amberdreams (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
amberdreams) wrote2018-02-12 01:08 pm
amberdreams) wrote2018-02-12 01:08 pm
Entry tags:
Feathers and Flowers - Part 2
Back to Part 1.
::::
Dean’s flying but this isn’t like being in a plane. There’s no fear, no worry about being thousands of feet in the air and not being in control. Laid out below he can see the straight grey lines of roads start to twist and turn as they meet the mountains. There’s the white of snow overlaying the dark green of pine forests and he swoops lower. He’s drifting southwards and the sun is lowering on the horizon.
His belly is empty, and he’s hunting – for food, not monsters – and it feels good. Free. Right.
He hones in on movement on the ground, a mountain cottontail that’s hopping from tussock to tussock in herbivorous oblivion to the threat from above. It’s a small creature, but he’s so hungry… He flies lower, all his attention focussed on the cottontail, and he pays for that lack of wariness when a gunshot rings out and a searing burn cuts into his left side.
Dean wakes with a shout, clutching his ribs and checking for blood - but of course, there’s nothing there except the damn book, still in his inside jacket pocket. The hard corner has been digging into his side; it’s even left a mark between two ribs. Dean rubs absently at the triangular dent, running through the vivid images from his dream with a growing excitement.
Dean knows where he’s going to head next to search for Sam. Because he’d recognised that landscape from years of studying road atlases, and why else would he dream so vividly about those particular mountains that formed the southernmost part of the Rockies?
He cleans his teeth hurriedly and splashes cold water on his face before grabbing the Impala’s keys and the duffel he keeps packed in readiness, just in case. He heads to the garage, not quite running, but striding fast. Sam’s door opens as he passes and Fleur comes out, but Dean doesn’t slow or stop.
“Dean! Wait!”
He doesn’t wait, but he doesn’t tell her to go back when he hears her shoes click-clicking on the stone floors behind him. Outside the bunker, he waits in silence in the Impala with the engine running, staring straight ahead, resigned to the inevitable. The passenger door opens and Fleur slides into Sam’s seat. Her breathing is rapid and her flowery scent has undercurrents of fresh sweat from chasing him through the bunker, and he’s half expecting her to yell at him. She doesn’t.
“Did you have the dream too?” She asks, instead. He doesn’t say anything but his fingers tighten their grip on the steering wheel and he guns Baby’s engine. “I was flying west,” Fleur elaborates, “the sun was behind me. But I think someone shot me just before I woke.”
Dean shivers and turns up the heat. What? Kansas is bitter in December, that’s all.
“Colorado,” he says, swallows hard past the lump in his throat. He doesn’t want to say it. Doesn’t want to say anything, but the words force their way out. “That was Colorado we saw.” Then he shoves in a tape – Metallica, loud – always an effective way to stop any attempts at conversation.
They get onto the I-70 and drive due west. Dean makes Colorado Springs in just over five hours, but after they turn the Impala’s nose to the south he’s forced to slow down, because from here on, they have to check for signs of Sam. Dean doesn’t have the first idea how to track a Sam who appears to be able to fly, but he’d hate to miss something. Maybe Sam would leave him a sign.
They carry on heading south for a couple of hours past Albuquerque without spotting much civilisation to speak of, just lots of pale desert punctuated with rocks and scrub, and glimpses of patchy snow covering the hills in the distance. After dark falls there isn’t even that view to keep Dean entertained, and Fleur’s supply of not-very-interesting anecdotes dried up hours ago, setting with the sun. He doesn’t play his tapes but has the radio on low, not really listening as the waves flip from one local station to the next as they move south.
Dean stomach rumbles loudly right about the time they hit the outskirts of a town called Truth or Consequences. Dean rolls his eyes at the threat (or promise) of the name, then sighs with relief when he spots a pink neon sign announcing an old fashioned diner across the road. He pulls up close to the entrance and gets out of the car, his joints creaking almost as loud as the old Chevy’s doors. Maybe he should have taken a break three or four hours back, but he didn’t want to stop when there was still no sign of Sam.
“How would Sam have got anywhere, though?” Fleur asks out of the blue, as if she’s continuing an unheard conversation. Her smooth brow furrows slightly between her eyes. Dean blinks. For a second when the low sunlight had struck them, they’d looked golden instead of blue.
Dean runs a hand over his face, his palm rasping over stubble. He probably looks like hell. He certainly feels like hell. He can’t get his head round the idea of Sam flying. It’s too impossible. Too disturbingly angelic. A thought of calling Castiel for help crosses his mind and is gone without a trace when Fleur continues, oblivious to Dean’s struggles to think straight.
“Because we know he didn’t take any supplies when he left Lebanon, right?” she says. “And you already checked the bus terminus.”
“Sam’s resourceful. He’d have gotten winter gear from somewhere and probably hot wired a car. If you want to make yourself useful, get on your cell’s wifi working and hack into the police database. See if you can find any old lady cars being lifted in the last day or so.”
Fleur has her phone in her hand but doesn’t seem inclined to do anything with it apart from waving it around.
“Hack into a database? I can’t…” she squeaks. Dean almost growls as he snatches it out of her hand, dialling back his rage a little when a middle-aged woman walking by gives him the side-eye. He’s being a jerk, and knows it but – Sam’s missing. His giant little brother is missing and could be hurt, and though there’s nothing natural about this whole mess, Dean is floundering. It’s terrifying the life out of him that there seems to be nothing but a few weird dreams to rely on in order to find Sam. For all their years of experience, this was like no monster Dean has ever heard of.
Fuck but he misses Bobby at times like these most of all. Not just for his friendship and freaky encyclopaedic knowledge, but for his no-nonsense approach to problems.
“Right, yeah, I’m sorry,” he mumbles. “Look, let’s go grab something to eat and I’ll show you how to check the databases.”
A burger and fries help settle Dean a little. Finished, he pushes his empty plate away and closes his eyes, leaving Fleur struggling with the 4G on her phone. In his minds-eye, he plays back the landscape of the dream, frame by frame like a video. Where had they finished up before the pain hit? He follows his mind-map of roads from Colorado Springs, tracking the dream south until he is somewhere beyond Albuquerque, but that’s as far as it goes. They’re already some miles off the dream grid and Dean is fresh out of ideas.
Dean opens his eyes, then frowns.
“I thought you only eat rabbit food,” he said. He stares at Fleur, so many alarm bells ringing he’s surprised the proprietor doesn’t evacuate the diner.
She’s eating a bloody steak. Must have been tucking into it for a while and he’s been too out of it to notice until now. When she looks up at him, all wide-eyed innocence, his hand goes for his gun. He levels it under the table, wary of the low hum of chatter from other customers, but never taking his gaze off her. Fleur’s eyes are definitely not blue any more. Even with her back to the window they glow orange as a setting sun.
“What are you?” he hisses. Those eyes aren’t like any demon he’s familiar with, but then he never claimed to know everything about demons, even after Hell.
“Dean,” Fleur says, soft and concerned. “What’s wrong? I thought you’d approve of me eating meat, like you do.” She blinks real slowly, her eye lashes dark against her pale skin, and when she looks up at Dean her eyes are blue again, as if they’ve never been anything else. “I guess being vegetarian was just a phase. Sam liked it,” she adds, thoughtful, and Dean finds his shoulders relaxing, almost against his will. He slips his gun back into his waistband and doesn’t say anything when Fleur suggests it’s time to leave. He just pays the check with a couple of twenties and heads out without questioning, because that was the direction he’d wanted to head anyhow.
They don’t get far. They’re only a hundred yards down Truth or Consequences’ main drag when Dean checks the dial and realises they are in dire need of gas. The gas station is opposite a casino, and has a grand sign saying it’s also Visitor’s Centre for the Pueblo. Sure enough the shop is full of glass ornaments and dream catchers, but it also smells like patchouli, which is just weird. Maybe they get a lot of hippy gamblers over the road. Dean pays for gas with Duff McKagan’s credit card, throwing in some bags of corn chips, a large bottle of Pueblo corn whiskey and a couple of muffins made with (of course) corn flour and sumac berries, but they look pretty tasty all the same.
He walks outside and nearly hyperventilates to see Fleur in the Impala’s driving seat, but she’s getting out even as he trots over, and he sees she’s just parked his Baby at the motel attached to the gas station.
“I thought we should stop for the night,” she says, and Dean thinks about arguing, so he does.
“I can drive through the night,” he protests, though part of him is craving that motel bed so bad it almost hurts. He doesn’t have the stamina he’d had when he was twenty and could drive for days with only an hour’s sleep snatched on the roadside, stretched out on the back seat.
“Where to?” Fleur asks, throwing her hands out wide, and yeah. She has a point. They’re already flying blind, the dream directions petered out, and he doesn’t have a clue where to go next. Somehow, in spite of that possible injury that had woken him, Dean doesn’t feel like the dream should have ended in that forest near Albuquerque. Maybe Fleur is right. They should rest and see what the night brings. Maybe he should go back to the shop and buy one of those touristy dream catchers, since the one he’d used hang in the Impala’s trunk had been lost.
The more he thinks about it, the more obvious it seems that they need to sleep and get a fresh dream to follow. He trails after Fleur into the motel to check in.
There’s only one room available, and of course it’s a queen.
“There’s a three night special event on at the Red Mesa Casino,” the desk clerk shrugs, sloe-dark eyes tracking from Dean to Fleur and back again, with an expression that clearly says what’re you griping about, dude? She’s a doll! The room’s keychain is a wooden coyote and Dean hopes that isn’t significant. The last thing he needs is to tangle with another Trickster.
