Tatterdemalion

Huntresses of Hybrasil

Of course she's had the glove off before. Of course. For personal hygiene reasons, mostly. But she feels naked without it. Her arm, suddenly bare, suddenly cut off from her goddess, her...

"I'm sorry," she says, hands folded, looking down at the floor, the picture of shame. "I really thought you wanted me to... to..." She reaches up, rubs a cheek, sniffles loudly. Was it her? Was she making up the feeling in her heart all along? Giving her an excuse to have someone else, someone who was more dangerous and physical than Jade, jealousy from seeing Jade claim whoever she wanted? Was she a bad girl?

She doesn't deserve to have her goddess save her this time.

She can't touch Dolly. When she advances, Valynia drags her a step back, and without the glove, without the memory weave, she can't TOUCH Dolly, she can't hold her, she can't try to reassure her, she can't do anything. "Let her go!" She can't touch Valynia, either. Not without her priestess to be her hands and her eyes and her ears. (She can't see herself through Dolly's eyes. Her only eye is a security camera. A distant sense, an impersonal view of the room. Her only body here is thin light, a reflection of a reflection.)

"You are the one who doesn't deserve her! You don't even know her! You-- Dolly," she says, hyperaware of the pirate. If she begs, the whole universe will know. If she crumbles, falls to her knees, that will be all that she is. Everything is collapsing underneath her feet. Is the entire station shaking? "Dolly. Take the glove back."

Was Jade wrong about her the whole time? She'd tried her best, she really had, and now she's here, so useless that she's being kidnapped again, fighting the urge to melt into Valynia's arms, her goddess staring at her, and...

And the feeling of waking up and knowing that Jade's already awake, watching her sleep like she's a bird on the other side of a window. Of being able to fall and know, know that Jade's going to catch her. Of being pushed to her limits in the mech, making her heart sing. Valynia never tried to give her the universe. But did she deserve the universe?

One finger traces the outside of the glove's wrist. Worry throbs through her, turmoil, anger, and the intensity of Jade's roiling heart, and she jerks her hand away, as if she had been bitten. It's overwhelming. It's like drowning.

Dolly jerks her hand away from the glove. A moment of aching, of worry, of heartache, and then nothing more. A moment of pain, real pain, not just the activation of nerves to make her bride squeal. Pain she'd caused, again, by not being good enough. By not being like Whispered Promise, that effortless confidence and careful touch, that frustrating power in those deliberate hands. Her surprise just made Dolly cry earlier, her attempt to give Dolly a gift just led to this, and now she's hurting her bride.

Her greatest fear, right in front of her.

"You can't take her! Not again! She's not yours, Dish-- pirate! She's mine! She promised!"

She'd promised. And she was failing that promise. And that should give her the strength to stand up and lift her head and be better. But she's frozen like a bird before a snake. If she opens herself up before her goddess, Jade will bury her, and Jade will see right through her, and their cuddles and basking and deliberate teasing before fighting Ada seem so far away. Like there's a window between her then and her now, and all she can do is press her face against it and yearn. Yearn to be worthy of Jade's love. To be the focus of that overwhelming attention, to not want anything else.

Valynia pulls her towards the door, and she leans back into the pirate's grasp despite herself.

Jade falls to her knees. Her palms rest on the floor, feeling nothing. "Please!" She sobs. Her eyes are focused on Dolly's face like it's that first morning, listening to her Dolly sing alone in the kitchen. "Dolly, don't leave me!"

"You'd have Ksharta," Dolly says, her mouth dry, trying not to look at Jade doing something which she'd never done before. She's embarrassed for her goddess, aware that she wouldn't want anyone to see this, crushed under the realization that it's her fault that pushed Jade this far. "And Angela. And the cult. And you could pick someone better. Someone who deserves you."

"I don't want them! Not like I want you!"

Her hands curl around the glove, and she squeezes it as hard as she can. "How do you want me, Jade?" She asks with her mouth and with her heart.

