but it died so other towns could live ( OPEN )

[atreefull]

WHO: aziraphale & you
WHAT: an extremely backdated catchall for the first half of october + gen catch-all
WHERE: kyst, moon temple, gods wood
WHEN: the first three weeks of october
WARNINGS: starvation/rot, the usual


prompts are in comments below, please let me know if you'd like something different or feel free to post something under 'wildcard'!

Comments

KYST.

[atreefull]

Aziraphale can be found puttering around Kyst, helping with decorations or trying his best to calm the crying children who might be getting hungry. Parents give him a thankful glance; but he's confused himself.

He's not used to the feeling of hunger, and if one swings by his bookshop they might find him suddenly taken aback by the growl of his stomach. "Oh, I'm not fond of this at all." Is there anything so terrible as someone who eats for pure enjoyment actually feeling the aftereffects of not eating?

Or, later in the month, he's putting in the legwork to send spirits back to the afterlife. There are things unsaid that he's attempting to say, or willing to help anyone out who seems to be struggling with communicating.

Perhaps unwisely, near the end of the month — and during the night — Aziraphale is stuck with a rather tricky spirit. There's one way he knows will give one a, um, direct access to the afterlife, and, well. Worth trying, isn't it? So he looks rather out of place in one of the side streets of Kyst with a box of candles, a lantern, and a bunch of chalk he is using to sketch a circle upon the ground, and fill it in with symbols.

[ please only one person for the portal! ]

portal, sup

[lallipop]

Lalli never quite got out of the habit of being nocturnal, and finds himself most alert during nighttime without even meaning to be. There's no reason to patrol areas like Kyst or the Moon territories, as far as he can tell, so he has no outlet for his restlessness. So he takes to walking, when he gets in these moods.

It makes him feel a little bit more normal, stalking the streets at night even when there's no point to it.

It's on one of these excursions that he encounters Aziraphale, doing something really weird. Though not as weird to Lalli as some other things here.

"What kind of rune is that?"

Not that he's an expert; that's for foreigners. But it looks pretty strange even to his limited knowledge.

[atreefull]

Aziraphale blinks, not expecting anyone to come across him so late. He looks, well, only slightly guilty and coughs, shuffling slightly from foot to foot -- having gotten to his feet at the first word. An awkward encounter, but one he can surely recover from while keeping how he knows what he's doing a secret.

"I'm not quite sure it has a name," he muses. Well, it does, but it was one of those sort of 'heavenly' names that aren't very kind to mortals. "It's used to communicated with the Beyond, and travel through to it -- I thought it might be useful for that gentleman." He gestures off to the side, at the spirit who's been lingering on the edges of all this.

[lallipop]

Lalli barely spares Aziraphale another glance--though his gaze does linger some on the spirit--before he sits down next to the sign, cross-legged with this elbows propped on his knees and his chin in his hands. The better to look at it.

He knows better than than to try and touch the thing--runes need to be very precise or they can be volatile--but he does get pretty close. If he looks like he's trying to study it, it's because he is: trying to track the lines, see if they make sense, like he can figure out the logic that makes it all translate to passage to the next world.

He can't. It all looks like nonsense, and it's frustrating.

"You can use these to help people find their way." It's a question, but it's not said like one. "I thought they were just for wards."

sending spirits back

[nuncommon]

[ Mercedes is still adjusting to the fact that there are, indeed, ghosts-- and more importantly, that they seem to be having trouble moving on to the afterlife. So while Aziraphale is dealing with one of them, he may have a bright-eyed young lady looking on with utter fascination and concentration.

She might as well learn while she can, she reasons, and he certainly seems to know what he's doing. ]

[atreefull]

( The entire situation is something Aziraphale isn't used to, despite somewhat recently floating around as his own sort of ghost. The dead don't really make themselves known to the living in obvious ways. Or at all, considering the work he had to do in order to find that woman's husband she so dearly wanted to talk to. Not that she uh, liked the result.

Still! Helping is what he does best, and currently he's finishing up telling this young woman that her parents are very aware that she loved them, and that her little sister has done quite well for herself recently. The spirit flashes him a thankful smile before fading, and that's when he finally turns to face Mercedes. )

Good evening, young lady. ( There's no patronizing in the way he says 'young lady' -- it's quite clear by tone that he's doing it out of respect. ) Can I help you at all?

[nuncommon]

Possibly, if it isn't any trouble or beyond my abilities.

[ And Mercedes answers just as politely, with a respectful inclination of her head. He seems to be a genuinely good individual, no one to be entirely cautious around. ]

I'd really like to be able to help the ghosts here move on, but I've never really done it before. So I was wondering if I might be able to learn from you, or if you have any advice to offer-- I'd greatly appreciate it! You just seem to know exactly what to do for each of them.

[atreefull]

Not at all.

( Aziraphale gestures for her to walk beside him -- it won't be too difficult to find another spirit right now, and he can explain and demonstrate as he goes along. )

It's rather new to me, as well, but they're not so different than from helping the living. Some you can ask, other times they are less... forthcoming.

[nuncommon]

[ Mercedes obligingly falls into step, head tilted to take in any helpful information he's got to offer. Really, though, at this point-- any information is helpful. ]

Ah... so, like all people, some of them might be reluctant or... unnecessarily stubborn.

[ She knows the type. ]

Leans over your shoulder "what's that you're drawing"

[chronosynthesis]

Syrlya follows the light of the lantern off path, mostly out of curiosity, to find Aziraphale drawing up... what he assumes is a magic circle of some sort. The runes look like it.

He clasps his hands behind his back as he approaches, stopping at a respectful distance. "This looks like a large spell."

