Chapter Two
"Gaea," Petra asked, coming into the Castle's parlor. "If you don't mind my askiing, what's my grace period? Er, I guess I mean, how long is my garce period?" It was 7 am, at least that's what time it was in Kilvarough, when she decided she ought to ask Gaea.
"I believe it is two weeks, as all the other offices here are," Gaea told her noncomittaly. "Hopefully, you will be able to adjust well in that time, for your predeccesor has found a love of his own in his new life on Earth."
"I hope I can adjust in that time too," Petra told her weakly. "I like my life here much better than I like my life there. I'm sure you must be busy, I'll just go and get started for the day." She sang the Song of Travel and found herself in a highrise ofice building.
People were bustling in, starting their hum-drum day of paper pushing. Petra started humming, waiting for the possible couple to present themselves. A woman in a loud pink suit set shuffled past petra and ran into a man in a classic grey suit. Petra's song grew more confident, but faltered when she realised the man in the grey suit was one of her more recent ex-boyfriends. She shut her eyes and thought of her "Mr. Right", and how happy he would make her feel when she met him. When she opened her eyes at the end of the song, Ex and the pink woman were exchanging numbers and making arrangements for lunch.
-Be careful with him,- she thought, walking away to find a discreet place to sing the Song of Travel. -He may be a horn-dog, but he has a gentle soul.-
She went into the ladies room, washed her face and looked in the mirror. -Why didn't he see me? Or recognize me?- She wet down her hair a bit out of habbit. -Maybe it has something to do wih the office, or the Purgatory clothing or something.- She shrugged it off, deciding it would waste time if she thought about it too long. She sang again and found herself in a skirmish in India.
The monsoon season had started yesterday, and apparently two villages were fighting for space on the high ground that they'd both discovered. Petra looked around, and thanked having the power of an Incarnation. The pounding winds felt like a gentle breeze, and the rain never touced her. She walked across the surface of the treacherous mud towards the hillside skirmish.
Petra noticed all the people had seperated themselves into two sides, and had small tents for those who were injured in the skirmish. Se walked to the one closest to her and searched the room for any possible couples. The only ones that had any potential were at the back of the tent, and seemed to call to her. As she approached, she saw two boys about seventeen years old. There was a rather frail-looking one n the bed with his arm in a sling. The boy caring for him looked a bit sturdier and more cynical.
Petra hoped she was doing the right thing when she sang for them. The power hit the sturdier one first, and he knew exactly what he wanted to do. By the time the song ended, he kissed his charge, very swiftly ad softly on the lips. The other boy used his god arm to pull the first boy back into the kiss. Petra hurried out of the tent into the monsoon rain.
As she stood questioning her judgement, she saw a man in a great red cloak with a large red sword standing in the ground between the fghting villagers. -War? At this little place,- she asked herself. She walked over to him, careful not to get in any crossfire just in case she wasn't invulnerable. "Mars, I presume?" She joked as she came within his earshot.
"Ah, and you must be Eros," he said in a deep and somehow gentle voice as she neared him. "What brings you here?"
"Buisness, same as you," she said, examining his face. It was tan, with sharp features and defined cheek bones.
"I suppose people can fall in love during a war," he said as he contemplated. "Who are the lucky couple?"
"Oddly enough, a pair of teenage boys in the hospital tent," she told him with a look of confusion as she shoved her hands in her pockets. "I just hope I did the right thing by them."
"You probably did. If you had not been meant to come to them, would you have come to them anyway? From what I've experienced, love is a very strange thing, atacking when you least want it and leaving you when you need it most."
Petra knew he was reffering more to a loved one or himself than to love as a thing, but she let it slide. She shrugged, preffering *not* to tell him what love was from what she'd experienced. "I wanted to ask to ask ou what you were doing at a mere skirmish. I mean, I'm *sure* there are far larger and more important wars going on right now."
"Actually, thanks to me, this is the largest conflict of a war-type nature to be foun on all of Earth. Much as I dislike war, without it I would cease to exist, and someone far more evil than I would obtain the office," Mars looked aound, not flinchng when he heard someone's arm snap.
