Open Post: Treat

[sporesprouter]

Now that the latest burst of activity has actually settled into something like calm for a few days, Tress has settled into a temporary project. In fairness, most of the temporary project took place the previous day in the out of the way kitchen that she had previously commandeered small appliances from. But today requires a bit more wandering.

So she is currently in the process of going around various at least semi-frequented common rooms leaving trays of both nut and honey balls and chocolate coconut balls. Next to each room's tray, she sets down a small card that says in careful handwriting, 'It's been a tough week. Help yourself!'

She's not putting a whole lot of fanfare into the process, but she's also not being particularly secretive about it, so she's easy enough to find throughout.

Comments

[az_fell]

Aziraphale laughs out loud. "Dear girl, you are a born storyteller. That's a wonderful description. I almost feel I can picture his behaviour with no further context."

[sporesprouter]

She blushes just a bit. "Oh, I'm not... I'm sure there are so many people who could tell this story so much better than I could¹."

¹ There's probably at least one person who could... *checks notes*... make a 475-page book of it for his wife and then decide to share it with the world.

[az_fell]

"Well, I count myself fortunate that I'm hearing it from you," says Aziraphale. He smiles, and then makes a go on gesture. "As I said: please don't stop on my account."

[sporesprouter]

"Oh! Of course. Where was I? Right. First full day on the Crow's Song. All right, so after I'd been scrubbing the deck for a while, I had to go belowdecks for a moment. On the way back, I overheard Ann and Fort talking. Ann was the ship's carpenter, and Fort was the quartermaster. What she most wanted to be was to fire cannons, but her aim was awful, so... carpenter. Fort... well, I'll talk more about Fort soon enough, but he's wonderful. They both are, but I'm getting ahead of myself again. They were talking to each other and trying to figure out what under the Emerald Moon happened when they took on the smuggler ship. The cannonballs were supposed to be set to temporarily incapacitate the ship, not to sink it. They hadn't meant to sink it, and the deaths of those on board weren't sitting well with them, and that's not even taking into account that deadrunners are treated much more harshly than regular pirates when they get caught."

[az_fell]

"Ann and Fort," repeats Aziraphale dutifully. It may actually be easier to remember their names than to remember the names of any given random pair of humans, because these are characters. "I would be horrified, too, in their place. Was this some scheme of the dastardly Captain Crow?"

[sporesprouter]

"I... well, yes, it was, but we figure that out later on. Fort ended up finding me and pulled aside. He ended up giving me breakfast, but it... well, under the circumstances, I was grateful even for what I thought were the leftover dregs from the rest of the crew's meal. He told me I could come back for supper, too." She smiles. "I went back and kept scrubbing the deck. It was a lot of work but at least it gave me time to think."

[az_fell]

"Scrubbing the deck!" Aziraphale shudders delicately. "You're far hardier than I. And what did you think of as you were scrubbing?"

[sporesprouter]

"Oh, it's not that much different from washing windows, really. Same basic principle. But it did let me think over the cannonball problem. So as I was scrubbing, I got closer to the cannon, and one of the crew members¹ called me over to help him load zephyr spores² into pouches. It would have been the ship's sprouter's job, but the ship had lost its sprouter."

¹ One of the Dougs! Tress would never call them the Dougs, but I love the Dougs.
² Not mentioned in any detail in the sporesplanation pamphlet.

[az_fell]

As if on cue, then, Aziraphale leans closer again. "Zephyr spores? I did read your explanation, so forgive me if I've let something slip my mind."

[sporesprouter]

She shakes her head. "I only really went into detail on the verdant spores as an example in the pamphlet, so I shouldn't have expected you to know. They're from the Sapphire Sea, and when water touches them, they burst into air. They're used to shoot cannonballs and flares."

[az_fell]

"Immensely useful, then." Someone really did put quite a lot of work into this story of Tress'. "And rather convenient as a time for you to begin learning sprouting, with that vacancy on the crew."

[sporesprouter]

She frowns a little. The convenient timing isn't exactly forefront on her mind, nor was it then. "His name was Weev. He'd been the only one to stand up to Crow when she decided they should turn pirate. So she threw him overboard."

[az_fell]

Regrettably, Aziraphale has gotten a bit too caught up in the story of it all and not quite remembered that this was all very real to Tress. That, however, is a good reminder. He winces. "Dastardly indeed. That may be too milquetoast a descriptor, in fact."

[sporesprouter]

"She's terrible," Tress agrees with a nod. "Anyway, I really would have rather not helped. I was still terrified of spores. But I was new to the ship and I didn't want to be an inconvenience. Or to be thrown overboard myself. So I got to work. While I was filling the pouches, I noticed that the barrel of spores had a false bottom. I got it open and I found a cannonball inside."

[az_fell]

Aziraphale's eyes widen. "A false bottom with a cannonball beneath it? In the barrel of spores that burst into air? That sounds dangerous."

[sporesprouter]

"The barrel was lined to protect the spores from water. It was probably at least safe enough unless something very bad was happening, at which point one cannonball... or three, even, because that's as many as the compartment would have held... would probably be the least of anyone's worries."

[az_fell]

"All right, all right. You certainly know best." He leans back again, but loses none of his attentiveness. "And then?"

[sporesprouter]

"Well... I realized that the hidden compartment would have been a perfect way for the cannonmaster to secretly switch out the balls that were being used in an attack. I put everything back quickly so nobody saw what I'd found, because I didn't know who else might know about it. Ann came up after a while to talk to me, which was a little worrisome as she was also assistant cannonmaster. But the conversation went well enough until I accidentally blew up my face a little."

[az_fell]

Entirely caught up in the story, Aziraphale does in fact make a shocked little face. "Tress! Blew up your face a little? It looks entirely intact these days."

[sporesprouter]

"I wasn't really thinking. I was wearing goggles, got distracted by the conversation, reached up to scratch near them, I had a spore or two on my fingers, it touched some sweat, and they went off and blew the goggles clean off. Once Ann stopped laughing, she took me to Ulaam, who's the ship's surgeon and... sort of a zombie."

[az_fell]

"Not another zombie," says Aziraphale with a laugh. "I hope that Ulaam was a more pleasant zombie than the ones who befell us here recently. For your sake."

[sporesprouter]

"Oh, no, nothing like the ones here. And he doesn't even really prefer the term. It's just easy because he has cold gray skin, red eyes, and no heartbeat. I'm pretty sure he's from another world beyond the stars." She smiles fondly. "Anyway, he gave me a salve which worked wonders. Pain stopped immediately and it didn't even leave a wound. So I got to go back to work scrubbing for a while until... well, until Huck interrupted me. He'd found Laggart sneaking some cannonballs into his pack. So I kept an eye out until I saw him go and hide them in the false bottom of the barrel before going to talk to Crow. I had to know what they were saying."

[az_fell]

Another world beyond the stars. This doesn't seem to have piqued Tress' interest nearly as much as Aziraphale would have expected it to, so maybe it's commonplace where she comes from? Hm.

Anyway: "Well, now I also have to know what they were saying."

[sporesprouter]

It's not so much commonplace as Tress specifically met a few such visitors on this very adventure, so it's less remarkable for her now than it might have been earlier.

She smiles softly. "Well. Conveniently, I had a small, quick, nearly unnoticeable companion nearby who I could send to eavesdrop."

[az_fell]

"Huck," says Aziraphale easily, and then all of his many, many years of enjoying various narratives jump to the fore and he smiles. "Or should I say, Charlie?"