Thank you so much. You're right about New Orleans being day now; I'll deliver your note at dusk on the east coast.

Essentially for security reasons, I'm going to whisk you to my Pacific island now. I've got the start of the physical terrain in, just a broad flat level island high enough it won't sink at high tide — it's just not at all pretty just yet. I don't want you and your letters to fall into the hands of some three letter acronym because I wasn't cautious enough. 

We can talk more once you're safe. Ready for the ride?

She shuts down her laptop and throws it in a bag, along with a few sentimental items. Everything else is just clothes that don't fit her new body and textbooks she can pirate.

"Only thing that comes to mind is that we might need to drop me in coffeeshops a few times to research infrastructure stuff for setting up the island, like a satellite internet provider or a good make and model of solar panel and battery. That can be done later, though, in less predictable locations. So yeah, ready to go."

She's not resting, not really. But the prayer load is lighter with darkness centered over the pacific. She can almost pretend that she's not letting people die by spending time on this.

(She protects, as best she can. Japan and Australia are starting to come into her range. Soon after that will be China. Dusk is proceeding westward at around a thousand miles per hour. She'd better get this done fast.) 

She considered copying Sable's old rooms to her island for speed, but they're so cramped and dingy that she doesn't really feel comfortable giving them to someone she considers a kind of friend. Instead she copies a tasteful, fully-furnished neo-victorian house with a front window seat on its first floor, builds it into the island with reinforced concrete foundations, and teleports Sable to just inside its front door. 

She doesn't bother with a letter just yet - she's copying over the old contents of Sable's pantry just as a basic stocking measure. Then she gets the house hooked up to a nice heavy duty gas generator and lays in enough gasoline to keep it ticking for a week, along with installing some decent solar panels and batteries on the lawn. (She can Google while she works, her awareness is multithreaded enough for that even if she can only attend to one prayer at a time.) As a finishing touch, she puts in a septic system and makes sure the landscape will drain properly when it rains, rather than flooding the house. 

After all that's done, she writes the letter and drops it into Sable's hands.

I got the basics in. The decor is a bit bland and depressing right now, sorry. Give me themes and I'll put them in for you. I'll probably have missed other stuff too; make me a shopping list and I'll get to it when I have a spare moment.

While the house is basically functional, though a bit hotel-ish, the land outside is mostly bare rock and soil right now and there's not much of a view except the sea. Stella doesn't seem to have put in any landscaping just yet.

"This is lovely. Thank you, Goddess. I'll get on that shopping list presently."

Sable starts surveying the house, infrastructure, and island. Apparently Stella just copied the whole stock of food from the common room kitchens? Well, that'll do quite nicely until grocery time. She double-checks to make sure the generator and solar panels and batteries are all hooked up right, then plugs her laptop in to charge. That done, she starts making a list of foods, clothes, and other things. She starts off with very modest food requests, and then realizes that Stella won't be buying things, but rather copying them, and switches to listing comparatively easily isolated-for-copying favorites instead. And then realizes she doesn't have a lot of ideas in that regard, so just lists what she can.

Groceries & Hygiene

• Smoked salmon
• Bagels
• Cream cheese
• Rice
• Pasta (both raw and easy pasta packs)
• Shin Ramyun Black ramen
• Mi Goreng noodles, original flavor
• Milk
• Ice cream
• Cookies
• Eggs
• Spices
• Soy sauce
• Sriracha
• Hot sauce
• Frozen breaded chicken tenders
• Roast beef
• Bread
• Mayo
• Lettuce
• Tomatoes
• Potatoes
• Tampons
• Shampoo
• Conditioner
• Face wash
• Toothpaste
• Toothbrushes

Clothes

• Bras and panties
• Short skirts
• Long skirts
• Slinky dresses
• Casual dresses
• Jeans
• PJ pants
• Camisoles
• T-shirts
• Blouses
• Bikini
• Fancy formal priestess outfit?
• Lots of goth stuff
• Lots of star-themed stuff
• Suggestions welcome

Utilities

• Satellite internet/phone service
• Well-water or desalination
• Wifi router

Facilities

• Apartment buildings for future recruits
• Office complex for clerics to work out of

Defense

• Military-grade radar to detect attempts to hit the island and move us?
• Possibly better idea, copy the island in different oceans to move us around so we're under as little daylight as possible, if the threat gets serious enough?

Recruiting

• Trans folks, wide spread of specializations and easily very grateful for magic transition
• Sociology/Economics/Policy wonks for figuring out the most effective leverage points
• Social media / PR people
• Analysts/researchers
• Finance/accounting people so we can interact with the outside economy?
• IT people so we can host our own organizational software?
• Hardware tech people to keep the infrastructure running?
• There could be a lot of overlap and dabbling for some of these needs?