"I would like to talk to you more, but this is most definately not my preffered area," Petra told Mars politley as someone screamed in anguish. She flinched away from all the sounds.
"Oh of course. This is no place for Love to stay very long. Tell Gaea that I send her my regards." Mars waved and walked back to the center of the battle, ochestrating it with the red sword.
She sang the Song of Travel and was very relieved to find herself in a shopping mall. "Next time, I'm *not* staying in a war zone any longer than neccesarry."
For several hours she was in the mall, getting various couples of various types started on the path to relationships. At around noon, she was walking by the food court and wondering if she could snag something for unch without thirnoticing. After all, she *was* able to walk around anywhere else and not be noticed. She looked up and down the fodcourt, sensing something.
Her eyes caught Death moving about the people at the tables, holding a compass-type thing and moving it around as he walked. She smirked at her firt reaction, which was a thought of -Oh no! He's coming for me!- Now she wondered who he was coming for and how would they die. she turned her face, not caring to see anyone die, even if she had met Death.
Petra focused on her house behind Gaea's palace and sang herself there. She found some warm chicken strips in the oven, and suddeny wondered if that's the way it worked in Purgatory or if she had her own staff somewhere.
"Hello? Is someone here," she called, skeptically eyeing the chicken strips and going into her den. "Hello? Why were there chicken strips in my oven?" She shrugged and went into the den, sitting on her chouch and flipping on the T.V.
"The chicken strips are compliments of Me," a man in a sleek buisness suit with blonde hair slicked back told her from the room where the newscaster woman usually sat. "Call it a 'Welcome Aboard' present."
"Who may I ask, are you," Petra said. "And where's the newscaster woman who's usually there?"
"I gave her a break, and I go by many names. You may call Me Satan." He smiled, making Petra shudder.
"I didn't invite you. How did you get here?"
"I'm not there per se. Televisions do that kind of thing, you know. They can be the can be the most useful creations," he smiled again, flashing pearly whites.
"I see. Listen, I'm sure it's very kind of you to take time out of your busy schedule to introduce yourself to me and send me chicken strips," Petra told him, trying to sound subtly repulsed and still not offend him, "but I don't quite feel like talking with anyone right now. I've been having a very strange day, and it's only half over. It was a pleasure meeting you, Prince, but I'd like to see whether the Purgatory news group thinks I'm doing a good job."
"As you wish, madam Eros," he smiled, his canines glinting as the screen flashed and resumed its newscast screen.
"Eros is on a lunch break it seems, after only thirteen hours total of working in the past twenty hours she's held the office. She was also just visited by Satan, prominent leader of Hell and husband of Gaea. It seems she was civil enough to not anger the Prince, but was sarcastic enough to assure her alliance with good. The Lord of Darkness was, er, good enough to send us an interview."
Satan appeared in a clean, respectable-looking red office with another newscaster holding a microphone towards him. "Now," the reporter asked, "what is your impression of the new officeholder?"
"Well, she too good as of now to relate to Me. I think that's very respectable. Besides, where would Earth be if the Incarnation of Love was in my pocket?" Satan sat on his desk, looking at the rporter. "Anything else?"
"Yes," the reporter stammered, obviously uncomfortable in Satan's ofice in Hell. "Do you think she will keep the office beyond her trial period?"
"If she keeps this all up, yes, I think she could be Eros for a century or two."
"And there you have it," the reporter said as he turned to the camera. "Satan gives his approval of the new Eros. Whether that will help her along her way or not is yet to be known."
Petra clicked off the T.V., hoping that meant the Prince could not see her as she trashed the chicken strips. She rifled through the frige, looking for something that the devil *hadn't* given to her and hoping she'd found it in an apple at the back. "This'll have to do for now," she sighed, taking a bite. It was an ordinary apple, and she ate it to the core before starting out for her afternoon rounds.
