Written Wonderland

Irritation boiled in Evan as he waited through the silence for Ponderance to finally reply with a simple,

"No."

At least that was good news. The goddess seemed anxious, though, and Evan subtly tightened his grasp on her shoulder. He was about to try to formulate a question about camp, when Ponderance elaborated on his own situation.

"This is the first time they've left me alone." After another pause, he added, "Mostly."

That last word caught Evan's attention and he couldn't quite help casting a quick glance around the room, as though Ponderance was there with them as well as whoever or whatever else that mostly referred to. He had to remind himself that, no, Ponderance was half the fucking kingdom away.

"He's not going to hurt you," the goddess said, and the boy replied, "I know." Evan supposed he was glad that it seemed like the boy and the goddess were getting on well enough--there were plenty of other ways a kid and his mom could be explosive in a situation like this; he would know--but he also felt rather uncomfortably like an outsider. Ponderance had known that he would be with the goddess, but even so, he might've just wanted to reach the goddess and leave Evan out of it. Still, Evan couldn't ignore the other stakes at play. He started again to formulate a question about camp, but again got stuck on that mostly.

"Is anyone else aware that you're talking to us right now?"

Dehaljadrun appreciated the increased pressure on her shoulder, but she couldn't shake the sensation that Evan was trying to tell her something. Or maybe prevent her from saying something. She was about to get annoyed about that when Evan asked his question.

"Is anyone else aware that you are talking with us right now?" It hadn't occurred to the goddess to ask; she had assumed Ponderance would have at least waited until everyone was out of earshot, but she appreciated that Evan was taking pains to be careful.

After another long, frustrating pause, Ponderance said, "I don't know."

"I don't know."

Evan frowned, unsure how this impacted how he wanted to proceed. Some part of him wanted to circle back and just explicitly ask about that mostly, but he worried about getting sucked into a loop of questions that Ponderance either wouldn't or couldn't answer straightforwardly. He hadn't spent much time around Ponderance, the kid's persistent enigmatic affect being one of many reasons.

So, moving on then: even if someone was overhearing, Evan still wanted to try to get some kind of information about the situation back at camp.

"Do you know if anyone at the camp is hurt or in any immediate danger?"

The goddess was happy to let Evan continue asking questions. She was growing more and more frustrated with the fact that neither of them could do anything about the situation and was beginning to find the line of questioning unimportant. The king had Ponderance. Evan's soldiers had failed to protect her son. And, if the speed of Ponderance's travels was any indication, it had happened via supernatural means. Which meant demons. Which either meant that another god was involved or that Rorrim had managed to learn how to summon and control them himself. Neither possibility was good.

But, again, what could she do? What was the point of this?

The goddess had a half a mind to silence the communication altogether but managed to call up additional patience. There was a reason Ponderance was still talking to them, right? Surely.

"Do you know if anyone at the camp is hurt or in any immediate danger?" Fear spiked in Dehaljadrun's chest as she realized that the answer to that question might send Evan back early tonight. Her mouth curved sharply into a frown, and while she knew she was being selfish, she couldn't help but look at Evan with a heavily furrowed brow.

"Everything happened quickly, but I believe I was the only one they wanted," Ponderance told Evan, and the goddess' features softened. Surely that was enough to placate Evan for the moment.

Evan felt the weight of the goddess' frown in his periphery, which he'd been fully braced for when he asked the question. He kept his eyes on the horse, hoping like hell that Ponderance's reply wouldn't send him wanting to go back--or that maybe, if he needed to get a message back to Mizu somehow, the goddess would have another way?

"Everything happened quickly, but I believe I was the only one they wanted," Ponderance replied, and Evan exhaled softly, relieved. Obviously Ponderance couldn't know for sure, but even so, that was something. He looked to the goddess, then, having reached the end of the questions he felt strongly compelled to ask. With those out of the way, the next priority genuinely seemed to be between the boy and the goddess. A thought crossed Evan's mind, then, and a note of apology tugged at his eyes.

"Do you want to speak to... the goddess alone, Ponderance?"

He hated the idea of leaving even for a few moments, and, maybe it was wishful thinking, but he could swear it seemed the goddess wouldn't like the thought either. Still, he had to offer, for Ponderance's sake.

