"How long has it been since you last slept?" Gabriel's voice was soft, but loud enough to jolt her from her half unconscious state.
"Wha-?" she replied groggily. She forced her eyes open, although they desperately attempted to betray her by staying shut.
"How long have you been up?" he repeated.
"What time is it?"
"3:15 in the morning."
"Two days," she answered with a whine. "Did you find them yet?"
"Nope."
Her friends Sam and Dean had been missing for three days now. They took a case out in the west and had seemingly vanished. No phone calls, no messages through acquaintances, nothing. Gabriel was more than sure that they were fine, but she refused to sleep until they turned up.
"When we find them, I'm going to kill them." She stated in annoyance.
Gabriel chucked. "Why?"
"Because they know I worry about them, and they haven't even bothered to call. Those dicks," she muttered. Her speech was slurring with how out of it she was becoming.
"And you're still not going to sleep?" He raised his eyebrows at her.
"Nah."
"All right then. Come with me." He walked over to her and held out his hand for her to grab.
"Why? Where are we going?"
"You'll see."
He smiled and she sighed before grabbing his hand reluctantly.
Gabriel led her outside and looked up at the sky.
"What are we-?"
She started to speak, but she felt Gabriel's hands grip her waist tightly and a moment later, she heard the fluttering of wings and felt herself lift off the ground.
Her eyes shut on instinct. Flying had always terrified her, no matter how safe she knew she was with Gabriel.
Their movement stopped and when she opened her eyes, she quickly realized they were on the roof.
"Why?" She gave him a questioning look.
"Come here," Gabriel motioned beside him as he sat down on the flattest part of the roof.
She followed him, and smiled when he put his arm around her shoulder tightly. She snuggled against his chest and looked up at him expectantly.
"Do you see that? Just over the horizon?" he asked, pointing out towards the northwestern part sky.
She could see stars. Everywhere. The sky was clear and the moon was shining. Everything was beautiful and she could hardly understand what one thing he wanted her to look at. But then she noticed that a few of the stars shined brighter than the rest. They appeared to make a shape, though she couldn't see what it was supposed to be.
"What is it?" She asked.
"Squint, you'll see it."
She rolled her eyes, but did as he told.
"Those stars, the fifteen of them," he started as he outlined them with his finger. "They make a crow."
Her eyes widened with surprise. "I see it."
She could hardly ever see shapes in the stars. Only twice had she ever seen anything, and both times it was the Big Dipper. Regardless, she was always fascinated when she found something.
"That crow is special," Gabriel explained. "We can only see him around autumn. According to legend, he's the mark of Ralyn; the ruler of a lost nation called Elikoe. No one knows really anything about them; they were wiped clean off the map. I heard a few stories back when I was one with the gods, though."
She leaned her head back against his shoulder and looked up at him with drooping eyes.
"Was he evil?"
"Fuck yeah," Gabriel said with obvious exasperation. "What else could he be? They wouldn't have disappeared if he was doing nice things."
She chuckled at his flustering. Gabriel always got worked up over lore. He loved it and he loved talking about it, and it was always adorable to watch him get annoyed when someone didn't understand or asked him a silly question.
"Okay, okay," she laughed again. "Go on."
"Do you see what's next to the crow?" He pointed again. One group of stars to the right, and another just beneath the two.
"Is that a tree?"
"Yes. And?"
She squinted hard to see the small bunch at the bottom.
"A weird looking Q?"
He sighed and she smiled.
"No, it's a horn. They all go together."
She closed her eyes and stretched before laying her head on his chest.
"How do they go together?"
"Ralyn was a mean son of a bitch. Feared by everyone because he was basically a mass murderer and as the king, he pretty much had an endless supply of prey. That's why he's the crow. He didn't bring much more than death. The tree is his counterpart. The tree symbolized life. There was a woman, a peasant, in the kingdom and her name was Ceall. On the brink of war, Ralyn had stridden through the town marketplace to put together a militia and he'd seen her standing around the fruit she was selling. Now, obviously, she was going to stick out. An entire village of people was cowering away from this big, scary man on a horse. But Ceall wasn't. She wasn't afraid of him and that intrigued him. That was what he wanted in a partner. So, he did what any good guy does, and said that if she didn't go with him, he would make her watch as he cut up her entire family and then fed it to his pets."
"Jesus Christ," she choked out, cutting him off. "What?"
