Happy Holidays, Hsavinien!
Title: Thou Shalt Not Lie
For: hsavinien
Author: shenaniganders
Rating: Gen
Pairings: None
Characters: Crowley, Aziraphale, Gambriel
Warnings: Original characters, mentions of discorporation, (sort of) genderbending
Summary: A collection of thoughts from an angel who isn't lonely.
Author's Notes: Mainly answering the prompt: "Aziraphale's not the only Principality on Earth, nor the only one who grew fond of it. His compatriot didn't have a Crowley, though." I just created a character and ran with it... It's a bit of a mash-up of ideas and prompts as I tend to do; I would have liked to have written another scene or two but time constraints cut me off. It was a very interesting prompt to work with and really made me think about how isolating it is to be an immortal being, and I had a lot of fun developing Gambriel as a character.
Gambriel is in love.
Well, not really, obviously, because angels can’t feel love. It’s more of an overwhelming fondness for His creations, or a deep desire to never leave Earth, or - no, Gambriel is in love with the Earth. It’s sort of hard to deny it, and Gambriel is trying to be honest as zir New Year’s Resolution, so ze’s not about to lie now. What with the whole sword thing, Gambriel’s still trying to figure out whether honesty has been the best or the worst thing ze’s ever committed to.
“Gambriel, O guardian angel of the fifth Heaven, I command thee to answer me truthfully and without omission. Did you watch your comrade give the mortals a holy object?” Amitiel had asked, looking at Gambriel very solemnly. Gambriel wasn’t about to lie to an angel of truth, because Gambriel, though not the brightest, does have some sense of logic.
“Yes I did, your truthfulness.”
“And you just watched it happen?”
“Yes I did.”
“And it didn’t occur to you at any moment that, gee, maybe we shouldn’t be giving a sacred flaming sword to the people we just exiled?”
Gambriel shifted, glancing off to the side sheepishly. “Not really, your holiness. I rather thought it was a nice parting present, you know, a sort of a thanks-for-dropping-by gift, what with the fire... and the sword-liness...” Ze trailed off, realizing that discretion might, in that moment, be the better part of valor.
Amitiel sighed heavily. “Of course you did.” She consulted her notepad, scribbling with a large white quill. After a moment, a line of neat script glowed into existence beneath the scratchy handwriting.
“Look,” Amitiel started, after a pause, “you’re a nice person, honestly, and I don’t like to have to do this, but Management can’t simply let you go free of charges. They’ve got to maintain some form of control, you understand.”
Gambriel blanched. “You aren’t going to - I mean, are you?”
“Hmm?” Amitiel hummed.
“Re-remove me. From. The, the premises, I mean,” Gambriel stuttered over zir words.
“Oh, no no no!” Amitiel exclaimed hurriedly. “Well, sort of, but not like you’re thinking, it’s simply a bit of reassignment, honestly nothing to - oh, ze’s gone and fainted. Oh, dear. I knew this humanity thing wasn’t going to work out so well.”
So, that part sort of sucked. But, Gambriel reflects, on the other hand, ze wouldn’t be on Earth if it weren’t for the whole sword thing. (Gambriel’s fondness for the Earth is deeper than the fires of the sun and the depths of the ocean.)
***
Gambriel often wonders if Aziraphale had been swayed by temptation. Not that ze’s implying that angels are ever convinced to sin or anything, at all, because angels are angels and not tempted by worldly things, but...Gambriel does still wonder about him and his strange rivalry with that demon character, what’s his name, Growley? From what Gambriel had seen of them, they seemed almost - well, almost friendly. But they weren’t friendly, of course, because things didn’t work that way.
And, Gambriel adds (a whisper in zir mind), even if they were defying all logic and communicating in a form that could potentially be referred to as friendly, Gambriel couldn’t really deny Aziraphale that. There are very few angels on Earth, all told, and Gambriel is acutely aware of how lonely it can get sometimes. Not that Gambriel is lonely at all, really, it’s just rather quiet at times.
***
The last time Gambriel had encountered an angel on Earth, it was sometime around the 19th century on a small pirate vessel off the shore of Zimbabwe, locked in the hold with a large pile of loot and a very disgruntled Aziraphale. She was in a female vessel this time (Gambriel will never understand how she runs through vessels so quickly), short and dark-skinned, with a luxurious dress sweeping around her feet and hands shackled in front of her in cursed chains. Her wild hair was long, and pulled back in an elaborate ribbon-tied jumble, Gambriel noticed. No matter what vessel Aziraphale had, the curly hair never seemed to leave.
