((OOC: Continued from here: viewtopic.php?t=82&start=30))
As Philip turned to leave, Chloe felt well and truly alone. She pulled her arms around herself and her scant clothing--her offering--and wondered what she was doing here. She was the lone woman, she didn't understand the first thing about what the goddess of desire would want with her, and even now, she wasn't sure she wanted anything to do with whatever was happening back inside the goddess' palace.
What have I done? she asked herself.
But, she remembered to return to her breath, deeply inhaling as she reminded herself that the goddess, even now, wasn't keeping any of them here. Philip and Nathan were here, and there was something she wanted to learn here. She knew it.
Thus calmed, she also called to mind what she had so recently witnessed in the meadow. There had been several bodies tangled around the goddess with her in the center of it all, resolute as she gave herself over to a kind of ecstasy. Chloe might not fully understand the appeal of it, but the light the goddess had emanated and sent through her offerings had been one of the most divine processes Chloe had ever witnessed. She had seen the way the glinting purple leaves on the blackened trees had been restored as though they had suddenly remembered how to breathe. There was magic at work here, undeniably. Chloe had cried ecstatic tears of her own then, in awe of it. And yet, Chloe didn't want to be in the center of that fray. So where did she belong? Because, remaining here on the outskirts didn't quite feel right either.
Chagrined, Chloe turned her attention to the flower, which the goddess had made in the wake of her welcome to Chloe. Had it been a gift? That didn't seem quite right. It felt more like a puzzle somehow. Chloe felt a resistance to touching it, though that seemed an obvious thing to try. Instead, Chloe brought both her hands to the base of the flower and dug her fingers into the soil there. Was the soil in the goddess' realm the same as the soil back home? Did the same worms and insects rifle through it and support growth? Impossible to know.
What Chloe did feel was a warmth that surprised her. Confused, she closed her eyes to try to make sense of the sensation, reaching her awareness into the tips of her fingers. Where was the warmth coming from? Was it simply the ambient temperature of the ground? The flower?
But, as she paid more and more attention to the warmth at the edges of her fingertips, something even deeper pulled her attention down further into the ground. Chloe opened her eyes, staring at her fingers as though checking they were still there, still... normal, but they looked the same as they had, if covered now in dirt. She closed her eyes again, intently focusing. What if she could sense further into the ground? Had anything today been any less believable? She gently pushed her own doubts aside and sank in.
Chloe didn't need to go far before a burst of opalescent light opened out in all directions behind her eyes like an underground reservoir, an underground river. There was a current to the flow, though Chloe started to feel dizzy and lightheaded when she tried to look toward where the river was heading, that direction, blurred and fuzzy. Instead, she looked upstream and at either side of the glowing bank. In the great distance, there was a tree unlike any she had seen before, filled with the light and a red fluid with spherical orbs hanging from many of its branches and a black piece of fabric billowing from one close to the top.
Resisting the urge to open her eyes and double-check that she was still actually beside the flower outside the goddess' palace, Chloe kept looking. She imagined touching the current of the river of light, and it was warm and smooth against her hand like a rock or maybe a scale. The river shivered as Chloe watched, and she found a very embodied giggle bubbling up from her throat. With playful abandon, Chloe imagining wading into the current, the river of light coming up above her knees, as she looked in awe toward the great tree. Her giggling continued as she walked, feeling the sensations of the light sliding past her as her fingers rubbed pleasantly against the inside of her palms.
The river of light lapped at the edges of her clothing, her offering, which began to glow with a different light, a golden light that shone hot and bright against Chloe's skin. She turned around and around, arms thrown open and back, letting the light mingle and acknowledge each other, divinity recognizing divinity. Chloe was delighted to be a vessel for this reunion and cried silent tears of wonder at what she was seeing--two goddesses' magic surrounding her, bathing her in warmth and wellness and welcome.
Briefly, Chloe looked downstream again, understanding now why she couldn't see the end before. To stay here forever is ruin, she understood instinctively. As a mortal body, she could not bathe in the light of divinity forever, but she could visit it, and she could feel at home and comforted here.
With a mental effort, Chloe pulled her imagination back into her fingertips and pulled her fingers from the soil. She was sweating, and her skin was flushed, but her clothing had returned to normal, though the stitching still glowed with a faint gold light.
Thank you, Horu, Chloe thought to herself as she sat upright again, "And thank you, Dehaljadrun."