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03.19.05 - There are many blessings to being an earthbound Seraph. One is that many of the trials and horrors you have witnessed as one of the heavenly host are suppressed during your time on the mundane planes of existence. The things that only a full angel in the heavenly realm could stomach are locked away deep within and only resurface now and again when one is in a state of deepest openness to the universe. Such a time occurs in the true depths of sleep, when dream unlocks the doorway to all recesses of the mind and spirit.

Sajhiri found herself caught in such a moment, sunk into a deep slumber after a long day, the child in her womb draining the energies she would normally use to keep herself above such a level of openness. The black pit of exhaustion had swallowed her and, with its blackness, penetrated to the core of memory.

Sangariel, the guardian of the portals to heaven, was she who kissed the brow of a dying mortal to grant them passage into paradise upon death. It was she who witnessed every horrific death dealt to every soul, and who was called to them when there was any question as to which realm they would be released unto when they expired. It was she who had to face the horrors of what fanaticism could do, and who tread the bloodied tortures of the Inquisition from start to end, weighing the evil done by a soul against the evil done by the church in murdering them falsely, or for half truths. So many brows she kissed or denied; so many terrible ends she bore witness to. The burnings were the worst in her memory, the echoes of screams cut short as vocal chords disintegrated under the hellish wrath of fire...The unforgettable stench of charred flesh and hair... the light of pure hatred and glee in the faces of the faithful bearing witness to murder in God's name. The angel could withstand the press of horror, the woman now bound to Gaia could not.

With the imprint of licking flames burned against her eyes she sat up with a shriek of mourning, of grief for the innocents destroyed, both physically and morally, by the ravages of the Inquisition. The smoldering fires of fear and torment still shivered through her mind, though in the moments after waking the faded and recessed back to where they were locked away to protect her mortal form. She shakily stood up and moved out of her room, intent on going to the kitchen to get something cool to drink, and perhaps splash some water on her face.

She padded down the tower hallway, past the rooms of her sleeping charges, her Feien fairy Averno, her Aduthule twins Saevire and Sedare, the Sphinx, young Telenna, and assorted others, all blissfully asleep. She could feel the air as if it were thick against her sweat-soaked skin, and the smell of burning still seemed to linger in the air, rather than in memory.

Reaching the kitchen she opened a bottle of water and swallowed half of it down, resting her hand on her pregnant belly as if to reassure her child she was all right. The baby stirred restlessly, as if it too could sense the night was not righ...not normal. Sajhiri sighed softly, but the sigh cut off with the sound of a wail from upstairs. Eyes widening, the woman rushed to the stairs and climbed them at the best pace should could make in her expectant condition. She stopped at the top of the stairs, where Sedare, one of the Aduthule twins, was staring at her wide-eyed.

"What is it dear?" She asked, hurrying to the 2 foot high being's side. She noticed the silvery Thule was clutching a teddy bear in her arms.

"I was going to put this in the baby's crib, so when it was born it would have a toy to hug right away...but...but" Sedare pointed at the opened door of the newly furnished nursery. "...The baby is there already, Momma."

Sajhiri blinked in confusion a few times. "Don't be silly, sweetie. The baby's still right here..." She patted her belly, then placed the Thule's hand on it so she could feel the unborn child stirring within. "See?"

Sedare looked confused. "Then who is sleeping in the baby's crib, Momma?" she asked in a perplexed tone.

That made Sajhiri go pale with sudden and unrelenting fear. Something was sleeping in the crib she'd set up for her own child. She set a hand against the small of the Thule's back and urged her back towards the room she shared with her twin. "Go back to bed, love. It's all ok, I'll handle this." She watched intently as Sedare did as she was told, then turned back towards the room and it's open door. She swallowed down the bile that rose in her throat, and stepped inside.

The room was dark and quiet, but the sound of breathing was unmistakable, tiny little breaths, too small for a normal sized human. Maybe one of the Menagerie was just napping here, was the first thought, but as she approached the crib, the moonlight fell upon auburn locks, and she knew what was in the crib was not someone familiar. With a deep breath she finally stepped to the rail and looked over. There, looking up at her with clear grey eyes, eyes holding such anger and such despair, was a little girl. A streak of white in her hair caught the dim light filtering through the windows, and her face seemed otherworldly and inhumanly placid for an infant.