::::
Never let it be said that Dean doesn’t know how to be a gentleman. He offers Fleur first use of the bathroom while he sets about supernatural-proofing the room. He hesitates a moment before finishing salting the doors and windows – he doesn’t want to block the dreaming, after all. Then he figures that if the dreams could penetrate the bunker with all its state of the art defences, a few runes and some salt is unlikely to have much of a dampening effect. Fleur interrupts his ruminations, emerging from the bathroom wrapped in a large white towel and a fragrant cloud of steam.
Her hair is dark gold when wet, and her skin is creamy-pale. Dean wrenches his gaze away and brushes past her, slamming and locking the bathroom door. He absolutely does not jerk off in the shower with Fleur’s fragrance heavy in the damp bathroom air and a headful of thoughts about running his hands over those smooth shoulders. He definitely doesn’t stare when he comes back into their room and finds Fleur sitting up in the queen bed dressed in a nightgown made of some sheer fabric that does nothing to conceal the rosy pink aureoles of her nipples or the sweet curve of her small breasts.
He’s thankful he’d remembered not to just wander back out there in a towel, or naked, like he would’ve with Sam. Even though he’s fully clothed, somehow Fleur is making him feel stripped bare.
“I’ll just—” he gestures aimlessly at the floor, and makes a blind grab for a pillow and spare blanket. He isn’t quick enough and Fleur’s cool hand grasps his wrist. He grunts in surprise at the strength of her grip.
“Dean,” she says, her tone calm and reasonable, as if Dean’s behaving like a naughty child. “The bed’s plenty big enough for the two of us. There’s no need for you to sleep on the floor.”
Dean shakes his head and turns away to throw the pillow on the floor, but he turns back when Fleur asks him again, softer this time, less demanding.
“You can lie on top of the covers, see? There’s nothing to worry about. I won’t molest you.”
This time when he looks she’s got the comforter up round her neck, and her expression is as demure as any nun, and now he’s wondering what he was making a fuss about. He turns off the main light and lies down next to Fleur, who smiles and switches off the bedside lamp, plunging the room into a cozy darkness. Dean turns on his side and is asleep in an instant, before he’s even had time to reinforce his hope for another meaningful dream.
::::
The eagle has a name - Sam. The human tells the eagle this and he accepts it. It feels right. The woman is called Lozen. She talks to him, and Sam understands enough to be curious. He’s grateful too. He’s aware that Lozen healed him, took the pain away. So he stays on the mountain with her. Some days he will fly for miles, until the mountain is small in the distance, be he always returns. To observe, to listen, to learn.
Spending time with Lozen, Sam notices that humans focus a lot on sight, and on what they hear, but Sam does more than just see in this body. Taste in particular is vibrant, earthy, and full of life. Whether it is life ending or life still full of the living of it – with hearts beating with strong vibrations, the blood rushing through veins so powerfully it’s almost audible - or gushing from a carotid artery under his lethal claws, flesh tearing, sending vital juices down his throat. Sam remembers the taste of blood from before, but this is different. This is purer, life-giving and natural, and in some ways, Sam feels cleaner, after.
It takes Sam a little while to realize that while he might be able to spot prey nearly two miles away with a laser focus any sniper would envy, he can’t smell much of anything. The only way he knows Lozen has a fire going to cook the meat he brings for her is from the warmth of the flames, their colour and the sight from afar of the wood smoke. He adds the lack to the persistent emptiness inside him, because he thinks he might pine for some scents if he could only remember why.
He hunts for the human, and for himself. He remembers that too. Hunting. Though he doesn’t think the hunting he used to do was like this. He starts to wonder what else he doesn’t remember. Sometimes he perches on Lozen’s arm, careful not to dig his knife-like claws in, and she offers to walk with him, inside his head.
He refuses. Angry. Afraid. Sometimes he bates; sometimes he launches into the air and flies away.
::::
Dean’s dreams are confused and nonsensical. He fights his way through a tangle of wild flowers but never finds the meadow from the other dream. He coughs and when he pulls his hand away from covering his mouth it’s full of brown-barred feathers. He chokes and splutters and more feathers puff out of his mouth.
He’s frustrated even while he’s still trapped in sleep, waiting for another view of the mountains and the next part of the road map to Sam that never comes. The only consistent image is brief glimpses of a campfire and a broad-faced woman with long dark hair streaked with grey, whose dark eyes glitter in the light of the flames. Dean thinks maybe this means something, but when he tries to hang onto the scene it dissolves into black smoke and flies away. As the dark cloud moves he sees that it’s made up of thousands of owls. He wants to look closer, but vines tangle round his feet, holding him down, and the powerful scent of meadowsweet lulls him to sleep within the dream.
He drags himself awake with a struggle, disorientated and uncomfortably half hard in his jeans. It takes him a second to focus and notice his fly is wide open. Fleur’s hand is inside his boxers, her warm fingers teasing his cock with soft tugs and strokes. The air is filled with a heady perfume, something soporific and soothing that he’s too sleepy to identify. He closes his eyes, enjoying a strange mixture of calm and stimulation, listening to Sam’s girlfriend humming as she gets him fully hard.
Wait a goddamned minute. His brother’s girlfriend is jerking him off.
“Holy shit, what the fuck?” Dean’s eye fly open and he rolls off the bed, grabbing at his opened jeans with one hand and pushing Fleur away with the other. He isn’t gentle about it, and she nearly follows him onto the floor. He stands and shoves his unruly cock back down into his boxers then fastens his pants as best he can, glaring at Fleur all the while.
She hasn’t said a word, and doesn’t look even vaguely embarrassed. Instead she’s crawling back towards him across the rumpled coverlet, her eyes huge and shadowed, her pale cheeks flushed. She’s moving with the sinuous grace of a porn star, and if she had been anyone other than Sam’s girl, Dean wouldn’t have blamed his dick for standing to attention. She was young and sexy and naked – oh fuck – her small breasts brushing the covers, her rosy nipples hard, the curve of her back down to that sweetly rounded ass just calling Dean to reach out and touch.
He staggers backwards instead.
“What the hell are you doing, Fleur?” he croaks, then swallowed, ashamed of the way his voice is refusing to cooperate.
She rises up onto her knees, still on the bed, so Dean’s almost eye to eye with her breasts. Normally he’d enjoy a view like this, but now he tears his gaze away. It isn’t easy to look away, the thickness of the air and the throbbing in his groin making it hard to hang onto his resolve. She stretches out a hand and he takes a reluctant step towards her, as if she’s reeling him in on a line.
“Want you, Dean,” she says in a sing-song voice which makes her sound as drugged as he feels. The floral aroma filling the air intensifies, and among the mixture Dean thinks he recognizes lavender, chamomile, maybe the smoky scent of jasmine. A tiny voice inside his head helpfully informs him that these are all plants known to aid sleep.
“Not happenin’, babe,” he says, gritting his teeth.
With an effort, Dean turns away, almost stumbles over something on the floor. He bends down and picks up the book. It’s fallen open at the page he’d marked with the brown feather, and without thinking Dean shoves the book into his left pocket, the feather into his right, before he falls towards the door. He hears Fleur make an inarticulate sound of protest, but he doesn’t stop again until his hand is on the handle. He wrenches the door wide and cold air rushes in. It’s a refreshing slap in the face. He gulps in the fresh mountain air as if it’s water and he’s dying of thirst.
There’s an odd tearing noise from the room behind him, and he spins around in time to see Fleur dissipate. There’s no other word for it. Her blonde hair whips around her face while her pale flesh flakes into a myriad of pieces that whirl in a dizzying dance like cherry blossom in a storm. Their perfume is briefly overwhelming, cloying and sweet, and Dean covers his mouth, coughing. He half expects to find feathers in his hand, like the dream.
He should leave, all he has to do is take one step backwards, but his feet are rooted to the floor.
There’s a darkness growing in the centre of the swirl of pink that is all that is left of Fleur, and Dean thinks – I knew there was something off about her, Sammy – but still he doesn’t move. Can’t. He’s as frozen as the dagger-like icicles hanging from the eaves above his head, one hand clamped to his face, the other a fist round the brown feather deep inside his pocket, and that’s when he realizes that the Fleur-blossom is being transformed, petal by petal, into smoky brown feathers so dark they’re almost black. Even through the barrier of his own flesh he can smell something acrid and bitter. It’s enough to have him wish for the return of the flowery scent, girly and cloying though it was.
There’s a scratching and the sound of wood splintering, then the dark mass of feathers erupts. With a screech that hurts Dean’s ears whatever Fleur has become smashes into him, knocking him off his feet. He falls backwards, half ready to hit the ground rolling, except the ground never arrives. Something snatches him in midair, and he yells in shock as bands of steel lock tight around his chest and thigh. His stomach lurches as he’s yanked up into the freezing cold pre-dawn air. There’s a mighty flapping of wings that reminds him, briefly, of Castiel. Angel transport was never this fucking painful though, and he thinks he’ll stop complaining to Cas about the possibility of constipation – if he survives. He cries out again, this time in agony, when the thing’s grip tightens and its claws sink deep into his flesh, and his pain is echoed in another screech that tears through his head, bringing a merciful blackness with it.
::
When Dean comes to he wishes he hadn’t. A visceral vertigo kicks in even before the pain in his chest and leg. In the chill light of dawn he sees the wide splay of the landscape spread beneath him. There’s nothing between him and the ground far below but the icy wind. His stomach churns and he wishes he had something more substantial to hold onto than a fucking feather, its quill pricking into his palm where he’s hanging onto it in his left hand, which is still shoved deep into his jacket pocket. That hand is probably the only part of Dean that’s warm right now. He doesn’t move, fear freezing every muscle more effectively than the ice in the air.
