all that remains is you

[jovahs_heiress]

It has been a couple of months now since the wedding, since the revelation about Jovah. Isabella has been busy. She is not as overt as some of her counterparts. It is not now impossible on Samaria to commit crimes of violence, for example - although anyone who gets going with one will tend to feel a sensation of being watched, and this is enough to noticeably ding reports of such misbehavior.

She's been noticed.

Linus has been calling all of the changes, collectively - because once one or two got overt attention the others were plain as day - "Jovah's hand moving among us".

Isabella is all right with the ship getting credit for her handiwork. It will be more accepted that way. No one riots over the god choosing to peer closely at them if they raise their hands to strike; no one theorizes about the appropriateness of meddling in the natural processes of things like childbirth when they believe Jovah is the active party.

Meanwhile she shadows Delilah. She makes routine visits to Monteverde to talk with Linus about this or that. (She can bring Micaiah, now that they're married.)

She gets steadily more pregnant. The heaviness is no burden to an angel, but it is somewhat physically awkward to be so bulky. She works around it. She's going to have a baby, and she just glows with it.

And, one day, for the first time since before the wedding, she finds Milliways in her and Micaiah's guest room in Monteverde.

"Oh, here it is, I was wondering when it would come by again," Isabella says.

Comments

[yovahs_kisses]

Micaiah giggles.

"You are handsome," he says, grinning.

[deslandes]

He laughs.

[jovahs_heiress]

"And you're a Whistle," says Angela.

[yovahs_kisses]

Micaiah is now eyeing the newly identified Whistle speculatively.

[deslandes]

The newly identified Whistle is eyeing him right back.

[jovahs_heiress]

"Do you want more advice about Belle or do you want to go borrow my husband for a while?" inquires Angela archly.

[deslandes]

"I want more advice about Belle," he decides, if reluctantly. "Then I want to borrow your husband."

[jovahs_heiress]

"For one thing," Angela says, "it will almost certainly come as a surprise to her that you are the husband-borrowing type. If you've made no commitments to her, there will be no particular consequences from borrowing Micaiah even after she finds out, but it's not the sort of thing you should spring on her."

[deslandes]

"There's no one else around to borrow," he snorts. "I'll be sure to tell her all about this dream when I wake up."

[jovahs_heiress]

"Yes, do that. As for the trying to fall in love - you know - I'm not sure that's a good idea. The others managed it quite naturally - I was encouraged, after a fashion, but not under anything like a year and a half time limit. What will happen if you run out the clock?"

[deslandes]

"I stay in my castle alone and fluffy forever, unless she can break the enchantment from outside."

[yovahs_kisses]

Micaiah shivers.

[jovahs_heiress]

Angela considers this.

"If I were her," she says after a minute, "which in one sense I am, I would be worried about half-succeeding at falling in love with you. Enough that I'd be very upset over your fate when it was not quite enough for the curse to break. And I would be worried about what you'd think of me if I couldn't manage it."

[deslandes]

"Oh." He blinks. "I'll ask her about those."

[jovahs_heiress]

"Do you have a reassuring answer for the second?"

[deslandes]

He shrugs. "I don't know what I'd think of her. I don't think it would change much. She hasn't managed it yet, and I love her anyway."

[jovahs_heiress]

"Yes," says Angela, "but if you were stuck alone forever - I assume she understands that as far as you're concerned that's a fate worse than death? - because of something she failed to do, she might imagine you'd be angry."

[deslandes]

"Oh." He frowns. "What would I be angry with her for? She didn't do it. She even tried to help."

[jovahs_heiress]

"She expects to succeed at things," Angela says, "when she really tries."

[deslandes]

"Of course she does," he says, smiling fondly. "But no one succeeds at all things."

[jovahs_heiress]

"Still, she expects that if she means to strongly enough she will manage, and she may assume that you expect the same of her, and so she could suppose that if she fails you'll believe she didn't really try."

[deslandes]

"Then I'll tell her differently."

[jovahs_heiress]

"There you are, then. Let's see. Where does she come from? I'm trying to imagine what sort of world hers is."

[deslandes]

"I think she said she was from the village of Les Fourches," he says.

[jovahs_heiress]

"...Well," says Angela. "That's cute, but it doesn't help me. The specific village almost certainly doesn't matter. I mean the world. The magic, the politics, the sorts of people who live there."