August Event Log
Performance of a Lifetime
Valhudor, ever eager for a chance to take the stage, has launched a flash-theater campaign across the campus. Wherever students might gather, be it the Great Hall or the Promenade or the Library of Starchime or whatever, there a play will erupt, acting out the tumultuous events of the Three Dragon War. The director-ringleaders, with all the ethics of Captain Lominia, don't hesitate to shanghai students into the feature itself. Usually, these roles are that of Cowering Student #1, Useless Faculty Member With One Shoe, or Comedy Relief Pratfall Victim, and you're expected to mostly just sit there, ad-lib a little, and generally make the actors playing the Three Dragons look good. Do you behave just to get it over with, or take your role into your own hands for a little revenge? Or perhaps you're determined to take the role of a dragon and make this play your own!
Alternatively, you might be looking to cash in on the bounty for the safe return of their performing surface to Brindavil Theater. These students, unfortunately... took the stage.
The Great Familiar Audition
With finals coming to a close for many students and graduation (or flunking) at hand for many, the cycle of academic life comes full circle once again. Airships discharge students into Anastara, the local schools send their best and brightest up the street, and the constabulary once again has to stop that creepy guy who keeps trying to kidnap school-bound students with a 'magic' train on an alleged, misnumbered 'platform' made of paper mache. And with these students come beasts of all shape and size, eager to audition for the role of familiar.
Consequently, the campus is absolutely flooded with owls, cats, snakes, rats, and more, all looking for their in with a wizard. Unfortunately, they're just animals, so sometimes this results in unintended hilarity results. There's nothing quite like opening your dresser only for an unexpected snake to pop up and offer you your underwear, unless it's two snakes each offering you half of your underwear after a furious territory dispute ended in a tie. Owls deafen everyone with incessant hooting. Swarms of rats establish packs and engage in dance-fights, probably to catch the eyes of Valhudor students. The cats are oddly the most tolerable potential familiars, since they just wander around pushing stuff off of surfaces and demanding food and attention, the same as they always do. Familiar-cuckoos appear, making every effort to rub out the competition and take their places in order to get fat and lazy off the hard work of their 'master'. Also for some reason a corgi has a shiv and knows how to use it, so you better give him your sausages right now, huh? No, no one will ever believe you.
The Food Cartening
Though Anastara's restaurants get most of the culinary glory, a true Anastaran will tell you that the food carts of the city are as fundamental to the city as the island of Ascelion itself. When pressed, said Anastaran will reluctantly admit that no, if you take the food carts away the city won't engage in unsupported freefall, but the truth is that as a city of trade, commerce, and tourism, the food carts really are quite amazing here.
But which one is the best? Famous chef Rodden Grimmslay wants to know the answer, and has issued a challenge to ever food cart: register for Cartfest, where the offerings will be put to the taste-tests of both the chef and the city at large!
So welcome to the celebration, where food styles from across the Tenscore Kingdoms fill the air with competing, delicious scents and merriment abides. (The breweries are probably the real financial winners here.)
Hailfight
When you ask a wizard if they are capable of controlling the weather, they will engage in a long, rambling explanation of wind currents, tides, cloud albedo, size and effort, the breakdown of order, and any number of other factors that complicate the issue.
When you ask a student if they can control the weather, they say, "sure," and with a wave of their wand cause the falling hail to focus directly on you. When, aggrieved, you point out that you hadn't meant it like that, another wave of their wand sends the hailstones that had just hit you back into the air to pelt you again.
With a fierce hailstorm rolling across Ascelion, battle rages across the campus. From mean-spirited surprise attacks to hailstone chicken to almost literal war zones complete with bunkers, artillery support, and the occasional gas attack depending on what was for lunch, most students just can't resist playing with the hailstones and their magic. Whether you're in a duel, hunkered down in the trenches, a victim of a cheap shot, or an active instigator... you can probably get away, but only with skill and panache can you seize victory!
