Written Wonderland

Chapter 1

The goddess lay down in the center of a circle of carefully inlaid black and white stones—one hand between her breasts and one hand over her lower belly—and closed her eyes. She was completely nude, and the purple flames that burned from the twelve torches around her made her skin appear to glow, and maybe, around where her hands touched her skin, it did. Her dark hair splayed out around her, and she couldn’t help but smirk thinking about how many of the beings in her realm (not to mention beyond it) would kill to get a sight of her this way—vulnerable and, more notably, alone. But, no, no one was watching. She had made certain of that.

How many times will you attempt this? some voice in her thoughts asked. As many times as is necessary, she answered immediately. She had begun searching through the dreams of the Shel’ti for information about how she might unbind herself from the king’s spells—simply because the Shel’ti were closest in proximity to her realm and her forest—but the fruits of those labors were scattered, limited, and largely unhelpful. It was by complete accident that she had, in one dream, taken over the body of a Shel’ti man, much to their mutual surprise. Needless to say, she couldn’t keep that connection up long. She hadn’t succeeded that way again with the other Shel’ti, too many of them becoming thralls in her service before she could manage.

Now that an army—the very army in rebellion against the king—had settled near her forest, however, her chances of success grew dramatically. The Shel’ti were far too peaceful and diplomatic a nation to be of much use to her.

Two nights now she had spent gathering information in her attempt to secure one of the soldiers’ bodies, and on both accounts she had failed. The goddess hardly expected that tonight would be different, but she was convinced that this could work.

So, you’ll possess a body, and then what? that same doubtful voice in her head asked. The goddess tried to shake the thought off, but come to think of it, how long could she sustain a possession? Not long enough to get revenge on the king on her own, surely? But, if not this method, then what? She had spent ten years trying to poke holes in the king’s spells, and this was the best she had managed.

And besides, it wasn’t as though she minded having thralls around. They made for better company than the demons on a good day.

Still, if she was going to attempt this yet another time, the goddess needed to get her thoughts under control. She needed to focus.

The most recent man she had enthralled, a lieutenant named Philip, had largely been a dead end, meaning that she would need to choose someone at random. Dehaljadrun took a deep breath and exhaled, closing her eyes and preparing for the mental journey into the landscape of dreams.

In the years since the king’s spells had trapped her in her realm, she had gotten exceptionally creative about her methods of travel, and if she focused all her attention, she could access and move her consciousness through the electricity in the air, especially in the night when the everything dewed with moisture. Without a corporeal form, she manipulated the barrier of her realm where it was thinnest: in dreams. Not even the king could separate her from her own nature. In the liminal space she traveled through, dreams appeared to her, bare in the way they begged for something to watch the flow of events. She couldn’t help but be fascinated by the creatures humans thought up in dreams, and occasionally she would pull one out or recreate them in her own realm. She made many of her demons this way. That was not, however, why she was here this evening.

The dreams of the soldiers in camp were clumped together in the dreamscape, and the goddess was careful not to touch any of the opalescent mist the dreams were made of, though they reached for her. Passing through groups of them, she searched for something she could work with, some clue that the person she chose might, in fact, be amenable to her presence without succumbing entirely.

And then she saw one. Delicately stretching the opalescent mist without touching it, the goddess studied the storyscape, something of a malicious smile curling at the images there.

It was always disorienting, the moment when the goddess made contact with a dream and essentially became it, the fabric of her being so thoroughly entwined with the landscape as to have complete conscious control over it while maintaining a form within the dream itself, if she so desired.

“You won’t get away with this!” the soldier attempted to yell even as a soldier in the king’s regalia gripped Trevor’s throat painfully. The goddess, watching only, not participating, saw the life begin to leave Trevor’s eyes, uncertain whether this was a dream or a memory. Certainly, if Trevor did have a near-death experience...

Hungrily, the goddess continued watching—invisible, unnoticed—as Trevor’s eyes rolled back in his head and the king’s soldier only pressed in harder, the determined grit of his teeth making it obvious that he intended to murder the man. The goddess waited, sure that something would interrupt to stop the scene, but the edges of the dream began to dim as Trevor’s dream consciousness faded. At once, the goddess knew she had to act if she did not want to be thrown from the dream. Slipping into Trevor’s imagination of the king’s soldier, she took on his form, her purple eyes coming through his chiseled expression. And, instead of continuing to choke the man, she threw him to the ground, standing over him as he coughed and sputtered and caught his breath, his eyes streaming with tears.

It was then the goddess mentally caught wind of Trevor’s disappointment. It was clear to her in the fabric of the dream as the ache appeared, and Dehaljadrun realized she had been tricked. This wasn’t a near-death experience at all. It was a fantasy. Trevor wanted to experience death. And, even as Trevor glared at her within the body of the king’s soldier, she could feel his anger at the interruption, even if he couldn’t fully understand the cause.

“Change of plans,” the king’s soldier said in the goddess’ rich, velvet voice. “We’re taking you prisoner.” Trevor looked like he was about to protest, but a black cloth appeared in the king’s soldier’s hand, and Trevor was soon tightly gagged. The king’s soldier then found rope on the ground, which the soldier immediately made use of, tying Trevor’s hands by looping the rope around and between them.

Then, the scene shifted, and Trevor was tied down to a rack, the chiseled soldier standing above him. Gruffly, the man with the goddess’ purple eyes untied and pulled off the gag, and Trevor coughed up remnants of the fabric.

“Just fucking kill me already. I’m not telling you anything,” Trevor said, and the goddess couldn’t help but laugh.

“Oh, but you will,” the goddess said from within the body of the king’s soldier. Without pause, the man placed his fingertips painfully against Trevor’s forehead, nails digging deeply into the thin layer of skin over bone. At once, images and memories erupted into focus, clouding whatever else was happening in the dream. Trevor and the goddess tumbled through images of the battles Trevor had already fought against the king’s army, images of the people Trevor had left behind to arrive here, images of the death of a dog that had been a loyal companion to Trevor for many years.

