In Search of Fields So Green: 3/3
Art Title:
Prompt Number:
Artist:
Fic Title: In Search Of Fields So Green
Author:safiyabat
Genre: SPN
Pairing: Meg/Castiel, implied Sam/Rowena
Rating: R
Warnings: Violence, probable historical inaccuracy, sexual content, mention of past torture. Story is from the POV of pagan Vikings, so people with good feelings about the medieval Church might be uncomfortable.
The Monastery of the Queen of Heaven stood on an island just off the coast, far enough that reaching it took planning and effort but close enough that it could be seen from land if the day were clear. Meg didn’t quite get it, but she didn’t get a lot of things about the whole arrangement. Why name a facility exclusively for men, in which men were taught (from everything she’d seen and heard) to hate and fear women, after a woman? Why raise boys apart from girls and women, and teach them to fear girls and women, and then turn around and expect them to marry women?
The Eastern God’s followers had sent a missionary among Meg’s people once. Meg had asked him some of these questions. He couldn’t answer them, and he’d accused her of “impudence” when she pointed out that he didn’t have answers. So she’d cut off his head.
The approach to the monastery could not be made by large vessels. The monks lived in small huts, and kept only small fires, and they believed that this would keep them safe. So far, it probably had. At the very least, the currents and shallow waters around the island had kept them safe. No one was going to risk everything to attack what looked like a bunch of cowshit huts with nothing to their name but a couple of sickly-looking cows to make more building material from. The Viking vessels, however, navigated very well in shallow water, and now that they knew that there was something of value on these islands they would stop at nothing to get it.
Besides, they had more than just silver and jewels on that island now. They had Anglians that had earned Meg’s ire. No shallow water could save them now.
She’d brought half of her men with her, leaving the rest behind to defend Haven just in case. She was greedy, yes, and sometimes overeager. But she was not foolish, not when it came to her land or her people.
Castiel sailed with her. His eyes looked almost gray as they reflected the sea, and she couldn’t help but worry about what must be going through his head. Meg was going to hunt down some snooty Anglians who had thwarted her. Castiel was going to face down people he’d been taught to respect and revere since he’d been a little boy. Surely he must be feeling something, some kind of regret or anxiety. None of it showed on his face, if he felt it at all. Instead he watched the island loom closer in the distance.
Rowena and Sam sailed in the same ship, Rowena seated beside Sam and simpering while he directed the men rowing his ship. There had to be something going on there, although Meg couldn’t quite figure out what. They didn’t seem at all affectionate, but Rowena showed a reluctance to be apart from the oversized jarl and Sam tolerated her. Maybe it was a seidr thing, who knew. Dean rode in the same boat, because where you had one brother you couldn’t not have the other. Dean just looked hungry, as he always did before a battle.
Rowena had more of a point than just simpering beside Sam and looking pretty. Maybe Sam could have hidden their approach by himself, but Meg didn’t think his talents (if he indeed flirted with seidr at all) carried him so far. Rowena’s job was to minimize the likelihood that anyone from the monastery would notice their arrival, and she seemed to be doing well at her task. The Vikings were up on the beach, pulling their ships up onto the sand, before anyone picked up on the fact that they’d arrived. Even then, they seemed to notice more because Castiel set fire to the rowboats moored to their rickety old dock than because the Vikings themselves had done anything to alert them.
Now, of course, all need for stealth died away. Meg had made her orders explicit. Any children, regardless of status, were to be spared. Any regular monk who had not taken up arms could be spared, at least temporarily. Combatants were to be slaughtered without mercy, although Raphael, Uriel, Ion and Zachariah were to be brought to Meg. Higher noblewomen, if any were to be found, were to be captured alive if noncombatant and brought to Meg.
The monastery itself was to be burned to ash. They would find a way to transport the livestock and food stores off the island, but they would not leave anything remaining of this place of treachery.
The fight, such as it was, turned out to be nasty, brutish and short. The noblemen who had fled with Raphael tried to defend their king, but Meg’s Vikings had fought in similar close quarters many times. The noble Saxons were accustomed only to fighting in fields and on bridges; fighting in narrow corridors was alien to them, and they were at a disadvantage.
