"Do you go anywhere and not make a friend?" Thoth snickered as he settled into his seat across from her.

He couldn't believe she befriended Barbatos' bonded beast so easily, and the fact that she not once tried to engage Barbatos in conversation likely endeared her to him as well - though he doubted she was aware of that.

"Hardly," she snorted, trying to pull the many twigs from her hair, "I don't really make friends."

"Oh?" Thoth was genuinely surprised to hear that, and found his brow furrowing at the idea that she didn't get along with... well, everyone.

"You all seem to appreciate a person who doesn't give a fuck about rules of interaction," she chuckled, eyeing him playfully as she continued to pluck the twigs out of her hair, "but on Earth I'm considered crass and abrasive. I pretended to be amicable earlier in my career and had lots of professional acquaintances that liked me well enough - that made working together easier, of course. But in my real life, like outside of work where I don't have to kiss everyone's ass to succeed? Nah, I don't have any real friendships," adding absentmindedly as she fought with a particularly stubborn stick, "But never wanted any either, so it's not a real loss."

"You didn't want friends?" Thoth asked, tilting his head.

Strangely, it was something he understood and related to, but it wasn't usual of humans - social creatures that they are. He's met many that had only a few friends, of course, and those with many friendships that were so shallow they barely counted... but he wasn't familiar with many humans that neither had, nor wanted, any at all.

"Nope," Eve said with a shrug, shaking her hair free and retying it into the ponytail she always wore it in, "People always want something. Your time, your energy, your money... people come with strings attached. When I was married, I was too focused on work, school, and being a wife and a mom to have friends. When I got divorced, sold my business, and dove into teaching I wanted to focus on my students. Maybe it's because my job is dealing with people all day every day, and seeing how selfish they all are as they go about their lives... but I never had any interest in dealing with anyone after the work day was over. Amiable work friends is more than enough - sometimes even that is too much."

"You're strange," he scoffed, not really sure how to respond to all that.

Mostly because he didn't disagree. Humans did always want something - it was in their nature. Greedy, selfish, arrogant creatures that thought the world owed them answers or effort they didn't usually work to earn. In the many centuries of time he'd been around humans, he'd found very few of them that stood out among the species as truly interesting - the rest were just... boring. Like noisy ants that all look, behave, and operate the same - blending together over time until you can't really tell one from another.

He wouldn't want to keep their company either, if he was honest.

Well... until now, he mused.

"So you've said," she chuckled, dusting her hands and sitting back now that she was a bit more cleaned up, before pivoting the conversation slightly, "As much as you have to do each day, do you really have to personally drive to see each overseer to get your reports? You're there for, what, 10 minutes per gate? Seems like a lot of time for such a short visit."

"Well," Thoth said thoughtfully, "a day here isn't the same as a day in your realm, so there's that. I also don't travel to see them each day - I get my reports weekly. But most importantly, there's more to visiting than simply seeing the overseers. Each visit is also an inspection, and I don't need to be there long or walk around the entire region to do it - I am able to sense if there are any breaches in the walls or anything amiss that requires investigation by simply being present. A weekly visit, however brief, is akin to inspecting the gate and surrounding barrier to ensure that there are no glaring issues or problems."

"You can sense if there are breaches?" she asked curiously, "Would the overseers also sense it?"

"I can, and yes, in theory. However, they're there every day and have many duties - it's easy to become complacent and miss things that break slowly over time. We are demons, not humans - our senses are far more complex and expansive than the measly six or so you have. When I do my weekly inspections, I am looking for anything out of the ordinary from what I expect, and it acts as a bit of a double-check for the overseers who may have become a bit numb to anything that isn't a glaringly obvious problem."

He cocked his head to the side, then added, "it's also the only time I really see the overseers these days, so it's nice to check in with them."

"I thought they were your friends?" Eve said, furrowing her brow, "You don't see them except for a few minutes once a week?"

"I suppose I don't," Thoth admitted with a shrug, "We're all extremely busy, and the work comes first. They each have a territory and three gates to oversee - they're just as busy as I am."

"I thought you could control time and space," Eve teased lightly, though there was an undertone of seriousness in her voice, "You are demons - centuries old - and on top of that time means something completely different to you... and you can't find a way to see your friends more often?"

Her brow softened, and she looked at the man a bit more sadly.

"Don't work yourself to the bone, boss man," she said gently, looking out the window, "because when you look back someday, you'll realize it was all you had and... well, quite frankly, it isn't enough on its own."

He studied her for a long moment, remembering what she said as she was waiting to die on the floor of the bank. It was odd to have someone so young give him advice on something like the use of time, but it was clearly something that weighed heavily on her.

"Do you regret having no friends?" he asked, not quite sure what to make of her statement.

