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femgenficathon2008-07-30 02:36 am
osmalic.livejournal.com) wrote in femgenficathon2008-07-30 02:36 am
"whoso pleaseth god"; Mary Winchester, Lilith (PG-13)
Title: "whoso pleaseth god"
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
osmalic
Fandom: Supernatural
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: slightly horror, mythical/Biblical references
Prompt: 98) Justice is better than chivalry if we cannot have both. -- Alice Stone Blackwell.
Author's Notes: Before this gets Kripke'd big time. First, thanks to M who tried her best with the initial comments. And then a very big thank you tofaelescaloris for the intensive beta. I don't think it was an easy job, tackling those commas, introducing parallelisms, and commenting on imagery, but she did it all wonderfully. For a complete stranger, too. Any mistakes found here, though, are mine.
Summary: There is a little girl standing at the doorway of the nursery.
whoso pleaseth god
There is a little girl standing at the doorway of the nursery.
Mary Winchester doesn't notice her at first, while sitting beside the window intently looking outside to the darkened streets plagued with the beginnings of a thunderstorm. She reasons to herself that she would have sensed a disturbance, so there is a stunned moment when she turns and sees the girl staring at her, expression a combination of fondness, hunger, and fury.
Automatically, Mary's fingers splay protectively over her swollen belly. Her tongue turns to lead, her blood cold. She knows this person, but she cannot say the name.
The little girl tracks the movement, smile quirking her small lips. "It's nice to know you still remember me," she says. The wind that manages to slip through the glass window hardly touches her dark curls, though it brushes Mary's face and hair.
Mary opens her mouth, closes it. "You," she says finally, then louder, "What do you want?"
"What you never thought to fight for," the little girl replies with a shrug. "Justice."
It strikes Mary so suddenly, an almost pain in what she would like to think is her heart, making her close her eyes briefly as if blinking. "Lilith," she gasps.
When she opens her eyes, the little girl is gone.
---
The visit disturbs her, reminds her of bargains made years ago using words and blood. But more than that, it puzzles her, jumbles in her brain until her fingers itch to open her diary and draw patterns that she has already sworn to forget.
It is with this that Mary lies awake at night, watching her husband snore beside her. She thinks about millions of women around the world who would kill for what she has, would probably understand what she went through to get it. She traces John's cheek, his jaw, his throat, scratching her nails faintly over stubbly skin, knowing how much life is pulsing beneath her fingertips. The echo of voices drowns in her head, whispering her name.
"You'd have been called greater names," a little girl, black hair, dark skin, says from the doorway. And oh, it's five-year-old Jenny Bruner from across the street, standing in her yellow pajamas, holding the teddy bear Dean always coveted. "If only you wished for something else."
Mary shakes her head, sighing. Beside her, John sleeps on. "I have nothing more to offer," she whispers. She speaks only the truth. "Whatever you want, I can't give it."
Little Jenny cocks her head. "It's not the answer you gave to—"
"Don't say the name," Mary hisses, leaping from her bed.
For one frightening moment, she thinks John will wake, but he only snorts and wheezes out a question, before he falls asleep again. The girl does not spare him a glance, keeping her gaze on the older woman's.
"It took us thousands of years," the little girl tells her harshly. Betrayed. "Blood, tears, wars, and death, Mary Winchester. You, of all people, should understand how there are still monsters ready to take everything you've begun to care about."
John shifts on the bed but Mary dares not look back at him. "They're only humans," she whispers helplessly.
The girl recoils as if struck, but then her smile is back. Staring at her, Mary wonders how Jenny can look so old, so sad. "You'll remember," she says coldly, "that humans' sins match the sins of Hell, Mary Winchester."
Mary shivers at the coldness of the girl's tone. "What sin did we women commit that heaven had to turn us away?" she whispers.
"Free will," Lilith spits in response. Her words fall from her lips with the languid trickle of black smoke, like worms' legs crawling all over her face, snaking around her neck, slithering all over her body until there is nothing more but the mutilated corpse of little Jenny Bruner at the doorway of Mary Winchester's bedroom.
---
Mary is finishing her work reports in the living room, absent-mindedly answering Dean's questions with murmured assents before she realizes that her son has been quiet for a long time. When she looks up, her heart almost stops.
Dean is sitting on the floor, smile on his face, and reaching out to touch a little girl's twisted fingers.
"NO!" Mary shouts, crossing the room in a blink and snatching Dean away.
"Mommy," Dean says mournfully as they skid to the floor. "She told me to go with her."
