It had started off as a joke. I had been making a world for a new campaign for our dungeons and dragons group. Naturally, this required me to create a pantheon of gods. Although most were farily forgettable, one stuck with me. The Goddess Ra'ah, the Divine Healer. She was fairly generic, being a Goddess whose followers sought to heal and cure. But something about her made her stick in my mind.

Nonetheless, she was a part of the world. We had begun playing, having a blast. It was only when I gave myself a papercut that it started. I was in character as a priest of Ra'ah, and so covered with a hand, and spoke with a solemn voice.

"May the Lady's light heal me."

Of course nothing happened. But we loved it. It gmbecame a running joke to us. Whenever we hurt ourselves even slightly, one would touch it, and ask for Ra'ah to heal us. It was silly. We knew it was nonsense. But it was our nonsense.

Even when Sandra had a bad fall, breaking her arm we kept it up. Each time we met up, I would lead the prayer of healing. We found a sort of comfort in it. We weren't really religious people, but the ritual was calming. She said it made it more bearable.

After her cast was off, she designed and had made copies of her holy symbol. It was a stylised sun, with the head of a rose in its centre. It was touching when she presented them to us, with more than one of our number growing watery eyed.

I walked into a door handle in the session following. As usual, I omoit my hand against it out if instinct. But this time I touched the symbol, speaking again.

"May the Lady's light heal me."

To our amazement, the symbol beneath my hand began to glow a soft white. The glow was matched by the others, all around the the table waiting for me to bring in a prop. The glow from each grew, before somehow detaching and floating through the air. They gathered into a single point, before a flash temporarily blinded us.

I blinked it away, mouth falling open at the sight before me. A beautiful woman stood there, a gentle smile on her face. Her eyes were golden, circled by tattoos of twisting vines. She wore a simple white dress, with a pair of dives sitting on her shoulders. I knew who she was immediately, her design held in my mind. Somehow, impossibly, this was Ra'ah.

"My beloved followers. It is good to truly see you."

Her voice was gentle, flowing through the air. It warmed my heart, putting me at ease though I knew I should be scared. The pain in my side melted away as she smiled at us, hands clasped before her. I put down the prop goblet I had made, bowing my head. I knew what to say, as the priests in my world would say.

"My Lady, your presence is a blessing to us all."

My friends concurred, standing to bow. She gave a small laugh, light and geniune.

"Oh, please raise your heads. It is I who should be bowing. You gave me life, for that I am grateful."

I watched her bow in turn to us all, before lightly stepping forwards. She put a hand on my shoulder, her touch like a sunbeam on a cold autumn day.

"My Herald. I am in your debt most of all for being the core of my religion."

She turned to the others, giving them each a heartfelt smile.

"But that does not mean I am not indebted to you all as well, for following on the beginning. You all created me. There is nothing I can do to repay you as much as you deserve. But I can do what I can."

I could see the same feelings on my friends faces as I felt. Wonder, peace and joy. Ra'ah lightly stepped up to each, subtly growing or shrinking to be just slightly taller than each. She gave them a kiss on the forehead, making their eyes spark.

"You are all my Clerics. I give you the power to ignore harm, and heal those who you touch. I give you the strength to protect the innocent, and save them from evil."

She turned to me, her eyes damp. Her smile was wide, joy the evident cause of her tears. She gave me a kiss on my forehead, like the others. I felt a jolt, as a part of my mind shifted. But instead of pulling away, she rested her forehead on mine for a moment.

"As my Herald you too have the power of my Clerics. But you also can call on me, wherever you need."

I struggled to find my voice. She noticed, nodding to me.

"Please, speak."

I swallowed, moving to stand by my friends.

"What, what do you want us to do?"

Ra'ah gave a giggle again, walking up to us. She picked up one of our character models, looking it over.

"My only want is for you all to live long, happy lives. If you are asking what I wish, I would wish you spread my name, and help those who cannot help themselves. But I do not demand. If you wish to spread it, I wish for you to do it of your own free will."

She put the model down, stepping back.

"Those gifts I give you are precisely that. Gifts. I will not take them back from you. Use them as you will. The only thing I ask is that you do not forget me."

I looked to the others. They turned to look at me, each giving a shallow nod. I smiled back at them, before turning my gaze back to Ra'ah.

"We will not."

Her smile widened, and she held out her arms.

"Thank you. Thank you all."

Her form faded, leaving us alone. I looked at my friends, both exhausted but energised at the same time.

