Tight Trouser Never Won Fair Angel

Chapter Twelve (A River Runs Under It)

Me: Boy-band goblin can duplicate himself but there's only one of him
Me: Oh wait, I can make this sad for Crowley

-/-

Backstage, Aziraphale thought. The bells and whistles- the strings that were pulled on to keep the labyrinth running smoothly. Bees, and a nursery to heal injured plants. Caretakers for the gardens.

And places that visitors weren't allowed to see, because no one falls in love backstage, but the labyrinth was deliberately taking him to these places.

So, the labyrinth wanted him to see the work Crowley put into his city. To distract him? To endear him? Or to drive him away? How much was the labyrinth working against Crowley's orders?

(It shouldn't be able to work against his orders at all, Aziraphale told himself, and immediately knew this was incorrect. The labyrinth, he was beginning to understand, knew its own mind.)

Aziraphale walked deeper into the greenhouse, unsurprised when he didn't seem to be drawing any nearer to the exit. He stopped.

"All right," he said, to the labyrinth as a whole. "I'm paying attention. Where would you like me to see next?"

A murmur went through the plants, and a curtain of half-healed, shriveled ivy parted to reveal a pathway. With a gracious nod, he stepped through-

-he was beside a lake, between two narrow ditches that streamed away from it. He could see other such tributaries farther away, disappearing into the dark, undefined wall of trees that lined the shore.

The trees here seemed... different. He looked closer, and the details made themselves more apparent, as though a mist had hung in front of them and now it was removing itself. He smiled. Now that was a familiar sight, wasn't it? He was much more at home with this sort of Fae realm behavior than the rest of the labyrinth's habit of staying-

Of staying...

Ah.

Yes, he understood now.

"Scuse me, Master Fairy," said a familiar voice behind him. He turned to see two of the boy-band goblins from before, one carrying a pitchfork over his shoulder and the other a long bargepole. He moved obligingly out of the way, and the one with the bargepole shoved one end into the water, wiggling it around a bit.

"Are you... the same goblins I spoke with before?"

"Goblin," said the one with the pitchfork. "There's only me."

"There were four of you."

"There's as many of me as I like there to be," he corrected. "One goblin in many bodies."

"That sounds useful."

"Yeah, 'specially since I'm the only goblin here, apart from Master Crowley."

A goblin city with only one goblin? Not that Aziraphale had any room to talk, he had a fairy realm without any fairies at all. And at least Crowley had humans in his. Aziraphale just used his to keep his books.

They- he?- turned back to the job at hand. The one with the bargepole had apparently found whatever he was looking for, and the one with the pitchfork waded into the water and began digging into the ground beneath him. A second or so later he pitched it up- ah, so that was it. A huge wad of river grass came flying out into the banks, roots and all. A few seconds later, a second wad joined it.

Aziraphale turned to the one with the bargepole.

"I have a guess, but can you tell me where these tributaries lead to?"

"Into the labyrinth," he said absently, still mucking about in the water with the pole. "There's a really complicated underground irrigation system set up to keep the plants watered."

"Thank you, I rather thought that was the case." He looked around once more, taking in the many ditches- carefully created and, apparently, maintained, in order to give the entire garden a freshwater source.

He began to make his way along the ditch he was standing beside, trusting that it would lead him to the next place he was meant to be, and considered the checklist in his head.

Bees, to pollinate the flowers.

A nursery, to tend the ones that needed healing.

(A second nursery, for the seedlings? Very likely, though he hadn't been shown one.)

An irrigation system, to keep them watered.

Caretakers for the gardens.

Food that could be safely consumed.

And a place where the trees went a bit vague if he didn't look too closely at them.

He'd been, for the past ten minutes of thought, walking between a row of hedges, though he couldn't say when he'd actually passed from the lake's edge to the garden again. He didn't suppose it mattered- the places between the backstage spaces were really just meant to give him somewhere to think, or that was what he was assuming.

Aziraphale checked the timer, and his heart sank to see that he had a little under four hours left.

"Oh dear," he murmured, and then out loud, to the labyrinth, "I think I've seen what you wanted me to see. But now I'm running out of time- my godson is in danger. I must find him. If I cannot save him, all of this will have been meaningless. Please."

He closed his eyes, letting the labyrinth choose for him, and took a blind step forward.

When he opened his eyes, he was in a park.

It was a beautiful park- quite probably the most beautiful park he'd ever seen. A carefully cut path of glittering stone sprawled out through a maze of flower beds and topiaries and fountains and statues. In the center, a pond shimmered, ducks of all sort and sundry floating along the surface or waddling on shore. Ornate benches were set along the path, so one could stroll merrily and sit and rest whenever one felt like.

Aziraphale was standing under the archway of a stone gate, bracketed by a pair of eagle statues with their wings outstretched in flight.

And draped over one statue, staring up at the vast leafy canopy that formed his sky, was-

"Crowley," Aziraphale breathed, face softening in delight at finally seeing the goblin king again.

-/-