September 19th, 1999 in Boulder. An early Sunday morning a.m.

A silent and contemplative Rook lay beside an equally wide-awake Jael.
    Matt is still with Adrienne, alternating conversation with coffee, while Arabis continues her campaign against Jackson White.
    The conversation tunes in on Matt and Adrienne, who are discussing the nature of selflessness. Matt, good Elohite of Flowers that he is, professes to love freely and without condition; the Lilim is skeptical as to whether all angels are that way, or if it's a Mattism.
    "But they are, Adrienne. They all surprise me. Rook surprises me. *He* does things to make people happy. That's why I do kung fu -- to amke him happy. It was a gesture to him and he's done the same for him, sometimes. We are friends." (GM falls over in shock)
    "You do the high-ya! stuff?" Adrienne asks. "Doesn't that kind of go against peace, love and flowers?"
    "Not necessarily. Sometimes we need both. This is a gesture to Rook more than anything, maybe. I hope it makes him happy. Just like I always hope that you're happy to see me."
    "You confuse me," Adrienne counters. "What do you think I am?"
    "Potential."
    "So you would forgive me anything. Your Heaven could forgive anything, then?"
    "There's room in Heaven to forgive."
    "What about the killer of that waitress?"
    "No, he'd have to change first."
    "So that's a condition on Heaven's forgiveness."
    Matt backpedals. "No, he'd still be *loved*. Allowing him to live might be destructive good so he might be killed, but we'd try and we would love him."
    "Your Judgment friend says that you are an abnormality." Adrienne smiles a bit sadly then. "But you are a pleasant one." Return to topic. "What about the kids at Columbine? Aren't they burning in hell now? Isn't suicide an automatic ticket?"
    "There are honorable suicides. Anyway, I don't believe they were responsible."
    "They opened a tether to Death!"
    "But I don't think they were acting alone. I think they were being used. They didn't have any idea what they were doing."
    "Didn't they?"
    "I see your mood is very biting tonight." Resonate, resonate...and find out she's scared.
    Topic change. "Do you know what happens when someone defies a geas? You rack up Discord.... Don't get any romantic notions about redemption or riding to my rescue on some white horse and saving me. You need to practice self-preservation."
    "Well, Adrienne. I have had some situations in which self-preservation is not the best choice. I have to fight for things that I believe in, you know. Self-preservation is not necessarily a help. Have you ever died?"
    "Yeah, and it's no fun. Limbo is booooring."
    "How do you do that if you are in limbo?"
    "That's why we have sisters. They send essence and you get out and then you do things for them. What's trauma like?"
    "To be perfectly honest, I don't remember mine. Other people have described it as nightmares or remembering that last moment over and over again and such, but I just seemed to wake up. It was a void, like I was asleep."
    "Hmmm, well why don't you go out for a while. I need to grade some papers . . . you try to force knowledge into the heads of college students!" Matt leaves, but did not go far.
    Meanwhile, across town Arashiel works on pottery at the Painted Pot -- writing Japanese obscenities in Kanji on pots. Suddenly. . . a creepy feeling, as if she is being observed, comes over her. Brr. Soemthing, she is sure, is looming -- "like a big psychic dark-wing passed between her and the sun." Arashiel calmly decides that this is 'not important,' and remembers that she needs a case for theTapestry. Are Rook and Jael up?
    A low murmur of voices from inside, so knock knock knock.
    "I'd like to take a walk. Could I leave the Tapestry here with you?"
    "Yes," Jael agrees. Rashi manages not to look at anyone in the room while she hands over her artifact.
    As an afterthought: "Oh and by the way, this morning I had a loomy feeling and I think I was being watched. Bye!"
    Good morning to you, too.
    Cheerful Cherub, doing an excellent impression of Mad Matt, skips away then to accomplish her purposes.
    On Pearl Street she begins doing some (skillful) charcoal drawings and leaving them where people will find them. Soon she spies a familiar raven in her scene. She begins to incorporate it (preen preen) and soon finishes her drawing. Arabis (of course it was Arabis!) comes over and admires. Soon, it is in her claw and sure to be saved for as long as a raven shaped pack-rat can manage.
    "What happened blood, police?" Arabis asked, feeling brief and unconstrained by parts of speech.
