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 Posted: Mon Feb 01, 2010 11:57 am
Guinevere was in the candle store, browsing.
Since she was a little girl, she had always loved candles, and even though she no longer loved them because they looked mystical and possibly good for summoning spirits, she still enjoyed them. There was just something nice about how they burned, how the wax dribbled down the sides that made her want one, a nice, tall, white one that she could light at home.
Plus, candles were good for mourning. And after the hectic funeral and dealing with her mother's relatives, Guinevere was about ready to quietly mourn on her own. She had been too involved in the funeral planning to have time to think much about her mother's life. Taking a moment in the evening would be just what she needed.
Kneeling on the old wooden floor of the candle shop, she selected one of the slender, creamy candles from a wicker basket and went to pay.
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Posted: Mon Feb 01, 2010 12:23 pm
Luna loved candles. She loved the life they brought to a house, she loved the scents certain ones gave off when lit, she--well. Candles were good for a romantic air, and Valentines was just around the corner; not that Luna had anyone to spend it with, no. She'd been sent to fetch several candles for a sweetheart's dinner her church was hosting. She had a feeling she would be getting more than what the church needed; she was always tempted to get a candle or two for herself.
Michael wasn't quite as pleased to be in a candle shop. He glanced around, taking in the surrounding sights with wide blue eyes. So this was where he had come from? Did all people come from places like these? He had so many questions, questions he knew his mother wouldn't answer. Some of the candles were lit, and it caught his interest. He made his way towards a large, round white one. Candle wax was dribbling down its side. That was right, candles melted. They melted when the flame on their wick got too hot. He paused in his train of thought to look over his shoulder at the two small wings that had developed only recently.
Would he melt? Like a candle?
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Posted: Mon Feb 08, 2010 8:47 am
Guinevere looked up as the door opened and paused. The woman who came in wasn't particularly interesting, at least not to Guinevere. She was fairly normal, which, on Gaia, could be strange in and of itself, but what the Herald was more interested in was the winged figure behind her. "Excuse me!" she called, candles all but forgotten. "Ma'am!"
She bustled over between the displays and then stopped in front of the woman, bobbing a brief half-curtsy and holding out her hand. "Good afternoon, my name is Guinevere Orifiel. Is that child yours?"
Guinevere was interested in Heralds. She had no idea how suspect asking people if their children were theirs actually sounded.
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Posted: Mon Feb 08, 2010 12:47 pm
Luna was so surprised at being addressed in this manner that she jumped, fortunately not backwards as she would have run into several candle displays and quite possibly knocked them over. She studied the formally spoken girl in front of her before realizing this girl was an another angel. Like Michael. She look the girl's hand and shook it. "Nice to meet you, Guinevere," Luna said with a smile. "I'm Luna Watson." Luna paused rather awkwardly at Guinevere's question. "Yes," she said hesitantly, "this is Michael, my son." She decided not to correct the teenager on proper etiquette, after all, who was she to correct an angel?
Michael's attention was torn from the candle he had been studying. Large blue eyes focused on Guinevere. He gave her a smile and a polite wave. She was much older than he was, he realized. He had never met anyone as 'big' as she was, besides his mother. It was then that he noticed her wings. She was like him! He'd always been under the impression that he was unique. It was a relief to find he wasn't. He studied her, looking her up and down before coming out from behind his mother. "Hello," he said. "I Michael."
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Posted: Mon Feb 08, 2010 2:00 pm
"I'm Michael," Guinevere corrected, frowning at him. "I could speak properly at your age, you know, so if you tried, you could too." Anything Guinevere could do, so could the rest of the world. Turning to Michael's mother, she said "Nice to meet the both of you. How did you first meet Michael, please, Ms. Watson?" She sounded almost like a teacher asking a question in class.
She looked at all the candles around them, and then at Michael's wings, nodding as if she was checking something off a list. She bet she knew what Michael's sacrifice was. She bet this wasn't the first time Luna had been buying candles here.
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Posted: Mon Feb 08, 2010 2:35 pm
Michael returned Guinevere's frown. What if he didn't want to speak properly? Of course, this thought would have never come to him had he not been corrected. "I try," he said. It wasn't fair, an older girl was picking on him. "Mommy been helping me. Reads to me all the time," he felt the need to defend himself, since it was clear Luna was going to be no help. "I'm still learnin'."
"Learning," Luna corrected automatically. "He hasn't been socialized much yet--he's having just a bit of trouble, but I think it's because we're so isolated," she paused and thought about how she would answer Guinevere's question. "I would assume the same way your parents met you," said she. "I found an injured angel in the woods near my house. He was struggling to get to a rock I use to view the sunrise--I helped him to the rock, gave him the candle I was bringing home, and poof. I found him the next day, and he's been with me since."
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Posted: Mon Feb 08, 2010 2:49 pm
Your parents.
"Close, but the person who sacrificed to me left me on the rock." she said a bit too brightly- The memory wasn't a pleasant one. "I've been in the care of a few people, but right now I'm living on my own." And, since she had to correct people whenever she heard a mistake, she added, "As for 'angels', I prefer the term 'heralds'. We may appear to be angels, but our only goal is to carry messages t people, and we don't know who sends us. I've met an asian Herald before, and he believes in a different faith than 'angels' typically stem from. The term angel evokes the many faiths that believe in, God, Jehovah, what you will. However, I have no conclusive evidence that we were sent by Him or work for Him, and thus I prefer Heralds, or maybe fallen messengers."
