DCBB Black Glass pt.1
Part I: Awakening
Obsidian glass slippers, adorned with silver lining, beset with pale diamonds the color of an overcast sky. Diamonds that color were the precious stones of the Holy Empire, and few outside the walls of the Basilica could boast laying eyes on them. Yet these gems were not housed in dusty glass cases or around the neck of a royal, they were set behind dark lashes, pale against alabaster skin. They were the trinkets from a childhood best left forgotten, locked behind a door that led to a black room in memory that whispers even now of damp basements and places in the woods that are remembered, but vaguely, like wisps of smoke that, if reached for, slip through the fingers like water. As is memory, a stream of consciousness that cannot be grasped.
-o-
He held them in his hands, the slippers; they wouldn’t do him much good out here in the wild. Gabriel could see how the boy shivered, how his wingtips trailed through the dirtied snow, how his every step was labored due to his heavy robes. The expensive white layers and blue, metallic lining told any traveler who, exactly, he was, let alone the downy appendages that now hung low, soaked through, to the ground; Gabriel would have to fix that. He would have disappeared into the whiteout of the landscape if not for the black of the trees spotting the air, reaching into the sky like hands clawing their way to heaven.
They were soaked through, and the damp cold air was sending the boy into shivering fits that would rattle him to his bones. The slippers clinked together when the boy shuddered, and he stared down at them, at his blue fingers that were quite possibly frozen to the dark glass.
“Come,” Gabriel beckoned him forward, fighting off his own fatigue and the cold that set deep into his bones, praying to God and all his angels the boy would trust him. The boy toddled forward, tripping over the hems of his robes and he started sniffing, brows scrunching together. Gabriel cooed and stepped forward, scooping the child into his arms when he began to cry.
“Castiel, be calm. We’re safe now…”
He glanced around warily, eyes darting from tree to tree. He prayed he imagined that twig-snap that echoed through the forest like a gunshot. He began to trudge along, soothing his young charge and ignoring the spots of red that trailed along behind him, melting into the snow to stain the ground below.
For hours they walked through the black forest, ignoring the carnage strewn shore that lay behind them, ignorant to the cold in the air and the ache in their hearts. Gabriel looked down at the child, bundled in his own, dryer robe, fast asleep. He prayed that the boy put this day out of his mind forever, and would never remember what happened, how he came to lose everything and everyone he ever loved in the world.
He gritted his teeth and increased his pace. Ignoring the black entreating on the corners of his eyes, he had to make it to the border of the Empire; the boy would not be safe anywhere else, but where to take him beyond that? Gabriel had a place he could run to, he had contacts with the heathens in the south, but what of the boy? He couldn’t possibly bring him along, that was no place for a child of the Holy See, so just beyond the border, then, possibly with one of the cast-off families, or of the older nobility who grew weary of the Basilica’s politics and moved away. He only knew of two such families, the Winchesters and the Harvelles. Both produced fine ministers and in the Winchester’s case, a beautiful Saint. They would be the ones, the Winchesters; Castiel would go to them.
The child stirred in his arms, but did not make a sound, for that was the child’s curse. No sound could be uttered easily from his lips till the Holy Empire was cleansed and the Basilica was free from taint; so long as the child remained mute, evil remained in that putrid city of false profits. Gabriel wept when he learned the truth from the child’s parents. He was the unholy spawn, a bastard child from the Light himself and a dimwitted servant girl, but Gabriel prayed every night that the sins of his father would not become the child’s own. Gabriel learned of the girl’s pregnancy, brought her under his care, and gave her food and safety from the prying eyes of the ministers.
Now, no matter how impure, Castiel was the only heir to the Holy Imperial Crown, but he could never set foot in that Basilica so long as the ministers knew of his siring. So the seat of Holy power lay vacant as its last two surviving clan members ran away from the river, to the divide between nations.
To this day John never regretted moving from the Empire. Living in the woods by the lake was a simple existence, one he knew his wife and two sons appreciated. Sam and Dean were growing to be fine young boys, and if they still remained within the Empire and still pertained to its laws, Sam would be well on his way to becoming a Minister, and Dean would be…Dean would be stuck at home doing the chores and duties around the house until something happened, or until a sign came to their door that meant that the first born son was created for the Divine Plan. Just as a sign came to John’s door when he was still a boy, and how he had to leave home at the age of ten to train in the Basilica to become a Saint.
John didn’t want that for his boys, though. He didn’t want Sam to be molded into an intelligent slave for the Holy powers, didn’t want his eldest to be sent off to die in the Holy War, as he almost had. No, living in the forest by the lake was just fine indeed.
He looked up from whittling on the porch when he heard a boyish scream and a horse’s answering whinny before he grabbed his sword and ran down the path to the forest.