    "I don't know, Arabis."
    "Couldn't be demon. No noise."
    "The distance could have covered it."
    "This too big. Could be soldier or human."
    "Could have been," Arashiel agrees. "I felt like I was being watched this morning." This is apparently unworthy of notice to any PC today. GM sighs.
    After Arashiel asked some questions about the Songs that Arabis knows, Arabis changes the subject.
    "Where is Adrienne? Why she leave the Tether?"
    "Dominique's arrival, no doubt."
    "Won't they kill her?"
    "Who knows."
    "They can't kill her in the Tether. She'll probably be dead soon." Matter of fact Ofanite. Never one to romanticize.
    "Well, we'll hope for better."
    Pause.
    "I think Arnu's behind the murder. It was a waitress where Bob worked. He saw Bob and could thus find him. He can find me," Arabis continues, her speech gradually returning to her.
    "If they can't hurt us directly they can take out the people around us, the ones who are close to us. We may have to disengage ourselves to stop this risk. It wouldn't look good if there were people dying all around us. This waitress may have been important. Who knows what role she may have played. Or what Role!"
    "We should have Matt talk to the grass in the field."
    "It'll say, 'Argh, hose us off! The blood, we can't get any sun!' "
    Arabis can't counter that, really, so she and Arashiel head off.
    Back at the Painted Pot, Rook and Jael tentatively begin their morning.
    "How are you?" Rook inquires.
    "I'm mad. . . though not as mad as I was at 3 a.m."
    "I did a lot of thinking in the night. It was good time to think, really. I have felt all manner of emotions and come to many conclusions. Ultimately, I believe that I understand your actions, as much as I can not ever having been a Cherub or Creationer. I think I understand."
    Jael nods mutely and, since she says nothing more, Rook gets up to check out the place for the 'loomy' feeling Arashiel described and to make coffee. The coffee is handed over to the Cherub, and Rook heads back to the Board for his morning class, taking a circuitous route so as to avoid being followed.
    Jael is still drinking her coffee when the raven and artist arrive. They discuss the loomy feeling.
    Matt, having spent some quality time in the flowers outside Adrienne's house, goes back up to her door. The Flower Power has some inquiries for the Lilim Who Will Not Talk.
    Q: "Are you bound some way by the people perpetrating these events around here?"
    Adrienne frowns. "Yes. Don't ask me which. I won't tell you."
    "I know I'm opening myself up here but do you need any help? Is there anything I can give you?"
    "I'm not the one in danger."
    "I don't know what to do," Matt confides.
    "Go home, Matt."
    "I haven't had this much excitement in years," Matt adds, smiling.
    "Things are about to get much more exciting for you, Matt."
    "I just want to ask if . . . no, I won't make my guesses."
    "Make them, Matt," Adrienne answers intensely. "Make them and then tell your friends."
    Resonate, resonate... she is confused and unsettled. Then Rashi's phone call iterrupts, and Matt decides to go interrogate grass as requested. To Adrienne: "Wanna come see me talk to the grass? It's very fun."
    "You're going to the scene of the dismemberment?" she asks, incredulous.
    "Yep."
    Resignation clear in every feature, Adrienne agrees. Arashiel is duly informed that Adrienne will accompany Matt. Arashiel tells Arabis and the latter decides to go on ahead separately.
    "What does it matter if Adrienne sees you, Arabis?" Jael asks.
    "She'll know all of us then. No, Jael, I don't suspect her of anything. I suspect she's being used, maybe by Arnu. He would certainly use her if he could. I know that he saw me and Bob . . . now Bob's associates are being killed," Arabis soliloquizes, her speech abilities now completely restored.
    With a flutter of dark wings, it's Raven Away!
    Rook has a brief encounter with the requested Bright Lilim, a Creationer named Meridian, who comments on the starkness of his artless walls and can offer no help for Geas removal. She goes on with her day, and he goes on to teach his class. Darn Geasa.
    Once Jael, and Matt reach the crime scene, with a watchful Arabis nearby (oh, don't mind me, just a raven on a branch. . . ), with Arashiel and Adrienne still in the car, Matt receives vegetative impressions of teh murder. The woman and man approached calmly, talking. The woman was not struggling. Then suddenly, he just killed her and started cutting her up. Eeeew.
