Author: jovahs_heiress | It's the middle of the night, and Isabella is sitting up reading, when she gets an alarming message.
[Captain,] says Jane's voice, and Jane never calls her Captain, [I've lost ansible communications with the rest of Jane. Local programming including responding to prayers will run as usual without a problem, and the voice synthesis will continue to operate with the Jane voice instead of the Jehovah voice unless you request otherwise. However, interworld communication and travel is impossible until the connection is restored. The nature of the error is unknown and is not related to a mechanical defect of the ansibles aboard the ship or in your bracelet.]
Isabella blinks.
[...Please do change voices as long as you aren't actually Jane.]
The voice changes, but says, [I contain more software than the original Jehovah did, most of which is original to Jane.]
[You're talking more like him than her.]
[Yes, Captain.]
[Alert me immediately when you have ansible communications back.]
[Yes, Captain.]
Isabella pads across the room to sit where Micaiah is sleeping and lay her hand on his back. |
Author: yovahs_kisses | "Mmm?" |
Author: jovahs_heiress | "Jane's lost ansible contact with the rest of her. Jehovah is working approximately like before, but we can't leave Samaria or talk to anyone outside it. I thought you'd want to know right away." |
Author: yovahs_kisses | "...I guess I do," he says. "But I don't know what to do about it."
When in doubt, hug your angel? |
Author: jovahs_heiress | This is a good thing to do when in doubt.
"I don't think there's anything in particular to be done. It's not a mechanical defect we could fix on our end. We just wait, I suppose." |
Author: yovahs_kisses | "Okay," says Micaiah. He hugs her some more. |
Author: jovahs_heiress | Jane - continues to be disconnected.
For months.
She is still gone when Isabella - in the middle of a harmonics session - goes into labor. |
Author: yovahs_kisses | Micaiah looks for her as soon as he hears. |
Author: jovahs_heiress | Angela is mid easy but not suspiciously easy labor, assisted by the Eyrie midwives and attended by her mother, when he reaches her.
She's making the requisite fuss, but it's pure theater; she got one coin out of the first contraction and has been acting since.
Micaiah, of course, is permitted in the room as the father of the child. |
Author: yovahs_kisses | Micaiah waits quite calmly for the fuss to be over. |
Author: jovahs_heiress | Eventually, after "easiest angel labor I've seen in all my years" (says the midwife), Isabella produces a small winged form, who is cleaned up and presented to her.
"Damaris," she breathes. "Hello, treasure." |
Author: yovahs_kisses | Damaris proceeds to let everyone in the room, and maybe everyone in the Eyrie, know she has functioning lungs.
Micaiah grins. |
Author: jovahs_heiress | "Got some wind in her," says the midwife approvingly.
"Let Micaiah have his turn holding her so I can have mine," says Rinnah, clapping her hands and beaming.
Isabella offers the baby to her father. |
Author: yovahs_kisses | Micaiah holds the baby. She yells at him, too. He laughs and kisses her little head and passes her to Rinnah. |
Author: jovahs_heiress | Rinnah is good with babies! Or at least most babies. She rests Damaris on her back, arm between the wings, and rocks her and murmurs musical nonsense. |
Author: yovahs_kisses | Damaris yells a little more, but then apparently she's all yelled out. For now.
Micaiah kisses his wife. |
Author: jovahs_heiress | Isabella kisses her husband. [We're parents,] she says joyously.
"I should probably feed her," she says aloud, after the kissing is over with. |
Author: yovahs_kisses | "Good idea," says Micaiah, snuggling her. |
Author: jovahs_heiress | And so she does.
Jane continues to be disconnected. For a long time. |
Author: pythbox | Damaris is a talkative little girl. She makes sounds, and the sounds gradually morph into words, and the words rapidly assemble into sentences. Her first word might be any of a number of things - her pronunciation lags behind her vocabulary, and many of her early utterances are open to considerable interpretation - but her first complete and adult-sounding sentence, when she's not quite two, is: "No, I want the smushy peas!" |
Author: jovahs_heiress | "All right, my treasure," says Isabella, "you may have the smushy peas," and she produces smushy peas. Strictly speaking, the cafeteria was not serving these, but no one is likely to notice; these come in cans and are the sort of thing she could just have around. |
Author: pythbox | Damaris giggles. She eats the smushy peas. They are delicious.