The goddess pressed on, determined to find something useful in the event that Trevor woke up from the dream unexpectedly or fell too completely into her power. And then there was a voice in Trevor’s memory that spoke, saying, Look toward divinity, if you want a reason to live. It was a man’s voice, and something about how the sound resonated informed Dehaljadrun that this soldier was also nearby. If Trevor didn’t work out, then she could try looking for that one, surely.

Though the goddess was satisfied in her, Trevor seemed to know that someone had witnessed that voice, that memory, and how much it meant to him, which made him angrier than the goddess could have anticipated.

You have no business being here, Trevor said, his voice reverberating the shared mindspace of the dream. Withdrawing back into the body of the king’s soldier, the goddess removed the man’s hand from Trevor’s forehead and tightened the restraints on Trevor’s hands and ankles.

“You have some nerve, saying that to a god,” the king’s soldier said, and Trevor’s face scrunched up with confusion and disbelief.

“You are no god,” Trevor said, spitting into the soldier’s face. “You’re a demon.” At that, the king’s soldier growled with fury and moved swiftly to clutch again at Trevor’s throat, the goddess’ own nails coming through the soldier’s form as they dug painfully into his neck.

“Say that again,” the goddess hissed into Trevor’s face.

“You’re a demon.” But then Trevor smiled, and the goddess knew he wanted to goad her on, make her do something, but gods damn it, she wanted to.

She reached across to a table in the vaguery of the dream and grabbed a bright silver dagger from it. It flashed light across Trevor’s face as the king’s soldier brought it to his throat.

“Demon god, at minimum,” she said, her confidence coming back with the blade. She pressed it into his throat, drawing a thin line of blood down the center of his neck and on down to the center of his chest. There, she lifted the dagger up and balanced it on Trevor by its tip. “Which means, I know you want this,” the goddess said, putting the smallest amount of pressure on the pommel of the dagger. The goddess paused then, leaning down to whisper in Trevor’s ear, the king’s soldier’s facial hair barely touching the base of Trevor’s temple, “And would never give it to you.”

Trevor trembled and growled as the goddess’ words washed over him, and the goddess smirked in return. Yes, she had certainly struck a nerve.

The dream shifted then, and suddenly Trevor was upright and nude, his hands shackled with chains coming from the ceiling, but his legs were now free. The goddess, still inside the king’s soldier’s body, moved out of Trevor’s range on the off chance that he would take advantage of that fact, at least, for a moment. Then, mercilessly, she lunged and thrashed toward Trevor repeatedly, each time making a new shallow cut somewhere on his body—his bicep, his thigh, his stomach, his calf, his cheek. When she stopped, blood was dripping from dozens of places.

“Just enough blood lost to get you close,” the goddess said, her voice sultry and compelling. “Never enough to send you over that edge.”

“What do you want?” Trevor finally yelled. The goddess began circling him then, assessing him. Would he be capable of accepting her presence? She had little choice but to attempt it, and to do that…

Stopping behind him, the goddess reached around with the king’s soldier’s arms and poised the dagger against Trevor’s throat once again.

“Compliance,” she spat viciously into his ear, and Trevor trembled again but managed to keep from leaning on the chains. She didn’t give him much more time to react, though, as she moved the dagger over Trevor’s diaphragm and wasted no time plunging it deeply through his skin.

This is a dream, the goddess reminded herself. This is only a dream.

Trevor screamed and thrashed back against the goddess, and she left the dagger there, quickly unbuttoning the king’s soldier’s pants and pulling out his cock. Breathing heavy, the goddess brushed the cock against Trevor’s naked backside, and he clenched, pulling away from her, though the motion obviously pained him further.

“No, stop! Why are you doing this!” The soldier asked, crying but not sobbing for the additional pain it would cause his diaphragm.

“Because you want this, Trevor,” the goddess said with absolute certainty. “Because I see everything you are, everything you have ever desired, every fantasy that has ever passed through your mind.”

“Why would I want this?!”

“You tell me,” the goddess said, grasping Trevor’s hip with one hand while she plunged the king’s soldier’s cock into Trevor’s ass.

“FUCK! NO!” Trevor yelled as the goddess pushed into him further, grasping both of his hips now and fucking the man with gritted teeth. Trevor yelled and screamed again, and the goddess had flickers of Trevor’s pain flood her vision; she could not help but feel them, and she could not help but feel the rush of Trevor’s blood and endorphins and adrenaline as his body fought, even in this dream, to survive. It only urged her to continue.

Trevor was gasping for breath now, pushed to the edge of all his limits, blood dripping down every surface of his body.

“Trevor,” the goddess said, feeling the king’s soldier’s body nearing some kind of climax. “Trevor,” she said again, coaxingly, soothingly, as though she weren’t the cause of all his pain and all his unspeakable pleasure. “Let me inside you,” the goddess whispered loudly while she continued thrusting. “Let me be the blood within your body.”

Trevor moaned but that quickly turned into a roar that culminated as he said, “you’d have to kill me first.”

This is a dream. It’s only a dream. Picking up speed as she thrust into Trevor’s pain-stricken body, the goddess’ breath heavy and irregular, she felt herself ready to shed the form of the king’s soldier, waiting for the moment of climax to do so. And then, after reaching again toward the hilt of the dagger, the body of the king’s soldier peaked, and the goddess pulled the dagger out from Trevor’s stomach and thrust it deeply within his back.

He barely cried out at all but slumped so the chains were the only reason he was still upright. The king’s soldier’s body fell to the ground, and the goddess tried to use the momentum from the orgasm to push herself into Trevor’s consciousness, but it was fading quickly, and she began to panic. She thought she could gain control before he woke up, but he was falling fast.

Trevor, wait! The goddess yelled within his mind, but for a while, she got no response as the light within him continued to fade.

Then, finally, she heard his inner voice faintly. Thank… you.

