Chapter Text
because
I prayed this word:
I want
Sappho was the first to spot the huge black serpent, coiled among heat-baked rocks, a lurking shadow in the strange purple-brown-grey of the petrified forest. Erinna shrieked and clung to her, pretending to hide behind Sappho's tiny form and letting her fingers slip flirtatiously down her smooth upper arms. Humans. Aziraphale indulgently clucked her tongue, ignoring the stab of loneliness.
The serpent was huge, at least five cubits long and thicker than Aziraphale's arm, black as night, its scarlet belly a warning sign of venom.
"I'll save you, ladies," said Alcaeus, picking up a rock and moving menacingly towards the creature. It hissed in warning but seemed barely able to lift its magnificent head, let alone slide away. Poison-yellow eyes glared at them as if daring them to come closer. As if it understood the situation.
Aziraphale felt a deep conviction that destroying a monster like that would be more like slaying a person than an animal.
"Hush, dear boy, it's of no danger to us," she said. And of course, it wasn't. Not to an angel and the humans under her protection. Aziraphale moved forward carefully, extending a plump hand. Its tongue flickered out lightly "Look, it's so weak, poor thing."
"Maybe it will eat Eri to regain its energy," Sappho said cruelly, and Erinna buried her head on her shoulder with a squeal of mock terror. "Hush, my love, I will let no one eat you but me." Eri squealed again, with giggles this time, and Aziraphale rolled her eyes.
Alcaeus came to join the angel "It might be kinder after all it put it out of its misery, poor fellow," he said quietly. "Wonderful brute, though. I've never seen one so huge. If you would like to distract the girls, I will deal with it."
"Nonsense," Aziraphale said briskly. She could tell, closer up, that the serpent's back was crushed, probably by the fallen stone tree beside it, and it was half-starved. Poor, exquisite creature. It looked at her with baleful golden eyes, and she smiled at it. "Oh, good. No injuries at all."
She moved her fingers gently, letting the magic out, and the creature reared up and hissed with pain, startling her. Erinna cried out with genuine fear, and Aziraphale looked curiously at her fingers. A simple healing miracle should not have harmed the snake.
Alcaeus, ever the chivalrous youth, raised the rock again to protect her. Aziraphale placed a hand on his wrist to restrain him. "It's all right now." She held out her hand again. "I won't hurt you again, my friend," she said gently. "Come with me, and I'll feed you."
The serpent stared at her with something chillingly like human intelligence in its eyes. Then it slithered forward, Alcaeus standing guard, and slid up her, winding its heavy body along her waist, falling in coils over her shoulders and waist, head waving gently.
"I've never seen anything like your way with animals, Aziraphale." Sappho shook back her clouds of violet-black hair, dark eyes wide with wonder, and Aziraphale remembered the Ark, the bitter satisfaction of keeping the animals safe while the humans drowned. The last Aziraphale had seen, as the door closed, had hair as dark as that of Sappho. "I shall compose a poem in your honour. Our sweet lady Aziraphale, whose moonlit beauty charms even dangerous monsters."
"Save your poems for pretty youths like Erinna and Alcaeus," Aziraphale scolded her, "not for a fat motherly woman like me."
The serpent hissed in her ear, and it sounded vaguely reproachful. Sappho's laughter rang out, sweet and bell-like'. "I need not reprove you for describing yourself that way, not with your new friend to do so."
Friend. It felt warm in Aziraphale's ears. All the young people in Sappho's household and they were all young, no matter how humans regarded their age, were friendly.
"What will you do with your pet, Old Fat Mother Aziraphale?" Erinna asked teasingly.
"Bring it back to the camp and feed it, for now," Aziraphale said. After all, the easiest way to comfort was with food. It always worked with her.
The serpent looked thoughtfully—although that had to be an illusion—at the food laid out before it, tidbits of meat and eggs and cheese. Eventually, it selected an egg, stretched its mouth open, and swallowed it whole. Then it curled up on the cushion Aziraphale had provided on the wagon.
"That's right, darling," Aziraphale said, feeling as if she had achieved something special. "You rest up and get better. And no biting," she added sternly. "I really could not cope with the paperwork and the scolding. Now, old girl, I know you do your best, but you know you are supposed to be guiding humanity to virtue, not making pets of dangerous animals. Pay a little more attention next time, eh? Heaven expects!"
The serpent hissed, as if annoyed, and Aziraphale resisted the urge to pet it. "I know, I know. You are a free wild creature, not a pet. But you can't expect Gabriel to see it that way. Now, let me get on with my work."
Aziraphale chattered a little to the serpent as she sat and dipped her reed into ink, scratching the words onto papyrus. "This is writing. Humans invented it to record words, clever things that they are. That's what I'm here for. Sappho thinks her songs are passing things, to be sung and forgotten, but I can't bear such perfection to be lost to the world. I'm determined to memorise and record them, to help humanity better itself."
Word, dip, word. She was tempted to use her powers to make the reed hold more than a word at the time, but there was no sense drawing attention by making trivial miracles, not when it was hard enough to justify healing a snake if it was raised.
"Why did I heal you?" she asked the snake, as she worked. "After all, I consume animals every day. I don't save them all. Perhaps I am lonely, after all. But surely a monkey or a dog would make a better pet. You'll excuse me for mentioning it, but snakes are not known for being particularly affectionate."
The snake watched her with large yellow eyes, tongue flickering gently in and out of its mouth. Aziraphale sighed. "Feel free to stay with me as long as you like. Get yourself strong. I will enjoy the company."
The snake curled up and, eyes wide open, went to sleep.
Aziraphale worked until the light faded. It was a long trip back to Mytilene, but Sappho had been insistent on showing off the forest, a wonder of Lesbos, to her distinguished guest. Sappho was a dear lady, and her household full of merriment and arts, but...
Well. There was no real way an angel was going to fit in. Silly to feel wistful about it, really. Aziraphale had been alone since leaving Heaven and being stationed in Eden, and she was proud to represent Heaven on Earth, guide these children to follow Heaven's will. It was an honour and a privilege.
It would be nice to have someone to talk to. Someone who understood. Someone who would be more than a fleeting moment.
Aziraphale shook herself. Self-pity and melancholy got her nowhere, and she had work to do.
The serpent slept, and its presence was oddly comforting.
Somehow, the serpent came back with them on the two-wheeled wagons. Aziraphale had a half memory that you shouldn't remove animals from their own areas, but she could hardly stay in the stone forest forever herself, and after all, she was an angel. She could miracle the snake back any time she liked.
Meanwhile, it lived in her rooms in Sappho's mansion.
Aziraphale fell into the habit of talking to her snake whenever she was alone in the room with it, chattering idly about Sappho's love affairs, about the performances of Sappho's lyric poetry the girls' chorus was rehearsing, about the history and literature lessons she was giving Sappho's daughter Kleis. She was aware she talked about Sappho quite a lot, but the poet had the ability to make everything draw in around her, like a lodestone. Sometimes Aziraphale read the poetry she was transcribing to the creature and had the odd idea that it was listening, its gaze alert, tongue ever tasting the air.
Her new friend seemed disinclined to leave. It ate some of the offerings she brought it, but only sparingly. It curled on its pile of cushions, or in the window, sunning itself. Aziraphale left easy egress in case it wanted to leave, and found herself breathing a sigh of relief when it was there each time she returned to her rooms. Something about the serpent suggested home to her.
One sweet summer night, Aziraphale lay on her couch, reading aloud to her strange companion the last few words she had transcribed.
"Stand up and look at me, face to face
My friend,
Unloose the beauty of your eyes..."
Aziraphale trailed off, feeling oddly sad. "A friend, to stand face to face with. Sometimes I feel like Sappho looks into all our hearts, and finds what is missing, the fragments of us, and names them into being. At times I wish she was not so good at it. I never felt the lack of a true friend so much until I came here, where there is human love going spare."
The huge snake moved across the floor like water, rushed up Aziraphale's side, and draped itself around her in weighty coils, head bumping against Aziraphale's face. Aziraphale sat very very still under the weight until the snake settled, then dared reach out and stroke its nose with two fingers. The snake flickered out a forked tongue and tasted the skin of her cheek.
"You dear, dear creature," Aziraphale said. "I should give you a name, if we are to be friends." She thought for a while. "What about Crawly?" The snake hissed, and she laughed. "I'm afraid I don't have a very good imagination. That's a human talent."
Aziraphale closed her eyes. She didn't need to sleep, but dozing in the evening light, relaxed and full from a good meal, the somehow soothing weight wrapped around her, she felt contented and drowsy. The sounds of merrymaking from the courtyards and gardens came to her, but she had no desire to join them. For once she felt content, her loneliness ebbing.
When the snake pulled back its head and struck, Aziraphale didn't have time to react before the pain was burning on her neck, and the venom entered her veins.
When Aziraphale came to, a woman was sitting naked and cross-legged on the end of her couch.
