As Angels, they could speak and understand every language in God’s creation, and so Nyx, Persephone, and Ishtar, sometimes together, sometimes apart, crisscrossed the world. They visited nations, empires, tribes and villages on mountains, plains and islands; in forests, deserts and fertile river valleys. They learned a thousand different customs and beliefs, and watched hundreds of religious rituals, from grass-hut villages where a new child was carried to every house in the village to be kissed and blessed, to cities of stone where enemies were laid out on an alter, and their still-beating hearts pulled from their bodies. Some of it made them laugh; some of it made them wonder where where humans got their ideas. And always there was art, music, blood, sacrifice, hope and despair. The Angels disguised themselves as men and rode into battle or walked on hunts or sat in circles of elders, listening. As women they sat by fires, made pottery and tended children – save Ishtar who flat out refused.
