Peorth had just come back from duty. She had only recieved
a call an hour ago, and had teleported straight to the caller's destination.
Or so she thought.
Travelling
through camera lenses weren't the best way to go, as she had found out a while
back. Not everyone owned a long term camera, most of the disposable ones had
lousy lenses she couldn't use, and she didn't always end up in the correct area
due that lack of lenses, which meant a lot of invisibility (easy) and searching
(tedious). She had managed to find the caller's house and grant his wish, but
she did NOT like the way she had to travel in these times. Peorth sighed. Why
couldn't things be easier, like maybe if the person owned a camera like Keiichi
did?
Keiichi, Peorth thought. It's him again,
isn't it? Peorth sighed. She still couldn't get over the time she'd first
met him, nor could she get over the time everyone up here was sniggling at her
everytime she passed with her oversized clothes on her child's body after her
second meeting with him. Fortunately, that measure Velsper had taken wasn't
permanent, Peorth was worried she'd be stuck in it forever. Which was scary,
considering her domain WAS Forever. It hadn't lasted, and her beautiful body had
returned to normal a week later, for which she was infinitely glad. She'd have
hated to waste all her good clothes.
"That's a matter
of opinion," someone had said to her once. "You're wearing what most
mortal humans wear under their 'clothes'." That someone had been a God with
a glib tongue whose job designation she never remembered, and had never gotten
past 2nd Class because he'd never learned to keep it shut. Maybe that was his
job, the God of Gossip. Peorth chuckled. She'd taught him a good lesson after
that, but she never spoke about that to anyone, ever. The God had even learned
to shut up since.
"Aaaaaah, that was good! Another one
chalked up by the Earth Otasuke Center! I feel soooooo so so so good today!"
Peorth lounged in her floating chair, her name scribed at the back in the usual
rune. Oh yes, today had been good. She had managed to grant her client's wish in
a matter of seconds, without much mess. (those communication uplinks caused a
major energy disturbance in the area, hence the tornadoes.) Peorth was glad she
had developed the technique which lessened the mess in the rooms as well as
stopped their communications lasers from punching holes in their client's
ceilings and fixtures. Gods and Goddesses alike working in the field of wish
granting who'd used her technique had talked for months about it, which was
good. But a year or two after Belldandy had left the Helper's Goddess Office and
went to stay with Keiichi, they were still talking about that. Peorth frowned at
herself. She couldn't match that, for sure. Keiichi had stayed true to
Belldandy, which wasn't a bad thing. Peorth wasn't too happy about this
arrangement, but she had managed to grant his wish too, which was enough. But
still.... ah, old hopes died hard.
"One-sama!" someone
called cheerily from behind. (One-sama [O-nay-sah-ma] : big sister!)
Peorth blinked once, then sighed. It was her.
Peorth spun
her chair around and faced the approaching Goddess. Although technically, Peorth
didn't have any real sisters, people around here considered them sisters.
Probably the relation in the culture from whence their names were used, the
Norse Runic system. Peorth really wished they hadn't made the connection, but
they were Gods and Goddesses. They were supposed to know this kind of stuff,
even those on what would probably be permanent probational licenses.
The source of the cheery voice had reached Peorth.
Looking at the Goddess before her, Peorth really wondered if they'd named her
wrongly when the Almighty had Created her. Her name was Uruz.
Uruz was a young lass no more than 14 or 15, more
handsome than pretty. Peorth thought she looked more long than tall, although
Uruz was a head shorter than her. Her hair was a darkish brown, swept back from
the forehead to form a chin length fringe that ran up to her ears, where the
hair was then bound into a waist length ponytail. Bright, bubbly, cheery, Uruz
was also the strongest Goddess in the Heavens. Everyone knew that because she'd
easily outmuscled Mars (Roman God of war) and matched Thor in a one on one when
Mars had remarked she would've been a perfect mate to Svadilfari if she were a
mare, and Thor had said she had the temper of a bull, which wasn't exactly the
animal her name was associated with. (More to an auroch.) Uruz tended to get
tempermental when someone got the meaning of her name wrong or insulted her in
some way. (or at least, when she interpreted it as such.) Most tended to agree
with Thor about her temper, but kept their mouths shut after that one on one.
