yes, we believe in the wisdom of our god

[jovahs_heiress]

Isabella is generally referred to as: promising.

Angels in general are a breed apart. Of course they've all got lovely voices, they've all got classical music training and know the masses and prayers, they're all blessed winged creatures -

But that doesn't mean they're all smart, or all good, even (Isabella was taken to see Windy Point, once, or what's left of it, and of course she sees the scars on Galo Mountain every year at the Gloria; there stood angels who were not good). And Isabella is smart and good.

Isabella is always the first to volunteer for an intercession. She likes them. She'll call down weather, plead for seeds, pray a shower of medicine to fall from the sky, and she will get what she asks for, and she loves nothing more than to dive from hours aloft in prayer and clasp the hands of the people she helped and go home to the Eyrie to take on her next assignment. When there are none - when there is the right amount of rain and sun in the province, when there is no plague and no famine - she studies. She studies a bit of everything, but she fancies herself particularly a historian, investigating the accounts of Archangels' reigns past. From books, mostly, although once she wrangled herself a year in Cedar Hills to assist the Archangel Linus, and when she is in the Eyrie she closely follows the leader of the host there, the former term-lapsed Archangel Delilah.

She tried to get in with the other living former Archangel, too, Alleluia the oracle who served as Delilah's interim while the latter's wing recovered from an injury, but after a few hours' conversation Alleluia said that she could not accept Isabella as even a temporary acolyte and sent her to Peninnah instead. Isabella learned a lot from Peninnah, but she's confused about why Alleluia turned her down personally only to send her to another oracle, after such a prolonged interview. Particularly since Sinai is in her own province; what was the point in sending her all the way to Gaza?

But the instruction came from an oracle, and oracles' words more often than not come from Jovah. She went to Gaza, learned from Peninnah, and went home.

Now she is back at the Eyrie, and the first thing she wants to do is let Delilah know that she's back. Her wings aren't so tired that she can't immediately fly to the Corinnis or the outskirts of Semorrah or anywhere and accomplish something. Failing that, she'd love to sign up for harmonies again now that she's home and wants to know what she ought to schedule around.

Delilah is with her husband Noah, and a visitor. He doesn't seem like a petitioner, and he doesn't look like an Edori, although the fact that he and Noah are talking in Edori suggests that he might be an adopted one. (There are hardly any Edori of either sort left; most of them live in Ysral, now.) Isabella waits patiently outside the door for the host leader's attention.

Comments

[pythbox]

He tilts his head from side to side for a moment, then concludes, "Workshop!"

[jovahs_heiress]

"Okay. We'll be back up soon," Isabella tells the acolyte, and she picks up Micaiah again and throws herself off the cliff. (There are stairs. This is faster.)

The workshop is a warehouse-like building, all over electric lighting and with a couple of generators out back, one of them puffing away. In addition to the oracle's husband and their kid, there must be a number of students, because there are more than two people present swarming about the place with their arms full of parts and wires and clockwork.

"Hello, angela!" says a girl about twelve years old. "What brings you and your friend here?"

"We're waiting for Alleluia, and thought we'd look around while she's finishing up what she's doing, if that's all right," says Isabella.

"That's fine! Want to see the clock I'm making? I'm making a clock!"

"Sure," says Isabella.

[pythbox]

"Ooh, show me the clock," Micaiah says excitedly.

[jovahs_heiress]

The girl shows them the clock! Its innards are clockwork, though the blocky battery that also weights its base powers the spinning of the first gear rather than there being any winding mechanism, and she is adding parts to make little figurines of fish spin in place on the surface on each hour.

Isabella refrains from complimenting her on it, though she does smile kindly. People are always giving angels gifts, and this only becomes more likely if they compliment relevant objects.

[pythbox]

Micaiah, on the other hand, is all over it. He loves the tiny fish; he gets excited about the wiring; he listens attentively as the girl explains how the mechanism fits together.

[jovahs_heiress]

She is utterly thrilled to explain. She seems to be a junior student; Alleluia's husband, gray-haired and laughing, is paying more attention to an older boy's miniaturized car. He waves at Isabella, and she waves back; that's the extent of their interaction.

[pythbox]

When they have exhausted the subject of tiny fish, Micaiah starts telling the goat story.

[jovahs_heiress]

The girl finds this terribly amusing, and it takes up the remainder of what Isabella estimates to be their hour. She bids the girl goodbye and picks up Micaiah again to take him back up to the oracular chambers.

