#I like the cloud brush as well for weathering things I also use to charcoal brush for that

[lovecoredeity]

every time I get a compliment on my art I’m always surprised because it’s stuff I don’t think about or think I’m good at

[aethelflaedladyofmercia]

To Travel Through the World and Not Be Alone (Good Omens Fic)

Last week I asked for some more fluffy prompts, and @sparkkeyper​ suggested Crowley getting flustered and turning into a snake. Well, it looks like I’ve used up all my “Short Fic” mojo for the time being, as the result was over 10k and is available on AO3.

I really, really tried to make this one light and silly, but my brain does not operate that way, and so...a somewhat emotional deconstruction of the trope I guess?

--

Aziraphale stepped out from the dubious shelter of a sharply angled rock, shaking the last of the rain from his wings. Since leaving Eden the weather had certainly become much more variable. Days so hot his skin ached, nights that left him shaking with cold, a dryness that got into his mouth and eyes, and then – quite unexpectedly – more rain! Not as much as the first time, of course, but unpleasant enough.

The demon, Crawly, had been walking by his side, as he generally did, nattering on about the way sand moved in the wind and something about camel noses, but he trailed off as the rain began to fall. Aziraphale had lifted his wing to offer a bit of protection, until he noticed the rock in the distance, just tall enough for two man-shaped beings to crouch behind. Perfect, he’d thought and quickly gave Crawly’s hand a tug, intending to lead him over. Instead, the demon had all but run from him, vanishing into the night without another word.

Odd, that.

Stretching his arms in the bright morning sunlight, Aziraphale took a deep breath. Lovely, really, the slightly moist smell of the air after a rain. He suspected it would be even more pleasant once they found a place a bit more like the Garden itself – lush and green, rather than this endless expanse of sand, stone, and stunted trees.

He could see the humans up ahead, packing up their camp. The shelter they’d found had been no better, and Aziraphale hoped the cold and the damp hadn’t done any harm to the Woman or the child she carried within her. Quite a lot was riding on that yet-unborn human. There was still a chance the whole of humanity could end, now, here, in the blink of an eye. But the Man put a hand on the Woman’s shoulder, and she smiled, shaking her head, and helped him pick up their supplies.

As they moved out, Aziraphale began to follow after, but stumbled as some sort of black shadow twisted away into the brush, moving too quickly for him to make out. His body helpfully supplied a massive dose of adrenaline, which sent Aziraphale’s heart racing.

Steady on, he warned himself. It would take some getting used to, these human instincts, but there was no reason he couldn’t control himself. He was, after all, an angel. Aziraphale forced his breath back into a steady rhythm, expelled the unneeded chemicals from his system. That was better. He squinted at the line of dried-out bushes, then tilted back his head to scan the sky, but whatever had cast the shadow seemed long gone.

Well. Probably nothing important.

Already, the humans were fading into the distance, but it wouldn’t be difficult to keep up. Day by day, the Woman grew larger about the middle, and their pace slowed. The real danger was not accidentally overtaking them, or stumbling across them at rest and revealing themselves.

Both he and Crawly had received orders to observe the humans until their child was born. Not to protect, or disrupt, or involve themselves in any way – simply to observe. As for how to deal with each other – they’d been given no instruction whatsoever.

And so, for the past week, they’d passed their days traveling together, trailing behind the humans unseen. Aziraphale had expected it to be a time of silent contemplation, but Crawly had apparently never heard of such a thing. He constantly pestered Aziraphale with questions, tried to make conversation about topics that, if not technically forbidden, were certainly better left alone. He crouched sometimes, digging around in the sand, never saying what he was looking for. It was an annoyance, but whenever he was out of sight, Aziraphale found himself worrying. What is he getting up to now? And when will he be back?

He found he didn’t like being alone. Which was absurd – he was an angel – a Guardian. Being alone for long stretches of time was part of his job description, his very being. And yet, in the same way his body was programmed to overreact to every shadow, it also needed to have other bodies around, to see them, hear them, possibly even to touch them. Unfortunately, until the Woman delivered her child and Aziraphale was allowed to reveal himself to the humans, his only option was the strange demon who talked too much and wandered off without warning.

Just as Aziraphale was certain he would lose sight of the humans – and was making up his mind to leave without the demon, and let him find his own way – Crawly materialized, stepping out from behind a sand dune and shuffling over to Aziraphale.

“It’s about time,” the angel said in a low voice, ignoring the unwelcome wave of relief. “I hope you’re not planning to leave me waiting for you like this all the time. And where, precisely, did you go?”

“Not far.” Crawly shrugged, not meeting Aziraphale’s eyes. “Anyway. You don’t have to wait for me.”

“You’re planning something, aren’t you? We agreed not to interfere until the child’s birth – these humans been through enough, Crawly, and they don’t need you—”

“Sssss’not that.” His lips twisted as if he’d eaten something sour, then pressed flat again. “Didn’t go anywhere near them. Promise.”

Aziraphale wasn’t sure he believed that, but up ahead the humans had already vanished into the heat-hazy distance, apart from the flare of the flaming sword and a long line of dark footprints. “If you say so. Keep up now, Crawly, there’s a good fellow.”

--

After two more weeks, their path began to run alongside a stony ridge. The base of it was cool, a little damp, and small flowers grew there, shielded from the sun. The humans had paused up ahead, and so Aziraphale stood watching them, grateful for a chance to rest in the shade.

Crawly, on the other hand, was causing some sort of trouble again.

“Look at these!” He tugged at one of the plants. “Have you ever seen anything like them?”

Aziraphale glanced down. Tiny flowers, just a speck of white or red on a thick stem growing out of a mass of green, low but thick. “We had much larger ones in the Garden,” Aziraphale commented. The humans were gathering rocks, it seemed, tapping them against the exposed stone of the ridge.

“Yeah, but look!” He’d been going on like this all day, digging at plants, collecting funny stones, running over to show each to Aziraphale, as proudly as if the demon had created them himself. It didn’t seem to be harmful or wicked behavior, but Aziraphale couldn’t decide what to make of it. “No water, no sunlight, barely even any soil to root in. You wouldn’t think anything could grow here. But they—oops.”

“You killed it, didn’t you?”

“No, just – look I pulled off the flower. The rest is fine.” Crawly wandered over just as the humans seemed to finish their task. The Man took the Woman’s hand – how odd, to walk like that, yet it didn’t seem to slow them down – and together they headed eastwards. Aziraphale stepped out of the shadow of the wall, and bumped directly into the demon. Crawly skittered back, clearly struggling with his own adrenaline, though Aziraphale had mastered that particular unwanted reaction ages ago.

“Terribly sorry,” the angel said, brushing his hands down his robe. Crawly’s dirt-smeared arms had left a mark, but he found he repeated the action more times than necessary. “But, please, Crawly – learn to pay attention to where you stand.” Another brush of his hands. It was soothing, in a way.

“I meant to be standing there.” The demon scowled. “I was going to show you…here.” He thrust the flower towards Aziraphale.

It was a bit unusual. Formed into a little cup, petals strangely thick to store the rare water of the desert. A sturdy little plant, a survivor, but beautiful in its own way. He plucked it from Crawly’s fingers, in order to study it from every angle. Their fingers brushed each other in passing, and Aziraphale found he was rather more aware of the contact than justified for such a minor thing. “It’s…quite nice, I suppose.”

“Good.” Crawly stepped back, fingers twisting in his robe. “Um. You can have that.”

“I see. And…what am I meant to do with it?”

Crawly shrugged. “Whatever you want. Just thought, you know. Flowers. Very angelic. Let’s go.”

He hurried along the ridge while Aziraphale looked at the flower again, fighting back a smile. Did it look better after their now, after their brief exchange of words? He found himself admiring the way the petals faded from dark to light.

“Oi! Angel!” His head jerked up. Crawly had stopped at the same spot where the humans had paused. “Come look at this!”

Tucking the flower into his sleeve, Aziraphale quickly stepped beside him, glancing over to see what the fuss was about.

“Oh, that is…” but words escaped him. Somehow, the humans had made marks in red and yellow, white and black across the stone. Not just marks, shapes.

Aziraphale could see two rough, humanoid figures standing hand-in-hand, one holding a brilliant yellow line. The sun illuminated the rock ahead of the figures, and cast a deep shadow behind. Other, simpler marks indicated parts of their journey – a hint of storm clouds, the line of the Garden Wall, a lion, crouched, ready to pounce.

“I think…” Aziraphale’s gaze traced it, east to west. “I believe this is what they call art.”

“Huh. Thought it was gonna be, y’know. Fancier.”

“Well, they’re just starting out. I’m sure we’ll see improvements soon.”

“Right.” Crawly was digging around in the dirt again, and stood quickly with a lump of charcoal. “Just need to make a few adjustments.” He rubbed the dark, crumbling stone against the ridge, making a black streak some distance behind the two figures.

“Crawly! What are you – you can’t – that isn’t allowed!”

“Oh, what, now it’s forbidden to make marks with rocks? Heaven is nothing but stupid rules these days.”

“No – yes – you’re distorting something the humans created!”

“I’m making it more accurate.” He stepped back, studying the newest figure. Thin and black, legs splayed in a funny way, arms spread by its sides. “That’s me, following behind. Hand me some red ochre, gotta do my hair, too.”

“This is, without a doubt – we’re supposed to be observers, not – not making ourselves part of the – what are you doing?”

Fingers now coated in ground-up lime, Crawly was dabbing another figure onto the stone. Brilliant white, and with a bit more care taken to the limbs, this one stood close beside the black one.

“Adding you, of course. Little me can’t be up there alone.” He glanced at the two human figures, then rubbed at his own one last time, extending the white figure’s arm to end…just where the black’s did.

Hand-in-hand.

“What do you think?” Crawly asked, rolling his neck as if he’d just finished some strenuous task.

“It’s…” Aziraphale stepped closer. “I mean, you really shouldn’t…” His mind raced, trying to think of any response that would be even remotely appropriate. This was a…a gross breach of protocol, surely, and Aziraphale had to…put his foot down, make it clear such things were not acceptable.

Instead, rather without his direction, his hand drifted over to clasp the demon’s.

Once again, it seemed the work gained more beauty the longer he looked at it. And Aziraphale found he was very aware of Crawly’s hand, just as he had been of his fingers. Crawly squeezed his hand, an uncertain, welcoming gesture, and Aziraphale felt a strange tingle, a rush of warmth roiling up his arm, filling his head. He squeezed back—

“Sorry. Gotta.” Crawly dropped his hand and bolted away, back up the path they had just walked down.

“Don’t be ridiculous, that isn’t even—!”

Vanished.

Aziraphale waited a long moment, wondering if he would return. It gave him ample time to study the wall, the little flower. His own hand.

Then, with a sigh, he followed after the humans alone.

When Crawly returned, just before sunset, he didn’t mention running off. Or the art. Or the flower that Aziraphale had carefully set aside on a rock where he had stopped to rest.

Probably best to forget it all, then.

--

More weeks passed, enough that Aziraphale lost count, and the humans came to a river.

Not perfectly clear-blue water running merrily over rocks and under sweeping trees, as they’d had in Eden, but a large brownish affair making its way between steep banks covered in reeds. There were some trees, larger than the ones in the desert, and fruits hung from them for the humans to gather. It was painstaking work, as they grew too high, or over thorny patches. Some fruits were too ripe, others not quite ready. The Woman was also in no state to be climbing trees, so the Man did most of the work, tossing fruits down for her to catch.

“I know we said not to interfere,” Aziraphale said, rubbing his palms together. Another habit that seemed ingrained in the body, but it seemed to help his worries. Perhaps he’d keep it. “But surely it wouldn’t hurt to – to lend a hand, would it?”

“Wuzzat?”

The angel turned, ready to repeat the question, until he saw something that put the humans out of his mind entirely. Crawly had tied his robe up around his knees and was walking along in the river.

“What on earth are you doing, you – you strange creature?”

“It’s hot,” the demon griped, scooping up some water to pour over his head. More of it got on his robes than anywhere else.

“Well, now you’ll be hot and covered with dripping wet clothing, does that really sound more appealing?”

“Don’t know, haven’t tried it.” Crawly reached into the water again, drenching his sleeves. He frowned as they emerged. “No, that’s…heavier. Not very comfortable. But…a little less hot.” He squeezed his sleeve, water dripping back into the river. “Could take the clothing off entirely,” he mused. “That might work.”

“Now you’re being absurd. It isn’t allowed!”

“It isn’t?”

“No! There are – Crawly there are rules.”

“Only for the humans. And look, they’re not wearing nearly as much as I am.” He tugged at his dripping garment again. “I can wrap some leaves around my bottom if that will make you feel better.”

“It’s not about making me feel better! It’s – it’s the principle of the thing. You and I should be setting a good example for the humans, not…not…” He waved helplessly as Crawly arched his back to dip his hair into the water.

“This is a good example! Problem solving! Using the available resources to make yourself more comfortable. If the humans bothered to look back and see us, they might learn a lot.” He flipped his hair forward, spraying droplets everywhere. “You wanna join me?”

“Certainly not.” Aziraphale rubbed his hand at the back of his neck, where itchy sweat was beginning to accumulate. “We have more important things to worry about right now, like—” He glanced back to where the Man lowered himself from the tree, seemingly entirely unharmed. The Woman smiled and handed him a piece of fruit, which he accepted gratefully.

“You know the humans are fine without you.”

That, surprisingly, hurt. Aziraphale found, more and more lately, he had a strong desire to join the humans. To walk beside them, to hear what they said, to laugh when they laughed. When he watched them walk away together, he felt…oddly empty.

An emptiness that vanished when he turned back to Crawly. Much as the demon grated on his nerves, Aziraphale found he enjoyed his company. When he spotted Crawly crouching in the shade of a tree, long fingers scratching at the ground, or scrambling up a ridge of stone to see what was on the top – there was always a bubble of anticipation, an eagerness to see what he’d found, to see that shining excitement in his eyes.

He felt it now, as Crawly waded deeper into the water to investigate a log floating in the current.

“I mean, m’not saying you should give up or anything, but…you can’t spend every day worrying about them. They’ll be fine.”

“Of course I spend every day worrying. I’m a Guardian, it’s my nature to want to help and protect those around me.”

“Ohhhh, is that why you’re always nagging me? Or is it because—”

Without warning, the log split into an enormous, tooth-filled jaw, lunging forward to snap at Crawly. With a yelp, the demon tumbled backwards, kicking water at the revealed crocodile, scrambling back towards the shore.

Aziraphale rushed forward, colliding with Crawly, wrapping one arm firmly over his chest to pull him back to safety; the other hand he flapped at the snapping creature. “Shoo!” he called and, just to be safe, put a note of angelic command in his voice: “WE ARE OF NO INTEREST TO YOU.”

The crocodile snapped its jaws one more time before turning away, lowering itself again to float downriver.

“Well,” Aziraphale said, trying to settle his mind. The adrenaline had flooded him again, but this time it had helped, giving him the speed he needed to react. Perhaps these instincts could be useful, if properly regulated. Unlike Crawly, who still clutched at Aziraphale’s arm, heart racing so that the angel could feel it. He pressed Crawly back a little more firmly against his own chest. “I hope you’ve, ah, learned your lesson.” He wasn’t sure what lesson exactly they should take from this, but he needed to continue his policy of blanket disapproval of all demonic nonsense.

“That thing—” Crawly started, but his voice pinched off, too tight to speak.

“That thing could have bitten your leg off,” Aziraphale chided, brushing Crawly’s torso with his free hand, making sure everything was intact. “I’m not sure if I can heal a demon at all, and I certainly can’t regrow limbs. You must learn to be more careful, my dear fellow.”

His eyes met Crawly’s enormous golden ones, and a heat rose in Aziraphale’s face that had nothing to do with the sun and the desert.

“I, uh…” Crawly very nearly blinked. He tilted his head back a little further and his breath brushed across Aziraphale’s cheek in a startling way.

“Yes. Well.” Aziraphale let him go, though his arms seemed slow to obey.

Immediately, Crawly scrambled away, jumping into the thickest part of the reeds.

“Oh, for goodness sake, Crawly! Is it too much to ask that you comport yourself with a little…” But when he looked along the riverbank, there was no sign of the demon.

Aziraphale took a good long while to search – until the humans had finished their mid-morning meal and begun walking again – but all he managed to find was the usual wildlife: rodents, reptiles, a few birds.

“Typical,” Aziraphale muttered. Such strange behavior had become increasingly common as they traveled, and the angel had learned by now that if Crawly didn’t want to be found, he wouldn’t be. Best to just keep walking while the demon got over today’s mood; Crawly always managed to catch up in the end.

Sure enough, well after sunset, a dark-robed figure slunk over to the spot Aziraphale had chosen to rest in. “Angel,” he mumbled in greeting.

“And where were you this time?” He felt another wave of relief, but sternly reminded himself not to encourage the demon. “Honestly, I half thought some river creature had devoured you, and it would serve you right for – for disturbing it…”

Crawly didn’t say anything, merely dropped onto the ground and stared at the light of the humans’ fire, far ahead. Not even a glance at Aziraphale.

When the silence had drawn on too long, Aziraphale lowered himself to sit beside Crawly. “I…am glad you’re unhurt, you know.”

“Shut up.”

He didn’t know what to make of that, so they sat in silence for the rest of the night.

--

“Aha!” Crawly crowed, leaping from one rock to the next, pale skin flashing in the sunlight. “I knew this was going to be better!”

“I’m sure it is,” Aziraphale said as neutrally as possible, trying to keep his eyes on the path ahead.

