Ignored
"If I know mew are also purresent for being loved, bothered, and ignored..."
- Nyanta to Michael when they negotiated their partnership in chapter 333.
Nyanta is looking for Purrcy, who's missing, even from the Temple of Creation. He finally finds Michael sitting at a table, working. "Where's Purrcy?" he asks Michael as an ear twitches. He doesn't really want to summon her if she's busy doing something important.
Michael looks up from his work. "Busy working on a project. She said it might be most of a year or so. She was already distracted by the time she told me, so I guess she completely forgot to let you know?" his eyebrow raises at Nyanta. Nyanta gives a sour nod and Michael is sympathetic, but it's a bit late if she's already gone into seclusion.
Nyanta pauses, then gives Michael a slightly surprised and consternated look. "So, ...it's just us for a while, then?"
Michael blinks back at him. "Ah, I guess, yes." It's the first time the gods of Theldesia have been left in charge.
They look at each other, then Nyanta is suddenly sitting at the table with Michael. They're heads down in deep planning for a good while.
When Purrcy finally shows up about sixteen months later she has to hunt for both of them. She finds Michael and Nyanta on Theldesia in a particularly difficult region. Each one is in disguise and is the head general of opposing armies who are at war with each other.
She picks the "generals" each up and takes them to a clearing up on a hill nearby the battlefield. Her full-on scowl is going strong and the scold matches it as well. "Here I've gone off to figure out how to get this part of the world to play nicely from here into the far future, and the two of you have gone and made it into your war games? How is making them be at war for real going to teach them peace and prosperity into the future!? This really isn't okay, to make mortals die for you just so you can have fun playing generals!"
"If enough of the warriors die off, then the rest will happily sigh and live by the peace treaties at the end, won't they?" Nyanta asks innocently.
"Of course not!" she folds her arms and glowers. "Michael already knows that full well. Teach a people to be war-like and they only get better at it over time. Rome taught that to all of our world, and there were no few nations any less the same." By the time Purrcy's scolding is done, both gods-become-generals are very penitent. As their punishment she makes them work hard to her specifications to clean up the "mess" they've made.
From that time on Purrcy never leaves her attention off of them to that level again. But behind her back, they've winked at each other, quite pleased with the hidden quest part of what they've done. She received her payment for ignoring them to that extent. They'd been careful to only "play" with the worst of the war-like in that region to clean it up, they got to have fun doing it, and they got to teach her that they want to have input to Theldesia's future too, since they also have to live there for eternity.
Of course, the real lesson was to teach her that they don't like being ignored so much. That lesson didn't last terribly long, however. In those early centuries, many lessons had to be learned multiple times. The next time the two men felt a little too left out and ignored by Purrcy they turned the tables instead.
-:-:-:-:-
Once again, Nyanta and Michael are on the couch in their house on the mountain, watching the multiple Purrcys on the monitor. The High Priestess suddenly stops her writing and glowers at the paper in front of her. "Nyanta needs to see to this part before I can finish it," she mutters angrily to herself.
Not too much later, High Priestess-Purrcy is entering the entertainment room to find only Michael on the couch. "Do you know where Nyanta is?" she asks Michael, still firm and clipped in her irritation at her work being interrupted by something someone else needs to do before she can finish.
"Nope," he answers briefly. "Sorry."
High Priestess-Purrcy's tail swishes, but she leaves to continue looking.
Nyanta and Michael are watching the screens again and Hahaue-Purrcy stops her efforts and blinks. "Hmm. This needs Michael's attention."
When Hahaue-Purrcy arrives in the entertainment room, only Nyanta is on the couch. "Nyanta, do you know where Michael is?" she asks, rather distracted.
"Nyan," he answers back calmly. "Sorry."
Hahaue-Purrcy furrows her eyebrows, but leaves. Suddenly both High Priestess-Purrcy and Hahaue-Purrcy freeze and blink, the two aspects putting the pieces together.
Two sparks show up in the entertainment room, one for each of those hiding husbands. "Stop teasing me and get some work done!" she scolds them both as they wince to the electric attack that hits them on their foreheads, since her spells can find them wherever they are, regardless of realm or location they might be in.
They know she's not just working. Four of the windows on the screen are showing a green field in which Purrcy-cat is trying to catch butterflies with sprite-Kishi-Mujin while three other of Purrcy's aspects are having a picnic tea on a blanket nearby in the shade. Still, they both feel like this time their plan rather backfired.
Michael decides that he's going to have to demand a formal date with all of her aspects at once. Nyanta decides he's going to have to schedule a therapy session with all of her aspects at once, just to force her to agree to sit still long enough. Those ideas don't work either, but it does give Purrcy the final clues she needs to figure out what they're obstinately not being open with her about.