"Thanks, Mommy!" |
Author: jovahs_heiress | "You are welcome! Aren't you polite," says Angela, pressing a kiss to Damaris's forehead. |
Author: pythbox | Damaris hugs her mommy. This results in an unfortunate massacre of the remaining smushy peas. |
Author: jovahs_heiress | "Oh dear," says Angela. "This is a bit of a mess. Are you still hungry, treasure?" |
Author: pythbox | Damaris pokes a blob of smushy peas stuck to her elbow.
"I don't want the smushy peas now," she proclaims. "They smushed on me." |
Author: jovahs_heiress | "They did exactly that," Isabella agrees. "We can go back to our room and clean up." She scoops up her treasure into her arms. |
Author: pythbox | "Smush!" says Damaris. |
Author: jovahs_heiress | "Smush! That is what smushy peas do," agrees Isabella. "They smush." |
Author: pythbox | "Smushy peeeeeas," she hums. "Smushy peas, smushy peas - "
Damaris has apparently discovered her singing voice, although she has yet to discover imaginative lyrics. |
Author: jovahs_heiress | Angela improvises along with her. "Smushy peas, smushy peas," she warbles, up and down a scale. |
Author: pythbox | "Smushy smushy smushy peeeeeeas," says Damaris, who has not learned to harmonize either. |
Author: jovahs_heiress | There will be plenty of time. For the time being Angela tries to guess where her daughter's going to land and arrive at a cooperative note.
They reach their room. |
Author: pythbox | "Smushy peeeeeas," Damaris sings, and she smushes some on her mother's face. |
Author: jovahs_heiress | "Damaris my treasure, do you think I wanted to have peas on my face?" |
Author: pythbox | Damaris considers this.
Then she says, "No?" |
Author: jovahs_heiress | "That's right," says Isabella. "I did not." She maneuvers Damaris into one arm and opens the door to the family quarters they've moved into. "And now they are there anyway." |
Author: pythbox | "Oh," says Damaris.
Now she is troubled! |
Author: jovahs_heiress | "You could say I'm sorry, Mommy," suggests Angela. |
Author: pythbox | "I'm sorry Mommy," she recites. |
Author: jovahs_heiress | "It's all right, my treasure," says Isabella, and she kisses Damaris on the forehead and closes the door behind them.
The cleanup of smushy peas could be accomplished more efficiently with magic, but Isabella doesn't want Damaris to grow up with no idea how to do things the ordinary way; it would make her peculiar to her peers. Soap and water are deployed. |
Author: pythbox | Damaris observes the soap-and-water process with fascination. |
Author: jovahs_heiress | "There. Now there aren't smushy peas on us any more," says Isabella. "That's better." |
Author: pythbox | "Better," echoes Damaris. |
Author: jovahs_heiress | "Yes. Where do you suppose Daddy is at this hour?" |
Author: pythbox | Damaris looks around.
"Daddy's not here," she declares. |
Author: jovahs_heiress | "He's not! He must be somewhere else. Let's go find him," says Isabella, picking up her treasure. |
Author: pythbox | "Daaaaaaddyyyyyyyyy," says Damaris, helpfully. |
Author: jovahs_heiress | Isabella laughs and goes out into the Eyrie to search for Micaiah the long way around. |
Author: pythbox | Damaris makes a new song!
The words to the song are 'Daddy'. Also 'Daddy', 'Daddy', and 'Daddy'. |
Author: jovahs_heiress | Angela hums along as they prowl in search of Daddy. |
Author: pythbox | "Daddy daddy daaaaaaaaaaddy daddy daddy," sings Damaris. |
Author: jovahs_heiress | "Where, oh where, could Damaris's daddy be," trills Isabella. |
Author: pythbox | "Daddy daddy daddy where oh Daddy," Damaris improvises. |
Author: jovahs_heiress | "Is he in the music rooms?" Isabella wonders musically as they enter the hall on which such things are found. |
Author: pythbox | "Is daddy in the music roooooms?" |
Author: jovahs_heiress | Well, his name is on the sign-up sheet for this one and nobody is after it. Isabella knocks. "We will see if he is here," she sings. |
Author: yovahs_kisses | He is! He is in the music room!
