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

[jovahs_heiress]

"Why, just because I've never heard of - people absconding to bedrooms with others of the same sex? All right," says Angela, sighing. She is tired of standing. She sits on the floor, extending her wings behind her; this will be uncomfortable in a while but by then her feet will be ready to hold her up again. "I was born in an angel hold. It's - rich, and comfortable, and there is always music, and the leader of the host there was also Archangel for the first fifteen years or so I lived and even now that the title has passed on to Linus at Monteverde it's still a place of political consequence for the province. Angels pray for weather, or sometimes for seeds or medicines, and Jovah grants our prayers, and I've been able to do intercessions alone or with help since I was thirteen. We are always concerned about making more angels, and there's never a guarantee that any given child will be one - even the one time in history Jovah allowed two angels to wed, this was only because they were not about to produce malformed lucifers; even the only safe pairing of angels ever to have occurred resulted in one mortal daughter along with her angel sisters. My parents tried for more children but Rinnah hasn't been able to get pregnant again since she bore a stillborn mortal brother when I was six."

[dark_light]

"A life of useful luxury," marvels Amariah. "Yeah. Okay. I could see turning out like you."

[jovahs_heiress]

"What about you? You're not an angel, you're a 'witch'."

[dark_light]

"Yeah, but there are lots of witches, and while not all our kids are witches, all our daughters are," says Amariah. "And - you kept referring to people as 'mortals'. Are you not mortal?"

[jovahs_heiress]

"At some point I suppose I'll have to cross the river into Jovah's keeping," says Angela solemnly. "It doesn't mean I'll live forever. It means I'm divine."

[pythbox]

"You've really never heard of people taking lovers of the same sex?" asks Micaiah.

[jovahs_heiress]

Angela thinks.

"I once heard of a pair of angel-seeker women around Monteverde who'd... cooperate? But these were angel-seekers and the objective obviously had to do with the attention they'd get from angel men."

[pythbox]

Micaiah shakes his head.

[jovahs_heiress]

"What? How would I have heard of any of this without someone to tell me?"

[dark_light]

"It's okay," sighs Amariah. "You've heard it now. At least you're reacting like you really just never heard of it and not like it's inherently evil or against your religion or something, because that would be awkward. There are religions on my world that forbid it. Mine doesn't care," she adds with a grin.

[jovahs_heiress]

"...So, your people don't worship Jovah, I gather."

[dark_light]

"Nah. A bunch of goddesses. They answer me when I pray, though - well, cast spells, but invoking their names - just like your god does," Amariah says.

[pythbox]

"Do you sing to them?" wonders Micaiah.

[dark_light]

"No. I recite poetry," answers Amariah. "You sing, Angela? I can't sing to speak of - can you?"

[jovahs_heiress]

"Of course I can. Angels can. I'm not Hagar - er - a certain historical angelica who had the finest woman's voice of all time - but I think I'm above average even among angels. Do you want to hear something?"

[dark_light]

"Yeah, I do."

[jovahs_heiress]

"Micaiah, do you want to sing with me?" Angela asks. "The mass, or something else, whatever you like as long as I know it."

[pythbox]

"The mass," he decides. "The part we do for harmonics. I like it."

He scoops up Petaal, stands, and deposits her gently in his place in Kas's lap.

[jovahs_heiress]

Angela nods twice and launches into the pickup to the section in question.

[pythbox]

Micaiah matches her.

[dark_light]

Amariah listens raptly, impressed.

[truthwright]

Kas and Petaal do likewise.

[jovahs_heiress]

Finally they come to the amen that makes this section self-contained enough to be sung alone, and silence falls.

[dark_light]

Amariah claps. "You can absolutely sing!" she agrees. "Gorgeous, really gorgeous."

[truthwright]

"Seriously," says Kas. He dumps Petaal out of his lap (she flomps onto the floor happily enough) to give Micaiah a hug.