a little more inspiration....

[blessedarethebookmakers]

It is late afternoon on the eighteenth, and as the mirror swims to life, it focuses on Aziraphale who is standing about halfway back in the bedroom. He stands, hands tucked in front of him, smiling but looking slightly nervous, his wings arched a bit as if he wants to show them off but not be too obvious. He smiles at the...well...mirror. Fingers clenching a little bit.

When he speaks, though, his voice is low and soothing; warm like honey and pleasant. As if he's happy to see you. And in a way, he is.

"Hello. It's nice to meet you all. My name is Aziraphale and I'm an Angel. Well... Principality if you want to be precise, but that doesn't particularly matter here. First of all, I want to thank everyone who helped me out the other day and apologize for being a bit short with them. This human body is a new thing for me and I rather fear I don't have the hang of it quite yet.

But, we're all a little out of our element here, aren't we? This is a new place for us. A new experience. And a battle we must fight for the good of others who need our help. And sometimes, we can feel stuck, trapped even-- For instance, my wings are rarely displayed and not precisely corporeal when they are. If I need to remove my coat, I can do so with ease. Now, unfortunately, they are as solid as the rest of me.

And yet..." He dips his head and there is a bit of a cheeky smile. "With a little Faith." He hopes. No! Believes! "We can perform miracles."

Then he closes his eyes and focuses, concentrates, believes with everything in him that he still has the capacity for this kind of faith, this kind of miracle. That he will be able to take off his clothes with no problems at all.

All at once he can feel something catch. Something bright and cool and refreshing flow through him and around him.

Anyone looking in would be able to see a faint white gold light beginning to shimmer around him, a wind stirring the curtains and his hair. Perhaps there is a faint vibration, for the mirror slips, so only his head and shoulders are in view. The light seems to flash around him and then--!

He can feel the coolness leave him slowly, like a wave pulling from shore. With a thrilled smile he looks down and notices he did indeed manage to remove his coat as he'd hoped. Or perhaps made it disappear completely. As well as his vest, his shirt, his undershirt-- in fact the only thing left is the fob watch lying helpfully between his bare feet.

"Ah-- Ahem. Well! Slight miscalculation! But as you can see! Everything is just...just tickety...." And then the cold rushes back at once like a tsunami and for the second time in as many days, darkness crashes through him and he pitches forward and out of view.

There is a faint thud as he hits the floor.

But he'll be able to reply to any and all responses in a few hours...

...Probably.

Comments

[smilingarmor]

Sylvando quirked an eyebrow at the mention of 'insider information', but didn't say anything. Partly because what came next somewhat overshadowed it, Sylvando's expression becoming more serious and hinting at the answer to Crowley's question before he'd even said anything.

"'Odd' is certainly one way of putting it, darling," Sylvando said, considering how far he wanted to get into things. How much of the story he wanted to tell. Finally he just sighed and said, "I'm afraid it's a bit of a long story, though. And a great deal of it has more to do with the Luminary- the one destined to drive out the darkness- than the Darkspawn. Truly, I'm not even sure there was a Darkspawn, or if those tales were just a ploy by the Lord of Shadows, but true or not, it doesn't change what happened."

"So I suppose the question is, how much of the story do you want to hear?", he asked. "All of it? Or should I just skip to the ending?" He honestly wasn't sure which he preferred. Neither would be especially pleasant to tell, so he left it up to Crowley.

[serpentinthegarden]

Crowley's nose crinkled again.

"That's usually the way it is. The 'light' must have better PR people."

The shrugged lightly as he poured himself a glass of wine to go with the soup.

"Maybe just skip to the ending, if there is one?"

[smilingarmor]

Sylvando didn't miss the way Crowley referred to the 'light', but for the moment opted not to comment on it.. He nodded slightly at Crowley's choice. The short version was probably the better option anyway.

"An evil sorcerer named Mordegon possessed the King of Heliodor," Sylvando said. "He used that position to spread the lie that the Luminary was really the Darkspawn, and to bring the might of Heliodor's greatest knights to bear against him. But all of that was just the opening act; a means to an end."

"Disguised as the King, he was able to make his way to Yggdrasil, the great World Tree," he said. "All the way to the Heart of Yggdrasil in fact; the source of all life in Erdrea, and the most sacred place in it. Once there, he ambushed the Luminary and ripped his power from his body."

