A/N: AAAAAHHHHHHH! An entire three month+ hiatus.... I've been having a severe case of writer's block lately T_T. (My muses like to take turns. When I'm in full swing with art, I can't do a thing having to do with writing; whereas, if I can write, I can't draw.)
...but enough of that. Last chapter! Yay!
Disclaimer: I can't think of anything creative to say this time. I don't own anything, except maybe this (non)plot, George, and this portrayal of Raphael (Raphael: "Heh. You wish."). Everything else belongs to Diane Duane, who probably would have been ashamed of this ficcy if she'd written it, anyway.
On the Care and Keeping of Shoulder Angels
OR:
A Wizard Under Annoyingly Close Watch Due to the Boredom of a Certain Power and the Kind but Unappreciated Concern of Its Sibling and the Belated and Bizarrely Eventually Unexplained Presence of Another
Chapter Eight: Closing Explanation
"Housing shoulder angels is quite an involved and pleasant experience to many who are lucky enough to come by it. However, it is essential to keep in mind that what we are doing is no more or less than just that—housing them. One must remember that, ultimately, shoulder angels exist for the purpose of guiding individuals through a given circumstance, and will often leave their masters when all is resolved. Therefore, it is most sensible to enjoy the company of your angels for as long as they remain."
—St. Behemiel's Guide to Popular Supernatural Household Pets Vol. 4: Shoulder Angels
"However, one is advised against attempting to take pictures, as shoulder angels are prone to causing the spontaneous combustion of any such appropriate equipment within their vicinity."
—St. Behemiel's Guide to Popular Supernatural Household Pets Vol. 4: Shoulder Angels (1840 edition)
Somewhere, or somewhen, beyond the reaches of human comprehension, there exists a presence. It is something we cannot always concretely discern, but sense is constantly there; it is watching, it is knowing, it is waiting...
But never mind your third grade teacher. She's not important in this narrative.
Nita and company were standing in the middle of a void. Around them were wandering, sluggish figures, barely discernable through the haze of uncertainty that seemed to fall over everything, and before them were a young boy and a vaguely floating thing.
Then the floating thing mitosed into...
Alright, make that two floating things
Nita! burbled the smaller one. I missed you!
Nita stared at the floating thing. It had a strangely familiar quality to it... like a left sock one had lost a long time ago and suddenly turned up, inexplicably, in the locker room of one's high school gym. Five years after it'd been lost.
"Um... hi..."
It's me, don't you recognize me?
And then it clicked. As in, made a small sound not unlike a pair of dice hitting each other. Nita frowned, and searched in her pocket... sure enough, a pair of dice were in them: "Timmy" "Falls down the well," they said.
Nita blinked.
Nita? Helllooooo?
Nita blinked again, and looked at it. Quite blankly.
It's me, the will-o-the-wisp explained patiently, with the air of a theoretical chemist trying to explain nuclear fusion to a three-year-old. I'm from your manual.
Nita blinked yet again.
...is there something in your eye? the alpha-type asked.
"...um...no..."
As Nita was talking to her errant character-type, some of the others (namely, the Lone One, the Defender, Raphael, and the Other Presence—Kit and George were rather occupied with trying to observe Nita talking to a floating letter, and Ponch... well, Ponch was being Ponch...) were otherwise engaged in their own exchange.
"Raphael?" the Defender gasped. "Is that you?"
"No, it's Winston Churchill," the Lone One sarcasm-ed.
"Really?"
"No! I was being sarcastic, you..."
"But... um... anyway.... what are you doing here, Raphael?" the Defender asked, her attention span quickly shoving her twin into a corner. Metaphorically, of course.
"I'm being made the unwilling subject of an experiment of some sort, the elements thereof as of yet uncertain."
"Ah. Okay. That's nice."
Silence, except for Nita talking to her escaped letter-type ("Yes, I'm sure I don't have anything in my eye! Stop clucking!").
"...um... and what are you doing here?" the Defender asked the floating presence.
I live here.
...tell me. Have you ever been or considered becoming a preschool teacher?
"I probably have been, at some point or another. Or will be. Or am being. ...Is being? Am is becoming?"
...okay. Never mind.
"Okay."
Okay.
"....."
.....
"...."
"hruff," observed Ponch. For some reason, this caused everyone to stop and stare at him for a moment.
"Hey," commented Kit, "I think that's the first time I've heard him bark for a long time without either saying or chasing something while he's at it."
With that, the thread of Nita's conversation frayed and disintegrated like sugar in a vat of acid. (The other conversation had already done so about three minutes ago).
...
......
....
...........
..............
....
.....
"....You know, I think this is the point at which we're supposed to confront the conniving, corrupt entity as to why it's been causing so many problems lately," the Lone One observed.
Really?
"Yes. I should know."
Silence.
"We're a bit overdue the stage at which I'm usually offered an Eldest-Fairest-and-Fallen-greeting-and-defiance, you know."
More silence.
"As in, about five minutes ago."
More silence.
"Hello?"
Ditto.
"...."
"...what are you, anyway?" Nita asked, finally.
"What do you mean, what am I?" demanded the Lone One indignantly. "I..."