(Many years later, linguists will identify this as the root derivation of the otherwise nonsense phrase 'hail, seizer'. Little Tenscore Kingdoms etymology lesson for you all there. Free of charge. Don't say the mod team never did anything for you.) |
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magicademymods) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
diatu2021-08-06 07:23 pm
Aziraphale / Mr. Fell
[Mr. Fell is no stranger to the food carts, not from his previous stay, and not since he re-arrived. He's very much a patron of anything that looks remotely good to eat, and he's got to try it all, including anything the breweries have to offer.]
You simply must try the sauce.
The Food Cartening 2: Electric Booglaoo
[One of the dangers of sampling all the wares at the breweries is that one does have their limits on blood-alcohol content, even when one isn't technically even human. Fell is lingering around the event, sloshed and perhaps a bit tired and irritable, or maybe overly good-natured. It just depends on when you catch him.]
Cartening the Beginning
[he's been wandering around vaguely disliking everything. It's all so chaotic and full of false cheer and irritates him in some undefined way.]
Fell. [a nod] I need to talk to you.
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He looks sadly at the drink he assumes he'll have to toss.]
Oh. I assume you mean not here?
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It can be later. Whenever you're up to it. But it's important so I'll need you somewhat sober.
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Is something wrong?
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Look I'll get you something else. Stop being so bloody conscientious for my sake.
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You don't get to tell me what my priorities are.
Besides. [A little cheeky.] If it's the cost that concerns you, I miracled the money. Don't worry about it.
Now, what did you want to talk about?
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Let's...go find somewhere that's not in the middle of the marketplace. I think there's a café around here somewhere...
[he didn't want anyone to overhear, especially a certain someone]
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[Now he's concerned that his money will turn into nothing in the vendors' tills.]
Yes, there's a cafe further up the road here, but really, Alec, you don't have to feed me just because of all that. As much as I like a good cocoa, really, I am fine. And you barely tolerate cafes.
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If not a café, then somewhere-- where we can't be interrupted easily.
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...Well, there's a library I found last time I was here that is sort of on fire, but that would require going back to the school. So perhaps the café is our best option. [Except a café is precisely where someone would come looking for a certain angel if someone was looking for a certain angel and didn't find him at the food carts.]
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Let's go then. I think there's one over this way...
[maybe he would but Alec is banking on some privacy just because it might take the man--demon--whatever a bit to find them.
It also helps that it's a tiny café tucked up in the shadow of a somber brick building like it's trying to hide. Alec slides into a seat so he can see the door. He orders something that he won't drink and waits for Fell to do the same, then fiddles with a napkin for a moment before asking]
Have you talked to him about... You know... the horseshit back there?
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[He followed to the cafe and ordered a cocoa that he would most definitely drink because he wasn't Alec.]
You cannot just nab me from the middle of a food festival and expect me to follow your non sequitur. I'm afraid you will have to be more specific.
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[he hesitated, twisting the napkin a little more]
I told you that it could wait. You were the one who said it was a priority. [mutter]
Did you tell...Crowley about...the past of...the one that wasn't him.
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I might have. Why, was I not supposed to?
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[he rubbed his hands over his face. Of course Fell did. Of course. Why wouldn't he? That wasn't embarrassing at all.]
What did you tell him exactly?
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I told I liked you and that we were like family. And I said we could be a family again, if he wanted to be. At least it explains the resemblance.
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[it was even worse. Family. That they could be a family again. Who asked him to say something like that?]
We're not family, you know. Not really. I'm not interested in being invested in it. I say this knowing full bloody well one or the other of you will engineer it so it happens anyway so I don't see why I bother to begin with. [he folded his arms and leaned back, looking out the window, irritated but having nowhre to go with it]
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But he also knew how this would likely pan out: Alec would accuse him of being emotionally manipulative and, like he'd already said, 'engineering' this to happen. And Alec would drag his feet and resist and then act like they'd hoodwinked him into this whole thing. And he'd seem happy for it in the end. Yes, Aziraphale had probably manipulated him a little in the past, but it had worked and, in his opinion, they'd all been better for it. But maybe that was the point of view of an angel who served a Heaven that resorted to manipulation 'for the greater good' and maybe he needed to stop choosing what he wanted and selfishly trying to think Alec needed them as much as he needed Alec around.]
