Her heart is a rabbit in her ribs. She pushes up, and the Bander pushes down, and the Bander wins, and her heart has its paw caught between two ribs, and all her words are crammed up in her throat. The Bander kneads, lazily, the clench and release of her fingers sending an undignified sound bubbling out between those words, and the blushing little gardener turns her head and tries to hide in her hair as her bodysuit squeaks under tension.

The Bander reaches up and forces her head back to looking up. Squeezes soft cheeks under her fingers. Dolly’s lips form an undignified O, and she can’t stop it, can’t stop her, reaching up to wrap her fingers around her wrist, and she knows what happens next. Bossy little mouth. Should watch where it runs. Before it gets stuffed and hidden. Jade. [i]Jade.[/i] Jade?

[i][b]”Mine.”[/b] The reverb sets the scaffolding vibrating, runs through both the vulnerable bodies and through the concrete and through the faithless and the faithful. There is a raw edge to it; speakers and voices are both inadequate for what may be contained within them. [b]”Seven Quetzal is Mine.”[/b]

She turns her head and the scaffolding shakes. If she moves too fast, too hard, it will fall to pieces. She will be fast enough to catch Dolly. She will not be fast enough to protect her cult. Therefore. Therefore. [b]Therefore.[/b]

”Your hands, unclean. Is this how you approach me? By thinking yourself my equal? That you may touch what is [b]sacred?[/b]”[/i]

Sacred. Scared. Sacred. Scared. Jade. Jade, the scaffolding is. Jade, are you—

Dolly closes her eyes, wet breath through her puckered lips, and lets her free hand dig into the ridges of the grate beneath her. Like little waves. Up and down and up and down. If this all comes down, there’s not a thing she can do about it anyway.

[i]”I hunger for the heart of a maiden, given over to suffer unimaginable bliss as my Bride…”[/i] You promised. You made so many promises. Beneath her, waves. On top of her, peril. And her heart works her way free of those ribs, and plummets into the soft, infinite embrace of the many-handed sea.

[i]”I set my face against you. I declare defeat upon you; you will be delivered to the hands of your enemies. I set my face against you. I hear you not when you cry to me. Victory to your foes, glory to those who break your spear. I set my face against you. Let this not pass from your pack until I will it so. Four times have I set my face against you, three rivers have I crossed, eight roads have I mastered.” She ceases to speak, and the silence rushes in, vast, and she shivers in the idol-body, reclothed from her descent, her drop down, down, down to the place where she can, she really can, she can do this thing.

“Now. Take your filthy little paws off [b]my[/b] high priestess and beg her forgiveness, or I will take the star path of your birth and [b]unmake it.[/b]”[/i]

She.

Can [i]do[/i] that?

Above them, Jade is still, but her attention is almost smothering, so total that she isn’t even manifesting. Is it just her imagination that makes her think she can [i]feel[/i] it? The magic, the [i]curse.[/i] Like she should be able to see it arcing from post to post, settling on the heads of the Banders, and—

She tugs at the Bander’s wrist, and it’s slack enough for a moment (in thought, or in fear?) that she can lift those fingers from where they have dug into her cheeks.

“I… I’ll intercede.” She has to. Even for this. Even for them. “Just— she’s [i]protective.[/i]” Of me. Of [i]me.[/i] Of little Seven Quetzal who studied how to maximize crop yields without sacrificing beauty. Of someone who can’t fight like the Banders or like the Huntresses. “Just get off?”

Because even this [i]pirate[/i] doesn’t deserve Jade’s curse.

Her Jade.

Her Jade who saved her, like Dolly [i]knew[/i] she would.

[Jade Defies Disaster with Spirit and offers to sacrifice [i]Dolly’s Security[/i]. She also rolls a [b]6[/b], which is her fourth XP.]