Demi’s fingers worked quietly and diligently through Agatha’s hair, unknotting the kinks and various tangles that had worked their way into the mop over the past several weeks. In Agatha’s own words, “Hair hygiene is the single greatest barrier the modern world faces in the pursuit of progress,” and she would much rather work on any number of her trinkets than take it up herself. Therefore, Demi resolved to take matters quite literally in her own hands, allowing a tired Agatha to rest her head in Demi’s inviting lap, as the pair each laid upon Demi’s fully made-up, massive bed.

Agatha was curled half-fetal, the chaos of what happened last week having left her endlessly fatigued, if only because she had been forced to hold it all inside. The window sky was transitioning from deep blue afternoon, to the chilly indigo foretelling the coming of the moon and stars. School was beginning to feel like a distant memory, even as the pair sat in class only several hours prior. And yet… it was the least of either woman’s worries.

“You’re shaking,” said Demi.

Agatha’s tired eyes opened to their fullest, unable to fully glance directly upward at Demi from this position. “Hmm?” she inquired.

“It’s harder for me to work on you when you’re shaking.”

“Oh,” said Agatha, quietly smacking her lips a few times as her eyes once again became half-lidded. “I’m just a bit chilly.”

Demi scratched Agatha’s head through her hair with a tender bit of force, eliciting a smile. Then, with enough care to avoid upsetting Agatha’s rest as though she were a house-cat, Demi reached across the edge of her bed to the carpeted floor. Her nails hooked into the seams of Demi’s own black leather jacket; she draped it fabric-side-down across Agatha’s compact form, fully encompassing her excepting her head. Despite this, Agatha managed to burrow deeper into the nook, fully obscuring her hair from being subject to Demi’s advances.

Demi groaned, and she said, “Fine, be that way.”

The warmth Agatha added to Demi’s existence in that moment did not go unnoticed.

Time passed. The gentle raises and descents of Agatha’s form beneath the leather coat caught Demi’s eye, and for a while Demi couldn’t so much as breathe, for fear that a simple change in position might cause a disturbance in Agatha’s rest. So, quietly still, Demi found it within her to not move a single muscle.

She didn’t know how long it had been. It almost felt as though Demi blinked and it had become early evening. Nevertheless, she was only woken up from her half-dream stupor when Agatha loudly and matter-of-factly began to recite: “Some researchers say that the reason the Ancient Greek capital city of Duosis began to be referred to as such is due to the two-pronged nature of its nascent mythological beliefs. Whereas most all classical city-states believed in the initial pantheon of gods and goddesses – to varying degrees, of course – Duosis experienced a cultural shift coinciding with what archaeological evidence can only describe as a large battle of some kind that laid waste to much of the capital.”

Demi, still startled from the recitation, pulled her jacket off of Agatha, revealing her clutching a smartphone, reading off a Wikipedia article. Agatha was smiling, and she tried to shrink further into the cushions as well as Demi’s lap, even as Demi exclaimed, “Hey, we were supposed to read that together!”

All of a sudden, Agatha sat up, leaving the spot in the midst of Demi’s legs feeling very, very cold. This was remedied when Agatha nestled up to Demi’s side, holding the phone between the two of them saying, “Is that better?”

Demi’s lips pursed in response to the contact, and she only nodded. Agatha likely didn’t notice, as her focus was on the page as she continued reading: “As a result of this cultural shift, a large majority of archaic citizens abandoned the worship of the Greek pantheon, and the apotheosis of a new religion emerged, one focused around two distinct deific individuals. Lack of centralization of this religion prevents their precise epithets from being determined, but literature commonly refers to them as any number of…”

Agatha trailed off as she read, and Demi examined the page herself with more scrutiny. It was a list of titles, over two dozen, each with a translation next to them of their meaning. Greatest hits include, “the Destroyers”, “the Givers of Life”, “the God-Killers”, “the Tragedians”, and far, far more. However, Demi stopped when her eyes landed on one pair of titles.

“That’s my name.”

