The idea that Hal freaks out utterly in the small, dark root cellar and can’t spend more than a couple of tense minutes down there is an interesting character detail, but it has been bothering me in a subtle, almost subliminal way. The reason why came to me this morning.
Hal has just spent maybe a half an hour effortlessly in an even smaller, darker closet, fooling around. No signs of any distress at all.
Now, I could just edit the closet scene. Or perhaps there’s a reason that he doesn’t freak out in the closet. Not because someone’s with him, because Dia’s in the cellar, too. Not because of the sex, because if I understand phobias, that would not override the panic.
Could it be the cellar smell is the third vital element? After all, any closet that Dia takes charge of smells like laundry softener.
You could edit out the freakage, as an alternative…
Yeah, I could, and that would make it easier for them to do hurricane rescue later. Wouldn’t having Teh Goblin keep him from having those sort of fears, because of the subterranean dweller aspect? Of course, that wouldn’t mean that he wouldn’t have other sorts of phobias…