fandomtownies | Our Lady of Fandom; Friday [ 09/08 ]

Entry tags:

$church

Our Lady of Fandom; Friday [ 09/08 ]

Sister Rosette had experienced far too many dull days in this place. She was trying to concieve of a special event that might, even if temporarily, inspire some people to come and keep her from being bored and polishing windows all day. From the small library of various religious texts found in the basement, she had found a collection of various religious holidays. She sat in a corner of the church behind the alter, legs spread and the massive volume on the floor between them, leaning over as she flipped through the pages to find one that might be coming.

Tomorrow, according to some fairy tradition, was apparantly Badger Scratching Day. Hmmmm, maybe they should skip that one...

She flipped a few more pages, but found herself going back, a dreadfully pensive look on her face.

Then again....

[[ the nun's available for all your spiritual needs, although I might not be until after 8 EST ]]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

At some point after the faculty gathering at the school, Aziraphale decided to wander down to the church and see how Rosette was getting on with her repairs. What she'd said about the roof was still on his mind, and he was worried that there might be some real damage that could cause problems in the future.

Like the next time it rained pudding.

So he stepped inside the little church and looked around to see if he could spot the young nun.

Aziraphale just may have noticed the massive tape-up job on the rafter over the head of the statue of Saint Joseph that now sported an eyepatch. Maybe.

The nun, however, in her increasing knowledge of which pillars hid her best from the door, was much more difficult to notice, except perhaps the toe of her boot sticking out somewhere.

But that's what Chrono was there for. "Hello, sir." The purple-haired demon boy seemed quite happy to have an excuse to escape from the little old ladies. "If you need her, Sister Rosette's back behind the alter doing some, uh, research. I can help you if you need anything, too. Or we can just get out of your way, if that's what you want, too." He smiled.

"Good day, my dear," Aziraphale replied, looking at Chrono with just a moment's surprise. Until he reminded himself that he had no room to be surprised in the least.

"Yes, I think I would like to speak with Sister Rosette. She mentioned a problem with the, er...roof..."

He looked up and then noticed the massive application of tape. Well...that's exactly what she'd said she'd done. Perhaps it was some sort of special holy tape...

"It'll be a miracle for certain if that stays up there," he murmured. Smiling at Chrono, he added in a voice that was actually meant to be heard, "If she's busy, though, I can come back another time."

"Oh, yes, that." Chrono's eyes widened signficantly, then closed tightly in a force smile. His embarrassed misery was palpable. "The thing with the roof wasn't nearly as bad as that first week with the baptismal fount...but just head on back there. I'm sure she won't mind an interuption."

The baptismal as well? Aziraphale was starting to get a little worried, as he smiled his thanks at Chrono and stepped around behind the altar to look for Rosette.

Seeing her there with her books, he coughed softly and said, "Er...I beg your pardon, my dear. I do hope you don't my interrupting you?"

Rosette, rather engrossed in reading about strange, paganisitic Shinto ceremonies that involved masks and possibly human sacrifices (the languages seemed very veiled, so she couldn't be certain), jumped at the sound of a voice. "Oh!" she said when she noticed that someone had approached. She placed a marker in the book, closed it softly, and held it a moment as she looked up at him with a bright smile. "You're the angel tea guy, right?" She couldn't remember if he had told her his name...and, if he had, she'd definately accidently forgotten it. And felt quite bad about it, too.

Hmm. Sounded like someone must have been telling tales on him, because Aziraphale was quite certain Rosette hadn't known what he was the last time they met. He smiled warmly, and nodded.

"Aziraphale, yes. I thought I might look in and see how your roof situation was, but you look very busy. I'm terribly sorry to take you away from your reading."

Aziraphale, Aziraphale, Aziraphale. Rosette repeated it several times in her head; why did Higher Beings always have such difficult names? She wondered if maybe there was something she could call him that'd be a little quicker. And hopefully not offensive.

"Oh, no, you're not interupting anything, Azi," she said, giving a wave of her hand and testing out the new name. "I was just looking into some possible holidays to celebrate around here. It's an interfaith church and all that, but I don't know much about other faiths, so I thought I'd see if there were any fun ones in other religions that might attract more people to come visit me." She grinned up at him. "Did you know that tomorrow is Badger Scratching Day? I hope I don't offend any fairies by doing so, but I think I'll skip that one..."

"And, oh, yeah! The roof is fine! That tape worked like a charm!"

He raised an eyebrow at the nickname, and realized he seemed to be doing that a lot lately. Maybe he should try to stop being so surprised by things. This was Fandom, after all. Nothing ought to come as a surprise.

Tilting his head, Aziraphale looked down at the book Rosette was holding. "Er...I'm not certain there are any badgers on the island anyway. So, it might be a difficult holiday to celebrate?" Hopefully that was all the encouragement the young nun needed to skip that particular festival.

Again he looked up toward the roof. "Is it...magic tape? And...forgive me for seeming not to know these things, but...has Joseph always had only one eye?"

"I think it would be difficult to celebrate even if there were," she pointed out with a very knowledgably nod.

"And it's gaffer tape? I dunno, I never heard of it, but it's what the smelly guy at the store suggested. But it seems to work, because they didn't have duct tape. Which I was told by one of the old ladies would work; I had to take their word for it because I've never head of duct tape before, either."

"And, in the book of Rosette, he does. He was a carpenter, so you've got to figure he'd obtained a few splinters in the eye here and there. I figured this makes him more humane; the working class can relate to him better, and I think they should, because Joe? Was a good, upstanding working class sorta guy, don't you think?"

