[Raphael doesn't follow so much as walk with her; she never follows, and certainly not humans. Once they arrive, she drops instantly to one knee to examine the stone close-up.]
Romeo. [To her Juliet. Raphael distantly remembers hearing a story once, one that echoed this girl's life. Hadn't there been a man, once? A man who captured the sapphire Earth beneath them in a thousand voices rising up in creative song for hundreds of years? She remembers there was energy in it, there was life. The grandest movements and patterns of the infant race stood out to Heaven in startling clarity; she wonders if the devout Christian standing behind her is the work of one of the truest artists. Perhaps she is. There are stranger things.] This grave holds more substance than most others; it is real in ways my brother Gabriel's grave was, but Michael's was not.
no subject
Romeo. [To her Juliet. Raphael distantly remembers hearing a story once, one that echoed this girl's life. Hadn't there been a man, once? A man who captured the sapphire Earth beneath them in a thousand voices rising up in creative song for hundreds of years? She remembers there was energy in it, there was life. The grandest movements and patterns of the infant race stood out to Heaven in startling clarity; she wonders if the devout Christian standing behind her is the work of one of the truest artists. Perhaps she is. There are stranger things.] This grave holds more substance than most others; it is real in ways my brother Gabriel's grave was, but Michael's was not.
[On her feet again.]
It is real.