for the world slows and the stars falter

[jovahs_heiress]

Isabella sings harmonics - including with Micaiah, once he's learned the mass to performance quality; there's a forty-five minute section in the middle that's perfect for extracting and presenting to the wee hours of the morning at the Eyrie.

She flies on intercessions, and generally brings him along, for rain, to halt a blizzard, to calm a storm, and once she finds a plague flag and puts Micaiah down far away from the settlement while she quizzes the healthier community members about their symptoms. Angels rarely catch the plague; she feels safe enough picking Micaiah up again so he can listen to her sing through the verse designated for each complaint (this for fever, that for cough, the other for the rash) and watch the pills fall to earth. The flag comes down and they continue home.

She keeps half an eye on Nathaniel, and quietly informs Baruch of the situation as well so he'll be mindful of the boy's potential sensitivities.

She falls into an assistant role with Delilah - nothing so formal as the situation she had with Linus, because Isabella would be living at the Eyrie either way, but Delilah sends her to greet visitors and has her take notes at meetings and occasionally even asks her opinion on questions about this or that.

And one morning, Isabella opens her door to leave her quarters and sing a pre-dawn duet with Serah - and the hallway is not there.

"Micaiah," she murmurs.

Comments

[pythbox]

"...Why's that?" says Micaiah.

[self_composed]

"I am stunned," says Stella. "Are you sure you don't just happen to look like us? I suppose the parents' names would be a bit much of a coincidence..."

[jovahs_heiress]

"I think I'm as much one of you as Amariah is," says Angela. "But my god doesn't work like her goddesses who don't care what she does. I want it, but - we have songs, prayers, already written down to teach us how to ask for everything Jovah is willing to offer. We're born with the capacity to learn, and angels with a few more blessings besides to carry out the god's work. Your magic isn't part of the world he made for us when he carried us away from our ancestor's home full of violence and hatred. If I do not already have these powers, it's because Jovah didn't choose to offer them to me."

[pythbox]

Micaiah frowns in confusion.

"How do you know?"

[jovahs_heiress]

"Jovah watches over us - the descendants of people who wanted to live a simple life without so much leverage over the world around us. We're always told that what was given up was technological, not magical, but the principle is the same, isn't it? Even now there is friction over things as simple as the batteries that Alleluia's husband invented. Just because I don't think I would misuse greater power than I have doesn't mean that it's safe to bring it into the world. I wasn't born with it; it's not intended for me."

[pythbox]

"But you said Yovah can't just do things any old way," he says. "So what if Stella is the right way to give you magic powers, just like singing is the right way to ask for rain and the oracles are the right way to give him people's names?"

[jovahs_heiress]

Angela closes her eyes and considers this.

"If Jovah can hear me here," she says finally, "I'll consider that possibility. Amariah said there is an 'outside'? I don't think he could begrudge me some unnecessary rain or sunshine to see if he watches over here as everywhere."

[self_composed]

"There's an outside. I'll show you. You're going to sing and rain will fall?" Stella asks. "That's an interesting system."

[jovahs_heiress]

"I'm going to sing to ask for - well, rain, if there is none, sun if there is rain, I'll need to see it change to be sure," says Angela, getting up. "Micaiah, do you want to come aloft with me?"

[pythbox]

"Yeah!"

He follows her.

[self_composed]

Stella shows them outside. She flies without the aid of wings. It's not currently raining, or even cloudy.

[jovahs_heiress]

Angela scoops up her Micaiah and takes off, carrying him high up, closer to the ear of the god - if he's here.

She sings, ignoring her floating duplicate and losing herself in the music.

(There is no other sensation to lose herself in. The air isn't... shifting, not even in the little ways it normally does after only the first verse of a prayer.)

[pythbox]

Micaiah snuggles into her arms.

[jovahs_heiress]

Angela sings through the entire song into dead, unresponsive air, then shakes her head and lands. "He's not here. Or not listening. He's not present in the way he'd have to be for me to entertain the idea that Stella's his instrument."

[pythbox]

"Okay," shrugs Micaiah. "I still want magic powers, though."

[self_composed]

"It makes more sense to give them to you anyway, assuming you're not unconventional-for-a-Whistle," says Stella. "The way it works is it turns pain into wishes."

[jovahs_heiress]

Angela shakes her head. "Jovah's not here to be offering us anything through Stella," she tells Micaiah. "If he wanted you to have powers he could have given them to you, too, they'd be - sealed away in an oracle's caverns in a box somewhere and when the time was right he'd tell the oracle to seek you out and present them to you, even if you weren't meant to have them from the beginning."

[pythbox]

"Maybe," he says doubtfully.

[self_composed]

"...Can I get you to take some coins?" Stella asks. "In case you change your mind? You can bring them home with you and lock them up and never think about them again if you want, but if your theological opinions shift a bit in a year, or two..."

[jovahs_heiress]

"I'd be too tempted," says Angela. "Even if I weren't fully sure that Jovah wanted me to I'd always know they were there, it would itch, and even if I threw away the key, Micaiah can pick locks."

[pythbox]

Micaiah shrugs.

[jovahs_heiress]

"It's very kind of you to offer," says Angela formally to Stella. "But I cannot accept."

[self_composed]

"Okay. Color me surprised," says Stella. "We can still hang out, though, let's go back to the Belltower. You sing beautifully." She conjures a flute. "Want some accompaniment? I can improvise or conjure up sheet music for whatever song."

[jovahs_heiress]

"That sounds lovely," says Angela.

[pythbox]

"I like any plan where you sing," Micaiah says happily to Angela.