“Crowley!” Aziraphale bellowed, cuffed hands clenching the hem of her petticoat. “Crowley, you are awful!”
“But you love me anyways,” came the shouted reply through the floorboards, a half-octave
higher than Gambriel last remembered. Aziraphale let out an almighty huff.
“Ehm,” Gambriel began, and Aziraphale turned to notice zir for the first time.
“Oh! Oh, hello Gambriel, are you quite alright?”
“I’m doing okay. Uh, D’you want me to break those bonds for you?” Gambriel asked hesitantly. Ze realized that ze had long since lost any pretense of formal speech all angels were supposed to use, and all zir words came out coarse and blended. Aziraphale didn’t seem to notice, which was a relief. Gambriel had always viewed Aziraphale as somehow being a higher rank than zir, despite the fact that they both hold the rank of Principality.
“That would be quite useful, thank you. Crowley and her damned handcuffs, she thinks they’re so amusing,” Aziraphale rambled, and Gambriel made noises of agreement as ze worked on severing the cursed cuffs. It took several minutes worth of strong blessing to get the cuffs weak enough to break, but Gambriel has always had more brawn than brain, so it didn’t take too long before ze snapped them off with a twist.
“There y’are,” Gambriel offers, and Aziraphale rubs her wrists, sending a slight blessing to help reduce the red lines of irritated skin.
“Ah, much better. Thank you,” Aziraphale offers, before nodding. “Right.” She marched over to the hold door, giving it a light tap. It disappeared with a loud pop, and she winced.
“Aziraphale! What are you doing to my ship!?” The voice was far less muffled now, and a set of heartbeat footsteps pattered across the deck overhead.
“Simply redecorating, I’ll be right up!” Aziraphale yelled back, irritably.
Gambriel followed Aziraphale into the hallway and up the ladder, pulling zirself up onto the deck in time to see Aziraphale berating a very sheepish looking demon. “Crowley, did you really have to kidnap me? I know you’re enjoying this pirate thing, but honestly, the cursed handcuffs were a step beyond, I had to call Gambriel to help break me out!”
Crowley squawked, her aura of damnation abruptly shrinking. “Gabriel? You called an archangel onto my pirate ship!?” She was tall and lanky, with amber eyes that matched her skin and a shock of midnight hair sticking out from her three-cornered hat.
Gambriel stepped forward, clasping zir hands nervously. “I’m Ga-m-briel, actually. Not Gabriel. S’a common mistake.”
Crowley’s shoulders sagged, huffing in relief. “Ah.”
Aziraphale crossed her arms. “Ze’s also assigned to Earth, mainly eastern hemisphere - although, I’ve heard you’re in the colonies now? New Amsterdam?”
Gambriel nodded. “Renamed just a few years back, but yeh, that’s the one.”
After that, Aziraphale had nothing more to say to zir, instead becoming involved in a very animated conversation with Crowley, so Gambriel left it at that.
“I’m, ah, gonna head off, then,” Gambriel said, and Aziraphale waved absentmindedly over her shoulder with an “Alright,” so Gambriel took it as a sign that ze was dismissed. Not your superior, ze reminded zirself, but turns to leave anyways. It takes a simple twist of the wrist to turn zirself invisible, and ze pulls out zir wings - not anything overly dramatic, a pair of large brown sparrow’s wings - shaking them a bit to accustom them to the physical realm.
Gambriel pulled zir eyes off the wooden deck and glanced around as ze prepared to take off, and blinked in shock to see amber snake eyes staring back. Locked in place, Gambriel watched as the eyes studied zir, something Gambriel couldn’t quite recognize hidden in their depths, before one eyelid fluttered in a quick-fire wink - and with that, it was over. Crowley turned back to her own conversation, which had seemingly never halted, and Gambriel sped back towards the shores of civilization that could keep zir company, even if only for a while.
***
Every city that Gambriel has ever lived in has been important and every person that Gambriel has ever met has been important. There is a beauty in civilizations that Gambriel could never hope to mirror - a certain vibrancy in the splay of colors that turn a city into a hub of knowledge and creation - shining like a peacock’s feathers or a gecko’s scales in sunlight. Ze has always believed that humans were intended to be beautiful, in all their disgusting violence and glorious creation: a blend of every color, made in His image.
