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]

"I don't know how you picked yours, or where 'Juliet' came from, but mine's a nickname I've had since I was eight, and Stella and Golden both have... empire themes, of sorts, that they just extended to their nicknames, and Amariah just picked the other piece of her name. The Sherlocks don't tend to have empires with themes, or nicknames intended for general use - not unique ones, particularly - or much name variation. I mean, my Sherlock is surnamed Stark and the other one we met isn't, but calling her Stark wouldn't work because that's all the Tonies' last name. So they'd have a little more trouble hitting non-redundant targets."

[sicaria]

Sherlock nods.

[jovahs_heiress]

"Juliet is something Juliet's Sherlock calls her. I got the impression it was a reference to something," says Angela. "And on my world, 'angela' is a polite thing to call a female angel, like 'ma'am' or 'lady' - it's not ideal but I couldn't think of anything else and I'll at least turn my head when someone says it."

[sicaria]

"So, as I said. A conference."

[jovahs_heiress]

"Or you could each let your Bells name you and hope the one who doesn't have a Bell lands on something else, if we're the ones who are different enough to come up with different things. I didn't name Micaiah, but Amariah named Kas and his daemon. And I don't know where Alice's first name came from, but Whistle and Swan are clearly borrowings from Stella."

[she_sells_seashells]

"I have no idea what I'd call my Sherlock, if I had to think of something," laughs Shell Bell. "The only thing coming to mind is 'Valentine' after that dreadful holiday and I don't want to call you that."

[sicaria]

"I don't know, I think it's charming," she says.

[she_sells_seashells]

Shell Bell snorts. "Put in a request for it at your conference," she suggests, chuckling.

(She doesn't read Sherlock all the time by default - there's far too much to track if she wants to concentrate on anything else and Sherlock isn't explicitly slowing down for her - but she can tell when her girlfriend is making a deadpan joke.)

[jovahs_heiress]

"Dreadful holiday?" asks Angela blankly.

[she_sells_seashells]

"If you ever see Milliways decorated in red and pink and white and this shape -" Shell Bell gestures - "run. It's celebrated with little darts of mind-altering drugs that make you fall in love with whoever you're with. It was horrible. It showed me what it'd be like to be in love with Sherlock so I could do it on purpose later, which is lovely, but the experience itself was terrifying and you've already got your Whistle."

[pythbox]

Micaiah hugs his angel again.

"I don't want weird holiday drugs making you fall in love with me," he says.

[jovahs_heiress]

"I don't want weird holiday drugs making me do anything," says Angela, folding a wing around Micaiah. "That sounds utterly horrific. Whose idea was that?"

[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.