Written Wonderland

Elaine was grateful that something in Chris had untangled itself in telling him about Mizu's intentions, though she did get the impression that she was losing his interest again. She wanted to wax nostalgic about the "way it used to be," but she imagined that that would only push him further from trusting and understanding her. Okay, out with it, then.

"The commander knew we would be recruiting volunteers today. I think it was a smart way to start spreading the word," Elaine said, hoping that would lead into her next thought nicely. Abruptly, the captain stopped, faced Chris, and looked at him with all the kindness and patience she could muster. "I know we haven't always seen eye to eye, but I appreciate your perspective. Thank you for everything you have said on the matter. It has been very illuminating. And, please, if you think of anyone who might genuinely be interested in volunteering for the goddess, will you let me know? After talking with you, I've made up my mind. I'm going to trust the commander on this. She hasn't led us astray yet, and I trust her to see the full scope of the situation in a way I might not." After a pause, the captain looked back toward camp, which was a long ways off by now, and asked "shall we walk back, then?"

There the captain went mentioning volunteers again, and this time, the word rang in Chris' ears. Somehow, it seemed much more real now, than when the captain had started this conversation.

Chris was momentarily distracted from the sensation when the captain addressed him head-on, both in posture and in speech. The way she acknowledged their sometimes rife interactions, and yet thanked him for this interaction, made Chris' chest hurt...but, in a way that felt good? Chris felt confused, and a little bit defensive, but at the same time, awkwardly grateful for the comments.

Then, the captain asked him to tell her if he thought of anyone who might genuinely be interested in volunteering, and the ringing in Chris' ears suddenly made sense, though it threw all sorts of other things into question. Why in the hell did the captain think that he would want to volunteer for this? Did he want to volunteer for this? How could he even contemplate that? Why could he not help contemplating that? Did the captain even think about Chris this way, or was she genuinely just looking for his insight, and he was the one making it all about himself? What the fuck was he even supposed to say right now?

Chris looked to his captain with wide eyes again when she asked if they should walk back, but now those wide eyes were a little bit angry and a little bit panicked, and his face had definitely gained a hint of red. He didn't look explosive, though--and, Captain Morris had seen Chris look explosive. He mostly looked confused, really, and was frantically trying to figure out how to handle it.

"Um, yeah, I'll let you know." Chris muttered after a moment, hasty to get something out. "You go on back, I, uh, I think I'll go for a jog."

Without waiting for a reply, he went ahead and started that jog, continuing forward in the opposite direction from camp.

Elaine watched Chris' eyes widened and knew at once that he had put some puzzle pieces together. She only hoped that he didn't think she was in any way trying to pressure him into a decision. He didn't look like he was about to have an episode, but she was never entirely sure. She was, however, disappointed that he didn't want to walk back with her. She had been hoping that, on the way back, he might talk through his thoughts in a more casual way. That had certainly been part of the motivation for walking this far away from camp. Then again, perhaps that had been too much to hope for. Hadn't this conversation already lasted longer than most of her conversations with Chris?

Elaine sighed, watching Chris leave before she even had time to respond. Before long, she could no longer make out his shape through the trees. The thought crossed her mind to go talk to some of her other soldiers, but her heart wasn't in it. She decided to wait. Surely other captains were working on the same issue by now such that word was spreading. Maybe there would be a flood of people ready to leave from other retinues. Elaine felt too attached to her soldiers to want to hand them over easily, and if Chris would not help her... well, maybe she didn't need to be cooperative on this specific thing.

Chris ran as fast as he dared through the trees, honestly grateful for the zigzagging he had to do since it gave his mind something to focus on. He frantically kept his attention in his breath, in his muscles, in the trees he had to navigate around, as though the goddess might snatch him if he dared to zoom any farther out. He kept on like that for probably half an hour before his body finally called for a time-out, threatening to stumble or hit a tree if he didn't stop and catch his breath.

The boy turned on his heel once he stopped, frantically surveying the area around him as though to ensure he wasn't being pursued. The forest was, at least at first glance, silent and empty, many creatures likely scared away by his running rather than coming after him. Chris let himself slump to a seat by a tree behind him, loosely draping his hands over his knees as he continued taking in his surroundings in more detail.

One thing was for certain: he hadn't been in this part of the woods before. The soldier gulped down some newly-rising panic. Wasn't this more or less the very definition of straying from the path? Maybe the goddess wouldn't even need to wait for him to volunteer, fuck! But as he continued sitting there, slowly getting control over his breathing and taking in more and more layers of the forest around him, he could hear plenty of calming sounds: birds chirping away, a chipmunk braving its way out from a bush a ways ahead, even--if he listened hard enough--the distant sounds of the river. He could at least find his way back to that, then, and that would take him back to camp.