“You can’t even imagine! I feel so much lighter! I can finally move!” He dropped into the river with a splash, Aziraphale turning quickly to make sure Crawly was unharmed. But, no, he stood in the shallows, tossing water all over his bare skin. “This is…Angel, you have to try this!”

“And why, precisely, would I want to do that?”

“I told you, it feels good. Washes off the sweat and – I dunno. Like the heat can’t touch you through the water. Just come down, I’ll show you.”

“Crawly, get out of there. I’m not about to see you be devoured by wildlife again.”

“It’s ffffine.” But he hopped out, dashing up the path to a fruit tree. Before Aziraphale could say anything, he’d pulled himself up onto the lowest branch.

“Crawly! No, get down, you’ll break your neck and…and…”

“Why do you worry so much?” He pulled himself higher and higher, vanishing among the leaves. “I’m a demon, I’m not going to fall unless I want to.”

“I’ve told you, I’m a Guardian, it’s my nature—”

But surely Crawly couldn’t hear him all the way up there. A head emerged from the crown of the tree, gazing out into the distance as the wind stirred his bright red hair, sending streamers in every direction. He glanced down at Aziraphale and waved and, quite at a loss, the angel waved back.

He almost wanted to join Crawly. Not with the nakedness, though his robes were getting to be something of a burden, ending each day heavy with dust and sweat. But it seemed peaceful up there, cooler. And ever since the incident with the crocodile, Aziraphale had been feeling a strange urge, to be near the demon, to touch him, to ensure that he was safe.

Perhaps it was related to the instinct that compelled him towards proximity to the humans. That made sense; lacking options, his mind was trying to reach out for the only other being available. Though that didn’t really explain the strength of the urge, or why it seemed to grow daily as they spent more time together.

Crawly’s head disappeared. Branches rustled, leaves falling along the riverbank, and suddenly he dropped onto the lowest branch, grinning like he had a secret. “Look, I know you’re hot, Angel. Just admit it.”

“Certainly not! I am perfectly content as I am,” Aziraphale lied, trying to subtly flap the collar of his robes to let in a little air. “Perhaps it is your…Fallen nature, but I am completely immune to the effects of the environment.”

“Are you? Here, catch.” Something flew towards Aziraphale’s head, and his hands barely snapped up in time to grab the oddly shaped, greenish fruit. “I think that’s a pear,” Crawly continued. “Also, pretty sure it’s ripe.”

Golden eyes sparkling with excitement, he grabbed the branch with two hands and leaned back a little with an eager smile.

Aziraphale studied the fruit, turning it over in his hands. Well. No point in being rude, was there? He raised it to his lips and took a bite.

The inside was soft, but not too soft, with an oddly gritty texture. More importantly, it flooded his tongue with a mildly flavored liquid, sweet and refreshing. He’d gotten so used to his mouth being dry, Aziraphale had stopped thinking about the discomfort, but this – this was exactly what he needed. He eagerly took a few more bites.

“Oh,” he finally said, glancing up at Crawly, who still watched from his perch. “This is absolutely marvelous.” He wiped the juice from his chin and smiled.

Crawly grinned back, swinging his legs with a bit too much excitement, but it was an infectious excitement, bubbling up in Aziraphale’s chest with every bite.

Until, suddenly, Crawly’s expression fell, as did he, dropping from the tree to scramble about on all fours, racing back the way they’d come. “Don’t wait for me,” he called when he managed to get his feet under him, and by the time Aziraphale had even turned around, he had vanished again.

Well. At least it was quieter now. Aziraphale took another bite of his pear and continued his walk.

He was, by this point, getting used to Crawly’s unexplained disappearances. He never arrived later than the following dawn, and sure enough he caught up just as the humans were settling down to sleep. Once again, he didn’t say much or even look at Aziraphale, merely crouched on the ground, watching the distant firelight.

The next morning, however, was a different story.

“Ow! Stop that, it hurts.”

“Well, I do apologize, but I need to know what’s wrong!” Aziraphale rubbed his finger again across Crawly’s now bright-red skin, peppered here and there with some truly nasty looking blisters. It was extremely hot to the touch.

“Sssstop!” Crawly tried to wriggle away, but he was firmly trapped: Aziraphale sat on his back, legs pinning the demon’s hips in place, one hand lightly on his shoulder, but ready to press it flat into the dirt if required.

“If you don’t stop moving around, I’m not going to be able to help you.”

“You aren’t – this is torture, that’s what it is. Bloody sadistic angel!”

“It would appear you have burns covering every inch of your skin. How on earth does that even happen? What were you getting up to yesterday?”

“Nothing! Just – you saw. Walking around. Wanted some space’s all.”

“That’s all?”

“Ngk. Might have. Stretched out on a rock to bask for a bit at noon. Felt good.”

Aziraphale sat, considering the boiled red of Crawly’s back and his own slightly pink hands, the itch at the back of his neck. He’d been working on a hypothesis, and this would seem to be his first clear bit of proof.

“Crawly, I believe you’ve been burnt by the sun.”

“Didn’t go to the sun,” Crawly grumbled.

“This is no laughing matter. I understand burns can cause permanent damage to humans.” He brushed his fingers down Crawly’s spine, carefully avoiding the blisters, but even that was enough to send the demon squirming. “Does this hurt?”

“Yes it hurts! What have I been saying? Are you even listening?”

“I am,” Aziraphale assured him, looking for any spot that was still mostly pale. “How about this?” He pressed fingers into the side of Crawly’s ribs, just under the armpit.

“Ssssssss…not as bad, but yes.” At least he’d stopped struggling, but still Crawly’s fingers curled into the dirt, scraping deeply in the brown clay.

“If I’m right, the burn is the worst in areas that received the most exposure to the sun, and only light or incidental in areas that were shaded or protected.” There weren’t many of those. Crawly was a very thorough basker.

“Wait, really?” He started to twist around to look at Aziraphale, then cringed and looked forward again. “You think human skin can be burned just from being out in the heat?”

“Perhaps. I’m still gathering evidence.”

“Well, the humans aren’t getting burned!”

Aziraphale bit back another remark about Crawly’s Fallen nature. That wouldn’t be helpful here. “I’m not quite sure why that is,” he admitted. “But my own burns are very minor, perhaps theirs are the same. Certainly, they keep to the shade as much as possible, particularly in the hottest part of the day. Meanwhile, you are the first one to spend half the day lying naked in direct sunlight.”

“Not half the day.” Crawly whimpered a little as Aziraphale pressed his shoulders down one more time. “Seems a major design flaw, you ask me,” he grumbled.

“Hush, now.” Aziraphale lifted his hands and rubbed them together, summoning just a thin line of celestial power. “This may sting a little.”

“What? What are you doing now? Everything stings!” Another squirm as Crawly tried to pull free, but there was very little chance of that.

“I’m going to heal you, if you can hold still, you ridiculous thing.”

“Heal me?” Crawly went still and stiff. “Why?”

“Why? Because you’re in pain. What other reason do I need?” He reached a finger towards the worst burn, then hesitated. Could he dilute his power even further? “What did you think I was doing back here?”

“Dunno. Thought you were just…curious. Or wanted to learn for the humans.”

Taking a deep breath, Aziraphale traced his finger across Crawly’s shoulders. It left behind a trail of bright white, which rippled out several finger-widths in every direction, a wave of healing that left behind unburnt skin. He sighed in relief. “Well…there was that, too, but I thought I’d made it clear by now, I have no interest in seeing you come to harm. Even if it is harm by your own doing,” he added, so that Crawly could be sure he wasn’t entirely off the hook for his choices.

“So…you’ll…heal all of it? Entirely? No…leaving scars so I learn my lesson?”

“Crawly! How could you even think such a thing?” He pushed his fingers to the healed skin. It was a bit darker, browner than before, with a smattering of darker spots. “Does this hurt? Or here?”

“No…it’s…it’s good.” He lay his head on the ground, seeming subdued.

“Wonderful. This shouldn’t take too long.”

Down by the river’s edge, the humans finished picking up their woven mats and bundles of food. “They’re getting away,” Crawly muttered as they wandered down the river.

“We’ll catch up,” Aziraphale assured him, carefully applying just a touch of healing along his spine.

“You’re not worried? Thought it was your job.”

He glanced up, taking another look at the Woman, her blossoming belly, the Man helping her step over a patch of rough earth. He did feel an emptiness, a need to follow them, but it felt less important, less urgent, than the task in front of him. He smoothed away a particularly horrid patch of burn, and Crawly murmured with relief, a relief Aziraphale felt in his own chest.

What was this? The human need for proximity, an instinct he still couldn’t control? His own Guardian nature, perhaps, leading him to want to protect the being nearest to him?

Both of these, yes. And something more. Something that made him wish to see Crawly running across the riverbank, carefree and smiling again.

“Why did you disappear so suddenly anyway?” Aziraphale asked, carefully working on Crawly’s arm.

“Nrrrg. Just…wanted to be alone. Don’t you want to be alone sometimes?”

“Well…yes, but…” But I’d thought we were having a good time.

“Aaaaah, s’not fair!”

Aziraphale moved to kneel beside the demon, and Crawly rolled over, sitting up so he could watch Aziraphale heal his legs. “I used to handle actual stars, you know. In my bare hands! Now look, I can’t even stand in the light of one without…this.” He gestured to his still-burned front.

“You were fine for many days, Crawly. You just have to be careful.” The bottoms of his feet were fine, at least. Perhaps the thicker skin had helped protect them. “And, I think, keep your robes on. They seem to block the burning aspect of sunlight.”

“But I don’t want to be careful.” Aziraphale released his foot and Crawly crossed his legs tightly so the angel could start on his chest. “I want to explore. Experience things, everything, now while I can.”

“What do you mean, while you can? The world is going to be here for a good long while, regardless of what happens to the humans.”

“Mmmmph.” His shoulders hunched forward from something unrelated to the pain, and Crawly looked away. “Not supposed to tell you.”

“Ah.” His thumb ran across Crawly’s throat. “Then don’t.”

“I’m not…actually supposed to do anything when the child is born. Just, watch the humans, learn what I can, and then back to Hell until they decide what to do with me.” He shrugged, still not looking at the angel.

“Oh.” Aziraphale’s fingers moved slowly across Crawly’s chest.

“Guess I surprised them all, with everything in the Garden. Don’t know what to do now, right? Your side has a Plan. My side needs information, to figure out what to do. So they gave me until the humans have their child, then I go back, tell them everything. Maybe...maybe they’ll send me back to Earth. Maybe they’ll send someone else. Maybe it’ll all get locked up in bureaucracy and they won’t make a decision until everything comes burning down.”

“I see.” Somehow, Aziraphale had assumed they had the same orders.

While the humans were banished from Eden, no Word had come down whether they were to be considered entirely lost. The Archangels had determined that, regardless of the status of the Man and the Woman, it was possible their child had not been completely corrupted. So Aziraphale was to assist in raising the young human, and any others that came along, asserting as much Heavenly influence as possible.

He’d thought Hell would want the same, that he and Crawly would be working…not together, but in parallel. A Guardian and a Troublemaker, guiding the little souls.

“Is that why...you’re always running around...investigating everything? Gathering information for your side?” He kept his fingers as steady as possible, tracing across Crawly’s stomach.

“Nah. Hell barely cares about the humans, you think they want to know about...flowers, and rocks, and little ducks? The way ants follow each other in lines that go on forever? No one gives a shit. I just - I want to see it all. So...I have something to remember when I’m down there again.”

“I see.” Aziraphale wished he had something more to say.

“Except I can’t do everything! Stupid…things…getting in the way. Stopping me from…what I want to do.”

“Well, your time is limited, it’s true.” Careful strokes under the eyes, sending a ripple of healing across his cheeks. That long nose was absolutely covered in tiny darker dots. “But…I don’t think this should stop you from experiencing everything you can.”

“Everything?”

Aziraphale ran his thumb across Crawly’s chin. It wasn’t necessary – all the burns were gone – but he found he couldn’t stop himself. Each touch made him feel…jittery. Electrified.

It was like the human bodies were made for contact, fingertips picking up invisible details, the bristle of little hairs, the flex of muscles at the edge of the mouth. Look, how perfectly his hand slotted on the side of Crawly’s face, cupping his jaw and cheek, thumb moving across the sharp cheekbone.

“Hnnnnngh.” Crawly shoved him back – not hard, but enough to give the demon room to scramble to his feet. “I’ll catch up.”

And once again, he vanished.

Sighing, Aziraphale called in the general direction he’d run off to, “Just make sure you don’t lie about in the sun again, I can’t be doing this every day.”

--

Seasons changed – hotter, cooler, wetter, drier. Aziraphale hadn’t yet learned how to mark the passage of time, but Crawly explained it had been almost half a year, then explained what a year was, then tried to explain how he could tell from the stars, then gave up.

The demon’s newly-browned skin seemed more resistant to the sun, but he still sometimes burned himself if he wasn’t careful. He took to wearing his robes again, but with sleeves pushed up past his elbows. Every few days he slunk back to Aziraphale for a fresh round of healing, staring determinedly at the ground between them while the angel cradled his hands and gently rubbed the burn off his forearms, the back of his neck, his cheeks. Afterwards, he usually scurried off to sit against a nearby tree.

The humans moved more slowly now, not just because the Woman’s child was nearly ready to arrive. Sometimes they would stay in one place for days at a time, experimenting with creating shelters for themselves out of leaves or reeds or branches. When they did move, it was only over short distances, trying a little closer to the trees, then a little farther from the river’s edge.

Aziraphale found he had a great deal more time now, and not much of an idea what to do with it.

He tried keeping closer to Crawly. To keep an eye on the demon, yes, but also because…it felt right. It made the hollowness he felt vanish for a little while, particularly whenever he saw that look in his golden eyes, the burning passion that was woven into every disrespectful question, every ill-advised endeavor. It was unlike anything Aziraphale had ever seen before. More and more, he found he could hardly look away.

He felt he needed to do more. When Aziraphale found a new and interesting type of berry, he wanted to share with Crawly, find out what he thought. When he greeted the demon on returning to their resting spot, he wanted to straighten his robes, his hair, rub a bit of dirt off his cheek. When they sat, he wanted to move closer, until their fingers brushed, until the warmth of another body tickled down his side.

And yet, any time he indulged one of these whims, the need for more only grew stronger.

Disgraceful, really. Maddening. If this was some sort of human instinct, perhaps he should return to Heaven and have the body adjusted. He could ignore the body’s need for sleep, for food, for almost anything else - there was no reason this one instinct should be so much more powerful than the rest, unless something was wrong.

Besides, his actions tended to send Crawly scampering off again, vanishing for most of the day.

It was very hard not to follow.

--

After the half-moon set, Aziraphale had very little to do apart from watching the banked fire in the distance and waiting for the sun to rise. Crawly wasn’t talking, for once, lying on his back nearby, either studying the stars or drifting off to sleep.

Aziraphale thought he saw some movement in the human camp, shadows at the edge of their shelter. They sometimes woke before dawn, but rarely did much apart from hold each other and talk in soft voices. Seeing it always made Aziraphale’s arms itch in a strange way. But there seemed to be too much movement this time.

“Crawly. Crawly!”

“Whaaaaa?” He shifted in his awkward, ungraceful sprawl but didn’t turn his eyes away from the stars.

“Can you see anything?”

“Mmmmh?”

“The humans!” It was Aziraphale’s angelic instincts this time, his Guardian mind telling him something was wrong, that he was needed. “Something is going on over there, but I can’t quite make it out.”

Slowly, too slowly, Crawly rolled onto his side and glanced at the shadowy figures. “S’fine. Just moving those reed mats around.” He slumped back, wriggling around again. “You think those things are comfortable?”

“They’ve been using them every night, so I imagine they are.” Aziraphale kept his eyes on the distant figures, even though Crawly seemed to have lost interest already.

“Cuz this ground. S’really starting to make my back hurt.” He arched his spine, stretching. “Another design flaw, you ask me. S’like this body isn’t even made to be bipedal. Hurts if you walk too much, hurts to sit, hurts to lay on the ground.”

“My back doesn’t hurt,” Aziraphale lied piously. “Perhaps you’re just using it wrong. I’m fairly certain you’re not supposed to just…fling your limbs all over like that. Not to mention the way you walk.”

“What’s wrong with the way I walk?”

“Nothing,” Aziraphale said, a little too quickly, pressing his lips together. Lately, Crawly had been trying to swagger, but he hadn’t quite gotten it down yet. It was more a meandering progression of flailing limbs, an embarrassment to watch, and Aziraphale always had an almost overwhelming urge to pull Crawly against him and tell him to stand still.

“S’right. Nothing wrong with that.” Crawly turned back to the stars again, deep in thought.

A flare of light drew Aziraphale’s attention, but it was just the Man building up the fire a bit, crouching outside the shelter. Unusual, he supposed, but everyone got restless sometimes. Seeing the flames reflected off the Man’s dark skin, Aziraphale felt himself relax. He wasn’t needed here, a thought that was both soothing and slightly disappointing.

A few more pokes at the fire, and the Man picked up another woven mat and carried it back inside.

Aziraphale could just make out the shadowy shape of the Man offering the mat to the Woman, shifting her onto it to lay more comfortably. Once again, Aziraphale felt that itch in his arms, that ache in his chest for a warmth that had nothing to do with fire. He was often alone, in the Garden, in Heaven – but only now, wandering the world, did it have a physical effect on him. Aziraphale wondered how much longer he could bear it.

