Title: Firebird: III. Finale
Rating: PG-13 (for "Why?")
Summary: "In the background Crowley and Aziraphale met on the tops of buses, and in art galleries, and at concerts, compared notes, and smiled."
Disclaimer: --
Author's Notes: The last part of this little trilogy—i.e., wherein I pimp 'Firebird' rather more forcefully than I have been through titles.
They should've seen it coming.
As the Antichrist aged, Crowley and Aziraphale became more and more reluctant to discuss his upbringing, partly because it was a subject that had been talked into tedium as the years ran out, and partly because Warlock had so far proven he was nothing more sinister than a typical spoiled American brat.
"He just needs time to grow," Aziraphale had said doubtfully as a six-year-old Warlock stalked ducks in the park, sinking them with real stones and astonishing accuracy. Crowley swore up and down that he had nothing to do with it but smirked all the same. And when an eight-year-old Warlock could be found working studiously in Sunday school, Crowley continued to smirk, bemusing an Aziraphale who hadn't looked close enough to see what remarks about the instructor Warlock delighted in writing to his friends, and utilising such a vibrant vocabulary, too . . .
All of this seemed proof enough of his lineage, if either of his godfathers were still harbouring subconscious doubts. Aziraphale, for his part, had long ago concluded that God was working in mysterious ways on this one, or was it Satan . . . ?
So, Warlock's attitude shouldn't have surprised them.
"Warlock! My, how you've grown—"
"Yes, wonderful. Hello, Warlock. What's up?" said the stranger. "You wouldn't mind hanging out with us for a little while, would you." The man was oddly persuasive. "We've been admiring you from afar, as it were. Man, when I was a kid, I didn't possess nearly this level of maturity. And, uh, coolness. In fact, when I was a kid all I did was get pushed around by loads of poncy idiots. But I'm my own boss, now. I could . . . assist you in something similar if you'd simply—" His friend nudged him, glaring. The man glared right back (one assumed—he wore stupidly dark sunglasses).
"My associate here's getting impatient," he intimated. "We've been sort of keeping tabs on your progress, having been around here most of your life—you know, furthering a healthy symbiotic relationship between two great countries, leaders of the free world, inventors of McDonalds, all that jazz—"
Warlock chewed his banana-flavoured gum thoughtfully. These grown-ups were very uncool. He had an image to maintain among his older friends (one of whom was ten and a half) and it didn't include a man who was undoubtedly composed of dust—motes gathered around his long-outdated hair and caught the light—and his friend who embodied the words 'shiny' and 'black'. "Why?" he said.
"Why what?" said the shiny black one, obviously trying not to sound irritated, which only made him sound especially irritated.
"Not s'pose ta talk to strangers. Duh."
"I work with your dad," said Crowley.(1)
"So what? I dunno you."
"Well, I know you."
"Why?"
"As I said, I work with your father. However, my associate and I are far more impressed with your collective skills, Mr. Dowling, and may just have a propo—"
"Why?"
Crowley glared. "Because . . . they're impressive. . . . Duh."
Warlock folded his arms in a rather conceited way. He nodded as if at some trivial information being recited at him by a secretary—a very serious sort of nod, and his brow took on the frown of weighty decision-making. He'd picked all of this up from his father. "Why?" he asked in an eloquent tone. The effect was ruined by his little boy's voice.
Crowley drew in oxygen. It didn't help him think more clearly. "How should I know? Now, kid, listen, all we need is for you to talk about yourself, and then we'll be out of your hair, I promise. Shouldn't be very hard for you," he sneered. "What do you do for fun, Warlock? Come on."
"For fun? What?"
"You know! Fun. Past-times, hobbies . . . like, sports, music, politics, um, tattooing your friend's foreheads and possibly their right hands—"
"Why?"
Crowley gritted his teeth. "—being an insufferable, infernal little bastard, that sort of thing."
Warlock smirked, very slightly. "Why?" he repeated innocently.
"Aziraphale. You." Crowley waved him toward Warlock.
