"Blue, then? From this corner?" Baruch enquired.

"Yes, that's right. Then along the edge at the mantle it switches into yellow. The face is blue, though."

Enoch had discovered a seller of small colored tiles among the stalls at the horse fair. He'd met with a bargain and offered the seller payment with the delivery of tiles and the mixture the man assured was necessary for proper setting of the squares. He'd agreed first on a noble and rich plum color - ascertaining it related closely to divinity. However, costs had forced Enoch into purchasing a more moderately colored, slightly translucent blue colored tile. The seller had given him the yellow tiles at no cost: a bonus for the "man who spoke with the tongues of the ethereal" as he'd said it. Baruch felt it was more plausible the seller felt guilty at overcharging Enoch from the start of their dealings.

It had taken four months for the tile-seller to return with enough wares to cover the front piece of Enoch's altar. Many weeks he'd ridden across the countries with his caravan. He'd reached so many stops along the way that he arrived at Shammahah with only supplies enough for orders previously settled. The seller came from a small village to the west; there, he said, towers were built curved in structure, peaked and adorned with tiles. Colors reaching to the sun; near-gossamer in their delicate beauty covering the grounded buildings, projecting them higher and more grandiose.

Reaching Enoch moved slowly over this word as they argued costs. He knew deeply that reaching was a need of his temple. Reach the people, allow them to reach to The Authority, tell them how to reach for Him, allow Him in His Glory to extend that hand back. He prayed each morning. Mornings he prayed for hope, nights became a ritual for forgiveness. Forgiveness for others, for his own faults, forgiveness for the wanting he had.

"Brother, why do you need decoration in your temple?" Baruch had asked. The question was sensible. Vandalism had subsided since the horse fair, but still was a serious threat to the infant place of worship. Enoch had repaired the benches many times. Baruch feared the bright tiles would just serve as a further attraction to the vandals.

"But perhaps it will attract the devout, as well. Devout," he continued, "those wishing to devote themselves to The Authority, His Name and His Goodness."

And so the tiling process had begun, Enoch working through the day and the younger brother visiting him bringing dinner and evening aid to the project after his own work in the orchards finished. Enoch had also begun an effort among his neighbors to dissuade them of the image he'd presented since Balthamos had first arrived to him. He labored to return to being once again the respectable eldest son of Jared. He moved his preaching from its initial approach - a direction oriented entirely on forcing The Authority's rule on those who would attend him - into one of first discussing the necessity of human goodness and community, and later introducing persons to the concepts of "Creator" as he saw them ready to bear the obligations Knowing placed on them.

A crash. Enoch looked to see his brother - now crouched over a wooden box with tiles spilling out, swearing colorfully. "Sorry," he added hastily, referring to his cursings. Enoch went to help him.

"It's all right, Baruch. You'll get stronger again," he nodded, and patted him on the shoulder before assisting with the clean up. "The tiles are small and sturdy, see? Not even cracked."

Baruch managed a sideways smile as he returned the squares into their straw-filled box. "It's been four months now. I think this is it."

He hurt still. Four months, this is it.

Four months since Chisiya disappeared, since Balthamos came, since my shoulder. He still didn't like the thoughts. He had a deep scar that ran from the end of the line formed by his collarbone back over his shoulder and frontally down his chest as a faint line. More importantly, it ran past the appearance on his skin: it ran through his muscles and never allowed them to heal fully. His left arm constantly gave out under pressure. He woke to numbness in the limb and freezing fingertips, pumping the life back into his arm and massaging his shoulder with his stronger right arm. An uncertainty had been with him this past month as he'd come to realize the injury was as healed as it could be by that point. Sometimes his arm failed to respond entirely - the signals were getting there, but he lacked the ability to enforce a proper response from his arm. He was thankful though for his remaining physical strength. The sudden departure of Chisiya's band of traders - if he could imagine them as such - jolted him away from his possible reward for the pain they'd caused. His scar of love ran physically through his body.

"I'm all right." he'd assured the Angel from his embrace that night. "I'm all right." Still, Balthamos hadn't let go. From what that kindness meant, from where he'd fallen into darkness, he could heal.

"It was too soon for love, wasn't it?" he'd asked later of the angel.

So casual Enoch, nearby, noted with a shock.

"I cannot know that."

"Can't know love?" Baruch scoffed.

"Cannot know your love."

"Oh." Baruch was taken aback by the straight-forward honest nature of the angel. He'd spoken often with him since he'd stumbled back through the orchards to meet Enoch, giving most of his weight to Balthamos. "But angels love also?"

"Yes." Balthamos answered again, simply, with pleasure. Already he'd noted the same curiosity as Enoch had in the younger brother, but Baruch lacked the hesitancy and spoke freely with Balthamos. Already, Baruch had shown the angel the nature he'd felt so strongly at his birth and most recently within the circle of men in the desert.

He'd attended quietly in his true formas Jared's wife, Baruch's mother, dipped a thick bone needle into a mixture of saps. She threaded prepared pig sinews through its end and tied a knot. Quickly, she pulled together the ragged sides of Baruch's shoulder and pushed the needle through, expertly wrapping it around again and pulling to force the skin to hold. Strongly, she repeated the process again and again to cover the entire wound. Baruch's blood ran quicker with each pull and twist of her deft hands. Balthamos could not know the strain it put on her, she, birth-giver, care-taker: to pierce the flesh of her son and bind him so, diligently, amongst his pained gasps and cries she worked.

Balthamos attended in wonder. Without flesh, he could not feel as Baruch did. He pushed himself out through the room, carefully expanding to adequately fill the space and began examining the feelings from mother and son, both slowly acquiescing into structures and melding themselves fast to the humans. He watched the structures in awe of their beauty. Never before had such forms gathered to Baruch. Never so strongly had Balthamos found them twisting and settling on a human. Their familiarity, until now, had remained coincidental – materials perhaps used by The Authority in his Creation of both Angel and Man. But such a small quantity for man, in comparison, Balthamos felt it was only an echoing of The Authority's hand in Creation rather than a true personal Creation, as the Angel had known. But Balthamos could no longer accept such a view of disregard. The beauty and awe he felt before him created and multiplied and attracted of its own. The forms shifted and danced golden around mother and son; Balthamos both delighted in and greatly feared them. This was not a stale phenomenon of an echo. Untied, untethered, reformed, those structures resembled his own being.