It had been a long flight, but a mostly pleasant one, considering the circumstances. While Aziraphale had a certain pitying admiration for humans' attempts to make long flights in a creaky, noisy metal tube as civilised as possible, there really was nothing to compare to the wind in one's own feathers, if one had them. And one never had to make awkward small talk with strangers.

Aziraphale avoided awkward small talk with Ellie too, for that matter. She had been lost in her own thoughts. At least able to use her own energy rather than sitting in a confined space. At least able to watch the patchwork beauty of damaged Creation beneath her, mountains and deserts and age-pitted cities.

It was inevitable, though, that a little tiredness and stiffness of the wings would settle in--neither had done much distance flying for quite some time. Unfortunately, there were few places in the long-troubled part of the world they were passing over that didn't stir some memory for one or both of them. Eventually, Aziraphale decided on suggesting finding a nice coffeehouse by the river, since they were so close to Esfahan. They could speak a dialect of Persian no mortal understood very well anymore, Ellie could cause a quiet scandal with her unveiled hair, and Aziraphale could ask her some things that he needed to know that were reasonably un-fraught. Relatively speaking, anyhow.