Written Wonderland

Evan stopped walking and turned his gaze to Trevor sharply all of a sudden, his grin completely giving way to a flash of fiery anger, while his hand altogether covered the cut on his neck as though to protect it.

He softened when Trevor spoke of beating the king without the goddess' help, though. Evan had certainly held that belief before, and it wasn't like he'd ever stopped believing it. That belief had just gotten... overshadowed. He no longer cared whether they could beat the king without seeking reinforcements; he wanted the goddess freed.

Somewhere deep in his chest nestled the worry--the horror--that that meant his loyalty really was compromised. All he really knew right now was that he wanted an exit from this conversation. He could feel his heart pounding and his gut twisting and that was to say nothing of the low constant screaming of the burns and the still-raw ache of Philip's--the goddess'--violation.

It was real fucking tempting to lash out in some way, or even just to turn and leave without another godsdamned word. But that streak still painted inside his chest, uncomfortable as it was, kept him just grounded enough to know that none of his present discomfort was Trevor's fault, and that lashing out at the soldier would just make him feel even shittier.

"She's made a mess out of both of us, huh?" He found just enough energy in his sympathy for Trevor to give an honest smile, albeit a pretty fucking tired-looking one.

"I should go get ready."

With that he did turn to leave and head for his tent in earnest, not particularly keen on letting that note in the air linger.

Trevor nodded to Evan and prepared to say something, but it was clear that Evan had other plans. Trevor watched Evan walk away, not entirely surprised, and shrugged his shoulders. He supposed that was the most he could have hoped for from a man he hardly knew.

--

The goddess slung a satchel over her shoulder and headed for the woods. It would have been faster to fly, but turning into her dragon right now would have been difficult given the emotional state she was in. Determined but slowed by the moment before she released Philip, she set off once more toward the tree in the center of her realm.

She paid no attention to the demons and other beings who sought her attention as she moved through, and she made it to the tree in record time, though her mind wandered all the way there. What if Evan hadn't survived the separation? What if his soul was lost to that portal forever? What if he was perfectly fine but would never come back because of everything that happened? What if he had lost his faith in her?

That last one was what finally elicited tears again, which only made her angrier. If this was some kind of fucked up punishment for what she did to him... for what she told Philip to do to him... ugh, she probably deserved it. And how many others had she done that to with a thought of remorse? What right did Evan have to be different? But she had felt him. So acutely. She hurt and ached for him when it happened while she felt next to nothing with her thralls. They were numb, lifeless in comparison. But, Evan... Evan...

Fuck! She couldn't think about him anymore. She couldn't. He was probably gone. Lost. Never to be seen again. She needed to move forward as though he didn't make it. There was only one way to make progress that she could think of, and gods damn it if she wasn't going to use it.

The tree appeared in front of her in the center of the dark meadow as majestic and wondrous as ever. The goddess might have enjoyed showing this to Evan, had he survived. He was someone she wanted to bring here. Now, though... Shaking her head, she walked with determined reverence closer to the tree, and before long, she heard the voices. Their cacophony was angry, chaotic, but it didn't much surprise her given her own emotional state. As she approached the trunk, the goddess began to take some deep breaths, knowing that what she was about to do would not work if she could not at least calm herself down enough to make the merger happen.

She kneeled in front of the tree but then allowed herself to fall completely to the ground as her emotions overwhelmed her. She was so tired. She was tired of being trapped, she was tired of relying on men to get her out of here, she was tired of how much she still loved the king. She was tired of tending to dreams, she was tired of being a goddess, she was tired of getting let down. She was tired of being cut off from the upper gods, she was tired of being fallen, she was tired of fighting this current that threatened to wash over her. And above it all, she was tired of being alone. And, as that thought washed over her, her tears flowed hot and fast for everything she felt responsible for, for the humans that had made her the way she was, for the dreams that she had fallen in love with, for the way that Evan talked about leaving. She ached for his body, his touch, his anything, really, and she chastised herself for the same.

The goddess wept and wept at the base of the tree, wishing she still had the stone she had given Evan so at least she might be with him in his sleep. But even that would have been too invasive after... fuck.

The ground beneath Dehaljadrun soaked up her tears hungrily where they touched the soil, and when the goddess was empty, when all her emotions were spent, she took one final deep breath and spoke aloud to the tree, "This is the only thing left for me. Let me partake of you, that we both may survive." The tree did not appear to respond, but the goddess closed her eyes, her arms twisted together in front of her, and allowed her whole being to begin to shiver. The movements of her body generated a cloud of static around her, and suddenly she became discorporate again, subject to the electric undulations of the draw of the tree. She did not fight as the tree pulled her to it, the two of their bodies merging together until they were one being feeding the entire realm. It was an easy place to lose track of time.

After a long moment of adjusting to their combined consciousness, the goddess could hear all the voices of the trees--both the charred and green ones--as they whispered all throughout her misty wood. She heard their whispers and secrets and became them. But their chatter was not what she was here for.

