Archive of Our Own

‘The war between heaven and hell began when the Demons reached into the sky and plucked from it the brightest star. They took it down into Hell in hopes that they could diminish its light - defuse its power - but were unprepared for the legion of Angels that descended upon them to regain that star and a long, bloody battle ensued…’

💫💫💫💫💫

The angel pulled himself from the pit.

The battle was over; the war was done. 

His wings flickered from one plane of existence to another, his grace too weak to keep them still. When they finally settle, reunited with his being, they drag behind him like a trail of slick black oil. His fallen feathers mark his progress as he drags himself further from the mouth of hell. Damaged in the battle, they deteriorate more and more with each slow, painful movement. 

Abandoned by his battalion, his brethren, his friends he was left to complete this fool's errand alone. And complete it he did.

Staggering to his feet he held tight that glowing star, keeping it tight against his chest he raised his wings and took flight. Landing safely the angel looked around him and found he was alone.

He lay down, tired from his battle and closed his eyes. 

The battle was over; his war was won and now it was time for him to rest his weary head.

As the Angel slept his grace manipulated the Earth, forming a mountain around him, enclosing him and that star in a blanket of dirt and stone. Ready to awaken when the world needs the star.

💫💫💫💫💫

“Is that really what happened, Numoxoomus?” the young boy asked as he looked up to his grandfather.

“Yes, Nuxwis.” The old man placed a hand on his grandson's shoulder and gestured to the mountain in front of them. He traced his weathered, wrinkled hand along the silhouette of the landscape against the sky. “Many millenia ago the sky guardian lay down, and the earth created this mountain over it and the star. The ancients named the mountain Ca-stiel, after the sky guardian, but over time the old language has been forgotten, twisted by the white man. Their tongue is unable to speak our language, their ears unable to understand our pronunciations, they mangled it and now it is called the Catskills.”

“But why, Numoxoomus? Why did the demons care about a single star? It’s just a ball of light,” the young child asked.

“Our ancestors believed that the stars are more than just light. They believed that stars were souls waiting to come to Earth,” the old man began gesturing to the sky with both hands. “The star they stole was the brightest in the sky. Our lore says it was the soul destined to save the world. To close the rift that leaks evil into our world, and when the time comes Ca-stiel will awaken and leave his resting place to unite the soul to the Righteous man.”

“Do you believe that Numoxoomus?” the boy asked his grandfather.

“I do, Nuxwis.”

“But why?”

“Ca-stiel chose our people as his guardians. He left us a gift, a part of himself so we should be forever tethered to him and protect his resting place,” the old man said.

The child turned to look at the black feathers that adorned the ends of his grandfather's headdress. He reached out and touched them, feeling the feather humming under his fingertip with the power of the sky guardian. Each feather hung like an obsidian blade and the child had been told they were over 10,000 years old yet had never deteriorated or ever needed replacing.

“When will Ca-stiel awaken Numoxoomus?”

The old man looked at his grandson and smiled.

“When the righteous man is in need of his soul.”

💫💫💫💫💫

The angel sleeps for millennia upon millennia until the day a young woman visits his resting place. In her womb, a seed has been planted and it calls for its soul. Castiel's eyes open and he pushes forth the star cradled so gently in his hands. A blinding light envelops the woman and the angel tenses until the soul settles in its vessel. He lifts his face to the heavens and with a swoop of his restored wings he returns home to await the day the Righteous Man calls him back into battle.