[hider=Jade’s Prizes] ”Smokeless Jade Fires says to drink. It’s no fun if you pass out.”

A bit of water trickles down Angela’s front as Dolly lifts the glass to her (full, dark, lovely) lips and tilts it. Drink or be humiliated; Jade loves her wicked choices. Over in the corner of the room, Ksharta adjusts the climate control, changing it away from its default of cool and temperate. Tonight, they are on the belt of Hybrasil: hot, clinging, still.

[i]This is the first reprieve she has granted Angela Victoria Miera Antonius all night. First, the defeated alien was marched triumphantly to Keoni’s, with Dolly’s tail stroking her face the whole way. How Dolly’s heart raced whenever they passed someone! How she steeled herself whenever they stared!

And how Angela Victoria Miera Antonius grunted and struggled and flushed!

But they stuck to the Hybrasilian side of town, which meant that Dolly’s trappings of a sacred hunt were recognized, and besides, the denizens of Akar II had seen for themselves the footage of her complete and total victory over the [u]Barn Owl[/u] (what a ridiculous name!), which meant that no matter how she yelled, making her ridiculous and lovely noises, Angela Victoria Miera Antonius was simply stared at, and worse, smiled knowingly at.

What other outcome could there have been?

By the time she was seated between a nuzzling, overly familiar Ksharta and Dolly over dinner, perhaps Angela Victoria Miera Antonius was beginning to understand her role as Jade’s trophy. Or perhaps she thought that the entirety of Hybrasil was in on the scheme to humiliate her.[/i]

”See? Of course Smokeless Jade Fires was right. There was room for a paw sock, too.”

Dolly keeps one hand clamped over Angela’s mouth as the strong, hot-cheeked woman thrashes and grunts, breathing hard through her nose. Ksharta’s tail is bushing; she doesn’t bother putting her trousers back on, but tugs self-consciously at the hem of her top, her feet now mismatched. “Good girl,” Dolly breathes, trying not to melt into a puddle, lifting the flower-patterned gag. She swaps them out, hand and band, with Jade guiding her hands, pulling the cloth firmly in place.

“You’re welcome,” she adds, her voice rising into a flustered squeak on the last syllable. “Our Lady hopes you enjoy her gifts. Our gi, gi, giftsss~”

[i]Angela Victoria Miera Antonius is marched on her knees to the glove laid out on the floor, until she is resting them on the memory circuits directly. Dolly sinks to her knees and gestures for Ksharta to do the same. Poor Ksharta. She did enjoy dinner, but the doubt is nagging at her, the idea that Jade didn’t do anything about being insulted. Your patience will be rewarded, kitten.

Jade whispers into both their ears. That’s all. And Ksharta and Dolly both reach over, then pause, uncertain, staring at each other across Angela Victoria Miera Antonius. A whisper encourages them, tells them she didn’t say to stop—

And together, the two little darlings tear Angela’s top open, and the walls collapse.[/i]

Like flimsy cardboard, carelessly knocked over; they dissolve into swirls of smoke, just like the floor. Dolly bites down on a startled squeak; Ksharta doesn’t.

The dark stone walls of Jade’s temple loom over them, lit by guttering torches. In front of them, the idol sits enthroned, flanked by lesser idols in the guardian stance. At her feet lie golden offerings and jade totems, enough to buy an entire colony. There is no glove under their knees, only a stone bar that they are all shackled to, shackled together.

[i]Jade steps out in front of them. Which is to say, she presents her smaller form in front of them, dressed as a victorious hunt-queen, decked in trophies. She is also the idols. She is also the many-handed, many-tailed shadow looming behind them. She takes a moment to consider them: Ksharta Talonna, wide-eyed, slack-jawed, gobsmacked by what she’s gotten herself into. Angela Victoria Miera Antonius, puff-cheeked, exposed, looking around and trying to convince herself that this is just a simulation. And Dolly, [i]her[/i] Dolly, her eyes shining with hope.

It is impossible for Jade to feel nervous about her performance. She is a goddess. She is invincible, inexorable, all-powerful. She lingers, looking into Dolly’s eyes, feeling the weight of her expectations, because she chooses to. If it were otherwise, everything would fall apart. So it is not. She is in control, and Dolly will love this.[/i]

[b]”You are mine,”[/b] Jade says, and it comes from both her mouths, and the echo of the idol’s voice fills the room. At this pronouncement, metal clamps tightly around her neck, a familiar feeling. The enclosed bell dangling from the front is oversized, and chimes at the slightest shift of her balance— and next to her, both Ksharta and Angela start jingling and jangling in surprise.