Aziraphale's hand was at his mouth, whether to hide his indignation at Warlock's behaviour or to hide his grin at Crowley's only God knew. He adopted a kind smile for the boy. They hadn't tried to hypnotise him or anything similar, deciding he would probably be able to deflect it unknowingly, although the way this conversation was going they probably would do well to try erasing his memory. Nevertheless, Aziraphale wanted to make a good impression on the Antichrist.(2) He hadn't actually met him face to face before.
"As I understand it, Warlock, you've shown exemplary aptitude in your arithmetic studies, and—"
"What're you supposed to be, then? And what the hell did you just say?"
"Why, I was merely inquiring after—"
"Why?"
Aziraphale smiled tightly. "Why not?"
"Yeah, whatever. Why don't you guys just scram, 'kay? You're camping on my style."
"Now, see here, young man—"
"Why?"
"Because . . ."
"Because Aziraphale here is an enormous git," said Crowley, who had just caught inspiration.
"I do kinda agree with you on that," Warlock conceded after a moment.
"Excellent," Crowley grinned. "So why all the fuss? We're not trying to make you do your homework or anything--"
"Why not? Everybody else does," he said sulkily.
"Listen, kid," Crowley said, holding up a sizeable wad of bills, produced seemingly from nowhere, "do you want that new comic book or not?"
But Warlock was unimpressed. His parents generally got him whatever he wanted, as soon as their personal assistants read them their memos. He thought these grown-ups were truly pathetic for even trying that angle.
"Yeah, so it's not the nicest bribe. I admit it." Crowley crouched down to the boy's level and said conspiratorially, "I can show you how to make them get you something better."
Warlock raised an eyebrow. He was listening, though.
"Crowley," Aziraphale warned.
Crowley stood up. He snapped and Warlock was frozen in his contemplation. "Yeah, I know. This isn't working, anyway. Why can we never make anything bloody work with this boy?" He sighed again, absorbed in agitated thoughts. He looked up at Aziraphale abruptly, "Can you . . . ?"
The angel nodded and turned to Warlock. "I'd let you dream about whatever you like best, but I'm afraid of what that might be," he sighed.
-----
1. This was actually true. Aziraphale had started to fight Crowley on this, but soon realised that an American diplomat was not worth the effort. Most people remotely involved with politics across the pond tended to be Crowley's side's no matter who interfered.
2. It really couldn't hurt.
-----
Guitars screamed out Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony in the Bentley. A darkening London flitted past and Aziraphale carefully avoided looking out the side windows to keep himself from getting carsick. Crowley tapped the wheel in time to the song and seemed to have forgotten all about the angel's presence.
Working with Crowley like this wasn't filling in on small-scale temptations for convenience. It was, in all probability, treason. For Crowley it certainly was, no matter how glibly he reassured that it was a demon's very nature to rebel, and how could They blame him? A grin would creep up during this argument and pointedly not turn wry or bitter or scared. Working with Crowley was not working at the same office, or maintaining a truce, or just filling in here and there. Alongside wasn't the same as beside.
It . . . wasn't treason for Aziraphale, but he nevertheless instinctively feared being found out.
"We might be a little late," Crowley said suddenly, eyes still caught up in the road ahead.
He turned a sharp corner and cut off Aziraphale's mechanical reply. The angel closed his mouth. It hadn't mattered, but he dwelt on it absurdly.
"It's a good thing we talked to him," said Aziraphale, but it was weak and he knew it.
Crowley said, "Mm-nm," anyway, seeming too loud.
"Good to know what we'll be dealing with. If it comes to that."
"Mm. I guess."
"Do you. Do you suppose there's any reason to keep checking up on Wa—"
"We're here."
As they walked from the perfect parking space to Barbican Hall, Aziraphale noted exactly eleven diabolical things that were Crowley's doing. He wished people would stop blaming everything on God. Eventually they had to discover it was mostly Crowley, right? One hoped. He was sick of being caught in the middle.
They were becoming so accustomed to glowing extravagant hallways that Aziraphale didn't even say stupidly that it was just lovely. Crowley shouldn't have been disappointed by this.
The demon sniffed. "Smells funny in here," he commented, words flickering in his breath—they were walking briskly and the lights were pulsing for the final time.
"Incense, I believe." Aziraphale sniffed at the air. "I think it's nice."