"Not you. Him. .... Her.... it...."
"Well, I'd assume it's the paradox we were dealing with earlier, right?"
I find the term paradox to be quite racial and degrading, sniffed the entity in question. I'm an anomaly, thankyouverymuch.
This proclamation was greeted by multiple stares, bearing large boxes of unknown contents and requests to donate money to charities of the questionable-and-probably-feeding-guys-with-turbins-and-radioactive-whooha-on-the-other-end-or-so-says-the-government persuasion.
"...okay, you're an anomaly," Nita amended agreeably, once she'd chased her stares away. "Um... so... what do you say to a parad—an anomaly?"
"I don't suppose the cease-what-you-are-doing-or-I-must-abolish-you line applies here, does it?" suggested the Defender.
"No, I don't think that exactly works, in this case," the Lone One disagreed. "Can you think of any precedents of wizards facing p—anomalies?"
"Have you ever used them?"
"No."
"Then probably not. Ummm.... Raphael?"
"There aren't any."
"How about hi-would-you-like-to-buy-some-cookies?" suggested George.
"That's Girl Scouts," replied the Defender, without missing a beat. George blinked owlishly.
"Oh, okay."
The Lone Power regarded George carefully.
"Was he being sarcastic?"
"George? Sarcastic? You've got to be kidding me," Nita replied. "The two concepts don't belong in the same sentence."
"Ah. I see."
"Maybe why-are-you-doing-that-we-really-don't-like-it-you-know-so-could-you-please-stop or something?" George tried again.
"No, that..." began the Lone One.
"Hey, why not?" interrupted the Defender. "Why are you doing that, hmm?"
"Forget why. What, precisely, are you up to, and then why?" the Lone One amended.
I'm not going to tell you.
"Why not?"
Because I don't want to.
"But it's dramatic convention," the Lone One insisted.
But only stupid idiots spout their grand plan to the other side, before being thwarted and inevitably falling down the great pit of Darwin's theory.
"Hey! I'll have you know I established that practice!"
The anomaly's silence spoke volumes. As in, WELL, THAT JUST PROVES MY POINT, NOW DOESN'T IT!!??
"Why you LITTLE....!!!"
"Brother, dear....."
"shmrmrrrmhrmrrrrmrmrrr...." muttered the Lone One through gritted teeth.
What did he say?
"I think he was just muttering nonsense syllables."
Oh, alright.
"But can't you tell us what you're doing?"
No.
"Not even why?"
Nuh-uh.
"Pleeeeeeease?"
...no.
"Perhaps, if you informed us of the reasons for your dissent, we could collaborate and resolve the situation diplomatically, efficiently, and nonviolently," suggested George. And was stared at.
"How come you never talked like that before?" asked Nita.
"Like what?"
"...never mind."
I'm not supposed to have a reason. I exist in the absence of reason, the anomaly explained.
"Then why don't you tell us anything?" asked George
Because it's illogic—oh, drat.
"See?" The Lone One smirked.
You're acting like You were the one who'd made the point.
"So?"
Well... you weren't. It's rhetorically unsound to tell me "see" when you didn't make the point in the first place.
"That's being logical, too."
...I hate you.
"I know. Isn't it lovely?"
Hrrrrmph.
And stop trying to make me sound logical. I don't like it. It puts my existence in jeopardy.
"That would be a problem, huh?" George agreed.
Yes. You have absolutely no idea.
"I mean, it must be really frustrating, having to be illogical all of the time so you don't accidentally blow up..."
...negate...
"....yes, negate yourself or something."
Oh, yes. Negate myself. Very annoying.
"I mean, I wouldn't want to live my entire life having to worry about something like that."
No, you wouldn't. It's quite difficult, you know. I mean, I have enough to worry about on my own, you know?
"Yes?"
It's not fair. We always get the short straw, anomalies.
"Do you?"
I mean, quite aside from all of the having to worry about negation...
It occurred to Nita that it was starting to pick up George's speech patterns.
...I have to watch out for myself, too, you know?
"Really?"
I mean, we're not even recognized as a sentient species!
"You aren't?"
The Lone Power opened its mouth to interrupt, probably with something along the lines of well, maybe you should consider that's because you aren't a sentient species, but was clamped down by its sibling first. The smaller one, that is.
And... and... and no one's tried to do anything about it! Ever!
"Is that what you're trying to do then?"
Well, I...
It paused, suddenly realizing what it'd just said.
Oh... oh *&#$%.
"You mean that's all you wanted?" He asked. A blond eyebrow twitched. "Then why, in One's name, did you feel the need to spirit Me off to this... this..."
"Raphael, don't," interrupted the Lone One. It jabbed a thumb at the Defender. "Remember that one time she..."
"I told you, that was an accident! An accident!!!"
"Ridiculous pocket dimension, as I was about to say."
"...Oh, okay."
I got you here because I thought it would help.
"Exactly how would My being here help you?"
"Yeah, how? You should know that there's billions of this little idiot giving us grief every happy hour of the day...
"And what was with the shoulder angels thing, anyway?"
Raphael glared at the Lone Shoulder Angel.
