World Tree MUSH

The fire has been well under control in Shoshone National Forest for some time now. Itana moved well clear of it once their new guest had been handed over to law enforcement. She is not so foolhardy as to trifle with the forces of nature themselves. Forest fires are more ravenous than any sandworm or Sahuagin.

The fire burning cozily on the shore of a creek deeper into the forest is much more controlled - a simple cookfire, mostly sheltered from the world by a heap of stones around one side. The smells wafting from it are somewhat easier to spot.

Itana kneels by the fire, stirring a small clay pot with care. What's bubbling inside is clearly some form of stew, though from a look inside, she's eschewed putting meat in it despite her preference for adding some. She's not expecting just her this time. What's in there is mostly vegetables and spices in a hearty broth, with some rice sitting in a warm bowl off to one side.

In truth, Itana has no idea how to call an angel. But she has a feeling that if she waits around long enough, one might appear. The blonde girl does seem to be the type to take care of those in her halo.

    Itana need not call an angel. Not when the angel is right there.
    Having not found another source of strangeness to investigate yet, Castiel has not left the area of the Shoshone forest, herself; and soon enough the soft sound of sandals on grass heralds the small blonde's arrival to the small cookfire.
    "Were you waiting long?" Castiel asks, hands folding behind her back as she emerges from behind a nearby tree.
    "I get the sense you were waiting for me." She says gently, lips parting into a thin smile as she fusses with the hem of her dress- which has somehow managed to remain pristine white despite all the hiking in the past few days.

Itana wasn't in a hurry to leave the forest even if she hadn't intended to hang around and talk to Castiel. She's far more at home out here in the wilderness than she is in cities, or even moving along branches of the Tree that are travelled. Being farther from people is in some ways more natural to her.

"Not long." Itana stirs her pot a moment more before looking up, taking a wooden bowl in one hand. She begins to quietly serve up some of the rice and food. Quiet eyes turn to the approaching angel.

The usual stoicism in Itana's carriage is still there, but the edge on it has softened imperceptibly. She's not exactly smiling, but neither is there any particular standoffishness in the way she offers up the food to Castiel.

"...I wanted to thank you. For helping back there."

    Lingering by the tree for a moment, Castiel's crystal blue eyes focus on the nomad woman in silence for a beat, one hand resting on the firm wooden bark at her side before she steps towards Itana. She wasn't in quite a hurry, herself, but her duty has her carousing all about the US dealing with ghosts and gribblies until she can find a means to return to her home.
    Which she still has not.
    When the food is offered to her, she hunkers down by Itana and the cookfire, hugging her knees to her chest as she settles down, resting her cheek on one knee for a beat.
    It's questionable if she even needs to eat, but she is not one to be so rude as to turn down offered food, and thus she accepts the meal gratefully with a quiet "Thank you."
    But then the girl purses her lips briefly.
    Blue eyes fall half-lidded as she offers that thin smile again.
    "Mn... You were in pain." She admits. "I wouldn't be able to live with myself if I couldn't at least try to ease you of that, even to a small degree, Itana."

Itana's cooking isn't going to win any Gordon Ramsay prizes for fantastic plating, but it's surprisingly good. She picked out mostly local ingredients - vegetables common to the United States, at least. The spices aren't local but they're relatively mild, not enough to inflame the tongue so much as delicately play with it.

Serving up another helping for herself, Itana sinks to a seat just to the side of the eating angel. For a moment, she looks down into her bowl, seemingly sorting through how to respond.

"You have a keen sense for that," she finally concedes. "You're more empathetic than most of the people I've traveled with. Perhaps that is the nature of an angel."

She looks up again, that same hint of obscure pain behind her eyes. "...Seeing that father brought back things I would rather not have lived through. He lost someone and it led him down a path of hatred. When I saw him... it was as though I could look into myself. To see the pain he felt. Where it could lead, if that pain consumes a person."

    And Castiel is not going to complain about a free meal, when presented with one. Tucking an errant lock of golden hair behind an ear, she delicately samples and savors the stew, pausing briefly to consider the interplay of savory with the mild spicy upon her tongue.
    But then she slowly shakes her head.
    "That is not the nature of an angel." She corrects, tone mild and tender. "That is my nature." The girl says, before pursing her lips.
    "Each angel, much like humanity, varies from person to person; all the way up from the highest Seraphim, Cherubim, and Thrones, down to the Dominions, Virtues, and Powers, all the way to the lowest Principality, Archangel, and even Guardian Angel in the choir." She explains before quieting for Itana to continue, a smal hand reaching out to gently set upon the woman's shoulder.
    "I do not know what happened in your past." She admits. "But I could tell, his loss resounded in you painfully. I could see you standing at the precipice of grief and fury... A place where no one should have to stand. Especially not alone."