Mary blood runs cold, because she did not hear anything, and she places herself in front of her son, crying out to the girl, "What do you want?"
The girl—wearing a yellow Sunday dress and Mary Janes—lolls her head, the sound of broken bones squelching. She laughs. "Oh, Mary," she mocks, "I've already told you what I want." Her eyes track Dean hungrily, devouring.
"This won't—Dean isn't—" Mary is angry, furious that this demon has the audacity to step into her house, to threaten her with her presence, when Mary has already given up so much. "Lilith," she finds herself pleading, unable to finish.
And suddenly, the afternoon sun is blocked, electricity dying, winds howling outside and rattling the windows and doors. Lilith's yellow Sunday dress whips around her. And her eyes, her eyes, turn from hazel to white, holding the milky color. She takes a few steps, movements crooked and ugly. "You would know!" she screams. "You, who would abandon your past for your misplaced beliefs! How can you not understand what a woman needs?!"
Mary turns away quickly, already praying, Not my children, not them, and she hides Dean, hides her belly from the demon's wrath, and prays, prays.
Then everything stops.
She trembles, expecting the blow and already wondering if John would know how to look for them, when she realizes that she does not hear any roar, nor feels pain. A quick glance down has her watching how Dean wriggles out of her grasp. "Mommy, you're hurting me, Mommy, it hurts," he whimpers and still, she will not let go. She turns around.
Lilith stands a few feet away, fury warping her young face, but she is watching them almost curiously. Mary traces her sight, recognizing the softening of the demon's features as she stands silently, watches what she can see of Dean struggling in Mary's arms. Lilith is staring at Dean.
Justice, Lilith had answered when Mary asked her.
Bile roils in her throat, and she feels her unborn child kick inside her. "No," Mary gasps out at the sudden realization, followed by denial, "No, I won't let you!"
Lilith's gaze snaps back, and she gives a smile that distorts her kindness into evil. Approving. "Well, well," she clucks, "it only took you thousands of years to learn how much women can bleed for their children." And softer, she utters Mary's name, "Marchosias."
Mary does not flinch, but she does not let go of Dean, even as he says Mommy over and over again.
---
The thing with demons, Mary knows, is that they have a religion. No one knows it, or no human can remember, but many demons were believers. Of whom, none could say. Many would cry out, "Lucifer," but there are other gods, other idols.
Belief is something that she remembers, treasures. She's not a religious person, but she has her own beliefs; that wrongs can be righted, that patience is a virtue, and that wanting something hard enough can almost be called 'love'. Most of all, she knows that humans can be fallible, but they believe things so strongly that they're willing to blind themselves over other issues. Demons can be the same way.
There are things that kill every supernatural being out there, and Mary knows each and every way a figure from Hell can crawl back, how they can be revived, how they can disappear. Most of all, she knows the pain of exorcism by the tones of their screams.
Demons have religions, something they believe in. And Mary knows what hurts them most is having those beliefs betrayed.
She's coming to understand this far sooner than she expects.
---
"Watch Dean," Mary screams at John during the six hours of labor. "Watch him, don't let him out of your sight, oh god, don't let this baby die, I'd rather die, please—"
Later, John enters the room with Dean in his arms. They each press their lips on her cheek, and John laughs, "You'd think Sam's your firstborn by the way you were cussing."
Mary laughs, shifting baby Sammy in her arms. Tears prick her eyes. She whispers, "I was thinking how I don't want to lose you."
Dean sits pressed at her side, staring at Sammy with awed eyes. She knows why Lilith would want this.
Even after four years, the rush of tenderness for all her boys still surprises her.
---
A dream of yellow eyes wakes Mary, and she exhales because it is not the first time. She stares at Sammy, sleeping inside his crib, for a very long time.
The little girl with a bullet hole between her eyes, sitting on the window ledge stays silent.
Finally, finally, Mary gives a breath, only spares the girl a marginal glance. "You won't take my children," she says in a low voice.
The little girl gives a hollow laugh. "So did I vow to all my children, but they were all claimed and killed for Adam's line." She sneaks another look at Mary but this time, it is directed to the crib. The streetlamp lines the sinister smile on her lips. "I won't really want him." She nods at Sammy.
Mary blinks, curiosity warring with the anger stirring in her now-empty belly. "You won't get Dean, either."
"I only want children who can be broken," Lilith says, smiling. She is still looking at the baby. "I'd say Dean's soul would be a commodity, wouldn't it?"
"Why him?"
