"And what if I use that strength against her? If I trap her close and bind her tight?"
"You will still lose," intoned the owl on the branches, whose name was Rojja. "She is the infinity point from which the mountains jut. Your cords will fray; your cords will snap. Cast them into a fire and hope they do not burn! Better that than hoping to bind the Lioness, whose name is Jacinta Niares."
The goddess growled in the back of her throat. Her legs were crossed and the roots of the tree curled around them. Her eyes were closed so that they could be opened. Here, then, was her next challenge: the enemy who cannot be defeated from afar or close enough to count a glory, who cannot be defeated by a pack or by a huntress alone, who cannot be defeated with seduction or with rage. A red serpent twisted in the mud in front of her, and its belly was golden, and its belly was always empty. "Arrows will shatter against her shield. Cords will snap and break. To come in close is to be undone by her arms before she can be touched. To come with the pack is to see them destroyed. Is there no weapon dreamed by the hand of the gods that can bring her low?"
"You are afraid," said the owl on the branches, whose name was Rojja. "You are victory, you are the heart of the huntress, you are the fallen star that cleaves the earth. If you are defeated by the Lioness, whose name is Jacinta Niares, what will you be then? What can you be if you are not victorious?"
"This does not matter. I am going to be victorious."
"Why can you not twist yourself into new shapes? Is this beyond the power of a goddess? There is a lesson before you, if you open your eyes to it." The snake snapped its red and gold jaws into the shadows cast by the tree, and it ate the air. It tore air from air. Holes it chewed into holes.
Beyond, the goddess lifted her eyes. Fireflies danced together on the farthest side of the road which is blue. They swelled into curves, flashing wrists, their lights red and gold, a mouth open in laughter and invitation. The goddess sat there for a time, feeling the chill of the cloak of Night settling and sparking against the warmth of her papaya-flesh, falling into the chewed holes of those lash-fluttering eyes.
"I am the victor that Seven Quetzal has craved," the goddess proclaimed. "I must be the strength that overcomes all disaster and holds her so that she will never fall. She has chosen me instead of becoming the shared spoils of the Red Band, because I am invincible."
But that was not true. Her strength was bound about a lie: that Seven Quetzal had chosen her even in her weakness. Her strength had splintered and shaken to nothing in the Chamber of Night, where her bride was stolen away and tempted by a hot-tongued, strong-armed seductress. And her strength had not availed her when she and Whispered Promise had stormed the Fortress of Mu Ysha.
"Then you will be shattered by the Roar of the Lioness, whose name is Jacinta Niares," said the owl on the branches, whose name was Rojja. "It will shiver you into seventy-nine pieces. Seven Quetzal will be the bride of Mu Ysha, and her throne will be within a palace built upon a swamp. How can you fight a Roar? It is impossible. And yet she will not be broken by it; she will bend where you will break. You know how well her bending is; how she may be borne to the ground, and yet rise again."
The goddess considered this for a time, and then asked, "What is the way to victory?"
"The way to victory is through defeat. The way to victory is through shedding your skin. The way to victory is through love, and love only. The way to victory is to return to the beginning."
When she enters the idol, she stops. She nearly walks back out. She nearly starts crying again.
"Jade?" Her voice is small, and thick, and faltering, because she hasn't been here in months.
The sunlight on the wooden floor is dappled, falling over the reclining couch. There are books stacked by the nook up in the corner. To her right, the kitchen stretches down its little hall. The sound of Grass.tone crooning comes over the ceiling speakers. Outside, in the distance, the trains sing by.
And in the kitchen, Jade, washing dishes. It's a moment before she glances up, looks over her shoulder, and that's got to be deliberate but it's a weird deliberate from the goddess. She taps the water off, dries her hands off on her four-colored apron, and nervously comes into the living room, takes a seat on the sitting couch, puts her hands in her lap like Dolly does. (She's not wearing the mask. Underneath, her face is a lot like, like that one statue of Ixel Many-Faced in the capitol, the one where she accepts Adoration Moon as her bride. When she parts her lips, the fangs are noticeable.)
"Sit with me?"
Slowly, as if drifting through a dream, Dolly takes a seat next to her... her Jade. Hands in her own lap, too. The goddess looks so nervous, so... so not herself.
"...I can't beat Jacinta Niares," Jade admits in a tiny, defeated voice. "I thought this would be an effortless victory road. I thought that I was unique and that this would be the story of how I made the entire universe watch me win and then I could show all of them you and they'd understand why. I wanted to make you parade down the red carpet knowing you weren't really wearing anything, and, because, you'd be so embarrassed and excited and..."
Dala Hunters pulls her girlfriend in and holds her there, holds her close, buries her face in Jade's hair and breathes in the faint attempt at scent. And Jade lets herself be held, awkwardly, all her artifice falling apart, leaving... just Jade.
"I don't want to lose. Not to the Red Band. I don't want to lose you."
"You're not going to."
