A/N: I'll warn you first thing—I'm the kind of author who often mocks things that shouldn't rightly be mocked by the politically conscientious. Therefore, those of you who are either strongly religious, conservative, closed-minded or otherwise easily offended may kindly vacate the premises—it's not that I've got anything against you, I'm just rather afraid you'll show up at my doorstep bearing pitchforks and torches, you see. That's not to say this particular 'fic will necessarily turn out offensive... it's just that it might, and probably will. Apart from that, the Young Wizards belong to Diane Duane, the Lone Power likewise belongs to Diane Duane (or Itself, if you prefer to view it in that light), the Bible and related paraphernalia belong to the religion to which they correspond (Christianity, for those of you who may not know), the Buggre Alle This Bible belongs to the angel Aziraphale, who in turn belongs to Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman (for Good Omens, which, for those who care, is a really funny book), and New York belongs to itself, no matter what the rest of the United States has to say on the subject.

"So He drove out the man; and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubim, and a flaming sword which turned every which way, to keep the way of the tree of life.
And the Lord spake unto the Angel that guarded the gate, saying Where is the flaming sword which was given unto thee?
And the Angel said, I had it here a moment ago, must have put it down somewhere, forget my own head next.
And the Lord did not ask again."
—Genesis, 3:24-27 (Buggre Alle This Bible)

"On slow days like this,
I do wonder if so few
Syllables suffice."
—a koi in Tom and Carl's fishpond, who has forgotten the meaning of wakka.

High above a city, called New York by its inhabitants, a not-presence watched, searching. Waiting.

Far below, young human female slept soundly in her bed, unaware. In a few hours, she would wake, shower, and have breakf-...

Um, brunch.

Now, that was odd. She was usually up at the crack of dawn. Why...

Ah.

It was Sunday.

No matter.

The not-presence floated towards downwards, towards the city, towards the house, towards the girl. Carefully, quietly, it slipped a small oblong shape between her sheets.

In a few hours, she would open her eyes and notice the shape by her pillow. Curious, she would take it out, study it, read a few lines. She would then dismiss it for something her sister had accidentally left lying around, never considering that it had not been there before she went to sleep, never considering that she would have known if her sister had come into her room in the middle of the night. Then she would go about her usual weekend routine.

But she would have read from it.

She would not realize its significance for a while, it knew.

She would not realize.

No, not until it was too late.

....

And then, the presence noticed something else, following it.

That was to be expected.

But it was the wrong something else.

&%^*^&*^%^&$&^%&*%^&!!!!!!!!

On the Care and Keeping of Shoulder Angels

OR:

A Wizard Under Annoyingly Close Watch Due to the Boredom of a Certain Power

Prologue: Adoption

"Of all pets, perhaps the most useful (and the most difficult) of all are shoulder angels. These strange, fascinating creatures come as both a blessing (literally) and a curse to those who choose to keep them—where they can protect their masters, warn them of danger, amplify the magic of those who are gifted with wizardry, and even temporarily transfer power unto those who are not; they, when agitated, can also inflict much pain and anguish upon all those within their immediate vicinity (in other words, everyone on or near the same continent), often without realizing what they are doing. We therefore ask you, with heartfelt sincerity, to choose carefully before you adopt one of these diminutive creatures. One must put into serious consideration the compatibility of dispositions, lifestyles, and power ratings of not only one's self with the shoulder angel, but those of the people one must interact with daily as well, for a shoulder angel will unerringly follow its master in all situations small or dire once adopted."
—St. Behemiel's Guide to Popular Supernatural Household Pets Vol. 4: Shoulder Angels

Nita Callahan stepped out of the shower, wringing out her hair. She pulled her bath towel off its bar, first drying off, then wrapping it snugly about herself. Having done this, she reached for her brush and combed out her hair, watching herself in the mirror and wondering if she should get a perm.

"Don't even think about it," came a small voice from her shoulder. "Your bone structure is entirely the wrong shape for curls."

Nita jumped; a small, redheaded man bounced to the inner rim of the toilet seat and scrabbled for a foothold, beating a pair of criminally fluffy white wings. There was something awfully familiar about him...

"What, no hello?" asked the miniaturized Lone Power (once He'd regained His dignity). "Hmmf. You usually don't seem to shut up." He cleared His throat and peered around. "Ahem... I must say things look far different from this perspective. ...Well? What are you staring at?"

"P-... pe-..."

"P-pe? What is p-pe?"

