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 Posted: Sat Jun 16, 2007 8:46 pm
He had found his way to the gardens by some miracle of God. The flowers were familiar to him from his studies and what he remembered from his sister's tutelage; strawberry to ease cramps, bogweed to ensure the truth. Witchcraft, of course, but Asmadai could no more decry Maria as a witch than he could curse God for taking her away.
Among the flowers, he could almost forget about the fact that Judgement Day had come. He could sit there and lose himself in the memories triggered by the scents of the flowers. Lilies, like they had placed on the coffin of the man he had been burying before the dead began to walk. Roses, like the pendant Maria had liked to wear. He still couldn't remember what his sister's favorite flower had been, no matter how hard he tried.
He sighed and slumped on the bench, ignoring the Bible that he held open upon his lap.
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Posted: Sat Jun 16, 2007 9:20 pm
"Sua última dança é com mim,
Sua última canção é é melodia..."
A voice suddenly lifted from a nearby bush, a wind in the silence of stillness.
"Dance uma vez mais- Angel! Quit that- GAHHH!!!!"
Out of the bushes once more, a sudden storm of Portuguese clothing and rabbit fur many LOTUS agents had before discovered as Estrelas Alvares and Angel.
The woman stood up and looked around excitedly before seeing a man slumped on a bench.
"Ehcuse me Mista," Estrelas began in her heavily accented English. "Paah-don us, Mista, but the Mista Sain say there a new recruit who is Person of God like me. Where is the priest..." Her tanned brow furrowed as she sought to remember the name Wraith had offered. "Where is the priest-man Amamai?"
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Posted: Sat Jun 16, 2007 9:32 pm
Almost instantaenously, he looked up at the girl. She didn't look anything like the many girls from his time, but that was to be expected; he had been told that people from the past were indeed walking, but they were just as alive as he was. Of course they were, he thought, it was Judgement Day.
"I am Asmadai," he said, closing the bible with reverence to the thin pages. "It is a pleasure to meet you."
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Posted: Sat Jun 16, 2007 9:55 pm
"Great to meet 'ou too, Mista!" Estrelas said in a sing-song voice, swinging her arms about. "Angel, come and say hello to Mista As-ma-dee," she told the rabbit. "Angel, come on-" The Portuguese woman was cut off and shoved back as with a ferocious growl, three feet of angry rabbit hurtled at Asmadai. With the powerful lift of her large hind legs, Angel the White Rabbit soared through the air with her ears pinned forward and struck Asmadai square in the knees.
"Angel! Oh no! Angel! Stop! ANGEL!!" Estrelas wailed in anguish as the rabbit once again began to savage the man's pants. "Eef only we could find the priest named Amamai! Angel loves Men of God!" she cried, purposely ignoring the fact the only "Man of God" Angel had ever met was Father Ferdinand, and after a first encounter, villagers crossed themselves whenever Angel appeared.
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Posted: Sat Jun 16, 2007 10:20 pm
He presumed she could not pronounce his name, or else didn't quite remember it. With great patience, he said, "I am a priest," and picked up Angel, gripping a pair of paws in both hands. Maria had once had a rabbit who took the same dislike to him, though not nearly so big. "I might be the Amamai you're looking for." Asmadai carefully removed his bible out from under the rabbit and placed it at his side.
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Posted: Sat Jun 16, 2007 10:28 pm
Angel snarled at the strange monstrous beast that suddenly lifted her away from the reassuring, firm ground. She struggled stronly and attempted to be dropped.
Estrelas stared at the man before bursting out laughing and crossing herself.
"You? A priest?" she snorted. "Yes, Asmadai was what Mista Sain said. But a priest is an old man, you see," she explained. "He frowns and stares at you as if he can see your soul. He knows when you have done something; you see, Ah met many kind priest, but Ah think that a priest is stern and has a long hooked nose." She waved her hand and mimed a "long hooked nose."
"You, Mista, look like a young man that would take advantage of a a young lady."
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Posted: Sat Jun 16, 2007 11:01 pm
His face took on an affronted look. "It takes a great while to become as wise as a priest who can see into your soul. But I assure you, miss, I am quite serious. I completed my time in the seminary five years ago and before I came here I managed my diocese quite well, thank you. I would still be in the Vatican if Judgement Day had not come, and if the dead had not begun to walk." Asmadai spoke as though trying to assauge some long-lost vestige of manly pride. Though he did seem offended by Estrelas's summing-up of his appearance, he didn't really seem too annoyed.
He put down the rabbit with great dignity and re-opened his bible and began to re-read the book of Revelations.
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Posted: Sun Jun 17, 2007 1:48 pm
Angel snarled at the Great Big Monster but slunk away to nurse her wounded pride.
