Over A Cup of Tea

As Catherine ate, then cleaned the dishes, and then prepared tea for the two of them she related the entire story from the night's events. Even as she recalled the events in her mind and shared them with Natsumi, they seemed impossible to her, but she had met her, the tall lady, The Ferrywoman, a figure that greets a soul before they are born and again when they return from the mortal realm. The entire time she was drawn to her presence, not in some sinister way, but in a more loving, embracing sense, but yet, she knew to really return to the Ferrywoman, it meant passing out of her life and into the after, and that unnerved her.

"Anyway, that's what happened…" Catherine said as she poured herself and Natsumi tea into the awaiting cups and saucers on her dining room table. She seated herself again and took a sip. "What??"

Over the course of the entire retelling, Natsumi's face had become more sour. Her arms crossed, head cocked, and lips pursed. "What?" She mumbled back, her eyes focusing on the tea cup.

"You look very skeptical." She narrowed her eyes over the rim of her tea cup.

Natsumi shrugged. "This is my story listening face. And, look I'm not saying I don't believe you, but you know, it's…"

"…what happened." Catherine closed her eyes for a moment to hide her annoyance. This coming from a girl that stuck a glow worm into her head to see invisible fishes and monsters? This from the girl that spends evenings alone in the park, patrolling it for the unknown, looking for dangerous youkai to fight. This from a girl who she met in a literal underground sewer/ghost and monster town? And she was certainly skeptical of her story despite that she had done and seen weirder things.

As a good hostess, no rather, the best hostess, Catherine eyed Natsumi to ensure that she would take some of the tea. Natsumi turned towards her with another silent "what" and realized that she should partake too. She picked up the cup and took a long draw and put it down with a carless clink causing the fluid to slosh over the edge and onto the table. She stuck her tongue out.

"So," Natsumi began with a long drawn out hiss of the word. "What then? You're gonna keep tabs on me for her, Emissary?"

Catherine cringed at the title "Emissary" being thrown back to her like that, but like her other titles "The Dominatrix" and "Mommy" she had earned it, at least in the singular planet scale eye of one goddess floating adrift in the deepest part of deep space.

"Look," she said putting her tea cup back down and sitting back in her chair. "We're gonna work together." This wasn't a question. It was a statement of fact. "I want to know who I'm working with, God Child. It's as simple as that."

Now it was Natsumi's turn to roll her eyes and grit her teeth. Catherine hoped that the clenched teeth and vacant thousand lightyear stare from her bored eyes meant that she going to continue to honor their agreement to partner up.

"Alright," Natsumi said, her tone showed that she was acquiescing to the idea nicely. "Then tell me about that giant space eyeball. What is it and what do you have to do with it?"

"You first, God Child!" Catherine said as she adjusted her horn-rimmed glasses. She had already spoken enough, and also, like, she literally let her meet the giant eyeball goddess. The backstory could wait, and also she was the one asking the questions.

"How'd you get a heart talisman?"

Natsumi focused her attention on Catherine and continued to give her a sour look. Her expression seemed to suggest, "what's with the dumb question?"

Catherine elaborated: "I mean, I know you have to die first. So, then what happened after?"

She left Natsumi an opening to tell her part of the story.