"Yes, good boy!" Val said while patting his head. That woman deserved growls and woofs.

Setting Evalaite down and throwing a cloak over her shoulders, Tavras directed his attention to Val. "Would you mind going to your room?"

"Say no more!" she cheered with heavy sarcasm. "I am already heading there. Come on, Foofy!" The two of them ran to her room together, and she shut the door.

Sliding down along the wood, Val sat with her back immediately pressed to the door. As much as she knew that she should not eavesdrop, she could not resist at least until she had learned the nature of their conversation.

For a while, all she heard were the casual movements of footsteps and sliding chairs. Tavras and Evalaite must have taken a seat at the table.

In truth, Val had no reason to listen through the door when she could move her vantage point into the kitchen with Past Insight. Hence, she closed her eyes and thought of the exact circumstances of their apartment two seconds prior.

The kitchen manifested in her vision, and indeed, Tavras and Evalaite were taking their seats across from each other at the table. Eyes filled with tension glared at one another.

Tavras began with a lecture. "You are being completely irrational and just going to get yourself killed. Consider yourself lucky that I came tonight. Otherwise, you easily would have bled out through that gash in your arm before you had made it back to New Gate! Arius was this close to killing you tonight." Tavras leaned forward to pinch his fingers in front of Evalaite's face.

She swatted his hand away. "Do not speak to me like I am a fool. I would not have taunted Arius like that if you were not there. It's best to rub salt into the wound—make it sting for longer." A wicked glint of a smile rose to Evalaite's face. She leaned back in her chair, relaxed.

By her next breath, her bosom rose and fell from the way that she had arranged herself. "Arius is going to kill Suvier for us. I know you hate him, and that is why I have turned him into our ally at his own expense. While he still has his useless moral qualms about turning on his own father, he has never been so primed to kill him before. Now, Arius is not dumb nor rash. He will need a few more decades—a century tops to grow in power—but then I am confident that Arius will put an end to Suvier once he is strong enough to win."

Tavras shook his head over and over again. "Ah yes. You have everything planned out, don't you Evie."

Her smile softened to a kinder thing upon his usage of her nickname. "Yes, I do Tav, and then everything can go back to normal. I know how hard this has been on you, so I thought to do something to alleviate your immediate situation."

Continuing in a purr, she said, “Most recently, I have now become a whisper in Suvier’s ear. It is only a matter of time before I will have the God Supreme convinced to relax some of the restrictions on the Sea Itself."

"You always say that," Tavras said. Mockingly, he repeated, "You have said 'it is only a matter of time' since the beginning of this whole scheme!" His face contorted in distaste while he yanked his hand away from Evalaite's clutch. "I have always told you: if you want to do this, fine. I begged you not to do this. I did everything that I could to convince you otherwise, but in the end, I still let you make your own bad choices!"

Continuing more darkly, Tavras said, "And so, I let you go, but I want nothing to do with this." His voice dropped alongside the shaking of his head. He fell silent for a moment before his anger renewed in a shout. "You are not doing this for me, so stop acting like it! I would never accept an arrangement like this, even if it only took a year."

The finely waxed brow of Evalaite pinched inwards to the narrow bridge of her nose. "All I ask is for your patience, darling. Whispers only plant a seed of an idea. As such, I must be patient in its nurturing. Soon, you will start to see how much power I really do hold! I will have this whole regime crumbling down from within, and you will be truly free!” Her eyes glimmered with such hope that Evalaite looked insane.

In Val’s eyes, she was positively delusional if she somehow thought that Tavras would appreciate what she was doing. Clearly, it drove him mad too.

Tavras stood up and slammed his fist on the table. "Do you even hear yourself? You want to pretend like you’re cuckolding me like you just did to Arius, all the while you claim that this is for my own good. Ah, yes. Sweet, innocent Evie would never lust after another man. Do you really think that I am stupid enough to accept an arrangement like that?" His voice sounded livid, carrying throughout the apartment. Lower and darker, he said, "I know you."

In kind, Evalaite stood up. "Do you ever hear yourself?" she enunciated anew. "You know that I have never given myself to anyone but you. The water knows this, and it will always tell you the truth! I am the goddess of sex, not the goddess of sluts. Why do you vilify me when I have been nothing but faithful, ever since I pledged myself to you?" Her hands pushed towards her chest, clutching at her apparently chaste cleavage.

A silence ensued. Val was left to ponder if Evalaite’s loyalty to anyone was within the realm of possibility. Fat chance, she thought.

"You know this," Evalaite said. "Say something!"

Disjointedly, Tavras sat back down and replied softly. "I do know this.”

Never mind. Evalaite was not only delusional, but also obsessed.

Tavras continued to mutter, “In some ways this would be easier if you would be as horrible in your intentions as you are in your actions."

A shriek and some smashes ensued. Evalaite had made her way to the kitchen and pulled out a plate. She hurled it like a frisbee for Tavras's head, which he simply ducked so that it collided against the far wall. “I’m not horrible. You are the one who is horrible!