And the dream shifted again, and they were no longer in the dungeon but back in the goddess’ realm. The goddess was in her human form again, her lavender skin glowing with frustration. She had failed. Again. She fell to her knees next to Trevor, who looked serene lying on the cold, dark ground with his eyes closed, his wounds and the dagger nowhere to be seen. As she watched, the fog condensed and moved toward his eyes as it made a thin white covering over them.

“Keep… me with you,” Trevor managed to say before the covering fully took hold, and he stopped breathing altogether.


Chapter 2

At least until the enthrallment was complete. They were outside of the dream now, and truly back in the goddess’ realm, kneeling. She had, incidentally, trapped Trevor’s soul here, just like she had done with so many of the Shel’ti men. Fuck, she thought, just my luck that this one wanted to die.

Out of some level of decency, she took a moment to manifest an article of clothing made of the same material as the blindfold Trevor wore—little more than a loincloth—and threw it toward him. He caught it effortlessly.

“Put it on,” the goddess said and watched as Trevor stood and obeyed her wordlessly. The goddess sighed. He wouldn’t be of any use to her now, as a thrall. Or, at least, no help in getting her out of this place.

Once Trevor had carried out her instructions, the goddess stood herself and walked over to him, running a gentle hand along one side of his cheek and sliding softly down to his diaphragm, rubbing her fingers over the flawless area of skin.

“Not every day someone asks me to murder them,” she said. Trevor stood silently but shivered and leaned into every touch of the goddess’ fingers. Stepping back, the goddess sighed heavily and turned around. Seeing the wide, thin purple stone-like object she had put on the edge of the circle, the goddess went over and picked it up, its essence now humming at the same frequency as Trevor’s. She stroked the purple stone, and Trevor shivered as though she were touching him herself.

“Come along now. Let’s head back to the palace with the others,” the goddess said.

________


The goddess was too frustrated and exhausted to believe that trying again tonight would be worth anything, so she lay herself down on some of the cushions beside her throne, the purples and oranges and reds of her palace tapestries lifting her mood somewhat. And, you know, Trevor didn’t look bad as a thrall, his muscular body only accented by the flicking purple flames in the goddess’ braziers.
Rolling the scale connected to Trevor over and over in her hands, the goddess couldn’t deny that she appreciated watching Trevor’s knees tremble any time she rolled it, unconsciously warming both Trevor and the scale with the motion.

There are certainly times, the goddess thought, when this arrangement isn’t all bad. She hummed lightly to herself, enjoying the vibrations as they cascaded down her throat and deeply into her chest. Still, she missed the days when she could invite a man’s whole self here in her realm, and her mind began to stray to some of the better memories she had had with the king before… well, thinking about that would spoil it. His hands within her hair, his lips across her collarbone, his eagerness to get every inch of power she was willing to offer him. His intoxication with power certainly had intoxicated her. Perhaps she should have seen his betrayal coming, but she had been too wrapped up in the bliss and pleasure of it all…

But then Trevor curled one fist gently, and from within the stone-like scale, the goddess could feel a strange tug and pull. This was new. Was Trevor’s physical body still available to her?
Pressing the scale gently between both hands, the goddess focused and quite easily located Trevor’s form and entered it, unable, for a moment to open Trevor’s eyes but still undeniable present. Had it worked? Could she possess his body? But Trevor’s consciousness was long gone, trapped within her realm, which made doing anything inside his body increasingly difficult.
But then the goddess registered that there was something in Trevor’s hand, a piece of magic, and it certainly felt like that was facilitating this little venture. Not only that, but someone had gently placed it within Trevor’s hand and was anxiously waiting for a response.

Without opening her eyes, the goddess said, “Well, isn’t that precious?” not bothering to make an attempt to sound like anyone other than her compelling, inviting self. The sound of metal sliding across the floor quickly followed, and Dehaljadrun could feel this man’s fear and uncertainty. Yes, she supposed it would be disconcerting for a man to suddenly awaken with another’s voice, especially if, as she suspected, the thralls were essentially comatose back in their human realm while she had them.

“All right, then,” the man said to himself before addressing her directly with a rather anticlimactic, “Hi.”

The goddess then finally found the mechanism through which she could more readily move Trevor’s body, and his eyelids flicked open to reveal the goddess’ deep purple shade. She took a good look at the man standing above her while Trevor’s body lay on the cot in what appeared to be an infirmary. The man was short but muscular, his arms stark against the black of his tank top. He was uncomfortable—the goddess could feel that much—but he was doing a good job of hiding it as frustration furrowed his dark brows and his bedraggled black hair clung to the sides of his face. Would that she had attempted to enthrall this one. She had to keep herself from biting the inside of her lip at the thought.

But before she could fully coordinate Trevor’s movements, the stranger set his jaw, leaned forward, and grabbed Trevor’s tunic in two places, effortlessly pulling the body upright in the way the goddess hadn’t been able to.

“You and I have a problem.” Having gotten more control of the body by this point, the goddess managed to stop the twitching that was characteristic of the thralls’ empty bodies and even cocked an eyebrow.

“Oh, do we.” Her tone was dark but playful, her question, rhetorical. The goddess wanted desperately to search the man’s mind, to find out who he was and exactly why he was here, but all the goddess’ energy was required to gain control over the foreign body she how inhabited. And, soon after the words were out of the borrowed body’s mouth, the goddess sensed another figure approaching the infirmary. If she wanted to do anything with this man, she needed to do it quickly. Using what little energy she could muster from within Trevor’s body, she reached to bite and then quickly kiss the man’s jaw before Trevor’s body reverted to the limp state of before as the goddess lost control of it entirely.

And then, all at once, the goddess opened her eyes, the chill of the palace and the warmth of the braziers casting competing sensations across her body. Yes, back here, from which she could not escape, no matter how comfortable she had made it for herself.