"What on Gaia?" Sajhiri stared in amazement at the child apparently abandoned in her own child's crib. "Where did you come from?" She reached down and lifted the girl from the confines of the bunny and ducky printed enclosure and cradled her on her shoulder. A whimper came from the child, and tears leaked from those clear grey eyes, but no sobs or wails came.

The earthbound Seraph moved to the room's rocking chair and settled into it, trying to sooth the baby in her arms. At the rocking the child calmed, but rather than sleep, stared up at her founder with eyes too wise and too deep for her age. She could not answer the question posed to her by her new foster mother, she could only feel the conflict within from what radiated from the woman...pure celestial goodness...the embodiment of the church and it's edicts. And so it began...

SAJHIRI'S DIARY

03.20.05

Dear Diary,

What a complex whirlwind life has become of late. For a while now I've been having barely remembered nightmares about my past duties in the role of Sangariel. When I was performing said duties, my angelic nature protected me from the sorrows and the grief of what I was witnessing. As a seraph I was disassociated from human emotion, and in my dispassionate state the horrific deaths and suffering I witnessed while granting passage to heaven could not affect me. But I am partially human now, in this earthbound form, and the memories would be overwhelming to my sensibilities, which is why they have been, mercifully, surpressed. In dreams they sometimes find escape though, and that was why I was awake the night Naeva came to me.

I had woken from a fever dream and went to get something to drink, when I found Sedare outside of the nursery I'd prepared for my coming natural child. She told me there was a baby in the crib and asked when I'd given birth. Well I was QUITE sure my son or daughter was still safely in the womb, so I sent Sedare off to bed and went in to investigate. Much to my surprise I found an infant in my future child's crib!

She wept...not screamed and sobbed like a baby should, but had tears leaking from her eyes with only the smallest whimper to accompany them. And her eyes...those clear eyes looked too old, to deeply grieved, for a child. I do not know where she came from, or who left her in my care, but I cannot abandon a child. I rocked her to sleep, though she seemed all too uncomforable in my arms, as if she wanted to escape my embrace. I've never really experienced a sense of...revulsion from a child before, as if she found my presence repugnant or foul. That worries me to the core, but it is something I will have to work out with her, because I cannot simply abandon her to fate.

The next morning I had the Sphinx care for her while I went out to buy a second crib and a duplicate of all the baby paraphenalia that I'd just purchased for mine and *Washu*'s forthcoming baby. If we weren't making considerable profit from the Subspace Saloon and my clock shop I think we'd be in real trouble financially at this point. Something about the oddness of her expression, and that seeming age behind her eyes, has left me feeling it might be necessary to take her in to some of the places in Gaia where unusual children are generally cared for. Like that place I ran into Kamiki at before, with her little centaurish youngster. I think maybe people like them can help me figure out something about this little girl.

I've named her Naeva, which is French for "Evening", since that was when I found her. And somehow it seems to suit her. She seemed least repelled when I murmured the name to her, and that was when she fell asleep in my arms.

03.22.05 - A sickening sensation plagued the pit of Naeva's stomach. The infant had been dragged away from her new guardian shortly before they moved the angelic woman through the strange double doors of shiny metal. The stringent smell of the hospital corridors irritated her nose, and the sounds and sensations of many mothers preparing to give birth made her feel completely helpless. She did not want to be taken away from Sajhiri because the child in her womb was worried, and Naeva wanted to help her come into the world safely. Something deep within her knew that she could help, even though she didn't know how, or why she felt that way.

The felinid whose lap she was held in stroked her hair with taloned fingertips. The actions of the Sphinx were calming and soothing, but whimpers of frustration still escaped Naeva every time she heard the cries of impending motherhood through the heavy doors. Around her, the rest of Sajhiri's brood were in various states or rest or unrest, sleeping on couches, pacing the floors, trying to sneak peeks through the small glass windows set in the doors.

She had been brought into an enormous group of beings, which she was a bit uneasy about. And the fact that her 'mother' appeared to be angelic in nature didn't improve that feeling at all. She did not know why she felt such an aversion to the holy aura around the seraph, but it made her skin crawl and her little hands shake whenever she was near. Only the woman's very gentle seeming nature kept her from screaming bloody murder everytime she was held.