"PERVERT!!!: screamed Nita, slamming the toilet seat on the Fallen Power. It came down like the Almighty Ceramic Wrath of GOD (tm), toppling the little bugger into the bowl of the toilet with an oddly echoing splash (although the echo may have had something to do with the sheer number of hard surfaces to bounce off of).

Nita flushed.

The toilet, that is.


~~~~*A/N: somewhere out there, a fellow otaku (anime fan) is getting serious vibes from that last scene.*

"So, how's your redemption going, anyway?" asked Nita pleasantly.

"...oh, not bad, considering," replied our New Friend (guess who?). "Just a bit slow."

"I...see."

Nita suddenly noticed, that the Lone Power, oddly, seemed to be struggling with something. After a moment, she was proved correct, as it broke out with a bit of a rant:
"But do you know how irritating it is, having to wait for all of your incarnations to catch up already? And Mike's constantly hanging around in the background, and whenever I want to do anything, he's saying things like 'Oh, you can't go down there yet! It'll cause anomalies in the time-space continuum!' And of course, it's just as impossible to wheedle a spare pen from Raphie as ever, so I can't even doodle to take my mind off things... and Gabs is still suspicious of me, although he was always about as flexible as an I-beam—it took him forever to get used to the fact that I was Fallen when that happened, I suppose it's just as hard the other way... and Meta and Sandy are always bickering, of course, being twins and all... but, I mean, seriously! if you're going to be among the highest Powers under the One, you should at least have something better to do with your time than steal your twin's left sock out of spite from the time he broke your miniature Astral Resonator or some such... admittedly, Mike and I were like that for a while, but it was only during the dawn of creation... and after I fell, but that's kind of different..."

"..." commented Nita in profound wisdom.

She really wasn't used to getting the laundry lists of family complaints from the updated version of the Enemy.

Nita considered the situation with slight trepidation. She, as a wizard, was for all intents and purposes not supposed to consort with the Lone Power. However, no one had ever said anything about the un-fallen Fallen Power...

There was a perfectly logical explanation to the scenario. Really. Very Logical, with complementary capital L. so Logical that Plato would have wept with the beauty of it. So Logical that Galileo would have been struck dumb in awe of it. So Logical that Socrates would have had trouble poking holes in it. So Logical that it pained Nita to merely begin to try to comprehend the sheer, undiluted Logical-ness of it.

In about three thousand, four hundred fifty-two and four-fifths eternities, Nita, working in conjunction with aforementioned philosophers (minus, of course, Socrates, who would probably have simply made things sound even more weird than they were), might have been able to work out what was so logical about it.

But at any rate, what had happened was this:
Nita had, after successfully flushing the Lone Power down the toilet without so much as a Fairest-and-Fallen-greeting-and-defiance, dressed and stormed into her room (but not before being waylaid by a concerned Dairine en route) only to find said Fairest sitting rather sulkily on her dresser. Dripping. With a water beetle clinging to Its hair.

"..." Nita had said. A comment which she would have to get used to making within the next few hours.

"Hi," The Lone Power had greeted.

"...what are You doing here? Eldest, Fairest and Fallen," Nita had finally managed.

To her surprise, the Lone One had sighed, kneaded his temples, and otherwise showed signs of exasperation and/or weariness.

"Alright, how do I begin this... first off, I'm not the Lone One. ...not as such."

"...?" This was new. Nita was used to the Lone One trying to conceal Itself, but she'd never known It to deny Its own identity before.

"You're looking at 3.0. The updated version. Post-reconfig. The Fallen but Redeemed. Whatever other fancy names you people called it."

"..............." Nita had replied. There is a place between sleep and wakefulness. It is a place between the mountains of a man's conscious knowledge, and the abyss of his subconscious mind. Yes, Nita Callahan, you have officially entered the Twilight Zone (cue creepy Theremin music here).

"And secondly, I'm not a capitalized pronoun in this form—none of us are. (Yes, I can hear capitalization in speech). This is a 'minor' form..."

"...????" Hello, metaphysical English teacher. You look refreshingly small today. Do you mind if I put you on hold while I TEAR MY HAIR OUT IN SHEER CONFUSION!!!???

"It's like... (okay, how do I explain this...?) It's like when you have a symphony, and you refer to... let's call him George... you refer to George, who's, say, a violinist, as a "violin," but when he's not in his uniform and doesn't have his violin, he's not a violin... so George the violinist is only a violin when there's a violin and a symphony, because without the symphony, he's just a violinist or a musician, but... does that make sense?"