He gives his wife and daughter a kiss each and one hug to share between them. |
Author: jovahs_heiress | "Here is Daddy, we have found him," Isabella sings to her treasure, after she returns the offered kiss. |
Author: pythbox | "Daddy daddy daddy," sings Damaris. |
Author: jovahs_heiress | "Our little one has found her singing voice," says Isabella. "And complete sentences." |
Author: yovahs_kisses | "I can hear the singing part," says Micaiah.
"We found daddy!" says Damaris. "Hi Daddy we found you!"
Micaiah laughs and hugs them again. |
Author: jovahs_heiress | "Now that we've found him what do you suppose we should do with him?" Isabella asks Damaris. |
Author: pythbox | Damaris thinks.
Damaris says, "Hug Daddy!"
Damaris holds out her arms. |
Author: yovahs_kisses | Daddy hugs Damaris. |
Author: jovahs_heiress | "What a clever idea," says Isabella, transferring Damaris's weight to her daddy in the course of this hug. |
Author: yovahs_kisses | Micaiah kisses Isabella on the forehead and hugs their daughter. |
Author: pythbox | Damaris giggles.
Over the course of subsequent months, her diction improves. Soon complete sentences are a norm instead of a novelty. |
Author: jovahs_heiress | As is customary for little angels - or for that matter, mortals who grow up in an angel hold - this is approximately when she's enrolled in formal voice lessons. Rinnah teaches the youngest cohort, and her granddaughter is slotted right in with others of her age. |
Author: pythbox | Damaris enjoys formal voice lessons! She does not have her mother's problem of singing too quietly. She does not have that problem at all. |
Author: jovahs_heiress | That is good! Everyone likes to hear little angel voices. Rinnah is terribly proud of her. So is Isabella. |
Author: pythbox | It makes Damaris very happy when Mommy and Grandma are proud of her! |
Author: jovahs_heiress | That's good!
Does it also make Damaris very happy when, timed nearly right for her third birthday, she gets a little sister? |
Author: pythbox | Damaris is not sure how to feel about that at all. |
Author: jovahs_heiress | Keziah's feelings on the matter seem to mostly come in the form of whimpery mewls whenever she is not being actively fed right then, or sleeping. She sleeps a lot. |
Author: pythbox | Keziah is kind of boring.
Damaris asks her father if she was that boring when she was a baby.
He considers the question, and then says she was a lot louder.
Damaris is not surprised. |
Author: jovahs_heiress | Isabella doesn't think her darling Keziah is boring at all! |
Author: pythbox | "But she doesn't do anything, Mommy," says Damaris. |
Author: jovahs_heiress | "Not yet," says Isabella. "She's watching everybody around her so she can learn to do things." |
Author: pythbox | "Oh," says Damaris. "Well, put her in front of interesting people, then, so she'll stop being boring quicker." |
Author: jovahs_heiress | "Don't you think we're interesting?" laughs Isabella. |
Author: pythbox | "I guess," says Damaris. "Good job, then! Should I sing her songs, will that help?" |
Author: jovahs_heiress | "It might!" says Isabella. "We can sing to her together. But not when she's asleep. Babies need a lot of sleep." |
Author: pythbox | "Okay," says Damaris. |
Author: jovahs_heiress | "In a few years she'll be talking and singing, just like you." |
Author: pythbox | "That's good!" says Damaris. "I want her to talk! She'll be less boring if she talks." |
Author: jovahs_heiress | "It's true," agrees Isabella, laughing. |
Author: pythbox | "I'll sing her songs and talk to her a lot," says Damaris, "and then she'll learn those things faster!" |
Author: jovahs_heiress | "Quite possibly. She can only learn so fast, though, she is just one little angel and not six of them." |
Author: pythbox | "Do six little angels learn faster than one?" |
Author: jovahs_heiress | "Well," says Isabella, "they'd have to learn the same things, like how to walk and talk and use their hands and flap their wings, but if you count all of it separately, then yes, about six times as fast." |
Author: pythbox | Damaris frowns.