The panic dissipated, but now everything was quiet and calm enough that Chris could no longer avoid the question: did he want to volunteer?

His being answered immediately with anger, excitement, shame, terror, bitterness, arousal, and the warm, glorious belonging that the goddess' dust had rained down. Chris tensed and shuttered, his arms coming in to cross over his chest. He had no idea how to make sense of this. Did his confusion mean he should play it safe and not go? Or did it mean he should stop worrying so much about it and just fucking do it? He felt tugged this way and that, and reached his hands up to grasp at his hair and tug just enough to feel that strangely soothing ache along his scalp.

After a few moments of focusing on that sensation and fucking nothing else, Chris pushed himself to his feet, no closer to a decision and eager to once again leave that contemplation for another time. The boy focused instead on the sound of the woods once more, and slowly started walking, sensing out which way the river was in. Once he felt confident in the direction, he started jogging again, a little less frantically this time, since now he could focus in on the sound of the river.

---

The whole journey back to camp, Chris spent in that focused state, thinking of nothing but navigation and movement--maybe the occasional distant, fleeting appreciation of the wildlife he saw or heard. Once he caught sight of a soldier by the river, though, his heart leapt into his throat and he stopped cold in his tracks, terror seizing his body. He didn't know the soldier--seemed Amy had moved on, which made perfect sense--and the soldier hadn't even seen him, but seeing a soldier forced him to face the fact that other soldiers would be talking about this shit soon enough, if they weren't already. Chris dreaded the stupid campfire convos about who would go and what they imagined the goddess might do with those who did. Sometimes, Chris simply hated everyone in this army. Obviously, he knew that was irrational, but when the feeling hit him, it hit him in his very bones.

Chris turned and walked back into the woods along the river again, still needing more time. He tried to start facing the question again, though. Clearly, there was some part of him that wanted to go, or this would be easy to dismiss. He worried that that part was somehow placed there by the shimmer, but... Chris couldn't help thinking about the sensation that the shimmer had been just for him; how he'd dismissed it when it first occurred, but then Captain Morris had said the commander had asked for the shimmer for precisely the way it had most strikingly impacted Chris: it had made him believe in the goddess.

The boy realized all at once that tears were rolling down his cheeks, and he stopped and hastily wiped them away. A reflex, really; there clearly wasn't anyone around to see. Even so, shame ate at him, gnawed at him from within his stomach. Would the goddess even want him? What did she want? Maybe... maybe that's what Chris needed, actually. How could he possibly decide whether to volunteer without having the slightest clue what the goddess would even be looking for? He couldn't stand the idea of going to all this effort to grapple with all the ridiculously confusing ways he felt, and finally deciding to go, and then... she didn't want him. The mere thought of the possibility felt like a full-on kick to the gut, and Chris doubled over slightly, placing a hand over his stomach as he stopped walking and steadied himself.

Okay. Well. Who should he even ask? Most of the people talking about the goddess were full of hot air, as far as Chris could tell, and wouldn't have the slightest fucking clue what they were really talking about. He kind of wanted to talk to Amy about it, but also kind of didn't. She probably wouldn't know what he was looking for, so.... maybe later. He knew he should talk to her before he made his final decision, even if he fucking dreaded the thought. But... maybe honestly finding Captain Morris again was the thing, even though embarrassment sent shivers down his back about how he'd run away from her.

With a heavy sigh, Chris turned back towards camp again, and started walking.

((OOC: His first strategy is prolly gonna be wandering aimlessly around camp hoping to just catch sight of her cuz I doubt he'll want to tell other ppl he's looking for the captain lol. He might come by her tent eventually. It's probably been like two hours since they parted ways?))

Though it took Elaine a while to walk back to camp--not that she was particularly in a hurry--it seemed like the energy of their soldiers had only increased and grown more erratic in the time she had been away. How many people, she wondered, already knew that they were sending volunteers? How many soldiers had already volunteered? Suddenly, Elaine very much craved some kind of communication device for all the captains like the one the commander used to speak with Phantom. She had seen it once, though Mizu may not have noticed. What a magical thing it had been. How useful it would be to have a network of them.

But, several soldiers approached her fairly soon after she had re-entered camp, and the captain was soon led to a dense group of soldiers fussing over a man who lay bleeding on the ground. Quickly, before Elaine even touched the man, she determined that the wounds were not likely fatal, but she was frustrated that the soldiers surrounding him had not done anything about it yet.