Outside it was beginning to storm, the unpredictable kind of wintry storm that slipped down between perpetual, mashed up wintry clouds. It could have happened at any time. Lightning was as yet far off, but the air was grumbling in discontent, growling and threatening and promising rain. The stage was set and ready to be melted by a downpour.
Inside it was slightly too warm, although not oppressively humid. Crowley still regretted his suit jacket, but he wouldn't look right without it, and so he braced himself for a night of mild discomfort. Snake or not, there was such a thing as too much heat. Crowley should know, although he didn't think about why.
Their seats were happily not the cramped seats of the last row, but the cramped seats of the second to last row. Aziraphale used to strongly imply that the private boxes were no different from any other seats, and so Crowley had bought box tickets in the past. But they'd been to so many concerts here that they'd begun experimenting. Crowley had long ago discovered that one could see the entire orchestra from a seat far in the back, nothing but feet from the supposedly ideal front and centre seats, and nothing but the tops of heads from a balcony. The acoustics tended to be better in the back, too, Crowley thought.
He heard the principal trumpet playing a very obvious lick from the suite they'd come to hear, and groaned. It spoiled the surprise. There was something wonderful about remembering a well-loved piece only when hearing it. Suddenly the aforementioned trumpet seemed to backfire and the music ceased. The trumpet player looked at his horn in surprise, testing valves. The second tried to suppress a smirk and concentrated on flourishing up to the same lick with merciless clarity. Crowley looked at Aziraphale.
"Well, you have to agree it was annoying."
"I most certainly don't. You're encouraging strife between the brass players."
"Yes. And?"
"Why?"
"It's not much of a challenge with string players? Come on, Aziraphale," Crowley grinned. Sometimes he really did want to let the angel in on the joke. It got tiresome letting them fly over his head and feigning annoyance.(1)
Aziraphale went back to perusing his programme. Crowley was fairly certain they collectively had more first-hand knowledge of Stravinsky than the little glossy biography did.
Crowley gave up on him and looked around. The wide range of interpretations of appropriate concert dress was staggering. He could very clearly see a woman in the most outlandish descendant of a real ball gown he'd seen in years sitting next to a man in honest to goodness overalls. He couldn't believe people didn't think there were distinct, sneering-down-at-you classes anymore, in This Enlightened Age. Crowley knew the world never really changed, although it did switch colour schemes every couple of decades. It wasn't very hard to figure out.
Crowley didn't have perfect pitch(2), but he could nevertheless pick out an oboe testing an A quite easily. The stage was suddenly nearly full and he watched the curtain where it concealed a door.
When the conductor appeared Aziraphale joined in the applause, then stopped surreptitiously when he noticed Crowley's hands were motionless in his lap.
"Saving it for a standing ovation, are you?" Aziraphale was trying not to be awkward. Crowley tried not to laugh.
"Sure, why not."
Crowley rarely clapped. And he didn't know why people felt silence was expected of them during tuning. He remembered the days when people knew concerts were for socialising and critiquing the music.
"I don't believe I've ever actually heard this in concert," Aziraphale tried.
"It's always better in concert," Crowley said. "And you love Russian music."
"No I don't. It's too brazen, most of it. I would think you'd know my tastes after so long, my dear."
"Whereas Elgar isn't brazen in the least."
"Oh, do stop tormenting poor Elgar. I am beginning to suspect you had some personal grudge with him. Did you? Really, you do torment him awfully."
"I suppose I think it's only fair seeing as his music torments not only myself, but millions of innocent, graduating young people every year. Besides, he's missing out on torture Up There, I expect."
Aziraphale let loose a little laugh. It was disquieting in the silence that followed, so Crowley quickly pushed on:
"Anyway, Tchaikovsky was Russian, angel."
"Oh, really. You claim to be such a musical connoisseur—Piotr was rather more Western than some others I could name. Also, consonant." He gestured at the blipping woodwinds they were being treated to. (The concert had already begun, but Crowley thought of concerts as background music until the exciting bits rolled around. Besides, there wasn't anybody who could hear—or, indeed, notice—them, and so Aziraphale would never object to conversation.)