Nobody wanted to get on her bad side.
And she often
assisted Freya too. Uruz's name meant something along the line of sexual
fertility, vitality, strength and endurance of relationships. (This isn't the
full list. References at the bottom of fic.) Peorth wasn't sure just what Uruz
did helping Freya, but she knew Uruz liked that job, looked up to and treated
Peorth as her role model, and had told her more than once she herself wanted to
be First Class, just like Peorth. For Goddess markings, Uruz had an elongated
hexagon on her forehead, like a rectangle with a triangle capping the top and
bottom of it, two diamond shaped cheek markings like Peorth's (not her fault,
she claimed), and even dressed something like Peorth, whose dress code wasn't
exactly the norm.
Uruz didn't quite have Peorth's figure,
hers was a more towards a fairly well endowed athelete's. Uruz had slightly
different values concerning modesty though. She wore a pair of triangular
leather flaps that were linked by rings at the front and back of her, which
floated just below her shoulder line. At her waist, she wore a longer, thinner
version of her shoulder leather flaps which were seamed in with her... well,
panties. They gave more modesty, at least. She wore a pair of gold ear studs
which had a small chain and a cap, holding a small, long amethyst crystal in
each. She also wore a thin necklace which split into two mist-line chains at the
front, with the lower chain holding a set of amethyst crystals of alternating
lengths. Each crystal was shaped like her forehead marking.
Uruz, Second Class, Third Category, Unlimited license was
the Goddess of Relations (after the old one retired) and in the domain of
something called "Always", which Peorth never tried to figure out. Most others
didn't too. Uruz never revealed what it was exactly, she never answered straight
when the question was asked of her. But for now, Peorth looked on as Uruz
happily skipped up to her with a stack of files in her hands.
"Here are your debriefing files, one-sama. Check if
they're correct, then I'll pass them back to the records administrators." Uruz
chirped. She was always smiling. Peorth wondered what it was that Uruz was
always smiling about. Maybe it was just good cheer, but Belldandy had plenty of
that and she didn't smile like Uruz did all the time. It was unnervingly scary.
Peorth looked at the folders floating before her. They
looked more like a set of geometric shapes stuck together into fairly
rectangular shapes, with all the symbols of the language used in the Heavens.
Peorth scanned the first page, then flipped to the next, and the next, and the
next. She finished all 350 pages in two minutes (Peorth claimed to be the
fastest flyer around, and the fastest reader. Nobody disputed her yet.) and
handed them back to Uruz, who happily took them and disappeared off somewhere,
giving Peorth an adoring look before taking off. Peorth shuddered.
"That girl is going to cling onto me day in and day out
if I don't do something..." Peorth mused. "Sure, I have lots of traits worth
learning-"
Someone working in the "office" beneath hers
made a loud puking sound, which Peorth pointedly ignored.
"-But still, I can't let her hang onto me forever."
Peorth sighed. She hated being a First Class Goddess sometimes. People always
looked up to them.
But still, Uruz's position intruiged
her. Having barely finished her Basic Goddess Training, Uruz was given the rare
position of a Goddess with a Category Three job, while having a Second Class
License and an UN-limited license. Peorth had only gotten Category One
and Second Class Goddess with a limited license after graduation. Fortunately,
she had managed Yggdrasil pretty well and had been promoted soon after. Perhaps
Uruz's domain had something to do with this. Peorth was disturbed though. Third
Category jobs were normally given only to First Class Goddesses, and even then,
only the most capable of the capable. Second Class Goddesses weren't normally
allowed to grant wishes without higher authority, and Uruz could, easily. Peorth
realized, with a disturbing feeling, that despite all Uruz's adulation and
appearances, she was a blank transparent sheet to Peorth. Peorth knew next to
nothing about Uruz, but Uruz seemed to know everything about Peorth.
