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“Hey, so where’d you get that ugly thing?”
Kravitz looks up from his paperwork to find a goddess lounging in his doorway. The Queen doesn’t have to use the door--she doesn’t even have to walk anywhere. This place only exists as an extension of herself. But she likes making an entrance and she likes wandering the palace. Kravitz is pretty sure it’s because of the way her skirt and cloak swoosh whenever she moves.
“Please, Your Grace,” he says. “I’m trying to finish these reports--.”
“Is it from the Material Realm?” She flutters up and gives the vase a tap hard enough to knock it over. Luckily, physical laws are just physical suggestions here. Physical friendly advice.
“Yes, it is.” Kravitz catches the vase in its slow motion fall. “I--ah, made it.”
The Raven Queen perches on the edge of his desk. “That’s why you’ve been taking all those trips dirtways? For pottery classes?”
“Your Grace--.”
She props her chin on her fist, leaning on thin air. “What’s their name?”
“Er…” Kravitz considers playing dumb, but you don’t play with goddesses. They play with you. “Taako.”
She cocks her head. “Like the food?”
“I wouldn’t know anything about that.” Must be cuisine from a realm outside his jurisdiction.
“Are they cute?”
Kravitz remembers the living burn of a hand helping him shape the clay. A wine flush and a tipsy giggle. “Yes, he’s. He’s cute.”
“Good.” She gives him a friendly smack on the shoulder. “I’m glad you’re getting some action, Krav. Your love life’s been seriously dead.”
“Hilarious, Your Grace.”
“I’m the Queen of the afterlife. That makes all my puns automatically funny.”
“Of course.”
“I don’t make the rules, Krav.”
“If you say so, Your Grace.”
“Hey, I wanna meet your guy.”
Kravitz tries to imagine introducing Taako to the Queen and experiences a full body shudder. “Er--if it’s all the same to you--it’s, it’s early days, and I don’t want--.”
“Chill. No worries.” Another smack. He’s lucky he’s mostly insubstantial here or he’d bruise. “Too soon to meet the boss, I feel you. Besides…” She glides to the office door, bright eyes gleaming, cheeks painted gaunt. “I meet them all eventually.”
With a flutter of her cloak, she’s gone.
Kravitz watches the shadows flicker and reform, the astral plane settling back into quiescence. “Yes,” he says to his folded hands. “I suppose you do.”