Maybe it's Angela's fire that quickens her step. Click, clack, click across the grand floor, and on her arm is Smokeless Jade Fires. (This is before; this is before they pass into the next chamber after Angela and Ksharta, but it's important, Jade, please, we have to thank her, she did have [i]something[/i] to do with the dress you commissioned--)

It's clear that she's tongue-tied, and not because Jade's keeping her quiet. She stands there a moment in the heels, the ones that almost bring her up to Mirror. (Jade herself has the kind of armored stilettos that could punch a hole through steel if she could only touch the world, refusing to cede so much height to her bride.) She is a princess of the mountains, a vision in white snow and delicate silk, her cloak tied in place where Jade's billows from one shoulder. The stockings and the gloves offer flashes of her thighs and her shoulders, and the corset's framing contributes with the cloak tie to draw the eye quite naturally to her bust: the unity of the formality required to mingle at the Gala with the greedy eye of a goddess. But the headdress, now that it's not crushing her under the weight of moping, elevates her. The designer has made her a worthy high priestess of the new chic, boldly stepping forward into a contest among aliens, able to take the best elements of the Terenians and claim them for her own (as if her pet Terenian wasn't proof enough).

Even as Dolly frets and tries to figure out where to look, balancing a respect for Mirror's modesty and the knowledge that this must be deliberate and thus an act of bold fashion, Smokeless Jade Fires looks Mirror straight in those wet blue eyes. Her eyes are the halo of light around an eclipsing moon, a ring of fire that does not dim. [i]Goddesses do not blink unless they choose to. You wounded her pride, Whispered Promise. You humiliated her, and showed her a skill she did not possess, and you brought her beloved back to her. Her wounded pride will not allow her to back down, and her debt to you stops her from pouncing. So she stares, like an aggressor, daring you to look away, the intensity of her eyes hinting at the fact that she is not like you, Whispered Promise; whether or not she is a goddess, she is something that has built her identity around that belief, and on one wrist her destroyer's will is constrained by her debt to you, and on the other she is bound by the fear that you will, somehow, defeat her again, and that is intolerable to her, and around her neck is the desire to master your magic which can bind even the gods, the effortless wielding of the sword that she has spent her entire life learning how to wield--[/i]

"I'm so proud of you," Dolly half-whispers. She rubs her own cheeks, tearing up, because she's finally figured out why. [i]Why[/i] you would dress like this. "You're [i]reclaiming[/i] them." The only way to love her spots is to display them proudly to the entire world, isn't it? An act of radical self-love, of courage, and it would be arrogant of Dolly to believe that it's her encouragement that led Mirror here, but the magic of Dolly is that she immediately makes room in her heart for Mirror's victory. She smiles and does an encouraging hop from foot to foot, like a kitten inviting someone to play, and manages not to stumble in the heels. "And I won't-- you've got to make [i]everyone[/i] see, right? Come find me once you're inside, okay? You [i]have[/i] to meet Angela, and I owe you a dance!! I don't know [i]how[/i] you convinced [i]Mayze Szerpaws[/i], of all people, to let you consult, but-- I mean, it's our secret, I haven't told [i]anybody[/i]!"

[i]"Shh," Smokeless Jade Fires breathes in her bride's ear. The back of her free hand glides across Dolly's jaw, suggestively, and the breath that the high priestess takes fills her up from the tip of her tail to the tips of her ears, and knowing that Angela Victoria Miera Antonius and Ksharta Talonna can feel her desperate hope and terror that her goddess is going to gag her in front of the entire gala short-circuits her brain completely, and her eyes bashfully slide down off Whispered Promise's face until they catch on two protruding struts, as it were.

"I have done impossible things before, Whispered Promise," the goddess says, evenly, her smile slightly too wide. "But even I have not disarmed the entire galaxy of a held weapon in one blow. [b]Daring[/b]." She finally breaks eye contact and crooks a finger, evoking the leash without the leash. "Come, dear. The rest of [b]my[/b] harem awaits our pleasure inside."[/i]

"Thank you," Dolly mouths one more time at Mirror, and then lifts her head and, for the first time, walks with her [i]wife[/i] into the eyes of the galaxy, into the cameras, into the challenge of a four-way memory weave connection, into the thoughts of Angela pulling her into a private room, into the knowledge that Angela can feel the way she feels, into a night that she couldn't have dreamed of a year ago, into the music, into the lights, into the live performances, into the ribbon dances being performed over her head, into fleeting eye contact with a former empress of the Zaldarians, into an unforgettable night.

[Dolly rolls to Emotionally Support Mirror, and... it's a 4. [i]But[/i] she is able to burn her String from when Mirror rescued her and showed off her heart to bump it up to a [b]7[/b]. So Mirror can either open up to Dolly (later in the evening, even), or she can tick Feelings up to 4 (later in the evening, even). Smokeless Jade Fires, on the other hand, has triggered Mirror's [i]Center of the Web[/i], and may be handled as Mirror sees fit.]