It's a memory Vanessa hasn't spared much thought for in some time, the fact that the woman who had first introduced herself as Madame Kali, later to be known as Evelyn Poole, had believed her not merely to be the latest potential vessel for Amunet but an incarnation of the goddess herself. Thinking of Marc and Steven now, though, and the piece of them that may be indebted to this Khonshu, leads her to wonder if it's a more significant truth than she ever could have known when it was first proposed to her.
It certainly explains one aspect that she had not quite been able to pin down when she'd fed on Marc, when they'd both been the victims of their most negative instincts with the fog swirling all around them — the taste of his blood, which is likely also Steven's blood now that she understands it, and the depths she'd tasted there, beneath what gave them life and strength.
She can't help but smile, though, the expression adopting a reflective quality when he makes mention of their first meeting and the inescapable nature of what later became this — but the path for him, with each of them, would be markedly different. How could it be anything else, when those attached to each respective link are so distinct from one another?
"It seems that you have something of a habit of being drawn to those who find some way of slipping underneath this exterior of yours," she murmurs, shifting in his embrace until she can notch her arm atop his shoulder, her fingertips brushing at the dark hair growing out from beyond his temple before she lets her touch run more purposefully through the strands. It'll be longer by the time they awaken again, but she doesn't object to this length any less, fingers slipping along the sleek black.
"Whether that be by a more blunt demeanor or simply wearing down your defenses with kindness you fail at being impervious against." It does soothe her, distinctly, to know that he had been cared for during Tumenalia, and if not by her then at least by another, as opposed to someone else who could have manipulated the situation to their own ends. Even the thought of that, as he raises it briefly, makes her proverbial hackles rise, distaste lingering at the mere idea. "Did you mind it, terribly? Being underneath my command?" She had not initiated anything so overpowering as to leave him distressed, or so she believes, but it suddenly occurs to her that she has not asked him how he felt about the experience where they're concerned, and now she wants to know.
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It certainly explains one aspect that she had not quite been able to pin down when she'd fed on Marc, when they'd both been the victims of their most negative instincts with the fog swirling all around them — the taste of his blood, which is likely also Steven's blood now that she understands it, and the depths she'd tasted there, beneath what gave them life and strength.
She can't help but smile, though, the expression adopting a reflective quality when he makes mention of their first meeting and the inescapable nature of what later became this — but the path for him, with each of them, would be markedly different. How could it be anything else, when those attached to each respective link are so distinct from one another?
"It seems that you have something of a habit of being drawn to those who find some way of slipping underneath this exterior of yours," she murmurs, shifting in his embrace until she can notch her arm atop his shoulder, her fingertips brushing at the dark hair growing out from beyond his temple before she lets her touch run more purposefully through the strands. It'll be longer by the time they awaken again, but she doesn't object to this length any less, fingers slipping along the sleek black.
"Whether that be by a more blunt demeanor or simply wearing down your defenses with kindness you fail at being impervious against." It does soothe her, distinctly, to know that he had been cared for during Tumenalia, and if not by her then at least by another, as opposed to someone else who could have manipulated the situation to their own ends. Even the thought of that, as he raises it briefly, makes her proverbial hackles rise, distaste lingering at the mere idea. "Did you mind it, terribly? Being underneath my command?" She had not initiated anything so overpowering as to leave him distressed, or so she believes, but it suddenly occurs to her that she has not asked him how he felt about the experience where they're concerned, and now she wants to know.