Aka Amy

"Thank you cutie," Tess said with a happy smile.

"You're welcome love," I replied as I carried her dishes out to the kitchen.

I returned to the bedroom a minute or so later with a fresh mug of coffee in each hand, and after handing one of them to her I settled back down next to her to continue our lazy morning together.

After a deep sip of her coffee she grimaced slightly, "As much as I enjoy the whole breakfast in bed thing, I feel guilty that you went to all that trouble but didn't make anything for yourself."

"Is that..." she hesitated briefly before asking, "Are you not going to bother eating anymore? Now that you don't need to eat, are you just going to stop?"

I shrugged, "I'm probably not going to eat as often? Last night was nice, and when we're entertaining or going out or if it's a special occasion I'm sure I'll eat. But just day to day, I'm probably not going to bother."

She looked thoughtful as she had another sip of coffee, "Maybe I should try and learn to cook for myself then. It's not fair for me to expect you to cook for me when you're not even going to have any yourself."

"And that might give me a chance to test my new indestructible body?" she added with a wry smile. "If I can't accidentally burn or cut myself, maybe I won't be such a disaster in the kitchen."

I smiled back, "If you like? But I honestly enjoy cooking for you love, so don't feel obligated. And please don't feel guilty about it either, I do it because I love you and I like doing that sort of thing for you."

"Aww, thank you Amy!" Tess responded with a wider smile. "I love you too."

We were both quiet a bit after that, just relaxing as we sat in bed together enjoying each other's company and our coffee. Although I couldn't help wondering how Raven and Siggy were doing, if they got on ok together or if the little torty drove my angel to distraction.

In fact I was just starting to think about checking in on them with a bit of scrying when my girlfriend spoke up again.

"There's something I'm curious about," she began in a slightly tentative tone, "It's something you mentioned last weekend, but I'm not sure if it's ok to ask? I don't want to offend you or upset you or anything. I don't know if it's a delicate subject or not."

"You can always ask love. If it's something I'm not comfortable talking about I'll let you know," I replied.

She thanked me for that, then she was quiet for another couple seconds before asking her question. "You said you've been around for three thousand years, that you became a goddess some time around the ninth century BCE? Does that mean you were originally a mortal? And um, do you remember all that? Like... I guess I'm curious about your life back then, what it was like and what happened to you?"

"I know you said you had stuff you needed to process," she added quickly. "So I understand if this is difficult to talk about. I don't want you to be upset or anything Amy, you don't have to tell me if it's too painful."

I took a deep breath, then let it out as a long quiet sigh. After draining the last of my mug I replied, "Let me get us both some fresh coffee first, ok?"

"Of course," Tess nodded.

In fact we both got up out of bed, she visited the washroom while I took our mugs to the kitchen. And rather than returning to bed we both pulled on some clothes, track pants and a t-shirt for her and a nightshirt for me. Then the two of us settled onto the sofa together. We cuddled and sipped our coffee while I told her my story.

"It was the late bronze age," I began. "In what would eventually be called County Wexford, in Ireland. And it wasn't far from the little hamlet where our relatives still reside today."

I continued, "Nine-fifty BCE is an approximate guess. I'm basing that on dates of things which happened centuries later then working my way backwards by estimating the intervening time. So I might be off by fifty or a hundred years in either direction."

"I get it," Tess nodded. "And whether it's nine hundred or a thousand BCE it's still incredible."

I shrugged slightly, "I suppose. Life back then was very different. It wasn't easy, folks were living off the land and at the whims of nature and the weather. Pretty much everyone farmed back then, we didn't really have dedicated craftsmen. Some folks were better at certain things than others, so we did have some bartering and sharing of skills, but they still all farmed. Even the local wise woman tended her own crops and livestock."

"Was that you?" Theresa asked quietly.

"Not at first," I shook my head. Then I admitted, "Some of my memories of that original life are fuzzy, and others are just gone. I don't remember my parents, I don't know if I had any. I don't even remember what I was called originally."

