Favourite Demon (The Entire Bloody Boring Fourteenth Century Part I)

1300-1302 CE, Yolŋu Region, Australia to Nanzhou, China

1300 CE, Yolŋu Region (later known as Arnhem Land), Australia

Angel,

Have you ever tried magpie goose? It's delicious. Or stingray? Lobster has nothing on stingray, it's delectable. You must be bored with burned venison. Can I tempt you to come try something new?

Your Serpent

Crowley quite enjoyed Australia, but he was beginning to think it was time to move on.

It was the creek in front of him, he told himself. It was a murky blue with green and grey mingled in it, and with the sunlight sparkling on it. It was far too reminiscent of shimmery, kind eyes with sunlit pale hair above them, and it wasn't fair. It was if the landscape itself was out to disturb his peace.

Crowley hated discomfort of any kind, physical or emotional, and for a being who was technically condemned to eternal torture, he was very good at avoiding it.

He leaned down and hissed into the ear of the child who was hanging onto his arm. "Nankiya, look at the fish Gulumbu caught. It's much bigger than yours. There go the bragging rights for today."

Nankiya's dark eyes lit up with the first sparks of envy, one of Crowley's favourite sins, next to Sloth and Vanity. "Hmm."

"You know," Crowley said, "she's distracted playing right now. She'd never never notice if you swapped it."

"That would be naughty, Uncle," Nankiya said sternly.

"Not really," Crowley said, vaguely. "I mean, she'd still have the same number of fish. And she never cares much for praise. Not like you. It's wasted on her."

"Hmm," Nankiya said again. "I'm going to go play with her."

Crowley watched the small, naked figure depart. He would give even odds on Gulumbu's fish mysteriously changing size in the next hour. He'd planted the seeds of temptation, anyway. Not a big temptation, but he'd take his points where he could.

He weighed up his options. There were a lot of advantages to staying in Australia. The Yolŋu humans were like humans everywhere, fun to party with and swap stories with and interesting to prod towards taboo-breaking and vendettas and chaos and lust. Polygamy, he had always found, was useful, with its chances for jealousy and frustration, and of course any culture that valued harmony and justice was just begging for a demon to come muck about with them.

Crowley found the Yolŋu easier to get along with than monotheistic humans, especially since their belief system easily accommodated a trouble-making snake who could shape-change and do magic. There were a lot of snakes here. Crowley hadn't been so relaxed about exposing his eyes and turning into a serpent when he wanted since posing as a genius loci in Ancient Rome.

The scenery was as pretty as the first Garden, the animals were far more interesting than some of the ones on the Ark and the kids were cute. Best of all, there wasn't a lot of smiting going on around here. No Crusades, no Inquisitions, no crumbling walls or pillars of salt or plagues of frogs, no interference from the wrong kinds of angels. The forces of Heaven and Hell, himself aside, seemed content to let people on the side of the planet get on with their lives.

Also, it was hot, and he liked heat. Not the constant dry heat of the deserts, although there was that, too, if he chose to move further down South. Where he had settled for a while had warm dry seasons but, even better, raging thunderstorms and tropical heat and driving rain in the wet season, all reminding him of that first storm in Eden and the instinct that had led him to duck in close to an angel and feel a protective wing sheltering him.