The stranger is about Isabella's age, with curly brown hair down to his shoulders. He pushes it back from his face as he talks, between grand, expansive gestures. He is, as it happens, telling Noah a funny story about a man who mistook a goat's horns for a tree branch and hung his hat from them for a moment, to the surprise and dismay of all involved. His comic timing is exquisite, as is his imitation of a startled goat.

"It's nice to meet you too," Micaiah says softly. He sounds out of breath, and he looks like he is experiencing either intense pain or divine revelation. Perhaps both.

"Sure it hurts." He tosses his hair back and grins. "I don't see that as a problem, do you?"

"I don't want to hurt you," she exclaims. "Mine doesn't hurt at all..."

"Ah, then it doesn't hurt," he says, straightening up and letting go of the afflicted arm and waving it at her theatrically. "It's Yovah's Kiss and it's giving me kisses. Mwah."

"...It stopped?" she asks uncertainly. Her own is still a dancing aurora of opal-color.

"No," he says promptly. "I lied to spare your feelings. The truth is, it feels like being stabbed with a hot poker, but I like it and it isn't doing me any harm, so where's the trouble?"

"...You like feeling like you're being stabbed with a hot poker," she says skeptically.

"Sure," he agrees, with a wide, guileless smile. "I don't like actually being stabbed with a hot poker, so much. Very messy. Turns you off hot dinners for a while. But this, this is fine." He hugs his arm to him with clear affection.

"Make sure I'm listening," he says. "Definitely."

"Okay. Are you staying here? Do you know where the harmonics signup sheet is, so you can look at it?"

"I wasn't going to be staying here, but now I am," Micaiah says brightly. "I don't know where the harmonics signup sheet is. Where's the harmonics signup sheet?"

"It's just outside Elisha's room, as he's in charge of making sure it's full. I'm going to ask him if he'll sing it with me or if he knows any other tenors who want to do a morning piece, I may as well show you."

Isabella smiles at him. "You're a friend of Noah's? Or just passing through and afraid you'll forget the language if you don't move to Ysral?" she asks conversationally, heading out into the hallway to find Elisha's quarters.

"The second one, more like," he says as he tags along. Given the wings, it makes more sense for him to walk at her side and a little ahead than to actually follow. He manages to match her course nevertheless.

"Your tribe didn't go? You came back without them?" she guesses.

All asmile: "First one!"

"But then you'd have them to speak the language to. Are they all here visiting Noah so he doesn't forget that - that he's supposed to say mikala whenever he forgets Serah's name, or something?"

"Well, that's why I said more like," he explains with a quirk of a smile.

"You could've explained," she laughs.

"Okay," he says. "The Manderras stayed, but we don't all stick together. I wandered up this way, I found Noah, I liked Noah, I talked to Noah. I like you better, so now I'm talking to you."

"You've only just met me," she points out. "Manderras... that sounds familiar - Oh, I remember now, the angelica Rachel was an adopted Manderra, too. I thought most of them were gone. Did they re-form after the Archangel Gabriel freed everyone?"

"Something like that," he agrees vaguely. "I'm not a historian. We have the most adoption out of all the tribes, though. I'm adopted," he adds, with an impish grin that suggests he knows she can tell.

"How'd that happen? I'm not an expert on the language but your accent didn't sound substantially different from Noah's to me. You must've been young." She reaches the signup sheet, finds an open sunrise hour slot in two days' time, and knocks on Elisha's door.

"Oh, that's a nasty story," he says, still cheerful. "Lots of me getting hurt. Not in ways I like. Wanna hear it anyway?"

"Hello, Elisha!" says Micaiah with equal friendliness. "Your wings are pretty."

"Yeeeeeee-es," he beams; the word tumbles down at least half an octave over the course of that elongated vowel and then skips back up at the end.

"Awwww, you're blushing," says Micaiah. "It's really cute. I think I do love you a little."

"I - I - but - sweet Jovah singing," breathes Isabella. "I - think I need to go back to Peninnah. Or Alleluia, maybe she'll talk to me if I only want to ask her one thing."

