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

[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?"

[sporesprouter]

She stops short and gapes at him. "I didn't even figure that out until we were in the Sorceress's tower."

[az_fell]

Pride is a sin, of course, so if Tress sees a bit of smugness on Aziraphale's face, well, she must be mistaken. "I've been alive for several millennia," he says, in a sideways bid for humility. "I have a bit more experience than you."

[sporesprouter]

"She cursed him to turn into a rat. He couldn't talk about his curse, but she sent him to bring me to her tower to curse me, just to hurt him. The closer we actually managed to get, the more he kept trying to stop me."

[az_fell]

"Ah," says Aziraphale with understanding. "He wanted to protect you." Crowley would be very moved, and pretending not to be, by this portion of events. It's a shame he doesn't read.

[sporesprouter]

"He did. And I was trying my hardest to get to him and save him."

[az_fell]

"The romance runs both ways, of course." Aziraphale smiles at her, charmed. "Don't let me divert you from the tale as it happened, though."

[sporesprouter]

"All right. Where was I? Oh right, sending Charlie to go listen in on Crow and Laggart. It turns out that Crow was trying to force the crew to become deadrunners in order to force them to stay with her and sail into more dangerous seas. The ship I had come from was their first attempt at it, but it didn't end up doing what she wanted, because the one sailor she had left alive in a lifeboat apparently died before any rescue arrived. So with no survivors from the ship, there was no one to pass on word of who'd done it."

[az_fell]

"That Captain Crow," says Aziraphale with a sincere sigh. "I'm looking forward to finding out what becomes of her." Unless Tress' genre is much darker than he assumes it is, based on her demeanor, he has to imagine Captain Crow will get some very just desserts.

[sporesprouter]

She smiles just a little bit. "That's one thing I don't think you'll be able to guess in advance."

[az_fell]

This only serves to further pique Aziraphale's interest. "Don't leave me hanging, then, dear girl."

[sporesprouter]

"When I heard what the plan was, I thought that I might have a chance of getting off the ship. Because there was a survivor of the Oot's Dream that Crow hadn't thought about." She gestures to herself. "So I let her overhear me quietly muttering about family that I'd supposedly lost on the ship. It made her decide to change course, but she still kicked me before leaving. Salay, the helmswoman, checked me over to make sure nothing was broken, and then... probably to make me feel better, I don't know... she decided to show me how to steer the ship. I found out she was sailing to try to find her father, who was also a sailor, to pay off his debts and bring him home. I also found out how to steer the ship, obviously, and that was... there was something special about that. When I got my dinner, I was going to try and warn Fort about Crow's plans, but he wouldn't let me even talk about it. She had the entire crew terrified, and for good reason.

"The ship docked that night, and it was clearly set up to let me sneak off. But... I couldn't. I knew I had to help them. So I told Crow I'd lied about having family killed, and I asked if I could join the crew. They needed a sprouter, and even though I was terrified of spores, I could figure it out."

[az_fell]

Aziraphale listens to this rather fondly. Tress is so utterly a protagonist, resourceful and brave and aided by coincidence, but even more aided by her own courage.

"Well done," he says. "And clearly you did. Figure it out, that is."

[sporesprouter]

"Well, I had to. I got Weev's old cabin, which had an actual bed, which was delightful. Thankfully, nobody else had wanted to take it, because it's a sprouter's cabin, so it didn't have silver in the floor and walls. But there was a little workshop in there, and he also left notes behind, which definitely helped in figuring out what I was doing. Plus it gave Hu-- Charlie a place to hide out because they'd picked up a ship's cat when they docked."

[az_fell]

Aziraphale puts a hand to his mouth, trying not to look too obviously amused at the unfortunate circumstance of a rat being placed in close quarters with a ship's cat. His poker face is mediocre at best. "Poor Charlie," he says, with genuine sympathy but also a bit of a laugh around the edges of it.

[sporesprouter]

"He was so nervous." She shakes his head. "Anyway, while I got used to my quarters, I re-replaced the cannonballs in the false bottom with actual cannonballs meant to stop a ship instead of sinking it. Which is good, because we came across another ship. Crow ordered a warning shot, Laggart fired directly at it instead. However, it exploded into water instead, which activated the spores the ship was sailing on, grabbing hold and stopping it. The crew was ecstatic, Laggart was confused, and Crow was... angry."

[az_fell]

Aziraphale winces. "That was well-done of you," he says with appreciation, "but I can only imagine how Captain Crow must have taken it." Tress is so lovely, and Aziraphale already liked her quite a bit, but this act of bravery, also an act of mercy, makes him like her even more.

[sporesprouter]

"Well, the crew was thrilled, so she managed to rein it in enough, probably just to keep up morale. The other ship fired a surrender flare and the crew was about to board when the seethe stopped. Now that we didn't have the advantage of mobility, the other ship took the chance of firing at us. They got a good hole in the side of the ship. Crow immediately managed to shoot and kill their cannonmaster, but then she ordered Ann and me belowdecks to patch the hole before the stilling stopped. Keep in mind, I had only really just gotten somewhat familiar with my quarters. I hadn't really worked with the spores yet."