Written Wonderland

Evan stiffened again, defensiveness flaring back up, but he tried not to reply impulsively.

"Honestly, I don't think it'll be that difficult to find volunteers." He replied after a moment. It took a great deal of effort to get the words out as simply a statement instead of a snap, but he mostly managed.

"I'd be surprised if at least some of the men who were attacked didn't decide to return." He was mostly just counting on Trevor there, at least confidently, but it didn't seem right to single the soldier out. "And, I think some of the other soldiers might also find this a preferable way to serve the cause. It's a chance to spend likely the rest of the war with the goddess of dreams and desire rather than charge into battle."

If Evan was being honest, he hadn't even thought of it that way before articulating it just now, but it was true, and his confidence was only bolstered realizing that he would in fact have been tempted by such an opportunity himself, had it been presented to him that way.

"I'm to bring the volunteers to the old woman; the goddess said she'll know what to do. Then the goddess will release three Shel'ti for each volunteer. In the meantime, she won't make any new attacks--on us, or them. She didn't give any deadline."

Mizu couldn't help but recognize the frustration in Evan's voice, and the commander began to ask herself if perhaps she was being unfair with Evan. What else could he have traded for the Shel'ti? Still, she kept her face neutral as Evan offered his thoughts on the matter. She chewed on the thoughts around their men being excited to serve the cause more indirectly than being on the ground. She had to admit she had mixed feelings about that. Would there be competition among the men to decide who will get to stay with the goddess? Mizu was again nervous--albeit for different reasons--for what the goddess' demonstration might look like. What if that would be too convincing?

And, if it were true that some of the victims of the attacks would want to return, perhaps what they experienced there wasn't as terrible as Mizu had imagined. And then there was Evan himself, who didn't seem very concerned about the ways in which the goddess was... interacting with him. And, Mizu supposed, if the goddess could heal the harm she caused, the stakes certainly were lower than usual.

Gods, this was certainly complicated. But, the goddess didn't give a timeframe, so perhaps this was doable, even balancing, on one side, Captain Miller's concerns and, on the other, Mizu's fears that the men would be all too eager.

"Do you want to handle recruiting them yourself or would you like me to delegate the task?" Mizu asked genuinely, her expression softening. She knew he was already exhausted and was well aware that she was asking a lot in making Evan solely responsible for the cause's interactions with the goddess.

Evan was surprised but relieved when Mizu's expression softened, and his own muscles relaxed a bit.

"I'm happy to do some legwork after I get some sleep, but I certainly wouldn't mind someone else getting it started."

He pondered for a moment on whether there were instructions or even just advice he wanted to give on that front, but he honestly hadn't gotten that far in thinking this through. Would it be better to be transparent with the whole army upfront, or would it be better to target soldiers more likely to volunteer or at least be amenable to the strategy? Evan wasn't sure. If someone else was going to get it started, they'd have to use their own judgement about how, and frankly, Evan was in no mood to be controlling about it. More than anything right now he wanted to wrap this up so he could get some fucking sleep.

--

Yukiko watched the soldier's expression carefully. She wasn't sure whether his ease at giving his word indicated a lack of interest in breaking it, or a lack of concern about doing so, but she supposed she'd already committed to the course regardless.

So, the captain nodded pleasantly, and then turned back towards Ponderance's tent before gesturing for the soldier to follow.

Inside the tent, Yukiko stepped lightly to the side to make room for the soldier to enter behind her. She shifted her gaze attentively between the boy and the soldier, rapidly assessing whether she should explain anything to Ponderance before they began talking. If the soldier truly did just want to talk to her and the boy was just a backdrop, she would want to address Ponderance if only briefly, but she had a feeling the soldier might address the boy first, and if so, she didn't want to cut that off.

((OOC: Wasn't sure how much purview I should take over Ponderance's setup. I did go back to around when Mizu and Yukiko talked and confirmed that Ponderance is not tied up or restrained at all. Yukiko fancies that she and maybe some others in her retinue have carved Ponderance some little wooden toys of various sorts, up to you if they seem to be used or just laying forgotten somewhere. Yukiko would also like to have provided Ponderance with books, if that's something the army would have access to. Let me know if you'd need any other details, though I'm also happy for you to make a fair number of your own decisions about it, just so long as it can be true that Yukiko's tried her best to help Ponderance feel comfortable within the constraints of the situation.))

Mizu nodded. She had expected as much.

"I'll see what I can do. Come check back in with me after you get some rest," the commander said. She wondered if she should say more to lift Evan's spirits, but Mizu felt that an attempt that direction would be clumsy at best, so she decided to give the captain an opening to leave if he was ready for it. He was probably just as grateful she wasn't lengthening the conversation.