"Where's those?" chirps Micaiah. "Can I come?"

"Good for her," Micaiah says blithely. "Okay."

"It's not about who Jovah loves best," Isabella mumbles. "All right. You want to come with me to Sinai?" she asks Micaiah helplessly.

He grins. "Sure!"

"My best friend's brother," Isabella explains. "I like him too, when he's not being deliberately annoying. Do you want to leave right away? Are you hungry or anything?"

"Well, how long a trip? I ate, but I could eat again if we'll be hours."

"Three hours to Sinai. Maybe a little slower if I'm carrying you," she says. "I could use a snack myself, honestly. The kitchens are this way."

"I carry people now and then - Serah most often, she's mortal. I have never dropped anyone. I didn't even drop that one fellow who was delirious with fever and was trying to make me - angels are very strong." She picks up a large snack tray from the kitchens and leads Micaiah away to where Eyrie residents take their meals. She finds them a table with one angel chair and one mortal chair, sets down the tray, and picks up a little cucumber cup filled with beans and spices.

"If I had a way to hold you and - two, maybe three other people your size, without any of you slipping out of my grip just from sheer bulkiness - I could still carry you through the air, although I'd be much slower and clumsier," says Isabella. She tries one of everything on the platter and then monopolizes the ham and the rosemary crackers. "If I didn't have to fly, maybe twice that."

"Amazing," he says. When he sees her going for the ham and rosemary crackers, he leaves those alone and attacks the rest of the platter.

She smiles. "It's ordinary for angels. Elisha's stronger than I am, at least in flight carrying capacity - wingspan helps and mine's nothing special."

"Your wings are pretty too," Micaiah offers.

"Thanks," says Isabella, fluffing them a little. "I always liked the speckles. The fashion's always been utterly white, spotless wings, but I'm fond of mine."

"The speckles are nice," he opines. "And I bet they're cuddly." With another of his broad grins, "The wings. Not the speckles specifically."

"Uh. Have you... been around angels much, before?" Isabella asks, a crease forming between her eyebrows.

All innocence: "No. Edori, remember? Why?"

"Well, Edori go everywhere, I'm told, you might have run into some," she shrugs; it makes her feathers flutter. "You don't go around touching people's wings, at least by default. It's... approximately the equivalent of grabbing someone's rear, only less potentially playful, does that make sense?"

"Perfectly," he assures her, still smiling but more serious than she has seen him yet. "I won't, then. But I still bet they're cuddly. And warm, angels are warm, right?"

"Very warm," she agrees, taking another one of the cucumber cups. "That you'll notice as soon as I pick you up. And a good thing too, or you would be very uncomfortable at cruising altitude." She's wearing unremarkable flying leathers, a wing-cut vest and pants and boots, and her bracelets with the curlicue gem pattern of her mother's family, and that's all.

Micaiah just smiles, a little dreamily. And scoops up another snacklet.

"I'm glad you don't seem alarmed by the whole... Kiss thing," Isabella says. "I know a lot of people might be. A lot of people might be even if I'd been named Archangel instead of just harboring ambitions. They say Rachel and Gabriel had that problem."

"It's not alarming," he says. "Well, maybe it's a little alarming. But it's too much fun to be very alarming."

"Can you sing?" she asks, a little suddenly.

"Edooooori," he laughs. "I'm all right. Why?"

"Well, there is a not inconsiderable chance that I'll go ask Alleluia my question, and she'll say yes, and then in eight or ten years someone will ask an oracle who the next Archangel to be and he'll tell them, "Isabella, daughter of the angel Rinnah and the mortal man Charles," says Isabella. "And if all that happens then you'd be obliged to lead the Gloria for twenty years."

"Sounds fun," shrugs Micaiah.

What a blasé reply. "All right. I'm glad that doesn't bother you," she says. "I read a lot of history, and while Jovah's choices usually work out in the end, there are sometimes... inital trials."

"You seem pretty set on this Archangel thing," he observes. "Why's that?"

