As the World Bleeds
A Supernatural Musing
Author's note: This takes place in Season 2 after episode "Houses of the Holy".
~Brianna~
"Alright, I'm giving you two reading homework," I said stoutly.
Dean and Sam looked up at me from their separate beds where they'd been brooding for the past seventy-two hours. I held two copies of "The First in Heaven and Earth" by Dilliah Gwahaire. Dilliah was a very distant relative of mine loosely related to the branch of her family who had married into the elven royalty. She was one of Professor Moruni's first students during the end of the Greek cities before Alexander the Great set out to conquer the world. Her whereabouts were currently unknown. She'd disappeared after the book I currently held had been published. Some say she went mad and committed suicide. Some said the Hosts of the Fallen murdered her for daring to compile written accounts about the Beginning of Time. Other rumors suggested that she removed herself from the world and became a hermit to better commune with the almighty. The professor and my aunt always believed the last tale. The house of Gwahaire produced powerful wind elemental users and Dilliah was no exception this rule.
She was also an expert historian. I wasn't surprised when I found out. She was taught by the best.
"What do you want us to read?" Dean asked with a slight lilt of irritation in his tone.
Both men were hunched over in their beds with troubled looks of varying degrees etched on their faces. Sam looked like the case we'd just finished working on hit him the hardest while Dean seemed more sad than troubled.
I smiled, "You and Sam get to read about the beginning of everything. My history. Your history. More than you will ever find in the Bible. The whole story revealed as those with immortal blood know it. It's yours to know since neither of you are technically human."
I handed each man a copy and turned to leave the room. That one ghost had shaken the two of the badly. I wanted them to see. I wanted them to know where the Triune stood. Where I stood. And the reality of angels.
"Bri, this won't make me believe in anything," Dean said.
I turned to look at both of them. Sam was staring at the leather bound cover of the book, his lips pursed into a frown. Dean simply stated at me, blue eyes defiant. I smiled.
"I'm not making you do anything. You're just reading the history of the elves," I said.
Then I left because it was better they reach their conclusions on their own without my influence behind them.
~Sam~
I stared at the cover of the book remembering what Dean had said about our mother praying to the Angels. I remembered Brianna's incredulous quirk of an eyebrow when Dean had said something.
I don't pray to the created, she had said, I pray to the Creator and only the Creator. What can Angels give me that I don't already have?
It was strange to hear that level of cynicism coming from her. She never denied their existence, but there was a certain level of incredulity she revealed in regards to heavenly beings. Dean, of course, never really believed in them.
Dean was also the first of us to actually begin Brianna's assigned reading homework. His eyes were narrowed, lips drawn into a frown, and body tense. He was on guard and reading something that completely rearranged his view of the world.
Personal accounts. I hefted the book in my hand.
History.
The beginning of time.
Possibly all true.
I opened the book and began reading about the waking of the first races.
"The Angels were the first, told one by the name of Ailya ven Duriel, who had been the third born of her family and was the chose prophetess of our race. She is blind and has been so since taking the mantel of personal sacrifice by giving a physical representation of it. But she saw the early days after the first creation and witnessed the wonder of the Angels. There were the winged Angels who protected those who had no wings and use of the lesser magics. There were the Walkers, the greatest of the Angels born of flesh and bone and most beautiful of all races. Then there were the dragons, the angelic beasts of intelligence and fire. They flew as flesh, were larger than anything even we see today, yet they answered to The Walkers. The winged Angels made of wind and spirit are the meshareth. They ministered to our ancestors and were considered the voices of the Triune.
Then there were us, the elves, before we were ever considered the greatest of the races. Our power was new and untried. We were lesser in power than the Walkers, the dragons and the meshareth, but our thirst for knowledge and understanding and adventure separated us from them. Thus our people grew closer to the final created race, the Fae, and we communed with them closely. There were so many Fae, once. They were the most numerous of the races. They reproduced the quickest and so many different kinds of them were scattered across the heavenly bodies that it took far beyond the early years for their race to become completely divided into different kinds.
There are so few elves left from the years before the second creation and the age of man. Ailya becomes a blind witness from the end of the great years to now. She prophesied the warnings against the arrogance and conceit of Heylel ben Shachar, a meshareth of great beauty and brilliance among his kind. I've been told by Rhyland Donarion, another on the White Council who lived during that time, that Heylel had the voice of a thousand sweet melodies and preferred the form of a scaled elf with large leathery wings that glinted like white gold. I confess a certain amount of curiosity to the site, myself, but I know it is better to wonder than not.
The elves began to divide into familial houses after six generations were born and reached adulthood. There are seven great houses total that began during this period with many smaller families under the protection of each house. There were: Aldura, Morelinde, Gwahaire, Turthin, Findulan, Lys and Opheron. In the fall, during the Great War in Heaven that destroyed the first Creation and laid it bare, Silmariel Aldura was chosen to become the first queen of our people and, later the remaining dragons and Fae. The Walkers rejected her rule in favor of Heylel's empty promises and lies.
