milliways_bar | (no subject)

Entry tags:

castiel,
elle

(no subject)

When his elder brother suggests a possible course of study, Castiel listens. Even if she is not quite the same elder brother he knows.

The weather is not yet conducive to learning to ride, but the seasons pass swiftly. And until then there is research.

And so Castiel has his nose buried in “The Noblest Invention: An Illustrated History of the Bicyle.”

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Elle crosses her arms, leaning back into her chair.

It's not really wariness, but she doesn't want to say anything X hasn't already said.

"She had that place."

"And your place was the same?"

Castiel is not good at the heart to heart talk.

But he is good at asking questions.

At least she gets to say 'was' now.

"Sort of."

What she does still have to say -

"I think so."

"X told me," Castiel ventures, "that she was created by the hands of Man. And that she was directed to carry out what they willed."

"You were the same?"

they've got her on a leash

"No one made me. Not - like that."

She doesn't say anything else.

Castiel waits.

Patiently.

He does not know if Elle wishes to speak of what is troubling her. X had not.

Castiel will not press. But he will leave the door open.

And he has all the time in the world. Almost literally.

"It was - like hers. For the rest of it."

Even if Elle doesn't say it - I think.

Castiel nods slightly.

"My background is similar."

But unlike X-23 and Elle, it does not trouble him. (Not that Castiel would admit to.)

The difference, of course, is in their natures. Castiel is an angel. X and Elle are mortal creatures.

Elle looks over to his book.

Quietly: "Are you going to do anything like that?"

"Like what?"

She motions slightly with her hand.

No more comfortable than the first time she said it, "A - rite of passage."

Castiel thinks, looks down at his book, and smiles ever slightly.

"I suppose I am," he says.

"I am to learn to ride. To learn to ride is a rite of passage..."

It follows logically.

"It is not something that angels do much of. Rites of passage."

Certainly not with the regularity that people do.

Elle doesn't also smile. Her eyes stay on the book.

"Why are you learning?"

Beat.

"So you'll know how to leave?"

Castiel's smile evaporates.

"No. I do not wish to leave."

It is the nature of humans to want to, in symbolic ways, if nothing else, distance themselves from their parents and their homes.

Only in rare cases is that in the nature of angels.

And Castiel is not one of those angels.

"I guess you wouldn't get very far on that."

Even if the mental image of Castiel riding a tricycle is entertaining.

"Then why're you doing it if you don't - do very much of it?"

Castiel thinks, head tilted at an angle.

"I will learn for the sake of learning."

"Meg told me that not all lessons are meant to be easy. It follows that not all may make sense, either."

Quietly, "I think you can know why you're doing something."

"I believe that sometimes that knowledge comes later."

Castiel, for example, still has no idea why he was the angel who was ordered to this place to learn what lessons it might impart.

But he trusts that that will be made clear in time.

That wasn't really a good thing for Elle. And she knows she can't wait for that knowledge to come to her.

"God's telling you what to do?"

She doesn't really know the implications of that - except that it must be different from her father telling her what to do.

"Yes," Castiel replies promptly.

That is the way of it.

Orders come down from God to the angels.

The angels obey.

Elle shrugs her left shoulder.

"Then it's different."

"For me."

Maybe for humans. But she's not going to guess.

Castiel once again agrees.

"Yes. It is given to you to choose that which you will do."

Free will was God's gift to humanity.

And like everything you get, someone can try to take it from you. Something of a catch-22.

But this time, she doesn't argue it.

"I guess it is now."

Castiel looks at her curiously.

"Then why would you choose to simply give up?"

No more rites of passage? Ever? Human life is rife with such events. The only way to avoid them is to stop living, metaphorically if not literally.

"It's not -"

Elle sits back, and pushes her hair out of her face.

"They're just - they're things people make up and they're for them and I can't -"

You were a normal girl. But she's not anymore. No one saved her, no one protected her, and no matter what she was or could have been, she's not that now.

"I can't be them."

Accepting that might have been her last rite of passage.