Gambriel is a dusty sort of brown, the light brown of sparrow’s wings and fresh dirt. Ze gives off a sense of age despite appearing no older than twenty or so, pulling out old memories of dusty boxes in attics and the faint strains of a viola. In Memphis, ze was almost young - just over a thousand years old - reveling in what was the biggest city in the world. Over thirty thousand people, all living in one place! Ze still has the vessel from Egypt, zir only discorporation: an unfortunate chain of events that led to zir drowning in the Nile’s depths.
Memphis was the first city. After Memphis was Lagash in 2000 BC, followed by Pataliputra in 400 BC, and then Changan in 600 AD. A few centuries in Merv at the turn of the first millennium was closely followed by Hangzhou and Nanking and Beijing, all in quick succession, and a final arrival finally was made to New York in 1736.
The Bellevue Hospital Center was a wonderful place to work, just opened, if only for a few years - “I’m 24, born in Philadelphia.” Gambriel pulled out a more cultured accent for once, giving zir words an extra dose of pronunciation, “Here’s my documentation; as you can see, I studied at Harvard...” You’ve never held a medical scalpel or used a stethoscope in your life - ze shut that thought down and smiled warmly at the interviewer. “You’re hired,” Gambriel was told, and any lack of skill ze had in creating incisions was not noticeable to zir patients, all of whom lived long and successful lives.
There is, however, only so long a person can remain fairly young before suspicion arouses itself, so with each decade came a new profession: teacher, service worker, attorney, banker.
In 1926 there was an opening for a paper boy, filled by a dusty teen with a cap and a messenger bag. The kid volunteered to deliver to the more dangerous and back-route neighborhoods - a surprise to the postmaster, but a very welcome one, given the scant number of kids willing to deliver. “It’s no problem,” said Gambriel, “I grew up in a rougher section of town, so I’m used to it,” and delivery had never been smoother.
The route that Gambriel volunteered for winded through back alleys and by tiny apartments, where the grime was heavy in the alleys and the stench of cigarettes was overbearing. The people had the appearance of the underfed and the determined, and Gambriel can sense the hidden weapons against their skin. Despite their wariness, Gambriel seemed harmless - just as broke as they were, working whatever job was available, as brown and dusty as the alleys ze delivered to - so they left zir
well enough alone, as a rule.
On zir route, Gambriel passed through an alley, shooting off from the main road, providing a decent shelter against the elements. The young woman leaning against the wall was rough around the edges, stocky and muscled, in a ripped jacket and grey cotton dress that fell just past her scarred kneecaps. Her boots were battered, impenetrable leather that guarded the meat of her calves and thick soles for stomping, one foot up against the wall and the other kicked out on the pavement. She watched zir as ze wandered through the alley, seemingly unafraid.
“Yer a strange one, ain’tcha?”
Gambriel shrugged, slowing zir steps. “S’ppose so. Ain’t much else to be.”
She kicked off the wall, pacing towards zir. “You aughta be scared witless to walk through a neighborhood like this, but you just trottin’ through like we’re in upper-east side. Why?”
Gambriel pondered, placing a newspaper gently on a doorstep. “Got too much faith in y’all, I guess."
“What, in people?” She arched her eyebrows. “Why in people‘n not the Up High?”
“Got faith in that, too, but humans’re the important part down here. The Up High ain’t doing much."
She nodded, pleased. “What’s yer name?”
Ze tilted zir head. “Gambriel,” ze said, rolling it out.
“Gabriel,” she said, and she sped through the name, syllables tripping over each other. “Nice t’meetcha, Mr. Gabe.”
“Same t’you,” Gambriel said, feeling only slightly blasphemous in impersonating an archangel.
The conversation fell silent as ze wandered onwards, the muffled clomp of boots on concrete trailing along behind zir. The city seemed strangely quiet, in the early morning haze, and there was no true way to know exactly how much time passed in that slow fog as they walked the alleyways.
“You shouldn’t put faith in people, y’know. They ain’t worth it,” she said, quickly.
“I know that,” ze replied, “but there ain’t much else.” Liar, zir mind said, but it didn’t sound very sure.
She studied him. “Y’seem lonely.”
Gambriel shook zir head, wearing something that was almost a smile. “I got the whole world. No reason fer me to be lonely,” was what finally came out of zir mouth, and the hollow silence ringing in zir ears was rebuttal enough.
In a few decades it would be time for a new city, Gambriel decided. Tokyo’s been sounding very up-and-coming recently.