"I want you like this," Jade says, and envelops her in need, throwing herself around Dolly, so aware of Valynia pressing against Dolly's back that it's like they're entwined together. "I want to make your dreams come true and I want you to want me too. I want to touch you like she can, to give you more miracles, to be your goddess, to make you happy, I want to make you feel safe, I want to make you feel beautiful, I want... I want Seven Quetzal. I want you to think I'm strong. I want to shine for you."

Then she lets go. She steps back. She forces herself to pull back her essence. "But I lost. Now you know." That she's not strong. That she's not shining. That she's half-a-goddess. That she's still stuck on that tree in the underworld. And now Valynia is going to make everyone know. She's lost anyway. She's lost everything. Angela Victoria Miera Antonius will wrench herself free. Ksharta Talonna will turn up her nose and trot away. The cult will abandon her idol. Nobody will bother to worship a weak, pathetic goddess unable to be strong and smite her enemies. And each loss will hurt, will hurt terribly, but she'd flay herself of everything if Dolly would just step forward.

"You're already strong," Dolly says. "And you deserve so much better than me. But..."

She struggles against Valynia's grip. If what Jade needs right now is to be held, then she's going to hold her goddess in her arms and hold her tight. It's the least she can do to deserve being loved by a goddess.

MASKS - Ghost Gate City

Foxpearl!

Your plummet does make Xingtian desperately grab at your scarf and dig in their heels, putting all of their strength into halting you as you tumble down. Sky Gate City is so swank that this kind of multi-story waterfall is a common sight in community spaces in the skyscrapers. It's not just part of the agricultural systems, it's vital to balance the elemental harmony of the entire tower. This one drops down multiple floors, and even though the pool at the bottom is lovely, it's just a little too shallow for a safe landing. How lucky that you end up dangling from that scarf, with the armored menace starting to slowly pull you up.

Then the Vermillion Princess delivers a flying kick to the back of their armor, where she'd hit them before, and the momentum she'd built up on the way there sends Xingtian tumbling out into open air. Their attempt to activate their armor's thrusters just sends them cartwheeling down to the bottom faster, past you, yanking you down with them--

And the Vermillion Princess dives down after you, trailing her Sash, and grabs you by the wrists, your name on her lips.

---

Rain!

Boom!

That is, as you find out by sprinting around a corner, the sound of Xingtian slamming into the bottom of a pool hard enough to crack the foundation. A heavenly cord leads up from the ruin of this villain's fall (like the fall of Lucifer from Heaven in that one American TV show) to the face of Foxpearl, who is suspended between floors by the Vermillion Princess's hold on her wrists. Not exactly the kind of heroic finish that Empress would have done.

In fact, Empress would probably pry the armor off, crush it between her palms, and then deliver the soggy mystery arsonist inside to the tower's security team, but she'd hang around to make sure that she could give a speech about how arson put everyone at risk, how the residents of this tower would be impacted by months of reconstruction, how damaging the tower's supports would have risked an inconceivable civic disaster, and how disappointed she was. And then she'd do the Glare. And then she'd pitch in with the reconstruction, stop to take selfies with residents with her silver hair up in a neat bun, and generally be the example that everyone in SGC is supposed to live up to.

But Empress isn't here right now. She's trying to keep the gates of the underworld shut to give the entire city time to fix the problem of the rampant ghosts. And so there's just you, stepping up to be a good neighbor like Empress knows everybody can be, and there's the fox (who you just found out is one of Lady Foxfire's tails, just like she now knows how you came into your powers), and there's her.

The real superheroine-in-training, stopping Hsien from slamming into the bottom of the pool while you were interrogating a hunky Triad member.

Thoughts on the Vermillion Princess, Rain? And, for that matter, thoughts on what you're supposed to do with Xingtian?

MASKS - Ghost Gate City

Foxpearl!

You are bravely staring down a tummy laser. See, in legend, Xing Tian was the warrior who survived being decapitated, and his chest became his new face, and it's a little weird that Xingtian (the armored supervillain) has a helmet when the myth was very famous for missing the helmet (because of the decapitation), but that snarling face in the breastplate is crackling with evil ghost power.

Well, morally neutral ghost power being used for wicked ends.

