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Aziraphale was spellbound. This...this was incredible. He was in the angelic equivalent of that stage of early childhood development where everything is new and amazing, so he'd spent a fair bit of time so far being generally astounded and amazed and just....his Creator! His fellow angels! He loved them all so much. Love! Love was something that he really...well, loved.
But this was something quite different. This was the universe, the expanse of arrangements of matter, atoms and molecules and elements in infinitely unique and remarkable combinations.
Aziraphale had heard that She was working on something specific, a little planet that was going to be called Ground or something like that, but he couldn’t imagine it was going to be any more beautiful than these. He was looking out from Heaven, standing alone on one empty edge. The other angels were, depending on their assigned roles, either bustling about busily or gathered to sing praises, but Aziraphale had wandered off, unable to resist indulging a little curiosity.
And, oh! He was ever so glad he had! He’d understood the concept of stars and suchlike, but he hadn’t actually perceived them himself before now. He’d found himself caught by one nebula in particular. It was pure art. It was make of dust and gases but they hung perfectly proportioned, light captured in colours and dimensions he’d never seen before. Every atom had to have been placed precisely in place, purposefully.
Aziraphale sighed in satisfaction. “I should like to meet whoever made you,” he said quietly to himself. “I think you are quite the most majestic thing I’ve ever seen.”
“Why, thank you, that’s very kind of you to say!” said a voice at Aziraphale’s elbow. He jumped and turned, badly startled, and nearly tipped over the edge of the white floor of Heaven. The being who’d spoken caught and steadied him as Aziraphale hastily tried to clarify. “Oh, I meant…the nebula! Sorry, not you, I didn’t realise anyone else was here! That’s not to say you’re not majestic, the four heads are very imposing especially with the flames and all…” He trailed off experiencing, for the first time, mortifying awkwardness.
The other angel laughed. (Or, didn’t quite laugh, none of its mouths were shaped for it, but gave an impression of pleased humour, somehow expressed through sound and movement of atoms.)
“No, I know you didn’t mean me. You were looking at that nebula, weren’t you? I created it.” The being’s several pairs of wings indicated the patch of space Aziraphale had been admiring. “I spent a bit of time on that one. Tried something new with the colours.”
Aziraphale wouldn’t have the capacity to blush until after he was issued with a body and the attendant circulatory system, but his wings ruffled a little as he straightened and tried to regain his dignity.
“The colours are truly lovely,” he ventured. “I particularly like the…swoopy bit on the side.”
“The swoopy bit,” the other said under its breath, amused. (Not that it needed to breathe, of course.) “Well, anyway, I’m glad you like it. Not many notice, really. I think it takes a real knack to get the colour and light just right. You can’t throw up just any old gas and matter, you know.”
“Of course not,” said Aziraphale, who until that moment had not known.
“Say, would you like a bit?” asked the other angel.
“Pardon?”
“I have a little bit of the matter left over here. Some of that gold element, it’s quite shiny. What’s your name, anyway?”
“Aziraphale,” said Aziraphale, who had actually never needed to introduce himself before, having thus far socialised with the other angels who had been created at the same moment and thus knew each other.
“Nice to meet you, Aziraphale. I’m Raphael.” The being frowned in concentration for a moment, then held out a limb. On the centre of its palm was a gold ring, the band formed of wings and a crest in the middle. It pointed one finger. “A..zira…phale…” and light etched the symbol that formed Aziraphale’s name on the crest. “There you go!” Raphael held the ring out to Aziraphale, dropping it into his hand.
The principality accepted it mechanically, mind whirring. Raphael was an archangel. The tiptop of the hierarchy of angels! There was no way he should be talking to a new, lowly principality like Aziraphale. “That’s very kind of you,” Aziraphale managed, trying to remember if he was supposed to bow or curtsey, or…
“Well, go on. Does it fit?” asked Raphael (Raphael!). “I’ve got a good eye for proportion but of course I’m used to working on a larger scale.”
Aziraphale pushed the ring down on the small finger on his right hand. It fit perfectly. The gold was indeed very nice and shiny. He flexed his fingers and stared at his hand. This was the first thing he’d ever been given by someone other that God. He felt quite overwhelmed.
“Thank…thank you,” he said, eventually. “It’s so kind of you. I really oughtn’t…I’m not sure if…Do you know, I think I hear someone calling me, I’d really better be going, it was lovely to meet you, keep up the good work with the nebulas, I’d better get a wriggle on, toodle pip!” He backed away, doing a half bow just in case. ‘Toodle pip!’, he thought to himself. Really? That’s the best I can do?
Full of a combination of mortification and amazed glee at being noticed and spoken to, Aziraphale hurried back to the more comfortable company of the other new angels. He didn’t realise it, because humans hadn’t even been invented yet, yet alone teenagers, but he was a few thousand years ahead of the game in behaving exactly like a teenage girl who has just been spoken to by the handsome older boy all the girls had a crush on, and was thrilled about it.
Raphael, meanwhile, watched the adorable, and charmingly perceptive principality rush off, flustered. What a funny little angel! He wondered if they’d meet again, he rather fancied having more of a chat with him. In the meantime, he felt rather an urge to do another nebula. Maybe with more gold, and a bit of blue…?
And, Somewhere Else, God made a note in her Ineffable Plan to create nightingales, and set one to sing in Berkley Square (the eventual existence of which was also newly considered) in about, oh, six-thousand-years’ time. That should do it.