----------


Dehaljadrun was, yes, tired. Between her failed attempt with Trevor and maneuvering herself within his body, she wanted nothing more than rest. Not sleep, she had never once slept the way humans did, but she still needed rest. Reaching out with her mind, she quickly located the first boy she had captured from the army and smiled gently toward him as she approached. He was not far, just outside the palace in fact, waiting, as they all were, for instructions. It was a pity, really, that they didn’t have more agency—that would certainly make them more entertaining, but Dehaljadrun hadn’t made the rules, and this was all the company her failed escapes would afford her.

Nathan, the goddess said deep within Nathan’s mind. Nathan. She was coaxing him but also preparing him. With a few mental commands, she sent him to the center of the meadow outside her palace and smiled mischievously at him. Stopping for a moment to kiss his forehead, she took several steps back and folded her arms over her chest before expanding her arms and allowing her body to expand, reshape, transform into her dragon. In her dragon form, she was a dazzling opalescent purple with sheens of bright pink and deep maroon as well as a glint of gold if the light caught her just right. Dazzling, yes, but also completely and utterly terrifying with teeth as long as the boy’s head and spikes even longer than her teeth. The dragon now fully unfurled its wings, looked up toward the sky and let out a screeching roar, a cry of betrayal and agony and frustration that the goddess had clearly been holding in before she transformed.

Looking down once more at Nathan, the goddess’ dragon bit a thin tapestry hanging just inside the palace and pulled it out, making quick work of tucking one side around Nathan before picking up the other end in her mouth to form a makeshift pouch for the boy. Once she was confident he was tucked—mostly safely—inside, she wasted no time in lifting off the ground with her powerful wings that never ceased to ache for flight and carrying him off in the distance toward the mountains at the edge of the goddess’ realm. There, she rested in her dragon form once she had settled down in a cave she had cleared out long ago. It was a secret resting place just large enough to fit her full dragon but small enough so the walls felt as though they closed gently around her and the boy, nestled as they were in their mountainous womb.

The dragon did not sleep, but she did rest, curled as she was around the small soldier, the hot breath of the dragon's nostrils blowing gently across the boy's hair and face. It wasn't sleep, no, not sleep. It was more like meditation, more like joining with the slipstream of greater consciousness, more like rinsing one's soul clean. The dragon took pleasure in the fact that the boy wouldn't be sleeping either, trapped as he was between worlds. Souls didn't come to her realm to sleep. That was human. Animal.

Every few breaths, the dragon curled herself a little tighter around the boy, her smooth scales sliding across his almost completely bare skin, consuming what little warmth his body produced and holding it around him. Dehaljadrun's dragon had begun to enjoy this practice in the few days since the boy had arrived, spending more time with him than either of the other thralls from the rebel army, or any of the Shel'ti, for that matter. His fantasies calmed her. Even the ones the boy found terrifying. It was a release to give the boy something so few others wanted.

In her meditative haze, the dragon nudged the boy with her warm nostrils, first in the crook of his neck, then one side of his hip, angling so her snout would slide across his body as she pulled away. She supposed, in this state, if she could forget everything outside this mountain womb, she could be happy. Grateful, even. She held onto that, clinging to it and strapping her hope to it. She would find a way to escape. She would find someone she trusted enough to return from the underworld. Or, at least, unbind her before he failed himself.

The dragon spent hours and hours of early dawn and daylight in the cave, silent except for breath, white misty smoke wafting from the dragon's snout for a few minutes at a time.

The dragon rested, curled around her thrall, tightening and loosening with each breath until finally, late into the day, she shifted and lifted her head. With her snout, she gently jostled the small boy, nuzzling him awake and to attention. The dragon looked toward the sky and let out a huff of breath. Yes, she was still here, in her realm, trapped by the king's terrible magic. At once, she felt entirely alone, and there was nothing the wraith of the human with her could do to assuage the sensation. There was nothing else for it; she would have to try again. Tonight.

She had a lead.

The voice of the soldier who had spoken to Trevor, the one who believed in divinity, he might be able to welcome her presence long enough to... to... what? Gain more information? Walk across Asphodel to kill the king with his own hand?

Nevermind that. It was the only link she currently had to the human realm, and gods knew she was going to use it until she fully understood it and could manipulate it for her purposes. Manipulate them, really. What other choice did she have?

She needed to wait until the human realm fell into night, though. He would only be accessible to her in his dreams. Until then...

The dragon once again picked up the tapestry and wrapped Nathan safely inside, picking him up with her mouth before standing and walking to the edge of the cave. With a great leap, her dragon entered the skies and veered back toward the meadow in front of her palace.

The goddess had rested, but now she hungered, and the wraith of a boy she had brought with her to the cave simply wasn't going to satisfy her. Landing gracefully in the clearing, the dragon let down her burden from her mouth, waited until the boy had stood up, and nodded at a copse of nearby trees, intending him to head in that direction. With the boy thus distracted, the goddess transformed from her dragon form to mist and slowly coalesced into her more humanlike form, her shape accented boldly by a long, draping black dress that made her lavender skin stand out from the slits for her arms and legs. The dress, of course, also had a plunge in the front, patently displaying the spherical nature of her breasts. Her hair was twisted up and out of the way for now, held together with an onyx pin through its center. The goddess was greatly pleased by her own form. She had certainly grown most accustomed to this one over the years.

There were several thralls standing at attention in her palace, their former orders having worn off, and the goddess looked down the line of them. There were many Shel'ti, of which she was already beginning to bore, and then there was the man she had claimed the previous evening who still bore some of the injuries she had given him within his dream landscape. She kissed and licked one of the wounds quickly as she passed him, and it began to close. But the goddess moved on past him to the second man she had enthralled from the army camp, the lieutenant of the boy she had taken to the mountain cave. He was still, in some ways, fighting her, unsure of his presence here, and completely consumed by his own guilt.

If the goddess wanted a good chance at succeeding this evening, she needed to be nourished. Granted, feeding on wraiths of men left her unsatisfied and--let's face it--lonely, but it was better than nothing, and she wasn't about to stoop to seeking out the fae to help her. It was never worth getting involved in their politics.

