Written Wonderland

A part of Evan was pleased when the goddess' eyes rolled back. How could he not be? He enjoyed the ways in which it meant she was enjoying him, but then there was that tinge of the ways in which she was enjoying him in this situation. She had him trapped, and she knew it, and it made the anger in the air burn too brightly not to show in Evan's skin, which he could only hope covered over what hints of fear and hurt threatened to well up in his eyes.

He hated feeling trapped.

Was he trapped, though? Without much motion, the captain's eyes moved from the goddess to the circle in which he stood, wondering to what extent he was jumping to conclusions about his situation. A different sort of cage he'd be much more inclined to rattle and see how strong the bars really were, but fuck that shock gave him pause. Maybe it had just been the goddess striking him, so to speak, and had nothing to do with the circle at all--

But almost as if answering that thought, the goddess's fingers stole his attention back by dancing against something in the air between them, making it visible and taunting. Fuck he yearned for those fingers to touch him, for whatever barrier she'd erected to dissipate and the distance between them to be closed. He could at least close some of the distance; after stumbling back from the shock of the barrier, he wasn't exactly standing at the edge of the circle. But he could fucking tell she wanted him to. The way her body moved; her fingers subtly beckoned. And stubbornness flared, narrowing his eyes and clenching his fist to help him keep rooted at the spot. Even so, the pull to approach her was strong and only growing stronger, and the captain found himself digging his thumbnail into the side of his finger, which helped him muster the resolve to turn up a determined grin.

"You'll have to do better than that."

The goddess turned her head to the side momentarily and laughed lightly, making it clear she did not expect that alone to convince Evan to come closer. Although, she thought, several of the other men she had enthralled certainly would have, and she was grateful for an excuse to set Evan apart from them again.

Dehaljadrun looked at Evan with a daring, almost menacing expression as though she were preparing to do something even more devious, but then slipped into a more neutral expression, as she said, "It's rather fitting, you know..." As she spoke, she dragged one finger through the barrier and walked around to the side of Evan, enjoying that his eyes would surely follow her.

"...the very thought of me saved your life, and now..." the goddess continued. After she said this, the goddess caressed the barrier with all the fingertips on her right hand, twisting her wrist so her fingers spun. She then allowed her whole hand to slowly penetrate the barrier and pull back slowly, the motions intoxicating even to herself as she was almost fully moved into a kind of dance. Instead, she resisted that impulse and moved fully through the barrier so she was once again inside the circle of torches, but just barely, the purple shimmer of the spell moving over her entire body as she did so.

"...you'll save mine." As these words fell slowly from her mouth, Dehaljadrun looked directly at Evan, a tinge of sadness mixed with her desire and the intensity of the affection she felt for him after witnessing his memory and his dreams of her. She wanted... gods damnit... to comfort him. But she shook off that impulse as well and crossed her arms again, tossing her hair to one side.

"Assuming, of course, you're capable of it." She raised an eyebrow then and surveyed him, her own desire magnetic and alluring in its own right.

Evan's eyes did indeed follow the goddess, though they snapped away as the goddess' words forced a sudden swell of embarrassment to absolutely dwarf his anger. As unforgivably naive as it had been to think that the Queen of Dreams wouldn't have seen every last bit of the memory Evan had just dreamt, some part of him had still desperately clung to the hope that she hadn't to keep him from feeling so utterly laid bare to her. He couldn't help crossing his arms, his posture shrinking despite his attempt to keep still, and the fire in the air drew into him and solidified as a heavy, powerful tension pervading his body.

A spike of envy suddenly hit him in the chest, of Seth of all people. At least the cadet had a battle to show the goddess--against likely fucking demons, no less--whereas Evan had only this asinine misadventure as a young boy, foolishly running away from home with no plan and all the stupidity of a teenager, fantasizing about the goddess all the while because he had nothing better to keep himself alive. Of course she would question his ability to help her after that.