“F—fuck, and I thought planes were bad,” he mutters, fighting the urge to throw up. Puking in midair will only make a terrifying situation even worse. He cranes his neck to look above at the creature that’s got him in its clutches and to carry him who knew where. If nothing else, it provides a distraction from the claws impaling him and the vast empty space between him and the bare ground.
Fleur – or whatever Fleur has become – is huge. From Dean’s too-close vantage point, it’s hard to get a true impression of her shape, other than it’s something bird-like. He has a close up view of her talons, unfortunately, and they are dark and smoky, and entirely too insubstantial for something that was supposed to be responsible for not fucking dropping him from a great height. It adds an additional intensity to Dean’s fear of falling that he could have done without.
Where the hell was she taking him? For that matter, where the hell were they?
Steeling himself, he looked down.
::::
Sam is becoming more self-aware. Flashes of a human life interrupt his concentration and twice today juicy prey has escaped his outstretched talons by inches when an alien compassion for his target forced a hesitation into his killing dive. It’s annoying.
He spirals higher and higher on a thermal, enjoying the sensations of the thinning air under his powerful wings. He’s not hungry, not really. He ate yesterday – a plump rabbit that had squealed when it died and had tasted all the better for it. This morning he is hunting for Lozen, even though she doesn’t eat much. Part of Sam knows that it’s not normal behavior for a wild eagle to live with a human like this, but it doesn’t matter. She’s his family now, and he’s a provider.
He’s intent, his focus on scanning the ground for movement that would signal food, so he’s not sure how long the strange dark mass approaching from the north has been visible when he finally notices it. It’s broadly owl-shaped, except that, even at a distance, Sam can see there’s something not right. It’s too large, for one – bigger than any owl Sam’s ever seen – bigger than any bird either, for that matter. It’s shifting and roiling like a forest in a high wind, a tortured movement that makes Sam want to regurgitate yesterday’s meat, even though he’s got no young to feed.
All his instincts scream at him to get away and he flexes his tail feathers in preparation to steer out of the creature’s path. But an invisible thread tugs at him, urging him north, setting him on a collision course with the dark owl.
As he draws closer, which happens faster than should be possible for two natural creatures, Sam sees that the strange owl isn’t solid flesh and blood like him. The abnormal motion is caused by the many particles that swirl and gyre like feathers made of campfire smoke. It’s disturbing to watch and Sam starts to spiral higher again, so he can outmaneuver the creature should he need to.
Then over the rush of the wind he hears it. A human voice crying out in pain.
Honing his hyper-focused vision, Sam spies a human form writhing beneath the shadow owl, held tight in its dark talons.
Sam knows that voice, that shape. Now he understands why he was drawn here.
With a shriek of rage, Sam dives, striking at the insubstantial smoky feathers with his own lethal talons outstretched before him.
::::
Dean’s eyes water from both the pain and from the wind whipping at his face, but he manages to spot a few landmarks in spite of that. He thinks they maybe some twenty or thirty miles south of that stupid town, and damn if that wasn’t a case of it living up to its name. Now he has a truth about Fleur all right, and is suffering the consequences. He huffs a laugh then tries and fails to choke back a full-on scream when the sound of his laugh causes Fleur to tighten her grip. He’d thought those claws piercing his flesh couldn’t hurt any more than they already did. He was wrong.
Caught up in fighting the sparks flashing across his vision, Dean is taken by surprise when the world explodes in a flurry of wild screeches and feathers.
Dean screams for real then, because Fleur is breaking apart and he’s falling, and it’s worse than the flying by a country mile and more. Her claws tear free and he plummets for a pant-wetting moment before she’s grabbing him again, ripping into his jacket and his arm so he’s swinging madly, legs flailing. He looks because he can’t help himself, and feels the blood draining from his face when he sees how close the ground is, how far he’d fallen before she’d caught him.
The ground below is a wide expanse of glistening white that doesn’t look quite right for snow, and they’ve left the high peaks behind. Fleur judders then banks in a wide swoop that brings Dean uncomfortably closer to the earth. Much as he longs to be on solid ground, he’d rather get there gently, and without losing his guts in the process.
The wild screeching is back, and this time Dean sees that their assailant is a golden eagle, just as it dive-bombs the shadow owl for a second time, with the same potentially lethal effect. Dean’s swinging back and forth, nothing but a rag doll being fought over by two screaming kids, and the world around him see-saws violently until he no longer knows which way is up. Dizzy with the motion and blood loss, mercifully he loses his grip on consciousness.
::::
The first thing Dean notices when he wakes is the quiet. A blessed stillness surrounds him, and even better, his back is pressed firmly into a solid if uncomfortably bumpy surface. His chest and his thigh are throbbing, but at least that means he’s still alive. All of which tells him that wherever he is, this isn’t the Empty, or Heaven, or Hell. He takes a cautious breath and relaxes another increment. The air is crisp and so cold that it sears his nostrils, but it’s clear of that metallic smell of old blood and decay that personified Purgatory.
Reassured, he opens his eyes to the arch of a cloudless blue sky, most of which is being blocked out by a very large, very naked Sam.
Sam is crouched just out of touching distance, his hair matted and sticking up every which way and there’s a fierce unfocussed look in his eyes. Even hunched over like this Sam somehow manages to loom over Dean, displacing all Dean’s air with his presence.
Dean’s previous trance-like state vanishes in an instant, and he tries to sit up. A mistake, as the movement jars his ribs and he can feel the warmth of fresh blood pushing out of the punctures in his chest. He chokes back a moan and leans back on his elbows, trying to remember how to breathe through the pain. A big warm hand slides in behind his arms, familiar and devastating. Dean allows himself a brief moment of weakness and let’s Sam hold his weight.
“Dean.”
Sam’s voice is a rough, broken sound but it’s the best thing Dean’s heard for days. There’s sparks in his vision, filling Sam with stars, even though the daylight is so bright it hurts Dean’s head. Sam smells weird, kind of musty and metallic, like old blood and old earth and birds. It reminds him of his wild flight with the shadowy owl-Fleur and Dean pulls away, fear filling him with an adrenaline rush. He doesn’t move far. Blood loss and pain hit him before he’s made it a hands breadth away, and the hurt expression on Sam’s face clinches it. Dean’s going nowhere.
“Dean,” Sam repeats, like it’s the only word he owns. Dean’s on his knees in front of Sam, reaching out and clutching his brother’s bare, dirty shoulder. His hand leaves a bloody smear as it trails down to what looks like a fresh puckered scar in Sam’s bicep that sets all Dean’s alarms ringing.
“Sammy, fuck, what the hell happened? Is that a bullet wound?”
“He was transformed into an eagle,” a woman’s voice says, making his heart lurch painfully. “A hunter shot him. You need to be patient with him now, he’s rediscovering how to be human.”
His first thought is that the woman is Fleur, somehow restored to her human shape, but the tone is lower, richer, and the accent is strange. A figure comes into view and this is not anything Dean expected. It’s a woman, it’s true, but she’s dressed like she just finished a day as an extra on Dances with Wolves. Her brown skin is smooth, stretched tight over wide cheekbones, but her dark hair is long and streaked with grey, which makes Dean raise his estimate of her age; as does the fact that, though her mouth is wide and generous, her face has a grim look, like she’s spent her life making hard choices.
Dean can relate.
It seems Sam remembers more than one word after all, because he says “Lozen”, then shuts down again. Apparently Sam’s using all his concentration to paw at Dean, because his concerned hands unerringly finding every one of Dean’s injuries, which means Dean’s concentration focuses on firstly not screaming, and secondly not passing out again. He fails on both counts.
Dean doesn’t think he’s out for long; when he opens his eyes the winter sun is still as high as it ever gets this time of year; but it’s been time enough for Sam and Lozen – if that’s the stranger’s name – to have built a small fire and have some sort of cooking pot on the go. Someone had also found Sam some clothes, presumably from the same place Lozen got her costume, if those buckskin breeches and short tunic are anything to go by. Dean has to admit, with Sam’s shaggy hair and high cheekbones, and with a bit more of a tan than he’s got now in the middle of winter, he’d make a passable Apache. Good enough for Hollywood, certainly.
Dean, on the other hand, has lost instead of gaining half of his clothing, and is now wearing his t-shirt in neat strips as makeshift bandages round his chest and thigh. He tries not to shiver, wishing the sun was stronger or the wind less biting.
“Man, I don’t know why I bother buying good jeans, they always end up monster chow.”
His muttered grumble brings Sam to his side, and Dean’s suddenly a whole lot warmer. He’s never going to admit it’s because of more than Sam’s body heat, when Sam gathers him up and helps him to sit. Sam doesn’t remove his arm and Dean pretends to ignore its comforting weight around his shoulder. Dean is pleasantly surprised when the movement to a sitting position merely causes a twinge instead of a whole set of hot pokers in his side. Free to breathe again, Dean finally has time to take in their surroundings and not-so-subtly check out the Lozen chick.
The landscape they’ve ended up in is simultaneously desolate and beautiful, and Dean recognizes it instantly, because he’s been here before. The White Sands in New Mexico is unmistakable, the rolling dunes of pure gypsum sand stretching out from horizon to horizon are pretty much unique.