Where Philip stood with material covering his eyes and loins, the goddess approached, allowing all her hunger to surface in the electricity of her hands as she gently stroked the side of his face. Peering into his mind, she watched his emotions roil--his desire to be with her, to serve her even though it conflicted with his guilt and confusion at the very notion of being incapacitated. But, incapacitated he was, and there was little he could do save follow her instructions.

"Come," the goddess said, her voice dripping with compulsion and thick with hunger. Such hunger would have made any mortal man tremble, and Philip was even less than a mortal man here, now, with her.

She led him back to the chamber behind her throne, tempted to plunge the two of them into an illusion of her own making, but that would require yet more energy the goddess could not afford to spend. Fine, then, they would be here.

The goddess gently pushed the thrall down onto the bed such that he was sitting, and the goddess proceeded to straddle his tall body, her dress splitting where necessary to achieve this position, her legs, hips, and ass bare against the lieutenant's body. She felt his desire to reach around her and pull her closer, and she allowed him to do what he would--it didn't matter to her. She would get what she wanted regardless.

After letting his hands wander, she stroked the side of his neck with the back of one finger and wasted little time in sinking her teeth into that exact place on his neck. She wasn't seeking blood, exactly; it was something deeper and more ancient than blood. Something replenishable and yet, sacred. After a moment, the force of the bite thrust Philip down on the bed, and the goddess kept at the motion, feeding and sucking and pulling and praying at Philip's body for the sustenance she needed.

That was, perhaps, the cruelest part of being trapped in her own realm--she was essentially starved.

But she lost herself in this process with Philip--she needed to--and she could feel that he wanted her to. She whispered his name a few times in between bites, and she began to travel the rest of his body, syncing up with the light within him and touching her lips to that place--just above one hip, above one nipple, the side of his jaw--bringing the light into her own being. It did feel pleasurable, for both of them. The pleasure loop it created was beautiful, but... pulling back and away from Philip, the goddess sighed, water welling in her eyes. It was a one-way exchange despite Philip's confused pleasure in the situation. He couldn't... take light from her. It wouldn't work if she told them to--she had tried.

The goddess stroked down the length of Philip's body as she got up from the bed, gently touching his previously ignored cock and then turned from him altogether, feeling... stronger but at the price of a greater loneliness.

Collecting herself and pouring half a glass of wine the fae had made with the best of the grapes she had grown, the goddess sipped heartily, handing the glass to a thrall and kissing him gently on the lips if only to give him a taste. Gods, she just wanted someone to experience all of this--any of this--with her. What was the point of creating everything you wanted if there was no one to experience it with you?

The king had known this about her. Had absolutely abused--and sometimes, she imagined, engineered--the situation in the first place. And for a time, he was right. Uranel had been everything she had wanted. Until he wasn't anymore.

The goddess shook the thought off, walking solemnly to her ritual space now that the light was right. "They've begun to dream," she said as though to steady herself. She could feel when it started to happen in the area of Asphodel her realm to which her realm connected. Everything about her body, her shape, her form, began to feel lighter, and it was easily to slip through to the between places, places where the gods touched humans and demons.

Lying down within her lit torches, the goddess hummed deeply, aligning the air around her into a fierce shield and amplification of what she was. As she closed her eyes, her being, her consciousness launched into that space and began walking through the river of dreams. It was bright, and there were opalescent shimmers building all along some kind of white corridor. Dehaljadrun had the impulse to shade her eyes, but then she grew accustomed to it once more, the white adjusting itself to a light gray shimmer. Dehaljadrun touched what was not exactly a wall, and some of the material began to curl around her finger, her hand, and up her arms as though snakes. She smiled at them, appreciative of the ways the tendrils always welcomed her touch.

Now, to look for the dream.

The swirling tendrils looped around the goddess' arms and down the drapes of her dress, deciding not to leave the goddess alone in her search. She could feel that the soldier of interest was dreaming, but she was early, and the images had not quite coalesced enough to sense easily. The goddess found Ramanujan relatively quickly, though, as his was only one of a dozen current active dreams in camp. She was grateful her hunch was accurate. Or you're just impatient, a voice in her mind suggested. She waved it off, gently disturbing the gray swirls about her.

...may all that I learn bring me closer to an understanding of divinity. May I know when the... Dehaljadrun chuckled. Even in his dreams, the soldier prayed. Although, when she looked closer, the goddess realized it was far more purposeful than she had first assumed. He was making a conscious decision to pray in his dreams. Dehaljadrun had encountered this sort of thing before, but it was rare, and she was surprised to see it happen in such a context.

But then Ramanujan finished his prayer, lifted his head from where he was kneeling, and looked directly at the goddess. Dehaljadrun took a sharp inhale but otherwise concealed surprised from her reaction. Well, she supposed, here was the moment when she entered his lucid dream.

I knew you would come, he said it with happiness, a controlled joy that was at once confident and uncomfortable. The goddess looked around the place where she found herself now, having fully entered the dream. It was a considerably more solid place than the in-between realm she had come from. The room didn't even blur at the edges. Must be a location from memory, then. And the soldier had spent a lot of time and thought into getting the details right. The room was covered in red with accents of gold. It was a small room that glowed with the red light of itself. Ramanujan had been kneeling near the bed but stood now that she had finished her quick examination of the room. Taking a few steps closer to Ramanujan, she let her hair fall into a ponytail, the red light reflecting on her dark clothing, the edges of which curled with the curvature of her skin.

"How did you recognize me?" the goddess asked him seriously.

"Your divinity is obvious," Ramanujan said, his body rigid, although Dehaljadrun thought she saw a slight shrug. While he may be playing her, coaxing her, the goddess smiled and raised her fingers to her lips to feel them briefly. As she did so, Ramanujan started to approach her and, before she would have raised an eyebrow at his audacity, knelt in front of her.

The goddess, while pleased at his demeanor and respect, was also unpleasantly irritated at exactly how compliant the man was being. Surely, if she asked, he would allow her into his body--that much she could see in his mind--but... there would be no resisting her, and in order to succeed...

