The rain poured down outside, fogging up the windows of her office. The clock was inching closer to midnight with every second. She sat on the sofa, hunched over with a drink in her hand. The office was more cluttered than usual as she’d given up on trying to have an apartment. Instead she’d moved her belongings into the office before she was evicted from her apartment. Tsuki may be skilled enough to support both through her work, but over the years she’d begun drinking more and working less. These days she only accepted cases that interested her or paid particularly well unless she was desperate for rent.

On the tinted glass of her office door “Detective medium” was written in large letters, and below it her name Aizawa Tsuki. That she was able to communicate with the dead often did make the job easy when she investigated murders, but it had made it too easy, plus the recently dead could be rather annoying and whiny. Yeah, I get it, you didn’t plan on dying like this. Heard it a thousand times, chum. Cold cases were more interesting, or cases where the victims hadn’t seen the face of their murderer. Some cases stayed with her though. One of the reasons she’d stopped working as much and drinking more were that the most gruesome cases refused to leave her, turning into nightmares in the dark of night.

A loud roar could be heard from somewhere outside, thankfully not too close, but it was shortly followed by screams and a siren. Tsuki took a swig of her drink, got up and walked over to the windows. She couldn’t see much due to the darkness and the rain. Streetlights lit up the area some stories down and cars drove by, but there wasn’t much other movement.

She emptied the remaining liquid in the glass while staring out at the city. Enfield, a city located in the northwestern part of Kapraenia, almost on the border to France. It was a medium sized city, with little going for it, but she had grown up here and it was home more than anywhere else. She had memories of this place going back to her childhood, some good and some bad. The most important thing of all was that she had her family, her friends and her contacts here though. Sometimes her job took her to far off countries, if they paid for her journey, but she always enjoyed returning home.

Tsuki sighed and returned to the sofa. She laid down, turned on the TV and made a mental note that she should buy a bed sofa if she was going to be living in her office from now on, or at the very least a sofa that was longer. There was breaking news about a griffin that had been released from a nearby zoo by some religious fanatic claiming their god had told them to do it. It wasn’t really worth mention as news, considering how often some nutjob did something that their god had told them to do. She respected the gods, but preferred if they stayed out of her business. Tsuki began flipping through the channels, searching for something to watch.

The day was a total bust. Ruby could hear the priests arguing over the com as she watched the rain pounding against the tinted glass of the car window, a siren sounding in the distance as if to remind her even more that this place was nothing like the serenity of the Celestial Nile compound. It has been raining all day, but in the morning it hadn’t bothered her nearly as much as it did now. In the morning she’d stood up bright and early, eager and hopeful that this was the day they would find the moonchild. They’d driven for hours the day before, up and west from the fertile soils of the Nile Lake until they’d reached the small Celestial Church compound where they’d spent the night. They would need to be well-rested, so they had reasoned, in order to properly take on the sacred task of welcoming the moonchild into their proper life.

After a lifetime of being told there would be no one like her in this generation, Ruby had been overjoyed to hear of the divinations that had revealed the birth of another celestial child. The seers had of course been sceptical at first, but the directions had been so specific that they had to be true – or so Ruby kept telling herself. Truth be told, she was if possible even more invested in finding this child than the priests were. She’d never thought she would be able to meet anyone quite like her, but now that the possibility was there it was all she could think about.

The divinations hadn’t said anything about the gender of the child, but Ruby was privately hoping for a little sister. She would take care of her, and play with her and teach her everything she would need to know. She wouldn’t have to grow up being afraid all the time, because there would be someone there who was like her. Eventually she would grow up and together they would usher in a new age of balance, representing both goddesses on earth for the first time in generations.

Of course she knew it would never be that simple, but it was a fantasy she allowed herself to indulge in. In the end the was absolutely positive she would grow to love whoever this moonchild turned out to be. After all, they would be the one to free her from the weight of being the only Celestial in existence – the one who by all accounts should help people in the name of her mother wherever she goes. True, she wouldn’t be ready for her full set of responsibilities for a few years yet, but it was a daunting prospect to have to face it alone.

A daunting prospect she’d might have to confront after all, she thought with a heavy sigh. They’d made their way over to the apartment complex the seers had pinpointed that morning, Ruby dressed up in a layered silk robe in oranges and yellows that was far more comfortable- and less intimidating- than the ceremonial clothing she usually wore out in public. She’d pulled her dreads up into an intricate bun on top of her head, with a small golden sun pinned in as the only decoration apart from her customary septum piercing, sun earrings and necklaces adorned with rubies, garnets and sunstones. She’d even gone for a minimum of golden eyeliner rather than the traditional face paints she wore for public appearances. She had been all set to meet the moonchild as ‘Ruby the big sister’ rather than ‘Ruby Eleana, daughter of the sun’, who people knew from their televisions or as a golden speck in the distance when she addressed the people on behalf of the Celestial Church on the longest day of the year.