"..." Nita had said. Okay, what are we talking about again? I didn't quite catch the switch from capitalized pronouns to George the Violin...

"...You're not getting this at all, are you?" the Lone One sighed.

"...no." Gee, what was your first clue? "At least not the part about the violins. Remind me, what point are you trying to make again?"

"...never mind, it seems to have gotten through anyway."

"Oh. Okay."

"Yeah."

"Yeah."

And then an awkward silence. You know the sort—the kind that one has when, at a masquerade party or some such, where the lights are all dimmed and it's hard to tell who's who, you have a wonderful time with this great new person you met... and then the lights turn on, and you realize it's your snotty sibling. Oops. Except kind of the other way around.

Nita hesitated a moment before settling on a nice, unobtrusive question—the kind of question you ask your cousins at family reunions when you've never quite liked them, or even known them all that well. It was a question which, had it been directed at any other individual, might have manifested itself in the form of "How are the kids, even though I know they're all undoubtedly out of the house by now?" or "Well, did you get into that university you were looking into last time we met, about ten years ago?" However, either of these was inappropriate, considering that Nita wasn't certain the Lone One had ever bothered to have children in any incarnation, and was pretty sure he'd never needed to go to collage. So, instead, the question in question took the following shape:

"So... how's your redemption going, anyway?"
Which brings us back to where we had been previously.

The Lone Power sighed, having just listed off his entire line of complaints about his siblings (or, at least the ones that bothered him the most—if he had said everything, there would have been exactly—at last count—301,655,722 individuals in the Heavenly Host to go through, which there wasn't enough time for).

"I'm sorry. I just had to get that rant off my chest."

"...No... no, no, that's alright," assured Nita. "I understand perfectly."

There was a slightly awkward pause, though not quite as bad as the previous one.

"Uh... so," began Nita. "Why... what's... exactly why are you here, anyway?"

"Well, that's just it, isn't it?" the Lone Power replied, as though it was the most obvious thing in the world.

"...I'm sorry, what?" Nita asked.

"I said, 'well, that's just it, isn't it?'" repeated the Lone Power

"No, what's just it?" amended Nita, feeling very much like her old friend Fred.

"What I was just ranting about. You know, if you had to put up with entire damned holy host for more than a week, you'd take the first opportunity to escape, too."

Nita stared, nonplussed. Finally, she settled for a query that allowed her to ignore the problem at hand. "Is it physically possible for the holy host to be damned?"

The Lone Power thought for a moment, sipping on a mug of tea over half his height. (Where did that come from? thought Nita)

"I don't know," he replied. "Does it matter? I mean, that's the problem with swearing and the Powers, you know—most of us don't do it, and part of it's the entire 'swearing in the Speech' thing, but mostly it's just, well, so, you know? I mean, so many swearwords are religiously based... it's a bit awkward, if you know what I mean..."

Nita wondered—not for the first time, nor the last—what she'd gotten herself into.

A/N: About the scene where the LP is explaining about... the pronouns and stuff... I'm sorry about that ^_^****. I generally hate those, but I tried to make it interesting by adding in Nita's side thoughts... which started to make the entire thing feel like a warped MST... and, yes, part of the reason I did that was so that I would be able to avoid the capitalized pronouns when typing. They're very annoying. Actually, did you know that, a long time ago, people used to capitalize all pronouns for people, not just "I"? One day, they'll probably stop capitalizing that one, too, but the lowercase letter "i" looks a bit awkward on its own, I guess... and before that, people didn't even have lowercases...

ahem...

Well! Now that the prologue's over with... now to the fun stuff... heheheheheh.... Oh, btw, I'm not sure how you ppls like it, but, if it goes as planned, this is going to (eventually) develop a plot of sorts, snuck in randomly amongst the otherwise random weirdness and stupidity. More to come.

Love it? Hate it? Confused by the convoluted way I presented the events? Annoyed by the extremely long run-ons (I've always that problem.... -_-**)? Comments and criticisms, particularly pertaining to how I can improve, are welcome with open arms and lots of candy. And an expensive-looking black car with suspicious-looking guys in sunglasses and suits, and a secret observation lab somewhere where the government feels safe about this entire thing, but I'm getting ahead of myself, aren't I? Feel free to click the little button of questionable color below ^_^.

And remember: although most humorous things are stupid, most things in life can be considered stupid as well. So where does that put us?