Work Text:
There were two.
In the beginning there had been two. The first two, who had ventured out of a paradise to claim her hot new surface, the gentle thud of their feet followed by the prickle and thunder and slither of more, so many more. They followed the grass, and the trees, and the plants that flowed like water into every crook and crevice, clinging to her rocks and soil, gripping tight and growing, seeding and growing again.
An endless stream of living things that she welcomed and nurtured.
Now there are forests that tower as if they would touch the clouds, fungi that spread underground for miles, talking in slow sleepy waves through the soil. There are birds that scale her mountains undaunted. Whales and fish that explore the lightless crushing depths of her oceans, where even the first two have not yet managed to conquer.
Life burrows its way into her too, it trickles down, until there are whispers in every cave, twitches in every hollow, and sparks in every vein of rock.
She gives and she gives, and sometimes she takes.
But always there is life, and she is so proud of them all.
She'd known all along that her time was finite, that there would be an end. Because Creation had willed it so. There was to be a final battle and she would be scoured and burned and made barren.
And yet.
There were two.
One from above where she couldn't reach, and one from far below, too deep for even her to delve.
They had fought the end of everything. They believed that life - that she - deserved better.
They had fought for her.
And they had won.
She watches them walk through her woods, the trails made by man already growing over as summer turns to autumn. They are laughing and she shades them with her trees so no one can see. Because she knows that they can no longer return where they came from, they are no longer welcome. She is their home now too, and she is so proud of her new children.
There are still others, from above and below. They step harshly and carelessly on her surface, trailing rot and emptiness.
But she is six thousand years old, she has weathered rock down to nothing and scoured forests into deserts. She has pushed mountains of fire from her ocean. She has torn the surface open and swallowed cities whole.
She has never fought before, but she will learn to, if her children are threatened again.
The grass grows wherever the angel treads, daisies springing to life in the impressions. The leaves, which have always turned unerringly toward the sun, instead turn briefly to face them as they pass. The angel's companion feels like the charred remains of a forest after a conflagration, waiting to let new seeds break through the surface.
There were two.
Earth watches them lay a picnic blanket on the grass, watches them unpack their basket and settle together. They laugh and they eat of her body.
She watches them and she loves them.
And she spins.