[b]Mirror![/b]

“I told you to come as a [i]pilot![/i]”

The goddess is having trouble coalescing. The edges of her are blurred, wisping into fractal smoke. She is taller— no, she is cheating. Her feet do not touch the ground. They are vagueries. Nothing about her is entirely solid. Not her eyes, which are roiling molten sea-under-empty-sky-at-dusk, lit from within. Not her attire, which is halfway an archaic warrior’s regalia and halfway a pilot’s jumpsuit. Not her fingers, which have the [i]suggestion[/i] of sharpness more than actual claws. One arm is pulling a yellow cloak in tight against her frame, curled fingers resting against her breastplate. Her tail(s?) serves as background, inkbrush smears on the world. No, the world is collapsing into smears, the light eaten by the irritation of a goddess.

“What is this? An attempt at— ah. [i]Ah.[/i]” She sharpens perceptibly. The danger of her eyes dims. She brings the other hand up and laughs behind it. (She acted before she thought. She is not as patient and calculating as she presents herself here. Not unexpected, given her matches.) “Oh, of course. [i]Do[/i] excuse me. I— I neglected to consider that. Of course you would. How could you not dress to please me?” The fuzziness refuses to leave entirely, but as she works herself down from her initial venting of frustration, fine details slowly begin bleeding back into existence.

The hand lowers. (The one that does not hold the cloak. The one that does not correspond to her idol’s missing limb.) “You look… [i]acceptable.[/i] Whispered Promise.” (The growl suggests that is not the word that she had on the tip of her tongue. The rumblepurr of the bass, a plucked string. Fashion is a weapon and your cast has struck true.) “Yes, you [i]will[/i] serve nicely.” (Her voice doesn’t have the reverb you’d expect from the speakers. It’s likely that she’s speaking directly into your mind; that nothing has been heard by the crew.)

She turns her head, and cold blue fires burst into life, two by two, marking a passage through the dark. The ones floating in the air are obviously marking the staircase up into her guts. It would be easier if she wasn’t cutting down the already-low ambient light.

“We leave immediately,” she declares. (As if the mecha is in fit condition to go anywhere.) “My pilot must be [i]retrieved.[/i]” Her voice is a husky, staggering scrape against steel. She desperately does not want you to ask questions or to ask what is making her so full of tension. Both kinds of tension. The anxious kind and the fun kind. (She is aroused and thinks she can hide it from you if she keeps you running after her commands, too eager for headpats to question her. As if she can simply outrace the Whispered Promise who thought herself greater than a goddess, in need of a handicap to be on an even playing ground.)

[hr]

[b]Dolly![/b]

[i]Her? Really? Her??[/i]

But it’s a sweep. Like pushing furiously on a door to keep it shut, only to have the person on the other side jump back and let you swing the door out from behind you, knocking yourself onto the ground in the process, and this is a good analogy even if most doors do not in fact work like that, because the moment when pushing stops being a challenge and instead becomes dangerously easy, when your feet slip out from under you and your stomach lurches, is exactly how Dolly feels as it sinks in that Jade… [i]wants[/i] her to succumb. Or, no, it’s like sitting at dinner and feeling very good for refusing to even look at the sweet dumplings you want, only for your big sister to scold you and tell you that until you eat those dumplings, you don’t get to leave the table, because it was making her feel good, struggling and being such a good girl and being so tough and strong and refusing to succumb to temptation, only to have Jade push her with murmurs and a plumping-up of her chest, which means that… she’s… [i]supposed[/i] to. succumb. to the temptation. And the fact that she feels so much confusion counterbalances the excitement, so it’s definitely not, absolutely not her assuming… not when she’d been so good!

She lies very still, not squirming, even though it takes so [i]much[/i] concentration, even though the scarf is tugging up against her nose with every inhalation, even though her mind is going to go pop like a bubble if it works itself up any more. Then, obediently, tip of her strapped-down tail curling, she nuzzles her mouth against those fingers, letting out a soft, stuffed [i]mrrrrp[/i].

Oh, nyo, you got me, she tries to say with no way to use her body to explain for her, just drooly chirps and tiny purrs and this little bit of head movement. Please, tell me more about the city you’re going to found for my goddess. I’m such a good girl. Surely good girls don’t have to be tied to beds? Surely good girls can privately work on seducing their captors on behalf of their goddess without having it dragged out in front of a [i]bunch[/i] of rude, rowdy, handsy pirates? And [i]surely[/i] you won’t make following my girl—my—my goddess’s orders absolutely mortifying??

Because, pirate-whose-name-she-doesn’t-even-actually-know-and-who-she-just-thinks-of-as-hot-handsy-disrespectful-pirate, she. She forgot. Where she was going with this. But you don’t know what you’re getting into! Sure, she somehow accidentally seduced… is that how seduction works? If you’re just living your life and your goddess falls in love with you for some reason without you ever being aware until she kidnaps you? But now, oh, now she is going to be! Intentional! So you might as well give up! As soon as you help her up from the bed, even if she has to hop, she’ll seduce the [i]heck[/i] out of you! With! Her eye flutters that you just can’t see behind her sunglasses! And her wide range of noises that she can make with her mouth full! And her… jiggles… in skimpy outfits… you know, if you have any around! You might as well convert right now, it’s basically inevitable! She’ll even! If she has to! You know! Show you what she’s learned from Jade! In bed! So there!!

(The thought of working over a hot, bossy pirate for an expectant Jade nearly makes her inhale her gag stuffing.)

[Dolly. Dolly, Dolly, Dolly. You still have -2 to Entice. [b]6,[/b] sweetie.]