"Damnation! You Allowed The Bloodstained Thug To Escape Her Just Reward For Longer Than She Deserves... And You Will Be Punished For Your Interference, Willing Tool Of The "Deep State"! But First..." Xingtian holds out their gauntleted hand to you, burning foxgirl with your scarf more thickly padded than before. "Return To Me, Be One With Me, Join Me In Our Holy Quest And Together, We Will Overthrow The False Mayor And Restore True Harmony To The City!"

Behind you, Vermillion Princess pushes herself back onto her knees. It'll take her a minute to get back up onto those heelies, even with the sash providing her with some lift. A minute she might not have if you don't distract the raving fire-spewing villain.

---

Rain!

"Oh... hell," Branch says, slowly. "That was it, then. That bitch hit me too hard. Damn it. I thought... so that was it. Twenty years on this bitch of a planet and I get my neck snapped by Horse. Well, I get points for loyalty, right? I died in the line of duty. I didn't let Stone Monkey down. That gets me points with King Yama, right? I looked after my grandma after work. I tried not to be vulgar. I only let my charge get kidnapped the one time, and that's the time that killed me, so it doesn't count. Am I going to be stuck here because of the idiots who did the ghost explosion?"

Those sure are some names! Names that you can follow up on. How much do you know about the jianghu, the underground world of martial artists and criminals, River? Do you know anything beyond the word on the street about their boss getting assassinated?

MASKS - Ghost Gate City

Foxpearl!

Vermillion Princess switches strategies. If she can’t pull Xingtian off their feet by standing firm, she’s going to flow like water. Which, in this case, means activating the heelies.

(The heelies are odd. She’s embarrassed about them, but at the same time, she’s stood up to Empress about them because they make her better as a hero. She’s pivoted to avoid the subject when you asked; you haven’t seen any other people using them yet, but you’re aware that roller rinks exist near the ground floors of certain buildings. Any theories, Detective Hsien?)

She uses her sash to skate circles around Xingtian, hugging the ground low, as the sash itself wraps around and around Xingtian’s arms, pulling those gouts of furious fire up and away from Princess’s fluttering ponytail. (The sash is, if you were being uncharitable, pulling a lot of Princess’s weight as a hero. Supposedly an epic weapon of antiquity, if it has a maximum length, she hasn’t found it yet.)

The sensors are struggling with the impossible thickness of the sash, which is increasingly effective at blocking out light and sound, even the vibrations all around slowly dying as the sash traps Xingtian’s senses with shocking effectiveness. Which is why neither you or Xingtian hear Princess’s prayer to the Gods of the Four Directions to guide her fist, wrapped in the sash’s other end. No, the only warning is when she punches the armor right above Xingtian’s ass, sending alarms rippling through the armor, and before the repair subprograms (uh-oh) can reroute the rest of your power to reshaping the metal into place, you burst forth into the air along with a gushing of howling ghosts, buoyed up by them as if you’d… well, you don’t have the right analogy to hand. (Geysers, like at Yellowstone, you’ll figure out one day.)

Then you fall, twisting and mmmphing, diaphanous silks and all, into the Vermillion Princess’s arms. And she doesn’t do a cool smirk and one-liner about how she’s owed three wishes now, right? She stares down at you, stock-still in her heeleys, through the lenses of her half-mask. (If you put yours together, or fused together after doing a dance number that revealed your inner character motifs, you’d have one full-face mask between the two of you. That’s how you can see her tongue dart out and run along her lower lip, which makes sense, because it’s really dry in here.)

[She’s pushing Mundane up, Savior down— the opposite of what Xingtian just asserted about you.]

Xingtian’s stomach unfolds into their heavy cannon, a roiling furnace of ghostfire, and Princess squeaks, yanks on her sash, and goes zipping along. If the two of you get blasted with that, it’s game over. Which makes it a wonderful time for Princess’s center of balance to throw her off as she tries to carry you and skate at the same time, sending both of you tumbling onto scorched tiles. And by wonderful, I mean terrible.

---

Rain!

Branch’s breathing shifts. He’s waking up. But he doesn’t groan. He does his best to fake that he’s still unconscious while he tries to adjust to his surroundings. This is somebody who knows how to fight, and is prepared for ending up somewhere tied up on the floor with the lights out.

