Later that evening, Eva was leaning against the railing of her cabin’s balcony, her clothes returned to being a comfortable hoodie and a pair of jeans. As she watched the third ‘last encore’ of the mermaids' acrobatics performance, at least what she could make out from her position, the Kitsune’s thoughts wandered across the events of the day as she took another sip from her sake cup.
The reception had been a rather boring affair for the most part. After meeting Hikari and her father, Gon had led her around and introduced her to a number of other Inaris, most of which were in a similar position as Eva as the only Kami of a small shrine.
A little under an hour after the welcoming speech, the ship departed the harbour, and a small pack of white foxes began to guide the guests to their rooms. Eva was surprised once she reached hers. She hadn’t thought about what to expect, but the cabin she had been assigned was more than she had expected. A queen sized bed stood close to the sliding glass door leading to the balcony. On the opposite wall to the bed was a large flatscreen TV showing live footage from the bow of the ship. The rest of the space in the main room was filled with a small table, a pair of comfortable seats and a minibar.
A second door right next to the entrance led to a bathroom that was mostly filled with an actual bathtub, a small toilet and a sink.
Standing on the small table was a chilled bottle of Sake. While Eva couldn’t recognize the Brand, the label definitely looked like it was a rather expensive drink. Putting the bottle back into the bucket of ice, she noticed the folded note lying before it with the detailed itinerary of the weekend on it.
With nothing going on until the big dinner later that evening, she decided to check out the spa area to relax a bit before checking out some of the bars. While she was in the Whiskey bar, the loud complaint of one of the Patrons couldn’t be overheard. While everyone was forced to listen to the long tirade about the merits of whiskey rocks over ice cubes to keep whiskey chilled[1], Eva looked down at her own drink and the slowly dissolving ice in it. Leaning back in her chair, the young Kami pondered if she could adjust her drinks temperature with magic instead of more mundane implements. After deciding the trick might just be worth it, especially if she could figure out how to do it for larger quantities of liquid.
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‘Never thought getting massaged as a Fox would be so nice.’ Eva reminisced as she refilled her cup, the mermaids still doing their best to impress those still watching from the ship’s aft. ‘At least I managed to figure out this neat trick before I was asked to prepare for the Dinner.’ The Kitsune thought as she chilled the sake in her cup to the perfect temperature with the first bit of magic she had managed to figure out on her own.
As the dinner drew near, Eva was approached by one of the fox servants and escorted to meet with the event’s hostess to talk over how she would introduce the newest Kami of the gathering at the start of the banquet. In the end they settled on having her personalize an otherwise generic introductory speech during the short break between first and second course. Eva would be seated at the main table with Ō-miya-hime and her close friends.
The young Kami was one of the first to take their seats for said dinner, now garbed in a likeness of the richly painted and embroidered kimono Mumei had handed her when she gave Eva her blessing. The Speech went of with only a few stutters owing to Eva’s lack of practice with formal Japanese.[2] Though to her discomfort, a lot of the talking she was involved in at the table was centered around either how she obtained her position, which was met with a round of knowing smirks from most gathered at that table. Or she was interrogated on how she planned to go forward with her duties, if she planned to orchestrate for a shrine to herself in her homeland, or if she planned to move to Japan permanently. This part of the conversation was cut rather short though, as she had not really given too much thought to any of those recurring questions. Of course that meant for the most part, Eva was basically excluded from the small talk happening at the table while the ancient Kamis talked about their year.
Once the banquette had concluded, the fox servants that had served as waiters began to lead the guests back to the biggest bar situated at the ship’s aft, with a large panorama window front. Once most of them had been gathered, a small fireworks show was started, at the conclusion of which a couple dozen mermaids began an acrobatic performance, not unlike one of the shows put on at aquariums, accompanied by a group of Umibozou[3] on a ghostly vessel playing traditional japanese music.