But perhaps there was another way to do this. The goddess took a moment to think and wondered how feasible it would be to ask Ramanujan to seek out one of her priestesses to perform a summoning. Would he remember her enough to do that in the morning? Perhaps, but it was risky.

Stalling, the goddess walked a few steps closer and ran her fingers over Ramanujan's short, coarse hair, a craving for company welling up in her body. How long could she have him as her own before he would succumb to her completely?

His thoughts were neatly organized and plain for the goddess to see. He was calculating the best ways to get what he wanted from her but also waiting to see what she would ask from him. He knew she was here for a reason. This meeting was, of course, not a mistake.

The question was, how much did she really want him to know?

"I've come with questions," the goddess said, sliding a hand underneath the man's chin and gently encouraging him back to standing. Their bodies were only inches from each other, and the heat of the room was making it difficult for the goddess to ignore her own wants. Her smile returned.

Ramanujan nodded as though he had expected as much and met her eyes with curiosity. "Anything, my goddess," he said.

"How much longer does your army plan to stay camped here?"

Ramanujan's eyebrows fell heavily over his eyes as he took a moment to think. "I don't know. We are trying make allies of the Shel'ti, and my understanding is that our commander is leaving at dawn to meet them. It's a day-long trip, so perhaps a few more days at the least, a couple of weeks at the most."

Dehaljadrun found it difficult not to scoff at the idea of the Shel'ti. They hadn't exactly been useful to her. But, then again, this army hadn't done much better as of yet.

The goddess nodded and found Ramanujan's eyes again. Searching gently through his memories, she instinctively knew that, despite being a soldier, Ramanujan himself had not had an encounter with death. Well, perhaps there were still other ways he could be... helpful.

"Do you know what has happened to my temples?" the goddess asked. She assumed she already knew the answer to this question--Uranel surely wasn't stupid enough to leave them alone--but this was the first man that Dehaljadrun thought might actually have an answer she could trust.

Ramanujan looked down at the ground before responding quietly. "The king destroyed them about a decade ago. Worship of you has been banned. And the priestesses who served you..." He paused to meet Dehaljadrun's eyes again, his eyebrows raised in worry. "...disappeared, were killed, or have been forced into service of the king and his court." The soldier, despite the emotion in his gestures and expression, said this in a steady, though deferential, tone.

"And this did not dissuade you from seeking me out?" the goddess asked.

"No," Ramanujan answered simply, then added, "although you are not the only god I have sought." Dehaljadrun nodded. She was not surprised that this man was hedging his bets. His intense desire to be in the presence of divinity--to understand the nature of divinity--was obvious. He didn't much seem to care where the divinity came from.

"And," the goddess said, moving closer to Ramanujan such that their bodies were now touching, the dream tendrils that had followed her into the dream wrapping around Ramanujan's arms and sliding up his back. The man seemed surprised, but he did not flinch. "...are you afraid of me?"

The soldier took a deep breath before he answered. "Not until you give me reason to be." He looked directly into her gaze. It was not exactly a challenge, but it wasn't quite submission either. Desire continued to well up in the goddess, and she wondered deliciously about how differently this man might feel if she took him here inside his lucid dream, if he would feel differently than the wraiths and thralls she had thus far collected.

Shaking her head to one side to brush her long ponytail behind her, Dehaljadrun reached up and set her hands just below Ramanujan's shoulders on both arms, gently rubbing circles into the area with her thumbs.

Leaning forward toward one of his ears, she whispered, "Would you like to experience what it is that makes me divine?"

"Am I not already experiencing it?" the man said matter-of-factly into the curve of her neck and collarbone, though there was a hint of smile in his voice. Still, the clipped manner with which he spoke had begun to make the goddess bristle. She pulled away and looked at him with a hard line of her mouth, though his expression genuinely turned toward confusion at the sight of this. And suddenly she knew that she could not win him over with her body. Or any body. This she picked up without sorting through hardly any of his thoughts, as he was presently so self-aware of them as to at minimum feel her touch and have yet more information into what she wanted of him.

Of the thoughts that she could not help but see, there were mostly questions, so many questions that crowded her mind so as to block out any of their individual hungry desires. Ramanujan tilted his head almost imperceptibly and looked at her, a hint of worry clouding his dark brows.

The goddess closed her eyes for all of a moment to clear her mind and finally climbing up the few steps onto the bed in the room, the blankets soft, body-warm cotton. The goddess walked over the blanket and seated herself near the edge, now elevated a good several feet above Ramanujan even while sitting.

She knew what she wanted to do. She wanted to accept his unspoken challenge, to delve into and see just how deeply she could give him what he wanted, but she hesitated, still not completely sure that he couldn't be of more use to her yet. If her priestesses were gone, who could summon her out of this? And did the king find all of them? At least that elderly one had gotten away for a few years at least. The king had surely tracked her down by now. Any one of them was an immense danger to him, and she knew he was well aware.

But, before she could formulate some response, Ramanujan kneeled again and stared at the floor in deference.

"I truly did not mean to displease you. I am humbly at your service. Please, ask what you will. And if you will permit me to ask questions of you afterward, I would be forever in your debt."

The goddess... didn't mind the sound of that debt. Not at all, in fact. And yet...

She smirked. He had formulated the first question he would ask her, though it had not yet made it out of his lips. Is there someone you answer to? And all at once, she couldn't resist.

"There was a time when I answered to no one," the goddess said, her eyes flashing darkly though she smiled. As she did so, she pushed herself off the bed and came down one step before seating herself again and leaning over Ramanujan. "And when they went astray, they refused to answer to me."

The goddess wondered if she dared speak more than that on the topic and finally said, "Now, I am trapped in a world of my own making." After a short pause, she added, "So I suggest you don't anger the gods." Her eyes grew wide, though her shoulder swayed in what can only be described as a purring motion, and her eyes flashed dark again. The dream tendrils clinging to her grew more electric in nature, and a few of them reached out to gently shock Ramanujan. He did not appear to react, but Dehaljadrun knew he felt them, knew he knew she could do so much more.

