audio / @hello / open

[lunchbreaks]

Hello, um, everyone. This is Aziraphale. I know I haven't met all of you, but I have gotten to know a good number of you as of late, and I've come to like you all a great deal, so it doesn't sit quite right with me not to apologize for recent events.

The sinking of the ferry was inexcusable. Our-- my failure, was a direct result of poor planning and lack of transparency, but I do need all of you to know that the intention had been to find our only way out of Beacon as other methods had been exhausted, and it was always in the plan to make subsequent trips for everyone remaining who wished a return home.

But I know that no amount of good intention will bring it back, nor heal your injuries, nor surface the supplies it was carrying. For all this, I am deeply and terribly sorry; this was, in no way, how I should have repaid all your kindnesses. I understand your anger, and you can direct it at me, if you would like, if you have need of a place to focus your ire.

However, I am afraid, actually, that I must ask a favor. I have, though not for lack of trying, not been able to retrieve much of the sunken raw material - if anyone should lend abilities, magical or otherwise, to help in the rebuilding of the ferry or the docks, you will have my deepest gratitude, for whatever that is worth.

I will try to assist with this as much as I possibly can, and otherwise will be available to assist those who require healing, though my ability to do so has been stunted.

Comments

[scarsolderthanyou]

All of that assumes I can actually see well enough to pick out what this camera thing is. These things aren't meant for Raksuran eyes, and mine are worse than most.

[There's a pause as he fiddles around.]

Oh, I think I found it. I might have taken a picture, I'm not sure. The screen stopped moving, anyway, so something changed. How do I send it?

[lunchbreaks]

You have to select the little flat swirly thing above where you write the messages. It takes some time to get used to, dear Stone, nothing to worry over!

[scarsolderthanyou]

"Dear Stone". Heh. I like you.

[Flat swirly thing. There's a moment of fiddling again, punctuated with irritable but not entirely understandable mutters and one actual, honest-to-god growl, before Aziraphale gets an almost equally blurry picture of an oddly colorless old man with shaggy hair, one eye that's clearly at least partially blind, and simple gray clothing, from the shoulders up. He looks about as gangly as Crowley, albeit much more delicate. The photo itself is at an angle, so Stone's image is diagonal across the frame.]

Did that work? Can you see that?

[lunchbreaks]

Ah, yes! It's perfectly good. It is very nice to place a face to your name.

And what an apt name, as well...

[scarsolderthanyou]

[On the other end, Stone is rolling his eyes a little.]

More than you know, probably. I didn't always look like this. This is just what happens when Raksura get old, we lose all our color.

[Except the eyes. His eyes in the photo, clouded and unclouded, are still bright blue.]

I spent over a hundred turns as a kind of ash gray. I really looked like a rock, then.

[lunchbreaks]

Oh, well I'm sorry to hear that.

What color were you in your youth?

[scarsolderthanyou]

It's pretty normal, don't worry about it.

[He sounds amused at the apology.]

My hair used to be black, and my skin kind of coppery. And my scales had a red undertone to them. Pretty typical for a consort Raksura.

[lunchbreaks]

Oh. Those are lovely colors.

--Not that grey isn't, but. Black and copper, very fitting.

Also Stonelike. Perhaps lavalike.

[scarsolderthanyou]

Well, thanks. Nobody's ever called me lava-like before.

[Really, Aziraphale is winning lots of points today. Flattery gets you everywhere.]

[lunchbreaks]

Even in your youth? Perhaps they are not familiar with lava.

Anyway, I digress. I hope to be seeing you soon, in person.

[scarsolderthanyou]

Come by the Invincible whenever, I spend most of my time there or by the big fire. You can have tea.

[lunchbreaks]

Ooh, what kind of tea? I do like tea.

[scarsolderthanyou]

There's a clutch of kinds here, but I can't read most of the labels, the text is too small. I like the green stuff best but it's all interesting.

[lunchbreaks]

Why don't I come over and scribe some for you in a larger text?

[scarsolderthanyou]

Not sure everyone else will be happy to have somebody's writing all over the tea boxes.

[He sounds amused, though.]

I can tell them apart by smell. You can just read them for me, if you really want to help. I'll remember the names.

[Probably, anyway.]

[lunchbreaks]

--Are they not your tea boxes?

You can take some home, you know.

[scarsolderthanyou]

I'm living at the big inn, and I use the kitchen there. Besides, I like being down in the kitchen, it smells nice and homey.

[And he can mooch food off of people, since he only knows the bare basics of preparing it, and eating bread and lunchmeat and swallowing raw eggs whole gets boring after a while. Tea is about the only thing he knows how to do well.]

[lunchbreaks]

Ah, alright. I've never been inside the kitchen at the inn. Must be crowded.

[scarsolderthanyou]

It's not too bad. There's not as many people in here as you'd think. Enough that I can hear and smell them, but it's not crowded really.

[lunchbreaks]

Well, no. I just meant. For a kitchen. I think ours is crowded enough with just the three.

[scarsolderthanyou]

I think the kitchen here is bigger than the kitchens in the houses. It's an inn, it's meant for feeding more than just a couple people. Not as big as the kitchens in the colony tree, but still not bad.

[lunchbreaks]

What is a colony tree?

[scarsolderthanyou]

[Really, half the time Stone says these things just for the excuse to talk about home.]

It's what the colony lives in. My people. It's a mountain-tree, bigger around than the village, with hollows in the living wood for rooms and flying wells and plumbing. It's magical, and connected to the court, to the Raksura who live in it.

[lunchbreaks]

Oh. Well that sounds very lovely and heavily based on community.

You must miss it a great deal.

[scarsolderthanyou]

It's a good place. I was ready to go, though, I've been alive longer than anyone I know. I'd probably have been fine with leaving if I hadn't then gotten dragged here instead of properly dying. I had a whole year and then some to get used to the idea.