"Oh no," she laughed, shaking her head, "Not at all. I do regret not reading more... not going to concerts for bands I loved that have now disbanded. I regret not traveling when I was younger and in better health - by the time I was able to do it, I was too damn tired for that nonsense. There are some things I don't regret - like getting married, because that's how I got my kids. I don't regret the kids I had, even if I wasn't super present as they got older while I was working more and more. I don't regret working hard for my doctorate or building the business I did, but I do regret that doing those things meant I didn't have time or energy for literally anything else."

She thought for a moment then looked his way, studying his face for a long moment as she considered it seriously.

"I think I just regret that I never figured out the balance," she finally admitted, "I did everything I said I wanted to do. My kids turned out great, and while my marriage ended it wasn't horrible when I was married. I just never figured out how to take care of all that and also be... happy. Not just okay, not just fine... but genuinely happy. Never quite worked that bit out."

She shrugged, looking out the window and adding, "you're not limited by a human life span. You have the time I didn't have to figure it out."

"What would you do if you did have the time?" he asked seriously, "You don't seem like the pursuit of knowledge kind of woman, since you didn't care to ask someone who can literally answer any question you have a single question. You don't want or have any friends to share things with. So... then what's left then?"

"Peace," she said quietly, her eyes unfocused as she looked out the window, "I'd search for peace. I didn't ask questions because the pursuit of knowledge is meant to be a journey... what's the point if someone just gives you all the answers? I want to read... I want to study. You don't get a PhD without understanding the value of working for the knowledge you want to gain. I'd travel, if I were healthy enough. But not to tourist traps filled with people and shops... I'd want to see the tops of the mountains and the bottom of the sea, the heart of the jungle where animals I've never heard of are just... living."

Her voice and mind were far away, so she didn't see how Thoth's eyes had gone wide - frozen in place as he listened to her talk. It wasn't that what she said was so strange on its own, but the way she said it and the way she clearly yearned for it... not passively, not as a fantasy idea she wasn't willing to make happen. It was something she believed she'd given up for others - a life she could have had but had to sacrifice. For her husband, for her children, for her students... for a society that punishes those that don't follow its rules. She spoke as if speaking about something she was actively grieving...

And well, he wasn't quite prepared for that.

"I'd paint what I saw," she continued with a smirk, her eyes betraying the sadness behind her words, "I don't know how to paint... but I'd learn. Maybe I'd learn to play an instrument... if I could do it without wanting to smash it into a wall every time I fucked it up. I'd simply... live... and I'd do it while seeing and appreciating the world around me free of the stain that human cruelty carved into it. Yeah, I think that sounds pretty special."

"You don't think much of your species," Thoth observed, tilting his head, "You aren't the first human to have so much disdain for your own kind, but I do find it interesting."

"Humans are the source of all the pain and suffering I've ever experienced," Eve said simply, shrugging, "If bears or praying mantises were to blame, I'd dislike them just as much. As far as I can tell, though, humans uniquely seem to like making everything suffer. A human isn't so bad, usually... but humans, as a group? They're pretty terrible. Especially over time. They build systems to trap the rest of their own, split them into groups and dangle a single carrot between them all, and then watch them fight each other over it while one dude sits on a mountain of carrots with a smirk. It's hard to have anything but disdain for humans, even if I'm one of them."

"That was... a bit convoluted," Thoth chuckled, "and why a carrot?"

Eve laughed, letting the sound wash the sadness away as quickly as it came.

"Never heard of the carrot and the stick?" she mused, smirking.

"Can't say that I have," he admitted, "I don't spend much time on Earth these days beyond running collections."

"It comes from the idea that if you sit on the back of a stubborn ass - literally, like a donkey - then you can get him to listen to you by dangling a carrot just out of reach or by smacking him around with a stick. You know, positive or negative reinforcement," she chuckled.

"Does... does that mean you called humans a bunch of stubborn asses?" Thoth asked, a bit confused by the way her examples were blurring together into a messy metaphor that didn't make a whole lot of sense to him.

Though he was pretty sure he got the gist of it all, since the base ideas weren't that complex or far off from his observations of human society in general.

"Absolutely," Eve cackled, holding her stomach, "every single one of us is a stubborn ass. That's the takeaway from the story, 100%."

"You're including yourself in that, I see," Thoth smirked then, raising an eyebrow at her in challenge.

"Have you met me?" she breathed, "You only need to share air with me for approximately 30 seconds to know I am absolutely a stubborn ass. I'm not sure even a journey of 12 trials can help change that fact."

"Well, it's a good thing the trials aren't meant to change that," he laughed lightly, shaking his head.