It had been all for nought, though, as they went through address after address, first in the apartment complex and then in the surrounding houses. While they were all honoured- and a little intimidated- by the attention of the priests, all Ruby could do was watch from a distance as no one was able to set the holy paper aflame. She was almost tempted to touch the stupid thing herself- to feel it react to the divine spark within her and burn away with a bright, yet cool flame- but they were very expensive to make and they hadn’t brought a lot of them. Besides, the light singe marks that were left by a few people that could boast divine ancestry in their lineage were proof enough that the papers worked. The problem was that they hadn’t found the child of the moon, whose touch should send the little scrap of inscribed paper up in flames.

In the end Ruby hadn’t gotten to even talk to anyone, only become increasingly impatient with every door the priests came scuttling back out of. She’d been doing breathing exercises to keep herself from doing something as embarrassing as singing the leather of the chairs all day, at first out of jittery excitement and later on to keep her mind of the hint of despair beginning at the back of her mind. Could it be that the seers really had been wrong? They had tried to warn her that divinations were not always what they appeared to be, but then they had gotten so excited with the details themselves… Could it be that the hope she’d felt was doomed to be extinguished even before it could blossom into something like happiness?

Whatever turned out to be the case, Ruby hadn’t been content to go back to the compound just yet. She might not be the boss of her own life, but her word still carried a lot of weight and when she told her entourage that she was going to check out the other address on file for the apartment that had been cleared out recently, they could do little but indulge her. She had to admit that she didn’t actually think they would still find the moonchild, but she wouldn’t rest until she’d at least talked to one person today. If nothing else, she might be able to give someone a good story to tell their grandchildren one day.

As they drove into the office area that was their final destination for the day, she took her hair down from its bun and carefully stowed away most of the jewellery (the septum piercing – sun shaped of course – stayed). She traced the delicate fabric of her robes for a moment, before taking them off in favour of a plain grey shirt and loose jeans. She loved those robes, she didn’t want to wear them when she undoubtedly found out the hope she felt for the last few days was all for nought. They were looking for a child, after all, and who in their right minds took a child to live with them in an office building?

It was still raining when she stepped out of the car, but Ruby turned the umbrella one of the priests handed her away. She would be soaked by the time she got to the entrance, but it wasn’t like she got cold.

“I’ll be right back,” she said, her tone of voice leaving no room for anyone to think she was going to let someone else come up with her. They could wait downstairs, with the janitor that had been called out of bed in order to open the door of the complex for them. It was not like she expected someone to even answer the door, and she just needed a moment for herself. Even if that moment was going to be in a darkened business complex. As an afterthought she took some holy paper, the gold and silver case tucked away haphazardly in her back pocket.

Her steps echoed as she walked up the empty stairs, dripping water as she passed. It felt kind of good, in a melodramatic way, that her miserable day was going to end in a miserable place – with her soaked and alone. She would normally be asleep for hours already, but it wasn’t like she was going to be able to get some sleep until she put this whole mess behind her. Checking the address on a slip of paper in her hand, she walked past offices until she got to the door marked with ‘detective medium’. Ruby gave a humourless snort at reading it. Since the seers apparently were a bust, perhaps the next step would be to ask this ‘Aizawa Tsuki’ for help tracking the moonchild. Without much hope for a reply, she rang the office bell.

Tsuki had been on the verge of falling asleep with the TV on, when she heard footsteps in the corridor outside. She wondered who else would be here this late, but discarded the information as unrelated to herself. At least, until someone rang her office bell, then she opened her eyes, blinked a few times and looked at the door. She could see a silhouette through the tinted glass of her door. Her first instinct was to tell the person to go away as she didn’t work nights, but well, she did work nights if the pay was good. She was also rather curious about who would show up this late at her office. Wasn’t the building supposed to be locked?

Once she had decided to open the door, she quickly turned off the TV and threw the cover she had been lying under on top of it. “Give me a moment.” She mumbled, more to herself than anything, and put on the first clothes she could find. A tight black shirt and a pair of loose pants. Her hair would have to remain a mess for now.

She headed towards the door, but stopped in her tracks. Tsuki looked at her desk for moment, considering whether she should get the gun in the drawer to protect herself. What kind of a person showed up on a night like this anyway? She’d made a few enemies in her line of work, so in the end she walked over to the desk and got her gun. It was better to have it in her hand than way over at the desk if the first thing that was going to greet her when she opened the door was the barrel of another gun. Not that she may be able to react fast enough either way if they’d come simply to kill her.

Tsuki finally went over to the door, took a deep breath and opened it. She hid the gun in her right hand behind the door. The woman waiting outside wasn’t really what she had been expecting. She was completely soaked, dressed in simple clothes with a peculiar septum. Tsuki guessed the septum was some kind of religious symbol, having seen others wearing piercings and tattoos in strange shapes before. She wasn’t bothered by their soaked clothes either from what she could tell. She steadied herself against the open door, hoping the woman in front of her wouldn’t notice that she was drunk.

“Lemme guess, dead husband or child?” Tsuki said, slurring quite a bit more than she had meant too.

However, before the woman got a chance to answer she noticed the symbols floating around her head. Normally she would have seen them a hundred times before, every time she talked with someone face to face, but these were strangely unique. She should be able to predict the person’s death with the symbols. These were difficult to make out at all at times though, as they shone brightly, but there was clearly something inside of each of the tiny bright lights too. She hadn’t seen symbols quite like those before. They did remind her a bit of someone else’s she knew though. Her own actually, even if hers were shrouded in darkness instead of covered by light. She’d always assumed it was because she wasn’t supposed to be able to predict her own death.

Tsuki was lost staring at the floating symbols for a while, before she remembered that they belonged to someone who had come to talk to her about the gods knew what. “Oh sorry, did you say something?” She asked, thinking of an excuse as to why she must have appeared to be staring at nothing. It was easier to just make something up than tell the truth in most cases like these. “I’m drunk.” Then again, admitting that she wasn’t sober may not be better than the truth. She sighed, closed her eyes and cursed herself. She soon opened her eyes with a bleak smile, ignoring the symbols long enough to listen to the woman.

At first it seemed as if there would be no reply, but then Ruby could hear some mumbled words as well as someone moving around in the other room. Here eyes widened a little as she realised she hadn't actually prepared herself for talking to someone, and she nervously ran her hands over her clothes to... to do what exactly? She was soaked though and it wasn't like she was going to get the creases out of these clothes by rubbing them. Why did she change? It was unbefitting of a Celestial to be seen like this, and with her hair down nonetheless. How was anyone going to take her seriously if she-

Ruby instinctively broke out in a serene smile the moment the door opened, though it took her a little more effort to keep it up once she saw who was on the other side. The first thing she noticed was the shock of white hair surrounding her face, the second thing was that the woman was pretty much her own age. She hadn't expected someone so young to suddenly be right up in her face, and neither had she been prepared for the thorough once-over she got from the stranger. She must look very strange indeed, because the words out of her mouth made no sense at all.

"Er... How do you mean 'dead'," she started before remembering the sign that had been on the door. Of course a medium would deal with dead people. "Oh, 'dead' like in... er, 'deceased'," she continued lamely, "I'm not here for that. I'm here for your child." That sounded bad. She didn't remember it being this difficult to talk to people. Of course usually she talked to huge crowds, and that was easy. For one, you didn't have to look at their faces.

"Er, that is to say, I'm here to ask whether you've had a child. Recently. Or perhaps know someone who..." she trailed off, unnerved by the way the woman was staring fixedly at a point just above her right ear. She knew some people had trouble with looking 'an avatar of the sun goddess' in the eye, but she hadn't even introduced herself. Besides, if she was somehow intimidated by her presence, surely she would make it look like she was actually listening. Her next words confirmed Ruby's suspicion that she hadn't been listening, and when the woman admitted to being less than sober it was her turn to be affronted.

"To watch the world with eyes clouded by intoxication is an offence to the work of the goddesses," she recounted automatically, the words drilled into her countless times by her tutors. Ah, that was probably kind of rude.

"Of course your house or, er, office is your own and I'm not here in any official capacity to tell you what not to do," she said quickly, smiling just a little too widely in the hope to smooth things over before they could get even more awkward.

"I'm just here to ask you a simple question in regard to the apartment complex you have recently vacated." There, this she could do. Forget about talking to normal people without looking like a fool, just ask the question, hand her the paper and get out before embarrassing herself further.

"We are following inquiries relating to a recent divination by the seers of the twelfth hour, and would like to ask you a simple question. Do you know anyone at your apartment complex who has recently given birth? Perhaps someone who moved away in the past month or so? Oh, and would you be so kind as to take a slip of paper from me?" She grabbed the case from her pocket and flipped it open as she held it out for the woman. It was an intricate little thing, silver and gold with a moon and sun respectively carved into the metal. Most people wouldn't recognise the significance, unless they'd gone through the bureaucracy of getting divine heritage acknowledged by the church at some point.

Tsuki’s bleak smile turned upside down, into a visible frown, when the woman recounted something she must have read in a sacred text. The kind of texts priests sold copies of to the masses so the clergy could continue living in luxury. She did not care for the overly religious, and the thought to shoot the woman on pure principle went through her head. Not too kill, but maybe a bullet in the stomach or leg would bring her down a notch. It’d definitely give her more trouble than it was worth though.

She scoffed when the woman clarified that she wasn’t there to tell her what not to do. Damn right she wasn’t, especially if she wanted Tsuki to keep the door open and listen to her instead of slamming it in her face. It was still tempting to slam it shut, but there was a high possibility that the woman worked for the clergy and had enough wealth to make it worth Tsuki’s time to listen. She had recounted the passage about being drunk a bit too well and automatic for your average worshipper. There was the mention of “official capacity” as well. Besides, it’d be awkward if she slammed the door shut only to have the glass break and still be face to face with the woman.

Right… Tsuki thought to herself when she said how it was a simple question. There was no simple question that had people show up at your office in the middle of night. It had to be of some importance and maybe even urgent, or she could very well have waited until morning the next day. It did make her even more curious.

Seers of the twelfth hour? It rang a bell, but the amount of seers in the world was large, whether they were actually legitimate or charlatans didn’t matter much. People would give money to them anyway, believing it’d help them in life to know the future. Admittedly, Tsuki was a kind of seer herself, but she knew that few wanted to know how they would die.

She remained silent for a while after the woman had finished talking and opened a box for her to take a paper from. Tsuki hadn’t known her neighbours all that well, but even if she had she didn’t feel like telling this woman anything about them or their children. Why would someone from the clergy be asking such a strange question in the middle of the night? The child was obviously important in some way, but whether it was to the child’s benefit or not was another question entirely. She didn’t hold it above the religious to kill infants if seers had told them the child would end or change the world to their disadvantage. It sounded as if it was right up their alley.

“Nope, sorry, can’t think of anyone like that.” Tsuki said eventually. “I may be willing to help you find them for a fee though.” Assuming they even exist in the first place, she thought, but didn’t say it out loud. She’d make sure to get paid in advance.

Tsuki turned her attention to the box that the woman still held in front of her. She noticed the moon and sun symbol on the box, which made her look at the septum again. It was a sun too, wasn’t it? “Funny…” She muttered amused, as if she had realized someone was playing a prank on her. The woman would be the sun then. Her own name may mean moon in Japanese, but it was a very common name in a world where the moon goddess was one of the main three in all versions of the same religion. Did she go around bothering everyone named “moon” because a seer had told them too?

She figured there was some kind of magic bullshit going on with the papers, but picked one up either way as it shouldn’t affect her. These things rarely did what they were supposed to. It was set ablaze and went up in flames faster than her drunk self was able to react too, leaving her left hand vulnerable to the heat. She dropped the paper, shouted in pain and swung the door open revealing the gun in her other hand.

“What the fuck?” She asked, without shouting as she didn’t want to draw attention if more people were nearby. Tsuki kept the gun steady and aimed at the woman, holding it with both of her hands. Her left hand may hurt, but if she was going to shoot someone while drunk she didn’t want to risk missing by using only one hand. “Who set you up to this?”

Ruby had thought it would be a breath of fresh air to talk to a normal person rather than a priest or a worshipper for once, but she had to admit that she found the unnecessary reverence and hesitation preferable to the open hostility she could read on the woman’s face. She wasn’t even saying anything, just staring at her with eyes narrowed in suspicion. At least she was looking at her face this time in stead of staring into space. If this was how people acted when they were drunk, she could understand why the church was so dead-set against it.

When the woman finally spoke, Ruby wasn’t even disappointed that she didn’t know anything. She clearly hadn’t been thinking straight when she thought that it would have been a good idea to come up here alone. At least the woman hadn’t seemed to have recognised her, which at least kept her from embarrassing the church. Now she only needed to take a paper and they could both go back to-

Her thought process ground to a halt with the bright flame flaring up between them. For a moment all she could do was gape slack-jawed as everything she’d been expecting was wiped away in the bright glow of the burning paper. Not a child then.

The hesitation was enough to have her end up with a gun pointing in her face, and the bright spark of joy she felt (she was not alone) was just enough for her to be able to push back the memories that came rushing back at the sight of the barrel. A lifetime of practice turned her focus to her breath before she needed to make a conscious decision to do so.

-Three counts in, four counts out. Four counts in, five counts out.-

While she could feel the flames within her pushed away just out of reach, she had this under control. She had to have this under control. With that thought she took a slow step back and held up her hands to show she wasn’t planning anything.

“I… No one ‘set me up’ to this,” she said, not bothering to hide the fear in her voice or eyes. As long as that gun was on her, she was very afraid, though not for the reason the moonchild probably thought she was.

“We were… looking for someone. Like I told you, there was a divination,” she didn’t much want to tell her she was the daughter of one of the goddesses as long as she was aiming a gun. That had to be a shock, right? The last thing she wanted was to startle her into doing something drastic.

“I didn’t mean to hurt you. I would never hurt you,” she said, hoping the truth of her conviction would shine through in her words. She slowly lowered her hands, gesturing with the paper case to show that she wasn’t reaching for anything else.

“I’m the same as you, look.” She slowly reached for a paper, not flinching when it burst into flames the moment her fingers touched it. She held it up between two fingers as it burnt itself out in seconds.

“I can explain everything, but I need you to put that gun away.”

Tsuki felt somewhat relieved when she could hear and see the fear in the other woman. It meant she hadn’t expected her to pull a gun on her, and she was very much in control of the situation. Whatever that burning paper had been it couldn’t have been intended to make her react like this. It did beg the question what its true purpose had been then. She sneered when the woman brought up their divination once more. It didn’t explain anything more than why she had set out on this search for someone. Tsuki wanted to know what the person in question had done to get tracked down by the clergy. It was beginning to look more and more like they were in some serious trouble. She wanted none of it personally, yet here she was in the middle of the night aiming a gun at a supposed priestess.