Digging deep into the root system of this tree and every tree, she encouraged all of them to spread under the ground, to seek further and further places to grow and root and pull nutrients up out of the ground. In the state of her merged consciousness, she felt the places where the trees' roots extended out past her realm and into others, and she ached for that taste of freedom. Instead, she drew up the nutrients out of not only those neighboring realms but also her own, the life pulled out of the areas near the root systems such that, in her own realm, a new section of charred and lifeless trees appeared. This was not the first time Dehaljadrun had done this--not to her own realm at least--but if her poison started spreading outward, she might create a blight and surely the other gods would complain. Surely they would come for her.

Even if they didn't, Dehaljadrun could feel the new power from the land seeping into her veins. Her mind grew lighter and more heady, and she felt peaceful and resolved. She was fighting fire with fire, and after ten years of fending off the temptation, she had done it, had pulled essence from lands that weren't hers. And perhaps now, if by some miracle Evan returned, perhaps she would be strong enough to withstand whatever the underworld would throw at them.

((OOC: Um, yeah, so Dehaljadrun's going to be a while there. Apparently this is quite the process. She's going to be later than she told Evan she would be, if she comes for him at all.))

Evan made it to his tent in a hurry, and collapsed down onto his knees once he was inside, his hand grabbing at his shirt over his chest as though trying to pry something off him. He finally did just take off his shirt and throw it away, sending it bumping softly against the side of the tent before falling down on top of other clothing that had gotten similar treatment before it. He didn't know what good it did to be rid of his shirt, though. He still felt anxious, and frustrated, and disgusted in an infuriatingly nebulous way.

The captain finally managed to shake off at least some of what he was feeling, and expelled it in a sigh as he rubbed at his hair and started to calm down. He had to figure out how the fuck to get his shit together before the goddess was ready for him. Even if she was fucking pissed and terrifying when he showed up, it wouldn't exactly help him if he showed up already terrified about it. Fuck.

With a groan he all but tossed himself sideways onto his cot, though he managed to turn his hips a little better this time to avoid exacerbating his burns too badly. Or, he'd just gotten used to them, and wasn't caught off-guard by the way his movements predictably flared the volume of their pain. His eyes narrowed sharply at the ceiling of his tent, while his hand wandered slowly over his chest and his neck, feeling all the tiny nicks and scratches and bruises and bites. Honestly, he loved all these things. Could maybe do without the burns, and definitely without the rawness in his ass--or at least, the peripheral discomfort that flared when he paid attention to that--but, gods, everything else...

Somehow the option to reach into his pocket and pull out the goddess' scale only just now seemed available, but as soon as the thought crossed his mind Evan's hand darted to fetch it, though as he grabbed it he let out a startled exclamation and sat up, instinctively looking around the tent as though somehow someone might have snuck in. In that process, he'd closed his hand around the scale, and what had initially felt like someone grabbing at him turned into an all-encompassing warmth and pressure, and something clicked into place.

The captain let out an amused scoff and laid back down, his hand gingerly rolling the stone out into his fingertips, his eyes studying it and his mind enjoying analyzing how his touches mapped onto his body. After a moment he held it tightly in him palm again and rested his fist on his chest, letting his eyes close as he sank into both the warm sensation now of literally holding himself, and the memory of the blades of grass parting beneath him. Fuck, he really was grateful for that moment. But this time it didn't bring as much peace as he'd hoped for. Tears stung at his eyes and a lump grew in his throat, and some bitter-as-shit part of his brain pointed out that he wouldn't be so fucking grateful for that moment if the goddess hadn't told Philip to rape him in the first place.

Frustrated--pissed--Evan growled loudly and sat up, angrily throwing the scale across his tent like he had his shirt. His stomach practically whizzed through the tent with it, and Evan clenched his fists in his sheets to steady himself through the dizzy sensation of falling. All the while, the stone simply thumped silently against the tent wall and fell into the pile of clothing, and Evan was left sitting on his cot feeling so fucking empty and disoriented he could hardly stand it. Fuck, this whole trying to get his shit together thing was going nowhere. Maybe it'd be fine to just show up pissed, though--that was certainly better than terrified. He'd definitely fucking love to slap her some more. Hell, he yearned to slide into that feral rage, beating the shit out of something or someone and not caring about appearances or consequences in the slightest.

The best substitute he'd found for that was running.

But he honestly wasn't sure about pushing himself right now. Walking already sucked enough with the burns; running might be more masochism than he could really keep composed through. Plus, he was tired. Maybe he should nap? He glanced towards the crack at the front of his tent, gauging the light and how much time was left before sun-down; he did have plenty of time still. He still hadn't thought up an offering for the goddess, he supposed, but he also really wasn't in the mood to give a shit about that instruction right now.

