[i]This is a date.[/i]

She'd fallen for it again. Again! People just kept asking her on totally innocent group adventures or team missions, or made some big show of suggesting checking something out together, but then whoops nobody else had shown up and the penny dropped that all of that elaborate setup had been for her benefit. All of [i]this[/i] wasn't because he was a powerful divine figure, it was because he was trying to butter her up so she'd - er, give him a good fight. Principle was the same! Just another giant horse-headed androgynous skeezeball who thought they could win her over with their fancy chariot and the labours of the oppressed. 

Well there was one thing she could do to [i]absolutely[/i] ruin their day.

"Oh, thank goodness," she said, standing up abruptly without needing to be pulled. "At last, someone who wants a real fight without needing dinner and a backrub first." This was coming out with way more innuendo than she'd planned but with the date metaphor in her head it was hard to shake. It was easy to walk out without a second glance at Shamash - it was something to emote boredom and stifle nervousness at the same time.

She honestly had no idea what she was in for with Ereshkigal but she was hoping she'd at least get to the point. A spiteful part of her mind thought that if she got defeated by her instead then Shamash would have come down onto the planet for the first time in years, insulted to his face without retaliating, and stood up at dinner. And given that she knew a thing or two about really bad dates, she actually kind of thought that might sit with him longer than if she'd just kicked his ass.

[Provoke: 10. I want Shamash to stew in friendzoned frustration until they snap and goes after Ereshkigal to prove that they're the [i]real[/i] top villain here]