You have got to be kidding me—weren't the words to hurtle into Cammy's mind when she'd seen the kids, a.k.a 'targets', once Mr Sultan had brought her to the school the next morning—under heavy cloak-and-dagger, of course. There was no way he was letting the humans see them, so he cast a spell to make them invisible to the human eye.

"Your first assignment is a pair from your school. Isn't that exciting? Upper management always likes to make the first pairing as easy as possible on our cadets so you start off on the right foot, build the confidence you need to tackle the harder cases that will follow you in your career, and occasionally, the impossible cases that define it, like your dad... and your mother. There is a reason they head two of the biggest postings on Earth. All made possible because the success of their first one instilled a taste for it..."

Mr Sultan had touched down on the school lawn with the kind of grace Cammy couldn't match. His winged-descent was remarkably smooth—like an elegant butterfly—whereas Cammy's wings fluttered with an incessant whoop-whoop of a giant moth. And her landing?—well, let's just say she hadn't entirely planned on that half-hearted somersault that landed her on her ass, legs sprawled. She had been irrefutably glad no one could see them—the two Cupids—one walking, one splattering among them. She had as much grace as a baby giraffe learning to walk for the first time. All legs—or all wings—and no skill.

Did they have to fly there when school was an achingly walkable distance from home? Yes, apparently they had. It was an 'opportunity' to get some flight experience, as Mr Sultan was fond of repeating.

"Much like a pilot trains to handle the wings of a plane, Miss Kamdev, you must learn how to maneuver yours!" Mr Sultan had laughed—for the first time—extending a hand out to pull her to her lanky legs. "Don't worry, I think I took about a month, if not more to get used to mine."

"And wait till you see the kids you got." His smile has shown almost all his teeth as he let go of her hand.

Cammy's stomach dropped to her pelvic floor. She had to set up two people from school. Yuck!

"Who are they? Please tell me I know at least one kid," Cammy begged, wiping the dew off her derriere. The white skirt she wore sported two blurred, round green splotches on her buttocks. She definitely could use more flying lessons too.

"It's a surprise!" Mr Sultan's smile had widened as he led her up the lawn, now sprouting clumps of students.

As they passed a few students, she wondered who 'the kids' were. She just wished it wasn't one of the popular kids. Cammy didn't do popular kids, or more so, they didn't know she existed, and thus it'd be weird if she walked up to them, leaned in, and whispered the incantation Aziz had been teaching since the day before.

Her stomach did a flip as Aziz headed straight for the very group she hoped she didn't have to set up. It's not like the popular kids needed any more nudging. They were already experts at attracting attention.

"Please don't let it be Conrad. Please don't let it be Conrad!" She mumbled. Her cheeks were heating up like Christmas lights as Aziz stepped closer to the impossibly beautiful Alpha group. That's what she and Becca had dubbed the flawless creatures.

"Conrad? That name doesn't sound familiar, but then again, I must admit I only quickly glanced at the file before we headed here..." Aziz was saying. The man—or Cupid—had an amazing hearing. Cammy wondered if that was part of the perk when she became a full-fledged one herself. It would explain how her mother heard the quietest conspiratorial whispers Becca and she might share.

Good, not Conrad! Cammy tried to smile. "Conrad's that kid over there with the dimple for cheeks and hair for days!" She managed as Aziz headed for the front glass doors.

Aziz snuck a peek at the kid she was talking about, and a smile played on his lips. He shook his head, walking straight through the glass door as if it were air. "That kid's not due for an arrow for another fifteen years, if he is lucky. We owe him many lifetime worths of flutters in this one. So Bhagi has packed his itinerary to the brim. Hence why he received the genetic lottery as the humans say."

Cammy stood hesitantly on the other side of the door. Just because Aziz could walk through doors, didn't mean she could. She could barely use her wings, hardly shoot an arrow true, nor could she speak a spell without butchering it. Surely there was no way she could walk through doors without getting hurt. She too had read a certain tale about wizards and wizarding school and knew about splinching. She did not want to get splinched, or sliced. No, thank you.

Mr Sultan popped his head through one half of the door as the other half swung open beside him when a student entered the building. "Miss Kamdev, you are a God-adjacent. You have perks of being a God, stop weeping like a mortal, and walkthrough.  Remember, we are Gods, and Gods don't weep! This is all part of your training. Stop thinking like a human. You are not one. You need not push through materials, the materials move around you themselves. It will not hurt, I promise."