Dean is struck by two realizations simultaneously. The first is a practical one. Now he’s fixed their location, he knows they are a good fifty miles or so (as the crow flies) from where he left his Baby. Which sucks, because he has no clue how they’re going to make it to civilization on foot. Especially with Sam not quite in his head and with Dean all banged up.
The second is that now he’s fully awake, he’s able to put the name to a face. This Lozen isn’t merely some random Apache chick, or even a random ghost – because, yeah, she’s definitely non corporeal even though she looks solid enough. There’s only one photograph of the famous sister of Chief Victorio, Lozen of the Chiricahua, and it’s not a great photo. It was taken some time after her brother Victorio had died, and after she and Geronimo were captured. The small group of Apache was being transported to Alabama to die, and Lozen was at the back with her face half turned away, but it’s enough for Dean to confirm her identity now. It might be some years since he’d geeked out over all things Apache, but Dean never forgets a face.
“So,” he says, playing it cool. “You’re ‘the’ Lozen, huh?” She looks up from stirring the pot and stares at him, her dark eyes glittering, and the whole nonchalant thing he’s cultivating flies right out on the breeze. He ignores Sam’s small huff of incredulity, because he just has to ask.
“I always wanted to know. The Battle of Hembrillo Basin – was it your plan to trap the Buffalo Soldiers like that? Because I read up on your brother - Victorio, right? He said you were cunning in strategy, so I always wondered how much of his success was down to you.”
Lozen doesn’t outright smile, but her face crinkles a little at the corners of her eyes when she shrugs. “It was a long time ago,” she says, dismissively.
“No kidding,” Dean says. “But it wasn’t far from here. Is that why you’re able to, you know,” he waves a hand vaguely, “manifest or whatever?”
“These are my lands, Killer of Enemies,” Lozen replies, and Dean feels Sam start, though Dean doesn’t understand the reference. Now she’s starting to sound like Castiel when he gets all angel-of-the-lordy. Lozen is looking over Dean’s shoulder at Sam when she speaks again. “I am the spirit of myself, but also the spirit of my people,” she explains. “I can roam wherever I wish within our ancestral lands. But you two are interesting. Interlopers, strangers, yet somehow you have a little of the land in you. I do not think it’s a coincidence that you found me on the slopes of the White Mountain, Sam Winchester. In you I could sense something of the Child of the Water, and now that I’ve met your brother I can see that I was right. You are not Apache, nor of the people from the earliest times, but something of the spirits of the White Painted Woman’s sons have found a home in you.”
She stands, and she’s got a couple of blankets in her hands that weren’t there a moment ago. Dean blinks and Lozen is right in front of them without having seemed to move, but before Dean can think of flinching, she’s throwing the blankets round their shoulders. The wool feels real enough; it’s warm from the fire and smells faintly of sage.
“You defend people from the monsters of this earth, and I honour you for that.”
Dean’s glad when Sam manages to croak out a garbled thank you, because Dean’s having a hard time getting his head round the idea that Lozen of the Chiricuah respects them. The Winchesters. Lozen steps back, and that’s when Dean notices a patch of darkness against the whiteness of the gypsum sand behind the fire; an insubstantial shadow whose shape wavers between an owl and a woman, as if it can’t decide between the two.
“Wait,” Dean finds his voice again, and points at the shadowy figure. His other hand is scrabbling for the silver knife he keeps in his boot and his heart is racing. “Is that what I think it is?”
It’s Sam who answers this time.
Sam’s hand covers his own, and gently pulls it away from the hilt of the knife. Keeping the blankets wrapped around them, Sam manoeuvres round so Dean can see his face. Dean barely manages to resist the urge to reach out and cup Sam’s angular cheek in his palm. Sam raises an eyebrow and his mouth quirks, so Dean quickly schools his expression into one of polite interest. It seems while Dean was out Sam’s rediscovered the speech centres in that big brain of his, and is ready to launch into Professor mode. If Dean weren’t so happy to have Sam back, he’d sigh at the thought of another lecture.
“Her name is Blodeuwedd. Or it was, once, a long time ago. Lozen’s been communicating with her,” Sam continues, “and it’s kind of a long story. For some reason I haven’t worked out yet, we got caught up in a very old tale of love and betrayal from the Mabinogion. Through Fleur, you and I were supposed to act out roles that should have ended up with you dying. I think. I’m not entirely sure which of us was meant to be in the role of Llew Llaw Gyffes and which was Gronwr Pebr.”
Dean tries to get his lips to form just one of those unpronounceable names and fails.
“That damn book,” Dean says, patting his pocket and coming up empty. He wondered whether it got shredded when his jacket was mauled by the shadow owl. “The Mabbynoggy-whatever. I just knew it had something to do with this.”
“There was a book?” Sam asks, then moves on quickly at the bemused look on Dean’s face.
“Never mind, you can tell me everything later. For now the important thing is that the story didn’t exactly replay here like it did back in ancient Wales. I did get turned into an eagle, like Llew, which is how Lozen found me, but while Fleur went dark with you, the whole murder and adultery part of the story never happened. As far as I can work out, Blodeuwedd should now be free to choose her path. Nobody’s dead, right? So this is fixable.”
Dean bites back a caustic comment on the state of his leg and ribs, not to mention the fact they are stranded in the middle of fucking nowhere with a ghost warrior of the Apache on one side and a schizophrenic Welsh spirit on the other. He shies away from how close they’d come to realising the adultery part - kind of. Would it be adultery if one ofthe participants wasn't actually married, or even human?
Dean watches Blodeuwedd (and to think he’d thought Fleur de Fleurs was a stupid name) out of the corner of his eye. Her smoky figure is still fluctuating between woman and bird, but she’s not making any threatening moves. Dean remains unconvinced. “Help me up,” he demands, and Sam reluctantly gives him a shoulder to lean on. Dean sways, lightheaded with blood loss, but immediately feels better being on his feet. The dizziness passes quickly enough, and he’s ready for anything. Kind of.
“Okay, so nobody died. Yet. I’ll give you that one. What’s supposed to happen next? And how are we going to get back to my car?”
“I think I can help you to return to your transportation,” Lozen says. Dean raises a sceptical eyebrow.
“With all due respect, but how’re you going to do that? You’re no angel.”
Lozen moves closer so she’s almost nose to chest with Dean. He hadn’t realised how short she was, but he quickly forgets the size difference when she fixes him in her gleaming dark gaze. Suddenly feeling like a four year old caught saying a rude word, Dean swallows heavily. Lozen tilts her head as if listening to Dean’s thoughts, just like Castiel did sometimes. It was disconcerting.
“Your angels are interesting creatures,” she observes, and Dean realises she really was listening. Or picking up his thoughts, anyway. “But no, you are right, I am nothing like them. But I can move across this land with the same kind of freedom, and I see no reason why I can’t take you with me.”
Unlike angel transport, Lozen doesn’t touch either of them, but while she’s talking, there’s a kind of rushing noise in Dean’s head, like waves on a pebble beach, and between one blink and the next, they are no longer standing on the shifting white sands. Sam tightens his grip round Dean’s shoulders and Dean is glad of the support, though of course he’d never admit it out loud.
“Impressive,” he acknowledges, playing for time while his stomach settles and he regains his balance. They are on the side of the road, across from the motel in Truth and Consequences, and though the lowering sun is casting long shadows from the hills across his vision, nothing can hide the dusty gleam of his baby, safely parked up where he left her. With Sam by his side and the Impala, Dean feels stronger already. There’s just one loose end.
“But what about Blod—u—Fleur? She’s still dangerous, right? Could still go all dark side, evil owl on us.”
“I think Lozen can handle Blodeuwedd,” Sam says, a smile in his voice that warms Dean’s heart.
Lozen nods. “I will offer her the choice she never had the first time. She can decide for herself, without men manipulating her – light or dark, the flower or the owl. If she choses the flower, she will undertake the Sunrise Ceremony, and prove her worth. ”
“And if she chooses the owl?” Sam asks, before Dean can open his mouth, though he was wondering the same thing. Lozen takes a step back, and Dean blinks. His vision isn’t failing, Lozen really is starting to look faded. It’s as if the colour is leaching out of her, leaving only the colours of the surrounding landscape.
“If she chooses the owl, then one day you’ll hunt her, you brothers, together. You hold in your hearts a piece of the spirits of the Child of Water and the Killer of Enemies; you know what you have to do,” Lozen says. “Protect the people, and I and my ancestors will protect the land.”
Even as she’s uttering her last words she’s fading into nothingness until the sound of her voice is the only thing that remains. Dean glances at Sam’s face. His brother’s expression has too much of that little boy lost going on, it make’s Dean’s heart hurt worse than his injuries. He gives Sam a light shove and get’s an irritated glare as his reward. Dean grins. That’s more like it.
“Child of Water, huh? Well, come on then, Aqua Man. This motel has good mattresses and I think they serve pie in the diner.”
If all Dean is left with is an echo of the past and Sam, a solid presence by his side, he’s content. All in all, Dean will take this as a win.
Author's note:
For those of you who aren't familiar with the story of Blodeuwedd, my apologies! You can read a version here. Some versions make Blodeuwedd is a goddess, but I think in most tellings, she's more human than divine or powerful. Albeit a human who was created with one purpose, to be wife to a man. She has no choice in the matter, which is why the myth is fascinating, because even though she's a construct, she falls in love with a different man. Because this is a Dean centric story, my Fleur remains a mysterious agent rather than a character in her own right. I don't dip into her head in this fic, though it would have been nice to have made this longer and done that.