"What do you expect from me?" her shrill voice asked. "I love you, and I am trying my best! I am using my powers to enact change in the only way that I know how. I have loved you through all of your mistakes and stubbornness, and yet you refuse to show me any compassion in return. Do you know how hard of a man you are to love?"

Another plate went sailing for him, this time at his chest. Tavras stepped to the side and held out his hands to Evalaite. "Evie, calm down. I know that I tested your patience for all of those years that I left you alone, but it was always your choice to stay! It was your choice then, just as it was my choice to leave all those years ago. I told you then that I would never love you again. Your torment is the result of your own lust and idiocy!"

Evalaite leaned far over the counter so that she could snarl at Tavras better. "Yes Tav, you do know me. I am lustful, and I am an idiot! Now if I were smart, I would have let Arius fuck me in the flesh long ago. He would have been a good lover. He's a god of love for crying out loud."

Pacing behind the counter as she raved, Evalaite continued, "He has powers akin to mine in the domain of pleasure! Can you even comprehend how much I have to love you to resist that temptation for eighty years? Arius has about the same baggage as you. Both of you are psychotic and disappear for literal years at a time! I could be at the side of the future God Supreme if I kept playing Arius right, but I don't care about him. I love you!"

The crunches of busted crockery sounded beneath Tavras's feet as he sidestepped a flying cup. He could easily stop Evalaite with the water from their broken sink right behind her, yet he continued to let her break the new dishware. Frankly, this was Val's home too and Tavras should not be letting his deranged ex destroy everything.

At least Tavras saw her for that much, as he said, "You are crazy, Evalaite! You need to calm down."

"I am the only one crazy enough to love you!" She stopped hurling breakable things at Tavras. Instead, she came out from around the counter and ran over the broken shards of glass with her bare feet. Some golden blood was left dripping across the floor with every step.

Like this, she made it to Tavras and shoved his back up against the wall with a hard thump. "I told you," she could be heard spitting, "that you would be begging to have me back when this is all over. You will be begging me on your knees!"

Tavras had shrunk up against the wall in a way that he looked like he could use some help. For a second, Val considered terminating her vision and running out to put herself between them. If Evalaite could not behave herself around Tavras alone, maybe her presence could calm her down. Despite this, Val really did not want to involve herself in this mess.

"Evalaite, I will do no such thing. I don't know why I even bother trying to talk to you anymore. I just want you to cut your losses and stop."

"Right," she said with a sneering laugh as she backed up. "Right, you do not need me anymore." Evalaite staggered away and tipped back her head with a laugh. "You already found your replacement who can do what you want, the way you want. This girl in your company, the traitorous child—you are grooming her! Either that or you're fucking her already, aren't you?"

"No, I am not," Tavras snapped hurriedly, keeping his voice low. "As you said, she is but a girl to me. She has an unfortunate crush on me, and if I can provide a little motivation for her training then so be it. Just like you must do what you must, I must do what I must. How does that sound?" The horrible edge of a smile upturned one end of his lips.

Did Tavras really feel that way about her? Val remembered that their deal had been a source of hope for her, but it had been more of a teasing, playful thing. Now, the manipulative nature could not be ignored anymore. The disillusionment that Val had felt began to sink in to its full extent.

"I am sorry that I could never be her!" Evalaite cried. "I am sorry that I was just a random demigoddess when we met, not some demigoddess of noble birth with thick blood in my veins. She is everything that you wanted of me that I could never be!" Sobs wracked her body, and Evalaite started crying profusely. "Except you are a fool, because I am the only one who knows how to love you when your mind is adrift on the waves or when you are pulled into the ocean’s trenches!" Her gasps and sobs funneled down her raw throat, "I just want you to give me the same compassion that I have always shown you."

"Evie—Evalaite," Tavras tried to stay, "stop trying to guilt me with your tears…."

His voice faded away, as did Evalaite's crying in favor of her muted sobs through the door instead. Val no longer gazed into the kitchen, but at the far wall of her own room.

From where she had seated herself against the door, Foofy had arranged himself between her knees. He lay there with a squirming body and a wiggling tail, only wishing that he had the ability to make the nightmare of her vision go away.

Sadly, the nightmare was reality unfolding in her own kitchen.

Val had both hands clasped over her mouth while worthless tears streamed from her eyes. "It's time to go," she whispered down to Foofy. “We can’t stay here any longer.”

In thinking about leaving, Val became more cognizant of her surroundings. Outside of the apartment, a strong, negative emotional presence lurked beyond the exterior walls. Val could recognize the hateful sentiment of that mind because she had touched it not long ago.

For some reason, Arius had decided to stalk her at the exact, same time that she wanted to run away with Foofy and avoid all humans in the world. With a gulp, she knew that anything awaiting her outside with Arius was better than in here with Tavras and Evalaite, so she stood up to leave.