The acolyte who greeted them earlier escorts them in, and there is the interface room: a glowing screen with arcane symbols dancing across it and a butter-blonde angel sitting before it with her hands on rows of buttons. "Hello again, Isabella," she says, swiveling in her chair. "I hear that you have a question for me."

Isabella swallows and nods. "Er, yes. I'm not sure if Jovah will choose to answer it. I know he hasn't chosen Linus's successor yet, and I'm sorry to be so presumptuous, but - can you tell me, if I were to be the next Archangel, who would be my angelico?"

Alleluia raises an eyebrow. "That's your question?"

"Yes."

"I will consult the god," Alleluia says ritually, and she turns back to the screen and taps away at the symbols inscrutably. Isabella can't make out the words. She has no particular talent for languages, and the oracles are said to comprehend the words by grace anyway.

After a minute, Alleluia turns back. "In the event - Jovah did not remark on its likelihood - that you were to be Archangel, he would name as your angelico Azaziah, son of Canaan and Judith."

[pythbox]

As soon as Alleluia speaks those names, Micaiah chokes.

He backs away from the screen, eyes wide, hand to his mouth, as though he just saw something too horrifying to comprehend. Saw, or heard.

[jovahs_heiress]

"Is... that not you?" Isabella asks, concerned, peering at the Kiss in her arm. It's still glowing brilliantly. That attracts Alleluia's attention as well, and the oracle blinks. "Micaiah? Are you all right?"

[pythbox]

Micaiah shakes his head rapidly. "That's, I, that's not— aaaaugh!"

He crumples to the floor, curls up into a tight little ball, and starts messily crying.

[jovahs_heiress]

Isabella drops to her knees next to him and rests her hand on his back. "Micaiah, what's wrong? I don't understand - please tell me?"

[pythbox]

"Burn that name," he wails, somewhat muffled by the fact that his head is tucked between his hands and his knees. "Kill it with fire, kill it with lightning, never call me that again."

[jovahs_heiress]

"I - Alleluia? Is that something you can ask Jovah to do? Change the record away from how he was dedicated?" Bella says, looking up.

"I can ask. I think so. Micaiah?" Alleluia confirms. "Just that?"

"Of the Manderras," supplies Isabella. "Right? Sia a Manderra?" She does know the Edori words for "of the" as they go in names; Peninnah was asked to update records of undedicated Edori often enough during the year she spent there.

[pythbox]

"Y-yes," he sniffles.

[jovahs_heiress]

"Micaiah sia a Manderra," repeats Alleluia as she types. The screen blinks back at her. "...Jovah will of course remember the original name and will be able to find you by it. If someone asks an oracle whether the person of the original name is alive, he will still be able to tell us yea or nay. But apart from that it's been changed."

"Okay?" says Isabella. "But - it is him?"

"Yes, as if there could be any doubt, Isabella, look at your arms," says Alleluia, half-fondly. "Jovah does not say one thing for love and another for politics. You have your answer."

[pythbox]

Micaiah shivers and curls up tighter.

[jovahs_heiress]

Isabella rubs his back as soothingly as she knows how. "Micaiah, is there anything else I can do?"

[pythbox]

He shivers again, but uncurls a little under her hand.

For the moment, they're getting nothing out of him but muffled, quiet sobbing.

[jovahs_heiress]

Isabella decides that there is no reason for this to be going on in Alleluia's oracular chamber. "Thank you very much for your help," she tells the other angel. "I'm sorry about this." And she picks up Micaiah, carries him out to the cliff, and flies down - not to the workshop, some hundred yards away on a grassy foothill, and sets Micaiah down to wait for him to be done crying.

[pythbox]

When she picks him up, he snuggles into her arms.

When she puts him down, he covers his face again.

[jovahs_heiress]

Isabella pets his hair, because she can't think of anything else to do.

[pythbox]

Somehow he gradually migrates from curled up on the hillside to curled up in her lap.

He seems to like it better there, or maybe he's just winding down anyway.

[jovahs_heiress]

Mostly unconsciously - maybe she's remembering singing Elisha and Serah's baby brother to sleep, maybe she's just defaulting to music in the absence of other ideas - Isabella begins to sing quietly. It's not a prayer, though Jovah is mentioned; it's a lullaby.

[pythbox]

Micaiah lets out a sigh and snuggles into her lap.

There. That's better.