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The snake rears, forever frozen in place as Eve reaches for the apple that began it all and the angel that should have stopped it clasps his hands tightly in his lap. The principality of earth lacks purpose in this new realm, this blissful and sterile Eden won by sword and grace and glorified privilege.
History is held within these works of art, the stories of millennia summarised in glistening canvases. Few frequent the gallery; Aziraphale is one of them. No matter how often he submits to the pilgrimage, he always finds himself drawn to this seat. To this piece.
Eve looks so beautiful, in this artistic rendering, a vision crafted direct from the Almighty’s purest hand. There is nothing of her personality in the weave, no expression beyond sheerest bliss as she glides among the glory of God. The serpent, in contrast, is monstrous. Venom drips from gaping fangs, beading eternally along the sharp tip as madness is reflected in the eyes of the beast. Oblivious to the demon at her back, Eve’s fingers are moments from the forbidden fruit; a cacophonous tumult of colour and agony. The promise of a future, in a fruit.
Aziraphale remembers the scene quite differently. He recalls a serpent of red and black, crawling at Eve’s feet. A freshly formed human, free of fear and hate, kneeling to caress the shining scales of the wary creature. A demon forming at his side, regret and confusion in his voice as he inadvertently reveals the lack of malice in his thoughtless act. The sword he gave away long ago hangs by his hip as he stands, unable to reside in the mire of memory for any longer on this day. War had gripped him by the lapels as the embodiment of humanity’s fear and rage grinned wildly in the bloodshed of the Victory. Heedless of their own coming destruction under Heaven’s harmonious reign, the gifted pommel of the lost sword was thrust into his hold. “Use it well,” a sultry voice purred in his ear, “Remember me, Guardian of the Eastern Gate.” War itself had turned to mist between his fingers as the final cry rang out, as the last demon submitted, snarling and screaming.
Michael had been impressed, when she came upon him after the final battle, the Last of the Wars that would ever be. Gold and silver bled together across the metal, the flames of Heaven’s glory burnishing the true essence of angel and demon alike into an ashen sheen. They had thought the kills his own; he had not corrected the erroneous assumption.
He walks past scenes of all kinds, sewn perfectly by the infallible hands of angels. Here, the moment before the collapse of the ambitious Tower of Babel, a goat-horned demon lurking amidst humans who dared launch an assault against Heaven itself. There, an oxen monster bellowing laughter before a small boy with a sling, a peaceful angel planted behind with a hand placed lightly against the child’s shoulder, wings spread in glorious challenge. The wiles of Hell, the corruption and penitence of humanity and wordless among it all, the irrefutable superiority of Heaven.
His heels do not click against the pristine floor of Heaven; there is no place for ambient interruptions in the continuous glory of God’s name.
Gabriel glances aside as he approaches, a short and dismissive nod as he returns to his vigil. Aziraphale draws level and looks upon the world he once protected. Adam’s land is barren, stripped bare and broken from the assault perpetuated upon it. The Antichrist had raged as they warred around him, drawing all he could to his side. In the end, Adam had not taken command of the legions of Hell, had turned his back on the host of Heaven. He had withheld his favour from all participants, more concerned by the devastation unleashed than the desperately pursued outcome.
Hell had buckled under the ordered assault of Heaven, their disorganised forces splintering under the strategic obedience of angels who knew better than to question. Demons fled, succumbed to bloodlust, even swarmed into the meat of humanity in their bid to escape the slaughter, to bring an enemy down with them, to make the kill hurt. Angels do not mourn their brethren, when the loss is God’s righteous judgement and nothing more than necessity in the War they have waited the lifetime of a planet to enact. Angels do not make the mistake of empathy and compassion when faced with a beast of evil. And angels have killed humans in their thousands, their millions, when Heaven decrees it should be so.
They followed the deserters into Hell and fell upon them with the fury of the virtuous.
The demons had been wilier than anticipated; the Antichrist had been turned against them. While they slaughtered the hosts of the demons in their bid to destroy the monstrous taint of the Fallen, Adam was gathering what he could of humanity. The child of Lucifer looked upon the genocide of his fellow humans, a necessary by-product of the Final War, and rebelled. He sealed what humans he could in a veil of his own power and watched as the agents of Heaven descended into Hell. He made a Decree, one that no lowly angel nor demon could combat.
Hell was shattered, split asunder, angels crowed the word of Victory and Adam made an Oath. He banished them to Heaven, scraped a line between realities and swore they would never walk his Earth again. Humanity slumbers as the Antichrist walks the salted land and tries to coax life back into the broken planet. Hell lies cracked and empty, its occupants dust upon Adam’s silent world or cowering in Heaven’s halls. And Heaven stands above and observes, waiting for Adam to concede, waiting for the Oath that will never be fulfilled to instead, one day, be rescinded.
“He’ll break, eventually,” Gabriel murmurs and Aziraphale turns his head, listening, “He’ll understand he needs us, in the end. He’ll need workers, to set the world to rights, to fill it with God’s final peace.”
“He is human,” Aziraphale replies softly, “He is mourning. Grief is not so easily misplaced.”
Gabriel’s brow furrows, the concept incomprehensible to him. Aziraphale knows it well, but he does not feel like sharing his insight with the archangel. He bows his head, a sign of respect perhaps, to his superior; or perhaps to the boy walking the ruins of a place he would once have called home. He turns and leaves Gabriel to his silent vigil.
