[reverse darkest timeline AU: cellthread #2]

[stilljustandrew]

[Previously: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5]

What's worried Baby the most, over the past few days --

Well. What's upset her the most is Andrew's consistent refusal to speak to her mind-to-mind, or out loud beyond the few necessary words she might exchange with any other inmate, such as requests for food, fresh clothes, an extra blanket.

But what's worried her is that he hasn't asked for anything to pass the time. No tablet with games or videos on it, no pencil and paper, no baseball to bounce off the opposite wall.

No books.



In the cell, Andrew finishes his breakfast (cornflakes, with sliced banana), sets aside the bowl, and settles down leaning against the wall.

Comments

[gothamsheiress]

A nod.

"May I sit in there, then?"

[stilljustandrew]

"Sure," he says again. "You, uh, you can just walk through, it'll let you in."

[gothamsheiress]

Her eyebrows go up.

"Truly?"

She puts up a hand and steps forward -- and her eyes widen when she meets no real resistance. She stops just past the wall and looks around the cell, not quite believing.

[stilljustandrew]

"Yeah, that -- that's Baby. She's the magic that controls the whole cell system."

A very small, tremulous smile.

"She, she's pretty special."

[gothamsheiress]

"She's not a person?"

[stilljustandrew]

"She's an artificial intelligence. So she's not a human, but still a person? You can talk to her, if you want, she'll hear you."

A patch of the wall glows faintly, and Baby's neutral-to-pleasant voice speaks out of the air: "I will be happy to speak to you at any time, Brix nó Balm de Marsilikos, but I do not wish to interrupt your conversation with Andrew Wells."

[gothamsheiress]

Brix lets out a soft, delighted laugh.

"Well. I've never seen such a thing. I suppose I barely have now. Hello, Baby. Thank you."

[stilljustandrew]

"You are welcome. I look forward to conversing with you later."

Andrew smiles, a touch painfully.

[gothamsheiress]

Brix smiles back at him, and looks around for a chair.

--There's one! She's fairly sure it wasn't there before. Magic. She takes a seat.

"That's remarkable." She shakes her head. "I beg your pardon. Where were we?"

[stilljustandrew]

"You were ... going to tell me about Elua."

He's shifted on the mattress to face her, arms clasped loosely around his knees.

[gothamsheiress]

"Ah -- yes."

She folds her hands in her lap and looks off into the middle distance, a little like a child reciting a lesson.

"To begin with, the One God had a son, Yeshua ben Yoseph. Yeshua ended his life executed by the Tiberians, hanging on a wooden cross. And while he hung dying, one of the Tiberian soldiers pierced his side with a spear. His blood fell on the soil and mingled with the tears of the Magdalene, his beloved, and from that mingling of his blood and her tears, Elua was born.

"But Elua was reviled by his father's followers, and by the Tiberians, and even by the One God who was mourning his true-gotten son, so he was cast out to wander the world. In his wanderings he came to Persis, and there the King cast him in chains. Which" -- she glances back to Andrew here, pauses, a storyteller's flourish -- "might have been the end of the story. But there among the angels in Heaven who pitied him, and Naamah was the first of these. She came to the King of Persis and laid with him, in exchange for Elua's freedom. It's her service I've pledged myself to.

"Seven other angels also came to Elua's aid." She counts them off on her fingers. "Shemhazai, Azza, Anael; Camael, Eisheth, Cassiel; and Kushiel."

She pauses here.

"There's more the story. It might not mean much if you don't know our countries, though."

[stilljustandrew]

He's listening, his face a strange blend of eager and wary.

(It's been so long since anyone's told him a story.)

"So ... you have the One God," he says slowly, "and, uh, Yeshua, and angels ... but you don't have Lucifer? In your stories?"

[gothamsheiress]

She shakes her head.

"I don't know a great deal about him."

This might be underselling what she knows, but only slightly.

[stilljustandrew]

"He was -- He was the eldest of the four archangels," Andrew says, "who were God's first children. And He was the brightest and most beautiful, and He loved their Father more than any of them. More than anything. But when God created human beings, and, and commanded the angels to love them ... He refused. He said that humans were flawed, and would murder and lie and do violence upon each other and the earth. And for His refusal, God banished Him from heaven and had Michael cast Him into hell."

[gothamsheiress]

Brix's eyebrows go up.

"I see."

There seems to be something else she's biting back.

[stilljustandrew]

"But the seals on His prison were broken, not long ago. And He walks the earth now, and His people follow him."

His eyes are shining, with pride and awe.

"And He chose me to be one of them."

[gothamsheiress]

"He chose you?"

[stilljustandrew]

He nods.

[gothamsheiress]

"How? Angels do mark mortals for their own, where I'm from, but it's very, very rare."

[stilljustandrew]

"... wait, I thought -- didn't you say you serve one of them? Uh, Naamah?"

[gothamsheiress]

"Yes, but I chose to pledge myself to her service. She hasn't touched me any more than that."

[stilljustandrew]

"Oh."

He looks slightly disappointed.

[gothamsheiress]

Brix watches him for a moment, then says, "Many of us also leave her service, once we've made our marques."

[stilljustandrew]

And now he looks -- shocked, maybe offended.

"You leave an angel's service?"

[gothamsheiress]

"Why not? We're not priests or priestesses."