"I'm not as set as Elisha makes me out to be," demurs Isabella. "But I think I'd be a good Archangel, and I think the job wouldn't make me tear my hair out like it would if someone handed Elisha - for example - all that responsibility, and while I think Linus is doing a perfectly competent job, I do have some ideas."

"Good luck," says Micaiah.

"Sure!" he says, and follows where indicated.

"You like flying?" she chuckles.

"It's my second favourite thiiiiiiiiiiing," he says beamily.

"After Yovah's gorgeous kisses. I've got lots of new favourite things today."

"Is it still hurting you?" she asks, uncertain of whether that would be desirable or not.

"A little," he sighs. "I like it, I promise I like it."

"Okay. I wonder if that's why yours hurts and mine doesn't. I wouldn't like it," Bella muses. "But I think it's fairly typical for them to hurt, and I don't think everyone likes it... perhaps it's also got to do with how hard Jovah has to work to get the person's attention," she concludes.

"Wouldn't be the first time," laughs Micaiah.

"What do you mean?"

"That somebody thought a hot poker to the arm was the best way to get my attention?" he says, still laughing.

"...Do... you want... to talk about that?" asks Isabella uncertainly.

He shrugs easily in her arms. "Do you?"

"Well, I don't know, but I try to be a good listener, and that doesn't mean only hearing things that would happen to amuse me."

"Mm," he says, shrugging again.

"Fun!" he says enthusiastically. "You go where you want and do what you want, unless you starve, but that's what the tribe's for."

Isabella notes the impulse she has to say, "For eating?" and puts it aside. "That sounds very freeing," she replies instead.

"Exactly," Micaiah says happily.

"I like the holds. I don't think I would have been half so happy anywhere else. I don't exactly go wherever I want - I go where I'm needed, where I can be useful - but wherever I go I'm accomplishing something. Even if it's a political goal, attending someone's party, instead of fixing a drought, although I much prefer the latter."

"If I had to pick between going to a party and fixing a drought... well, it'd depend on the party," Micaiah muses.

"Some of them are, I'm sure, fine parties," says Isabella diplomatically. "Although things outside the holds aren't usually designed to accommodate angels - they keep the rooms so warm, and there's dancing, and none of the chairs work with our wings. Things aren't designed for angels in the places that have problems with drought, either, but we're not obliged to stay long after singing the prayers."

"Do angels not dance?" he asks curiously.

"We can," she says slowly, "but our wings get in the way - people bump into them or step on them, and we don't really have quite the same gait as mortals either, because of the weight of them. So dancing is awkward and most of us don't like it. I'm particularly inept at it and usually manage to beg off if someone wants me to try."

"I'd dance with you if you wanted," he says.

"I hate dancing even more than most angels," laughs Isabella. "But that's kind of you."

"Well, then I won't dance with you," Micaiah says cheerfully.

"Grand, we're agreed," laughs Isabella. "Why, do you particularly enjoy dancing?"

"It's fun!" he says.

"You seem to be a very cheerful person," she observes.

"Got me there," he agrees. "I do what's fun and avoid what's not, and I make people laugh, especially me."

"Most people don't think so," he says, unruffled by this knowledge.

"No? Do they say why?" she asks.

"We-ell," mischievously, "some of 'em say it after I pick their pockets."

"Er," says Isabella. "I think you had better stop doing that. If you're hurting for money I can buy you some things."

This sends him into fits of giggles.

"Was something about that funny?"

"Yes," he says, laughing.

"What? Help me out," she laughs back.

"I don't knoooow," he giggles. "You're just so - serious about it."

"Well, pickpocketing is illegal," she says reasonably. "I don't think I can find everyone who's got reason to do it anyway and make those reasons go away, but I'm already talking to you, so..." She can't really shrug in the air; it'd throw off her wingbeats.

"It's not just for money, it's for fun," he explains.

"Do you give the stuff back afterwards, then? Or are you calling from volunteers from an audience?" she asks dubiously.

"Sometimes," shrugs Micaiah. He doesn't seem concerned about the difference.

Isabella looks unhappy about this.

"Well, there's two kinds of people," he explains. "One you take their stuff and they want it back, one you take their stuff and they wanna hurt you. I give back to the first kind."

