“With zombies here, sir, I’m not going to bother with school anymore. There’ll be a war. I’ve got to deal full-time.”
“Then you better attend maths lessons, at least. I’ve seen your multiplication, Honesty. You’re going to get stiffed.”[1]
The Angel, also known as Aim and The Messenger is a high ranking member of Blood of Eden. They also teach science at the school Nona and Hot Sauce go to. Noodle is their dog.
Biography[]
Background[]
The Angel was born on Lemuria, a planet under occupation by the Emperor. Little is known about the Angel’s childhood, but she eventually attends university. During her studies, she travels to Miró for a special zoology course. There, she becomes a bit of a “political firebrand”[2] and begins attending underground archaeology talks.
After university, the Angel returns to Lemuria, where she becomes a zoo director. During this time period, the planet is thanergetically converted by the Empire. Despite promises to help resettle the population, the Houses pull the Cohort troops off the planet when the wildlife of Lemuria begins mutating. Without House support, the Angel cannot save the animals in the zoo and is forced to cull them all. Abandoned to survive on an increasingly uninhabitable planet, the people of Lemuria and a subset of Blood of Eden dig up old caches of weapons to use against the biological mutations, and eventually against the Cohort when they return. The Houses eventually win the fight, and the Angel surrenders alongside most of remaining people on Lemuria. They are resettled on a different planet. The Angel is moved two more times before ending up on New Rho.[3]
It is unknown when the Angel joined Blood of Eden, but at an indeterminate point in her involvement with the organization, she takes on the role of the Messenger. Passed down to the Angel from its former carrier, Emma Sen, the Message seems to be carried in some kind of implant in the bearer’s body. Palamedes Sextus identifies this implant as necromantic in nature,[2] though due to BoE’s hatred of necromancy, it is unclear if this is correct. The name for the part of the Message that the Angel carries is “Aim,” which they adopt as their own name. Though the exact contents of the Message are unknown, Aim declares it to be “too simple for human beings like us to understand.”[4]
In an attempt to preserve the Message at all costs, Blood of Eden surrounds Aim with a 24/7 protection detail, and designates multiple “lifeguards” dedicated to accompany them everywhere. Additionally, discharging a firearm in the Messenger’s presence is strictly prohibited and punishable by death. These protective measures are deemed necessary, but can make it difficult for BoE to maneuver, especially in combat situations. Aim acknowledges this limitation by saying “I exist. Pardon—we exist. And as long as we exist, we are a terrible liability.”[4]
Despite her lauded position in Blood of Eden, Aim attempts to assert her own individuality by doing smaller good deeds, like volunteering at a medical clinic and taking a teaching position at the refuge school on New Rho. Earning the nickname “the Angel” from her students, Aim is beloved for her interactive science lessons and her six-legged dog, Noodle. She works closely with Joli, the main teacher at the school, and Nona, the Teacher’s Aide.[5] To protect the students, Aim forbids Pash (one of their lifeguards) from entering the school building, and likewise, Pash keeps Aim away from BoE intel, including Nona’s involvement in the Troia project.[2]
Nona the Ninth[]
Day One[]
The Angel arrives at the refuge school to teach the Hour of Science. She responds to the students’ respectful Good morning, sirs, but her clothes look rumpled and she moves like someone who hasn’t slept well.
Day Two[]
When the still-disheveled Angel arrives at school the next morning, Nona is nursing Honesty’s black eye. The Angel looks over the wound and gets him an ice pack, but doesn’t insist Honesty share how he got the injury.
Remembering the heat, the Angel asks Nona to put pattens on Noodle’s feet to protect him from burns on his walk. In the meantime, the Angel teaches a lively lesson about the melting point of ice cubes, using socks and a hair dryer as supplementary experiments. The end of the lesson is interrupted by the sound of gunfire outside, though the Angel and the class are so used to this that they’re more annoyed than scared. When parents arrive to collect their children early, the Angel and Joli attempt in vain to convince them to remain in the relative safety of the school building.