"So.... that happened."

We had done it hundreds of times at this point. Every time we met up for our "Green Day", as we liked to call it, the five of us stood in a shape that looked vaguely like a pentagram in the middle of the room. We weren't Satanists or anything, but since the whole act was against everything our Christian education had taught us, it added to the fun of the occasion.

Then we said a prayer to Her Highness.

"Praise be to Her Highness,

Goddess of good feelings and high spirits,

With every passing day

You lift us all up a little more."

"Her Highness" wasn't real, of course. She was a figment of our collective imagination, created to add to the escapism element of Green Day. I had chronic back pain, and somehow after a decade of visits to the doctor, mystery injections, and spending enough money to buy a new car, this was still the one thing that brought me relief, if only for a while.

My friend Janice, across the pentagram from me as always, bore no physical pain, but one look into her eyes told you there was something going on beneath the surface. Even when she otherwise seemed happy, that strange darkness was always there. Only on Green Day did her worries truly seem to disappear. It was like flicking a switch; all of a sudden she became the life and soul of the group. To her, the prayer to Her Highness was just as important as it was for me.

Her Highness represented life and laughter; a way to ignore all of our true problems. After praying to Her and carrying out Her work, we could become different people, isolated from the things that plagued us in everyday life.

So you can imagine our surprise when, this time, she actually appeared.

As we uttered the final words of our prayer, etched into our brains at this point, a loud hum filled the air. At the same time, a bright light appeared in the middle of the pentagram, in the shape of a vaguely human-looking figure. Upon finishing "a little more", the figure took a more definite form. We watched in awe, trying to take in what we were seeing.

She was, without a doubt, the most bizarre creature I had ever seen. She appeared to be a plant, and yet had human appendages, bearing five-fingered arms and flat feet that looked like long, thin leaves with serrated edges. Her face was made of leaves too, that knotted and twisted to form a nose and mouth. Droplets of moisture above the nose made the shape of eyes.

But her physical appearance was nothing compared to her smell, the smell that I had known since the age of 18. The smell I had grown to love. The smell that meant relief from pain. And it had never been so powerful! I wanted to get closer to her, to wrap myself up in that smell and keep it with me forever.

"Greetings! It is I, the Highlady," she said in a trill voice. "It must have taken you a lot of effort to summon me here. A pentagram is an unusual shape, but I'm here now, so it worked."

We were all still staring, wide-eyed, unable to comprehend what we were seeing. I wasn't sure what to say, other than ask a question that I already knew the answer to.

"Your... Highness?" I asked.

"Oh, is that what you call me? That's adorable!" she exclaimed, genuinely excited. "I like it. Maybe I'll use that name from now on. Highlady seems rather antiquated.

"But I must say, there is something about your group that I truly love. Every time you prayed, I saw you. I saw you truly enjoying yourselves, excited to partake in my sacred ritual. Having fun, looking forward to being able to escape all that which troubles you in this world.

"Some people think I'm a goddess of the state of being high, but in some ways I'm much more general than that. I am a goddess of enjoyment. Nothing makes me happier than seeing people enjoy themselves. And today, I come to help you in achieving that goal. That sense of being utterly relaxed, happy to be with your friends, feeling like nothing can get you down. So, without further ado... enjoy!"

And with her final words, all the life seemed to leave the goddess. The plant-human body fell forwards, as though it had had a heart attack.

"What the - what happened to her?" I cried, still not sure what was going on. Had we already started smoking? Was this some strange hallucination? No - this was way too detailed to not be real.

Janice, ever the one to think before acting, knelt down to check the body. She touched it gently, almost afraid to make contact. Of course, moments ago it had been home to a goddess, so it made sense. That darkness, that fear and worry that disappeared during the prayer, had returned to her eyes.

And it vanished just as quickly.

"Don't worry!" she said, uncharacteristically brightly. "She helped us alright - look!"

She held up her hand, revealing a dried bud.

Her Highness hadn't died. She had delivered us the weight of an entire body in weed. Enough to raise our spirits further than they had ever gone before, to lift us to new heights.

That day, we carried out Her work, and went higher than we had ever gone before.