Finally, he speaks. It’s smoother than you might have expected. Silkier. “The boss is going to destroy you,” he says, matter-of-factly. “You can give Mei back and beg for mercy, right now, and you’ll survive. That’s your only way out of this that’s not sinking to the bottom of the bay or just getting your soul punched out of your body. You ever had your soul punched out of your body before?”

You are, hopefully, one of the only people in Sky Gate City who knows exactly what that feels like, minus the actual punch.

Do you try to put him at ease? Or do you fake him out and try to get more info out of him?

MASKS - Ghost Gate City

Foxpearl!

Zoooooooooooop!

That's the sound of a foxgirl getting sucked into a suit of armor. Your energy courses through the armor, which is handmade, which was made with the money of another, which is very frighteningly powerful now that you're powering it, which is like tumbling down a flight of stairs and then being sucked right back up the stairs, which is Xingtian's middle finger to everyone who doubted them, which is The Inexorable March Of The Past Against The Moral Dissolution Of The Future...

And then you manage to pull yourself into the backup capacitor to hide while the rest of your glorious fire is unleashed upon a Flower Mountain enforcer who is frantically running and leaping and trying not to get turned into barbecue by a villain who very much wants them to become said barbecue. The roof is starting to cave in, which would be really bad for everybody who lives here, and also everybody on the floor above. Not the whole building unless the outer and inner supports get melted. Well, a majority of the supports. Well, enough supports that the rest can't handle the strain. But that's probably a good 60%, what kind of idiot civic planner would let a skyscraper collapse into some sort of skyscraper graveyard with less than half of its support gone? It's not like there's 60+ floors above this one are weighing it down too much, after all.

Mentally, the backup capacitor is a prison defined by too much light, potential building up, ghosts stacked on top of ghosts stacked on top of ghosts like green-grey wailing lasagna. Presumably, you're the one who is making it such, using your incredible brilliant mind to turn this into something you can interact with; presumably, you're also the one who put yourself in the mandatory genie outfit and chained yourself to the walls. And, tragically, there's nobody here to leer at you and how hot you look right now.

This is the bit where Empress should show up and pull Xingtian out of the building, toss them up in the air, reinforce the support beams, and catch Xingtian on their way down. But instead, outside, a familiar cinnabar-red scarf wraps around Xingtian's head, and the Vermillion Princess makes a valiant but doomed attempt at pulling Xingtian off their feet, instead just sending herself scrabbling for footing. "Stop this, malefactor," she squeaks. "Innocent people are going to get hurt!" (On one level, you're aware of this because of Xingtian's excellent sensory array in the helmet. On another, it's a TV flatscreen outside your cell.)

---

Rain!

At that very moment, the sun drops behind the mountains, and night descends upon Sky Gate City.

You plummet right through the floor. And the one beneath that. And the one beneath that. And these skyscrapers have decent amounts of space! Finally, you manage to time going unspectral just close enough to the floor that you're able to roll with the chair, absorbing most of the landing on yourself, and neither of you sustain serious injuries.

Still, that's got to sting, right? If you'd panicked and just zapped right back into existence at the top of a floor, you might have sustained serious injuries, not to mention the guy in the chair probably would have gotten a concussion or worse. Your adrenaline is spiked, your heart is racing, and for a minute all you can do is cling to the chair and try to regain control of your body.

[Mark a Condition.]

There's a glow outside. Probably the fires, all weirdly green, because of the ghosts. The lights are off in the private office you've tumbled into, and you have no idea if you are once again on camera or not. If you're lucky, there's just an alarm on the front door, wherever that is. But take a moment and just... celebrate not being dead. More dead, that is.

MASKS - Ghost Gate City

Foxpearl!

The dreadful helmet turns to face you; behind this imposing figure, there is the creak of chairs and tables being shoved aside as the masked enforcer starts digging her way out of the mess of the restaurant. Even with the added height, there's something incredibly solid about this figure; a mountain may weather a wildfire and still remain standing when the wildfire's fury has burnt out completely. In a fight, who's to say whether or not that suit of armor would melt underneath your hands?