However, if you want to read a pretty awesome retelling of her story, try Alan Garner's The Owl Service. It's a kid's book but is excellently spooky, and you'll recognise the scratching elements I borrowed...
::::
Dean’s flying but this isn’t like being in a plane. There’s no fear, no worry about being thousands of feet in the air and not being in control. Laid out below he can see the straight grey lines of roads start to twist and turn as they meet the mountains. There’s the white of snow overlaying the dark green of pine forests and he swoops lower. He’s drifting southwards and the sun is lowering on the horizon.
His belly is empty, and he’s hunting – for food, not monsters – and it feels good. Free. Right.
He hones in on movement on the ground, a mountain cottontail that’s hopping from tussock to tussock in herbivorous oblivion to the threat from above. It’s a small creature, but he’s so hungry… He flies lower, all his attention focussed on the cottontail, and he pays for that lack of wariness when a gunshot rings out and a searing burn cuts into his left side.
Dean wakes with a shout, clutching his ribs and checking for blood - but of course, there’s nothing there except the damn book, still in his inside jacket pocket. The hard corner has been digging into his side; it’s even left a mark between two ribs. Dean rubs absently at the triangular dent, running through the vivid images from his dream with a growing excitement.
Dean knows where he’s going to head next to search for Sam. Because he’d recognised that landscape from years of studying road atlases, and why else would he dream so vividly about those particular mountains that formed the southernmost part of the Rockies?
He cleans his teeth hurriedly and splashes cold water on his face before grabbing the Impala’s keys and the duffel he keeps packed in readiness, just in case. He heads to the garage, not quite running, but striding fast. Sam’s door opens as he passes and Fleur comes out, but Dean doesn’t slow or stop.
“Dean! Wait!”
He doesn’t wait, but he doesn’t tell her to go back when he hears her shoes click-clicking on the stone floors behind him. Outside the bunker, he waits in silence in the Impala with the engine running, staring straight ahead, resigned to the inevitable. The passenger door opens and Fleur slides into Sam’s seat. Her breathing is rapid and her flowery scent has undercurrents of fresh sweat from chasing him through the bunker, and he’s half expecting her to yell at him. She doesn’t.
“Did you have the dream too?” She asks, instead. He doesn’t say anything but his fingers tighten their grip on the steering wheel and he guns Baby’s engine. “I was flying west,” Fleur elaborates, “the sun was behind me. But I think someone shot me just before I woke.”
Dean shivers and turns up the heat. What? Kansas is bitter in December, that’s all.
“Colorado,” he says, swallows hard past the lump in his throat. He doesn’t want to say it. Doesn’t want to say anything, but the words force their way out. “That was Colorado we saw.” Then he shoves in a tape – Metallica, loud – always an effective way to stop any attempts at conversation.
They get onto the I-70 and drive due west. Dean makes Colorado Springs in just over five hours, but after they turn the Impala’s nose to the south he’s forced to slow down, because from here on, they have to check for signs of Sam. Dean doesn’t have the first idea how to track a Sam who appears to be able to fly, but he’d hate to miss something. Maybe Sam would leave him a sign.
They carry on heading south for a couple of hours past Albuquerque without spotting much civilisation to speak of, just lots of pale desert punctuated with rocks and scrub, and glimpses of patchy snow covering the hills in the distance. After dark falls there isn’t even that view to keep Dean entertained, and Fleur’s supply of not-very-interesting anecdotes dried up hours ago, setting with the sun. He doesn’t play his tapes but has the radio on low, not really listening as the waves flip from one local station to the next as they move south.
Dean stomach rumbles loudly right about the time they hit the outskirts of a town called Truth or Consequences. Dean rolls his eyes at the threat (or promise) of the name, then sighs with relief when he spots a pink neon sign announcing an old fashioned diner across the road. He pulls up close to the entrance and gets out of the car, his joints creaking almost as loud as the old Chevy’s doors. Maybe he should have taken a break three or four hours back, but he didn’t want to stop when there was still no sign of Sam.
“How would Sam have got anywhere, though?” Fleur asks out of the blue, as if she’s continuing an unheard conversation. Her smooth brow furrows slightly between her eyes. Dean blinks. For a second when the low sunlight had struck them, they’d looked golden instead of blue.
Dean runs a hand over his face, his palm rasping over stubble. He probably looks like hell. He certainly feels like hell. He can’t get his head round the idea of Sam flying. It’s too impossible. Too disturbingly angelic. A thought of calling Castiel for help crosses his mind and is gone without a trace when Fleur continues, oblivious to Dean’s struggles to think straight.
“Because we know he didn’t take any supplies when he left Lebanon, right?” she says. “And you already checked the bus terminus.”
“Sam’s resourceful. He’d have gotten winter gear from somewhere and probably hot wired a car. If you want to make yourself useful, get on your cell’s wifi working and hack into the police database. See if you can find any old lady cars being lifted in the last day or so.”
Fleur has her phone in her hand but doesn’t seem inclined to do anything with it apart from waving it around.
“Hack into a database? I can’t…” she squeaks. Dean almost growls as he snatches it out of her hand, dialling back his rage a little when a middle-aged woman walking by gives him the side-eye. He’s being a jerk, and knows it but – Sam’s missing. His giant little brother is missing and could be hurt, and though there’s nothing natural about this whole mess, Dean is floundering. It’s terrifying the life out of him that there seems to be nothing but a few weird dreams to rely on in order to find Sam. For all their years of experience, this was like no monster Dean has ever heard of.
Fuck but he misses Bobby at times like these most of all. Not just for his friendship and freaky encyclopaedic knowledge, but for his no-nonsense approach to problems.
“Right, yeah, I’m sorry,” he mumbles. “Look, let’s go grab something to eat and I’ll show you how to check the databases.”
A burger and fries help settle Dean a little. Finished, he pushes his empty plate away and closes his eyes, leaving Fleur struggling with the 4G on her phone. In his minds-eye, he plays back the landscape of the dream, frame by frame like a video. Where had they finished up before the pain hit? He follows his mind-map of roads from Colorado Springs, tracking the dream south until he is somewhere beyond Albuquerque, but that’s as far as it goes. They’re already some miles off the dream grid and Dean is fresh out of ideas.
Dean opens his eyes, then frowns.
“I thought you only eat rabbit food,” he said. He stares at Fleur, so many alarm bells ringing he’s surprised the proprietor doesn’t evacuate the diner.
She’s eating a bloody steak. Must have been tucking into it for a while and he’s been too out of it to notice until now. When she looks up at him, all wide-eyed innocence, his hand goes for his gun. He levels it under the table, wary of the low hum of chatter from other customers, but never taking his gaze off her. Fleur’s eyes are definitely not blue any more. Even with her back to the window they glow orange as a setting sun.
“What are you?” he hisses. Those eyes aren’t like any demon he’s familiar with, but then he never claimed to know everything about demons, even after Hell.
“Dean,” Fleur says, soft and concerned. “What’s wrong? I thought you’d approve of me eating meat, like you do.” She blinks real slowly, her eye lashes dark against her pale skin, and when she looks up at Dean her eyes are blue again, as if they’ve never been anything else. “I guess being vegetarian was just a phase. Sam liked it,” she adds, thoughtful, and Dean finds his shoulders relaxing, almost against his will. He slips his gun back into his waistband and doesn’t say anything when Fleur suggests it’s time to leave. He just pays the check with a couple of twenties and heads out without questioning, because that was the direction he’d wanted to head anyhow.
They don’t get far. They’re only a hundred yards down Truth or Consequences’ main drag when Dean checks the dial and realises they are in dire need of gas. The gas station is opposite a casino, and has a grand sign saying it’s also Visitor’s Centre for the Pueblo. Sure enough the shop is full of glass ornaments and dream catchers, but it also smells like patchouli, which is just weird. Maybe they get a lot of hippy gamblers over the road. Dean pays for gas with Duff McKagan’s credit card, throwing in some bags of corn chips, a large bottle of Pueblo corn whiskey and a couple of muffins made with (of course) corn flour and sumac berries, but they look pretty tasty all the same.
He walks outside and nearly hyperventilates to see Fleur in the Impala’s driving seat, but she’s getting out even as he trots over, and he sees she’s just parked his Baby at the motel attached to the gas station.
“I thought we should stop for the night,” she says, and Dean thinks about arguing, so he does.
“I can drive through the night,” he protests, though part of him is craving that motel bed so bad it almost hurts. He doesn’t have the stamina he’d had when he was twenty and could drive for days with only an hour’s sleep snatched on the roadside, stretched out on the back seat.
“Where to?” Fleur asks, throwing her hands out wide, and yeah. She has a point. They’re already flying blind, the dream directions petered out, and he doesn’t have a clue where to go next. Somehow, in spite of that possible injury that had woken him, Dean doesn’t feel like the dream should have ended in that forest near Albuquerque. Maybe Fleur is right. They should rest and see what the night brings. Maybe he should go back to the shop and buy one of those touristy dream catchers, since the one he’d used hang in the Impala’s trunk had been lost.
The more he thinks about it, the more obvious it seems that they need to sleep and get a fresh dream to follow. He trails after Fleur into the motel to check in.
There’s only one room available, and of course it’s a queen.
“There’s a three night special event on at the Red Mesa Casino,” the desk clerk shrugs, sloe-dark eyes tracking from Dean to Fleur and back again, with an expression that clearly says what’re you griping about, dude? She’s a doll! The room’s keychain is a wooden coyote and Dean hopes that isn’t significant. The last thing he needs is to tangle with another Trickster.