"I'm just being difficult," Crowley said wearily. He really was sick of misunderstandings and meanness. "I know Russian music is more my scene."
"It's just so often sad," Aziraphale continued, "Russian music is. Well, minor is what I meant. It can be so depressing—grandly, boldly depressing."
Crowley knew that, of course. Sad things made him feel better. He felt it was a more intellectual antidote for depression than happy things—nothing gold could stay. When disheartened, Aziraphale was drawn to happiness as though he thirsted for it, but Crowley just looked around him and tried to count himself lucky over others. He was lucky, too.
"Anyway," Crowley pressed, "I didn't actually hear this suite until after the war. It was a bit of a tonal shock after being acquainted with the Stravinsky we all know and love."
The woodwinds were still running from one another, despite getting more and more tangled in the process.
"This one, you mean."
"Yes. But he used to be like this—oh, wait, there's another phrase . . . like . . . this," he said as the first real melody of the piece was swayed into being.
"And then he went crazy."
Crowley nodded. "And then he went crazy. And, "—he shifted around in his seat to feel more knowledgeable—"do you know, I don't think The Rite of Spring is performed live very often even today, let alone back then."
Aziraphale broke into a smile. "You certainly have warmed up to Igor since the premiere of that."
Crowley shrugged. "I had an epiphany. Stravinsky was in a whole other ballgame in a whole other ballpark years in the future where the teams are comprised of aliens."
It got him another smile.
They listened to the music for awhile. Concerts were always oversaturated colour to watch, and Crowley let himself wallow in the black and white people playing instruments from brown to yellow to practically red. His eyes hurt from staring at the bright stage, from the rippling flashes of flutes and the rainbow-gold projections of the brass on the walls. More than anything it made him want to close his eyes, and was entirely separate from the actual music. So he slouched comfortably in his chair and did just that.
"And you know what else?" He sounded lazy and drunk; he was. "These stupid traditions are so stupid. Seriously, why are these musicians still stuck in the nineteenth century?"
"What exactly are you referring to, dear boy?"
"You know!" He waved his hand around vaguely. "The black. They all wear all black, and then there's the standing up for the conductor and the tuning and the stupid concertmaster. The black makes them look bloody gothic—I just don't understand it. Stupid. I dunno, it's just so strict and unspoken and snobby. Pisses me off."
"Well, whether it does or not, I'd appreciate it if you didn't start snapping their clothes into the colours you'd prefer."
Crowley opened his eyes. "Ooh, I hadn't actually thought of that. Thanks, Aziraphale—"
"By and large, my dear, tradition is quite a powerful thing."
"Uh, no it isn't," Crowley said. Aziraphale raised an eyebrow. "Look, I'm sure we talked about this once. It's the threat of change that's powerful, you see? The actual stupid traditions themselves mean nothing unless they're taken away. You know people, they hate change."
"Just because we talked about it doesn't mean I ever agreed with you."
. . . do as adversaries do in law/ Strive mightily, but eat and drink as friends.
It wasn't exactly an insult, but it was from The Taming of the Shrew.(3)
They listened to the music again. It was very pretty, but the edge of melancholy was beginning to affect Crowley, so he opened his mouth to block it out with words again—
"This is quite lovely, isn't it?" Aziraphale was saying quietly.
". . . Yeah. Well, of course it is."
"It's . . . not like the music Upstairs. It'll be difficult—well, impossible—to find things like this. Any things, really. No wonderful ambiguous books. No people."
Crowley blinked somewhat comically at him. "Um, yeah. But there will be people, Aziraphale."
"Yes . . ."
Crowley didn't like the dreamy timbre to Aziraphale's voice. He needed to snap him out of it. "Why don't you write a book, anyway?" And his heart raced as he said it, not because it was terribly forward but because it was something he'd wanted to know ever since people started writing books.
"What do you propose I write about?" He still sounded far away.
"For someone's sake, what couldn't you write about? Write about the Garden, or Babylon, or Rome, or England. Do a history of England, I dunno. Write about me and my wily ways. Write about the Apocalypse. Write about Warlock."