They were various places all over the globe, speaking various languages, and occasionaly straying from the norm. After sveral times seeing the sun set and then it being late evening, Petra sang herself home (as she now reffered to Purgatory) to check the watch she had with her that stated the Kilvarough time. She suddenly realised that most thngs, including the news, ran on Kilvarough time.
The watch said that it was 8 pm. She decided that she would wait on love lives until she felt the need to push them along. She wandered around, still drinking in the wonder of owning her own house of that size. She wandered into the bedroom, tossing herself onto the bed. It was feather soft, cushioning her wonderfully well. She'd never owned a bed so comfortable in all her life. She was almost convinced that this was heaven. However, as Hell was an actual place, Petra decided that Heaven must be too, even though she had yet to meet God.
She stroked Teddy, her loving companion-bear. "Well Teddy," she asked quietly, "What should I do now?" As usual, the answer came to her immediately. "Go see Chronos! I wonder why I forgot?" She shrugged. "Maybe I should ask Gaea about him first," she questioned lightly before making Teddy nod. "So glad you agree!" She giggled, kissed his head and set him in "his" place on the pillows. She walked out of the room, and noticed how walking had become more like gliding across the ground since she took office.
Again, she found Gaea in her parlor, and suddenly remembered what the newscaster had said about her marriage to Satan. "Gaea," petra asked quietly. The green mother turned slightly to look at Petra. "I was wondering about meeting Chronos. Would that be a good idea right now?" She was nervous, and one of her nervous habbits was running her right thumbnail across the inside of her right middle finger.
"That would be a good idea," Gaea od her with a slight nod. "Just remember, Chronos lives life backwards, and so to him you are leaving office tomorrow. He also remembers things backwards to our timeline, and so might mention things he remembers that you do not." She stood, elegantly walking to Petr and lookin deeply into her eyes. "He will be very emotional right now, do not be surprised." With that, she walked to doorway, and petra barely remembered her oher question.
"Gaea, is i true that yu are married to -" She stopped short.
Gaea interuppted, saying "It is true, but do not say the name of his office, for it calls him. If you must use any name to describe him without wanting him to come, refer to him as 'Natasha'." She smirked lightly. "Write it backwards when you have the opportunity. now, we *both* have things to attend to."
They nodded a slight goodbye and went out the seperate doors. petra had found that getting out of Gaea's forest was much easier than getting into it. In a few minutes, she was on the outside of the magical forest. She looked at what now appeared to be the thickest forest in all the universe (which from this side it was), and shakes her head lightly, starting off towards Chronos' house. She wondered again about how close Chronos and her were, or would be.
She entered the high white walls surounding Chronos' domain. She walked to his front door, a thick, white-painted wood, and knocked gently, but still with enough force for the sound to carry. A prim butler opened the door, looking at the floor and saying "Chronos wishes to see no one. Come back later."
"That's very rude," she sighed. The butlers head snapped up and he looked at her. "I wanted to say hello/goodbye to Chronos."
"Do forgive me, Eros! I did not see that it was you. Come in, Chronos is waiting for you in his room. he'll most likely be crying," he told Petra in a whiper as he let her in. "Down the hall to your right, it's the only room with the door shut."
"Thank you," she told him politely, gliding across the floor to the hall that the butler had indicated. She found the closed door, fifth (and last) on the right. She could hear muffled crying from behind the large white blockade. She again knocked gently, with just enough force to be heard.
"Go away," a muffled and choked voice said. "I don't how you got in past the doorman, but get yourself out past him the same way!" The crying resumed, a little more muffled than before.
"Chronos, I almost think you don't want to see me," she said with a sigh. "Will I have to wait a full year before I meet you?" Apparently, he recognized her voice as fast as the butler did. The crying, still muffled, grew louder and a lock on the other side of the door slid.
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(A/N: I'm leaving you hanging!!!!! MWAAAAAAHAHAHAHHAAAAHAAAAHAHAHAHAHHHAHAHAAHAHAHA!!!!!!!! ok sorry, had to be done. The next chapter will be up shortly, as the fist half was origianlly part of this chapter. That's why it took me so long to get around to posting it. Enjoy^_^)
"Gaea," Petra asked, coming into the Castle's parlor. "If you don't mind my askiing, what's my grace period? Er, I guess I mean, how long is my garce period?" It was 7 am, at least that's what time it was in Kilvarough, when she decided she ought to ask Gaea.
