Chapter Text
Anna is beautiful and terrifying when Castiel sees him the first time. He is being assigned to his garrison to serve as a true soldier of God, and the young angel is awed and humbled at the magnificent presence of someone so ancient compared to him. He is fire and gold, his grace burning like the sun and his magnificent wings flowing like lava. His eyes, all hundred of them, burn into his very being, whitehot and unforgiving and he feels unworthy of being in his presence. Anna lifts Castiel's chin with freezing hot claws and he trembles before the other angel, starbright eyes avoiding the piercing gaze and wings pulsating with colours like northern lights drawing close to his back as if to protect him.
The ancient being humms softly, the sound filling the fledgling angel with its vibrations and making the stars shiver in delight. It's the mere gasping breath of a second but to Castiel it's an eternity before his superior turns with a dismissive brush of wings against his face, burning him into dust and remaking him in the same instant.
When he's gone, a supernova flare deleting everything from the brightest star to the last speck of dust, all he can feel is the icy embrace of the universe all around and inside of him, and he doesn't know if he's singing or crying because his chest is imploding.
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Two thousand years later he stands before him again but this time he doesn't tremble in fear or avert his eyes. The only shiver that runs through him is the reaction of his grace to the repulsive sight and feeling of an angel so mutilated beyond even the comprehension of those with the memories of the whole of creation.
She is human. She ripped out her own grace and obliterated every single one of her achingly beautiful dozen of wings, tearing her own very essence from herself and exterminating a stunning and unique thing created by the Father himself.
It's painful to watch her for too long and he feels no remorse over his orders, to execute her now would be nothing but a mercy kill.
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Later, when she's an angel again, he expects her to be burning as bright as before, but her flames don't hurt his eyes in quite the same way. She is dimmer somehow, more pale midwinter sun with a flicker of desperate pink rather than the fierce fires from before. She is wrong, muted and twisted and sad and way too human, and he feels an ember of darkness inside of her that leaves him lightly nauseous. He shies away from the wrongness in her, disgusted at her meek, simpering pleas for his help, so far from the never faltering general of Heaven, and he tries to ignore the part of him that wants to pity her, because pity is a human emotion and he shouldn't be feeling at all.
It's all Dean Winchester's fault.