--

The goddess, within Ramanujan's body, followed the female captain through the tent flaps and eagerly set her eyes upon the boy inside. He didn't look like much, but she supposed she couldn't expect a lot from a boy. He was small for his age, and his face was smooth and gave off the impression that he rarely smiled. His blond hair was disheveled, but the boy looked well cared for overall. He was sitting in a corner of the tent with a carved horse, slowly making it play-gallop across the ground where he could reach. He did not look up at either of his visitors.

A belated rush of sensation flooded the goddess after a moment, Ramanujan's tongue stuck as she contemplated what to say. The soldier looked back to the captain, knowing that, at least to some degree, she needed to keep up the ruse to maximize her time here. Still, she couldn't help the expression that appeared on Ramanujan's face, his eyes wide and glistening, mouth loose at the edges.

"Has he said much since he's been here?" the goddess asked, discomfort plain in Ramanujan's voice. As she waited for a response, the goddess mentally reached out toward the boy, but a wall kept her from seeing anything inside his mind. It didn't feel intentional on the boy's part; it felt natural, as though it were simply his nature. The goddess felt a wave of lonely sadness wash over her, feeling more separate from him than she would have thought possible.

((OOC: Ponderance is a really quiet and kind of bizarre kid, so if he's talked to Yukiko, it's probably been in short, obscure, and somewhat prophetic-sounding sentences. Let me know if that's not enough to go on.))

Evan nodded, and absolutely took the opportunity to leave, though he did wait just long enough to confirm that Mizu didn't seem to have any follow-up thoughts. Once he felt confident about that, he left hastily, eager to get to his cot and crash.

---

Yukiko's expression grew even warmer as the soldier turned to her and asked his question. She very gently shook her head in response, and turned her gaze to Ponderance while gesturing lightly with one hand towards the soldier.

"Ponderance, this is one of the soldiers who had a nightmare a few nights ago. He woke up today and wanted to come talk with me."

She paused just long enough to gauge whether it seemed like Ponderance wanted to respond. She caught a moment of recognition from the boy, but that seemed to be the extent of his engagement for the moment, so Yukiko returned her gaze to the soldier, her smile still warm and patient.

"He's a boy of few words, though he'll certainly surprise you with the occasional parable or enigma."

She paused briefly there, but then decided to push forward rather than leave things there.

"Now, you had an urgent message for me?"

The captain let her bright, wide eyes narrow and dim just enough to hint at skepticism, but she also raised her eyebrow slightly to add back in a spark of playfulness along with it.

As the captain responded, the goddess watched the boy, noticing the short moment when he looked up to acknowledge that she was speaking to him--and about him--and it was enough of a look for the goddess to recognize that the boy--Ponderance--undeniably had the king's eyes. The golden caramel brown was unmistakable. A spike of pain hit the goddess from within Ramanujan's body, and it was enough that the goddess worried again about how long she would be able to keep control.

She was pulled away from staring at Ponderance when the captain addressed her more directly, though.

After a moment of thought and a small, momentary quirk of one corner of Ramanujan's mouth, the goddess said, "He knows what he's talking about." The goddess looked once more over at the boy, not bothering to face the captain again before saying, "He's a far more powerful player in this game than anyone realizes. The goddess made that much clear." She wanted, if nothing else, to leave the boy with some feeling of security in his own nature, even if it felt unwise to come out and say exactly what she meant.

"She also had a message for you directly, Captain Fujiwara," Ramanujan said. The goddess then touched the mind of the woman, seeking out something in her desires, dreams, fantasies that she could use to follow up that thought and... found Evan there. Not just as a fantasy, as a memory. It took Dehaljadrun a moment to understand what it was she was seeing, but it hit her all at once, and she could not help herself from recoiling even within Ramanujan's body, taking a step back unconsciously.

Ramanujan's eyebrows narrowed, and the goddess' purple eyes darkened considerably.

"Stay the hell away from Captain Rutliff."

((OOC: I guess, if you're interested, it might be helpful to have more details about a memory that Dehaljadrun might have pulled up, something that could have been recently on her mind.))

Honestly, Yukiko was rather pleased with what the soldier said about Ponderance. It seemed to confirm what Evan had supposed about the boy's lineage, and gave the captain even more resolve to stay close with the boy and to keep paying attention. She kept her expression steady, though, and waited patiently for this message she was to receive.

The impulse honestly hit her to laugh at what the message ended up being, though she managed to contain the feeling's expression to freshly-brightened eyes and a sharper, more challenging arch to her eyebrow. A pang of fear certainly hit her heart, but it stoked exhilarated tingles all across her shoulders and her upper back. A goddess, jealous of her? The tingles moved up to her scalp and stretched languorously into waves as her pride bubbled up within her and started to overflow.

The captain took a smooth, steady breath and reeled herself back in, pulling her thoughts away from spinning theories and dare she say fantasies about how this message had been conceived. Tempting as that was, it was better to spend the short time she had in her thoughts to weigh a reasonable response. On the one hand, she'd already been keeping her distance from Evan for some time now, so promising the goddess that she'd continue would cost little, practically speaking. On the other hand, Yukiko certainly had to interact with Evan as a fellow captain in some capacity, and she wasn't about to sweep a technicality under the rug when dealing with the supernatural. Plus, there was the matter of principal, though she admittedly lacked confidence in how that principle stacked against their allyship with a god in a war, and also whether those two things were even relevant to each other.