With a heavy sigh, Evan laid back down, and turned to face away from where he'd thrown the scale across the tent. He fumed for a little while, his thoughts dancing uncomfortably close to details about last night that pissed him off or made him feel like shit. For a while he turned that energy towards curiosity about Trevor's experience, staring down the thought of being merely at the goddess' beck and call--waiting. He felt sorry for Trevor, and weirdly selfish for his own position in the situation, and also terrified that he wasn't as far from that fate as he might like to think. That wasn't really helping either.

He then tried instead to turn his thoughts back to Xavier. At first that still wasn't great, as he thought about the ways in which the goddess might be bringing out the worst parts of himself. He'd almost hit his lieutenant, and for what? But he reminded himself that he'd at least left things with Xavier on a good note. Hopefully. The boy had seemed genuinely curious, and certainly not scared of Evan by the end of the conversation--or in the very least, leaning in to whatever fear he did feel. Ah, fuck, and then that rather fucking suddenly woke his cock back up. He could go visit Xavier, maybe finally get in a godsdamned romp with the boy. It was real fucking tempting. But that nebulous disgust still hung about Evan, in a way that nearly kept him pinned to his cot. He didn't want to move, even as his cock twitched in his pants. Gods, what a fucking day it was when Evan didn't even want to wank.

The captain groaned in frustration and rolled onto his back again, eyes returning to that same godsdamned fabric above him he'd stared at night after night after night. He practically had it memorized at this point, and he fucking hated it. He sighed and closed his eyes and rolled back onto his other side, trying to ignore the fact that now he was facing the direction he'd thrown the scale. He wanted to just forget about it, just one godsdamned hour.

He finally grasped at the other thing he remembered giving him peace in the past couple days: thinking of Xavier's charm. He didn't dare physically touch it--if it did help the goddess possess him, that wasn't really something he'd relish just this moment. ...At least, not on principal. Fuck, focus. Think of the leather and hair and bone. Heh, some errant thought imagined touching the charm with the scale rather than directly, and that alone was enough to feel an echo of the charm, of how he'd held it in his hand a few nights prior, zoom in and play over his whole body, warming his chest and finally releasing some of the last layers of tension separating his mind from being able to sleep.

((OOC: Whew. Hopefully that was interesting. Just had to write it all out to figure out how the fuck Evan would even be feeling right now lol. He's hoping/assuming he'd wake up if a portal opened in his tent, though he could be right or wrong about that. I don't remember if we've described anything like sound or wind or whatever occurring when a portal opens? But anyway. That's moot at the moment if he wakes up before the portal opens, which my thought was if something/someone else didn't wake him up first, he'd probably wake up shortly after sun-down and start freaking out about why the portal isn't there lol. I'm certainly a fan of Xavier waking him up tho ))

If Xavier thought it was difficult to keep his mind off Evan before, that was nothing compared to how he felt after their interaction earlier in day. His mind replayed the moment that Evan was about to strike him over and over and over, each time with a slightly different emotional response. Was he afraid of Evan? Was he excited to be afraid of Evan? Did Evan want Xavier to be afraid of him? Was that even a safe thing to play with at all?

Xavier tried to remember other times he had been scared. Obviously, in some of the battles they had faced, he had been terrified, but there was undeniably some sort of exhilaration there, too. And then near the end of the summoning ritual, Xavier was scared, but mostly for Evan's well-being, and he wasn't sure that was quite the same thing.

But maybe he really just wasn't quite cut out for interacting that way with Evan. It seemed like Evan wanted to play hard, if his elation about being with the goddess meant anything--Xavier couldn't help but pull up the memory of when Evan assured Xavier that she enjoyed being slapped, his mind especially focusing on the look on Evan's face.

Ugh! Why did this all feel so complicated? Maybe he could just talk to Evan about it again? Maybe that would clear some things up? Evan had said that Xavier could come back whenever...

Finally decided and figuring he might catch Evan just before he went to see the goddess, he walked with a little excited hop in his step over to Evan's tent. He looked around him briefly to wonder if anyone was paying attention--they weren't; this looked totally normal--and peeked to see if Evan was inside. He was, but... he was sleeping. Argh! It had been terrifying enough to wake Evan up earlier that day, and that was with a legitimate excuse. Given Evan's injuries and the fact that he would surely need to save his strength for the goddess, Xavier was too anxious to interrupt, and with a quiet sigh, took one last longing look at Evan, dropped the tent flap, and consoled himself with the fact that, surely, he could spend time with Evan tomorrow.

--

The goddess felt the last of the power she had drained from the land seep into her and the tree and opened her inward eyes. She felt the tree glowing, its trunk and winding root systems full and large and ominous with energy. Now, it was time to extract herself from the tree once more. Thanking it for the time and energy it had expended to accomplish her task, the goddess concentrated on moving outside the trunk, flowing back out of the tree at first in a cloud of dense mist before she returned to her usual shape and body.

