Imaginary storytelling, Supernatural edition: Places to come from, places to go.

This is for neotoma and tiny_antares. And everyone who likes fictional anthropology.

I had a moment of great jubilation when I got to the fourth season of Supernatural - not just because the plot was kicking into high gear, not just because of Misha Collins, not just because the effects budget had been increased to about $72 per episode up from $65. A lot of it was from the fact I'd finally found something to fit the premise-in-search-of-a-plot that'd been kicking around my head for a few years.

Then I went and dedicated myself to Team Fortress 2 before I could get a chance to write anything. I did, however, take copious notes on the story idea set off long ago by the phrase "angel sanctuary" - an anime series I knew nothing about save the title, because I find late-90s anime trailers obtuse at the best of times - and might as well get around to sharing them since I don't have to be up early to go to work tomorrow.

With Supernatural, some of it was a reaction against all the fics forgetting angels are, in Castiel's words, "Multidimensional wavelengths of celestial intent" and are instead treated as physical beings - while also giving them characteristics belonging to said multidimensional wavelengths in a way that struck me as internally inconsistent. Too many stories where it wasn't one or the other, or even lacking in a clear set of rules for the story itself. I found myself wanting to read a story that didn't seem to be written yet: something with angels not as wavelengths but entirely physical beings, with fingernails, digestive tracts, oil glands for their feathers, and all that good stuff. Something where - perhaps more importantly than having clearly delineated gestation periods - the culture of the angels was also given attention and care and not just added to as the author felt the story needed. Something set in a world where where angels were in textbooks along with kappas, selkies, and werewolves. And, going with the original story idea, live fairly removed from the rest of the world for their own safety.

In addition to being one of those, "Hey, wouldn't it be neat if...?" stories, the underpinning of this AU would be an exploration of the relationship between Castiel and Sam and Dean, and the impact the brothers' have on angels - and through that lens, the impact of sudden external influence on isolated cultures.

Angels, being highly magical beings, have long been hunted by humans for use in spellcraft and magic - blood, feathers, eggshells, bones. Their original homelands were the Middle East, with them seemingly going extinct in the wild by the time of the Crusades, and went extinct in captivity a couple of decades after that. England and France have the largest collections of skeletons and assorted remains, and will sometimes tap into their dwindling stores if the need is great enough, such as a potion to save the life of the ruling monarch curently ravaged by lung cancer. There are a few bone flutes that still see use, and Sam and Dean were fortunate enough to be in the right place at the right time to hear one played once.

In addition to the shifts regarding angels, hunters are fairly well known in society as well. Somewhere between lawyers and plumbers in terms of prestige, it's a profession that ranges from the well-respected white collar academic to the dirty-fingernailed blue collar monster dispatchers. Mary and Sam Winchester lean towards the former; John and Dean, the latter.

As a side note, I didn't ever take the time to figure out if Mary and John are alive, if it's only Mary who's dead, what happened without an apocalypse two thousand years in the making to give Sam and Dean their current relationship. But I did settle on the Winchesters having a family cabin out in Arizona in the mountains somewhere. Because that's where Dean shoots down Castiel.

( A few thousand more words are under the cut, for reading convenience. )

It's still something I think about from time to time. There was a lot of time spent on it, and I really would like to read this sometime. And I honestly can't think of a better reason to write a story.