::::
Never let it be said that Dean doesn’t know how to be a gentleman. He offers Fleur first use of the bathroom while he sets about supernatural-proofing the room. He hesitates a moment before finishing salting the doors and windows – he doesn’t want to block the dreaming, after all. Then he figures that if the dreams could penetrate the bunker with all its state of the art defences, a few runes and some salt is unlikely to have much of a dampening effect. Fleur interrupts his ruminations, emerging from the bathroom wrapped in a large white towel and a fragrant cloud of steam.
Her hair is dark gold when wet, and her skin is creamy-pale. Dean wrenches his gaze away and brushes past her, slamming and locking the bathroom door. He absolutely does not jerk off in the shower with Fleur’s fragrance heavy in the damp bathroom air and a headful of thoughts about running his hands over those smooth shoulders. He definitely doesn’t stare when he comes back into their room and finds Fleur sitting up in the queen bed dressed in a nightgown made of some sheer fabric that does nothing to conceal the rosy pink aureoles of her nipples or the sweet curve of her small breasts.
He’s thankful he’d remembered not to just wander back out there in a towel, or naked, like he would’ve with Sam. Even though he’s fully clothed, somehow Fleur is making him feel stripped bare.
“I’ll just—” he gestures aimlessly at the floor, and makes a blind grab for a pillow and spare blanket. He isn’t quick enough and Fleur’s cool hand grasps his wrist. He grunts in surprise at the strength of her grip.
“Dean,” she says, her tone calm and reasonable, as if Dean’s behaving like a naughty child. “The bed’s plenty big enough for the two of us. There’s no need for you to sleep on the floor.”
Dean shakes his head and turns away to throw the pillow on the floor, but he turns back when Fleur asks him again, softer this time, less demanding.
“You can lie on top of the covers, see? There’s nothing to worry about. I won’t molest you.”
This time when he looks she’s got the comforter up round her neck, and her expression is as demure as any nun, and now he’s wondering what he was making a fuss about. He turns off the main light and lies down next to Fleur, who smiles and switches off the bedside lamp, plunging the room into a cozy darkness. Dean turns on his side and is asleep in an instant, before he’s even had time to reinforce his hope for another meaningful dream.
::::
The eagle has a name - Sam. The human tells the eagle this and he accepts it. It feels right. The woman is called Lozen. She talks to him, and Sam understands enough to be curious. He’s grateful too. He’s aware that Lozen healed him, took the pain away. So he stays on the mountain with her. Some days he will fly for miles, until the mountain is small in the distance, be he always returns. To observe, to listen, to learn.
Spending time with Lozen, Sam notices that humans focus a lot on sight, and on what they hear, but Sam does more than just see in this body. Taste in particular is vibrant, earthy, and full of life. Whether it is life ending or life still full of the living of it – with hearts beating with strong vibrations, the blood rushing through veins so powerfully it’s almost audible - or gushing from a carotid artery under his lethal claws, flesh tearing, sending vital juices down his throat. Sam remembers the taste of blood from before, but this is different. This is purer, life-giving and natural, and in some ways, Sam feels cleaner, after.
It takes Sam a little while to realize that while he might be able to spot prey nearly two miles away with a laser focus any sniper would envy, he can’t smell much of anything. The only way he knows Lozen has a fire going to cook the meat he brings for her is from the warmth of the flames, their colour and the sight from afar of the wood smoke. He adds the lack to the persistent emptiness inside him, because he thinks he might pine for some scents if he could only remember why.
He hunts for the human, and for himself. He remembers that too. Hunting. Though he doesn’t think the hunting he used to do was like this. He starts to wonder what else he doesn’t remember. Sometimes he perches on Lozen’s arm, careful not to dig his knife-like claws in, and she offers to walk with him, inside his head.
He refuses. Angry. Afraid. Sometimes he bates; sometimes he launches into the air and flies away.
::::
Dean’s dreams are confused and nonsensical. He fights his way through a tangle of wild flowers but never finds the meadow from the other dream. He coughs and when he pulls his hand away from covering his mouth it’s full of brown-barred feathers. He chokes and splutters and more feathers puff out of his mouth.
He’s frustrated even while he’s still trapped in sleep, waiting for another view of the mountains and the next part of the road map to Sam that never comes. The only consistent image is brief glimpses of a campfire and a broad-faced woman with long dark hair streaked with grey, whose dark eyes glitter in the light of the flames. Dean thinks maybe this means something, but when he tries to hang onto the scene it dissolves into black smoke and flies away. As the dark cloud moves he sees that it’s made up of thousands of owls. He wants to look closer, but vines tangle round his feet, holding him down, and the powerful scent of meadowsweet lulls him to sleep within the dream.
He drags himself awake with a struggle, disorientated and uncomfortably half hard in his jeans. It takes him a second to focus and notice his fly is wide open. Fleur’s hand is inside his boxers, her warm fingers teasing his cock with soft tugs and strokes. The air is filled with a heady perfume, something soporific and soothing that he’s too sleepy to identify. He closes his eyes, enjoying a strange mixture of calm and stimulation, listening to Sam’s girlfriend humming as she gets him fully hard.
Wait a goddamned minute. His brother’s girlfriend is jerking him off.
“Holy shit, what the fuck?” Dean’s eye fly open and he rolls off the bed, grabbing at his opened jeans with one hand and pushing Fleur away with the other. He isn’t gentle about it, and she nearly follows him onto the floor. He stands and shoves his unruly cock back down into his boxers then fastens his pants as best he can, glaring at Fleur all the while.
She hasn’t said a word, and doesn’t look even vaguely embarrassed. Instead she’s crawling back towards him across the rumpled coverlet, her eyes huge and shadowed, her pale cheeks flushed. She’s moving with the sinuous grace of a porn star, and if she had been anyone other than Sam’s girl, Dean wouldn’t have blamed his dick for standing to attention. She was young and sexy and naked – oh fuck – her small breasts brushing the covers, her rosy nipples hard, the curve of her back down to that sweetly rounded ass just calling Dean to reach out and touch.
He staggers backwards instead.
“What the hell are you doing, Fleur?” he croaks, then swallowed, ashamed of the way his voice is refusing to cooperate.
She rises up onto her knees, still on the bed, so Dean’s almost eye to eye with her breasts. Normally he’d enjoy a view like this, but now he tears his gaze away. It isn’t easy to look away, the thickness of the air and the throbbing in his groin making it hard to hang onto his resolve. She stretches out a hand and he takes a reluctant step towards her, as if she’s reeling him in on a line.
“Want you, Dean,” she says in a sing-song voice which makes her sound as drugged as he feels. The floral aroma filling the air intensifies, and among the mixture Dean thinks he recognizes lavender, chamomile, maybe the smoky scent of jasmine. A tiny voice inside his head helpfully informs him that these are all plants known to aid sleep.
“Not happenin’, babe,” he says, gritting his teeth.
With an effort, Dean turns away, almost stumbles over something on the floor. He bends down and picks up the book. It’s fallen open at the page he’d marked with the brown feather, and without thinking Dean shoves the book into his left pocket, the feather into his right, before he falls towards the door. He hears Fleur make an inarticulate sound of protest, but he doesn’t stop again until his hand is on the handle. He wrenches the door wide and cold air rushes in. It’s a refreshing slap in the face. He gulps in the fresh mountain air as if it’s water and he’s dying of thirst.
There’s an odd tearing noise from the room behind him, and he spins around in time to see Fleur dissipate. There’s no other word for it. Her blonde hair whips around her face while her pale flesh flakes into a myriad of pieces that whirl in a dizzying dance like cherry blossom in a storm. Their perfume is briefly overwhelming, cloying and sweet, and Dean covers his mouth, coughing. He half expects to find feathers in his hand, like the dream.
He should leave, all he has to do is take one step backwards, but his feet are rooted to the floor.
There’s a darkness growing in the centre of the swirl of pink that is all that is left of Fleur, and Dean thinks – I knew there was something off about her, Sammy – but still he doesn’t move. Can’t. He’s as frozen as the dagger-like icicles hanging from the eaves above his head, one hand clamped to his face, the other a fist round the brown feather deep inside his pocket, and that’s when he realizes that the Fleur-blossom is being transformed, petal by petal, into smoky brown feathers so dark they’re almost black. Even through the barrier of his own flesh he can smell something acrid and bitter. It’s enough to have him wish for the return of the flowery scent, girly and cloying though it was.
There’s a scratching and the sound of wood splintering, then the dark mass of feathers erupts. With a screech that hurts Dean’s ears whatever Fleur has become smashes into him, knocking him off his feet. He falls backwards, half ready to hit the ground rolling, except the ground never arrives. Something snatches him in midair, and he yells in shock as bands of steel lock tight around his chest and thigh. His stomach lurches as he’s yanked up into the freezing cold pre-dawn air. There’s a mighty flapping of wings that reminds him, briefly, of Castiel. Angel transport was never this fucking painful though, and he thinks he’ll stop complaining to Cas about the possibility of constipation – if he survives. He cries out again, this time in agony, when the thing’s grip tightens and its claws sink deep into his flesh, and his pain is echoed in another screech that tears through his head, bringing a merciful blackness with it.
::
When Dean comes to he wishes he hadn’t. A visceral vertigo kicks in even before the pain in his chest and leg. In the chill light of dawn he sees the wide splay of the landscape spread beneath him. There’s nothing between him and the ground far below but the icy wind. His stomach churns and he wishes he had something more substantial to hold onto than a fucking feather, its quill pricking into his palm where he’s hanging onto it in his left hand, which is still shoved deep into his jacket pocket. That hand is probably the only part of Dean that’s warm right now. He doesn’t move, fear freezing every muscle more effectively than the ice in the air.
