Chapter Text
>> “Bring me the two most precious things in the city,” said God to one of His Angels; and the Angel brought Him the leaden heart and the dead bird.
“You have rightly chosen,” said God, “for in my garden of Paradise this little bird shall sing for evermore, and in my city of gold the Happy Prince shall praise me.” <<
~ Oscar Wilde, The Happy Prince
In Kensington Gardens, not that very far from the hustle and bustle around the statue of Peter Pan, there once stood the statue of an Angel.
His white marble wings were mottled with greys and greens, for he had stood, since time out of mind, in a forgotten byway under a canopy of lime trees, that dripped their sticky sap over him every summer, and a fine moss had grown on the parts of his wings, back and neck that faced north, or were constantly in shadow.
The Angel didn’t mind that though; he reckoned that his remoteness and obscurity was the reason why all the little animals who lived in the park and especially in his little lime tree grove came to visit him. He saw that all the other statues were only ever hosts to doves, but he could call the squirrels his friends, who chased each other over his marble skin when the young ones started to explore the world anew with every generation, and the dormice scurried between his feet, and sometimes even a hedgehog came to sleep for a while in the little heap of leaves gathered on his plinth in autumn. Both snails and slugs greeted him like an old friend when they slowly trailed nearby, and all kinds of birds sat on his wings, head, or shoulder and told him of their adventures. He would not have changed these advantages for the world, and was happy to pay the price of looking a little mottled.
[Art by maon25]
Among these birds, his favourites were the nightingales, who had the most beautiful songs, and the most interesting stories to tell, possibly because they had the best imagination among the animals the Angel knew; he wasn’t always sure how many of the fantastic anecdotes the nightingales related to him were strictly true, but he appreciated the poetic side of their stories and was quite content.
Until one day, when the late summer sun was burning down hot on his little world and all his animal friends were hiding somewhere from the heat. He felt unbearably drowsy and bored, wishing for nothing more than a little chat, or song, or a story. Suddenly a Nightingale he had never met before landed on his left wing and let his own tiny wings droop as soon as he had landed. He was much darker than most nightingales of the Angel’s acquaintance, his ruffled feathers almost entirely black, but iridescent like those of a starling, glistening in the sun.
The Angel asked the Black Nightingale, “Hello there, Nightingale, you look very exhausted, is there anything I can do to help you? Are you new in this neighbourhood, do you need advice where you can find water, shelter, or food?”
The Black Nightingale regarded him wistfully and began to tell him a story.