"He used that power to get access to the Heart of Yggdrasil and claim the Sword of Light, the weapon meant to defeat the darkness. He corrupted the Sword, twisting it into his own Sword of Shadows, then used it to drain away the power of the Heart of Yggdrasil itself, causing the World Tree to wither and fall."

"Mordegon used his new power to rain destruction down on Erdrea, and took up a new title: the Lord of Shadows. His Fortress of Fear took Yggdrasil's place in the sky, and all those who managed to survive his initial rain of destruction spend their days living in fear, just trying not to give in to despair or become a monster's dinner."

"And that's how things have been for the past few months," he said. "My boys and I do what we can to bring a few smiles back to people's faces, but..." He shrugged, sighing a bit. "There's only so much our little parade can do, you know?"

He didn't mention how he knew what had happened at the Heart of Yggdrasil, but Crowley might find it telling that Sylvando knew so much detail of the confrontation.

[serpentinthegarden]

"So evil won?"

Oddly enough he found he had mixed feelings on that. If evil won the coming conflict on Earth he wouldn't be trapped in an eternal pit... but too much would change or be destroyed! And who knew what would happen to the angels, or more specifically one particular angel.

"That's a twist. Good is always so certain it will be the one that wins."

[smilingarmor]

"Si," Sylvando said simply. Evil won, and now... now no one knew quite what to do. Or if there was even anything to be done.

"I think it's more that, for most of us, we don't dare think too much about the alternative," he said. Even if they now had no choice.

"Though that may be a bit different for you, hmm?" Yes that was totally an attempt to shift the conversation away from what was happening in his own world by hinting that he'd figured out the Crowley was a demon.

[serpentinthegarden]

Sylvando had never spoken to an angel about Armageddon, trust him, good was always so very sure it would win. Aziraphale had been terribly arrogant about that until the issues with a perfectly 'good' world were pointed out to him.

"A bit."

The outed demon took a long sip from his wine glass, before confirming those suspicions in his own way.

"I don't care for loincloths, drafty things."

The dark wings would have given him away even if he was a good deal more fashionable than demons from Sylvando's world. He wasn't really trying to hide here.

[smilingarmor]

Strictly speaking, Sylvando had never spoken to an angel about anything, as he had yet to have an actual conversation with Aziriphale. But even if he had he might well agree with Crowley that a perfectly 'good' world wouldn't be all that it was cracked up to be.

"I don't blame you at all, darling," he said. "Though I will admit, I took you for another angel at first, given that you have far more style than any demon I've ever encountered. And of course your lovely wings; the few sorts of demons in my world who have wings at all tend to have ones more similar to a bat's or dragon's wings, not ones with feathers."

"Not to mention that very few monsters of any sort would be inclined to sit down for a reasonable conversation with a human," he added. "Though there are exceptions to that, of course."

[serpentinthegarden]

Ha! Excellent point! It was more like talking at Aziraphale at the moment rather than with him, the poor angel had been asleep for most of it.

The rest of what Sylvando said he was halfheartedly of the mind to be offended by. Being mistaken for an angel! Really! His wings were black as night not white like an angel's... granted they looked the same beyond that, same shape, same feathers. He supposed there was some kind of ineffable point to be made in that but he wasn't the one to make it.

Instead he stretched his wings slightly before tucking them in neatly behind him and finishing off his wine.

"I've found conversations are a better way to get to know your neighbors."

And in this case a better way to ensure you will get more of their cooking in future.

"It was a excellent meal. We will have to do this again once Aziraphale is feeling up to joining us."

[smilingarmor]

"Given the usual tactics of demons in my world, that's quite true," Sylvando said. "And also a much better way of ensuring that you still have neighbors to get to know." After all, the demons and other sorts of monsters in Erdrea didn't tend to go in as much for the tempting, and tended to skip straight to maiming, murdering, and generally causing mayhem and destruction. Not exactly things that would make anyone want to live nearby.

Meanwhile Sylvando took the cue to wrap up their conversation for what it was, and finished his own wine. "That we must," he said. "I hope he feels better soon. And do let him know that his demonstration was appreciated, even if it didn't quite go as planned."