He passes Keshiel, Praxias, Lorendiel. They acknowledge his presence, these survivors of his platoon, gaze lingering on the blade by his side. He had been a poor commander, in the fray. Forgiven, for the multitude of lives staining his sword and for his role in keeping the Great Tempter from twisting the Antichrist’s ear. He had done no such thing and deserved none of the praise given, yet it keeps Heaven from his back and for that, he accepts it humbly.
His feet bring him to the doors of Heaven’s library, to the illustrious store of Knowledge and he slips beneath the mighty arch. There are angels that would greet him, should he desire to announce himself. He does not. There is a book here; one he consults regularly, since becoming sealed behind Heaven’s walls. Its pages are blank, its spine empty. As he draws deeper between the towering shelves, he finds it where last he left it, tucked quietly between treatises on the structure of a soul. Non-descript, unobtrusive. He pulls it into his hands, the soft leather as pure and beautiful as the unicorn foal that once laid claim to it. He places his hand upon the plain cover, remembering. Eyes slip shut, the warmth of a beloved home simmering beneath his skin, the scent of handmade cocoa passing briefly across his senses. The uncomplicated quiet of a night spent by flickering candlelight, the boundless imagination of humanity lain open upon his lap. The book responds amidst his aura of peace, humming lowly beneath his palm.
It is ready to listen.
He leaves it to the book to decide what he needs to read, on another endless day, what wisdom it believes would be suitable to impart to a forlorn angel, drifting through eternity. It listens to his heart and when he opens it, the pages have painted him a picture. He traces the contours of the familiar artwork with cautious fingertips, following the glimmering length of the serpent from the gallery, as furious and deadly as its twin, sewn into the canvas he visits daily.
“I know,” he murmurs lowly, “I should see the demons as they are, but I cannot. I knew one for too long; he wasn’t the monster they paint him as.” He turns the page and sweeping calligraphy greets him. A simple directive.
Look closer
“I have,” he whispers to the book, “I saw what he was beneath. He regretted the loss of your kin, you know.” He runs his fingers across the sunken ink, closes his eyes, shakes his head. “I wish I knew what became of him. He was truer in virtue than any angel I have spoken with since.” The vellum page curls beneath the soft pressure he exerts, shifting carefully aside as he seeks the books response.
You are blinded to the truth
His teeth grit; he forces the irritation down. This is why he is here, to find the answers another angel would condemn him for. The silent book has no capacity to lie, no desire to deceive. He thinks carefully on his reply. “How can I see what I refuse to,” he entreats, “how can I face the truth I turn from?” Paper slips between his fingers and he finds his instructions printed plainly.
Seek the artists
Join them
Craft art of your own design
Perhaps there, understanding will welcome you
A sigh breaks from his lips, a tacit agreement. He will do as the book suggests; mayhap he will find purpose in scribing the history of the land he is now barred from in visual form. With luck, the work may open his eyes to the reality he now exists within. It could prove distracting, at the least.
He folds the book gently closed and rests his palm atop it once more. “I thank you for your counsel,” he acknowledges, returning the slumbering tome to its resting place, “I will seek their guidance.” He walks among books without heart as he retreats from the library, honoured pages soaked in purest love. There is no emotion within their ink, no imagination coating their covers, no fondness left dancing along their spines. It leaves him cold, barren. Loneliness seeps into the depths of him.
He wanders the halls of Heaven but no artists cross his path. His belief is not in the act and so Heaven does not reveal them to him. Minutes pass or perhaps hours. Days themselves lack meaning in a space built before time, especially with their newly severed separation from Adam’s Earth. He finds himself back before the gallery and returns to his habitual seat. The serpent has not moved. Eve has not yet bitten into the apple, is yet to taste the sweet flavour of creation and all of the sourness still to follow. Gnarled bark twists up the tree, the apple hangs tauntingly from the branch, so low it as though it begs to be picked. Aziraphale is not represented in the artwork; he was not present at the fatal moment. It is a flaw that is now preserved in colour, hanging upon the wall of Heaven for all to see.
The serpent’s eyes were a softer gold than the sickly yellow stained into the canvas. He presses himself back to his feet and goes to seek the artists with intent.
He finds Jophiel within a room of colour and is taken aback at the vibrancy that greets him. The patron of artists greets him warmly and bids him enter as she places the final stitches within her latest artwork. “It is my calling,” she states simply when he enquires of her work, “I did not set aside my role when the humans were taken from us; that would be remiss of me.” He watches with intrigue as she pricks her closing needlework, leaching cyan blue across the embroidery. He recognises the story, if not the scene. The waters were never so calm, when he stood upon the Ark, nor were they filled with the distorted faces of the dying. Nobody floated, in the waters of the Flood.
“What does it represent, if I may be so bold,” he enquires curiously, attention caught by the combat appearing to occur in the air above the wooden island. He is fairly certain he does not remember fighting Crawly with wing and blade, as the demon was then known, and he would like to believe he would have noticed if others endangered the vessel in such a manner. The figure in shadow has wicked talons and the snarling muzzle of a canine, bared in threat. At least he is present in this woven tale, visibly attending to his given duty, generic as his depiction may be.
“You do not recognise the creature?” Jophiel retorts, appearing disgruntled, “I could have sworn I captured the likeness appropriately.” She moves to unpick the disappointment in her craft and he stops her with a placating hand.
“No, the scene is evocative,” he reassures, “You captured the frenetic motion of aerial combat wonderfully. It is only that it has been some time since the incident and I am afraid I cannot recall such an event with much clarity.”
