Inspired by this prompt by /u/HonestAbe1809

The family business wasn't particularly time-consuming. There were only so many gods, and they didn't all lose their jobs at the same time. We typically only needed to place a couple of clients a year. But still, we always had someone behind the desk, reading a book or browsing the internet, but ready to help at a moment's notice.

Because there was nothing scarier than the wrong god with too much free time on their hands.

So when my aunt called and said Loki was in the lobby and was already on his way to my office, I immediately minimized Reddit and started getting the office into its 'trickster' configuration. A jokescreen went across the middle of my desk, made with smoky glass, to separate me from him. I put the liar extinguisher and a net of trickin' wire close at hand, in case he decided to try something anyway. Not that any of those devices worked, exactly, but most tricksters would respect the puns and pretend that they did.

Or they wouldn't, and I'd be no worse off than if I hadn't tried to stop him.

I'd just pulled out a prank cheque when my door slammed opened and a horse trotted in. I blinked, and when I opened my eyes the cat was sitting in the chair across the desk from me. There was a pause before I sighed.

"Ah. Shapeshifter, right? So, Loki, are you looking for a new job?"

The cat turned into a brawny, muscle-bound man, dressed in the furs, armor, giant ax and horned helmet of a cartoon Viking.

"Loki?" He boomed. "I am Thor. How dare you call me by that accursed name!"

I raised an eyebrow. "Ah, of course, how silly of me. So with that ax, I'll just put you down as god of lumberjacks, then? Maybe with a sub-specialty in flannel? Keep in mind that this is permanent, and-"

"Ah, no need to be hasty." The figure transformed again, and a much more reasonably-sized person was sitting across from me. She was wearing a modern, very expensive suit, and a very familiar face.

"Just treat me as you would like to be treated*, my doppelganger said, her mischievous smile already showing a tinge of madness.

I winced. "How long has it been since you lost your last position?"

"My divine mantle only fell apart completely a couple hours ago, but I wasn't exactly raking in worship or fear before that. I haven't had a full course of mortal attention in... centuries, probably. Not enough people attribute natural disasters to the gods anymore. Or even the small inconveniences."

I nodded. "It's a growing issue, and it's where most of our clients come from these days." I brought up his file, which definitely, absolutely, not the same as his Wikipedia page.

But most people learned about old gods through Wikipedia in the modern age, and the gods were beings shaped by belief, so it wasn't a terrible source. And it only tended to become more accurate over time, as more and more people believed what was written there. I skimmed the contents and sighed.

"So, there's good news and bad news. The good news is, mythologically speaking, you don't actually have that many clearly defined traits, so, potentially, you should be able to slip into lots of different roles. The bad news is, it doesn't seem like much about you survived to the present." I leaned forward. "So, what kind of position are you looking for? Or what skills do you have that we can fit into a new job?"

Loki drummed her fingers, each tap on the chair's arm accompanied by a change in her- his body. At last Loki settled on a male form and said, "Well, you've seen the shapeshifting. That's what has stuck with me the most, no matter how much my power has declined. I quite like being a trickster, but it's just not the same these days. The Norse, they could respect a good bit of trickery. They didn't exactly like it or think it honorable, but a grand prank could get me years of fear from them. The murder of Baldr..." Loki shifted into a very handsome man, who suddenly clutched his chest and collapsed. From the floor came a delighted whisper. "...Oh, that one got me a harvest of mortal attention, enough to glut me for decades."

I very carefully didn't react to that, but it was a timely reminder that the gods were nothing like humans. Especially not the starved, half-mad ones my family's business dealt with, driven by their lack of purpose and a creeping hunger to ever greater extremes of their personality.

"So, shapeshifting and trickery. Anything else?" I kept scrolling through Wikipedia, more to avoid looking at him than in the hopes I'd find something useful.

"Lies. They taste wonderful, even before the confusion and the chaos slowly spread and breed more of themselves."

I hesitated in my scrolling. "It says here something about a 'flyting?' Would you care to elaborate?"

Loki settled back in the chair, morphing into an old suit and grabbing a carved tobacco pipe from somewhere, lounging in a parody of a elder statesman in a drawing room, about to dispense wisdom. "Ah, the glory days. It was a contest of insults, performed in poetry composed on the spot. At least at first; once the mead had flowed, the rhymes and meter tended to get a bit... sketchy, you might say. But on the other hand, the insults only got more inventive. And I was the undisputed master, sober and drunk. Every single one of the Norse deities threatened to kill me over a good flyting at least once, and I got most of the Germanic and Roman ones too."

A smile danced across his lips, and his gaze focused somewhere in memory. "Good times."

I thought over the list of skills and couldn't avoid a wince as the perfect job came to me. Shapeshifting, trickery and lies, and an interest in insults only really combined into one place. But it was the family's policy that we gave our clients the right spot, regardless of whether or not we thought it was a good idea.

"Loki, would you mind coming around the desk? I have to show you something."

I brought Reddit back up, and opened a tab for Twitter and Tumblr too. "These are some of the sites for what we call 'social media.' It's used for-"

I was interrupted when he practically shoved me out of my seat and almost pressed his eyes to the screen. A moment later, he licked it and grinned. "It's delicious. I can taste the deceit and slanderous accusations."

The grin slowly fell into a frown, and he stepped away. "But shapeshifting is my oldest power, and I don't think I'll be able to take on this mantle without some connection to it."

With a lingering sense of dread, I showed him how easy it was to switch to an alt account.

"Well?" I asked. "What you think? Do you want to be the god of this godless wasteland of lies and deceit?"

He began to nod, but stopped himself. Slowly, with the manner of a child confessing some great sin, Loki admitted, "While I am a trickster, and I do wipe out entire cities every now and then⁠—I mean, who hasn't, honestly?⁠—for the most part, I do try to punish the wicked. With these anonymous accounts, it will be hard to separate them from the innocent."

I shrugged. "I can see why that might be a concern. However, it's the internet; when in doubt, most of these people are guilty of something."

"Then I accept!"

With a flash of light, Loki was gone. I told myself quite firmly that it was a coincidence that Reddit chose that moment to stop working and start updating. It was pure chance that I got an email a minute later, saying Facebook had just updated its terms and conditions, and asking me to agree again.

Definitely coincidence, I told myself, steadfastly ignoring a new notification from Twitter.

Although perhaps I'd actually read this user agreement before checking the box.

More of my stories at r/NobodysGaggle