Chapter Sixteen - God-ssips
Crossover: Heart of Dorkness by RavensDagger

***

A bell jingled above Luciana’s head and she paused to take in her surroundings.

This was, she noted idly, not the room she had been entering.

“Well, this is interesting,” her companion said from right behind her.

Luciana carefully stepped to the side, letting Semper have an unobstructed view of the environs. It was a shop. The sort she’d seen in some of the more affluent cities the world over. More, it was a shop that smelled faintly of tea and... coffee?

“I didn’t notice the change,” she said, speaking of course of the shift between realms. This wasn’t Monsterra. The emotional undercurrents of the world were all wrong. There were no monsters here, she knew.

Glancing to the side, she noticed Semper eyeing the room as well, the Goddess of Contempt scowling at everything in a way that twisted her nose. Valeria had recently commented that the goddess was quite--in her own naive words--cute when she scowled, and so the amount of scowling Semper did had been reduced dramatically.

It seemed as if this warranted some level of such expressions though.

Luciana herself took in a deep breath, disgust welling in her with the depth and breadth of an ocean, enough to drown the world, but all carefully contained, all meticulously aimed. She rid herself of any emotion, resettling her expression to what her little scamp of a daughter called her ‘resting mom face.’

“Oh! Hello!” A young woman waved from a raised section at the rear. “And welcome to Dreamer’s, ah, ten-tea-cle cafe. The counter’s up here, if you’re looking for anything in particular. We have all sorts of teas, and coffees as well, of course. The pastries are quite nice too.”

Luciana nodded. There only seemed to be two people in the room.

The first she had noticed was the young woman addressing them now, who seemed entirely oblivious to her own status, or Semper’s, for that matter. She didn’t sense any overwhelming emotions in the woman, so it was unlikely that she was a cultivator of any sort.

The other was a malformed creature sitting in the corner, currently working on some sort of small arts and crafts project, crayons moving with more enthusiasm than skill to scribble across an already folded, homemade flyer of some sort. She was pinning it in place with a tentacled limb, and was pinching her tongue between her lips in a manner similar to how Valeria did when focusing.

The child felt dangerous.

“Is it common for the guests of this establishment to be from... elsewhere?” Luciana asked.

The girl froze up. “Oh... ohh, you’re not from here. Right, that would explain all the eyes and the... well, nevermind. Ah, yes? Don’t worry, once you leave, you’ll probably be right back where you left!”

She glanced to Semper, who shrugged. “This isn’t the strangest thing to happen this year for me.”

“Truly?” Luciana asked. That sounded like excellent gossip.

“Oh, yes. See, I just learned that my best friend had a child, without me ever noticing.”

The Goddess of Darkness rolled her eyes. Typical. “Perhaps you can continue to ridicule me over some tea, then?” she asked.

“Of course.”

They were both still on their guard as they approached one of the nearby tables and took a seat. The young woman working there brought them a pair of menus, and when asked, hurried off to procure two cups of tea. Black for Luciana, and a sugar-filled berry tea for Semper, whose contempt Luciana suspected applied to her own dentistry.

“Have you ever realm-travelled?” Luciana asked as she settled down across from Semper.

“No, not really. Was it more common before my time?”

“Not particularly,” Luciana said. “Besters has frequently disappeared for a decade or two, and I suspect that he was off gallivanting to see other worlds and be disappointed about them. I believe Mortimer might have some... off-world accounts, as it were. Mostly no one bothers.”

“Ah, but we are quite lazy, aren’t we?” Semper asked.

Luciana nodded. “I suppose we are.”

“Speaking of laziness... have I been so ill a friend that I missed your pregnancy? And the first, oh, I would guess thirteen years of your daughter’s life? Or are you merely quite good at hiding things from me?”

“You hardly missed anything,” Luciana said.

“Are you certain?” Semper asked. “Because I received a very nice letter from a concerned young woman--delivered by wyvern to one of my smaller temples no less--that thanked me for being your friend.”

Luciana had a difficult time keeping her resting mom face in place. Was it too late to ground Valeria for that? Perhaps some time-out? A smack on the rear? She truly didn’t know.

“Valeria was a.... Mistake.”

Semper leaned forwards. “Please, do tell. Luciana the Dark Goddess herself having a... mistake. Who was it? Enano? He has this very... daddy like look to him.”

“It was no one,” Luciana said.

“Luto maybe? He’s quite fetching in a sad boy kind of way. Or perhaps you caught Alejandro in a bind? For all that he’s a glorified man-child he is the god of love.”

“Ah, your, um, tea is here,” the waiting girl said. She placed a tray on the table, then carefully put two cups before Luciana and Semper. “Um, I brought cakes too, on the house!”

“Thank you,” Luciana said. She fished out a golden coin from the void and placed it on the tray.

“Oh, thank you!” the girl said before scampering off.

Semper smiled. “So? Please tell me it was not Heroe.”

Luciana recoiled. “That’s disgusting.”

“Exactly!”

She shook her head. “In a way... you are correct though.”

The goddess across from Luciana gasped. “What?!”

“Heroe tried to summon a new sacrifice to his useless cause, and he was as clumsy as he usually is. It resulted in a second child being pulled over. She found herself in my care, and one thing led to another.”

“Oh, oh no girl, you are skipping far too much there.” Semper grabbed her cup of tea and leaned halfway across the table. “Tell me more.”

***