She eyes the noted imperfection with distaste, fingers itching to correct the flaw. “I suppose that would be understandable,” she allows, clearly uncomfortable, “You were among the cacophony of humanity for an extended period, were you not? You must have encountered an absurd array of demonic interference.”
Aziraphale’s eyes unfocus, distant memories of broken conversations and shared lunches, of a demon hovering harmlessly over his shoulder. “You could say that,” he concedes quietly. She does not seem settled by his admission and he glances aside in allowance as she reworks the jaws and stretching talons of the distorted creature. He strays towards her blank canvases as she mutters under her breath behind him, fingers hovering near their silken edges. “May I,” he starts, pulls back the words and begins again, “Would you be so accommodating as to permit an apprentice? I must confess, I have found myself at something of a loose end, in recent times.”
He turns in her silence to find himself under scrutiny, the sharp gaze of an expert considering his request.
“Not everyone is suited to it,” she speaks finally, “Lauviah sickened of the craft and turned to meditative solitude; I believe the inability to achieve perfection turned her stomach, after so long studying the art. She hasn’t been right, since the Last War. What makes you propose to step in, where an angel that has analysed the practice for the lifetime of humanity has failed?”
Aziraphale considers the demand she has made, the pressure to speak true of himself. “May I?” he gestures softly, indicating the blank canvas before him. She inclines her head genially. The canvas sparks against his fingers as he carefully lifts it, turning it over in his hands. “I seek purpose,” he shares honestly, “An outlet and a distraction.” He cradles the canvas between light fingertips as he transfers it to her table. Her eyes narrow, coming to a judgement of his studious hold. Something of the substance is beginning to burn. He places it with gentle attentions against the desk, determined not to damage the perfect sheen of its unbroken stretch.
“This one is intended to hold the image of Buer, threatening the devoted in the streets of Rome,” she directs, a nail tapping once against the bracing frame keeping the material stretched taut, “Can you envision such an incident?”
He marshals his thoughts, running a finger along the fragile edge as he seeks enlightenment. An image comes to mind, unbidden. A beast of stature and flowing mane, red eyes boring into him. “A lion aspect?” he attempts, hopeful.
“I suppose that is the closest approximation to an animal of the land, that the demon mocks within its essence,” she provides, appraising him, “What of the scene you intend to bring forth?”
He scans his memories of the time, thoughtful.
“There was an arena,” he recalls, “a space where challengers and the condemned were sent to combat the creatures of the land. The devoted were matched against an animal such that Buer represents.” She waits, silently tempting further embellishment, leading him to the frozen frame he will bring to life across his canvas. “I observed one wretched soul set upon with naught but a blunt blade to defend himself. He brought the beast to heel, against all odds.”
He hesitates, the pressure to conform pressing in from all sides. He thinks upon the frames he walks past, every time he visits the immobile serpent. In every scene of triumph, an angel hovers.
“I sharpened his blade,” he lies, “imbued the human with courage. Souls were turned to God’s glory, with the act.”
She smiles, the wisdom of a tutor that has seen their pupil confront the first of many challenges and overcome the barrier. He studiously does not mention the visible ribs of the starvation driven beast, the panicked flailing that embedded a dulled blade in the animal's sensitive eye by luck alone. He doubts a demon was anywhere near the pitiful incident.
“Then that is what you will craft,” she whispers, guiding his vision as she runs her needlepoint along the blank expanse, “The beast that threatens, humanity itself at the brink of destruction, invoking Heaven’s name in their time of need. And Heaven’s answer, simple and pure; divine.”
She reaches over, cradles his hand as she places a tool of her trade between his unresisting fingers. The needle is long and slim, no thread dangling from its eye. “First, we shape the scene,” she leads, bringing his hand to the canvas, “We deliver the texture of the story.” The stretch of material yields to his needle, slipping through the silken flex of the canvas and returning with a thread of neat sheen. “The portrait itself is our material,” she enlightens, “the composition of the palette will come later.” She settles back, releasing him to the whim of creation, the thread flowing faintly from his needle.
He has dabbled in the arts of humanity, in his time among them. Painted a portrait of Leonardo, to the man’s raucous laughter; offered his hand to the crafting of costumes in William’s more sombre plays of potency. Where the materials of man would fray and weaken, when subjected to continuous stress, the canvas he works with in Heaven remains supple. Where humanity may lack materials for their trade, may find need to pause and source further ink or woven wool, Heaven offers no such break from the pure act of preservation. He weaves the muzzle of the beast into the blank space, a textured shadow of evil against the black. Potentiality inherent in the canvas bends to his will, a caricature of the Enemy as his chosen champion stands tall before them, blade in hand, as a faceless angel turns his back to the observer and guides the human’s dagger.
Colour is hidden among his weave, the material threaded through itself until a layer stands above, a physical manifestation of his falsehood. The risen texture presses into his fingers as he trails a hand along his canvas, a picture painted by touch alone. He does not know how long he has resided here, working alongside Jophiel.
When he remembers her presence, he raises his head to find she has begun work on a new piece. Shadows speaking of a cloven-hoofed beast have come to life beneath her needle, an angel wide of wing descending upon the creature, above humans bent in prayer. She pauses as she senses his attention, smiling softly to see what he has formed.
“Now, we bring it into the light,” she shares quietly, raising her needle between them, “We must determine the true nature of each part and banish the shroud that cloaks reality.” As she speaks, her grace leaks along her proffered tool, coalescing at the point in a heavenly pulse of colourful promise. Aziraphale follows her guidance, observing carefully as she narrows her focus to a single shade of emerald and pricks the surface of a leaf, pulled to the forefront of existence by delicate needlework. She presses her will into the canvas and colour bleeds from the sharp point, chasing out surrounding darkness, imbuing the wavelengths of colour that contribute to emerald alone with conviction to claim centre stage.
