Aka Amy

"I guess the part that keeps tripping me up is how do I even start approaching people, once I figure out who my new people are?" Siggy admitted.

"Don't you think that's getting ahead of yourself?" I asked as I gently ran my fingers through the soft fur on their tummy. "Odds are 'how' is going to depend on 'who'. So there's no point stressing about how to reach out to them until we know who it is you want to be reaching out to."

The small torty sounded like they were pouting again as they sighed, "I guess. But maybe that'll play a part in who my people are? Like maybe my people are going to be the ones that are easier for me to contact, easier to relate to?"

"That makes a lot of sense," I agreed. "But I think that's still part of identifying who they are."

The small godby sighed again, "That's assuming anyone will be happy with a goddess who's more comfortable looking like a tiny housecat than a person."

I rolled my eyes, "We've already had this discussion Siggy, and I'm positive there are. You just need to find them. Anyways wasn't there an Egyptian goddess who did that already?"

"There's a couple," they replied in another pouty tone. "Bastet is the more popular one, she's often depicted as a black housecat. The other one is Sekhmet, she was a cat too sometimes. She was more associated with big cats I think? Like a lioness if I remember right. But she could be a housecat too when she wanted."

I smiled, "That's interesting, I don't think I knew about Sekhmet. Anyways back to the topic of you and finding you some worshippers, maybe the first question we need to ask is do you even want that? Do you need that? Or would you be content just being a cat and not worrying about the god stuff?"

Siggy was quiet for a few moments while I continued gently rubbing and petting their soft furry belly. It was late Monday morning and the two of us were on the sofa in our living-room, I was relaxing with a mug of coffee in my left hand while the little tortoiseshell cat lay on their back cuddled up against my right thigh. Tess was at work again like usual, so the cat and I had the apartment to ourselves.

Eventually they responded, "I get the feeling Amethyst that you don't know how some of this works? Obviously I don't know your whole story yet, but I do know you're new to the business of being a goddess."

I grimaced but didn't respond either way. Instead I just had another deep sip of my coffee before it got cold.

They began, "First off, belief faith and worship are all similar but slightly different. Belief is when mortal humans know our names and believe we exist. Faith is self-explanitory and it's a little stronger than belief. And worship is when mortals are actively performing our rites, it's the strongest of the three."

"At a minimum we gods need the belief of at least one mortal," they stated in a quiet sombre tone. "That is enough to sustain us, but like I said it is the bare minimum. And I suppose I am cheating in a way, since your girlfriend counts. She knows my name, she knows who and what I am, and therefore believes in me."

"Ok Siggy," I replied with a slight frown. "Does that mean without Tess you'd die? Or fade away or something?"

The small cat shook their head, "Not immediately. Without any belief whatsoever a god must rely on whatever stored power they have. Um, think of a laptop computer as an analogy? When it's plugged in to the mains it can run indefinitely and keep the battery charged. But when you unplug it, then it draws from its battery."

"How long it can run on that battery will depend what you do with it," they continued. "Turn the screen brightness down and don't tax the processor too much, it will last a few hours. Crank up the brightness and stream high-definition movies while doing some other high-demand tasks and it will drain much faster. Or you can keep some battery power in reserve for much longer if you turn it off completely, then save what little remains for when it's truly needed."

Hearing that reminded me of Amethyst going dormant for over a century, until Mary Cleary woke her up. I asked, "So without any worshippers at all, you'll either burn out or you have to go dormant until someone finally starts praying to you again?"

"Correct," they responded. "And if a god goes dormant because they have no worshippers, there is a strong chance they will never wake again. No worshippers means no-one to pass on the knowledge, nobody to remember their name or who they are. It's either that or fade away completely though, so some gods take the chance."

"There are some other possible outcomes but for now we can ignore those," they added.

I sighed, "All right. So all it takes is one single mortal to keep you functioning, and you've got that from Tess. Do you need more?"

Siggy explained, "Obviously the more belief, faith, and worship you have coming into you, the stronger you are. And the deeper your reserve of power becomes, should the unthinkable happen and all worship is suddenly lost. You can coast longer and do more to find more mortals so you can start over."

"More followers also raises your standing among others of our kind," they added. "Fights between gods are very rare nowadays, but should two of us come to blows the one with substantially more faithful is almost certainly going to win. That is such a given that simply having enough followers is a good way to avoid any conflict in the first place? Weaker gods wouldn't bother challenging stronger gods, unless they had some other advantage they were very confident would help them."

That made me think of how Raven was always telling me not to let on how new and inexperienced I was when dealing with other supernaturals. Even though it seemed like every month I had a couple more humans praying to me and sending me their faith, I was still a complete noob when it came to all this goddess stuff, which was probably the kind of disadvantage Siggy was referring to.

