Happy Holidays, Eldanis!
Title: Serpentine Dreams
Recipient: eldanis
Author: hoshi_ryo
Pairing: Open to interpretation.
Rating: PG-13.
Summary: A snake enjoys a stay on a sunny rock near a duck pond, somewhere within the Dreaming. Set during Crowley's long nap.
Warnings: Contains authentic duck behavior and dream logic (what with this being the Dreaming).
Author's Notes: The free time I was expecting to have this month vanished suddenly, along with a decent chunk of time I was expecting to get to have for this thing called 'sleep.' I had hoped to do something fancier, but…well, hopefully this works?
I
The rock was warm from the early afternoon sunlight that shone on it, inspiring in him a calm, cool relaxation the snake could only vaguely remember ever having felt before, long ago, before...
Before…
He shifted, adjusting his wings and legs, feather scales and scale feathers rustling softly as he tried to remember exactly what ‘Before' was before.
The rock was warm and the sunlight pleasant.
A duck quacked from nearby.
He was not sure what he had been trying to remember, or why, or why it had even mattered.
II
She sat down beside him, young, in her hand a piece of fruit he recognized, but didn't really. "Hello, Crowley."
He lifted his head, turned his head, not asking why he had gone from snake to humanoid without any apparent thought or transition as he moved. (And why, why did he have the vague, unpleasant, unhappy feeling that he no longer looked like that when a snake? Black instead of colorful, limbless, his lovely wings gone, gone, rotted and fallen off? He took good care of his wings, unlike... He was not sure who.) "Hello."
"You don't remember me?"
...He did not answer. He did not remember. Something about a tree and fruit like the one she was delicately nibbling.
"Those ducks look strange."
They looked like toys, bright yellow and friendly. Ducks were not like that, really, as much as somebody else (who?) believed otherwise. They were like flying, feathery dolphins.
They bobbed in the colorful water, drifting with the currents, not swimming.
That would have required they have feet.
He remembered losing his feet, except he knew that had to be wrong because they were still attached. They were not discolored, reeking with rot. They were pale.
They were colorful, nails curved delicately to grip bark, covered in delicately colored tufts that were not quite feathers not quite scales, a work of art.
She was older, ancient, offering him the rest of the fruit she had been eating.
"I think the irony is appropriate."
He was not sure what she meant.
But the fruit was crunchy and juicy and delicious.
III
The ducks were back to looking real and acting like real ducks. He curled up, one wing curved delicately up to shade his eyes as he watched them instead of dozing.
A couple of the drakes had cornered broody hen.
He recognized it as the sequel to the drama he had seen earlier, from the hat on one drake's head and the scarf on the other and the flower on the hen's head.
(The flower was one of those he knew he had seen Before. He did not, still, know what or when Before was, but it had been nice and it had included flowers and, he supposed, fewer ducks.)
They had cornered her, and now they were trying to drive her off from the nest and the eggs she had laid.
Why did that other person like ducks?
When the drama ended, one of the drakes settling victoriously on the nest, he shifted, going back to that lazy doze of a snake in a sunny warm place.
He was sure that other person would feel horrible if he saw this side of ducks. He felt... Disquieted, both by this side of waterfowl, and by the fact that he would be bothered by that other person's horror.
It felt like he was breaking union rules.
Whatever those were.
IIII
She was back, one hand delicately smoothing his scales, gently nudging feathers back into place.
"Are you stuck?"
Stuck?
It was a nice, warm rock in the sun. He liked the spot.
It was nearly perfect, aside from the faint nagging reminder it was of Before and of something...
Well, something. He was not sure quite what, and could not quite think of why he cared.
The ducks were floating calmly, occasionally knocking into each other with hollow wooden thunks, paint weathered and slightly dull.
The waves on the pond picked up.
"...When you can, tell your friend that the sword was useful."
V
A new visitor arrived, pale and dark and Other.
Other what, he was not sure. Just definitely Other.
"Are you planning to try to move here permanently?"
He sat up. There was no point in trying to keep lounging on the deliciously sun warm stone, not with this new person blocking the sun, chasing the sunlight away, bringing the cold.
"If you'll get out of my sun..."
Or, maybe, he could slip off into the grass and enjoy the garden. It had trees.
Some vague memory suggested that trees were, perhaps, not the best place.
Something had gone not entirely right last time.
He was not sure what any of that last sentence meant, but very sure it was perfectly correct despite that minor issue.
The sun reappeared, the warm afternoon heat radiating down, now from behind instead of from in front of him.
It was not quite as much of an improvement as if the pale and dark and Other man had left, but he was not going to complain.
He settled back, relaxing.
"You look smug," the pale man said. He had said more before that, as well, but it couldn't be important.
