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 puts out a hand and strokes her feathers while he kisses back. It seems like the thing to do.

[jovahs_heiress]

Oh, and it is. She squirms and makes a squeaky, happy noise.

[pythbox]

Laughing softly, he snuggles up against her and does it again.

[jovahs_heiress]

This could go on for a while... (And Isabella would not mind a bit if it did.)

[pythbox]

It does.

[jovahs_heiress]

Mm-hm.

After said while, Micaiah has a very happy pseudo-limp angel wrapped around him, and she murmurs, "I'm kinda hungry."

[pythbox]

"For what?" he giggles.

[jovahs_heiress]

"...Food, what else?"

(She honestly doesn't know!)

[pythbox]

By way of demonstration, or perhaps just because she's being adorable again, he kisses her.

[jovahs_heiress]

"Mmm." Isabella hardly objects, but this does not solve her hunger problem. "Dinner?"

[pythbox]

"Dinner," he agrees.

But first, hug.

[jovahs_heiress]

A reasonable order of operations.

Serah, Elisha, and their small full brother and smaller half-brother (the full a mortal, the half an angel) whom they are babysitting join them at the table, and the little angel boy has approximately nine million questions about the Edori, many of them requests for verification of insulting rumors of one sort or another.

[pythbox]

Micaiah quite cheerfully answers every single question.

Sometimes he answers them with outrageous self-contradictory lies, but how else are you supposed to talk to children?

[jovahs_heiress]

The small angel seems to find the outrageous self-contradictory lies highly entertaining, and everyone else finds his giggles similarly entertaining.

Ultimately dinner is concluded, the small children are escorted away by their elder siblings to their respective evening music lessons, and Micaiah and Isabella are left alone.

[pythbox]

He grins at her.

"That was fun," he says. "What now?"

[jovahs_heiress]

"I think you've seen what there is to see in the Eyrie. There's stuff to do in Velora, but except for a few standbys that I've checked in on during visits home, I'm not sure how much of what I remember is still there - it's been two years, I went to Monteverde to assist Linus when I was only sixteen. I might go hang around the petitioners' rooms and see who wants weather or who's dealing with plague, but if I go anywhere now I might not be home in time for my harmonics in the morning and that would be irresponsible unless it was a dire emergency and no one else could handle it. So. What do you want to do?"

[pythbox]

"Kiss you some more," he says immediately.

[jovahs_heiress]

She blushes, but doesn't stammer when she says, "Okay," and gets up and takes his hand and heads for her room. (Their room.)

[pythbox]

Aww. Micaiah squeezes her hand and walks close by her side.

[jovahs_heiress]

More kissing ensues. Micaiah spends this period of time wrapped in a speckled-white wall of warm and highly pettable feathers.

Eventually she yawns and trips off to change into her nightgown for the night. She takes the blanket off the bed - waving one wing by way of explanation; it's more than big enough to cover a person, especially one as cuddle-inclined as Micaiah - and flops facedown thereonto, inside wing lifted for him to slip under.

[pythbox]

Micaiah gets out of his clothes and climbs into bed with her, snuggling up under her wing as invited.

"I love you," he murmurs sleepily.

[jovahs_heiress]

Isabella tenses marginally, but - well, he's already said something like that, isn't this a good thing, she doesn't have to chase him all over Samaria convincing him that Jovah says, and she doesn't want to lie to him just to be kind but there's no reason to freak out. She relaxes again. She closes her eyes.

And then - just before she's about to fall asleep and start babbling - she opens them again.

"Is it possible that you have siblings?" she asks in a dismayed murmur.

[pythbox]

Micaiah hisses, jerking as though he would like to curl up into a little ball of misery again and is only just stopping himself.

"I don't know. I don't want to know," he says vehemently. "I hope not."

[jovahs_heiress]

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry," Isabella murmurs. "You - don't want to know? Are you sure?"

(Not wanting to know a thing is alien to her - especially a thing that could be about someone she might care about being hurt - but if he doesn't want to know, she can fly to Sinai herself, ask Alleluia, and go investigate herself, perhaps bringing Elisha or another angel as backup. Angels are still the law where they choose to operate as such. Delilah won't contradict her - nor Linus, if Micaiah is from one of the other provinces.)

[pythbox]

"If there's another kid where I was ten years ago, I feel bad for them," he says. "But not bad enough to think about my father any more than I have to."