Calypso sprawled across the couch, knees hooked over one armrest and silver head propped against the other. The bathrobe had slipped open slightly, but she couldn't be bothered to fix it. No one was watching except the TV, and it had seen worse.
"Oh my gods, just tell her you love her already!" She hurled a decorative pillow at the screen where two impossibly attractive humans circled each other emotionally. The pillow passed through the holographic display, hitting the wall with a soft thump. "Mortals waste so much time. You have like, what, eighty years total? And you're spending fifteen episodes on meaningful glances?"
She flicked through channels. Each program offered a window into mortal entertainment—cooking shows where chefs screamed at each other, reality programs featuring people living in the same house (boring, she was doing that right now), and news broadcasts about gate activity around the world.
She paused on that one, pink eyes narrowing at footage of a Tier-3 gate in Argentina. The reporter stood a safe distance away while hunters in corporate-branded gear prepared to enter.
"Amateur hour," she muttered, scrutinizing their formation.
The footage cut to a commercial for crystal-infused energy drinks.
Calypso sighed and let her head fall back against the armrest. This wasn't how she'd planned to spend her evening. Usually by now, she'd be processing at least fifty souls, making life-altering decisions about their next incarnation while simultaneously playing six different gacha games on her divine smartphone.
But this...
She wiggled her toes, watching them move with fascination. Having a physical body that actually obeyed physics was weird. No floating, no reality bending, no conjuring desserts from thin air.
"Actually," she said to the empty room, "this isn't so bad."
Hundreds of years of continuous work without a single vacation. Even gods needed breaks, right? And while being stripped of most of her powers wasn't ideal, there were worse places to be stranded than a modern human city with all its entertainments and curiosities.
There could definitely be worse companions than Xavier Valentine.
Calypso rolled onto her stomach, propping her chin on her hands. Xavier was... interesting. For a mortal. His soul had that distinctive texture she'd seen in people who lived hard, complicated lives—layers upon layers of experience, trauma, joy, and pain, all compressed into a relatively short existence. Most humans his age had souls like half-baked cookies, still soft and malleable. His was already dense, complex.
And he wasn't unattractive, even by divine standards. That hair—white as snow—and those purple eyes that shifted color with his mood. The gods would have fought over him in the old days, each wanting to claim him as a consort or champion.
"Good thing I got to him first," she murmured with a self-satisfied smile. "Imagine if I'd been tethered to some blubbering idiot instead." She shuddered dramatically at the thought. "Some D-rank crybaby who'd faint at the sight of a minor gate monster."
At least Xavier had spine. And style. And those abs—
"Focus, Calypso," she chided herself, rolling back onto her side. "We need a plan."
The benefactor story was fine, but it felt too distant. If they needed to stay within two hundred meters of each other, that would get awkward fast. How would she explain following him to classes? To training sessions? To the bathroom?
Her eyes widened as inspiration struck.
"I could be a student!" She sat upright, the robe slipping further off one shoulder. "We'd have a reason to be together all day. Same classes, same training..."
She tapped her chin. "But I'd need credentials, records... a backstory that holds up to scrutiny."
Calypso reached for her divine smartphone by reflex, then remembered it wasn't there. Instead, she found a mortal phone on the coffee table—sleek, crystal-powered, but pathetically limited compared to her divine technology.
She picked it up, surprised to find it unlocked. The screen displayed a notification:
[CATALYST ACADEMY: Student Portal Access]
[Welcome, Calypso Valentine]
[Orientation: Tomorrow, 12:00 PM]
[Class Assignment: 1-D]
"Well, well, well." Her lips curved into a delighted smile. "Someone's been pulling strings. Themis? Or maybe Fortuna?" She giggled at the thought of her friend's meddling. "I owe you one, girl."
She swiped through the phone, trying to access the academy's student portal, but hit a login screen requesting an email and password.
"Email?" She frowned. "What is this primitive technology?" She poked at the screen in frustration.
She paused mid-scroll, a strange sensation washing over her. Her eyelids felt... heavy? She blinked several times, but the weight remained.
"What the..." She yawned, covering her mouth in surprise. "Am I... tired? That's not possible. I don't get tired."
She stood up, intending to float to the kitchen for water—a mortal remedy she'd observed countless times—but her feet remained firmly planted on the floor. When she tried to take a step, the robe tangled around her ankles, sending her stumbling forward.
