Tight Trouser Never Won Fair Angel

Chapter Five (Get Thee To The Farthest Nunnery From Me)

"You can stay for one night," he said, thirty years ago.

-/-

The forest was beginning to bleed into a more organized garden. The path beneath his feet was still carpeted with arboreal detritus, but it seemed more path-like than the forest trail he'd been walking on. On either side, too, the trees were beginning to thin out, with hedges filling the gaps between them.

Aziraphale was starting to flag when he heard singing. Not good singing, mind you, rather, it was the sort of singing that one did when one was completely alone and very happy and singing solely for one's own pleasure. The sound gave him a burst of energy and he hurried around the corner, following the voice- around a curve in the path, another corner-

The singer turned out to be a nun. Aziraphale came to an abrupt halt at the sight of her, singing quite happily to herself as she plucked the flowers from the hedge and placed them in a basket dangling from one arm.

A nun in a goblin city. Well, now he'd seen everything.

He cleared his throat in an attempt to interrupt her, and then a second time when that didn't work.

When it didn't work any better the second time, he said, "Excuse me, dear lady," in as loud a voice as manners would permit. This, finally, got her attention: she gave a startled gasp and her basket fell to the ground.

"Saints and demons preserve us," she said. "You gave me quite the fright, Master Fairy!"

"I do apologize," he said, hurrying over to help her gather her basket of flowers. Once they had been gathered (he noticed as they did that she didn't seem particularly interested in keeping the flowers from being harmed), he smoothed down the front of his waistcoat as best he could despite the tearing and said, "If you'll excuse my asking, ah... well, are you really a nun?"

"Oh absolutely," she chirped. "I'm Sister Mary Loquacious, from the Chattering Order of St. Beryl. It's a pleasure to meet you~ Master Crowley said you might be coming along at some point, and look, here you are! Imagine, Master Fairy coming down my path of the Labyrinth! Gracious, though, look at you! I'd always imagined fairies to be wee little things with butterfly's wings, but you're a proper man-sized, aren't you?"

She held out a hand, and Aziraphale took it, a little bewildered. "Yes, I... yes," he said slowly, brain doing the necessary reordering that came from a first encounter with one of the Chattering Order. "That is to say, fairies are... anyway." He broke off, trying to follow the chatter, and said, "My dear, if I may ask, why is there a nun in a goblin city?"

"Well I live here, of course! Well, not here , obviously, I actually live nearer the wall, Master Crowley says it's vital that we all stay as far away from the tower as he can get us, but it's really nice at the wall, he made us a new convent and everything, and even gave us a door into the mortal realm and says that we can go back out and live with the mortals again any time we like, but of course we all like it here so much that we're very happy to stay, except on Thursdays when we go out bicycling. We could just bicycle in the labyrinth, of course, but it always just plays bicycle race on a loop when we do and we all get rather tired of hearing the same song on repeat the whole time. At least in the mortal realm we can listen to something other than Queen."

"Um." Aziraphale wished he still had his magic: he desperately wanted to put her to sleep, at least for a moment. He could see why Crowley would want her as far away from his tower as possible, at least. "Okay. Let's see if I can get a short answer from you- why is there a convent of nuns in a goblin city?"

"That's a very long story," she said. "You see-"

"On second thought, no, I don't want to know."