The Sphinx began to purr quietly, and the sound lulled her into a half sleeping state.

03.22.05 - A baby's cry reached her ears, and Naeva woke with a start, her unease intensifying tenfold. The child had been freed of the womb, but the cry was one of protest and helplessness. She had not wanted to come out. The reason for that became somewhat apparent as Sajhiri's husband and friend were ushered out, looking very frightened, by an equally pale nurse. Something had gone horribly wrong.

The Sphinx hoisted her onto her shoulder and rose, preventing the girl from being able to see what was happening by the doors. She twisted violently in the Mythos' arms, trying to get her eyes back to where the problem was. With a small growl she sank her 3 sharp baby teeth into the creature's ear, and the felinid responded by dropping her back down into a cradled position, letting her see Zaine and *Washu* and the rest.

Words were bandied about...hemorrhage, bleeding, scared...but through the jumble she grasped that the baby was all right and it was Sajhiri who was in danger. She relaxed somewhat. The child was alive and well and that meant more to her than the angel. Her eyes slitted as her infant body refused to allow her to remain awake any longer, and she drifted off to sleep in her current caretaker's arms.

04.01.05 - Naeva stirred in her crib. She could hear the breathing of the infant, Rebecca, just a few feet away from her in the nursery's other crib. With effort she rolled over and sat up to peer over the bumper pad covered in Winnie the Pooh characters. To an adult the expanse between cribs would seem tiny, but to Naeva it looked enormous. She quietly listened to the regular rhythym of the other child's breaths. They sounded strong, indicating good lungs and general health. She let out a satisfied grunt and curled back up in her bed. She didn't know why she cared or felt concern; her child's mind never dug that deeply into her instincts, but somewhere within her was a need to ensure that the baby and it's mother were well.

Sajhiri had recovered from the scare at the hospital during Rebecca's birth. She was tired and not up to her usual energy level, but she would be all right. Somehow Naeva just knew that. The trauma of the birthing day had taken the edge of the strange little girl's aversion to her guardian. She still felt uncomfortable in her arms and her presence, but she no longer fought or struggled when she was held by the Earthbound Seraph.

Although tired, sleep would not come to the child. Unlike the inclinations of the infant a few feet away, however, she didn't voice her weary frustration by crying. Instead, her pale eyes roamed the confines of her crib and rested on the toys her guardian had placed in it. There were a pair of strange blob-like things which jiggled when touched. They were interestingly weird and she liked to poke them with a finger and watch their red and purple bodies dance in reaction. There were also two little fuzzy winged things with sweet faces. She wasn't sure what to make of them, but if she poked at them they hopped about the crib entertainingly. Her favorite item, however, was the bright yellow rubber ducky which sat in one corner.

The toy was only supposed to be for bathtime, but the infant had grabbed it and refused to let it go after being bathed earlier that night. It squeaked when she squeezed it, and had a sweet and gentle countenance painted on it's shiny face. Plus she discovered if you pushed it under the water and squeezed it, it would suck up water inside it. She managed to then squirt Sajhiri with it upon next squeeze. It made the woman laugh and seemed to raise her spirits some. The birth had taken a lot out of her. She and Rebecca seemed to be able to make her happy, though. In spite of her discomfort with Sajhiri, Naeva enjoyed making her happy. She new a happy Sajhiri would treat her and the other infant well, and that was important to her.

With a last yawn, the child finally drifted off into a deep sleep. Tomorrow was another day and perhaps she and Rebecca could play. She slipped into slumber bearing the nagging sensation that every moment she breathed was a moment borrowed.

04.04.05 - Naeva wrinkled her nose at the sterile smell of the clinic and squirmed in the double stroller. Beside her, Rebecca was babbling incoherently at another baby not far from them. She did not know the other child, and she wanted to get herself between the one she helped deliver (in her own mind at least) and the stranger. Protectiveness flowed through her little veins, though it had no source she could pinpoint and she did not think to hard upon it.