I hardly remember the day we actually made the goddess up. We were all certainly very drunk. The goddess we 'prayed to' was a toad with long beautiful locks of blonde hair. She had a FULLY neon orange dress on, which looked quite odd on a frog, and all of us created art of her, which were the centerpiece of our shrine to her, which we prayed in front of. Sometimes it showed her as an anthro frog, sometimes literally just a frog with hair and an ugly dress. we couldn't decide, but each looked equally funny. Her name was Toadette, which wasn't very original considering it came from mario, but was perfect for her. We also made commandments and laws to follow under her. Such as "Thou must not hurt creatures with pimples." And "One may not kill or harm frogs nor toads".

Now she was before us. She was a godly figure. You couldn't tell whether or not she was anthro, because she was all. What the hell!? I think

She speaks up as we gaze at her, dumbfounded. "Hello my loyal followers. Your wonderful prayers have birthed my existence. I am the goddess Toadette. I wish to turn this currently pitiful world into a great one. One where frogs and toads are widely respected, viewed as the holy creatures they truly are. Today is the first day of that. They are taking over your government as we speak." At that, she gestures to the window where we see anthropomorphic and normal toads and frogs, all hopping about with weapons.

She continues.

"I am a benevolent goddess, so I will give humans equal rights." She smiles. "That is, as long as they respect toad and frogkind. You all are the ones who have created me...and for that I will bestow upon you all immortality, as well as deeming you high toads, the highest rank in this new religion." We all still have no clue what happening, but go along with it considering the fact that we are all either high so this doesn't matter, or it's real and if we defy her she'll kill us.

She in fact did stay true to her word. Those who bent to the religion were welcomed into a new, better world. Those who didn't well...It's forbidden to speak of them. It became the number one world religion, as no others were allowed. The highest crime was the harming of frog or toad, for which the penalty was torture and execution. The entire friend group stuck together as the high toads, bowing to the whims of their goddess. A truly frog world.

"So, you're not fucking with us here?"

Millie, Jules and I were sitting all around the living room, having a staredown with a woman who we initially thought was the pizza guy when she knocked on the door. She was wearing a dress that seamlessly flowed between shades of purple and orange, with white in the middle. Running down her arms and braided into her fiery red hair were flowers of all colors. The woman shook her head and replied, "What I say to you is the truth: I am indeed Dykhe, goddess of sapphic love and patron of all queer women. And I am here to reward my most loyal followers!"

Jules looked at me with a flat expression and remarked, "Chelsea, I don't want to hear you call your art bad ever again. You literally drew something to life."

A month ago, the three of us made up our own deity after Millie bungled the name of the actual Greek goddess Tyche into Dykhe. We made up a whole origin story and associated myths once we were through cackling like maniacs. Eventually, we were thanking her when things went our way, praying for her protection, and leaving tributes on a makeshift shrine on the counter. It was all in good fun--and now Dykhe was sitting on our loveseat.

Millie raised her hand and asked, "Uh, when you say you want to reward us, what exactly is your definition of reward?"

Dykhe giggled. "Why, making your wildest fantasies come true, of course!"

Millie nodded tentatively. "So, if I were to wish for two sugar mommy dom girlfriends, you would--"

POOF!

A cloud of pink smoke popped up around Millie and dissipated. As it did, we saw that she was now sitting between two older women in matching red turtlenecks who had wrapped their arms around her and began nuzzling her. Millie alternated between looking at her girlfriends and Dykhe in astonishment. "This--this has to be fake, right? We took some edibles and now we're hallucinating?"

The older woman with blonde hair cupped Millie's face and kissed her as the dark-skinned woman purred, "Kitten, you are just too damn cute sometimes." Once Millie was allowed to come up for air, she dazedly sighed and let out a string of attempted words that I think was supposed to be "Thank you mommy." Dykhe then turned her attention to me and Jules with a cheery, "See? Just like that! Now, what do you want, my disciples?"

Jules looked around the room awkwardly. "Uh, I don't know if--"

I jumped out of my seat before Jules could finish her sentence. "I wanna be a seven foot tall muscle queen with a cosplay-loving bunny girlfriend!"

POOF!

The pink smoke appeared around me this time. As it faded, I had the physique I had asked for: beautifully toned muscles from my thighs all the way up to my shoulders, complete with a six pack. As I flexed and struck a few poses, I heard the door to the apartment open and a voice cry out, "BABYYYY!" A woman covered in white fur with a pair of bunny ears sticking out the top of her head launched herself at me. I caught her on instinct as she began kissing me wildly. "I missed you soooo much! But oh my God, the convention was awesome! I can't wait to tell you all about it!"

