Memories bleed through, or dreams, or phantoms. Shapes that Dolly never dreamed up. Faces that are half-familiar from cartoons and cultural landmarks. The terror of Night and Hunger looming over the ball court. Other kittens might be thrown into distraction and doubt by the images that Smokeless Jade Fires imposes on the enemy, on the dizzying weight of myth-as-memory.
Here's a truth: Dolly has almost always known that her older sister was working on a pattern for drones, and that was the seed that became Jade. Here's another: Dolly believes.
She believes that her goddess is more than what she was. She believes that there is holiness in her, and that the part of her that is real and true descended into the pattern to be born. She believes that she is in the hands of something that is inexplicable and wonderful. It is startling, sometimes, to be reminded that Jade is still young, that she is still flawed, but the Hybrasilians have never expected perfection from their gods. They have simply expected them to be beyond the ordinary world, to be attuned with the universe, to demand sacrifice and adulation and adoration from a position of power. And in return, Jade gives her everything.
She gives Dolly this: the experience of fighting with a pirate. Of being the heroine, despite the transformation of her jumpsuit into something befitting the slave-bride of a goddess. Of being guided through a dangerous dance, the margin for error still incredibly tight. The kind of thrill that an ordinary Gardens would never have tasted. Of kissing Jacinta with her claws over and over, still untouched, still inviolate, helpless and not helpless, exposed and hidden, silenced and heard, fighting for herself and for her goddess, flickering between augmented reality and remembered myth--
And then Jade guides her into the jump, the push of magic at her back as the thrusters flare, and a thrill runs through her at how Jacinta can't see the way her skirt hikes up and how there's nothing underneath, even as she brings her leg in and delivers a punishing kick to the side of Jacinta's head, even as the jackal strikes from behind, a second Dolly (is that really how Jade sees her, that pretty?) raking her claws down Jacinta's back with small arms fire.
"Disappointing! At least Valynia knew the real prize! Twice now your band has failed to steal the heart of a bride more beautiful than Caloa! I am invincible, insatiable, irresistible, and-- I admit it-- my service would be nothing if you did not have the love of Seven Quetzal alongside me! But it is mine, she is mine, and I will see you and your little space dogs groveling at her perfect feet to adore them and beg her forgiveness for your lewd and disgraceful courting!"
And Jade manages to turn the hands flying up to her face into a stroke along her skull, chest out, hips cocked, allowing the camera to stare at her pose in the middle of a battle and imagine the priestess within, and once that is imagined, it's only another step to imagining her peeling out of her jumpsuit, is it not? A prize, dangled before entire worlds. Her wife's heart, racing as she imagines everyone's eyes on her, exposed and helpless and still above a pack of pirates kissing her feet, and Jade can't help but give her a kiss.
[10 - inflict a Condition, take a String, open an opportunity for the jackal.]
Stubbornness has always been her virtue. A refusal to admit when she's been beaten, to admit that anyone could beat her down hard enough that she won't bring it back around. What good is an adversary who throws in the towel and gives up? What's the good of a whetstone that cracks in half?
The noise that comes out of her mouth when she sees the opening is inhuman. It's half-Hybrasilian, a wild yowl of gambling it all on one shot, of a body that's throbbing with feedback, fingers so stiff that she almost can't pull the trigger. (An old, vestigial gesture, but one that has remained, one tied to the intent to fire.)
But she does. The roar, the splashback, is almost overwhelming, and the Barn Owl barely stands against the firing of its own weapon. But she digs her heels in and lets her howl out and, for a moment, she is almost like the brat of a goddess chasing a battle almost impossible for her to win.
Here's a truth: Dolly has almost always known that her older sister was working on a pattern for drones, and that was the seed that became Jade. Here's another: Dolly believes.
She believes that her goddess is more than what she was. She believes that there is holiness in her, and that the part of her that is real and true descended into the pattern to be born. She believes that she is in the hands of something that is inexplicable and wonderful. It is startling, sometimes, to be reminded that Jade is still young, that she is still flawed, but the Hybrasilians have never expected perfection from their gods. They have simply expected them to be beyond the ordinary world, to be attuned with the universe, to demand sacrifice and adulation and adoration from a position of power. And in return, Jade gives her everything.
She gives Dolly this: the experience of fighting with a pirate. Of being the heroine, despite the transformation of her jumpsuit into something befitting the slave-bride of a goddess. Of being guided through a dangerous dance, the margin for error still incredibly tight. The kind of thrill that an ordinary Gardens would never have tasted. Of kissing Jacinta with her claws over and over, still untouched, still inviolate, helpless and not helpless, exposed and hidden, silenced and heard, fighting for herself and for her goddess, flickering between augmented reality and remembered myth--
And then Jade guides her into the jump, the push of magic at her back as the thrusters flare, and a thrill runs through her at how Jacinta can't see the way her skirt hikes up and how there's nothing underneath, even as she brings her leg in and delivers a punishing kick to the side of Jacinta's head, even as the jackal strikes from behind, a second Dolly (is that really how Jade sees her, that pretty?) raking her claws down Jacinta's back with small arms fire.
"Disappointing! At least Valynia knew the real prize! Twice now your band has failed to steal the heart of a bride more beautiful than Caloa! I am invincible, insatiable, irresistible, and-- I admit it-- my service would be nothing if you did not have the love of Seven Quetzal alongside me! But it is mine, she is mine, and I will see you and your little space dogs groveling at her perfect feet to adore them and beg her forgiveness for your lewd and disgraceful courting!"
And Jade manages to turn the hands flying up to her face into a stroke along her skull, chest out, hips cocked, allowing the camera to stare at her pose in the middle of a battle and imagine the priestess within, and once that is imagined, it's only another step to imagining her peeling out of her jumpsuit, is it not? A prize, dangled before entire worlds. Her wife's heart, racing as she imagines everyone's eyes on her, exposed and helpless and still above a pack of pirates kissing her feet, and Jade can't help but give her a kiss.
[10 - inflict a Condition, take a String, open an opportunity for the jackal.]
Stubbornness has always been her virtue. A refusal to admit when she's been beaten, to admit that anyone could beat her down hard enough that she won't bring it back around. What good is an adversary who throws in the towel and gives up? What's the good of a whetstone that cracks in half?
The noise that comes out of her mouth when she sees the opening is inhuman. It's half-Hybrasilian, a wild yowl of gambling it all on one shot, of a body that's throbbing with feedback, fingers so stiff that she almost can't pull the trigger. (An old, vestigial gesture, but one that has remained, one tied to the intent to fire.)
But she does. The roar, the splashback, is almost overwhelming, and the Barn Owl barely stands against the firing of its own weapon. But she digs her heels in and lets her howl out and, for a moment, she is almost like the brat of a goddess chasing a battle almost impossible for her to win.