"Trapped, my goddess?" the soldier asked, looking up at her with a neutral expression. There! Curiosity! And a willingness to help her. He really would do just about anything on her behalf. Huh.

"A spell hidden away from me in the deepest parts of where dreams die," the goddess said, enigmatically. "And forget how to become real again." The soldier frowned and raised his hand as if there had been something on his face, but then, realizing he wasn't wearing his glasses, put his arm down again awkwardly.

"I assume it can be broken," Ramanujan said, comfortably looking her in the eye now, though she was still elevated above him.

"Not without nearly dying yourself." The man appeared to think for a moment, and Dehaljadrun took pity on him. She didn't even want him to contemplate ways he could accomplish that. That's not how he would be of use to her. "Unless you know another way to break the bonds." The soldier blinked and raised his eyebrows somewhat before furrowing them and raising his hand to his chin. "You do know how magic works, don't you?" the goddess added with a laugh. Of course he did.

He nodded at her, his mind whirling. "How much do you know about how it was done?"

"Beyond what hasn't worked to escape it... nothing. Nothing other than its location."

"And you've tried..."

"Everything," the goddess answered for him.

"So, it's old then. Predating you." Dehaljadrun was surprised. Though she had assumed that herself--at least unconsciously--the goddess did not expect the confidence in the man's voice. Where had he learned about magic? "Or... perhaps... new magic. Though that seems unlikely. To..." The soldier seemed to have noticed he was thinking out loud and returned his eyes toward the goddess, though they were restless now in looking at the possibilities behind them.

"I'm sure I would have noticed if a magic that potent had been born," the goddess said, but she sounded more resolved on that matter than she actually felt. Regardless, the soldier seemed to drop the issue.

"Older than the gods who betrayed you?" Dehaljadrun was again surprised but then realized she shouldn't have been. It was a dual-purpose question. He wanted to know if the hierarchy ever ended.

The goddess was silent. There were no good answers to that question. There had always happened things none of the gods would at least claim to have done. And none of them could lie, not truly, not back then. She had suspected but...

"There have always been rogue magics. I suspect some of them are older than the oldest of us, yes."

Ramanujan furrowed his brow deeply and raised his eyes to the goddess again. "I'm sorry, but I don't know how to be of further help to you. Perhaps if you could show me where the spell is I..."

"No," the goddess said simply, nonchalantly. "No." Ramanujan bowed his head, searching for some kind of recompense to offer her.

The goddess slid down one more step, now only one step above the soldier, lifting his chin softly with three fingers on her right hand. He looked up into her face as she said, "I will get out of here." It was as much a promise to him as it was a promise to herself, and they both believed it.

She could feel his hungry mind reaching for her, a million questions on the tip of its tongue, so resolutely held back and sorted through. The goddess smiled as the soldier met her eyes once more momentarily before she closed hers and leaned toward Ramanujan so their foreheads were only a few inches away.

With a gentle concentration, the goddess reached forward with all of what she remembered from the whole of her six thousand years, holding an invisible tendril out just before it broke the man's skin. Waiting, tempting. And then, all at once, Ramanujan's own mind reached out and touched it.

The goddess opened her eyes in her ritual circle, feeling the slow breathing of the man who had just succumbed to her somewhere off to the left. She knew the tendrils of white would be wrapping around his eyes and the lowest part of his torso as he breathed, marking him a wraith, a thrall, a soul trapped here without his body.

Dehaljadrun did not move. She felt numb, empty. Gathering up all her memories had taken a great deal from her. Experiencing them all over again in a condensed moment--it was a bending of time, one that, try as he might, Ramanujan would grasp at fruitlessly for the rest of his life. No human could retain all that. But, he would have the sensation of it all, and if he had not been telling the truth about being convinced of her divinity before, it was now written into his bones, and she could feel it.

Sensation was coming back to her in a trickle, the grief in her body filling first, endlessly it seemed. How many of the memories she had relived had been of... elsewhere. And how crystal clear the memories of being stuck here had been.

Fuck! she yelled within her mind, anger returning to her now as she moved her hands to her eyes and pressed. She wanted to cry but what would the point of that be?

She hadn't gotten anything useful out of that man. Just... devotion. Curiosity. Interest. And there were a hundred of men like him where he came from.

And no leads, now. Nowhere to go except to another random human idiot who might--gods help her--manage to... manage to what?

Potently, she remembered the sensation of being, even for that small moment, within Trevor's body. The way the captain had pulled up the man's shirt, how the goddess could feel the gravity shift under her.

You and I have a problem. The captain's voice was potently in her mind again, the sound closer--it seemed--even than the thrall who lay somewhere beside her.

Maybe she could search for that man's dream. Maybe she could enter his body, make him...

Though a wave of pleasure wracked through the goddess' body, it was met with a culmination of her grief, fatigue, and disappointment such that the two waves crashed within her and brought the numbness back. She dropped her arms to her side.

Fuck, what was the point? So he could end up a wraith in her care like all the others? No, the captain's dream wouldn't take her where she wanted to go. But maybe if she could lure him, coax him into performing a summoning...

Gods, it was even more far-fetched than any of the worst of her attempts at escape but...

Another one tonight, then? She couldn't imagine waiting yet another night, spending it sulking like she had the last, no. She was done wasting time. Ramanujan said the camp not be there for much longer; the goddess needed to make these nights count.

The goddess placed one hand over the center of her chest and the other just below her navel, inhaling and summoning her energy into alignment, slipping once again to that realm of dreams...

She couldn't help looking, but the captain wasn't dreaming. Renewed in her search, the goddess looked for anyone the captain might have contact with. He had to have men under his command; there were so many soldiers. Now just to find one.