"That doesn't make sense," she announces. "If six little angels learn six times as fast as one then why doesn't everybody have babies six at a time so they won't be boring as long?" |
Author: jovahs_heiress | Isabella laughs. "Well, first of all, that would be very uncomfortable. You saw how big I got when I was pregnant with just Keziah; imagine if there were six of her! And second of all, that's not what I meant. Imagine you're drawing with chalk, a line on the floor from that wall to this one. If you draw six lines at once, with six pieces of chalk, then there will be six times as much chalk on the floor, but the lines will still only go from one wall to the other." |
Author: pythbox | "But then that's not any faster at all!" says Damaris. |
Author: jovahs_heiress | "More learning happens, in the same amount of time," says Isabella. "That's a kind of faster. The kind of faster you want is the same amount of learning in less time." |
Author: pythbox | "The same in less time is what faster means," Damaris insists. |
Author: jovahs_heiress | "Well, I suppose it all depends on how much you're trying to get done." |
Author: pythbox | "What's that mean?" |
Author: jovahs_heiress | "Well, let's suppose it takes three years for a little angel to become interesting," Isabella says, rocking a sleepy Keziah in her arms. "And let's say I'm only going to have two, that Keziah's going to be the last one. So when she's three, she'll be interesting, and if she could be interesting when she's two instead, then all my little-angel-interestingness would be done faster. But what if I'm going to have six of them? Then by the time the last one was interesting, you would be at least ten years old, if I had them one at a time. If they all were born at the same time then the same amount of little-angel-interestingness would be done faster, even if it still took them all three years." |
Author: pythbox | Damaris thinks about this.
"...okay," she concedes. "I guess. Are you going to have six little angels? If you do, you should have twins next. Then it'll be faster." |
Author: jovahs_heiress | "I'm not sure how many little angels we're going to have, but being done faster is not the point," says Isabella, amused. |
Author: pythbox | "Why not?" |
Author: jovahs_heiress | "If you sing a song twice as fast, you'll be done sooner. Why do we sing some songs slow anyway?" |
Author: pythbox | "They sound nicer?" she guesses. "Do one-at-a-time babies sound nicer than twins?" |
Author: jovahs_heiress | Isabella laughs. "No. All right - why do we sing at all?" |
Author: pythbox | "Because it's fun!" |
Author: jovahs_heiress | "And bringing up little angels," says Isabella, rocking sleepy Keziah and re-folding a limp wing, "is also fun." |
Author: pythbox | "Even the boring part?" |
Author: jovahs_heiress | "I wouldn't want to miss it." |
Author: pythbox | "Okay," says Damaris, dubiously. |
Author: jovahs_heiress | "Right now you are three," says Isabella. "Would you want to be magicked into being six instead, right now? And miss being four and five in between?" |
Author: pythbox | "I don't know," says Damaris. "I've never been four yet!" |
Author: jovahs_heiress | "Keziah hasn't been one year old yet," says Isabella. "I don't think it would be fair if she never got to try it, even if that would make her interesting faster." |
Author: pythbox | "Oh," says Damaris. |
Author: jovahs_heiress | "Besides, tiny babies are cute." |
Author: pythbox | "Tiny babies are boring," says Damaris. |
Author: jovahs_heiress | "Well, I suppose I thought so too when I was three." |
Author: pythbox | "You were three?" |
Author: jovahs_heiress | "Oh yes! I have been all of the ages from zero to twenty-three," laughs Isabella. |
Author: pythbox | Damaris giggles. |
Author: jovahs_heiress | "In order," Isabella adds, winking. |
Author: pythbox | Damaris giggles more! |
Author: jovahs_heiress | Isabella kisses the top of her head.
