ic inbox ( ruby city )

[mylegacy]

"Leave a message, per favore; I'll be back before you know it."

[text|voice|video]

Comments

[starmark]

[Sea Glass™: the new Otters™, as conversational Hail Marys go.]

Yeah. Because of the color. The prolonged exposure to the water and its pH polishes it and gives it a kind of frosted quality, but it's translucent. If you but it near light, a glow comes through.

Like stained glass, but softer. It takes decades, and the glass comes from things like bottles and other glass objects that were lost overboard at sea, or in shipwrecks. Beer bottles. Vases, stuff like that.

Sunset colors are the hardest to find. Reds, oranges, yellows. Purple, because there aren't many things made of purple glass in general. The most common are white, green, and brown. Industrial bottles, clear glass.

I like the turquoise best.

[mylegacy]

I didn't know any of that.

[It's even, like. 10% interesting, and he can easily fake the other 90%.]

Is turquoise hard to find? Since it's green, but also blue.

[starmark]

Actually, yeah.

I read somewhere that most turquoise glass comes from broken seltzer bottles from the early 1900s. But there isn't a lot of turquoise glass period because it's a hard color in general to make consistently. Some batches would come out too green, some too blue. Too hard to standardize.

So a lot of people didn't do it.

[mylegacy]

It sounds pretty, though. Better than if it was all the same.

[starmark]

It is. I think that's one of the reasons I like it.

That and it's just...a good color. Like little bits of solid ocean.

[mylegacy]

[This is weirdly charming. Not sure what to do about it.]

I didn't realize it was your favorite color. Bits of solid ocean. I just thought.

You worked so well by the sea, once you made that choice. I thought you must have a connection to it, somehow.

[starmark]

Have you ever felt...I don't know. Maybe it was a poem, or something like that. But something that just made sense, even if you couldn't explain why?

It's like that. I just like it. The color, the things that live in it, the way the water supports you from all sides. It makes sense, when a lot of other things don't.

[mylegacy]

[Family. Fighting. Revenge. Joseph. Yeah.]

Once or twice.

I'm glad it was the right advice, then. Although maybe next time it should be something that's from there, not just something that looks like there.

[starmark]

Next time?

[mylegacy]

. . . Were you planning on never having a birthday ever again?

[starmark]

I figure odds are you'll have killed me for something before then.

[mylegacy]

I will if you don't shut the fuck up.

[starmark]

Teach me how to walk on water.

[mylegacy]

So I can drown you?

[starmark]

If I do it right, you won't be able to. I'll be above the water, not beneath it.

[mylegacy]

It was a joke.

I'll teach you.

[starmark]

I know. I was, too.

Are you willing to tell me how Kakyoin's doing? In his training. It's okay if you're not.

[mylegacy]

Depends. Why do you want to know?

[starmark]

The other day, he.

...

His self-esteem took a bad hit. Hamon makes him feel like he's good at something.

[mylegacy]

I know.

He's doing well. There's one road block he's facing, but he's chipping away at it. I don't anticipate it still being a problem in a month or two, although I'm sure he does.

[starmark]

That's good. That he's on his way, that'll be good. He'll get it.

What's the road block? If it's not...if that's something you can say.

[mylegacy]

I don't know if I should tell you. Not because it's bad. I just don't think he'd want me discussing his weaknesses with anyone, even you.

[starmark]

That's fine. I figured as much, anyway.

...You probably could've said "especially you", and it still would've been true.

[mylegacy]

What do you

[Wait. No. Actually . . . he thinks he gets it.]

Because he doesn't think he's good enough.

[starmark]

Right. He can't make mistakes in front of me. He can't have flaws in front of me. He screws up and it's never just "I screwed up", it's "I failed you, I know you probably hate me now, you think this, you think that."

I can't get through to him. I never will, not about that. Because deep down it's not really about what I say. It's about what he thinks I'm going to, and I can't change that.