Day Three[]
When a House shuttle appears in the airspace above New Rho, Blood of Eden leadership schedules a flurry of emergency meetings. Pash is detained in a meeting with Troia cell, nearly making Aim late for work. The Angel is just unlocking the outer school door when Nona runs up, accompanied by Crown. The Angel shakes Crown’s hand, but refuses to admit her into the building because of her gun. To lighten the mood, the Angel jokes that the children wouldn’t be able to pay attention to the lesson after seeing Crown. After handing Noodle off to Nona, the Angel hurries up to the classroom to teach about sound waves.
During lunch, Hot Sauce announces that there’s going to be a House broadcast later. Joli begins to speculate about it, but Aim, who already knew about the broadcast, reminds her to be mindful of the children and takes Joli into the kitchen to discuss it in private. Joli goes home to check on her parents, leaving the Angel in charge of school for the rest of the day.
After extracting a promise from the remaining children that they won’t attend the broadcast, the Angel opts to cancel the lesson and have the students draw animals instead. To stop Nona from worrying about Camilla being late to pick her up, the Angel suggests that Nona and Hot Sauce take Noodle on a walk outside. In the courtyard, the girls decide to go to the broadcast and send Noodle back upstairs with a note detailing their plan. According to Beautiful Ruby, the Angel is “madder than hell”[3] when she gets the note, but she is preoccupied with wrangling the other children. After calming Kevin down, the Angel arranges for everyone to get home safely and personally takes Honesty home. Afterwards, she returns to the school, gets in Pash's big Blood of Eden truck with a grille, and has Pash drive around the block until they spot Nona and Hot Sauce fleeing from the chaos that broke out after the broadcast depicted the Lyctor Prince Ianthe Naberius reinstating House control of New Rho.
After ascertaining that neither of the girls are seriously hurt, the Angel orders Pash to start driving. When asked, Hot Sauce rejects the idea of staying at the shelter, so the Angel offers her own place, since Pash won’t let her stay there alone anyway. That solved, the Angel turns to Nona, who volunteers that she lives at the Building—surprising both the Angel and Pash. As they begin to head in that direction, the Angel once again checks if the girls are hurt, bickers with Pash a bit, then spends the rest of the drive in relative silence despite the car’s erratic progress through the city.
When they arrive at the Building, the Angel promises that school will be in session the next day and asks Nona to come. After Nona’s agreement and departure, Pash drives them home, where the Angel gives Hot Sauce advice on how to survive in the new political climate of the city.
Day Four[]
The Angel and Hot Sauce arrive at school together the next day and meet most of the gang in the foyer. Camilla thanks the Angel for bringing Nona home the night before, and the Angel invites her upstairs with the children. After explaining that Joli intends to close the school until the violence in the city dies down, the Angel gives a lesson on “how to stay out of trouble.”[3] She advises caution, especially around necromancers, then rolls out a map of the city. She points out places to avoid, then has Hot Sauce show everyone the safe house they had selected together the previous night. The power in the school abruptly shuts off, then an unreliable generator kicks on, granting them an extra hour or two of power. Unwilling to keep the kids at the school without the electronic locks working, the Angel sets the children tasks to help clean out the classroom on their way out of the building.
After collecting the drawings the students had made the day before, Nona offers them to the Angel as a souvenir. When she reaches Nona’s drawing in the stack, the Angel stops dead. The creature Nona drew is a cradle creature—something she should have had no way of knowing. The Angel grows suspicious of Nona’s family, but tries to play it off. She says goodbye to the students, shaking their hands and wishing them luck. Once the others have left, the Angel takes Hot Sauce and Nona back upstairs, where Camilla is waiting.
The Angel takes inventory of the classroom and sends Hot Sauce to turn off the generator. With only the three of them left in the classroom, Palamedes (having occupied Camilla’s body) approaches the Angel and trips, grabbing on to the Angel to right himself. The Angel brushes this off, focusing on her query—asking about Nona’s drawing. Although Nona doesn’t know what’s wrong with her drawing, Palamedes and the Angel seem to be engaged in a silent standoff, culminating in Palamedes asking rather abruptly whether the Angel had ever received necromantic care. Realizing that Palamedes is a necromancer, possibly even a Lyctor, the Angel freezes in fear. Noodle begins growling and barking, and the Angel gathers her wits. She excuses herself to take Noodle into the kitchen, where she presumably radios her Merv Wing guards to execute a liquidation order.
