Chapter 2 The Tea Party

The Tea Party

"Excuse me!" Hiro half shouted. It wasn't polite to shout, but having just faced his death and woken up in a sunlit rose garden he was feeling a bit put out with the world, with all the worlds and the space in between them. "I am Agent Hiro Gracenaught of the Galaxy Peace Agency! I protect the planet Earth and I have a job to do!"

The blue haired person turned and held one finger up in the air, slowly making circles with it, his face expressing something far below being impressed. "I know who you are. What's sad is you have had me on your wanted list since you got it and you don't know who I am. Uh uh. I thought so. Come have tea, Hiro."

Hiro's right eye twitched, his jaw tightening. "I can't sit and have tea with you! There is an active threat to the Earth! I need to send an important distress call!"

"You sent it already," Crow said as he walked away.

Hiro's head tilted just slightly, his attention on the firm curves of the other man's bottom. Each step made those curves move just a little under the thin worn black cotton pants, but then there was a narrow waist and a grace of movement that spoke of strength and confidence. His body responded in a completely unwelcome and unproductive way! "What have you done to me!?"

"Dear heavens," Crow sighed. "Come sit down. I'll explain in little kid words for you."

There was also nothing dampening his temper now. In long strides, Hiro made out of the rose garden and into a space that was set with a long table and mismatched fancy china. "What is this place!? Who gave you permission to do anything to me?"

"He's mean, Papa. Can we kick him out?"

Others. They weren't alone. Slowly getting to the table came a whole menagerie of odd characters. The one that had called him mean was a child minotaur, half hiding behind Crow, holding his hand and staring resentfully.

"He's not staying Lyle," Crow reassured, "Come now sit down and let's have some tea."

Hiro refused to sit down, even as more very realistic, living and breathing, citizens of the forest came to sit down. There were a dozen cats and dogs that looked normal, but most of the chairs were filled by what could easily be described as characters. A head injury seemed like a good suspect, but nothing in this cluster fuck had come out of his own mind. "I'm happy to leave now." Hiro offered.

"You can't yet." Crow tipped a European teapot over pouring a big mug of tea for the little minotaur. "It will take me at least twenty-four real world hours to rebuild your body."

"Who are you?" Without access to the databases that he felt like his whole life had been lived in the shadow of, Hiro couldn't pull up the wanted list or any visual images of a criminal like this one.

"I'm Crow," Crow said while giving Hiro a squint. "I've said that more than once."

"Well, it doesn't make any sense! How did I get here?" Hiro could hear his voice rising, feel his emotions rising, but there wasn't a logical reason for it and he couldn't stop it! "What have you done to me!?"

The little minotaur now sat at the table, a cupcake in his hands and frosting on his little snout. "Daddy ate you!"

"He WHAT?" Hiro's heart had never beaten like this before! He leaned a bit, hands gripping the end of the table. "You lunatic! I have responsibilities!"

"Yes, yes," Crow said. He sipped his tea before reaching out with a napkin to wipe away the frosting from Lyle's nose. "I didn't 'eat' you. I swallowed you. Please sit down. You're having emotions you've never had before and that must be very unsettling."

"Swallowed, eaten, what's the difference? The Earth is in danger!"

Sighing, Crow rolled his eyes. "Look, you. You sent your final signal. The cavalry will be here soon. Now please sit down. If I have to treat you for a heart attack because you have the emotional control of a two year old, I will be irritated."

"Are you a doctor? I want to go home," Hiro paused, an eyebrow drawing down. "I miss my mother."

"We have a lot to talk about, Hiro. I promise, you are safe here. I have no will or plans to hurt you and no one else here will either."

"I'm not worried about myself! I'm worried about the Earth! That's all I care about."

"And that's why you can't save Earth or anything else. You have to know what you're saving or you might just ruin it instead." Crow smiled like he'd said the most obvious thing that even a half bull child could understand, but then he went over the top and licked frosting from his finger, so slowly, obviously as a lewd insinuation.

"I am a Peace Agent from the Galactic Peace Association! I was selected as a youth and have devoted my life to protecting this world. I gave my life today to save this world from creatures I don't even know what they were! How dare you insult me!?"

Crow's movement was a blur, but he went from one end of the table to crouching on the end right in front of Hiro. "You don't know what you are. You don't know what they were. You don't know who you work for! Go talk to your mother about it!" Up close, their noses almost touching, Hiro knew this man was real, living, breathing, the warmth of his lips and the sweetness of his breath, and the complicated fire in his eyes that whispered that he knew answers to questions Hiro hadn't even thought about asking yet. "My mother is dead."

"Yes," Crow agreed, leaning just ever so slightly closer, tiny iridescent black feathers appearing over his cheekbones, "but she died three hundred years ago. You have never met her. Question what you think you know!"

There was a feeling of movement, as if he were pulled backwards, gravity pressing down on him, until the pressure was gone and he stood in his childhood bedroom. It was exactly like he remembered it, a memory that he'd visited more times than he could count. Neat and orderly, with a quilt his grandmother had made on his bed, he knew this place, but somehow being actually in it, it seemed like it belonged to someone else. The books on his shelf were all books that he'd read, but he didn't remember touching any of them, the old hardback books that had been in his family for generations.

"Hiro," his mother's voice said, "Are you ready for breakfast?" She stepped into view then. A slender woman with just a touch of grey at her temples she already wore her uniform for Tokyo City Police. "Are you alright? You look like you've seen a ghost."

He turned away from her, looking out his window. Their apartment was on the twenty-third floor and he could see out over Tokyo. It was a Tokyo before the waterrise. It was a Tokyo on actual ground. It was a Tokyo he'd never seen before. His scalp tingled until it was numb. All the hair on his arms stood straight up. "Mama, what year is it?"

"2026, darling. What's wrong?"

"Everything."