It is akin to watching oil spread through water, admiring the artistry of oil painting blending across parchment.
The colour contains itself to the leaf she wove, a sharp and defined boundary between the idealistic colour of life and the surrounding dark rainbow of vibrancy, so drowned in dormant possibilities. She pulls her needle away, alters her preference upon its tip as Aziraphale watches intently. Grace pulses with far greater purity than before as she pricks the centre of an angelic wing, the canvas rippling with the sheer momentum of racing clarity. The white stains the canvas, bringing no shade forth as the perfect absence of colour consumes the dark potential, streaking out along raised feathers.
“Why don’t you try?” she coaxes, now that she has provided an example to follow, “Paint your vision into reality. Condemn darkness to where it belongs, buried and out of sight.”
Obediently, he focuses on a single point of colour, the bright rose-red of spilled blood rather than the dusty copper waste he remembers coating the ground of such an arena. As he summons the shade into being, as he pricks the canvas, he can feel the resistance of the other wavelengths, of the colour he is banishing from the vicinity. The canvas would rather remain black, forever formless and unclaimed, its shadows hidden from the light. He coaxes colour from the substance, cradles it in the boundaries of his stitch work and the lightest touch of his own grace, lest the confusion of colour overtake it once more. There is no room for understatement in the artworks of the gallery, no room for the soft golden glow in a serpent's eye and so he calls upon colours bold and bright to fill the emotionless expanse.
“Acceptable,” Jophiel allows, his canvas settling under the last prick of a half-raised wing of white, “You have taken to it quickly, for a beginner.” He remembers the tutelage of Leonardo, after the man had finished his guffawing hysterics at Aziraphale’s first attempt, recalls William’s lessons in persistence until the intended outcome finally flows from deft fingers. He says nothing and accepts the muted praise.
“These are suitable enough, to be added to the collection,” she proclaims, “You may hang them and, when you are done, return to me. There are disciplines beyond my own you may find greater favour with; if not, I invite you to source a canvas of your own choosing and I would gladly accept your company again.”
He acknowledges the dismissal, content that he has carried himself with competence enough to avoid embarrassment. He gathers the pieces in the tray she indicates, burnished oaken wood that holds nothing of the scent its earthly counterpart would have held. Nobody interrupts his pilgrimage, as he returns to the place of artistic falsehoods.
He finds an opening nearby the serpent’s spitting fangs and feels guilt for hanging his scene of bloodshed so close to Eve’s innocent expression. He runs his fingers a breath away from the canvas, sensing the low pulse of his own grace bracing the garish colours within their boundaries. The lion demon he crafted is far from the image that came unbidden to mind; even when contemplating demons other than the one he claims to have known, he is corrupted. He tells himself he will remember the doubt that Heaven insists he culture, when next he seats himself before the serpent. He pretends this is a truth he will cultivate and travels the span of the gallery, seeking further openings for the freshly crafted artwork, hanging the scene of the Flood and the battle that never was. He finds space for the remainders of his cradled canvases and visits the scene of Temptation once more before returning to Jophiel as requested.
The apple is a work of purest art, swimming with hope and devastation. Eve is so vulnerable, in her innocence. Aziraphale has no excuse for being unable to prevent the act, yet even now he cannot find it in himself to condemn the demon. The oversight was his own failure, the aftermath more full of life and freedom than anything Heaven ever offered. Eden was a prison, for all its beauty; humanity would only ever have flourished through their leaving.
The gallery feels cold as he walks free of it, the low undercurrent of grace that he can now envision across the canvases only nurturing the barren absolution Heaven makes claim to.
Jophiel meets his return companionably, as far as an angel conditioned to the sterility of Heaven ever could. She offers to introduce him to Haziel, scribe of historical tomes, and he considers perpetuating the falsehoods of humanity and of Hell with words lacking heart and ink of purest black on white. Emotionless as Jophiel’s discipline appears, as lacking in shades of grey as the garish colours present, the craft is one he does not hold close to his heart. He does not believe he could abide the sterile decay of a pastime he once loved and so declines demurely. She makes mention of Israfel, voice of Heaven, of the possibility of adding his vocals to the choir. He does not see how he could craft art of his own in such a place, as the book had suggested, and so politely requests that he may remain in her tutelage.
Impressed by his apparent dedication, she agrees to take him under her wing. He falls in step with her as she leads him from her studio. “We must seek further enlightenment,” she lectures, “Each canvas has a story to tell and it is our duty to bring it to fruition. Within each demon is a lesson, a defining moment that speaks of the inherent corruption imbued by the Fall, a parable of evil and divinity and decay. It will be your burden to delve into such degeneracy and offer forth clarity.”
They pass a threshold he had not noticed and he shudders, unprepared. Before him are arrayed three shimmering canvases, colour blended and indistinct beneath the confusing flow of darkness, blank and awaiting a voice. Jophiel approaches a simple mechanism of hinged and heavy marble, two slabs conjoined, as he draws closer to the empty sheets, uncertain whether he is permitted to touch. His teacher takes hold of the pristine wheel nearby and there is the slightest sound of shifting stone as the upper marble lifts away from its sibling.
