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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.
jovahs_heiress
"You look like Mother," Nathaniel accuses.
Micaiah nods.
Nathaniel tries to say something else, but after a moment, he gives up and just shakes his head rapidly.
Micaiah nods.
Nathaniel tries to say something else, but after a moment, he gives up and just shakes his head rapidly.
jovahs_heiress
"I talked to the oracle at Sinai," Isabella murmurs, "and she asked Jovah, and - you're brothers."
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Isabella's wing goes around Micaiah and her hands clasp in front of her. "If he tries to do anything to Micaiah, as a result of being angry," she says serenely, "he will fail."
She knows the prayer for thunderbolts.
She's sung it. Not straight through, but if you do even the first stanza outside, high up, you can feel the air crackle a little...
She knows the prayer for thunderbolts.
She's sung it. Not straight through, but if you do even the first stanza outside, high up, you can feel the air crackle a little...
Nathaniel tracks the progress of the wing, and looks at Isabella's face, and looks at Micaiah looking upset and confused but not frightened.
He sidles closer.
He sidles closer.
jovahs_heiress
Once they are in her quarters and have a little more privately, she tells Nathaniel: "While it is - obviously - true that there is a children's choir and you are now in it, you have probably guessed by now that it's not the real reason I knocked on your door."
jovahs_heiress
"It doesn't matter if he's angry with me," says Isabella. "He doesn't frighten me."
(This is almost entirely true, and she considers the simplification forgivable. It's possible that Canaan is such a clever arguer or - unbeknownst to Isabella despite her immersion in Samarian events - such an influential figure, that he could sway authority figures against her or make her life difficult. But in the way that he scares Nathaniel, she is not afraid at all. She is stronger than any man without wings on his back. She can funnel the power of Jovah. She is a divine being and she does not need to fear some mortal who terrorizes children.)
(This is almost entirely true, and she considers the simplification forgivable. It's possible that Canaan is such a clever arguer or - unbeknownst to Isabella despite her immersion in Samarian events - such an influential figure, that he could sway authority figures against her or make her life difficult. But in the way that he scares Nathaniel, she is not afraid at all. She is stronger than any man without wings on his back. She can funnel the power of Jovah. She is a divine being and she does not need to fear some mortal who terrorizes children.)
Nathaniel looks at Micaiah.
"I thought he killed you," he whispers.
Micaiah smiles wryly. "Nope," he says. "I ran away."
Nathaniel's eyes widen.
jovahs_heiress
"He found the Edori, and they took care of him, and then he came here," Isabella says, "and found me. And he told me enough that I wondered if someone like you might exist - and so I found you."
jovahs_heiress
"About Micaiah?" Isabella asks. "Well, if he comes up here looking for him, he'll have a lot of angels all around who know that Micaiah belongs here and he doesn't."
jovahs_heiress
"You do until the Gloria. You're with the choir," says Isabella. "Would you like to stay here longer than that?"
He stares at her, as though looking for the catch.
"It's really nice here," says Micaiah. "And Isabella's the nicest part. She'll keep you safe."
Nathaniel looks doubtful.
"It's really nice here," says Micaiah. "And Isabella's the nicest part. She'll keep you safe."
Nathaniel looks doubtful.
jovahs_heiress
"The choir disbands after the Gloria and only operates six months of the year, to prepare for it, with new auditions every time. But after the Gloria, there are places you could go - places where no one will mind if I want to put one little boy there and say to bill the Eyrie for his keep," Isabella says. "There's the Gabriel school. I have friends who might let you stay with them. I could ask Alleluia or Peninnah to take you on as an acolyte, once you're a little older. The only problem," she says, "is that your parents currently expect to have you back after the Gloria. If you don't want to go back to them, then someone who can tell them no has to have a reason to do that. And I can't do that by myself. I have to answer to Delilah, who leads the host, who's in charge of Bethel. But you could stay here or somewhere just as nice, for as long as you needed, if you would explain to Delilah with me why."
"I'm afraid," Nathaniel whispers.
Micaiah looks torn.
Then he says, "I could come along. And—tell her what he's like."