A/U - So I wrote this chapter on July 30, posted it on AO3, and was going to post it here the next morning except that I woke up with an excruciating and bizarre headache that felt like someone was stabbing me with an icepick at the base of my skull every ten seconds. So... this went on till Aug 7 (= nine days and nights of nonstop pain. Not that I was counting or anything) - I ended up in a couple of urgent-care clinics in different cities, had to drive 4h back to my home city, ended up being sent to an emergency MRI late at night at one of the major hospitals here, etc., lot of drama. They did see something questionable on the MRI - I will know more on Monday (after another 4h drive) - but whatever it is it isn't extremely urgent and I feel like it is going to be ok. Also I finally am on a lovely assortment of pain meds, muscle relaxants and anticonvulsants, and the pain got under control for the first time last night. Last night I slept through the night for the first time in 9 nights. :)
The MRI was an hour long. It's pretty claustrophobic doing an hour-long head-and-neck MRI. They shove you right in there like a hot dog into a bun, you're pretty much trapped, and it's UNBELIEVABLY LOUD, like sixteen rifles going off on all sides. I had to not move at all and keep my breathing very "small" to keep my neck still. So, two things. First: I knew they were looking for a tumor or aneurysm and kept thinking, "But I have to finish my fic!" - lol! Literally the first thing I thought when I realized they were looking for possibly dangerous conditions.
Second thing: The image I kept returning to in the MRI, to calm down, for that whole hour, was that of Castiel mantling me w/his wings and flying me away from it all. Kind of silly but, hey, it worked. I recommend it if you ever have an hour-long head-and-neck MRI!
Anyway due to all that I forgot to post last week's chapter here and I haven't yet posted the next chapter either, even though it was already written. I couldn't work on my laptop at all. I am still a little slowed down, and still have a bunch of doctor's visits scheduled that will take some time. I lost a lot of work to sick days and had to cancel my only vacation this year. :( Anyway I'm afraid I can't promise much for next week.
The fic schedule may get erratic - I'm sorry - I really wanted to stick to steady updates, but just couldn't. I will do my best. I do have this chapter though and at least 1 more, which I will post tomorrow.
Dean couldn't resist looking through the book right then and there. He riffled through a fistful of rough-edged pages, letting them flick past in clumps. Chapter headings flitted past... Chapter 3: Dimensions, Wavelengths and the Etheric Plane... Chapter 4: Vessels and Possession... Chapter 5: Grace and Power...
"A whole book on angels?" Dean said. "How the hell did we not know we had this?"
"I've never catalogued the whole library," said Sam, who'd squeezed a little closer to Dean's side now to get a closer look. "Cas must've found it pretty early on when we were trying to sort out all the books after... well, you know. And he had it way down at the bottom of that box." Sam's voice went a little soft as he added, "Almost like he'd stuffed it out of view, now that I think about it."
Dean kept flipping through the book as Sam offered commentary: "Jeez, look at that, a whole chapter on vessels... I... you know, I'd like to read that. Huh, senses and communication, we should read that one. Hey, wow, look at the pictures!"
They'd reached an impressive set of color plates in the middle of the book — full-page, hand-painted illustrations on thick cream-colored paper, each separated from the next with a translucent sheet of rice paper. Dean paused on the illustration that Hannah had been looking at, a picture of an entire wing, spread out dramatically.
He leafed delicately past that illustration. The book was old and the pages felt brittle; he was careful to turn the illustration pages as gently as he could. The very next picture was an illustration of a single feather. One perfect feather in isolation.
It looked familiar.
Dean took Cas's feather out of his pocket and put it down on the page, sliding it next to the illustration.
They were different colors — Cas's feather was a glossy shining black, and the one in the illustration was white. But other than the color, the two feathers could have been twins. They were exactly the same size and shape: four inches long, slightly curved, elegantly pointed, with the shaft a little offset to one side.
"That's the same kind of feather," Sam observed.
Dean read the figure legend:
Color Plate 9. The longest feather from a seraph's alula, e.g. from the longer of the two winglets found at the bend of each wing. Alula-feathers have special significance; see text for details. Illustration is at 1:1 scale.
"Whoa," Sam said, almost hanging over Dean's shoulder now, "An... 'alula-feather?' What's that mean? 'See text for details,' hey, let me just—" Sam moved a hand out to the book.
"I'll check it out," said Dean, suddenly finding that he very much wanted to "see text for details," but in private. Definitely in private. He grabbed the feather with one hand and clapped the book shut with the other. "I'll, uh, I'll check this out... tonight. Might have something about where angels go when their vessel dies, too, you know, so..."
Dean stopped, glancing down at the book.
It was a biology book. About angels.
Which meant it might indeed have something about what happens when angels die.
It might, even, have something... discouraging. Something bad.