She raised an eyebrow and lowered the gun slightly when the woman said she would never hurt her intentionally. There was that religious conviction they held so high behind the words, which made her lower her guard temporarily. Tsuki raised the gun again before long, with a sinking feeling that the person they had been looking for may be herself. Well, it would be more accurate to say that the woman now believed so because the paper had reacted to Tsuki’s touch. They likely would have gone with whatever person made the paper burst into flames first. It was just her luck that it had to be her.

“Whoopty do, you can make inflammable paper burn.” Tsuki said, after watching the woman get the same reaction from the paper that she had. “We’ve got so much in common. Do you want to be BFFs now?” She found it presumptuous that the priestess claimed to be the same as her based on what, setting fire to paper? For all she knew there could be some trick to it that made it burn every time. She did notice how it didn’t seem to hurt the priestess like it had hurt her though.

The suggestion that she would get an explanation did appeal to her. If only so she could find out what was going on, and how to get out of this situation. She wasn’t particularly keen on putting the gun away to get one. Tsuki had just been tricked into burning her hand and getting way more attention than she had ever asked for from the clergy.

“No.” Tsuki said with a hard tone that left no room for argument. “I’m not putting the gun away.” However, she did aim it away from the woman and at the floor, but kept both of her hands on it. “Now you can start explaining yourself or turn around, walk away and never return. I won’t hesitate to shoot you if you try anything else. It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve shot someone, so I’d suggest you get rid off any doubts you may have regarding that.”

The Woman's final words sent a cold shiver down her spine, but at least she was pointing the gun away. It wasn't ideal, but it was a big improvement from the situation 30 seconds ago.

"I won't try anything," Ruby said quickly. At east, she hoped that bringing news that would uproot her entire life would not count as 'trying anything'.

"I just want to talk. We have got a lot in common, even if it doesn't look like that right now," and even if she didn't know what 'BFFs' were. It didn't matter. Even though the child of the moon appeared to be a bit less... dignified than she'd been expecting, she was sure everything would end up all right.

"This paper it's.... a test of sorts, used by the clergy to... look for certain characteristics," she started out slowly. She hadn't actually expected she would ever have to explain this beyond 'your child is blessed' and though the gun was no longer pointing at her, a conversation where one of the people involved was holding a gun was very difficult to mistake for a conversation where that wasn't the case.

"You know how cmost families with a lot of gifted people can trace their lineage back to some god or another? Well, this paper can be used to show the so-called 'divine spark' a person might possess." As she talked Ruby slowly got some of her confidence back. This, she knew how to do.

"Of course a few drops of divine blood will be only enough to lightly singe the paper. Generally the more poweful the reaction, the more powerful the divine heritage within the person." She paused for a moment, giving the other woman (her name had been on the door, hadn’t it? why hadn't she paid more attention?) a chance to start connecting the dots.

"i am the only person currently alive who is able to set the paper aflame like that- or I guess I was." She looked the white-haired woman in front of her straight in the eye, trying to figure out if anything of this was making sense. If they really were the same , surely she must have felt like Ruby had? Out of place, different than anyone else she’d ever known… It could only be a good thing to hear that she really was different, right?

“My name is Ruby Eleana Solaris. I’m… er… You may have seen me on the television sometimes?” she finished rather lamely. It felt… cheesy to introduce herself as ‘daughter of the sun’, she never really had to before. Of course before she’d only really interacted with people who knew who she was from the get-go, which brought other awkwardness with it. It would’t be like that now, though, because now they were the same. The celestial goddesses were equal in every way, after all. Was it really too much to hope that they would be as well?

Oh, so she wasn’t completely ignorant to how the situation looked like from Tsuki’s perspective? How about that, a member of the clergy that wasn’t blind to everyone else’s opinions. No, it certainly did not look like they had a lot in common, but at this point she was very curious what the woman thought they did have in common. It seemed doubtful there’d be anything connecting them, but here she was claiming they had a lot in common.

She’d kind of assumed that the paper had been a test after the woman’s initial reaction to Tsuki setting it on fire, but as far as she knew there was no proof that it didn’t work on just about everyone. From what she’d seen, it worked 100% of the time it was used. If the woman wanted her to believe this was a real test she should have brought a person it didn’t work on, or documented evidence. All she had to go on now was her word.

Tsuki was well aware of how some families could relate their linage to the gods. She’d actually worked on a case some years ago with a family that had stated they had a divine heritage, but the details of that case was irrelevant to the current situation. She nodded in response to the question though.

As much as the other woman believed her own words, Tsuki couldn’t help but feel that they sounded as if she was working up to a point where she tried to sell her some kind of product. Presumably the paper she’d already been given a sample of. Either that, or she was trying to scam her. She’d most definitely shoot her if one of those possibilities turned out to be the case.

