"What the Hell are you talking about, Dot?" Geneva demanded. Her tone was uncharacteristically sharp and tasted foreign in her mouth. She'd never been sharp to anyone before in her own recollection. It wasn't in her nature to be so biting. But bit she did because somewhere in her mind, she knew that Dot was right.

"She's gonna kill me," Dot mumbled to herself and eased back down onto the bench. "Maybe you should sit down," Dot suggested wearily. All of her usual spunk was edged with compassion and pity.

They sat in silence for a long while. Geneva counted six separate joggers running an average of three laps around the park. There were twelve people who had dogs and six people with strollers and children. Few of them were just alone and walking, enjoying the lilacs before the festival, and the people who come en masse, flock next weekend.

"Do you know how I became a Cupid?" Dot asked. She was talking into her hands, hunched over with her elbows on her knees. She looked young still, but old only around her eyes.

"I know you're old. Industrial revolution?" Geneva answered. Cupid meetings once a month wasn't about personal upheavals. Those meetings were to chat about current projects and sometimes oneupmanship. Very rarely do Cupid's talk about their past. Geneva always assumed that it was because most of them couldn't remember how they came to be Cupid and talking about their mortal lives before the Change was so difficult for many. Immortality was a sad ordeal for those who can live forever. All those they grow to care for succumb to Death eventually. 

"It was 1836. Two months after the battle of the Alamo," Dot began. "I'd just turned sixteen and my husband and I had only been married a week. It was a different time back then," she explained quickly to sooth the look of alarm on Geneva's face. "A lot of girls my age had already been married and bore children. I was excited to do the same thing and I'd loved Diego for so long. It was no surprise to anyone when we married. 

But the Texans were bickering over the border again and there was no time for him to be a husband when everyone else expected him to be a soldier. 

We overcame the Alamo but I lost my husband," Dot inhaled shakily and rubbed her hands over her eyes then through her short pixie hair.

"I was so distraught. He left me with a farm and a single farm hand and all these broken promises. I loved him so completely, Gen. But I was so young and so bitter," Dot continued. Her voice wavered and Geneva placed a soothing hand on her friend's hunched back.

"I was horrible to everyone. I took my misery and just pushed it on anyone who came close enough. And then Mother came. She hugged me until I forgot how to breathe. I didn't feel so horrible after that. She took my heart in her hands and shaped it into an arrow and told me, 'now you can be more effective.' I've been using that arrow ever since," Dot finished and sat up straighter.

Her friend's eyes were red rimmed and shiny with tears but her cheeks were triumphantly dry. There was even a small smile on Dot's lips. The armor of good humor returning slowly but surely. 

"Are you telling me that the arrows you shoot is your heart?" Geneva asked as she withdrew her hand. There was an incredulous look on her face.

"The arrows we shoot, Gen. we." Dot corrected.

"But I don't shoot arrows. I untangle The Red String," Geneva replied. The disbelief was still on her face, frozen there, and she feared it would be there always.

"And that's your problem, Gen. You don't use your purpose. You just let all that love fester in your quiver," Dot said with distaste. 

"But, what about the Cupid Summit and all those other Love Workers? Not everyone uses arrows. Some cultures use ribbons and perfumes. And even tattoos!" Geneva argued. She felt herself wall off Dot's logic and yet some smoky tendrils of it seeped through the cracks and filled her with doubt. 

"Love comes in all forms. But Aphrodite granted you the powers through the way of her son, Eros. We are all her Cupids. When she adopted us, she made us into her son's image. Don't you see, Gen?" Dot asked, reaching out to take Geneva's shaking hand. "We use the immensity of our hearts to give love to others. I use mine to take it away."

Geneva frowned deeply but didn't pull away from Dot. Instead, she looked down at their hands locked together in the bond of friendship and sisterhood. They both suffered at the hand of Love and both of them veered in separate but parallel roads. 

"Take your bow, make someone fall in love. See for yourself how it eases you, Gen," Dot urged. 

Geneva looked into her left hand and stared at her bow. A Cupid's bow, like the Goddess' Baklava, appeared whenever it wished. Hearing itself mentioned made it manifest within the grip of her palm where, although it was foreign to her, also felt the most comfortable. 

"That woman right there," Dot suggested, pointing at a woman who was sunning on the grass. She was an unmoving target. Simple.

Geneva released Dot's hand and rose to her feet as she pulled from her proverbial quiver a long golden arrow that hummed to life. She nocked the arrow and drew her bow. Geneva took a slow and shaky breath. It has been years since she did such a thing. 

She released it, a little short. Instead of piercing the woman's heart, the arrow fell into her belly. It would do the job, of course. A simple scratch from her arrow would work to a degree. But the heart was always a strong and long lasting love. 

The woman in the grass winced and held her belly but there was nothing there. She did appear flushed in the face and perhaps she glowed a bit, but other than that, she showed no other outward sign that her heart was swelling with love for some unknown other. 

And in Geneva, the swelling lessened some little unknowable bit, leaving enough room for her to release a gasping pained sob.

For a little over five decades, she was ignorant to her powers. Incapable of controlling them and incapable of controlling herself. With knowledge, she only felt foolish. 

She had no heart. She should be happy to know that Death will succumb to her, and that she would not succumb to either Death nor Love. But knowing only hurt her more. Geneva was so used to caring, to loving, that having the power not to made her sick. 

She loved Lizzy dearly. If she were to give all her love away to others, would she not care as much for Lizzy's life? Would Death really win in the end?

But of course, Death always won. Everyone succumbed to it, even Gods. Even Love. For when couples marry, it is only until Death parts them. And when they conceive, Death can take any member of the family. And should anyone live long and happily, eventually, in old age, Death will come. 

For the first time in a long time, Geneva felt defeated. Dot, the Heartbreaker, held her and comforted her while the rest of the world enjoyed the perfect day around them. 

_________________________

Author's Note:

So I'm not really into this new chapter edit thing WP has. It's a bit annoying and it took me way to long to figure out how to make things or italic. Seriously. What does and underlined 'A' even mean, yo?

But whatever. "God is Change" to quote one of my all time favorite books, Parables of the Sower, by Octavia Butler. (Off WP)

This is the second half of the chapter as promised! Please expect a new chapter next Saturday! Dedicated to RamonaDBlack for being such a great supporter and recommending me all over the place! Toodles!