Then the villain pumps an armored fist in joy. "Finally! Heaven Has Sent Me A Sign That My Quest To Cleanse This City Of Its Filth And Moral Decay, As Embodied In The Dockside Gangsters Whose Corruption And Iniquity Reveals Itself When Given The Slightest Excuse, As Well As The "Deep State" That Has Accumulated Around The Homunculus That They Created Using The Semen Of The Real Mayor, Is Righteous, Pure And Holy! Join Me, Sylph Of The Highest Airs, In Wiping These Vermin Off The Face Of Our Fair City, Which We Will Rule Together In The Name Of Heaven!"

Various dials (previously looking decorative) suddenly spin, and the ghostfires begin to pour back into the armor, limning the armor in light and, inadvertently, pulling you towards Xingtian. It's... possible that you could get sucked into however that armor's powered and become an adorable trapped power source if you don't shuck that fire off of your, for lack of a better word, self. The air around the two of you is full of shadowy light, incredible heat, and the moaning of the dead disturbed from their rest.

[Xingtian wants you to raise your Savior and drop your Mundane!]

---

Rain!

Here's the thing. He's a tough-looking guy. Like, he hits the gym regular. He's got some neck tattoos, he's got the build of someone who went for body mastery over looking impressively bulky, and he's got the kind of stubble that would drive someone into that sort of thing wild.

Not the kind of person who leaves a phone in a glittery peach-themed case (the fruit, not the princess) kicked under the couch. Or the kind of person who has college textbooks on the history of the Republic, auspicious construction, and modern economics in their trendy, deceptively expensive backpack. More the kind of person who looks after the kind of person who lives here.

The person who is very definitely not here, and probably wouldn't have left their phone behind. As if the lack of a trap waiting for them here wasn't enough to convince you of that. As for anything else worth grabbing-- well, it's not like you're looking for anything expensive, right? If you wanted to go into burglary (that's the right crime, right?), the paintings: cut them out of the frames, roll them up and rubber-band them. Which whoever hit this place didn't do, that's another point in favor of the obvious conclusion: that whoever lives here is currently not here, and not of her own free will, which is almost certainly related to the fire.

MASKS - Ghost Gate City

Hsien!

The biggest threat is obviously Xingtian. Every step they take is full of menace. Remember the bit where they peeled open steel doors with their gauntlets cracking open that bank? They’re also the cause of the fire that’s threatening this entire level of the Providence Tower. Fire is one of the five noble elements, but beyond the risk to the upper levels of the tower, which contain more residential areas and businesses (and some important government offices once you get past the fortieth floor), there’s also the risk of this fire damaging the structural integrity of the building.

Sky Gate City has (as far as you know) never had a skyscraper collapse. There’s a lot of failsafes and safety mechanisms built into every building in the city, to avoid the kind of corner-cutting tragedies that were common in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, but water isn’t effective against this ghost-fueled fire.

Here’s an extra bit of intuition for being a good girl with such adorable triangles: this feels like a shell game, but Xingtian’s not the dealer, they’re the cup. Or possibly the table.

MASKS - Ghost Gate City

Exterior shot: the late afternoon sun casting its rays through the skyscrapers of Sky Gate City, painting their white-and-chrome surfaces with fire, drowning the color of the ubiquitous gardens and trees in shadows. The clouds rolling in off the mainland are hiding the penthouses and the glider pads, the blinking warning lights and the cloudfishers, leaving only the pillars standing between heaven and earth. The shadows are sharper than usual, harshly defined, and the lights switching on feel feeble in the face of night rising up from the sea.

---

Once upon a time, there was an old man who taught criminals the laws of the jianghu, the world beneath the city, the world of sewers and basements and access tunnels, of hidden dojos and stuttering neon lights, of tournaments and fat stacks of cash and, above all, honor. If a criminal did not have honor, even while breaking the law, what could they ever have?

The Flower Mountain rotated around the axis of that man: mastermind, martial artist, and enforcer of law on the lawless, the law that was the only constraint on those who had mastered their bodies and their abilities. And now that man is dead.

Which is why there is a fire spreading on the twenty-sixth floor of the Providence Tower, inside one of the residential blocks, and the outer windows are beginning to buckle and blacken from the heat.

