Tight Trouser Never Won Fair Angel

Chapter Three (Fools Rush In Where Fairies Fear To Tread)

At least Aziraphale had the presence of mind to not rush in blindly.

-/-

Aziraphale mostly used his fairyland as a place to keep his books. It wasn't very big, as fairylands go, only taking up about as much space as a large library, ever expanding outward as his collection grew. He wasn't actually sure how big it could get; he'd never felt the need to check.

It wasn't just books, though. Every precious thing he possessed was there, his house only being furnished and maintained more for the look of the thing than any attachment to the objects within.

It was a foolish fairy who walked willingly into a goblin city. It was a stupid fairy who walked in blind and unprepared, and Aziraphale, though admittedly somewhat foolish, was not stupid.

He took what he needed, then, and returned to the house.

There was a gap in the garden wall. The gap had not been there before- Aziraphale took good care of his garden wall, but here, now, was a gap, just big enough for a man, or man-shaped being, to slip through. Aziraphale ran his hand over the edges of the gap, feeling the taint of goblin magic, and huffed. A goblin in his backyard. Well, behind his backyard. Still.

There was no more time to stall. It had been nearly half an hour now since Adam had been taken, and he knew the odds that the goblin king would cheat were high. He couldn't afford any more time wasted.

He took a deep breath to prepare himself, checked the case he carried slung over his shoulders was still in place, that the three items he'd taken were still accounted for, and stepped through the wall.

-/-

Three things happened when Aziraphale entered the goblin city.

The first was that the power of the goblin city slammed down on Aziraphale's magic, suppressing it so completely that he couldn't even feel it anymore. Imagine a cartoonishly thick steel wall: this was the goblin city's power, separating Aziraphale from his own.

The second was that, without his magic, Aziraphale's wings were ripped rather violently from the hollow space in his back which contained them when he was in his human form. They furled out behind him, brilliant white and swan-like, a few loose feathers falling free and fluttering to the ground like snow after the rough treatment. He flapped experimentally once or twice, and was relieved that they were unharmed otherwise.

Other aspects of his glamour fell away at the same time-- chalk-white markings crawled up his neck and across spaces revealed by the destruction his wings had wrought on his clothes, his eyes now swirled all the way across with color rather than the static moss-grey irises he adopted among mortals, and the dandelion fluff cloud of his hair became wilder and more untamed than the soft, carefully managed curls of a respectable English bookseller.

The third thing that happened was that a ripple pulsed over the city until it reached the goblin king, sprawled on his throne with the child Adam on his lap. When he felt the ripple, he sat up straight for probably the first time in his existence and said, softly but with feeling, "Oh, fuck."

-/-

The entrance to the goblin city was, rather appropriately, a hole in a garden wall on this side as well. However, unlike his garden wall, which was not very high or impressive, this wall was enormous. It loomed over him, encircling a garden that was not so much a garden as it was a forest, vast if Aziraphale's natural sense of space wasn't lying to him- which, well, it could be, he supposed.

Above him the canopy blocked out any attempt to see the sky, but light succeeded in filtering down through anyway, golden sunlight turned green as it passed through the leaves, dappling the carpet of the garden-forest with an impossible pattern of dancing light and shadow.

Another feeling passed over him, taking the place of the feeling of 'big' that had been overwhelming him. This feeling was big, too, expansive, encompassing- love, deep, all-consuming love. Someone or something in the area was feeling such an enormous amount of love that it was reaching him even here, in a place where his fairy senses were being weakened along with his magic.

While he looked around, considering his options and deciding the best path to proceed, he felt the goblin king appear at his side. He turned and met a gleaming golden-eyed grin.

"Hi, angel," the goblin king said. "Welcome to my city."

Aziraphale turned to him, and told his treacherous feet not to back away when the goblin king moved closer, looming a little before circling him, looking him over.

"Sooo," the goblin said, once he'd made a full circuit. "A fairy, huh? How in the world did I manage to steal a child from a fairy?" He stopped circling and leaned closer, giving the fairy a disarming smile. "What shall I call you, angel?"

"My human alias is Aziraphale," he said. "You may use it for me, if you so wish. And you?"

"Oh, I'm going by Crowley these days."

"The child?"

"He's safe. He's in the tower- here, come up on the wall-" He held out a hand, and Aziraphale, after a moment, took it, and allowed the goblin king- Crowley- to lead him up a set of steps that grew out of the wall as they climbed.

They didn't go all the way up. Just high enough that they were above the first canopy, and Aziraphale could see, rising from the center of the garden, a tower, pushing up, up, up through the second canopy and possibly even to the heavens above, for all Aziraphale knew.

"He's in the highest room, with me," Crowley said, holding out a hand once more and leading Aziraphale back down when he took it. "And now you only have twelve hours to reach him."

"You could return him now. Save us the trouble."

"Sorry, angel," and he looked it, "but you know the rules. That's not how the game is played."

"I will win. I will take him back." And added, because he felt he ought to, "You will not like the consequences."

"Probably not. Good luck, then," Crowley said, and let go of Aziraphale's hand.

Behind him, a pair of back wings dusted with iridescent greens and blues unfolded, spreading wide and lifting him into the air. [1] The canopy opened to allow him to pass through, closing itself tight behind him, lest Aziraphale get any ideas about just flying to the tower and dodging the labyrinth entirely.

(Not that he could. Magic was a necessity to making wings, even very large wings, powerful enough to life a fully-grown man-shaped-being in flight, and Aziraphale's flight magic was suppressed as much as the rest of it.)

Aziraphale didn't spare him another thought, and walked into the maze of trees spread out ahead of him.

-/-

High above him, Crowley sprawled on a tree limb and watched him through the gaps in the canopy. Crowley's heart was doing things that he wasn't used to it doing at all: it kept whispering new fantasies in his metaphorical ear, things like 'fairies love the natural world, if anyone will appreciate your garden it's him' and 'you could go flying together over the treetops, you'd only have to rework your realm to allow his magic' and 'his hand was so, so warm'. It was unsettling.

He had not expected to find a fairy in his realm: his glamour was very good, for Crowley not to have seen through it when he'd spent all day watching him.

Crowley wished he'd managed to. Without the glamour, Aziraphale was the most beautiful creature Crowley had ever laid eyes on.

-/-

[1] Crowley is a bit of an anomaly here, actually. Most goblins, even goblin kings, do not have wings. But Crowley felt like he ought to have wings, and so he does. But more on that later.