    In the car, Arashiel speaks privately with Adrienne -- how is she doing?
    "I'm doing fine. I left the Tether because an Archangel appeared there. I feel safe at home because I have the Guardian Elohite," Adrienne answers, a bit sarcastically, but not entirely so.
    Arashiel laughed derisively and Adrienne, narrowing her eyes some, glances sidelong at the Cherub. "He doesn't get much respect from your group, does he?" (GM feels bad for Matt.)
    "We all have our flaws and merits. I could help you too, if you wanted."
    "If you attuned to me it would be fatal for you. Is one of you attuned to Matt?"
    "Um, well . . . I think you could see how maybe it would be best if I did not tell you things like that. Because of your connections."
    "You're suspicious."
    "No, just concerned. I hope my trust is not misplaced."
    At that moment, Dinhabah calls Arashiel to warn him that a Triad was on the way to speak with him about the Tapestry. This bit of information assimilated, Arashiel returned to Adrienne.
    "How do you see yourself coming out of all of this?"
    "They'll get me. I'm not important except that I'll be a renegade. Shredding the Calabite may have set them back. They may be reassessing your strength here. What, did you triple or quadruple force him?" Then, resuming a popular train of thought: "Where is the blackwing today?"
    "At work," Arashiel not inclined to be more expansive with her information. "Do you wish to return to your house arrest under Matt?"
    "I'm having an internal debate." Cryptic Lilim.
    Jael and Matt, having already been informed by a discreet Arabis that she is going to Denver to find information on the waitress, return to the car. Matt resonates Adrienne, finds her tense and resolved.
    "We need to speak to your Malakite," she says.
    "Aren't you afraid of being with him?" Matt asks.
    "You said you could protect me, Matt," she replies in a low voice.
    Rook is found and pried from his class. Adrienne, for once unflinching before Manly Malakite, says, "The demon that killed the waitress is Arnu, the Demon of Dismemberment. He's looking for someone."
    "As a Word-Bound, we will not be able to take him ourselves," Rook observes. "Is there anything we can do to help you?"
    "I might be able to find him for you but if I do you had better all be there to take him."
    "We will be. Do you wish to return to the Tether?"
    "No."
    The party, so briefly (almost all) together, scatters again. Rook resumes his class. Jael and Arashiel went to the Painted Pot and Matt takes up his recent residence in the garden outside Adrienne's apartment.
    Arashiel calls Dinhabah with some questions.
    "Do you have any idea when they will show up? No? Can we speed it up some? I'm really busy."
    "Don't wait," Dinhabah advises. "They will choose the time, and probably when you are all alone. The last time a Triad encountered your group, the presence of other individuals hindered the work. They'll try to speak to you alone."
    Over a bath, Arashiel considers these things. Jael, coming in to continue her morning coffee, asked what Arashiel will do if the Triad demands the Tapestry.
    "I won't give it up. Two Archangels have told me to keep it. That's pretty conclusive. Anyway, when I am done with my bath let's go get a case for it, something lockable and with a bag I can sling over my shoulder. When that is done, let's go romp."
    "Do I look like I need a romp?" Jael asks, a bit sheepishly.
    "Yes."
    Miles away, Arabis finally (after the resonance rolls cooperate) reaches the residence of Isabeau, another servitor of Fire. Arabis told the Elohite what she has learned of the murder so far. "I suspect Arnu was involved."
    "I know him. He was word bound in 1703, I believe. A Habbalah of Death."
    "What about the new tether?"
    "Columbine. We had no idea it was coming. We believed Factions had been involved because of the divisiveness within the school itself. Arnu is probably not the Seneschal, for all of his interest in that place. But why is he inBoulder? There are a large number of angels there."
    "I think I irritated him. That man I went with is in trauma and his co-worker was killed, the waitress."
    Isabeau nods. "I know a Soldier on the police force I can call." Isabeau takes Arabis inside and allowed her to clean up her human vessel (for the complete story, see Arabis' journal). Temporary clothes are provided.
    "It's awfully nice being with another Servitor of Fire again," Arabis confides.
