31 Days of Kisses: A Good Omen Advent Calendar

Love is Snakes and Ladders

Dedicated to Chris, my Good Omens daughter. I hope you realise just how much you mean to me, and how blessed I am to have met you. Love you.

31 Days of Ineffables prompt: Gold and Silver

* * *

210 BCE

"A sea monster?"

Captain Pan sighed. "It's a giant bloody snake. Can't go around it. It just moves with us, and blocks us off. Perhaps we should return to Emperor Qin Shi Huang for archers."

"A snake," said the alchemist with the moonlight hair, thoughtfully. "May I ask which colour it is?"

"What does it matter? It's a giant bloody serpent as big as three ships and it has fangs the size of a man, dripping venom, and it's in our way."

The pale-haired alchemist was soft, everyone knew that. Not like Xu Fu, the actual alchemist and leader of the expedition. The foreign alchemist had a gentle, precise voice and spoiled, white hands and tender eyes like a pond on an overcast day, a face as unbearded as a woman's, a smile as innocent as a child's.

Only sometimes, those same eyes were as hard as jade.

Captain Pan looked into those hard eyes, and gulped. "It's black. And red. With yellow eyes."

"I see." The alchemist nodded as if something had been confirmed. "I would like to speak with the serpent. Alone, if possible."

Mad, the Captain thought, mad, and wondered what would get him into more trouble, defying him, or having to tell Xu Fu his idiot friend had been eaten by a sea monster. Xu Fu was adamant that this man alone could lead them Mount Penglai to fetch the elixir of life for Emperor.

Captain Pan, who was a practical man and had seen a lot of the world, had his doubts about the existence of cities of gold and silver with jewels hanging from trees and elixirs of life. On the other hand, there was an unfeasibly gigantic snake in the sea right ahead of them, so he supposed anything was possible. And the mad silver-haired alchemist was sailing out in a tiny boat to talk to it.

* * *

Aziraphale stared up at the snake as it reared out of the ocean. It was, as Captain Pan had told him, three ships tall at least.

"I should have known you would be involved in this. Whatever are you thinking of?"

Venom dripped from the serpent's fangs as it hissed at him.

"You can stop that right now. I'm not impressed, Crawley."

The serpent reared up and struck the water, drenching him with seawater. A cry of fear went up from the youths on the ships.

"That was completely uncalled for. I expect an apology." Aziraphale waved his hand, and his immaculate silk robes dried.

"I don't apologise. I am the lassst guardian, the terror of the sssssea. You will never reach Mount Penglai. Turn back, humans, or meet your fate."

"Crawley. You're making a scene. Now come down here and stop trying to talk around those ridiculous teeth."

Aziraphale extended an arm up to the giant snake. There was a moment when it waved back and forth, as if prepared to strike again.

"Don't you dare even think about it."

The head shot down towards Aziraphale's outstretched hand. When it reached it, the serpent shimmered and shrank until it was a merely six foot snake snake, winding around his arm.