Many of the churchmen preferred to die rather than to see their beloved monastery put to the torch. Meg and her men were happy to oblige them. When Castiel tried to convince them that it was better to live and build a new house somewhere else, someplace that was free of Zachariah’s poison, they spat on him.
After the first two made such a statement, Meg started chopping off heads. They preferred to make a verbal statement after that. Even though they claimed they preferred to die rather than surrender their monastery, they apparently still believed that someone would intervene and save them before the end came. That didn’t work out very well for them, but a few toward the end did reconsider their position.
Most of the boys did not share the older monks’ suicidal wishes. They were perfectly happy to go and live in Anglia, among thrall families, and work the land. Perhaps their status would be less exalted than it would have been otherwise, but they could live with that. Meg held back a few of the older boys, identified by Castiel as in training as he’d been, and decided to put them to work as pages and squires in her house instead of making them farmers. She saw no point in wasting the training they’d had, and they could prove valuable allies down the road.
The most significant confrontations came when their quintet came to deal with the major enemies: Raphael and the others. Two big, burly Vikings brought Ion forward first. The traitor fell to his knees before the gang of five, trembling but with a snarl on his face. “What did you expect me to do, Castiel?” he growled. “When they came to me and told me to make sure you stayed behind and followed your orders, what do you expect me to do?”
Castiel didn’t answer him, except to snarl, so Meg gave a little laugh. “I really ought to thank you, you know. If you hadn’t run off, hadn’t shown yourself for the traitor you are, I’d never have gotten Castiel to admit that his king had betrayed him. Betrayed his oath to his own liege men.” She smirked and patted Ion insultingly on the cheek.
“He’s the traitor. His job was to die!”
Meg rolled her eyes and stabbed Ion in the neck. “You can stick him in the pit with the others,” she told his burly escorts. “How are we coming with finding the treasure Raphael carried off?”
“Oh, the monks who came over to us have been very forthcoming, Majesty.” The guard holding Ion’s right arm gave a toothless grin. “We’ve got someone loading it onto the ships already.”
“I like that. Forward thinking. Remind me that was you, Ragnar.”
The men dragged the corpse away, leaving a trail of blood in his wake. They were replaced by two more, who carried a struggling Zachariah. Meg knew that he was Zachariah because he wore a monk’s robes, and because Dean gave him a huge grin. Someone who didn’t know him better would have thought he really was being friendly. “Zachariah! Good to see you again! How’ve you been, man?”
Zachariah gave him a thin-lipped smile. Meg settled back on her heels to watch this exchange play out. Castiel looked uneasy, looking between the brothers, but he couldn’t know anything really about the pair. Sam’s nostrils flared, and Rowena put a hand on Sam’s arm. “Dean. It’s good to see a rational person here, someone with whom I can do business. I mean I understand that you were born among savages but you’ve had the benefit of exposure to higher culture.”
Dean laughed out loud. “I’m going to give you a little bit of advice here, Zach. Shut up.”
Zachariah shut up.
“Now, here’s the thing, Zach,” Dean continued, pacing around the captive. “I don’t know if you remember way back to when my brother - you remember him, big guy, not a big fan of Anglians these days but can you blame him? You spent a lot of time, back then, trying to split us up. Said a lot of crap. Some of it I even believed, Zach.” Suddenly Dean was in Zachariah’s face, moving faster than even Meg’s practiced eye could follow. “Do you remember what I told you, Zach?”
“Dean, you have to understand. I was just doing my job.”
Dean gave him the most terrifying smile that Meg had ever seen in her life. “And I’m just doing mine. Do you remember what I told you, when I figured out what a line of crap you and your buddy Michael were feeding me?”
Zachariah’s face darkened. “Michael was a king, you maggot!”
Dean backhanded him so hard that he only stayed upright because two Vikings were holding him up. The guards laughed out loud, but there was no humor in Dean’s face as he pulled Zachariah up by his collar. “I told you that I would stab you in your face.”
“You would dare to raise a hand to a man of the cloth - an abbot?” Zachariah had the temerity to look affronted.
Sam’s eyes looked a little glazed. “You’re not an abbot, jackass. You’re a bishop in hiding. You couldn’t live by monastic rules if you tried. Which you don’t.” He blinked and his eyes cleared. “Also, trust me. Whatever it is - Dean dares.” He smirked, but didn’t tear his eyes away.