Other Thoughts

• If you can do night vision, we can spend more time in darkness?
• We should talk about temple PR statement stuff at some point, public announcements of goals/principles/scripture
• Should I set up social media for you and/or the temple?
• How public should I be about being your priestess?
• If I'm telling people about what I do, what should I say my title is?

Once she finishes her notes, she sits in the window seat and gazes out at the stars, praying to Stella, "The shopping and brainstorming list is done, when you have time, Goddess."

She keeps her mind loosely on that, and pulls up an ebook on her phone to pass the time until her Goddess has spare attention.

Meanwhile, early night in Japan features some prayers for fandom merchandise, or tickets for a sold-out idol show, among the usual issues with age and violence. A few people in Shanghai pray for better jobs. Gangs exist everywhere, though they have different names in different countries. 

One bold bilingual otaku reads a few social media posts and decides to try praying directly to Stella for a chance to go on a date with Tohsaka Rin from the Fate franchise.

The food and hygiene items are easy; she copy and pastes from a Superstore on the western seaboard and is able to turn up just about everything. The shampoo and conditioner are blackberry-scented. 

Getting Sable's sizes is easy enough (Stella can "visualize" making a tape measure well enough to measure her body in the appropriate places), and there's plenty of places to copy from. For goth and star-themed clothes, Stella copies the whole store contents of several goth and alt-wear boutiques into a large pile on the house's bed, and leaves a letter atop it saying to pile up the rejects for her to vanish. 

The formal priestess robe is worth some consideration, but she's not feeling strained right now; she'll take her time designing it when she next needs a break. 

She's stocked the house with fresh water in the pantry, but she takes the time to hook up a proper desalinator to the house and get the plumbing sorted out. Missing that detail was sloppy of her, but then, she is distracted. She puts in a wifi router, but she'll have to deal with bureaucracy for satellite internet, since she has no credit card and isn't willing to steal someone else's. She tries reaching to space and discovers she can't put a satellite into orbit herself. That's troubling. 

Backup copies of the island to hop between are worth considering. Right now it doesn't represent an excess of work, and the threat is as low as it's ever going to be. She'll make a mirror island a few thousand kilometers to the south, in the rough vicinity of the Marshall Islands, and keep it updated with everything except the people as she goes. Duplication in multiple places is easy like breathing. Once dusk moves further west she'll do a couple in the Indian ocean as well. That way she can just move the people and always have a template to draw from unless there's some form of massive coordinated strike — and if she pisses off the world that badly, she's got bigger problems. 

She appears a small office complex from San Francisco on the other side of the (currently quite small) island and hooks it into a similar set of grid hookups as Sable's house. An apartment complex quickly follows. 

She might as well green up the lawn a bit while she's here. She copies some sod over. A proper garden can happen when she needs a break.

She writes a note. It ends up being a lot longer than she had planned.

I can integrate parts of real animals into human bodies well enough to grant senses present in actual animals. I've never done it yet  — it takes a lot of time and investment  — but I checked because you were a fox-girl online and I wondered if I could make you one in real life. It turns out I can. So yes, I can do night vision.

I'm actively doing my best to be as friendly and just as I can, but I'm fallible like mortals are; my mind is not so different from a human's. I will inevitably make slips. A PR account is a good idea, but we'll need someone very competent to manage it. I also don't want to give people the impression that you or any priestess speak directly for me, though. No-one else should have to shoulder that burden. 

An official scripture will take time but is definitely important. I don't want to give people the impression they can do just anything they want in my name, which will inevitably happen if I don't have an opinion on the matter.

Your decision to be public or not about being my priestess is up to your judgment. I don't want to burden you with being seen as something holy, or force you to risk your public identity. You might not have an opinion, but your family probably does; do you want them to be inundated with messages from people who want them to help, because they are the world's channel to you, who is a channel to me? Or threatened by acronyms or gangs? Being my priestess is a high-risk job, just like being a UN diplomat or similar... but then, you knew that when you accepted. It is ultimately up to you how much you want to risk; I can't make that judgment call for you.

If you are being open, you should tell people your title is First Priestess. Not High Priestess — that will probably go to someone terrifyingly competent — but First. I chose you because you fit with me and my methods, not because you were useful. The fact you reached out mattered, but mostly because it meant you were like me; always seeking an opportunity to help. 

I have made a simple statement of my goals to the United States government, and indeed to several other governments who asked. Copies are attached. I think you understand my goals more or less correctly, it's just a matter of phrasing it for the public. 

Two other items, both of which you should keep secret:

Firstly, I keep backup copies of bodies from recent deaths that I cannot repair with my current skills. I have successfully revived several people who I have temporarily vitrified to stabilize them. May I make a backup copy of you to keep on ice and regularly update the brain of from your current one? I wouldn't wake her unless something happened to this you, naturally. 