He glanced over at Crawly, and for some reason remembered a pear offered on a hot day. It wasn’t wrong to give his body the refreshment it needed. Even if the offer was made by a demon. Surely, surely if his body had a comparable need for contact, there was no harm…

Aziraphale made a decision and rose to his feet.

“Here, this should make you more comfortable.” Crawly twisted around, and Aziraphale smiled a little at the shocked expression that crossed his face. The angel shook out the mat he’d miracled up, making it snap in the wind. It was modeled after the ones the humans used, but better; Aziraphale had a little insight into materials they hadn’t yet found in the world, ones that would be a bit softer, provide a little more support.

“Angel, what are you—?”

“You’ve complained enough for one night, haven’t you? I know how to take a hint.” One more shake and the mat stretched across the ground. “Go on. See if this makes your back feel any better.” He crouched on the ground beside it and smiled encouragingly.

“Look…s’not that bad. I was just. Making conversation.” Crawly rolled onto his side, but still eyed the mat as if it might turn into a crocodile.

“Fine. Let’s make conversation. I’ve designed a new sleeping mat and would like your opinion.” He pressed his hand against it, showing how the mat compressed slightly. “Do you think the one is enough? Sometimes the humans pile a few together, but that might not provide much advantage. Come, now, I want to know your thoughts.”

Crawly’s eyes finally flicked up to look into Aziraphale’s face, then shot back down to stare at the mat again. “It’s, ah…” Crawly ran one finger along the soft surface. “It’s big enough for two.”

“Is it?”

Aziraphale doubted his tone sounded as casual as he meant it. Already the heat was rising in his face. It was, of course, a foolish idea. And painfully obvious. But these human bodies were not designed to go for half a year with only minimal physical contact. He craved it, like he craved food, rest, a comfortable seat, and he just…very much needed to feel…closeness.

He’d thought he could resist it. He was supposed to be stronger than this.

“You don’t sleep.”

“You do.” He’d seen how the humans slept, the Man pressed against the Woman’s back, arm across her protectively. He thought about it at night, and sometimes during the day. There was no reason Aziraphale should want that, no reason he should have any desire to protect a demon, and yet…he did.

“I nap. During the day. When it’s hot.”

“There must be a reason they sleep at night.” Aziraphale leaned forward, pressing his hands on the mat. It was more than just a physical need. He wanted to see Crawly smile. Wanted to feel him slowly relax inside the circle of his arms, trusting and content. He wanted to whisper secrets in the darkness, like the humans did. They had no need to whisper, there was no one to overhear, and yet they did, and Aziraphale wanted to know why. “Let’s find out. You’re the curious one.” Hands a little closer, until they almost touched Crawly’s. “You told me you want to experience everything.”

“Tempting me?” Crawly didn’t smile. He looked tense, almost panicked. Aziraphale lifted a hand to reach towards him, and the demon flinched. “I…I can’t.”

Aziraphale’s stomach plummeted, a wave of shock, of disappointment, of shame. “Crawly…”

No. He wouldn’t argue. What more was there to say? This was his foolishness, Crawly had rejected it. There was no need to drag things out. “Of course.” A wave of his fingers, and the offending mat was gone. “Don’t know what I was thinking.”

Crawly still looked away, past the human encampment, away across the endless expanses of desert.

“I…didn’t mean to make you feel uncomfortable,” Aziraphale said. No wonder Crawly always fled from him. He needed to learn…boundaries. Needed to learn control. His fingers had already reached out to tuck a lock of hair behind Crawly’s ear, but Aziraphale forced them to stop, hovering in the empty night. “It was never my intention to—”

Crawly grabbed his hand and, fast as anything, pressed his lips to the knuckles. Then, just as suddenly, he surged to his feet and started walking away.

“Wait!” He hadn’t let go of Aziraphale’s hand, and the angel pulled him back, so sharply Crawly nearly fell. “Don’t just – we need to talk about this, Crawly! What I’m feeling – I don’t understand it, but – if you feel it too—”

“I don’t, I don’t know what you’re…let me go!”

“Crawly, please!” Aziraphale still knelt in the dirt, clinging to the demon’s hand in confused desperation. “Yes, these – these human emotions are confusing and intense, but we can’t just ignore them. It was foolish of me to try and act on them, but—”

“Don’t talk to me about human emotions, Angel, you have no idea—”

“Then tell me!” Aziraphale squeezed his hand, wishing Crawly would look at him. “Regardless of – of everything else, Crawly, I want to help. I care about you!”

The words seemed to echo through the empty plain, across the river, up to the stars above.

It really was that simple wasn’t it? Human emotions and Guardian instincts and everything else aside, Aziraphale had simply come to…care about his enemy.

“You—!” Golden eyes turned back, wide with shock. “You said – But I’m—”

Crawly jerked his hand free, stumbled back two steps, and fell.

Except that what landed on the ground was not a red-haired, pale-skinned demon, but an enormous black serpent with a red belly.

“…Crawly?”

The serpent stared at him a moment, then shot out across the desert.

“No, get back here!” Aziraphale ran after him, fast as he could go, but the black shadow moved too quickly. “Crawly, wait!” Already he was vanishing into the night. “Crawly, please! Let me help you!”

But the serpent had vanished, as Crawly always did.

Aziraphale found his legs were shaking, trembling, until he could hardly stand. Even tugging his sleeves and smoothing his robes was not enough to set things right. He stumbled across the brown sand to sit on a rock, trying to make sense of it all.

Two puzzles presented themselves: What had he just seen? And what had he just said?

I care about you. And not in a…Guardian Angel way, aloofly wishing to ensure his charge’s safety. This was something different, something not at all of Heaven. He thought of the way the humans took care of each other, as equals. Not just providing safety, but happiness, and taking it from the other in turn. There was a gentleness in their actions, hiding a deep burning passion that would quite possibly consume an angel. He certainly didn’t feel that for Crawly, but…could he? Was this how it started?

What he felt just now was worry. He knew Crawly had come to Earth as a serpent, of course, had seen that with his own eyes. He didn’t think the transformation had harmed Crawly, but…it wasn’t supposed to happen. His shift to a human form was supposed to be permanent.

And the way Crawly had transformed…the suddenness…his distress beforehand…it hadn’t seemed entirely voluntary.

As he sat there thinking, one long streamer of shadow detached itself from the night and slid closer, coiling itself by his feet.

“Crawly?” Familiar golden eyes reflected the light of the stars as the serpent’s head rose. “Can you still understand me?”

Slowly, the serpent – Crawly – nodded, then tilted his head to the side. Yes, but not well, Aziraphale guessed. That made sense; this form didn’t have ears, and demonic senses could overcome only so much.

“Are you hurt?” Crawly shook his head. “Can you…change back?” Another shake, and he looked up at the stars, slowly progressing across the sky. Not yet.

“Why…” Too many questions, buzzing around Aziraphale’s mind. Crawly was the one who knew how to handle questions. Where to even begin? “Why did you run away?”

“Sssssshame.” It was hard to make out the word in the hiss.

“Shame? But why would you feel…” Aziraphale slid off his rock, kneeling next to Crawly. “There’s…you don’t have to be ashamed.” The serpent pulled back, coiling into himself, tucking his head somewhere along his body until everything appeared to be a black knot of night.

“No, listen. I’m the one who should be ashamed.” Aziraphale reached a hand towards the cool black scales, but stopped just shy of them. “I…I have behaved reprehensibly. Saying…all manner of things. Touching you when you didn’t want to be touched. And my actions tonight…no. It was my choice to – to indulge, to explore these new emotions, but I never should have attempted anything without seeing if you felt the same. Crawly, I never wanted to upset you…”

As he spoke, the narrow head emerged from the coils and shook, indicating a negative.

“No? Am I…wrong about something?”

A nod, but Crawly wouldn’t meet his eyes.  Something worse, perhaps? “Can you…tell me what’s bothering you?”

“Ssssss.” This time he could decipher nothing.

“That…let’s try another way.” Once again, Aziraphale stretched out a hand. Crawly pulled back his head, looking at it uncertainly until Aziraphale lowered it back to the ground. “Sorry. You don’t want to be touched, do you?”

A nod, followed by a complicated ripple down fifteen feet of serpent that might have been a shrug.

“Alright. Let’s see…did this happen all those times you ran off?” A nod. “And…do you have any control over it? Changing to this form, I mean.” A shake. “What about changing back?” A head tilt and another rippling shrug. What did that mean? Some control? He wasn’t certain if he had control?

Well, that wasn’t important right now.

“Do you know what…causes this?” Nod, again not meeting Aziraphale’s eyes. “Can you tell me?”

“Sssssssss.” A defeated head shake.

“Well…I know it was usually when we were talking, or when I…reached out or…” He swallowed. “It’s my fault?” Of course it was. It was so blindingly obvious. Foolish Principality, invading Crawly’s space again and again, driving him away, forcing him to change form.

But Crawly shook his head frantically. “Sssssss.” This one sounded frustrated. “Ffffffff. Fffffeeeel.”

“Feel?”

“Ffffeeeel. Hhhhhhaby.”

“Feel happy? Feel…Crawly, are you telling me you – you change into this form every time you feel happy?” A nod, this one eager. “But you’re always happy! Or most of the time. Not tonight, though, you were very sullen and…”

But Crawly shook his head again. “Hhhhhhhaby.”

“You were happy?” Nod. “That…I came over with that mat and…?” Nod. “And that I said I…care about you?” Nod, and his snout moved a little closer to Aziraphale’s face.

“So, you change when you’re happy. Very happy, I assume.” Nod. “And…I’m the one who…?” Another nod, this one looking more embarrassed.

Aziraphale lowered his gaze, feeling strangely pleased that he could have this…incomprehensible effect on another being. Oh, it wasn’t something to be proud of, but it made that warmth surge inside, to think that of all the things that made Crawly happy...

“Ah. But. Um. Why change? You said it wasn’t because you wanted to.” Head shake. “Then why?”

“Sssssss.” Crawly drooped. Whatever it was, he couldn’t explain it in this form.

“Never mind then.” Aziraphale stood up again, dusting off his robes. “Ah. How long to change back? You’re usually gone for hours.” A nod. “Oh.” Aziraphale glanced over his shoulder, back towards the human encampment. Surely…they would be fine on their own…for one night. “Should I stay with you?”

“Ssssssssssss.” The serpent pulled back into his coils again, but, after a long pause, emerged to nod slightly.

Aziraphale smiled, settling back onto the rock. “It’s my pleasure, dear fellow. What can I do to make you more comfortable?”

“Ssssss.” Crawly reached forward and rested his head on Aziraphale’s knee. “Ssssss?”

“Oh.” Serpents were, after all, much simpler creatures than humans. A human body needed many things to be happy, physically, mentally, and emotionally, as Aziraphale was rapidly learning. But a snake only desired heat. “Yes. Of course.”

Crawly darted forward, twisting himself up Aziraphale, wrapping around his stomach, his chest, his shoulders, tail twisting down around one leg, head coming to rest by his cheek. Aziraphale managed to get one arm free, the other pinned against his ribs. A squeeze went through Crawly’s body, gentle and brief, as he settled into place. “Ffffffffffine?”

“Yes, this…this is perfectly fine.” He scratched one finger carefully on the back of Crawly’s head. The serpent leaned into it, then shook free to tuck his head under Aziraphale’s chin. Another brief ripple of a squeeze, before bit by bit Crawly drifted off to sleep.

“Have pleasant dreams,” Aziraphale said, fingers stroking the black scales wrapped around his belly.

It wasn’t what he’d imagined. And yet, Aziraphale did spend the night with Crawly pressed tightly against him. He did provide his companion with comfort and safety.

Not at all how he’d thought it would happen, but Aziraphale was still radiantly happy.

--

“Itsssssstupid,” Crawly muttered, still lisping a little after his change back.

“I’ll be the judge of that. Just tell me.”

Crawly had awoken just as the stars had begun to fade, quickly twisting free of Aziraphale to transform back into his usual shape. He’d explained, somewhat embarrassed, that sleeping usually helped him change back quicker, and that sometimes he even woke up back in his humanoid form. This had presented Azirapahle with a very interesting mental image that he didn’t have time to indulge just now.

Crawly walked beside him, golden eyes darting in the pre-dawn light, reading Aziraphale in an instant before turning to stare at the ground again. “It isssss.” Crawly clenched his jaw and continued more carefully. “Sspent too long in the sserpent body. All that time in Hell. But. Ssnakes don’t…have emotions. Not like human bodies. Sso…I get…overwhelmed. And I can’t hold my shhhape anymore.”

“I see.” Aziraphale carefully studied Crawly out of the corner of his eye, almost afraid to look at him straight on. “And all those times you ran away?”

“I can ssort of…feel it coming. I have a little time to get away, but there’ss nothing I can do to sstop it.” He swallowed, seeming angry with his own mouth. “Stop it.”

“But why would you need to get away?”

“Ngh. I mean. You’re the enemy, I’m not supposed to…” Aziraphale couldn’t hide his pained expression fast enough, as Crawly’s eyes flicked over again. “And…it’s embarrassing. Don’t want to be that snake anymore. This is me now. This body.” He took a breath. “I…didn’t want you to think less of me. Because I can’t control myself.”

“I would never!” Aziraphale stopped walking entirely, but managed to fight down the urge to grab Crawly’s shoulders. “My dear fellow, we’re both learning to control ourselves here. You might be struggling with it physically, but I assure you…” He thought back over the choices he’d made since leaving the Wall. Things he’d said, ways he’d reached out and pulled back with almost no warning. Blaming it on urges and instincts, but he could have resisted if he’d wanted to, could have spoken about his feelings, could have done many things that were better, wiser, kinder. “I thought there was…something between us. Some understanding. But I was completely unaware of your struggles the whole time. I have been abominably selfish.”

“Don’t be too hard on yourself.” Crawly watched his toe trace lines in the dirt. “I think this…whatever it is, that makes you act the way you do and makes me so…mind-numbingly giddy I can’t keep my shape…I mean. It’s meant for the humans. We’re the first angel and demon to feel it. Of course it isn’t easy.”

“But…you do feel it, too?”

“Think so, yeah.”

Aziraphale tried to fight back the smile, but there was no stopping it. He turned away, preserving at least a little dignity. “So…what do we do about it?”

“Dunno.” Then, softer, “I want to touch you. Your hands, your face. I’d only...you know…but I want to.”

“I as well. It’s…I’m resisting but…it seems to grow harder every day.” He smoothed his hands down his robe. “Do you suppose it will always be this way? Between us? With every being we spend enough time around?”

“I hope not. It wouldn’t feel as…important if it were common. And it’s…distracting. I miss just talking.”

“As do I.” Aziraphale turned back in time to see Crawly’s smile. “I suppose…if it’s a question of the human-shaped corporation, you could always have it adjusted. Remove the troublesome emotions.”

“No!” The vehemence of Crawly’s voice startled him. “Aziraphale, that’s the last thing I want. I told you before, I want to – to experience everything this world has, including stupid human emotions. I don’t need them taken away I need…I need to build up a tolerance.” He nodded, staring ahead. “That’s it. A little at a time until…until…”

“Until you can feel whatever you want. Without…repercussions.”

“Nh. Don’t know how I’ll pull it off but..yeah. It, ah…” Another quick glance. “What about you? Probably help with your angelic duties if you didn’t have to worry about…all this.”

“It probably would.” They started walking again, slowly, side by side. “But I think…I think I would also like to experience all this world has to offer. And I can learn to control myself.”

They continued in silence for a little while, each lost in his thoughts.

“Do you think it will take much longer?” Aziraphale asked, twisting his fingers.

“You definitely need to learn patience, Angel.” Crawly grinned. “Yeah. Um. Remember when I tried to explain what a year was? Probably lots of those.”

“Ah. Is there…anything I can do to help?”

“Ngk. Well. You—”

A high-pitched scream echoed from the camp ahead, long and drawn out.

“The humans!”

They both took off at a run.

--

In the end, despite half a year of careful observation, Aziraphale and Crawly did very little. By the time they arrived it was nearly over; by the time they’d finished awkwardly re-introducing themselves – and convincing the Man not to skewer them on a flaming sword in a blind panic – there wasn’t much to be done except provide encouragement.

The Child was born, a healthy young boy who shouted quite indignantly at the inconvenience of it all.

The human race had truly begun.

Much later, as the Man and Woman rested, Aziraphale held the tiny baby in his arms. The boy had settled down somewhat, now that he was wrapped tightly and warm, and looked in danger of falling asleep in the angel’s arms.

“How does it feel?” Crawly asked, sitting at the edge of the camp.

“Oh, I can’t – it’s incredible, Crawly. I know he’s just a little thing but – I can feel it, his presence, his potential. Everything he can be, good and bad, and it’s just—” The baby opened his mouth in a wide yawn. “…It’s adorable.”

“You’re pathetic,” Crawly said, but with a smile, rising to stand closer, peering over Aziraphale’s shoulder at the Child. “So? Everything there? I know you spent about an eternity counting fingers and toes. Didn’t think it took that long to get to twenty.”

“They’re just the most precious little things! Look – look at his ears.”

“I’m looking.” One hand stretched out uncertainly, tracing along the Child’s cheek. The baby turned his head immediately, searching, sucking on the fingers he found. “Look at that. Not even a day old, searching for food, trying to survive. They just…they just keep going, huh?”

“I suppose so.” Holding the Child filled an emptiness in Aziraphale he hadn’t known was there, not the strange magnetism that drew him to Crawly, but that deep desire for connection, the need to walk with the humans, to be known. Accepted. Though it wasn’t all that different, he reflected. Two sides of the same…two-sided object. A need to not be alone. “Do you want to hold him?”