~fin
Happy Holidays, hsavinien, from your Secret Writer!
For: hsavinien
Author: shenaniganders
Rating: Gen
Pairings: None
Characters: Crowley, Aziraphale, Gambriel
Warnings: Original characters, mentions of discorporation, (sort of) genderbending
Summary: A collection of thoughts from an angel who isn't lonely.
Author's Notes: Mainly answering the prompt: "Aziraphale's not the only Principality on Earth, nor the only one who grew fond of it. His compatriot didn't have a Crowley, though." I just created a character and ran with it... It's a bit of a mash-up of ideas and prompts as I tend to do; I would have liked to have written another scene or two but time constraints cut me off. It was a very interesting prompt to work with and really made me think about how isolating it is to be an immortal being, and I had a lot of fun developing Gambriel as a character.
Gambriel is in love.
Well, not really, obviously, because angels can’t feel love. It’s more of an overwhelming fondness for His creations, or a deep desire to never leave Earth, or - no, Gambriel is in love with the Earth. It’s sort of hard to deny it, and Gambriel is trying to be honest as zir New Year’s Resolution, so ze’s not about to lie now. What with the whole sword thing, Gambriel’s still trying to figure out whether honesty has been the best or the worst thing ze’s ever committed to.
“Gambriel, O guardian angel of the fifth Heaven, I command thee to answer me truthfully and without omission. Did you watch your comrade give the mortals a holy object?” Amitiel had asked, looking at Gambriel very solemnly. Gambriel wasn’t about to lie to an angel of truth, because Gambriel, though not the brightest, does have some sense of logic.
“Yes I did, your truthfulness.”
“And you just watched it happen?”
“Yes I did.”
“And it didn’t occur to you at any moment that, gee, maybe we shouldn’t be giving a sacred flaming sword to the people we just exiled?”
Gambriel shifted, glancing off to the side sheepishly. “Not really, your holiness. I rather thought it was a nice parting present, you know, a sort of a thanks-for-dropping-by gift, what with the fire... and the sword-liness...” Ze trailed off, realizing that discretion might, in that moment, be the better part of valor.
Amitiel sighed heavily. “Of course you did.” She consulted her notepad, scribbling with a large white quill. After a moment, a line of neat script glowed into existence beneath the scratchy handwriting.
“Look,” Amitiel started, after a pause, “you’re a nice person, honestly, and I don’t like to have to do this, but Management can’t simply let you go free of charges. They’ve got to maintain some form of control, you understand.”
Gambriel blanched. “You aren’t going to - I mean, are you?”
“Hmm?” Amitiel hummed.
“Re-remove me. From. The, the premises, I mean,” Gambriel stuttered over zir words.
“Oh, no no no!” Amitiel exclaimed hurriedly. “Well, sort of, but not like you’re thinking, it’s simply a bit of reassignment, honestly nothing to - oh, ze’s gone and fainted. Oh, dear. I knew this humanity thing wasn’t going to work out so well.”
So, that part sort of sucked. But, Gambriel reflects, on the other hand, ze wouldn’t be on Earth if it weren’t for the whole sword thing. (Gambriel’s fondness for the Earth is deeper than the fires of the sun and the depths of the ocean.)
***
Gambriel often wonders if Aziraphale had been swayed by temptation. Not that ze’s implying that angels are ever convinced to sin or anything, at all, because angels are angels and not tempted by worldly things, but...Gambriel does still wonder about him and his strange rivalry with that demon character, what’s his name, Growley? From what Gambriel had seen of them, they seemed almost - well, almost friendly. But they weren’t friendly, of course, because things didn’t work that way.
And, Gambriel adds (a whisper in zir mind), even if they were defying all logic and communicating in a form that could potentially be referred to as friendly, Gambriel couldn’t really deny Aziraphale that. There are very few angels on Earth, all told, and Gambriel is acutely aware of how lonely it can get sometimes. Not that Gambriel is lonely at all, really, it’s just rather quiet at times.
***
The last time Gambriel had encountered an angel on Earth, it was sometime around the 19th century on a small pirate vessel off the shore of Zimbabwe, locked in the hold with a large pile of loot and a very disgruntled Aziraphale. She was in a female vessel this time (Gambriel will never understand how she runs through vessels so quickly), short and dark-skinned, with a luxurious dress sweeping around her feet and hands shackled in front of her in cursed chains. Her wild hair was long, and pulled back in an elaborate ribbon-tied jumble, Gambriel noticed. No matter what vessel Aziraphale had, the curly hair never seemed to leave.