"Do you want to speak to... the goddess alone, Ponderance?" The question caught Dehaljadrun by surprise such that she could not completely hide the grimace that crossed her face. She was, not for the first time that conversation, grateful that Ponderance wasn't actually in the room with them.

There was another long pause, and the goddess thought she ought to coax him into such a thing, but what would they say to each other?

"She doesn't want that," Ponderance said, sending a sharp spike of pain through Dehaljadrun's chest. It was true, but knowing that he knew it was an altogether different matter. The goddess emitted a low hum in her throat that was almost a growl at having been so thoroughly called out, but she managed to close her eyes and gather her thoughts.

"Just come quickly. And come prepared." With that, the horse seemed to become inert, and no further sound came out of it. The goddess exhaled heavily and anger pricked at her eyes. She was tempted to throw the horse against the wall and shatter it, but she quelled the impulse just enough to toss it onto the lounge, away from both of them.

The goddess wasn't sure how to recover the situation. She wanted to sit and put her head in her hands, but then Evan might try to comfort her, which would just set her off again. She wanted to kiss him passionately to reclaim some of the brilliance of what they had shared together in this room, but she didn't know what Evan would make of that after she had learned that her son was in yet more danger. She wanted to ignore that communication with her son had occurred at all and perhaps even manipulate Evan's memories of it, but that felt invasive, and realistically, the urgency would be difficult for either of them to forget.

Finally, the goddess turned to Evan with her shoulders somewhat slumped and said, "I liked it better when you had no idea what he was to me." Then, she straightened, eyed Evan up and down to make sure he was, indeed, still fully clothed, began to walk out of the room toward the open-air entrance of her palace. She turned back only briefly to look at the horse, weighing whether she should bring it with her, and left it where it lay.

((OOC: I'm sorry if Evan is not fully clothed. I was a little too lazy to go back and check, but I feel like he did manifest something. Lol.))

"She doesn't want that," Ponderance replied after another long pause, and Evan felt a grimace in his own chest which he couldn't quite prevent from showing in his expression. Fuck, he'd probably just rubbed salt in wounds for both Ponderance and the goddess with that one. Good fucking job.

"Just come quickly. And come prepared."

Evan blinked back to the horse with surprise and some fresh irritation. Ponderance being back in the king's grasp didn't change the fact that he needed to finish his deal with the goddess before they could move on the castle, and how in the fuck did the kid think they were going to 'prepare'? For what, even? The demons? How? Evan wanted to snap at the kid, but managed to keep his cool. By the time he gathered his thoughts, the goddess discarded the horse, and Evan returned his attention to her, surprise once again coloring his expression.

"I liked it better when you had no idea what he was to me," the goddess said, slumped and deflated. Evan rubbed at his neck and let his gaze trail to the side rather sheepishly. That was frankly totally fair, and he wasn't sure how to make up for the awkwardness of it all, or his complete lack of intuition about how to navigate that aspect of things. He couldn't help mentally scolding himself for thinking it had been his place to suggest Ponderance and the goddess speak one-on-one; it was well within both their powers to shoo him away had they wanted that, and instead, he'd forced them into a corner, no choice but to hurt each other. Gods, he was back to feeling like shit.

The goddess started to walk away, and Evan felt panic rising in his chest, though he was fucking positive it was way off-base. He rubbed at his chest again, trying to soothe whatever it was inside of him that was so fucking primed for rejection all the damn time. He pulled memories back up of the goddess holding him to her chest just moments before, and tried to assure himself that even if he had mishandled that conversation with Ponderance, it didn't mean she wished she could be rid of him.

The goddess stopped and turned over her shoulder, and Evan froze, but realized she wasn't looking at him so much as the horse she had cast aside on the lounge. She began walking again quickly enough, leaving the horse where it lay. Evan swallowed and hastened after her. He tried to find some words to reassure her in the silence as they walked, but found himself empty. What did he know of the relationship between a goddess and her child? When they'd been forcibly kept apart, at that?