---

"Pathetic Worm!" Xingtian raises their fist and, from one of the elegant flowers wrapped around their wrist, green-blue-black fire gushes forth, and underneath the hiss of fire is the howl of unquiet spirits. Spectral light throbs across their armor like blood pulsing through the body, and fire licks at the hem of their cloak. Like the snarl carved into their helmet, it's the kind of fashion statement that you have to earn. "You Are All Disgusting Parasites! In My New City, I Will Purge Your Vermin Dens With Cleansing Fire And--"

The Triad enforcer known as Ox jinks to one side, rolls, grabs a foldable bicycle someone abandoned in the chaos, and smashes it across Xingtian's helmet. And, to her credit, Xingtian takes two steps back, rocking on their heels. She follows up with two kicks to the head, sloppy Seven Shadows style, and then gets blasted through the front window of a Viet restaurant by Xingtian's Ghost Cannon, careening through tables and chairs.

Foxpearl! Xingtian's first appearance in the city was robbing from a bank, and there they got away after flying up into the clouds. But that crime had a lot more posturing and smashing through steel doors with that suit of armor, and a lot less fire everywhere in the middle of a nice neighborhood. You've got a vantage point from above (what kind?), and doubtless a theory on what's going on.

---

"Okay, everybody, let's go! You're going to be okay! Keep moving! Don't stop until you get to Tranquility, there should be city personnel there to help you! Nothing here is more valuable than you are! Make sure that you have all your family members!"

You can still distantly hear the Vermillion Princess, Rain. She's traded off going through the apartments on this floor and making sure everyone's evacuated to you, and now she's doing her best to act like the hero of the city, a beacon of calm authority that people can look up to in case of emergency. The slight warble in her voice doesn't matter; she's still making sure that this doesn't turn into a full-blown panic and nobody gets trampled.

You, however, have just found someone who hasn't evacuated.

That's because he's unconscious. And also tied to a chair.

Even by the standards of SGC apartments (tall ceilings, multiple rooms, designed to handle a family comfortably if necessary), this one is fancy. There's a decorative fountain in one corner, non-standard security cameras (the chair being at an intersection of a couple lines of sight), and a somewhat gaudy taste in wall decorations. That's an entire-ass halberd hung in the hallway, for example. And your brain's gonna be running through possibilities while you untie him, anyway, so why don't you scope it out?

Breathless Dead

"It won't work," Ember says, with conviction. "I will be good; I will follow your orders, Alpha. But she will smell betrayal on me if I come to her with secrets in my teeth, and she will defeat me, and you, and us, the pack entire, if we come at her with howling on our breath." Around her, the murmurs; she stares straight ahead, hands folded, ears perked, a signpost for the clan.

"And you know that." She takes a breath. Gulps. "The only path where Mosaic of Beri can be taken prisoner is one where she hands herself over to the pack willingly. She will not do this if I ask her; she will fight you instead, for daring to order me to ask her. You must take me prisoner and put me in peril which only you can defuse, and she will yield in order to save me. All this I share with you, packmate, Alpha of our clan, fellow daughter of Ceron."

She places one hand on her sword, drips Challenge onto the dirt. "But as a fellow daughter of Ceron, I cannot submit to betrayal of a lover." Her ears burn. This is the first time she's admitted to her packmates that what she feels for Mosaic is deeper than teasing a cutie and wringing information out of good boys and girls. "For her sake, I challenge you. Face me in any art and I will surpass you."

She won't. She knows she won't. This ends with her being used to embarrass Mosaic. But loyalty to a true lover is as virtuous as loyalty to the pack; she owes Mosaic this doomed fight to save her as much as she owes her pack information on how to overcome Mosaic. And if she, impossibly, wins, then she can throw her new weight behind Gemini's plan.