Meg, though, had to look away when Dean carried out his promise. Even with everything she’d seen and done, that was a little much.
The guards carried him away just as they had Ion, and two more popped up in their place with Uriel between them. Uriel neither cowered nor shrank from their gaze. He sneered in contempt, and both of his guards seemed to be a little warier of him than the previous guards had needed to be. “Castiel. It would figure that you’re up to your elbows in this.”
No one questioned Sam’s right to step up, although both Dean and Rowena hovered nearby. Meg wasn’t sure about Rowena’s motivations, though. She might have been there just to thrive on Uriel’s death throes, or on Sam’s rage, who knew with her. He stepped to the front of the crowd and the whole crowd of spectators - captive monks, children and Vikings alike - fell silent.
Uriel stood a little straighter and tried to shake off his guards. When Sam gave them a subtle nod, they released their prisoner and took half a step back. “I am not afraid of you, Abomination.”
Sam met his eyes, showing nothing. “I don’t care.”
“Is this about revenge?” Uriel smirked. “It’s not like you can undo what we did.”
“Nope.” Sam hefted his sword in his right hand.
“You’re subhuman. We aren’t even obligated to offer you the opportunity for salvation.”
“Nope.”
“We will turn you into dust.”
Uriel’s eyes bulged in their sockets and blood streamed from his mouth. Sam had kept his enemy distracted with his big sword, but his left hand had strayed to his belt knife and he’d slipped it into Uriel’s throat with no more fanfare than he would have patting him on the shoulder.
The large Anglian clutched at his neck, and then fell to the ground. His guards didn’t bother trying to pick him up again. They just dragged him out by his feet.
Now came the last of the captives: Raphael. Raphael came before them with more dignity than Zachariah or Ion, but with a different sort of arrogance than Uriel. This was a man who had been raised with the knowledge that his very blood gave him shades of the divine. He’d never expected to succeed to the throne, nor had he been educated or reared to power. Still, he knew that he was “special,” and even in such circumstances as he now found himself he held himself to be superior.
“So, Castiel,” he intoned. “You have thrown your lot in with this rabble instead of following your orders.”
“My orders,” Castiel intoned, not moving a muscle, “were to defend Anglia. I have not yet failed in those orders. The people of Anglia are well ruled, under their new Queen.”
Raphael bristled. “I am their King! Anointed by God!”
“You abrogated your responsibility when you cared more for your treasure than for your people.” Castiel’s sword gave a very soft “snick” as it slid from its sheath.
Raphael either didn’t hear or didn’t care. “They are mine to destroy or save! Do you think that Michael or Lucifer would have had it otherwise?”
Castiel chuckled. “I don’t. You know, I wondered. For years, when they caught someone they defined as a witch, I wondered, but I obeyed. And then I was freed.”
Raphael gave him a look that was best described as “pitying.” “Oh, come now, Castiel. You’re a good soldier, but you’re nothing more. You’ll do as you’re told. I’m your king, duly anointed. I’m the heir to Michael, given that the Abomination murdered Lucifer alongside him. You’re angry. You’re hurt. But you can’t lift a hand against me.”
Castiel raised his sword. He moved once, efficient and brutal and struck the useless king’s head from his shoulders.
Castiel staggered away from the scene of the execution, leaving his sword behind him. Meg followed, leaving her lieutenants to lean up after her.
She followed her lover into the chapel, which had not yet been put to the torch. Castiel sank to his knees before a carving of a man nailed to a pair of crossed beams, tears running down his face as much as the blood ran down his armor. Meg let him have his moment before she approached, carding her fingers through his hair. “You did the right thing,” she told him.
He didn’t look at her. His wide eyes gazed straight at the cross. “He was my king,” he whispered. “Before.”
“And he did you wrong. He did your people wrong,” she reminded him, grasping his hair and giving a little tug.
“Yes. You’re my Queen now. Aren’t you afraid?”
She laughed. “No, Cas. I’m not. I’m not going to treat you or your people the way that Raphael did.”
He rose from his prayer and took her into his arms. “Promise me.”