Aziraphale laughed lightly to himself. "Of course you're right. This whole debacle would make a wonderful book. I'm sure I could scribble a chapter or two at least about his holiday in Yellowstone."
Crowley usually tried not to remember Warlock's trip Out West, but Aziraphale had a way of bringing up things he tried to forget about. Crowley said, "I shouldn't include the bit about that kid who ran into the hot springs, though."
Aziraphale sighed.
"Still, Warlock's grandparents' dog leaping out of the car and into the Grand Canyon could be amusing if you went about it the right way." Crowley thought it was amusing in any way.
"On second thought, I have no real desire to relive my experiences in the Great American West, especially all of that camping."
Truly, Crowley couldn't recall another time Aziraphale had been so close to nature. What had the angel done before running water and tea and takeout he really didn't know.
"He really has turned out rather horribly," Aziraphale stated, staring at the stage.
Crowley knew who Aziraphale was talking about. He hung metaphorically back, waiting for the next move. The angel seemed frustrated with him for giving him space and shifted the stare to Crowley's face expectantly.
The demon considered being consoling for all of three seconds. "If we'd spent more time with him ourselves instead of hiring surrogates, perhaps," he said ruefully, still wary.
Aziraphale created a silence that pressed. He didn't want to say what he was about to say. "I went against Heaven, and what I went against them to do has probably failed. It's not as though they won't know. What am I . . . to say to them? I."
"What am I supposed to say to Hell?" Crowley said reasonably. "I don't think they're going to be especially pleased with me, either."
"I don't want things to change. The whole world." He looked dangerously close to blurting nonsense.
"Yes." Crowley stilled Aziraphale's shivering hand with his own, which was exactly as unstable. Grappling for another weak thing shouldn't strengthen him, but so many illusions had built up over centuries that it did. "Maybe it's not entirely hopeless."
"Crowley, we," he studied their hands, ". . . have to do something. Else. We have to—"
"Yes."
They both jumped at the orchestra hit that sliced through the air, a piercing piccolo topping it off whitely. The dark energy the music had evolved into demanded full attention. They couldn't have heard one another anyway. Crowley clasped his hands together in his lap, absently stroking them to coax them into behaving. This was Danse infernale. When Crowley closed his eyes he could see it: sick phrases, burning to death, speeding, speeding; beautiful flights sneaking through them, around them, looping and sliding through little openings that were slick with blood and badness; thick surges of terror popping up to surprise them, so much was impending. But for all its haphazardness it remained very structured underneath. A flight that fled from itself into other blocks of sound that don't let anybody at all through. And then it was waves crashing against barriers, and then it was barriers collapsing forever but killing as they did. An oboe survived and lamented all of the silenced voices. Crowley's hands were cold.
-----
1. All right, so he wasn't always only feigning annoyance. Aziraphale could be amazingly exasperating.
2. Although Aziraphale did, which pissed Crowley off quite a lot as the angel never took advantage of the fact.
3. For the record, Crowley thought it was ridiculous that he could remember past conversations with the angel in such detail.
-----
The bassoon took over. Crowley felt Aziraphale relax, so he forced himself to follow suit. He found himself lulled by the pendulum of the music easily enough, now. Enough to start sculpting it to his liking.
And so the orchestra executed a massive collective ritardando about halfway through Berceuse.
"Crowely," Aziraphale admonished.
"They're not playing it at the right tempo." Crowley had had thousands of years to pick up thousands of hobbies. Music thankfully hadn't ever gone out of date. "I don't like this oboist's vibrato, either," he added, and fixed that too, muttering, "You're not a bloody flute, pal."
Aziraphale was used to this, and generally let Crowley mold the orchestra to his liking—conductors didn't exist in Crowley's world—that is, of course, unless the angel disagreed.
"If they drag out this part, it'll seem silly when they actually do ritard at the very end. It won't be as powerful."
"Nah." Crowley liked milking chords for all they were worth. Especially with Stravinsky. He'd known ever since Paris that Stravinsky chords were worth examining closely and relishing.
