Written Wonderland

Ramanujan woke early the next morning, and his eyes flicked quickly to the bag he kept next to his cot. Yes, the bulge of the bottle of desi daru was still there, it's ornate gold filligree visible only in the way the bag formed over it.

He had gotten another night here in camp. One less to offer the goddess.

Ramanujan reassured himself, as he had many times the previous day, that other people the goddess had held captive were returning. In fact, all but one, it seemed.

Others will think you never recovered from being with her, Ramanujan thought. But then also, Let them think that.

And what of the goddess? She would know that he had returned of his own accord. Would she want him to return?

But that wasn't the question. She had asked for ten volunteers, and she was getting them. Eleven, if Ramanujan had counted correctly. If the soldier who ran through the portal preemptively counted.

She's not the only goddess, Ramanujan reminded himself. But she was the first goddess he had met. He had seen her realm. Would it be so different to bring his physical body there? Would it feel like less of a dream?

And would he find more of what he was looking for there than... here?

It was worth the risk, a risk Ramanujan had weighed and reweighed and recalculated time after time since he had reawoken from the goddess' sleep.

But he didn't want to sort through his own thoughts anymore. He had a wealth of hers to continue working through.

Dressing and walking to the river, he found a somewhat secluded place and sat crossed legged, staring out into the rushing water for a moment before closing his eyes.

Focus on that moment.

Everything the goddess knew distilled into one teardrop of thought, transferred directly into his mind.

Ramanujan had only begun to map the expanse of it. It was slow going, what with many of the goddess' memories being focused on sensation and swirling color and floating. Not to mention the shadows, which were not to be confused with the void where there used to be something. But what?

The man felt himself being tugged down, into the physical experience of his very real body, into the memories themselves and all their complex, dense emotions. But he managed to reassert his calm objectivity each time, gently directing his mind back to the task at hand.

He emptied his mind and tried again.

But once I get to the goddess' realm, where do I go?

A flash of something. It wasn't from the teardrop the goddess had given him. No, it was from when he had been a passenger in his own body, and the goddess had glimpsed something.

De... Dehal... Dehaljadrun. It was Evan's voice, talking to... not the goddess. Captain Fujiwara.

Fury. Tumult. The prince, my son, and this woman close to him. Saying my name close to Evan. The jealousy had burned in red hot flashes and orange strokes in the goddess' mind. But also...

What? A stroke of lightning or maybe fire, in Captain Fujiwara's hands as she stood against the dark night on the battlefield at Yersil.

Ramanujan thought they didn't have any sorcerers in their army. And why would that memory come up now?

The man sat quietly with his thoughts for some time more and then decided to bathe in the river. He allowed himself to dry naturally for a few moments, and other soldiers some ways away nodded to him, doing much the same.

He put his clothes back on and walked back toward camp.

((OOC: After the captains' meeting about Ponderance))

Fujiwara returned to her retinue, grave with the responsibility of finally sharing the bad news. At least she could tell her soldiers that Rutliff had heard from the prince in the night, reported to Miyamoto that Ponderance was indeed back with the king. It was a demoralizing blow, to be sure, but at least they wouldn’t have to linger in uncertainty--not about the prince’s fate, in any case. The exact means of Ponderance's capture was another story, along with the fate of the sentry who had been lost alongside the prince in the night.

One of Fujiwara's lieutenants tracked her down to speak in private after her announcement. She suspected she already knew what about, and she was right. At long last, someone was ready to speak of her fire.

"It just..." Lieutenant Reilley stumbled a little with his words, which was unusual for him. He was a man of few words typically, succinct and insightful. He'd no doubt been trying to weigh these words since Yersil, and had finally given up on saying them smoothly. "It's probably unwise that we haven't spoken of it before now, Captain."

"You're probably right, of course." Fujiwara sighed, surrendering to the subject’s inevitability. "What level do you want to speak on?"

Reilley looked at her a little puzzled, his thick auburn eyebrows drawn together with uncertainty.

“I haven’t really known what to tell you as your captain,” Fujiwara elaborated. “Something happened on the battlefield that certainly had to do with me, but that I have yet to fully understand. Everything beyond that is…” She trailed off, flourishing her wrist beside her in a tired yet theatrical half-shrug

Reilley looked down thoughtfully, and Fujiwara gave him time to contemplate her question.

“Have you told the commander?” he finally asked, not quite meeting her eye.

“No.” Fujiwara answered matter-of-factly. “Though I think I will tell her soon. Perhaps when she returns from finalizing our alliance with the Shel’ti. Certainly before we plan our next military action. For now, she’s had enough on her mind, and the tactical use of what I can tell her has seemed minimal until I understand more.”

Reilley nodded. Fujiwara relaxed a little, relieved that it seemed like her soldier understood. Well, after all, he hadn’t brought it up before now, either.