I'm very sorry I didn't ask you first. That was... selfish of me. But if this is how you feel, I won't drag you through the ritual of rekindling all this. Nor will I engineer it to happen. I'll tell Crowley and you can be left to your own devices.
[He pushed back his chair and stood, leaving the cocoa on the table.]
Have a good day, Alec.
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He missed everyone when he thought about them. He missed Ellie-- though now it was complicated and if he ever met the real her... or perhaps the maybe her, she wouldn't recognize him either. It wouldn't be the same. Just like he and-- Crowley wouldn't be the same. And maybe it was better that it wasn't the same because he seemed to be shit at family anyway.
He didn't know how to tell Fell his dream, his goal, the stupid end that kept him going on that he'd never be able to reach. He didn't know how to explain how he just wanted to see them --happy without having to bother with what he needed all the time, because he knew he'd never be someone who they wouldn't have to worry about. They seemed to want a happiness for him he didn't understand how to reach for. The only consolation was that Crowley would probably not care. Why would he? Why should he? That was the point.
He didn't know how to explain any of it and, in the end, there was no use telling Fell problems that he couldn't fix or burdening him further with this. He wasn't someone who had been there for six thousand years. He'd be lucky if he got twenty more. No one should have to worry about a candle when it went out, though he would try to hang on as long as he could.]
Thank you for trying so hard. Thank you for always trying. Christ I don't know how you keep at it but somehow you do. And I know you care and that it hurts. I'm sorry I'm not just someone who can accept it and be happy.
But... [he sighed and leaned back]
He doesn't know me anyway and you're more than enough for anyone. [a faint smile. He was teasing even though he meant it]
You're a better man than most, even for an angel.
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He doesn't know and he doesn't remember so many things. The problem with having such a long life is that there is so much...no one else remembers. Moments that are special and sentimental and historically insignificant, so they've fallen through the cracks and are lost to time.
It has always been nice to have a friend who remembers. So, even if this is where we part ways, Alec, I'm glad you were there to share those times with me, and I will be glad to know you're out there, in this strange, strange universe, remembering them too.
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[he doesn't like that either, really. He doesn't like the thought of parting ways. He supposes it does have to be one or the other. They can't just be, they have to be family or nothing. If that's what Fell wants he is not about to stop him, but he hates being a depository of memory as if he's already just a photo in a scrap book, already forgotten and just taken out to be looked out and sighed over. Remember, it said, when we gave a shit?]
I don't want to part ways. I don't-- I just don't want to play family. I just don't want us to pretend that it's going to be the same as before. You say that and we go through this melodramatic shit and it's-- in the end that idiot will do something and we'll both be by his side trying to fix whatever it is he did. I can't stay away from him, you can't stay away from him, I certainly can't bloody well stay away from you.
The moment you want something--
[he scrubbed a hand through his hair]
Sod it. All of it. Whatever. I don't know.
All I know is I care about both of you morons so you're just going to have to put up with me being around even if we've parted ways. I can't leave him alone, can I? And I definitely can't leave you to your own.
So that's that and I'm bloody well going to do it. [he shook his head at himself, muttering] Still--
Add another layer on top of the madness. Why not.
[he drank his drink and slapped it on the table and slapped money on the table, meager though it was at least it was real]
Am I going to walk out or you because if we try to do it together it's just going to be awkward and stupid.
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Perhaps he should be insulted that Alec didn't think he could leave Aziraphale to his own. He didn't get in THAT much trouble, thank you very much, but goodness if getting into trouble allowed him to spend time with certain people, well. No, he did get into an awful lot of trouble.
He rolled his eyes fondly.]
How melodramatic. I'll leave first, because I hate watching you walk away. [He gave Alec's shoulder just the slightest of squeezes as he walked past.] Don't be a stranger.
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Mind how you go.