"I told you he was a murderer."
"Yeah, but… what happened next?"
Gabriel grinned.
"She went with him. She was strong for a woman back then, but she was also gentle hearted. She believed in justice but never manslaughter. Being married to Ralyn was hard for her, but she did grow to love him. It was one of those stereotypical things where the evil asshole still got the good girl. But it was one of the first times it happened, so it wasn't as lame back then. It was Heaven and Hell all in one package. Light and dark. That kind of thing. People relied on Ceall's mercy when, in reality, she could hardly control Ralyn. She tried. She really did. But you can never really stop bloodthirsty tyrants. That's where the horn comes in. They had a reaper, Terand, who was practically a guardian of the kingdom. It didn't make sense and no one gets it, but it's said that whenever Ralyn was about to go off of his people, Terand would blow this horn. Apparently it was a soft whistle was only heard by the pure of heart, because they were the ones that deserved to be spared and thus could prepare to hide or leave or do whatever they needed to stay alive. Mostly only villagers heard it, but Ceall could. Just before winter was going to begin, a band of thieves from a rival nation raided the tail end of the marketplace. They made off with a good bit of food and back then that was all they really had because now it was snowing so no one could go out and hunt. People began starving to death. A couple weeks in, Ceall started hearing the horn. She avoided her husband, because she knew he was growing frustrated with the rising death rates in the kingdom. I guess it was one of those 'no one in this kingdom is dying unless I kill them' kind of things. But the horn never stopped ringing. For days, that was all Ceall heard. It was even in her dreams. Some assume she just kind of went psycho. I guess she did, actually. She slit Ralyn's throat while he slept. He hadn't been aggressive or anything in the days leading up to it, she just snapped. She thought it would make the horn stop, but it didn't. So once word reached the villagers, everyone freaked out. Good girl gone psychopath? Not something you wanted to fuck with. She rode into town the next morning. The town she'd grown up in. Covered in silk and velvet and shiny gems, on this big black horse. She professed herself the new head of government and declared war on their neighboring country, the one that raided them at the start of winter. She gathered up every male over twelve and led them into battle. Obviously, no one was prepared for that. Ceall, the symbol of light and life, found herself surrounded by death. Both of her people and of her enemies. If she wasn't already insane, she definitely was now. She stabbed herself. Straight through the stomach, almost through her spine. According to Odin, the horn had finally stopped. It had her under some kind of spell, and once the horn stopped, she snapped out of it. She looked around her and realized what she'd done and what she caused and she killed herself. It's also said that right as the horn stopped, Ralyn appeared before her. Something about how she'd turned into what he was. Evil. The whole thing was meant to be a metaphor about how being enveloped in darkness can only not affect you for so long. Everyone succumbs to it at some point, for whatever reason. But no one knows what happened after she died. Everything stopped. No idea of who won the battle. Nothing saying if anyone even survived. No sign they ever existed. Nothing."
Gabriel paused to take a breath and gather his thoughts.
"Who knows," he concluded. "Lore never makes sense."
He waited for her response, but she never spoke up.
He looked down and found her fast asleep against him.
"Did I just tell that entire story and she wasn't even awake to hear it?" he grumbled silently.
Still, he was glad that she was finally sleeping.
Carefully, he picked her up and stretched, unfolding his wings in the process.
With a quick flutter of his wings, he was laying her down on her bed inside the house.
Putting a blanket over her, he smiled at her sleeping form.
"Goodnight, kiddo."
He went back in the living room to give her peace. He didn't sleep and he thought it incredibly creepy to sit there and stare at her all night, so he turned to sitting around and watching television while this half of the world slept.
He'd settled on The Mighty Boosh and was just getting to the good part when there was a knock on the front door.
He opened the door to see the dirt covered Winchesters in front of him.
"Can we crash here for the night? Cool, thanks." Dean's words ran together as he spoke. He pushed Gabriel out of the way before he could even answer.
"Sorry," Sam apologized for his brother. "He's just tired."
Gabriel rolled his eyes and suppressed a groan.
Dean had jumped on the couch and Sam plopped down in front of it, leaning against the end.
"How long has it been since you last slept?" Gabriel found himself repeating the phrase from earlier.
"When did we leave?" Dean asked.
Gabriel rubbed his temple and let out a breath in mild annoyance.
"Boys, let me tell you a story…"