“This canvas has yet to settle,” she declares as he draws alongside, peering at the rippling material that lies flattened atop the lower bed of the press, “I shall have to show you the technique for attaching the structural frame at a later time.” The material seems almost to flex in the open air, retreating into a denser structure. “For now,” Jophiel instructs, repositioning the wheel and straining the potentiality of the substance back into a workable sheet, “You may select one of the canvases already prepared.”
He turns back to the three with permission given, finds himself drawn to the furthest left. He runs his finger along the edge, closing his eyes, seeking the image he will himself design. Every frame holds a demon, every artwork a tale of defeat or victory. Part myth, part history, part falsehood. The image of whiskers and beady eyes comes to mind and he attempts to match the imagined demon with a story. He thinks on rodents and the dangers they carry, on disease and starvation and pain. A shiver traverses down his spine as he shies from such memories and the serpent, soft and golden-eyed, comes to the fore. He pulls his hand away from the sheen of black, the image lost.
“How do you decide?” he requests of her wisdom, “How do you determine the shape of the story?”
She smiles enigmatically as she waits for his selection. “You will learn to read the weave hidden within the work,” she assures, “It is a matter of practice and belief, nothing more. Come, take command of your canvas and the story will reveal itself before you.”
She bides her time until he has settled his own decision in mind and collects the remaining two frames. He crafts a tale of hunger and loss; of a whiskered, hunching demon commanding an army of rats as an angel empowers the knights of the land to rout their gluttonous foe. He does not show the strain on Arthur’s face, a King driven to desperation in the care of his people. He does not represent the solution he recalls, a serpent coiled among the grain, sated and feigning ignorance. He pricks colour into the shadows, bleeds darkness out of unspoiled purity in arching wings. Jophiel approves and he hangs his newest lie in the gallery, avoids Eve’s guileless expression. The demon he once broke bread with is present only in the shadow of his aspect, morphed beyond recognition. The memory of Crowley lurks within his mind and he feels no closer to a buried insight of the demon’s nature than when he began.
Jophiel shows him how to attach a newly prepared canvas to its frame, how the material itself can be used to bind the expansive structure in place. He removes the next marble-pressed creation by his lonesome, preparation and binding accomplished without the hand of Jophiel. She watches on as he mimics the tale of Jonah, a sailor reaching for the sanctity of Heaven within the maw of the sea and an approaching demon of the waves; as he takes liberties with the telling of Balaam’s travels, a beast of burden causing humanity to stray with the glint of ashen hellfire in its eyes.
“The most notable stories come from the source,” she tells him, when he returns from the gallery once again, “Kernels of reality can be found even upon the tongues of demons, if you are capable of discerning truth from misdirection.” She places her pin upon the desk, empty and lacking colour. “Let us source you a tale of import, direct from a demon itself.”
His heart betrays him as he bows his head willingly, conceding to the tutorage of his better. When they approach the room of waiting canvases, she does not stop by their shelves. He keeps at her heel, following her into the heart of a place Heaven refused to open to him, a space of containment and hidden darkness. The living trophies of the Last War. The cages of forgotten demons.
He clasps his hands tightly before him, holding himself above petty emotion as he trespasses in a prison no archangel would allow, if they knew of his presence. Jophiel is not aware of his association with a demon; slander of one of Heaven’s own is a charge not lightly brought, certainly not in this post-Victory existence, against an angel with a sword so stained with blood as his own. He fears his own reaction, should he come across the one whose companionship he yearns for.
“There are sins within these demons that make me ill to think upon,” Jophiel advises, “Yet these are the stories we must seek, the depths of depravity we must drag into the light to ensure the horror of before is not forgotten, that such a tragedy of the Fall is never repeated. We shine our grace into the dark to honour God’s glory, to enable the peace invoked to glow that much brighter in comparison to what went before.”
Aziraphale does not will his attention to stray, intends his gaze to stay strictly with Jophiel herself, yet he cannot deny the instincts of eons past. He has spent six millennia responding to the pains and despair of humanity and never in all that time has he thought to distinguish between the emotions cast by humanity and those originating from a demon.
The creature cowers within their chains, a low haze emanating from their splayed wings. He tears his gaze from them, glances back to Jophiel who studies him curiously.
“If this is the demon you choose to interrogate, do not allow me to act as a hindrance,” she permits, “There is time aplenty to practice your craft.”
He has barely stepped within the secret space, barely pierced the veil of this neglected perdition. The demon’s pain calls to him, a sharp and jagged plea. They are not who Aziraphale would seek, if he were free to move unobserved. They are not the demon he would despair to look upon and they are not dust upon Adam’s world, as so many now reside whose names Aziraphale will likely never learn.
Jophiel has brought him this far and he does not know what is expected of him now. He has been advised to seek a story, although no guidance was given on how to garner such a tale. He desires to be brought here again, desires not to disappoint. The demon snared in his sight shudders.
Their distraught anticipation is a physical pressure in the air, their fear bitter upon his tongue. Ivory eyes struggle to focus as he encroaches upon their trapped form, the haze easing from their feathers taking on a sickening clarity. The purity of Heaven’s atmosphere rejects their Fallen nature, teasing into feathered barbs, drawing their silken, silver essence to the surface. His own grace warms him, basking in the uncompromising love of this realm; their own golden light lost, the demon has no recourse but to burn.
His hand lifts, looking to trail through pain-riddled wings, seeking to ease the burden of captivity. He is not here to comfort this demon. He presses his hand instead against his own collarbone, the reassuring hum of buried love, rigid and inflexible.
“I d-didn't,” the demon croaks, trembling before his presence, “Never on earth, wasn’t a field agent.”
