Ohkay. Not a hugely enthusiastic response to the first chapter, but whatever goes. We'll be getting into some of the more popularly-known stories here...I think, at least. You all know what the last chapter ended with, at any rate.
Honestly, I think Gabriel dicking around on Earth would be really fun to write.
And you guys have NO IDEA how much science I had to research for this story. Seriously. Who knew the evolutionary history of Earth would be so important to writing an accurate story?
At least I had that one unit in science three years ago.
Anyway, as a brief explanation, I'm going to put some of it here. Skip this bit if you're not into science and don't care.
That scene with Castiel and the fish [based on what I wrote without researching last chapter] probably took place about 363 million years ago, in the Paleozoic Era, specifically the Devonian period, more specifically the Late Devonian Epoch, even more specifically the Famennian Age.
If I had to research all of this, then you're going to get all of it.
Anyway, back then there was mostly plant life on Earth and a shit ton of stuff in the oceans. Land-based animal life was mostly insects. So not a whole lot going on quite yet, in terms of humans.
This chapter I'm going to skip a lot of that, since at this point no one's paying that much attention to Earth or even keeping track of time yet, so by the time we get back around to the humans a lot of time will have passed. A few million years at least - the earliest possible ancestors of humans didn't show up until about 6.5 million years ago [Cenozoic Era].
Science over. FOR NOW.
Disclaimer: I do not own Supernatural.
An indefinite amount of time later since the pattern of not keeping track of boring things like time has continued
If you had asked Gabriel how important they thought the Earth would be just after they had retrieved Castiel, they might have just shrugged.
How important could one planet be?
Sure, there were some pretty elaborate [and very very secret] plans for that fish.
But that wasn't Gabriel's business. There were plans like that for creatures on a bunch of planets. Earth wasn't the only one with life - or the only one that would have life.
And anyway, how big of an impact could that little green-and-blue planet have on creatures that had existed since before the universe it resided in?
How big of an impact could that little fishes' descendants have?
It started with one of the other plans.
"Kill them?" Gabriel stared at Michael incredulously [and we've been over the whole angels-are-different-and-non-corporeal-so-lets-just-pretend-they're-humanoid thing so please just assume that disclaimer applies to everything unless I say otherwise. It will make things a lot easier. To read, especially]. "What do we need to do that for?"
"The creatures which inhabit this Earth cannot live peacefully with those that our Parent plans to create." Michael was fiery and impassive as ever, which probably should have been more of a paradoxical statement than it was.
"Says who?"
"Says our Parent."
Gabriel hesitated, but they were still reluctant - they liked the dinosaurs, though the beasts weren't called dinosaurs yet, and wouldn't be until humans invented the name - but the name they were called at this point would be completely unpronounceable to you or me. "And this new species that doesn't exist yet needs the room?"
"They have decreed that it should happen, Gabriel. Are you going to help or not?"
"I didn't say I wouldn't," Gabriel defended themselves, stung at the implication that they would ever go against their Parent. "I just think - an entire species, Michael? All of them?" A tone of slight pleading entered their voice. "Even the flying ones?" They had liked those, even if their wings were so strange.
Michael huffed, with the air of one who thought that the other party should have grasped what they were trying to explain a long time ago. "Yes, Gabriel. All of them, except the ones that will be able to live peacefully with this new species."
"What new species?"
"They haven't told me."
"Is this about that fish?"
"I don't know." Michael replied stiffly, which told Gabriel that that wasn't the real answer.
"Michael, please? You can't ask me to do this without at least explaining a little more."
Michael sighed, but they turned around to face Gabriel fully. "Yes. At least, I believe that it is the same species originally descended from that ancestor."
"So, what?" Gabriel looked up at their sibling. "We have to clear out room for them? How important are they?"
"I don't know. Parent keeps these things to Themselves." Even if Michael was trying their best not to show it, Gabriel could see that they were frustrated at not knowing. "Now are you going to help or not?"
"I will." It was their Parent's plan, after all, and if anyone had the right to declare what happened in this universe and what didn't, it was them. " I never said I wouldn't. How are we going to do this?"