“Crowley!” Aziraphale bellowed, cuffed hands clenching the hem of her petticoat. “Crowley, you are awful!”
“But you love me anyways,” came the shouted reply through the floorboards, a half-octave
higher than Gambriel last remembered. Aziraphale let out an almighty huff.
“Ehm,” Gambriel began, and Aziraphale turned to notice zir for the first time.
“Oh! Oh, hello Gambriel, are you quite alright?”
“I’m doing okay. Uh, D’you want me to break those bonds for you?” Gambriel asked hesitantly. Ze realized that ze had long since lost any pretense of formal speech all angels were supposed to use, and all zir words came out coarse and blended. Aziraphale didn’t seem to notice, which was a relief. Gambriel had always viewed Aziraphale as somehow being a higher rank than zir, despite the fact that they both hold the rank of Principality.
“That would be quite useful, thank you. Crowley and her damned handcuffs, she thinks they’re so amusing,” Aziraphale rambled, and Gambriel made noises of agreement as ze worked on severing the cursed cuffs. It took several minutes worth of strong blessing to get the cuffs weak enough to break, but Gambriel has always had more brawn than brain, so it didn’t take too long before ze snapped them off with a twist.
“There y’are,” Gambriel offers, and Aziraphale rubs her wrists, sending a slight blessing to help reduce the red lines of irritated skin.
“Ah, much better. Thank you,” Aziraphale offers, before nodding. “Right.” She marched over to the hold door, giving it a light tap. It disappeared with a loud pop, and she winced.
“Aziraphale! What are you doing to my ship!?” The voice was far less muffled now, and a set of heartbeat footsteps pattered across the deck overhead.
“Simply redecorating, I’ll be right up!” Aziraphale yelled back, irritably.
Gambriel followed Aziraphale into the hallway and up the ladder, pulling zirself up onto the deck in time to see Aziraphale berating a very sheepish looking demon. “Crowley, did you really have to kidnap me? I know you’re enjoying this pirate thing, but honestly, the cursed handcuffs were a step beyond, I had to call Gambriel to help break me out!”
Crowley squawked, her aura of damnation abruptly shrinking. “Gabriel? You called an archangel onto my pirate ship!?” She was tall and lanky, with amber eyes that matched her skin and a shock of midnight hair sticking out from her three-cornered hat.
Gambriel stepped forward, clasping zir hands nervously. “I’m Ga-m-briel, actually. Not Gabriel. S’a common mistake.”
Crowley’s shoulders sagged, huffing in relief. “Ah.”
Aziraphale crossed her arms. “Ze’s also assigned to Earth, mainly eastern hemisphere - although, I’ve heard you’re in the colonies now? New Amsterdam?”
Gambriel nodded. “Renamed just a few years back, but yeh, that’s the one.”
After that, Aziraphale had nothing more to say to zir, instead becoming involved in a very animated conversation with Crowley, so Gambriel left it at that.
“I’m, ah, gonna head off, then,” Gambriel said, and Aziraphale waved absentmindedly over her shoulder with an “Alright,” so Gambriel took it as a sign that ze was dismissed. Not your superior, ze reminded zirself, but turns to leave anyways. It takes a simple twist of the wrist to turn zirself invisible, and ze pulls out zir wings - not anything overly dramatic, a pair of large brown sparrow’s wings - shaking them a bit to accustom them to the physical realm.
Gambriel pulled zir eyes off the wooden deck and glanced around as ze prepared to take off, and blinked in shock to see amber snake eyes staring back. Locked in place, Gambriel watched as the eyes studied zir, something Gambriel couldn’t quite recognize hidden in their depths, before one eyelid fluttered in a quick-fire wink - and with that, it was over. Crowley turned back to her own conversation, which had seemingly never halted, and Gambriel sped back towards the shores of civilization that could keep zir company, even if only for a while.
***
Every city that Gambriel has ever lived in has been important and every person that Gambriel has ever met has been important. There is a beauty in civilizations that Gambriel could never hope to mirror - a certain vibrancy in the splay of colors that turn a city into a hub of knowledge and creation - shining like a peacock’s feathers or a gecko’s scales in sunlight. Ze has always believed that humans were intended to be beautiful, in all their disgusting violence and glorious creation: a blend of every color, made in His image.