“Sam! Dean!” John bellowed, sprinting through the thick underbrush, approaching the sounds of distress with the worst in mind. Oh god, the Empire had found them, they had found them and they were taking his boys away from him.
“Dad!” He heard Sam shout from a clearing up ahead, and he hastened, tearing through the blackened dead branches and immediately came to a halt, panting and in utter shock.
A flaxen haired man lay face down in the muddied snow, skin pale and bluish in the cold, and a dark splotch of maroon painted the back of his pristine white robes, as well as two gashes in the fabric that revealed warped and torn bloodied flesh beneath.
“Daddy, what is it…?” Sam whimpered, hiding behind his older brother’s leg.
“S-stay back, Sam.” John murmured, keeping his hands on his blade and eyes on the man. He quickly glanced up at Dean and jerked his head back in the direction of the lake. Dean still had Impala’s reigns in his hand and he clicked his tongue slightly, urging the old girl forward.
“C’mon, Sammy, let’s go get the supper on, I’m starvin’.”
Sam nodded and clung to Dean’s arm, staring periodically behind till they were lost beyond the bend. John turned his attention back to the immobile figure in the mud, and he tapped it lightly with his boot, stepping back cautiously, but there was no sign of movement. He kicked him harder, prodding with his sword. The body fell off to the side, revealing a smaller, disheveled bundle in the man’s death-locked arms. It moved slightly, up and down, whatever it was it was breathing. John flicked open the bundle with the tip of his sword, not taking any chances. He gasped when the cloth fell away to reveal a tiny face, rosy with life though in this cold John knew the child wouldn’t have lasted much longer.
He lifted the child carefully, taking note of the robe he was wrapped in, seeing the white and the blue. This child was from the Basilica; and worse than that, quite possibly from the Holy Family itself. What was it doing this far north? He only wished the child’s caretaker was still living, so that he might ask their purpose here. The child began to stir, but didn’t utter a sound. Perhaps it was the cold.
At a loss for what to do, but knowing he had to get the child inside where it was warm, he left the body behind. He would return as soon as possible to give the poor soul a proper burial, it was the least he could do. The child began to fidget and stared up at John with the brightest blue eyes he ever did see. They were the color of the royal jewels, things few could boast to have seen, yet here they were, shining in this child’s eyes. He had a head of black hair, disheveled and unclean, and his fingers were bluish, but he seemed to be moving them just fine. There was something strange about the child, something John couldn’t put his finger on. He looked old enough to be able to speak, at least make noise, but no such sound was uttered from his lips. He was also incredibly heavy; John had to shift his hold several times. The child seemed to wince in pain every time John pressed him closer to his chest, squishing his back, but John didn’t want to stop and see why, night was falling, and the child had been in the cold long enough.
Mary would know what to do.
Sam and Dean crowded around their father when he opened the heavy cabin door, stamping his feet to be rid of the cold and snow after slamming it shut.
“Dad! Dad! What is it?” Sam clamored after his father, watching intently when John immediately brought the white bundle into the den, in front of the blazing hearth. Dean also came close, but gave John his space when he set the bundle on the ground, and gasped when he unrolled the powder-white linen.
“It’s a kid,” Sam said, looking almost disappointed and Dean snorted, shoving him out of the way and kneeling next to his father.
“He’s got something in his hands Dean, see if you can pry ‘em open.”
Dean moved to coax the child’s hands open, but they would not budge. Dean glanced at the child’s face and he looked confused, huffing gently when Dean tried again.
“He won’t let me, dad.” Dean sighed, sitting back on his knees and watched intently as John pulled away the numerous layers of white and blue fabric.
“That’s fine,” John murmured, rubbing the child’s cheeks, pulling back when they blushed a rosy hue, healthy if not a little swollen, “we’ll see what momma can do when she comes back.”
Both boys nodded, but didn’t move from their father’s side when he finally unwrapped the outer layer. When thin little wings fell from the folds, falling unresponsively onto the floor John’s suspicions were confirmed. They twitched valiantly at the new freedom, and the child keened, wriggling a little in his pile of fabric, attempting to reposition himself for more comfort. Who knew how long he had been trapped underneath that poor man in the snow, how his wings must have half-froze in that position. John had only cared for one other person with wings, and only knew so much about their anatomy, but he set to work straightening out the skewed feathers, taking care not to let one twitch into the open fireplace. When he finished straightening out as many as he could he coaxed the child to fold his wings in slightly, laying them out on the carpeted floor.
He sat back and ran a hand over his stubbled face, he still had to go get the man’s body, he couldn’t let it sit out in the cold through the night, the man might have just been unconscious and unresponsive; John had just been too concerned over the child to notice.
“Dean, watch him, I’ll be back in a few minutes.”