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The world was still quiet, in the beginning; the only sound the wind and the distant thunder of the brand new storm coming.
An angel and a demon stood at the top of the wall, watching as the advancing line of rain obscured the flaming sword’s tiny spark. Drops began to fall – getting wet was a new experience, and the angel stretched out a wing to shelter the demon. They stood in silence, lost in their own thoughts, until the rain stopped. “Well”, sighed Aziraphale, “I’m supposed to seal off Eden. Best be back to it”.
“Nice place, Eden. What’s going to happen to it now?” asked Crawley.
“My understanding is that all things Earthly will change and grow old and die. I suppose Eden is no different.”
“Ah. Pity it’s single use only”.
The angel gave a sidelong glance and then was gone. In his place was a single white feather, not one of the big pinion feathers, but a small one about the size of Crawley’s hand. It was pearlescent white and seemed to glow softly, reminiscent of moonlight. He poked it cautiously with a toe, not quite clear on the rules of physical interaction between good and evil, but nothing happened. He picked it up and almost dropped it. As long as he was touching it, he could feel Aziraphale’s presence in the garden below. And under that, was a faint feeling of something that he was sure he knew from long ago but no matter how he tried, couldn’t place. He tucked it inside of his robe to keep it safe.
Over the next centuries he occasionally wondered what Aziraphael was up to and used the feather to find him. Aziraphael seemed truly surprised to see him the first few times, and it caused him to wonder occasionally why this feather had come into his possession. He was reasonably certain that he himself had never lost a feather, either Before, or now that his wings were black. It wasn’t like he molted or need to regrow feathers. If Aziraphael had not left it deliberately….. but he didn’t want to think beyond that, and certainly was not about to say it was “ineffable”.
The days and the years and the centuries flowed by. The feather never changed, and he kept it with him as he traveled about the world. He eventually had a human craftsman make a beautiful box to hold it – black ebony wood covered with a looping silver inlay. As he moved about it was one of the few things he kept. Over time he and Aziraphale saw each other more frequently and worked out ways to keep in touch. By the time the telephone was invented, he hadn’t touched it in decades and rarely thought about it.
Until one day, he entered his flat, carrying an incongruous tartan thermos, and lost in thought. He set the thermos on top of the squat safe in a corner of the room, sat in a chair and contemplated it, his thoughts chaotic. Finally, he opened the safe to place the thermos inside. There sat the black and silver box. He opened it, in it the feather. It shown with its own silvery light, unchanged in the six thousand years he had had it. He picked it up and felt the now reassuring feeling of Aziraphale, back in his bookstore. And he realized suddenly that he knew the long forgotten feeling that his demon heart had never let him recognize before – a feeling he had know before the Fall –
It was love.