"My first memories are of being a little girl," I continued, "I was maybe five or six years old. I worked with our local wise woman, like an apprentice I guess? At first it was just menial chores, like pulling weeds from her gardens or gathering eggs from her chickens. Or helping with laundry, I remember a lot of scrubbing and cleaning and stuff like that. Over the years though I learned more and more of her craft."

My girlfriend asked, "Is that the sort of stuff you were trying to teach me back in the winter? You said that's knowledge you shared with my ancestors, but now it sounds like that's stuff maybe my ancestors taught you?"

That made me grimace, "It was a bit of both to be honest?"

"Anyways," I said as I got back to the story, "By the time I was in my teens, maybe fifteen or sixteen years old, the woman training me decided I'd learned all she had to teach me. I remember some sort of ceremony, or maybe it was like a graduation? Or an initiation? I'm not entirely sure anymore."

"Were you a witch?" Tess asked at that point. "Initiation sounds like something witchy."

I shook my head again, "I don't think we used the term back then, but in retrospect my teacher and I may have been bandruí? That's an Irish word for 'druidess'. This was long before xtianity or any other widespread religion reached the area, but I remember we were treated a little like priestesses. Not of any specific gods or goddesses, it was much more about our connection to nature. The seasons, the weather, the plants and animals. When the wind and the trees spoke, we could hear and understand them. That kind of thing?"

My girlfriend nodded slowly, "So you were basically druids, before druids were a thing?"

"I guess," I shrugged.

"So how did you go from being a newly-minted druid girl to a goddess?" she asked. "And how did you end up with a name that's very much not Irish?"

That made me grimace, "I'm getting there."

After a gulp of my coffee I continued, "Once again my memory is foggy, I don't recall what happened to my teacher? She might have moved on, but odds are she probably passed away. At some point she simply wasn't there anymore, and the entire community depended on me. I did my best for them, and not to brag but I was pretty good at it. My skills continued to improve, and I moved beyond what could be accomplished with simple herbs and plants and roots, I became able to perform small miracles. Basically I learned to use magic."

"I was probably around twenty years old at that point?" I added. "So that's after at least fifteen years of apprenticeship and working at it every day for literally my whole life."

I finally set my mug down once it was empty and kept on with the story, "Nowadays even archaeologists are sometimes surprised when they find evidence of widespread trade back then. And obviously we didn't have container ships or overnight couriers, it's not like we could go to the mall and pick up some fancy imports whenever we wanted? But there were those who travelled, who brought exotic foreign goods and stories and ideas to our little community. Maybe only once a year, but it happened."

"I honestly don't know if the traders themselves ever saw the far-off lands where some of those things came from," I continued. "It's entirely possible the travellers who came through our community never left Irish soil. But they brought with them tales of far-off lands, along with exotic goods we'd never otherwise see."

"Such a voyager visited us when I was in my twenties." I told her. "As usual I was curious to see if he had any exotic medicinal plants or herbs to trade. Instead he showed me something different and unexpected. It was a crystal or gemstone he claimed had some mystical traits. The crystal was a deep violet purple hue, with lighter streaks that faded from lilac to an almost-silver colour."

By that point Tess was smiling, "I think I can guess where this is going."

"Well don't interrupt," I smiled back. "Anyways I may have become a little obsessed with that pretty purple crystal. The trader said it was known as 'amethystos' back where it came from, and it was very expensive. I had to have it though, and probably paid way too much for it. It was worth it in the end, of course."

"Thinking back now," I frowned slightly, "I have no idea if it really had any of the magical traits that guy claimed? But sometimes magic depends more on belief and will than anything else, and that stone became a focus for my own growing abilities. I attached it to a length of lace and wore it as a pendant around my neck, it literally never left me after that. And in the following years my power and talent continued to grow, which I attributed to my magical amethystos stone."

By that point I was sort of staring off into the distance as I focused more on those old memories. My voice grew softer as I continued, "Over the years I developed something of a reputation, both for my talent as a bandruí and for the magic I wielded through my amethystos. And in time people started calling me Amethystos, which eventually was shortened to Amethyst, because of my connection to that little stone and the role it played in all my magical works."