“What are the troops saying?” Fujiwara asked.

To that, Reilley shook his head. “Not much, at least around me. I think we’re all still making sense of what happened.”

Fujiwara nodded. “Me as well.”

A brief silence passed before Reilley summoned some courage to ask, “Is there anything I can do to… help you understand it?”

A rather unhelpful part of Yukiko’s brain offered, worship me, sprinkling in memories of Evan doing just that -- well, almost -- for good measure. There was a decent chance that Reilley caught a rather odd twitch of a smirk on her lips, though he was plenty stoic enough not to react if he did.

“Not at this time, lieutenant.”

Maybe she was going about this all wrong. Maybe it was foolish not to lay every single piece she had so far on the table. It would be so much easier if someone else would start, though. If she didn’t have to be the first one to mention a god. As much as it felt true enough, deep within her thoughts, she knew there was something she was missing. It wasn’t as simple as believing she was a god; something else was also in the way. But what?

Reilley nodded, and assumed a slightly more formal posture. Fujiwara was both sad and relieved -- he wasn’t going to push, or offer anything more specific -- and she nodded back to him, their nonverbal exchange a familiar dismissal, which Reilley followed promptly, leaving Yukiko alone in her tent feeling once again terribly alone.

She realized in his wake that he would be especially struck by their missing sentry. But in ways he wouldn’t have wanted her to speak aloud. She liked Reilley, but he was an odd one, to her, with how much he liked to leave unspoken. Then again, time present, she wasn’t really one to talk.

She should talk to someone, though. That was starting to set in. How was she to actually piece together this puzzle alone? And wouldn’t it be preferable to be able to give the commander -- to give Mizu -- as much of the picture as she could, once she did tell her?

But, who would she talk to? Who had the space to truly contemplate these things with her? Another captain, maybe? Oh, her heart yearned for Evan’s ear, but even if he wasn’t positively swamped with a different goddess, he had little space these days for herself. Others cascaded to mind -- Kade, Brede, Nicolaides, Borcher -- but excuses fluttered in right alongside them.

In the end, she supposed she was flummoxed by the machinations of rank alongside godhood, as absurd as that was. She was afraid of how the structure of everything would change. Perhaps it would need to, but in this nascent phase, she wished she could speak to someone outside of it.

The priestess, perhaps? Oh, in hindsight, Yukiko kicked herself for not taking opportunity to speak to the old woman sooner, but the inertia of looking after Ponderance had been great. That had been another part of this, foolishly or not. She’d wanted to be human for him… what irony. She thought again of the moment that Dehaljadrun had confronted her, had come to visit her son… while possessing one of their soldiers.

That soldier. Did he know?

Maybe not; neither Evan nor Mizu had bothered Yukiko about any secrets Dehaljadrun had spilt, so maybe she didn’t know them, and neither did this soldier. But… what if he did? Or, what if he would, if only she just went to speak to him again? Screw all that, in fact--even if he didn’t know already, he was safer than anyone else she’d thought of to tell. He was already leaving their hierarchy for another goddess; nothing would need to change between them.

She still hesitated, fussing about his preparations for the ceremony coming up, but… that also meant today was her only chance to speak to him; come sundown, he’d be gone, along with all the other volunteers.

Fine then. At last, an idea that could take hold in this slippery mind of hers. Yukiko grasped onto it, and finally exited her tent, walking with purpose toward Brede’s retinue where she believed the soldier was from.

((OOC: I’m not totally convinced this doesn’t feel forced… but idk, I think it makes sense, and more importantly, I don’t want to spend forever trying to make it perfect lol, so here we go. Given this mindset, probably as soon as Yukiko spots Ramanujan she’ll make pretty pointed eye contact with him and start heading his direction, and ask to speak with him in private.))

Ramanujan wasn't entirely sure what to do with himself for the rest of the day. Perhaps he should eat something, but he found he wasn't especially hungry. Knowing that he would be going to the goddess later tonight made the day feel ceremonious, and it was, really, which made it seem appropriate to fast. Maybe he could offer himself to Captain Kade. There had been a flurry of momentum already as camp prepared to go out to the meadow where they would send the volunteers off. Surely the captain could use another pair of hands.

But as Ramanujan started heading that direction, he saw Captain Fujiwara headed his direction. No, not only headed his direction but staring at him. Was she... had she been looking for him? Why?

"Cadet Ansari," Captain Fujiwara said to him, removing any doubts that he was simply in her way somehow. "May I discuss something privately with you?"

Ramanujan's eyebrows shot up in astonishment. For a few moments, he was speechless. Until yesterday when he had been a vessel for the goddess, the two of them hadn't interacted at all. But, maybe that was exactly why she was here. Maybe she thought he had information, and... he did, even if he hadn't been able to sort all of it out yet.

