[when she had heard from one of the older teens that michael, of all people, was busy working on putting together provisions that will be later carted off, wanda thought to herself necessary to check up on the situation. it's not because she doubts he would do a good job of it, but—
but maybe he's found something worth his time, and which would keep his boredom at bay? it can't be easy for an archangel with larger designations for life.]
I'm not here to police you.
[but she is curious, and needed just an excuse to come and see him at work. taking the basket of herbs and ingredients from the teen she had bumped into, she gave him an easy out to have some time for himself before his next chore.
wanda sets the round, wicker basket on the table beside michael's workspace, pulling from it cluster of dried frog legs, setting them down neatly beside his dwindling stash. opposite that, she can see the contrast of the bundled herbs and finished potions on the other end of the table.]
—but I was curious. [enough to relieve the individual from bringing more ingredients from their job. the smile she offers is tiny, as she deposits a jar of honey near the frog legs, continuing with pulling out the rest of the ingredients. she glances over, and motions at the herbs on the side.] Would you like me to help you label and wrap them up?
[It has not been easy for Michael to fill the space that calls him to a higher purpose for some ten years now. Solvunn has more building blocks for him to work with than the Cage did, but it's still a struggle for someone not entirely accustomed to deciding his own direction in life.
They've not spoken of it directly, but Wanda has the feel of someone familiar with struggling with voids bigger than themselves.]
If you don't, who will?
[He'd been provided with instructions, sure, but the locals still treat the Summoned with such veneration that he's not sure they'd correct him if he were about to make a mistake. Thus far he hasn't rendered the room uninhabitable or brought about any of the other nasty consequences he'd been warned of, so he supposes he must be doing well enough on his own.]
Since you're offering. [Michael is not the type to request assistance, but he trusts she's smart enough to know that even if his words don't reflect it, his mild good humor is equivalent to being grateful for both the help and the company.
He starts to make room for her, setting a second station at the table for Wanda to work. He picks up the goldenseal, chamomile, and other herbs he knows by name but not by purpose and sets them in compact piles on her side, pulling over another chair with a flick of grace.]
Though you do realize the sooner we finish, the sooner we have to find something else to fill our time.
[it's a surprising growth in character—one wanda will not say out loud—of michael accepting her company and help. it's in contrast to the first couple of times they'd interact, how much it seemed to pain him to come to her at all.
now, it's easy, almost welcomed, and it fills wanda with a sense of belonging and acceptance that she's struggled to find for so long even among those from her world. does it make her a liar, to not tell those here about who she is? about what she's done? to be seen as a source of comfort, of companionship, of reliability that she might not quite deserve? it's painfully scary to cross that threshold of abstract imaginings of what ifs into the reality of them. and as michael actively makes room for her beside him, her silence harbors gratitude that she can't quite put into words.
sitting herself down, wanda starts manually going through the motions of fixing the bundles of the offered herbs.]
Imagine, going from one mundane task to another.
[and she could do all this with her magic, but—just as michael implies—that would make this end too quickly, and it's worth taking each day's activities slowly and meticulously.]
I've always lacked hobbies. [she says, tying string around the stems, giving it an unnecessarily nice bow.] My home was at war for most of my life. Settling into something comfortable was never advisable. I wonder by how small a margin we avoided fire raining from the skies.
[because if she is to believe anything, she is of the mindset that factors—big and small—can spin the wheel of the fates, making them traipse the fraught tight line between salvation and utter destruction.]
[It might be a lie of omission, but if that's a sin, it's one Michael is guilty of as well—and doesn't he have the authority to judge human actions as right or wrong as he sees fit, anyway? There are plenty of ugly little details and skeletons in his closet that he has yet to mention. This wouldn't be the first time he's agreed to set aside the past in the interest of making the present a little more tolerable.]
The human condition, as I'm beginning to understand it.
[He'd had a taste of the banal those few short weeks he'd been topside in Adam's company. Still, he'd not gotten the full picture of just how dull everyday life could be. They'd still had the benefit of Michael's grace: they only ate when Adam missed the taste of food, they only walked when Adam wanted to admire the scenery. They'd never needed to worry about other commitments, sleep, or any other of those other daily rituals his kind had to. He's starting to see that human existence is a long string of chores.