Embodied once more, it was easier to see the differences in how her form had absorbed the energy. She was glowing, obviously, but she had a clearness of mind that she hadn't had since the last time she had soaked up power from her realm. The goddess also felt the lightning itching to be free of her fingertips, and she had an immense hunger for a body to touch, to fill with even a fraction of this power, to loop it through them and back again. And if she couldn't have Evan, surely one of her thralls would do. That's the sort of thing they were there for, after all.

Evan.

It was the first time she had thought of him since she had entered the tree, and by the looks of the sky, it was past time for when she would have sent him a portal. Grief fell on her in a wave as Dehaljadrun considered the fact that he might really not be coming back. Still, she needed to at least try, right? She needed to see if he would come back even after everything, right? If his body or mind were even capable of it?

Gods, she wondered if she could ever forgive herself for what she did to him but then realized that he flat out signed up for this. He knew the risks and still went through with it. For the sake of his army and his cause. Or for her sake, because he wanted her? How much had she been influencing his decisions? What role was she playing in his destiny?

She shook her head, unwilling to think about those questions any more. Instead, she let herself move away from the tree and transform into her dragon to make it back to her palace faster. With all her fresh power thrumming through her veins, the chill air on her scales was exquisite, and she wished she could make longer trips than the length of her realm. Her wings ached for more play. Figuring that, even if Evan would come through a portal she would send, he could wait a little longer, so she flew the long way around, gliding over the fae kingdom without much care of who might see her and passing above the ocean once more before finally settling back down in the meadow in front of her palace where she had given Evan the scale.

As the goddess transformed back into her human form and decided on something to wear--a very short black sleeveless dress with a high neckline that did wonders for her shoulders and hips--she contemplated what her original plan had been for the evening and wondered if she was actually even ready for Evan to come through the portal. Though, by now, she knew it was much, much later than she had told him she would be. But, in all likelihood, she couldn't imagine that he did make it through the separation without damage. She certainly felt torn asunder during the experience, and she was a goddess. There was no way that Evan made it through unscathed. And even if he did, he had a portal and could have come on his own.

Wait, he had a portal. What if he was here already? Where would the portal have opened? Would he have known how to use it? She went back into her palace and looked around, seeing only her thralls. For good measure, just in case he was being a complete twerp, she checked the inner room behind her throne and didn't find him there either. In fact, she found the room exactly in the state it had been before she had entered his body, and her heart dropped, remembering the aching seconds when she wondered whether he would lose himself in the river of their shared flow. And now... he might not be coming back. She really had to steel herself for that possibility.

Moving back outside the palace, she decided, even if she wasn't ready, she was tired of waiting. She needed to know if Evan was alive. Or not. Probably not.

She brought a portal out and threw it into the air, letting it extend to the ground soundlessly as she couldn't help but hold her breath, wondering, waiting.

The goddess stayed like that for a minute, breath held, hand curled up against her own chest, before she started to deflate. He wasn't coming. Or she was too late. Or his soul was gone forever, lost in some ether between portals. Still, she couldn't completely abandon hope. Maybe he was just stalling.

As she stood there waiting for Evan's arrival, the minutes passed with excruciating slowness, and her mind grew bored. She could bring a thrall out here and fuck him in front of the portal--that would be a sight for Evan to see first thing when he arrived--but she knew her heart wouldn't be in it. She was too worried about Evan to care much about anything or anyone else.

Instead, her eyes alighted on a section of trees, once having bloomed with red and purple leaves, that had turned completely black. If she concentrated hard enough, she could still hear the voices of the other trees, but not these ones. Her face fell even further as she left the portal open and walked toward the trees, touching their blackened leaves with a delicate hand.

"I will get the king back for this," she promised, the trees whispers barely in an audible range to the goddess, even at this distance. "He will pay for what he made me do to you." She spent a few minutes going through some of the trees that had been drained, touching each of them in promise before turning around to face the portal that Evan had still not come through yet. How long was she going to wait? How long until she just needed to decide that he wasn't ever coming back?

Tears found her eyes and spilled out of them as she grew furiously sad. She was angry at him for having goaded her into trying something risky last night and angry at herself for what she had told Philip to do because maybe she wouldn't have gone through with the merger if she hadn't felt guilty about what had happened. Dehaljadrun dug her own nails deeply into the skin of her thighs and dragged them upward as though that would help anything. Really, it just made her miss him more. Finally, tears in her eyes and resolved to the idea that he was, in fact, lost forever, she closed the portal and sulked back into her palace.

((OOC: Perfectly happy whether or not Evan makes it tonight, but she's not going to open another portal for him tonight.))

Evan practically felt like he'd only just blinked, but he woke several hours later with a panicked startle, his mind immediately registering that it was darker in his tent than it should be. He pushed himself up and looked around; no portal. Shit. He must've been more tired than he realized--which, to be fair, wouldn't be the most surprising thing in the world, but this seemed real fuckin bad.