But, if the image he had seen--that the goddess had seen--of Yukiko was correct... What was she exactly? Not human, was the thought on the edge of his awareness, but he had difficulty believing it. Still, he couldn't disbelieve it.

"Of course," he said, after a beat. "Do you have somewhere in mind?"

Yukiko was relieved to find the soldier out and about; it would have been harder to ask him away from a task he was already set to.

"Cadet Ansari," she greeted him once their paths finished intersecting, "May I discuss something privately with you?"

His eyebrows shot up in astonishment, and she wondered just what he was astonished about. That a captain wanted his ear? Or that Yukiko in particular did?

"Of course," he said, after a beat. "Do you have somewhere in mind?"

"Walk with me," she said, nodding in the direction of the woods. They'd need to leave camp altogether to get the level of privacy she wanted for this conversation.

"How goes your preparation for the ceremony?" she asked as they began walking, figuring it a safe enough topic while they were still in camp, but one she was also genuinely interested in.

"Walk with me," the captain said, tilting her head in the direction of the woods. It was a reasonable enough choice that should afford them a large degree of privacy.

He nodded and did just that.

After they had started that way but before they had fully exited camp, she asked, "How goes your preparation for the ceremony?"

He nodded again. This was safe and reasonable territory, though he strongly suspected it had little to do with why she had sought him out.

"Well," Ramanujan said simply, at first. Then, he elaborated, "I was fully prepared to leave to sundown yesterday, so having another day to prepare... didn't much matter to me."

He had an urge to tell her about his meditations, about all the goddess' thoughts and how long he had spent attempting to sort through them. There were centuries of knowledge within his mind he didn't have a week ago. Perhaps she would understand. But he decided to hold his tongue, especially while they were still in camp.

"I had a bottle of ceremonial wine to give the goddess. I knew enough about her to understand it's... risky to go empty handed." That was surely safe enough to share with Captain Fujiwara. She might think little of it. After all, all the attacked soldiers surely caught some understanding of the goddess. Ramanujan just had the feeling that his education had been a little more... robust.

"Well," Ansari said simply, at first. Then, he elaborated, "I was fully prepared to leave to sundown yesterday, so having another day to prepare... didn't much matter to me."

Fujiwara let out a soft "Mm," almost a giggle. She could certainly respect that approach to it.

"I had a bottle of ceremonial wine to give the goddess," Ansari continued. "I knew enough about her to understand it's... risky to go empty handed."

Fujiwara glanced at him a little curiously at that. Why did it sound like he was trying to say two things at once? If he was, she couldn't quite tease apart his meanings.

"I did hear that you're each preparing offerings for her," she said by way of response.

Absently, she wondered what Trevor's offering would be, but didn't spend too much time contemplating it. Instead, she tried to think of other questions to ask the soldier, but many of the possibilities that came to mind seemed unimportant. It took a moment of sifting through her mind's initial offerings to get a layer deeper, to start thinking about how she wanted to get to what she really wanted to talk about.

"I've been thinking about the morning you came back to us," she finally said, glad that they were almost to the woods, on the cusp of full freedom to speak candidly. "The goddess was still within you, and she came to see me. Do you remember?"

((OOC: The start of that morning, for reference.))

"I did hear that you're each preparing offerings to her," Captain Fujiwara said. It was a neutral statement. Empty, really. It didn't give him any information.

But then, "I've been thinking about the morning you came back to us," the captain said as they approached the nearest trees, "The goddess was still within you, and she came to see me. Do you remember?"

Something squirmed in Ramanujan's gut, but he couldn't make heads or tails of what it was supposed to mean. There was surely no harm in admitting that he had still been aware in those moments, right?

"Yes, I remember," he said. He recognized that he wasn't giving Fujiwara much to work with, but until he understood what her angle was, he wasn't especially keen on revealing more about his... intimacy with the goddess until he needed to. Not to mention that finding words to describe sharing a mind and body with a divine entity was... difficult at best.

"Yes, I remember," Ansari said, and Fujiwara let out a soft exhale, betraying some excitement and perhaps nervousness, as well. She wasn't sure exactly what to ask next, though, at least while they were still on the edge of camp. She gave the soldier a smile, more explicitly sharing her excitement with him in warmly open eyes, perhaps hoping that would be plenty to tide him over in silence while they stepped past the treeline and into more official privacy.

The only puzzle now was how to assure Ansari that she wasn't seeking privacy due to the sexual nature of her and the goddess' exchange that morning, but rather the supernatural nature of it. What was the right way to ask what he had gleaned, without accidentally guiding him down the former path? Not that she wasn't a little bit curious about both, but one was far more important than the other.

Perhaps it was actually best to start by playing a card from her own hand.