You're the Power with the administration over science, aren't you? So, since science is logic, if there wasn't any science, then there wouldn't be logic, so there wouldn't be any threat to us. And I was trying to attract a Power that was bored. It seemed to me that He'd have a pretty boring job, being the Power of science.
"That is the stupidest thing I've ever heard," Raphael enunciated.
"But isn't a science a study? Like all of the –ologies? Doesn't –ology mean 'the study of'?" George asked.
"It doesn't matter. He'll be around in some form or another no matter what you do to one copy of Him. Like cockroaches," the Lone One stated. And was given an accusing glance from its twin, which it ignored completely. "Cockroaches who like to pop up at the most inconvenient times and tell you exactly what you're doing wrong."
"Incorrectly."
"See!? See what I mean!?"
"And don't double-punctuate. It's grammatically incorrect."
"What are You talking about!?"
"You're still doing it."
"Gaaaaaah!"
The Defender cleared her throat.
"...anyway... now that that's been resolved..."
Hey! What about me!?
"Well... hm..."
"If you want to talk about species rights, you have to go to the administration for this kind of thing."
And where would I find him, her, or it?
Two small fingers pointed at Raphael.
"...get us out of here first, and then I'll talk," Raphael told it.
That works.
The group found themselves standing on George's driveway again.
With a large number of people grouped around them.
A wave of talk washed over them like ocean spray. Diluted sewage and everything. A few people wandered off.
Amidst the hubbub, Nita knelt to pick up a battered oblong. She blinked at it, then dusted off the glossy black cover, inspecting it closely.
Guide to Popular Supernatural Household Pets Vol. 4: Shoulder Angels, it said. St. Behemiel, it said, below that.
"You know what?" the Lone One remarked after a moment. "? I'm going to go and have a long talk with Behemiel as soon as We..."
It paused.
It looked at Itself.
It looked at the Defender.
"Hey.... We're back to normal-size."
"No, really," Raphael said, dryness-level somewhere along the same lines as that of deep space. (The amount of moisture in Raphael's voice is a good litmus-test for how irritated He was—namely, if there's any detectable amount at all, He's more or less in a mood that, while it'd be rather stretching it to call it "good," could have passed for "mildly tolerant." However, if this were to ever occur, then it probably meant that something along the lines of the Lone One going down on bended knee and offering a heartfelt apology for all the times He'd accidentally blown up the paperwork while doodling in margins had happened. Or "never," in so many words. So by inference, Raphael was eternally cheesed off, although this was true by degrees; in the past six hours or so, His voice had been getting drier by the minute. At its current rate of change, it wouldn't be long before it was at the crisp-the-air-and-cause-nosebleeds-like-an-escaped-mad-clown-with-a-bag-of-bricks stage.)
"Now, that was uncalled for. I was just making an observation."
"This, coming from the Power who likes to make odd noises about His contemporaries commenting on less-than-obvious facts."
"Oh... do shut up."
"...is a rhetorical device used by those who have nothing more constructive and/or intelligent to say," Raphael addendum-ed.
"...damn you."
"...to which the same may apply."
The Lone One opened its mouth to say something again, but was interrupted by its twin, who'd had enough of watching the Olympic final in verbal ping-pong.
"I don't think You should do that to Behemiel," She remarked. "It wouldn't be polite. He probably had no idea this was going to happen."
"I... what?" the Lone One asked, skidding headlong into the rhetorical wall known as non-sequitor.
"Behemiel? The book?"
"Oh.... oh! Right. Um."
"...anyway... I think that's all, right?"
"Yes," agreed Raphael. "I'll be going now. Come on."
He pushed through the crowd and walked behind a tree without coming out the other side (seemingly), the anomaly bobbing after.
"Um... I think I'll go to... I have to go to practice..."
George hefted his violin case and disappeared as well. (In a more figurative sense, of course.)
"How... very... um..." began the Lone One.
"Studious?" suggested the Defender.
"I was actually going for obsessive."
"Oh. Okay. But anyway..." She bent over and squeezed a big hug out of Nita, Kit, and Ponch. "Bye!"
"um... bye..."
She gave one last squeeze then let go.
There was a pause.
There was a longer pause.
"I am not hugging anyone!" the Lone One announced at last. A bit too loudly.
What was left of the crowd of people who'd been dispelled from the anomaly's dimension stared at him.
"...uhhhhh...."
"Let's just go."
"Right."
Behemiel glares out at all those who would accuse Him. "I did NOT plan that!!!!"
~Fin~
A/N: Whew. Done. I'm sorry it took so long; the big, long conversation in the middle kept on insisting on prolonging itself; I'd gotten it to about four times its initial length before I finally decided to go back and edit out the more useless stuff. The characters just refused to cooperate with what I wanted them to do... But anyway, that's mostly why there are a lot of sloppy transitions in this. Aside from my being bad at transitions anyway in the first place, that is. And the closing sucks. But I REALLY felt I needed to get this done, so... well, there you have it ^.^.
And, no, Behemiel was not part of a conspiracy. It was all a series of misunderstandings. Really. I'm not kidding.