Work Text:
Stone.
Stone watches silently as the world goes on around it. Fire comes, stone is scorched but not consumed. Winds blow, stone is smoothed but persists. Water flows, stone is cut but remains. Oceans dry, forests die, stars go dim. Mountains rise, the Earth changing around them. Sentinels of the ages. They stand, immovable. The stones of this world... rise, fall, and rise again. Stone is foundation. Strength. Unrelenting. Uncaring. It breaks the rod and blunts the knife. Timeless. Forever unmade and made again. Stone endures.
Angelus was there. “Now, tell me when it hurts.”
Giles breathed. I am stone.