Four archangels were positioned over the Earth, as it would come to be called, with a collection of lesser angels who had been chosen to help, and - though none of them knew it yet, least of all the archangels - eventually rise to become leaders of garrisons, when those were created.
They worked slowly, chatter making its way across the telepathic circuit at all times as they conferred over every little detail - where should this go to make this happen, are you sure we're doing this right, maybe we should ask someone to make sure this is going in the right place, et cetera.
It was slow going when their Parent had instructed them to make it look as natural as possible, but when you have lived as long as an angel, time is nothing, and they took as long as they needed.
Michael ultimately presided over everything, though they did hand down leadership over certain tasks to lesser angels - each archangel had command of a small unit, which were in charge of a certain area.
Gabriel was given dominion over what happened to the sea creatures.
It was almost sad - Gabriel did like the dinosaurs, after all, the huge creatures could be quite majestic - but orders were orders.
And as the years passed, the angels moving with the planet as it revolved around its sun and the system moved in sync with the arm of the galaxy it belonged to, the little Earth changed.
Michael ruled the change on the land, and it certainly was reflected in their method - volcanoes like the ones Gabriel used to dart and soar around, erupting and clogging the atmosphere with smoke and ash that fell in white carpets. Plants were choked, and the ones who ate the plants died from lack of sustenance, and the ones who ate them were carried down the same slow path towards death.
It was sad, and at the same time amazing, that they could change a planet's fate so surely. But then, Gabriel reminded themselves, they weren't changing anything - this was what their Parent had always known would happen, or else why would They ask Their angels to make sure that things went as they were supposed to?
The surface of the planet moved too, even the ground drowned under thousands of fathoms of water, and Gabriel saw as lava hissed up from the very bottom and was almost immediately cooled to rock, the poisonous steam bubbling to the surface and dragging up their Parent only knew how many creatures with it, not drowned - they did live underwater, after all - but asphyxiated by the steam from the metallic rocks made of what Gabriel had dredged up from the very core of the planet.
None of them bothered to count how many species died. There were too many, and they were all more absorbed with making sure they were killing off the right ones - and all of the right ones - and ensuring the survival of those who were meant to survive.
And then, they were gone.
All the hulking species, the ones who had ruled the planet while smaller creatures survived alongside them - the fauna and flora and menagerie of plant life that had flourished there even when last Gabriel had visited - the Earth was nearly reduced to what it had been at first.
A hulk of rock in space, fire burning on its surface and a poison atmosphere.
But that, of course, would not do for the newcomers. The new species. The ones whose soon-to-be-seen existence first required the extinction of these massive beasts.
And so the angels, Gabriel and their older siblings in the lead, cleaned up after themselves, encouraging the natural processes which in due time - but slowly, much to slowly for the path their Parent had laid out - would have fixed the mess.
The smoke was filtered from the atmosphere and different chemicals replaced it, ones the new species could breathe, or at least would probably be able to - it was habitable, at least. Those that had survived the previous chaos crept out of whatever holes they had hidden in and tried again.
Then the angels collectively stepped back and waited to see what would happen.
They had done their job, and now their Parent would do as They wished.
Gabriel paid another visit to Earth, a little while later.
What was there to say? As a rule, angels weren't curious, to say the least of archangels, but the little seed from what approximated to Gabriel's childhood that told them to ask, that gave them the itch to know whatever it was that they didn't - it hadn't been totally quashed by the strict rules that had developed in Heaven.
So, they were curious.
Even if the word was never spoken, they knew the feeling, and so they acted on it.
Animals had reclaimed the land again, but they were very different - warmer than the last creatures who had lived there, and as Gabriel watched in interest a herd of them went racing by. Slow by angel standards, but fairly fast for physical creatures. Most interestingly, they were covered not in scales or the thick shiny skin that the dinosaurs had sported, but in a softer and thinner skin that was covered by a layer of hair.
Hm. Gabriel thought they understood why the dinosaurs had been done away with - there was no way these creatures would have survived otherwise, but they also didn't think that these soft four-legged creatures were The Species that was always vaguely referenced by their older siblings.
Gabriel knew they would have known if they were in the presence of such a creature.