"Why not?" Lilith replies, knowing it is not an answer. When she sees how Mary glares, she laughs. "Oh, Mary. Be thankful I only want the one no one will ever protect." When Mary moves to protest, Lilith cuts her off quickly, "I am nothing if not patient and itching to right an injustice. Your sons will always hunger for both justice and chivalry, but you cannot give them both."
"A thousand years," Mary wonders, "and still all you think about is revenge?"
"A thousand years and the Laws of War haven't changed at all," the girl reminds her. The movement of her lap shows Mary she is swinging her legs. "Your insistence to give these petty meat suits an equal chance to fight is pathetic, and you've grown soft. Chivalry will get you nowhere."
Mary swallows, almost snarls, "You'll never take Dean."
The girl gives her a look. "You're just one person fighting an imaginary war," she says lightly, as if the reminder will make it true. "And don't think it's just this. There will be others, demons and people, with intentions for your newborn far worse than the blessing I offer to your firstborn son." Her teeth gleam white in the moonlight; the name Azazel remains unspoken between them. "After all, you're only human now. And you've forgotten that humans die."
---
Mary burns but she hasn't forgotten.
Azazel stands by Sammy's crib, fingers outstretched as soon as she chokes out the surprised, "You..." His smile is wide, grotesque, and his blood drips from his hand to Sammy's baby lips.
Mary thinks, Oh Lilith, like the many months ago when a little girl in her living room, in this nursery, exasperatedly says her name, Oh, Mary.
Mary understands it now; years of having her family gives her perspective. Though she now knows that Lilith was wrong, she finds herself ready to weep for the thousands of years the other woman had to suffer, watching her children being murdered again and again.
Lilith thinks justice and she thinks of death. Mary can remember how the little girl looked at Dean, eyes soft and maybe a little insane. As if by possessing a little girl, killing the child of an enemy, it will give justice to the children she allowed to be sacrificed in God's hands.
Lilith understands how humans can die, but Mary knows how humans—how women can die to let people they love live.
Which is why, when the flames start to engulf her, when she sees John's horrified face staring up at her, she opens her mouth. Tries her best to tell him that this is the legacy that Marchosias—that Mary Winchester—is giving them.
"John," she wants to say. War, she thinks. Vengeance. Life.
- end -
"And I find more bitter than death the woman whose heart is snares and nets, and whose hands are bands: whoso pleaseth God shall escape from her; but the sinner shall be taken by her."
- Ecclesiastes 7:26
extra: thoughts.
Author:
osmalicFandom: Supernatural
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: slightly horror, mythical/Biblical references
Prompt: 98) Justice is better than chivalry if we cannot have both. -- Alice Stone Blackwell.
Author's Notes: Before this gets Kripke'd big time. First, thanks to M who tried her best with the initial comments. And then a very big thank you to
faelescaloris for the intensive beta. I don't think it was an easy job, tackling those commas, introducing parallelisms, and commenting on imagery, but she did it all wonderfully. For a complete stranger, too. Any mistakes found here, though, are mine.Summary: There is a little girl standing at the doorway of the nursery.
There is a little girl standing at the doorway of the nursery.
Mary Winchester doesn't notice her at first, while sitting beside the window intently looking outside to the darkened streets plagued with the beginnings of a thunderstorm. She reasons to herself that she would have sensed a disturbance, so there is a stunned moment when she turns and sees the girl staring at her, expression a combination of fondness, hunger, and fury.
Automatically, Mary's fingers splay protectively over her swollen belly. Her tongue turns to lead, her blood cold. She knows this person, but she cannot say the name.
The little girl tracks the movement, smile quirking her small lips. "It's nice to know you still remember me," she says. The wind that manages to slip through the glass window hardly touches her dark curls, though it brushes Mary's face and hair.
Mary opens her mouth, closes it. "You," she says finally, then louder, "What do you want?"
"What you never thought to fight for," the little girl replies with a shrug. "Justice."
It strikes Mary so suddenly, an almost pain in what she would like to think is her heart, making her close her eyes briefly as if blinking. "Lilith," she gasps.
When she opens her eyes, the little girl is gone.
The visit disturbs her, reminds her of bargains made years ago using words and blood. But more than that, it puzzles her, jumbles in her brain until her fingers itch to open her diary and draw patterns that she has already sworn to forget.
It is with this that Mary lies awake at night, watching her husband snore beside her. She thinks about millions of women around the world who would kill for what she has, would probably understand what she went through to get it. She traces John's cheek, his jaw, his throat, scratching her nails faintly over stubbly skin, knowing how much life is pulsing beneath her fingertips. The echo of voices drowns in her head, whispering her name.