I smiled and responded, "And I can't wait to hear all about it, princess." I then looked over at Jules and said to her, "C'mon Jules, just do it. There's gotta be something you want, right?"

Jules gulped and looked at Dykhe, whose smile just wouldn't fade. She tugged on the collar of her shirt before saying, "Alright, fine. But I don't want judgement from any of you. Dykhe, I wish... I wish I was married to a cute, chubby woman with a pitbull, two kittens, and a kid on the way."

POOF!

When the pink smoke cleared out, Jules was now visibly pregnant and sitting on the lap of a woman with orange streaks dyed into her hair. The woman sighed happily as she rested her hand on Jules swollen belly. At her feet, a black pitbull was snoozing the day away with a pair of orange kittens on his back following suit. Jules, with tears in her eyes, looked at Dykhe and said, "Thank you, my goddess."

Dykhe stood up and gave a little bow. "It was my pleasure and my duty as your patron, girls. Speaking of which, what would you say if I asked you to be my priestesses, so that I may give your sisters around the world the providence and blessing they deserve?"

I grinned. "I'd say take us to church, my goddess."

The tall figure in green stood at the kitchen sink. She hummed gently and placed sparkling clean dishes into the dishwasher as Sasha came from her room.

"Uhh...?" The girl stuttered and looked at the table where Lisa was calmly drinking coffee. The woman at the sink turned and smiled.

"Sasha. Sit and have coffee." She said in a perfect voice that matched her perfect face. "I got the sacrafice from last night and I have come as requested."

"We were- only joking..." Sasha jumped as Lucy slammed her hand on the table and mouthed her to shut up. Sasha sank down into a chair.

"Heather, Mia... you guys better come out here" She called to the other roommates. Looking around, the house was spotless. Did they really invoke the Goddess of clean houses into the apartment?

Mia stumbled out first. Her hair an absolute birds nest, still in her pajama shorts and tank top. She stopped midyawn and looked at the woman in green. Lisa passed her some coffee.

"Remeber when we asked for the Goddess Clroxia? Well... guess who answered." Sasha shrugged and pointed.

Mia groaned. "I'm too hung over to deal with this."

Heather bounded out in a red dress with her makeup perfect, looking ready for a hot date. She froze in place looking at Cloroxia, who was now wiping down the counters.

"Her? I was hoping the Tinder God had come through. I mean no offense-" She added as the Goddess face turned stormy. "It's just been a while..."

"The God of Tinder DID come through. Just after I did." Cloroxia answered. Heather perked up again.

"Great! Where is he?"

Cloroxia smiled. "On a coffee date with your room mate Chase. It seems his sacrafice of chocolate and wine was better than your pitiful flower arrangement."

We all were in a room one of our friends had painted. It was the bedroom. It consisted of trees, a pond, and three logs put around the pond, like a triangle.

We all sat down on the logs, taking a fake Lily-pad to our hands. We put them together and closed our eyes.

“May a River, somewhere nice, make a goddess so suffice, to change the tides and the iodines to make a sea of green.”

We opened our eyes, taking our Lily-pads into our palms and putting them onto the pond.

“Elicit Amina.”

We stood up, and walked out of the room.

“Do you think we could actually summon something?” I ask.

“You always ask that, of course not!”

The week after, we did it again, the next week, again.

By the fifteenth week, we were still trying to do the pattern, but we did it at night.

By the twenty first week, we didn’t know what would happen.

“Elicit Amina.”

A soft glow came from the pond, we looked at each other, confused.

The glow lit up the roof and everything that was in that pond, the soft glow dissipated and a women was standing before us.

She had wavy light purple hair, her skin was a light blue, her eyes were light green. She had a simple dress on consisting of the tides and grass. A soft black and purple cloud was holding her.

“I have been called from the tides to you.”

All of our jaws dropped open. Were we in a dream?

“Miss…”

“Oh, you don’t have to call me miss… I should be the one calling you Miss, Miss Camille.”

“I… bless us with your understanding!”

“I’ll give you the power to shift the tides and give a sea of green. I do not have any power to restrict your abilities.”

We all looked at each other again.

“Camille, you go first.”

I timidly walked up to Amina, looking at her eyes. Her hand was out. I took it and felt something click.

When I looked back at them, they all had a blue ring on their pinky finger, I looked back at my hand, I had a blue bracelet.

“You will control the tides.”

“Thank you, Amina.”

She disappeared with a shower of water.

“…alright.”

We all walked out of the room.

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