💔︎ · audio

[dragony]

So I've... well. I seem to have been roped into another job, with neither warning nor explanation, and I'm left with no... ethical way to quit, I suppose. At least, I don't think I'd be able to tolerate the consequences, if I tried.

[ Ruka doesn't post often, and when she does it's usually either about the fucking apocalypse, or some vaguely maudlin waxing about the passage of time. This is definitely not the former, but it doesn't sound much like the latter, either. She trails off and rephrases as she speaks; there's no noise or sign of anything going on in the background, but her voice is airy, distant — easily distracted. ]

It's nothing I have experience with, but we come from all types, don't we. So, do any of you have much experience working with charities? Charitable foundations, maybe. Less, uh, the voluntary fieldwork stuff, more the... resources, and financials. Organization. The gears of the machine. If you will.

[ ... ]

... Thanks in advance.

Stay safe out there.

Comments

private voice

[queenofseers]

[ Cassandra may have become quite reclusive as of late, but Ruka’s been a good friend. She ought to say something. ]

Hey. I can’t say I do, but- you need help with anything else? I’ve, uh, got time on my hands, I guess.

just a private phone call the whole way down;

[dragony]

... Hey. It's... been a while.

[ It's been since that trainwreck of a summoning at Kanaya's place, trying to contact Atropos, and everything that came after. Like that, it's not surprising it's been so long, between the mess with the bleed-out dreams, and how bad a reaction Ruka herself had to the whole thing, and Kanaya porting in the quiet thereafter...

That doesn't even feel like half of it. ]

I don't know. It's, um. It's been a while since I've had to worry about estates.

[queenofseers]

[ Cassandra sighs. ] Yeah. It has. I get the impression we both dropped off the face of the Earth.

[ Although Ruka did in a very different way. ]

Who was it?

[dragony]

... Yeah. It's been... a weird few months, I think.

[ Most of it bad, but not all so. Still, there's an audible hesitation on the line — because saying it makes it real, and it's still unfathomable. ]

... It's, uh. Senator Hundred.

[queenofseers]

Hell. Yeah, I heard.

[ She'd talked to Hundred maybe twice, but he seemed alright enough, at least for a senator. ] Fuck, hadn't he been an imPort since...before there were imPorts? [ There goes a lead. ]

I'm sorry, Ruka. He didn't have advisors or lawyers who know more about all of it? He must have, right?

[dragony]

Yeah. He arrived the same year I did. Only, he never left before. Not once.

In ten years. Not once.

...

I'm sure he does. Did. But this is something that was specifically put down in my name. ... [ Breathy: ] God, he would pull shit like this.

[queenofseers]

Fucking hell. That’s- incomprehensible.

[ She at least assumed Hundred would have had some brief port-outs. But...Christ. ]

Who the hell knows what makes the Porter send back someone like that. But- you know what, you don’t want me going on about that shit. [ Now she can at least tell that. ]

He must have thought you can handle it. There must be...contacts somewhere. Documents.

voice

[knaval]

Hey, pirate! I worked out how to do sick flips off waves in my alt mode! You wanna come see?

[it is by design that he is not touching on absolutely anything in this post.]

[dragony]

Oh, don't you start. I've never been directly responsible for any thefts of or committed on boats.

[ Playing along, but there's not as much bite as usual. All the bright spirit of a helium balloon, six days after the party. ]

How sick are we talking, though?

[knaval]

Red Rust! [...] Oh, wait, you don't know what that is. Uhhh! Really sick! Terribly sick!

[there's a pause.]

Or, uh... I could... carry you to... a nice hill. Or something. Or throw some money at you so you can hire people to help you out with all this? That last one sounds better.

[dragony]

Getting money thrown at me is how I ended up in this mess!

[ She says it with an almost-teasing tone, but it doesn't hit the mark. ]

But, it... might be nice, to go out on the water. It's been a while.

[knaval]

Always good to throw more money around. Seriously, hire people to help with this. That's the only use money has.

[he shrugs it off, though, not wanting to press on it.]

Yeah? Come to Heropa beach. I'll take you out. No flips or anything.

[dragony]

... Yeah. Alright. [ She was probably heading to Heropa, anyway... ]

Should I bring anything? Fireworks, or whatever?

[knaval]

Anything you want. Fireworks, cake, balloons. Booze. Those weird sticky gel hands you fling at people?

voice;

[eloquentness]

[ Well, this sounds all-too familiar. Iris may not know who's left, let alone what kind of person they were, but running a whole non-profit on her lonesome after someone else went home...

For not the first time, she thinks about rewriting her will, just so someone else doesn't have to suffer what Ruka does. ]

I've got some. [ beat ] More than I'd like, honestly, but this place does that to us after a while. Is the foundation located in one place, or does it stretch across the country?

[dragony]

It'd be a lot less complicated, if it were something like that.

[ She sounds very tired, which... considering the topic, it's probably to be expected. ]

It's more, how to say, I've been left with finances I'm meant to put towards a specific type of charity work, but of course he didn't actually designate who is, so if I can't find anyone who is, you know, doing that work, then... I'll have to be the one to start it.

[ No Pressure. ]

[eloquentness]

[ yeah, that's not daunting or anything. ]

In that case, we can start with the kind of work your friend wanted the money to go towards and a website called Charity Navigator and work from there. [ . . . ] This kind of thing doesn't have to happen overnight, I promise, but the chances of someone else already doing this work is pretty high.

[dragony]

[ Friend, huh... even now, it feels weird to use a word like that for him, but... ]

Disaster relief. ... Specifically, disaster relief after our messes. Recovery efforts. Stuff to help undo the damage we do in this world, basically. A lot of private insurance will have exception rules for import-led collateral damage, from the sound of things, so regular people can endure a great deal of hardship, because of us.

It's a little more... niche, I think. As far as charity work goes.

[eloquentness]

Oh. [ she pauses, the idea fully dawning on her. in all of her own charity efforts, iris focused on the hospital - on healing those who've been affected by imPorts with imPort powers, and not on the other recovery efforts. or on those who may have been left behind. ] Yeah, I can't think of much that has a presence or precedent...

[ . . . ]

That doesn't make it any less important, though, or anything that we can't do. Promise.

audio

[khajidont]

[ Oh, Ruka. This sucks. ]

...you know I'm here to help if you need it. Khaji too.

[ After a second, he switches to private, of course. ]

I'm sorry. This was a big one.

[dragony]

Jaime? [ there's a quaver there, voice too sharp in the vowel, a startled oh with a fumbling of the communicator, graceless and noisy, the click of fingernails against the physical device before the return feed abruptly locks to private. ]

Can I come over? Please.

[khajidont]

Of course. You don't - you don't gotta ask that anymore, Ruka. The only thing you gotta ask is to make sure I'll be there.

And I'll be there.

[dragony]

Will you?

[ Another day, and it would sound teasing. A play taunt about his schedule, his other commitments, the thousand other things that would pull him across the country, across the planet or off it — but this isn't a day like that.

She sounds sincere. She sounds scared. ]

[khajidont]

[ He can't say he blames her. ]

...Let me come get you. It'll be faster.

[ Less time waiting in flux. And it saves him from answering a question he has no good answer for. ]

[dragony]

Okay. [ God, she hates this. ] Okay. I'll be... I'm, on the roof, outside.

[ And just like that, they've lost the future tense. ]