He stood up and put on a shirt before stepping briskly out of his tent. He thought he'd had a destination in mind, but he came to a halt immediately outside, suddenly realizing he had no idea where he thought he was going. Mizu, to report that he slept through the portal? The old woman, to see if there was another way to get to the goddess tonight? Xavier, to just go escape from the situation for a short--hopefully blissful--while? All of those options had some pretty heavy pros and cons. Evan dipped back into his tent and sloughed himself back onto his cot to think.

Hell, in some ways, it was tempting to just hide in his godsdamned tent until sunrise, though he wasn't sure what he'd do at that point. Oh, he could imagine making up some bullshit about having gotten nowhere in particular with the goddess that night, but there were two huge fucking problems with that idea. For starters, she probably wouldn't release another soldier if Evan skipped a night. For all he knew, both the remaining soldiers were forfeit if he failed to show; maybe even their whole agreement. But honestly even more than that, it'd been years since he'd outright lied to Mizu about anything. Even assuming he could pull it off, sliding back into the sort of relationship they had back then--before she'd earned his trust and respect--seemed like a fucking terrible idea, especially considering how fucking concerned he was with keeping her trust and respect now.

No, lying was absolutely off the godsdamned table, and so was running away from the situation. He had to take responsibility for--gods fucking damnit, just taking a godsdamned nap--whatever that needed to look like. Running to Mizu right away didn't seem like the right call there; that was just laying the problem at her feet and asking her to deal with it. The old woman, then? Evan gathered his knees in front of him and clunked his chin down on his arm as he glared at the wall of his tent where he'd thrown his shirt--and the scale--earlier.

Hmmm...

With a light sigh, the captain pushed himself back onto his feet and walked over to fish the scale out of the pile of clothing it'd fallen into. Picking it up right now didn't seem to give him any particular sensations; interesting. He held it in one palm, and with his other hand he fished out the other contents of his pocket: the talisman and--fuck, right, thank the fucking gods--the portal the goddess had told him collect from her throne. Shit, maybe she just hadn't sent a portal at all, and had expected Evan to use that one? Well, at least if that was the case he could be rightfully indignant about poorly-communicated expectations, but he knew he couldn't rule out having slept through her opening a portal, either. Guh.

So, okay, he had a way to get to her. He breathed a sigh of relief, though that still didn't quite solve everything. He was already going to start the night off having no offering for her, and now he was starting it off late, and possibly having missed her explicit call for him to join her. She was probably pissed already. And, maybe that was fine, but it was probably going to make negotiating for the Shel'ti tonight pretty fucking difficult, and that was his top priority.

Evan gently slid the items in his hands back into his pocket, and turned around to regard his tent as though somehow there might be a suitable offering readily available in plain sight. What in the fuck would the Demon Queen even want, anyway? She seemed to want him, which was good--although quite possibly in question currently. And besides, he was already a part of the agreement; an offering had to be something above and beyond. But most of what was in his tent was dirty clothes and bedsheets, hardly goods fit for a goddess. His eyes alighted on the charm on the floor by his cot, though, and he raised his eyebrow before walking over to pick it up. Even if he didn't use it as an offering, maybe it'd be worth bringing along this trip. But also... maybe it would work as an offering? It was a magical item that certainly had some effect for her, and it wasn't exactly without sentimental value to Evan at this point. To wit, there was certainly some hesitation towards giving it to her, which... arguably made an even better case for doing so.

With a slightly heavier sigh, Evan slid the charm into his pocket along with everything else, and resolved that this would have to be good enough. He fished the portal back out of his pocket, and thought about how the goddess had opened the portal the other night by the hot springs. She'd simply held it up and it expanded, hadn't it? Hmm. Evan took a look around his tent again and decided he didn't want to do this here, just in case he fucked something up.

He made briskly for the woods, a rush in his step and a strong do-not-approach expression on his face. Now that he was resolved to do this, he was nearly frantic to get to her, for a dozen different reasons. He made it just far enough to be out of sight of camp, and found a spot with a decent amount of space between trees before stopping and holding the portal up in his palm, again recalling the image of the goddess doing so by the springs the other night. He couldn't help also thinking of the cock ring she'd sent him back with, bringing the swell back into his pants rapidly. He hoped desperately that his late arrival wouldn't doom the evening to a clusterfuck like last night, but even if it did, he knew he still had to try.

((OOC: Post where Dehaljadrun opened the portal for reference: link! If it just kinda works, then I think there's a decent chance he'll make it through the portal thinking about his interactions with the goddess by the hot springs. If it doesn't just work and he has to try some shit out, there's a decent chance he'll get stressed and end up thinking about pissing her off with the comment about Uranel or trying to focus back on the moment of her rolling the scale to him to calm down and keep up his resolve to go see her. Feel free to do with all that as you will~))

The portal didn't do anything for a few agonizing moments as though confused what Evan wanted from it, but finally it leapt into the air above Evan, filled out, and expanded to the ground such that it was plenty wide and long enough for Evan to walk through.

