"What's your troupe's name, by the way?" Eitsu asked, helping herself to a fresh slice of tuna.

"You don't know?" Tsubaki asked, voice dripping with cold judgement. “After all this time?”

"Obviously."

"Hanabira. Flower Petals."

"Cute."

Ayame toyed with her own piece of tuna. "Tsubaki-dono, won't you come back with me?"

Tsubaki shook her head.

"Why not? You're the best dancer. What will you do otherwise?"

"Aren't I Eitsubyou no Mikoto's head priestess?"

"I'll look after her, Aya-chan. Don't worry!" Eitsu said cheerfully.

Ayame's expression was too old for her face. “Can you?”

“What do you mean, Aya-chan?” Eitsu asked quietly, mid-way through her fish.

The girl shook her head. “I don't know. I'm scared.” Her eyes filled with tears suddenly. “I'm scared that if I look away, Tsubaki-dono will be gone when I look back.”

“That's how life is,” Tsubaki said. “That's what growing up is.”

“Sounds annoying,” Eitsu said. “Let's finish eating and go find those Hanabira.”

“I'm staying here.”

“Then I'll stay too,” said Ayame quietly. Standing, she moved quickly to Tsubaki's side and sat down again, her hand finding the woman's sleeve.

“Aya-chan, it's not good for you to come with us.”

“Why not? Is it because you can't fool around as much when I'm here? I can just go somewhere else when you want to!”

“Uh, no, but thanks for the thought...”

Tsubaki shot Eitsu a dirty look.

“... honestly, we're not the best people to be looking after you, Aya-chan.”

“I can look after myself.”

“Ayame,” Tsubaki said. The girl fell silent immediately. “Say you're right. That one day you look away and when you look back, I'm no longer there. Could you follow us, know that could happen any time?”

“No! Please, Tsuba-”

“Listen. I'm... I'm not well. You deserve to grow up with others your age, without the fears that keep me awake at night. This isn't for you to witness, to bear. Go and live a good life, Little Aya.”

Ayame was crying in earnest, her eyes and nose streaming. “Tsubaki-dono... I ca-can't... Please...”

“Yes you can. Next time I see you, tell me how you've become a better dancer than me, okay? How happy you are. How many admirers you have.”

The girl wailed wordlessly, pressing her face to the sleeve she clutched in her hand. They let her cry. There was nothing else that could be said.

At last, out of tears, out of strength, Ayame flopped limply in Eitsu's arms. Her breath shuddered as the kaibyou nodded to Tsubaki. “I'll be back soon, Tsu-bo.”

Finding the Hanabira Troupe was easy. The performance hall was the largest building in the area, and Eitsu propped Ayame up on the steps, letting the girl lean against a wooden pillar. She disappeared momentarily and returned in cat form, curling up next to Ayame in a warm, purring black ball. It wasn't long until one of the troupe servants emerged from the building on some errand, and caught sight of the girl.

“Ayame-chan? It is! Hey, everyone! It's Ayame-chan! She's here somehow!”

Eitsu stood, stretched, rubbed against Ayame's side and hopped from the steps. She trotted away into the village, and only looked back as she was almost out of sight.

Several dance apprentices were crowded around Ayame, hugging her and calling in excitement. But the girl's tear-stained face was turned towards Eitsu. Her mouth formed words that the kaibyou couldn't hear.

Look after her.

Eitsu nodded, and walked away.

---

“We need to leave. They could find me.”

“Are you really going to follow me? You could go back to your dance group right now. You'd be safer and more secure with them.”

“I became a dancer, became a famous dancer, so that you could find me. You've found me. I have no need to dance for anyone else.”

“I'm going north.”

“I'll come with you.”
“You're not going to ask why?”

“Why should I?”

Eitsu fixed her golden eyes on her. “Tsu-bo... Why do you continue to live?”

“For you. This is my reward and my punishment.”