There is something very satisfying in seeing a task completed by his own hands, though. Michael wouldn't know if that's how they feel about it too or just his own nature talking.]
I would have thought raining down fire was more our purview. What was your home like?
[While Wanda bundles the herbs—the decorative finish earns a long glance, but no comment—Michael sees to mixing the last batch of potions. The recipe he was given calls for exact ratios. There's a scale on the table, one side weighed down with a mass of metal and the other on which he places a dried and powdered substance.]
['our', he says, and wanda understands it for what it is: angels, whatever lords over humanity in the heavens, this sanctimonious belief that have believers nervous about sin and praying on their knees. she has enough superficial knowledge to know that not everything heralded from the heavens was peaceful and glorious.
still, michael asking her something like that—part of wanda wonders if it's out of genuine curiosity or a sense of wanting to know facts as they are (or simply wanting to fill in the silence and quell boredom at its margins).
wanda, for her part, is silent a moment as she fixes the herbs she holds, removing some dry and dead leaves from the stems.]
My home was so broken the world decided the best thing to do was to remove it from existence entirely. Erase it from the map, let its territory be divided by the countries surrounding it.
[she doesn't like thinking of sokovia, because it is no more—because it is a tomb to her people who died during the bombings, during the civil unrest, when novi grad was dropped from the sky. a tomb for her parents, for her brother.]
My parents died when the first bombs fell from the skies. My brother died a forgotten hero.
[shrugging, wanda draws a deep breath and sets the bundle of herbs to the side, picking up another to continue the process of inspection and tying up.]
I don't have a home to return to. [she makes a face.] Solvunn's the closest I have to it right now, and even saying that sounds like a sad admittance.
[because there is no certainty in their being here permanently, or that they are anything but tools, only accepted and welcomed because of who they are; outsiders, still.]
[Michael asks for all the reasons Wanda guesses, and more. He misses the constant presence of another that had come from sharing this body with a human soul. Conversation doesn't quite compare, but it fills some of the space. He'd be loathe to admit to something like simple curiosity, but he does want to know more about her, too. Maybe it will lead him to understand why her presence so comfortably occupies a space he'd thought reserved only for his brothers.
He does not mind the silence. While she considers her words, he finishes measuring out doses of powder and tips each into one of the empty bottles he's been given. When she does speak up he listens attentively, though his eyes stay on his task.
Empathy is not his most developed skill, but her history is—sad. Even if the human and angelic concept of family are not quite the same, Michael knows what it is to lose brothers, and sisters, and home alike. She didn't tell him any of this to solicit pity, however. He gets the impression she'd hate it as much as he would, so he doesn't offer any.
(Would she judge him harshly if she knew he has been many of his siblings' executioner? That much of his life has been devoted to bringing about a war intended to eradicate half of Earth's population?)]
I wouldn't disparage anyone trying to make a home of Solvunn. [He looks up long enough to give her an expression that's both sympathetic and chagrined.] Though, I am in much the same position as you.
[Which is to say: he might be biased.]
My family was at war with itself for... millennia. Now, my brothers are dead and our world is no more. I couldn't go back if I wanted to.
What do you know of the Apocalypse?
[Wanda does not seem particularly religious to him. Certainly not enough for him to worry that the implication that Heaven no longer exists would bother her at all. That does not mean that she has no knowledge or education in this field.]
[he is right to assume that she isn't telling him about her story to solicit pity—it is an ingrained part of her, all this pain, this life full of tragedy and trauma, to the point where she can speak of it as if she were talking about the weather.
of course, it still hurts, but this is not a moment that she is speaking of it to try and achieve some kind of emotional response. michael asked, and so she offered—because he has earned as much from her.
millennia, though, is not something she can quite fathom. a family at war, and she thinks of lucifer and his reaction when she had mentioned michael was in solvunn. as mythical as his character of 'michael' may be, there are certainly similarities; no family, no home.
she shifts her eyes to look at him.]
It is the end of the world, isn't it?
[well, he might have to educate her about it regarding what it means religiously, or what it means for his people and those of his world.]
—am I right to assume you would not be happy to see your brothers again, even in this world?
