Jakuta frowned, "don't lie to me, you even know the boundaries of this curse."
"I don't lie, brother, I've never needed to while gods and mortals freely lie to themselves. I just saw the other times you tried to hack your way back into Ikole Orun through my back roads and got snapped back like if you had a rubber band attached to your back." Esu barked with laughter, "it was HILARIOUS- Ok, stop sparking and crackling, I just told you I have nothing to do with this!"
Jakuta checked the sparking and crackling, not because Esu asked him to but because he could actually already feel the "rubber band" the Orisa had referred to starting to pull at him. He was sensitive to the hideous sucking feeling of it now.
"Fine, you didn't do it," he acceded starting to feel desperate, "but you must know who did! You see everything that goes on anywhere and it's not like you keep it to yourself,"
"Calling me a gossip, now?" Esu drawled insouciantly as he knocked dirt off his arms.
"I thought you were proud if it?"
Esu smiled mischievously, "I am," he agreed, "but I genuinely don't know this time and I'm curious to find out too. Everyone in the heavens is but I'd like to know first, please! It's the most anticipated gist in the Heavens right now."
The vacuum feeling was starting to intensify. Jakuta really didn't want to give Esu the satisfaction of seeing him get yanked back once again into that awful little room. He needed to round up quickly but not empty handed.
"Esu..." He inhaled deeply and sighed out gustily acknowledging that he was at a disadvantage.
It was still very hard for him to say what he said next.
"Esu, I need your help."
Esu chuckled dryly as if it was exactly what he'd been expecting. "After treating me like suya," he said.
Jakuta recalled Esu falling from the rock on fire with enjoyment and struggled to keep from smiling. Slowly he approached his older yet younger looking sibling "Yes that was wrong of me but you asked for it."
"And after all I do for you! How many things have I hidden from the heavens on your behalf?" Esu continued grumbling but with a tone of remembering fond memories.
Jakuta reached his brother's side and leaned up against the rock, surreptitiously using it to stay grounded against the pull. "I always make sure you enjoy yourself as much as I do," he argued, "Come, Esu, lets not quibble we know ourselves. I need you to employ your resources and look into this for me. Tell me what you want in return."
Esu's grin grew impossibly wide and his eyes glinted red and black as they met Jakuta's,"It's pulling you, abi?" His too wide grin was as irrepressible as if he was still fully clothed in his head to toe designer ensemble. 'My terms are for the period I am researching your problem, you will indulge my demands - "
"No." Jakuta said implacably not bothering to hide his misgivings while trying to clutch at the rock.
"Wait, now! Let me finish!" Esu complained, "It's not on an infinite timeline and it's nothing that will harm you, I promise! I just have an interest in that mortal realm and, just as you need from me, I also need you to do some research for me!"
Jakuta stared at him with open skepticism.
"I'm not trying to trick you!" Esu insisted, "You're not as fun to trick as you think, Ogun is way more interesting."
Mistrust and what he thought of as the curse now pulled at him with equal urgency. If he left now of his own will he could still do it with dignity.
"You know I can actually see the cord that's holding you. It looks like sinew and it is just so taut right now..." Esu commented with apparent concern.
"I'll do it." Jakuta growled, "but I'm warning you - "
"Yes, yes, you'll huff and you'll puff, better go before your toddler harness re-activates" " Esu said dismissively then licked two fingers of his left hand and sketched a few sygils in the air in front of them. Reality parted like a curtain and Jakuta saw the newly renovated kitchen of his prison.
The creature was slouched over the counter next to a plate that looked suspiciously like it had been licked clean. She was completely still.
Jakuta and Esu peered at her through the parting with genuine curiousity.
"Is she - is she dead?" Esu asked in a near whisper.
Jakuta felt his feet starting to skid under him as the pull finally started to overwhelm him.
Esu noticed, "Yikes. I guess not."
Jakuta gave in to the pull and moved towards the portal his brother had made for him turning once to glare at him once more before stepping through it.
Esu smiled beatifically.
The curtain closed in layers, the partition becoming less transparent by degrees till reality was solid again.
He began to feel misgivings almost immediately. It was true that Esu didn't lie but he was slippery! You had constantly had to have your guard up with him. Whatever the Orisa wanted, even if it was something that didn't harm him he was almost 100% sure that he wouldn't like it.
He was considering opening up another door and hunting him down again when he was distracted by a resonant sound.
He turned back to where the creature slept at the kitchen counter.
He noted that her mouth was slightly open where her head was laid and it was from there the sound came again.
The peaceful sound of her deep, sonorous snores.
Jakuta could categorically say that he'd never before been in the presence of a woman who slept while making such a sturdy sound and he'd tired out a LOT of women, both divine and earthly, in his infinite life time.
For a moment he forgot the troubling meeting he'd just had with his sibling and crept closer to the creature, even pulled up a stool beside her, unable to hold back his fascination. It was on peering closer he noted the small pool of saliva that had formed under her cheek, a stream of which still proceeded from the corner of her slightly open, wet mouth.
As he looked at it, it suddenly occurred to Jakuta that it was actually a mouth that he might have noticed in a less problematic situation than the one they were in.
To look at it - lips full almost to the point of looking like she was pouting even at rest, lacking a Cupid's bow such that the top and bottom made an almost circular profile, the top lip dark and the bottom it's lighter, pink-tinged variation, and arcing below the set, a tiny, intriguing, almost invisible scar that if you could see, you were probably too close.
Realizing that he was indeed to close, Jakuta pulled back a little.
Just because he was bored... This was entirely her fault.
He glanced down at her out cold form again and a particularly loud snore sounded from her with a soft snort and snuffle at the end.
On further thought he decided that the interesting mouth actually fit her perfectly. Only a mouth that looked as disrespectful as hers did could make such a sound.
Her eyes opened suddenly.
Jakuta stared at her while she stared back like she once again had no idea who he was.
He really shouldn't have cared. She was just dust in the cosmos to him in the grand scheme of things. Yet... maybe because of the way for now their fates had forcibly intersected... the idea that for her he was such an easily forgettable presence was, for him, nothing short of unacceptable.
It was below him but - since he was here anyway - and he wasn't really doing anything else - it might not be a bad idea to take a little time to properly teach her who he was.
A brief image of a different version of the creature - one that quivered at his feet and gazed up at him, eyes glassed over with adoration flickered through his mind like a shadow and Jakuta suddenly felt himself in a much better mood.
Yes. He remembered now. Nothing cured boredom quite like a healthy Crusade.