However, it didn’t make sense that she would have stayed after Tsuki had given her a chance to leave if that was all it was. Why risk getting shot over it? The symbols she could see floating around the woman’s head made her think that maybe there was a tiny chance there was some truth to what she was being told. She’d denied most of her life that her curse had anything to do with the gods, because what were the chances of that? Her family didn’t have any divine heritage. It was likelier her abilities had come from some other source than the divine, not that she’d been able to identify what that source would have been.

“Can’t say that I remember seeing you before, lady.” Tsuki responded when the woman stopped talking. “I’m not interested in the religious channels or shows, so unless you were on the news or in a movie I doubt I’ve seen you on TV.” ¨

She wasn’t all that interested in remembering celebrities to begin with, no matter what had made them famous. Besides, she doubted the woman had ever appeared on TV looking like she did in that moment, which would make her a lot less recognizable to pretty much everyone, even fans. The name was the one clue she had to go on then, but other than the obvious connection to the sun she was drawing a blank there as well.

“Let’s get to the point, shall we?” Tsuki said. “You’re trying to tell me what? That I’m related to the gods? My family don’t have any divine heritage to brag about, I would know. Your paper don’t prove much to me either as the two times I’ve seen it used it worked flawlessly.”

Ruby blinked a few times at the unexpected turn of events. She'd always thought she was good with people, but that was when she was in familiar territory, with people who knew who she was and what they expected of her. This woman didn't recognise her even after being told her name, and Ruby felt a little stupid for not having anticipated that possibility. Sure, she knew intellectually that there were a lot of people who's lives were almost totally unconnected from the gods or the church, but that thought was so far away from the reality of her own life that she'd never really taken the time to consider what it meant. Though she doubted she would ever have imagined that it would fall to her to explain to the daughter of the moon that she was... well, the daughter of the moon.

"Um, yeah, I am," she said, playing with the ends of her dreads in an unintentional nervous gesture. She new it would be best if she just got some priests to explain and show that the paper most definitely didn't work for everyone, but something stopped her. This woman was supposed to be her chance to finally not feel alone any more, and she wasn't about to fade into the background while the priests did all the talking.

"I'm on the news at least once a year, on the summer solstice. My mom is a priest in the Celestial temple of the Great Pyramid, and my mother is the Radiant Sol." She said it as casually as she could manage. This wasn't some great declaration, after all, just a statement of fact to the only person who might be able to understand how she felt.

"You do have divine heritage. It's not your family though, just you. No one but a demigod has enough divine spark to light the fire like that, and if you want to see others try there are people downstairs who can touch the paper as well. The seers of the twelfth hour have spent the last couple of weeks pouring over a set of divinations that eventually led us to your apartment block. A set of divinations that all pointed to the same thing: a child of the moon living right where you lived up until a week ago. They assumed we were looking for a child, but apparently they were wrong..." The woman's earlier insistence that she didn't have any divine heritage sprang to mind, and she quickly kept talking before she could be dismissed out of hand.

"I know it must be quite a shock, but have you never felt like you were different? Did you ever catch a cold as a child, or any of the other diseases others seem to catch every year? You must be gifted, right? Everyone always talks about drawing the power out, nurturing it and learning how to use it, but that's not how it works for you, right? Wasn't it more difficult for you to turn it off rather than turn it on? Surely you must have felt as if you were... different from the people around you. Well, it was because you are," as Ruby talked, the desperate edge creeping in around the words audible even to her own ears.

Tsuki rolled her eyes when the woman began playing with her dreads. Was she supposed to take this woman seriously? The situation felt more and more surreal with every passing minute. At least she’d finally gotten her to stop sidestepping the issue and explain it straight to her. It was easy to see why she might have preferred to not be that honest though, as what she was trying to explain was unbelievable at best.

Once Ruby told her that she was on the news once a year at the summer solstice, Tsuki felt like she should have recognized her earlier. She had never been all that interested in religious topics, but she’d heard others talk about the sun goddess’ daughter. That had to be who she was, or claimed to be. It’d be very easy for Tsuki to find out if she was telling the truth or not. A few steps to the computer on her desk and she could search for photographs of the demigod. If the woman was telling the truth, the photographs would be of her.

Tsuki’s breaking point arrived when the woman told her that she was a demigod as well. One of those powerful beings who had both a human parent and a divine. She burst out laughing. A laughter that was sincere and mocking at first. She had to steady herself with the door again, leaning her back against it and crossing her arms across her stomach. Her parents loved each other and would never cheat, even with a goddess. Her father adored her mother, and her mother felt the same way… right? She knew that her mother had decided Tsuki’s name for her, but that was a silly coincidence… surely? Tsuki’s laughter soon took a more strained and uncertain tone, until it was more coughs than anything. It was as if she wanted to keep laughing to convince herself this was all nonsense.

