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Their story starts like any love story should, Ninomae Ina’nis thinks.
A cocked revolver pressed against her forehead. The barrel is cold against the priestess’s skin. She smiles, smug. How the gun trembles in the detective’s hand.
There they stand, in the center of the priestess’s temple. Surrounded by intricately carved statues of the Ancient ones. By tall pillars that reach out, up above into a high ceiling, upon which a mosaic of madness is painted, a tapestry of a story speaking about the end of the world. The silence is deafening but Ina’nis could hear the thundering of Amelia Watson’s heart. She presses the gun harder against Ina’nis’s forehead.
“What’s wrong, Miss Watson?” taunts the priestess. “Forgot how to use a gun?”
There is no response but the expression on Amelia Watson’s face is a mixture of pain, disgust, fear.
With ease, Ninomae Ina’nis swats away the item from the detective’s hand. It clatters away, far from their reach.
The detective looks defeated. Looks like she’s ready to throw in the towel. It’s easy for the priestess to facilitate this. All it takes are a few summoned tentacles, striking her repeatedly. And she bleeds, because she’s human, her blood spilling upon the immaculate marble floor.
The detective says words. Little pleas to appeal to the remaining humanity in Ninomae Ina’nis.
Ina’nis hears none of these words. “How pathetic,” she says, instead. “Is this all you have for me, detective? I expected far more than this awful display.”
A strike, a particularly hard one, and the detective Amelia Watson falls face down onto the ground. For a while she doesn’t move, doesn’t breathe, and the priestess feels a tinge of disappointment that the whole affair had lasted far too short.
But there, the gasp of air, the sharp intake of breath, the sudden heaving of the detective’s chest.
It’s when the detective raises her head to look at the priestess in the eye that Ninomae Ina’nis first sees it.
Blue eyes, burning bright.
There’s a wild, untamed fire in those blue, blue eyes. And how they bear down upon the priestess. And how they almost glow with anger and wrath and rage and all those swirling, swirling emotions that seem to make the room itself burn a thousand degrees too hot. They look directly into Ina’nis’s calm eyes, eyes that are colder than the depths of the ocean.
Amelia Watson growls as she plants her hands on the smooth marble floor. As she pushes her broken, beaten body up. She doesn’t break eye contact. Her eyes burn with an intensity that Ina’nis had never seen before. Part of her wishes she had a sketchpad, a camera, anything, anything to capture the magnificent sight before her.
A human detective, battered down to the edge of life, yet still standing, yet still looking madness in the eye.
Ah, thinks the priestess, how beautiful.
What Ina’nis doesn’t expect, doesn’t see coming, is the detective staggering towards the priestess. The fire in those eyes raging as she heaves with every lungful of air, every slow, agonizing step forward. What Ina’nis doesn’t expect is Amelia Watson forging on despite everything happening to her.
She approaches. And slaps Ina’nis across the face, hard.
“God you’re such an idiot,” Amelia seethes, and Ina’nis is immensely confused.
_______
There are no words for Ninomae Ina’nis to understand the situation she has somehow found herself in.
The tea room is traditional in décor, with tatami mats and a single, low table with a kotatsu in the middle. There are four floor seats in the room, two of which are occupied. The kotatsu is on full blast, guarding the room’s inhabitants from the relentless winter chill coming in from outside.
Ina’nis is slumped over the table, hands and legs tucked under the thick comforter. The warmth is somewhat immobilizing. Moving lets the cold enter her bones, so she stays as still as possible. On the table, some small oranges as well a scattering of peels. The smell of the zest wakes Ina’nis’s senses somewhat, but not enough to make her feel like making any conversation with the other person in the room. After all, what’s she supposed to say? Things had not happened as anticipated. Overthinking, Ina’nis thinks, is a human thing to do, so she should probably avoid it lest the Ancient Ones chide her.
But even still, there are no words or thoughts or experiences that could have armed Ina’nis for the moment playing out before her.
She is gently fed a peeled orange slice. She opens her mouth and accepts the offering. She chews slowly, savoring the acidic, sweet bite of the fruit. She hums.
Amelia Watson feeds her another orange slice. She looks immensely pleased with herself.