"I believe it is two weeks, as all the other offices here are," Gaea told her noncomittaly. "Hopefully, you will be able to adjust well in that time, for your predeccesor has found a love of his own in his new life on Earth."
"I hope I can adjust in that time too," Petra told her weakly. "I like my life here much better than I like my life there. I'm sure you must be busy, I'll just go and get started for the day." She sang the Song of Travel and found herself in a highrise ofice building.
People were bustling in, starting their hum-drum day of paper pushing. Petra started humming, waiting for the possible couple to present themselves. A woman in a loud pink suit set shuffled past petra and ran into a man in a classic grey suit. Petra's song grew more confident, but faltered when she realised the man in the grey suit was one of her more recent ex-boyfriends. She shut her eyes and thought of her "Mr. Right", and how happy he would make her feel when she met him. When she opened her eyes at the end of the song, Ex and the pink woman were exchanging numbers and making arrangements for lunch.
-Be careful with him,- she thought, walking away to find a discreet place to sing the Song of Travel. -He may be a horn-dog, but he has a gentle soul.-
She went into the ladies room, washed her face and looked in the mirror. -Why didn't he see me? Or recognize me?- She wet down her hair a bit out of habbit. -Maybe it has something to do wih the office, or the Purgatory clothing or something.- She shrugged it off, deciding it would waste time if she thought about it too long. She sang again and found herself in a skirmish in India.
The monsoon season had started yesterday, and apparently two villages were fighting for space on the high ground that they'd both discovered. Petra looked around, and thanked having the power of an Incarnation. The pounding winds felt like a gentle breeze, and the rain never touced her. She walked across the surface of the treacherous mud towards the hillside skirmish.
Petra noticed all the people had seperated themselves into two sides, and had small tents for those who were injured in the skirmish. Se walked to the one closest to her and searched the room for any possible couples. The only ones that had any potential were at the back of the tent, and seemed to call to her. As she approached, she saw two boys about seventeen years old. There was a rather frail-looking one n the bed with his arm in a sling. The boy caring for him looked a bit sturdier and more cynical.
Petra hoped she was doing the right thing when she sang for them. The power hit the sturdier one first, and he knew exactly what he wanted to do. By the time the song ended, he kissed his charge, very swiftly ad softly on the lips. The other boy used his god arm to pull the first boy back into the kiss. Petra hurried out of the tent into the monsoon rain.
As she stood questioning her judgement, she saw a man in a great red cloak with a large red sword standing in the ground between the fghting villagers. -War? At this little place,- she asked herself. She walked over to him, careful not to get in any crossfire just in case she wasn't invulnerable. "Mars, I presume?" She joked as she came within his earshot.
"Ah, and you must be Eros," he said in a deep and somehow gentle voice as she neared him. "What brings you here?"
"Buisness, same as you," she said, examining his face. It was tan, with sharp features and defined cheek bones.
"I suppose people can fall in love during a war," he said as he contemplated. "Who are the lucky couple?"
"Oddly enough, a pair of teenage boys in the hospital tent," she told him with a look of confusion as she shoved her hands in her pockets. "I just hope I did the right thing by them."
"You probably did. If you had not been meant to come to them, would you have come to them anyway? From what I've experienced, love is a very strange thing, atacking when you least want it and leaving you when you need it most."
Petra knew he was reffering more to a loved one or himself than to love as a thing, but she let it slide. She shrugged, preffering *not* to tell him what love was from what she'd experienced. "I wanted to ask to ask ou what you were doing at a mere skirmish. I mean, I'm *sure* there are far larger and more important wars going on right now."
"Actually, thanks to me, this is the largest conflict of a war-type nature to be foun on all of Earth. Much as I dislike war, without it I would cease to exist, and someone far more evil than I would obtain the office," Mars looked aound, not flinchng when he heard someone's arm snap.
