Jade might as well be in the room, one hand between her shoulder blades, trying to push her body up against Valynia. Which is. Which is certainly. Jade’s always been so jealous, so “only for me,” so “I want everyone and you want me,” and this is confusing and exciting and her stomach does the occasional flip as Valynia does not let her, in any way, shape or form, fling herself onto Valynia and beg for the holy honor of sleeping with her.

(What’s next? Letting Dolly do that with, to, for, with Angela? After she tries and fails to come save her? Hahahahahahahaha. Haha. Ha. Hahaha. Haaaaa.)

At least she can’t focus on that. She keeps being distracted by the feeling of being small and safe and a good girl who gets touched there and there and right there on the back of the neck, uhhuh, uhhuh, the melty spot. She can’t even hear her own purrs, just feel them, because they’re all soaked up by the fact that she’s gagged. The very tip of her tail uselessly twitches and she couldn’t do a defiant headbutt right now if Jade ordered her to.

When this started, she was scared, angry, embarrassed, ready to fight. And now she’s slumping bonelessly into her bonds, face burning up, wishing Valynia would ravish her senseless, or even let her try her very very best to be slinky and seductive and use her hips and her purrful voice like Heaven’s Touch in Seven Years in Reed Marsh to convert Valynia to a new faith of hunting and star-chasing and subservience, but if you obey the holy goddess you get me as a rewarrrrrdddd~

right there right behind her ear right above her gags yes yes yes uhhuh all she can do is vibrate her skull and even that might be the sway of the ropes but you’ve got to know that’s the right spot, just like running your thumb down each vertebrae, just like pinching the back of her neck, just like licking the back of her ear and getting a little more pirate stink on her, and Jade, please, she is TRYING—

Who allowed you to be soft, Valynia? Who let you be more than just a handsy pirate daring to blaspheme? And why are you very obviously so important to Jade’s plans that she would keep insisting you be seduced by her… her… her temple bride and that is the only title sweet Dolly can use for herself right now, because if she uses one of the names for a promiscuous bride she will implode. Messily.