He couldn't help thinking of his own mother, despite his persistent inclination to put her out of mind. Sometimes he had felt like his father had kept them apart, but other times, it seemed like she just didn't care. Sometimes he missed her, but he also barely knew her. Mostly, he missed the times when he was really, truly young, back when she used to actually touch him. Disgust rolled like a wave through his body at the thought, though, and Evan absent-mindedly pressed his hand over his stomach as he walked. What was a hand in his hair as a child who had yet to fuck up next to the years of disappointed distance that followed?

Evan forced himself to refocus on the goddess, to pay attention to her body language as she walked. He didn't want to think about his mother; he wanted to think about her. Had Ponderance been right that she hadn't wanted to talk to him? If so, what did that mean? Just that she didn't really know him, probably. Evan wondered if he could offer something to her about Ponderance, but, the truth of it was, he didn't really know the kid either. Hell, Yukiko probably knew him best of anyone in the army at this point, but that was hardly going to be comforting to the goddess. His cheeks warmed with embarrassment about the memory it seemed the goddess had gleaned about them, and he freshly wondered whether he had truly conveyed to her why that encounter had happened. But, it didn't really matter now; circling back to that would hardly be the way to move things along.

With a soft sigh Evan wondered if the best thing to do at this point would just be to drop it all and focus on what was next. Cautiously, he broached that subject.

"So, what is the process exactly, for making a cloak?"

All he really knew so far was that they'd need one of the goddess' demons to do it, and even then, with the task looming so immediately on the horizon, he recognized he still didn't totally understand how to hold it, and especially with all the awkwardness in their wake at the moment, he would rather not risk making yet more assumptions that dug them farther into this gods-damned hole.

The goddess momentarily worried that Evan wasn't going to follow her, but finally he did. Where else was he going to go? Regardless, she was grateful. Despite the awkwardness and lingering sadness about the communication with Ponderance, she did need Evan by her side. She did not want to go another whole day without him just yet. She needed to store up what she could of her power before then.

As Evan followed her, she practically dared Evan to make some quippy remark about Ponderance and her relationship with him, but for once, he kept his mouth shut, and again, gratitude radiated through her. If he was willing to just let it go, maybe she could, too.

"So, what is the process exactly, of making a cloak?" Still facing away from Evan, the goddess erupted into a smile at hearing something completely unrelated to Ponderance come out of Evan's mouth. Gods, she could have kissed him. In fact...

The goddess wasted no time in whipping around, grabbing Evan by the shoulders, and slamming him back against a tapestry in the main room of her palace. She put a leg between his and ran her hands up both sides of his torso before placing them on either side of his head. She was smirking--the result of a conflict between a frown and smile--and leaned in to whisper close to Evan's ear.

"Persuasion," the goddess said before running her tongue up behind Evan's ear. "Moonlight," she said next, bending to kiss the place where Evan's jaw met his neck. "And a visit to the tree," she finally added, using one hand to tangle painfully in his hair while her leg pressed Evan further into the wall. Then, she leaned forward to kiss him, her lips soft and pliant at first before becoming more urgent, her teeth suddenly getting involved as she tore at Evan's bottom lip. And then, all at once, she released him and kept walking, the thrill within her shaking at least most of the melancholy she had felt in the previous room.

Evan was taken completely by surprise when the goddess whirled around, grabbed his shoulders, and slammed him against the wall. For a split second, fear buzzed in his chest and he braced for some expression of anger from her, but instead, her hands ran over his body as her knee settled between his legs. His muscles relaxed and his expression melted as relief and excitement swirled together and dissipated everything else that had loomed over them as they'd walked down the hall. They were back in the main room of the palace, now, and the goddess smirked at him as she settled her hands against the wall on either side of his head.

"Persuasion," she whispered in his hear, sending a shiver cascading over his scalp and down his neck. Then she licked behind his ear and pulled a soft moan from his throat before he cut it off with a stubborn, breathy chuckle, though the way he couldn't help tilting his head to give her more access was plenty telling of her effect.

"Moonlight," she continued, her dark velvet voice caressing him as she leaned down to kiss his jaw. Evan hummed pleasantly and ventured his hands to caress over the goddess' hips, growing antsy of letting them rest against the wall.