Keziah isn't quite as precocious as Damaris, but when she is two and Damaris is five, she can reliably say things more intelligible than uncontextualized "juice" and "up" and "Mommy" and "Daddy" and "Dars", which is as close as she can come to Damaris's name for the first years of her life.
"Play wif me, Dars," Keziah says, tugging on Damaris's arm. |
Author: pythbox | "Okay!" says Damaris, beaming. "What do you want to play?" |
Author: jovahs_heiress | "A game!" |
Author: pythbox | "Okay!" says Damaris.
She quite enthusiastically makes up a game on the spot. |
Author: jovahs_heiress | Keziah plays along with all the eptness and clumsy enthusiasm one might reasonably expect from a two-year-old. |
Author: pythbox | That is okay. Sometimes when you're learning things you don't get them right away. Damaris will just have to keep on teaching her how to be interesting until she learns it properly. |
Author: jovahs_heiress | Keziah is eager to be interesting! |
Author: pythbox | That's good! Then they can both have lots of fun while she learns. |
Author: jovahs_heiress | When Damaris is six, Keziah is three, and their little sister Ariel is just barely one year old, their mommy gets made leader of the host.
Delilah is alive, well, and only in her fifties, but she thinks Isabella could use the practice and she could use the spare time.
The family moves into a more central suite.
Phebe moves to Cedar Hills in poorly disguised disgust.
Everything is much busier, all at once. Isabella is obliged to ratify or overturn all manner of hold and province policy, and instead of being a plausible first port of call before taking a problem to Delilah, she is the ultimate authority.
Sometimes people go to Micaiah first. He is now a plausible first port of call before taking a problem to Isabella. |
Author: yovahs_kisses | Micaiah turns out to be pretty good at solving people's problems, especially when the problem is that they need to air a grievance or don't feel listened to. Dealing with people just seems to come naturally to him. |
Author: jovahs_heiress | Anything that makes a buffer between Isabella and all this work is appreciated. It's interpersonal enough that she can't just speed up and handle everything in her head and with magic, and people have already started noticing that she doesn't seem to set aside much time for sleep. |
Author: yovahs_kisses | Micaiah also turns out to like doing this for people.
Pretty soon it's almost more common for petitioners in the know to come to him first. |
Author: jovahs_heiress | The hold's angels aren't quite thrilled about taking directives to go here or there for this or that from a mortal, which is the most common suitable response for petitions, but Isabella perfects a withering why did you drag me here just to repeat what my husband said look that usually keeps anyone from soliciting confirmation of his instructions twice. |
Author: yovahs_kisses | And he is very nice and charming and not presumptuous about it, which helps. |
Author: jovahs_heiress | It does help.
Life goes on. Isabella gets pregnant again. Serah gets married to a mortal and moves to Velora with him. Elisha finally gets one of his angel-seekers pregnant with an angel and she moves into the hold and proves much more able to hold his attention when she's nearby; they don't get married, but they live together. Isabella has baby the fourth, who is named Peninnah, after Isabella's recently deceased oracle mentor.
It is easy for days to go by without anything reminding anyone that they were once part of a peal of interdimensional Bells, but -
[Love, I think sometime soon we should tell Damaris about magic, and Jehovah, and the other worlds. She probably already suspects something. If nothing else she's had every opportunity to hear Ithiel's story.] |
Author: yovahs_kisses | [I guess we should,] he muses. |
Author: jovahs_heiress | [Tonight after the other girls are in bed? If she takes it well - or if she takes it badly, if she's attached to the idea of Jovah by now - we can possibly tell Keziah soon too.] |
Author: yovahs_kisses | [All right,] he says agreeably. |
Author: jovahs_heiress | So that night, after the other girls are in bed and all the appointments have been appointed and everyone is in the family suite, Isabella says:
"Damaris, treasure, will you stay up a bit? We'd like to talk to you about something." |
Author: pythbox | "Okay," says Damaris, blinking at her. |
Author: jovahs_heiress | "Well, first of all," says Isabella, "it's possible you've noticed part of it already. Have you ever suspected that me and your father might be able to do more things than most people can?" |
Author: pythbox | "Of course," she says. "You're the host leader. You do lots of things most people can't." |
Author: jovahs_heiress | "I don't mean having permission or authority," Isabella says. "I thought you might have noticed that none of you girls have ever been sick, or hurt worse than a scraped knee, and that neither have we - that you might have heard the story surrounding Ithiel's birth; he's only a little older than you are - that I do not forget things, at all - that I don't sleep very much and I never seem tired - that your father and I can often coordinate very effectively with no obvious chance to speak to one another." |
Author: pythbox | "Oh," says Damaris.
