#*ruyi

Before she finds the energy to lift her eyelids and greet the world with tired eyes, Anise takes stock of her body. She’s not sure where she is or how she got here, but the skin of her hands brushes against the stiff, starchy fabric of a hospital bed. She knows this feeling. Unfortunately, she knows it quite well, is very familiar with the uncomfortable linens and sturdy efficiency of hospital beds. Crap.

So she’s in a hospital, or at least in a hospital bed. Time to open her eyes then, find out exactly where she is and what’s going on and how she got here. When finally her eyelids drift open with the weight of ocean waves rolling onto shore, Anise sees...a hospital room. So she must be in a hospital. That’s no surprise really. Beside her bed is what appears to be a doctor, though not one she can verify having seen before. This hospital at least is not specifically familiar to her.

Ctnd from here with @mpxruyi

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 “Then one should strongly consider gaining employment,” the surgeon says as he puts back the book that the young girl had seemed content to attempt to stuff under her shirt.

 He had only noticed because he himself was in the very same aisle of the very same section in the very same book store, and he sighs as he looks at the cover of the book. It would seem also looking for the very same book. To think an infant with eyes bigger than her brain most likely would have a fascination with the medicinal properties of certain fungi. Ruyi eyes her with the same level of suspicion that one eyes a spider in the corner of a room- he has to know.

 “Did you intend to read the book for its contents or are you one of those terrible and wasteful brats that is stealing for the sake of stealing from a place littered with rarities?” he interrogates her. Her answer could be the very thing that gets her the book though most likely not in the way that she had planned. “If I took that book right now, bought it and you never got the chance to see it’s pages, would it upset you really?”

*~*~*~*~*

“I have a job...” Anise watches with dismay as the book leaves her grasp and returns to the shelf. There’s no way she can afford that particular book, not with her current budget, not until she stops being a student or gets a second job. The first won’t be for a while and the second sounds unappealing at best. She would never have any time for sleep if she did.

Something about the man gives Anise the creeps, which is pretty unusual. Must have something to do with his god parent, she decides. Her eyes sweep from the re-shelved book right down to the floor where her gaze would burn a hole if her shame at being caught had turned into a physical beam. How embarrassing. She can only hope this stranger won’t rat her out or she is sure to get fired. Stealing a book from her own workplace? There would be no getting hold of the book then.

His first question brings her gaze up, but her eyes don’t raise higher than his shoulder even though her brows furrow in response. “Why would I steal a book I didn’t intend to read?” she asks with genuine confusion. She’s almost taken aback by the question. Of course she wants to read the book. If she didn’t she would have no use for it. 

Cntd from ⚠️ with @mpxruyi

 How amusing. The surgeon looks at the other man over the rim of his wine glass as he sips slowly of the red liquid within and gives something odd and real to him. A little thing he hardly shares with others, a prize of sorts that only he can pass along.

  He smiles.

 “And do you find that your witchery does you much good? When we have medicine and science, does it help you to find a closer meaning to the enlightenment that so many seek?” A generous sip. That fiendish drink in him makes him warm and not just in temperature under his starched white collar shirt. There’s less an edge to his replies and a certain reciprocal way he seems engaged if the way that he dares to lean just a little closer is anything to go by. There’s a little color just at the tops of his cheeks, a creep of intoxication and it’s wickedly perfect because he seems unaware of it.

*~*~*~*~*

There’s something off-putting about the man sitting across from Dionysus, something the god can’t quite put his finger on. Here and there Dio meets a demigod who is a little more like him, the spawn of something far more ancient and dark than Dionysus himself. Because, whether he likes it or not, whether he likes to admit it or not, whether it makes him weaker or just makes him feel weaker, Dionysus himself is still only a demigod. The entirety of his divinity was a fluke; he should have been just another demigod.

This demigod before him reminds him of all that, and it takes everything in him to not let his anxieties show. In fact, Dionysus lets his own power bubble up under his skin, creating a barrier of mild insanity to keep out the other’s chaos. The effect doesn’t go unnoticed on the people around them. They begin acting more erratically, dancing closer together, spilling their drinks more often, saying ‘yes’ when they previously might have said no. Yet with each sip, Dionysus can feel his conversational companion coming under his own power.