He snapped his gaze back over his shoulder to her, his eyes pink and wet but also hard as stone. Though shame was clearly what colored his skin--cheeks and shoulders alike--his expression shot anger at her, and with a grunt he forced himself to throw his arms down to his sides and pivot to face the goddess, regathering his determination and at least refocusing the tension his muscles held into standing firm in his place rather than hiding. He met the intensity in her eyes and the allure of her body head-on, his cock swelling and twitching but the rest of his body unmoved and utterly anchored to the spot.

"Getting real fucking tired of every godsdamned moment with you being a FUCKING test!"

At first his voice had been steady--irate, certainly, but measured--but at that last expletive he suddenly broke into a harsh yell, the anger in his expression giving way to hurt and pain and fear and yearning as his foot stepped forward before he caught himself, and sank back into angry, stubborn, deep-rooted stone, staring the goddess down and daring her to move him.

Evan's words visibly shook the goddess. She had taken a half-step backward, still just barely inside the barrier, and had raised her hand halfway to her mouth before she realized what she was doing and let it fall.

Before she could fully process Evan's comment, she retorted, "What, did you think these five nights were just for play? That you would waltz in here and have your way with a goddess and that would be the end of it?" By the end of her statement, Dehaljadrun had grown even angrier, the purple glow about her entirely hers and having nothing at all to do with the barrier behind her.

"If you think I'm here just to fulfill all your fantasies, then you really are still a child. Grow the fuck up, Evan!" She unconsciously took a step closer to him and clenched one fist, looking ever more terrifyingly beautiful as she did so. The wind started to pick up around her and gathered up some of the goddess' hair. An ache appeared in her chest like the threat of a dull knife against her breast, but she shook it off, too annoyed to care that something inside her insisted she was going too far. The desire to comfort Evan from the remnants of the dream memory that still clung to him slid off her and revealed her bare fury.

The wind picked up more impressively now, whipping around Evan's bare chest and hair. It wasn't coming from any single direction but from all directions.

"The underworld will do everything in its power to keep you. I need this to work. I need your strength. I need..." The goddess turned away and let her words fall into the whipping wind, now strong enough to lift Evan a few inches off the ground, suspending him in the air. "...you," the goddess finished quietly, certainly softer than Evan could hear with the wind viciously swirling around him.

Thus turned away, the goddess' eyebrows furrowed together as she ran Evan's words through her mind over and over again. Of course, everything was a test. Why wouldn't it be? But, some part of her acknowledged that she didn't just want that, and obviously more had happened than was exactly necessary for Evan's impending trip to the underworld. The appearance of Dehaljadrun's dragon came potently to mind as an example. When she had asked for five nights with Evan, she certainly anticipated that much of it would involve training him, but there was no denying that she also wanted him for herself. And what had they done these three nights? Bicker and fight and argue and test each other. Was that actually what she wanted? And what if Evan didn't make it through the underworld? Would she regret not having spent more time with him in the way she actually wanted?

Oscillating wildly between moods, Dehaljadrun shook off those thoughts, chastising herself for even remotely caring about this human after a measly handful of nights. No, he was a pawn first and foremost, and she needed to stay focused on that above all else. She actively regretted having told him that the time she spent trapped might have been worth it if it meant meeting him. Gods, that sounded absolutely ridiculous to her now. How could that possibly be true? That was exactly the kind of thinking that had trapped her here in the first place.

Turning back around at last, the goddess stared defiantly into Evan's eyes, now suspended somewhat higher than eye level to her, with all the fire in her soul and said, "We had a deal, Evan." She practically spat out the words, each of them a vicious dart toward the helpless captain. "It's not my problem you didn't ask for any fucking details."

Competing feelings of satisfaction and regret pulled at Evan's chest when the goddess took a half-step back. On the one hand, it was so fucking good to see his words have an impact, to imagine that they'd managed to hurt her. But on the other hand, on some level, he knew his words weren't entirely fair, and worry and guilt nagged at the beck of his mind.