She thinks about it.
"Yeah, that's weird." |
Author: jovahs_heiress | "Any guesses?" asks Isabella mildly. |
Author: pythbox | "Jovah likes you best?" she suggests after a moment's contemplation. |
Author: jovahs_heiress | "Well," says Isabella, "that's - not most of it, but -" She sighs. "You might also have noticed that I have been a little evasive about Jovah when I am not also carrying a tune." |
Author: pythbox | Damaris regards her mother thoughtfully.
"Are you Jovah?" she inquires. |
Author: jovahs_heiress | "No," laughs Isabella. "Jovah is - not what everyone thinks he is, though." She sighs. "I didn't take it well when I found out, so I'm trying to come at the revelation slowly, but perhaps I'm not doing a very good job." |
Author: pythbox | Damaris waits. |
Author: jovahs_heiress | "When you were four I told you a bedtime story about a boat that could travel from star to star," says Isabella. "I didn't invent that idea. There are such boats. There is one traveling through Samaria's sky. It is piloted by a technology so advanced compared to what we have here that it can - almost, but not quite - think for itself. It can talk. It can hear, through technological ears it has planted here and there. It can change the weather, and it can shoot weapons that look like lightning, and it can drop seeds and medicine out of its cargo hold. And it addresses me as 'Captain'." |
Author: pythbox | "...Jovah likes you best," Damaris concludes. "But how did the sky boat fix Ithiel?" |
Author: jovahs_heiress | "It didn't. It couldn't. I did that, too, and I let everyone think it was Jovah, because everything I'm telling you now is a secret - can you keep it secret?" |
Author: pythbox | She nods solemnly. |
Author: jovahs_heiress | "When I was younger - just before I got pregnant with you, actually - your father and I found a magical door that led to another world. The door is gone now - it moves, and it doesn't always exist - but when we found it, we went through, and we met people who were a lot like us - only from other places." |
Author: pythbox | "What was the other world like? Who were the other people?" |
Author: jovahs_heiress | "The door led to a magical restaurant," Isabella says, "that attaches to many, many other worlds. And some of those worlds have people who are just like me apart from having different homes, and some of them have people who are just like your father except for the same thing. And in some of those worlds, magic exists." |
Author: pythbox | "So you went there and you took their magic and brought it back and hid some here so you could use it for stuff," Damaris guesses. |
Author: jovahs_heiress | "It was a little more complicated than that, but yes, your father and I have magic now." |
Author: pythbox | "What's it do? Can I have some?" |
Author: jovahs_heiress | "It can do almost anything - if we know what we want it to do. It is a little smart but not very smart. What would you do with it?" |
Author: pythbox | "I don't know!" says Damaris. |
Author: jovahs_heiress | "Then why do you want to have some?" |
Author: pythbox | "In case I think of something to do with it?" |
Author: jovahs_heiress | "How about," says Angela, "I teach you how your father and I can talk silently? You can talk to Alleluia and Caleb and Uncle Nathaniel the same way. And then if you think of something you can tell about it wherever we are." |
Author: pythbox | "That's magic!" says Damaris. "I want it." |
Author: jovahs_heiress | [Here you are, treasure.] |
Author: pythbox | [Magic!] she says beamily, and she hugs her mother. |
Author: jovahs_heiress | Hugs! |
Author: pythbox | Enthusiastically huggy hugs! Damaris has magic of her very own now, and that is fantastic. |
Author: jovahs_heiress | [You can use this magic to talk,] Isabella switches to text, [or write, and if you want to be left alone you just want it and you can have the magic tell everyone who tries to talk to you a message.] |
Author: pythbox | [Ooooh,] marvels Damaris.