When the Angel returns, she is clearly terrified, but rallies her courage. With the generator finally turned off, the lights sizzle out and the Angel opens the blackout curtains. She attempts in vain to send Nona out of the room before questioning Palamedes about how he is surviving without being affected by the blue madness caused by the Resurrection Beast. In turn, Palamedes asks the Angel about her necromantic implant. Instead of answering, the Angel calls Palamedes her enemy, though he promises that he’s not a Lyctor. The Angel seems to believe him, as she says “Then that’ll make this easier.”[2] In quick succession, Hot Sauce opens the door to the classroom, the Angel flinches violently, and Palamedes and Nona are shot through the open window.
At the gunshots, Pash enters the school building and quickly locks Hot Sauce into the generator room. While Nona and Camilla lie on the floor, appearing to be dead, Pash uses the radio to attempt to call off the Merv Wing squad, though they don’t comply. Aim and Pash bicker about their next actions—the roof is the only viable exit, but Pash doesn’t want to risk it for fear of snipers. She decides to shoot anyone who enters the room, though Aim reminds her that discharging a firearm in the same room as the Messenger is an offense punishable by death.
While Merv Wing works to defuse the door, Pash goes to behead Nona and Camilla’s bodies in keeping with Blood of Eden custom, despite Aim’s protests. Nona, who’d been playing dead, sits up suddenly and Pash shoots her again, to little effect. Aim orders Pash to stand down and tearfully apologizes to Nona. When Camilla stands up and hostilely asks Pash who shot them, Aim admits to ordering the wipe protocol. Having learned that Nona is BoE’s Lyctor project, Aim confesses that the circumstances have changed, and they once again try to call off Merv Wing. When the squad commander still refuses to lay off, Aim warns them that they will be shot if they enter the classroom.
At this, Pash and Camilla begin prepping the classroom for combat. Aim insists on staying in the room to limit the amount of gunfire, but they send Nona to stay with Hot Sauce in the generator room. Merv Wing breaks down the door, and the fight is quick and violent. The classroom gets destroyed in the process, but Aim, Cam, and Pash all make it out relatively unharmed. While Cam drags the bodies out of sight and Pash goes downstairs to eliminate the driver, the Angel retrieves Hot Sauce and Nona.
When they reenter the classroom, Hot Sauce examines the large pool of blood from where Nona had been shot. Though Aim attempts to deescalate the situation, Hot Sauce realizes that Nona is a zombie and shoots her in the head. The bullet gets stuck in Nona’s head, prohibiting her regenerative abilities. Leaving Hot Sauce at the school, the rest of the group hurries to a Blood of Eden facility, where Aim and most of Ctesiphon Wing witnesses Palamedes necromantically remove the bullet.
Day Five[]
Blood of Eden devises an operation to send Crown into the Cohort barracks to negotiate with her sister, Ianthe the First. Using information from Pyrrha Dve, who is sequestered in the barracks, Commander We Suffer agrees to send Camilla and Nona (fully healed from her gunshot wound) to the barracks as backup in a ploy to get to the key to the Locked Tomb—Gideon Nav’s body. Aim requests to oversee the operation, despite Pash’s insistence that they shouldn’t risk being near the Lyctor. In the car, Aim very kindly comments on Nona’s disguise before Camilla cuts them off to focus on the mission. Pash and Aim remain in the car while Camilla and Nona enter the barracks.
When the group emerges triumphant from the barracks, We Suffer insists on transporting Nona, Aim, and Kiriona Gaia (formerly Gideon Nav) in separate trucks, giving the explanation that BoE can’t keep all its eggs in the same basket. They drive through the city—stopping briefly at Honesty’s address to confirm the location of the Convoy and the Sixth House Oversight Body—until the Resurrection Beast retracts and sends the first wave of Heralds down to the planet. Though Nona manages to halt the attack, the initial Heralds are formidable enough to force the BoE trucks into the underground tunnels.
