Standing over a pile of slowly liquefying meat and fur was a small figure – a brown haired woman, to be precise. She coldly watched on as the meat pile mewled and howled weakly, uncaring to its cries and pleas for someone to help it, merely concerned with recording down the results of the test that was just conducted.

She was accompanied by two other individuals, a taller man that was shouting something angrily, and an obviously distraught girl who was covering her eyes and bawling. The brown haired lady did not respond to either of her companions’ cries, choosing instead to nonchalantly continue checking off boxes in her leather planner. The man grabbed her and forcibly turned her to face him, still ranting about some irrelevant nonsense. The brown haired woman stared at him in mild shock and confusion. She did not understand. Why was he angry?

-The experiment was going well, wasn’t it?

Four days back, in the heavenly realms, across the Sea of Stars and past the Dimensional Wall, there laid a fair maiden in slumber, eyes shut, hands clasped together over her chest. Where one would usually slip into something more comfortable, perhaps a silken night gown or cotton pyjamas, this individual was instead clad in her signature white robe, a belt of various measuring tools and recording devices still strapped around her waist.

This particular lady had a very strict and rigid routine which she followed to the exact letter, including timing her internal clock down to the very minute; exactly 24 hours after when she woke last.

She had to, of course. For she was one of the most diligent and hard-working Gods on this plane of existence. And it wasn’t like she could be everywhere at once. Although she did once try to cajole the God of Time and Perseverance into an arrangement where he would split her timeline into four at the beginning of each day, thereby quadrupling her efficiency.

A pity he was more concerned with the mental strain merging all four sets of memories into one at the end of the day would cause rather than the time it would save.

And it would save so much time.

This was the next best thing; calculating and compartmentalising the entire day into neat segments, then following that plan religiously, with no deviation. And she was very good at following rules; one wouldn’t have been given the moniker of Order if they weren’t able to do something as simple as that.

Tick...Tick…Tak. Time to wake up.

The God of Order and Knowledge opened her eyes. Another day of recording and cataloguing the vast world the Gods called home.

Yawning, she removed a small leather-bound notebook labelled 255 from her waist and flipped through the pages. Sure, the memory of assigning the tasks for the day to each individual timeslot was still fresh in her mind from her planning session seven hours back, but it didn’t take much time to check. Besides, it was part of her allotted fifteen minutes of preparation time at the beginning of each day.

“Oh-zero to oh-fifteen, prep and relaxation. Oh-fifteen to one, reconcile records of wealth on the God of Greed and Gluttony with physical existence, then sort by type. One to two, small talk and socialising with the God of Truth and Honesty. Two to three, replenish reserves of divine energy from the God of Life and Creation. Three to three-fifteen, devise a plan to get away from the God of Life and Creation.”

The God of Life and Creation wasn’t exactly someone Order hated - but his ramblings had a way of taking up a lot more time than she allotted. Plus, he had this sort of kindly-elder atmosphere that Order had a hard time dealing with (which came with being the first and most powerful God). So nowadays, she decided that avoidance was better than endurance. Besides, it was like a logic puzzle, she reasoned. Keep her wits sharp and improve daily efficiency. Win-win.

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“Three-fifteen to fou- ugh.” Order grimaced. She’d have to check up on her eventually. Might as well get it out of the way in the first four hours of the day. “…meet with sibling and exchange pleasantries.”

Now, her sibling. Her, she despised. Well, perhaps despised was too strong a word. More annoyed than anything.

Gods were created in pairs. (The Original Existences, anyways. The lesser Gods that the God of Life and Creation produced in truckloads generally weren’t bound by the same rules.)

They were counterparts, if you would. For every God of Greed and Gluttony, there was a God of Selflessness and Virtue. God of Life and Creation? God of Death and Taxes. (His title did once use to be the God of Death and Destruction, but he picked up the novel, new phrase from a soul he met once and liked it so much he decided to amend it to his current designation.) God of Truth and Honesty? God of Deception and Trickery.

The God of Order and Knowledge was the same. Her sister was the Goddess of Chaos. Which, of course, needled her greatly. Chaos refused to follow the naming conventions that all Gods currently in existence had submitted to. (Well, less submitted to, and more general-sense-of-apathy-and-disinterest in how they were addressed, anyway)

Goddess rather than God. A single vocation rather than two. And most of all, she was the caretaker of chaos. The leader of disorder. Literally the only thing that the God of Order and Knowledge absolutely abhorred. Order sighed. No point agonizing over it, she supposed. She’d worry about it when the time came. Besides, the meeting was (arguably) an important one in the grand scheme of things. What better way to maintain order than to ensure the absence of disorder?

Order clapped the notebook shut. The rest was routine enough. She’d had hundreds of years of practice, after all. Enough time that she would’ve been able to do it blindfolded. And sleepwalking. If you’d cut off her head, her body would probably still continue to carry out her routine, she mused, chuckling to herself.

She removed her white boots from her bedside cabinet and slipped them on, knotting the laces together. She grimaced, reminded of another taunt from Chaos about how she was “keeping on-brand” with the full white ensemble. Order quite liked it. A symbol of complete harmony and order. Devoid of both blemish and disturbance. What was wrong with “keeping on-brand”? On-brand meant consistency. On-brand meant a strict adherence to an individual’s ideals, their values.

She held the offending line of thought for a moment more, before dismissing it. There was work to be done, and there were another seven minutes left in the allotted fifteen minutes. She mentally ran through her tasks another time. Greed, Truth, Life, Chaos (ugh), then the full gamut of conversations with a couple of lesser Gods, then finally back to her Library for the review of the day and the compiling of the schedule for the next.

Order got to her feet and walked over to the oak door. She inhaled once, then let it out. OK. She’d planned for everything. Nothing would go wrong today. Nothing like that one time five years back where she’d dropped book number 249 at one of her stops and she had to retrace her steps for three hours and then she was late to- Ok, stop. Order closed her eyes and thought happy thoughts to banish the anxiety that she had invited into her mind. Parallel lines. Prime numbers. The golden ratio. A perfectly drawn circle.

After her mind had finally returned to the state of order and calm she operated most efficiently at, Order opened her eyes, turned the doorknob and stepped through. First stop, the God of Greed and Gluttony.