This is the way. Every Ceronian holodrama that Goldie has shared with her agrees. And Mosaic would understand too, wouldn't she? She might roll her eyes, she might make her lover a target of her barbed wit, she might even toss Ember off a cliff. But she knew she was falling in love with a Ceronian, and the bonds of the pack are just as much chains as the bonds of the heart (Beneath the Blood-Wetted Moons, dir. Xiophilina Entressus). So what if she will still lose? A knight is a humiliation-seeking device (The Knight of the Forfeit, dir. Nathan Svensson) and to share bonds with a lover is the third aim of romance (Dragon Among Lotuses, dir. "Simplicitas Pirata").

But Mosaic is worthy of being the cause of her first true pack challenge. Will you honor that, Taurus? Or are you jealous of her immeasurable virtues, not least of which is the thing she can do with her tongue?

Huntresses of Hybrasil

If the eye of the goddess was elsewhere, she could cut off the flight of the Zaldarian. If her attention was on Angela, she could shut a door, pen the knight in, give her a chance to catch up. She could read how Angela slows down, keeps an eye out for traps as she follows in the knight's wake, remembering the mine that ended their last battle together. The underhanded ploy, the trick that wins the battle. But her eye is drawn elsewhere. It is focused, entirely, on Seven Quetzal reaching up and patting her mouth, asking for permission to speak. Permission that the goddess grants her high priestess.

Dolly licks her lips as her gag turns to smoke, fades away by the magic of her goddess. The goddess perched on Valynia's shoulders, trying very hard to look casual, staring intensely at her. The goddess who is trying to give her a space pirate despite the roiling emotions in her heart, who is trying to find a way to incorporate Valynia into their play without melting down so that she can... carry out a plan? She never asked Jade about Valynia's plan, about her offer to incorporate Jade into the pirate gods. She opens her mouth, lets out a pathetic little huff, tries to find her words even as the pirate undoes her finger by finger, nibble by nibble.

"What do I want? I... I want the adventure," she admits to herself and to her goddess and to Ksharta Talonna and to Angela who is cursing at the receding back of Solarel. "That's why we're out here. The stars, and the aliens, and the pirates. But I want everyone to see Jade, too. She picked me. Out of everybody on Hybrasil she picked me to help her show the universe her glory, her divinity, and... when you kidnapped me, I. Well. Well." The inquisitive vibrates through her flesh.

She wants Valynia Bander. She's dangerous and takes what she wants and is the star of Dolly's teenage fanfics come to frustratingly sexy life. But there's a dangerous edge to being with her, too. The loss of control. The way that she wants to use Jade. There was tension and worry in that kidnapping, even while she got memories she'd only just started to blushingly share with Jade. Worry that she was going to be used to blackmail Jade, to make her serve the Banders, to be married off to a hot handsy pirate who saw her as a pawn. Jade is watching her intently. Is this all part of the plan? Valynia is tugging at the sensitive spot on the back of her neck.

What can she even say? I want you to teach Jade how to be you? I want to be your captive queen, since Angela is my rival and Ksharta is my student? I want you to pin me down and tie me up, to smuggle me out of the party in luggage, to show your Red Band how easy it is to kidnap me? I want you to be my villain, but safely, but dangerously, but in a way that won't hurt Jade? The heat of you, the smell of you, is driving me wild? I wish Jade had a body like this? No, I don't, I love her as she is, but your body makes me weak in the knees in a different way?

"If you promise," she says, as serious as she was piloting the idol by herself. She pushes back, dares to try to assert herself. "Promise me that she will be your goddess. That you'll make her your patron, and when you rule the Red Band that Jade will be the first one in your temple, the highest idol, the, the goddess of the Jade Band. You'll rename the entire pirates. The entire! You'll be the Jade Band! And Ksharta Talonna gets a free pass through your territory forever! Then..."

She swallows, dizzy, giddy. What she's getting from Jade is shock, but she's committed. For you, Jade. This time she won't fail. If this is what you want, then Seven Quetzal will perform miracles for you, too. As thanks. As a promise. And because she's very, very horny right now, and that gives her courage, too.

"Then I will fight as hard as you want," she says, and shoves Valynia Bander backwards, as hard as she can. Only a step or two, but it's enough. She pushes her hair back out of her face, lifts her chin, tries not to melt. "I will be a worthy conquest. You'll have to do your worst. Your worst. I'll scream. If you want. I'll try to escape. I'll use everything Angela taught me." (She should not have blurted that out.) "And. I'll enjoy it. Especially if you let me out for a chase every now and then. Planet to planet. A sacred hunt. My chance to see the universe with her again, your chance to catch me again, to take what you want, to... make me a prize. A trophy. Your Dolly."