"Ok that all makes sense," I finally replied. "So can I ask, how does that power compare? Like obviously ten worshippers is better than one, but how much better? Is it ten times better? Or more? Or less?"

In a way it felt sort of surreal that I was having this conversation about faith, power, and worshippers with a small housecat who's belly I was still rubbing. And even more unreal that the cat was the expert while I was the student. And maybe the most mind-boggling detail was this wasn't even the strangest thing I'd experienced in the past year or so.

Meanwhile Siggy sort of shrugged, "It's not a linear comparison. Maybe logarithmic is the word I'm looking for?"

"Actually let's just arbitrarily come up with some categories," they decided after thinking about it for a moment.

"So a god with zero faithful is at the absolute bottom," the cat stated. "One to ten followers would be the first category. Then eleven to a hundred is the second level. A hundred to a thousand is the third. From there to ten thousand the fourth. And ten thousand to a hundred thousand is the fifth. A hundred thousand to a million is the big leagues, and anything over a million worshippers is unimaginably strong."

Siggy paused there and added, "Gods with worshippers in the tens of thousands rarely visit Earth in person, and when they do it would only be briefly before they retreated to the heavens again. And those with hundreds of thousand or more cannot exist here. At those levels they have too much power, their presence on Earth would cause too much disruption and perhaps even devestation. They rely on multitudes of angels to interact with the mortal realm on their behalf."

"Anyways back to the categories," they continued, "Within a given grouping gods are mostly on an even footing? A god with nine worshippers is usually stronger than a god with just one or two, but the strength of faith varies from mortal to mortal so there's some leeway. A wily or lucky god with one or two devout worshippers could beat a naive or careless god who has nine or ten believers. But a god with fifty faithful is so much more powerful than a god with ten, that there's no comparison at all."

I nodded slowly, "So I'm assuming your friends are all in that first category? One or two worshippers maybe, or just one or two mortals who even know their names?"

The cat agreed, "Correct. As far as I know, none of them has more than a single mortal sustaining them."

"That doesn't mean it's safe for you to reveal your inexperience to them," they added. "You never know when someone might be holding something back, or perhaps they're friends with another god who's even stronger."

I nodded slowly, but my thoughts had already moved on to another goddess I knew.

May Hawthorne sort of indicated she was down to just a small handful of worshippers, but she also told me she'd been recruiting high school students for decades. Even if she was no longer in direct contact with any of her alumni they'd still know her name, they'd still remember her. They might even still use the magic she taught them. Even if they didn't know she was a goddess I figured that might count for something. So in addition to the handful she mentioned, she might have a few dozen more still feeding her power. Or who at least believed in her.

I finally turned my attention back to the small cat cuddled up against my leg, "Ok Siggy, thank you for explaining all that. And sorry we got off-topic. So back to the real matter at hand, I take it you want more worshippers for the security their faith would provide?"

"Yes," they nodded. "But that brings us back to all the other stuff I'm worried about? Who would want to worship me? How do I find them? How do I approach them?"

I hesitated a moment, "Ok I think we've come full circle, back to where we began this whole conversation. Without actually answering or resolving anything."

"I know," they pouted. "That's why it's so frustrating and complicated."

After a second or two I asked, "Siggy? I know Tess said she wasn't ready to take on more supernatural clients, but how would you feel about speaking to her about some of this stuff? As a friend, rather than professionally I mean?"

"The reason I'm suggesting that is I feel like there's some areas where maybe she could help you?" I added. "Like in terms of self-confidence, and maybe even getting to know yourself a bit better."

This time it was the cat who was quiet for a few seconds. And unfortunately before they could say anything my phone started to ring.

"Sorry Siggy," I sighed as I got up to grab it. After a glance at the call display I grimaced, "I should probably answer this. Just a minute, ok?"

Then I swiped the screen and spoke into the phone, "Hi dad. What's up, is everything ok?"

"Hello Amy," my dad responded. "I'm sorry for dropping in on you like this, but I happened to be in the area. I was wondering if you weren't busy today, maybe I could treat you to lunch? Theresa too of course, if she's available."

"I'm downstairs in the lobby," he added.

Suddenly my mind was racing as I glanced at the time. It was only just past eleven, so way too early for lunch. And I didn't really buy the 'in the area' thing. It felt like maybe dad took the day off work and came out here specifically to meet with me. Which on the one hand I was a little annoyed he wouldn't call first and try to make arrangements, but on the other hand he wasn't demanding or expecting I make time for him. He was obviously hoping I would, but from his tone I got the feeling if I said I was busy he wouldn't argue.

