Tatterdemalion

MASKS - Ghost Gate City

Rain!

”Oh My God it’s a ghost,” the cop yells as you pull him off balance, sending another net careening off into a sign advertising tasteful cremation services. And, given how that gun works, you’ve neutralized it as a threat for as long as you’ve got him focused on you and not reloading!

The problem is that he staggers backwards so violently that the two of you tumble back through the broken window, and there’s a moment of awful vertigo—

And then you slam against the side of Providence Skyscraper, and the wind’s once more been pushed out of your lungs, and someone’s shining a flashlight in your face.

“WE HAVE A GHOST ON SITE,” a second cop yells, holding onto his comrade’s boot as he aims his rifle at you with his other hand. “COMMAND, REQUESTING— what the fuck, what do you mean it’s not an issue, it’s dragged Po off the fucking building you bastard son of a cocksucking hen, I need something, don’t we have shit for this? You tell the Director to get some anti-ghost gizmo on site or I swear it’s your fucking ass I’ll serve seared and glazed!”

Presumably, he hasn’t tried to shoot you less out of concern for his comrade but because he thinks it won’t work.

Mark another Condition, this is a real rough night, huh?

---

Shifu!

Rain tumbles out of the ceiling like a lightning bolt, grabs one of the “policemen” with all four of her limbs, and the two of them topple back through the broken window. One of the other ones sees what’s going on and dives, saving both of them, bracing himself precariously at the edge of the window.

“STAND DOWN,” yells the third, who actually sounds like a very angry woman through the aggressive reverb of her helmet. “STOP RESISTING!”

She jerks her gun up at the ceiling and pulls the trigger, filling the room with awful thundering noise and making lights explode pop pop pop pop pop.

But that aside, how do you feel watching Rain tumble off a roof?

---

Foxpearl!

“It’s that jerk Li,” the Princess answers, because the cops are too busy yelling and shooting and being menaces to public property. “He probably wants to come up with some reason to arrest us so we stop making his goons look bad! And— RAIN!!!”

Out pop the heelies. The sash swirls around her like a writhing serpent as she skates boldly into the face of danger, and there’s a space for you behind her, if you run.

Or you can keep hiding behind the giant orange orca! Someone needs to look after the downed supervillain, probably. You’ll totally look cool doing it and Princess almost certainly won’t think you’re a coward!

Huntresses of Hybrasil

How would Dolly do this?

She'd... know the right thing to say. She always does. They're her spear and net, and maybe that's why she likes to be disarmed. To not have to be responsible for using all of them. To put her trust in a goddess who doesn't deserve her, just because of the weight of all those words. But she never acts like they're a burden, except when she's leaning in and begging for her goddess to shut her up.

But that's not the kind of reassurance Ksharta Talonna needs.

What would Dolly say? You're a good cook? She can't even eat the smoke. You're pretty? Seduction would make Ksharta Talonna freeze and then bolt. How dare you doubt my judgment? She's already sniffling, Jade, do you want to actually truly make her cry?

If you want a victory, we can go steal one! Pick someone here, we'll be pirates tonight! No, she'd have to want that, and the heart of Ksharta Talonna doesn't want that. What does it want?

"Give me your hand," the goddess demands. She holds her own out impatiently, and when Ksharta Talonna reaches out, she takes that little cook-knight's hand in two of her own. "Ksharta Talonna," she says, "I am not a goddess of knowing things. I could hunt your dreams out of you, but that would be..." She flashes her fangs. "Difficult on you. And I take care of the little cats who give themselves to me."

It is important to say out loud. It is important to be. She will not deserve Dolly if she cannot make this true.

"I cannot make you happy forever," she continues. "Not even our Grandmothers can do that. But I am sorry that... that my blessing has not made you happy for now." Is it true? Yes. It is. "That I have not brought you victory in battle, because I defeated you and carved that defeat into the world. That I have not shown you a way that you can be a great knight and a great cook, because I have been lost myself. That I have not declared war on your hunting lodge for the sake of possessing you, or offered you a place among my priestesses. I have failed you in many ways, Ksharta Talonna, and even I do not know how to make you happy, or which of these things would make you feel that I am worthy of worship."

