Anya did not think that she would be meeting people as soon as she did. She had hoped to avoid any and all contact with the local Gods and Goddesses for the time being. This really threw a wrench right into her plans. But as always she will adjust by any means necessary. For now, however, she needed to deal with:
"WAAAHHH!!!"
This.
Gren had not stopped clinging or crying for the past five minutes and showed no sign of letting up, much to the annoyance of Anya. She hated dealing with emotional situations. Even so, this was one Anya needed to handle as gently as she possibly could in order to move on. So she takes Gren by the hands, gets real close to her face, looks straight into her deep violet eyes and says
"Well, It was fun catching up. See ya later!"
""....eh?""
Both Gren and Belv were momentarily stunned before realizing what she said was actually a good bye. One moment it was as if Anya was about to confess her love for Gren and the next moment she was a yard away heading down the path across the ocean. And as one could imagine, this did not sit well with either Gren or Belv.
"Woah woah woah wait! Hold it right there!"
"Hmm? What is it Belv? Is something wrong?"
"Is s- IS SOMETHING WRONG!? SERIOUSLY!?"
"Seriously."
"!? You have been gone for nearly two and a half thousand years. You suddenly show up, say two or three words and then up and leave??"
"That's about right as far as I can tell."
"WHERE WERE YOU!?!"
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"........haaaahh...fine." Anya, who was pressed for time, needed to end this quickly. "I was off planet wandering around."
"Off planet? How? That's not supposed to be possible for us. All Gods are tied to their planet of origin. We're not allowed to leave, so how in the 6 hells did you?"
"I won't say. So don't ask. Also there are actually 7 hells. Who knew?"
"Uhh. Okay? How did you survive on your own? The moment your followers cease to exist is the moment you yourself cease to exist as well. And as far as I know, your followers died out almost immediately after you left. Care to explain."
"Not really. But I guess you should know that much. I took most of them with me. I kept them in a safe place while I was gone so they wouldn't do something stupid, like die off and get me killed."
"Whe-"
"And before you ask me. No. I will not tell you where I hid them."
At this point Gren, who had been standing off to the side up until this point, had graduated from tears of joy to a face full of unbridled rage. At first she was shocked to see Anya again, and then she was happy to the point of tears and relentless hugging that Anya was back. But now all she felt was extreme anger towards her for running off in the first place.
"Gren." Anya broke off the conversation with Belv and focused her attention on Gren who was visibly pissed.
"What?"
"I know me leaving probably left a big gap in your life. And I have no excuses to give. But I do have an apology to offer."
"....."
"I'm sorry. I'm sorry I left and never told you. And I'm sorry for leaving you alone for such a long time. But you have to believe me when I tell you that I never wanted to leave you behind. I didn't even want to leave at all."
"If you expect me to belie-"
"Let me finish. I did what I did because I needed to. I left because the way things were turning out, it was only a matter of time before I did what I knew I was going to regret. And so I left you here, albeit reluctantly, because I needed you here where you could do the most good. As it stood, only you and I had the necessary weight amongst our people to influence things here. With me out of the picture you would have had complete control. With that said, I am sorry and I hope you can forgive me."
"But that still doesn't explain why you left. You could have gone underground and just waited in silence. Why did you need to leave to planet?"
"You may not like the answer Gren. I'd rather not say."
"Tell me. I need to hear it if you ever want my forgiveness." Gren was abslolutely determined to understand.
"I left because I was weak. I left because I wasn't strong enough to get what I wanted when I wanted it."
"....You're right. I don't like your answer. And I don't forgive you."
With that Gren flew away back to where she and Belv came from. Back to the Garden.