Despite her laughter, Tsuki had listened to the rest of what the woman had said, as much as she had wanted to drown the sound of her voice out by laughing. Some of it had hit a bit too close to home. She’d rarely been sick like other children, but her father had always bragged about her good genes, even when her brother and sister fell ill. She couldn’t really deny that she was gifted either. It had gotten her a job that made her plenty of money while others with skills went unemployed or underpaid. The worst realization was that the moon goddess was the deity of death across the entire world.

“I’ll be right back…” Tsuki said and stared intently at Ruby’s features to memorize them. She went inside her office, left the door open and walked over to the desk. She moved the mouse to shake the computer awake, logged in and soon found herself staring at photographs of Ruby the demigod after a quick image search. She had no idea how to feel, but she supposed she should keep up her scepticism. It only proved that Ruby was who she claimed to be. Maybe the best proof she could get was to ask her parents.

She left the gun on the desk and went for the bottle next to the sofa. A stiff drink might help her, she didn’t care with what. There were some creepy coincidences between Ruby’s explanation and Tsuki’s reality, but hopefully that was all it was. As she stood there drinking straight from the bottle, she remembered she’d left the door open and Ruby could clearly see her.

“Uh…” Tsuki said, unsure of how to continue the conversation. She sighed, resigning herself to telling the truth about her abilities. “I can speak to the dead, and predict how someone’s going to die. You’ve got a bunch of symbols floating around your head that’d normally let me do it.” She waved her hand dismissively in the direction of Ruby. “Yours are clouded like… my own.” Another realization, which made her take another swig straight from the bottle. It was better than sobbing.

The laughter had been bad enough, but at least she had been able to talk over it. When the woman went back into her office without even deigning to answer any of Ruby’s questions, though, she could do little more than watch from the doorstep. She still had a gun after all, and Ruby didn’t want to provoke her any more than she’d already did. At least she could take the opportunity to quickly peek at the nameplate on the door again, so she would be able to put a name to the woman. Aizawa Tsuki. Was that in western or eastern order?

When she looked back into the room Aizawa Tsuki was gulping something presumably alcoholic down straight from the bottle. Ruby stared in shock for a moment, which morphed into embarrassment when the moonchild caught her eye. At least she put the bottle down for a while to talk, and the words were interesting enough for her to try and ignore the next swig out of the bottle.

“You’re a natural seer?” she asked, a slight note of awe in her voice. The priests loved to let people know that they were really good at predicting the future, but Ruby had seen how much preparation, ceremony and, well, guessing were really involved with comparatively basic divinations. And no one she knew would even want to come close to suggesting they could tell how people died. That was the domain of the moon, after all, and not something for mortals to guess at. Well, except for the woman across from her, obviously.

“That’s…” she paused at the stricken look on Aizawa’s face. This was probably not the time to talk about how amazing she thought her gifts were.

“That sounds like it could be a bit much for one person,” she instead said softly. The gun was nowhere in sight, so she carefully stepped into the office that seemed to double as apartment.

“I’m sorry if I startled you, I never meant to. I just… there isn’t really a way to bring new like this gently, I guess,” her voice was low and soothing as she approached the woman as she would a frightened animal. Her powers might not be very… subtle, but other than that caring and soothing came easy to her. As excited as she might be to have discovered her equal, at the moment she only felt for the hurt she was obviously feeling.

“Are you okay? You never told me your name.” She had read it from the door, of course, but right now they needed to have something neutral to talk about.

“Mhm.” Tsuki grunted, an indifferent response to the question. She’d just said she was a seer after all. Why did Ruby repeat the information she’d given her back to Tsuki? If she truly thought she was the child of a goddess, why would it even surprise her? It seemed like a rather weak ability compared to others that she could imagine. It was rather difficult for her to prove that she could do it too, unless someone could get a mortally ill or wounded person in front of her. There wasn’t any great lack of those, she figured, but anyone could tell those were dying.

She shot Ruby a quick glare when she almost said what she actually thought of Tsuki’s natural ability but stopped herself. Tsuki sat down on the couch, took another swig from the bottle and put her feet up on the table. Ruby’s next comment was obviously constructed to be empathetic and less offensive than the one she’d swallowed. Yet it unnerved Tsuki, perhaps because she was aware it wasn’t what the woman’s original thought had been. The way she suddenly spoke made her strangely aware that they were alone, and that Ruby was entering her office slash home without permission. She let her do it, mostly because it was her office and she had people enter it all the time, but not quite this late.

Tsuki turned to observe the other woman slowly moving in her direction. Maybe she still thought that she had the gun and wanted to be careful, not make any sudden movements and all that. The way she was acting made her a bit nervous, but somewhat less eager to shoot her as well. There was something genuine to every comforting word she said. She wasn’t sure whether it was the alcohol or Ruby’s words that made her feel at ease. Perhaps a combination of both.