"I would like to talk to you more, but this is most definately not my preffered area," Petra told Mars politley as someone screamed in anguish. She flinched away from all the sounds.
"Oh of course. This is no place for Love to stay very long. Tell Gaea that I send her my regards." Mars waved and walked back to the center of the battle, ochestrating it with the red sword.
She sang the Song of Travel and was very relieved to find herself in a shopping mall. "Next time, I'm *not* staying in a war zone any longer than neccesarry."
For several hours she was in the mall, getting various couples of various types started on the path to relationships. At around noon, she was walking by the food court and wondering if she could snag something for unch without thirnoticing. After all, she *was* able to walk around anywhere else and not be noticed. She looked up and down the fodcourt, sensing something.
Her eyes caught Death moving about the people at the tables, holding a compass-type thing and moving it around as he walked. She smirked at her firt reaction, which was a thought of -Oh no! He's coming for me!- Now she wondered who he was coming for and how would they die. she turned her face, not caring to see anyone die, even if she had met Death.
Petra focused on her house behind Gaea's palace and sang herself there. She found some warm chicken strips in the oven, and suddeny wondered if that's the way it worked in Purgatory or if she had her own staff somewhere.
"Hello? Is someone here," she called, skeptically eyeing the chicken strips and going into her den. "Hello? Why were there chicken strips in my oven?" She shrugged and went into the den, sitting on her chouch and flipping on the T.V.
"The chicken strips are compliments of Me," a man in a sleek buisness suit with blonde hair slicked back told her from the room where the newscaster woman usually sat. "Call it a 'Welcome Aboard' present."
"Who may I ask, are you," Petra said. "And where's the newscaster woman who's usually there?"
"I gave her a break, and I go by many names. You may call Me Satan." He smiled, making Petra shudder.
"I didn't invite you. How did you get here?"
"I'm not there per se. Televisions do that kind of thing, you know. They can be the can be the most useful creations," he smiled again, flashing pearly whites.
"I see. Listen, I'm sure it's very kind of you to take time out of your busy schedule to introduce yourself to me and send me chicken strips," Petra told him, trying to sound subtly repulsed and still not offend him, "but I don't quite feel like talking with anyone right now. I've been having a very strange day, and it's only half over. It was a pleasure meeting you, Prince, but I'd like to see whether the Purgatory news group thinks I'm doing a good job."
"As you wish, madam Eros," he smiled, his canines glinting as the screen flashed and resumed its newscast screen.
"Eros is on a lunch break it seems, after only thirteen hours total of working in the past twenty hours she's held the office. She was also just visited by Satan, prominent leader of Hell and husband of Gaea. It seems she was civil enough to not anger the Prince, but was sarcastic enough to assure her alliance with good. The Lord of Darkness was, er, good enough to send us an interview."
Satan appeared in a clean, respectable-looking red office with another newscaster holding a microphone towards him. "Now," the reporter asked, "what is your impression of the new officeholder?"
"Well, she too good as of now to relate to Me. I think that's very respectable. Besides, where would Earth be if the Incarnation of Love was in my pocket?" Satan sat on his desk, looking at the rporter. "Anything else?"
"Yes," the reporter stammered, obviously uncomfortable in Satan's ofice in Hell. "Do you think she will keep the office beyond her trial period?"
"If she keeps this all up, yes, I think she could be Eros for a century or two."
"And there you have it," the reporter said as he turned to the camera. "Satan gives his approval of the new Eros. Whether that will help her along her way or not is yet to be known."
Petra clicked off the T.V., hoping that meant the Prince could not see her as she trashed the chicken strips. She rifled through the frige, looking for something that the devil *hadn't* given to her and hoping she'd found it in an apple at the back. "This'll have to do for now," she sighed, taking a bite. It was an ordinary apple, and she ate it to the core before starting out for her afternoon rounds.
