Erato was in the middle of ironing when her phone rang. She fumbled for it one-handed, the other raising the iron from the cloth. "Erin," she said, and went back to ironing, the phone cradled between ear and shoulder.

"Hey, Erin. It's Ken here." Ken was a sometimes lover of hers, a Cherub. He was sounding cheerful, but a little tired. "I was wondering if you could come by."

She knew the tone of his voice well. "Indeed? What's the catch?" She tilted hte iron and briskly folded silky underthings.

"Well..." he hesitated, then pushed on, voice lowered. "I've got something of an unusual roommate right now. Punisher. Lord Laurence said to give him a week to adjust before Redemption, but - he won't believe he's not an angel. And though I appreciate the strength of his desire to serve God..."

Erato unplugged the iron, chuckled into the phone. "Oh, Ken. How do you get into these situations? Certainly I can come, if you'll give me an hour. Is he at the tether?"

"My weekend apartment, right now. Archangel Laurence is keeping his Heart unreadable."

"One hour," she said. "Love you."

***

She wondered, as she drove over, what Ken would tell the Habbalite. Would he tell it she was there to convince it that it was not an angel? Would he tell it she was an Elohite? An angel? Would he tell it anything at all?

Erato shrugged to herself minimally and parked. She was adaptable, after all.

Ken greeted her with a Cherubic hug when she knocked. She laughed and squeezed him - they were word-siblings, both serving Creation. They'd been separated when Eli left, he going to the Sword, she to Dreams. WHile their posts were both in the same city, it was always hard to find time, and so every meeting was a reunion of sorts.

They separated a little reluctantly, and Ken gestured behind himself vaguely. "I'll just... introduce you, then."

She followed him into the living room, where a tall man was sitting and sketching. He was slender, with long platinum-blond hair -- almost effeminate, if it weren't for the harshness of his features or the sharp lines of his body, sexual in its perfectly-planned androgyny. The Habbalite looke dup, expression polite, and she sensed from him a combination of interest and irritation at being interrupted. Erato considered the irritation, then decided it could be kept. She nodded to him cheerily and took a seat beside him on the sofa. "Good afternoon!" she said.

He nodded to her dryly. "Indeed."

Like pulling teeth, she thought. That's how this was going to be.

"I am Erato of Creation, serving Dreams." She paused, then added, "No relation to the Muse."

He looked, for a moment, disbelieveing. Wry, he said, "I feel your pain. I am Melpomene."

As with most Elohim, Erato was a believer in coincidence. God did, after all, have a plan, and it was their job to go along with that plan. As such, she had faith there was reason behind the strangest happenstances.

She laughed, letting herself seem startled. " Really! Well, this must be destiny."

Melpomene chuckled. "One can hope it isn't Fate." He paused, then added, "My Choir is Habbalite. I've been serving under Dark Humour."

Erato nodded. "Power, here." She saw his faint eyeroll and decided he'd realized why she'd been invited there. "Don't worry, I'm not here to break your brain or anything," she lied smoothly, hands raised in mock-surrender. "But Ken has to go out sometime, so I got called to Habbie-sit."

Ken nodded guiltily from the doorway. "I should at least be pretending to do role maintenance," he said. "And Era's an old friend. I'd trust her with my life."

"Of course," Melpomene drawled, clearly not believing a word of it. "I hope it goes well." He waited until Ken was gone before going back to his sketching, not saying a word to Erato.

She shrugged mentally. Two could play that game. She dug in her purse for her own hand-held sketchbook, and began to work on a portrait of the Habbalite.

Erato looked up about half an hour later to find Melpomene watching her with some perplexion. "What are you sketching me for?"

"Myself," she answered, and smiled faintly. "I felt like it."

"Are you allowed to do things for yourself, then?"

She smirked and began drawing a curly moustache and goatee on the portrait. "When there's no good reason not to, why not?"

"Hey!" Melpomene reached for her sketchbook, shock dredging a startled laugh from him. "Don't do that-!"

Grinning, she stood on the couch to keep the sketchbook out of reach. "Oh? Why not?"

"It was good art!" he protested. "Don't ruin it."

"Ah, ah," she said, wagging a finger at him. "Not ruined if that was my plan for it!" She paused, then considered him. "Have you considered a goatee? I think you'd look smashing."

His laughter was really quite nice. She smirked, let him take her sketchbook. There might be a chance after all.

***

She visited daily after that, and could tell he looked forward to it. She and Ken would tag shifts off, and Melpomene would put his art down to smile at her.

"I don't understand you," he confessed on Thursday, bemusedly. "You're very different from how Elohim are supposed to be."

She tilted her head back, tried to explain. 'Elohim are all different from each other," she said. "We're just also undifferentiated."

He didn't follow. That evening, she mentioned her concern to Ken. "I think he thinks of me as an exception," she said. "It's a common response when you only know the base stereotype. You're not like other - whatever. Asians. Queers. It's common," she said again, stressing it.

"What can we do?" Ken asked, and spread his fingershelplessly. "We have one week. All we can do is try."

"He's not objective."

"Can he learn to be?"

Erato thought him over, thought his very reason for wanting to redeem - to survive, to serve God. "I don't think so," she said, and leaned against Ken. "But we don't have any choice except to try."

***

That night he was quiet, not sketching, watching her.

"What're you doing in the dark?" she asked, and went to turn the lights on. "Honestly, you'll strain your vessel's eyes one of these days-"

"Erato."

"Hmm?"

"I want to make love with you." His voice was formal; it was a formal request. She half expected it to be accompanied with a stiff Victorian bow. "If you are not opposed to the idea."

She kept her hand on the lightswitch. "...why do you want to?"

"What? Because I want to."

"Why?"

"Is there harm in it?"

Erato couldn't tell. She weighed things. It would bring them closer together, and for a Creationer, it was an act of love, an angelic thing. But it was subjectifve - unless there was no reason not to.

She couldn't tell his reason. She just had to hope.

"I don't know," she said, and left the light off, turning to him and unbuttoning her blouse.

He stepped close, slid his hands into the widening opening to carress her skin. "If there's no harm - why shouldn't we?"

It was an Elohite concept, but she feared the reasoning behind it was not Elohite. Still, she could not let her fear block the chance that this was objectivity. There was so little hope, they'd best take what they had.

"Let's," she whispered, and went to work on his clothing.

***

On Sunday, Melpomene returned to the tether for Redemption. She could not follow, and she stayed with Ken, her hand in his.

"Do you think he-?"

"I'm trying not to think," she said. "I'm trying not to guess. All we can do is wait and see."

They waited.