"Are you only a messenger?" she asked after a moment, her raised eyebrow smoothing out from challenging to curious. "Or can you send the goddess my reply?"

The goddess stood her ground as she witnessed the captain register the command, and the rolling waves of pride and tingling sensations of discomfort in Yukiko bloomed a golden shade within Ramanujan's chest. Undeniably, it felt good to the goddess, but it also fanned the flames of her anger.

It has nothing to do with you, the goddess snapped in her mind. Ramanujan, though he had obviously heard the goddess' mental outcry, elected to stay silent.

"She's actively watching," the soldier said aloud, unable to help from leaning toward the woman.

A fresh rush of exhilarated tingles erupted across Yukiko's skin again, this time all the way from her scalp to her fingertips. The soldier leaning toward her did make her uncomfortable, but in a way that she was more than happy to lean into, though physically that just meant remaining calm and still, posture just as upright as ever.

"The goddess should know, then, that I have no intention of personally interfering in her dealings with Captain Rutliff, but I cannot promise not to confer with him on matters concerning the war or indeed our allyship with the goddess."

Her voice was calm and confident, though her expression sharpened; she knew she was giving a risky reply, and couldn't help injecting a sense of playfulness into her smile in light of that, her eyes even glinting mischievous. Perhaps not the most strategic expression change, but Yukiko was in rather uncharted territory here, and she wasn't even sure what a strategic expression would have been. Besides, given how maddeningly tempting it had been to simply tell the goddess "No," and leave it at that... she felt pretty good about how cordial her expression was able to remain.

Aware that at least some part of Yukiko was enjoying how frustrated the goddess was, Dehaljadrun listened intently to what the captain had to say and... couldn't find fault with it. Perhaps her initial reaction to Yukiko's memory had been hasty, but the goddess kept returning to the flash she saw: Evan pressing Yukiko's throat into the ground while astride her, both of them lost in mutual pleasure, and by the looks of it, in an army-issue tent. Couldn't have been that long ago, the goddess thought to herself.

There was, perhaps, nothing to be done. Of course Evan had had previous partners--and current ones if he continued to pursue things with Xavier--and, hell, maybe he was still involved with this female captain. Why should the goddess care? Except she did, undeniably.

Yukiko was completely reasonable in her reply, and the goddess knew it. There didn't appear to be resistance to giving up personal interactions with Evan, so maybe whatever they had was over, which made the goddess' demand even more ridiculous. But then Yukiko's expression turned toward enjoyment yet again, nudging the goddess back toward the edge of her patience.

"It would be unreasonable to ask for more," the goddess said in a level voice, turning Ramanujan's head back in Ponderance's direction as a realization struck her. This was the woman in charge of guarding her son. The one with a history with Evan. Fuck. The urge to put her hands over her face was strong, but she resisted. Everything felt so fucking out of her control. She had to trust these humans to handle fucking everything while she was trapped. Gods, was she ever eager to be done with them. Even, at least at the moment, Evan.

"Just... do your job. Take care of Ponderance. If anything happens to him... the goddess will know exactly who to blame." More than anything, she wanted the privacy she would need to take Ponderance into her arms and tell him who and what he really was, but she knew that wouldn't be possible. With a sigh, the goddess began to turn toward the tent flap, saying as she did so, "Now if you'll excuse me, there's something else I must attend to." With one last look at Ponderance, Ramanujan stepped out of the tent.

Now, some kind of gesture for the commander... and quickly. The goddess could feel her grasp on Ramanujan's body lessening, and she knew that she already had less access to her power in the human realm, at least in her current state. After a moment of thought, she made up her mind and walked with determination to the center of camp. There were a few soldiers around her, and she stared potently at each of them in turn, wanting them to see her purple gaze.

Then, raising the soldier's arms up toward the sky, she closed his eyes and focused, pooling together the last of her strength, magic, and power to create a purple shimmer directly above Ramanujan far up into the sky. From there, as she slowly brought his arms down, the brilliant shimmer spread until it covered the entirety of the camp in a transparent dome that caught the sunlight gorgeously and held in all sound, dropping the breeze to nothing. The camp grew silent as this occurred, and there was a moment of panic after the dome had been completed as people around the goddess wondered if they were now trapped, but after a short period elapsed, the dome then dissipated all at once, the shimmering substance falling upon all the soldiers out in the open and even penetrating through any tents to give everyone who experienced it a sense of warmth, acceptance, and a taste of the glory that might await them if they succeeded in their cause.

Thus depleted, the goddess took one last breath within Ramanujan's body before releasing it completely and returning to her realm. The soldier quickly crumpled unconscious on the ground.