The fact they have saved the world really ought to be a cause for celebration. A party in the Great Hall or something. None of them got injured, since there was no big brawl between the forces of good and evil, nothing that would look especially awesome in an action movie, just an angel in hand-painted basketball boots entreating a Navajo girl to
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He knows it's Melanie and he goes over to greet her anyway, for his own reasons.
"Hello," he says. "How have you been?"
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"She might not, actually. She's rather allergic to doing anything that's good for her. Or anything that isn't dreadfully ill-advised." He says this not without a faint note of fondness. "Who did you have in mind?"
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Ooooh, ding. Mel may be an angel, but she can still sense that fondness. Maybe it's safe for Maia to be left alone in a room with Brice, then. She clears her throat. 'My--boyfriend, actually. Brice. He was...he Fell, and then...climbed back up, I guess.'
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He decides it's something between a lover and a coveted object, and leaves the notion alone for now. Gods have playthings; why shouldn't angels? It's just ... this is Melanie Beeby. Melanie and that sort of thing don't mix, in Octavian's mind. She's too goody-goody to enjoy a good roll in the hay, surely?
"Your boyfriend. I see. I recall something about that, actually, now that you mention it. Only wasn't he an angel all along?"
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(Go on, Octavian, ask if they have a sex life.)
'No and yes.' Mel sighs. Brice isn't here. This is not how she'd like to do it. 'He became an angel when he died. He went to Hell willingly, and did a lot of bad things for what he thought was a noble goal, and then went back once the goal had been accomplished by Heaven.' She can't help being pithy there. 'Regardless--he knows what it's like to live in Hell and have conflicted views on things. Maybe he can help. I'd ask him, but...' Mel reddens slightly. 'He's off somewhere.'
Doing something. With Lola. And she doesn't know what is going on and this is why it is worrying.
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'The only other person is Michael,' she points out. 'Brice is the only other person, but he can't tell her if she's human or not. Only Michael can do that.' She pauses. 'And I'm guessing she ought to hear the answer.'
Suddenly, a smile blossoms over her face. 'I forgot to ask how you were, at the start of this. I'm sorry. That was dead rude of me.'
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Possible answers:
Self-contained and self-sufficient!
Plotting the rise of an empire!
Mopey and hormonal! (Hey, at least he has good skin. For an eighteen-year-old that's no mean feat.)
"I'm very well, thank you," he says, in a sort of flat and disinterested tone. (There is a difference between disinterested and uninterested. Octavian has that difference covered.) "And yourself, apart from the matter over which you say you require no especial congratulations?"
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'I don't,' she points out, 'And I guess okay. But after the mission, people have gone a bit weird.' Mel sighs, and doesn't stop her mouth. 'You tell me, with your fantastic mind, all cogs turning and wheels clicking, why a friend's boyfriend and his ex flit off together after days of whispering and plotting, without her.'
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So, footsoldiers, in his lingo.
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A pause.
"There is also the possibility they are collaborating on a project of their own initiative."
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