Dean swallowed, wedging the book under his arm as he tucked the feather back into his pocket. Cas's alula-feather. It's Cas's alula-feather. It has special significance. "Okay, so, um... let's... " Now he couldn't stop patting the feather, just to be sure it was safe in his pocket. Dean tore his hand away from it. And a second later he realized he was now patting the damn book.
Get back on track, Dean. Focus. Dean grabbed at Cas's pad of paper, mostly just to give his stupid hand something else to do. "We need to focus on, uh..." he began, looking at Cas's peculiar diagrams again. "We should focus on what all this weird crap means. Look at this all. Lines, arrows, circles... Do you think it's, like, a glyph or something? A glyph, or a sigil, or a tattoo, or maybe it's Enochian, or—" Dean became aware he was babbling a little, but couldn't seem to stop. What if the book says that angels can't come back after they die? What if the book says...
Dean gazed at Cas's diagram. "Maybe it's for a spell or an incantation or something. Wish he'd left something else for us. Or talked to us about it, say. Or—"
"His car!" Sam said, out of the blue. He actually snatched the pad of paper out of Dean's hands, and repeated, "Dean, Cas's car!"
"What?" said Dean, looking up at him.
"We should check his car!"
Dean stared at him. And then he realized what Sam was thinking.
Cas had driven his own car to Ohio. It had been left by the warehouse during that... terrible night. A few days later (after... the terrible night), Sam had arranged with a Cleveland-based hunter friend to get the car somewhere safe. The hunter friend, some kid by the name of Jason, had arranged for it to towed to a local garage in Sandusky, if memory served. There'd been a garage right along the lakeshore, not far from the warehouses. Cas's car was still there.
Along with whatever Cas had stashed inside the car, Dean realized now.
Sam said, almost tripping over his own words, "You told me the other day that he was thinking of leaving soon, chasing after that Crown thing, and that's why he took his own car to Ohio, right? I just remembered, Dean, he had some stuff in his trunk! When we checked into the motel, the day... uh... the day before... " The day before the terrible night. "Um, anyway, when we checked into the motel, he didn't bring everything in. He had some rolled-up papers and stuff in his trunk. Actually I started bringing 'em all in and he told me to put 'em back. They must still be in his trunk. So... what if it was stuff for his... journey? Stuff for whatever he was planning to do? "
"What, like, a handy-dandy set of directions?" said Dean. "Maybe a helpful cheatsheet on how to steal the Crown of Heaven from celestial dragons?"
"Maybe! I mean, I dunno. But at least there might be some clue. Worth a shot, huh?"
It was definitely worth a shot. It was a great idea, actually. But Dean was silent, thinking.
Sandusky, Ohio.
The lakeshore...
The warehouse.
They'd have to go back to Sandusky.
"Dean?" Sam said. He looked a little hesitant now. "If you... uh... if you don't want to go to Ohio..."
"It's a pretty long drive," said Dean blankly.
The warehouse. The lakeshore in the night.
...Don't hurt him...
Don't hurt him.
Sam cleared his throat. "Hey, uh, maybe Jason could drive the car partway and meet us," he suggested. He'd just switched to his super-soft voice, his gotta-humor-Dean voice, but Dean wasn't about to point that out.
Sam added, fiddling a little with the edge of Cas's pad of paper, "We could buy Jason a meal, y'know, pay him for his trouble. Buy him a bus ticket back."
Dean nodded. "Yeah. Yeah. That'd be good. That'd be good 'cause..." He cast around for a logical-sounding excuse for not going back to Sandusky. "It'd save us some time. And..." Now his eye lit on his own set of notes — the list of names that he'd been working on earlier. The list of people who might know how to reach Elegua. "Also," Dean announced, picking up the list and scanning it rapidly, "I wanted to talk to... uh... to..." Aha — there was a "Chicago" entry near the bottom of the list:
Marcos de Santos, alabe (priest?), Chicago IL, 873-555-3326.
Chicago was sort of in between Kansas and Ohio, right?
"Also I wanted to talk to this guy in Chicago," said Dean, showing the name to Sam. "Jason could drive Cas's car to Chicago, see, and meet us in Chicago, and meanwhile we could talk to this guy who's in Chicago, um... " (Dean had already forgotten the name; he had to tilt the pad of paper a bit to steal a glance at the name again.) "... Marcos. Marcos. Brazilian dude, I think. Missouri said he's some kind of orisha priest and might be able to help. Marcos lives in Chicago, did I mention that? Wouldn't that save us some time, if we met in Chicago?"
"Sure, Dean," said Sam, after only the briefest hesitation. "Yeah. Sure, it'd save us some time. Chicago. Sure." Now he'd gone into an even gentler version of the Sam Super-Soft Voice. "Sure. So... you called him? This Marcos?"
"Well, no," Dean had to confess. He hadn't gotten that far down the list yet. "But I was about to."