"Dolly, you don't have to do this," Smokeless Jade Fires says, stepping between them, small again, flustered, her hologram-body fuzzy at the edges. "We're going to win the tournament anyway. You don't have to sell yourself to Banders just to glorify me!" Just to glorify her. Her heart's tearing. She steps forward, interlaces her fingers with her high priestess's gloves, even in front of the Bander, because she has to touch. She has to touch, as much as she can. She has to hold her beloved's hand. The high priestess who would do anything for her, and so it's up to her to look out for her sweet, vast-hearted bride.

"I can do this," Dolly whispers back, loud enough for Valynia to hear. "Like you wanted. I want to do this. Like in "Nine Parsecs Deep." The lodge back home will be... disappointed, but you'll have more worshipers than ever, you'll be able to change them, you and me and Valynia and Ksharta and maybe even Angela. That's why you told me to, you know... to seduce her."

"I what?!?" The goddess's jaw hangs open, without her even telling it to do so, moving on its own. A strange miracle that just adds to the shock it cannot help but express.

"You... when I was kidnapped... I thought you were ordering me to... that's why I..." Dolly's eyes flicker between her goddess and the pirate who she wants to pin her to the floor. She's overheating. "Did you not?! I could feel you being all seduction and want and... oh goddess." She slumps to the floor, and she can't even hide her face because Jade's still holding her hands. "...I really hope it worked?" Her look to Valynia is pleading, mortified, hopeful, insecure, vulnerable. "I still... mean it. About. I'll make that trade for... it's not even a trade. Everybody gets what they want. You get Jade's blessings. And Jade gets all of you. And I get to discover if... well... I... you know? And you get me. You get me. I want to be. gotten. Even if, I, and the seduction, and... do you still want me, Valynia?"

Jade turns to look at her rival, her potential cult leader, the impudence of Mu Ysha made flesh. The only person in the tournament who could really, truly take Dolly away from her. Angela Victoria Miera Antonius plays games, and Ksharta Talonna wants to be cherished, but Valynia Bander wants to challenge her for Dolly, to give Dolly the kind of special pleasures that only Jade could give her before, and to make Dolly a captive queen. Fear roils inside of her; fear of losing the ball game. Of being hung on the tree again. And if she lost Dolly then nobody else could fill her. Not Angela Victoria Miera Antonius, not Ksharta Talonna, not Whispered Promise. A memory not her own surfaces from within her, hugging a beloved bird-doll so tight that part of her worried that it might pop, nuzzling it like it was the only thing in the whole world.

Her whole world, sitting on the floor, looking up vulnerable and hopeful at Valynia Bander, the way that she'd looked up at her that first night.

And she can't even grab Valynia Bander and shake her by the front and toss her up and down in the air.

"No," she declares, before Valynia Bander can answer that dangerous question. The sudden sharp sting of disappointment from Dolly hurts even more. "As if I would need the worship of this, this scum! This pathetic bandit trying to take what the gods have not allotted for her! It is an insult to you and to me that she even thinks herself worthy of touching you! Why doesn't she keep her hands to herself, or better yet, why doesn't she go and hide under a rock somewhere? You, you handsy, stinking, reeking, oversexed, presumptous thief! She doesn't need you! Go keep your temples and your brands and your musk and your ion cannons and go fuck yourself with them! And then you can--"

Everyone feels it at once. Ksharta, curled up under the table. Angela, almost caught up to Solarel making her way to her mecha. Jade, phantasmal, up in Valynia's face. They all feel Dolly burying her face in her gloved hands, sobbing in embarrassment and shame and the backwash of Jade's overwhelming fear and the shock of betrayal.

And Valynia Bander gets to see, face to face, a goddess's world come crashing down around her ears.

[Insecure: take rash action to confront the object of your jealousy. Harmony drops when: one of you feels neglected or scorned by the other.]