Second; while I wish to keep this secret from the world at large, it will undoubtedly become known to major intelligence agencies that review my actions over the long term. As such, I think I should tell you now. Acting to create miracles from prayer causes physical pain to me when done in the area of artificial light. The more intense the light, the more intense the pain. I do not want this to become publicly known, but I am presently nursing the godly equivalent of a killer headache and I expect it will only get worse the more I act in populated areas. As such... I would really appreciate it if we modified you to be able to see in the dark. This would have knock on effects though — you'd be visibly inhuman thanks to your eyes, and that means you'd become known as my priestess wherever you go, etc, etc, etc. I'm not going to do something so major to you without making sure you understand the implications. 

Lastly — do you mind if I use your credit card to purchase a satellite internet account? I expect that in the long term I'll be extremely rich, but currently I have no licit identity to do trade. Doing this will almost certainly flag you as my priestess to certain acronym agencies, though, if they don't already know. 

I think that's everything.

(She is a little distracted with handling these issues. Japan still has its gangs dismantled as best she can do it, but she spends less attention granting wishes for material objects and money woes. Australia and New Zealand get some help too. She's working. And her "headache" is coming back.)

The Yakuza respond to having their guns destroyed by going out with swords. Some people pray to be relocated from North Korea to South Korea, or the reverse. Australia has an ongoing issue with aboriginal people being mistreated.

She bounces happily at the various deliveries. "Thank you, Goddess!"

It's tempting to go jump into checking everything out, but Stella sent her a letter. That needs to be checked out first.

"Yes, it makes sense that you'd make mistakes occasionally; you write like someone with a human-shaped perspective. And I appreciate your concern about us, but I do think spreading some burden among your priestesses is going to be necessary, given that we've only got the one of you."

She pauses for a moment at the discussion of her public identity. "Yeah, that's a risk, but... I don't want to let fear stop me from doing as much good as I can. If we start attracting sufficient hostility, we can try to convince my family to move, or maybe we can try to create a new identity for me to go public under. We probably can't hide it from the alphabet soup, at least not without a significant time investment and a bit of fraud, but I have done a bit of research into how to fast-talk the government into creating an identity. On the other hand, maybe we don't want to do any fraud. It would be reasonable not to do any fraud. And we can't really expect everyone to be up for getting new identities, or restrict our recruits to people without families, so. Really our only option is to just go loud. Refuge in audacity. 

"So yeah, I'm gonna be public. First Priestess is a great title."

She blushes a bit. "I... It makes me feel a bit closer to you, having a title that's still mine even when we find someone terrifyingly competent to run the temple. I like that we have methods and goals in common." She takes a slow breath, steadying herself. Don't get a crush on the unattainable goddess. Don't get a crush on the goddess. 

You totally have a crush on the goddess, Hailey teases.

Sable pouts internally. Not helping.

"I'll tinker with a public website draft based on your statement to the government, try to get something we can use for that. Probably also some drafts for like... Tumblr and Reddit and such, places where trans folk and counter-culture folk live. I may need to make a First Priestess Sable account on some sites."

She hums thoughtfully and keeps reading.

"Oh! Backup bodies are a great idea. Yes, sign us up for that, absolutely on board. Reports of my death will always be greatly exaggerated, yes fucking please."

And then she gets to the part about artificial light. 

"Oh Stella! Oh no! That's... No, we can't let you keep building up a headache like that. No one should have to suffer an ongoing pain like that, and on top of that we can't replace you. Also, I just really like you as a person and don't wanna see you suffer. So we need to figure out how to take care of you, despite your lack of a physical body. I insist."

She nods firmly. "We were already pretty thoroughly on-board with the idea of being inhuman, just for our own sake, but if it would make life easier and comfier for you, then full steam ahead, whenever it wouldn't burden your attention.

"And yes, you can absolutely use my card for the satellite internet. I should probably get a name change done too at some point, but that can wait a little bit."

She's touched, honestly. 

(Individual aboriginal people in Australia get some help, of various kinds. The systemic problem is harder. She's not quite willing to send anyone else to her shiny new apartment complex just yet. She duplicates Sable and puts the copy on ice in an artificial cave under the Australian outback.)

Sable makes a good argument that she needs to be on form so she doesn't do anything stupid. And she's so brave, trying her best to shoulder all the danger that Stella's put her in. Sable reminds her of herself. 

Before she's realized what she's doing, she's manifested another stars-and-midnight blanket around Sable. She wants Sable to feel the same way that Sable's comforting prayer for her health makes her feel. 