“F—fuck, and I thought planes were bad,” he mutters, fighting the urge to throw up. Puking in midair will only make a terrifying situation even worse. He cranes his neck to look above at the creature that’s got him in its clutches and to carry him who knew where. If nothing else, it provides a distraction from the claws impaling him and the vast empty space between him and the bare ground.
Fleur – or whatever Fleur has become – is huge. From Dean’s too-close vantage point, it’s hard to get a true impression of her shape, other than it’s something bird-like. He has a close up view of her talons, unfortunately, and they are dark and smoky, and entirely too insubstantial for something that was supposed to be responsible for not fucking dropping him from a great height. It adds an additional intensity to Dean’s fear of falling that he could have done without.
Where the hell was she taking him? For that matter, where the hell were they?
Steeling himself, he looked down.
::::
Sam is becoming more self-aware. Flashes of a human life interrupt his concentration and twice today juicy prey has escaped his outstretched talons by inches when an alien compassion for his target forced a hesitation into his killing dive. It’s annoying.
He spirals higher and higher on a thermal, enjoying the sensations of the thinning air under his powerful wings. He’s not hungry, not really. He ate yesterday – a plump rabbit that had squealed when it died and had tasted all the better for it. This morning he is hunting for Lozen, even though she doesn’t eat much. Part of Sam knows that it’s not normal behavior for a wild eagle to live with a human like this, but it doesn’t matter. She’s his family now, and he’s a provider.
He’s intent, his focus on scanning the ground for movement that would signal food, so he’s not sure how long the strange dark mass approaching from the north has been visible when he finally notices it. It’s broadly owl-shaped, except that, even at a distance, Sam can see there’s something not right. It’s too large, for one – bigger than any owl Sam’s ever seen – bigger than any bird either, for that matter. It’s shifting and roiling like a forest in a high wind, a tortured movement that makes Sam want to regurgitate yesterday’s meat, even though he’s got no young to feed.
All his instincts scream at him to get away and he flexes his tail feathers in preparation to steer out of the creature’s path. But an invisible thread tugs at him, urging him north, setting him on a collision course with the dark owl.
As he draws closer, which happens faster than should be possible for two natural creatures, Sam sees that the strange owl isn’t solid flesh and blood like him. The abnormal motion is caused by the many particles that swirl and gyre like feathers made of campfire smoke. It’s disturbing to watch and Sam starts to spiral higher again, so he can outmaneuver the creature should he need to.
Then over the rush of the wind he hears it. A human voice crying out in pain.
Honing his hyper-focused vision, Sam spies a human form writhing beneath the shadow owl, held tight in its dark talons.
Sam knows that voice, that shape. Now he understands why he was drawn here.
With a shriek of rage, Sam dives, striking at the insubstantial smoky feathers with his own lethal talons outstretched before him.
::::
Dean’s eyes water from both the pain and from the wind whipping at his face, but he manages to spot a few landmarks in spite of that. He thinks they maybe some twenty or thirty miles south of that stupid town, and damn if that wasn’t a case of it living up to its name. Now he has a truth about Fleur all right, and is suffering the consequences. He huffs a laugh then tries and fails to choke back a full-on scream when the sound of his laugh causes Fleur to tighten her grip. He’d thought those claws piercing his flesh couldn’t hurt any more than they already did. He was wrong.
Caught up in fighting the sparks flashing across his vision, Dean is taken by surprise when the world explodes in a flurry of wild screeches and feathers.
Dean screams for real then, because Fleur is breaking apart and he’s falling, and it’s worse than the flying by a country mile and more. Her claws tear free and he plummets for a pant-wetting moment before she’s grabbing him again, ripping into his jacket and his arm so he’s swinging madly, legs flailing. He looks because he can’t help himself, and feels the blood draining from his face when he sees how close the ground is, how far he’d fallen before she’d caught him.
The ground below is a wide expanse of glistening white that doesn’t look quite right for snow, and they’ve left the high peaks behind. Fleur judders then banks in a wide swoop that brings Dean uncomfortably closer to the earth. Much as he longs to be on solid ground, he’d rather get there gently, and without losing his guts in the process.
The wild screeching is back, and this time Dean sees that their assailant is a golden eagle, just as it dive-bombs the shadow owl for a second time, with the same potentially lethal effect. Dean’s swinging back and forth, nothing but a rag doll being fought over by two screaming kids, and the world around him see-saws violently until he no longer knows which way is up. Dizzy with the motion and blood loss, mercifully he loses his grip on consciousness.
::::
The first thing Dean notices when he wakes is the quiet. A blessed stillness surrounds him, and even better, his back is pressed firmly into a solid if uncomfortably bumpy surface. His chest and his thigh are throbbing, but at least that means he’s still alive. All of which tells him that wherever he is, this isn’t the Empty, or Heaven, or Hell. He takes a cautious breath and relaxes another increment. The air is crisp and so cold that it sears his nostrils, but it’s clear of that metallic smell of old blood and decay that personified Purgatory.
Reassured, he opens his eyes to the arch of a cloudless blue sky, most of which is being blocked out by a very large, very naked Sam.
Sam is crouched just out of touching distance, his hair matted and sticking up every which way and there’s a fierce unfocussed look in his eyes. Even hunched over like this Sam somehow manages to loom over Dean, displacing all Dean’s air with his presence.
Dean’s previous trance-like state vanishes in an instant, and he tries to sit up. A mistake, as the movement jars his ribs and he can feel the warmth of fresh blood pushing out of the punctures in his chest. He chokes back a moan and leans back on his elbows, trying to remember how to breathe through the pain. A big warm hand slides in behind his arms, familiar and devastating. Dean allows himself a brief moment of weakness and let’s Sam hold his weight.
“Dean.”
Sam’s voice is a rough, broken sound but it’s the best thing Dean’s heard for days. There’s sparks in his vision, filling Sam with stars, even though the daylight is so bright it hurts Dean’s head. Sam smells weird, kind of musty and metallic, like old blood and old earth and birds. It reminds him of his wild flight with the shadowy owl-Fleur and Dean pulls away, fear filling him with an adrenaline rush. He doesn’t move far. Blood loss and pain hit him before he’s made it a hands breadth away, and the hurt expression on Sam’s face clinches it. Dean’s going nowhere.
“Dean,” Sam repeats, like it’s the only word he owns. Dean’s on his knees in front of Sam, reaching out and clutching his brother’s bare, dirty shoulder. His hand leaves a bloody smear as it trails down to what looks like a fresh puckered scar in Sam’s bicep that sets all Dean’s alarms ringing.
“Sammy, fuck, what the hell happened? Is that a bullet wound?”
“He was transformed into an eagle,” a woman’s voice says, making his heart lurch painfully. “A hunter shot him. You need to be patient with him now, he’s rediscovering how to be human.”
His first thought is that the woman is Fleur, somehow restored to her human shape, but the tone is lower, richer, and the accent is strange. A figure comes into view and this is not anything Dean expected. It’s a woman, it’s true, but she’s dressed like she just finished a day as an extra on Dances with Wolves. Her brown skin is smooth, stretched tight over wide cheekbones, but her dark hair is long and streaked with grey, which makes Dean raise his estimate of her age; as does the fact that, though her mouth is wide and generous, her face has a grim look, like she’s spent her life making hard choices.
Dean can relate.
It seems Sam remembers more than one word after all, because he says “Lozen”, then shuts down again. Apparently Sam’s using all his concentration to paw at Dean, because his concerned hands unerringly finding every one of Dean’s injuries, which means Dean’s concentration focuses on firstly not screaming, and secondly not passing out again. He fails on both counts.
Dean doesn’t think he’s out for long; when he opens his eyes the winter sun is still as high as it ever gets this time of year; but it’s been time enough for Sam and Lozen – if that’s the stranger’s name – to have built a small fire and have some sort of cooking pot on the go. Someone had also found Sam some clothes, presumably from the same place Lozen got her costume, if those buckskin breeches and short tunic are anything to go by. Dean has to admit, with Sam’s shaggy hair and high cheekbones, and with a bit more of a tan than he’s got now in the middle of winter, he’d make a passable Apache. Good enough for Hollywood, certainly.
Dean, on the other hand, has lost instead of gaining half of his clothing, and is now wearing his t-shirt in neat strips as makeshift bandages round his chest and thigh. He tries not to shiver, wishing the sun was stronger or the wind less biting.
“Man, I don’t know why I bother buying good jeans, they always end up monster chow.”
His muttered grumble brings Sam to his side, and Dean’s suddenly a whole lot warmer. He’s never going to admit it’s because of more than Sam’s body heat, when Sam gathers him up and helps him to sit. Sam doesn’t remove his arm and Dean pretends to ignore its comforting weight around his shoulder. Dean is pleasantly surprised when the movement to a sitting position merely causes a twinge instead of a whole set of hot pokers in his side. Free to breathe again, Dean finally has time to take in their surroundings and not-so-subtly check out the Lozen chick.
The landscape they’ve ended up in is simultaneously desolate and beautiful, and Dean recognizes it instantly, because he’s been here before. The White Sands in New Mexico is unmistakable, the rolling dunes of pure gypsum sand stretching out from horizon to horizon are pretty much unique.
Dean is struck by two realizations simultaneously. The first is a practical one. Now he’s fixed their location, he knows they are a good fifty miles or so (as the crow flies) from where he left his Baby. Which sucks, because he has no clue how they’re going to make it to civilization on foot. Especially with Sam not quite in his head and with Dean all banged up.
