Aka Amy

"Hello love," Amy greeted me as soon as I stepped in through the apartment door. "How was your day?"

As soon as the door was closed behind me I started shedding my work clothes on my way to our bedroom. I called back before disappearing in there to change, "Work was work. How was school?"

My girlfriend responded, "Still kind of boring to be honest? I get the feeling this whole week is going to be refresher material, on the assumption that everyone forgot all of last year over the summer break."

"What do you feel like for dinner?" she added. "I think we have enough ingredients for pasta again? Or if you're tired of that I could do something with rice? Stir-fry maybe?"

I emerged from the bedroom in some comfy old track pants and a loose t-shirt, then headed over to the kitchen to get a glass of wine. I didn't see one near Amy so I poured her a glass too, before joining her on the sofa.

"Sorry Siggy," I said as I shooed the little cat out of the way. "It's my turn to cuddle with my girlfriend."

The torty's tail twitched a few times as they jumped up from the cushion next to Amy and onto the back of the sofa. I handed my girlfriend one of the glasses as I got comfortable next to her, then finally replied "I don't really feel like pasta or stir-fry right now?"

"We don't have a lot of other options," she pointed out. "I could probably make you a sandwich? Or there's canned soup in the pantry, I think."

After a sip of wine I shook my head, "If you don't mind Amy I wanted to talk with you about something important right now? We can worry about dinner later."

"Of course love. What did you want to discuss?" she asked.

I slipped an arm around her waist as I pulled her a little closer so we were cuddling, then replied "It's about that offer you made me on Sunday. I've been thinking about it a lot since then, and I have some more questions?"

She nodded, "Of course love. What did you want to know?"

"My first question is, would I still be human?" I asked quietly. "Or would I become something else? Like an angel or half-angel or something like that?"

Amy had some of her wine then shook her head, "You wouldn't become part angel, or anything else. I suppose you wouldn't exactly be human anymore either? At least not entirely. It's hard to describe, and to be honest I'm not sure we have a word for it."

A thoughtful frown settled on her face for a couple seconds, before she seemed to come up with something. "Actually, the closest thing I can think of would be like a Hero?"

"Seriously?" I raised an eyebrow. "Would I have super strength or super speed or some other 'heroic' abilities too?"

My girlfriend smiled and shook her head, "I mean Hero in the classical sense, not like a modern superhero. You wouldn't age, you wouldn't get sick, you'd be really hard to kill or even injure, you'd be nigh-immortal. If you wanted, I could probably make sure you had some supernatural strength though? Or maybe we could something to boost your magic? Like so it's easier for you to learn and use magic?"

That made me grin, "Ok I like that idea. Enhanced magic would be really good."

Amy hesitated, "Does that mean you've decided to take the offer?"

"Not quite yet," I sighed. Then after another sip of wine I told her, "I have more questions. I'm definitely considering it, maybe even leaning towards taking it? But I need to get a few more things sorted out in my head first."

"Of course love. Ask away," she responded.

I already had my next question in mind, "How will you and I handle things long-term? Like work, for instance? You're going to start work as an EMT next summer, but how will you handle people questioning or doubting your age or skills in a few years when you still look like a college student? And same thing for me, maybe I want to open my own clinic eventually? But if I still look like a college grad nobody's going to believe that I have the experience or the skills."

"Or even just moving on from Bev's clinic could be difficult," I added. "People will look at my credentials and see when I graduated or when I got licensed, then they'll look at me and think I forged or stole the documents since I'll look too young."

Amy frowned as she had some more of her wine, then finally shook her head as she admitted "I'm not going to work as an EMT, Tess. Not next summer, not ever. The truth is I only took those classes so I could go to college with you?"

"Don't get me wrong," she added, "I'm enjoying the course. That's why I'm there for year two, even though you've already graduated. My plan is to stick it out until I graduate, but I'm never going to get a normal human job. I'll be focusing on my faithful, helping existing followers and maybe looking for ways to attract more."

I thought about that for a couple seconds then nodded, "Ok Amy. I suppose I'm not actually that surprised? And it makes sense, I doubt any other gods out there would be working for a living either."

She reminded me, "May Hawthorne was a high school English teacher. She's actually back at it again now. Although to be fair she uses the teaching job as a way to find new worshippers."

"Right," I nodded slowly. "That doesn't really answer my question though, at least in terms of my own career? I still want to help people work through their problems, and I still want to help young trans and queer people. So how am I going to manage that in ten or twenty years, if I look like a college grad when I'm in my thirties or forties?"

My girlfriend had another sip of wine, then she sighed and shrugged slightly. "I don't know yet Tess? There's loads of options though, ok? Like one example is maybe you could use an illusion or glamour so you appear older when you're dealing with humans? The bottom line is we have five to ten years to figure something out, and access to plenty of magic."

"What if I'm not dealing with humans?" I asked tentatively. "I know I said I wasn't sure about taking on more supernatural clients just yet, but what if I actually started to specialize in working with the supernatural?"

"I'd still like to keep helping young queer humans though," I added.

Amy smiled, "Specializing in supernatural clients could be a good option. Maybe you could convince Emma to join you? Since she's already familiar with the supernatural."

I grimaced, "I'll keep that in mind for down the road. Considering she had some very bad experiences I'm not sure she'd be comfortable dealing exclusively with non-human patients."

"Of course," my girlfriend nodded.

After some more wine I pointed out, "Anyways I really shouldn't be talking about quitting Bev's clinic already. And I definitely shouldn't be thinking about poaching her other staff. Like you said, this is five to ten years down the road. I guess I just needed to know there were options."

Amy nodded again, "There's definitely options love. Was that it, or do you have more questions?"

"Those were the main ones," I replied. "I'm sure I'll come up with others."