"I am smug." By some meaning of the word, at any rate; perhaps an obsolete one.
He had no intention of leaving the spot.
Why, exactly, this person thought he couldn't stay forever was a mystery. He certainly was not intending to leave his nice warm sunny rock.
One of the ducks, a red one, quacked.
VI
One of the ducks had always been a shade of russet with black parts, curled tufts of feathers on its head that might be thought to resemble horns, a tail that looked less like an acute corner and more like it had been designed to stab.
It had a deep quack, a sinister quack...
It did not sound much unlike a foghorn, and was as entirely unlike a quack as possible.
He was not entirely sure that this duck had always been bobbing in the pond, though he felt strangely certainty that the duck had only started always having been there when that pale and dark stranger had visited.
Something told him that duck was more evil than he could ever be, which was not exactly remarkable in a duck. Most ducks managed it with ease, though he knew that his... Enemy? Friend? Frenemy? Whatever he was, for some reason ducks just never did evil duck things when he was looking.
(That it had become harder to do that in front of him, as he had gotten to know him, was an uncomfortable thought, one to be carefully ignored.)
This duck, though, he was sure would act exactly like a real duck, regardless of how disappointed any watcher might be in his actions. He might even be worse than usual, if that was possible, just to shock.
He did not like this duck, at all.
VII
Clouds blocked his sun, this time, and the waves on the duck pond were getting rough as the wind picked up, ruffling his feathers no matter how snakelike or humanlike he was looking. It was colder, the pleasant sun-warmth gone, the wind carrying a wintery chill.
The red duck's plumage was bright red, luminescent, and right now he was larger, the pecten along his beak looking more like fangs than usual.
He wanted away, but instinct was going with freezing and hoping that maybe that would keep the duck from noticing.
It looked demonic, and something told him that he both was in a very good position to judge and that this judgement was more than a bit ironic for reasons he could not quite recall.
It did not matter for long.
VIII
Crowley was not quite sure what had woken him up, and the fog of sleep was pleasant. There was, he noted, an angel in his room, attempting to clean without use of miracles.
It would likely take a miracle to make him competent at it, but it had been a long time since he had quite felt like reminding Aziraphale of it. He meant his efforts sincerely.
There was something someone had asked him to tell the angel, but he couldn't remember, exactly, what it was.
It probably wouldn't matter.
~end
Happy Holidays, eldanis, from your Secret Writer!
Title: Serpentine Dreams
Recipient: eldanis
Author: hoshi_ryo
Pairing: Open to interpretation.
Rating: PG-13.
Summary: A snake enjoys a stay on a sunny rock near a duck pond, somewhere within the Dreaming. Set during Crowley's long nap.
Warnings: Contains authentic duck behavior and dream logic (what with this being the Dreaming).
Author's Notes: The free time I was expecting to have this month vanished suddenly, along with a decent chunk of time I was expecting to get to have for this thing called 'sleep.' I had hoped to do something fancier, but…well, hopefully this works?
I
The rock was warm from the early afternoon sunlight that shone on it, inspiring in him a calm, cool relaxation the snake could only vaguely remember ever having felt before, long ago, before...
Before…
He shifted, adjusting his wings and legs, feather scales and scale feathers rustling softly as he tried to remember exactly what ‘Before' was before.
The rock was warm and the sunlight pleasant.
A duck quacked from nearby.
He was not sure what he had been trying to remember, or why, or why it had even mattered.
II
She sat down beside him, young, in her hand a piece of fruit he recognized, but didn't really. "Hello, Crowley."
He lifted his head, turned his head, not asking why he had gone from snake to humanoid without any apparent thought or transition as he moved. (And why, why did he have the vague, unpleasant, unhappy feeling that he no longer looked like that when a snake? Black instead of colorful, limbless, his lovely wings gone, gone, rotted and fallen off? He took good care of his wings, unlike... He was not sure who.) "Hello."
"You don't remember me?"
...He did not answer. He did not remember. Something about a tree and fruit like the one she was delicately nibbling.
"Those ducks look strange."
They looked like toys, bright yellow and friendly. Ducks were not like that, really, as much as somebody else (who?) believed otherwise. They were like flying, feathery dolphins.
They bobbed in the colorful water, drifting with the currents, not swimming.
That would have required they have feet.
He remembered losing his feet, except he knew that had to be wrong because they were still attached. They were not discolored, reeking with rot. They were pale.
They were colorful, nails curved delicately to grip bark, covered in delicately colored tufts that were not quite feathers not quite scales, a work of art.
She was older, ancient, offering him the rest of the fruit she had been eating.
"I think the irony is appropriate."
He was not sure what she meant.
But the fruit was crunchy and juicy and delicious.
