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]

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.

[jovahs_heiress]

She finishes the song - she knows six verses of it - and then stops. "Better?" she asks.

[pythbox]

"Yeah," he exhales.

"Thanks."

[jovahs_heiress]

"You're welcome," she says. "Now Jovah knows you by the right name."

[pythbox]

He shivers again.



"There was a reason I ran away and joined the Edori," he says softly.

[jovahs_heiress]

Isabella nods and strokes his hair.

[pythbox]

"My father used to hurt me. When I did something he didn't like, or when he was in a bad mood, or just because he thought I was bad and I needed it."

[jovahs_heiress]

"I'm so sorry," murmurs Isabella.

[pythbox]

"I used to hate him. I don't as much, now. But hearing his name like that, and what he used to call me... I didn't think Yovah would be so cruel. Maybe he just doesn't know what it's like to be afraid."