“Angel…” Crawly’s hand drifted back to the Child’s head, resting on the nest of dark downy curls. “Aziraphale. I really don’t think I can.”

He turned around, and was surprised to see tears in Crawly’s eyes.

“Sssstupid, huh? Child’s got nothing to do with me. But…” He turned abruptly and walked away from the camp.

“Crawly, wait!”

“Nope. This was it, Angel. Just on Earth until the kid was born.” He turned back and shrugged, arms spread wide.

“That doesn’t mean you have to go now.”

“I can feel them calling already. In here.” He tapped the side of his head. “Longer I wait, more likely they’ll send someone to get me, and that’ll just be...messy. And what am I supposed to do now, anyway? Sit here and watch you...carry him around...wishing I could...” He bit his lip. “What would be the point?”

“But…but I thought…”

“Yeah, I thought, too. But what can we do?” Crawly looked down at the ground, rubbing a hand across his forehead. “Look. Take care of them, alright? They don’t need your help. They’re smart. But…be kind. S’what you’re best at.”

“But…” Aziraphale looked down at the future of humanity in his arms. “Is that enough?”

“It’s everything.” Crawly stiffened, clenched his fists. “Shit.”

“What? What’s wrong?” Aziraphale took a step forward, and immediately the Child started fussing, sensing his anxiety.

“Well. Guess it’s not just happinessssss.” He swallowed hard, clearly fighting something. “Look. Angel.” Crawly walked back to hover beside Aziraphale again. “I – I really liked working with you. I hope…If I get another chanccccce…” He shook his head, then leaned in and pressed his lips to Aziraphale’s cheek.

It spread across his face, a warmth, a blush, a smile, blooming like a flower.

Aziraphale turned his head, catching Crawly’s lips with his own. He’d seen the humans do this from afar, and he’d wondered why, but now…

Now he knew.

Then, just as suddenly as it had begun, Crawly was gone, and a large black snake slithered away, fast as a shadow.

The Child started to cry. Aziraphale rocked him, bounced him a little. “No, dear, don’t worry. We’ll see him again.” The taste of Crawly was still on his lips, new and intriguing. “Nothing ends today. This is the beginning of our story.”

--

Thank you for reading! If that ending wasn’t satisfying enough, I recommend the fic Snuddles (Snake Cuddles) as a very distant epilogue.

[elsanna-shenanigans]

February Contest Submission #15: The Old House

words: ca. 6000 setting: 20th Century. Real world (with a twist) lemon: No cw: Some angst. Mentions of parent death. Referenced/implied child abuse.

“It’s time to go.”

She saw through the mist a hand, reaching out for her. Large snowflakes swirled past them like a swarm of puffy hens. The hand could not hold her. It slipped away. She called her parents’ names, or so she thought.

They found her moribund little body in the snow the next morning.

ᚼᛅᛁᛘᛦ•ᛅᚱᚾᚬᛏᛅᛚᛦ

Anna woke up with a start, chest heaving.

It was dark in the hotel room. Her roommate— partner?— stirred groggily next to her.

“Anna? What’s wrong?” Her raspy voice asked. “Was it another nightmare.”

“No,” she lied. “I’m sorry. Y-you can go back to sleep.”

She could feel Elsa’s eyes on her.

“What do you need?” She asked. Her voice spread warmth across Anna’s chest.

“…I could really use a warm hug.”

Next thing she knew, a pair of arms were gathering her into an embrace. She tucked her head under Elsa’s chin and sighed.

It would be a long day, it seemed.

ᚼᛅᛁᛘᛦ•ᛅᚱᚾᚬᛏᛅᛚᛦ

Arendelle was a small town on an island north of Norway. It was born as a fishing town in the 1890s and never changed its trajectory. Only a few dozen houses, a fish-oil refinery, the docks, one church, one school, one hotel, and an administrative building uphill. The people of Arendelle were rustic and gloomy, much like the weather they were brought up in: hail twice a week, snow in winter, and rain the rest of the time. In short: Arendelle hadn’t changed one bit since Anna left.

Being at the foot of the mountain, Arendelle’s surroundings were prone to avalanches, and the most recent one had taken place only a week back. It missed them by a few miles, but it opened up a door for archaeologists from the University of Bergen, who came to study what had been uncovered by the snow.

Anna wasn’t an archaeologist; she was a girl on a mission. She left while her grandfather slept, hopping into a cargo ship to travel north. Her passage was worth weeks of work. She hadn’t expected the sight of the town in the distance to hurt her as it did, so she kept her mind busy, and spent her days searching. 

The day things began to go downhill, she was, as always, searching for her parents’ bodies. 

She climbed up the mountains with her wooden stick and stabbed the snow with it, searching for something harder than mud. Bones, hopefully, although she was terrified of finding frozen flesh sticking to their cheekbones. The sky grew dark and cold, and Elsa would kill her if she arrived one minute too late, so she decided to turn back. She followed her own tracks towards the dig (where they let her sit by the ever-burning campfire as long as she wasn’t too noisy). The skeletal tree-branches rattled above. The wind whistled and swooshed sharply, blowing rough snow that clawed at her reddened cheeks. Her hands were numb even inside her pockets. Anna’s only comfort was thinking about Elsa’s arms around her. Not even the sight of Arendelle downhill quelled the chill.

Anna might be a born-Arendellian, but she grew up in the south of Norway. She was ill-prepared for the hostile North. 

However, if Elsa had taught her anything, was that even under the dark frozen sky there were objects of wonder.

As Anna trudged across the snow-sea which reached her mid-calf, something caught her eye. A narrow stone-wall led deep into the forest. Only two feet tall and falling apart already. Frost covered its surface. 

Her heart leaped. She deviated from her path without a second thought, legs racing, pulse and breath quickening with emotion.

The picture-stone came into view after. It lied deeper into the woods. A bow-shaped slab. Abstract ships, stick-people, reindeer herds gathered on it in a violent array of reds. Waves, antlers, and swords, a story carved in stone. A sacrifice.

And in the center, she found her.

There was something else to Arendelle.

“The Queen,” The hotel-butler had explained.

“The Queen of Norway?” Anna had asked, much to his amusement.

“No, the real Queen.”

The Snow Queen, who with her reindeer-pulled chariot cast a shadow of frost over every corner of the North. Her arms rose towards the sky, where her snowflake curled like clouds, like the winds she sent south. The slab was thirteen-foot-tall and rose high above Anna, with its depiction of the nordic spirit. Below her, was an inscription.

As it usually did, time halted. Anna’s throat dried, her eyes widened. She covered her mouth. She could no longer hear the sharp branch-rattling or wind-whistling over the sound of her own warm blood pounding in her ears. She no longer felt cold. 

She reached forward, tracing with a fingertip the carvings. 

The finds couldn’t be younger than seven hundred years old. Had it truly been that long? Oh, Anna could nearly feel the sculptor’s trembling hands, their warm breath. She placed a hand where someone else’s hands had once been. 

She searched for her journal inside her coat and scribbled down the runes she saw, as well as the stone and the wall she’d seen before.

Anna was no archaeologist— she wasn’t nearly smart enough—, but she understood why someone may choose this path. When she gazed upon this stone, it was as if there was no distance at all. 

The icy wind pushed against her, pulling her out of her haze. Yes! She began to stroll downhill. She’d prove her usefulness! She’d alert the scholars of the new find.

ᚼᛅᛁᛘᛦ•ᛅᚱᚾᚬᛏᛅᛚᛦ

Anna and the archaeologists were two land mammals sharing the same habitat, only, while they searched with brushes and trowels, Anna searched with a wooden stick. As non-competitive species, they often shared the same space, considering they knew her story. Anna wasn’t sure why the scholars tolerated her, but maybe it was because she and Elsa were a package deal now.

As soon as she reached her destination, Elsa threw her arms around her shoulders, kissed her cheek, and asked:

“Are you alright?”

She pulled back, anxious eyes studied her from head to toe. Anna’s heart always swelled with adoration when she heard that voice.

“I am,” she soothed her. “Oh, Elsa, you won’t believe what I found!”

“Wait.” Elsa tugged her towards the campfire and caressed Anna’s cheek with the back of her hand. “You’re cold. Come here.”

Soon, they sat on a log before the magnificent dig. A farmstead, they’d said. Stone walls and a half-rotten roof still mostly standing, surrounded by icy farming grounds where lamb bones were found.

The more awe-inspiring part, of course, was that a family had lived there. The farmstead was someone’s home. Elsa had described the findings in length: a family of three. All of them Christians, and funnily enough, also sheepherders. Thirteenth century. The settlement of Árnadalr lied many kilometers south, but this family lived in solitude.

Anna now wore an extra coat, held a mug of cocoa in her hands, and had Elsa fussing over her like a mother hen.

“What took you so long? You could get lost out there! And you left your scarf behind again. Here, let me find it.”

“Well, aren’t you a protective one,” Anna teased her, sipping her drink. Elsa’s pale skin flushed.

“It’s my job, isn’t it?” she muttered.

Before Anna could snort and ask what that meant, Professor Mattias, who was in charge of the dig, intervened to ask about Anna’s findings in the woods. Her enthusiasm immediately reassured everyone that she brought good news, and while they couldn’t travel at night, they still celebrated in the hotel. They cheered with vodka at the charcoal-sketch of the picture-stone Anna had presented. Yes, she’d made herself useful.

As they congratulated her, Elsa remained silent.

The hotel was so old, half the lightbulbs didn’t work. There was only one phone, and a dozen residents lined up every day to make their thirty-minutes calls and clog up the narrow smelly corridor. Each curtain was half-eaten by moths; you’d be wise not to put your clothes in the closet. Three stories of dusty light, creaky stairways, and dirty cracked windows. You could hear every neighbor from three doors away, and the ice clawed down from the roof into a fang-curtain before every window. They offered only one blanket per bed, but Elsa had provided Anna with a woolen quilt on her first night. That had perhaps been the first step towards falling in love with her. Between paying for both of them and giving up her own warmth, Elsa had extended unconditional kindness towards Anna from day one. Maybe they’d been doomed from the start. 

“They’re out of single rooms,” she’d clarified upon Anna’s arrival. “And I’ve been paying for an empty bed for the past week. Please, I insist.”

It might have passed as simple pragmatism had Elsa not been Elsa. It wasn’t only about her treatment towards Anna, no, but about how she’d treat a stranger in need, that made Anna lose control of her heart. 

She asked her about her silence, in the light of their whale-oil lamp (their room’s electricity hadn’t worked since the ‘30s), as she tried to translate the runes with her journal and a book she’d grabbed from the local library.

“Is everything okay, Elsa?”

Elsa was sitting on her bed, silently combing her hair. She wore only her slip, which was quite distracting, but she didn’t have the intention of getting into bed, despite looking so tired.

At Anna’s words, she tilted her head.

“Why? Are you feeling poorly?”

Anna snorted.

“I’m okay. Are you?”

“It’s nothing.”

Anna sighed. She closed the book and stared at Elsa.

“You never let me pull off this whole.. avoiding the subject thing,” she protested, and then extended an arm towards her, begging to come closer. A new anxious question settled on her tongue. “Are you…? Do you feel…? I mean, do you feel safe with me, Elsa? Like you can trust me?”

Elsa’s eyes studied her for one agonizing moment. She stood up. Well, they did only meet a month back. Weren’t they moving too fast? Her grandfather would certainly disapprove. 

“It’s not that,” Elsa murmured as she approached Anna. She wrapped her arms around her shoulders and nuzzled the top of her head. She planted a kiss there, and Anna’s heart skipped a beat. “I do trust you.”

Anna saw her pale fingers brush over the pages of her journal. Her uncertain translation read:

This stone was raised in memory of Agðar and Iðunn, who met their end in their travels. Their daughter carved this stone.

“You’re becoming quite a good translator,” Elsa commented, and placed another kiss on Anna’s hair. Heat crept up to the tips of her ears.

“T-thank you,” she replied, as she ripped off the page and stored it in her folder, alongside all other translations and sketches she’d scribbled since her arrival: small runestones, illustrations of archaeological finds, and multiple petroglyphs of the Queen, all of which she’d shared with the archaeologists. “You’re an excellent translator as well! I mean, I suppose you are. You work at the dig, after all.”

Elsa hummed.

“I’m not an archaeologist. I’m only a volunteer.” she argued. “In fact, I believe you’ve been more helpful than me.” She flipped over a page. “The Snow Queen?”

“Oh! Uh, yeah,” Anna stammered. “Kind of a passion project.”

“For the Snow Queen?” Elsa raised an eyebrow. “Should I be jealous?”

“Well, legend has it she was single, right? Oh! Thy Majesty! Pardon my manners, but I shoult say thy bosom looks exquisite. Are thee by any chance in need of a shieldmaiden?”

A hand snaked around her waist. Anna shrieked as Elsa’s fingers dug into the sensitive spot. Between laughter and screeching, she curled on herself and tried to swat her hand away. 

“Come on,” Elsa laughed. “It’s getting late. And keep working on your performance. That’s not how people spoke back in the day.”

She ruffled Anna’s hair and strode back towards her bed, and— alright, she saw swaying her hips on purpose. 

Anna pulled her knees to her chest, placing her heels on the edge of the seat and hugging her legs.

“You said you grew up here, right?”

“More or less, yes. Why?”

“Oh, I was just wondering. About the Snow Queen, you know.”

“What about her?”

“…That’s what I meant to ask.”

Elsa sighed. She rubbed her eyes.

“Just… some fairy tale,” she dismissed it, with a wave of her hand. “To make children behave. If you were nasty, a monster would feel your frozen heart and take you to her palace.”

“Was it a nice palace, at least?”

“I wouldn’t know. I was quite obedient growing up.”

“Oh, excuse me.”

Elsa chuckled, and Anna’s heart fluttered with affection.

“I was!” she insisted, giving Anna a mischievous look. “But no. I don’t think it was a nice place. In fact, they say everything about the Queen was cruel and horrible. She never seemed like girlfriend material to me.”

“You think?” Anna asked. “I don’t know. Maybe she was lonely.”

Elsa cast her eyes down, lips curling into a melancholic smile.

“Well, I doubt even she could resist your charms.”

With a delicate finger, she pulled Anna’s hair away from her face, tucking it behind her ear. Now the heat was in Anna’s stomach, in her chest, in the way Elsa gazed at her with such an unexpected adoration, she couldn’t help but to raise her head and kiss her lips. Elsa sighed contentedly, her hand cradling the back of Anna’s neck. Her mind spun around as their lips brushed together. 

Then Elsa pulled away, with a pensive expression. She bit her lip.

“Tell you what,” she said, grasping Anna’s hands. “Come with me tomorrow. I want to show you something.”

Anna grinned. That was good enough for her. She’d wait for Elsa to speak in her own terms and time. 

ᚼᛅᛁᛘᛦ•ᛅᚱᚾᚬᛏᛅᛚᛦ

“That’s the thing,” she remembered her grandfather say, when she was seven. “I doubt they got lost. We would have found the bodies by now. I bet the reason they’re gone is because they didn’t want to deal with the responsibility, so they thrusted it on me.”

Anna woke again. Her hands trembled.

That had been a lie. 

That had to be a lie. 

He had always lied, hadn’t he? Maybe he just despised her.

Yes, she’d find them and prove him wrong. 

They loved her. They were dead.

Thankfully, Elsa wasn’t disturbed by her pathetic dreams. Anna was surprised she still put up with her, but it was better not to take risks.

She grabbed her coat and got ready for the day.

ᚼᛅᛁᛘᛦ•ᛅᚱᚾᚬᛏᛅᛚᛦ

Elsa guided her through the lonely snow-sea of the mountains in the dark winter morning. The Queen seemed to have it against them, because she blew her snow all over and made them struggle to climb up the hills. 

“Um… Elsa? How much until we get there?” Anna asked, as she could no longer feel her toes.

“Not much,” Elsa absently replied. Her eyes drifted all over the hills. She grasped Anna’s hand and pulled her along. 

The cliffs overlooking Arendelle were a dark shadow in the distance, but they gained definition as both women approached. They didn’t draw a 90 degrees angle with the ground— rather, the earth elevated slowly, in bumps and rocky points, rising like a heavy breath towards the cliff’s foot. It was a rather secluded spot, where the snow didn’t hit as harshly. There they could rest until the time to search came again.

Yet Elsa had other plans. She toiled forward, along the cliff-wall, until the runestones came into view.

Blood-red lines coiled around the edges of a small stone plate, only half as tall as Anna herself. It protruded from near the foot of the cliff, high above. They exchanged a quick look.

“Can you read what it says?” Asked Elsa. Anna cringed thinking about her rune-reading skills.

“I can try?” She vacillated. Looking up, she read: “…Sif and Afvaldr erected this stone in memory of Nafni, son of Ulfarr, father of Afvaldr and husbandman of Sif, who met his end fighting the snow.”

Her heart skipped a beat. She saw Elsa grin from the corner of her eye.

“Anna,” she tugged at her hand. “Look.”

Anna followed the direction of Elsa’s finger, and saw extending into the distance a trail of stones with engravings on them. Small, big, at some points more spaced out than in others. They followed the length of the cliff-wall like a series of little stars, so tiny under the mountain’s shadow.

Anna’s throat tightened with emotion. 

She stepped towards the next stone. This one had a cross on it.

“Feykir and his daughter, Esja, had this stone raised in memory of Rjúpa, Feykir’s wife and Esja’s mother, who was taken by the wicked snow. May God help her spirit.”