Back to Chapter Two -- On to Masterpost
Prompt Number:
Artist:
Fic Title: In Search Of Fields So Green
Author:safiyabat
Genre: SPN
Pairing: Meg/Castiel, implied Sam/Rowena
Rating: R
Warnings: Violence, probable historical inaccuracy, sexual content, mention of past torture. Story is from the POV of pagan Vikings, so people with good feelings about the medieval Church might be uncomfortable.
The Monastery of the Queen of Heaven stood on an island just off the coast, far enough that reaching it took planning and effort but close enough that it could be seen from land if the day were clear. Meg didn’t quite get it, but she didn’t get a lot of things about the whole arrangement. Why name a facility exclusively for men, in which men were taught (from everything she’d seen and heard) to hate and fear women, after a woman? Why raise boys apart from girls and women, and teach them to fear girls and women, and then turn around and expect them to marry women?
The Eastern God’s followers had sent a missionary among Meg’s people once. Meg had asked him some of these questions. He couldn’t answer them, and he’d accused her of “impudence” when she pointed out that he didn’t have answers. So she’d cut off his head.
The approach to the monastery could not be made by large vessels. The monks lived in small huts, and kept only small fires, and they believed that this would keep them safe. So far, it probably had. At the very least, the currents and shallow waters around the island had kept them safe. No one was going to risk everything to attack what looked like a bunch of cowshit huts with nothing to their name but a couple of sickly-looking cows to make more building material from. The Viking vessels, however, navigated very well in shallow water, and now that they knew that there was something of value on these islands they would stop at nothing to get it.
Besides, they had more than just silver and jewels on that island now. They had Anglians that had earned Meg’s ire. No shallow water could save them now.
She’d brought half of her men with her, leaving the rest behind to defend Haven just in case. She was greedy, yes, and sometimes overeager. But she was not foolish, not when it came to her land or her people.
Castiel sailed with her. His eyes looked almost gray as they reflected the sea, and she couldn’t help but worry about what must be going through his head. Meg was going to hunt down some snooty Anglians who had thwarted her. Castiel was going to face down people he’d been taught to respect and revere since he’d been a little boy. Surely he must be feeling something, some kind of regret or anxiety. None of it showed on his face, if he felt it at all. Instead he watched the island loom closer in the distance.
Rowena and Sam sailed in the same ship, Rowena seated beside Sam and simpering while he directed the men rowing his ship. There had to be something going on there, although Meg couldn’t quite figure out what. They didn’t seem at all affectionate, but Rowena showed a reluctance to be apart from the oversized jarl and Sam tolerated her. Maybe it was a seidr thing, who knew. Dean rode in the same boat, because where you had one brother you couldn’t not have the other. Dean just looked hungry, as he always did before a battle.
Rowena had more of a point than just simpering beside Sam and looking pretty. Maybe Sam could have hidden their approach by himself, but Meg didn’t think his talents (if he indeed flirted with seidr at all) carried him so far. Rowena’s job was to minimize the likelihood that anyone from the monastery would notice their arrival, and she seemed to be doing well at her task. The Vikings were up on the beach, pulling their ships up onto the sand, before anyone picked up on the fact that they’d arrived. Even then, they seemed to notice more because Castiel set fire to the rowboats moored to their rickety old dock than because the Vikings themselves had done anything to alert them.
Now, of course, all need for stealth died away. Meg had made her orders explicit. Any children, regardless of status, were to be spared. Any regular monk who had not taken up arms could be spared, at least temporarily. Combatants were to be slaughtered without mercy, although Raphael, Uriel, Ion and Zachariah were to be brought to Meg. Higher noblewomen, if any were to be found, were to be captured alive if noncombatant and brought to Meg.
The monastery itself was to be burned to ash. They would find a way to transport the livestock and food stores off the island, but they would not leave anything remaining of this place of treachery.
The fight, such as it was, turned out to be nasty, brutish and short. The noblemen who had fled with Raphael tried to defend their king, but Meg’s Vikings had fought in similar close quarters many times. The noble Saxons were accustomed only to fighting in fields and on bridges; fighting in narrow corridors was alien to them, and they were at a disadvantage.