Sam suggested that he place both phone calls — one to the Marcos guy in Chicago, and the other to Jason in Ohio about the car. Dean, still feeling oddly rattled, agreed, and soon he headed up the hill for the usual sunset prayer.
He left the book in his room. Plenty of time to read the book...
Later. He'd read it later.
The hike up the hill was lovely. Now that it was late October it was often quite chilly for the sunset prayers, but it was beautiful, too; many of the trees on the hill had hung onto the last of the fall colors, and drifts of colorful leaves were all over the path. It was turning into a beautiful sunset, also, the sky almost out-doing the trees for sheer color, with dramatic bands of orange, red and purple stretching across the horizon.
Dean usually used the ten minutes of hiking time to get into a more focused state of mind, ready to talk to Cas. But tonight, after Hannah's visit, and with that strange book sitting in his bedroom ready to be read, and now with the imminent arrival of Cas's car in the near future as well, Dean found his thoughts drifting to odd places. Old places. Even once he was on top of the hill by the grave, he still felt a little scattered. He tried to settle himself by tidying up the grave a bit, brushing all the fallen leaves off the rain-soaked earth, checked the end of the string (it had gotten so mud-stained over the recent weeks that it was hard to even find it now) and once again inspecting the backpack.
Ohio. Somehow he hadn't thought about Ohio as much lately as he used to.
Ohio.
Sandusky.
The warehouse.
Dean realized he had lapsed from thinking about it. He'd been going entire hours without thinking about it, sometimes as much as half a day. He ought to have been thinking about it more.
It ought to always be on his mind. Always.
Finally, once he'd gotten every speck of leaf and twig off of Cas's grave, at last Dean managed to turn his mind to the prayer. There was a lot to tell Cas, actually; lots to bring him up to speed on. Yet somehow the prayer soon turned into a series of questions. Unanswered questions, of course.
"Hey, um, Castiel Castiel Castiel, okay, you online yet?" Dean began. "Uh, hey, Cas... so... Hannah came to visit. Turns out she hadn't heard a damn one of my prayers, can you believe it? So... look, Cas, Hannah thought you might be in Heaven or in the Veil... uh... are you?"
No answer, of course. Dean even waited a few moments, but the only sound was the faint twittering of some sparrows in the nearby shrubs.
"Well... we were thinking of following up your idea about the Crown of Heaven. So there are supposed to be these guardians or something guarding it, Cas... um... do you know anything about that? About the 'guardians?'"
A faint puff of wind rustled the dried grasses around the grave. Did that mean something? Was it a sign? Would Cas answer soon?
No... no answer.
"Um, right, I know you're not gonna answer, cause you never do, heh, but... apparently Hannah was thinking something about dragons too? But we've dealt with dragons before, right? Toss 'em some gold and they get distracted, right? That'll work, huh?"
Dean found himself staring vacantly at the last red leaves on the maple tree, thinking somehow, impossibly, that this time Cas would surely answer some of his questions.
But the hill was quiet.
"So... anyway, we're gonna try and pick up your car, and I'm working on a lead about Elegua. Sam's calling a guy in Chicago tonight... Also... Cas... "
At last Dean pulled the feather out of his pocket.
He looked at it for a long moment in silence.
"Hannah said this was your feather," Dean said at last. And as he said this, it came clear in his mind, all at once, that he had somehow known this all along. He'd known it was Cas's feather. He'd known when he'd first seen it; he'd known it when he first touched it.
He'd known that it was something precious. Something he needed to guard; something he wanted to hold, and to keep with him.
He'd known it was a part of something... beloved.
Dean tried, twice, to say something more, and he failed; twice he drew a breath, his mouth opened, and nothing came out. The words simply wouldn't come. So instead he said, "I found this book with a picture that matches it. The picture sort of hinted that a feather like this might... mean something?"
No answer.
Dean sighed. "Sorry, Cas," he muttered. "Guess I'm a little distracted today." Wherever Cas was, obviously he couldn't answer. This whole prayer was turning into kind of a mess. No more questions, thought , the very moment he had he decided not to ask any more questions, he heard himself ask "Should I put it back?" He had to roll his eyes at himself, and he said, "Dammit, Cas, sorry, I can't seem to stop asking these stupid questions. I really wish you would answer, just once. I wish you could answer. I mean, is it really your feather? Do you..."
Do you not want me touching it? For this was the question Dean really wanted to ask, of course.
"Should I put it back?" Dean said again. He looked up at the sky.
All around was silent now; the breeze had died, the grasses had stopped rustling, and even the little sparrows had gone quiet for the night. The last light was starting to fade now, the sky overhead darkening to deep indigo, one last stripe of deep orange stretching low on the western horizon. A lone speck of bright light shone above it in the sky. Some planet, Dean thought. Venus or Mars or something.
Wonder how long it'll last.