"What is the goal then?" she asked, leaning back and crossing her arms curiously, "Like, what's the point? A person dies, you go grab their soul and bring them here, you have a whole... uh... realm, thing... devoted to this huge 12-step recovery plan then some kind of judgement. What's the point?"

"To prepare you," Thoth said, sobering slightly, "Every sentient, living thing with a soul travels through the regions when their body dies. Each time a soul makes it through the regions they stand before Ereshkigal to be judged. There are three outcomes for humans - you pass and move on to Aaru, you fail but your soul has potential so you go back to Earth to try again, or you fail and you're hopeless so we feed your soul to Ammit.

Many of your richest people, like those who are fans of those rituals we talked about earlier, end up meeting Ammit - people able and willing to become that wealthy or engage in those kinds of rituals usually have souls beyond saving. However, most souls will make it to Aaru eventually. It just usually takes a human soul many, many journeys before they pass the judgement."

Eve blinked several times, her bouncing foot going crazy as she thought through that.

"And Aaru is like... Heaven, or whatever?" she finally asked, tilting her head, "So there's no Hell, but there's a Heaven?"

"Sort of," Thoth said with a shrug, "it's just the next realm. It's not some perfect place where you never know unhappiness and the streets are certainly not paved with gold, or whatever other nonsense humans made up. What it is, though, is... balanced. Human greed, societal inequities, planetary destruction from the pursuit of progress without regard for the consequences... these things are not present there.

Similar to the underworld, actually - we have a society here, yes, and it includes commerce and we have our own issues... but classism? Racism? Hatred of our own kind for just... existing in one group or another? Homelessness, hunger, or illness and death from preventable conditions? These things are human concepts that don't exist in the other realms."

"Sounds like Heaven to me," Eve scoffed, "or maybe paradise is a better word for it? Not some supernatural place of no struggle, just... the perfect place to exist in. And since everyone passed the judgement they're all... uh... nice? Good... people? I guess?"

Thoth shook his head, smirking sarcastically.

"Nice is not the right word, no. Nor inherently 'good' by whatever measure you would define that as. When you are judged, it is your soul's full existence - through all of its lives - and the progress and development it made through the trials that is judged. Not just a single existence of 100 years or less. When you stand before Ereshkigal for judgement, you have all of the memories and experiences of your soul's many lives and journeys through the underworld.

That much time doesn't necessarily make you good or nice, and it certainly doesn't make you perfect. It makes your soul mature enough to understand how to strip away the cruelties, the hatred, and the flaws of your human perception. Aaru isn't a place of saints, it's a place where people have learned how to exist together in harmony."

"So, will you go to Aaru too?" Eve asked curiously, "That big needle thing the loony toons exorcist gave me... would that have killed you? Then would you die and go through the trials like the rest of us?"

"No, yes, and yes," Thoth smiled, his eyes twinkling at her questions, "I will not go to Aaru, no. The needle would have killed me, yes, and yes, I would have entered the trials to complete my own journey. I, like the other rulers, can traverse each region in around an hour each now - and I would be judged at the end just like everyone else. At that time I would have several options, but would likely return to the same role as I have now - just as I have done many times before.

When our kind dies and stands for judgement, we decide if we want to have our memories erased so we can essentially start over, be fed to Ammit to finally end our very long lives, or if we accept the role we are judged to be ready and best fit for within the realms. If we are judged to be best fit to oversee the souls of Aaru, we are called angels. If we are best fit to oversee the souls of the underworld, we are called demons. If we are best fit to oversee the souls of Earth, we are called spirits."

"Pfft," Eve snickered, "so death is, what, like an obstacle course or a marathon run for you? How fast can you get to the end?"

"I mean, sort of," Thoth shrugged with a smile, "I've done the journey many, many times now, and while each time I do learn something new... it doesn't take nearly the time for me as it does for humans, or even younger demons. In the old days, we three would race through... just to see who was fastest."

"Okay, well now I have to know," Eve said with a smirk, "who is the fastest?"

"Hades," Thoth sighed, as if he'd long accepted the harsh reality of his loss but still didn't like it, "He's always been the fastest."

"Annnnnnd," she asked, a glint of mischief in her eye as she deduced based on his reaction the answer to her next question, "who's second fastest?"

Thoth glared at her then, fully aware of what she was doing... and annoyed it was working.

"Okay, yes," he scoffed, crossing his arms, "I'm the slowest of the three. Are you happy now?"

"Yes!" she snickered, breaking into full giggles when he scowled at her response.

"You know, I didn't have to stitch you back together," he grumbled, triggering fresh peals of laughter from the bench opposite him.

He tried not to smile... but watching her tumble over in a fit of giggles, the corner of his lips twitched up despite his best efforts.