This was not entirely something unexpected in Sappho's household. Sappho was a devotee to the cult of Eros and Aphrodite, and for all Aziraphale officially disapproved of them worshipping fallen angels, she had to admit that the household seemed to have fun. Even compared to other humans, the lives of the young things who filled the house revolve around love affairs and pleasures, the endearing creatures. Even though Aziraphale fancied her corporation too middle-aged and plump to compete with the apple-breasted young women of the household, there was occasionally a boy or girl who was attracted to someone on the buxom and maternal side, and she had to deal with unwanted advances more than once.
"I'm sorry, dear, I must have passed out," Aziraphale said. She was oddly reluctant to blame her snake. A quick glance around the room showed her it had left already. It was hard to move her aching head.
She was preparing to give her usual kindly speech about being dedicated to Diana and chastity when she noticed the faint tracing of scales along the woman's cheekbones, tracing down her thin arms and lean thighs. The nipples on her pale, almost flat breasts were dark as night. Fiery red curls fell over dagger-sharp shoulders sprayed gently with more black scales, and the golden eyes were wide and snake-like. The woman was beautiful, but hardly human.
"Crawly," the woman said with disgust. "Was that the best you could do, angel?"
"I said I didn't have much imagination." Aziraphale's lips were heavy, and she was almost sure she wasn't forming the words. There was some kind of spell over her, holding her almost immobile. The venom must have been paralytic. If she had been human, she supposed she would have been dead. Her corporation didn't like it much either. "What name would you prefer I use for you?"
The stranger tipped her head on one side, considering. "Crowley?"
Aziraphale almost laughed. The whole situation was simply too irritating. If she was to die now, at the hands of some local deity, the paperwork hardly bore thinking about. And her precious work on Sappho's poetry, gone.
"Crowley, then. You're a nymph of some kind, I take it?" Crowley didn't look anything like the other nymphs Aziraphale had encountered, who tended towards curves and youthfulness, but it seemed the most likely conclusion. When she thought about it, the nudity was quite nymphlike.
The woman nodded, looking almost embarrassed. "Yeah. Dryad. From the forest you found me in."
"Why did you pose as a snake?"
"Was pursued by bloody Pan, prayed to Aphrodite for help and, get this, she petrified my forest and stuck me in snake form. How the heaven was that supposed to be better?"
"My sympathies. You seem to have corrected the problem now, anyway."
"Temporarily." The nymph—Crowley—stretched. "Don't think I can hold it much longer. But I wanted to, nggh. Say thank you." She was blushing, which made her look distinctly younger. "For the healing and snacks. And, you know. Talking. And, ahm ah, the poetry. S'nice, the poetry. Humans used to come and sing me songs, but not since the forest turned to stone."
"You're very welcome," Aziraphale said. She wondered just how long the dryad had been trapped in her petrified forest. "Is poisoning someone your usual way of showing gratitude?"
"Yeah, sorry about that. Um. It will only last a while. Couldn't risk you smiting me."
"I wouldn't smite you," Aziraphale said with certainty. She wasn't even sure where the certainty came from. But the dryad was watching her with wide golden eyes, the eyes of her snake, and hurting her seemed impossible.
"Yeah?" Crowley seemed a little surprised, but she nodded sharply, as if confirming a suspicion. "Yeah, you wouldn't."
"I suppose you'll be off, now you've thanked me," Aziraphale said. There was a painful twitch under her breastbone at the thought. How long had it been since she'd spoken to another immortal, except to turn in a report? This creature had presumably been an angel once. She might almost understand what it was like.
"Oh, I don't know about that. Long slither home. Cold at night." Crowley looked away, the tops of her thin cheekbones flushing as red as her hair. "Besides, I wanted to learn how that poem turned out."
Aziraphale smiled, prickly warmth flooding over her. "Try not to bite me again, and I'll try not to smite you."
Crowley grinned back, with real pleasure. Sharp eye teeth glinted in her mouth ."It's a bargain." She leaned forward, holding out a long-fingered hand, and Aziraphale sat up slightly to grasp it.
"Aaaaargh. Holy fuck!" Crowley jerked back her hand and stared at it. Little blisters were forming on her palm and fingers. "That doesn't happen when I'm a serpent. Do you have your holiness turned up particularly high tonight?"
"No more than usual. I am sorry, my dear."
"Hhghngh," said Crowley, just as her form slid into itself and became a snake again.
Aziraphale expected Crowley to flee after that, but she curled up again on her pillows. Aziraphale inspected her, but could find no signs of burning on her serpent skin.