Yes, the detective. Now bandaged up and healed by Ina’nis herself. How? Why? Ninomae Ina’nis isn’t quite sure herself. In the past she’d killed detectives for so much as existing in the territory border that her cult occupies. But Amelia Watson? Amelia Watson had the sheer audacity to not just slap her across the face so hard Ina’nis’s cheek will probably sting until next week, but she also called Ina’nis an idiot.
Ina’nis begins to remember her pride. That she, as the priestess, does have an image to uphold. She should throw the detective out, out onto the snow piling up outside the room. Should impale her once, twice, let the red of blood fade into light pink as it melds into the white nothingness.
Ina’nis is fed another orange. Ah, tasty, is the thought.
What was she thinking about again? It matters little, she decides.
“How are you feeling?” Amelia asks.
Ina’nis raises an eyebrow in response. Shouldn’t she be asking the detective she’d nearly killed that question?
The detective pops an orange slice into her mouth. Eats it happily. Moves to feed Ina’nis another orange slice. The priestess looks dangerously at the detective as she lowers her face toward the slice this time, baring her fangs on purpose.
“Don’t bite my fingers,” warns Amelia, and the flaps on the top of Ina’nis’s head are pressed flat against her head as she gently bites into the orange.
“Good,” goes the detective, smiling.
The fire in Amelia Watson’s eyes is different. Passionate, intense still. Somehow even more so. But different. Strikingly different. It’s the sun, hidden behind shades of bright, bright blue. It’s an intensity that is so human yet so incredibly powerful.
It feels intoxicating, almost.
It pulls Ina in, drawing her closer and closer as if a moth to a flame. She is absolutely transfixed. There is no looking away, for even a second.
There is a feeling in the pit of Ina’nis’s chest. Unfamiliar. Warm, unlike the winter chill, so therefore not unwanted, but unfamiliar all the same.
“You look very comfortable,” says Ame, as she unsuccessfully peels an orange. It bursts as she tears the peel off. She licks the juices off of the tip of her fingers. Ina’nis notices that there’s an unusual scar on the detective’s tongue. Staring at it makes the priestess’s insides feel weird.
Comfort, mulls Ina’nis, a very human thing, is it not?
She decides that the soft humming feeling inside her is nice, like the warmth of the kotatsu, like the sweet of peeled oranges, like the brilliant sunlight in Amelia Watson’s eyes.
The last one makes Ina’nis’s cheeks feel hotter than they should.
“We’re out of oranges,” says Amelia, folding up the peels on the table and moving to stand up. “I can go get some. The kitchen is down the hall, yeah?”
Ninomae Ina’nis suddenly and abruptly stands. Amelia Watson looks up at the priestess, confused.
Leaving. Somehow the thought of the detective leaving makes Ina’nis irrationally upset. The detective should stay in the room, Ina’nis thinks. She should stay in the room where it’s nice and comfortable. She should wait for the priestess to come back with whatever she needs. She should remain, right where the priestess knows she is. Right where she can watch her. Right where she knows she’ll be safe.
“Ina?” asks Ame, confused.
Ninomae Ina’nis should correct her. She should say, “Human, do not insult me with your nicknames. Refer to me by my real name.” Again, maybe she should just get rid of the detective and be over with it.
But Ina feels like she likes how the name sounds. So she’ll forgive it, just this once.
“I’ll get it. You should rest… Ame,” says Ina.
Ame smiles warmly back. Ina likes the fire in Ame’s eyes. She feels like the warmth of the sun is on her skin.
She makes her way to the kitchen. In itself, this is highly unusual. The cultists normally tend to her needs, so the priestess herself appearing at the kitchen door is a sign that the cultists in charge had failed at their one very simple, very easy job.
Which is why Ina understands the instant groveling at her feet. She can see the cultist shaking like a leaf in the wind. They say nothing but an incoherent babble of profuse apologies and pleas for the priestess to grant them the one kindness and spare their life. Ina’nis looks down at them. Humans, so pathetic, so easy to break, she thinks.
The priestess says nothing. Takes a bowl of already prepared oranges from a nearby counter. The cultist continues to apologize, their forehead touching the ground as they bow, again and again.
Ina decides that the sight before her is kind of ruining the nice mood she’s in. So she takes an orange. Very gently and very carefully balances it on the cultist’s head as they look up at the priestess, tears and snot dribbling down their face. The cultist looks more than a little confused now, as Ina takes another orange and balances it on top of the other one.
“Have… comfort,” says Ina, and she smiles.