That makes a twisted sort of sense, but Isabella can't claim to be happy with it, and it still shows on her face. She can't come up with a sufficiently diplomatic reply, given that it seems reasonably likely she will eventually be divinely commanded to marry this person.

Micaiah laughs softly. "What?"

"I - that isn't a fair test," she says. "Serah carries her money in a little bag that her mother gave her before she died. If someone took the bag from her I'm sure she'd fly into a rage. That wouldn't mean it's okay to take the bag, or to judge her based on what she does when it's taken and punish her by keeping it."

"It's not about who deserves it!" he says. "It's about whether I can give their things back without getting my head bashed in!"

"You could always drop them and run away," she says.

He shrugs again.

Isabella sighs. Jovah has a reason for everything. She flies on, quietly.

"Did I make you sad?"

"A little."

"I'm sorry," he says earnestly.

"I still did, though," he says. "So I'm sorry."

"I'm fine, really."

He smiles. "Okay!"

Micaiah peers around with open, cheerful curiosity.

He tilts his head from side to side for a moment, then concludes, "Workshop!"

"Ooh, show me the clock," Micaiah says excitedly.

Micaiah, on the other hand, is all over it. He loves the tiny fish; he gets excited about the wiring; he listens attentively as the girl explains how the mechanism fits together.

She is utterly thrilled to explain. She seems to be a junior student; Alleluia's husband, gray-haired and laughing, is paying more attention to an older boy's miniaturized car. He waves at Isabella, and she waves back; that's the extent of their interaction.

When they have exhausted the subject of tiny fish, Micaiah starts telling the goat story.

"Is... that not you?" Isabella asks, concerned, peering at the Kiss in her arm. It's still glowing brilliantly. That attracts Alleluia's attention as well, and the oracle blinks. "Micaiah? Are you all right?"

Isabella drops to her knees next to him and rests her hand on his back. "Micaiah, what's wrong? I don't understand - please tell me?"

"Burn that name," he wails, somewhat muffled by the fact that his head is tucked between his hands and his knees. "Kill it with fire, kill it with lightning, never call me that again."

"Y-yes," he sniffles.

Micaiah shivers and curls up tighter.

Isabella rubs his back as soothingly as she knows how. "Micaiah, is there anything else I can do?"

Isabella decides that there is no reason for this to be going on in Alleluia's oracular chamber. "Thank you very much for your help," she tells the other angel. "I'm sorry about this." And she picks up Micaiah, carries him out to the cliff, and flies down - not to the workshop, some hundred yards away on a grassy foothill, and sets Micaiah down to wait for him to be done crying.

Isabella pets his hair, because she can't think of anything else to do.

Mostly unconsciously - maybe she's remembering singing Elisha and Serah's baby brother to sleep, maybe she's just defaulting to music in the absence of other ideas - Isabella begins to sing quietly. It's not a prayer, though Jovah is mentioned; it's a lullaby.

She finishes the song - she knows six verses of it - and then stops. "Better?" she asks.

"You're welcome," she says. "Now Jovah knows you by the right name."

Isabella nods and strokes his hair.

"My father used to hurt me. When I did something he didn't like, or when he was in a bad mood, or just because he thought I was bad and I needed it."

"I'm so sorry," murmurs Isabella.

"I used to hate him. I don't as much, now. But hearing his name like that, and what he used to call me... I didn't think Yovah would be so cruel. Maybe he just doesn't know what it's like to be afraid."

"Jovah's ears are good but he still needs to be told things the right way. The priest who dedicated you told the god that name and he was never formally updated," murmurs Isabella. "It's the same for everything we want to tell him. If I want rain or sun, I can't only sit in my room asking in plain language, I have to go aloft and pray for it. But now Alleluia's told Jovah your name and he's fixed it."

"Okay," sighs Micaiah.

Isabella goes on stroking his hair. "Did you pick Micaiah yourself or did the other Manderras name you?"

"I never told 'em a name, and that's what they started calling me after a while. I liked it, so I kept it."