[b]“I would have you look more pleasing,”[/b] Jade says. How will she— the sudden heat gives her an answer. Angela bellows and Ksharta screams, more in surprise than anything, but Dolly just tenses up and lets her clothes burn up and away, and the heat is gone as soon as it arrived.

Then, a flutter of wings, and small bright-feathered birds land on her, spreading their wings, stiffening into her new clothes. Beside her, Angela is surrounded in pink-red smoke that becomes something gauzy, something you could tear with a careless claw, something that doesn’t cover her chest at [i]all.[/i] The only part of it thick enough to hide anything is the part draped over her lower face, covering the gag in a way that makes Dolly’s ears prick up. Ksharta, like Dolly, gets the birds, but hers are fire-feathered, yellow and orange and red and blue for her headdress.

“[i]Oh[/i],” Ksharta squeaks, running her hands over the feathers, wide-eyed, her smile shocked in delight. “I never thought you could actually—“

Jade smiles at her, all fangs and unnaturally bright eyes. [b]”You are not permitted to speak.”[/b] Dolly opens her mouth expectantly, and is rewarded by Jade’s hands, from behind, stuffing her mouth, rubbing her cheeks possessively, smothering her face in tight softness. Her eyelids flutter and she lets out a well-muffled moan as her arms are pulled behind her and lashed snug. Beside her, Angela mumbles defiantly, her face-covering dimpled by the thickness of her gag beneath it, and Ksharta whimpers, almost overwhelmed.

But you’re going to take care of her, right, Jade? Please.

[i]Jade stops to caress Ksharta Talonna’s cheek, lifting her head to look up at the goddess who is choosing to give her attention. “Good girl,” she says. The purr rumbling out of her idol is tuned to the frequencies of a nursing mother; Angela Victoria Miera Antonius will likely feel it as just a vibration, but both Ksharta Talonna and her Dolly will be flooded with pleasant endorphins. She lingers on Ksharta Talonna until the kitten starts instinctively nuzzling her face into Jade’s hand, slumping in her phantom ropes. “You are a delight, Ksharta Talonna,” she adds, and from behind, one of her mouths drags a tongue along Ksharta Talonna’s throat. “Especially like this.”

She turns, runs one talon along Angela’s hidden chin. “As for you. Yes, I was right. You’re right where you belong, Angela Victoria Miera Antonius. On your knees, silenced, exposed, and beautiful. One of the finer trophies my high priestess has won for me. But…”

Her voice drops. The echo of a knife being dragged across stone undergirds her words as she hisses. “You have insulted me. And for that, I choose to punish you, trophy of trophies. We will see who is the whore and who is the sham, pathetic little princess.”[/i]

Jade pushes Dolly sideways, and Dolly lets herself be pushed, helplessly purring as the goddess’s presence permeates her, even as her ear and part of her face come to rest against something soft, and warm, and wet. Jade snaps her fingers, and a mirror rises from the floor, showing: her, in the finery of a goddess’s bride; Ksharta, a divine concubine; and between them, exotic, alien, sweating in the temple heat, helpless to stop herself from having her chest smooshed between two purring Hybrasillians, Angela.

And behind [i]them,[/i] stylized temple art, a hundred hands, a hundred tails, a hundred jaws, a hundred eyes. Smokeless Jade Fires in her Spirit-Quelling Aspect, deliberately unreal. Then, as a cloud, it descends on them, and they can see the hands that grope them, the jaws that loll, the dripping things that rub up against their bare backs.

Then— a minute later? five, ten minutes later? a year later?— the monster behind them solidifies into, simply, Smokeless Jade Fires, plumed and pelted like one of the Old Queens, back in the earliest days of Hybrasil.

[i][b]”And now, my prizes,”[/b] Jade says, firmly grasping Dolly by a handful of hair, guiding her down until her bride, her favorite, is doubled over, rump up in the air, trembling with excitement and need, lifting her tail, looking at herself and her playmates in the mirror through the side of her face that’s not pressed against the comparatively cool stone of the temple floor, ready for her collar’s bell to echo off the walls. [b]”You are going to take [u]turns[/u].”[/b]

But Dolly gets to go first. And Dolly will get to go last. Whenever that is. Jade, after all, has plenty of time, infinite stamina, and a message to send to both Angela Victoria Miera Antonius and Ksharta Talonna.

To surrender to a goddess is to be shown glories as wonderful as she can imagine.[/i][/hider]