She squeezes. She tries to make it a Dolly squeeze. The kind that makes people feel connected, even without a glove.

"But there is a place in the house of the goddess for you. If you wish to hunt your courage until you catch it, I will make you our knight, and a place by Dolly's side. If you want to see if cooking makes you happy, then I will make you our cook, and no dish will be outside our reach. And if you want a mortal lover, I will help you catch one. They will pale in comparison to me, but..."

She sniffs, and tries to look magnanimous and not like someone who has recently begged her high priestess not to leave her for a more fleshy paramour. "But they will always be there to touch, and you will be able to smell their desire, and I suppose it is intimidating to be one of my concubines, not knowing if I am going to bring you dizzying rewards or terrible punishments." She is so understanding. So generous. So composed. And...

And she hasn't made Ksharta Talonna happy.

"Whatever you choose to hunt," she concludes, "you will be safe and protected by me, as long as you choose. I am Smokeless Jade Fires; I am undefeated in battle and the hunt." Never defeated. Not even once. Whispered Promise and the Red Band can sneer all they want. She always wins. "I doomed you to defeat, and for that I owe you my blessings. I will be your jackal as you flush out joy."

[Emotional Support hit an 11, if Ksharta Talonna chooses to accept Jade's attempts to help her.]

---

Dolly flicks an ear in... irritation.

"Valynia," she says, and she's indignant, not quite like she was when first kidnapped but still with more fire than she's shown all night. "How can you... you can't insult her and then ask me to... and... you pirate!" Her body language is muddled, her tail's tip is flicking, she's finding it hard to look Valynia in the eye, she's plainly flustered, but she's clenching her fists and a word away from stomping her foot like a kitten.

It's not easy for protagonists, is it? Not in her favorite stories. And now she's in one, thanks to her goddess, and all the things which look clear from the outside are all muddled and difficult and she's weak, she's so easy to sweep off her feet, but you can't say that about Jade! Right after she leaves! Right after she fell to her knees, desperate for her, and the relief when she saw her goddess again after being kidnapped, but...

But she wants Valynia and Jade to fight over her. Just not in a way that hurts either of them. And that only works in stories, doesn't it, Dolly? And here Valynia is, dangling the perfect compromise in front of her, so why is she so angry, just like when Valynia first grabbed hold of her, dangerous and sensual and... and so greedy!

I. Want. You.

But Valynia isn't the one who fell to her knees and begged for her. For only her. Valynia didn't offer to give up anything for Dolly's sake, didn't offer to reform her ways, to beg Jade's blessing, to bring her treasures and gifts and offer her the universe.

I'll take the goddess you come with if I must...

How dare anyone talk about Jade that way?

Even a stupid sexy pirate dangling dizzying indulgence in front of her?

"...the others like Jade more than they like me," she admits. "She's the one who attracts attention. She's the rival that Angela wants, and she's the power that Ksharta craves. But they like me, too. In their own ways. But you don't like Jade at all. Valynia, how can I be with someone who doesn't like both of us? Her strength and whatever both of you see in me. Our desire to be what others need. She brought me here, she showed me the stars, she lets me dance, she wants me just as much as you do, and all you see when you look at us is me. And if I say yes..."

If I say yes, you'll want me longer and longer, and you'll start wondering why you have to share me.

Also, you are strong, and embarrassed, and greedy, and you don't like it when people say no to you, do you?

Dolly's heart tightens. For the first time tonight, she actually feels a little frightened. That's the flipside of being attracted to dangerous girls, isn't it? The danger. And Jade feels dangerous but she's really not, but being alone with Valynia right after turning her down is... is just asking for her to reveal that she's got a path cleared to her mecha and Dolly's coming with her whether she likes it or not.

Or maybe she'll just be sad. And Dolly will feel terrible, and kick herself for assuming the worst, and wish she'd been able to be cleverer, better at words, or the kind of warrior that she is when Jade's guiding her hands, or even just smart enough to realize what Jade was bottling up.