III
The ducks were back to looking real and acting like real ducks. He curled up, one wing curved delicately up to shade his eyes as he watched them instead of dozing.
A couple of the drakes had cornered broody hen.
He recognized it as the sequel to the drama he had seen earlier, from the hat on one drake's head and the scarf on the other and the flower on the hen's head.
(The flower was one of those he knew he had seen Before. He did not, still, know what or when Before was, but it had been nice and it had included flowers and, he supposed, fewer ducks.)
They had cornered her, and now they were trying to drive her off from the nest and the eggs she had laid.
Why did that other person like ducks?
When the drama ended, one of the drakes settling victoriously on the nest, he shifted, going back to that lazy doze of a snake in a sunny warm place.
He was sure that other person would feel horrible if he saw this side of ducks. He felt... Disquieted, both by this side of waterfowl, and by the fact that he would be bothered by that other person's horror.
It felt like he was breaking union rules.
Whatever those were.
IIII
She was back, one hand delicately smoothing his scales, gently nudging feathers back into place.
"Are you stuck?"
Stuck?
It was a nice, warm rock in the sun. He liked the spot.
It was nearly perfect, aside from the faint nagging reminder it was of Before and of something...
Well, something. He was not sure quite what, and could not quite think of why he cared.
The ducks were floating calmly, occasionally knocking into each other with hollow wooden thunks, paint weathered and slightly dull.
The waves on the pond picked up.
"...When you can, tell your friend that the sword was useful."
V
A new visitor arrived, pale and dark and Other.
Other what, he was not sure. Just definitely Other.
"Are you planning to try to move here permanently?"
He sat up. There was no point in trying to keep lounging on the deliciously sun warm stone, not with this new person blocking the sun, chasing the sunlight away, bringing the cold.
"If you'll get out of my sun..."
Or, maybe, he could slip off into the grass and enjoy the garden. It had trees.
Some vague memory suggested that trees were, perhaps, not the best place.
Something had gone not entirely right last time.
He was not sure what any of that last sentence meant, but very sure it was perfectly correct despite that minor issue.
The sun reappeared, the warm afternoon heat radiating down, now from behind instead of from in front of him.
It was not quite as much of an improvement as if the pale and dark and Other man had left, but he was not going to complain.
He settled back, relaxing.
"You look smug," the pale man said. He had said more before that, as well, but it couldn't be important.
"I am smug." By some meaning of the word, at any rate; perhaps an obsolete one.
He had no intention of leaving the spot.
Why, exactly, this person thought he couldn't stay forever was a mystery. He certainly was not intending to leave his nice warm sunny rock.
One of the ducks, a red one, quacked.
VI
One of the ducks had always been a shade of russet with black parts, curled tufts of feathers on its head that might be thought to resemble horns, a tail that looked less like an acute corner and more like it had been designed to stab.
It had a deep quack, a sinister quack...
It did not sound much unlike a foghorn, and was as entirely unlike a quack as possible.
He was not entirely sure that this duck had always been bobbing in the pond, though he felt strangely certainty that the duck had only started always having been there when that pale and dark stranger had visited.
Something told him that duck was more evil than he could ever be, which was not exactly remarkable in a duck. Most ducks managed it with ease, though he knew that his... Enemy? Friend? Frenemy? Whatever he was, for some reason ducks just never did evil duck things when he was looking.
(That it had become harder to do that in front of him, as he had gotten to know him, was an uncomfortable thought, one to be carefully ignored.)
This duck, though, he was sure would act exactly like a real duck, regardless of how disappointed any watcher might be in his actions. He might even be worse than usual, if that was possible, just to shock.
He did not like this duck, at all.
VII
Clouds blocked his sun, this time, and the waves on the duck pond were getting rough as the wind picked up, ruffling his feathers no matter how snakelike or humanlike he was looking. It was colder, the pleasant sun-warmth gone, the wind carrying a wintery chill.
The red duck's plumage was bright red, luminescent, and right now he was larger, the pecten along his beak looking more like fangs than usual.
He wanted away, but instinct was going with freezing and hoping that maybe that would keep the duck from noticing.
It looked demonic, and something told him that he both was in a very good position to judge and that this judgement was more than a bit ironic for reasons he could not quite recall.
It did not matter for long.
VIII
Crowley was not quite sure what had woken him up, and the fog of sleep was pleasant. There was, he noted, an angel in his room, attempting to clean without use of miracles.
It would likely take a miracle to make him competent at it, but it had been a long time since he had quite felt like reminding Aziraphale of it. He meant his efforts sincerely.
There was something someone had asked him to tell the angel, but he couldn't remember, exactly, what it was.
It probably wouldn't matter.
~end
Happy Holidays, eldanis, from your Secret Writer!