"B-Blondie?!" Caressa repeated incredulously. At first she was merely confused at the title but soon her nose wrinkled and she finished the word with disgust at the sight of who had said it. She scowled and instinctively drew a weapon and shield out of thin air as the demoness moved quickly from holding a hand up to flipping her hair. The Goddess didn't have much experience with dealing with demonic folk -mostly due to the fact that she never left her little spot in heaven, but she was not spared the instinctual repulsion all good deities generally had in the presence of one.<br/><div class="floatleft">(http://i1226.photobucket.com/albums/ee406/Mostly_roleplay_pictures/People/Females/Astraea/4a4cfe02-d3f0-4f85-8511-2fa2b6b4aaa0_zpse1da87dc.jpg)</div>Her brown eyes took on a tinge of red as she leveled a serious stare the demon's way. She scarcely listened to the other girl's words, though, for as much as the spectacled girl seemed all about business, she expected she might launch an attack any moment. However, several long seconds passed and Mike's own reactions to the new appearance brought Cari back around. She took a deep breath and lowered her sword just a bit, but kept it in a defensive position before her. She knew that there was no way the newcomer would attack a human without first obtaining the right to somehow - there were rules and protocol to follow in such things - but there was no holds barred when it came to random encounters between one from Heaven and one from Hades.<br/><br/>But this rather young looking demoness continued to make no moves against her and  - what was that she had mentioned? Cari furrowed her brow as she tried to run through the words she had so readily discarded earlier, only succeeding at bringing back bits and pieces of what she had said. "What?.... "Fair competition clause...." she murmured, a quizzical expression stressing her face. Other than that phrase she remembered something about an 'evaluation period' but she wasn't sure if that had to do with her employer evaluating her own performance or if the demon was somehow implying that she had to do some sort of evaluation herself. But the idea of a hellion evaluating a Goddess was preposterous and she nearly laughed out loud as it came to mind.<br/><br/>"Listen...."  she said, waving her left arm and causing the buckler attached there to disappear, "I'm not sure what you're talking about - " She took a deep breath to let go of some of the anger that had bubbled within her, but the pride she had made it impossible to be done completely and an eyebrow continued to throb in annoyance over this unexpected turn of events. " - but it is within my duty and my nature to give you the benefit of the doubt. So if you will behave honorably and hold your actions, I will look into the matter...." With that she leaned forward and swung the sword up by its handle so that her pinkened lips could kiss the flat of the blade.<em>"Defend against all ill will..."</em>she whispered, causing the sword to hover out defensively in front of her.<br/><br/>Caressa closed her eyes and used her now free hands to make a grand, fluid motion in the air; at the end of which she pulled out a long piece of parchment which curled slightly at the end, implying it had been a rolled scroll. She then opened her eyes again, disrupting the serene look that had overtaken her face with another twinge of annoyance as she shot another look back at the demoness. Somehow Mike's being in the room was all but forgotten to her - Carri was quite single-minded at times and found that "dealing with" the demon was the first task to be accomplished now.... the human could wait... the wish was easy enough.<br/><br/>The Goddess's crystal sword continued to hover out, turning ever so slightly to match opposite any positioning that the demon girl took, showing it would repel any attacks she would launch Cari's way. Meanwhile, the "blondie" finished reading the scroll, eyes wide. It had been such a very long time since she'd kept up with this aspect of the work the divine took on. Of course, there was a certain amount of justice to the thought of free will with allowing a human to choose between his wish-granters and whether to keep one's soul but.... ugh! Something about having to compete with someone from the other side was very demeaning. But Cari's ego would never allow her to live it down if she turned away from an assignment like this. No.. Not only was she going to complete this mission, but she was going to<em>win</em>. Her pride would have it no other way.<br/><br/>"Oh....<em>really?</em>" She voiced, half questioning, half an expression of utter exasperation. She darted her dark eyes quickly up to meet the pink one's of the demon. "Well... the how would you like to proceed from here?" She put away her weapon now, happy to know that there was a plan of action involved. While demons didn't ever seem to love rules, when they were bound to them she could be quite certain that they would abide.