While the newly-ascended Lyctor Paul (formerly Camilla and Palamedes) works to organize the Sixth House onto a shuttle, Aim and Pash approach Nona. Carrying a bag in one hand and Noodle’s leash in the other, Aim announces their intention to travel with them to the Ninth House. After Aim explains that they need to get off-planet because they’re a liability to the BoE operations on New Rho, Nona asks who they are. Aim explains simply, “We are the Message…the message has two parts left, and you’re looking at one of those parts.”[4] With this cryptic parting message, Aim boards the megatruck.
Paul drives the megatruck into the River, allowing them to travel a great distance very quickly. However, the ride and subsequent collision into the Ninth House landing field is not gentle, and Aim gets knocked around. Because of this, Aim and Pash opt to stay in the megatruck with the Sixth House, while Nona, Paul, Pyrrha, and Kiriona leave to open the Locked Tomb.
Appearance and Personality[]
Appearance[]
“All of the Angel was tinted in soft greys and browns , but she had delicious reddish freckles scattered on her cheeks and nose which added life and vivacity to her face.”[6]
The Angel is mostly nondescript and washed-out, apart from their bright freckles. She is small and middle-aged, with crinkles around her eyes. Their hair is a dusty color, and they have a snub nose.
In her role as a teacher, she wears button-up shirts, trousers held up with suspenders, and a dust jacket.
Personality[]
“She was a gallant little person of fortyish who gave the impression that she had learnt a lot early in life and discovered late that it was no real good to her or anyone else. This lent her teaching a weightless, secretive feeling, like it was really all for fun at the end of the day.”[6]
Having been a refugee for most of her life, the Angel is careworn and world weary. But despite the traumatic circumstances they have lived through, the Angel routinely tries to make the best of their circumstances by helping others. This is evident in her work at the refuge school, where her consistently calm and even-handed demeanor is well-liked by her students. She responds to the kids’ antics with light amusement and occasionally quips in her usually dry humor.
Aim lacks the typical brash and aggressive Edenite attitude, but they are still brave and resolute in their beliefs. When confronted with what she believes is a Lyctor, she draws herself up to her “not-very-impressive height,”[2] and faces him, even though Nona notes that Aim is terrified. Aim’s acceptance of the role of the Messenger immeasurably puts their life at risk, but they wear the role gracefully, exuding hope for the future and a better universe.
Relationships[]
Our Lady of the Passion[]
“Now I see. Chance to be her, huh? A little independent living for once?”
”It is my enormous privilege to be they. Just drive,” said the Angel. “ I don’t pay you for your opinions.”
”You don’t pay me anything. I’m here for my bloody sins.”[1]
Aim and Pash are brought together in a professional context—Pash is assigned to be Aim’s lifeguard and to protect the Message they carry at all costs. Because of this, Pash primarily views Aim as an invaluable asset for Blood of Eden, and as an individual only secondarily. Though Pash occasionally approaches her duties with a vigor that Aim balks at, the two develop a habit of bantering with each other in even the most stressful of situations. Despite Aim’s protestations that Pash is “the least respectful bodyguard [they] have ever had,” they clearly trust Pash wholeheartedly. Aim is also willing to put themself in danger to better Pash’s chances of survival and attempts to make Pash’s job easier when they can.
Trivia[]
The Angel's codename, Aim, is a sly nod to late-90s instant messaging service, AOL (America Online) Instant Messenger--later shortened to AIM. That her role is "the Messenger" makes this both clever and apt, as Blood of Eden adopts names with presumed cultural references built in. Aim's predecessor, Emma Sen, is a blatant pun on another early IM service: MSN Messenger.
References[]
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Nona the Ninth Day 3, Ch. 16
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 Nona the Ninth Day 4, Ch. 18
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 Nona the Ninth Day 4, Ch. 17
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 Nona the Ninth Day 5, Ch. 29
- ↑ Nona the Ninth Day 1, Ch. 3
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 Nona the Ninth Day 1, Ch. 4