Author's note: I do not own Philip Pullman's works, nor the Bible ... Enjoy!
The Fall of Man
The Man was ecstatic. He had everything that he could possibly have – a beautiful wife, a wonderful home, abundant food freely available, and they walked with God every day – ah, what more could one possibly want? The Man sighed contently. His dæmon changed from a beautiful gazelle into a playful otter and immediately changed again, this time into a sprightly gaudily coloured songbird, which gave a quick burst of cheerful song. A joyful animal cry caught his attention.
A wolf loped out of the trees, saw the Man and wagged its tail. Then she, the one who was the love of his life, appeared just after her dæmon. The Man's breath was, as always, taken away by the beauty of this wonder that was his most cherished gift.
"Woman," he breathed.
Her eyes twinkled merrily as she walked slowly, sensuously towards him. Then she was gathered up in his arms and he was deeply drinking in her scent. Their two dæmons were in the form of great cats, lovingly rubbing and licking one another, their loud purrs ringing through the treetops.
The couple turned and walked waist-to-waist down to the bank of the meandering sparkling river.
In the distance they saw the unreal shimmer in the sunlight of the foliage of the Tree of Life and the beautifully coloured fruit of the Tree of - what was it? – Knowledge of Good and Evil.
The Woman wondered for what felt like the millionth time what was meant by this 'Knowledge'. In a quiet voice she said to her husband, "I want to go to the middle of the garden."
The Man knew immediately what the Woman meant. She wanted to look at the Trees again. And why shouldn't she? The Trees had an otherworldly beauty about them, unusual beauty that the other trees in the Garden, while glorious and beautiful in their own way, did not reflect.
The dæmons transformed once more into lively songbirds, flitting from branch to branch above the Man and Woman's heads as they strolled along to the heart of the Garden, where the Man has once lain in sleep, only to wake up to a Woman next to him, and where they had, in the recent past, got to know each other intimately.
The Woman stood, entranced, as she gazed up at the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. The Man was chatting with his dæmon, which was in the form of a fox, lying in the lush grass. The Woman held up her hand and her butterfly-dæmon alighted on her fingers.
Suddenly she saw a flash of mottled brown and her dæmon darted up, startled. The Man and his dæmon looked up at the motion.
Relief crossed his wife's face. "It was just a snake," she smiled. The Man nodded, and then he too saw the reptile.
They looked at the snake. The snake looked back, and the couple were surprised to perceive the keen intelligence behind its flat lidless eyes.
The snake turned away from them and climbed up the tree, its sinuous body winding itself around the slim trunk and pausing occasionally to look back at the two, who were still watching it. It reached the base of the branches and slithered along until it could look down at them.
Then it spoke.