"Ravenna," I said under my breath, "I need you here right now."

My angel did not let me down, not that I ever thought she would. She appeared before me a second later, but rather than bow like usual her eyes widened and she turned to look at the front door of the apartment. Just in time too, as the relative silence was broken by a sharp loud knock at the door.

A couple seconds earlier I'd felt that tingly energy sensation that told me another god was nearby, only this time it was different. It was stronger, and somehow I knew there was more than one god out there. I wasn't sure how many, but it may have been up to a half dozen.

And needless to say, I was worried. For one thing the only god I knew for certain knew where I lived was Kai, although I couldn't rule out the possibility of May tracking me down too. Having a handful of unknown gods show up at my doorstep was something I'd never even considered, and it absolutely had me spooked.

At least they showed up on a Friday afternoon while Tess was still at work. I'd have been even more uneasy if my girlfriend was around for whatever was about to happen.

Meanwhile Raven was in her goth coed form, and that was fine with me. I knew there was no chance of other gods being intimidated by her regardless of her appearance, and I preferred talking with her young friendly form anyways.

"What do I do?" I whispered to her, as the gods outside my apartment knocked again.

She responded quietly, "You should probably answer the door. If it's an attack, if they're hostile, then flee. I will do my best to buy you time."

"You can't fight against gods Raven," I stated softly. "If we have to run, we both go together."

To my surprise my angel actually disagreed with me, "You are all that matters my Goddess. I will give my life to buy you time. It's my duty."

A third knock at the door reminded me that we didn't really have time to get into that conversation. I definitely wanted to talk to Raven about it later though. For now I pushed those thoughts aside and moved to answer the door.

I found myself looking at a small group of young people waiting in the hall outside my door. There were five of them, the youngest appeared to be in her teens while the oldest looked about the same age as me and Tess. And I had no doubt whatsoever that every single one of them was a god.

"Are you Amethyst?" asked a young woman with short light brown hair. She was about average height and build, and I'd guess her age as right around twenty. She was dressed in a flower-patterned skirt, a pink blouse, and sandals, and had an attractive face.

A tall slim young man rolled his eyes, "Of course she is. How many gods with silver hair and purple eyes were you expecting to find here?"

He was the younger of the two guys, I'd guess no more than nineteen. His attractive face was clean-shaved, he had hazel eyes, and wore his dark blonde hair in a mullet.

I did my best to act calm and casual as I answered, "Yes, I'm Amethyst. What can I do for you?"

Another woman responded with a question, "Can we come in? We've heard some good things about you recently, and we were hoping we could talk."

She was almost as tall as the guy with the mullet, and was the oldest of the three girls. She looked to be about the same age as me or Tess, and was about the same height as my girlfriend. Her long wavy hair was the same colour as Theresa's too, a bright red tone. Along with her emerald-green eyes, fair skin, and freckles she was pretty clearly of Celtic heritage.

"We're actually hoping you could help us out?" the other guy added, with a broad friendly smile. He was another redhead, although his was short with small messy curls. He also had a beard, and sparkling blue eyes. He looked to be in his early twenties, and while his height was about average for a guy his muscular build gave him a slightly stocky look.

The last of the group was the youngest, and she hadn't spoken at all yet. In fact she looked shy and awkward. She was about the same height as me, and most of her figure was hidden in the oversized black hoodie she wore despite it being the middle of July. Her eyes were focused downwards rather than looking at me, her attention was on some kind of shiny metal fidget toy she was currently playing with. Her golden blonde shoulder-length hair was a bit of a mess, but I could tell she had a cute face and pretty blue eyes. I'd guess her age to be about seventeen.

After looking them all over I ran a hand through my hair then nodded, "Yeah all right. Come on in, make yourselves comfortable. Then we can go through some proper introductions, and we'll go from there."

The five of them filed in past me as I gestured towards the living-room. The young shy girl sat cross-legged at one end of the sofa, while the tall blond guy took the other end. The muscular redhead sat in between the two of them. And the other two girls took the love-seat. That was all our living-room seating, so I dragged over a couple chairs from the dining table and sat myself down in one of them. Raven quietly sat next to me on the other one.

"Ok," I said as I looked around at all my unexpected guests, "So you folks know who I am, how about you tell me who you are? And what it is you want from me."

