“Why me?” Charlotte asked, nervously biting her lip and bouncing her leg crossed over her knee.
“Surely there’s someone out there more -uh” she waved her hands around trying to find the correct words “er…’in line’ with your business, I mean, line of interest, shit, …target audience?” She ended weakly.
Hermes flashed her his most charming grin. She cringed.
He sighed and dropped onto her office chair, slamming his feet onto her desk.
“Charlie, Chaz, Babe! May I call you babe? You are perfect, everyone loves you, and everyone is exactly who the target audience is!”
Charlotte noted the sparkling white and gold sneakers with tacky wings on the sides.
He wore designer jeans and a simple black turtleneck that probably cost more than the monthly rent of her top floor studio apartment.
With his perfect blonde hair, starling blue eyes and unnaturally white teeth he looked like the blueprint that every tech bro aspired to.
She wanted to punch him.
“She looks like she wants to punch you.” Snorted a figure sitting in the alcove at the big round roof window.
This specimen looked like every single variety of edgy teenager had thrown up in a corner and the resulting miasma had coalesced into concentrated irritation. To make things worse, every time she shifted or Charlotte looked away and back her appearance seemed to change. At this moment the creature was covered in tartan, studded leather and Hello Kitty paraphernalia, with bubblegum pink hair shorn on the sides, dark eyeliner and piercings through her eyebrows.
Eris.
In the past few decades the god of commerce and messengers and the goddess of discord had risen to the top of the pantheon, like scum on a pond.
And now they were here, with a proposition.
“Look, babe, sweetheart, daaaaarling,” Hermes drawled “everyone loves you, your content is harmless and non polarising and your follower count is shooting for the stars. Across all nations and platforms you’re the one to watch!”
“And how do you think that happened?” Said Eris, not once looking up from her phone. If she had noticed Charlotte’s raised eyebrow, she didn’t let it show.
“Shh!” Hermes shushed her “all we want is for you to keep doing what you do best, but include us!” He waved at the one corner of the loft that wasn’t a dishevelled mess.
Her kitchen.
Several lamps in a tangle of wires were aimed at the spotless marble countertop. Adorned with neat cork-stopped mason jars, little flower shaped glass bowls, delicately carved silver measuring cups, those were a lucky thrift shop find, and more adorable cooking tools in pleasant pastel tones.
A camera phone in one light ring was strategically placed to record only that perfect picture and hide the chaos of ingredients and actually functional tools behind and under the counter.
Her channel, “Charlotte Chantilly”, did in fact suddenly blow up in popularity overnight. She made cakes and desserts, making sure they were not only pretty, but tasty too.
Her videos were simple, cheery and short with no voice overs, just some copyright free music, recipe in the description, it was all about the decoration anyway. No fondant on her bakes, ever.
“And with “us” I mean all of us, the entirety of gods and spirits of the pantheon! Of course, just those who want to be on our brand new cooking talk show.” Hermes continued.
Well fuck, Charlotte was so so fucked. Fuckity fucked.
Before becoming a small internet celebrity she had been a student in Historical Applied Religion, a course focusing on the gods, the people who were blessed by them and their influence on society. If there was one thing she took from those lessons it’s that gaining divine attention meant you were well and properly fucked. Both ways, no lube.
Their blessings would invariably turn into curses, a regular monkey paw situation. If you refused the blessing, they would probably just curse you anyway for good measure.
Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.
“Told you we should have gone for the chocolate guy.” Said Eris, tapping something on her phone and smirking maliciously.
“Would’ve loved to, but you know he’s got that deal with Quetzalcoatl. Stupid parrot-snake, can’t even manifest outside Cathaìr nan Diathàn.” Hermes said.
“I don’t want to seem ungrateful for the views, but why? I never asked for it, I never even tried to petition for a blessing.” I know better than that, she added to herself.
“Riri and I -”
“Don’t call me that.”
“Eris and I, we’re doing great, as you can tell. Modernised, worshipped, powerful enough that we can manifest anywhere in the world, not just in The City or Greece and looking fucking hot doing so.” He winked at Eris, in response she flipped him off with a finger now covered in bad tattoos and black nail polish.
“The other gods, eh,“ he waggled his hand palm down “not so much. And they’re envious, it makes our position amongst our peers rather….strained.”
Charlotte flopped down on her bed, resigned to being talked at, grabbing a pillow onto her face.
“Go on then” she said, muffled
“Sure, some of the Aesir and Vanir are doing great, what with the movie deals. And Bastet is basically the third pillar of the internet together with us. Athena managed to dip her sandaled foot into gaming, but many others, even those who were once big deals are on the verge of being forgotten. And for us that means being absorbed by another, more popular god from the same pantheon or, if none is available, just vanishing. No Bueno.“
“And you want me” Charlotte groaned, grabbing the pillow off her face “to fix that with cake decorating vids?”
“Precisely!” Hermes beamed at her.
Of course, it made sense, finance and communication ruled the world, it was only natural Hermes grabbed the opportunity to sit at the forefront of the rise of the digital age. Deals were made, blessings were granted and suddenly humanity couldn’t function without the digital devices they did fine without for centuries.
With communication comes miscommunication and Eris, goddess of discord, gleefully threw her proverbial and literal apple on the table.
Hermes may have laid out the framework, but Eris is responsible for social media. Never before were so many people in disagreement over such minuscule matters, she relished every squabble.
As self-proclaimed Queen of the Trolls she spent her days infuriating people on Reddit with oddly undeletable accounts.
Then, somehow, when no-one was looking, Bastet snuck in. She never forgot how great it was when her kind was worshipped and a picture of one of her children captioned to be asking for fast food was her way in.
She may have also planted the idea that cats are vying for world domination.
“How, I mean what, I, how would that even work?” Charlotte pleaded.
“We make it like an interview, you introduce a participating deity, talk about what they can do, all while decorating cakes together and make them seem sympathetic-” Hermes said.
“Hah!” Eris interrupted.
“-make them sympathetic.” Hermes continued “and we’ll make sure supplicants get in contact. Charon is setting up a luxury ferry service to Cathaìr nan Diathàn as we speak. Aphrodite is helping so it doesn’t end up too gloomy.”
“But I never talk in my vids! I just edit my baking and decorating into a satisfying montage, it wouldn’t work!” Charlotte desperately argued.
“Don’t worry about that, Chazza, with divine intervention there’s no way it will fail! So, do we have a deal?”
“Do I have a choice?” Charlotte asked.
With that infuriating grin plastered on his face Hermes replied “ ‘fraid not, sugartits.”