A Discourse Most Decorous

"WOMAN!" The voice spat like a hail of brimstone from over the Ferrywoman and Natsumi's head. The Ferrywoman sucked in her breath, and when Natsumi glanced at her tall stature from the corner of her eye she saw that she did shiver at the sound of it. Even for her, some immortal being that existed beyond time and space, the pressure of the moment was getting to her.

Natsumi turned with great laziness towards the ophanim in the sky. It had unfurled its gigantic holy wings like two sails sifting through the air, the feathers as thick as fingers playfully wafting through the currents. The ophanim settled off the shore, its many eyes darting to and fro but eventually setting on the two of them standing on the dock.

"DOTH THOU KNOW WHO WE REPRESENT?" Boomed the ophanim.

Oh right. The celestial creature's pronouns may have been the royal "we", but tailing behind it were specks that looked like birds. Natsumi could hardly wait for those things to appear. She ruminated to herself, would they fly around them like vultures? It would be something straight out of an anime.

When neither Natsumi nor the Ferrywoman proffered up a response to the ophanim's inquiry, it decided that it was a rhetorical question rather than an actual one and continued to speak with great importance, "THE KINGDOM AND THE ONE TRUE KING."

"At last, thy kingdom come," The Ferrywoman said. Natsumi almost snickered. Did the old lady just make a quip? At a moment like this?

"Pfft," Natsumi responded. "This guy again?"

"TO FLEE ME IS TO FLEE HIM!"

Natsumi took the Ferrywoman's hand and gave her a quick squeeze. The tall woman didn't avert her gaze from the ophanim but returned a weak squeeze in response.

"Hey," Natsumi said in a low voice.

"Yes, child?"

"Let me talk to him."

"Then, I shall entrust thy tongue to instill a discourse most decorous, yet unequal to the enmity of the moment," she said.

"Oh yeah," Natsumi began. "Sure."

"TO IGNORE ME IS TO IGNORE HIM..." The dummy continued, his voice caking the air until the vapor was damp with it.

Natsumi stepped forward. There were a lot of things she wanted to say to the Ferrywoman. Like, she appreciated that she had her back. That was implicit, right? Especially now that they were good. Now that the old lady had taken her under her wide cloak. What else was implicit was that she couldn't simply be a child full of fear. As a mortal, she'd had her share of lemons.

But, she liked lemons. A lemon was an opportunity to make lemonade after all. And anyway, a child couldn't hide behind her eldritch, cosmic mommy's cloak forever.

"HEY!" Natsumi's voice boomed back.

"TO DEFY ME..."

"Alright already!" Natsumi shouted. "I heard ya!"

The ophanim stopped. The eye rolled and turned towards her. "HOW DARE YOU SPEAK..."

"HEY DINGUS!" Bullies understood only one kind of language, and when she was alive and kicking, she was king of the schoolyard. "IF YOU AND KING DORKFACE GOT SOMETHING TO SAY..."

"rUdE!!" The ophanim mumbled.

"Get down to my face and say it."

---

Catherine stared at Natsumi and raised an eyebrow. "Yikes," she said. "That's not how I would have opened that discussion..."

Natsumi leaned back in her chair and glared at her. "Are you tellin' this story, or am I?"

Catherine shrugged. "I fear for our partnership, but, okay, continue..." She waved her hand as if to dismiss the negativity in the air.