[Michael lets out a sound that's not quite a laugh, but there's humor in it.]
All angels are kin, Wanda. I have thousands of brothers.
[Saying that he wouldn't be happy to see any of them—or any of them him—is painting with a very wide brush indeed. She had no way of knowing, but all the same. Is that really the impression he gives? It must be, or she wouldn't have voiced it.
Michael frowns as he considers it, dropping the last few ingredients into the bottles: a few animal parts, a slow drip of honey.
Death for angels is a more permanent state than it is for humans. Castiel and Lucifer are outliers, exceptions their Father made to add twists to his story. What if my family came back from the dead isn't an idea he's given thought any more than humans typically do. It just doesn't happen.
Then again, in Abraxas...]
There were only three I was ever close to. I admit it would be difficult to see some of them again. We didn't often see eye to eye and some of us parted on poor terms.
[That doesn't mean he didn't love them. He trusts Wanda to read him well enough to hear that even if he doesn't say it.
He's been given very explicit instructions on how to mix these potions. Shaking is strictly forbidden. Instead, he tips them gently from side to side, watching the mix transition from a muddy amber into a clarified red.]
The Apocalypse was meant to bring about the end of one world, and the beginning of another. We were to receive Paradise. All I had to do was kill one of my brothers. Only now, I can't imagine what that Paradise would have looked like.
[as michael mixes the potion by tipping it from side to side, wanda cheats a little in terms of this world's modernity and creates an ink pen from thin air, just so she can write the labels for these herbs she's put in bundles.
she hears what he says, but she also hears what he doesn't say about his siblings. about the story of his family so heavily intertwined with heaven and the end of the world and prophecy of sorts. his words are always so well-contained, so devoid of too much emotion, but even wanda can pick up the hints of something else.
it is in this moment that she comes to realize something about him, even if it should have been obvious: just how old he is in a human's reckoning, how time must fluctuate so differently for him (or at all?).]
Was it true, though? This promise?
[there's an opportunity here for her to ask about the intricacies of the world unseen that mortals such as herself hardly ever get to envision, but to grasp at in hopes it may be real and that they're following the righteous path.]
My brother and I were made promises of achieving what we wanted most. We were called miracles, but— we were used, in the end. [her glance at him is devoid of any judgement, of any harsh criticism; it's open, almost vulnerable. she reaches for another bundle needing to be bound and labeled.] Were you unable to kill him because you didn't want to, or were you stopped from doing so?
[Michael's usually against cheating, but he'll cut her some slack. A little leeway is a privilege accorded to those he likes. She's getting the work done, and that's what counts. Wanda has probably done this sort of thing with the materials provided by the locals at least once or twice before, anyway. Michael hasn't. He's trying to attempt things with his borrowed hands before resorting to grace and a snap of his fingers.
Adam is not here, but the thought that he'd approve of this approach is a small comfort.
There is an admission in her words, a truth Michael shares but has been unwilling to voice. He had allowed himself to be used. Not to achieve the promised goal—Michael hadn't resented being an instrument of his Father's will, a tool destined for a particular task—but for another purpose entirely. He'd been nothing but a background character in a different, more important story.]
I was prevented from it. [Just as well he pointedly does not say. He's not about to give the Winchesters credit for sending him to Hell. They stopped him from killing Lucifer (the first time) but they certainly hadn't done him a favour.] I didn't want to, either, but I would have. It was God's command and my Father is not an entity who takes disloyalty lightly.
[If Wanda cares for another glimpse of life among the angels, there it is. Human children are often subject to their parents' will, too, but the consequences for disobedience are orders of magnitude apart.
The labels for the potions are already attached to lengths of string that Michael loops and tightens around the neck of each bottle. Once the label is on, he sets each inside a straw-filled crate. Someone else will handle delivery. Outside of Solvunn Michael is all but pinioned, unable to fly or carry anything with him. He wouldn't get it done any faster than the locals will.]
There would have been no Paradise. It was a lie. What was it you and your brother wanted?
[He could make a few guesses, to be sure: the return of their home, an end to the war she'd spoken of. If time alongside his vessel had taught him anything, though, it's that humans are absolutely brimming with desires.]
