[For Dean Winchester] "Approach My trusty jackal's nose"

[death_dawg]

Arriving here is the closest thing to arriving in what would become Cairo, Illinois that Jacquel has experienced in the millenia he's seen: it is an odd experience, to say the least, but he's adapting. It's how he's lasted all these years and he's ready to adapt to this place as well: death might not hold any grip here, but one never knows when his

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[surfaceshine]

Peace isn't something Dean is really aware of how to obtain; or more accurately, not something he's aware of how to maintain. Everyone and their brother (no, literally) seems to have it out for him and his, so nothing lasts long. That's why he's working so hard, at this moment, to ignore the familiar but as of yet distant, internal feel of nerves splintering, trying to get back to the calm balance he'd found during the afternoon napping in their room. Restlessness is how it starts. He knows how it ends.

So that's why he's coming around to the door Jacquel is lounging beside from the outside, having decided that outside isn't doing him much good on the wandering front. It's the feel of the stranger - familiar, not necessarily good but contrasting with not necessarily bad - that stops him, though Dean completely misses it on the conscious level in amongst everything else. He only knows that it stopped him long enough to tilt a nod.

"Hey. I think your tan's done." Humor is always his first stop. Well. Mostly.

[surfaceshine]

He's heard of two of them, and so he's nodding along, kind of wondering that neither he nor Sam had noticed this particular pattern as a matter of curiosity; then Jacquel gets to the end and Dean's thoughtfulness turns into an outward deepening of the frown.

"What'd you mean by that last bit?"

[death_dawg]

"You've probably heard about Columbus and maybe Leif Ericksson, but there were others who came to the lands in the west, long before them," he says. "The people of the Nile found a way there, with reed boats and enough jars of sweet water to last the journey. They stayed long enough to trade with the natives for some copper jewelry and to worship their gods... and even bury their dead." He says the last with a small, sage smile.

[surfaceshine]

Dean considers this, digging critically through the forever ago knowledge instilled in him the hard way by earnest teachers and a stern father; the few helpful, relevant bits and pieces learned since then; the minutia he couldn't help but pick up from his nagging, geektard brother. It all points to one thing, and he glances doubtfully over from where he'd been studying the condensation on his beer.

"I don't recall any of that in US History 101. Assuming that by People of the Nile you mean Egyptians."

[death_dawg]

"It wasn't common knowledge, wasn't known much in the States till some archaeologists started digging around in the right spot, finding skulls that didn't make sense," he says. "But yes, technically: the Egyptians are what the Greeks called them, the people of Kemet, as they called the narrow land where they lived."

[surfaceshine]

"Americans too," adds Dean, because he ain't Greek and that's what he calls them. The rest of that, though, is way outside of this particular hunter's purview; he considers trying to mentally chase it down and make it make sense, would have almost any other time before this past year. Now, though, it's too far out of his depth and he shrugs.

"So, someone else from somewhere in one of my worlds. Nice."

[death_dawg]

He smirks a bit, mysteriously. "Somewhat: partly of your world, partly of the life beyond it. Or rather, partly of a place in between the two," he replies.

[surfaceshine]

Now that does fall directly into Dean's jurisdiction, but to his credit, he doesn't stiffen up the way his spine and shoulders want to; his thumb, rubbing patterns in the condensation on the side of his bottle, stills though, but he does not look over.

That's so, huh? Dean is, of course, instantly suspicious; it has partially to do with that unidentified, as-of-yet-unacknowledged vibe that originally stopped the hunter, and partially to do with the fact that despite the uneventful time in the Mansion so far Dean is still waiting for someone or something to show up for the second part of the object lesson that landed he and his brother here at all. But he doesn't say it - instead:

"How's that?"

[death_dawg]

"There are those who, by circumstance or accident, are called to guard and protect various aspects of the world, earthly or beyond the bounds of earth," he says, thoughtfully, gazing toward the setting sun. "They emerge from man's consciousness, they serve in their role as long as man thinks of them and gives them their due, but when man ceases to think of them and reverence them, they fade back into the void that man called them from."

[surfaceshine]

Dean considers this very carefully, expression blank and eyes focused through his hands. He's heard of something like it before - of course he has, Sam rambles all. the. time. and he totally saw Peter Pan when he was a kid - but he's not sure he wants to show that hand yet. In the end, he states as evenly and neutrally as he knows how, "Had a friend once who called what you're talking about religion. That make you some kinda saint?"

[death_dawg]

Jacquel snerks a bit. "A saint? Hardly, though I shared one of my names with a fifth-century Christian abbot, one of the first in Egypt," he said. "I'm more like a servant to the souls of the departed and the living they leave behind."

[surfaceshine]

There might be the dryest tint of amusement in Dean's reply, "Never heard of an abbot named Jacquel. But here we are back at the servant thing, though now you're on about souls. Huh."

Yeah, Dean digging for information is about as subtle as going at it with a full size pickaxe, we're well aware.

[death_dawg]

"Jacquel is one of my newer names, though it's a different form of a much older name I hadn't used in a very long time," he says, thoughtfully. "But I suppose a servant doesn't quite fit either, at least not all the time. Not when their hearts are to be weighed against the weight of a feather."

It's a hint: he's not stringing Dean along on purpose, but he does have a human front to maintain.

[surfaceshine]

Dean gets it, though he does not immediately recognize the hinted references; all the information he has and has been given is enough, considered on the whole, to bring him to the right answer, but he isn't brushed up enough on his Egyptian mythology to peg it right away. It will take brainstorming with Sam to come up with it. He digests that particular phrase, taking a moment to fail to suss it out of his memory, and is quiet for almost a full minute before taking a longer pull off his beer and continuing.

"So, that's gotta be like some specialty equipment right there. Or does your average vegetable scale do the job?" He's joking, dry and sharp.

[death_dawg]

"A simple balance is good enough: the feather we had specially made for this purpose," Jacquel replies. "But I would need that only in specific circumstances, and I've yet to see any sign of that since I came here."

[surfaceshine]

"Yeah," Dean agrees. "Not a lot of grocery stores around here, I've noticed. Or spare hearts."