The Roman Hunt
part 1: Pull my silver strings, Baby
by Danny (a.k.a. Mashiro)

Supernatural fandom, series, SPOILERS for season 4
EVENTUALLY SLASH: Dean/Castiel

Posted: 2012-11-23

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Thank you for reading!

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DISCLAIMER: I don't own the rights to the Supernatural series or characters and I make no money writing this. I'm just a fan. This is fan fiction. All OC characters are also fictional and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

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Chapter 1

How Elin Ostrand met the horse, and other misfortunes

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Elin Ostrand is twelve years old and lives in Cambridge, Minnesota. She is a quite normal girl with a quite normal life. She lives in a house on the east side of the river with her mom and dad (Melanie, middle-school teacher, and Owe, engineer) and her little brother, Patrik. Patrik is mostly really annoying, but he does make her hot chocolate sometimes, without her even having to ask. Elin likes school, actually, but would never admit it, because honestly, what kind of a person likes school? Elin loves horses, God, and she thinks that Twilight is stupid.

It's November the 7th, 2008, and Elin is crossing the Rum River, which runs through Cambridge. The snow creaks under her boots and her breath comes in puffs. She is going to her friend Amanda's house. They don't live too far from each other, really. If Elin was a bird, she would have been able to go visit her friend a lot more. Unfortunately she's not and Amanda lives on the other side of the river. Usually Elin can only visit her friend when her mom or dad, or Amanda's mom or dad, can drive her. Now, however, the river is frozen.

It's all everyone talks about in Cambridge these days, how early the river froze this year. That and global warming. Because apparently, global warming is the cause of unusually cold weather, odd as it may sound. At least that's what their home room teacher, Mr. Smith, keeps saying. To be honest, Elin doesn't really care; she's just happy that she can go visit Amanda without having to rely on parents.

She doesn't walk straight from one side to the other, but follows the river south for a bit. It saves her having to do it in the woods or along the road later. It's easier to walk on the snow-covered ice. The river resembles very much a road in the winter. An avenue, with snow-clad trees growing thick on each side and the snowy banks as a low, white hedge at their feet. On days when the sun is out, the avenue will glisten and sparkle and be so beautiful that it would compare to a piece of Heaven surely, or so Elin is convinced.

Today it's cloudy, and it's afternoon. There will still be light for a few hours yet, but you can sense a change in the quality of it. There is a sleepiness to the light, that rhymes with the season.

When she is almost at the place where she will turn right and make her way up the river bank, Elin hears a noise and sees something moving in the corner of her eye. She stops and turns in time to see a gathering of snow flump down from a branch. She frowns. The bared limb waves at her slowly from the eastern bank. What was that? It hadn't been a shape really; nothing she could place, just a... a movement and a sense of something. And that sound. It had sounded just a like a horse snorting. But there is no horse. The snow lies white and still, except for the branch waving slowly, beckoning.

Curiosity tugs at Elin. She takes a step towards the branch, and another. She just needs to…

"Elin!"

Elin jumps and turns, but when she sees Amanda waving, she quickly recovers and waves back with a grin.

"Hi!"

She casts a final glance back toward the branch, but it has lost its charm now. She runs over the snow and hurries up the bank to meet her friend, and the moment is fast forgotten.

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The clouds thin out and scatter as evening falls. Above the white winter landscape a million stars come out to twinkle in bright contrast to the deep darkness of the sky. They almost challenge the moon, they are so bright.

It never really gets dark when the world is covered in snow and Elin has no trouble following her own footsteps back through the woods, down the river bank and onto the ice. But it's colder now. She has pulled her fingers into the palm of the gloves and is rubbing them together, wishing she had listened to her mom and taken the woolly mittens that Grandma made for her and gave her last Christmas. Elin walks fast. The snow creaks.

It is really beautiful though, with the stars and the moon above and the snow glistening around her. This also, surely, would compare to a piece of Heaven, she thinks, raising her head toward the sky.

And that's when she hears the horse again.

Elin is absolutely sure that it was not there before, but when she lowers her eyes, a horse is standing in the middle of the river avenue. She throws a gloved hand over her mouth to cover a gasp of surprise.

The animal is tall and majestic and as silvery white as the world around it. Its mane runs thick down its neck and its tail gathers in a pool on the snow. It stands perfectly still, looking right at Elin with dark eyes through silver forelock. She can hear a deep breath from its lungs and see the white spill out into the air.

Elin smiles. There is a soaring of joy in her chest as she slowly begins to walk toward the horse. She whispers gently:

"Hey, boy... Where did you come from? You're so beautiful... What are you doing out here?"

She's never seen a more beautiful horse. He looks like he's been stolen from one of the posters you get from the horse magazines; a real fairy tale horse. He doesn't move an inch when Elin approaches, when she dares to stretch out her hand, glove pulled off, and touch her fingers to his shoulder. He is warm. Soft and warm and she can see his chest heave to his deep, slow breathing.

"Who are you, boy?"

He lowers his head a little and with a low, rumbling sound, he turns to her. Her smile grows.

"Hey there..."

The muzzle is soft against her hand. And their eyes meet.

When the horse starts walking toward the river bank, Elin understands. She knows what he wants, and she wants it too. She walks with him, her hand on his warm shoulder. He stops beside a snow-covered rock and she climbs up on it, keeping her balance holding on to him. His back is broad, she can see from up here. It will be very comfortable. Perfect.