There were also new plants - Gabriel came across a large flat area of land, covered in nothing but short plants that waved in the wind and looked like taller, thinner versions of the small leaves that grew on the stems of the huge flowers that used to bloom along coastlines and get tangled up in other trees.
There were plants like those, too, but not nearly as big and more muted, somehow - these forests were not nearly as hot, and some were perpetually covered in snow, and Gabriel marveled that their Parent could invent so many varieties of the same thing.
There were also some creatures that they recognized. Birds flocked in the forests, hiding in the trees and disguised from predators by thick green branches and nests of carefully woven twigs. Their songs echoed among the rustlings of the other creatures, and Gabriel stood and watched and thought that they understood why their Parent had bothered to create anything.
It was beautiful.
Something was wrong.
Which was weird, because things didn't go wrong - they went wrong on Earth, on the other planets, but those were always planned, and things going wrong in Heaven could not possibly have been planned.
Because, of course, what could possibly go wrong in a plane full of perfect beings?
Regardless of popular opinion, however, something had indeed gone wrong, and it infuriated Gabriel that they didn't know what it was.
Michael was tenser than usual, flaring up more quickly, and Samael was still as a lake frozen over, except this lake gave you the impression that there was a predator lurking in its depths, waiting for you to make a misstep and come crashing through the ice.
Their Parent must have told Michael and Samael something to make them act like this, but Raphael didn't know either and had refused to help Gabriel find out.
"There's nothing wrong with them, Gabriel, they're just..." Raphael hesitated, searching for the right word. "Whatever it is, they will return to normal."
"When?" Gabriel was tired of tiptoeing around their siblings for fear of setting one off.
"I don't know. Eventually."
"I think Parent told them something."
"They may have. What of it?"
"They told them something bad," Gabriel guessed with the confidence of one who sees no other explanation, "And it upset them."
"Why would it upset them?" Raphael was genuinely puzzled. "Gabriel, even if out Parent did tell them something, why would it be something bad?"
Gabriel hesitated. They knew their Parent's plans were always just, and they didn't know why Michael and Samael would be upset by anything They planned, but...
Raphael reached out a hand and pushed Gabriel gently to a sitting position. "Stay here for a while. Stop fluttering through our Parent's universe for a change. Then things will calm down."
Gabriel didn't think that would work, but they were willing to give it a try. Raphael was older, after all, and knew Michael and Samael better than Gabriel did.
"Parent?"
"Yes, Gabriel?"
They were in the dish room again, observing the universe, and Gabriel had joined Them, wondering why the Earth was so much closer to the edge than usual but then noticing that the entire universe had been pulled so that God could easily fiddle with it.
And They were, and Gabriel could see small flashes on the Earth as They put changes in motion that would result in certain animals.
"Can I make something?"
Their Parent wasn't surprised - They knew everything that would happen, Gabriel had been told - but They put down Their work and turned to face Gabriel. "Make a creature for the Earth?"
"Yes." Gabriel shifted so that they were perched, ready to stand and leave at a moment's notice.
To their surprise, God smiled.
"Sit down, my child." They laughed. "Create something yourself...why not?"
"Really?"
"You asked, why sound so surprised?"
I didn't think you'd really say yes. Gabriel didn't say it, but they got the feeling their Parent knew anyway. Gabriel stood properly, peering over the tiny lip of the dish and into the near infinite universe it contained. "What can I make?"
"That is up to you." God returned to whatever They were doing with Earth, but used one hand to scoot Gabriel closer. "It is your choice, Gabriel, and you can only wait and see what you will create. Let yourself simply do something."
Gabriel did.
They let their hands mimic God's movements and watched their Parent intensely, every movement recorded and purposeful, and an animal took shape.
Sort of.
God didn't look like They were sure what it was supposed to be. Gabriel wasn't really sure either, but they liked it.
"Well, then." God said, smiling. "Why don't we just put this...over here."
Gabriel thought that whatever ended up living on that particular, kind of isolated bit of land had better appreciate what they made.
Time passed, again.
And something else appeared on the Earth, and their siblings watched with such attention as it did that Gabriel was starting to think that this might be It.
