Paper
Author: Seperis
Fandom: Supernatural
Spoilers for the existence of Castiel. Castiel and memories of creation.



Paper fascinates him; when he last touched the world with human fingers, he'd walked in the body of a temple musician in the city of Memphis. He'd lingered in the storerooms, cool even in the heavy humidity of an Egyptian summer, to study the massive rolls, watched the scribes with their pens and many-colored inks, knelt in the temple and raised her flute-clear voice in worship with ink-stained fingers from an afternoon on the banks of the Nile, learning the fusion of art and language with human hands.

Memphis was ancient long before he traveled it on human feet, a city built by millennia of Egyptian pharaohs, rising and falling and rising again. No one who walks the earth can speak Egyptian or remember the hieroglyphs formed by the first people who huddled on the banks of the Nile and prayed for the rising of the river, but Castiel can still sing her song of worship for the pantheon of Egyptian gods and remembers how her hands shaped the language of men on fragile paper the year that Cleopatra was anointed Pharaoh, and the beginning of the end of an empire

His new vessel leaves paper in vast quantities everywhere Castiel looks; filling folders in file cabinets, spread across his desk, fine pencil lines interpreting angle and force, geometry born on the banks of the Nile to measure Inundation, expanding mathematics as humans learned to understand the language of God.

He's an architect, Castiel knows; Castiel's eyes flicker over dimensions and notations, tracing designs that descend from a single woman and a single man in exile, mixing mud and straw when they stood beneath the sky and realized that there were some things that could only be expiated by death.

When he leaves, nothing has been moved from that first evening he came to this man and touched his soul, but he carries the memory of glass and steel rising toward the sky and the vastness of a single human's act of creation with him. It reminds him why he fights.

From: [identity profile] amireal.livejournal.com Date: 2008-11-30 02:59 am (UTC)
The light of your words soothes my aching soul. How are you so pretty?

From: [identity profile] seperis.livejournal.com Date: 2008-11-30 03:10 am (UTC)
*grins* This is why I love you.

From: [identity profile] grand-sophy.livejournal.com Date: 2008-11-30 03:18 am (UTC)
Lovely and profound, for all its brevity. You've suggested both the transcendent and timeless qualities of angels, and their peculiar position in the heavenly heirarchy--simultaneously greater and less than humans--with elegance and subtlety. Good stuff.

From: [identity profile] seperis.livejournal.com Date: 2008-11-30 03:20 am (UTC)
Thank you. Blessings on you. I haven't written in months and I wanted to get my feet wet in the idea of Castiel before trying, say, a story.

*sends huge hugs*

From: [identity profile] monniesgirl-65.livejournal.com Date: 2008-11-30 03:29 am (UTC)
Humm, I can feel the sand under my feet, fell the heat of the desert on my skin,the smell of the paper in my nose and the feel of it in my hands, and the weight of all the he has seen and it is amazing. Thank you

From: [identity profile] seperis.livejournal.com Date: 2008-11-30 03:33 am (UTC)
Thank you very much!

From: [identity profile] thearchpoet.livejournal.com Date: 2008-11-30 03:52 am (UTC)
Is it weird that I find this hot? Just... the idea of Castiel and creation and paper and... *guh*.

I <3 him so much.

From: [identity profile] seperis.livejournal.com Date: 2008-11-30 03:56 am (UTC)
Castiel is hotness personified. *g* I am totally with you.

Thank you!

From: [identity profile] thearchpoet.livejournal.com Date: 2008-11-30 04:18 am (UTC)
I think it's just... the intensity in his every look and action. You know that when he looks at something (be it Dean or a pile of paper) there's so much going on behind those eyes that we just aren't getting to see. You capture that unseen element really well here.

<3
ext_1890: (Default)

From: [identity profile] svmadelyn.livejournal.com Date: 2008-11-30 04:00 am (UTC)
Uriel: Dude, you've been touching that paper for two days.
Castiel: I am contemplating.

...this is the mental image that popped in my head whilst reading. It is clearly deep on many levels. *grins* MOAR CASTIEL.

From: [identity profile] seperis.livejournal.com Date: 2008-11-30 04:03 am (UTC)
*bites lip hard* I can so see this, too.
ext_2541: (graveyard)

From: [identity profile] transtempts.livejournal.com Date: 2008-11-30 04:10 am (UTC)
I really like your use of the different senses, and the feeling of unhurried contemplation that Castiel always has with him. V. nice.

From: [identity profile] seperis.livejournal.com Date: 2008-11-30 04:12 am (UTC)
Thank you very much!

From: [identity profile] serrico.livejournal.com Date: 2008-11-30 07:12 am (UTC)
Oh, *lovely*. His focus on paper makes Castiel's utter *remove* from the world of humanity very clear.

Plus, on a much more general note: Castielfic = YAY! *g*

From: [identity profile] seperis.livejournal.com Date: 2008-11-30 07:25 am (UTC)
Thank you very much!

God yes, more Castielfic must be written. EVERYWHERE!
ext_2283: (bad wolf)

From: [identity profile] quickthorne.livejournal.com Date: 2008-11-30 06:39 pm (UTC)
Oh, that was beautiful.

From: [identity profile] seperis.livejournal.com Date: 2008-11-30 07:49 pm (UTC)
Thank you very much!

From: [identity profile] whimsicalwhims.livejournal.com Date: 2008-11-30 07:25 pm (UTC)
This is lovely.

From: [identity profile] seperis.livejournal.com Date: 2008-11-30 07:49 pm (UTC)
Thank you!

From: [identity profile] eternallycait.livejournal.com Date: 2008-11-30 10:08 pm (UTC)
That was beautiful. ILU, Castiel. Also you, Jenn

From: [identity profile] seperis.livejournal.com Date: 2008-12-01 01:57 am (UTC)
*glows* Thank you!
ext_11786: (spn:dean&castiel)

From: [identity profile] dotfic.livejournal.com Date: 2008-12-04 02:46 am (UTC)
This is lovely. The idea of Castiel's vessel as an architect is a wonderful idea.

From: [identity profile] seperis.livejournal.com Date: 2008-12-04 04:31 am (UTC)
Thanks!

From: [identity profile] maychorian.livejournal.com Date: 2008-12-31 03:28 am (UTC)
This is really cool. A very interesting and refreshing take, and your language is beautiful.

From: [identity profile] seperis.livejournal.com Date: 2009-03-30 08:42 am (UTC)
Thank you!

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