The Known/Unknown Quantity

Chapter 178: Q and A

Chapter 178: Q and A

Aziraphale expected a throne room. He wasn't sure why. Death didn't have one. He was certain some personifications did, though he was still very new to this business of approaching them.

Maybe that had been it: the cave? Or maybe it was like a summer cottage. Either way, the notion of grandeur left him when the scene evaporated and in its place was a misty, damp apple grove.

Looking about, he inspected his surroundings, his breath leaving a puff a moisture in the air, and his arms hugging his body against the clamminess. He was still in the garden of Life, but perhaps at a higher altitude. Obviously, closer to the clouds, he groused to himself.

Them a small voice piped up. "If it's not to your liking, I'll meet you at the shore. However, I must attend to my grove."

"Oh, no, My Lady! Wouldn't think of it!" the angel spouted automatically, his eyes flashing this way and that. Her voice held such a high pitch. Like a kitten mewing.

Aziraphale looked down.

"Oh, there you are."

A wide smile, not showing teeth, in an oval face greeted him at his chest line. Something else came up into his vision: a set of snips. They clipped. "Always work to do, but we can have a word. Come on."

She turned away, garbed in gardening clothes and gloves, with a wide brimmed hat, and she was so short the angel had to follow the hat for a few paces as she moved about her trees. Her hand constantly rested along their trunks while she hummed some archaic tune.

"People must always look down," he heard her laugh, breaking into the melody. "They assume my face will be somewhere in the vicinity of their own. 4 foot 8 is a tragic height, but there's surprisingly very little I can do about it." Humming, then a pause. "Law's problem is the opposite." More humming, she ducked under a limb, her fingers tickling its leaves, and was gone.

"Oh?" Where did she go?

"Well, in this form he is seven feet tall."

"That has to be.... interesting." She's worse than a nymph, flitting around. "You and he?"

"Husband and wife, yes. And lovers and enemies."

Finally, the stunned angel turned a corner and found her, her face obscured by the hat. "Absolutely fascinating! You actually married your foe?"

"We are but two sides of the same coin," she explained, preoccupied with a shriveled fruit. Her fingers sought its edges.

Aziraphale took in an awed breath as he recognized that Crowley once did the same thing with his hands, when he was trying to find what eyes wouldn't reveal.

With her pruners she removed the fruit, then patted the spot, which started a new bloom. "Together, Life and Law, are the opposite of Death. Because of?"

The hat tilted and waited for him to answer. He thought about it, then said," Atrophy."

"Very good! Precisely!" The hat rose up and he was afforded a better look at her. Monolid eyes, set under a smooth brow, sparkled mirth at him. They were large, upturned. Dark orbs resting over prominent cheekbones, eyes wherein swirled the whole of the universe. Eyes that held no function.

The hair cascading around them shivered silver to grey to platinum, nesting in a very messy bun. Sharp, flicking ears popped out on the sides of her head, and her pallor was the color of icebergs in the early evening. In her forehead, surrounded by disheveled bangs, was set a lavender opal.