-:-:-:-:-
Nyanta and Michael are yet again on the couch, watching the monitor. Nyanta motions, having seen something specific, and the monitor is suddenly showing a baseball game. Purrcy walks into the room on her way from the kitchen to the front door.
She pauses and looks at the two of them, and then the monitor. "What do you guys sit there and watch all day anyway?"
Both men start to sweat a bit. Michael answers, " 'Best of' sports re-runs from Earth's internet. I pull up a football game, then Nyanta requires a kendo match. ...The only sport we can agree on is baseball."
Purrcy's ears perk forward with keen interest and her eyes sparkle as she moves around the couch to settle down between the two of them. "Oh! Baseball! I'll watch, too!"
Both men sweat even more, and the silence drags on for quite some time.
Nyanta scolds Michael in his head, "You had to open your mouth..."
Michael is scolding himself just fine. "Ah..., yeah. I forgot she likes baseball, too."
Purrcy finally rises in the uncomfortable silence and with forced gaiety says, "I'll go make a snack, shall I?"
Michael is quite relieved to have something happen next. "That'd be great!"
"Thank you very much," Nyanta is polite.
Purrcy leaves for the kitchen again. When the room is empty of Purrcy, both men shift uncomfortably on the couch, wondering what they're supposed to do next as guilt hangs over them. The lie is going to get them into so much trouble and they both know it.
The silence, save for the announcer of the baseball game still running on the screen, goes on for quite some time. Michael finally says a bit cautiously, "Purrcy's been gone a long time for making snacks, hasn't she?" Nyanta considers the time they've been sitting there, then agrees. They're both afraid to switch the screen back to the lines Michael has attached to all her aspects, though, just in case she's trying to catch them in the lie.
After a brief moment, Michael comments, "She's not in the kitchen." He's obviously sent another aspect to go looking there. When they've both looked in all the places and realms within their house Purrcy could be hiding in, the sweat really begins to drip.
Nyanta gives up first. "Show us where she is," he requests quietly. "It would surely be better to face her than not, at this point."
The monitor switches from the baseball game to a completely black screen. Both husbands swallow. A single image comes up. Caretaker-Purrcy looks back at them from the screen. In her best cool formal pose and voice, she bows to them both. "I'm sorry for interrupting a boy's-day-in without asking first."
Nyanta answers her calmly - on the outside. Not so much on the inside. "It's okay then, isn't it?"
Caretaker-Purrcy looks at them with no expression, then bows her head slightly and disappears from the screen, leaving it black once again. No promises given that anything is forgiven at all leaves them both still quite worried.
"Do you think she's angry?" Michael doesn't really want to admit it yet, for all it's obvious.
Nyanta's ears fall as he has to state the other option, "...or depressed."
Both men sigh. It really is their fault this time, for not just taking their chance to sit with Purrcy when she offered. She does like baseball, and would have enjoyed watching with them if they'd not frozen up and made it an uncomfortable situation.
Nyanta rises from the couch. "If you'll go fetch her..."
Michael has risen at the same time. "If you'll make a snack..."
In the end, Michael has to hunt down his link to ikiryō-Purrcy (he'd copied Tetorō's link to her when they got back to Theldesia after Earth, knowing he was very likely going to need it). He finds her sitting in one of her foxhole fortresses, her knees up to her chest, her arms around them, her back to the room.
Michael sighs and softly puts a hand on her shoulder, not quite sure if he's going to die for touching her or not. "We're sorry, Purrcy. If you'll come back we'll properly watch a game with you. If that's what you'd like to do?"
He helps Purrcy rise to her feet and she lets him hold her. "You know, if you want to do things with us, you only have to let us know." They're already in the middle of the entertainment room. Nyanta has frozen at the door with a plate of snacks and drinks in his hand, his entire being wondering if he should be fleeing at what he just heard come out of Michael's mouth.
Purrcy pulls back from Michael and her glare sears him and accuses Nyanta at the same time. Those are the words they should have known to begin with if they wanted her attention and time. Michael works very quickly to correct his error, for all it takes a little bit to get from his brain to his mouth. "...But we'll work harder to remember that participating is better than watching only."
With the payment of the baseball game and snacks, plus proper open communication to come to an agreement that everyone will be more open about when they need Purrcy's time and attention, and she theirs, Nyanta and Michael are finally able to get Purrcy calmed down again and family harmony restored once more.
-:-:-:-:-
Of course, then they had to work hard to find the balance the other direction. Both men wanted to participate to a level Purrcy found more like constant interference. She finally scolded them to, "find a better balance, that's helpful." It's a good thing they had eternity before them so that such a balance could be found over multiple decades, and become a comfortable pattern after several centuries.