"I should probably put your feather back, Cas, huh?" Dean murmured at last.
Just before the Compline prayer, Dean was sitting on the side of his bed, gazing once again at the little black feather in his hand. Somehow he hadn't gotten around to putting it back on Cas's bookshelf yet.
Alula-feathers have special significance; see text for details.
"All right, Cas," he muttered, setting the feather down on the bedside table and picking up the book that was sitting next to him on the bed. He glanced at the cover: The Physiology of Angels. "See text for details. Well, I got the text right here, so let's find the goddamn details."
It took some searching. Dean started with the chapter on "Wings, Feathers and Flight," which sounded like it might be a good place to start. But there turned out to be a lot more to wings, feathers and flight than Dean had ever realized. It was slow going, but, fortunately, also rather interesting. Apparently wings were as finely designed for flight as... well, as a certain sleek black car was designed for the road. Both were elegant constructions, beautifully engineered for their respective jobs. Dean found himself engrossed, turning the pages slowly, studying every detail as if it were an automotive technical manual.
There were a lot of weird little details about angel wings that Cas had never mentioned. For example, it turned out that apparently angel wings automatically scaled from the vast size of their "true form" to match the size of their human vessel. The angel didn't have to think about this — it just happened automatically. "Handy," muttered Dean.
Turned out angel feathers were fireproof — even fireproof against holy-fire, it seemed. ("Extra handy," said Dean.) Turned out the longest flight feathers could soak up Heavenly power straight from the "ether," recharging the angel's power nearly constantly. ("Whatever 'ether' is," muttered Dean. "You never filled me in on any of this, Cas...") Turned out new feathers had to be grown every year in a "molt," replacing the old ones; some eighty-eight long flight feathers in all, along with countless little "coverts" as well. ("Sounds like a hassle, Cas.") Molt was another thing Cas had never really gotten around to mentioning..
In fact, Cas had never mentioned any of these details. And it was starting to seem like all this wing stuff was a pretty big deal for angels. Cas had never talked to Dean about it at all.
Though, to be fair, Dean had never asked, had he?
Dean gave a sigh. And then he turned a page and came to the "alula" section.
"Alula," it turned out, was just a fancy word for "winglet" — a bitty little tiny wing attached to the biggest joint of the main wing, almost like a feathered finger.
When not in use the alula lies flat against the main wing and is not apparent to the casual observer, but it can be held out somewhat separate from the main wing when needed.
The lesser angels, such as cherubs, all have one alula per wing. In this regard the cherubs are like modern birds, which also retain one alula per wing. The higher-ranked angels, however, have two alulas (sc. "alulae") per wing. The author of this text was not able to examine an archangel wing, but was fortunate to be able to closely examine the wings of a seraph. All seraphs have two alulas per wing, and in seraphs the second alula is significantly longer than the first, with an additional phalange (i.e. it is more like a finger than a thumb). This longer alula is markedly more flexible and dextrous than the shorter one. Prehistoric fossil birds also have two alulas per wing; both are clearly visible in specimens of Archeopteryx, for example. We can theorize that a "wing with two alulas" was, perhaps, the original wing design preferred by God in ancient times, both for angels and for birds. Apparently, for some reason, this design was simplified later, such that modern birds and the more recent classes of angels ended up with only a single alula.
The difference in alula number between seraphs and cherubs is reflected in ancient lore, viz. seraphs having "six wings," and cherubs having "four wings." The "six wings" of seraph lore, are, of course, a reference to the two main wings plus their double alulas; similarly the "four wings" of cherub lore are the two main wings plus their single alulas. Folklore and legend further state that seraphs "only use two of their wings for flight," in reality a reference to the simple fact that only two of their six "wings" are truly full-size flight surfaces.
In living birds the alula's sole function is reduction of turbulence. Angel alulas also have a second function: they serve as something like feathered fingers. Though the alulas are quite short relative to the span of the wing, angels do have a degree of dexterity with the alulas, and are even able to hold small objects with them. Seraphs in particular typically experience finer and more precise sensation with the alulas than with their human vessels' hands. For this reason they occasionally will touch objects with their alulas so as to gain a better sense of the object's shape and texture. This may occur, for example, when mantling an object.
Here Dean had to stop.
"Mantling," he muttered. Cas had mentioned something about mantling.
Cas had mentioned something about mantling Dean, actually. When he'd had his arms around Dean, in those dark nights; when Dean had felt that oddly comforting sensation of being enfolded by... something. Something he had more sensed than felt; something large, something soft.
After a moment's thought Dean flipped to the Glossary. Soon he found the relevant entry:
Mantle — (v.) To shield a precious object with the wings, so as to keep it safe from harm.
Dean gazed at the phrase "precious object" for quite a while.
It was several long moments before he remembered to turn back to the main text.
