"I wish I could help her," the melancholy young woman says, wrapped in the arms of the sacred, watching as their shared body is healed. The body that they have presented before the entire universe, so often damaged, so often repaired. "But I invited her in, and she stayed outside. And I waited for her to come in, but..."

[i]"Then we will repay her by finding her heart," Smokeless Jade Fires says. She has not stepped away from Dolly for hours. She notes the exhaustion in her bride's stance, the stress in her shoulders, and she wraps herself around her love to protect her from the whole world. "Only then can you open it and help it to... do whatever it is that plants do when you touch them."[/i]

"...what?" Dolly scrunches up her face. "I... are you thinking of ferns? The ones that curl up when you brush a claw against them? Because most plants don't really do anything at all when you touch them."

[i]"No. Plants grow better when you touch them." It is a statement of fact. "I remember watching you care for them. Your magic is a little thing, but it is something I will never have."[/i] Dolly's eyes are wet, suddenly stinging. [i]"I cannot do anything but challenge Whispered Promise to fight. We can tear each other open and wet our teeth with each other's hearts, but you can touch her, dearest."[/i] "I couldn't last night." [i]"That is because you were not touching her," Jade continues, stubbornly. "If you really had, she would have bloomed. I know this."[/i]

"Girls aren't flowers," Dolly murmurs. "And maybe all I touched was ice on the river."

Above them, their shared body waits to be touched, so that it can curl around them.