There is a fraction of a moment when Elin comes back to herself. She realizes what she's doing, what she's going to let him do, and during that fraction of a moment fear surges through her, colder than the snow and the ice below, and she wants to scream.

Then his neck arches and it's gone. Elin Ostrand wraps her hand in the mane and leaps onto his back.

A ways away, on the snowy banks among the trees, an old woman stands. When the horse starts moving, carrying the girl away, she covers her face with her hands and sobs.

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Thirteen days later and a thousand miles away, the angel Castiel is moving through a mountain forest of Glacier National Park, Montana. It is a winter world, with a thick layer of snow clinging to the trees and blanketing the ground, creeping up high against the trunks of fir and pine. A clear blue sky, sun sending its rays down to paint the white with sparkles, and the quiet; not a sound can be heard.

Castiel is moving north, his destination a clearing where he fears the snow will be much scarcer than here. He has been there before; remembers it being particularly beautiful, with brighter light and louder song of birds. It is a special, holy place; chosen by God. And now they say it is under attack, and Castiel can't understand, because they saved this place. This place had been saved.

A red stain in the snow below one of the fir trunks draws his attention. Kneeling, he touches his fingers to the red and watches it melt around his skin to a pinkish liquid. He smells it, but doesn't have to. It is blood. He follows the red trail up the trunk until he finds the spot, like a hole in the bark. Upon his touch, a new drop of blood emerges, oozing from deep within the tree. His brow furrowed, Castiel looks up, the sky piercing blue against the white forest ceiling.

He discovers four more bleeding trees before he reaches the clearing and their fears are confirmed. Here, melting snow drips from bare needled fingers in a pitter-patter soundtrack, foreboding, and amplified each time more snow falls from the trees. Castiel stands amidst dark flecks of uncovered earth and a warm breeze whispers against his face. Winter has been chased from this place.

Hoarse laughter suddenly cuts through the clearing and Castiel turns, spotting the demon instantly. It sits in the body of a human woman, propped up against a pine in a dark red pool, with torn and bloodied stumps all that's left of her limbs. Choking on the laughter, the demon starts coughing, sending more blood to stain the ground. When the breathing evens out, the woman's lips are curved into a smile.

"You will be too late," the demon wheezes out.

The angel moves forward, his eyes dark, and instinctively the demon cowers. It starts coughing again, the body swaying so badly that it almost falls over. But the chest stops convulsing and the demon looks up, its fear spiced with defiance and triumph, growling:

"Go ahead. You will still lose here."

In a last act of contempt the demon directs the body to reveal a row of bloodstained teeth.

"You're going to lose them all!"

Then it screams, unearthly, as Castiel sears the blinding light into its hiding place and casts it from the world. The body slumps, falling to the snow in a splatter of white and red.

Castiel stands, turning. He is surrounded by the ceaseless chant of spring.

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Sam and Dean Winchester are 20 miles from Saint Louis, Missouri, driving south along Interstate 55, when Sam's pocket starts ringing. He shifts the drinks in his lap and fishes out the phone, checking the display before answering.

"Hey, Bobby," he says. "Yeah. Yeah."

He glances at Dean, who's looking at him. Sam frowns and Dean shrugs, turning back to the road. Bobby asks if they're working a job.

"Yeah, we're on our way," Sam replies. "Possible haunting outside of Dallas. Yeah, that one. No, we're..." He looks out the window as a sign flies by. "...not far from Saint Louis, why?"

As Bobby explains Dean looks again, frowning, mouthing 'What?' Sam frowns back, shaking his head then goes back to listening.

"Yeah," he says eventually. "Alright. Yeah. Thanks, Bobby."

Giving a small smile he says:

"Right. I'll tell him."

Then he hangs up.

"What?" Dean wants to know. "What's going on? Tell me what?"

"Bobby got a call about some weird corpse activity."

"Corpse activity?"

"Yeah."

"As in... what? Zombies?"

"Weirder," Sam says. "There has been a recent string of drownings and the bodies, apparently, are crying."

"Crying?" Dean raises his brows. "As in actual tears?"

"Yeah."

"Huh. That is weird. Where?"

"Cambridge, Minnesota."

Dean frowns.

"Hey, why does that sound familiar?"

Sam shrugs.

"He wanted me to tell you that town has the highest percentage of Swedish Americans in the country."

Dean looks at him, an unmistakable spark of attention in his eyes.

"Really?"

"Yep."

A moment passes, then Dean smiles.

"Crying bodies, huh? That's gotta be interesting. What about Dallas?"

"Bobby's just finishing up a job in Shreveport, so he said he'd swing by to look at that house."

"You mean that ghost," Dean says.

"I mean that possible haunting," Sam says.

They haven't been in total agreement about whether or not it's an actual job. Dean says it's obviously a ghost, while Sam says it's not obvious at all. Fortunately, Dean is too distracted to start arguing.

"Dude, Swedish Americans..." he says, nodding approvingly. "I told you about that Swedish Exchange student back when..."

"You did," Sam says.

Dean grins, shifting in his seat.

"She was..."

"Yeah, I know."

So instead of continuing south, they turn in Saint Louis and head north again. It's only when they're almost already there that Dean remembers why Cambridge, Minnesota had sounded familiar.

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