Many of the churchmen preferred to die rather than to see their beloved monastery put to the torch. Meg and her men were happy to oblige them. When Castiel tried to convince them that it was better to live and build a new house somewhere else, someplace that was free of Zachariah’s poison, they spat on him.
After the first two made such a statement, Meg started chopping off heads. They preferred to make a verbal statement after that. Even though they claimed they preferred to die rather than surrender their monastery, they apparently still believed that someone would intervene and save them before the end came. That didn’t work out very well for them, but a few toward the end did reconsider their position.
Most of the boys did not share the older monks’ suicidal wishes. They were perfectly happy to go and live in Anglia, among thrall families, and work the land. Perhaps their status would be less exalted than it would have been otherwise, but they could live with that. Meg held back a few of the older boys, identified by Castiel as in training as he’d been, and decided to put them to work as pages and squires in her house instead of making them farmers. She saw no point in wasting the training they’d had, and they could prove valuable allies down the road.
The most significant confrontations came when their quintet came to deal with the major enemies: Raphael and the others. Two big, burly Vikings brought Ion forward first. The traitor fell to his knees before the gang of five, trembling but with a snarl on his face. “What did you expect me to do, Castiel?” he growled. “When they came to me and told me to make sure you stayed behind and followed your orders, what do you expect me to do?”
Castiel didn’t answer him, except to snarl, so Meg gave a little laugh. “I really ought to thank you, you know. If you hadn’t run off, hadn’t shown yourself for the traitor you are, I’d never have gotten Castiel to admit that his king had betrayed him. Betrayed his oath to his own liege men.” She smirked and patted Ion insultingly on the cheek.
“He’s the traitor. His job was to die!”
Meg rolled her eyes and stabbed Ion in the neck. “You can stick him in the pit with the others,” she told his burly escorts. “How are we coming with finding the treasure Raphael carried off?”
“Oh, the monks who came over to us have been very forthcoming, Majesty.” The guard holding Ion’s right arm gave a toothless grin. “We’ve got someone loading it onto the ships already.”
“I like that. Forward thinking. Remind me that was you, Ragnar.”
The men dragged the corpse away, leaving a trail of blood in his wake. They were replaced by two more, who carried a struggling Zachariah. Meg knew that he was Zachariah because he wore a monk’s robes, and because Dean gave him a huge grin. Someone who didn’t know him better would have thought he really was being friendly. “Zachariah! Good to see you again! How’ve you been, man?”
Zachariah gave him a thin-lipped smile. Meg settled back on her heels to watch this exchange play out. Castiel looked uneasy, looking between the brothers, but he couldn’t know anything really about the pair. Sam’s nostrils flared, and Rowena put a hand on Sam’s arm. “Dean. It’s good to see a rational person here, someone with whom I can do business. I mean I understand that you were born among savages but you’ve had the benefit of exposure to higher culture.”
Dean laughed out loud. “I’m going to give you a little bit of advice here, Zach. Shut up.”
Zachariah shut up.
“Now, here’s the thing, Zach,” Dean continued, pacing around the captive. “I don’t know if you remember way back to when my brother - you remember him, big guy, not a big fan of Anglians these days but can you blame him? You spent a lot of time, back then, trying to split us up. Said a lot of crap. Some of it I even believed, Zach.” Suddenly Dean was in Zachariah’s face, moving faster than even Meg’s practiced eye could follow. “Do you remember what I told you, Zach?”
“Dean, you have to understand. I was just doing my job.”
Dean gave him the most terrifying smile that Meg had ever seen in her life. “And I’m just doing mine. Do you remember what I told you, when I figured out what a line of crap you and your buddy Michael were feeding me?”
Zachariah’s face darkened. “Michael was a king, you maggot!”
Dean backhanded him so hard that he only stayed upright because two Vikings were holding him up. The guards laughed out loud, but there was no humor in Dean’s face as he pulled Zachariah up by his collar. “I told you that I would stab you in your face.”
“You would dare to raise a hand to a man of the cloth - an abbot?” Zachariah had the temerity to look affronted.
Sam’s eyes looked a little glazed. “You’re not an abbot, jackass. You’re a bishop in hiding. You couldn’t live by monastic rules if you tried. Which you don’t.” He blinked and his eyes cleared. “Also, trust me. Whatever it is - Dean dares.” He smirked, but didn’t tear his eyes away.