When they were finally away from the other baby they were pushed through a door into a long hallway and Rebecca was taken out of the stroller, leaving Naeva fastened securely in it. The angel told the two little strange and colorful furry girls to watch her as she slipped into another door with Rebecca. Sedare, the silvery Thule, tried to get her attention with her plushie cow, but Naeva was having none of it. She wanted to know where Rebecca had been taken and why she was left here.

Cold fear seeped into her belly, and she began to whimper, her lower lip jutting. Temper flared at her frustration and she tried to wriggle out of the stroller to follow her guardian and her adoptive sibling. A pacifier was waved in front of her face to no avail as she opened her mouth to howl and rage against her confinement. Something primal in her had triggered a panic attack. Her high pitched wails grew more fevered and Sajhiri reappeared, leaving Rebecca in the nurse's capable hands to retrieve Naeva.

The guardian tried to soothe her as she carried her in to where her biological child was getting her first checkup. Rebecca giggled and kicked her feet merrily at the sight of her pseudo sister and Naeva calmed immediately in Sajhiri's arms. The child was well, even if the fact the clinic personnel were examining her rankled the legend. All would be well so long as they were together. Because if they were apart, the bad thing might happen again. She didn't know what it was, exactly, only that it happened while she couldn't be with her charge.

She settled down on the table next to Rebecca and quieted, content to watch. And wait.

04.30.05 - Anger...vibrant and bright, burning like the setting sun in the heart of the infant girl in the cradle. Naeva's eyes were closed tight, her body curled in a ball, enrapt in tremulous dreams which were more memory than nightmare. The cold, dank feel of slime upon damp stone, the stink of unclean bodies and decayed flesh, the sharp tank of iron feasted upon by rust...all these things were clear and sharp and painful in her head. In dream we cannot read, which is what sets it apart from memory. But in memory, we can see the words our eyes have seen so long ago.

"Edict of the Church...

...sentenced to death..."

The dark strokes of a quill left on parchment swam before her mind's eye and made the baby shudder in confusion and fear. With a start she woke screaming, her wail reaching the ears of her adoptive mother, and startling the child in the cradle beside hers.

Rebecca's cries joined in her chorus, and soon Sajhiri came and lifted both children from their beds, settling into the plush rocking chair and soothing their fevered minds with the soft sweetness of a lullaby. The comfort of her embrace, the gentle tone of her voice, made the memories fade back into nothingness once more. Naeva slipped back into true sleep, the realm of dreams, dreams more suited to her current infancy.

05.08.05 - Sadness swept over Naeva. She knew this celebration, though not precisely by the name it was being called, nor the time frame. A celebration of Motherhood, something she knew inside meant a great deal to her. The bringing of children into the world was a gift, a great service, and so it brought honor.

She knew Sajhiri was not her mother, but she was Rebecca's mother, and that brought the woman honor, even if she still caused the pit of Naeva's stomach to clench everytime she touched her. Rebecca loved her mother, and Naeva loved Rebecca, and therefore, she must treat Sajhiri with tolerance.

The rest of the crowd at the breakfast gathering was diverse, but all save a few seemed to look upon Sajhiri as some sort of beneficent savior sacrificing all of herself to care for their needs. The darker fairy, Averno, seemed less enthused, but seemed to crave the seraph's attention. A few of the creatures were also darkly natured and more attuned to what the woman could provide them it seemed.

She looked over at Rebecca gnawing on the cat-thing's tail and held it in place so the infant could slobber on it more easily. To the Sphinx's credit, she didn't seem to mind the baby's gumming of her bodily appendage.

Naeva wrinkled her nose at the smell of the pancake batter that had splattered on the creature holding her during the 3 ring circus that had been breakfast preparation. Clumsy fools, all of them, tripping over themselves to cook a simple meal because none of them had ever had to do so before.

Sajhiri was making these creatures soft...incapable of caring for themselves. She was breeding weakness into them with her mothering. She should be teaching them strength and independence, for they would otherwise not know what to do when their menfolk were slain in battle or the winter stayed a season to long.

The baby dropped the tail in her hands for a moment, confused by the clarity of thought, the memory of such hardships, which came to the surface. But her child's mind could not hold to the fleeting memories, and the sank, once more, into the depths of her consciousness. Once more, the only thing there was to do was play with Rebecca, eat, and sleep.