"And a visit to the tree," she added, and then twined her fingers in Evan's hair with a painful yank. Evan seethed quietly through his teeth, his nails lamenting the goddess' pants protecting her skin from their bites, but he couldn't really say he was complaining, especially not when she leaned in to kiss him. Gods her lips were soft, and Evan eagerly met her energy, his hands rubbing up the sides of the goddess' body as their lips and tongues entangled. She grew more urgent and he with her, and when her teeth tore at his lip he moaned, his hips pushing against the leg she still held pressed against him.

Then all at once she withdrew, and Evan groaned, his teeth biting down on the lip the goddess had abandoned, as though that could silence his protest. He supposed that overall it was a good sign that she was enjoying working him up again, but gods damn it really didn't make him want to do anything other than pull her down into the pillows where they'd merged together last night. He managed to contain himself, though, instead allowing a hand to reach up and scrape its nails over his neck. He sighed through a grin that lit up his entire face, ultimately just happy that they were building up that kind of energy between them again.

"Guess I'll just follow your lead, then," he said, his voice dripping with playful sarcasm as he pushed himself from the wall to follow after her. She knew full well her answer had been obtuse, but at least it did the job of assuring Evan that she had a plan, and that he'd presumably pick up on it as they went.

While the goddess was satisfied with having thrown Evan up against the wall and could feel his body thrumming behind her as she walked forward directly from the entrance of her palace, the agitation she felt regarding the king's re-kidnapping of her son returned and curdled deep within her belly, making her impatient.

Were Evan not accompanying her, she might have changed form into a panther, perhaps, or a demon herself to slink quickly and quietly through the forest in search of prey. But, with Evan, going on two feet seemed to make the most sense. While she could fly Evan there as a dragon, that wouldn't exactly be subtle. The demons were hers to control, yes, but they were concocted from human dreams--misshapen, chaotic shapes of beings with varying purposes and desires that the goddess had not wanted to part with when she met them. Some of them were exceptionally drawn to her, and it was an effort to keep them at bay, and others--the ones she would use for the cloak--rarely ventured into even her perpetual twilight.

The two of them walked through the meadow where Dehaljadrun had shown Evan her dragon and further north toward the vineyard. As Dehaljadrun stepped into the tilled area with its heady smell of wine grapes, the scent carried with it the reminder that there was still another human in her realm. A volunteer, no less. I won't be alone when Evan leaves, the goddess thought, and a predatory instinct kicked up within her. But she didn't catch sight of the soldier. Either they had grown tired of the vineyard or had enough sense to put some distance between themself and the goddess. Regardless, she didn't anticipate that Raccoon would be able to muck up her plans with Evan now. And if they did... well...

They were almost through the vineyard when a thought struck the goddess, and she got another wicked grin on her face as she turned halfway back to look at Evan. Turning abruptly to the right, the goddess walked a few paces and bent down to brush a few vines away from what soon revealed itself as a cellar door. With a smooth motion, the goddess pulled the door up and over, walking slowly down a set of stairs underground. The stairs veered toward the right and around a corner into a long corridor filled with shelves upon shelves of wine bottles. Picking up something that looked like a leather canteen from a nearby table, the goddess opened the container and unplugged a bottle that had also been sitting on the table. Running her fingers delicately down the sides of the bottle, the dark shape began to shimmer slightly as the neck of the bottle grew and became soft. The bottles were plants themselves formed exactly for this purpose, and touching them offered the goddess immense pride and happiness. Carefully pouring the softened bottle shape toward the canteen, the goddess waited until the container was full, the bottle plant now nearly empty. It plugged itself again and its neck shrank and hardened such that it could again stand upright without her support. Then, the goddess turned toward Evan and gently offered him the canteen, eager to watch his reactions and honestly elated to share this with someone who might enjoy it.

"They call it the best wine in the realm."

((OOC: The wine is heavily alcoholic with notes of currant, cranberry, citrus, and petrichor and will definitely remind Evan of the way Dehaljadrun smells. He will probably begin to feel it immediately as he's had very little to eat, and it will make him feel a little floatier than most wines. It will also make him more talkative, affectionate, and bold.))