Estrelas stared for a while. "Judgement Day has not come yet; do not be a foulish man," she told him. "Ah thought it was Judgement Day once, but it was only Angel chewing of the Electricty Cabler and Mista Johannes coming in. Judgement Day not yet come, never came," she argued.
"Ah never heard of this 'Vatican,'" the woman told him with the certain pride of a fool. "You must come from there. Eponine comes from the future, you see, from France, which is the Land of Kings. There is wine in the streets and the cathedrals are so high you can never see the tops of them. Eponine is from the future, you see, and she told me that France is not so mighty and never was. Ah think you probably thought France was the Land of Kings once too."
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Posted: Sun Jun 17, 2007 7:33 pm
He quirked an eyebrow at Estrelas. "Have you not seen the dead rise out of their graves and speak? The book of Revelations clearly states that the dead will rise and cry out to the Lord." The idea of France was foreign to him; in his time, France was part of the American Protectorate that controlled most of the world. "I do not know of a France. There may have been one in the history I studied." He could be as patient as he liked with this woman. It was not as if time was going anywhere.
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Posted: Sun Jun 17, 2007 8:13 pm
Estrelas shook her head. "You are mad. The dead do no speak, ha-hah!" she exclaimed loudly. "Mista Sain told me that all of Time got stepped on." Okay, so that wasn't exactly how he explained it. But it made more sense than the actual explanation. "And the dead did never come; Ah got rabbits," she explained. "We got rabbits, you see," she repeated in the same tone as the phrase 'the world is round.'
"Ah, or you do not know about the future like we do!" the Portuguese woman exclaimed haughtily. "You must be from the very far past, for France is from my time. And of the future too. Eponine, she is from the future, Ah told you. The Nineteenth Century. But do not worry; Ah did not know that the world would last so long either."
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Posted: Mon Jun 18, 2007 2:22 pm
Asmadai's forehead furrowed. "The nineteenth century? The 1800s? That was two millenia ago. It's 2070, is it not?" He didn't know who this Mister Sain was; he had met a woman on his way in, who had seemed content enough to allow him to think it was Judgement Day. But for someone who said she was a Catholic, a person of God, to be so convinced on this matter... It bore thought. At least some.
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Posted: Mon Jun 18, 2007 8:03 pm
"No, no," Estrelas said. "Time might be a little crooked, but eet ees the year 1400 obviously, because that is the present, no? And eef eet were Judgement Day, would we not be Judged by the Lord? And Mista Sain wakes up everyday like ordinary, and today he woke up like ordinary, but he is a foolish man who does not believe he must listen to God so he does not matter." She sniffed again.
"The year two seventy thousand! The world will not last that long!" she added. "Judgement Day will come. But objectively not today."
Hah! Take that! Estrelas thought. Take that like cinquetos on a hot day! Mr. Asmadai trying to trick me, I think! But priests are always old with crooked noses!
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Posted: Tue Jun 19, 2007 4:00 am
"No," Asmadai insisted, looking a little confused, "It's 2070. The Pope gave the Christmas mass just a month ago. I distinctly remember..." He paused, trying to think. Did he really remember what he thought he remembered? It didn't really matter; he knew it was at least 2064, because that was when he had graduated the seminary. But women were fragile creatures, easily disturbed. He should probably stop arguing with this one.
Diplomatically, he chose to respond to the comments on mister Sain. "Then surely he must be made to realize the course he is plotting on the path of his own damnation." Asmadai didn't say, nor mean, it to be harsh. It was simply the unvarnished truth for him.
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Posted: Tue Jun 19, 2007 3:45 pm
Estrelas nodded furiously, picking up Angel. "Yes, yes, he is plotting his own dalmations!" she cried. "And he REFUSES to listen! Ah mean! DALMATION! Does he NAUGHT feel the PULL of HIS OWN SOUL? Ah TRIED to save him!" she bellowed, waving her arms around, unfortunately also waving Angel around. "BUT HE- Ouch!"
Angel had snarled and firmly nipped Estrelas as she would an errant rabbit kit.
"Applications, Angel," she said meekly as she placed Angel carefully back on the grass.
"So Mista Asmadai, you have a family, no?"
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Posted: Tue Jun 19, 2007 5:31 pm
He forced himself to smother an unkind laugh. Dalmatians, indeed. At Estrelas's question, however, all traces of humor around his eyes vanished. "They're not..." Asmadai didn't know how to phrase it. My sister is dead, my mother is a probably a prostitute again, and I don't know where my other siblings are sounded too apathetic, but if he launched into a sob story, who knew what would or could happen? "Does your rabbit often bite," he asked, trying to deflect the woman's attention.
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