On the outside: Smokeless Jade Fires emerges from the night like the ghost of an unfulfilled rival on the road, here to make one final challenge. Her colors are sepulchral in the torchlight, black and cobalt blue; the golden tributes on her breastplate and braids gleam like the fires of the Hot House, now that she has let her cloak fall. It is a statement: I do not even need the advantage of striking out of the many-periled night for the likes of you, Angela Victoria Miera Antonius!

“Greetings and defiance, champion of the Consortium,” she declaims, bowing with a flourish of her long electrolance; the water ripples at the force of her speakers, despite the hiss of her sibilants. “I will not insult your people by insisting on a surrender you will not offer. Indeed, I will take mercy upon you. Take your shot; hit me if you may; show your mettle. Even a captive may earn glory from the word of a fine strike.”

It’s grandstanding for three audiences at once: Angela herself, the watching audience, and Dolly safe within her chest. For the first, she presents herself as full of confidence, self-assured, deliberately ceding advantages to rattle her. For the second, almost but not quite an afterthought, the feeling of awe, of seeing the self-aware mech in its very stone. For the third, of course, the archaism; she would appreciate the cadence of the ancient warriors who vied for control of the city-states.

Naturally, she does not intend for allowing the shot to strike home. Perhaps a deflection with the lance, perhaps ducking low to the causeway and loping close, perhaps simply allowing her armor to take brunt of the blow if it is too swift.

[hr]

On the inside: Dolly slowly surfaces from submerged space, feeling the chill of water roll down her spine as she blinks slowly. Behind her, hundred-handed Jade cups her arms, her thighs, her chest, her cheeks, and guides her into position.

Inside of Jade is an entire world, which is the gyroscopically balanced pilot’s capsule, from which a pilot may see the world and act upon it, in which their every move controls their perfect warrior body, constructed to move as they move, act as they act; [i]tlacpac, nehuintlani.[/i]

But Dolly does not decide what Jade does. She is the medium, not the message; she is what is acted upon, not what acts. Her hundred-handed goddess pushes and she yields, pulls and she follows, squeezes and she melts. She is a dancer on a grand stage, a puppet on a hundred strings, a beloved doll who must trust the command of her owner.

The hand between her shoulderblades pushes, and Dolly bows low, one hand swept out; typical of Jade to grandstand. One ear twitches, and in response, Jade’s fingers curl inside and begin to massage the sensitive inside of her triangle. And that’s far from the only part of her being given attention; Jade’s hands on her chest rub in circles before firmly clenching, then releasing and continuing to rub, just as they have been all night. An invitation to submerge again.

As if she would, when Jade went to the trouble of lining the streets!

In Jade’s world, Dolly stands as tall as the trees, but she’s not wearing her bodysuit. Her limbs are heavy with tribute, feathers wreathe her hair, and her skirt is knotted at one hip. The streets of the village are thronged with worshippers of the goddess, the roll of drums and the tremor of bells and the chant of prayers. Dolly is the temple dancer, her collar engraved with the icon of the goddess, her fur painted in dreamy swirls of paint writhing about her rosettes, and her mouth filled past what she could ever really manage, her burning cheeks covered, her face held tightly beneath bead-fringed scarves, knotted firmly behind her head by a hundred hands.

While her goddess fights, Dolly will not be fighting; she will be proving her skill as a dancer, blessed with silence, guided by the demands of her goddess, rewarded for every lunge that becomes a graceful blow and every nimble step that moves them out of danger, every way in which she shamelessly moves her body for the glory of Smokeless Jade Fires. Everyone is watching her. Everyone can see her. Her heart races.

Well, Jade? She can feel your hands tightening, possessive, ready to show her what she needs to do. She doesn’t need to awaken her heart, not for a fight like this. Let her be your temple dancer, your bride of the gods, beheld by everyone, marked as yours, in the waking dream you unfold before her.