And then, of course, she managed to cut back just as painfully. Calling him childish and telling him to grow up sank daggers deep in his chest and his gut, twisting into his stomach and the tense muscles surrounding it. He felt downright sick, and the thought to use the talisman to get the fuck out of here honestly crossed his mind as tears started to blur his vision and hurt and fear seeped back into his expression. Desperate not to break down, taunts about Uranel danced to the tip of the captain's tongue, the desire strong to remind the goddess that she'd experienced hurt and powerlessness, too, and that he always had that weapon against her in his back pocket. But he didn't speak, either because he was afraid of the consequences or because he begrudgingly recalled that he'd told her he wouldn't--not that she hadn't thrown that offer back in his face at the time. Or, maybe he was just surprised by the wind picking up, whipping hair into his face and pulling an arm up to try to shield his eyes from any debris that might also stir from it.

The captain rolled his eyes as the goddess went on about the underworld, though quickly lost the attitude as his feet felt the ground pull away from them, sending his already sick-feeling stomach swirling in circles inside of him as panic boiled in his gut. Fuck, the talisman was starting to sound good again, but he tried to stay his hand and think. Running away was the option that felt real fucking good about now, but Evan knew it wasn't the smartest. It'd only reinforce the goddess' accusation that he was being childish, and he'd return to camp empty-handed and having almost certainly only hurt their allyship with the goddess by coming to her tonight. Would it even be salvageable if he left now?

Honestly, he was almost grateful when the goddess turned around again and chastized him about their deal. It gave him a thread of thought to at least ground his mind in, and reminded him that he had to be a tactical here. She was right that he'd been childish; it had been absolutely fucking foolish, some of the ways in which he'd let his guard down and allowed the goddess to affect him. Of fucking course their interactions were a test.

The captain looked at the goddess with a dark, almost eerily calm resolve, seemingly now unbothered by the wind and his lack of solid footing.

"Well, deal's off."

His voice was dead fucking serious, but he continued quickly.

"Things have changed on the ground, and our plan wouldn't work without more Shel'ti soldiers anyway."

Oh, some part of him was going absolutely fucking batshit about this, screaming in his gut and panicking about why the fuck he'd jeopardize everything like this. But the cold resolve that had managed to take hold of Evan confined his panic masterfully to his stomach, and despite the lingering blush on his skin and pink in his eyes, the captain's expression was positively bare and aloof as he stared almost uncaringly back at the goddess.

As if it wasn't fucking enough to see the captain calm and collected despite the whirlwind she was raising around him, those three words, the deal's off, sharpened the metaphorical knife pressed against her chest and plunged it straight through. It made it infuriatingly obvious how much these five nights meant to her, and she barely managed to contain a choke of a sob that rattled in her chest. She scoffed instead and turned her head to the side, her mouth a hard, angry line as she stared daggers at the ground.

The deal's off? The deal's off? Did this have something to do with what she had done to him the day before? Gods, damn it!

But then he continued. Things have changed on the ground. Dehaljadrun turned her head back toward Evan, her face screwed up in anger and disbelief. The whirlwind lifted Evan up higher into the air, the calm, almost defeated expression pushing her fury far over the edge of her own control. What did he mean? How wouldn't their plan succeed? And what did the Shel'ti have anything to do with this? And, did it matter that things had changed with the army? Hadn't Evan personally wanted this? Hadn't he said so after he had arrived?

It was worth it. Evan's words about the previous night came echoing back through her mind. Despite the fact that she furiously wanted to disbelieve that now, the look on Evan's face, the aloof expression so close to disappointment, made Dehaljadrun consider what he had just said more closely. If Evan's commander was not on board with the deal they had made, perhaps Evan genuinely was here of his own accord.

But there was a nagging feeling in her that Evan wasn't being wholly truthful, and her eyes narrowed accordingly. Why were the Shel'ti suddenly important now? He had been quick to leave them out of the agreement during their initial negotiation, after all. And then another echo of Evan's words came back to her.