The second is that now he’s fully awake, he’s able to put the name to a face. This Lozen isn’t merely some random Apache chick, or even a random ghost – because, yeah, she’s definitely non corporeal even though she looks solid enough. There’s only one photograph of the famous sister of Chief Victorio, Lozen of the Chiricahua, and it’s not a great photo. It was taken some time after her brother Victorio had died, and after she and Geronimo were captured. The small group of Apache was being transported to Alabama to die, and Lozen was at the back with her face half turned away, but it’s enough for Dean to confirm her identity now. It might be some years since he’d geeked out over all things Apache, but Dean never forgets a face.
“So,” he says, playing it cool. “You’re ‘the’ Lozen, huh?” She looks up from stirring the pot and stares at him, her dark eyes glittering, and the whole nonchalant thing he’s cultivating flies right out on the breeze. He ignores Sam’s small huff of incredulity, because he just has to ask.
“I always wanted to know. The Battle of Hembrillo Basin – was it your plan to trap the Buffalo Soldiers like that? Because I read up on your brother - Victorio, right? He said you were cunning in strategy, so I always wondered how much of his success was down to you.”
Lozen doesn’t outright smile, but her face crinkles a little at the corners of her eyes when she shrugs. “It was a long time ago,” she says, dismissively.
“No kidding,” Dean says. “But it wasn’t far from here. Is that why you’re able to, you know,” he waves a hand vaguely, “manifest or whatever?”
“These are my lands, Killer of Enemies,” Lozen replies, and Dean feels Sam start, though Dean doesn’t understand the reference. Now she’s starting to sound like Castiel when he gets all angel-of-the-lordy. Lozen is looking over Dean’s shoulder at Sam when she speaks again. “I am the spirit of myself, but also the spirit of my people,” she explains. “I can roam wherever I wish within our ancestral lands. But you two are interesting. Interlopers, strangers, yet somehow you have a little of the land in you. I do not think it’s a coincidence that you found me on the slopes of the White Mountain, Sam Winchester. In you I could sense something of the Child of the Water, and now that I’ve met your brother I can see that I was right. You are not Apache, nor of the people from the earliest times, but something of the spirits of the White Painted Woman’s sons have found a home in you.”
She stands, and she’s got a couple of blankets in her hands that weren’t there a moment ago. Dean blinks and Lozen is right in front of them without having seemed to move, but before Dean can think of flinching, she’s throwing the blankets round their shoulders. The wool feels real enough; it’s warm from the fire and smells faintly of sage.
“You defend people from the monsters of this earth, and I honour you for that.”
Dean’s glad when Sam manages to croak out a garbled thank you, because Dean’s having a hard time getting his head round the idea that Lozen of the Chiricuah respects them. The Winchesters. Lozen steps back, and that’s when Dean notices a patch of darkness against the whiteness of the gypsum sand behind the fire; an insubstantial shadow whose shape wavers between an owl and a woman, as if it can’t decide between the two.
“Wait,” Dean finds his voice again, and points at the shadowy figure. His other hand is scrabbling for the silver knife he keeps in his boot and his heart is racing. “Is that what I think it is?”
It’s Sam who answers this time.
Sam’s hand covers his own, and gently pulls it away from the hilt of the knife. Keeping the blankets wrapped around them, Sam manoeuvres round so Dean can see his face. Dean barely manages to resist the urge to reach out and cup Sam’s angular cheek in his palm. Sam raises an eyebrow and his mouth quirks, so Dean quickly schools his expression into one of polite interest. It seems while Dean was out Sam’s rediscovered the speech centres in that big brain of his, and is ready to launch into Professor mode. If Dean weren’t so happy to have Sam back, he’d sigh at the thought of another lecture.
“Her name is Blodeuwedd. Or it was, once, a long time ago. Lozen’s been communicating with her,” Sam continues, “and it’s kind of a long story. For some reason I haven’t worked out yet, we got caught up in a very old tale of love and betrayal from the Mabinogion. Through Fleur, you and I were supposed to act out roles that should have ended up with you dying. I think. I’m not entirely sure which of us was meant to be in the role of Llew Llaw Gyffes and which was Gronwr Pebr.”
Dean tries to get his lips to form just one of those unpronounceable names and fails.
“That damn book,” Dean says, patting his pocket and coming up empty. He wondered whether it got shredded when his jacket was mauled by the shadow owl. “The Mabbynoggy-whatever. I just knew it had something to do with this.”
“There was a book?” Sam asks, then moves on quickly at the bemused look on Dean’s face.
“Never mind, you can tell me everything later. For now the important thing is that the story didn’t exactly replay here like it did back in ancient Wales. I did get turned into an eagle, like Llew, which is how Lozen found me, but while Fleur went dark with you, the whole murder and adultery part of the story never happened. As far as I can work out, Blodeuwedd should now be free to choose her path. Nobody’s dead, right? So this is fixable.”
Dean bites back a caustic comment on the state of his leg and ribs, not to mention the fact they are stranded in the middle of fucking nowhere with a ghost warrior of the Apache on one side and a schizophrenic Welsh spirit on the other. He shies away from how close they’d come to realising the adultery part - kind of. Would it be adultery if one ofthe participants wasn't actually married, or even human?
Dean watches Blodeuwedd (and to think he’d thought Fleur de Fleurs was a stupid name) out of the corner of his eye. Her smoky figure is still fluctuating between woman and bird, but she’s not making any threatening moves. Dean remains unconvinced. “Help me up,” he demands, and Sam reluctantly gives him a shoulder to lean on. Dean sways, lightheaded with blood loss, but immediately feels better being on his feet. The dizziness passes quickly enough, and he’s ready for anything. Kind of.
“Okay, so nobody died. Yet. I’ll give you that one. What’s supposed to happen next? And how are we going to get back to my car?”
“I think I can help you to return to your transportation,” Lozen says. Dean raises a sceptical eyebrow.
“With all due respect, but how’re you going to do that? You’re no angel.”
Lozen moves closer so she’s almost nose to chest with Dean. He hadn’t realised how short she was, but he quickly forgets the size difference when she fixes him in her gleaming dark gaze. Suddenly feeling like a four year old caught saying a rude word, Dean swallows heavily. Lozen tilts her head as if listening to Dean’s thoughts, just like Castiel did sometimes. It was disconcerting.
“Your angels are interesting creatures,” she observes, and Dean realises she really was listening. Or picking up his thoughts, anyway. “But no, you are right, I am nothing like them. But I can move across this land with the same kind of freedom, and I see no reason why I can’t take you with me.”
Unlike angel transport, Lozen doesn’t touch either of them, but while she’s talking, there’s a kind of rushing noise in Dean’s head, like waves on a pebble beach, and between one blink and the next, they are no longer standing on the shifting white sands. Sam tightens his grip round Dean’s shoulders and Dean is glad of the support, though of course he’d never admit it out loud.
“Impressive,” he acknowledges, playing for time while his stomach settles and he regains his balance. They are on the side of the road, across from the motel in Truth and Consequences, and though the lowering sun is casting long shadows from the hills across his vision, nothing can hide the dusty gleam of his baby, safely parked up where he left her. With Sam by his side and the Impala, Dean feels stronger already. There’s just one loose end.
“But what about Blod—u—Fleur? She’s still dangerous, right? Could still go all dark side, evil owl on us.”
“I think Lozen can handle Blodeuwedd,” Sam says, a smile in his voice that warms Dean’s heart.
Lozen nods. “I will offer her the choice she never had the first time. She can decide for herself, without men manipulating her – light or dark, the flower or the owl. If she choses the flower, she will undertake the Sunrise Ceremony, and prove her worth. ”
“And if she chooses the owl?” Sam asks, before Dean can open his mouth, though he was wondering the same thing. Lozen takes a step back, and Dean blinks. His vision isn’t failing, Lozen really is starting to look faded. It’s as if the colour is leaching out of her, leaving only the colours of the surrounding landscape.
“If she chooses the owl, then one day you’ll hunt her, you brothers, together. You hold in your hearts a piece of the spirits of the Child of Water and the Killer of Enemies; you know what you have to do,” Lozen says. “Protect the people, and I and my ancestors will protect the land.”
Even as she’s uttering her last words she’s fading into nothingness until the sound of her voice is the only thing that remains. Dean glances at Sam’s face. His brother’s expression has too much of that little boy lost going on, it make’s Dean’s heart hurt worse than his injuries. He gives Sam a light shove and get’s an irritated glare as his reward. Dean grins. That’s more like it.
“Child of Water, huh? Well, come on then, Aqua Man. This motel has good mattresses and I think they serve pie in the diner.”
If all Dean is left with is an echo of the past and Sam, a solid presence by his side, he’s content. All in all, Dean will take this as a win.
Author's note:
For those of you who aren't familiar with the story of Blodeuwedd, my apologies! You can read a version here. Some versions make Blodeuwedd is a goddess, but I think in most tellings, she's more human than divine or powerful. Albeit a human who was created with one purpose, to be wife to a man. She has no choice in the matter, which is why the myth is fascinating, because even though she's a construct, she falls in love with a different man. Because this is a Dean centric story, my Fleur remains a mysterious agent rather than a character in her own right. I don't dip into her head in this fic, though it would have been nice to have made this longer and done that.
However, if you want to read a pretty awesome retelling of her story, try Alan Garner's The Owl Service. It's a kid's book but is excellently spooky, and you'll recognise the scratching elements I borrowed...