This one was close enough to touch. Anna traced the edge of the cross with a finger. 

“How did you know this place?” She asked.

“Oh, you know.” Elsa shrugged. “This is my home.”

Many of the stones were cenotaphs, Elsa explained. No one was buried beneath this soil, but they might as well be, because each of these people, with names and loved ones, felt only a breath away.

“Bersa raised this stone in memory of Ilmr, her father’s sister. She was killed when trying to kill the snow.”

Anna’s breath grew heavier. She scrutinized these patterns, these strange writings, for several hours; they all dated to this wicked, living, killing snow.

Her heart vigorously pounded warm blood into her fingertips.

Then, she spotted a particular runestone. It was the greatest one of all, far away from the others, and it sported the same figure she’d seen only a day before; the Snow Queen with her arms towards the sky. Around her coiled a serpent with words on its skin.

In her blind excitement, Anna hastily climbed over rocks until she reached it. Elsa followed closely behind. 

“Do you know what it says?” Elsa asked when she reached her.

Anna squinted at the words. Its inscription was the longest she’d seen so far.

“It says… Agðar and Iðunn came from the south. It was with them that the snow came.” She stepped to the side, to read the following line. “It was their daughter that brought the evil, with which she could slay a hundred men in… Árnadalr? So… um… Crap. I don’t know what it says here.”

She turned around, expecting to find Elsa willing to lend a hand, but her expression was painted by an unexpected sadness.

Anna’s stomach sank a little.

“Elsa?”

Elsa lowered her head.

“It says they killed her,” she explained. Anna squinted.

“She was real?”

“So it seems.”

“The Snow Queen? No. That’s… too much even for Arendelle. Besides, vikings wrote a lot of weird stuff, right?”

“It’s what the stone tells.” Elsa pointed out. “I know I said it was only a tale last night, but…”

“Wait. Agðar and Iðunn?” Anna checked the names on the stone again. “Were they…? Oh, Elsa… She really was real. And her parents…”

“…Yes. Agðar and Iðunn were the names of the people who lived in the dig,” Elsa clarified.

“So, the Snow Queen… she…” Anna looked at the carvings in stone again. Despair seized her heart. “Oh, no, Elsa. She had a family. They… Oh, goodness…”

A family, yes, one the Snow Queen had missed very much, enough to raise a stone in their memory. To think about this loss, this pain that she thought she knew even if she wasn’t quite sure, tore her heart in half. 

Her eyes watered. 

“I don’t think she was a monster.”

There was… a long history of death and pain in that family, wasn’t it?.

She heard Elsa breathe behind her. 

“Anna, there’s…”

She dropped whatever it was she was about to say when she noticed the mist behind Anna’s eyes.

“I really hope I find my parents,” she murmured, then furiously rubbed her eyes. “D-did I ever tell you what happened to them?”

She could feel Elsa’s pain-stricken gaze on her.

“If that’s something you want to do, I’ll listen.”

Anna nodded. Her throat constricted. 

“There was a storm,” she recalled. “I don’t remember what happened very well. I-I can’t even remember their names, and my grandfather won’t tell me, and besides…”

“He won’t?”

“Yeah, so I think I got lost, because I couldn’t see them anywhere. Next thing I knew, I woke up in the hospital. My grandfather adopted me afterwards.”

“But you’re the one searching for the bodies?”

“What can I say?” Anna shrugged and forced a crooked smile. “Guess he didn’t want to… unbury any painful memories.”

“He didn’t care to find his son?”

“…Or you could put it like that, too.” She wiped her eyes, looking down. “I think I’m beginning to understand him, though.”

Elsa squinted.

“How come?”

“Well…” She kicked the snow at her feet. “He told me once they’d left me in the snow. I like to think I actually got lucky, but I…” She shook her head. “I feel so selfish, Elsa. Like I want them to be dead, just so I can know they didn’t abandon me.”

“They didn’t,” Elsa blurted out with a thick voice. “Anna, your family loved you.”

“Then I shouldn’t be looking for them like this.”

Her voice sounded pathetic even to her.

She brought her hands together, and carefully leaned against Elsa.

“What are you going to do, then?”

She sucked in a ragged breath.

“I don’t know,” Anna admitted. “I don’t wanna go home. My grandfather…”

“Does he hurt you?”

“He’s never hit me.”

Elsa’s arm snaked around her waist.

“What will you do?” Anna then asked, trying to shift the attention from herself. “After the dig is over, I mean. You’ve lived your whole life here, right?”

“In a way.”

“Will you stay?”

That was a difficult question. Elsa could imply she’d leave her and neither of them would know, because Anna didn’t know what she’d do, either. Maybe she’d be the one to leave Elsa.

Elsa closed her eyes.

“I don’t know. Arendelle brings a lot of memories, doesn’t it?”

“It does.”

Then Elsa lowered her gaze. Screwed her eyes shut. She pulled away from Anna and wrapped both arms around herself.

“Let’s just go back,” she said curtly. Anna’s heart weighed heavily in her chest— from thinking of her family, from thinking about the Queen, from this sudden rejection—, but she respected Elsa’s space. Had she done something to scare her away? Oh, she surely must have.

They climbed down from the hills even though Anna’s toes were freezing. The mountains made her feel hopeless but so did the sight of Arendelle, and with Elsa walking several feet before her, not even glancing back, Anna felt as though there was no respite from this tired heaviness. She wanted nothing but to curl into a ball and sleep. 

Just before they entered the town, Elsa stopped.

“Anna… listen.” She began. Her tone made Anna’s shoulders droop. “I-I can’t keep doing this. We can’t.”

Anna’s heart quivered.

“W-what do you mean?”

“I mean… this has to end.” She raised her shoulders to her ears. Avoided Anna’s eyes. “I-I’m sorry. Goodbye, Anna.”

Her heart cracked open. Anna shook her head.

“What? W-why?” She shouldn’t feel this surprised. “Did… did I do something? I’m so sorry if I did. Just…”

The pain behind Elsa’s eyes was indescribable.

“No.” She interrupted. “It wasn’t you. Just… please. I can’t say it right now.”

Anna wanted to reply (to scream, cry, seize her hands and not let go), but words failed her as Elsa turned her back to her and entered Arendelle.

As simple as that, Anna was alone. 

She didn’t begin to cry until Elsa was out of sight, like a pathetic little child. 

ᚼᛅᛁᛘᛦ•ᛅᚱᚾᚬᛏᛅᛚᛦ

During her last night in Arendelle, Anna dreamed of her sister.

Yes, she’d had a sister, and even though she didn’t remember her name or face she remembered she’d loved her, once. She remembered holding her hand and running in the snow, building snowmen and drinking chocolate with her. The affection and tenderness lingered after, as if carved on stone.

ᚼᛅᛁᛘᛦ•ᛅᚱᚾᚬᛏᛅᛚᛦ

"Anna, wait.”

Her breath and heart came to a halt. Turning around, she found her standing there, in her blue dress and gripping a rucksack. Her expression was both serious and desperate; pained. She raised a hand as if to grasp Anna’s.

“Oh. Elsa,” Anna blurted. The need to cover her face nearly overpowered her. “Uh… Hello.”

Elsa took her acknowledgment as a cue to come closer. Two long steps and a stare, just for a moment; and Anna understood she didn’t know what she was doing, either. Did she intend to apologize for being brusque? Her approach seemed to indicate so. It wouldn’t be unlike her. Anna was willing to accept and move on if that was the case, but truth was, she didn’t deserve an apology when she’d been the one in the wrong.

However, Elsa looked anything but angry.

Rather, her blue eyes drifted over to the ship in port; the sea. Her throat bobbed up and down.

“I suppose we’ll be leaving in the same ship,” she pointed out with a lopsided smile. Anna tried to smile back. 

“Yep. So it seems.”

“Though I believe we’re early,” continued Elsa. “I was wondering if you cared for a walk in town.”

Anna looked to the side. 

“Elsa, I… don’t know.”

“There’s something I need to tell you,” she insisted. “I know. I know. Y-you don’t have to listen to me. But I promise I’ll explain everything, if you’ll have me.”

“Oh, Elsa, there’s nothing to explain,” Anna reassured her. “You just… don’t feel the same way I do. That’s normal. I’m not mad, you know.”

Elsa shook her head.

“That’s not it,” she insisted. “It's… more complicated than that. Actually, I’ve been meaning to tell you this ever since I found you.” She wrung her hands together and looked down. “I just hope you’ll believe me when I’m done.”

Regret and desperation were draped over her posture like a heavy cloak, dragging her down. Even when hurt, Elsa still made her heart skip a beat with every gesture of kindness, and this one was no exception. Both her lovestruck haze and her intellectual curiosity compelled her to give Elsa a chance. 

She picked up her bag and extended her arms to the sides.

“I’m all ears.”

Elsa’s grin reminded her of why she loved her. 

“Really?”

“Yep! One-hundred-per-cent. Now, hurry up!”

Elsa sighed in relief. She placed a hand on her chest.

“Alright. Come with me.”

She led her out of the port and into town. Despite having spent the last few months in Arendelle, Anna wasn’t eager to revisit it, but it was different when she knew that’d be the last time she’d see it. She spotted the playground where she and her sister had played (her big sis always hugged her from behind when they went down the slide, because it wasn’t fun going alone), and saw the place where they bought cod and salmon on the weekends. The little kindergarten she’d attended had closed down, but the building still stood. Most streets hadn’t been paved. Mud stuck to her boots. The sky was still white and cold, the houses dull, and the people as austere and uncaring as they’d always been. 

“When I was little,” Elsa began. “My family and I were hiding from a very dangerous man. Of course, I didn’t know that until I was much older. At the time it all felt like a game of hide and seek. We left the mainland, and when that wasn’t enough, we went even further.” She gulped. “We crossed a line that night, and someone else suffered the consequences.”

Anna bit her lip but didn’t interrupt. She feared any disturbance may break the spell and chase Elsa away.

“Anna, what do you remember from the dig?”

“There was a family. With a kid. The Snow Queen. And… her parents died.” Anna recounted. “Is that it? You were reminded of your family?”

“…I was, yes,” replied Elsa. “Anna…”

Was that it? Had it been a dumb case of miscommunication? Of course! She’d been so stupid. Neither of them had been in the right place back then, but now they were, and they could sort out the problem. Perhaps, Elsa didn’t hate her.

Only then Anna realized they were standing before the old house.

Her stomach sank. Her breath hitched and a shiver ran down her spine, mouth hanging ajar. She stepped back.

“Oh, no,” she heard Elsa mumble. 

The house was still made of wood, although it had lost its color. Two stories. A window was broken and so was one of the steps leading up to the entrance. From inside came the smell of dust and rust and rot.

“Anna?”

She looked at Elsa, and couldn’t find the words to beg or cry or scream, but she didn’t need to because Elsa didn’t ask questions. She held her reluctant gaze for a moment and then she nodded, stepped forward, and took Anna’s hand. 

She managed to hold her composure and lead Elsa inside. 

The house had been empty for thirteen years, and it had collected dust and spiderwebs over time. It still felt like home, though. A cold fireplace, where Mama often sang to them, or the rocking chair by the windows, where Papa sat to tell bedtime stories.

Anna’s ribcage unlocked with force. She exhaled shakily and blinked the blurriness away.

Elsa was dreadfully silent, but her thumb caressed Anna’s knuckles. This gave her the strength to climb up the stairs towards her old bedroom. The window was so dirty, you could barely see at all. Nearly all the furniture was gone, save for a pitiful nightstand.

“Anna?”

Anna placed both palms on the nightstand and screwed her eyes shut.

“W-would you tell me about your family? Please?”

She did not have a family to embrace her but perhaps she could bask in the comfort of someone else’s warmth.

“My father was a physicist. My mother was a historian,” continued Elsa. “A-and I had a little sister. Even then, I loved her with everything I was.”

The drawer was stuck. Anna struggled with it.

“W-we never meant to leave her behind.” Elsa’s breathing was laborious. “But there was a blizzard; a small avalanche. And she got lost. We tried to go back for her but it was too late. We’d already reached the other side.”

The wood made a horrible rattling noise, but it eventually gave in under Anna’s strength.

“To this day I still don’t understand how such a thing could happen. We spent thirteen years trying to go back, a-and my parents didn’t make it. The people in town saw something in me. They feared me, and I never knew why. I-I didn’t mean to scare them. My parents tried to find a way back, but they—they didn’t make it. I-I took care of them myself. Gave them a proper…” her voice cracked horribly. “T-they deserved to see her again, yet only three years later the very same window opened itself to me. I didn’t cross it. In fact, it crossed over me.”

Inside the drawer was a single photo frame. Anna picked it in her trembling hands.

“Elsa…”

“I was happy. I was back, after so long. And then I found my little sister, too. I can’t describe the way I felt when I saw her again, all grown up after thirteen years.”

Anna traced a finger around her sister’s childish face on the frame’s glass.

“Elsa, I…”

“But then, I began to feel… something else. I thought I was just… happy to have her back, even if I hadn’t dared to tell her the truth. But I was wrong. What I felt… scared me. I wanted to be with her all the time, but I couldn’t stand to look at her face. I felt disgusting. I-I still do.”

Anna put the frame down, and studied her sister from head to toe. The same blue eyes, snow-like hair. The same gentle features but also the same inner strength her broken little mind still remembered. Her thoughts were no longer made of words; she couldn’t hear them over the blood pounding in her ears— her heart would jump out of her chest at any moment. They had all come to a halt as her brain processed Elsa’s words. Her sister. Her sister, who had been away for so long, who was now back, who had taken care of their parents’ burial alone and who still made Anna feel like the most loved person in the world.

Her heart made up its mind. She threw her arms around Elsa’s neck.

“Oh, Elsa…” she breathed, and choked back a sob. “You’re not disgusting. Please, don’t ever say that. I love you.”

Her sister. She was back, from beyond time. She was the same girl who tucked Anna into bed back then. She’d taken care of baby sheep yet she saw herself through monstrous lenses. The Snow Queen, in love with her little sister, who one day vanished from her farmstead and was never seen again. Who raised a stone in memory of their parents, for people hundreds of years later to remember them. This girl with a quivering body, holding Anna in her arms.

A tear ran down Anna’s cheek.

“I realized that, regardless of how I felt, I would lose you again if I didn’t tell you,” Elsa whispered. “That’s all that matters. We can forget about whatever it is that I feel. That’s alright by me.”

Anna shook her head against her sister’s shoulder.

“Well, g-good thing it doesn’t have to come down to that, right?” Anna chuckled wetly. She slowly pulled back, and found her sister’s hands in hers.

“Even now that you know the truth?” Elsa closed her eyes. “No. It isn’t right.”

“What are you talking about? Elsa, can’t you see? I love you. I… will need some time to wrap my head around this, but… All these years, I thought I was alone, b-but I wasn’t! You and Mama and Papa were always out there. You were even searching for me! A-and now I have you back, and… Oh my Goodness, I got my sister back… A-and she’s in love with me.”

Anna hesitated for only one second. For some reason, she could believe her, almost without trying. Her sister, yes, it wasn’t normal, but after walking across time and back– after losing her for so long, normal was out the window for her. She wouldn’t lose her, in one way or the other.

“I’m sorry.” Elsa murmured.

“What? Elsa, have you met you?” Anna spluttered, then laughed. “Not everyone is lucky enough to say their sister loves them this much.” She stood on tip-toes and pressed her lips to Elsa’s— her sister’s— her family’s. The warmth that spread inside her body felt natural, and it did so even more when a hand cupped the back of her neck. She pulled back after a moment. “We have time to figure things out, Elsa,” she said. “Y-you’ll come with me, right? You’ll give me a chance?”

Her sister’s eyes brimmed with tears. Her hand tucked a strand of red hair behind Anna’s ear. 

“I’m scared, Anna,” she admitted. “I don’t know what I’m doing. But I’ll stay with you. I promise.”

Anna grinned like a lovestruck fool.

“We’ll figure it out together,” she reassured her. Then a siren came from the port, echoing through Arendelle. They exchanged a smile. Anna stole one more peck before Elsa could speak.

“Are you satisfied? Shall we go now?” Elsa giggled.

They made it outside the house, and once outside, the brightness blinded Anna for an instant. When she inhaled the fresh ocean air, she felt as if she could float. The damp, heavy odor of the house no longer clung to her lungs. 

She looked back. The house hadn’t changed. Its wood was still colorless and empty of life. It was completely empty.

“Anna?”

Her sister stood next to her, more beautiful than she remembered. She looked at her with all the love in the world.

The siren blared again.

Large snowflakes swirled past them like a swarm of puffy hens. 

Anna grasped her sister’s hand.

“Come on,” she said. “It’s time to go.”

[the-unknown-storyteller]

Journals

(Universe by @linkeduniverse)

Summary: Almost every Link of the group owns a journal in any shape or form.

____

Although Wild is usually the one, running around with a journal in his hands or strapped to his hip, there are several Links in the group that do the same thing.

Time keeps a journey log filled to the brim with hundreds if not thousands of notes and letters for when he can return to his lovely wife. He keeps everything neat and organised with dates added to every page. Some paper pieces look a lot older and weathered down than the others, slight crinkles at the edges and a faint yellow tint to where water had hit the paper a long, long time ago.

Still, Time keeps every little note that he has written, both on bad and good days and keeps them safe for Malon. So that she can read and feel what he's seen and felt. That thought alone makes long nights around the campfire a bit easier to go through, a bit more bearable when he simply can't sleep, haunted by the ghosts of times long past, and needs a distraction strong enough to make them go away.

