She is safety; she is refuge; she is protection. She is the enfolding embrace of night, in all its gentleness.
Her name is Stella.
She doesn't remember where she came from, but she can feel that someone needs her. More than one someone. A lot of someones, actually. Some of them are outside her domain, but that doesn't matter, not when she can fix things for the ones that are.
She reaches out to help, to heal, to safeguard.
Okay. You got me into this in the first place, so - yeah.
What's your plan?
To start off, let's just get through the checklist. Any family members that aren't terribly bigoted about someone else doing magic to you? Trustworthy friends in town you could stay with?
Oh, and I probably should've asked this already, but name and pronouns? Age if you don't mind?
It's plenty, I just want to be polite. Absent other options, the best thing I've got is inviting you to live on the Isles of Night with me. There's an apartment building Stella put in earlier tonight for any Temple staff who move in, and you could easily have an apartment there.
I just wanted to double-check for any options to stay with someone you already know and trust, rather than the weird transhuman (and trans human) priestess on a magic island in the Pacific. It sounds like none of that's available, though.
Gee, let me see, do I want to be homeless or do I want to get teleported to some random place that the goddess who got me into this mess made, with no non-goddess-powered way back?
Honestly I don't trust your goddess, but I'm just as much at her mercy whether I stay or go. I'll take a warm bed for the night, thanks.
Yeah, this honestly sucks. We're planning to have some kind of non-island housing available eventually, and you could move there when we do, but "island in international waters" was quicker to do without starting a big legal fight. My next best idea is to make sure you've got any relevant ID and such, then give you cash and put you in a hotel, but I don't know any safe hotels that would rent to a 16yo for cash.
I'm sorry your family are angry religious bigots. I'm sorry Stella didn't know to prevent their reaction by hiding your healing. I'm sorry you're in this situation at all. You deserve better.
At this point, all I can do is try to come up with least-bad plans and hope it makes up for at least some of the suck you're dealing with.
If you give me a location and a name — doesn't have to be your legal one, just one you won't mind saying aloud at a restaurant — I'll use my personal account to put a pickup order in your name. Could do that for lunch, too. If we pick the right place, they'll let you hang out and eat.
... Okay, that makes sense.
I haven't had breakfast, so, uh, yeah, that would really help.
You can call me Pidge on the order, but... there's not really any food chains nearby that I know of.
If I have to send a cab to ship you to a larger town first, so be it. Let's see if any of my accounts on uber eats or doordash or such can reach you first, though. Where are you?
Food, preferably. Uh, like an egg mcmuffin thing maybe? If you could get me an egg wrap from subway with like tomatoes on it that'd be great.
Also don't call me kid, I'm sixteen.
Fair. One egg wrap with tomatoes coming up. It should be there in the early tens at the latest. Tracking link is here. Meet the driver outside, they'll be looking for Pidge.
Cool.
This is a stupid question but I'm still kind of freaked and it might help me settle my nerves. Why are you a foxgirl?
Nah, honestly a fun question, not a stupid one — not that I mind stupid questions. A big part of it is personal vibes. I vibe more with fox than say... cat or dog, and the closest competitors in my heart for fox are unimplementable or a PR nightmare. And I've been dehumanized for being trans enough times that I honestly didn't feel like I could stand staying fully human, so. [shrug]
Are those eyes of yours just cosmetic or do they really work? Like a foxes', I mean.
Sable, I don't want to jostle your elbow, but I think you need to take a look at these headlines if you're just chatting casually with quiet-wings at this point.
"Elbow-jostling is great, Goddess. My bad for needing it."
She pulls up a few news sites and skims the headlines while she sends off a reply to quiet-wings.
They work better than a fox's, honestly. They're a carefully tweaked hybrid design the Goddess made, with detail levels as good as a human, but night vision good enough to work comfortably in naught but starlight.
The news is going absolutely wild.
New "Goddess" Announces Herself
"Goddess" Stella Makes Public Statement, What Does It Mean For Your Immortal Soul
Invisible Woman "Stella" Claims to be God, Fox Investigates
Mexican Drug Cartels Swear Vengeance on Stella
"Goddess" Stella Claims Credit for Miraculous Healings and Rescues
New Goddess Preaches Empathy and Avoiding Harm, What Counts as Harm?
Crazy Conjurer Duplicates Products and Infringes Copyright, Claims to be Goddess
What does the Vatican have to say about "Goddess" Stella? CBS Investigates
Notorious Gang Killer Apprehended by Stella, Marked with Black Diamond
Commodity Values Crash as Stella Conjures Cars from Nowhere
You wouldn't Conjure a Car: What does the existence of Stella mean for copyright law?
US Government in a Furor as Stella Proves Capable of Disarming the World
"No Afterlife" Known to New Goddess; Miraculous Healings on Brink of Death
Half-Beast Priestess Shocks World; Stella's Genetic Experimentation?
"Stella is Capable of Destroying the World": US Think Tank
The End of War? Stella's Profession of Non-Violence
Stella's Miracles Break with the Dawn: What's Next for America?
Mexican Army and Police Rushing to Arrest Cartels, Take Advantage of Miraculous Disarmament
New Goddess Appears, NBC Breaks Down Her Stated Capabilities
CBC Exclusive Interview with Homeless Man who had Food Conjured
This Mother Prayed to Stella and her Lost Child was Returned
On top of that spread of headlines, the Temple's inboxes are full to bursting with messages:
Sable also has an email in her personal inbox from her parents, asking if she's the Sable they saw on TV.
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