Itana took a bite of her meal. The taste hasn't fully registered. Her mind is drifting back into the past.

When Castiel explains the hierarchy of angels, she blinks and tilts her head. "I didn't... realize it was quite so organized," she murmurs. "I understand those things very little... they may just work differently where I come from."

As she lowers her eyes to her meal again, she's left to once more sink into the mire of thought. The tiny hand on her shoulder is like an anchor, in some ways. Castiel can feel it - the silent tension in the way Itana carries herself, like ropes lashed into place to hold closed a gate of pain. The archer draws a breath and looks up, eyes on the small girl, lips pressed tightly together as the emotions grapple with one another behind her face. Pride and pain, hurt and determination, fierce independence and pent-up anguish.

She finally lowers her head and looks away, one hand coming to rest on the back of Castiel's. For a few seconds, she doesn't say anything.

Then - "My family were... traders. In a desert place, around a great castle. I had been separated from them in an attack, from men from a faraway land. I joined with some travelers to return home. But when I had returned, the attackers had burned the castle. Killed all inside."

Her voice was already underlaid with a tight chord of hurt. Her body tenses as she finishes the tale. "I found those I loved dead in the sand. Since then, I have been... trying to find the killers. I wanted to pay them back for what they took from me."

    It is apparently very organized. Though Castiel quiets down rather than go into the finer points of how the choir operates. Now is niether the time nor place. Not as the woman tells her what happned to her. What happened to those she had loved. What happened to her family and friends in that desert so far away.
    Setting her bowl down now, Castiel inches closer, fingers curling gently into Itana's shoulder as her other hand reaches across to gently set upon the woman's cheek, tension or no, she pours every ounce of herself into that touch, offering only silent support and comfort as best she can, the injured tone in the woman's voice not going unheard.
    "Do not repay evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everyone." She says, voice a tender whisper. "If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. Do not be overcome with evil, but overcome evil with good."
    Still, she holds Itana, touch tender and warm. "I wish there was more I could do to ease your pain, take your burden off your shoulders in this moment. It is in my nature to heal the wounds of others, but yours are wounds I cannot lay hands upon..." She admits, eyes falling half-lidded, watching Itana through her lashes. "I can only give you what solace I am able, in that all wounds close over time. Though the scars they may leave can be vast and horrid... Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls, Itana; the most massive characters are seared with scars. It is not your destiny to be consumed by hate."

Itana came out of the encounter with the grief-maddened father free of physical wounds. Her encounter on the outskirts of Damcyan two years prior was not so kind to her, not carving pain into her body but into a heart she's traditionally kept walled off from outsiders. She has been in no hurry to admit the truth even to those she travelled there with - not even to Duncan, to Cecil, to Rydia, wherever she is now.

And yet, there is a touch. Delicate, full of compassion. The silent support and the tender words trace like cool raindrops down the armoured shell of her soul. They begin to find the crevices and fractures in it, trickling into stress cracks worn into emotional steel by too many days and nights spent sealing the loneliness away.

Castiel holds her. Whispers that her destiny is consumed by hate. Itana's face remains turned away for a moment, despite that hand on her cheek.

And then her head bows. Her shoulders come up a little.

She shivers. No, something more than that.

Turning her head, Itana lets her face fall to Castiel's shoulder. In any other time, she would be ashamed of the way she brings her hands up to the little angel's upper arms and clings to her like a rock. She would despise herself for the way tears begin to soak into the shoulder of Castiel's garment, the way she shakes under mute but profound spasms of emotion she didn't shed even in the isolation of her own travels.

There is a moment where she cannot find words, and Castiel is left with Itana quietly sobbing into her shoulder.