"But if I'm not strong enough to win, I'm not going to be strong enough when Valynia comes back to take you back--"
"You're not going to lose me. And you're not going to lose. You're, you're you. You're brave and you're magic and you are trying to give everyone the miracle they want. And my miracle is just that you love me."
"...I don't know what we're going to do. I meditated on it. I went to the underworld to try to find an answer. And it's just: you lose forever. The only way you win is by losing. And I don't want to run away and be the coward goddess forever and turn you into a joke, but when she wins, they'll know I'm not strong enough to protect you. As if they didn't know it already."
Dolly rubs her goddess's shoulder, and stares outside at the world her... her wife conjured up for her. Her artist. Her owner. Her adorer. And, yes, sometimes-- a lot of the time-- it's felt like they're barely getting by, only winning because Jade is clever and sexy and disarms pilots more than she defeats their mecha, and once she even got knocked out, and--
"I think I have an idea," she says, stiffening, perking up. "I... Jade, I looked over her dossier, too, and she's a titan, but even though we have a lance you always win by getting in close, right? What if we went all in on ion this match? We'd have to do a lot of last-minute fits, and we'd look unarmed, but maybe we could... I mean... if we tricked her into coming up close..."
Jade leans forward, hands cupped under her chin, elbows on her knees, like an ordinary girl. "That would knock out a lot of her systems. But we'd have to get in close in the first place. She's Hybrasilian, we can't count on the cloak working for us. She's probably watched the fight against Ada Smith, after all."
"We need to talk to her about the Angela match, by the way. We can't... take sides in that one. We just need to be there for whoever loses."
"...I do have a side, though. I want Angela Victoria Miera Antonius to win."
"But I don't want Ada Smith to feel betrayed. She's part of our flock, too. An off-to-the-side part, but she's our ally. And we haven't... proposed to Angela yet. So."
"...as my bride wishes," Jade says, slow, small, vulnerable. Flick of the eyes up towards Dolly. This is a room where she can do that. "...do you want to propose?"
Dolly flushes. Looks down at her feet. "I. I think. She's. Well. And you'd be glorified by the Terenian joining the harem, and--"
Jade puts her hand on Dolly's glove. Turns to look her bride in the eye. Does the little Jade smirk. "I think she's hot, too. And she stands up for you when I fuck up."
"...but what do we have to offer her?"
"You?"
"Not just that! I, we don't know what she really wants. Why she's here. If she just enjoyed the night together or if she wants to be like me and..." Dolly rubs her hand against her neck. There's a moment of wordless conversation with their eyes and smiles, and then she's wearing her collar and the tip of her tail is wiggling happily. "...I don't know if many people do want this like I do. Maybe Ksharta?"
"Ksharta needs time to figure out what she needs. I'd be happy if she picked this, though. It's... mrrrr~"
"To be trusted like that?"
"Mmhm."
"...trust. I don't think we can trick them into trusting us. I thought about it. You know, if I let Jacinta know before the match that I'd override your control so that she could capture us both, as long as she didn't shoot up the idol, but she'd ask Valynia, wouldn't she? And Valynia would wonder why I didn't ask her. And..." Her ears droop. "I don't want to talk to her. Or. I do want to talk to her. But it'd be a bad idea. Either I'd get mad at her for not apologizing to you, or she'd talk her way into my head rather than the other way around, and neither way gets us access to Jacinta. So. We shouldn't. I shouldn't."
"Thank you," Jade murmurs.
"So we still lose."
"If I had to pick between losing to Whispered Promise and Jacinta Niares," Jade says, like the words are being dragged out of her by a hook, "I would lose to Whispered Promise. She will not steal you. Just my glory. And I can live without my glory." In the same way that somebody can live without a lot of things, Dolly thinks, and it makes her heart plummet. "But I can't lose to Jacinta. But I'm going to."
This would be so much easier if she hadn't had a fight with Valynia. If she could fill her guilty daydreams with thoughts of being pulled out of the idol to bow at Jacinta's feet. Of Jade becoming a pirate goddess, of becoming the objectified mascot of the Red Band all wrapped up in red scarves, of being painted on the side of fighter cockpits, of Jade and Valynia becoming sisters in arms united by their breathlessly flustered slave-bride, if this could somehow be a good end for everybody. But neither Jade or Valynia would accept second place, and if there's anyone she could trust with those dreams, could trust to actually make it a game and return her at the end safe and sound, it would be... well, Angela.
"We can't mine the battlefield beforehand," she says, instead. "We can't prep camouflage. We can't overwhelm her with jackals. We can't--"
"Jackals," Jade interrupts. "Three-part trap. It'd be complex-- incredibly complex-- but... we could fool her with holograms. My holograms. Of the idol. One to draw her in with a prize, one to ambush her, and that gives our cloak an opening. Around the jackals, emitted by them. Let her fight shadows and then we're there to blow her systems out. More tricks, because I can't win a straight fight, but..."
She reaches out. Takes her wife's hand. Squeezes.
"But a win is a win," Dolly says, and pulls her wife closer. "And--"
And that's when Jade shuts her bride up with a kiss.