Sighing, Peorth checked her answering machine. There was
a recorded message. Peorth wondered who it would be, but decided against it.
She'd had enough work for now, she could take some time off. It was long past
her due anyway. Perhaps Uruz.... that'd get her off Peorth's case for a while.
"Uruz?" Peorth called, voice dripping with fake
sweetness. "Ooooh Uuuruuuz...?"
"Yes, one-sama??" Uruz
said excitedly, suddenly dropping in front of Peorth like a stone. Peorth
resisted the urge to jump back and scream. Instead Peorth smiled at Uruz, which
Uruz took as a good sign. She looked even more excited than usual.
"There's a client waiting. Would you mind taking it? I'm
going for some R&R on Earth...." Peorth said, using her sweetest voice. Uruz
nodded excitedly. Peorth knew this wasn't the first time Uruz had taken clients,
but her eagerness was a little overexaggerated, which scared them. Peorth held
up a hand.
"But first, calm down." Peorth cooed.
Uruz did. She stopped hopping. Peorth nodded. "Have you
finished your maintainence of Yggdrasil yet?" Uruz's Category qualified her for
both high-level maintainence (software, hardware, and debugging) on Yggdrasil,
in addition to taking clients' wishes. Uruz didn't like debugging though, most
of the Gods and Goddesses didn't. Mulching eight legged rabbits wasn't fun,
especially if they were faster than rabbits. Uruz hit really hard, but not
really fast. Peorth didn't care about that. But having confirmed with Yggdrasil
that Uruz's current duties were complete, she nodded.
"Not too eager, remember." Uruz looked at her sadly.
"But
one-sama, you're always eager!" Uruz whined, hopping a little. Peorth wagged her
finger in Uruz's face.
"Not like you, Uruz. Not like
you." Peorth said with that clichéd sense of wisdom being passed down. "Just
take it easy, alright?" Uruz nodded happily. Peorth nodded.
"Yggdrasil," Peorth said to the air.
"Waiting." It replied. It had none of the mechanical
overtones most people associated computerized voices to have. This one was a
man's voice, and although it held little warmth, it had the personality of the
thousands of Gods and Goddesses who had maintained it at one time or another.
"This is Peorth, Goddess first class, Second Category,
unlimited license. Confirm status."
"Confirmed. Request,
Peorth?"
"Requesting permission for leave, one human
week."
A second passed, Yggdrasil lighted up for a
moment.
"Permission granted. Enjoy yourself, P-P-P...."
Peorth sighed. Yggdrasil had bugs in it again. Someone had screwed up their
programming real good, and after all that good debugging too. Uruz and Peorth
watched as a young God with a streamlined mallet passed them, chasing down two
bugs who were eluding him thus far. The God was not happy, he was spewing a lot
of unpleasantries.
"Come back here, you little bits of
mixed up binaries, corrupted and improperly programmed instructions you!" the
God yelled as he swung his hammer back and forth. Peorth shook her head. She
flew up to him, grabbed the hammer out of his surprised hands, and squished the
two bugs in one graceful movement. She loved showing off her speed. Uruz clapped
enthusiastically, the God stared, and everyone else went about their work.
Peorth clapped him on the shoulder. Peorth recognized him as the God of
Political Correctness. (With the mortals using these unusual manners of speech
nowadays, he had proven the perfect candidate for this position.) He was a
pretty new God, and like all "new circa" Gods, had no name yet.
"Don't waste your breath talking to them, just chase
them." Peorth nodded at him. He nodded back dumbly.
"....P-P-Peorth." Yggdrasil finally said. Peorth sighed again. As she teleported
out, she nodded at Uruz. Uruz waved back.
Kids,
thought Peorth as she saw Uruz take the call. Always so eager to please.
{End of Chapter 2}
{Chapter
3 : Return of the Troublemakers}