Wind is often seen going through a small sketchbook, a smile on his lips or a happy glimmer in his eyes. His sister had given it to him before he had parted with her and his grandma. Most of the drawings are just simple sketches of seagulls or ships, usually from a very far away perspective.

One could also say that those were just some random lines with a slight resemblance of some bird and walnut shells. There's only so much a nine-year-old can do from on top of a watchtower and with references that constantly move around. Wind loves each of them, nonetheless. Sometimes he adds a sketch or two of his own because coming home empty handed is a no go. His sister would be so disappointed. Thus, he draws and draws and draws for his little sister at home, eager to see her smile when he shows her all the things he's seen on his journey.

Legend, on the other hand, owns a journal with a much more practical purpose. With years and years of traveling experience under his belt, he knows that it's important to keep track of everything, dimensional pockets be damned. Food, potions, supplies like bandages and thread. Everything goes into his journal as numbers and dates. Although, it would be a lie to claim that he only writes lists and plans of how to make the rations last longer when they're in a pinch.

Hyrule once caught him extremely early in the morning, writing a short story from the perspective of a painting. Which had sounded kind of silly back then and he only got a few sentences in, but from what he had seen, it was very well written and he'd love to read more of it. Hyrule felt like he would get to know Legend better if he did. But the way Legend whipped around and scrambled to pack his book away with this kind of shocked and scared expression on his face made Hyrule not want to push his friend.

Sky’s journal is more like a folder, holding together multiple pages, most of them bright and colourful. A normal notebook wouldn't have worked all that well for how he wants to use it, so he had decided to get a piece of leather and a band to wrap around a few times. He then filled it with paper that’s thicker and sturdier than normal one, since it has to be able to withstand his paints and chalk. Sky paints when his heart begins to ache for the past.

When he gets homesick, he sits down, looks at the sky and starts working. As a result, his book is filled with sketches of clouds, so soft that you believe they might fly away any moment now. Urged forward by a gentle gust of wind.

On good days, he uses either pastel sticks or aquarelles. His hands work slowly and lightly with relaxed but still precise movements, similar to how a feather falls gently to the earth. Sky takes his time on those days and enjoys every line he lays down and every colour he manages to blend smoothly.

On bad days, he uses charcoal and dark oil paints. His lines are vicious then, threatening whoever decides to dare look at them. There's anger and despair that flows into the colours. His hands move fast and with such force that he's once broken a brush of his.

Those days are messy and impatient with harsh and jagged lines and barely any white space left behind. When looking only at those pieces, no one would be able to tell that he's also the one behind the cloud paintings that speak of such gently and careful hands.

In all of his paintings, there's usually a Skyloft flying in the distance or at least a single red feather hidden somewhere. That same feather is burned and charred on the edges on those rare days when Sky’s heart feels rotten.

Lastly, there is Hyrule. He's a big mystery to everyone, at least his two journals are. One of them is so incredibly thin that there can't be more than twenty pages in it. It looks barely used, too. The spine is pristine and barely broken in and there are next to no scratches on the soft, light brown leather cover. The only part of it that betrays any kind of usage are the miniscule gaps between pages in set intervals. So it must have been at least opened once or twice.

His other journal, though, is loaded with whatever Hyrule has decided to put in there. Pages warped and wrinkled, making the cover expand and bend itself outwards. A band wrapped around it multiple times, similar to how Sky does it, keeps all the pages from spilling out and onto the ground.

Next thing is that they barely get to see them too. They're usually hidden in Hyrule’s bag between potions and bandages and tools like a knife and a pair of scissors that look incredibly sharp. Sharp enough to cut through thick rope with ease which confuses the others. Why have an extra pair of sharp scissors when you can slash through everything just as well with a small knife? It would make sense if he uses it for mending his clothes, but no such thing. Because they barely get to see the scissors too.

Additionally, Hyrule disappears every two days for several hours, he walks away from them as soon as they’re finished setting up the camp with quick and light steps. Today is no different.

“Got something important to do. Don't worry about me, I'll be back in a bit”, he yells back, making his way down the hill towards a forest nearby.

When Warrior notices the two journals in his right arm and the pair of scissors in his left hand, he immediately perks up from where he is putting down wood to get a fire going. He's intrigued and the tingling in his hands is slowly receding, too. He's sold.

“We might not have enough fire wood for the whole night, I'll go and collect some more”, Warrior says, slowly backing away from the others, some of whom shout a distracted thanks.

As soon as he is out of sight of the group, he ducks down beneath the grass that stands tall above him and goes to follow Hyrule who's detoured from his original path and takes a sharp right. He disappears behind some large boulders.

Warrior stands still for a few seconds. Listening. Waiting if Hyrule suddenly changes his mind and goes back, possibly catching him in the process. But all he hears are light footsteps that move away from him. A small grin grows on his face. He shakes his right hand a few times and runs towards the boulder, taking quiet shuffling steps around it.

Before he even gets to turn around and take a peek, he can hear a quiet and gentle voice, that is undoubtedly Hyrule’s, talking.

“This one won't do. I’m sorry but you're just too small, even if you are quite beautiful. Give it a few days and you'll be the prettiest of them all, I'm sure of it. I can't just go and snip you now-”

Warrior peeks his head around the rock and is quite confused by the pureness of the scene that unfolds before him. Hyrule is standing there in a crouched position, the pair of scissors in his right hand. The other holds the very thin journal, opened at what appears to be a random page. The other book lays next to Hyrule’s right foot in the soft grass.

There is this kind adoring look on his face, which also radiates calmness and contentment. Warrior can see that he is still talking to whatever interesting thing is on the ground there. What is he talking to? A bug? A worm? No, why would someone want to “snip” a worm? He doesn't get it and he can't see form this far away.

Hyrule gets up and shuffles over to another patch of grass, repeating the same process of talking to the ground. This time, though, he makes a careful cut with his scissors and lays whatever he's found into his journal. He clamps it shut and opens a new empty page. Then shuffle, crouch, talk, snip. He repeats that process a few time and each damn time Warrior can't see what it is that he's putting in his book.

Warrior’s chest is burning with vicious curiosity now and he can no longer stand still. He taps his foot a few times, before he thinks that it doesn't matter and sprints over to where Hyrule is standing. He’s taking the leather string off of his book, back turned to the approaching storm.

“Just what is it that you're collecting in there?!”, Warrior cries out and startles Hyrule badly. Both of his journals fall to the ground...

..and a dozen, a hundred dried flowers and flower petals spill out and onto the ground. They both stand there for a second, frozen. Time stands still.

Warrior is staring.

Hyrule is staring back.

Warrior takes in the sight of the dried flowers.

Then, Hyrule’s body comes back to life with a start when he notices some dark blue hydrangea have crumbled upon impact. He crouches down and picks up the once delicate flower petals with gentle hands.

“I'm sorr-”

“It's okay. They weren't all that important anyway.”

They both know that's a lie. Warrior can see it in the way his shoulders are hunched forward, in the way his hands form a small bowl, as though he is trying to protect the remaining pieces.

“Why are you always so secretive about this?”

Hyrule looks up at him with a questioning look. “Hm? Oh. Well, none of you have ever asked about it and I didn't feel like telling you.” A short pause. “You see, I've done this ever since I've started traveling. It’s always felt like something that was mine and mine alone. It’s a useless and stupid sentiment, but I still held onto it. I don't really mind, though, if everyone found out about it. It's just a small hobby. I would take one hour out of my day and collect flowers to press them and put them into my scrapbook.”

Warrior sits down next to Hyrule, who has started to put everything back to where it belongs. “But why?”, he asks.

“I guess… I just like the process of it and what you get at the end. I've travelled a lot, not as much as Legend, of course, but I've come around quite a bit. And every time I get somewhere new, I am awed by what I'm seeing and encountering and I think ‘I want to keep a piece of this with me’. Pressed flowers were the easiest solution to that.”

There's silence once again, save for the quiet rustling of the flowers. Warrior takes a deep breath.

“Would you mind...?” He gestures at the sad pile of broken hydrangeas. “I'm sorry for ruining them and would like to know the story. If you're willing to tell me, that is.”

Hyrule glances up at him, sees the sincerity behind his apologetic smile and huffs.

“I guess it couldn't hurt to share just a few.”

[hallsp]

Jordan Diary

What follows is a somewhat lacklustre chronicle of my trip to Jordan, taking in Amman, Aqaba, Petra, and Wadi Rum:

Wednesday, 26th December, 2018

Jordan has a strange, haunting beauty, and a sense of timelessness. Dotted with the ruins of empires once great, it is the last resort of yesterday in the world of tomorrow. – King Hussein bin Talal

I’ve just been woken by a God-awful thud. “Jesus, what fresh hell is this?” I remember thinking. I had a stone-splitting headache but came to my senses quickly enough. The airport, I suddenly remembered! We must have landed at Queen Alia, in Amman. That was where I was supposed to be, after all. I just couldn’t remember how I got here. I didn’t remember the flight. I didn’t really remember boarding. How on God’s green Earth did I get to the airport?

The last thing I can properly recall was ordering a doo-doo shot in a bar on Armenia Street, after my fourth or fifth vodka-redbull. This, on top of a bottle or two of red wine and some beers earlier in the day.

Christmas Day had started out nice and quiet, just like normal: a gathering of friends, lots of cooking and eating food, some pleasant conversation over a few glasses of dinner wine. I hadn’t planned on going out. I hadn’t actually banked on the bars being open. At home, in Ireland, everything is closed for the holiday. It was all Shadi’s fault. And Maryam’s. And Jodey’s.

Now I was hopelessly hungover, possibly still drunk, and I had to navigate a new country through the colourful medium of Arabic, but it didn’t matter, I was here: the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan.

It was really cold, something close to freezing, far colder than Beirut. I hadn’t anticipated this, and I’d packed in a stupour at 2 in the morning. Clothes-wise, I was woefully unprepared.

I left the airport and tried walking, but it turned out to be a seven hour walk from the airport to Amman city centre. I managed to gauge this almost immediately and turned back in search of shelter. I eventually found a taxi into the city. It cost 20 JD, but I paid him 30 out of sheer gratitude. I had no sense of the conversion rate. I would later discover that a 10 JD tip is outrageous, something like $15. It was like some terrible inversion of Wilde: I knew the value of everything, but the price of nothing.

The hostel, Nomads, on Jabal Amman, is amazing. The staff are friendly, the rooms are nice, the location is central, and the WiFi is excellent. It’s got a good vibe, too, lots of wall paintings and the like:

I joined a free walking tour — recommended price: 5 JD — almost straight away, which left a lot to be desired in the end. The guy walked us around a bunch of shops and souks, for which I’m sure he received some kind of commission. It did give me a sense of the city, though, so I found my bearings fairly easily afterward.

I decided to go for some food. The falafel served at Al-Quds is supposed to be the best, an old Palestinian place named for the city of Jerusalem, and it certainly was. I still have dreams about that falafel sandwich in a crispy sesame bun. It might be the nicest falafel I’ve ever had. I then went for the equally famous kanafeh dessert at Habibah, also a solid recommendation.

Since I hadn’t slept for very long last night, I decided to call it quits early, around about 7ish, but not before buying a wrist watch I had seen earlier in the day — one with Arabic numerals. I’ve been looking for one of these for months.

Thursday, 27th December, 2018

I was up early, about 7 am, to beat the crowds and the impending storm, so off I went to the citadel high above the city. Jabal al-Qala’a it’s called. Somehow, I managed to follow a road up towards the citadel from the wrong side, but I was able to clamber up some rocks and over the wall, accidentally bypassing the ticket office. I had a Jordan Pass, so it didn’t really matter.

Occupied since the early Bronze Age, the citadel has been re-fortified countless times, most recently by the Romans, the Byzantines, and the Umayyads.

Two pillars remain from the Temple of Hercules, built by wise old Emperor Marcus Aurelius in the 2nd century. Also remaining is the entrance hall of the Umayyad Palace, a once-spectacular complex of royal buildings from the 8th century.

Unfortunately, the storm arrived sooner than expected and it started pouring so I went for shelter. When the weather improved a bit, I made my way down to the Roman theatre, a short distance away.

Constructed by the Romans in the 2nd century under Antonius Pius, the theatre can hold up to 6,000 people, and is an iconic building in Amman. Amazingly, it’s still used for concerts and performances.

On my way out of the theatre, some local kids started joking with me in Arabic. I hadn’t a clue what they were saying but they were stunned when I replied in kind, also in Arabic. This was when I met Qusai, a Palestinian-Jordanian who saw the whole thing and came over to talk. He was eager to explain that things were bleak for Palestinians in Jordan. The majority of the 2 million Palestinians in Jordan — including Qusai — have citizenship, but this doesn’t mean much when it comes to prospects for employment. There’s rampant discrimination. This is true for Qusai also, in spite of his qualification in accounting. He’s been attending the recent protests outside the King Hussein Mosque.

At this stage, I desperately needed some food, so I headed to Hashami restaurant, famous in Amman for their hummus and falafel. Pictures of the royal family and other dignitaries adorn the walls, but it’s not a well-to-do place. It’s simple, wholesome food.

It started raining heavily at about midday, and never stopped. I spent the remainder of the day at the Jordan Museum (a steal at 5 JD, no Jordan Pass accepted) to explore the depth of history in this country and, frankly, to get out of the rain.

The museum is impressive. The whole top floor is given over to an expensive exhibition of inventions and discoveries from the Islamic Golden Age, called 1001 Inventions, and featuring a video with Ben Kingsley as the polymath Ismail al-Jazari. The most interesting part, for me at least, was the exhibit on al-Jahiz, who is credited in his Book of Animals with evolutionary ideas which pre-date Darwin. Evolution, as a concept, is generally opposed in the Islamic world, so I was happy to see some accommodation being made on official levels.

I had dinner at Shahrazad, named for the storyteller in One Thousand and One Nights, and recommended by the guide yesterday, where I tried ara’yes, meaning bride, a kind of pita bread filled with minced lamb, onions, parsley, and allspice. It’s then brushed with olive oil, and grilled over hot charcoals. It was tasty, but very filling!

Friday, 28th December, 2018

The desert route to Akaba was so long and so difficult that we could take neither guns nor machine-guns, nor stores, nor regular soldiers. – T. E. Lawrence

Amman is smothered in cloud, raining heavily. The roads have become rivers, torrents of water flowing to God-knows-where.

I decided to catch the 7 am JETT bus from Amman to Aqaba, with my roommate Ryan. It’s a four hour drive, and costs 8.60 JD. They showed an Egyptian movie, which I could follow in parts, and played some Arabic music, featuring my old favourites: Mohamed Mounir and Fairouz.

Jordan is serviced by a highway which runs north-south, known as the Desert Highway, al-Thari2 as-Sahara. The cloud began lifting the further we traveled south, green farmland soon gave way to desert, and flat land became mountainous. You enter the world of the Bedouin.

It’s truly amazing what happens to the weather as you descend into Aqaba, though. As we moved south and descended towards the Red Sea, the temperature rose dramatically, from 8 to 18 degrees. It has its own little micro-climate here.

I like Aqaba. It’s small, but full of history. The British and the Arabs, along with Lawrence of Arabia, famously took Aqaba from the Ottomans in July, 1917. Instead of coming by the sea, as was expected, the Arabs came across the open desert and won a decisive battle.

It’s a frontier city. It’s from here that you can see four countries: Jordan, of course, Israel, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt:

Ryan, my English roommate, wanted to buy some souvenirs so we shopped around for a little while. He eventually bought a few things at one place owned and operated by Mohammad, an Egyptian guy, who gave us a good price. I love Egyptians, and there are loads of them in Aqaba; we bonded over our shared love for Mohamed Mounir.

Ryan and I decided to go for a pint — there’s a Jordanian beer called Petra I wanted to sample — in the Rover’s Return, an English pub near the city centre. It’s beside an Irish pub, but this was closed. We had to cross into a tourist-only area, and show our passports. While passing, I said jokingly: Ana ajnaby. I’m a foreigner. Surprised at my Arabic, the bowab, or doorman, apologised for not speaking English and asked me to go over to the duty-free shop and buy cigarettes for him. I wouldn’t have to pay tax, you see. I agreed. I glided in and asked for his brand. The uniformed customs official just laughed and called over his two colleagues. This wasn’t the first time he’d had this specific request, clearly. He asked for my passport and asked who it was for. “Me,” I said. More laughs. This obviously wasn’t going to work. One of the other men asked if it was for the bowab outside. “Tab3an,” I replied, caving under the pressure of the interrogation, “of course.” There were laughs all around this time. The official denied my request, but after much pleading in my best (or worst) Arabic, he finally agreed and stamped my passport.

The beer was really nice, and the weather was gorgeous, so it was nice to sit outside. Just as we were sipping our drinks, an air show started in the skies over Aqaba, right over the border with Israel. Four planes performed synchronized displays, and then each would perform its own crazy manoeuvre.

I had a good look around the old ruins of Ayla, the ancient city known to the Hebrews as Elath, and to the Romans as Aela, before boarding the bus back to Amman.

Saturday, 29th December, 2018

The hues of youth upon a brow of woe, which Man deemed old two thousand years ago, match me such marvel save in Eastern clime, a rose-red city half as old as time. – John William Burgon

I woke early again, this time to get the JETT bus to Petra at 6.30 am, which cost me 11 JD. There were loads of people vying for a seat so I was glad I had reserved the night before, though a second bus was quick to arrive.

We arrived at Petra about 11.30 am, after some delays. I left my backpack in one of the souvenir shops in the car park, and went straight inside. I had come to Jordan especially to see Petra, one of the modern Seven Wonders of the World, so I wasn’t going to waste any time.