--

As Dehaljadrun reentered her palace, she eyed the thralls she still had in her company and scowled at them. She took the little one from Evan's army camp and pushed him, not sure what that was going to accomplish, but she was furious and sad and angry and devastated and just wanted something to feel her pain. She intended to knock him over in the process.

Still, she didn't feel much like engaging in any kind of sexual activity, and her body still pulsed with the lightning within her. She just wanted to lie down and forget that anything with Evan had ever happened--how stupid she had been for letting herself get hopeful that he would be the one to help her escape from this endless nightmare--but the room behind her throne was still a mess once she got there. Taking a few moments to put the candelabras back on the table, she righted the room, replacing the blankets that the shadow beings had burned with identical ones. She did appreciate the capacity to manifest whatever she wanted in her realm--object-wise, at least.

Her side still ached from the places where she had fallen on the candelabra after Evan had pushed her off the table, and it only served to make her more upset about the situation. Her mind was quickly becoming clouded again after having soaked up all that power. Maybe she could go and actually tend to the dreams that she had been neglecting all this time? But, no she wasn't prepared for that, not tonight. Tonight, she would allow herself to mourn.

Dehaljadrun suddenly wished that she had not sent Philip back as he certainly would be a viable candidate to take out her frustration on right now. She laid down on the bed, trying to think of other ways she might try to escape the king's bindings, but she had thought of and tried everything at this point and now all she had to do was wait for one of the upper gods to notice what she had done earlier in the day. Still, she hated waiting.

She grew restless quickly and decided to leave the palace but then realized she really didn't have any place to go. Maybe she should return to the dreams. At least then she could take her mind off what was happening--or not happening--with Evan. With a heavy sigh, she went to the ceremony circle behind the palace, lit all the torches there in a single motion, and lay down in the center of it, her hair splayed around her in a halo, one hand between her breasts while the other rested below her navel. Slowly, she quieted her mind and sank into the dreams of the Shel'ti.

((OOC: The portal is going to drop him in the hot springs, probably on one of the first stairs of the hot pool so his boots will be wet.

Also, Evan will be able to see her if he decides to walk from the pools toward the palace. It's basically a circular arrangement of stones with 12 torches around it, and she's in the center. It's the same place that Philip woke up as a thrall.))

Evan was surprised when he stepped into water on the other side of the portal, which quickly grew warm through his boots. Upon taking in the scenery around him, he supposed maybe he shouldn't have been surprised, but he'd admittedly expected the portal to just take him back to the meadow. He wondered briefly whether it was coincidence or design that he ended up in the place he'd imagined the portal opening from, but didn't linger on the thought. The goddess wasn't here, which meant he still had ground to cover.

He stepped out of the pool, an echo of the memory of grabbing at the goddess by its edge and feeling her give in to him replaying through his mind as he moved away. She wanted him, he reminded himself ardently, urging more haste into his step.

He headed towards her palace, insofar as he could recall the direction, not sure where else to go. Surely she'd return there at some point tonight even if she wasn't there presently. He meandered a bit, but found his way to the chilled pool, shivering at the sight but not lingering there as he hurried past. He wasn't quite running--at least, not until he finally caught a glimpse of the palace through the trees.

He came to a stop when he caught sight of the goddess herself, laying in the center of a circle of torches and stones. He felt torn on how--even whether--to approach. It looked like she was sleeping or meditating; peaceful. Some part of him didn't want to disturb that. But he was curious, and also absolutely desperate to touch her again. The devastation of having her ripped from his body had only grown more and more palpable along this trek, pulling the magnetism he'd felt in his nerves to the surface again and sending yearning tingles dancing throughout his body.

Some part of him chided that he was letting her have too much influence over him, but what the fuck was he supposed to do about it? Just fucking turn his nerves off somehow? How the fuck was he supposed to do that? And why should he, even? Why not chase pleasure and go wake her for touch he was sure she also fucking craved?

The answer to that, for now at least, came in the form of reverence. Whatever the goddess was doing, Evan couldn't deny that it looked sacred. If he'd held onto feeling pissed, he might've been inclined to interrupt regardless, but by now he was just so fucking glad to be here, damn everything else, and he felt especially susceptible to the sense of awe that swelled in him at the sight of her.

Ultimately, he decided to approach slowly, not sneaking, but also not making a point to be noticed. His posture was more humble than usual, and if he made it to the circle before the goddess stirred, he'd kneel by the stones with his hands on his thighs, his eyes gazing longingly at the goddess and his body still absolutely yearning for her, but his determination both to be respectful of whatever was happening and to maintain some modicum of his own agency keeping himself still and patient, simply waiting for the goddess to rouse.

((OOC: And if she does stir before he gets that close, he'd come to a stop and wait to see what she does when she sees him.))

