ALL NOVEL 37. Angel Envy (Tess)
I silently enjoyed another forkful of my eggs benedict. Amy was just as quiet as she sat across from me slowly eating her french toast. Since we were both up a lot earlier than we'd planned, the two of us decided to go out for breakfast.
We were early enough that the restaurant wasn't busy, and the two of us got a nice cosy booth so we had a little more privacy to talk. Except we weren't talking much as we enjoyed our meals. It seemed instead the two of us were both lost in thought, which wasn't a big surprise considering everything that happened this morning.
It was a lot to take in, but in some ways it shouldn't have been a surprise. If the Goddess Amethyst could disguise herself as a mortal and walk among the humans, it stood to reason other Gods could do that too. And obviously she wasn't unique. Still, it was a bit of a shock to realize there were other Gods around. And apparently at least one of them had noticed her.
Finding out angels were real and also hanging out on Earth was another surprise. And for me at least, it was an even bigger surprise finding out my girlfriend had one. I had a lot of mixed feelings I needed to unpack and sort out about that, and I found myself thinking about Ravenna and some of the things she said.
I had another bite of my breakfast as I contemplated both our unexpected guests this morning. For some reason Ravenna bothered me more than Mike did, and I was trying to figure out why. I tried to compare her visit to Mike's, what the two of them said, how they acted.
Apart from how he was dressed this morning, Mike looked and acted more or less like I remembered from our brief meeting last summer. He was like any twenty-something young guy. Ravenna on the other hand looked like an angel of death when she showed up, but she quickly turned into a barista I'd seen a dozen times before. She wasn't threatening as the barista, in fact I thought she was kind of cute even if the emo goth look wasn't really my style.
Ravenna didn't say or do anything threatening either, though some of the news she delivered left me uneasy. Especially the part about there being some dangerous Gods around.
I decided it was probably the way she acted towards my girlfriend that bothered me. Like constantly addressing Amy as 'my Goddess' and acting so obedient and subservient. She even flat-out told me she'd do anything Amy said without hesitation, that she existed to serve my girlfriend.
Another thought crossed my mind and I suddenly felt my cheeks warming. It occurred to me that I might be a little jealous of the angel, which felt silly considering I only met her this morning and barely knew her. Except she obviously had a long-standing relationship with Amethyst, and that meant she had a relationship with my girlfriend. And she had magic, she could teleport around the world. She even changed her appearance in an instant. And she did it because Amy told her to.
That obedience thing definitely made me a little uncomfortable, and it was probably part of what made me feel wary of her or threatened by her. She was an attractive woman who had magic and was apparently immortal. And she'd appear whenever my girlfriend summoned her, then do anything Amy asked or wanted.
After a few moments I decided I should probably read up on angels. Apart from the sort of thing you got from pop-culture, I didn't actually know anything about them. I figured there had to be more information out there somewhere.
"Tess?" Amy asked, and her voice startled me out of my thoughts. "What's on your mind?"
I grimaced, "Probably the same thing as you? Thinking about Mike's visit and all the implications of that, and about Ravenna's visit and all those implications too."
Amy nodded slowly, "It's definitely a lot. Though some of it was good news, in a way. Before you got up some of the stuff Mike mentioned set my mind at ease about a few things."
"Oh?" I asked. "What did I miss?"
She filled me in on the first part of his visit, especially the stuff he told her about back when they were still roommates. She kept her voice down for the sensitive parts, then finished off saying "So last summer we were worried that the magic somehow affected Mike, to make him accept my instant transition? It wasn't that at all. He thought I was an angel like him, and that I'd been locked into a masc mortal body by my boss as some punishment or something. And when I suddenly turned into this, he figured it was because my punishment was over and I was released. Like he knew it was magic, that's why he wasn't freaked out."
She added, "And as soon as that happened I quit my retail job and started spending most of my time with you, which Mike assumed was me going back to my old job as an angel. Same with moving out of his apartment, he just assumed it was me going back to work for some goddess somewhere. That's why he took everything last summer so calm and casual, because to him it was all just normal angel stuff."
"Ok," I nodded slowly. "You're right, that is a relief. It's also a bit weird I guess, thinking about angels just hanging out on Earth pretending to be humans..."
Amy nodded in agreement, "Yeah, and apparently they hang out with each other. Those guys Mike hung out with that I never liked? According to Mike they're both angels too, but working for other gods. And even Raven said that she knows others like her, that she talks and trades stories with them."
She must have seen something in my expression, before I could comment on that she followed up with a question.
"You don't like Raven, do you?" Amy asked. "Was it because she was ignoring you at first? She wasn't trying to be rude or disrespectful or anything like that. It's because her visit was sort of 'official', since I summoned her? That meant she was really only paying attention to me, until I told her to talk to you as well."
"It wasn't that, no." I felt my cheeks warming again, and I decided to try and change the subject slightly. "You were calling her Ravenna this morning, now you're calling her Raven. Why the change?"