They were various places all over the globe, speaking various languages, and occasionaly straying from the norm. After sveral times seeing the sun set and then it being late evening, Petra sang herself home (as she now reffered to Purgatory) to check the watch she had with her that stated the Kilvarough time. She suddenly realised that most thngs, including the news, ran on Kilvarough time.
The watch said that it was 8 pm. She decided that she would wait on love lives until she felt the need to push them along. She wandered around, still drinking in the wonder of owning her own house of that size. She wandered into the bedroom, tossing herself onto the bed. It was feather soft, cushioning her wonderfully well. She'd never owned a bed so comfortable in all her life. She was almost convinced that this was heaven. However, as Hell was an actual place, Petra decided that Heaven must be too, even though she had yet to meet God.
She stroked Teddy, her loving companion-bear. "Well Teddy," she asked quietly, "What should I do now?" As usual, the answer came to her immediately. "Go see Chronos! I wonder why I forgot?" She shrugged. "Maybe I should ask Gaea about him first," she questioned lightly before making Teddy nod. "So glad you agree!" She giggled, kissed his head and set him in "his" place on the pillows. She walked out of the room, and noticed how walking had become more like gliding across the ground since she took office.
Again, she found Gaea in her parlor, and suddenly remembered what the newscaster had said about her marriage to Satan. "Gaea," petra asked quietly. The green mother turned slightly to look at Petra. "I was wondering about meeting Chronos. Would that be a good idea right now?" She was nervous, and one of her nervous habbits was running her right thumbnail across the inside of her right middle finger.
"That would be a good idea," Gaea od her with a slight nod. "Just remember, Chronos lives life backwards, and so to him you are leaving office tomorrow. He also remembers things backwards to our timeline, and so might mention things he remembers that you do not." She stood, elegantly walking to Petr and lookin deeply into her eyes. "He will be very emotional right now, do not be surprised." With that, she walked to doorway, and petra barely remembered her oher question.
"Gaea, is i true that yu are married to -" She stopped short.
Gaea interuppted, saying "It is true, but do not say the name of his office, for it calls him. If you must use any name to describe him without wanting him to come, refer to him as 'Natasha'." She smirked lightly. "Write it backwards when you have the opportunity. now, we *both* have things to attend to."
They nodded a slight goodbye and went out the seperate doors. petra had found that getting out of Gaea's forest was much easier than getting into it. In a few minutes, she was on the outside of the magical forest. She looked at what now appeared to be the thickest forest in all the universe (which from this side it was), and shakes her head lightly, starting off towards Chronos' house. She wondered again about how close Chronos and her were, or would be.
She entered the high white walls surounding Chronos' domain. She walked to his front door, a thick, white-painted wood, and knocked gently, but still with enough force for the sound to carry. A prim butler opened the door, looking at the floor and saying "Chronos wishes to see no one. Come back later."
"That's very rude," she sighed. The butlers head snapped up and he looked at her. "I wanted to say hello/goodbye to Chronos."
"Do forgive me, Eros! I did not see that it was you. Come in, Chronos is waiting for you in his room. he'll most likely be crying," he told Petra in a whiper as he let her in. "Down the hall to your right, it's the only room with the door shut."
"Thank you," she told him politely, gliding across the floor to the hall that the butler had indicated. She found the closed door, fifth (and last) on the right. She could hear muffled crying from behind the large white blockade. She again knocked gently, with just enough force to be heard.
"Go away," a muffled and choked voice said. "I don't how you got in past the doorman, but get yourself out past him the same way!" The crying resumed, a little more muffled than before.
"Chronos, I almost think you don't want to see me," she said with a sigh. "Will I have to wait a full year before I meet you?" Apparently, he recognized her voice as fast as the butler did. The crying, still muffled, grew louder and a lock on the other side of the door slid.
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(A/N: I'm leaving you hanging!!!!! MWAAAAAAHAHAHAHHAAAAHAAAAHAHAHAHAHHHAHAHAAHAHAHA!!!!!!!! ok sorry, had to be done. The next chapter will be up shortly, as the fist half was origianlly part of this chapter. That's why it took me so long to get around to posting it. Enjoy^_^)