DON"T TELL MOM

[atreefull]

Aziraphale startles, jumping a little before recovering in a rather fine form. "I suppose you could say that it is," he confesses, slightly sheepish as he gives Syrlya a chiding look. It's fine, he's fine, but it's worth a shot.

[chronosynthesis]

Okay, now that he has Aziraphale's attention he shuffles closer. "What kind of spell? The pattern isn't familiar to me."

Obviously, coming from a different world and all.

[atreefull]

He coughs slightly, before going back to work on it. "One to open the way between this world and the next." To communicate with Heaven itself, but that's a detail that he doesn't know if it applies here and wouldn't share regardless.

[chronosynthesis]

Syrlya's gaze flicks up to the spirit. "Oh--so you are making a doorway for them to return through directly?"

Well, he steps back a little to make sure he's not in the way of the circle. "Is it a particularly troublesome spirit?"

MOON TEMPLE.

[atreefull]

He doesn't spend much time here these days — Kyst feels like home more than Moon Temple ever did. But he isn't about to let people starve on account of preferring somewhere else, and so when Aziraphale hears that there's some food still able to be grown there, hurries back.

Desperation makes him careless. Sloppy, maybe, but what he's doing doesn't really seem sloppy. Aziraphale brushes a hand over a vine and the vegetables attached pump up; or as much as they can anymore, rot falling from their skin as if it melted off. He seems thrilled by these events, and bows over particular pumpkin.

"You're doing just a lovely job, aren't you? Why don't you try just a little more, please? We're counting on you, you know—" And it seems to be doing something, for the leaves of the vine itself perk up a little, leaning towards Aziraphale as if he were a source of warmth.

[ please only two people for this prompt! ]

[latrodectus]

[ Natasha is new here, and still getting a sense of the place, its rhythms, as much as she can with the hunger hanging like a white sheet over everything, snuffing the color out. No one here was used to the famine, yet, which matches everything she'd been told.

She's pretty sure she hasn't seen Aziraphale before, which makes him interesting. By now she's learned the faces, at least, of the others who came to the Moon Temple with her, as well as most of the minor acolytes and mages.

But as she's trying to get a read on him, he starts talking to a pumpkin. ]

Am I interrupting something?

[ She has a watering can in her hand, her hair tied back, gloves. ]

[atreefull]

( Oh! He'd been so wrapped up in the whole miracles thing that he's taken by surprise by her voice, but the startled expression fades into a kind, open smile, although there's a sheepish tilt to the corners of his mouth. )

Not at all. ( So long as she's not trying to buy a book from him, he welcomes the company. ) Just trying something new I learned from a friend.

( Talking to plants that is. Although he's certainly not going to terrify them, unlike Crowley. )

[latrodectus]

[ Natasha is used to not being seen, and nothing about this man points to astute. He sounds like an over-helpful librarian.

Still, appearances deceive. ]

Was that a spell?

[ Her voice is curious, shy, a little bewildered, but not accusing. The best cover identities have some element of truth to them— and Natasha is bewildered. Curious, too. What this man just did wasn't like the one the temple mages have been teaching, Natasha is pretty sure. But being thoroughly untutored in magic, she can't tell much more than that. ]

[atreefull]

Er. ( Not really, but Aziraphale can't just be open about that. ) I suppose so, yes. This place offers a chance to learn things that would be impossible back in our own worlds.

( None of that is exactly a lie, and he looks slightly uncomfortable but still willing to hold a conversation. )

GODS WOOD.

[atreefull]

Someone looks like he doesn't belong. Aziraphale stands out amongst the rather threatening trees with a book clutched to his chest, in his cream suit. He's only got a few questions to ask, and turns to the person who agreed to venture to the woods that are rumored to be, well. Far more threatening than they were before.

"I'd just like to ask them a few questions, that's all. About the book, if we can find them. And, um, perhaps about everything else as well, if we're lucky."

He's not certain most people would want to find the authors of his bad book of prophesy during a famine, and he's quite hungry himself, but he's capable of trying to soldier on past that and get some answers. Hopefully.

[ please only one person for this prompt! ]

[felldennpc]

"You look like a Starbucks cup!"

If Aziraphale looks up, high into the trees, he'll be able to spot a young blonde woman, dressed in dark green material. She stands on a heavy branch far out of reach of any normal human's ability to get to: it's uncertain how she got there, and so quietly.

"You know this place is dangerous, right?"

[atreefull]

"Really, do you think so?" He doesn't look for the source of the voice just yet, instead looking down at his clothes and tugging on his waistcoat. He doesn't think he does, Aziraphale thinks he looks, well. Not dashing, but at least respectable and presentable. And comfortable.

He coughs, however, as she continues. "Ah, well, yes, I was aware. I just had a few questions, really, and then I'll be happy to leave this place to its, um. Whatever it is that this place does best."

Not moving, for when Aziraphale spots her high up in the trees he's at least smart enough to not take a few steps further. Caution and respect, just in case she might know who he's looking for.

[felldennpc]

The girl's eyes narrow in curiosity.

"What kinda questions?"

[atreefull]

"Well, first I would like to find the authors of this book," he holds it up for her to look at, although that seems silly and pointless while he's doing it. Still, perhaps she can see all the way up there -- what does he know? "Just to, um, thank them for it -- I collect them, you see. Books and books of prophecy, and it's a bit of home I wasn't really expecting." Sure, the Priestess might have given it to him, but she didn't write it. And he's already thanked her.

As for what else -- "And ask them a bit about what they are, if they're open to that sort of thing and willing to answer. Back home, well. Those that are in attendance to God are rather special. I should like to know if there's any similarities here in this world."

WILDCARD.

[atreefull]