(no subject)

[aeshma-daeva.livejournal.com]

Date: May 26, 2001
Status: Private (Aziraphale; Ellie; The Child & Asmodeus)
Setting: Cairo, Egypt
Summary: Cairo, where things start heating up.

The Four Seasons hotel was relatively new it’s pale beige walls were newly scrubbed and it’s decor was suitable. It may not have been an opulent palace as the demon had grown accustom to in his many years as posing as both the god Ra-Atum and as the Enemy of Ra, Apep. However, he felt a great deal of relief settle in his form.

Asmodeus sought out the front desk and, in fluent Arabic, asked to know which room his daughter was in. He presented the necessary paperwork to show that yes, he was Amos Diaz and was shown immediately to a corner room up on the twelfth floor with a breath taking view of the Nile. He tapped lightly on the door, hoping that she was not asleep.

Comments

[notmeant2b.livejournal.com]

She wasn't asleep. Even if she'd been in the habit, she was too impatient. Asmodeus was lucky to have caught her inside the hotel at all; she'd been wandering in and out and around the city for the past week, exploring and waiting, always looking over her shoulder for signs of her usual pursuers or peering ahead for a glimpse of the ones she was expecting.

She didn't often stay in one place for so long. It made her uneasy. The hotel room was pleasant enough and did offer a nice view, but being there was dull.

On the other hand, she'd found that having money did simplify things somewhat--no need to expend any power, just hand over the card or a slip of pretty paper and get what you wanted. Perhaps that was why no one had found her yet, which at the moment was a mixed blessing; but if she wasn't using her power, she didn't have to worry that it would run away from her, as it still sometimes did. So, like any unsupervised teenager with her first credit card, she had gone a little overboard, and the suite was littered with books, interesting baubles and pretty clothes that had caught her eye.

The books were what had made the waiting bearable, though they weren't exactly the sorts of books one would expect a young girl to own: not romances, mysteries or dramatic novels, but rather books of history, religion and mythology.

The name Asmodeus hadn't been hard to find. Ellie, on the other hand, or any name from which Ellie might be taken, was much more elusive. At least she did know now what a Principality was, and the significance of the Eastern Gate. Ellie's angel friend was famous (and famously not very good at his job, it seemed.)

She startled a bit when the knock sounded at the door, and set aside the book of fables she'd been reading, approaching the door with caution and trying to get a "feel" for who was on the other side.

Asmodeus. Finally! She opened the door and regarded the daeva silently, having no notion of how to welcome a guest (or a "father." That lie had made her wonder just who her real father might be. Not the Principality, she suspected, but it was possible she might be wrong.)

[stillnotfallen.livejournal.com]

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.