“Can you not live for yourself?”

“No.”

“I'm going north because something is calling me. I think... I was born there.”

“Okay.”

“Tsu-bo... Should I try checking your mind for signs of insanity again?”

“I'm perfectly sane, Eitsu-sama.”

“I know. That's the problem. Let's go.”

They left the shrine, and within the span of two incense, they crossed the border into Chup-tuk.

There was no wall, no patrolling soldiers or sudden change in landscape, but Chup-tuk felt undeniably different. Eitsu felt the land chase shivers along her spine, and easy as blinking, she was no longer a little black cat, but a large golden one, the red markings on her face and body humming with power.

“This way.”

A light dusting of frost was sprinkled here and there. Eitsu had made sure that Tsubaki was warmly draped in one of the rich robes that had been offered to the shrine, so she strode ahead without worry that the woman might be cold.

They walked in silence. Eitsu's very soul was thrumming with the energy of the place, and no longer was she seeing the physical world. In her eyes, looping streamers of gold linked one thing to another to another, and she was following a strand that wound around her heart and lead her forwards.

Home. Home. Home.

The first person they met was an elderly woman, with weathered skin and brightly patterned clothing. She looked at them wordlessly, put down the basket she was gathering nuts with, and bowed respectfully. Eitsu blinked at her and swished her tail, then walked on. Tsubaki bowed and followed.

It was beginning to snow now. Tsubaki pulled the hood over her hair. Fir trees silently provided a lined escort along their route, whispering as snowflakes filtered between their needles.

There was a cave.

The entrance was strewn with dying leaves, and further back, spiders had spun webs along the ceiling. A wooden altar, solid and ancient, stood in the cave's centre, surrounded by huge clay figures of humans and animals.

On the altar was a large cat's skull.

Eitsu leapt up onto the altar, and settled down before the skull, staring contemplatively into it empty eyes. Tsubaki waited.

“This was me,” Eitsu said at last. “When I died, they brought my skull here and asked me to bring them luck. And I did. And I brought madness too. Both in equal parts. This... how funny. I didn't remember... I was once just an ordinary cat, wasn't I? A creature that lived and died, and then became this...” She looked over her shoulder at Tsubaki. “I said I had nine lives, but this other me only had one. And when I finally die and become a different version of me, maybe I'll only have one again. Is that why you keep thinking about death, Tsu-bo? Does it mean nothing to you?”

She turned her body, letting herself shift from cat to human. Tsubaki gazed for a moment at the tall woman seated on the altar, bright red and white embroidered robes with a dense fur trim keeping her warm.

“You've got clothing, this time.”

“Are you disappointed?”

Tsubaki merely smiled.

“Come here?” Eitsu held out her arms. Tsubaki walked into them without hesitation.

“I think about death because I'm tired, Eitsu-sama. I would like, very much, to rest. My mind whimpers and runs in circles like a dog chasing its tail eternally – why am I like this? I'm a horrible person. I'm weak. I keep trying and trying, and for what? How can I be happy? In the end, I have no answers. Sometimes, for a moment, I think I do... But by night the answers are gone and… I'm tired.”

Eitsu held her tightly. “What can I do for you?”

“You don't need to to anything for me. You're my kami. I'm your priestess.”

“Only a shitty god doesn't do anything for their worshippers.”

“Then be a shitty god.”

“Pass.”

“You have no reason to do anything for me, Eitsu-sama. It's fine.”

“It's not fine. I...” Suddenly, Eitsu thought she might cry. “Ah, Tsu-bo... Tsu-bo... Don't you know I love you? How can I just let you hurt? Didn't I once tell you that I can't willingly hurt someone that I love?”

She could feel Tsubaki's heart beating rapidly against her own.

“And then I went ahead and did that, didn't I? Over and over. So please... if... you want to stay with me. If you... if you somehow still love me... I'm begging you to let me... I want to make you happy.”