"You'd have been called greater names," a little girl, black hair, dark skin, says from the doorway. And oh, it's five-year-old Jenny Bruner from across the street, standing in her yellow pajamas, holding the teddy bear Dean always coveted. "If only you wished for something else."
Mary shakes her head, sighing. Beside her, John sleeps on. "I have nothing more to offer," she whispers. She speaks only the truth. "Whatever you want, I can't give it."
Little Jenny cocks her head. "It's not the answer you gave to—"
"Don't say the name," Mary hisses, leaping from her bed.
For one frightening moment, she thinks John will wake, but he only snorts and wheezes out a question, before he falls asleep again. The girl does not spare him a glance, keeping her gaze on the older woman's.
"It took us thousands of years," the little girl tells her harshly. Betrayed. "Blood, tears, wars, and death, Mary Winchester. You, of all people, should understand how there are still monsters ready to take everything you've begun to care about."
John shifts on the bed but Mary dares not look back at him. "They're only humans," she whispers helplessly.
The girl recoils as if struck, but then her smile is back. Staring at her, Mary wonders how Jenny can look so old, so sad. "You'll remember," she says coldly, "that humans' sins match the sins of Hell, Mary Winchester."
Mary shivers at the coldness of the girl's tone. "What sin did we women commit that heaven had to turn us away?" she whispers.
"Free will," Lilith spits in response. Her words fall from her lips with the languid trickle of black smoke, like worms' legs crawling all over her face, snaking around her neck, slithering all over her body until there is nothing more but the mutilated corpse of little Jenny Bruner at the doorway of Mary Winchester's bedroom.
Mary is finishing her work reports in the living room, absent-mindedly answering Dean's questions with murmured assents before she realizes that her son has been quiet for a long time. When she looks up, her heart almost stops.
Dean is sitting on the floor, smile on his face, and reaching out to touch a little girl's twisted fingers.
"NO!" Mary shouts, crossing the room in a blink and snatching Dean away.
"Mommy," Dean says mournfully as they skid to the floor. "She told me to go with her."
Mary blood runs cold, because she did not hear anything, and she places herself in front of her son, crying out to the girl, "What do you want?"
The girl—wearing a yellow Sunday dress and Mary Janes—lolls her head, the sound of broken bones squelching. She laughs. "Oh, Mary," she mocks, "I've already told you what I want." Her eyes track Dean hungrily, devouring.
"This won't—Dean isn't—" Mary is angry, furious that this demon has the audacity to step into her house, to threaten her with her presence, when Mary has already given up so much. "Lilith," she finds herself pleading, unable to finish.
And suddenly, the afternoon sun is blocked, electricity dying, winds howling outside and rattling the windows and doors. Lilith's yellow Sunday dress whips around her. And her eyes, her eyes, turn from hazel to white, holding the milky color. She takes a few steps, movements crooked and ugly. "You would know!" she screams. "You, who would abandon your past for your misplaced beliefs! How can you not understand what a woman needs?!"
Mary turns away quickly, already praying, Not my children, not them, and she hides Dean, hides her belly from the demon's wrath, and prays, prays.
Then everything stops.
She trembles, expecting the blow and already wondering if John would know how to look for them, when she realizes that she does not hear any roar, nor feels pain. A quick glance down has her watching how Dean wriggles out of her grasp. "Mommy, you're hurting me, Mommy, it hurts," he whimpers and still, she will not let go. She turns around.
Lilith stands a few feet away, fury warping her young face, but she is watching them almost curiously. Mary traces her sight, recognizing the softening of the demon's features as she stands silently, watches what she can see of Dean struggling in Mary's arms. Lilith is staring at Dean.
Justice, Lilith had answered when Mary asked her.
Bile roils in her throat, and she feels her unborn child kick inside her. "No," Mary gasps out at the sudden realization, followed by denial, "No, I won't let you!"
Lilith's gaze snaps back, and she gives a smile that distorts her kindness into evil. Approving. "Well, well," she clucks, "it only took you thousands of years to learn how much women can bleed for their children." And softer, she utters Mary's name, "Marchosias."
Mary does not flinch, but she does not let go of Dean, even as he says Mommy over and over again.
The thing with demons, Mary knows, is that they have a religion. No one knows it, or no human can remember, but many demons were believers. Of whom, none could say. Many would cry out, "Lucifer," but there are other gods, other idols.