Aziraphale examined him—Crowley, who was a study in shadows. They lifted around his face to let his eyes surprise, they closed in around his body and hugged him close like dark wings. People would say that other, sleeping people looked angelic, but Aziraphale had seen Crowley asleep enough times to know he looked nowhere near angelic and mostly just like Crowley frowning, breathing through his mouth so he drooled slightly, throwing his arms about at random. Always restless. Aziraphale couldn't decide whether music aggravated or soothed him. It animated him better than wine or anger ever did.
Crowley felt eyes on him. Aziraphale had keen little eyes that alerted you to his presence and seemed to overcompensate for his unmemorable earth-toned clothes. He purposely fastened his own eyes on the conductor and didn't move even when he heard the angel's expression change.
"Maybe," Aziraphale began, startling amid the hushed high progressions, "if we . . . eliminated the boy."
"Wouldn't work," Crowley whispered, pretending to be preoccupied by chords.
"If we just pretended we didn't know. Any of it."
Crowley shook his head.
Aziraphale stared into his lap and drew in breath. Crowley watched peripherally.
The angel's words were the utmost pianissimo and slid down strings like he was slipping on ice. "I simply don't know what I will do. I can't talk to dead humans or angels who are more or less dead. You've always been alive. You remind me of life when I forget about it. You tempt me. Thank God. You made me fall in love with the world, too. You dragged me into it. I fell with you, and I . . ."
"Not at all," Crowley said, suddenly feeling urgent. "It's not that at all."
"Crowley, I—"
"No. Wait. No, you see, I—" The music had long since got caught on what emotions he possessed and was dragging him along with it. He followed gratefully.
Wait. It's not that I love you. It's so much more than that,
so Crowley leaned in and, amid the tremolo, kissed him. Aziraphale made a noise exactly where the harp could have sounded again. The hush of the music was strangely crushing and Crowley leaned into that, too. It was a deep and soundless kiss, but one that ended. It was strange in that it wasn't strange, the way they never talked about it, later. It seemed perfectly natural to pretend nothing had ever happened, and after a time it felt as though that was the truth. Still, they saw one another more often afterwards, and Crowley swallowed insults sometimes no matter the temptation, and sometimes they held hands briefly or leaned on one another.
Crowley hovered for too long where lips clung and they were breathing on each other and he knew somewhere in his mind that there had been an instance of Aziraphale's mouth and his, but couldn't pull up details about how long or how much or how. And soon he'd withdrawn to his own personal bubble without remembering how he'd gotten there.
The lullaby tapered off and a horn demanded their attention. Crowley could sense them both facing it and trying to feel things at one another through it, like looking together in a mirror.
Golden screens of melody built unbearably, unbearably, and the ritardando sucked everything out of every person there and repainted what life was back at them.
It was a better sort of completion than any that could have happened. It was the best finale, the best hopecelebrationgoodbye to Everything he had ever heard, but—
—he saw Aziraphale, just as enthralled, who was looking at him through the orchestra—
maybe the world would get its rebirth. The whole world.
-----
Adam had never been to London. He liked things as they were in Tadfield, thank you very much, but his parents were very enthusiastic about his seeing the sites. Adam had in fact been lured with the promise of ice cream.
They were in a park called St. James' and Adam was licking a vanilla ice cream that tasted much like Tadfield vanilla ice cream. It would probably have been a little cold for ice cream, but today was warmer than winter days had any business being. He was staring at ducks squawking about the pond. His parents murmured on a bench behind him, and he could tell they were talking about him, about going places as a family more often or something.
Quack! Quack!!
Plop.
The other ducks swam away rather frantically. The one that had sunk without warning bobbed up to the surface again. Adam half-expected a halo of stars to appear around its head.
"Pretty cool, huh? I nailed that one! Here, you wanna try?" The other boy held out a painstakingly chosen duck-dunking stone.
Adam tried to mask his horror. "What's the matter? You can't skip stones?"
The other boy frowned. "Yeah, I can! I'm really good," he said defensively.
"I can skip a stone loads of times. I skipped one ten times, once."
"Yeah right," said the other boy. "Go ahead, show me."
"Oh, I don't feel like doing it right now," Adam said loftily. "And besides, there aren't any good skipping stones in this boring old park."
"Just who are you, anyway?"
"I'm Adam Young." He said it like the name meant something to anybody who was anybody.