I finally replied, "Um ok dad. It's early though, and I'm not ready to go out yet anyways. Let me buzz you up, then I guess we can figure stuff out once you're here."

"Thank you Amy," he sounded relieved, like he obviously knew there was a good chance I'd refuse.

"See you in a few minutes," I told him. Then I buzzed him through as I made my way to the bedroom.

I hadn't bothered to dress yet so I'd been lounging around in a nightshirt, but now I was scrambling to get into panties and a bra, followed by leggings and a top. As I hurriedly dressed I called back to the living-room, "Sorry Siggy! We'll have to continue this later. My dad's on his way up here to see me. You're welcome to stay, but if you do please remember my dad's human and talking cats are not part of his worldview."

The torty sighed, "All right Amethyst. How do you even have human parents anyways? That's not normal for gods and goddesses."

"And you know you could just use magic to dress yourself," they added as I dashed into the bathroom to quickly brush my hair and put on some lipstick. "No need for all that running around."

I grimaced, "Maybe we'll talk about that later too. For now it's a secret."

That's all the time we had, just as I emerged from the washroom my dad knocked at the apartment door. I headed over and opened it up and motioned him to come inside.

"Hi dad," I said as he stepped past me. "This was an unexpected surprise. Can I get you something to drink? There's coffee ready, it's still reasonably fresh too."

He was dressed in his usual work style, which was definitely on the casual side of business-casual. He had some dark pants, a short-sleeve button-down shirt, and black sneakers on his feet.

He greeted me with a smile, "Hello Amy. It's good to see you again, you're looking well. And coffee would be great, thank you."

I gestured towards the living-room, "I'll get the coffee. Have a seat, make yourself comfortable."

Rather than sitting down my dad followed me into the kitchen area. Since he was there next to me as I prepared his coffee I asked, "So what brings you out this way? Was there something you wanted to talk to me about?"

He smiled awkwardly, "I haven't seen you since easter, I missed you. And like I said, I was in the area so I thought I'd drop by and see if maybe we could have lunch together."

"Thanks," he added as I handed him his coffee.

Then the two of us went back to the living-room, where I sat back down in my usual spot at the end of the sofa. Siggy was on the middle cushion, they'd shifted to sit upright but were now in a loaf with their paws all tucked underneath them and their tail wrapped around.

Dad hesitated as he sat down at the opposite end of the sofa. "Oh right, Hailey said something about you getting a cat. How long have you and Tess had it? And what's its name?"

"Their name is Siggy," I replied with a little grimace. "They're nonbinary and use they-them pronouns, like Alex? And they've only been here about a month I suppose. Four weeks? Not long anyways."

"I see," dad replied. Then after a sip of his coffee he asked, "What inspired the two of you to get a cat?"

I glanced at Siggy as I half expected them to speak up at some point. For now they stayed quiet, instead of talking they seemed content to just sit there looking cute. So I shrugged, "They just turned up outside our door one evening? We confirmed they didn't belong to anyone else in the building, and I suppose we decided to keep them."

From his expression I could tell my dad was probably wondering how a cat got into our building and up to our floor without anyone else noticing. He might have also been questioning how Tess and I verified that the cat didn't belong to anyone else, or maybe he was wondering how I knew they were nonbinary. It probably also crossed his mind to ask if our building even allowed pets.

In the end though he seemed to dismiss all of that as unimportant, or none of his business.

A serious expression settled on his face as he sighed, "Amy I'm sorry for how things turned out back at Easter. And I'm sorry it's taken me this long to reach out to you again."

"It's ok dad," I replied with a slight grimace. "I wasn't exactly subtle with how I handled things that day either."

He shook his head slowly, "You weren't, but I don't blame you for that. Everything you said was true, and your mother and I both needed to hear it."

"I've tried to talk with your mom a few more times about some of those things you brought up," he continued. "And I've had a few conversations with Hailey as well."

I frowned, "So how's it gone with mom? Something tells me she hasn't been very receptive to those discussions."

"Not really," he replied with another sigh. "And incase you're wondering, she doesn't know that I decided to drop in on you today. I suppose what I'm trying to say is I want to try and patch things up with my youngest daughter, whether or not my wife is ready for that herself."

Considering this was only the third time I'd seen my dad in person since coming out, it definitely gave me some happy feelings hearing him refer to me as his daughter. On the other hand that last thing he said gave me something else to worry about.

I frowned, "Dad? How are things lately between you and mom?"

He grimaced, "It's been better. Anyways I'd rather be focusing on getting to know you again Amy. And your girlfriend, if you think she'd like to join us for lunch?"

"Ok dad," I nodded as I reached for my phone. "I'll text her and see if she'd like to meet us somewhere for lunch."