"Lesson learned. No touching in nymph form." Aziraphale dragged two fingers affectionately down the gleaming black scales, and jerked back her hand when she realised what she had done. This was no pet, this was a sapient being as ancient as herself, a former angel, and she should not touch without permission. "I'm sorry, Crowley. Am I being too familiar?"
In answer, the snake poured up onto her lap and settled there. Aziraphale found herself smiling as she ran her fingers down the soothing texture of the cool scales.
I have a daughter, golden,
Beautiful, like a flower -
Kleis, my love -
And I would not exchange her for
All the riches of Lydia
The next morning, Aziraphale was heading off to give Kleis her lessons, bidding a pleasant farewell to Crowley, when she hesitated.
"Crowley, are you awake? It's rather hard to tell with the way you sleep with your eyes closed."
Crowley lifted her great head, swaying slightly.
"I wondered if you would like to accompany me. It must be dull here. I'm teaching Kleis out in the courtyard. The sun is very pleasant, and we're up to such an interesting part in the Telegony. Not particularly historically accurate, and Odysseus listened to your kindred's advice far too much, but we must make allowances for humans."
For a moment Aziraphale thought she had overstepped, but Crowley unfurled herself and slid up Aziraphale, settling in great heavy coils around her shoulders. Aziraphale smiled despite herself.
Kleis was delighted by the company, and Crowley was surprisingly docile, letting the child touch her. She resisted all attempts from Kleis to lure her from Aziraphale, and remained possessively wrapped around Aziraphale's shoulders.
Possessively. That was an odd, errant thought. Crowley was probably only clinging to Aziraphale out of wariness, given how quick humans were with rocks.
After the lesson, Sappho came by, on Alcaeus' arm this time. "Oh, so you kept your scaly friend!" she said, smiling down at Aziraphale. "How beautiful the two of you are together. You are not escaping that hymn."
Kleis scrambled up and embraced her. "She has a name, Mama, she's called Crowley, and she lets me pet her. She likes me."
"Of course she does. She is clearly a snake of good sense. Look how she dotes on our lovely Aziraphale." Sappho reached out a delicate hand to stroke Crowley, and the snake's head shot forward, in a warning strike. Sappho's hand jolted back.
"Crowley!" Aziraphale cried. "That is no way to behave towards our hostess. Apologise at once, or I won't bring you out of our room again."
There was a long, tense moment, then the great snake bobbed her head to Sappho, managing to ooze disdain and resentment as she did so.
Sappho laughed, a little shakily. "It's like she understands every word you say."
"It is rather, isn't it?" Aziraphale tried to glare at Crowley, but the snake was nudging affectionately against her cheek, and it was hard to remain cross. "So she understand she has to mind her manners," she said, as sternly as she could manage, but couldn't hold back a smile. She even relented enough to take Crowley to dinner and fed her tidbits from her own plate, while the company marvelled at the monster. Crowley hissed at anyone who ventured close, and stayed wound around the angel.
Aziraphale was not surprised when Crowley assembled herself into nymph form again that night.
"I don't like that poet woman."
"Nonsense. She's very kind and brilliant."
"Pretty, too, I suppose," sneered Crowley.
So are you, thought Aziraphale, but she didn't say it aloud. In truth, there was nothing as soft as prettiness about the dryad of the petrified forest. She was all hard angles and shining scales and fiery hair. There was a sharp beauty to her that was nothing like prettiness. "Sappho is a very good looking and charming woman," Aziraphale said instead.
"Huh. Look out for her. Can't trust Aphrodite worshippers. Look at me."
"Did you worship Aphrodite?" Aziraphale asked, curiously. She'd known Aphrodite a little in Heaven before the Fall, and she was difficult to reconcile with this odd, spiky creature. Aphrodite had been a silly girl if such could be said of an angel.
"Me? Nah. Worship isn't my thing." Crowley looked as if a thought had struck her. "Probably how I ended up in this mess to start with."
"Probably," Aziraphale said drily. Crowley grinned at her, all teeth.
"You seemed to like Kleis, though."
"Mm-hmm. Kids are okay. Used to bring me flowers as a tribute and play in the trees, before they turned to stone. Sort of miss them."
"You're welcome at Kleis' lessons at any time," Aziraphale said. Crowley grinned at her again, less fiercely this time, and melted back into serpent form.
Aziraphale settled on the couch and began to read aloud, and the snake slithered up and rested against her side. Aziraphale let her hand drift up and down the snake's long body as she read, and felt less lonely than she had in a very long time.
Come to me now, then, free me
From aching care, and win me
All my heart longs to win.
You,
Be my friend.