Aziraphale spares a look over his shoulder, finds Jophiel watching calmly on. “This one has claimed such inability since it got here,” she confirms lightly, “Do not let that deter you. It has a story hidden somewhere within; if you can find it, I must count myself impressed. It will be a novel test of your technique at the least, before we move on.”
A dusting of scales along the demon’s neck causes him to reminisce as the thin weave bobs and flexes. He tries to picture harming the demon in pursuit of a story they deny existence of, held helpless before his touch as their feathers scald. Fate as nothing more than dust in Adam’s world would be kinder than this; what has this demon to look forward to, besides more of the same.
“Let us find your story together,” he soothes as the demon twitches and wings flex against hooks and pins, “Then you need never be bothered by such a question again.” Their eyes dart to Jophiel, quiet and obtrusive at his back, swim over his own carefully stoic expression. If he can guide them to some faux realisation, a fiction cloaked in the truth of conviction enough to be accepted, maybe he can spare them future torments even if further aid is beyond his capacity. “You are a reptilian demon?” he leads softly, “Akin to the lizards of the land? Alligator or pangolin, perhaps?”
The demon growls, a low and guttural sound breaking from the back of their throat and he realises he has struck a nerve. They do not spit at him, do not curse his ignorance in their compromised position. “Komodo,” they concede, ducking their head, shielding their vulnerable throat, “dragon.”
He hums lowly, brow furrowing as he searches his memories for a tale that would suit. Myths aplenty swirl within his mind, those sheltered in the creativity of humanity alone and those with solid foundation in a conflict of truth. “You never walked the earth,” Aziraphale clarifies, repeats the insistence Jophiel claims the demon cultures, as he specifies for his own twisted tale, “Were you ever aware of a King by the name of Vortigern?”
The demon’s eyes narrow, studying him suspiciously, feathers tortuously blending with a silver sheen. “I didn’t deal with souls,” they deny, “I never visited the cursed land.” They flinch as Aziraphale shifts, their pain a prickling desperation he is forced to dismiss.
“I would not assume such,” he assures, fist tight against his sternum as he rejects the waves of acidic fear, “I am capable of listening. You were never upon the earth, only under it, would that be correct?” He observes as the demon quakes within their binds, breath sharp and hoarse in the blessed atmosphere. He doubts they were responsible for the legend he spins. “A fortress whose walls refused to stand, thanks to interference with the foundations. Vortigern near committed the sin of slaughter before he was called to heel.”
Jophiel’s attention has peaked with his uncovered deceit, drawing level as his eyes flick to her. He lets the exaggeration lie uncorrected, the context uncertain. “When uncovered, it was found that the dragon which threatened the build lurked beneath the earth.” Jophiel is hanging on his words, poised to accept the tale as the demon’s own and with luck, leave the poor creature be in times to come in recompense. She will not accept a combat between two beasts as a worthy parable, seeks a failure of humanity or the glory of Heaven as a lynchpin of the myth. “Vortigern himself shared with me the fable,” he fabricates, “Of how he prayed for intervention at the moment the dragon leapt, an agent of light intercepting the attempted regicide. His kingdom would have fallen to ruin, if the demon had not failed.”
Her eyes glow as the demon hides their own, emotions a constant low pulse, an undercurrent that tugs around his ankles, threatening to sweep him into their tide.
“You have a gift,” she breathes, “It appears I need not have warned you of the misdirection the demons would present to you. I forget, that you have experience unravelling the wiles of its kind.”
Her wings unfold and he cringes as the demon shrieks, the revealed vessel of her blinding grace in wings of absent white more than the crippled being can cope with, seeped in the light of Heaven.
“We sought a tale,” Aziraphale protests, fighting to culture apathy, “One of truth, direct from the subject. Now we have it, I should sew the image into existence, no?”
“When ready,” Jophiel agrees, “For now, do as I do. Embrace the light, Aziraphale, shine it into the crevasses of the demon now the story has been revealed.”
The pitiful creature is fighting their chains, their wings thrashing against cruel restraints as their essence is drawn towards the light, to the revoked grace of God. Aziraphale looks away and forms his wings, the demon choking as silver drowns their feathers; he can hasten the process by participating, for all the good it will do.
He harbours a wish, in the secret sanctuary of his heart, that Crowley survived the brutality of the battlefield. Listening to the demon gurgle and flail in Heaven’s thrall, he is beginning to wish instead that the dust of Adam’s Earth claimed his friend.
Quills and barbs are igniting under the assault, incinerating into darkened ash that mixes with the flowing silver pouring from gashes lashed by grace. Ivory eyes meet his own, a desperate hatred burning in their depths as they dull, as life is drained from dying irises. The physical body falls limp, the essence that is the truth of a demon leaking along limbs that resemble pools of molten obsidian rather than the wings they should appear as. The liquid shivers, reflects the emptiness of their angelic purity, pools in a continuous puddle at the feet of the abandoned corporation, dripping in a stream from skeletal wings.
Aziraphale stands frozen as Jophiel stretches her wings around herself, shepherding the remnants into place. The agony that had bit deeply into him has grown faint, yet it still nibbles at his skin. The demon, torn from shape and form, still lingers. He had not asked them of their name.
He watches on numbly as Jophiel steps daintily forward, as she plucks the writhing pool from the floor as a human may grasp an unruly kitten, the flailing demon dangling below her grip. The flowing essence attempts to climb her wrist and she flares her feathers pointedly close, the occult being retreating sharply as the edges of the demon burn purest white.
