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

[she_sells_seashells]

"If we knew, they'd be very unhappy that we'd found out," says Shell Bell lightly.

[sicaria]

(Sherlock smiles in agreement.)

[she_sells_seashells]

(Shell Bell kisses her cheek.)

[jovahs_heiress]

"I see what Amariah meant about you being adorable," muses Angela.

[pythbox]

"They aaaaaare," says Micaiah.

[she_sells_seashells]

"...Is that what goes around about us, 'keep an eye out for Shell Bell and her Sherlock, they're adorable', not... 'and then there's Shell Bell, her empire is called Atlantis' or something?" giggles Shell Bell.

[jovahs_heiress]

"Pretty much," says Angela.

[sicaria]

"Out of all the things we could be known by, that one's not so bad," says Sherlock.

[she_sells_seashells]

"I suppose not," says Shell Bell.

[jovahs_heiress]

"I think at best I'm going to be 'the one with the wings'," says Angela ruefully. "If I'm less lucky it'll be something like "the sheltered fragile one"; I don't think I made the best early impression on Amariah."

[pythbox]

"That might've been my fault," Micaiah says cheerfully.

[jovahs_heiress]

"I don't think it was, really, I think I just - failed to know an embarrassing subset of things? She was very kind about it, really."

[she_sells_seashells]

"What things didn't you know, or don't you want to talk about it?" asks Shell Bell.

[jovahs_heiress]

"...Before I read your entry in the guestbook I was not aware that it was something people did to date within their own gender," says Angela quietly. "My education on the subject has been theoretical and designed around the fact that I belong to an endangered species."

[sicaria]

[she_sells_seashells]

Shell Bell peers into that silence.

[sicaria]

It is the silence of Sherlock actively declining to have an opinion on something.

[she_sells_seashells]

Okay then.

[jovahs_heiress]

"Sorry?" says Angela uncertainly.

[she_sells_seashells]

"You don't have to apologize. I could probably have made it to our age without noticing it being a thing if I hadn't been coming to Milliways from age six and if I didn't watch TV," says Shell Bell. "It's not like anyone ever sat me down and explained it per se."

[jovahs_heiress]

"...What is TV?"

[she_sells_seashells]

"...your world is going to be an experience," says Shell Bell. "TV is... a form of storytelling or news reporting that works by recording moving pictures, and sound. It's displayed on a screen and it's like you're seeing the event that's depicted, miniaturized and captured for replay."

[jovahs_heiress]

"We have some music recordings, although we no longer know how to make new ones and they can only be found at the Eyrie and Monteverde. Adding pictures on a screen sounds interesting," says Angela.

[pythbox]

"It sounds fun," says Micaiah.

[jovahs_heiress]

"Potentially, although since even recording music was a technology our ancestors relinquished, I'm not so sure it doesn't have some... awful consequence I can't think of off the top of my head," muses Angela.