Petra was the capital city of Nabataea, one of the so-called “incense-states,” wealthy kingdoms which prospered in the Red Sea region, largely because of trade between Arabia and the Mediterranean. In 100 BC, when the kingdom was at its height, about 30,000 people lived in Petra. The city was eventually captured by the Romans in AD 106.

I trekked all the way down to the canyon, and began the long walk through the narrow gorge known in Arabic as: al-Siq, the Shaft. It’s a gorgeous sandstone chasm with huge rock-faces either side of the passageway.

After some time, you reach the famous Treasury, al-Khazneh in Arabic, the most beautiful and elaborate building in all of Petra. Its name derives from folktales about treasure hidden at the site. Constructed by the Nabataeans as a royal mausoleum in the first century of the common era, it’s an astonishing achievement. It’s simply breathtaking to behold.

I walked the entire complex, following the route from the entrance all the way to the Monastery, past the Treasury, the Royal Tombs, the Theatre, and the Colonnaded Street. It takes about three hours, all in all, walking at a leisurely pace. The path up to the Monastery, the final hour of the walk, is all up hill and very steep, so it takes some doing. The view at the end is worth it, though:

The Monastery, larger but less ornate than the Treasury, also gets its name from an Arabic nickname, al-Deir. In reality, it was probably a temple dedicated to the Nabataean King Obodas I.

The poet John William Burgon referred to Petra as: “a rose-red city half as old as time.” It does feel timeless, but it’s the colour of the stone city which really grabs you. There are so many shades of red: rose, crimson, garnet, but also purples. The sun works magic with the rock in this place.

Eventually, I made it up to my hostel, Rafiki, just up the hill in the nearby town of Wadi Musa, getting there for about 5 pm. This place was a bit of a dive, I thought, but soon realised how much of a gem it really was. The staff were a bunch of legends, for a start.

Later that evening, I overheard a guy speaking with an Eastern European accent but with Irish overtones, so I quizzed him. It turned out that he was Slovakian but he’s been living in Ireland for fifteen years, in Dalkey no less, just down the road from me. We drink in the same bars. “That’s funny, what a small world,” I thought.

A little while later, I bumped into a Japanese girl, Kurumi, who I had seen on the bus and at Petra that morning. We got chatting. “I’m living in Dublin,” she said at one point. “Sorry,” I said in shock, “is that somewhere near Tokyo?” “No,” she laughed, “I’m learning English in Ireland.” Well, jumping Jesus. It certainly is a small world, and getting smaller.

I opted to stay at the hostel for dinner, and I was glad I did. I’ve never seen such a good spread: a chicken dish with rice, alongside vegetable curry, bread, hummus, falafel, salads, and pasta, with dessert to follow. It was a feast for 5 JD. I went to bed early again, as Kurumi and I have agreed to go to Petra first thing in the morning, as soon as it opens at 6 am.

Sunday, 30th December, 2018

Wow! Getting to Petra early has really paid off. There’s almost nobody here. It’s a much more imposing site in the quiet of the morning without all the hustle and bustle of tourists coming and going. It’s really peaceful, more majestic even.

Today, I have one goal: walking the trail known in Arabic as al-Kubtha. It’s a long walk up through the mountains, but it promises breathtaking views of the Treasury. It took us about an hour, with Kurumi and I arriving around 7 am. The early wake-up and the steep climb together turned out to be a very small price to pay:

We had the view over the Treasury almost to ourselves, though people started arriving very soon afterward. What a view, though!

We spent about an hour overlooking everything and watching the world go by, before descending down the mountain for lunch at a Bedouin restaurant near to the entrance. I had chicken galayet, a local favourite, which was chicken with tomato and onion, stewed until soft, and seasoned with garlic, olive oil, and salt. I noticed some David Roberts lithographs on the walls. You see these all over the Levant.

Finally, we went back to Petra for one last look around. I opted for some horsepower in making the journey from the site entrance to the canyon, which helped after all the walking. We walked up to take a look at an old 6th century Byzantine church near the Royal Tombs, almost opposite the Theatre.

I bought a couple of fake antique coins from an old Bedouin man who pointed at one set of coins and announced: “Made in Taiwan.” He had a good sense of humour, and I wanted cheap fakes rather than real coins, which were available but came at a price.

It was about 4 pm when we decided to say goodbye to Petra. I thought that was it, until we got back to the hostel. I had a shower and opted for dinner in the hostel again, which was even better than yesterday. After dinner, there was a big commotion. Emil, the Slovakian guy, had met an Italian girl named Rosa, who had it on good authority that Petra By Night, which is exactly what you think it is, was running tonight. I had read somewhere that it ran only on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays, and had resigned myself to missing it. However, the New Year had altered the schedule.

Suddenly, a guy came through the door with tickets (17 JD), and we were all immediately climbing into a taxi. We had to rush so not to miss it, but we arrived just in time, and got decent seats. It was cold, and dark, but the whole path up to the Treasury was lined with candles. It was really beautiful. We were given Arabic tea, which is to say sugary tea, on arrival and then it began. There was music, beautiful, haunting Arabic music, and then some storytelling, and then — it was over! Just as soon as it started, or so it seemed, it was finished. It was worth it, though, to see the place one last time and in the stillness of the night.

When we returned to the hostel, I told the others of my plan to visit Wadi Rum the next day, and to spend New Year’s Eve in the desert with the Bedouin. I sent a flurry of emails to my contact and arranged for all of us to go together: Myself, Kurumi, Emil, and Rosa. It would be another early night.

Monday, 31st December, 2018

Fly to the desert, fly with me, Our Arab’s tents are rude for thee; But oh! the choice what heart can doubt, Of tents with love or thrones without? Our rocks are rough, but smiling there The acacia waves her yellow hair, Lonely and sweet nor loved the less For flowering in a wilderness – Thomas Moore

We got the 6.15 minibus — all four of us — from Petra to Wadi Rum for 8 JD each, and it collected us from the hostel, so that made things much easier.

We arrived about 8.30, and found Salem, our Bedouin guide. We threw all of our luggage into a 4X4 and started our tour of Wadi Rum. This place is stunning:

It was used to film much of Lawrence of Arabia, and, unsurprisingly, it’s often used as a stand-in for the surface of Mars, most recently in the movie The Martian, with Matt Damon.

We got to see lots of different locations, including the Seven Pillars, so-named after Lawrence of Arabia’s book of the same name, and Lawrence’s Spring, which is still used to water the camels. A type of wild sage grows around the water, which gives a lovely smell.

One of the most glorious locations was the Khaz’ali Canyon, which contained ancient inscriptions, some from pre-history, some in Nabataean, and still others in old Arabic. There was a fig tree at the entrance to the canyon which caught the light so splendidly:

We made it back to our camp to watch the last sunset of 2018 from high up on a mountain. When we climbed down, and made it back to camp, tea was served around a fire in the main tent. Salem’s uncle played the oud. Now, in the darkness, around the camp fire, I really got a sense for what it must be like to live with the elements here. It was an amazing experience.

The family cooked a huge amount of food, chicken and vegetables, in a pit in the sand, not unlike a fualacht fiadh at home in Ireland, though here the food is predominantly steamed. They also served various salads, along with staple dishes like hummus, and their speciality, moutabal.  

We all went star-gazing for the last couple of hours. I’ve never seen so many stars in my life, the sky was ablaze with distant suns. You could clearly see the band of the Milky Way. It was astounding. What stories must have been told of these wandering lights! We returned to camp for the countdown, and afterwards, in the far-flung distance, we could see fireworks exploding in the dark.

Tuesday, 1st January, 2019

We returned to Wadi Rum village for about 8.30 am, to go our separate ways. My flight home to Beirut was at 3 pm, so I had to get a bit of a move on. There are no buses to Amman from Wadi Rum, so my only options were a bus to Petra, then another bus, or a taxi to Aqaba, and a bus from there, but both options left me with little time. I had no real option but to get a taxi straight to the airport. Luckily, with some cajoling, Salem arranged for a taxi all the way from Wadi Rum to Queen Alia, with a detour to see the ancient mosaics in Madaba, for the low price of 100 JD. It was a four hour drive all the way north. It would be tight.

My driver turned out to be the greatest human being on Earth. Ali, the man, the legend. We spoke only Arabic for the entire trip, which occasionally (often, actually) strained my meagre abilities almost to breaking point, but I loved him. He was enthusiastic about everything. First, he tried to tell me all about Islam, but gave up that venture pretty quickly. Next, we moved on to music. He introduced me to Mehad Hamad from the UAE, Mashael from Saudi Arabia, Shaima Al Shayeb, and Sabah. I had the good fortune of introducing him to — who else? — Mohamed Mounir. We sang the whole way from Wadi Rum to Queen Alia International.

We parted as true friends, with promises to see each other again.

[dcnativegal]

From Fire to Evacuation and Back

Wednesday, August 29, 2018

It’s a sunny crisp fall morning, even though it’s still summer. Yesterday morning, with the temperature still in the 40s, there were blue sky and puffy white clouds visible from my recliner as I look out over the orderly but still very full yard. There are many benefits of having a Level Two Evacuation leveled at a small town, and one of them is that many yards are cleaner than they were. Brush and grasses are cleared from the area around the fence of our little property, in the armpit of the hill upon which stands the town cemetery and the best views of the fire from town during the ‘heat’ of it. It’s not as hot now. The smoke has cleared for the most part. It’s blowing west, and there’s less of it, because the bulk of the fuel, the dead pine, has burned already. Today’s total, 56,895 acres, 75% contained. The fire is pretty much finished growing. Alleluia.

Valerie and I went to the third community meeting about the fire Monday night. Instead of talking about evacuation, like we did in the second meeting, there was talk of a contingency line (a ‘just in case’ line around the perimeter of the fire), ‘mopping up’ (putting out spot fires, making sure all the fire is dead), suppression and repair. I’m not sure what repair means when it comes to a forest fire, but a whole lot of logs will be removed.

One of the officials explained that the fire camp will be here for a long while to come and the town won’t be back to a population of 250 until the first snows, to make sure it’s really OUT. Awesome! I’m fine with that!  Apparently, the assignments last a certain amount of time, and firefighters will rotate out, so the camp will shrink through attrition. Plenty of other fires to attend to.

There were a few questions, from one particularly classy lady in a cowboy hat and a grey braid down her back, about who or what caused the fire. Very diplomatic answers came from the communications officer saying that Fire Investigators are very busy and doing their thing on this fire and lots of other ones, too. Might have been lightening. Probably not, apparently.

This city slicker has learned a great deal about how to cope with a nearby wildfire, that’s for darn sure, and I didn’t have to grieve the burning of my possessions in the process. Gratitude abounds.

1.       Put stuff in a suitcase or a box and label it ‘evacuation.’ Keep the stuff in there as storage for the next fire. And when I look for my passport, I know where it is! Also, high school yearbooks, old family photos I don’t hang on the wall, because #nomorewallspace, and other trinkets.

2.       There is some time between Level 1, 2 and 3. Unlike the hot huge fires in California in populated areas, wildfires here in the Oregon High Desert, they move more slowly. So I don’t have to flee with only the clothes on my back. This is deeply good to know.

3.       Valerie is a good barometer. If she starts packing, the fire is at the door. Her most repeated phrase to me, after, I love you, is, Fret Not. And so I will not. Or try not to. Fretting is in my nature.

4.       Given that I’m a world class fretter, it did help to have my car packed. For five straight days.

5.       Fighting fire is kind of like making a movie. A camp is set up at a location. Everyone has a role, a territory, a hierarchy of orders, a protocol, a checklist. And when it’s all over, everyone packs up and it’s like it was never there. The camp that is, not the fire. The result of one is a lot of charred ground and dead animals. The result of the other is a film.

6.       Tee shirts with the name of the fire and some sort of graphic is a thing with firefighters. They collect them. I’m getting two, by different vendors with different designs. Perhaps these shirts are the trophies fire fighters collect, like runners do at races.

7.       People are generous. They offer to help, offer space, food, time, something to haul belongings in  or a field to house livestock. Very cool.  One of the forest rangers said that Paisley has been a model town in terms of welcoming the firefighters. I’m glad to hear that! I haven’t done anything but pack my car and go to my job. But I’m glad there are many neighborly neighbors here.

Downsides of wildfires, at least in Oregon:

1.       Anxiety. With a few moments of terror and tears. No fun.

2.       We cleared the brush and now the deer have gotten to our tomatoes. No more tomatoes. Next year we’ll do an actual chicken wire fence around them. I was so looking forward to lots of tomatoes.

3.       Smoke is really icky stuff. Visine doesn’t help the eyes from feeling like you haven’t slept in a week. And if anyone has ever smoked cigarettes or has asthma, the smoke really impairs breathing. Not meant for inhaling.

4.       The beautiful canyon of Fremont Winema National Forest will look, aesthetically speaking, like a denuded charcoal pit for a while. The lakes were slurped up, but not drained. Still learning about this, too: the regeneration of forest. I bet there are other blessings about this fire for the forest. I’m not sure. It’s going to look sad for a long time, though. The non-forest service populace won’t be allowed to drive ‘over the mountain’ west to Bly until next spring. But apparently, Campbell Lake and a bunch of other sites look just fine.

5.       People will snipe. Accuse the ‘liberals in Washington’ of leading to fires like this one. Of suspecting that fires are allowed to burn so that someone can make money. The firefighters? Who’s making money? I don’t understand that one but I’m open to hearing. I also heard that local ranchers were ready to put out the fire with ‘dozers and cats’ but the Feds said stand down and thus it burnt and got away from everyone. I heard that one from 2 different folks on opposite sides of the county. Conspiracy theories abound. Our monkey brains have to come up with something to do, I guess. The Watkins Creek Fire started on federal land. It was the Forest Service’s job to stop it. The politics of logging and land use is still way beyond me. But the firefighters saved our town. I’ll just keep reading about the rest of it.

 Meanwhile, life goes on. Yesterday was my Lakeview day, and I got to have lunch with a friend (I do this every Tuesday and its lovely), go shopping at Safeway (always do this, too), grabbed books at the Lakeview Library to bring up to Paisley, saw two clients, and checked in at the main office of our agency.  I didn’t hit the thrift shops, since I don’t need to buy anything inedible ever again period end of sentence. (Maybe next week.)

 I am grateful for all the support and well wishes, prayers, and admonitions to put safety first from friends and family near and far. Valerie says if I don’t post about it in Facebook, it didn’t happen. That’s only a slight exaggeration. Moving out here to the hinterlands, the high desert at 4,000 feet, the middle of a county with no traffic lights, I enjoy staying in touch, however superficially and sporadically, with my old friends, coworkers, parishioners, and kinfolk through Facebook. Thank you for reading. How do you like my new tee shirt? What sugar skulls have to do with wildfires I do not know but it’s really pretty, isn’t it?

***********

Here are my Facebook posts from the start of the fire, just so I can revisit the process of my enlightenment about fires near my adopted home. The fire started on my birthday, August 15th, but I didn’t know about it until Thursday, the 16th. My first post, of many, obviously.

 August 16, 10am

Well blech. Paisley is just to the east of the Watkins Creek Fire, one of many burning around here.

August 16, 6pm

Watkins Creek Fire, from my evening commute on Route 31 looking south.

August 18, noon

This is what the air is like around here. Thank you, Shelly Rutledge Leehmann, for sharing your beautiful picture.

 August 20, 7am

So, this is my first "Fire in Paisley." I'm taking my cue from the locals, as i am a transplant from the big east coast (aka, "wet") city. At last night's community meeting, everyone seemed very calm. All the officials from all kinds of agencies did their job capably. They explained this is a tricky fire, there is a lot of 'fuel' from a beetle-caused die off of lodgepole pine 10 years ago, and the terrain is mostly Forest Service land and rough. Safety of the people (mostly men?) fighting the fire is paramount, of course. Bulldozers and caterpillars ("Dozers and Cats") are very helpful and faster than people with shovels. We got to hear from a meteorologist, which was pretty cool, since fire creates its own weather AND the way the wind blows will be the difference between Paisley-Flambé versus a whole lot of dead trees only. And maybe a few unfortunate cows and many other non-human animals, most of whom ran, flew or hopped to safety.

 So I’m feeling pretty okay. One woman asks, should we pack? And the gal with the mic says, always a good idea. And another asks, how contained is the fire, and she says, zero. Oh!! Adrenaline rush. Not so okay.

 After the meeting, we drive up to the highest point in the city where the cemetery is: we can see the smoke and there's a red glow to the west and south. Ominous.

 I already have an anxiety disorder. But, anxiety can be useful. I came home and packed up my clothes. I put a few bags of things that won't suffer in the hot car in the trunk. I found my passport and my birth certificate, and my grandfather's dog tags from 1917. My kids' dad has all the baby albums, but i have some important photographs, so I’ve packed them. I will need a cooler for my insulin when the time comes, IF it comes.

I'm more or less ready. And Valerie is very calm. So I’m going to let the current of "evacuation anxiety" just flow along, and it's okay if I obsessively check the twitter page for the South Central Oregon Fire Management Partnership for updates. Now i know that infrared photos from helicopters is how they estimate the acres once a day. I know that a lot of agencies are coordinating. And one of the forest service guys lives in Paisley: he promised he'd put flyers in the post office and other spots in town ASAP if there's real news. Like Level 1 evacuation orders. And Level 2 and 3 news will be delivered by the Sheriff's office. Door to door.

Just another day in Paradise.