“The substance can be volatile,” she speaks and he listens in terrified realisation he cannot bring himself to name, “I will allow you the privilege on the next occasion but for now, you would be best served in observation.” She casts a bland smile his way and he must drag a response from the purgatory he has fallen into because she turns towards the exit, tortured demon held firmly before her. He follows in a dream as he is led back to the room of canvas, as she approaches the mechanism of marble. It lies open, empty. She must have ensured its availability when last he hung works upon gallery walls.
The demon shifts and warps as she drops their essence in the centre, spreading blindly as they seek to define this new environment. He flinches as she spins the wheel, the upper slab of marble descending, pressing upon the demon as they collapse under the unexpected weight, as they flail and attempt escape from the undefined attack. The faint panic and terror driving needles across his skin sinks deeper, grows quiet as the demon disappears from sight. He follows the flickering emotion as it slips from him, reaches his senses out beyond what he has ever found necessary. He finds life still lingering, sparking weakly at the edges of his awareness; static flares originating from his side. He turns his head towards the unknown origins and tastes bile as his own essence recoils, winding tightly in the safety of his corporation.
“Fresh material needs encouragement to settle before it will be of use,” Jophiel is sharing calmly, “We have bound canvas to work with in the meantime. Do take your pick, I was most impressed by your concise clarification of the dragon’s hidden tale.”
The frames by his side remain as silken and placid as he remembers, the canvas strapped to each a blank expanse, waiting to be manipulated. Surrendering to the situation, he reaches horrified for the closest. An image sparks within his mind, sharp eyes and a gaping maw as he yanks his hand away.
“I am looking forward to the scene you will work,” Jophiel claims by his side, “It is unfortunate it must wait. Which subject appeals to you, in the interim?”
His mouth fills with words, all of which he swallows. He mutely stretches his hand back out, selects one of the untouched canvases at random. The concept of a feathered ruff echoes in his mind, of a shrill voice and taloned claws. He accepts the mental intrusion and tails Jophiel back to her studio.
The canvas lies before him, bland, unworked. Singing of colour and life and he lifts his needle and pierces the skin. He threads a demon through themselves, forces them to hold the configuration he declares, essence sickening as he holds his senses closed and does not listen to their cries. Jophiel pricks colour into her work and he follows suit, flinches as he acknowledges the truth of the act. As he pulls his chosen colour to the forefront, the demon’s essence burns and flees from his grace, held pinned and smouldering to grant the blinding colour of desire. He tortures the creature in pursuit of artistic lies and carries the finished works with trembling hands. Deep within the gallery, he places the pieces on a bench, twitches his head around as he seeks witnesses.
With no angel to watch, he closes his eyes, shivering as he tells himself he must know. He releases his tight control, spreads his awareness to the dim level he was forced to chase and drowns in a cacophony of pain.
He comes to curled upon the immaculate floor, unable to control his shuddering or the tears leaking trails of salt across his skin. His essence coils into the deepest part of himself, bruised and aching. He forces himself to hands and knees, breathes heavy, broken gasps of fear-polluted air. The shattered beliefs he has built himself upon dig shards into his sides.
There are countless scenes held within the bounds of the gallery, tales bright and condemnatory, an abundance of historical fiction. He gathers the jagged pieces of himself, hangs the new works with shaking arms and choking apology. He hides within his palms and grits his teeth and knows he must determine how many demons are still held within the forsaken tomb of Heaven’s prison.
The library is quiet when he passes through, nobody enquires as to his business as he flees for a book bound in leather and leafed with vellum. It does not answer and he feels the irrational urge to tear it from its binding. He swallows the rage and slips it into his coat, stealing it from its home until he has control of himself enough to consult it effectively.
He returns to Jophiel, wound so tightly it is a wonder he does not snap. She declares they should check upon his personal trophy, the first of many stories he drew direct from a demon he stood before. He does not emote, as she hands him an empty frame and bids him bind the exhausted being upon it; he is too numb to abandon the demon he condemned, too sickened to leave their tortured soul to her own uncaring needle.
“You have brought the parable of this demon into light,” she coaches proudly, “Now you will weave it into the self-same canvas the dark tale is sourced from, as must happen with every work.”
His mind is still sorting the implications of her words when his hand finds the hilt.
How presumptuous, a familiar voice whispers in his ear, Shall we teach her the true cost of War, grieving Guardian of the Eastern Gate?
A serpent rears in his vision, monstrous and mad upon a glistening canvas and War purrs as a sharp gasp draws him back to himself. Jophiel’s eyes are wide, her face speaking of her silent shock. Blood-red wine and gilded ichor twine together as he drops his gaze, glimmering liquid seeping over his hands. Her wings burn into being, her eyes beginning to blaze as she rises to defend and he wrenches the sword embedded in her gut and listens as she sputters and flickers.
Exciting, War muses, A second Rebellion is it? Or have you something else in mind.
He stares into her sparking eyes and steps backwards, the sword of heavenly fire slipping free. Static electricity is coursing through his blood; his grace is wrapped in briars. He fumbles for the book, stains its simple cover with the essence of an angel as it hums lowly against the backdrop of insensate shock overwhelming him. He tears it open, uncomprehending and is greeted by a simple line that hazes in his vision.
Adam’s Oath remains unfulfilled
Interesting, War enthuses lowly.
He sways in place, the wails of the gallery still fresh within his mind. Trembles nearby a tool of torture, a demon bound and blind at his feet, an angel dead and dull before him. The blade burns, immolating fire burnishing the fresh kill into its ashen tally of the dead.
