[i]Smokeless Jade Fires answers with laughter, and with her teeth. They are as sharp as thought, as intention, as domination. They are birds; she is the thing that cats do dream of. They are spirits; she is that which demands submission from the other side of the world. This was an inevitability, a weight that deepens with each passing flick of the wrist and gnashing of the jaw.

Yield! Bare your throat! Submit!

Do you not understand what you face, little birds? The predator heart of the hopes of all Hybrasil! The goddess in the five boxes which are opened, one by one, to bring about a happy ending! The power that Dolly puts her hope in day after day! The power that Whispered Promise entrusts with her worldweaving!

She burns and she burns with the name that is Smokeless Jade Fires, until she receives the submission that she craves.[/i]

[hr]

"[i]STOP[/i] THAT!"

It's shrill, angry, and more than half a yowl. It's a bluff from a small, well-rounded kitten. It's the flailing of a paw when you're trying to fend off a sibling intent on bowling you over. And it's the only card that Dolly has got in her hand.

"Were you raised in a [i]nest?[/i] Just s-stop it with the cutting, and the hacking, and-- do you have any idea how expensive this equipment that you're going to just chop into is? The, the... back me up here, I, uh, I don't actually... it looks expensive? Right? Difficult to source? Do you want to try using your words, or, maybe? Asking? Put it down! Don't-- I said quit it!! Why are you like this?!"

She spreads her arms, looking from Sam to the Tall One to the figures in the background, the picture of an aggrieved High Priestess dismayed by a lack of decorum and appropriate behavior. The only thing she has left to be, because explaining ferns--

"I expected better from someone who wore that [i]fantastic[/i] Syzerpaws dress!!"