"Why haven't you taken him to the infirmary?" Captain Morris asked no one in particular.

"He does want us to, Captain," one soldier answered.

"We tried to lift him, but he panicked," another added.

The captain knelt down by the man, who had a gash under his chin, scrapes up and down the length of his body, and a wound in the side of his belly, though that one looked shallow enough to already be slowing to a trickle. She could see that the gash under his chin was making it incredibly difficult to speak.

"Soldier," she said with authority, "was it the king's men who did this?" The soldier subtly shook his head, no, and Elaine believed him. Continuing to ask questions, Elaine said, "was it a demon?" Another shake of the head. "An animal?" A nod. "Is pain the reason you are avoiding the infirmary?" Elaine asked tersely. The soldier took a moment, looking with fear in his eyes, and shook his head after a moment.

"Dream... blood... god..." the man managed to gurgle out. Elaine felt her stomach become queasy. Whatever was going on, she sincerely hoped it had nothing to do with the goddess, but she was exceptionally skeptical.

"Did Dehaljadrun send the animal?" the captain asked. Another shake of the head, but it looked like he wanted to add something. "Dream... offer..." Elaine couldn't make heads or tails of it, but she also couldn't let this man bleed to death when his wounds were perfectly curable.

In a rush of decision making, the captain instructed one of the nearest soldiers to take off his shirt, and the captain deftly wrapped it around not only the gash under the man's chin but also around his mouth. She expected he would protest, and he did, but she got the shirt wrapped properly before he hardly knew what happened. Then, she instructed four of the men to gently pick up and carry the man to the infirmary. That's when he started thrashing, and Elaine herself joined in to hold his legs together such that he was mostly helpless. Beginning the long walk to the infirmary, the man challenged her muscular body every step of the way.

Once she had instructed the healer to help the man and the healer looked him over for the better part of an hour, he came to speak with Elaine. "He has rashes and inflammation concurrent with angel's trumpet. It's on his tongue as well, so that might explain some of the delusions. As for the wounds, I'm under the impression that he fell off something or tripped in the woods. Regardless, he should recover."

Captain Morris exhaled, not realizing she had been waiting for worse news. Just bad luck, then, or stupidity. Not the goddess manipulating them further. Gods, was she getting paranoid? Elaine brought to mind the image of the attacked men and decided that, yes, there were differences in this man's behavior. He had been far more lucid than the others.

Thanking the healer for his help, Captain Morris left the tent for her own area, setting down at an untended campfire to stare for a moment at the flames.

Chris stopped and turned around several times, in both directions, questioning that talking to his captain again was the right idea. But, he never came up with what else he should do at present, and ultimately his feet did bring him to a campfire where Captain Morris sat alone by the flames. He immediately turned around again, but stopped himself from walking away. He had to ask her. Nothing else would make sense without some more answers.

Taking in a deep breath, the soldier turned around again, and cleared his throat.

"Uh, can we talk again, captain?" Chris asked a bit sheepishly, his shoulders hunched and his fists dug deep into his pockets, his expression embarrassed and nervous. Then, after half a beat, he added, "Privately?"

Captain Morris didn't fully register Chris' presence until the soldier spoke, and she was somewhat startled out of her... what, exactly? Dejection? Yes, perhaps that was it. Everything just felt so dog-gone out of control.

But, seeing that it was Chris, and that Chris wanted to talk, she tried to reign in all her anxieties and bring something of a tired half-smile to her face. He looked nervous and embarrassed, but Elaine was much too tired to remember if that was typical of Chris. She wasn't sure it mattered. She was never very good at reading him anyway.

"Of course, Chris," she said in as light-hearted a voice as she could muster, and she started leading the way back toward her tent. It was on the outskirts of the encampment, which kept it out of listening ears.

Once the two of them entered, Elaine slumped onto a cushion on the floor of her tidy tent and tossed one gently in Chris' direction. "What's on your mind?" she asked, genuinely present now and curious what had convinced him to find her again so soon. Was he going to volunteer? She didn't know.

Chris was a bit nervous to see how tired his captain seemed. The urge to tell her nevermind and run away again was strong, though it also crossed his mind to just ask her what was wrong. He did neither, though, instead silently chewing on the inside of his lip as they walked to her tent.