"Well, Adam Young, my name is Warlock. I live here, but my family's really from America, and I get to see important diplomas all the time. I even saw the Queen once."
"Everybody knows what the Queen looks like, that's no big deal," Adam said dismissively. "Did you met Oprah?"
"What? No. Why do you think I'd know her?"
"Well, I don't know. You're the one who said you were American. I thought all famous people knew her. I thought you said you saw important people all the time."
"What's your problem?" Warlock demanded.
What Warlock was looking at should be described at this point. He didn't like what he saw. Adam was very much like him, curly blonde hair and grey eyes, carrying an undeniable presence wherever he went. They both stuck out. But Warlock was at the moment experiencing a sinking feeling that he stuck out in a bad, distasteful sort of way, while Adam was a boy who other boys aspired to. He had no doubt that Adam was better at skipping stones than Warlock was, no matter how obviously he had been bragging—there was a definite Something behind Adam's confidence that made what he said simply true.
They observed the ducks together—ducks that weren't much different from Tadfield ducks, Adam noted. He was secretly a bit crestfallen that London wasn't, on the whole, any better than his hometown. He had somehow expected an overall improvement, like it was a movie. Actually, Tadfield seemed rather nicer than London was turning out to be.
"Is the weather always so bad here?" asked Adam, seemingly ignoring any hard feelings in favour of small talk.
Warlock gaped a little. The weather in London was never quite as . . . colourful was it was today. The sky was the bluest blue, the grass, where it peeked through the tastefully arranged, sparse fallen leaves, was unnaturally green (although that could just have been due to the rain from the night before), the breeze just perfect, the mud around the pond just perfect . . . Warlock opted to change the subject.
"So where are you from?"
"Tadfield. I haven't been to the city before. It's kind of nice, but I like the quarry by my house better. Me and my friends have a lot of fun there. There's too many grown-ups around, here. I don't expect they like seeing a bunch of dirty troublemakers running around on the sidewalks. It's really a lot more fun in Tadfield."
"I dunno," Warlock said. "I don't really have a favourite place. The whole world is so messed up." Warlock really did know a thing or two about how messed up it was. At least, his mother would resort to phrases like, What is the world coming to? and How awful! Why can't we all just get along? at the dinner table.(1)
It was Adam's turn to gape. "What are you getting at? I find the world pretty interestin', myself. Don't you wanna go exploring to find the Fountain of Youth? Or rescue the Princess? Or stick it to the Man?"
Warlock laughed and shook his head, a true miniature cosmopolitan in his T-shirt and unlaced trainers. "You need to get out more, Adam Young. There's not that much worth seeing. Take it from me—I've been all over the place, and it's all the same, just with different languages. People are always trying to get the better of other people. It's really boring."
Adam considered this. "No, I still think you're wrong," he said decisively.
Warlock shrugged. "Whatever. I've gotta go. Have fun sight-seeing. You should go check out the Tower of London, it's pretty wicked."
Adam certainly planned to. Did this boy think he was a complete idiot? He'd done his research.(2)
The ducks were edging back into what was their customary cove. Even though Adam didn't look like the human-like beings who usually provided them with a veritable bread crust smorgasbord, he felt similar. They looked up at him hopefully.
Luckily, Adam had a cookie he'd bitten into and discovered to be a regrettable oatmeal in his pocket. He crumbled it up and tried to distribute it evenly among the ducks.
Adam didn't think Warlock knew what he was talking about. Adam had read plenty of fascinating books and seen enough fascinating movies to know people were an interesting bunch. Even Adam's tiny frame of reference informed him that there was too much of the planet Earth to ever be experienced. That's what made it so much fun. There was always something new, waiting to be discovered.
Why would anybody want to change that?
"Adam!" It was his father calling.
"We've got to get moving or we'll miss the Changing of the Guard," said his mother, who was stowing a map in her purse. "You'll like seeing that, won't you?"
"I'm coming."
The Youngs started down the path.
"And what do you think of London, honey?" asked his mother.
"It's all right." It really was.
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1. Also, Finish your cauliflower, dear. There are people starving in India.
2. Wensleydale had done Adam's research.
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