Work Text:
Castiel watched. That was his job, after all; the ever-present angel of Thursday, left to cautiously observe the progress of the little fish he hadn't stepped on all those years ago. He watched, and he waited, and he reported. He did not think. He did not question. And most of all, most of all, he did not interfere.
Or, that is what he told his siblings.
What he did not tell them, and what they never found out (because who would suspect Castiel, the quiet one, the solemn one?), is that occasionally, when the heavenly forces paused for breath in their endless battle against Evil, Castiel would manifest and walk the earth. And sometimes, when he walked, he would find something beautifully fragile and mortal, and he would fixate on it.
In 1563, it was a stallion, a beautiful thing with a patch of black on its magnificent white forehead. It was so alive -- that is what caught the angel's eye. Its sides heaved with breath, and its head tossed violently whenever the angel came near. It seemed as though the pasture in which the humans grazed it and ran it could barely contain it; something inside it filled and surpassed its boundaries. Castiel loved the horse because it was variable, unpredictable, wild. Such a contrast to the stoic, upright angels who did nothing but follow the quiet commands of their Father, words that Castiel, try as he might, could never truly hear.
Over time, though, the horse grew less. Every day, Castiel watched the humans corner it, frighten it, and tame its fire. It grew out of its young flightiness, and it stopped tossing its head when Castiel came near. Something stirred in him as he witnessed the breaking of such seemingly insurmountable spirit, something almost akin to regret. He turned away and vanished, disgusted, not with the horse but, inexplicably, with himself.
Time marched on, and the humans marched to war. Some petty dispute; it meant nothing to the angels. None of them, that is, besides Castiel. He watched the faceless hordes of humans made beastly by armor, and he grew grave, disturbed. He did not know why. He thought only of the pounding of hooves, the screams of dying animals, creatures sacrificed to forward a war that they didn't understand. His thought of his sister, Izarael, and the human she had inhabited. He thought of her death at the hands of a demon, and he thought of the death of the human that she had been. Had she been scared? Had either of them? Had they felt pain?
Castiel needed to forget this. He needed to watch, only to watch -- to think was not his place. Despite this, he longed to return to the horse. He needed to see it alive and well. He needed to know that there was something of the old ferocity left in its heart.
He arrived to an empty pasture, and the memory of fear. But he could still feel the creature, alive, fighting, shaken, not far from where he stood, so he followed the feeling. He followed it straight to a great battlefield, where he saw two great armies charging in to battle, eyes like monsters, mounts screaming in confusion below them, and there, there, in the mass of bodies and anger and hatred, he thought he saw a mass of white; the horse. His horse. And he could do nothing but watch.
He watched as the armies met in a sea of bodies and metal and sickening noise. He watched as the human atop his horse kicked it onward, onward. He watched as the horse's leg broke, its rider tossed on to the point of a lance. He heard the creature's screams, felt its pain...but he did not interfere, he watched.
Finally, after the last human on the battlefield could fight no longer, Castiel moved, soundless as the passage of time. He walked among the dead, touching a hand, a hoof, a chest. Closing eyes. This was not his job, but he found that he didn't care. At last, he reached his horse, still struggling against its fatigue and its broken leg, trying to rise and run and live. Castiel touched his fingertips to the creature's one black patch, and watched as it drew its last breath. What was left of its soul fled, afraid and beaten.
Castiel did not return to Earth for many years after. Watching was easier that way.