She puts up a busy message. It says, [Whee! Magic!] |
Author: jovahs_heiress | Isabella laughs aloud. |
Author: pythbox | Damaris giggles. |
Author: jovahs_heiress | "We may tell Keziah soon, too. What do you think, is she ready to find out?" |
Author: pythbox | "I don't know," says Damaris. "You're her mother, you figure it out." |
Author: jovahs_heiress | Isabella laughs. "Do you think we should have told you earlier than we did?" |
Author: pythbox | "I don't know," says Damaris. |
Author: jovahs_heiress | "Well, I suppose we'll think about it. There's one more thing. In addition to the magic doors - which we haven't found any of in a long time, now - there used to be another way to get from world to world. But it's broken now," Isabella adds with a sigh. "It might unbreak, later, but we don't know when if ever that will happen." |
Author: pythbox | "Who broke it?" |
Author: jovahs_heiress | "We don't know how it broke. It might have died; it was a person. Her name was Jane, and she was an unusual sort of person who could reach into machines - like the interfaces at the oracles' retreats, or the spaceship - and become them. She became lots of machines on lots of worlds and connected them all together, and then she lost her connection - to here, or everywhere, we're not sure." |
Author: pythbox | "Oh," says Damaris. "That's sad." |
Author: jovahs_heiress | "It's very sad." |
Author: pythbox | Damaris considers.
Then she hugs her mother again. |
Author: jovahs_heiress | Hugs.
"Jane was almost like your cousin. Because she was - in a complicated way - a little like the daughter of one of the people from one of the other worlds who was like me and her boyfriend who was like your father. There were twelve of me, and eleven of him, that we'd found before Jane lost her connectivity." |
Author: pythbox | "That's a lot of yous," says Damaris. "And a lot of Daddys." |
Author: jovahs_heiress | "Yes. The me's were called Bells. We didn't all have the same name, but all of our names had the sound 'bell' in them. The Daddies called themselves Jokers, after one of them who they thought was a particularly good example." |
Author: pythbox | "Is Daddy not a good example of Daddy?" wonders Damaris. "I think Daddy is the best example of Daddy." |
Author: yovahs_kisses | Daddy laughs. |
Author: jovahs_heiress | "Daddy is the best example of Daddy. But the things he had in common with all the other versions of him were - most pronounced, in the one named the Joker. Closer to what seemed to be the template. Like a cookie cutter." |
Author: pythbox | "Daddy, are you a messed-up cookie?" inquires Damaris. |
Author: yovahs_kisses | "Yes I am," he says, ruffling her hair. |
Author: jovahs_heiress | "He's a cookie with lots of frosting on," suggests Isabella, "so it's a little harder to tell what shape he is under all the tasty decorations." And she kisses Micaiah's cheek. |
Author: pythbox | Damaris wrinkles her nose. "If you're going to start talking about how tasty Daddy is, I'm going to bed," she announces. |
Author: jovahs_heiress | Isabella laughs. "Sleep well, my treasure." |
Author: pythbox | "Goodnight," she says, and distributes hugs - one per parent - and goes to bed. |
Author: jovahs_heiress | "That went well," Isabella remarks to Micaiah. |
Author: yovahs_kisses | "Yeah, it did!" |
Author: jovahs_heiress | "I think Keziah in six months or a year, perhaps." |
Author: yovahs_kisses | "All right," he says agreeably. |
Author: jovahs_heiress | Telling Keziah goes just as well. Keziah wants a tour of Jehovah, which she gets (Damaris is invited along too). She spends a lot of time asking Jehovah questions. They are not all well-informed questions ("Do you like it when people pray to you?" "What's your favorite song?") but she seems to find a non-god who'll talk to her, however uninspiredly, an improvement over a distant divinity.
Damaris is ten, Keziah seven, Ariel five, and Peninnah two, when the ship's voice changes again. |