“Welcome to Akar, ma’am! Where to?”

A lot of this plan hinges on what they’ve borrowed from the local Lodge. Not just hunting gear, but also a three-wheeled Pigeon and Ksharta’s disguise: mirrored shades, a loud flower-patterned shirt (the kind that’s rumored to be able to stun birds), and a kerchief to keep the dust out of her face. She’s got maudlin Southwestern Fisher love ballads playing over the built-in audio system, and her acting instructions are to be bubbly and rambly in that way that rickshaw drivers always are.

“Keoni’s? Sure thing, didn’t take you for someone interested in Hybrasilian cuisine, but I suppose Keoni’s is a good place for it, we’ve even got breads there, not garlic of course, there’s always got to be compromises when we put our foods together, but if you like them grilled or in long sticks, you can get all the breads you like there, and of course, you’ll want some of our specialties, you really want to try the pan-seared saddle with strawberries, it’s the house specialty, I had it back when my littermate had her reception at Keoni’s…”

And she makes a turn, ostensibly to avoid construction, but taking the Pigeon on a wider loop out toward the settlement’s industrial edge…

[hr]

“So, how did Angela find out?”

Dolly stretches, and keeps her eyes on the road below, but her tail twitches. She’s not stupid, you know. Beside her lies a bolacaster, loaded and ready.

[i]”How should I know?” Jade retorts, leaning back impossibly far over the side of the warehouse, mimicking Dolly’s stretching. “Maybe she’s just infatuated with us. ‘The moment I met you, my heart knew I was meant to be yours, even if my thoughts were slow…’”[/i]

“That’s not— hey!!” Dolly glances around, even though no one else can hear Jade or is even around to hear anyway. [i]Jade grins; her memorization of her Dolly’s stories continues to be wise.[/i] “But you had a plan, Jade. You already knew where the Lodge was, and that she was coming, and…”

[i]”Do you think so little of my knowledge, Seven Quetzal?” Her claws softly run up the back of Dolly’s thigh, and her beautiful girl shivers and curls her toes on that foot. “I am vast and lie beyond the seventh vibration. I gaze into myself and find therein all that is, was, or will be.”[/i]

“…please?” Dolly’s plea is still playful, but it’s vulnerable, too. She rolls over and sits up, glances down at herself, at her soft belly (her shirt pulled up in her own hand). [i]Jade straddles her and stares, hungrily. Her claws dig into Dolly’s fur, trace trails on Dolly’s stomach, her thumbs rolling circles on her primordial pouch. She extrapolates outwards so that she can raise her head and stare into Dolly’s eyes, her beautiful eyes, and see as well as feel the parting of her lips…[/i] “I won’t tell anyone. I promise.”

[i]”…I had your cult be careless with our location for her.”[/i] Your cult; Dolly is the High Priestess, after all. Dolly guides one of Jade’s hands up to cup her, nodding. [i]”I want… she deserves to be at our mercy. Under you. A trophy. She is so proud, but underneath, she [b]is[/b] meant to be a mewling temple slave for me. For us.”[/i]

“And what if she beats us?” Dolly leans in closer. If Jade could feel… she breathes out, anyway, hoping that the meaning of having her breath on her goddess’s cheek will translate. “What if Ksharta and I are bound in our own tethers? What if she bundles us in the trunk of that little car and drives us to a hotel, my goddess?” She can hear the hitches in Jade’s simulated breath, feel the claws and their almost perfect serenity. Almost. “What if she ravishes us and invites you to wat—?”

[i]Jade imagines the warmth of Dolly’s lips under her palm. What a prize it would be for Angela Victoria Miera Antonius to know this feeling, too. Their faces are so close that only a hair’s breadth separates them from touching. “Then it will be because I chose to let her win,” she says, and she knows she’s lying, and Dolly knows she’s lying, but she can feel Dolly’s heart hammering and she can feel her own spirit quickening, stars flashing up and down her spine, her tail flaring and flashing. “Because my priestess needed to be put in her place by an alien— an arrogant, stinking, impious alien.”[/i] The sound that Dolly makes is wet and desperate. The thought of Angela pressing her close, victorious, perspiring, threatening payback for what happened to her mecha… [i]”But you’re not going to make me do that, are you? You’re going to honor me. You’re going to be a good girl for me. You’re going to win.”[/i]

Dolly sits there, one hand tangled in her shirt, the other braced against the warehouse roof, tormented by the realization that she doesn’t know whether she really wants to win. [i]Jade sits there, one hand clamped over her Dolly’s mouth, others working increasingly unsteady patterns through her fur, tormented by the realization that she doesn’t know whether she really wants Dolly to win.[/i]

Then, the sound of a Pigeon making its funny little way down the road, approaching the turn. [i]Jade jumps off Dolly like a kitten startled by a cucumber. “She’s here,” Jade says, the stupidest thing she could say.[/i] Dolly rolls back over, fumbles her shirt back down, grabs for the bolacaster. [i]”I will be watching this time,” Jade says, looking away from Dolly at an increasingly stylized conception of Akar II, marked with pyramids and Hybrasilian groves and the flame-bright birds of home. “Earn my praise. Do not disappoint me.”[/i] Don’t think about smooshing your face into her. You can do that if you win. Jade would be disappointed. [i]Don’t pick at the knot of feelings about Angela, and what she could give your Dolly, and wouldn’t you do anything to make her happy, Smokeless Jade Fires?[/i]

“C’mon, Ksharta,” Dolly whispers, coiling herself to spring down into the awning below. “Just like Jade told us…”