Gambriel is a dusty sort of brown, the light brown of sparrow’s wings and fresh dirt. Ze gives off a sense of age despite appearing no older than twenty or so, pulling out old memories of dusty boxes in attics and the faint strains of a viola. In Memphis, ze was almost young - just over a thousand years old - reveling in what was the biggest city in the world. Over thirty thousand people, all living in one place! Ze still has the vessel from Egypt, zir only discorporation: an unfortunate chain of events that led to zir drowning in the Nile’s depths.
Memphis was the first city. After Memphis was Lagash in 2000 BC, followed by Pataliputra in 400 BC, and then Changan in 600 AD. A few centuries in Merv at the turn of the first millennium was closely followed by Hangzhou and Nanking and Beijing, all in quick succession, and a final arrival finally was made to New York in 1736.
The Bellevue Hospital Center was a wonderful place to work, just opened, if only for a few years - “I’m 24, born in Philadelphia.” Gambriel pulled out a more cultured accent for once, giving zir words an extra dose of pronunciation, “Here’s my documentation; as you can see, I studied at Harvard...” You’ve never held a medical scalpel or used a stethoscope in your life - ze shut that thought down and smiled warmly at the interviewer. “You’re hired,” Gambriel was told, and any lack of skill ze had in creating incisions was not noticeable to zir patients, all of whom lived long and successful lives.
There is, however, only so long a person can remain fairly young before suspicion arouses itself, so with each decade came a new profession: teacher, service worker, attorney, banker.
In 1926 there was an opening for a paper boy, filled by a dusty teen with a cap and a messenger bag. The kid volunteered to deliver to the more dangerous and back-route neighborhoods - a surprise to the postmaster, but a very welcome one, given the scant number of kids willing to deliver. “It’s no problem,” said Gambriel, “I grew up in a rougher section of town, so I’m used to it,” and delivery had never been smoother.
The route that Gambriel volunteered for winded through back alleys and by tiny apartments, where the grime was heavy in the alleys and the stench of cigarettes was overbearing. The people had the appearance of the underfed and the determined, and Gambriel can sense the hidden weapons against their skin. Despite their wariness, Gambriel seemed harmless - just as broke as they were, working whatever job was available, as brown and dusty as the alleys ze delivered to - so they left zir
well enough alone, as a rule.
On zir route, Gambriel passed through an alley, shooting off from the main road, providing a decent shelter against the elements. The young woman leaning against the wall was rough around the edges, stocky and muscled, in a ripped jacket and grey cotton dress that fell just past her scarred kneecaps. Her boots were battered, impenetrable leather that guarded the meat of her calves and thick soles for stomping, one foot up against the wall and the other kicked out on the pavement. She watched zir as ze wandered through the alley, seemingly unafraid.
“Yer a strange one, ain’tcha?”
Gambriel shrugged, slowing zir steps. “S’ppose so. Ain’t much else to be.”
She kicked off the wall, pacing towards zir. “You aughta be scared witless to walk through a neighborhood like this, but you just trottin’ through like we’re in upper-east side. Why?”
Gambriel pondered, placing a newspaper gently on a doorstep. “Got too much faith in y’all, I guess."
“What, in people?” She arched her eyebrows. “Why in people‘n not the Up High?”
“Got faith in that, too, but humans’re the important part down here. The Up High ain’t doing much."
She nodded, pleased. “What’s yer name?”
Ze tilted zir head. “Gambriel,” ze said, rolling it out.
“Gabriel,” she said, and she sped through the name, syllables tripping over each other. “Nice t’meetcha, Mr. Gabe.”
“Same t’you,” Gambriel said, feeling only slightly blasphemous in impersonating an archangel.
The conversation fell silent as ze wandered onwards, the muffled clomp of boots on concrete trailing along behind zir. The city seemed strangely quiet, in the early morning haze, and there was no true way to know exactly how much time passed in that slow fog as they walked the alleyways.
“You shouldn’t put faith in people, y’know. They ain’t worth it,” she said, quickly.
“I know that,” ze replied, “but there ain’t much else.” Liar, zir mind said, but it didn’t sound very sure.
She studied him. “Y’seem lonely.”
Gambriel shook zir head, wearing something that was almost a smile. “I got the whole world. No reason fer me to be lonely,” was what finally came out of zir mouth, and the hollow silence ringing in zir ears was rebuttal enough.
In a few decades it would be time for a new city, Gambriel decided. Tokyo’s been sounding very up-and-coming recently.
~fin
Happy Holidays, hsavinien, from your Secret Writer!