Belief is something that she remembers, treasures. She's not a religious person, but she has her own beliefs; that wrongs can be righted, that patience is a virtue, and that wanting something hard enough can almost be called 'love'. Most of all, she knows that humans can be fallible, but they believe things so strongly that they're willing to blind themselves over other issues. Demons can be the same way.
There are things that kill every supernatural being out there, and Mary knows each and every way a figure from Hell can crawl back, how they can be revived, how they can disappear. Most of all, she knows the pain of exorcism by the tones of their screams.
Demons have religions, something they believe in. And Mary knows what hurts them most is having those beliefs betrayed.
She's coming to understand this far sooner than she expects.
"Watch Dean," Mary screams at John during the six hours of labor. "Watch him, don't let him out of your sight, oh god, don't let this baby die, I'd rather die, please—"
Later, John enters the room with Dean in his arms. They each press their lips on her cheek, and John laughs, "You'd think Sam's your firstborn by the way you were cussing."
Mary laughs, shifting baby Sammy in her arms. Tears prick her eyes. She whispers, "I was thinking how I don't want to lose you."
Dean sits pressed at her side, staring at Sammy with awed eyes. She knows why Lilith would want this.
Even after four years, the rush of tenderness for all her boys still surprises her.
A dream of yellow eyes wakes Mary, and she exhales because it is not the first time. She stares at Sammy, sleeping inside his crib, for a very long time.
The little girl with a bullet hole between her eyes, sitting on the window ledge stays silent.
Finally, finally, Mary gives a breath, only spares the girl a marginal glance. "You won't take my children," she says in a low voice.
The little girl gives a hollow laugh. "So did I vow to all my children, but they were all claimed and killed for Adam's line." She sneaks another look at Mary but this time, it is directed to the crib. The streetlamp lines the sinister smile on her lips. "I won't really want him." She nods at Sammy.
Mary blinks, curiosity warring with the anger stirring in her now-empty belly. "You won't get Dean, either."
"I only want children who can be broken," Lilith says, smiling. She is still looking at the baby. "I'd say Dean's soul would be a commodity, wouldn't it?"
"Why him?"
"Why not?" Lilith replies, knowing it is not an answer. When she sees how Mary glares, she laughs. "Oh, Mary. Be thankful I only want the one no one will ever protect." When Mary moves to protest, Lilith cuts her off quickly, "I am nothing if not patient and itching to right an injustice. Your sons will always hunger for both justice and chivalry, but you cannot give them both."
"A thousand years," Mary wonders, "and still all you think about is revenge?"
"A thousand years and the Laws of War haven't changed at all," the girl reminds her. The movement of her lap shows Mary she is swinging her legs. "Your insistence to give these petty meat suits an equal chance to fight is pathetic, and you've grown soft. Chivalry will get you nowhere."
Mary swallows, almost snarls, "You'll never take Dean."
The girl gives her a look. "You're just one person fighting an imaginary war," she says lightly, as if the reminder will make it true. "And don't think it's just this. There will be others, demons and people, with intentions for your newborn far worse than the blessing I offer to your firstborn son." Her teeth gleam white in the moonlight; the name Azazel remains unspoken between them. "After all, you're only human now. And you've forgotten that humans die."
Mary burns but she hasn't forgotten.
Azazel stands by Sammy's crib, fingers outstretched as soon as she chokes out the surprised, "You..." His smile is wide, grotesque, and his blood drips from his hand to Sammy's baby lips.
Mary thinks, Oh Lilith, like the many months ago when a little girl in her living room, in this nursery, exasperatedly says her name, Oh, Mary.
Mary understands it now; years of having her family gives her perspective. Though she now knows that Lilith was wrong, she finds herself ready to weep for the thousands of years the other woman had to suffer, watching her children being murdered again and again.
Lilith thinks justice and she thinks of death. Mary can remember how the little girl looked at Dean, eyes soft and maybe a little insane. As if by possessing a little girl, killing the child of an enemy, it will give justice to the children she allowed to be sacrificed in God's hands.
Lilith understands how humans can die, but Mary knows how humans—how women can die to let people they love live.
Which is why, when the flames start to engulf her, when she sees John's horrified face staring up at her, she opens her mouth. Tries her best to tell him that this is the legacy that Marchosias—that Mary Winchester—is giving them.
"John," she wants to say. War, she thinks. Vengeance. Life.
"And I find more bitter than death the woman whose heart is snares and nets, and whose hands are bands: whoso pleaseth God shall escape from her; but the sinner shall be taken by her."
- Ecclesiastes 7:26
extra: thoughts.