Rosette beamed up at Aziraphale. She liked him. He was fun to talk at...errr, to.

Aziraphale had never heard of gaffer tape either. Or of duct tape. So he supposed it was entirely possible that either one of them might very well be useful for...taping a roof together.

Yeah.

He had to agree with Rosette's take on Joseph, though. At least the part about him being an upstanding, working class sort of man. "Well...yes, I suppose you do have a point. Although...I don't recall him ever having lost an eye..."

Rosette did seem like a nice enough person though. "Tomorrow is also teddy bear day (http://www.holidayinsights.com/moreholidays/September/teddybearday.htm)? And, er...Tuesday is Chocolate Milkshake Day (http://www.123greetings.com/events/national_chocolate_milkshake_day/)."

No, don't ask him how he knows this.

"Yeah, well...Neither did I, but he lost it on the statue so..." Rosette shrugged.

But she did rather like his suggestions. "Do those days have religious connotations?" She opened her book again and started skimming through the index.

Did badger scratching have religious connotations?

Aziraphale puzzled over the idea for a moment. "Well...I suppose you could consider the teddy bear to be a sort of...er, mystical totem? For children, you know. And...people do rather seem to worship chocolate..."

He shrugged his shoulder. "I'm afraid I don't really know very much about holidays. I never really spent much time celebrating them, until I came here."

According to the book ~~and my Cottington's Pressed Fairy calendar~~, it did.

Rosette tapped her chin very thoughtfully. "I definately have to agree on the chocolate. I'll definately have to consider it. I'm just trying to think of something to get people involved a little more in the church, but I don't want to keep it exclusive to just my religion, so I'm trying to broaded my horizons a bit."

[[ sorry about delays; lots of stuff going on right now and notifications being all weird ]]

"Well...I've found that food is always a popular draw. And music. Perhaps some sort of concert? Or...er...a social hour after service?"

Really, his church-attending history was pretty weak, and Aziraphale had no idea what religious people did to socialize.

"I'd be very happy to help, if there's some way I might be able to, my dear. Although I do have to admit, getting people more involved in church isn't...really my line of work."

Yeah, sort of a strange thing to hear coming from an angel.

Rosette sighed heavily, book closing again and hunching forward, hands between her legs. "It's hard to do something that organized," she said, sounding almost like she could be close to crying. "It's hard here. Because of how the church is, we offer services based on requests. And the only people who ever request anything are those two little old ladies who have me run a mass for them sometimes, or read Scriptures, or the occational confession....And that's it..."

She gulped, biting down on her lip. "I'm doing so horribly here..."

Oh dear, this wasn't what he'd intended at all! Aziraphale knelt down next to Rosette and put his hand on her shoulder.

"My dear, you're not doing horribly at all. Perhaps you simply weren't intended to minister from within the church. Surely there are some good deeds you can do to help in the town, instead of wasting your energy trying to create services no one attends?"

Rosette shrunk a little bit, looking up at him. She sniffed a little. "You think so? Like what?"

Aziraphale felt terrible about upsetting the young woman, and sat down on the floor next to her. "I'm certain of it, my dear. You could, er...do good deeds for people. Like...visit at the clinic when people are injured, or even...ah...do nice things for the people at the shops. Or something."

He was sure there were lots of things Rosette could do within the community, he just wasn't completely sure what those things might be.

"Hey, yeahhh," a smile appeared lightly. "Those do sound like good things I could do. And they'd beat hanging around here all the time, anyway. Heee." The smile became a gentle beam. "Thanks for the good ideas, Azi."

Very relieved to see Rosette smiling against, Aziraphale smiled as well. "Quite, my dear. Not that I think you should neglect the church of course. And perhaps once people get to know you as part of the community, you'll see more of them here as well."

Tilting his head, he gave her an inquiring look. "Are you certain you wouldn't like me to, er...take a look at the roof?"

Rosette smiled a bit more at the encouraging words, and then shrugged with a dismissive wave of her hand. "Aw, it's right as rain, really. But you're welcome to have a look at it if you want. I wouldn't mind none."

Raising an eyebrow at the young nun, Aziraphale nodded and stood up, moving to get a better view of the damage.

"You...certainly have done a thorough job of, er...taping it up. It looks very...well-taped."

[ooc: He can fix it if you like, or leave it as it is if you'd rather. He won't touch the Joseph statue, though. :D]

Rosette grinned, peeking out from behind the alter at where he inspected the rafter. "Oh, thank you! We tried really hard to get it!"

[[ let's have him fix it! but, yes, Joseph stays hehe ]]

"Quite. I ah...erm."

Aziraphale coughed softly, and looked around at the sanctuary. "Do you know...if you had a ladder handy, I might just be able to fix a bit of a spot I can see from here. If you don't mind, of course. Oh, here we go, this will do nicely."

Before Rosette could reply, he'd 'found' a ladder -- possibly the one she'd used before, possibly an entirely new ladder that had no idea how it had gotten itself on the inside of a church -- and climbed up to take a look. Brushing his fingers over the damaged place, he nodded to himself, sparing a sympathetic glance for poor one-eyed Joseph before climbing back down.

"There you are, my dear. No worries about the rain coming in now. So I'll...just be on my way, if you're doing all right? And perhaps we'll see each other again soon," he added, smiling at the young nun.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Our Lady of Fandom; Friday [ 09/08 ]

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject