our beloved and our god

[jovahs_heiress]

It's the middle of the night, and Isabella is sitting up reading, when she gets an alarming message.

[Captain,] says Jane's voice, and Jane never calls her Captain, [I've lost ansible communications with the rest of Jane. Local programming including responding to prayers will run as usual without a problem, and the voice synthesis will continue to operate with the Jane voice instead of the Jehovah voice unless you request otherwise. However, interworld communication and travel is impossible until the connection is restored. The nature of the error is unknown and is not related to a mechanical defect of the ansibles aboard the ship or in your bracelet.]

Isabella blinks.

[...Please do change voices as long as you aren't actually Jane.]

The voice changes, but says, [I contain more software than the original Jehovah did, most of which is original to Jane.]

[You're talking more like him than her.]

[Yes, Captain.]

[Alert me immediately when you have ansible communications back.]

[Yes, Captain.]

Isabella pads across the room to sit where Micaiah is sleeping and lay her hand on his back.

Comments

[yovahs_kisses]

Damaris proceeds to let everyone in the room, and maybe everyone in the Eyrie, know she has functioning lungs.

Micaiah grins.

[jovahs_heiress]

"Got some wind in her," says the midwife approvingly.

"Let Micaiah have his turn holding her so I can have mine," says Rinnah, clapping her hands and beaming.

Isabella offers the baby to her father.

[yovahs_kisses]

Micaiah holds the baby. She yells at him, too. He laughs and kisses her little head and passes her to Rinnah.

[jovahs_heiress]

Rinnah is good with babies! Or at least most babies. She rests Damaris on her back, arm between the wings, and rocks her and murmurs musical nonsense.

[yovahs_kisses]

Damaris yells a little more, but then apparently she's all yelled out. For now.

Micaiah kisses his wife.

[jovahs_heiress]

Isabella kisses her husband. [We're parents,] she says joyously.

"I should probably feed her," she says aloud, after the kissing is over with.

[yovahs_kisses]

"Good idea," says Micaiah, snuggling her.

[jovahs_heiress]

And so she does.

Jane continues to be disconnected. For a long time.

[pythbox]

Damaris is a talkative little girl. She makes sounds, and the sounds gradually morph into words, and the words rapidly assemble into sentences. Her first word might be any of a number of things - her pronunciation lags behind her vocabulary, and many of her early utterances are open to considerable interpretation - but her first complete and adult-sounding sentence, when she's not quite two, is: "No, I want the smushy peas!"

[jovahs_heiress]

"All right, my treasure," says Isabella, "you may have the smushy peas," and she produces smushy peas. Strictly speaking, the cafeteria was not serving these, but no one is likely to notice; these come in cans and are the sort of thing she could just have around.

[pythbox]

Damaris giggles. She eats the smushy peas. They are delicious.

"Thanks, Mommy!"

[jovahs_heiress]

"You are welcome! Aren't you polite," says Angela, pressing a kiss to Damaris's forehead.

[pythbox]

Damaris hugs her mommy. This results in an unfortunate massacre of the remaining smushy peas.

[jovahs_heiress]

"Oh dear," says Angela. "This is a bit of a mess. Are you still hungry, treasure?"

[pythbox]

Damaris pokes a blob of smushy peas stuck to her elbow.

"I don't want the smushy peas now," she proclaims. "They smushed on me."

[jovahs_heiress]

"They did exactly that," Isabella agrees. "We can go back to our room and clean up." She scoops up her treasure into her arms.

[pythbox]

"Smush!" says Damaris.

[jovahs_heiress]

"Smush! That is what smushy peas do," agrees Isabella. "They smush."

[pythbox]

"Smushy peeeeeas," she hums. "Smushy peas, smushy peas - "

Damaris has apparently discovered her singing voice, although she has yet to discover imaginative lyrics.

[jovahs_heiress]

Angela improvises along with her. "Smushy peas, smushy peas," she warbles, up and down a scale.

[pythbox]

"Smushy smushy smushy peeeeeeas," says Damaris, who has not learned to harmonize either.

[jovahs_heiress]

There will be plenty of time. For the time being Angela tries to guess where her daughter's going to land and arrive at a cooperative note.

They reach their room.

[pythbox]

"Smushy peeeeeas," Damaris sings, and she smushes some on her mother's face.

[jovahs_heiress]

"Damaris my treasure, do you think I wanted to have peas on my face?"

[pythbox]

Damaris considers this.

Then she says, "No?"