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It has been a couple of months now since the wedding, since the revelation about Jovah. Isabella has been busy. She is not as overt as some of her counterparts. It is not now impossible on Samaria to commit crimes of violence, for example - although anyone who gets going with one will tend to feel a sensation of being watched, and this is enough to noticeably ding reports of such misbehavior.
She's been noticed.
Linus has been calling all of the changes, collectively - because once one or two got overt attention the others were plain as day - "Jovah's hand moving among us".
Isabella is all right with the ship getting credit for her handiwork. It will be more accepted that way. No one riots over the god choosing to peer closely at them if they raise their hands to strike; no one theorizes about the appropriateness of meddling in the natural processes of things like childbirth when they believe Jovah is the active party.
Meanwhile she shadows Delilah. She makes routine visits to Monteverde to talk with Linus about this or that. (She can bring Micaiah, now that they're married.)
She gets steadily more pregnant. The heaviness is no burden to an angel, but it is somewhat physically awkward to be so bulky. She works around it. She's going to have a baby, and she just glows with it.
And, one day, for the first time since before the wedding, she finds Milliways in her and Micaiah's guest room in Monteverde.
"Oh, here it is, I was wondering when it would come by again," Isabella says.
jovahs_heiress
deslandes
There is an unusually shaped person over there, stretched out along the full length of a couch by the fire.
jovahs_heiress
Huh. It's mostly humans and human-looking people around here. But Angela herself has no room for perplexity on that subject; next to that unusually shaped person she's probably the most outlandish sight in the bar right now.
deslandes
He yawns hugely, displaying yellowed fangs, and then looks around.
When he spots Angela, he loks... startled.
When he spots Angela, he loks... startled.
jovahs_heiress
Well, this wouldn't be the first time someone recognized Angela after having met another Bell. She waves a bit, tilting her head.
jovahs_heiress
"I'm not Belle," says Isabella. "I'm Isabella. I may be a version of Belle from another world, though. In my world, sometimes people have wings."
jovahs_heiress
"Oh, did you dream your way here?" asks Angela, peering at him more closely. "You may call me Angela, if you like - there are a number of us who look the same and have similar names, so we've chosen different nicknames to keep ourselves straight. If you dreamed here and you know one of us - Micaiah, love, come here?" She calls the last phrase to her husband.
jovahs_heiress
"I'm not sure, but he recognizes me and he may be dreaming - and I think he sounds a little like you."
deslandes
"You think he is to me as you are to Belle?" he asks, and peers interestedly at Micaiah. "Oh, I was handsome."
jovahs_heiress
"I think so. Something happened to you? Are you not supposed to look as you do?" Angela asks.
jovahs_heiress
"She's going to - disenchant you?" guesses Belle. "She has magic of her own?"
jovahs_heiress
"Some kind of deadline," Angela concludes, sitting down with some awkwardness due to her pregnancy. She's had to stop wearing flying leathers lately; she could conjure some that fit but everyone would wonder where she got them. "I wonder if we could help - I can't visit your world, if you dreamed here, but maybe there's something else."
deslandes
"...Could you," he says slowly, "tell her what it's like to be in love? Or tell me, since she isn't here."
jovahs_heiress
"...That is an interesting question," says Angela, tilting her head. "Why do you ask?"
deslandes
"The other way to break the curse would be for her to fall in love with me. She wants to, but she doesn't know how," he explains.
jovahs_heiress
"I wouldn't worry much, if I were you," says Angela, looking at her husband and smiling. "Of all of us that we know, quite a few have versions of Micaiah to match, and the only one who hasn't fallen in love with hers yet is just fifteen years old. Unless you got off to a bad start with her somehow?"
jovahs_heiress
"Well, yes, but I don't know what happens if she doesn't, if the curse comes due," Angela points out. "I don't think she'll have any trouble. You can tell her about me and Micaiah, and the others too, if you like - assuming you really are one of them and not someone else with a similar voice."
