“Here kitty kitty.”  Sara made a soft clicking sound with her tongue while she shook the bowl containing the food in her hands.  It rattled around in the metal dish creating a sound that should have brought the cat out of whatever nook or cranny it had stalked off into this time.

The Calico cat she had lovingly named princess was however nowhere to be found.

She had found the cat sickly in the street one day, and taken it home and nursed it back to health, she had even taken a full week off of school to take care of the cat, though she had told everyone else it was her sister she had to take care of, like they would give her time off to take care of a stray cat.

Last time she had disappeared she had been gone for almost a month, Sara had lost all hope of ever seeing her again, but one day she just randomly showed back up on the doorstep.

“Princess? Here girl, here.”  she called out looking for the cat in all its favorite spots.  With a sigh Sara looked outside, it was raining now, she had to go look for the cat out there, she couldn't leave her little kitty all alone in the rain could she?

She opened up the closet and reached in there for her hoodie, only to find that it was nowhere to be found.  

That was odd, she hadn't wore it in almost a month, where could it have gone?

She routed through the closet, but did not find it anywhere.

First Dan, then her cat, and then her jacket, what else was going to go wrong today?  Picking up her umbrella from the hallway holder she decided to go without the jacket.  Grabbing the bowl she went outside, shaking it and calling”here kitty kitty, princess...” the entire way, not really caring what her neighbors thought of her.

[Dan’s Shoppe]

“Wait, wait, you are Bastet, the egyptian goddess?”  he asked looking her over. “Anubis's wife?” He remembered this from classes he had taken on mythology.

“Honestly”  she sighed and placed her head in her hands.  “Why does everyone say that?”  she looked up at Dan and Amani. “It was a small tryst, it only lasted around one hundred years or so, can it even be called a relationship?  Let alone marriage...”  she shook her head.

“Only a hundred years huh?”  Dan asked with a slight smile on his face.

“Yes, I was young and stupid, and he was so suave, honestly I still regret it to this day,”  she nodded before she noticed Dan chuckling to himself silently. “What is so funny?”  she hissed.

The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

“Oh, nothing I meant no offence it is just funny to think about how to you a hundred years is not enough time to even be considered a relationship, but to someone like me I will be lucky to even live to be one hundred years old.” he laughed, and the harsh look on her face faded slightly.

”I see, I had forgotten how short the lives of humans were…Once again I have been rude, I apologize.”  the calico ears in her hair twitched ever so slightly.

“It's fine,”  he said waving it off.

“No it is not, I used to look down on humans, but in the past few years I have seen something I never thought I would see and felt things I have never felt.”

“Oh?”

“You humans are so straight forward with your feelings, though I suppose that is because you have no time to skirt around the edges.” she said, her cheeks tinging a slight pink color and her eyes gaining a far off look as she was examining some memory.

“Oh? So something changed your opinion about us humans?”

“It is a long story,” she said, her eyes coming back into focus.

“You're right, we should wait until the store clears out, there are a lot of customers to handle.” he said with a laugh gesturing to the empty store.

“You are an callous man aren't you?” she said looking at him with a slight bit of annoyance that was overshadowed by her amusement. “How many mortals would joke with a god like you do?”

“I am married to Abyzou, she is a god, and honestly she is not that much different from anyone else, none of you non mortals are.”

Bastet nodded her head, conceding his point. “Very well I shall summarize it, as I do not feel like getting into the details.”  she stopped talking for a second and thought about how to put it to words. “So, as you said I was in a relationship with Anubis, this caused much heartache to my sister Sekhmet, she has always wished to be in a relationship with Anubis.” she sighed. “In her anger she cursed me, with a terrible curse that no one knows how to heal.”

“A curse even gods can't heal?”

“Indeed, it can be staved off, but there is no healing from it.  As luck would have it however Anubis has an object that can help my condition, the other has been lost since long before even my creation.”

“But you are no longer in a relationship with Anubis.” he said nodding his head.

“Yes, I have been able to withstand it so far, but I am drawing near the end of my strength, so I went searching for it, only to collapse around three years ago in the middle of the search, A woman found me, and gently nursed me back to health, I have been there with her ever since.”  she said, a smile on her lips,  she reached up and put her fingers on a necklace, or so Dan thought it was until he took a closer look and found it was actually a collar, and hanging from the collar was a small bell and a tag that read the name princess, along with a house address and a phone number.

Bastet reached into her pocket and pulled out a clear ziplock bag, inside were some small round brown bits of food.  Reaching in she pulled out a handful and popped it into her mouth.  The sounds of crunching could be heard as she swallowed the handful of food and then noticed Dan was staring at the baggy in shock.

No way right?

There was no way the egyptian goddess Bastet was currently eating a handful of kibble and bits right?

“Want some?”  she asked offering the bag up to him.  He looked back between her and the small baggy of cat food in shock.  

“Eh, hehe no I am fine, thank you however...”  he said with a small laugh rubbing the back of his head.

“Your loss,”  she said with a shrug, popping another handful of the food into her mouth and crunching it.  “Any way, I need this item, or the other one, though I doubt you have it.”

“If we don’t have it in stock we can, erm, acquire it.” Dan said.

“Truly?”  she asked looking at Dan in surprise, he nodded, and she practically leapt at him wrapping him in a hug and rubbing her cheek up against his, purring.

Dan could hear Abyzou hissing all the way over in the other room, with a sigh he resigned himself to his fate.