In sum, alulas give an angel considerable dexterity and sensitivity with the wing, as well as fine control during complex flight maneuvers in turbulent air. It should be no surprise that the alulas have come to be regarded as symbolic of an angel's abilities and powers, and even of its truest self. This is especially true of seraphs, for which the longest alula-feather has special significance. (See Chapter 11 for further information.)
"See text for more friggin' information," grumbled Dean, flipping to Chapter 11. Chapter 11 had the slightly alarming title of "Behavior and the Expression of Emotion." Dean paused here, re-reading the chapter title a few times, for the phrase "expression of emotion" somehow brought to mind a whole slew of images.
Such as... a certain blue-eyed vessel staring woefully at Dean from a hospital exam table.
Or... a bloody face, gazing up from the library floor... a hand clutching weakly at Dean's arm. A hoarse voice whispering, "Dean... Please..."
... a hand on Dean's cheek.
... my friend...
Dean gritted his teeth and said, out loud, "Okay, check this out, Cas. Chapter 11. Behavior and the expression of emotion. Got a bunch of sections here... 11.1, The True Voice; 11.2, Wing Posture and Feather-Fluffing; 11.3, Selection of a Molt-Companion; 11.4, The Gift of a Feather... oh."
11.4 - The Gift Of A Feather
The longest alula-feather of a seraph carries additional meaning. This feather is a unique size and shape (see Color Plate 9), typically four inches long with an asymmetrical vane, and it is a token of a seraph's self-identity. As such, it has power in certain acts of magic; it can even transfer life-force. Rarely, it may be presented to the elder races to confirm that the feather-owner is in fact a seraph.
Even more rarely, it may be offered to a companion. The gift of the longest alula-feather has a double meaning. Firstly, it signifies a traditional offer of mutual trust and support during molt (see previous section). But, secondly, it has a further connotation that the angel is offering his entire self. It is an act of deep affection and it is a rare gesture, one that an angel may do only once or twice in a lifetime, if at all.
And now Dean remembered what Hannah had said, earlier that day, when she'd found Cas's alula-feather in Dean's pocket.
"Castiel gave this to you? I... I thought as much. I'm so sorry—"
And then, after Dean had corrected her, she'd gotten that puzzled look on her face... and she'd said, "I thought he might have..."
But no.
Of course Cas would not have given Dean this feather.
Of course Cas would not do that. Of course not, of course not, of course not, and Dean did not deserve to have it, and he didn't deserve to even be holding it, and he shouldn't even be touching it. He shouldn't even be in the same room with it.
He'd stolen it, and he needed to put it back.
Dean didn't even finish the chapter. The Compline prayer, that night, consisted of Dean tiptoeing up the stairs in the darkness to the star-lit attic, the feather cradled on a handkerchief in his hand (it now seemed it might be rude to touch it directly), creeping through the dark room to put it back on the bookshelf, and murmuring the whole time, "I'm sorry, Cas. I'm putting it back. I'm sorry..."
... and then, two minutes later, picking it back up again, wrapping it tenderly in the same handkerchief and carrying it right back downstairs again, still muttering, "I'm sorry, Cas."
"Cas, I guess I'm not really sure what to do here," Dean confessed at last. He was back in his room now, sitting on his bed with both arms wrapped tightly around his ribcage, looking over at the little feather that was now sitting safely on his bedside table, nestled now in the handkerchief. "Guess I just want to keep an eye on it?" said Dean. "Is that okay? Hannah said to keep it close. Seemed like she thought I ought to protect it, maybe? She said you normally wouldn't leave it out in the open, either. So..." Dean sighed. "I just... I really want to be sure it's safe, okay, Cas? But I won't touch it, I promise. I'll just guard it, okay? Maybe I'll just keep it tucked in the book, how about that?"
But when he reached for the book to set the feather safely between its pages, of course the very next section caught his eye:
Abandonment of an alula-feather
Alula-feathers, if not given to companions, are typically burned in a ritual fire or saved for certain magical acts. It is exceedingly rare for a seraph to voluntarily abandon his own alula-feather, i.e. leaving it visible and unprotected. Such an act would indicate that the seraph believes the feather unworthy of care, which would further imply that he believes himself unworthy of care. This apparently is a rare occurrence since most angels appear unaware it has ever occurred at all, but a few tales indicate that alula-feather abandonment does happen on occasion. In only two cases could the author discern any of the relevant circumstances; in both such cases, the angel in question was setting out on a hazardous journey, one that he did not expect to survive. Both seraphs left the alula-feather within the dwelling or home of an especially close friend. In one case it seemed clear that the seraph had been planning to ask this friend to be his molt-companion. Thus the abandoned feather seems to be something of a token of farewell. It is tempting to ascribe a deeper meaning as well, perhaps something like "I would have liked to have been your companion, but such was not our fate." But this is merely speculation.