My question put a slight blush on Amy's cheeks and she answered quietly, "All I have to do to summon her is speak her full name. Wherever she is, on Earth or in the heavens, she'll hear my voice and appear before me. So if I don't want her popping in on us I have to use the alias."
"Ah," I nodded. "Do you think you'll be doing that a lot, now that you know about her? Summoning her, I mean?"
She looked thoughtful as she munched on a piece of bacon. After a minute or so she finally responded, "I don't think I'll be doing it on a regular basis, but I'm sure there'll be occasions when I call her. Despite the attitude and appearance she's smart, she's strong, she's been around a long time, and she's absolutely trustworthy."
After a moment she gave me a wry look and asked, "Why? Do you think I should summon her more often? I could probably even get her to become neighbours, if we can find an empty apartment nearby. Then she could hang out with us. We could have even invited her to breakfast this morning."
"No," I said, perhaps a little too quickly and too forcefully. I quickly added, "I just mean, moving's a hassle and if she's comfortable where she is, it would be cruel to force her to move. As for summoning her... What would you do with her? I mean, do you really want to hang out with her?"
Amy watched me as she ate a forkful of her french toast. She still had a little smile on her face, and I started to worry she realized I might be jealous.
She finally responded, "I was just kidding Tess. I barely know her, and the goddess certainly didn't hang out with her. On the other hand, I have to admit I'm feeling a bit guilty that Raven's been ignored for so long. Nothing to do since the eighteen-forties, then Amethyst forgot about her along with everything else back in the sixties. And I didn't even remember she existed till you asked if I had any angels."
That was another thing I still had trouble grasping sometimes. Amy told me what it was like for her, how those other memories worked for her. It wasn't like her own memories, it wasn't part of her life or her own internal narrative. The knowledge and memories were there, but she sort of had to deliberately access them.
The memories that were magically thrust into my girlfriend's head last summer were mostly the ones from Amy Sullivan's life. That included just enough about the Goddess Amethyst from the start of Ms. Sullivan's existence to allow my Amy to make the connection. Thanks to that, Amy could access her divine magic and the memories of being Amethyst the Goddess. But those divine memories weren't part of her day-to-day conscious thoughts. It was more like having an encyclopaedia. There was loads of information available, but she had to know what she was looking for to find it.
So up till this morning she didn't know Ravenna existed, but after I asked if she had any angels she found the memories and knowledge. Now she probably knew all about her cute goth angel, she probably remembered centuries or even millennia of interactions with the attractive obedient brunette.
I felt my cheeks going pink again and mentally kicked myself. I was definitely jealous of that stupid angel. Fortunately Amy didn't seem to notice my blush, she looked like she'd gotten lost in her own thoughts again too.
We both finished the last of our breakfast in silence, then Amy took care of the bill. We got back into the car to head home again, then as we pulled out from the restaurant she commented "You know tonight's the full moon? Or it peaks tomorrow afternoon but tonight's when we're celebrating it. All this angel and god stuff has been a massive distraction, but we had some other important topics planned for tonight."
I took a deep breath then let out an equally deep sigh. "Yeah, I almost forgot. I've been thinking about that stuff off and on since the last full moon?"
The idea of becoming a priestess or cleric for Amy probably felt as strange to me as it did to her. I loved her as a girlfriend, I wasn't sure if trying to worship her as a Goddess would be different. Or worse, if it would change the relationship we already had.
And the thought of having to act anything like Ravenna did this morning was foreign to me on so many levels. I really wasn't a submissive sort of person, I couldn't see myself just blindly obeying Amy or anyone else. It was even harder to imagine because that tended to be Amy's thing, in bed at least. She was such a cute bottom, I really couldn't picture her being dominant or in charge regardless of her divine heritage.
"Have you made any decisions?" Amy asked as we pulled into our apartment's underground parking. "Like if you're going to stick with the traditional training, or if you want to take the other option?"
I sighed as the two of us emerged from the car, then while we made our way to the elevator I replied "I'm still thinking it over. I guess I have more questions. Stuff we can talk about tonight, I suppose."
What I wasn't saying, at least not yet, was this morning's revelations were probably going to affect my judgement and my decision. And I hated to admit it but I was self-aware enough to recognize that if I was feeling jealous about Ravenna that would probably play a part in which option I decided to take.
I was already leaning towards the short-cut, it was too appealing and the other stuff was just too much hard work with the possible payout too far in the future. It was probably going to come down to the fine-print. Like the whole worship thing, maybe we could sort of fake that. Or do it like role-play.
It was only half past ten when we got back into the apartment, so we basically had the whole day ahead of us. If not for Mike we'd actually still be in bed.
I dropped my purse on the coffee table and asked Amy, "Any ideas what we should do with ourselves for the day? Since our original plans all went out the window."
Amy looked thoughtful for a few moments, then smiled. "I think I'm going back to bed. Feels like a lazy day today, so maybe I'll just read or something. Unless there was anything else you could think of doing? In bed or elsewhere?"
"It's a good plan," I replied with a grin, and the two of us headed back into the bedroom.