“I never said I believed you. There’s just some coincidences that adds up to something strange.” Tsuki said, slurring more now than she had before. “I still require more proof. I’m a detective for gods’ sake. I can’t trust the word of a wet woman showing up in the middle of the night, only because she happens to be the daughter of a goddess and worshipped.” She laughed as an indecent thought passed through her head. “I wish it’d happen more often though, could be a more pleasant experience.” At first, it didn’t occur to her that she had said it aloud. When it did, she acted like she didn’t care, but blushed with her face turned away.

“Oh yeah, I’m fine. Nothing solves my problems like alcohol. The name’s Tsuki, so I suppose if you’re right my mom had an interesting sense of humour.” She decided to add an explanation. “Tsuki means moon if you didn’t know that.” Tsuki stretched the bottle in her hand out towards Ruby. “You want some? Or did your mom said you couldn’t?” She grinned, but pulled it back before Ruby could turn her down. “Nah, it’s mine.” She took another swig. “Does the moon goddess agree with your view on alcohol as well?”

Ruby was glad the gun didn’t seem involved any more, but the constant drinking wasn’t all that much of an improvement. Aizawa was already slurring her speech, and the words that came out of her mouth made it clear she wasn’t fully in control of her faculties any more. That, or she just didn’t care about being indecent, it was hard to tell. She tried to ignore the way her cheeks heated up, glad that her dark complexion would keep any blush from showing. At least she didn’t seem interested in provoking her, because she quickly moved onto the next subject.

She couldn’t blame Aizaw- no, Tsuki for still having doubts, but Ruby had none of her own. She’d seen dozens of people touch the holy papers that day, and many more before that. Tsuki didn’t have that advantage, and neither did she seem to be very familiar with- or appreciative of- religion in general.

“Er…” Ruby floundered a little when she was offered the bottle, trying to think of a polite way to turn down the alcohol. She must have been very obvious, because Tsuki pulled it back almost immediately. Though she was still a bit concerned about all the drinking, at least the religious question was more her domain.

“The scripture contains many references to intoxicating agents, some of which can be quite contradictory,” she said. “In general, the clergy err on the side of moderation. It is not wrong for one to enjoy life’s pleasures, but to cloud the mind is to close your heart to the beauty of the world the goddesses have created. Er, at least that’s what the priests say.” It wouldn’t do to antagonise her, after all. She was quiet for a moment, unsure how to broach the subject of what would happen next.

“The priests will be expecting me back down soon,” she eventually said. She knew the casual tone of voice probably wasn’t going to fool Tsuki, but she had to say something. The last thing she wanted was to have more people come in unannounced.

“I should probably go back down for a bit and talk to them… They will want to talk to you as well…” she said slowly. She couldn’t imagine Tsuki having a good reaction to the thought, so she quickly went on.

“You said you wanted more proof, right? Well, they can give you that. Everyone can touch the paper, and if that’s not enough there are other plans. There’s a temple in Iceland that has an artefact that used to belong to the last moonchild. Just a small trip- all expenses covered of course- and you will know. If we were wrong, you’ll never have to hear from us again.”

She was somewhat glad that the scripture wasn’t strictly against alcohol in all its forms. If she was going to get roped into the business of the religious she didn’t enjoy the idea that she wouldn’t be allowed to drink. It’d be the perfect excuse to drink, more than usual even. Perhaps her only way to find out some kind of truth on the topic was to speak to the goddesses themselves, the moon in particular. Was it possible to do that? She’d almost never turned to the gods for direction or advice before, but this would be the best reason to start. What’s up, moon goddess? How come you never told me I was your daughter, assuming Ruby’s right?

Tsuki didn’t want anything to do with priests right now, not that she wanted anything to do with priests normally either. However, they’d believe what Ruby told them and they’d see that their supposed moonchild was a drunk in her twenties. She wasn’t a new born baby easily influenced by their propaganda. That’d go over so well with people who couldn’t be considered mentally stable to begin with. She was about to turn Ruby down, but was stopped by the statement that the priests could give her proof. Of course they fucking could, because obviously it had to be them of all groups in the world.

“An artefact?” Tsuki slurred, suddenly curious what the last moonchild had left behind. She knew artefacts were items of varying power, but most of them could be used by any mortal. Something that had been used by the child of the moon, and then locked away, must possess powers beyond the scope of other artefacts. “If you’re right about me, do I get to keep it? What does it do anyway?”

She cleared her throat, and calmed down. It wouldn’t do to appear too excited. “Yes, I would like actual proof of these claims you make. A free trip to Iceland sounds fantastic, never been there before. Hopefully it’ll turn out you’re wrong and I won’t have to see any of you again, but at least I get something out of it then.” She slurred, revealing more than intended again. It would be faster to ask her own mother about the claims that she was a demigod, but then she’d miss out on the trip. In the same vein, wouldn’t Ruby and her followers of priests be able to talk to the goddesses? It didn’t seem like they could do it in any reliable way.

“When would we leave?” Tsuki had no current jobs she needed to do. Ruby would have to start paying her if she expected her to go anywhere else after Iceland, but she would accept a vacation, especially one that was paid for.