The tall redheaded woman went first, and her tone suggested she was in a good mood and excited to meet with me. "I'm Moira, I used to watch over a small village in Scotland. Nowadays I mostly hang out around Edinburgh."

"Ida," the brunette beside her went next. She came across a little more serious than Moira as she stated, "Former agrarian goddess from Holland. I still spend time in Amsterdam, but also visit Edinburgh fairly often."

The tall slim young god with the dark-blond mullet was the next to introduce himself, and he seemed fairly relaxed and easy-going. "I'm Lenz, originally from what's now known as Germany, where I was a local springtime god. These days you can usually find me in San Francisco."

The muscular redhead had a wide smile and sounded like he was happy to meet me as he introduced himself, "Name's Fergus, I understand you and I are neighbours? I was a god of vigour and virility to a small village in County Cork, Ireland. I spent the last century in New England, but recently moved back to the old country."

We all turned to look at the last one, but the young blonde remained quiet as she focused on her fidget toy.

After a few seconds Moira spoke up, "Siggy? Want to introduce yourself?"

The shy goddess made a face, then without looking up from her fidget toy she half-mumbled, "Sigrun, from Norway. They/them pronouns. Used to be a local warrior goddess, now retired and staying on Vancouver Island. Please don't call me Siggy."

It was hard to picture the small shy enby as a warrior goddess, but I didn't comment on that. Another thing I didn't mention was how none of them seemed to have any kind of accent, despite coming from all over Europe. Actually I noticed that about May as well, and thinking back neither Kai or Mike had an accent either.

I quickly realized it was probably a god thing, like being able to speak different languages and dialects and accents to match whoever you were talking to. I'd talk to Raven about it afterwards, or maybe try and figure it out myself from Amethyst's memories.

In the meantime all my guests had gone quiet, and they were all looking at me like it was my turn. So I spoke up, "Like I said earlier, I'm Amethyst. Former local agrarian goddess from a small village in Ireland, and now I live here. And I'm still wondering what you're all doing here?"

I would have introduced Raven as well, but I had no doubt they all knew she was my angel. And from what she'd told me, other gods wouldn't really care who she was anyways. They certainly wouldn't expect me to introduce her like she was an equal part of the conversation.

It was Moira who spoke up first again, "Sorry for showing up unannounced Amethyst. We weren't sure how to contact you, we were debating how to handle things then one thing led to another and we all ended up just heading over."

"As you've no doubt guessed," Ida took over, "All five of us are in the same situation you were? We've lost our people, lost our original homes, lost our purpose. We -"

Fergus interrupted, "We're all washed up. Hanging out here on Earth twiddling our thumbs watching the decades tick past because there's nothing else to do with our time. It's either spend our days among the humans, or return to the heavens and sleep. Possibly for eternity."

The brunette cleared her throat and glared slightly at the interruption before continuing, "Apparently my angel talks with yours, she informed me that you've recently reinvented yourself and found new purpose? That got all five of us very interested. We'd like to know how you did it, how you came by the idea, and how you decided what new domain to dedicate yourself to."

Lenz added, "We're also here to invite you to join our little group? Or maybe we can join yours? If we all find new callings that fit in with the modern world, maybe we can all work together right?"

I looked around at them as I asked, "You want to know what I did and how I did it, so you can do the same thing? You want to reinvent yourselves and start finding new worshipers and new purpose?"

"Right," Moira nodded. "It's either that or like Fergus said, just watching time pass while we get less relevant every year."

"And you want me to join your group?" I asked as I looked at Lenz. "What exactly does your group do, or what do you represent?"

Fergus responded, "Right now we're just a social club. Five washed up nobodies who get together to complain about the state of the world and how we've been forgotten."

Ida stated, "I believe Lenz was suggesting the possibility of the six of us forming some sort of new pantheon. A group of gods relevant to the modern world."

Lenz added with a grin, "Yeah that too? But right now it's a convenient group of friendly gods to hook up with, when you're looking for a little more action than you can get from mortal hook-ups. If you know what I mean."

"Hush Lenz," Moira said, but the smirk on her face made it obvious she agreed with him. "We don't want to scare her off."

I looked around at the five of them again, and this time I noticed Moira and Ida were sitting kind of close together, so were Lenz and Fergus. And I recalled Ida saying she spend some of her time in Edinburgh, where Moira was living.