    Castiel waits. Silent, placid, and patient, for her words to reach Itana; to seep through those spaces in her emotional armor, and for the woman to react. No sooner than the woman's head dips, the angel knows what is to come next, confirmed only by the slight lift to slender but powerful shoulders. And the shiver all but clenches it.
    Castiel is ready- no more than ready- when Itana turns to her and clings. And still, her touch is as gentle and light as a feather; arms enveloping the woman in as comforting an embrace she can offer in this hour of desperate and obvious need.
    Crystal blue eyes fall closed completely as Castiel dips her head, nose tucking into Itana's hair.
    Nothing else is important in this moment; nothing short of the hand of God himself could tear Castiel from Itana right now, and even then, the angel would struggle to be yanked free; such is how important it is that she do everything in her power to bring even what little comfort she can to her friend.
    Tears soak into the pristine cloth of Castiel's dress, and she shows no sign of moving to release Itana until Itana has shed every tear she has.
    "Weeping may endure for a night..." She whispers. "But joy cometh in the morning." She murmurs, soft and tender.
    It is not until the woman has shown signs of calming, that she says something else.
    "... I have a sister, you know." Castiel admits.
    "... Though I suppose technically all other angels are my brothers and sisters; I mean I have a twin. Every day that we are separated from one another pains me greatly, and with no means to return home- to return to her- well... Were I to ever lose her, truly, I do not know what would become of me. That you have held on and remained so strong after all this time is a testament to your fortitude and strength."

Castiel is the first person in a long time to see Itana cry. She would never trust someone enough to do that. Not until now, anyway. There has been no one else with the kind of simple, untainted kindness and empathy - the ability to care and love without judgment, to share without denigrating her or treating her like less of a person.

It had never even occurred to Itana that she needed someone like her. It had never occurred to her how many tears she has to shed. For a few moments, she shakes and lets herself weep into the angel's shoulder, only the occasional sniff and stifled sob heard.

Slowly, she begins them under control. The tender hug, the nuzzle into her hair, help more than she would have thought. Finally she exhales through her nose, her fingers relaxing a little and drifting down to the angel's elbows.

Castiel whispers to her, and Itana draws a slow breath in an effort to steady herself. Her eyes, red from the tears, lift from the girl's shoulder, though most of her face is still buried there. She listens, quiet at first.

Her arms move to encircle Castiel's waist, holding her and drawing her in a bit more closely as if to share what comfort she can possibly give. "...Being alone is hard," she murmurs, voice hoarse with spent emotion. "If you seek a... a way to return home... I don't know what I can do.

"Except be here with you, now."

    These are things Castiel does. This is her nature; to care and share her love freely, without reserving or holding back any part of it; especially for one such as Itana, who has become a mainstay in the little angel's life in the mortal realm. And when she senses that need in Itana, right now, she can only do one thing. Give all of herself, as best she can.
    Once the desert nomad has calmed, once she looks up, Castiel gazes down at her, eyes meeting, a faint smile playing at the corners of her lips.
    Carelessly, the Guardian Angel uses the sleeve of her pristine dress to dab at Itana's reddened eyes, to wipe away the remaining tears, her very touch soothing the stinging burn and puffiness away.
    "Being alone is hard." She concedes easily. "You would know." Pointed out, tone still as gentle as her touch. But then she shakes her head.
    "Itana el-Zayl, I am a Guardian Angel." She points out. "When there is someone crying out... When there is someone in need of help, protection, and aid, it is both my duty and nature to do everything I can for them. Returning home is secondary to me, right now, when there is someone here who needs a shoulder to cry on. It is I who will be here with you... For as long as you want me, to be, anyway."

Itana does not easily bring people into her life beyond the most surface level - that of traveling companions. Some among those she's fought with have been at her side through a few of these little adventures now. She still will not let them in. Castiel is different.

A Guardian Angel has her duty. She tends to it, and dabs at Itana's face. The archer draws a slow breath, her cheeks colouring a little, but there's more steadiness there now - a simple acceptance that Castiel gets to see her like this. The angel is privy to it now - the Itana who hurts, who is vulnerable, who struggles without anyone she can truly trust or call a friend.

Well. Almost without anyone. Things change.

Her hand moves to find one of the angel's. Itana clasps that delicate hand between both of hers, and looks up at her with a bite to her lower lip, before releasing it with a soft breath. The angel places her own loneliness aside for her. The selflessness of it makes her want to cry again, that someone would take such a step for her sake.

"...I would have you with me any time," Itana says with a small smile that reaches her eyes. "Perhaps I will find ways to protect you, too."