Their Parent certainly was up to something, and if the sense that the hypothetical dam was about to break in Heaven didn't push that through Gabriel's head, the summons all four archangels received did.
"Parent?" They were all standing respectfully, but inside Gabriel felt like their Grace was tangled up into a mess of nerves.
"My children." God was happy about something, incredibly happy, and the feeling spread through Gabriel like a crackle of energy, and they could hear the chatter of younger angels die out.
Everyone was listening, and They were speaking to everyone.
"This is among My best creations," God said, and with a sweeping movement of Their hand Gabriel saw what They were talking about, and their breath vanished [ if they had possessed lungs or anything like that and you know what I mean].
This was the first time they had seen something like this on the little planet. And it was amazing.
They had two legs, not four, but there were still four appendages - they looked a bit like the monkeys Gabriel had noticed, except with far less hair and vastly different features.
"They will play an important part," God told them, and Gabriel knew that their siblings were seeing the same thing they had been shown. "And they will need guidance, in dark times, and that is your duty - to watch over them, to guide them and protect them, but do not force them along a path."
"Parent?" Michael looked confused. "What do you mean?"
"Let them do as they will, Michael," God said gently. "You will know what to do. Watch them, guide them - and love them as you do Me."
That took even more of Gabriel's breath away.
They weren't alone in that - Samael was wide-eyed, staring between their Parent and the picture of the creatures - the humans, Gabriel suddenly knew, though they had never heard the word before.
"As-" Raphael began and then cut themselves off.
"As you love Me," Their Parent finished softly. "They are My creations, so why should you not?"
Why hadn't They asked this about the dinosaurs? About the birds, the plants, about anything else that had inhabited the Earth? Why the humans?
Gabriel knew someone else had to be thinking it, but none of them - not even Gabriel - voiced the idea. That wold be going against their Parent.
God was looking at them expectantly, and though the smile on Their face had dimmed, They did not look surprised - though of course, They knew what the archangel's reactions would be.
"Well?"
Raphael recovered first. "I...of course," They said, bowing their head.
Gabriel glanced at their sibling, and then back at their Parent. "Of course I can," Gabriel said, giving Them a half-grin that fell as soon as They turned around, becoming a thoughtful frown directed at the picture of the two humans provided.
"Michael?"
Michael inclined their head as well. "I will do what you ask, Parent." Ever the obedient child, their Parent's leader among the angels.
"Samael?" They all watched as their Parent turned to the second oldest of the archangels.
Samael was watching the illusion of the humans, like Gabriel, but their expression was different - like Gabriel had seen earlier, there was something dangerous lurking just under the surface.
"Samael?" Michael repeated, a sterner tone entering their voice.
Slowly, Samael looked up at their Parent and nodded.
They said nothing.
Humanity, Gabriel decided, didn't make any sense.
They were like animals, but the way they did things was distinctly different. There were hierarchies set up, and they decided who was better than who in their isolated little groups, but it wasn't like any herd Gabriel had ever seen.
Their Parent had given them a word for it - a tribe.
The humans also had words for everything - specific sounds that meant certain things, and it was so like Enochian that when Gabriel first realized what they were doing they stopped in surprise.
"What?" Anael was with them when that happened - a young angel, but not that much younger than Gabriel themselves, and with the same little seed that urged them to know.
"They're speaking," Gabriel said, astonished.
"Every creature has a method of making sounds."
"No, Anael - it's like Enochian. They're speaking like we do, except using their bodies."
Startled, Anael looked down to observe the humans again and did not speak for several moments. Then, they spoke quietly in Enochian - and, well, every species has its swear words, don't they?
"They are," Anael said, equally astonished. "Gabriel...how?"
Only one solution presents itself to Gabriel. "They must have planned this," They said, still in the throes of astonishment. "Why else would these humans be so important?"
Anael looks up at them, trusting and curious, and the sudden impact of the word to describe what that feeling is hits Gabriel like the one time they were caught at the edge of a supernova - with all the force and subtlety of Michael's rage.
"Do you really think these humans are intended to be like us?"
"How can they be?" Gabriel turns to watch them again, eyes narrowed. "They don't look anything like us. They don't act like us either - does that look organized to you?"
