An Angel Or Something Like It

[maggie_of_the_owls]

It's with a small sigh of relief that Anna leaves the house. She loves her mother, really she does, but she can get so overprotective sometimes.
...This is not the front yard of her childhood home. Nor any kind of outdoors. Instead, it seems to be some kind of bar, although one with no television displaying a sport over the bar. Nor a bartender. And is that window over there displaying exploding stars? Ooookay. Giant high-def television playing exploding stars rather than sports. Or, more likely, some kind of prank by one of her mother's siblings.
"Uncle James? Aunt Ariel?" she calls. "Come on, I've had a rough day. Now is really not the time."
Silence.
Well, it's a bar. Maybe she's meant to go up to the bar.
She goes up to the bar. There don't seem to be any bottles behind it.
Probably not James or Ariel, then. They'd make a bar that looked more like an actual bar, if they were doing something like this.
"...Hello?" she calls again.

Comments

[jovahs_heiress]

One free drink, your choice of anything reasonably described thereas or my recommendation.

The door opens again.

[maggie_of_the_owls]

"Let's have a recommendation, I can get most things I could think of at home."
She turns at the sound of the door opening.

[jovahs_heiress]

A drink appears. It is pale blue and has ice in it.

"...Hello?" says someone with wings.

[maggie_of_the_owls]

"Um. Hi. This place claims to be a magic bar that can access dimensions other than Heaven, Earth and Hell, which I didn't know existed yesterday. Or five minutes ago, for that matter."

[jovahs_heiress]

"...I didn't know of those."

[maggie_of_the_owls]

"Heaven is where you go when you die. Hell is where you go when you die if you are very, very wicked. Earth is just the place where people live. Or they are where I'm from, anyway. If this place is as far reaching as it claims you could be from somewhere else entirely.
...Although I certainly hope you have a Heaven, by some other name."

[jovahs_heiress]

"Well, it's said that Jovah looks after the dead, but the name of the place is unspecified. The place I am from is called Samaria."

[maggie_of_the_owls]

"My world had a place named Samaria in it, a long time ago. And Jovah sounds like some of the ways people pronounce God's name."

[jovahs_heiress]

"That's interesting, but this entire business is very strange and I hesitate to draw any conclusions. Why do you have so many napkins?"

[maggie_of_the_owls]

"Apparently the bar is a person and...you know, I have no idea if they even have a gender, they communicate by appearing napkins with words written on them." She holds out the napkins.

[jovahs_heiress]

I'm female, says a new napkin.

The winged person approaches and reads that. "How curious."

[maggie_of_the_owls]

"No kidding. I wonder if your God and my God are the same one, or if there are actually more than one in the multiverse."

[jovahs_heiress]

"I think the Edori think that other people on other stars have their own gods, but I haven't studied their beliefs in much detail."

[maggie_of_the_owls]

"There are definitely people in my world who think different things about the nature of God and how He works and, to be frank, whether or not He even exists, but most people are wrong about most things about God, so."

[jovahs_heiress]

"Apart from the question of whether Jovah is the sole god and how to pronounce his name even the Edori agree with the general consensus, where I'm from..."

[maggie_of_the_owls]

"Maybe he talks to more people? I only know everything I do about Him because my adoptive mother is an angel."

[jovahs_heiress]

"I don't know, how many people in your - dimension - does he talk to? Jovah speaks directly to oracles, of whom there are three, and answers prayers from angels - possibly other petitioners as well but we get more reliable results praying aloft."

[maggie_of_the_owls]

"Sounds more active than mine, then. He only directly answers prayers through manipulation of natural phenomena, and he hasn't had a prophet in well over a thousand years.
I am going to assume that you and I are using different definitions of angel."

[jovahs_heiress]

"Are we? Do I not look like an angel to you?"

[maggie_of_the_owls]

"You look like someone who wants to look like an angel. Real angels don't walk around with their wings out all the time."

[jovahs_heiress]

"...As opposed to what? I can't imagine it would be comfortable to put them under a cloak or something."

[maggie_of_the_owls]

"My kind of angels aren't inherently corporeal. They can dematerialize their wings at will."

[jovahs_heiress]

"I wouldn't want to do that any more than I'd care to be rid of my arms. They're attached. I've had my wings my whole life."

[maggie_of_the_owls]

"Like I said, they're not inherently corporeal. They haven't had their any body part their whole lives. Remember how I said dead humans go to Heaven? Angels are from there."

[jovahs_heiress]

"Even if I could become - incorporeal - at will, I would expect to want to do it all at once. But then I'm accustomed to corporeality and may be missing something."