It was a very long time before Dean fell asleep.
He lay dry-eyed for hours, curled on his side, staring vacantly into the dark, holding Cas's alula-feather in his hand. He never even got around to changing his clothes for bed; he just curled up on his bed in his jeans and t-shirt.
When at last he drifted to an uneasy, miserable sleep, he was still clutching Cas's feather tightly in his hand.
He dreamed. In fact he dreamed of the mountain. But it was not like the other dreams; in this dream a violent blizzard was howling, a gale-force sandstorm that seemed to be lashing the entire mountain from base to top. Great loops and skeins of sand were blowing high into the sky overhead, forming a shimmering haze that seemed almost like vast eerie banners stretching and rippling through the sky. Dean fought his way through the wind and sand to the top of the mountain, but he could not find the baby parrot at all. He looked and looked, stumbling through the gale, squinting against the wind, searching all through the wind-scoured mountaintop.
But the baby parrot was nowhere to be seen.
The wind died at last, the strange banners overhead fading away. Dean kept looking, but after hours more of searching all he had found were two bright-colored feathers wedged against some rocks, one feather of gold and the other blue. Just two scattered feathers, torn loose and scattered wide, but Dean knew, in his gut, that they belonged to the baby parrot.
Had it been torn apart by the wind? Or perhaps by some terrible predator?
Might it have just lost these two feathers, and survived?
Dean searched and searched.
Eventually he found a scattering of more of the rainbow feathers. Emerald, scarlet, turquoise... all torn loose.
And he found a few dead butterflies, crushed against the rocks, their little white wings crumpled and useless.
He found only one other feather, this one a much longer one that was jet-black. It was several feet long, clearly from some other kind of bird entirely. The conclusion seemed unmistakable: Something had attacked the baby parrot. Attacked it, killed it, and torn it apart.
And Dean hadn't been here to protect it.
Dean woke with his face wet with tears.
It was just a dream. Just a stupid dream, he told himself over and over.
The next morning, when they set off for Chicago, Sam had to take the first driving shift while Dean slept, exhausted from the strange dream of the mountain. The feather stayed safe in Dean's breastpocket for the whole ride, buttoned safely away; Dean knew, now, that he would never go anywhere, ever again, without Castiel's alula-feather.
Dean never mentioned the dream. Sam started giving him worried glances, but Dean kept quiet.
They swapped driving shifts in the late afternoon. Dean was driving as they finally pulled into the city in early evening.
"Those Chicago monster families have all been cleared out, right?" said Dean, trying to think of something neutral to talk about as he maneuvered his way through the traffic.
"Yep," said Sam, looking up from the orisha book he'd been studying for the last hour. "I told Jason about it, last year, remember, and he rounded up a bunch of other hunters to help out that kid. I guess they had a busy couple months but finally got rid of the last of them. Chicago's supposedly been clean since then. Oh—" Sam peered ahead at a green exit sign that was approaching rapidly. "This is it. Right lane, this exit. Okay now, take a right at the bottom of the ramp..." Sam began reading directions from his phone. Directions to Marcos's place.
Dean took the exit, and took the next right. At a red light he glanced over at Sam and said, "So just to recap what we need to find out from Marcos, the big question obviously is, where's Cas. Right?" Sam nodded, and Dean added, "We'll also ask about the Crown if we get a chance, but the big thing is, where's Cas." The baby-parrot dreams hadn't meant anything. Cas was clearly all right. Somewhere. They just had to find out where. Dean went on, "So, Crowley says Cas isn't in Hell. Hannah says he might be in Heaven or in the Veil. Also he might be in Purgatory. We gotta not forget about places like Oz and fairyland and whatever, those weird other places Charlie always seemed to end up in. So I thought, we probably need to ask Elegua to search everywhere. Definitely Heaven and Hell and Earth and Purgatory, and the Veil... but ideally all the weird Charlie-type places too. And tonight's definitely the night, right? We're just jumping right into it?"
"Yeah, Marcos is on board," said Sam. "Said he could 'get the guys together,' whatever that means. He said something about prepping a whole ceremony. He seemed amazingly willing to help out, actually." Sam glanced back down at the orisha book that was still opened out on his knees. "I kinda got the impression the orishas are getting skittish too. Marcos seemed to know all about the Darkness already and he seemed to be thinking, sort of, if these Winchester guys have got a lead, let's get a move on."
"And he definitely said he can talk to Elegua, right?"
"Well... he said he'd ask Elegua. But one thing I've picked up from this book—" Sam tapped the open book—"... orishas seem to be picky about who they talk to."
"Great," said Dean, with a sigh, as he pulled onto Marcos's street. "A seance with picky pagan gods. This'll be loads of fun."
Sam soon spotted the right house number. He stuffed his orisha book under the car seat, and they got out of the Impala, walked up the front path of a squat little two-story house, and knocked at the door.