[wanda hears what's between the lines, but does not make a comment of it. it's easy to see things later in a different light—hindsight being 20-20, after all. but it means something to wanda, even if michael may never take note of it, that he says he didn't want to; that despite having thousands of brothers, as an angel, he wouldn't want to kill one of them, just because he could.
she remembers a bit, from her conversations with matt, about how michael was the archangel that defeated satan—lucifer. she remembers statues, a spear (or sword?) in his hand, pressed against the neck of the devil, a foot stomping him down. that michael, with that role.
at his question, she turns to him, drawing her hands back, recognizing that she's arrived at the tail-end of his task. what did she and her brother want?]
Paradise, too, I suppose.
[the same thing he had been promised—something too good to be true, something achieved through more bloodshed and personal sacrifice than anything else.]
—but perhaps like you, that is not attainable anymore. I will never find paradise, for I cannot be with my brother anymore. Neither with the man I loved, nor with my children. [when she turns to look at him, makes eye contact, she is being a little deliberate with her words.] I may as well be stuck in a cage.
The desires I had before here seem so far away.
[a touch of demonic corruption, enrapturing her understanding of space and time, making two years feel longer than what they actually were.]
And even undeserved, especially when our [our] fates were never ours to begin with.
[him, an archangel serving god; she, a child of prophecy. both places in the world neither of them asked for.]
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no subject
but maybe he's found something worth his time, and which would keep his boredom at bay? it can't be easy for an archangel with larger designations for life.]
I'm not here to police you.
[but she is curious, and needed just an excuse to come and see him at work. taking the basket of herbs and ingredients from the teen she had bumped into, she gave him an easy out to have some time for himself before his next chore.
wanda sets the round, wicker basket on the table beside michael's workspace, pulling from it cluster of dried frog legs, setting them down neatly beside his dwindling stash. opposite that, she can see the contrast of the bundled herbs and finished potions on the other end of the table.]
—but I was curious. [enough to relieve the individual from bringing more ingredients from their job. the smile she offers is tiny, as she deposits a jar of honey near the frog legs, continuing with pulling out the rest of the ingredients. she glances over, and motions at the herbs on the side.] Would you like me to help you label and wrap them up?
no subject
They've not spoken of it directly, but Wanda has the feel of someone familiar with struggling with voids bigger than themselves.]
If you don't, who will?
[He'd been provided with instructions, sure, but the locals still treat the Summoned with such veneration that he's not sure they'd correct him if he were about to make a mistake. Thus far he hasn't rendered the room uninhabitable or brought about any of the other nasty consequences he'd been warned of, so he supposes he must be doing well enough on his own.]
Since you're offering. [Michael is not the type to request assistance, but he trusts she's smart enough to know that even if his words don't reflect it, his mild good humor is equivalent to being grateful for both the help and the company.
He starts to make room for her, setting a second station at the table for Wanda to work. He picks up the goldenseal, chamomile, and other herbs he knows by name but not by purpose and sets them in compact piles on her side, pulling over another chair with a flick of grace.]
Though you do realize the sooner we finish, the sooner we have to find something else to fill our time.
no subject
now, it's easy, almost welcomed, and it fills wanda with a sense of belonging and acceptance that she's struggled to find for so long even among those from her world. does it make her a liar, to not tell those here about who she is? about what she's done? to be seen as a source of comfort, of companionship, of reliability that she might not quite deserve? it's painfully scary to cross that threshold of abstract imaginings of what ifs into the reality of them. and as michael actively makes room for her beside him, her silence harbors gratitude that she can't quite put into words.
sitting herself down, wanda starts manually going through the motions of fixing the bundles of the offered herbs.]
Imagine, going from one mundane task to another.
[and she could do all this with her magic, but—just as michael implies—that would make this end too quickly, and it's worth taking each day's activities slowly and meticulously.]
I've always lacked hobbies. [she says, tying string around the stems, giving it an unnecessarily nice bow.] My home was at war for most of my life. Settling into something comfortable was never advisable. I wonder by how small a margin we avoided fire raining from the skies.
[because if she is to believe anything, she is of the mindset that factors—big and small—can spin the wheel of the fates, making them traipse the fraught tight line between salvation and utter destruction.]
no subject
The human condition, as I'm beginning to understand it.
