( one. ) voice • scientia potestas est [ id: nightingale ]

[ettersberg]

[ thomas nightingale does, in fact, know how to use a smartphone. he's owned one for quite a while before the end of the world; google maps in particular has always struck him as rather useful. the knowledge of how to operate such a device comes in handy now as well, though he's not entirely sure yet why he's bothering.

(the answer is peter; peter would want to know and nightingale would hate not to have any answers at all by the time his apprentice wakes up. because peter will wake up, surely. eventually.)

so there is no fumbling, no pauses when the device clicks on except deliberate ones, and a smooth, very british and posh-sounding voice inquiring: ]

It seems magic is not out of the ordinary, here. Someone has already inquired about those who believe in or practice magic, but I'd be interested to hear how magic was regulated, if at all, in your worlds. That, and whether there were particular ill-effects to it.

[ here, there is one of the aforementioned deliberate pauses. ] I'd also appreciate hearing of your experiences with employment.

Thank you.

Comments

[politrick]

I've heard it's going to be better eventually. Don't get me wrong, I'm glad— but seeing it for myself was always part of the dream, you know?

[It's difficult to wrap his head around it, but the fact that plenty of people have recognized him from, well, the obvious at least makes it easier to believe. As for "smart phones"-] The little box is smarter than me, I think.

[ettersberg]

[ there's a pause, a moment of silence except for the brief noise of assent that accompanies nightingale inclining his head in acknowledgement, unseen.

then: ] I don't think they have any intellect of their own.

[politrick]

[Ah... he's too ye olde to make jokes, noted.]

Yes, I— I had figured that much out on my own. Did take a few weeks.

[ettersberg]

[ nightingale didn't grow up with the technology. he's seen it invented, certainly, but at the time? at the time, he'd been rather busy pretending that the world wasn't still turning. pretending that magic was leaving instead of returning, that he would age and die, the same as everyone else. (the same as those practitioners still left, at least.)

point being: his attitude toward it is not one of embracing it all, not exactly. though google maps is really rather useful. ]

You've been here longer than I have, then.

[politrick]

Two months now, more or less. They dropped us in metal tubes from space the first time.

[So... while the teleporting method wigs him out, there are pros and cons.]

[ettersberg]

How was the landing?

[ somehow, nightingale doesn't expect that it was pleasant, but perhaps he's mistaken about that. ]

[politrick]

Oh, dreadful. Nobody died, though, for what it's worth.

[It was a wild couple days.]

[ettersberg]

That's something, I suppose.

[ his tone is utterly dry, but not quite sarcastic. it is something. some days, it's all you get. ]

[politrick]

I suppose. There was a party on the way here, which was... appreciated.

[Strange and jarring after being dropped out of the sky, but it was, indeed, something.]

[ettersberg]

Did you land a long way from the city?

[politrick]

Quite a ways, yes. Took maybe a week to walk here, but we did stop—there's a little outpost out there, they were very helpful.

[ettersberg]

That's good to know. Though I'm hardly sorry to have missed it.