Though Dehaljadrun did get to the point where she could project herself into the Shel'ti kingdom and she did see the dreams as they began to appear out of the little houses in the city, the dreams seemed to shy away from her whenever she got close, and she knew that it was because of her frantic energy. Her own desire for escapism would surely taint the dreams even before she entered them, and though she knew she could force herself onto them, the memory of telling Philip to abuse Evan was still very fresh on her mind, and if Evan really was gone, then she was even more motivated to respect the sensation of taking someone's agency away, at least for a little while.

Fine, then, if she couldn't work with the dreams, maybe she could just have daydreams of her own. Though she knew it would hurt immensely, she pulled her consciousness back into her own body and thought of the time she had spent with Evan over the previous nights. At first, the memories were difficult to look at. Immediately, the awareness of knowing how much pain Philip had caused Evan seeped over her, and she let herself feel that shame, that guilt, because she deserved it. But then she remembered the sensation of Evan riding on her dragon, the way she was vulnerable with him at the cliffs, the way he decided to stay after everything she had done, and a warmth came into her.

Maybe it was because of the new power the goddess had pulled into herself or maybe it was the potency of the memories, but the mist around her inside the circle started to coalesce into the shapes she was seeing behind her eyes without her awareness of them.

She reimagined the moment when Evan had pushed her off the table and relished in how long it had taken her to come back up from that. A smirk came over her lips unconsciously as she thought of how she had shoved her cock down his throat and come inside of it, and then the scene shifted to the two of them wrestling on the stairs, remembering how her grin had been obvious and unashamed. Her mind reached back to the day before all that, remembering the delicious way Evan had tempted her from where he sat outside the line of the circle in the summoning and his sensation of fear as she took him once the circle broke. She remembered potently the way he walked up to her with a sinister look on his face when she released the restraints that had bound him, which forced her to remember the moment when he was on the table held down by the two thralls and he said... he said...

But even her anger could not hold a flame against how much she missed him, though there was a moment when she wondered if Evan had genuinely wanted to hurt her the entire time, if everything else was simply a ruse to get more out of her, exactly like what happened with the king. But, he had wanted her, right? He had stayed with her, and as far as she could tell, he had been honest with her the entire time. Granted, the king had been honest right up until the very end, but that was beside the point.

Redirecting her mind once more to Evan and the time they had spent together, she reimagined and projected the sensation of when she had unbuttoned his pants that first night with such agonizing slowness, enjoying the reactions he had once she slipped into Xavier's form. She recalled the warmth of the two of their bodies in the springs, the hunger for skin only elevated by the presence of the scale Evan had touched in the water. She remembered the ache in her heart as her dragon pushed that same scale toward Evan, and then, finally, she allowed herself to think about the moment when they shared a body, when they shared the experience of the flow within, when she spoke to Evan within his mind, when she called lightning down from the sky with his hands. And then, the portal and the moment of separation, during which the goddess could not help but clutch at her chest as her expression grimaced--the first dramatic change in her expression throughout this daydream--as her nails dug into her skin through her dress.

And that... that was it, then. He was gone. Realistically, he was either still trapped in the portal somehow or potentially a thrall back in the human realm, and there was nothing she could do about that if that were true. Or, he had simply rejected her after coming to terms with what had happened the previous night, and perhaps that would be for the better. Dehaljadrun didn't want to hurt him, possibly even if that's what it would take to gain her freedom. That was a terrifying thought. But, it was moot. He wasn't coming back, whatever the reason, and she was alone, again, possibly forever.

Tears began flowing out of her eyes, signaling the end of her meditative state, and she sat up, looking at the ground dejectedly as she acclimatized again to the moonlight of her realm as it came through the mist. Without moving her head, she gestured in a crude circle to extinguish the torches all at once, smoke rising from their forms and adding to the mist.

((OOC: Okay, so her head would have been closest to the direction Evan came from, so we are imagining that he came to one of her sides and that she has not seen him yet (due to mist or meditation or sadness or whatever), but now that the torches are no longer lit, nothing will happen to Evan if he tries to cross into the circle. Additionally, the mist shapes will have basically given him visual access to her thoughts.))

Evan was surprised when the mist around the goddess started shifting. For a moment, he felt a small swell of fear--that maybe he shouldn't be here, shouldn't be seeing this, and that perhaps the mist was about to send him on his way. But instead it remained inside the circle, and started forming shapes--figures; the goddess, and himself. There came a different kind of 'maybe he shouldn't be seeing this' thought as a sort of nervous warmth colored his cheeks. He could only guess what he was seeing meant she was thinking of him--of their time together. The moments he could make out seemed happy--the way she'd melted when he pushed her off the table; the way she grinned as they wrestled on the stairs; the way she delighted when he'd touched himself during their negotiation; the way she quivered when he approached her that first night after being set free.