I hesitated for a few seconds as a frown settled on my expression. Then I sighed, "I remember being an old woman, with long silvery hair. I don't remember ever having any children or lovers though. Maybe I was too busy with my work? Or maybe I was aro or ace. Or maybe that's just how bandruí did things back then, I honestly can't remember those sorts of details anymore. I know by that point my reputation extended beyond our little community, I had people travelling from other settlements to seek my help. By then the only name people knew me by was Amethyst, they'd forgotten it was originally a nickname."

"I think..." My voice trailed off for a moment as my frown got a little deeper. "I think I may have died? Or perhaps I was sick, or maybe I just got too old. I have a vague impression of being laid out surrounded by bundles of small purple flowers, with my amethyst pendant on my chest. The image in my mind feels like a funeral, but I honestly don't know if that's the case."

"Anyways by that point I was probably in my seventies," I shrugged. "Most of the people around me had known me their entire lives, I'd been like a fixture there for so long. I was revered and respected, both within our community and beyond it. I think that's what did it? A lifetime of working with magic and nature, years of focused belief and respect from the community around me, their faith and veneration and maybe even their need for me to continue, all that came together in a single moment, and I rose up from that bed of flowers. My youth was renewed, but my hair retained its silver colour. I absorbed my magic pendant, and its violet purple hue was reflected in my eyes."

I finished the story with another little sigh, "I never asked to become a goddess, it wasn't something I sought out. I didn't even know it was possible. But their belief, their faith, their desire for me to exist, is what caused me to ascend. My life as their wise woman was over, but my existence as their goddess had only just begun."

Tess remained quiet for a little while longer as she processed all of that. Then she shook her head, "It's amazing and I'm having a hard time coming to terms with it, to be honest? I mean those events were almost three thousand years ago! You've been around since before Rome was a thing. Or even ancient Greece, they didn't hit their peak until a few centuries after you were born. You've lived through so much history..."

"Not as such," I replied with a grimace. "I was mostly focused on my little remote part of the world, remember? My people and their community were my only interest. In fact I probably knew less about what was going on in the world at large as a goddess than I did when I was a mortal bandruí."

When I saw the confusion on my girlfriend's face I elaborated, "As a mortal I could talk with the travellers and traders, I could listen to their stories of what was happening in far-off lands. As a goddess I only heard about that stuff when people prayed to me about it. So for instance I wouldn't know anything about the Roman Republic being replaced by Imperial Rome, but I did receive prayers asking me to protect my people when they heard tales about the Roman conquest of Briton."

"In fact I didn't really have much contact or interest in the rest of the world until around the fifth century CE," I added. "That's when missionaries and monasteries started popping up on Irish soil, so they could begin converting the pagan population to xtianity. And that was more of an existential threat to me personally, rather than to my people."

I sighed, "By then I was about fifteen centuries old, I was at my peak in terms of power and I had enough experience that I could expand my horizons and start paying attention to what was going on in the rest of the world. And unfortunately that was also the beginning of my decline. It took another twelve or thirteen hundred years to hit rock bottom, but there really wasn't anything I could do to stop it."

Tess looked like she had more questions, but by that point I wanted to take a break. And the rest of my story wouldn't be much fun regardless, especially the last few hundred years. Fortunately a welcome distraction arrived just then, in the form of my angel and our little tortoiseshell cat.

Raven appeared standing next to the love-seat with Siggy in her arms, but the torty immediately jumped free and landed on the coffee table. Then they leaped onto the sofa and climbed up onto my girlfriend's lap where they proceeded to roll over and purr. Their cunning ploy worked, Tess started petting them and rubbing their belly.

Meanwhile I asked, "How did you two make out? I'm glad to see you both survived each other."

"Your angel gave me a saucer of cream," the cat announced happily.

My angel added, "Your cat was well-behaved. We both managed, I suppose."

"Good," I smiled. "Perhaps we can impose on you to take them in again at the next full moon?"

My angel and the little godby cat seemed to exchange a knowing glance, that left me wondering exactly what kind of trouble the two of them got into overnight. But our little torty spoke up before I could ask.

"I wouldn't mind spending another night with Ravenna someday. If it's ok with her?" Siggy responded.

Raven nodded, "I don't have a problem sharing my home with them now and then."