Yes, our agreement is fucking important, but...

Either he was lying earlier and leading her on to believe that the deal was still on or he was lying now. That much was obvious. That choking sob threatened again to escape her, but she held it back, her body stiffening further. Knowing with absolute certainty that Evan had lied to her... how could she possibly trust him? She had believed the king's false sincerity and look where that got her.

But, she had to act now, which meant deciding which possibility was more likely. Sure, she wanted to believe that Evan was lying now, which would mean that the agreement was still fucking important and that he wanted to be here regardless, but simply wanting that to be true didn't make it so. But leading her on to think the deal was still on... what would he possibly have to gain from doing that?

With Evan now several feet above the ground and rising up higher as the wind continued kicking up, he got dangerously close to the top of the barrier. Just as the barrier started to glow and flicker with its buzzing electricity near the top of Evan's head, the goddess released her fist and cut subtly through the air to force the whirlwind to dissipate and extinguish the torches around the outside of the circle at the same time. Evan dropped suddenly to the ground and landed hard, but the goddess didn't expect that she had given him more than bruises.

With him on the ground now, Dehaljadrun walked nearer to him and stood over him, looking down at him with condescension.

"You're bluffing," the goddess finally said, hope and emotion showing through the anger in her face despite her attempts to hide them. She knew that calling his bluff meant admitting that she absolutely did not want the deal to be off, but damn it if she could care much about that now.

Fear did start to seep out further in Evan's body as the goddess lifted him higher, her face full of rage and the memory of running into the barrier earlier lighting up nerves all on its own. Even pushing down the fear of messing things up with the goddess, Evan couldn't ignore the fear that he might've just signed his own death warrant, or at the very least set in motion a whole new torrent of hurt.

He was surprised, then, when the goddess dropped him rather than shock him. Not that the dropping was gentle in the slightest, but the fall and the blunt, singular thud of his body against the ground was at least less all-consuming than the shock would've been. He felt he was able to keep his head on his shoulders, processing the way his body fell and needed to land and assessing the damage all instinctively, and concluding quickly that he'd be sore but all in all just fine. Honestly, it didn't feel all that different from calculations he'd made in battle, not to mention fistfights, a million times before.

Evan looked up at the goddess defiantly as he pushed himself up onto an elbow with a soft groan. He very nearly smirked when he saw the goddess' expression, but managed to keep his own in check. It wouldn't do to gloat. Besides, she had made an accusation which he'd need to answer, one way or another. He was quiet for a brief moment as he weighed whether she'd picked up on something from him, or whether she was just shooting in the dark. He was pretty fucking confident his poker face had been flawless, but as he processed just what exactly had shown through in her expression, he realized where he was being inconsistent. It might somehow feel like a fucking lifetime ago at this point, but before that godsdamned dream, he'd been trying to put the goddess at ease; and now here he was, totally turning face on that. His eyes narrowed and he swallowed, bludgeoning away the desire to see the hint of emotion he'd caught on the goddess' face as anything other than just another play, aiming to wield his inconsistency against him.

"No," he said gruffly as he moved to push himself to his feet. "Just coming to my senses. You're right; I've been a fucking child, and it's time I grow the fuck up."

His expression was still calm and collected, but certainly held more earnestness in it now than a moment before. His stomach turned over again as he worried he hadn't left the goddess any way to save face, but he didn't know how to do that now without losing too much face himself. Fuck, this was why he usually stayed out of the political shit.

Some grim voice wondered whether he should have staid out of this, too. He'd wanted it so fucking badly, but all he'd done was fuck it up and lose basically everyone's trust in the process. He should've at least let Mizu come to her senses on her own godsdamned timeframe so Evan wouldn't be having to renegotiate terms after the fact. He knew that now, as much as he hated to admit it. A hint of shame and frustration tugged at his eyebrows, before Evan narrowed his eyes again to rebalance his expression as he awaited the goddess' reply.