"That makes sense." She's still petting his hair. (It's soft.)

"I like it when you do that," he adds.

"If I didn't think you did," she laughs, "I'd stop."

"You're really nice," he says comfortably. "I like you a lot."

"I'm glad," she says. "Are you ready to head back to the Eyrie?"

"I think so."

"Okay then." She scoops him up in her arms - one under his knees, one behind his back, holding him securely, and she gets up and runs down the hill, wings outflung, until she catches air and rises into the sky. "So - now we know the answer to that question."

"We do!" says Micaiah. "Now what?"

"...Well, I'm not sure. If I didn't know that Edori don't even believe in marriage I would be asking you to avoid marrying anyone who isn't me. Since that would interfere with angelico-ing if it came up."

"It's - hardly urgent. It may not be necessary at all; Jovah only commands it of Archangels and he could still easily choose someone else," says Isabella.

"Well, I'm not saying let's hurry right up to the—wherever people get married," he says. "But if we have to. It's okay."

"Priests," laughs Isabella. "Priests do it - oracles can too, and host leaders are empowered to do the same but often don't. I'd ask Delilah, probably. I don't think Alleluia likes me and Peninnah hates doing weddings for anyone out of her own family."

"Delilah's fun," opines Micaiah.

"A lot of people describe her that way. I think my go-to adjective would be... passionate, maybe. But maybe I'm just not her kind of fun and I don't see as much of that side of her."

"Passionate works too," he agrees.

"She didn't seem to be talking much during your conversation with Noah. How'd you form your impression of her?"

"She was talking more earlier," he explains.

"Makes sense. Um - you said you were planning to stay at the Eyrie but only as of recently. Did someone offer you a guest room, or...?"

"No," he shrugs.

"Okay. There may be one, but there may not, especially if I'm guessing right about why Delilah and Noah went off to entertain Manadavvi - there could be a lot of them."

"I'll find somewhere to stick my head under a rock," he says serenely.

"...I was going to say that under the circumstances I can put you in my quarters," she says. "The angels' rooms have a lot of space."

"Oh!" He grins. "That's sweet of you. Sure!"

"There's only one bed. I can get another, if you want, but the one there is huge - most angels sleep on their fronts with their wings out all the way, and so there's room for that, but I'm just as comfortable on my side with one wing stacked on the other," she says.

"I don't mind sharing," he says with a smile.

"That's easier, then, I have honestly no idea how anyone gets a bedframe through the halls there. It may be that they have to be nailed together in the rooms themselves," laughs Isabella.

"Maybe they do," he giggles.

"Okay. It'll be late when we land, but I think the laundry should still be open and I can get you a blanket - I know mortals are often cold in the Eyrie, everyone going around in sleeves all the time and shivering, I don't actually know what it's like but it sounds unpleasant - and what else do you need?"

"Blanket. Dinner? That about covers it," he shrugs.

"The kitchens are open until midnight," she assures him. "And they're open again at six the next morning."

"I like your Eyrie," he declares.

"It's not mine," laughs Isabella. "Delilah's maybe. Jovah's."

"I'd say 'I like your city' if I was talking to somebody who lived in a city I liked," he says. "It's the same thing, isn't it?"

"Mmm, maybe. I think that makes more sense if the thing you're saying you like is a class of things - 'I like your city', 'I like your friend', 'I like your recipe for mint sauce'. There's only one Eyrie, but it's an angel hold."

"I like your angel hold, then," he says agreeably.

"That's good," says Isabella, smiling.

Micaiah falls silent, smiling back.

"I just write - all kinds of things in there. They're like journals. If you think they'll be very tempting I can find a lockable box..."

"I pick those," he says absently, and then gives her a reassuring smile. "Nah, it's fine, I won't peek."

"Okay." It wouldn't be a disaster if he did read them, but it would certainly discomfit her. "...Please don't pick the locks to anyone else's room. I'm going to give you a key to this one so I suppose it doesn't matter if you also want to pick the lock recreationally."

He grins. "Okay!"