Agatha nodded. There on the page, the name “Demi”… or something incredibly close to it… was listed.

“Y-yeah. Why is yours listed and…”

“I… I guess I never said your name during our… excursion.”

Agatha’s inquisitive face lost its light, and she sighed, “O-oh. I guess that makes sense.”

Doing her best to adopt a chipper tone once again, Agatha continued reading: “Though scant records have been located recording this event – and even fewer records are reliable – the most useful of these is an account by an ancient scribe known only as ‘Isidore of Duosis’, who describes the arrival of two calamitously huge humanoid individuals that laid waste to much of the region. Isidore not only witnessed this, but writes in his account that he was later picked up and kissed by the ‘white one’, as it is described.”

Agatha, again, slowed down and trailed off as she reached the end of this phrase. Demi turned to face her, and could see that she was blushing red hot. Demi smirked, and Agatha could do nothing but afford a small laugh. “I… I guess my plan worked?”

Demi urged Agatha to keep reading, and Agatha obliged. “Most sources credit Isidore with the creation of the so-called ‘Cult of Duosis’, the political group that grew to control the entirety of the city, as well as eventually giving it the name the world now knows it by, in lieu of its former name of Athens. Though not considered a cult in its own time, the vigor with which members hold onto such beliefs even in today’s secular society has led to several terror attacks, many of which perpetrated by radicals who believe that these dual goddesses will return one day, pointing to similar accounts in the Americas as proof.”

Agatha paused, scanning through the page. Then she continued, “Sports! Duosis has a long legacy of sporting events – ”

At this point Demi intervened, “Okay, okay, I think we’ve read enough. So, uh, we are currently the patrons of a cult.”

Even as Demi said this, she felt a rush. There were people alive today, who worshiped her. And Agatha of course. People who would murder… and kill… and destabilize regions… just so the worship of the one true pair of goddesses could be restored.

“Easy for you to say,” replied Agatha as she buried her head in her knees. “They don’t even know my name…”

“Do you want them to?” Demi asked. She turned to her friend with wide eyes, rubbing her back as the white tuft of hair between her eyes hung diligently.

Agatha turned to her with a curious expression, “Well… I mean… sure, yeah, I guess.”

“Because,” Demi began, “Like, I, uh, I would want for you to… well… if you’re happy with our progress… I’m happy.” Demi knew that things got a bit intense back in Athens. As much as it seemed the pair had finally reached the same page, she just couldn’t help but feel the general ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ vibe of the past several days meant something regarding Agatha’s desire to ever use the time-machine for that purpose again. And yet, here Agatha was, displaying all the symptoms of… FOMO, for lack of a better term.

Demi continued, “But if you’re… not happy, with our results, I mean… then maybe… maybe we could –”

“Sure, let’s go.”

“Wait, whaaaaat?”

“Yeah, we can go.”

Demi looked around, making certain she was not being punk’d in some form.

“S-so, you want to go back?”

Agatha nodded. “That sounds cool to me.”

“And, like, crush stuff?”

Agatha’s eyes narrowed, and a coy smile came to her lips. “Maybe…”

Outwardly, Demi was flabbergasted. But inward… to describe her emotions as elation was doing them a disservice.

“O-okay!” said Demi, hopping from her bed. “We… we can go so many places! We can visit… we can visit Ancient China! We can go to France! Baghdad! We can check out the British Empire! We can even – ”

“Just one moment,” said Agatha. “I’m not interested in destabilizing all the world’s governments prematurely. I just want the entire world to focus on nothing… but us. And I’m going to give them a reason to do it.”

Demi glared down at her friend, stopping mid-pace, and her heart lept. On Agatha’s face was a smirk of Gothic proportions, and her eyes held ambition.

“There are a few places we could go… but there’s only one that’ll make the most impact, I think. I don’t want to just be a footnote in a Wikipedia page, anymore. I want us to go… biblical.”

Demi’s eyes met Agatha’s. Demi gulped.

Then, Demi smiled as understanding dawned on her face.