Either way, Dolly tries to look fierce. Like a high priestess. Like someone whose girlfriend was just insulted. Like someone who should not be trifled with, Valynia Bander. What sort of huntress are you?

Breathless Dead

Ember tosses her head back and howls in elation and treachery. In the back of her head, she knows that she is drawing attention, that Mosaic may very well chase her and then the hunt will be on, that she has almost certainly been followed by packmates, but it bubbles out of her happy and wild and joyous, joyous, awe-struck and delighted and tail-wagging and Celebration in the wind, all goldensatin fireworks.

She howls for the moon and she howls for the little moon; she howls for the death of the crab and she howls for the life of the huntress, the grand lion who would toss the whole pack into the sea with one hand if she wanted to. She howls because her girlfriend has just killed a giant enemy crab and made it look like an act of worship. She howls in defiance of the Corvii, of Taurus's foolish plan, of stealth and secrecy and silence, of everything except the things that she gets to feel, here, right now, in the presence of Mosaic the Huntress.

When she finally lowers her head, she isn't breathless, but the smile on her face is the same as someone who has just had the air pushed from their lungs with a kiss. She hops down onto the sand, tail furious, dancing from foot to foot, all her desires jumbled up and all focused on her, her, her; on what it would be like to run from her; what it would be like to kiss her bloody mouth; what it would be like to be praised for impossibly catching her; what it would be like to swim into the depths with her and watch her catch fish bare-handed.

Fight me, kiss me, race me, catch me, whatever you like, Mosaic, Mosaic, Mosaic, only let me be as important to you as the crab and the moon...!

Huntresses of Hybrasil

Picture Dolly. So small, so vulnerable, eyes still wet with tears, and the way she hesitates to speak, trapped between a rock and a hard place, says almost everything.

Almost.

"...when you kidnapped me, after causing so much damage to our mecha that I was cut off from my goddess, my, my goddess," and the word is emphasized to mean so many other things, "I was scared, and I was angry, and I thought you were an audacious handsy brute, and... and I wanted Jade to come and save me. But."

The "but" is small and feathered and flutters around the room.

"...by the end. I was excited for her to come save me, but I wasn't afraid anymore. No, I was... I was afraid that you'd try to keep us apart. But I wasn't scared of you. Just like Jade, you know how to make me feel small, and pretty, and... and someone that people want." She reaches up, brushes curls behind her ear, and looks up at Valynia. She is the smallest person in the room, and her body language is a bared stomach and throat. The pain of this room is something she will brave if it means that she can stop anyone from being hurt.

"When I made the offer, I thought that I was in agreement with Smokeless Jade Fires," she continues. "And I thought that... I don't want anyone to actually fight over me, but... I like being. In the middle. The prize. As long as I know I'm coming back to her in the end. And..."

She glances about. The room is still private. She straightens up, brings her fists to her side, scrunches up her face, eyes furiously shut. "I. Seven Quetzal. Have asked. My goddess. Smokeless Jade Fires. Many times. To indulge me in fantasies about being kidnapped. Often by pirates. And you are, you're the pirate. So when I asked, I thought... I thought everyone was getting what they wanted. Everyone was getting what they wanted. You are ambitious, Valynia Bander. You are ambitious and brave and sexy and... and I still remember the way you treated me. The things you..."

She runs one hand along the place where the fur is almost grown back in, and she briefly lets her tongue part between her lips.

"...but you have the Red Band. And Smokeless Jade Fires has me. And... since I have to choose, I choose her."

I choose her. I choose her. I choose her. Jade grins, and it's victorious and preening and papering over the moment of awful gross vulnerability in front of the Bander. She meets Valynia's gaze and puffs up, almost frantic. She didn't lose, after all! She is never punished! Dolly's still hers! And all it took was...

All it took was making her cry, because she'd tried so hard to please her goddess.

Her face twists despite herself. This isn't fair! She's not supposed to feel guilty! She's not the one who started any of this!