Isabella smiles, then ducks into her closet for a nightgown, and into the bathroom to change out of flying leathers into same. It ties behind her neck and has no back, to accommodate the wings, but it falls all the way to the floor when she steps out barefoot and carrying her boots and vest and pants.

"Pretty," comments Micaiah, smiling shyly.

"Thanks," says Bella. "I forgot that when I'm not around to tell them not to the maids always make up the bed with the blanket to... look pretty or something, so I don't have to run down to the laundry after all. It's all yours." She unpeels it from the right side and folds it over in the middle. "I'm tired, are you tired?"

Isabella turns off the gaslamps and flops down onto the other side, wings out, facing in. She is asleep in moments.

Isabella yawns herself awake mid grammatically incorrect sentence. "Oh," she says. "Hello. ...Were you cold?"

"Do you always do that? It's not a problem, it's just unexpected."

"Yeah, I guess," he says, thinking back.

The bed is much less cuddly without her in it. He follows her very shortly.

Breakfast is tomato-bread and eggs and sausage. "The food here is much better than at Peninnah's," comments Isabella. "So, today, now that I expect to stay in one place for a while, I'm going to catch up with my mother and father. What are you going to do?"

"No idea," he says. "Maybe I'll follow you around. Maybe I'll go back to bed. I like your bed, it's soft."

"It is," agrees Isabella. "I suppose I can introduce you Rinnah and Charles if you'd like. Charles'll probably interrogate you a bit, though."

"Sounds like fun," he laughs.

"Does it really?" she laughs.

Grinning, "Sure."

"All right then. I wonder if they know I'm back. I don't think Delilah would have bothered to tell them, but Elisha might have. I should see Serah today, too, although I bet she's still asleep; she's an incorrigible night owl."

"Busy, busy," he says.

"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.

"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.

Awwwwww. Micaiah grins at her.

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.

"Because it's fun," Micaiah suggests.

"He won't," he says. "I'm just saying, maybe that's why."

"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!"

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.

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."

"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."

"Sing an Edori song," says Rinnah, clapping her hands. "Something that shows you off."

"I'm not sure you wanna know," says Micaiah with a wink.

"Oh goodness," laughs Rinnah. "I suppose I should hope Noah or even Delilah wasn't walking down the hall just then, or -" She starts rattling off more names; children of the former Archangel and other members of the hold who might know enough Edori to detect a less than genteel lyric line.

Micaiah giggles.

Micaiah gives the newcomer a friendly smile.

He grins.

"Go places," he says. "See stuff. Tell funny stories. Sometimes with my tribe, sometimes not."

Micaiah just snorts.

Isabella stammers again but finishes the story, which ends with her chasing the bird into a tree too densely branched for an angel to climb and ultimately carrying Tobiah himself down to shimmy up the trunk and retrieve his pet.

"You're sweet," Micaiah says fondly.

Micaiah beams.

Isabella's reunion conversation with her parents continues to range over miscellaneous topics and continues to incorporate handholding. When Isabella mentions that she ought to see Serah today, Rinnah ushers her and Micaiah out the door, laughing. And Isabella doesn't seem disposed to let go of Micaiah's hand.

He smiles blushily at her and laces their fingers together.

"Good to know," he laughs.

"Tell me about your merits," urges Serah, grabbing Isabella and Micaiah each by a hand and pulling them with awkward simultaneity through her door. One of Isabella's wings winds up buffeting Micaiah, all soft and warm; she doesn't seem discomfited by the accidental contact. "Elisha only knew a handful of things!"

"Aww, they are cuddly," he says, grinning at Isabella. To Serah: "I have huge vocal range and I tell funny stories and a lot of people will tell you I'm the best kisser in my tribe."

"A lot of people will tell you I'm the best in my tribe at some other things, too," Micaiah says cheerfully. "Well?"

"Well - if you want to," says Isabella. "I cannot at this time claim it as one of my own talents. Fair warning."

"That's okay," he says, and he leans in and kisses her.

Micaiah makes a sound somewhere between a hum and a giggle. She definitely seems to be getting the idea.

"Oooh," says Micaiah. He gets very enthusiastic about the dresses.