No point hanging around, War encourages.
The demon spits against his fingers as he lifts them, a timid, pitiful act of denial. There are no other canvases awaiting their fate and so he steps over Jophiel and strides towards the prison she walked him willingly into. The book hums thoughtfully within his pocket, the sword flames within his hold; War hovers by his ear and the demon trapped within a frame is pressed into his chest.
The abandoned cower at his approach, shying from his fury as he commands their chains to break. He stalks the halls, demons flinching and grimacing at his holy wrath, creeping cautiously into his wake. Aziraphale, Guardian of a Gate which stands no more, Principality of an Earth that lies in ruins, the Angel who wields a Horseman’s Blade, War following in his footsteps. They gather at his heels, these combatants of the Last War, these Fallen Angels, cast from Heaven’s Love.
They see the Guardian this angel was crafted to be, they observe as he shatters their divine cages and they realise he sees within them something worth protecting.
He prowls the corridors and when he finds no more to free, he steps from the perdition of such hidden pain and enters the gallery, Heaven bending to the weight of his conviction. Enraptured by this avenging angel, War shadowing the liberator, demons follow.
Aziraphale storms into the home of lies, the vengeance of demons singing in his essence, and advances on those he finds there. The lone angels within the gallery’s walls flee his blade and the demons at his back, one of their own turned to viciousness and betrayal.
The demon he holds finds a resting place upon a pristine bench as the fire upon his sword dies to candlelight, his vision swimming as he steps toward the vision of Eden, so long ago. His fingers rise to caress the woven edge, a golden gaze greeting him, a low and familiar hiss. He lifts the frame from the gallery wall, the hilt of his blade pressing into his palm as he holds the weapon at ease, captivated by the essence he cradles. He presses his will lightly against the demon, Crowley welcoming him unquestioningly. He strips the strange grace from the demon’s form, drowns and strangles that which would torment one he cares for. The serpent slithers into darkness, Eve is overtaken by the approach of night. The apple, twisted and melting, a promise of hurt and ache, returns to the oily firmament as the tree which holds it turns black.
War growls within his ear, lifts his sword tip from the ground. Demons retreat, carve a path for the Angel of Flame as his feet carry him back to the entrance of the gallery. Crowley is held close to him, an undercurrent of hope leaking quietly into his essence from the demon. Heaven is gathering, with the warnings of those that fled, rallying to repel this traitor in their midst. His wings are flame, his grace smouldering as Heaven rescinds their love, as they look upon his acts and reject him.
The sword he was given so long ago, the blade that has travelled by humanity’s side and which was passed into the care of War through long millennia; the gift of sacrifice, the weapon placed once again into his palm on the eve of a new era. It rises, carves a line, scores a breach between realities as he rejects Heaven in turn.
Upon the war-torn ground of a land lacking in life, Adam pauses. The Antichrist raises his head, observes the rupture in Heaven and the consensus of those across the boundary. Long ago he made a Decree, distraught among the ruins of his home, that they would threaten the Earth he claimed as his own no longer. He also once spoke an Oath, a child desperate to believe in the good of others, conditioned to expect better of those in authority, those the world told him to look up to.
Heaven creeps along the split, looking to heal the wound and Adam slips his will between the laceration and holds it open.
In the unknown plane, yet to be granted a name, Aziraphale kneels and rejects his Creator, turns from the realm he should call home. Scatters his defences, the broken pieces Heaven has left him with, and collars himself to Adam’s will. Crowley simmers within his hold, the cries of demons echoing unheard within the haven he claims as those capable follow his example, await the judgement of the one who was once ignored.
Adam banished those who ravished his world, raged against a grandparent who did not answer and a father who only questioned when it suited him. Heaven and Hell considered him a pawn, a catalyst for the world they themselves saw as perfect, an excuse to unleash their hatred upon the other. He will not treat with those who call either of his familial ancestors Lord but he is human at heart. He made an Oath and so he honours it, grants these supplicants their stolen hearth, accepts the grace of the one who petitions him. He takes ownership of the singed light, pulls it free of the angel who struggles and gasps and sprinkles it upon the barren earth.
Adam rips the firmament apart as he seals those that would grant him respect within the modest sanctuary, tears the space from Heaven’s hold. Life settles at his feet, the light he bled into the ground aflame with potential at the moment of its planting.
Within the unnamed realm, small and sheltered, a Guardian unravels a silken sheet of essence. The entities with them curl upon the empty floor, shaken and relieved, recovering slowly in this place of calm and peace.
Those that can, join the Guardian in his work, as non-existent time passes by. Learn to pull the burning glow from their brethren, feed it through the ether to an Antichrist who tempts his growing world into ever-more bountiful flora. Unbound essence settles and reforms, the first of the free coiling around the Guardian’s shoulders, rippling with scales and looking upon the work with eyes of gold.
As they settle, they proffer their potential to Adam’s curious touch, an imprint of the forms they hold given life upon his land. With this, Adam repopulates his Earth, fauna roving the world once again. When finally the Antichrist releases his veil, returns humanity to their reawoken home, War steps from the Guardian’s side and back into the land.
Aziraphale watches as War leaves, their parting words whispering in his ear, the sword he has surrendered once more within their grasp. Crowley brushes against his cheek, the serpent live and whole and so very welcome by his side. Adam looks back at the petitioners, at those that helped him reenergise the world. His Earth is lively once more and people walk by his side but he sees past veils his fellows never could and he is human and he is lonely.
He opens a door.