It was only then she felt that many of the dreams had a strange quality to them. They were... more tangible somehow, more potent. Their reach was beckoning, and Dehaljadrun felt the sensation as arousal, the desire building and building as she touched first one dream and then another, demanding that memories of the soldiers' captains come to the forefront.

No, no, no, no, no, the goddess thought, moving from one to the next, and then...

Yes. Elation flooded into her body as she entered the dream.

Determined and curious about what had changed the nature of the dreams in the camp, Dehaljadrun wandered through a bustling city full of blurred faces. She found herself wearing an elaborate black dress with far more frills than she would ever have intended for herself and a lacy black parasol that was welcome relief from the sunshine that flooded the street she was in. Ribboned gloves laced up her arms and around her middle fingers. She smiled, amused. Surely, she could make quick work of this one.

One shop in the dream was more carefully arranged than the others, glinting in the light from every angle. Potently drawn in that direction, the goddess moved through the door, collapsed the parasol, and took inventory of the three women inside. One stood on a wooden box, admiring herself in the mirror from every angle while the other two adjusted sections of a gaudy pink floral dress--complete with bustle--that the woman was clearly trying on.

"Stop moving, Franciska," one of them said, but her voice was pleasant, happy, excited.

After a moment, the three women took note of the black-clothed figure standing just inside the doorway, and the goddess tossed them a nod, making it painfully clear she wanted them gone. The two women pouted and looked as though they were about to say something but closed their mouths when Dehaljadrun narrowed her purple eyes. She wasn't here to play games. They looked at each other and then at Franciska, but finally started to leave, their dresses momentarily catching on each other as they both tried to maneuver out the door.

The goddess stepped further into the shop then, raising an eyebrow, "You're beautiful, Franciska."

The woman, her blonde hair curled with only one or two ringlets out of place, looked down and pushed a curl behind her ear. "Why did you make them leave?"

"I'm here for you," the goddess said simply, moving closer such that Franciska was staring down into the goddess' serene face.

"I've never seen you here before," the woman said plainly. In response, Dehaljadrun reached up and caressed the side of the woman's face with a slow and intentional urgency that made the woman's breath catch.

"Oh, but I've seen you," the goddess said, her other hand coming up to cup the other side of the woman's face, "though never quite like this." The woman blushed but then a look of concern crossed her face. Dehaljadrun did not wait, however, and stepped neatly onto the pedestal, pulling the woman directly into a kiss and pressing her plump lips around Franciska's small, delicate ones, reaching around toward the back of Franciska's bodice to begin loosening the laces.

"I think it's time you changed," the goddess said seductively, pulling away only enough to look the woman in the eyes. But, instead of continuing to unlace the corset, the goddess reached up and pulled off the blonde wig the woman had been wearing. A look of absolute terror overcame the woman, and her features began morphing into those of a stalky, grizzled blonde man, hair balding with uneven patches in his scruff of a beard. His chest hair bloomed out of the bodice, and the dress stretched and even ripped in places to accommodate his full figure. He covered his face with his hands, but the goddess took little notice, nudging him off the the pedestal and pushing him through the mirror in front of them before passing through herself.

She stood off to one side of a stage where the soldier now stood, an audience of onlookers pointing and laughing at his state. The man gripped at the skirts of his dress and tried to hold back tears but seemed unable to move, looking from blurred face to blurred face, their mouths wide with the way they humiliated him. Finally, as though remembering he had legs, the man ran off the stage toward the goddess, moving past her quickly into the shadows where blackened trees sprung up around them. Suddenly, they were alone.

The soldier landed on all fours, and the goddess kneeled and stroked his upper back, loosening the garment further so the laces were not cutting into the man's skin.

After a moment, the goddess cupped the man's chin with her hand and lifted it so he met her eyes. With every ounce of seriousness she could compel, she said, "I love you. Even like this." She looked from one of his eyes to the other and back again, ensuring he understood, and drew him into a kiss in the same sweet, sensual way she had kissed the woman in the shop. Before long, the kiss deepened, hunger from both parties erupting from between them, and soon the man in the pink dress found himself beneath the goddess, skirts hiked up and...

Everything was a flurry of movement as the goddess transformed out of her clothes and entered the man, her awareness shocked at how easily it was to slip fully into the man's body where it lay in the human realm.

What are you doing?! The man voice echoed from within their shared mental landscape, a scream erupting in the distance, but she brushed off the thought as though it were a fly. She was in his body, in the human realm. She could feel it. Now, to remember how to work one of these...

The goddess managed to flick the man's eyes open and saw the canvas tent above him. Following the instinct of the man's muscle memory, she reached a hand to touch at the necklace he was wearing, its texture suddenly catching her attention. Looking down at the marking on the bone and hair charm, the goddess laughed to herself.

The soldiers in the camp were wearing amplifiers? But why?

Please, please, she heard the man beg, please come back, please. In their shared body, the arousal of their dream coupling ignited again, potently distracting the goddess as she attempted to get the body to an upright position. She couldn't yet decide whether the fact that she could still hear the man's thoughts was a good sign or if it would only prove an annoyance.

Closing her eyes, the goddess leafed through the soldier's memories, looking for the location of the man's captain, but she struggled to find anything useful. Digging deeper, she sensed something she had been looking for in so many men...

It has me. It has me. It's going to kill me. I am so cold. I'm so cold.

This soldier had seen death. Could she use him?

Another memory distracted her, however, as within the depths of this man's mind there was a memory laced with guilt and discomfort, reaching out as though to catch her attention. Delicately, she removed the mental bindings from the memory and...

It was him. The boy who had been taken from her. This soldier had tied him up, had incapacitated him. This army had her son. How had they taken him from the king?

But then there was a rustling around outside the tent, and the goddess' eyes opened again, feeling out who was approaching from a distance. Had the scream been audible? she wondered but then realized who was arriving.

It was the black-haired captain.

Fuck yes. Another wave of greedy pleasure washed through Seth's body. This was going to be fun.

The goddess looked innocently up at the captain as he approached, knelt, and set a hand on Seth's shoulder.