Serah considers this no more or less than the height of virtue on his part, and winds up directing most of her commentary at him rather than at Isabella, who regards the pair of them with tolerant amusement. Her own interest in outfits is very limited.

Micaiah commentaries right back at her. Excitedly. He should add flattery to his list of talents.

Eventually, Serah runs out of dresses to show off, and has exhausted her remarks on her new hairclip too. "You're dressed so plain, I would never have guessed you'd like fancy things," she tells Micaiah.

"I like fancy things," he emphasizes. "I like them way too much to travel in 'em."

He laughs. "Sure!"

Serah assumes instant leadership of their party and drags the other two to a little shop for menswear. "Elisha goes here. He has to get everything butchered custom, for the wings, but you should be able to take something home today! Go on, what do you like?"

By way of communicating his feelings, he hugs them both. Serah first.

"Should we go to another store?" Isabella asks while hugging back. She's carrying most of the bags, as the strongest in the group, and this is slightly awkward but doable.

"No, I think I'm okay for now," he says laughingly.

Micaiah tags along with Isabella.

Micaiah eats his sandwich and listens to all the catching-up and enjoys the comfort and happiness of the moment.

They finish their sandwiches. Serah has just remembered that she's signed up for harmonics any minute now, so Isabella takes her up the mountain first.

Isabella's back at the sandwich shop a moment later. "Micaiah?" she calls. "Where'd you go?"

He does not immediately appear.

There he is! He has found a little kiosk that sells odds and ends of various kinds, and is browsing at it.

"There you are. Did you find something else you want?" Isabella asks.

He straightens from his perusal of a table and looks back at her. "There you are! Nah, not really," he says, hurrying forward to give her a hug and a kiss on the cheek.

"Okay. Back up to the Eyrie, then? Serah's harmonics start any minute now, we can sit and listen - she's got a wonderful contralto."

Brightly, "Okay!"

"Oh! Sorry," laughs Micaiah.

"What is that?" Isabella asks, re-situating him in her arms and retrying takeoff.

"Just a little something I picked up," he shrugs. "I can put it back if you want."

"I wasn't thinking," he says.

She puts him down and takes his hand and marches him back to the kiosk. "Is this where you got it?" she asks him.

"Yeah," he says, resisting her hand a little but ultimately going where she takes him.

He shrinks away from both of them a little, but produces the object: a tiny folding knife.

"Okay," he says in a subdued voice, and disappears it again.

Isabella covers her eyes with her hands. "What were you - no, you weren't thinking, you said. Why weren't you thinking?"

"I don't know," he says, looking at the ground. "I got distracted, I guess. I'm not used to being able to just get things the way you do, so... I just got it the way I do."

"If I get you a set of bracelets," she says, "will that fix this problem, or will they not successfully remind you?"

"I don't know," he repeats. "Maybe? Probably?"

Isabella rubs her forehead. "Okay. We can talk more about this later, I guess. Let's go listen to Serah and whoever she's singing with." She picks him up, does not slip, and launches.

He snuggles nervously into her arms.

Isabella kisses his forehead. "I'm sure you can get used to being law-abiding. I'll help you, okay?" she says as she goes over the top of the mountain and descends to the plateau where harmonics are sung. Serah's and her friends' are already underway; they're doing a folk song harmonized at snug intervals, and Serah and one of the other women is swaying to the beat.

Micaiah makes a quiet grumbly sort of noise, then smiles and cuddles up a little more happily.

Serah and company finish the song and turn over the responsibility to the next group, a mortal woman and what appear to be her two angel children. Serah bounces over to them. "What's got you so solemn?" she asks, ushering them away from the music so they won't compete with the soaring voices.

"Solemn? Who's solemn?" he asks with a playful grin.

"Just a little knife," he shrugs. "I thought it was pretty."

"Hey," says Micaiah, resting a hand on top of hers. "I'm sorry."

She clasps his hand. And after a moment's thought, kisses his knuckles. "No harm done," she says. "...Do you want to see if there's a spare practice room and learn something?"

"Sure!" he beams, and kisses her cheek.