Marcos turned out to be a tall, lanky guy with coffee-colored skin and a liquid Brazilian accent. He was dressed entirely in white. He ushered them into a spacious living room that had gleaming hardwood floors, a cheerful little fire blazing in the hearth, and almost no furniture at all— just a wide, empty space with a few cheap white plastic chairs scattered around.
Two of the white chairs were sitting side-by-side in the very center of the room, empty, facing the hearth. Over by the far wall were three men sitting on more of the white plastic chairs. Each man was dressed all in white, and each was leaning his elbows or resting his hands casually on a waist-high wooden drum. The drums looked something like skinny congas that had been laced with an elaborate arrangement of ropes and wooden pegs. All three drums — like the men, and like Marcos— had been swathed in white fabric.
The three men were drinking beers from a large cooler; they waved briefly at Marcos, nodded at Sam and Dean, and went on chatting in low tones to each other in some mellifluous language — Brazilian Portuguese, presumably.
"Are those guys part of the ceremony?" Sam whispered to Marcos.
Marcos grinned. "Yes. They're the drummers. Here, put these on." He handed them each a white shirt.
"You have drummers at a seance?" asked Dean, as he and Sam changed their shirts rapidly.
"It's not a seance... not exactly," said Marcos. "The drummers will call the orishas by playing the rhythm that each orisha likes. Each orisha has certain drum rhythms that he or she likes, you see. And certain dance moves. Certain colors... which is why you don't want to wear the wrong color accidentally. Also they each have a certain day of the week that they like. Certain foods. Certain..."
"We get the picture," said Dean. "So the drummers drum, and you're the priest who calls the orishas, or something?"
Marcos chuckled. "I'm not a priest. Not exactly. All I can do, really, is facilitate. Dance for them, maybe, if they wish. Maybe they answer, maybe they don't. Maybe they take to you, maybe they don't. Maybe one rides you, maybe they—"
"Rides us?" said Sam.
Marcos gave a little huff of a laugh. He didn't explain further, but said, "Sit," waving one arm expansively toward the two white chairs in the center of the room.
They sat. Marcos opened a little carved box that was on the fireplace mantel, and began picking through it, pulling out a selection of dried herbs. "Orishas aren't saints," he said, as he sorted the herbs, setting a row of them out on the mantel. "They aren't do-gooders. They're... rough around the edges. They can be selfish. Demanding."
"Dicks, you mean?" said Dean. "Sounds familiar."
Sam shot Dean a warning glance, and said to Marcos, "They sound like a strange sort of gods to worship."
Marcos glanced over at him. "They're not gods...well... not..."
"Not exactly?" said Dean.
Marcos grinned at him. "Not exactly, yes. And we don't worship them because they're good. We worship them because... because we have to. Because they have claimed us, because they're powerful. And because they can help. They affect our lives whether we like it or not. I will tell you something... I never expected to be an alabe." He pronounced it ah-lah-BEH. "Yet one of them laid claim to me, and... " He shrugged. "It's a long story. But here I am."
Sam and Dean glanced at each other. It sounded unnervingly like the way certain archangels, and certain demons too, had stormed into their lives.
"An accidental alabe," said Dean, "I can understand that. Anyway, we're hoping to speak with Elegua."
"So your brother told me," said Marcos. He grabbed another white plastic chair from the wall and carried it over to them, plunking it down a few feet away. He settled himself in it, facing them, and said, "I've already asked the orishas how to stop the Darkness. Months ago I started asking them. They say they do not know. And I must tell you something, they seem disturbed by it. I would go so far as to say worried... and I have never known the orishas to be worried by anything. So hopefully you have some different sort of question for Elegua, something he might actually be able to help with." Marcos leaned forward a little, setting the palms of his hands on his knees, and said, "If I may ask, what is your question for Elegua?"
Dean took a breath. "We're looking for a friend of ours who might be able to help," he said. "We think he's trapped in one of the other realms. Like Heaven or Purgatory, or the Veil maybe. Um... he was... an angel. Or he used to be."
Marcos raised an eyebrow. "A fallen angel? A lost angel?"
A dead angel, thought Dean.
Sam said, "Something like that."
"So you seek something lost," said Marcos.
Sam nodded, saying, "Basically, yes. A lost angel. We were hoping Elegua could tell us where he is."
"We were hoping maybe you could summon him?" said Dean.
"We don't 'summon' them," said Marcos. "Not..."
"... exactly," finished Dean and Sam together.