"So you're couples then?" I asked. "It's not a problem and it's not going to scare me off. I assume you already know this, but my new purview is looking after LGBTQ folks. I'm also looking out for demi-humans as well, since many of them are queer and they're just as marginalized."

Lenz grinned, "We're a pair of couples, but the pairings switch around now and then. Like I said, it's nice having a pool of friendly gods we can hook up with. And we're all fairly open about that sort of thing."

Sigrun was still quietly playing with their fidget cube but they stated, "Not me. Not interested, I don't do hook-ups."

"Ok," I frowned. "To be clear, I'm not interested and not available for that kind of thing. I'm already in a relationship. As for the new pantheon thing, I'll have to think about that."

Ida nodded, "Understood. What about our original request? Will you tell us how you came up with a new purpose for yourself, and how you went about changing your domain?"

"And how did you decide what your new domain should be?" Fergus added. "Or is that just a matter of identifying some vulnerable demographic that's being under-served by the mainstream religions?"

Those questions left me quiet for a few moments, as I looked back and forth between Ida and Fergus. May asked some similar questions, and I originally thought it was just her being stubborn or close-minded. Hearing similar sentiments from this group left me wondering if it wasn't just May, but if it was something all gods had in common. And if that was the case, it raised the question of what made me special, why was I so adaptable. And two answers immediately came to mind.

First off, I was trans. I'd already had to reinvent myself, figure out who I was, and change how I identified myself. Both for me, and to the world at large. And I knew that wasn't unique to me, those were the sorts of things all trans people would have to go through, in one way or another. Whether we came out and transitioned or not, we still had to redefine who we were to ourselves.

The second thing was probably a lot more uncommon, that being how the original Amethyst lost herself in a human life, then died only to be reincarnated as me. It would be a whole lot harder to convince other gods to give that a shot, but I figured there might be something to be learned from my experience. If I could share some insight with others so they didn't have to go through the whole death and rebirth thing, that might help. Only I needed to figure out what insights I'd gained from that first, if any.

One last thing struck me, about the questions Fergus asked. And that was something I felt like I could answer immediately.

"Coming up with a new domain isn't like applying for a job," I told him. I glanced around at the others too as I continued, "If you just pick some vulnerable demographic and show up proclaiming yourself their new god that's... It won't work. If your only goal in this is to serve yourselves, if you're only interested in gaining worshipers for your own benefit? Then give it up, you've already failed."

That earned me some surprised and unhappy looks but I pushed ahead, "You have to be doing this for them. I'm not a goddess of LGBTQ folks because I thought they were ripe for salvation or easy pickings. I'm looking to help them because they need help, and because I'm part of that group myself. I'm doing this for their benefit, not for mine. We may be gods, we may be immortal, but you already know we're nothing without them. They can live without us, but we need them to thrive."

"So are you going to help us?" Ida asked. "Or at least answer our questions, about how you did these things, how you figured it out?"

I shook my head, "Not right now. I need some time to think this through, and figure out how best to answer those questions you've all posed. What worked for me might not work for you, so if I do agree to help you I'd rather have something useful prepared? Instead of just telling you my own anecdotal experiences which may or may not be meaningful."

The group of gods actually seemed pleased with my answer. Maybe because I hadn't just told them to get lost, or the fact that I wanted some time to come up with quality helpful answers.

Ida and Moira rose to their feet first. The redhead smiled, "Thanks for your time Amethyst, it was nice to meet you. I hope we'll hear from you again before the decade's out."

"When you're ready to meet again just have your angel pass a message to mine," Ida added. Then she and Moira both vanished in a swirl of light.

Fergus and Lenz stood up as well, and I realized Sigrun was already gone. I wasn't surprised though, that the shy non-binary deity teleported away without a word.

"Take it easy Amethyst," Fergus said with a smile. "If you're ever back in the old country, swing by Cork and look me up."

"See you round," Lenz added, before he and the beefy redhead teleported away together.

I let out a long sigh, then turned and looked at my angel. "So you've been talking with your friends about me I take it? Want to tell me about Ida and her angel? And maybe you can fill me in on the rest of that lot?"

Raven cringed slightly in her chair but nodded, "Yes my Goddess."

PurpleCatGirl

hat tip to FallingToAsh, who provided the idea that led to this chapter ^^

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