Elysian Fields (1/?)
Title: Elysian Fields (1/?): ego somno solutus sum
Author: clodia_metelli.
Rating: K+
Characters: Aziraphale, Crowley, probably Horsepeople and almost certainly various historical/infernal personages in later chapters.
Summary: It's 43 B.C. and Cicero is dead. He's not the only one. And as for where Aziraphale and Crowley have ended up, well, Heaven and Hell aren't going to like this... Crossover with Virgil's Aeneid, Book 6.
Disclaimer: I do not own Good Omens and I make nothing from this except my own entertainment.
A/N: This was inspired by vulgarweed's prompt over at go_exchange; my apologies to the organisers for not signing up for the exchange itself, but owing to RL commitments and my uneasy relationship with deadlines, I wasn't sure I'd be able to get it written on time. Besides, I'm not sure it fits the prompt precisely, either.
Word Count: 1300
~ ego somno solutus sum ~
(Cicero, de re publica, 6.29)
The only concrete consequence was the paperwork, which was astronomical.
There were the initial reports (two sets, in triplicate), the followup debriefings (transcripts sent to every member of both panels, plus copies circulated to significant persons both Above and Below), the debriefings to follow up the followup debriefings and clarify particular points (more transcripts, in duplicate), the minutes of the meetings held to decide the members of the committees to be appointed to discuss the reports and both debriefings (also in duplicate), the minutes of the meetings held to decide the agendas of the committees (in triplicate, because these were then circulated among all previously CC’d significant persons in case they had anything to add), and finally the minutes of the committees themselves.
At this point, the whole thing was buried with decent haste, because there are some things that neither Heaven nor Hell wants to talk about. But Aziraphale kept copies of both reports in a scroll-case labelled de consulatu suo ciceronis, and was lucky that no classicist stumbled across it in its dusty corner of his London bookshop all those centuries later, by which time manuscripts of Cicero’s much-mocked epic on his consulship were no longer easily found.
Aziraphale’s report begins thus:
“Dec. 7th, Caieta, at the villa of Marcus Tullius Cicero. As you know, I have been stationed in Rome for the past ninety years, ever since the shocking events of the consulship of Publius Mucius Scaevola and Lucius Calpurnius Piso Frugi brought the pernicious activities of an Enemy Agent in the region to our attention. [A lengthy account of thwarted wiles and valiant rearguard action in the face of a hopelessly disintegrating political culture follows, carefully composed so as to produce an overall impression of reliability, thoroughness and general common sense.] The seventh civil war since Lucius Cornelius Sulla’s first march on Rome now being well underway, and a compact having been formed between the Caesarian generals Marcus Antonius, Marcus Aemilius Lepidus and Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus, it was my considered judgement that I should accompany the politician Cicero (a respectable partisan of ours) in his flight from the city. Cicero’s name had been set at the head of a list of persons to be proscribed, which is to say killed...”
(“You see, I promised Tiro,” Aziraphale explained wretchedly to Crowley, considerably after the event. “I used to give him a hand sometimes when he was trying to decipher his master’s handwriting, the dear boy, and we had such interesting conversations about making up a Latin shorthand - well anyway, when we found out that nice young Octavius had gone over to Antony, Tiro begged me to go along with Cicero and do what I could, and I couldn’t say no, now, could I?”
Crowley snorted, but left his response otherwise unspoken.)
“... despite my best efforts, Cicero did not set sail for Macedonia and the camp of Marcus Brutus. Instead, having put in at Caeita, he was discovered by a group of wicked and greedy assassins, among whose number was the Enemy Agent who has long been responsible for stirring up so much trouble in Rome...”
Concerning which discovery, the report filed by the Enemy Agent in question has this to say:
“Having broken down the door and discovered that the human Cicero was nowhere to be seen, I cunningly bribed an informant, who directed us towards the woods through which Cicero’s litter was being carried to the sea. When I and the centurion Herennius (whose native greed I had been painstakingly nurturing over the course of the journey from Rome) fell upon the litter, I realised at once that Cicero had somehow come under the protection of a powerful opponent, to whit: the Angelic Principality whose activities in Rome on behalf of the Enemy I have tirelessly obstructed over the last century...”
(“What? he was on your side too?” said Crowley. “Typical human, you can’t trust any of the buggers. No, I was just there to make sure he came to an unpleasant end. Well, you can’t go making deals with Hell and then living happily ever after. Standard policy. Didn’t you know?”)
Whereupon, according to both reports, a titanic battle ensued on the psychic plane that, after a long and arduous struggle in which the forces of Evil were humbled and caused to weep for their wicked ways, while the forces of Good were trodden into the dust and made to beg for their pathetic existences, resulted in the discorporation of both parties. This was regrettable but inevitable collateral damage from an otherwise heroic and wholly successful encounter with an incredibly dangerous Enemy.
According to bystanders, Tiro’s friend drew his sword, tripped over a rock and accidentally impaled Herennius’s companion. The companion, collapsing on top of him, stabbed his killer in the back. Meanwhile, Herennius was busily cutting off Cicero’s screaming head. The bystanders were human, of course, so no one was interested in anything they had to say. Anyway, what matters is what happened next.
Or rather, didn’t.
What matters is where one discorporated angel and one discorporated demon woke up.
*
It wasn’t the first time Crowley had been discorporated. In fact, it wasn’t even the first time he’d been discorporated that decade. Rome had become a dangerous place to wile in the last hundred years or so. Not that he wasn’t proud of all his hard work, mind you, but you could only get casually lynched by senatorial mobs looking for the nearest turbulent tribune so many times before Below started asking questions. As the light leaked in through his spectral eyelids, he was already formulating his explanation. At least he could blame this one on the angel -
“Oo, ow,” moaned a familiar voice. “That was completely uncalled for...”
Crowley opened his eyes to the light.
“Aziraphale?” he said. “What are you doing Below?”
The angel was sprawled out not far off, both hands clutched to his back. “Crowley?” he said, squinting in apparent confusion. There was blood on his tunic and his hair glowed golden. He seemed younger out of his body, in fact appropriately ageless. “What are you doing Above?”
They both looked around.
A breath of perfumed air wafted overhead through the branches of a shady grove. Red and white flowers speckled the grass and nearby flowed a river, its waves washing sleepily against serene shores. Green plains darkened by patches of peaceful woodland sloped out in all directions. In the distance, Crowley could make out blurry crowds of humans clustered together or wandering in ones and twos across the summer-bright countryside. More humans flocked all along the river’s edge, a vast host stretching indistinct and uncountable into the green reaches on the far side of the river.
It wasn’t Hell. It wasn’t much like what Crowley remembered of Heaven, either. He said as much aloud.
“Oh dear,” said the angel. “Uh. I don’t suppose you can see Cicero anywhere -?”
“No,” said Crowley, and added a few choice remarks on the subject of angels who felt entitled to barge in on demonic business and ruin perfectly good bodies that said demons had hardly possessed for any time at all. He broke off when it became clear that Aziraphale was paying no attention whatsoever. Aziraphale had got up and was peering worriedly out over the rolling plains, one hand still pressed to his now unwounded back.
“I, um, think I might know where we are,” he said, sounding distinctly unhappy about it. “Um. I don’t think we should be here...”
A few of the nearer blurry humanoid shapes were drifting towards their grove. Crowley glared at them. “Why not?”
“Well,” said Aziraphale, even more unhappily, “about ten years ago, you see, Cicero was writing this book -”
“What’s the short version?”
The angel took a breath. “Elysium.”
ueniet quae misceat omnis hora duces
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