When Kiel first descended to the mortal world in human form (6,000 years ago), he hadn't yet fully mastered the technique of compressing himself into a smaller shape, so his human body was enormous — not only heavily muscled to bear the load, but carrying quite a lot of fat to make room for energy. The result was that Kiel at the time looked like a massive, giant Viking Santa Claus.

Kiel was still lumbering around with great difficulty back then, unused to walking — he had always flown before, and his legs had never been good for much of anything — waddling like an enormous penguin.

The place Kiel landed was a region of northern Europe blanketed in snow year-round. As luck would have it, he fell near a friendly tribe. They took one look at this enormous, slow-witted man and immediately brought him home with them, even teaching him how to work (how fortunate — a free source of labor had practically fallen from the sky). Kiel stayed there for a while and gradually learned how to conduct himself like a human being.

After living with Kiel for some time, the villagers began to notice that this one seemed not quite an ordinary person — he barely needed to eat yet was always full of energy; his face would be smooth one day and sporting a long beard the next (because Kiel was mimicking the men of the village who kept beards). Most tellingly, he could speak to animals and have them do whatever he wished.

In those early days Kiel had almost none of the human senses. He could see and hear, but those faculties didn't operate like a human's sight and hearing — they were the innate abilities of an angel. Beyond that, touch and taste were entirely absent; every food tasted the same to him, cuts and scrapes caused no pain, he didn't bleed, and any wound healed instantly. Kiel was also forgetful — he would occasionally reach calmly into a burning pile of firewood, simply not remembering that humans couldn't do such things. During his time with the tribe, Kiel imitated them endlessly: the way they spoke, ate, worked, and even the perpetually flushed cheeks they all wore from the cold.

After a few years there, Kiel decided he ought to see other places as well, so he said his goodbyes and wandered off. He began drifting southward toward warmer climates, walking alone for a long stretch until he spotted a caravan of travelers and asked to join them. Here Kiel ran into his first real obstacle — the language he had learned from the tribe bore no resemblance to the language these people spoke, so they had no idea what he was saying. But a man this large seemed useful enough, so they let him tag along.

Had Kiel still been in his true celestial form, he would have been bounding and frolicking freely. But here in the mortal world he was a giant, and every time he stepped even slightly too hard the ground seemed to shudder and animals scattered in every direction — so Kiel had to teach himself to move with great care and patience, and to touch others gently, lest he hurt them.

Traveling with the caravan meant yet another new language to learn, plus the customs of a nomadic people — and he got to sit and listen to them tell stories about distant lands and all manner of strange things in the world. Kiel had learned to eat like a normal person by now, though he still ate quite little for his size, so he was not a very expensive mouth to feed. What he was, however, was someone who got separated from the group constantly — he was always too busy admiring something or other, and if no one came looking and calling his name, Kiel would simply wander off entirely. The further south they traveled, the more he adjusted his appearance to blend in: the beard grew shorter, better compression of his energy meant less bulk, he was a bit shorter, still large but noticeably less so than before.

At around the same time, [Redacted] had just come to the surface world to expand his territory — but unlike an angel, a demon had only to use a shapeshifting spell to take human form, so from the very beginning he was already presenting as a handsome, distinguished, alluring nobleman.

Arriving at a trading city, Kiel parted ways with the caravan and continued on alone. Everything in this bustling, crowded place caught his curiosity. It was here that [Redacted] happened to catch sight of that oversized angel clumsily passing himself off as a person. Something about the energy felt familiar in a way he couldn't quite name — he thought he might have glimpsed this angel once or twice before. He had no idea what had brought the creature here now, but curiosity won out, and he stood at a distance to observe.

Kiel was delighted by the goods people had laid out for sale, but he had almost nothing on him (thankfully the caravan had taught him about trading before he'd simply started helping himself to things). In the end he managed to trade a shiny stone he'd picked up along the road for a pretty little brooch — clearly a bad deal by any measure — but he looked quite pleased with himself, and pinned it to his coat immediately.

Kiel seemed thoroughly enchanted, wandering for the whole afternoon without any sign of tiring (one had to give some credit to whichever demon had apparently spent the entire afternoon trailing after him). As evening fell, Kiel walked out to the edge of the city and put up a rough little shelter to rest for the night. [Redacted] followed at a distance, watching — and was just congratulating himself on how careful he'd been when he suddenly found the angel looking directly back at him with a dopey grin, waving hello.

Kiel had in fact noticed the demon friend following him all afternoon, but since the fellow didn't seem to have any trouble in mind, Kiel saw no reason to make an issue of it. He remembered clearly that when someone came to your home you were supposed to offer them hospitality — but he had nothing at all on hand, so he simply shared a few berries he'd gathered along the road with his demon companion. Will looked at the offered berries with a slight frown, then looked at that dopey face happily munching away, and reluctantly ate one to see what all the fuss was about.

[Redacted] didn't feel there was anything more to be gained from this peculiar angel, and was about to leave — but before he could, Kiel asked what his name was. "I'm Kiel," he said. That brought [Redacted] up short for a long moment, and in the end he picked the simplest name he could think of on the spot to give back: Will.

For demons, a name was something simultaneously powerful and dangerous. When they went about spreading their particular brand of harm, the name was the first thing invoked — out loud and proudly — to anchor their authority. But if an angel came to know it, that was the same as laying out every transgression tied to that name in plain view, which was why they maintained many personas to keep such things hidden.

Angel names worked in much the same way — each angel had a name unique to them alone, so hearing it told you immediately what that angel was about. But angels tended to live more selflessly, rarely taking credit for anything, so even knowing their names didn't necessarily reveal much of their story.

The angel wandered around the city for several more days, then drifted off somewhere and disappeared. Throughout that time Will kept watching him, but never approached him for another conversation — he was keeping his guard up. Kiel, for his part, didn't think much of any of it, and went on exploring the world as though nothing unusual had happened at all.