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

[jovahs_heiress]

"Well, let's suppose it takes three years for a little angel to become interesting," Isabella says, rocking a sleepy Keziah in her arms. "And let's say I'm only going to have two, that Keziah's going to be the last one. So when she's three, she'll be interesting, and if she could be interesting when she's two instead, then all my little-angel-interestingness would be done faster. But what if I'm going to have six of them? Then by the time the last one was interesting, you would be at least ten years old, if I had them one at a time. If they all were born at the same time then the same amount of little-angel-interestingness would be done faster, even if it still took them all three years."

[pythbox]

Damaris thinks about this.

"...okay," she concedes. "I guess. Are you going to have six little angels? If you do, you should have twins next. Then it'll be faster."

[jovahs_heiress]

"I'm not sure how many little angels we're going to have, but being done faster is not the point," says Isabella, amused.

[pythbox]

"Why not?"

[jovahs_heiress]

"If you sing a song twice as fast, you'll be done sooner. Why do we sing some songs slow anyway?"

[pythbox]

"They sound nicer?" she guesses. "Do one-at-a-time babies sound nicer than twins?"

[jovahs_heiress]

Isabella laughs. "No. All right - why do we sing at all?"

[pythbox]

"Because it's fun!"

[jovahs_heiress]

"And bringing up little angels," says Isabella, rocking sleepy Keziah and re-folding a limp wing, "is also fun."

[pythbox]

"Even the boring part?"

[jovahs_heiress]

"I wouldn't want to miss it."

[pythbox]

"Okay," says Damaris, dubiously.

[jovahs_heiress]

"Right now you are three," says Isabella. "Would you want to be magicked into being six instead, right now? And miss being four and five in between?"

[pythbox]

"I don't know," says Damaris. "I've never been four yet!"

[jovahs_heiress]

"Keziah hasn't been one year old yet," says Isabella. "I don't think it would be fair if she never got to try it, even if that would make her interesting faster."

[pythbox]

"Oh," says Damaris.

[jovahs_heiress]

"Besides, tiny babies are cute."

[pythbox]

"Tiny babies are boring," says Damaris.

[jovahs_heiress]

"Well, I suppose I thought so too when I was three."

[pythbox]

"You were three?"

[jovahs_heiress]

"Oh yes! I have been all of the ages from zero to twenty-three," laughs Isabella.

[pythbox]

Damaris giggles.

[jovahs_heiress]

"In order," Isabella adds, winking.

[pythbox]

Damaris giggles more!

[jovahs_heiress]

Isabella kisses the top of her head.



Keziah isn't quite as precocious as Damaris, but when she is two and Damaris is five, she can reliably say things more intelligible than uncontextualized "juice" and "up" and "Mommy" and "Daddy" and "Dars", which is as close as she can come to Damaris's name for the first years of her life.

"Play wif me, Dars," Keziah says, tugging on Damaris's arm.