Perhaps she should go and see. If Ksharta--

Ksharta Talonna, who she'd just admitted wasn't as important to her as Dolly. Ksharta Talonna, who she'd seduced. Ksharta Talonna, hiding underneath a table in a half-empty ballroom. Why is she still feeling guilt? She is a goddess!

(Because goddesses keep their promises, because goddesses look after those who believe in them, and because goddesses are supposed to be more than anyone else, in all ways, in all things.)

Smokeless Jade Fires does not apologize. But she does say, "I... Ksharta Talonna is calling for me." Not over the gloves, she's not, and Dolly knows that. "You had better not. You had. When I come back, I expect my high priestess to still be here."

And then she pulls herself away, and she vanishes from where she was floating in the midst of the party, and she withdraws her attention from Angela Victoria Miera Antonius. She leaves her most precious bride with her rival (who she rejected, for a goddess, who was starting to feel smaller and smaller). And projects herself next to Ksharta Talonna.

"Hi," she says, lamely, ears drooping. She pulls her knees up to her chest, one phantasmal hand rubbing Ksharta Talonna's chin. "I hope... I hope I helped. Make this party better, I mean."

Dolly doesn't take the glove off. But she leans back into Valynia. "I'm sorry," she says, in a tiny voice. And then she stops talking and listens, ears up, her ungloved hand on the back of Valynia's own. She makes no move to break away. She is still, herself, Seven Quetzal, the prize of the goddess, the kidnapped high priestess. And her heart is so big that there's room for everyone inside, even Valynia Bander, even if it won't work out, and that's why she stays there, waiting, listening, feeling Valynia's heartbeat against her back.

Trusting that there's something she can do.

[9 on Emotional Support means that if Valynia opens up, she sheds a Condition, and if she does not, Dolly takes a Condition.]

MASKS - Ghost Gate City

Foxpearl!

The net shoots past you with maybe an inch to spare and proceeds to smash through the window of a lawyer's office, where it whirls around a chair violently, constricts so tightly that it knocks it over on its side, and then shoots an electric pulse through the chair, which is really unfair, given how the chair already stopped resisting.

The cop who fired it yanks the reload lever on the side, makes a small adjustment in his aim, and then has to deal with Shifu being between you and him, and she's way too big right now to get netted. But that's overkill, right? For an innocent little foxgirl like you? Whatever happened to just being tackled and handcuffed while somebody reads you your rights?

Also, Shifu is totally mugging at you, and Vermillion is trying to collect her thoughts because she's absolutely flabbergasted that someone would?! shoot a net at you?! what is with these people, she's Empress's protege for crying out loud?!

---

Shifu!

Now would be the time to transform into a wolf! Or maybe a horse! Or a moose!

Except that you've pulled a conceptual muscle. You know, like when you stretch too hard? It happens every now and then, and it's like you stretched really hard into orca, which is awesome, but now your soul's suddenly stiff and wincing and asking if maybe someone can give it a massage with one of those guardian balls maybe?

Which is to say, you are now orca until these cops are dealt with.

Also, this is not a particularly deep pool and the cops are not standing in the pool anyway, which means that your method of locomotion is largely inspired by seals right now, except with a less convenient tail.

Have you gotten stuck like this before?

---

Rain!

You're the one in position to see the cop with the net-gun start circling around Shifu one way, while another goes the other way, and the third is yelling at the orca-puppy to stand down before he has to figure out how to use disproportionate force on a killer whale. But the good news is that if you get involved, they'll be outnumbered, and between the four of you, you can probably figure out some way of dealing with these jackasses before anybody really gets hurt (and before more reinforcements arrive).

Which one are you going to dive down on? Net-guy, flanker, or man-threatening-a-killer-whale?

Breathless Dead

The huntress in Ember, the one that has been slowly trained to be part of the pack, knows that the turning of the wind will be her ally. Not all hunts are carried out by stealth. She can almost hear Taurus in her ear, telling her that she needs to be ready to run just fast enough to keep Mosaic at her heels, which is to say, as fast as she can run. You run to the pack, you pull the apex predator into the net, you have to just look like you're incompetent, do you think you can do that, Ember?