"My divine grace!" She caught herself against the wall, staring down at her betraying feet. "What is happening to me?"
Another yawn forced its way out, this one making her eyes water. The realization hit her like a cosmic slap: her divine nature was more compromised than she'd thought. Without access to the Liminal Space and cut off from divine energies, her body was adapting to mortal limitations.
Including the need for sleep.
"This is ridiculous," she muttered, fighting another yawn as she shuffled toward the hallway. "I haven't slept in centuries. I don't even remember how."
She paused outside Xavier's bedroom door, hesitating only briefly before pushing it open. The room was dark except for the soft blue glow of crystal-powered night lights along the baseboards. Xavier lay on his side, one arm tucked under his pillow, white hair splayed across the dark sheets.
He looked younger in sleep, the sharp edges of his personality softened by unconsciousness.
"Just for a few minutes," Calypso whispered to herself. "Until this weird tiredness passes."
The mattress looked impossibly inviting, and another wave of exhaustion swept over her, making her sway slightly.
Calypso eased herself onto the far side of the king-sized bed. The mattress was firm but comfortable, yielding just enough to cradle her divine form. She kept the bathrobe on, though it had become hopelessly disheveled during her TV marathon.
"Just until morning," she murmured, eyes already drifting shut. "Then I'll figure out this student thing."
She curled on her side, facing away from Xavier, leaving as much space between them as possible while still enjoying the comfort of the bed. Despite her best intentions to just rest briefly, sleep ambushed her with the efficiency of a skilled assassin.
Her last conscious thought was that she should probably warn Xavier about the student portal notification, but that could wait until morning. Right now, the novel sensation of drifting into unconsciousness was too fascinating to resist.
For the first time in centuries, Calypso Valentine slept.
She dreamed of souls passing through her hands like water, of gates opening and closing like cosmic heartbeats, of Xavier standing before a towering doorway of light. In her dream, she reached for him, but the distance between them stretched impossibly. Her lips formed words she couldn't hear.
The dream shifted, colors bleeding into one another. She stood in the divine council chamber, her fellow gods staring down at her from their thrones.
"You've broken the rules again, Calypso," Themis intoned, scales balanced perfectly in her hands.
"I didn't mean to," Calypso heard herself say, voice small in the vast chamber.
"Intentions matter less than consequences," Adonis replied. "You've entangled yourself with a mortal soul. The balance must be restored."
"How?" Dream-Calypso asked.
The council spoke in unison, their voices resonating with divine power: "Close the gates."
She woke with a small gasp, disoriented by the unfamiliar sensation of regaining consciousness. The room was still dark, but the quality of the darkness had changed—pre-dawn rather than midnight.
Something warm pressed against her back. An arm draped heavily across her waist.
Calypso froze, suddenly very aware that she was no longer alone on her side of the bed. Somehow during the night, she and Xavier had gravitated toward each other. He slept deeply behind her, his breathing slow and even against the back of her neck.
She should move. She should definitely move. But the warmth was... nice. Comforting in a way she hadn't experienced in centuries. When was the last time anyone had touched her without agenda or obligation? When had she last been held, even inadvertently?
Eight hundred and forty-seven years is a long time to be alone...
The divine realm was full of entities, but connection was rare. Everyone had their domains, their responsibilities. They interacted when necessary, schemed against each other when bored, but rarely just... existed together.
Maybe that was the silver lining in this cosmic mishap. Maybe being forced to live as a near-mortal would teach her something about connection that eight centuries of processing souls couldn't.
Or maybe she was just rationalizing because she didn't want to move from this comfortable position.
Calypso closed her eyes again, deciding that waking Xavier now would be cruel. The poor mortal needed his rest. She was simply being considerate by remaining still. That was all. Nothing to do with how safe it felt, how the constant buzzing of divine awareness had quieted for the first time in memory, allowing her to just be.
"Just until he wakes up naturally," she whispered to herself, already drifting back toward sleep. "Then I'll tell him about the student thing."
As consciousness faded again, one fact registered dimly in her mind: for a semi-divine being suddenly subject to mortal limitations, she'd somehow managed to pull off her most successful gacha yet—a new life, a handsome companion, and the first peaceful rest she'd had in centuries.
Not bad for a goddess on vacation.