Marcos smiled, and explained, "You can call an orisha all you like, but each orisha usually will only talk to certain people that he, or she, feels an affinity with. Typically one certain orisha will lay claim to you, and only that one orisha, ever after, will really listen to you, or intercede for you. And some people never can get the orishas to talk to them at all. Now, you two..." Marcos's eyes tracked up and down Dean, and then over to Sam. "To be perfectly frank, I don't see much of Elegua in either of you. He's ancient. Craggy. He's got an element of the trickster... he's cautious with his words... he can be deceitful. He's not malicious, but..." He regarded them both a moment in silence. "I do not know if Elegua will speak with you. But if you're lucky, perhaps some other orisha may claim you instead, and speak with him on your behalf. And..." He shrugged. "I may be wrong. I am often wrong. Orishas are hard to predict."
Marcos stood and moved his chair to the side of the room. He walked back to the fireplace again, picked up the handful of herbs he'd set aside on the mantel, and tossed them into the fire. The flames flared up, with a flash of bright color. "Elegua often comes first of all," Marcos said, "and then goes and summons other orishas. But he does not usually speak to me directly. I am rather glad he did not claim me. I would not like to be ridden by Elegua. But, it is your choice. Now. Do you truly wish to call him? If so, we will start."
He waited for their answer, turning back from the fireplace to watch them both. The smile was gone from his face. The herbs began to smoke; behind him, the drummers seemed to come to alertness, setting down their beers and picking up an assortment of thin wooden sticks.
Dean nodded. "If he needs to ride someone... he can ride me."
"Dean—" Sam began.
Dean cut him off, saying to him, "We gotta find Cas, Sam. We really do." He turned back to Marcos. "Go for it. Call this Elegua."
Marcos nodded to the drummers. One of them whapped the top of his drum a few times, and suddenly all three were drumming. It was a bizarrely complex racket of high-pitched whaps and trills and occasional deep booms, not at all what Dean had been expecting. It sounded a bit like Cuban salsa sped up ten times too fast, he thought. Or a bit like an orchestra made of jackhammers. Or a bit like a colony of woodpeckers.
Or a bit like some distant, unknowable creature calling in the distance.
Dean was expecting some sort of directions or further explanation, but Marcos said nothing else. He just stood there looking at the drummers, and the drummers just kept on drumming. Two of them were going at it almost like robots, whapping the tops of their tall wooden drums with the flat long sides of the thin sticks, in a virtually unceasing trill, the sticks moving so fast they seemed just blurs in the air. The third drummer was doing something more complex, adding erratic bursts of deep low tones.
"When are we going to call him?" said Sam.
"We already are," said Marcos, watching the drummers.
And Marcos began to dance.
It was an odd dance. It started very small, so small that at first it just looked like he was flinching a little bit, a little like a child who really wanted to tap his feet to a tune but whose mother had told him not to. Then he began to move, in an uneven pattern that took him a few steps to the left, a few steps to the right, a few steps to the left again, on and on. It was a tight, contained dance, every move precise. There were no big arm movements and none of the flailing-type moves that Dean had been expecting. In fact it didn't look at all as dopey and hippie-ish like Dean had somehow been imagining. Instead it looked more like a martial art than anything else, the movements efficient and balanced, complete with precise little hand-chopping motions and neat, controlled foot movements.
Dean watched for a while. The jackhammer drumming was, somehow, making him sleepy. The deeper-pitched pounding sounds seemed, somehow, to be getting closer.
Something was coming closer.
All at once Dean was running through a huge tangled forest, Sam running right beside him. It was night. Around them were vast dark trees, and overhead thousands and thousands of stars were glittering, cold and fierce. And all around in the shadows were dark moving shapes, but all Dean could do was run.
A/N -
Next: The orishas.
And what of the baby parrot? What happened to it? Stay tuned.
If you liked this please drop me a line and let me know what you liked!
PS - those who've read my other fics already know that modern birds really do have one alula per wing, and ancient birds had two per wing. Originally I came up with the idea of seraphs having 2 alulas per wing, from an idea I had that seraphs, being ancient creatures, would have more in common with prehistoric birds than with modern birds. (Also I was looking for ways to give seraphs some "strange biology" - some details to their wings that would feel a little alien and unearthly). Later I found that this idea (seraphs having 2 alulas) matches up perfectly with the seraph "six wings" lore. From there I developed a little theory that the more powerful angels would have 2 alulas per wing and the lesser angels (like cherubs) would have a single alula per wing. Only when researching THIS fic did I also discover that there is actually lore that cherubs have "four wings"! Which fits! I also hadn't known till this week that the real-life lore further states that seraphs only use one pair of their "wings" for flying. IT ALL FITS!
PPS - "Mantling" is a real thing too. It's something birds of prey do to shield things they deem as precious (which for real-life birds usually means their food, or occasionally their babies). Those who've read Flight may remember Castiel mantling Sam & Dean in that fic too at one point, to try to protect them from gunfire. I didn't use the word "mantling" then, but that's what he was instinctively doing.
Next chapter is all written and will post tomorrow. After that I am not sure when I can write the following chapter; I have to take it day by day. Thanks.