Lecture over, she leaned in to examine Michael. "So he's only been with you a short time, right?" That, along with Niven, meant that Heralds were falling more frequently in town again. "Interesting."
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Posted: Mon Feb 08, 2010 3:19 pm
Luna frowned slightly, but this time it was more out of pity than confusion. "That must have been terrible," she muttered. "I cannot imagine anyone leaving such a beautiful creature and not regret it," there was a pause in which Luna might have felt the need to defend her faith, but felt Michael tugging at her pant leg. She looked down and saw the boy shake his head. She gaped for a moment before looking back to Guinevere. "Perhaps what you say is true," she said, attempting to be agreeable. "I've always thought angels as agents for God; it's how I was raised. If Michael was sent to bring a message, I wonder who the message was for; and if he delivered it."
"What's 'teresting?" Michael asked, blinking as the older girl examined him. Maybe she found him as fascinating as he did her. He knew why he thought she was interesting; she was the first person he'd met that was remotely like him. Why did he interest her? She spoke as if she was experienced in this.
"A month, maybe," Luna admitted. "Why?"
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Posted: Thu Feb 11, 2010 1:07 pm
"I didn't say they didn't regret it." Guinevere said, a tad edgily. It was none of the woman's business, but she had mentioned it out of the desire to prove that she knew more than she did. (Guinevere enjoyed proving people wrong like she enjoyed tea and sugar.) However, suggesting that Vincira had just left her there carelessly- She hadn't intended to do that and she felt the urge to defend the woman who sacrificed to her. Even if she didn't know her, Guinevere and Vincira had an unbreakable bond.
"The message can affect a Herald as much as a sacrifice. I know a boy who's deeply afflicted by how his message was delivered." she said, thinking of Nikolai. "I don't even remember mine, though. Heralds usually don't unless something triggers the memory, though I'm not quite sure what does it. Sometimes part of them remembers, some subconscious reaction."
She said "Interesting, you mean," almost absentmindedly, and then looked up at Luna. "I hardly saw any new Heralds for months, but I've met two in a row just recently, Michael included. They're falling again. I just want to know if there's a pattern, or a reason, or if it's just random happenstance."
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Posted: Sat Feb 13, 2010 1:32 pm
Luna nodded, having decided the more she behaved as if she understood, the better she and Guinevere would get along. "No, I suppose not," she said. "I apologize, Guinevere, I jumped to conclusions." It was rather a nasty habit of hers, that and assuming things.
"Do you think the person who finds the angel is the one the messege was meant for?" Luna asked with some curiousity. "I'm sure it cannot be mere concidence that Michael fell in the woods near my house." She didn't think anyone else lived in those woods; but if the messege had been for her, what had it been? She hadn't received it if it had been.
"Interesting, then," Michael repeated with a frown. "What's interesting?"
"Maybe they are falling again," Luna agreed. "You're the first Herald I've had the chance to meet, with the exception of Michael, of course."
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Posted: Sun Feb 28, 2010 9:40 am
Guinevere shrugged gracefully. "I'm sorry for snapping. It's just a rather touchy kind of subject."
She shook her head at Luna's next question. "My guess is they have to deliver the message itself before they fall, otherwise the people who discover these Heralds would be receiving the message. Think of the message as a battery that they take out of themselves when they find the recipient. After that, no juice left to run on! The sacrifice is like putting in a new battery, but it changes them. I think it's like their bodies adapting to a new power source." She flexed her bladed wings to illustrate the point.
"Well, people find fallen messengers in the strangest places. I was nowhere near my sacrificer's house, but it could be resonance, maybe. Maybe Heralds tune in to people who are willing to make a sacrifice. It's worth investigating." Luna had gotten her thinking, and she paused, mind clearly somewhere else now.
"Huh? You are," Guinevere told Michael offhandedly. To Luna, she said "There'll be others. This town has an unusually high count of Heralds, although they have been known to fall in other places on Gaia."
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Posted: Sun Feb 28, 2010 3:55 pm
Luna nodded in understanding; what Guinevere was saying made sense. Maybe these angels weren't from her God at all; she couldn't see Him creating something for one task only and then allowing it to die. It seemed more like something a crueler being would take part in. "Like Michael's candle," she observed, with a slight smile. "I wondered about that. I was sure he was on the brink of death when I found him, but after I handed him the candle, he had enough energy to well--poof."
Michael didn't agree; he didn't find himself interesting in the slightest, but he thought it would be rude to point that out. "You interesting too," he said. When in doubt, repeat what's said.
"I'm sure they fall where they do for a reason," Luna muttered, almost to herself, before giving Guinevere a smile. "I think Michael would like that. Huh, Michael? Want to make some friends?"
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Posted: Sun Jul 18, 2010 12:39 am
"'You're', not 'you'," Guinevere corrected mechanically. Nodding at Luna, she replied, "What I believe is that Heralds feed off of the bond between the guardian and the sacrifice they make. You are aware of those stories where mothers suddenly gain an enormous amount of strength to save their child? I think that the mental energy needed to be willing to let go of something you love, or something important to you, rather than protect it, is what the Heralds use to be reborn."
She paused and grinned sheepishly. "Of course, I have no proof, and without proof, my theory is just the rambling of a teenage girl. But that's why I'm studying heralds, I suppose, to find those answers and see if what I suspect about heralds is true."
She sized Michael up for a moment and said, "That could be a good idea, meeting other heralds. Maybe we should all arrange a get together or something, goodness knows that I hardly ever meet any of the others except by accident."
Mr. Murray and Ms. Watson in the same room together. The mind boggled.
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