Only part of what he said made sense to Cammy as her brain became foggy. At the end of the corridor, several silhouettes stood against the sun pouring in through the windows lining the top of the wall.

One figure stood out among them. A figure she knew well. Her heart fluttered like a child at a candy store.

Reggie.

Just the man she wanted in her life. She could just walk up to him and whisper those powerful words Mr Sultan had taught her. All she had to do was insert the partner's name where it goes.

He was talking, rapt, with someone in the adjoining hallway. He was laughing. Reggie barely laughed whenever Cammy stared—not that he knew it.

But he likes Becca. The words tumbled into her mind. Words she wished she could ignore.

Ahead of her, Mr Sultan slowed down, watching Cammy watch Reggie Garcia. "Ah, you know him? Excellent! This will go swimmingly. I don't know why I was a little worried you may find the assignment difficult."

Now you're thinking, 'but what were the first words that came into her mind when she saw the kids?'

Well, ladies and gentlemen, the very first thought to hurtle through young Cammy's mind at the sight of Reggie, followed by the look of excitement on Mr Sultan's face, and chased by those words echoing in her ears, that somehow, Reggie was one of the 'kids' in her first Cupid assignment... well as you can guess, her first thought went something like this...

"Get the bleep-bleep out of here!" Since this is a child-friendly story, our heroine very well couldn't swear, but indeed, there were plenty more bleeps where that came from.

As those first colourful words slipped out of her lips, Cammy's feet turned to lead. Her heart trembled in her chest, and her diaphragm refused to budge. Especially when the closer they got, she could see who it was that had Reggie was so rapt by. Becca-banana.

"Ah, here they are, as expected. Your first assignment, Miss Kamdev, are these two." Mr Sultan beamed, standing beside Cammy, eyeing the two teens with keen interest. "This should be a piece of cake, no?"

Get the bleeping-bleep-bleep out of here! Cammy's mind screamed, but her lips curved into a pained smile. She wouldn't exactly call it a piece of cake, no.

Cammy swallowed the lump in her throat. "Why do these two need to be Cupided? Aren't they already together?"

The knowing smile Mr Sultan gave her made Cammy's stomach turn more sickly than that stupid bus ride to camp had done.

"Yes, but your friend Becca seems to be holding back for reasons we are not privy to. So we thought, who else can solve this problem better than you, her best friend? It's the perfect first case, really."

Cammy's stomach turned sickly again, and she hurried to the nearest bin to empty it of what little breakfast that was left.

"Cammy?" It was Becca's voice that had reached her as she bent over the bin meters from the love-bound pair. "You're back!"

Not really! Cammy swore under her breath. What happened to the stupid humans-can't-see-you shield?

"Are you all right?" It was Reggie next. Concern laced his voice. It made her feet go numb.

Love-bound—all she had to do was whisper an incantation in Becca's ear, or Reggie's.

Cammy threw up again.

Why was it that every time she was around him, she had a stupid hurling story to go with it?

She could hear Mr Sultan's disembodied voice in her ear. "Just act normal... say you're not feeling well and you're gonna go back home. That this was a mistake."

It is a mistake! She wanted to scream. Instead, she had to act 'normal', and normal was the last thing Cammy felt like. She wasn't normal. Her life had suddenly become complicated and turned to shit. Normal was a ship long sailed. In fact, that ship had sailed the moment she'd started sprouting wings and discovered her parents were celebs in a world she hadn't yet seen. Cupids! Who knew they were real, let alone lonely buggers themselves. And to think she'd been excited about her first assignment this morning.

Being a Cupid sucked so far. So much so, Cammy wanted to quit.

Setting Reggie up with Becca was the last thing she wanted to do. The very last thing indeed.

WC: 1668             TWC: 11, 554

[A/N: Hey hey, you've hung out with me till this point. I really appreciate it! Thank you for reading. I hope I'm managing to keep you engaged. As such, were there any parts so far that I should really focus on in terms of my characterisation, world-building, narration? How do you find the Omni-narrator in this? Yes, no, dear God, Eva, never try it again? 😜

I'm so keen to get your feedback. Give me! Give me. 😊

Anyway, enough about me. What do you make of Cammy's first assignment?]