As everyone says, we are all very grateful to the professionals as well as our local volunteers. The town has tripled in size and the traffic (traffic?!!??) is noticeable through town. There's a tent city on Murphy's ranch: looks like Cirque de Soleil has come to town.

Now that would be fun.

Alas, it's time to go about the business that needs to be done, which in my case is get organized about my application to become a CADC 1. Certified Alcohol & Drug Counselor. Better get crackin'. Thanks for reading.

August 21, 1145am

I emailed about Level 1 Evacuation and got this response. I don’t know why this hasn't been mentioned?

Hi, Jane,

Yes, there is a Level 1 Evacuation for residents west of Highway 31 between mileposts 79 and 105.

Residents in the area should be aware of current conditions. If evacuations become necessary, it will be coordinated through the Lake County Sheriff's Office. It's recommended to always "Be Ready" when living near a fire-prone area.

Thank you,

Jodie Barram Watson Creek Fire Information Center Paisley, Oregon

 August 22, 2018, 6am

Evacuation is on my mind this morning. I found a guide seems particularly thorough. Put buckets of water around the house. close windows. put ladder alongside the house for firefighters to use. I worry if the propane tanks are empty on the front of the camper that we use for storage. (Val says they are.)

I can smell smoke in the house this morning. My eyes are stinging. I'm packing up my car with more of my stuff and driving to Christmas Valley to my job. My guess (wtf do i know) is that if there's an evacuation, it will happen tomorrow, so I’m anticipating driving to and from Christmas Valley today to work, packing up MORE stuff, and heading back up there tomorrow, maybe staying up there. Valerie Little would go to Lakeview to her daughter's. In order to see my clients, i would rent a room in Christmas Valley or impose on one of my coworkers. Then stay in Brothers (i hope y'all don't mind.) But seriously, i am an anxious snowflake. I'll tell you true, folks, this is pretty awful. I don't fear for my life, but i do fear for this beautiful small town that has a very active world in it. We may be tiny but we are mighty.

Everyone tells me, stay safe. I want everyone to be safe from fire, of course. What does safe mean? A dense fog has descended and it isn't fog. It's smoke.

I need more coffee.

  August 23, 2018  3:15pm

The community meeting tonight in Paisley about the Watson Creek Fire told us that there's a moderate chance of evacuation due in part to windy weather predicted that will push embers toward our town. Folks with no pets and nowhere else to go will be welcomed at the high school in Lakeview, the Red Cross coordinating. Apparently, there are 2500 head of cattle normally grazing in the fire area, and some brave cattlemen (and women?) are finding them and bringing them out.

We're told that if we get out of town ourselves after a Level 3 evacuation announcement is made, we're to tell the sheriff's office where we went and what our cell phone number is so they can tell us when we can come back. Our town has less than 300 souls in it so if we call the main sheriff department in Lakeview, hopefully they won't be overwhelmed with calls.

We have 3 different family members we can impose on, in Lakeview, Chiloquin and Brothers, if it comes to that.

My car is packed. I have a cooler with ice and my insulin. Val's truck has a cover and it's filling up. I have lots of art. Most will stay. Family photos will come with.

I don’t know if I’m overreacting or spot on. Packing to evacuate is sort of like packing to move but we are of course taking no furniture. And very few books. Sort of feels like the Swedish notion of “death cleaning”, the kind of decluttering one does so that the descendents don’t have to deal with your stuff after you shuffle off.  All my stained glass treasures, and most of my yarn, stays. Valerie says, worst case scenario, i get to buy new yarn.

Everybody's a comedian.

I'm not panicking this evening. I am tired in a buzzy-anxious sort of way.

I saw a helicopter flying over me as i drove home in my packed car tonight. it had a red thing dangling underneath it. Valerie says that's a bucket of water. It looks so small. Apparently, fighting a wildfire like this one, in rugged national park land with lots of 'fuel', means using dirt and 'back burns' pushed toward the periphery of a fire. The fire is bordered by the Sycan, the Sprague, and the Chewaucan rivers. Hopefully, the talent of our firefighters will hold the line, and the town will be spared.

 I do not feel personally endangered. I worry about the structures in this cute town I've adopted (and which tolerates me.) I'm okay. Just worried. And the sharp smell of smoke is everywhere in town. I don't have a proper mask, so I’ll just cough and squirt my newly purchased drops into my eyes.

 Thank you for the expressions of concern, prayers, and admonitions to stay safe. We are indeed. The cat is oblivious, and we are pretty much ready. Maybe we won't need to evacuate. Which would be great: I really love my late father's old cherry desk and it weighs a TON.

A huge thanks to the local firefighters, like Dustin Withers, who volunteer and know this city deeply. (Yeah, Paisley is one of two 'cities' in Lake County, the other one being Lakeview.) And to all the other professionals, from 14 states we were told, deep and profound thanks to you as well. I hope it's comfortable in that tent city just outside town. I hope the caterer is decent.

This shot is of the poplars that mark the north edge of town. you can barely see them for the smoke.

 August 23, 2018, 9pm  

All's quiet on the eastern front of the fire which is also the western front of this tiny town. Val and i drove up to the cemetery to see what we could see after the sun set. There's a field full of caterpillars and bulldozers, sitting silently, ready for battle. We cannot see the red glow that was so visible on Sunday evening. We decided it is safe to go to sleep in our home.

The "Emergency Notice: Level 2 -- Be Set" language is pretty urgent: "An evacuation notice has been issued for this area." The entire flyer is in all caps of different sizes. Underlined it says YOU MUST PREPARE TO LEAVE AT A MOMENTS NOTICE [sic] and THIS MAY BE THE ONLY NOTICE THAT YOU RECEIVE. So I ask Valerie, this sounds like we should get out of Dodge NOW: how will we know in the middle of the night if we should boogie? She says, because all hell will break lose in town and people will be running around like headless chickens. Well we ARE located very close to the local volunteer fire department, and the only road going up to the cemetery is right in front of our house. PLUS, we did not see a glow over the ridge to our west.

This rural wildfire thing is tricky on my emotions. A few times since this fire started (on my birthday, for pity's sake), I've been near tears and quietly panicking. And then I hear more news from someone, or Valerie has some nonchalant practical piece of fire wisdom to impart, and I immediately feel better. The fire is 6 direct miles from town, 13 miles by road. It's being held in by 3 rivers, near as I can figure from the daily infrared fire maps: the Sycan, the Sprague, and the Chewaucan. The most recent notice from the South Central Oregon Fire Management Partnership says the fire has NOT jumped the Chewaucan, which is one of the major barriers keeping it from town. I'm afraid my emotional reverberations are amplified by the frequency with which we moved when I was a kid, and the unpleasantness that always accompanied those moves. This insight helps a little to know why I am seized by panic periodically.

We are totally packed. I feel like i evacuate the town every time i drive to work, which is an hour north, and then I come home, and stuff more stuff into my Honda Fit. Which is not that big a car. Valerie is traveling light; she isn't packing much partly because she doesn't think the house will burn and partly because she doesn't care that much about her stuff, I guess. Every morning since Tuesday, I've packed my c-pap machine, and every night I bring it back into the house and set it up. I'd rather be prepared.

I asked Valerie, who used to look for fires on top of Indian Rock Lookout near John Day, Oregon, what the difference is between the Carr fire that's still burning in Cali and decimated whole neighborhoods, and our Watkins Creek conflagration. She says our dead trees do not have sap in them anymore so they don't burn as hot. The temperatures in that part of California are 20 degrees hotter there than here in summer. And the winds blow the fire very fast. Here in rural high desert "Great Basin" Oregon, the fastest the fire would move is one mile per hour. And from what the Fire Management Partnership is saying, the lines they are building are holding, mostly. The fire grows every day, but percentage wise, much less. It's at 40,000 acres. It will be with us for a few more weeks. But the fuel of dead trees will eventually be used up. And maybe these 'lines' of which they speak, will hold.

I hear various comments from people that i don't understand, and i guess the longer i live out here the more i'll get it. A woman served me fish and chips for lunch in Lakeview on Tuesday (don't judge. I had nothing but vegetables tonight) and when she learned i was from Paisley she says, you know it's the liberals in Washington who caused this fire... So i ask Valerie (my memoir from life in Paisley should be titled "So i asked Valerie) is that true? And she says, well, no one can agree on what the best policy is on dead timber, and the Forest Service has done stupid stuff through both Republican and Democrat administrations... Okay. I heard that the firefighters are happy because they're making money, getting overtime and night work differentials. Well i hope so. I don't like heat, thank you. I hear that initially our local volunteers had things more or less under control and then the officialdom showed up and said stand down, and the fire whooshed up. From two different sources in different parts of the county. Is that true? Or is it a sturdy rumor that's traveled? I heard the fire was called by a ranch hand who took a chainsaw into the woods and a spark caused the fire. No one will cop to that. The cause of the fire is labeled "human" (versus lightening). I wonder if there is one human responsible and how they're feeling. People make mistakes. I do multiple times a day. But... were they wantonly foolish? I dunno. It's another committee I’m not on.

I've received wonderful generous offers of homes to evacuate to, and questions about whether we need anything. There is so much kindness that flows at times like these. People are offering pastures for cattle and goats, places to park their RVs (which folks use for extra bedrooms around here.) I am privileged and grateful.

I'm going to bed. I know all of us in Paisley will be checking our phones and computers first thing, we'll look around anxiously, our eyes will sting from the smoke (Visine alas does not help), and we'll cough and wheeze. If everything is much worse, i won't go to work and we will evacuate, probably to Chiloquin where there's room for us and the cat. If everything seems stable, I’ll still pack up my c-pap and head north to Christmas Valley, I’ll catch up with 'paperwork' which no longer involves any paper, and i'll text Valerie frequently. I'll also continue to obsessively check the various sites that post information, and the Facebook group called For Sale in Paisley which is our electronic bulletin board.

I honestly don't think the house will burn up. I do not fear for my own safety. i think that these 800 or so fire fighters will work hard to keep the fire to our west, and we'll suffer through the dense smoke for weeks. My beautiful framed Pakistani prayer rug will survive, as well as my art photography. The house that Valerie and Jer built from the inside out will stand comfortably for another year.

Then again, if i have to evacuate in my jammies, I will grab my keys, phone, computer and c-pap, and my car and her truck will exit stage left.

'Night all.

  August 25, 2018, 11 a.m.

It's Saturday morning here in Paisley Oregon, Day # 11 of the Watkins Creek Fire. We're still on a Level 2 Evacuation and a few families have left. It was much less smoky up north yesterday, which was delightful, but it's really smoky here in town still. My car is packed, but we're busy taking all kinds of dead limbs and trash to the dump to reduce the hazard to the house and clean up a bit.

I have so many questions, like, if the 'fire lines are holding', why does the fire grow thousands of acres every day? Why did i see a bunch of smoke columns, like 5, along the east side of Winter Rim as i drove home to Paisley yesterday? Maybe there were firefighters by them, putting them out, but they were disconcerting.

I am grateful for many things, not the least of which is i am much less anxious for some reason. My car is still packed, but it's gotten through my thick head that the fire moves slowly and I’ll have time to beat feet out of here if i need to. I'm so glad to feel calmer.

Off to the dump. More anon.

  Saturday, August 25, 2018, 8pm

This article says it is not the fault of ‘liberals in DC’ that there are destructive forest fires…

http://mailtribune.com/opinion/guest-opinions/the-inconvenient-truth-about-forest-fires

 Sunday, August 26, 2018 5pm

The fire has grown a cerebellum!

Excuse me while I let my imagination run wild. Better call the Paisley Volunteer Fire Department, the South Central Oregon Fire Management Partnership, the Keno Oregon fire department (I’ve seen their trucks here), the Forest Service, Oregon Department of Forestry, the Bureau of Land Management... to put out my imagination. Oh wait! They're pretty tied up at the moment!!

It's sunny and breezy here in Paisley, town of 250 souls normally, and now we are at 1300 souls, more or less. We also welcome the Burners (the Burning Man folks) who are passing through apparently, as they do every year. The Summer Lake Hot Springs is full of them. It's hunting season for antelope by bow hunters. Might see a few of those hunters parked outside the Mercantile while they stock up on beer. It's a regular Grand Central Station. If you hear an accent that's not quite British, and not quite Australian, those are fire fighters from New Zealand.

I found a web site that lists all the active fires in the USA each day. I know, such cheerful google-searching I'm doing here. I've learned that, in Oregon, the Klondike Fire is twice the size of our Watson Creek Fire in terms of acres, and each fire is 40% contained. Nevada has a big one near Elko, 129,000 acres. Idaho has a big one, too;  65,000 but it's mostly contained. Contained is not controlled but it is better than not contained. Colorado's marijuana caught fire and caused 108,000 acres of damage, and it's 91% contained. Kidding about the cause.

Poor California. The Mendocino Complex Fire is about 78 per cent controlled and torched 430,000 acres more or less. The Carr Fire is at about 230,000 and finally is 95% contained. I'm not hearing much about Alaska, but it is on fire, and this site says none of the fires are above 4% contained. Big fires: the Zitziana Fire at 59,000, Dulby Hot Springs at 44,000 and several more.

The Watkins Creek Fire is the fourth largest in the USA right now. Our friend (and massage therapist) Toni Bailie said that in her daily update, so of course i had to look it up. Yup. We're #4. Not that, as i used to say to my children, it's a competition, for pity's sake.

(Here's the site with the state by state lists, updated on weekdays:  https://www.nifc.gov/fireInfo/nfn.htm)

 It was clear and lovely last night. Smoky and grey this morning. Now it's sunny, a few puffy white clouds in the blue sky, and windy. We are at the mercy of the wind: how strong and what direction. Although the reports from the SCOFMP folk sound increasingly confident, the darn fire keeps growing thousands of acres each day.

 (The latest news from 448pm: “The #WatsonCreekFire has been exposed to gusty winds today coming from the southwest to the northwest, and the containment lines have held well as of 4:00 p.m. this afternoon. Some burnout is being conducted in the northwest corner of the fire, where winds are favorable. The Lake County Sheriff's Office, in collaboration with Northwest Incident Management Team 6, has agreed to retain all evacuation levels at their current status and will re-evaluate tomorrow at 4 p.m. after the wind has diminished.)”

So we go about our business on this glorious Sunday, with sunshine and a breeze, temperature in the 60s, as if everything is fine. Except for traffic. And the smoke that descends from the ridges each night.

It's so normal around here that Valerie decided to weed-whack. As if we'll HAVE a lawn in the near future? She shrugged. She told her niece over the phone that she's in denial and I’ve been evacuated for a week. A slight exaggeration, but only slight. Paisley is still under a Level 2.

You know, I have to say, the sound of helicopters is just ominous. I know they're here to measure the fire, and carry buckets of water to some spot that needs water; even though the buckets look pathetically small way up there, apparently bucket-dumping is one of the effective tools of fire 'management.' The helipad is out by the rodeo corral, which is near our airport strip, just north of town. There's a sign on route 31 by the goat pen on the edge of town that points to this spot. It says in a handwritten sign: FUEL. Helicopter fuel, i guess. I'm certainly glad they're here. But i don't like the sound of them.

It will be great when we don't need them.

I went to church today for the first time in months, to hear the new preacher. He's married to a lovely gal who's joined our writer's group. I appreciated the former preacher's sincerity and humility, but i just couldn't glean much from his message. This guy has a sense of humor, he uses power point to help us read the scripture he's referencing while he talks, and he had stories to tell. Alleluia, a story. With a beginning, middle and end. I enjoyed his sermon very much; needed to hear it.

At the beginning of the service, our neighbor asked if there'd been any birthdays, and i raised my hand. "I turned 59 on the first day of the fire. I didn't mean to blow out the candles quite so hard!" Folks laughed. One asked, are you being investigated? I said yup. I'm the human referred to as 'human caused'! More laughter. And they sang me the white person's Happy Birthday song.

(The Black person's birthday song is the chorus of Stevie Wonder's song, Happy Birthday, which you can watch here as he celebrates Nelson Mandela's birthday: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=inS9gAgSENE.)

I had a bit of a revelation while sitting in the pew. I hold different tenets of faith than many if not most of the folks who attend. I do not believe that the only way to salvation is to declare that Jesus is my savior. I believe that, for me, tuning into Jesus is my favorite way to catch the radio station called "God", but there are many other radio stations. Alice Walker said in The Color Purple that we don’t go to church to find God but to share God. Here in church, we can share faith, and good and bad news, and disagree about whether the ONLY way to salvation is through Jesus. Just like we can also disagree about whether I'm going to hell because I'm gay. I figure, there are more adulterers in this county than gay people, and they go to church without a qualm. Thus, so can I.

I'm a bit thick. But these thoughts were helpful, relieving even, and instead of feeling a little bit defensive in the pew, I could feel compassion. None of us here gathered know shit, really. We hope and trust and do the best we can.

And we know shit happens. Fire happens. And once again, I turn to the wisdom of Mr. Rogers: “When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, "Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.” Our town is full of helpers, together, and therefore we are not alone. We will still be here, or at least nearby when this fire is 100% contained.

 August 26 at 12:24 PM · 

 South Central Oregon Fire Management Partnership - SCOFMP

August 26 at 12:20 PM · 

The #WatsonCreekFire was subdued overnight. However, light winds overnight are expected to increase throughout the day and test fire lines on the eastern perimeter. Get the full report: https://goo.gl/Zye7DP

 Monday, August 27, 2018

Weeee hooo! We the People of Paisley are now at a Level One Evacuation instead of 2, which means i'm unpacking my cooler full of insulin and putting it all back in the fridge. So relieved.