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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.
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jovahs_heiress
"Busy, busy," he says.
jovahs_heiress
"I like to be busy. When there's nothing else to do I get in everyone's way in the petitioner receiving rooms and tear off to the Caitanas for a day to bring calmer winds, or whatever they need. Today, I think, I will block off for social catching-up."
Micaiah smiles at her.
jovahs_heiress
"You're really very cute," she observes, almost as though surprised, and then she finishes her bread and returns the dishes to the kitchen. "My parents' quarters is off that way." She leads them out of the dining hall through a different door, and through more corridors, humming along to the soprano part of the current harmonics. "Don't bother calling Rinnah 'angela', if you were at all likely to do that; she'll only laugh at you and tell you to call her by her name."
"I wasn't," he says cheerfully.
jovahs_heiress
"There you go, then." Isabella doesn't have a key to these quarters. The quarters are a cross between individual rooms and apartments; some adjoin with doors between them, but on the corridor, the keys only belong to those who live in that specific room. She knocks.
"Just a minute!" calls a warm alto voice, half-singing, and Isabella smiles automatically at hearing her mother speak.
"Just a minute!" calls a warm alto voice, half-singing, and Isabella smiles automatically at hearing her mother speak.
Awwwwww. Micaiah grins at her.
jovahs_heiress
The door opens to reveal an angel who looks like an older version of Isabella, with paler hair and a grayer background behind the flecks on her wings. "Isabella!" she cries, flinging her arms around her daughter. "I knew you were coming back around now - and here you are! And -" She notices the eternal dance of color in Isabella's arm, catches the relevant limb by the wrist and peers at the Kiss in it, then makes a comparable assessment of Micaiah and hugs him too.
Micaiah giggles and hugs back, careful of the wings.
"I like you," he declares. "You're nice. I can see where she got it."
"I like you," he declares. "You're nice. I can see where she got it."
jovahs_heiress
"Aren't you precious," says Rinnah, taking a step back to look him over again, smiling beatifically. "Well. When's the wedding?"
"Mom," says Isabella. "I met him yesterday."
"Yes, and it's a wonder either of you can stand, remember when this happened to Jerusha and -"
"And Jerusha couldn't sleep for the first four days, I know, but mine doesn't hurt," says Isabella. "It just does the light and the colors. Anyway, there isn't a wedding planned. Is Dad in?"
"He'll be back any minute, but right now he's still with Nehemiah, talking about -" She waves a hand. "Security arrangements of some kind. I scarcely understand your father's job, you know, why would anyone commit crimes in an angel hold where Jovah watches so closely...?"
"Mom," says Isabella. "I met him yesterday."
"Yes, and it's a wonder either of you can stand, remember when this happened to Jerusha and -"
"And Jerusha couldn't sleep for the first four days, I know, but mine doesn't hurt," says Isabella. "It just does the light and the colors. Anyway, there isn't a wedding planned. Is Dad in?"
"He'll be back any minute, but right now he's still with Nehemiah, talking about -" She waves a hand. "Security arrangements of some kind. I scarcely understand your father's job, you know, why would anyone commit crimes in an angel hold where Jovah watches so closely...?"
"Because it's fun," Micaiah suggests.
jovahs_heiress
Rinnah blinks at him. "Is it?" she asks dubiously, in the tones of someone who's never found fun lacking in perfectly pedestrian/avian non-criminal pursuits.
"Micaiah," says Isabella slowly, "my father handles the hold's security measures. It'd be... troubling if he had to encounter you in that capacity."
"Micaiah," says Isabella slowly, "my father handles the hold's security measures. It'd be... troubling if he had to encounter you in that capacity."
"He won't," he says. "I'm just saying, maybe that's why."
jovahs_heiress
"Well," says Rinnah, "why don't you both come in? I want to meet the boy Jovah's picked out for my Isabella!"
Brightly: "Okay!"
jovahs_heiress
In they go. There are three angel chairs and two typical chairs around an ellipse-shaped card table; both angels take seats in appropriate furniture. "Tell me about yourself," Rinnah encourages.
"Well, my name's Micaiah and I'm an adopted Edori and I like good food and pretty clothes and snuggling your daughter," he says with a grin.
jovahs_heiress
Rinnah obviously considers this too cute for words. After she recovers from glee well enough to form sentences, she says, "And what's your vocal range? And what brings you to the Eyrie?"
"What do you want it to be?" he laughs. "I just kinda came wandering by, I do that."
jovahs_heiress
"I think tenors show off Isabella's voice best, but of course you're whatever Jovah made you," says Rinnah, tilting her head. "Are the other Edoris here?" she adds with the ungrammatical inquisitiveness of someone who knows perhaps three things about Edori, one of which is false.
"Yovah made me adaptable," Micaiah says cheerfully. "Nah, they're somewhere else."
jovahs_heiress
"So you've got a range on you, have you? Let's hear it," invites Rinnah, all asmile. "Have you even heard him sing yet, Isabella?"
"No," Isabella admits.
"No," Isabella admits.
"All right," he says, smiling, and tips his head back and drums his fingers on his knee. "What should I sing, what should I siiiiiiiiiiing..."
The word trails off and drops in pitch from his normal speaking voice to something much, much lower.
The word trails off and drops in pitch from his normal speaking voice to something much, much lower.
jovahs_heiress
"Sing an Edori song," says Rinnah, clapping her hands. "Something that shows you off."
"Okay!" he chirps, and rubs his hands together, and sings.
The lyrics are in Edori. The tune is not that complex, but it's fast and it's cheerful and he brings it all the way up and down his incredibly extensive range over the course of several repetitive verses.
Whatever the song is, it seems to make Micaiah very happy.
The lyrics are in Edori. The tune is not that complex, but it's fast and it's cheerful and he brings it all the way up and down his incredibly extensive range over the course of several repetitive verses.
Whatever the song is, it seems to make Micaiah very happy.