He was relieved that the captain seemed more herself once she settled into her cushion. He hesitated sitting--always did--but after half a moment of fidgeting a bit he did sit down on the cushion she'd tossed his way. He was still nervous and took a while to get comfortable, though truthfully it was more about the fact that his mind couldn't decide whether to ask Captain Morris if something had happened or dive right into the questions he'd already come up with--or, again, tell her nevermind and bolt.

Chris finally settled--though his fingers never quite stopped fidgeting with each other in his lap--and he took in a deep breath and met his captain's gaze.

"Could you tell me... more about..." Chris stumbled a little over the words, losing track of precisely what he should zero in on. Would Captain Morris know what the goddess wants, or should Chris ask about something more tangible--like, about her friends who were devoted to the goddess? But... again, that felt so potentially painful, Chris wasn't sure he dared. Except that... he needed to know something.

"What do you think the goddess even wants, in a volunteer?"

Chris' eyebrows were raised hopefully, maybe even apologetically. He didn't want to make his captain talk about something painful, but maybe keeping it vague would let her talk about just the important parts? That's what he hoped, anyway. The boy chewed on his lip again, his hands still fidgeting while he waited for his captain's reply.

Elaine watched Chris, trying not to be put off by his nervous fingers once he finally did settle on the cushion, and listened to what he had to say. The tired part of her wanted to snap at Chris to just spit it out, but the whole of her in no way condoned that. Shoving that aside as Chris finished speaking, Captain Morris rolled the question around and around in her mind like an unbroken a geode, knowing there was something deeper under the rocky surface but having no idea the best way to break it open. What was Chris really asking? If the goddess wanted him? For some reason, she hadn't thought of that before. There had been some much focus on who wanted to go to the goddess that it hadn't much cross her mind.

The captain lightly closed her eyes for a moment, refraining from answering quickly with a simple, "I don't know." She did know, though. Didn't she? Or at least, she had enough information to formulate a guess.

Opening her eyes again, the captain looked toward an upper corner of her tent and said, "I don't pretend to know the hearts of gods," pausing for a moment to give the phrase its due respect, "especially not one as changeable as the goddess of desire, but I can tell you what my friends would tell me about the men they sent to her." The captain adjusted her position to make herself more comfortable, almost as if she were about to recite a tale for the soldier. She thought little of the effect it might have as she talked, unaware of how much she had wanted an excuse to revisit it all. Back before things had gone so awry. Nearly before this soldier in front of her could remember.

"They were all physically strong, the offerings to the goddess. Mostly men; the women more often became priestesses from what I understood. They were courageous enough to seek out both their fears and their desires. They were honored and revered, at least once they made the decision to go. They were men of all different sorts, ones you might expect and some you would not. Some seeking comfort, others seeking adventure. But all of them with a spark of excitement in their eyes."

It only then struck the captain that she may, indeed, be selling the situation to Chris. What was the ethical thing to do here? Lie to the boy? No, surely not. But did she have to be so flowery about it? The captain looked down at the ground.

"If I had to venture a guess about what the goddess wants now, though, I can only work off the little Rutliff has told us. She primarily wants revenge. She wants her freedom. And, I'm not sure exactly what gives me this impression, but in all the stories they tell of her and everything she has done here at camp, I get the sensation that she is... lonely."

Captain Morris looked then at Chris, hoping to see him a little more settled than before but knowing she shouldn't set unreasonable expectations. "I'm not sure if that helps. Is there something else I can answer?"

Chris' heart sank when his captain answered that she didn't know. Of course she didn't know. How could anyone know? Chris felt embarrassed for asking, but luckily, that was banished--or at least overtaken--by excitement when the captain mentioned her friends. Chris leaned forward slightly, his interest visibly piqued and his fingers stilling.

The soldier couldn't help making a mental checklist as Captain Morris spoke. He was a man: check. Strong: check. Courageous, honored, revered? Ehhhhh... not so much. Though, Chris supposed that sometimes others had at least called him courageous. He was courageous in battle, but that was about it. But, that wasn't to say that he didn't want to be. And... maybe he had been a little bit courageous with Amy. Not that it had paid off exactly, but, well, that had to count for something, right? And, Captain Morris had said that the honor and reverence had come after deciding to go, hadn't she? Chris nearly felt his eyes watering at the thought of being honored. He swallowed and blinked the sensation away though, refusing to show his captain that kind of emotion.

Chris was visibly contemplative by the time Elaine focused back in on him. He was still looking at her, but his eyes narrowed and just out of focus. He brought them back into focus quickly after her last question, though it still took him a moment to answer, and he swallowed heavily before he spoke.

"Why did you ask for me this morning?" He was back to looking earnest and hopeful, and added, "Please, no bullshit."