"The goddess... brought up a memory of mine, of a time I had a realization about myself." She looked to Ansari as they walked, curious if he was the sort to allow readable expressions to cross his face. He'd been fairly unreadable that morning, but she wasn't sure how much to credit the goddess for that.

((OOC: Granted, it looks like we'd initially settled on a memory of Evan Domming Yukiko, looking back at the scene in question, though I think we've also made it canon in later scenes that Dehaljadrun did glean Evan saying her name with Yukiko. I'm perfectly happy for both memories to have come up at the time, if that's interesting. Also obvs up to you what all Ramanujan himself gleaned, and how he wants to respond now. I do think Yukiko may offer an additional comment or question after a moment, but is giving him a chance to go ahead and respond if he would like to.))

The captain smiled, and Ramanujan thought it was out of excitement. He wondered why, especially because she didn't seem interested in immediately telling him. He shrugged lightly as they walked, content to get some space from the camp before they continued.

His patience was rewarded, as she next spoke. "The goddess... brought up a memory of mine, of a time I had a realization about myself," the captain said. The phrase was loaded, like she was fishing for how much Ramanujan remembered. Did the captain have any reason to believe that the goddess could see into her thoughts? Or that, by proxy, he had seen into her thoughts? If so, he understood where this might be going.

Ramanujan heard again within his mind the sound of Captain Rutliff's voice whispering the goddess' name to someone who was decidedly not Dehaljadrun.

Was she worried that Ramanujan might talk about what she and Evan had been up to? If so, why mention a realization? Had Fujiwara broken it off with Rutliff after that? And, if so, what did all that have anything to do with Ramanujan?

"The goddess does seem to have an affinity for searching through the minds of others. Perhaps thoughts have some fundamental similarity to dreams in that way," Ramanujan said, determining that musing about the matter in abstract was safer than making any assumptions.

"The goddess does seem to have an affinity for searching through the minds of others. Perhaps thoughts have some fundamental similarity to dreams in that way."

Ansari answered all too levelly, showing no signs that Yukiko could discern that he'd gleaned either sexual or supernatural things about her. Maybe he hadn't seen the memory. Or at least, was intent to continue holding his cards about it. How did she want to approach this, then, if she was revealing something to him from scratch? She certainly had a flash of cold feet, but she reassured herself that she didn't have to jump in all at once. Ansari had already told her that he had his offering for the goddess figured out, that he'd been prepared to leave yesterday and that the extra day didn't matter to him much. They could ease into this slowly. Well, perhaps her own retinue would miss her at some point, but... she had some time.

"I suppose they do," Yukiko said a little wistfully, admittedly mostly filling space while she continued contemplating her approach. The trick was, this soldier had a comparatively intimate understanding of Dehaljadrun, but at the end of the day, she was a different goddess altogether from the one Yukiko was interested in. Maybe she could find the threads of connection, though. Surely, there would be some.

With a deep breath, Yukiko stopped walking, and closed her eyes to try to recall more about the moment that she and the goddess had met through this soldier. She placed her hands on her chest and lower abdomen respectively, sinking into her body and recalling the tingles that had danced from her scalp down her shoulders, light emanating from her crown. Yes, in that sensation, she'd felt like an equal. A sun looking at a moon, both celestial bodies however different in form and function. Horu was the sun, at least sometimes. Blazing light, warmth, leaves growing and opening to bask in her glory. She thought of her jungle again. So vibrant and alive, if... lost. Aimless. A mess of interwoven roots and vines and branches, threatening to strangle itself for lack of direction. Much like she felt, to be honest.

She opened her eyes, her stubborn smile sad and heavy, tears threatening. She felt a little bit silly, dragging this soldier into this. Perhaps she should have just come into the woods by herself. She'd hardly given herself the space, with the prince in her care. Was it terrible to see a burden lifted in his recapture? Not that loss and failure weren't their own burdens, though, melancholy in contrast to the purpose and intrigue that the prince had given her.

"I didn't know who else to talk to." She finally said, worried she was getting stuck in winding tangents and wanting to offer Ansari something. "I mentioned a realization, but the truth is... there is a lot I am trying to figure out." Her eyes even open had lingered on the forest floor, absently admiring a nearby bramble, but she raised her gaze to him now, her eyebrows drawn together with a note of apology. "I don't mean to waste your time, but it's difficult to know how to talk about it."

Amidst the apology in her expression was also a note of hope, maybe even pleading. Surely she'd given him enough that he'd lay at least one card of his on the table. Or choose to walk away, she supposed, which would be a card in its own right. She did think of one other thing she could offer him, though.

"To be clear, I'd like to speak to you as a civilian--or rather, as peers... who have both had brushes with gods."

Oh, panic simmered in her stomach at that, at having finally made a declaration, but she supposed it probably was the card she owed it to him to play.