This introduction will outline the established hierarchy as was in existence at the end of the first creation. My first chapter will explain the rise of the elven royal houses in greater detail and their purpose as leaders before the Fall and the creation of the corrupted. The second chapter..."
I read about the elves. I read of the Triune who sent part of himself to walk among the created peoples. I read until the sun went down. Neither Dean and I ate or slept both of us were completely absorbed in the descriptions, the various uses of languages that no longer existed even for the elves. I read about the Raiphahim and how they came into being. Even Azazel was mentioned as one of Heylel's most evil generals. All of the Fallen seemed to possess a hatred towards the House of Aldura, or some strange deranged list.
When I read about how Loki, or Gavriel, came into being I wanted to puke. Heylel, Satan, had raped and murdered the mother of Professor Moruni. Loki was born, and Lady Morelinde was cursed by Heylel to bare the child to term and die in childbirth. It was something that all the Fallen engaged in and produced Ba'al, son of Abaddon and a nameless Turthin girl, the Morrighan, Ra, and then Loki. Yet Loki had been different. No one understood why. The author always wondered if it was because Lady Morelinde was the first cousin of the current elven king. The protection of the royal house would have extended to her in some way and, possibly, helped keep the sanity of her child.
I winced at that thought. Loki probably didn't really count as completely sane, but he was something.
There was a loud snap next to me and I looked up from the chapter I was on to find Dean sitting up massaging his eyes. He sighed and shook his head.
"Can you believe any of this, Sam?" He asked.
I stared at him for a moment, took in his hunched shoulders and stresses frown, and slowly felt myself nod. To my utter amazement, I did believe what I was reading despite how utterly unbelievable it was.
"It's hard to take in, but I believe it," I said.
He shook his head, "I don't want to believe any of this. I don't want to think it's true. That these things are who they are, but I think... I think it is actually part of history. It makes sense... Somehow."
"I know," I said, "at least we know about Angels now. I get why she doesn't pray to them."
I laughed a bit at that. Understanding her opinion about beings who failed miserably to keep the host was important. She would always hold anything Angelic to suspect, not because she hated Angels or didn't believe they existed, but because she knew their reality and understood their function.
Dean sighed and stood. He waved at me as he walked to the door, shrugging on his jacket.
"I need to visit the bar. Be back later," he rumbled.
I didn't get to say anything as the door slammed shut after him. Stunned, I sat there wondering what had Dean so rattled.
~Brianna~
I'd eaten something before I scouted the perimeter of the town. I knew it would take them many, many hours before they would even be close to finishing the book so I entertained myself with scouting and hunting until I finally made it to the local club late the next afternoon. I'd already ordered my second shot of straight whiskey when Dean entered looking very distressed. I raised an eyebrow at his appearance. He'd already finished the book? That was fast.
I didn't have to get his attention. His eyes narrowed on me and he made a beeline to where I sat.
"So, that author. You neglected to mention the family tree at the end of her book. Her family tree which mentions notable people including, but not limited to bloody King Arthur!" He exclaimed.
I raised an eyebrow and took a sip of whiskey, "So? She's related to King Arthur. What's the big deal?"
I knew the big deal. I'd known it even before I read the book. It was; however, the only way I could convince Sam and Dean that all of this was real.
Dean didn't answer immediately. He was too busy flagging the bartender down for his own whiskey. I noticed that he bought the bottle.
"She's also related to Sam and I. In fact, I didn't know we were related to King Arthur!" He snapped.
"So you believe her, then?" I asked.
He scowled at me while he poured himself a glass, "It's hard not to. She looks like Sam. Or Sam looks like her. And I..."
I patted his shoulder gently, compassionately, completely understanding what he was so distraught about. No words could express. There weren't any that would make it better.
"I look like King Arthur," he whispered.
I nodded, "Her daughter, Rhiannon, was a witch. She wasn't too far away from her elven heritage, but she was far enough to look human. King Arthur had just lost Queen Guinevere to Lancelot. They were childless. Rhiannon's magic took a water base turn instead of the wind of her Gwahaire heritage. Arthur needed a queen. Morgan, his older sister, was moving to take the north and he needed someone powerful to combat her. Rhiannon was a witch, apprentice of Merlin and someone Arthur knew well. They married and she became pregnant within a month after their marriage. Arthur knew the importance of her vegetating his only true heir, so he unwisely sent her away and kept her hidden. When her confinement was ended Rhiannon had to flee to Gaul to escape Morgan. The rest fell into place from there and you and Sam are the result."
Dean stared at his untouched drink, "Is this why they chose Sam?"
I nodded.
He drained his glass and almost slammed the empty thing down on the wooden table.
"Well fuck!"
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