[He'd had a taste of the banal those few short weeks he'd been topside in Adam's company. Still, he'd not gotten the full picture of just how dull everyday life could be. They'd still had the benefit of Michael's grace: they only ate when Adam missed the taste of food, they only walked when Adam wanted to admire the scenery. They'd never needed to worry about other commitments, sleep, or any other of those other daily rituals his kind had to. He's starting to see that human existence is a long string of chores.
There is something very satisfying in seeing a task completed by his own hands, though. Michael wouldn't know if that's how they feel about it too or just his own nature talking.]
I would have thought raining down fire was more our purview. What was your home like?
[While Wanda bundles the herbs—the decorative finish earns a long glance, but no comment—Michael sees to mixing the last batch of potions. The recipe he was given calls for exact ratios. There's a scale on the table, one side weighed down with a mass of metal and the other on which he places a dried and powdered substance.]
no subject
still, michael asking her something like that—part of wanda wonders if it's out of genuine curiosity or a sense of wanting to know facts as they are (or simply wanting to fill in the silence and quell boredom at its margins).
wanda, for her part, is silent a moment as she fixes the herbs she holds, removing some dry and dead leaves from the stems.]
My home was so broken the world decided the best thing to do was to remove it from existence entirely. Erase it from the map, let its territory be divided by the countries surrounding it.
[she doesn't like thinking of sokovia, because it is no more—because it is a tomb to her people who died during the bombings, during the civil unrest, when novi grad was dropped from the sky. a tomb for her parents, for her brother.]
My parents died when the first bombs fell from the skies. My brother died a forgotten hero.
[shrugging, wanda draws a deep breath and sets the bundle of herbs to the side, picking up another to continue the process of inspection and tying up.]
I don't have a home to return to. [she makes a face.] Solvunn's the closest I have to it right now, and even saying that sounds like a sad admittance.
[because there is no certainty in their being here permanently, or that they are anything but tools, only accepted and welcomed because of who they are; outsiders, still.]
no subject
He does not mind the silence. While she considers her words, he finishes measuring out doses of powder and tips each into one of the empty bottles he's been given. When she does speak up he listens attentively, though his eyes stay on his task.
Empathy is not his most developed skill, but her history is—sad. Even if the human and angelic concept of family are not quite the same, Michael knows what it is to lose brothers, and sisters, and home alike. She didn't tell him any of this to solicit pity, however. He gets the impression she'd hate it as much as he would, so he doesn't offer any.
(Would she judge him harshly if she knew he has been many of his siblings' executioner? That much of his life has been devoted to bringing about a war intended to eradicate half of Earth's population?)]
I wouldn't disparage anyone trying to make a home of Solvunn. [He looks up long enough to give her an expression that's both sympathetic and chagrined.] Though, I am in much the same position as you.
[Which is to say: he might be biased.]
My family was at war with itself for... millennia. Now, my brothers are dead and our world is no more. I couldn't go back if I wanted to.
What do you know of the Apocalypse?
[Wanda does not seem particularly religious to him. Certainly not enough for him to worry that the implication that Heaven no longer exists would bother her at all. That does not mean that she has no knowledge or education in this field.]
no subject
of course, it still hurts, but this is not a moment that she is speaking of it to try and achieve some kind of emotional response. michael asked, and so she offered—because he has earned as much from her.
millennia, though, is not something she can quite fathom. a family at war, and she thinks of lucifer and his reaction when she had mentioned michael was in solvunn. as mythical as his character of 'michael' may be, there are certainly similarities; no family, no home.
she shifts her eyes to look at him.]
It is the end of the world, isn't it?
[well, he might have to educate her about it regarding what it means religiously, or what it means for his people and those of his world.]
—am I right to assume you would not be happy to see your brothers again, even in this world?
no subject
All angels are kin, Wanda. I have thousands of brothers.
[Saying that he wouldn't be happy to see any of them—or any of them him—is painting with a very wide brush indeed. She had no way of knowing, but all the same. Is that really the impression he gives? It must be, or she wouldn't have voiced it.
Michael frowns as he considers it, dropping the last few ingredients into the bottles: a few animal parts, a slow drip of honey.