His body was nearly humming with ache to touch her, to break through all these memories of spending time together and to actually spend time together. His hand raised from his thigh, considering tentatively reaching across the stone circle to touch her shoulder, but then he saw in the mist the thralls pinning him down on the table last night, and he recoiled nervously. The mist continued swirling and shifting, in patterns he couldn't quite make out, but which made him feel anxious. Just what was she thinking about? Should he leave and give her privacy? Some part of him felt that he should. But his body was heavy, his yearning to be beside her too powerful. He couldn't bear to leave her side, and hoped she'd forgive him the intrusion.

When the mist started making sensical shapes again, it took him through moments that tugged at his heart: the goddess in Xavier's body; her dragon rolling the scale towards him; lightning coming down from the sky around him when the goddess used his body to beckon it down. His arm tingled at the thought, and then the goddess grimaced, and Evan had to clench his jaw to keep the lump in his throat from escaping as a sound. The mist had made a portal, and Evan felt he knew exactly what her grimace was about. In some ways it was relieving to know that she suffered too, but in others... he felt shitty for having instigated that experiment in the first place. As glorious as it had felt to truly share his body with her... had it felt that good to her, and was the devastation of getting ripped apart worth it? He wasn't even sure about the answer to that himself, let alone how the goddess felt about it.

His heart sank with a sense of guilt and regret, helped along by the mist as it seemed to depict him either lost or leaving, as far as he could tell. It felt melancholic, and distinctly like his fault.

Then, suddenly, the goddess sat up, and Evan's heart jumped anxiously into his throat. What would happen now? Would she be glad to see him? Pissed at him for being late? Furious that he'd more or less spied on her this past while? He was silent and petrified for a moment while he waited for a response, but then he realized she hadn't yet seen him. Fuck, she was distraught.

"I'm sorry." He finally said, softly, aware that it would probably startle her and carrying with it the apology even for that. He remained seated with his hands on his thighs, though his body still cried out for her touch. His eyes waited for hers to meet them, but then cast themselves to the ground, wanting to convey his regret. He supposed it might not be clear what exactly he was apologizing for, but then again, he felt there was plenty to apologize for, such that specifying one thing would only do an injustice to all the others.

The goddess was preparing to stand again, to get on with whatever she was going to do now, when she heard a voice. But, it wasn't just any voice; it was Evan's voice, and it seemed to come out of nowhere. She wondered briefly if she was hallucinating it or if she had accidentally summoned a wraith of him--she shuddered remembering the time that had happened before--as her neck snapped around to where it seemed like the voice was coming from, some part of her still holding out hope that this was, somehow, real.

But then she saw him just outside the circle in the most compliant position she had ever seen him in, and then her mind registered his words: I'm sorry. Sorry for what? she asked herself as she looked at him skeptically, still not completely sure he was real or was him, even. Was this some fae trick? Had they been watching her and Evan long enough to figure out what was going on and... Gods, why would they do that. Why couldn't this just really be Evan? Surely it wasn't that unbelievable that he had figured out how to use the portal and arrived here.

She gathered herself, pulling her legs in and around her so she was also kneeling as she looked him over and tentatively reached out with her mind. His inner landscape swirled with apology, sadness, and yearning for her, and it was almost too much to bear. It was only then that the goddess realized that the mist had been playing out her thoughts, and she saw them in Evan's mind, coloring at the idea with embarrassment and frustration that he knew she had been reliving their memories and moments together.

But then a rush of desire to touch him, to be reunited with him in any small way after they had been ripped apart so potently the night before, overwhelmed her. Was that the part he was apologizing for? Or was he apologizing for not coming through the portal when she left it for him? All of it? Even his own mind swirled with confusion and desire such that she couldn't get a clear answer. But, his thoughts felt like him, and there was a substance to his body that made Dehaljadrun feel, at last, like this must really, truly be Evan here in the flesh of his own volition. Finally, her heart leapt into her throat and choked off her ability to speak, emotions welling up inside her enough to make her realize that there were still tears on her face. She resisted the temptation to wipe them away--that would only make them more obvious--and instead stood up and walked over to Evan, looking down at him with an expression of cautious hope.

After a few moments of standing like that and feeling into the ache of how much she just wanted to close the distance between them, she bent down to his level and reached one hand around his neck to tangle tentatively, gently in his hair. If he met her gaze, it would be full of honest pain, disbelief, and awe, her body craving more and more and more every second that she allowed herself to believe this was real.

With her face exceedingly close to his, she said, "You didn't... you didn't come through. I thought... the deal was off." Though she gathered a small portion of her confidence back by the end of the statement, she still had difficulty getting the words out, and she wasn't about to go into the details of what she had actually thought happened to him; he'd probably seen them in the mist anyway. Gods, sometimes she hated how unpredictable her magic could be.

"I thought you were..."

Then, all at once, she couldn't handle it anymore. The pain of thinking he was gone--or worse--that he had left her on purpose and all of the longing she had felt over the last day hit her simultaneously, and she could not stay her hand as she backhanded him viciously and then again, tears flying wildly from her eyes.

"I should never have listened to you," she finally said with her eyes on the ground between them once she had given herself a second to calm down.