But that's an almost. Her treachery is in her instincts, and it will betray Mosaic, because her thought is on a silver leash of moonlight. Her chin sinks into her palms as she watches from the nearby outcropping, her tail wagging uselessly behind her, as she drinks in the moon and the night intermingled on Mosaic's back. Her own strength's all lean and quick; she's the wiry runt, but she's got a rabbit's own feet. But Mosaic reminds her of a statue. (Maybe one with four arms?) Her decadent softness, her curves, swallow up the moonlight and beg for more. Sweat shines on her marble skin, each bead as precious as ambergris.

When the demigod lunges, cracks open a leg, exposes the scent of the soft white meat within, Ember rolls over, yanked on that silver leash. Upside-down, she watches the constellation of the Huntress do battle with Iolaus's Bane, a titan striding across the star-choked beach. Her toes curl on the rough-textured rock, and her breath hitches as her lover strives underneath the gaze of the gods. She can look. She's allowed to look. Why is that thought so breathtaking? That she is free to look, and lust, and to admire the perfection of the finest artwork that the gods ever shaped, the daughter of a mountain and a moonbeam?

Whatever did she do, little runt of the pack, to deserve the bedroom laughter and the gentle fingers of this apex predator, this slayer of crabs, this vision in shifting white and black?

MASKS - Ghost Gate City

Foxpearl!

Vermillion slowly lowers you down into the pool. Well, technically speaking, it's the Sash that does that, slowly unspooling and finally unknotting itself from up above so that it can fall down around you in showy spirals. A bit of a showboat, that divine weapon. But Vermillion barely notices; she's wrapped up in gingerly unknotting that gag, which, you might notice, requires her to put her arms around you, press up against you, and balance herself on one foot. "There we go," she says, as it loosens and falls about your collarbone. "Whoever this armored agitator is, they should have known better than to think they could keep you down, 'pearl."

She does that precious little smile and lowers herself back down onto both feet, even as the Sash wraps around Xingtian. Dragging them out will probably be the real challenge of the night

HAHA JUST KIDDING this is when HOUND operatives come crashing in through windows, tactical rifles bouncing against their body armor, looking like a bunch of Americans. What are guns supposed to do against ghosts, anyway? For that matter, what were guns supposed to do against Xingtian themself?

Guns, however, would do terrible things to the soft squishy bits of you (if you didn't come up with some cool idea like turning back into fire) and Vermillion (if she didn't have the Sash covering her in time) and The Amazing Ghostygirl (real name pending) and the Puppy over at Terochichimomo (and where's she been, anyway?). And Flower Mountain members (assuming they didn't know the secret of iron skin, or how to deflect bullets off things in the environment, or the secret of flowing like water). And civilians (who don't have any of the above advantages).

In fact, they'd mostly really be useful against the very people they're claiming to protect.

"GET DOWN," one of them yells, shining an underslung flashlight right in your faces. "STEP AWAY FROM THE CRIMINAL," yells another. "EMPRESS UNDERSTUDY AND TAMAMO ONE IDENTIFIED ON SITE," a third yells into a radio, "REQUESTING PROTOCOL."

(They aren't the tower's security service. They're a recently empowered task force designed to "protect the city in the absence of Empress," and they're a throwback to a style of policing that hasn't been seen in the Republic since before you were born - not that that's hard - and most people haven't missed at all. Again, they're very self-consciously American.)

---

Rain!

Rewind.

Your eye's dragged out to the canals below. Technically far below, but the megatowers of SGC have a way of making distance seem smaller than it is. Some residents of the tower have been evacuated at ground level, and the canals are full of boats coming and going. Mostly going. Like any city worth the name, there are first responders, but most of them are coming from higher up or along the same bridges that also helped the immediate evacuation from this floor.