Meg, though, had to look away when Dean carried out his promise. Even with everything she’d seen and done, that was a little much.
The guards carried him away just as they had Ion, and two more popped up in their place with Uriel between them. Uriel neither cowered nor shrank from their gaze. He sneered in contempt, and both of his guards seemed to be a little warier of him than the previous guards had needed to be. “Castiel. It would figure that you’re up to your elbows in this.”
No one questioned Sam’s right to step up, although both Dean and Rowena hovered nearby. Meg wasn’t sure about Rowena’s motivations, though. She might have been there just to thrive on Uriel’s death throes, or on Sam’s rage, who knew with her. He stepped to the front of the crowd and the whole crowd of spectators - captive monks, children and Vikings alike - fell silent.
Uriel stood a little straighter and tried to shake off his guards. When Sam gave them a subtle nod, they released their prisoner and took half a step back. “I am not afraid of you, Abomination.”
Sam met his eyes, showing nothing. “I don’t care.”
“Is this about revenge?” Uriel smirked. “It’s not like you can undo what we did.”
“Nope.” Sam hefted his sword in his right hand.
“You’re subhuman. We aren’t even obligated to offer you the opportunity for salvation.”
“Nope.”
“We will turn you into dust.”
Uriel’s eyes bulged in their sockets and blood streamed from his mouth. Sam had kept his enemy distracted with his big sword, but his left hand had strayed to his belt knife and he’d slipped it into Uriel’s throat with no more fanfare than he would have patting him on the shoulder.
The large Anglian clutched at his neck, and then fell to the ground. His guards didn’t bother trying to pick him up again. They just dragged him out by his feet.
Now came the last of the captives: Raphael. Raphael came before them with more dignity than Zachariah or Ion, but with a different sort of arrogance than Uriel. This was a man who had been raised with the knowledge that his very blood gave him shades of the divine. He’d never expected to succeed to the throne, nor had he been educated or reared to power. Still, he knew that he was “special,” and even in such circumstances as he now found himself he held himself to be superior.
“So, Castiel,” he intoned. “You have thrown your lot in with this rabble instead of following your orders.”
“My orders,” Castiel intoned, not moving a muscle, “were to defend Anglia. I have not yet failed in those orders. The people of Anglia are well ruled, under their new Queen.”
Raphael bristled. “I am their King! Anointed by God!”
“You abrogated your responsibility when you cared more for your treasure than for your people.” Castiel’s sword gave a very soft “snick” as it slid from its sheath.
Raphael either didn’t hear or didn’t care. “They are mine to destroy or save! Do you think that Michael or Lucifer would have had it otherwise?”
Castiel chuckled. “I don’t. You know, I wondered. For years, when they caught someone they defined as a witch, I wondered, but I obeyed. And then I was freed.”
Raphael gave him a look that was best described as “pitying.” “Oh, come now, Castiel. You’re a good soldier, but you’re nothing more. You’ll do as you’re told. I’m your king, duly anointed. I’m the heir to Michael, given that the Abomination murdered Lucifer alongside him. You’re angry. You’re hurt. But you can’t lift a hand against me.”
Castiel raised his sword. He moved once, efficient and brutal and struck the useless king’s head from his shoulders.
Castiel staggered away from the scene of the execution, leaving his sword behind him. Meg followed, leaving her lieutenants to lean up after her.
She followed her lover into the chapel, which had not yet been put to the torch. Castiel sank to his knees before a carving of a man nailed to a pair of crossed beams, tears running down his face as much as the blood ran down his armor. Meg let him have his moment before she approached, carding her fingers through his hair. “You did the right thing,” she told him.
He didn’t look at her. His wide eyes gazed straight at the cross. “He was my king,” he whispered. “Before.”
“And he did you wrong. He did your people wrong,” she reminded him, grasping his hair and giving a little tug.
“Yes. You’re my Queen now. Aren’t you afraid?”
She laughed. “No, Cas. I’m not. I’m not going to treat you or your people the way that Raphael did.”
He rose from his prayer and took her into his arms. “Promise me.”
Back to Chapter Two -- On to Masterpost