The panic reaction is entirely instinctual and physiological.

The way that she tenses up, tail bushing, is meant to make her look bigger and more dangerous to a threat. The strangled yowl that escapes her throat is a similar warning: teeth bared, a fierce huntress ready to bite into this challenger. The way that she clings to Sam is a memory of safety in numbers, in the camaraderie of the hunt.

But because she is also a person, Dolly eventually manages to squeak out: "...I didn't think they'd [i]do[/i] that."

[hr]

[i]What ARE you?

The goddess cannot let this challenge, this lacuna in her understanding, pass her by. She shifts her position in the swirl, tosses out pistons, attempts to crack open what is increasingly barred to her (and barring her way to extraction). What ARE you? What ARE you, you thing of ghostwhispers, you unquiet spirit, you thing that has entered this place?

Are you a kind of thing like me?

This thought excites her, haunts her.

Are you a kind of thing that is born of the place where the clever stone meets the embodied spirit? Are you some (obviously much more pathetic and not-divine) peer? Her teeth are bared in interest, her focus sudden and all-consuming. After all, Angela's coming with the extraction, and Dolly will be sure to scoop up the glove, so she can continue to issue her demand for an identity.

What ARE you?[/i]