When I started this project, I knew that it would hurt to have it finished. Both because the answers to my questions would mean the end to a connection I don’t want to sever, and because they themselves would only bring my grief back.
But I had to know.
Bayaer, despite his reservations, has been helping me to research Shannon. I wanted to know who she was before she was incarnated, what her role was in heaven, and how strong she had been. It was a foolish wish, one that would do no good, and my seniors advised against it. But they did not stop me, and so today Bayaer brought me what he has found.
Like Freya, Shannon was a Persuasion, though younger and weaker than Hestel. Her name was Neassa, and she was only a Principality when she decided she was ready to live, barely a decade into her work. Bayaer tells me that her seniors were concerned that she was too young, but she was so eager to live that they could not deny her. Besides, many other angels have come to life with as little time and done very well in the valley.
I can picture her, my young sister, so ready to live and work and find her way. How excited she must have been to be embodied. How sure of her own success.
Perhaps that was her downfall.
Now I see why Hatsumi asked me not to do this. All this has done is give me more pain, and it is not even a relief to have the answer, for I have more questions. The seniors who watched over her must still be in heaven, some of them, at least—could I not go and find them? I want to know what she was like, what kind of work she did, whose lives she touched…
All vain, because it does not change her fate.
But Hatsumi did say something that brings me some comfort. She reminded me that at least now I know both names of the person whom I loved. Neassa. Shannon. In both her incarnations she was worthy of my care and love, and both are worthy of my remembrance. And in that remembrance, some of the good of her will survive.
I can only hope that it will. She deserves that, at the very least.