    "Isn't it hard for you up there? Mostly Creationers and Flowers and such."
    "There's one Servitor of War and he's my saving grace."
    "Do you require any information about this Tether of Death?"
    "Don't go looking for it, but if you get any you could pass it along. That would be fine."
    "All right. I will also get hold of some psychiatric information. There might have been a Shedite involved." "Do you know anything about a Seller of Souls? I was thinking it might be a Lilim."
    Eyebrow -- still, one grows accustomed to Ofanim direction changes. "There was one here in Denver, recently. She taught at Columbine, as a sub -- all through the Denver Public Schools, really. She had subbed at Columbine before the incident. Lilim don't usually associate with Death so I don't know if it's related."
    "A Lilim? I know one that's hooked by Death. Could you get the name of the one that was subbing here?"
    After receiving assurance that Isabeau would try, Arabis hangs out a while in Lodo (that's clever Denverese for Lower Downtown) before heading back to Boulder.
    Rook and rash get together again in the evening so Rook can teach Rashi the Song she wants. Then Arashiel confides that she is feeling impatient: "I feel like we are waiting. I'm tired of waiting. We should make something happen, now!"
    Rook, calmly: "Perhaps we should head to the Painted Pot." On the way: "What do you wish to do to precipitate events?"
    "They're looking for Adrienne. I think she may have a use for them but she's not aware of it. Arnu is wanting to trade Adrienne for Arabis, maybe. I feel there's much we need to know and instead we sit around and react. People die and we talk to the grass."
    Theya rrive, and arashiel continues ranting while Rook works on making a pot.
    RantingRashi: "We keep reacting. Where might someone act up next? Bob was killed and then his co-worker. Maybe we should find out about her."
    "The Symphony may have made no noise because maybe she wasn't human," Jael offers. "Arnu may be after Arabis ultimately, but he may go after each of us first. That's the way he works."
    Arashiel decides the angels should go to Jose Muldoon's for dinner, ostensibly to observe, and Matt is summarily called and invited, too.
    Matt and Rashi take up a position in the bar, where Bob worked; Jael and Rook take a place in the dining room. ("So, Jael. What do you recommend?" -- "I recommend you eat the Creationer. . . )
    Matt and Arashiel, not always entirely subtle, eventually get one of the other waitresses to talk about the murdered waitress, Sarah. Sarah, it seems, started work in July. The Interrogated Waitress mentions Bob's death, and Matt feigns both surprise and grief. Elohite weeping ensues. The waitress flees. And Matt, who has attracted other attention, is Habbalated. Feel the. . . irrational impatience. Matt leaps up, denounces the operation as 'stupid' and a 'waste of time' and gets ready to walk away. Rashi gets him to slow down long enough to slam down his beer, but no, he really is going to leave. Arashiel, soul of nonchalance, wanders into the dining room, informs Jael "He's here" and wanders off to teh bathroom with Jael in tow. Shortly thereafter, the angels exit the building.
    Arashiel calls Matt on the cell phone. "Don't you know what's happened to you? You have been Habbalated. Get a grip?"
    Matt is unable to do so, however. "You go and hunt up Arnu, then. No. Better yet, unweave that Tapestry. Let those creatures out . . . we don't have the right to keep them there."
    "Until your Archanngel gives you a Tapestry to watch over, be quiet!"
    Ahhh. PC unity.
    Disgruntled, Matt continued to stalk off for Adrienne's along the creek path and Jael follows him. After a brief conference with Rashi, Rook decides to remian behind as a sparrow and resonate everyone he possibly can. Arnu, however -- if indeed he was inside -- escapes Rook's notice.
    Rook returns to the Board and Arashiel to the Painted Pot.
    Meanwhile Arabis checks in with Giles, goes all raven, and goes back to harrass Jackson some more: scary raven follows him, then rocks are thrown, then Entropy sung on his sleeping brain. She is right on schedule for punishing the cruel. Being an Ofanite, she can even enjoy it.
    Rashi calls Giles about Arnu; the Seneschal suggests that, if a Word-bound is in town and actively pursuing, Rashi might be advised to tell Michael. Rashi makes plans to come right on over and talk --
    And the GM, who has been trying to get Rashi alone all night, smiles...

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