The goddess watched Evan collect himself, her face stern as she waited for his reply. She had no fucking clue what she would do if Evan insisted he wasn't bluffing, and she was hoping against hope that he wouldn't. But, sure enough...

Just coming to my senses. You're right; I've been a fucking child, and it's time I grow the fuck up.

She never wanted to eat her own words so badly in her life.

The goddess stared Evan down, looking for any slight indication that he was playing some kind of game and found none.

The goddess' anger mounted until all at once it broke, and all the tension in her face released. The stoic, flat-lined expression was, perhaps, more terrifying than her anger.

"Fine," the goddess said, turning her face from Evan again. "I suppose I have no choice but to negotiate directly with the king then." Dehaljadrun watched Evan's face closely. "A sorcerer of his requested I donate some of my demons to his supernatural army. It seemed ridiculous at the time, but, if you're not going to help me... perhaps I'll just have to fraternize with the enemy."

The goddess started walking away and stepped beyond the edge of the circle before she stopped and, without turning, said, "But don't think that doubling back on an agreement you made with a deity will be easy. I'll see to it you pay the price in blood."

Sure, some part of her wanted to force Evan to renegotiate, to point out that he had made a very one-sided decision without any opportunity for recourse, but that would almost certainly lead to the goddess pleading with Evan to stay, and if he was going to be an asshole the entire time, then he could just go back to his childish fucking war--that he would now assuredly lose--and stay the fuck away from her. Gods forbid that she ever thought he was any different from Uranel. Sometimes she hated that she had a fucking type.

((OOC: I guess, if Evan leaves or has nothing else to say, she'd start walking back toward her palace.))

Evan audibly scoffed at the notion that the goddess would negotiate with the king, his weight pompously shifting as his eyes rolled in blatant disbelief. The goddess turning and starting to walk away certainly pricked at his nerves--obvious bluff aside, he wasn't keen on staying stuck in this fucking circle like she was leaving him in time-out--but his blase arrogance didn't outwardly falter until she spoke again, far more hostilely than he would have anticipated. That made him recalculate whether she was serious about negotiating with the king, because if so, this was real fucking bad, and he couldn't stop his expression from falling as that possible reality materialized before him.

She was giving him an opportunity to respond, though. She could've immediately continued walking or struck up another wind to throw him into the barrier or any number of other decisive actions, but she left a pause, and the panic in Evan's gut about ruining everything finally managed to push something out of his throat.

"Wait wait wait--" he said hastily, well aware that he couldn't hide the panic on his face now. "I just--" he groaned and lowered his gaze to watch his foot kick harshly at one of the rocks beneath him in frustration.

"Fucking hell, I just need some of the godsdamned Shel'ti so they'll fucking work with us."

He raised his gaze to the goddess again, his expression battling itself between pleading and pissed.

"Surely that's preferable to prostrating yourself for the king, I mean fuck."

The goddess had taken a few steps back toward her palace by the time Evan managed to get words out. She turned, gratified to see that he was assuredly off-balance now, although she didn't let it show. The way he kicked her stones further cemented that, but she kept her expression neutral and unforgiving. At least, until it turned to disbelief.

"You need me to release the Shel'ti?" Dehaljadrun said before she could stop herself. She crossed her arms but dropped her gaze to study the ground and give herself some time to think. So, that's what that comment was about, she thought. Fucking hell.

"And your plan was to back out of our agreement and blackmail me into doing it? Gods... What is it humans say about the devil you know? Fuck, Evan." She dropped her arms again and shook her head slowly in exasperation. "Get out. You said it yourself; the deal's off. Get out."

Somehow, him being here now was worse than when she thought he hadn't made it back out of the portal.

Setting her gaze far to the side of Evan, tears watered in the goddess' eyes, and at least one escaped on the side of her face obscured from him.