Work Text:
2350 BCE, A Place Suspiciously Unlike Crete
"I expected the Minoans to look different," Aziraphale said thoughtfully.
The immense bird quirked its head thoughtfully back. It might have mimicked his frown, but its beak was full of plants. It chomped a few times, scattering bits of leaves onto Aziraphale's head.
"I don't think that's a Minoan," Crawley said.
Aziraphale cupped his hands in front of his mouth and called up, one word at a time, "Can…you…direct…us…to…the…bull…leaping?" He put his hands to his hairline, first finger on each raised, and mimed a bull weaving its head, then gave a dainty little hop.
The bird brought its long neck down to a nearby bush and clipped some more vegetation placidly.
"Perhaps it only speaks Linear A," Aziraphale muttered. The bird plodded a few steps forward, and Aziraphale and Crawley both instinctively stepped back, but it only used its terrifyingly huge claw to scratch at the ground a bit, then went back to chomping on plants.
"You know, angel," Crawley said, an idea occurring with all the speed of a 12-foot herbivore, "do you think maybe this chap isn't a human?"
Aziraphale gasped. "No! …maybe?"
Crawley snapped his fingers. "I've got it. We've just gotta look it up in the thingummy."
"To which thingummy are you referring, Crawley?"
"You know. Long thing, list of species."
"Oh!" Aziraphale waved a hand, and a thingummy appeared in the air before them. He unrolled it carefully, revealing writing in the Heavenly script that burned Crawley's eyes. Crawley nudged his glasses tighter on the bridge of his nose.
"'Being an account of all the Species of the World as I, Adam, have named them,'" Aziraphale read. "'One. Aardvark. A beast with a long snout—'"
"Can you not skim a bit?" Crawley said.
Aziraphale looked at him with derision over the tiny spectacles that had appeared on his nose sometime when Crawley was looking away. "Idle hands are the devil's playthings, Crawley."
"Look, which one of us wanted to attend a specific bull-leaping performance at a specific time? We don't have all century. Well, we do, but we'd definitely miss the show."
"Alright, alright, point taken." Aziraphale continued to unroll the thingummy horizontally as it hovered in the air, muttering to himself as he scanned the text. The strip of paper built up in crowded loops as he went, until suddenly he stopped and gave a shout of triumph.
"ah-HA!" he said, shaking the thingummy out with a flourish and showing it to Crawley, who turned his head away from the painful text. In Crawley's peripheral vision, Azirphale blinked and looked away, pulling it back towards himself and clearing his throat.
"'Moa,'" he read. "'A large wingless bird with a long neck and strong legs. Its call is loud and resonant.'" He looked back up at Crawley. "I don't suppose we can judge its call, but the physical description sounds accurate."
The bird swiveled its head towards Aziraphale, opened its beak, and let out a long, resonant bellow that blew Aziraphale's hair back. It then took a step towards the thingummy and bit directly through the pile of material, chomping it down quickly and swallowing with apparent satisfaction.
"Heaven made copies, right?" Crawley said, but Aziraphale was already shaking his head.
"No matter," he said. "The humans are entirely capable of managing the world. Certainly they have their own records."
"Uh huh," Crawley said. "Sure."
"Anyway," Aziraphale said, rolling up the remaining half of the thingummy and shooing it back into the ether, "now that we've established definitively that this gentleman isn't a Minoan, we ought to be getting along."
"Yeah, suppose so. Don't want to miss real Minoans getting gored."
"No one will be gored, Crawley, bull leapers are aesthetic professionals."
"Things go wrong, though…"
"Hush, demon. Everything will be wonderful. I'll make sure of it."
The moa continued chewing the remains of the thingummy thoughtfully. Such odd birds, those two. At least they had wings.