But there's a boat peeling off, heading out towards the Sunrise Dockside rather than towards Victory Tower, where a lot of the boats are ferrying evacuated residents of Providence. (Even if Providence collapsed, which isn't going to happen now that Xingtian's been stopped, Victory would be outside of the splash zone. At this angle, it's probably Fortitude that would get the worst of it, and while it'd cause an incredible amount of damage, Fortitude would still be standing at the end. SGC architecture and civic planning is some of the most advanced in the world, after all.)

But there's a boat that definitely left the Providence moorings and is headed out that way. Not a major commercial boat, they'd go around instead of ending up in the canal system. That's likely where Branch's ward is headed, and...

And that's when you hear the smashed glass and the yelling from down below. Say hello to the Mayor's worst idea: bringing back an archaic policing force in order to keep Law and Order in the face of the ghost crisis. Social media's raking him over the coals, and the flame wars between people who are scared of the ghosts and gang warfare and the people who are more scared of HOUND are ending up as huge reblog threads, the kind that used to push the OP off the page back in the days of the old UI.

Your own parents were quick to reassure you that it's because of all the chaos in the Big Peach and the Mayor will get them to stand down once the mess is sorted out and just don't give them any reason to get aggressive and you'll get through it fine, but what are your own thoughts on the matter, Rain?

---

Shifu!

A little boy buries his face in your floof, little hands tugging on your fur.

Vermillion helped with the evacuation to Tranquility, but she asked you to help keep calm. And what’s better for helping humans remain calm than… well, what you are right now. What are you right now?

In the sky above, one of the mortal sky chariots aims its lantern lower, hovering just level with the bridge between towers. The sound of whistling ropes and breaking glass suggests that it’s doing something that’s not helpful. Might even be bad!

“I hope they catch that villain,” the boy’s father mutters, folding his arms. “Who would do something so selfish while Empress is gone? Lock them up, at least until she gets back— and don’t bother to let her know immediately, either.”

“But what about the Princess and her friends? They were here to help, too—“

“But can they actually stop a wrongdoer like that? They got us to safety, but it takes more than that to bring someone like that to justice!”

[Shift your Savior up and your Danger down!]

Breathless Dead

Ember splashes water in her face, gasps at the sharp shock of the cold water on her skin, feels the shiver run from the tips of her ears to her tail. Her heart is still racing.

"Pin her!" "Under the knee!" Excitement, bursting like exploding flowers, goldwet! "You can do it, pup!" "Smother her!" Support, slate-gray star-speckled, buttressing her bones. "Teeth!" "Oh, little Ember~"

The moment of throwing Taurus was a blur of exertion and howling. But then she'd flinched, she'd looked down at her alpha and she'd felt unworthy of supplanting her in the pack, of the crown, crushing her skull, mistress of Ceronians, hiding behind the curtain, and all around her Disappointment had bloomed, sulfur-rotten, jeering at her, and she'd run, she'd run, and she'd run so far and so hard, and she's still shivering, her tail tucked between her legs.

She'd let them all down. She shouldn't have challenged the alpha. She scrubs at her face, her shoulders, trying to make the water kill the stink of the pack's Disappointment clinging to her body. What kind of wolf can't take charge when she's right? What kind of failure is more comfortable being disciplined and punished than standing up for herself and telling the pack what they'll do? Part of her yearns to go back and throw herself at Gemini's feet and beg for more attention, more correction, more opportunities to prove that she won't break again, not when it's important.

But the girl looking back at her, with the low ears and the tragic expression on her face, can't go back and do that. She's committed. She challenged the alpha. And she won. So now she has to go and solve the problem of Mosaic herself, and she can do it her way, once she figures out her way, and just because the pack would approve of her seducing Mosaic into defeat doesn't mean she has to do it. There's another way. She'll figure one out. She doesn't need them to howl for her and forgive her when she brings them Mosaic. She doesn't need the whole pack to come and call her a good girl again, and give her headpats, and get her right behind the ears, and... and...

Maybe Mosaic would understand?

[Overcome: 8. A temporary, unstable solution.]

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?