(She destroys swords meant for violence, passes out mochi balls and stuffies, heals the sick, adds more bodies to her pile to revive some day. It hurts. But it's better for her to do something. She's not made to stop completely; if she doesn't focus on a prayer it's like she doesn't exist for a moment.) 

She works herself as hard as she can, then when she can't hold on against the pain —

Let's get you your eyes. Tell me right away if you have trouble seeing when I'm done; I still have your originals on eye-ce so if we mess this up we can copy them right back in again. 

She takes her time on them. The point is for her to rest. This is something for her. She deserves something for her, now and then. 

If she was working on the actual substrate of a fox's eyes, she'd have to make compromises. She's sure Sable wouldn't mind having to wear glasses, but making her myopic and colorblind like real foxes would be a disappointing outcome. Instead, she bases Sable's eyes on owl eyes, giving her close to the rod-cell density of an owl, but adding additional cones in to support color. While evolution has developed some remarkable tools for sensing, she can do better with deliberate ingenuity. Vertical slit pupils will help Sable's night vision even more, and have the fox-like appearance she wants, so she gives her them, engineering custom multifocal eye structures from her best guesses from nature — but she keeps the original storm-blue color of Sable's eyes, one of the few parts of Sable to make it through her first transformation. 

She worries a little. But she does the install, and hopes that her craft is good enough. 

(And she also sets up the satellite internet in the background, because she has a nice carte blanche wish to take time for herself and that counts, damn it.)

She snuggles into the blanket when it appears. "Awwww! Cozy." A happy sigh escapes her lips. 

She giggles and facepalms at eye-ce. "Hehe. Oh that pun is awful. Love it."

And then the changes to her eyes start. "OooOooOh?? That feels weeird."

Soon enough, though, she can see again, and she has to put her phone down. "Oh wow."

With her phone out of the way, the darkened room is richly detailed. "Okay, the night vision on these is fucking fantastic, Goddess. The backlight of my phone was a bit overwhelming, but the night vision is amazing. I can even see color. Let's see how distance looks."

She steps out to the yard, her steps sure-footed and swift despite only having starlight to see by, and looks across at a tree.

"Hmmm." At this distance with her old body and her glasses she could usually see individual leaves, in daylight. "Distance vision is a bit blurry. I can't make out the leaves of the tree across the yard very well, it's kind of smudging into a green mass. If it's not easily fixable, don't worry about it, but that and the overwhelm from brighter lights are the main spots with room for improvement."

Stella appears a letter.

You deserve better. And it would make me happy not to have any compromises in your vision.

Give me a moment, I think I need to adjust the rod count and the focal length.

She makes a second guess at rod count, roughly halving her original guess. Sable's slit eyes are barely dilated even in near total darkness; she can use the foxlike structures to compensate a little. She also carefully adjusts the positioning of the lens. 

Better?

"The focal length is much better." She looks down at her phone at its lowest brightness, then back at the scenery, then back at the phone, slowly. "Still too many rods though, I think."

We'll binary search the rod count. Tell me if it's too bright or too dark.

Stella goes back to work. This is a bit of an indulgence, but she expects she'll end up copying the set of eyes she makes here to more people, with cosmetic tweaks but the structure largely intact. That makes her feel a little better about her efficiency. 

(She does not deliver Rin Tohsaka to the otaku in Japan; she can't make fictional people, and if she could she wouldn't make a person just to be someone's date for the night. 

She does send a "nice try" letter though, and a pile of Rin merchandise as a consolation prize. She liked his attitude toward trying things to see if they work.

She reaches towards North and South Korean transfers for a moment, then stops herself; she doesn't want to put anyone in a situation where they'd be suspected as a spy, and it's diplomatically fraught if she starts flagrantly breaking immigration law. She wants to do it, but... for now she has higher priorities. 

She drafts a form letter (in Korean, but she's going to translate it later.) 

I'm sorry, but it's too early for me to move people between nations yet. I don't want to panic any governments due to unexpected illegal immigrants. 

While earth is flawed in many ways, I want to do my best to respect the systems of law that have let it stumble along before me.

I feel your pain, and I will do the best I can to negotiate freer immigration in the future. 

You matter, and I humbly apologize for my failing you so. 

It's a sorrowful letter to send, and dangerous to send to people in surveillance-state North Korea. She ends up shelving it and not sending it, much as she would like to apologize personally.)

The otaku is delighted with the Rin merch and posts all about the experience on social media. Entirely reasonable not to make a person just for a date with him, and some of these collectibles are out of production and hard to find. He feels pretty great about that, and arranges a little display of it all to photograph for his reddit post.

The hopeful immigrants are disappointed, but not very, as nothing else has worked before either.

Word is starting to spread. News media is covering the miraculous recoveries and rescues of the preceding night in the west, and those stories are getting picked up by occasional eastern outlets as well. Prayers pick up speed a little bit.