Death for angels is a more permanent state than it is for humans. Castiel and Lucifer are outliers, exceptions their Father made to add twists to his story. What if my family came back from the dead isn't an idea he's given thought any more than humans typically do. It just doesn't happen.
Then again, in Abraxas...]
There were only three I was ever close to. I admit it would be difficult to see some of them again. We didn't often see eye to eye and some of us parted on poor terms.
[That doesn't mean he didn't love them. He trusts Wanda to read him well enough to hear that even if he doesn't say it.
He's been given very explicit instructions on how to mix these potions. Shaking is strictly forbidden. Instead, he tips them gently from side to side, watching the mix transition from a muddy amber into a clarified red.]
The Apocalypse was meant to bring about the end of one world, and the beginning of another. We were to receive Paradise. All I had to do was kill one of my brothers. Only now, I can't imagine what that Paradise would have looked like.
no subject
she hears what he says, but she also hears what he doesn't say about his siblings. about the story of his family so heavily intertwined with heaven and the end of the world and prophecy of sorts. his words are always so well-contained, so devoid of too much emotion, but even wanda can pick up the hints of something else.
it is in this moment that she comes to realize something about him, even if it should have been obvious: just how old he is in a human's reckoning, how time must fluctuate so differently for him (or at all?).]
Was it true, though? This promise?
[there's an opportunity here for her to ask about the intricacies of the world unseen that mortals such as herself hardly ever get to envision, but to grasp at in hopes it may be real and that they're following the righteous path.]
My brother and I were made promises of achieving what we wanted most. We were called miracles, but— we were used, in the end. [her glance at him is devoid of any judgement, of any harsh criticism; it's open, almost vulnerable. she reaches for another bundle needing to be bound and labeled.] Were you unable to kill him because you didn't want to, or were you stopped from doing so?
no subject
Adam is not here, but the thought that he'd approve of this approach is a small comfort.
There is an admission in her words, a truth Michael shares but has been unwilling to voice. He had allowed himself to be used. Not to achieve the promised goal—Michael hadn't resented being an instrument of his Father's will, a tool destined for a particular task—but for another purpose entirely. He'd been nothing but a background character in a different, more important story.]
I was prevented from it. [Just as well he pointedly does not say. He's not about to give the Winchesters credit for sending him to Hell. They stopped him from killing Lucifer (the first time) but they certainly hadn't done him a favour.] I didn't want to, either, but I would have. It was God's command and my Father is not an entity who takes disloyalty lightly.
[If Wanda cares for another glimpse of life among the angels, there it is. Human children are often subject to their parents' will, too, but the consequences for disobedience are orders of magnitude apart.
The labels for the potions are already attached to lengths of string that Michael loops and tightens around the neck of each bottle. Once the label is on, he sets each inside a straw-filled crate. Someone else will handle delivery. Outside of Solvunn Michael is all but pinioned, unable to fly or carry anything with him. He wouldn't get it done any faster than the locals will.]
There would have been no Paradise. It was a lie. What was it you and your brother wanted?
[He could make a few guesses, to be sure: the return of their home, an end to the war she'd spoken of. If time alongside his vessel had taught him anything, though, it's that humans are absolutely brimming with desires.]
no subject
she remembers a bit, from her conversations with matt, about how michael was the archangel that defeated satan—lucifer. she remembers statues, a spear (or sword?) in his hand, pressed against the neck of the devil, a foot stomping him down. that michael, with that role.
at his question, she turns to him, drawing her hands back, recognizing that she's arrived at the tail-end of his task. what did she and her brother want?]
Paradise, too, I suppose.
[the same thing he had been promised—something too good to be true, something achieved through more bloodshed and personal sacrifice than anything else.]
—but perhaps like you, that is not attainable anymore. I will never find paradise, for I cannot be with my brother anymore. Neither with the man I loved, nor with my children. [when she turns to look at him, makes eye contact, she is being a little deliberate with her words.] I may as well be stuck in a cage.
The desires I had before here seem so far away.
[a touch of demonic corruption, enrapturing her understanding of space and time, making two years feel longer than what they actually were.]
And even undeserved, especially when our [our] fates were never ours to begin with.
[him, an archangel serving god; she, a child of prophecy. both places in the world neither of them asked for.]