[Introduction] We will meet before God...

[chromaggia_diva]

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[blindbomber]

Did someone say heaven?

Icarus can be found, as usual, in the kitchen if she happens to wander by. He's rolling out dough for pie crust, to go with the ice cream he's made (hint: it's in the freezer. Thanks Armand!). There's a bowl of fresh rasberries nearby as well and he's humming softly to himself.

[chromaggia_diva]

It's some time later when Mag ventures into the kitchen, now cleaned up and changed into a gypsy-like red gown that reminds her of a concert costume she'd worn for a gothic-fairy tale-themed show. And for a moment, she wonders if she really might be in heaven, since there's a young man who looks like an angel puttering around.

That's when she spies the bowl of raspberries and pauses to study them for a moment: she barely remembers the smell and feel and taste of real raspberries, and the last time she'd had them, they'd been genetically grown in a vat. Nothing like the real thing.

"Hello, I hope I wasn't disturbing you," she says, looking from the bowl to the bird-boy.

[blindbomber]

Icarus tilts his head towards her before turning around to pick up the pie tin and put the crust in. "Nope, you're fine. I don't think I know you though... Are you new?"

There's been a lot of new folk here as of late.

[chromaggia_diva]

"Yes, I seem to have fallen into this place," she says, noticing he shares some of the same habits she's had for so long, and feeling a kind of kinship. "I'm Magdalen DeFoe, though I've gone by the stage name Blind Mag for so long it's become somewhat of a real name."

[blindbomber]

"What do you want me to call you?" He's just curious and doesn't recognize either name. Then again, he didn't really get out much before. The name makes him assume she's blind.

[chromaggia_diva]

"Oh, just Mag will do," she says. "There was ...a terrible accident during my farewell concert, and when I opened my eyes, I was here in this place and I could see."

She likes this young man's manners and she feels odd about describing her world and some of the more gritty particulars of her life, unless he happens to ask.

[blindbomber]

"Ah." He shuts down a bit and turns back to his pie, starting to put the filling in. "I'm Iggy. I'm not an angel, let's just get that out of the way right now. Hungry?"

It's nothing personal, but ... now he's thinking she was blind before and got her sight back by coming here. Lucky her.

[chromaggia_diva]

She smiles sadly. "The thought fluttered into my mind, since I entered this place through the gates of death, but I found out this place is something beyond heaven and earth." Then glancing at the raspberries again, she adds, "I am a little hungry."

[blindbomber]

Iggy smiles a bit at that. "Well, pie's not ready yet, but I've got the stuff for salads and sandwiches all set up." He sets the now finished pie in the oven to bake and moves to the fridge and opens it up.

A bowl of fresh greens and tomatoes, some meats and cheeses... More than enough for a summer lunch there.

[chromaggia_diva]

"I would like a salad," she says. She's accustomed to having Largo's chef cook for her, but long before that, she used to cook for herself, or with Marni's help. "But don't trouble yourself on my account: It's been a while since I cooked for myself, since I had real vegetables, for that matter. I've forgotten their taste and small and feel. The world I came from... there was a catastrophe of some kind when I was young, and a lot of the plant life died."

[blindbomber]

That sends a horrible chill up Iggy's spine and all his feathers ruffle up. "A catasrophe? Do you know what happened?"

[chromaggia_diva]

"There were a lot of theories, but no one settled on one cause, so it's likely there was more than one," she says, sadly, worried now that she frightened him. "Some said it was an abrupt form of genetic mutation caused by man's misuse of the environment, others said it was a series of super-viruses that affected life on every level from plants to animals to humans. I was fairly young when it happened and I didn't pay as much attention as I should have." There's a note of regret in her tone.

[blindbomber]

"Well, things are nice here," he says, not wanting to think about the death of nature. It ... bothers him on a genetic level. Blame the bird dna.

"I guess, as far as it goes then, this could be something like your heaven."

[chromaggia_diva]

"I had a friend who taught me to find heaven where I found happiness and peace. I had a hard life, and perhaps I can find them here," she says, washing her hands, then finding a bowl and setting to work shredding some lettuce leaves, pausing to sniff them. "But what about you? Everyone has a story, however tragic or joyful, and I would be honored to hear yours."

[blindbomber]

Iggy shrugs, smoothing out his feathers. "Not much to tell. Lived in a bad place for a while, got out, got into some trouble, and wound up here." Where he had more friends than he'd ever dreamed of and a mother. A real, honest mother.

[chromaggia_diva]

She gives him a compassionate smile. "I won't ask: I know what it's like to live a life that's hard to talk about," she says, taking up a tomato and feeling it, looking at it before she goes in search of a knife. "That's why I turned to art, to singing. That was my freedom, my light in the darkness. I couldn't see what beauty was left in the world, so I turned to what beauty was to be found in music."