She responded, "If anything else does come up, don't hesitate to ask. In the meantime there's a couple things I wanted to discuss as well, since we're on the subject?"

"Let's top up our drinks first," I smiled.

She grinned as both our glasses filled with swirling gold light, which faded to reveal more chilled white wine.

As soon as that was done she began, "So first thing, I know it's only been a few months but I already regret giving you the title of 'cleric'. It was mostly based on my games and even if it's not inaccurate I don't really like it that much anymore. I'd like to call you my 'high priestess' instead, if that's alright with you?"

"I don't want to just go with 'priestess' because there may be others in the future," she added. "So I want to differentiate right from the start, that you're the primary one."

I frowned slightly as I had a sip of my wine and thought through what she just said. I couldn't help wondering if this was due to her regaining her past memories as Amethyst, that maybe it had subtly changed her after all. Although to be fair she wasn't really acting so differently. Maybe she was a little more serious about some topics, but over-all I hadn't noticed any significant changes in her.

"All right cutie," I finally nodded. "That's fine with me. Priestess, high priestess, cleric, it doesn't make a huge difference to me? It's not like I'm going to have that printed on my business cards or posted on my web profile."

She smiled, "I suppose not."

Her smile faded a few seconds later as she moved on, "Back on the subject of plans, I'm still hoping to work more with Kid Chaos. Or Cass, I'm not actually sure what name she prefers? Anyways I know there's something she's working on as well, along with her enchanted plushies."

I frowned as that raised some questions and potential conflicts of interest for me. I had a gulp of wine as I thought things over, then finally decided to speak up.

"There's some things I need to tell you about Cassandra," I stated quietly. "But if it ever got out that I told you any of this stuff I'd lose my licence for sure."

Amy asked, "Are you sure you want to tell me then? Maybe it's best if you keep it to yourself."

I shook my head, "I'm making a judgement call. I'm a high priestess sharing information with her goddess, not a junior therapist gossiping with her girlfriend."

"All right Tess," she accepted that distinction.

I kept my voice down anyways as I told her, "The main thing is you and Cassandra actually have a lot in common? Up until about two years ago she believed she was an average human boy. Then she had a brush with the supernatural which led to an unexpected instant magical transition."

My girlfriend's eyebrows shot up as she asked, "Seriously?"

"Seriously," I nodded. "In her case it took several more months before she figured out she wasn't human, but apart from that it's a pretty big coincidence."

A thoughtful expression settled on her face as she commented, "That explains why she's focused on helping trans people. I don't exactly approve of her methods, making people into demi-humans, but I suppose that's her chaos side coming through."

Then she looked at me again and frowned, "While I appreciate the information, you should know better than to out a trans person without their permission. "

"I know," I grimaced. "It seemed important though, and like you said it explains some of what she's doing."

Amy nodded slowly, "All right Tess. Is there anything else you think I should know about her?"

I briefly considered telling her about Cassandra being plural, but quickly decided against sharing that. It wasn't relevant, and it seemed like Amethyst was only dealing with Cassandra anyways so she wouldn't really know about Cass.

"Not really," I finally responded. "I didn't even know she was a goddess until she showed up at the pub Saturday night. All I knew was she was some kind of supernatural, but she kept the details to herself."

My girlfriend nodded slowly, "That makes sense. She was referred to you by Raven, right? So she's the daughter of Raven's fallen angel friend..."

Her voice trailed off as she frowned, "Except I'm positive Raven would have said something about her being a goddess. There's no way she wouldn't have known that. Unless Cassandra hadn't ascended last time Raven met her? Which was a little over a year ago, I think."

I shrugged, "I don't know any of those details cutie. Sorry."

"It's fine," she smiled. "I'm curious, but it's not that important. Maybe I'll ask Cassandra next time, if she wants to talk about it? I'm sure May Hawthorne's daughter is involved somehow too. Apparently she's back from exile and she's friends with Kid Chaos."

"I wonder if May's daughter is part of Cass and Kaylee's magic club," I commented.

Amy smiled, "Something else to ask about. Or who knows, maybe we'll meet her? I'm honestly curious to get to know the rest of their club. And maybe they'd like to know us too?"

"What do you think Siggy?" she added as she turned to look at the cat who was laying behind us on the back of the sofa. "Would you be up for meeting some new people?"

I smiled as I chimed in, "I know Cass loves cute cuddly critters. She even does volunteer work at an animal shelter."

The little torty's tail twitched as they seemed to think it over. They finally responded, "Maybe you can have them visit here next time? Then after I've had a chance to watch them I can decide if I want to reveal myself or not."

"Won't Cassandra be able to sense you?" Amy asked. "She'll know there's another goddess around."

Siggy explained, "If she's that young then she probably won't recognize there's two of us. She'll sense us both but she'll assume it's just you here."

"All right Siggy I'll keep that in mind," Amy replied. Then after a sip of wine she focused on me again and asked, "Did we cover all your questions? Or was there anything else you wanted to know about that offer?"

I frowned slightly and thought it over as I had some more of my drink. After a few seconds I shook my head, "That's all I can think of for now."

Amy asked, "I'm definitely not trying to pressure you or anything love, but I'm curious if you're any closer to making a decision?"

"Yeah," I replied slowly. "I think I'm just about ready to take you up on it? I don't know what's involved, but maybe we can do it this Friday evening? As part of or in addition to our regular full moon ritual."

My girlfriend smiled, "All right Tess. Doing it alongside our full moon activities sounds perfect."

"I might have more questions by then," I warned her. "But other than that, let's plan on doing it Friday."

She nodded, "Understood. And that just leaves us with one more topic we need to address right now. And it's probably one of the more difficult questions we need to cover."

"What's that?" I frowned.

Amy grinned, "What do you want for dinner?"