A faint, faint whisper tickled the back of her mind. A soft, longing voice, so familiar...

Please love me.

“I love you.”

Tsubaki kissed her gently, and she smiled although her eyes were filled with tears. “You might be a god, Eitsu-sama, but you can't make me happy. Only I can do that. Only I can keep myself safe. Only I can... I love you too. Can you... touch me?”

Eitsu needed no more invitation. She desperately pressed her lips to Tsubaki's, lifting the woman and turning so that she had her laid across the altar.

“Keep the robes on, it's cold. I'll just...”

For a while, they simply kissed, pressed so closely together that it seemed their bodies might physically meld together. Eitsu kissed the heart-shaped birthmark repeatedly, her hands sliding under the hem of Tsubaki's robes, up her thighs.

“I'm sorry, my fingers are cold...”

Tsubaki laughed wildly, her eyes bright. “I don't care!” And then, shivering as Eitsu's fingers found a sensitive place, her voice dropping roughly, “I'll warm them up.”

“Doesn't it bother you that my face keeps changing?” Eitsu asked, burrowing her head between the folds of Tsubaki's warm outer cloak. She nuzzled against Tsubaki's small chest until she felt a little hard lump, nipping it with her teeth through the fabric. Tsubaki moaned, going rigid, although her own hand was reaching down to push aside Eitsu's clothing too.

“It's still you. The way you touch me.. is the same... and... the way you react... it's all the same. Ah...”

Face-to-face, breathing the same air, they held each other tenderly, no fierceness. In the gentle quiet, the only sound was the occasional shuddering sigh and the sound of fingers stroking through sticky fluid.

Tsubaki pulled Eitsu's face down to hers, caressing her tongue with her own. Eitsu's arm bumped the cat skull as she shifted position to keep her weight off Tsubaki, who turned her head a little to look at the bone.

“What did they... call you... here?”

Eitsu slipped two fingers gently in and out, curling them towards her as she did. She shivered at the feeling of Tsubaki's thumb stroking slickly over her.

“Ke... Kesshini... chabe.”

“What does it m-mean?”

Eyes unfocused, Eitsu leaned back, licking her lips. “Kes – the end of time. Shini – to rest. Chabe...” She showed her sharp teeth. “Cat, of course.”

“That wasn't so... Hm... hard to tell me... was it?”

“Damn brat,” Eitsu whispered, kissing her again.

“You first,” Tsubaki panted, her fingers speeding up. “You always... to me... first.”

“Together...”

A sly little smile crossed Tsubaki's face, despite the way her body was shuddering. She bit her lip. “Not if I get you first.”

She drove her fingers in, no longer rubbing with her thumb, instead flicking ruthlessly. Eitsu's vision almost went black at the sudden shock. Her brain and fingers stopped working, and a second later she was jerking uncontrollably, her breath coming in short gasps.

“St... Stop... That's... Ah! That's enough!”

“Is it?”

Eitsu seized Tsubaki's hand with her own sticky fingers, and shoved it aggressively into her mouth, clamping her teeth down on the offending appendage just hard enough to keep it there. She seized Tsubaki's hips and dragged her to rest on her own pelvis, toying with the fingers in her mouth with her tongue. Parting Tsubaki's clothing to get a clear view, she finally released the hand.

“I... want to be in you...” She dove in, rough tongue thrusting and lapping. Her arms clamped Tsubaki remorselessly down, despite the woman's violent wriggles.

“AH! Eitsu-s... Ei...! Ah! AH! I'm...! EITSU!”

Eitsu nibbled the folds before her. “I'm going to drink you dry.”

“Wai... We should... Ugh! Your... Your skull is right here!”

“Good for her. She gets to see the action she gets up to now.”

“Eitsu!”

“Tsubaki. I love you.”

Their clothing in disarray, hearts thumping wildly, they reached out for each other, and held tight.

“Yes... Yes... I love you too.”