"I see some organization." Gabriel is startled again, and turns to Anael, the need for an explanation not voiced but apparent all the same.
Anael raises a hand - or at least, what a hand would be on an angel - to point. "See that one? The...woman?" Their voice is hesitant, and Gabriel remembers.
"Yes," They mutter to themselves, "There are different kinds...I think that one's a woman."
Anael huffs. "Humans are complicated. But look at them - they are in charge of food, and that one is in charge of the little ones." In the case of humans, little is not merely a description of age but of size as well.
"So?"
"So, look at those." The humans Anael points out next have hair on their faces and not just their heads. They carry tall sticks, topped with stone sharpened to a point like the angel blades that all angels carry with them, but duller and less refined in every sense. "They are the ones who bring the animals back - then they wait for the other ones to put it in that fire before they consume it. It must be a human thing."
"They have to eat," Gabriel recalled from what they had observed of the animals that had preceded the humans.
Anael nodded. "They all have specific things to do. And those - the ones that do nothing?"
"I see."
"They are the most important, because the other humans have decided that they are too special to have to do any work."
Gabriel frowned. "But everyone has to do something."
"The humans must not agree." Anael tilted their head, careful gaze still trained on the humans. "But it's harder for them - look at them." They pointed one more time, at a smaller group within the main one made up of humans who had apparently decided to forgo whatever coverings their tribe-mates had adopted to cover themselves. "Look, they are tired."
"So?" Gabriel asked again.
"So, the ones who are important cannot be tired or hungry. They are brought what they need, and other people work for it."
Gabriel regards the few humans Anael is attempting to explain, the ones who are wearing the clothes that have holes bored into them to attach shells and teeth from the animals the humans kill for their food. Compared to the half-naked ones, they look to have a much easier time of things - not that that means much, since the humans have to work for everything like everything else that lives.
"How do you know this?" Gabriel asks, wondering why Anael seems to understand the humans better than they do.
Anael shrugs. "I watch. I see what they do. They are...fascinating."
The fleeting thought crosses Gabriel's mind that they wished Samael agreed with their little sibling. Samael had been more irritable recently, and the dark mood that came over them when their Parent first showed them the humans had not left in all the time that had passed since then.
"Gabriel?" Anael's questioning voice reminds Gabriel that they have company, and those are thoughts best left to when they are alone.
"Yes?"
"What are the cherubium doing?" Anael asks, and Gabriel immediately wishes that they had not done so, or at least not asked about that. "Something important is going on, I know it."
Gabriel shrugs, the same halfhearted movement Anael had made only moments ago. "I could not say."
Anael catches onto their meaning. "You're not supposed to say?"
"Our Parent has told only Michael."
Their eyes widen. "You listened in?"
"No!" Gabriel protests. "They told me. But I am not supposed to say. It's meant to be revealed later." Of course Gabriel knew what their Parent had planned, what Michael and Samael had been told, what Raphael also knew was to happen, but the brooding look that had passed over Samael's face at the news had made them uneasy, and in any case they really weren't supposed to tell.
But Gabriel could not help but think that none of the other creatures had ever been manipulated like this, and it felt a little wrong to do so.
The thought of calling their Parent wrong made Gabriel ball the thought up and shove it into the back of their mind where none of their siblings would ever find it, but there it lingered and festered nonetheless.
"Everything is secret," Anael mutters. "Why can't everything be known to all of us? I'm sure it would make things much simpler."
It is Gabriel's turn for wide eyes and Anael's head jerks up as they realize what they have said.
"I didn't mean-" The words come spilling out of their mouth. "Our Parent - of course, They are doing what is right, I just-"
"I know," Gabriel hurries to reassure them. "Just-" They catch Anael's eye and keep them still with a sharp gaze. "Do not say that in front of Michael."
Anael shakes their head furiously. "You won't-"
"I won't tell them. But do not say it again."
"Of course not." Even so, Anael still doesn't sound satisfied. "It will all be revealed in due time, and I will find out then."
But like Gabriel, Anael still wanted to know.
Wow. That was some...pretty intense accidental foreshadowing.
Read and review, please! I'd love to know what you think of this chapter!
