Custom Angelic Ontra
Faber
"An angel named Faith? Well that's a little on the nose, ain't it?" The girl looked up at Faith through glasses too big for her small face.Faith sighed. It wasn't the first time someone pointed that out and it wouldn't be the last. "I had a human mother, just like you," Faith explained, carefully taking the little girl's hand as she led her into the light. "She named me for all she had. Her faith."
The little girl nodded thoughtfully. "So say she had something else, like turnips. Would you be called Turnips instead of Faith?"
Faith blinked. That was a new one. "Well, I don't think..."
The girl interrupted. "That'd be silly. Or say she had something really awful? What if all she had was the boogers in her nose. Would you be named Boogers?"
Faith had to remind herself that the girl had recently passed, and was possibly not thinking straight. Or, as was more likely, she had simply always been this way, and her odd sense of humor was how she had long learned to cope with confusing situations. Being freshly dead counted as a confusing situation, and it was common for a soul to fall back on the habits they had picked up in life.
"Pretty sure if my momma had named me after all she had I would have been named Boyfriends. She never had much, but she sure had a lot of those," the girl continued.
"What did your momma name you instead?" Faith asked, to be polite.
"Angela," the girl said with a smirk. "Can you believe that? Now if I'd been an angel instead of a human and I was named Angela, people would say that my momma had named me one letter too long."
"You're probably right," Faith nodded.
"Could I be an angel someday?" Angela asked. It was a question Faith got asked a lot.
"No, Angela. But you get something better. You get to go there." Faith pointed at the bright, warm light as it reached out to engulf the little girl.
"What is it?" Angela asked, eyes wide with wonder.
"The end of this, and the start of something new." Faith was always purposely cryptic in her answer to that question. For one, she had never been to the other side herself, and for two, she wasn't sure it could be described with words even if she had.
"Well that doesn't sound so bad," Angela said.
"Are you ready to go?" Faith asked.
"I suppose. With momma dead there's nothing left for me here I guess. Might as well go see what all the fuss is about."
"That's a good way to look at it." And it was. Faith had guided hundreds, or possibly thousands of souls to this very point before. Most were very unsettled by the whole dying thing, if not downright upset about it, but Angela, who still had baby teeth and more freckles than manners, seemed already at peace about it.
"Will you hold my hand while I go?" Angela asked.
Faith could feel her chest tighten. She had seen it all, but some things still got to her. "Yes, Angela. I will."
She gave the little girl's hand a reassuring squeeze as the light enveloped both of them. In a moment, it was gone, taking Angela's soul with it to whatever lay beyond. Faith only had a moment to wipe a stray tear from her face before she felt the calling of another soul ready for someone to show them the way. It was a cushy job, for an angel, but one she had to wonder if she'd ever get used to. A part of her hoped she never would.
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