Helping Orikka was not as glamorous as Iseult had expected. Her father had often held parties to schmooze with his various members of government, lobbyists, and campaign contributors, while her mother loved her high society dinners. It wasn’t the most riveting thing for a teenager, but she had enjoyed sneaking drinks with her friends. ‘So what are we doing again? We’re not just going to watch more gods from the bushes are we?’ The sarcasm was lost on Orikka, ‘we’ll be in the clouds.’

The hierarchy of gods and their affiliates was also something she was learning about, just by virtue of all the observation she was doing. There were gods, which as Orikka explained required a godseed from a parent god, all indirectly from Orikka’s line, and a kin sacrifice. Though apparently the conditions were very generous in their interpretation. To keep track of them she had found herself a pink hard backed notebook and a set of matching pink pens, the pages of her notebook patterned with pastel stars and clouds, which she promptly began filling out, her neat bubbly letters at the top in different glittering inks. All shades of pink, of course. Only the intensity of her emotions had faded with her death, her interests and preferences seemed more or less retained. She had always liked pink, ever since her childhood. But as she had grown and her father started to find fault with her, including her choice of clothing, she had begun to wear it as part preference and part resistance. Now it just felt like her.

She had learned of Novem godeater, son of the god Noctua, the smaller, blue moon of the two that orbited the ringed planet. He had stitched Novem together from several cat ghosts, inevitably catching a kin killer among them, pulling them from their everafter with a godseed bone needle, one of his own he had dedicated to his created son, leaving the needle in his son’s heart to point him towards home. It was likely intended as a sentimental gesture, but having a needle in your heart didn’t sound terribly comfortable. Apparently parenthood did not come naturally to some. And she thought her relationship with her father was bad. Yikes.

Besides gods there were demi-gods, beings that received godseed from a parent god, accompanied by some form of sacrifice, but did not commit the atrocity that was kin killing, making themselves reliant on their parent’s power, often with similar abilities to their parent god. ‘So they can perceive the soul world?’ Iseult had asked upon realizing they hadn’t committed that final act. Orikka had shaken their head, ‘their souls are corrupted, they are intertwined with a corrupted soul, obligatorily symbiotic with it.’ Iseult had nodded along as Orikka went on to describe the process, the facets of that relationship going over her head. Basically they were still stuck, was her take away.

Then there were the acolytes, the priests and priestesses of the god, who were accepted by the god as immortal stewards, performing a sacrifice at the god’s discretion in order to achieve the position. That didn’t sound so bad, Iseult thought, until she learned of Zsa Zsa, the piebald deer witch-god, whose sacrificial requirement was a kin killing. To commit such an offense without even the promise of god hood. If they passed away they lingered in the world, trapped as a lurker, a lonely ghost, doomed to an eternal madness. Obviously they did their best to avoid death by giving offerings to their goddess. What a poor exchange, Iseult thought privately. Despite her growing comfort with Orikka, she abstained from criticizing the gods, their children, wary of offending the ancient galactic being.

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And lastly, there were the devotees. The congregation, the masses, whether human or otherwise, worshiping the god, often offering sacrifice to their temple, in whatever form that took. Ketsuri, the luck god, whom Iseult had been aware of in her old city, maintained that every casino was her temple, but accepted prayers in many forms, one of which, Iseult was interested to note, was the keeping of debts. A god with honor, Iseult thought. So many of the gods were like that, having their own form of ethics, a value form very different from humans, but with some sort of self consistent logic.

Early in their relationship when she was still learning the different designations, she had asked if there were any zombies, quite excited for them to be real. If gods were, why not zombies too, she thought eagerly, her fascination with them persisting even after her death. Orikka had looked at her with some alarm, tentatively asking for her clarification. They had managed to condense a face, of sorts, modeling it after Iseult’s own, with her curly pink hair turning into a diadem of stars on Orikka’s head, and Iseult’s pink heart shaped iris’ not quite right, but shimmering with shadow an starlight, the red of a dying sun. They were beautiful, Iseult thought, flattered by the imitation. ‘Do you mean a ghost that has been brought back to walk among the living in a corpse?’ They gently replied, trying to grasp a rather human fascination of hers. Gods, she was finding, were excellent at reciprocity, but struggled with the more creative of human ideas. Iseult nodded, leaning forward, ready for their answer with keen interest, her pen poised to make another note in her journal. ‘Would Novem not meet the criteria?’ That had not been the answer she had been hoping for, but they were right. ‘I suppose’ She added a rather dejected note in her notes on his page within her journal.

‘Where do I fall in the spectrum of godly hierarchy?’ She later asked Orikka. Orikka took the question at face value, they had not quite grasped Iseult’s brand of humor, and were prone to answering all of her questions very earnestly, not at all in the spirit they were asked. ‘I accept all that pass the moribund as my devotees, but your dedication to my cause could elevate you to become my acolyte, if you would wish it.’ Iseult was taken aback. That was, well, very sweet. She greatly appreciated how much choice Orikka offered her. Gods often viewed their god progeny, demi-god progeny, acolytes, and sometimes even devotees as children. Orikka may have well been offering to adopt her. It brought her father back to mind, his frequent oppression, dictating all choices in her life, from her classes to the clothes she wore. Of course she rebelled, but the disappointment, disdain, even that he looked at her with, always made her feel small. Orrika asked her every opinion, respecing her every choice. It would be a very different, but welcome parent-child relationship. ‘I’d like to be your acolyte,’ she said, sincerely, shyly tucking a pink curl behind her ghostly ear.