#crow!cas

CAW♡ [Translation] Hello Dean♡

Chapter 2: In Which Castiel Worries About Wolves

Notes:

So sorry for the lateness of this update. Life is a fucker. I would not recommend being an adult.

Also, animals are both half human and full animal in this verse. Which ones are half human will be determined by my closet oracle. No, really. I have no real reasons for making some animals fully human other than how creepy I think wolf people eating other animal people would be. I am scum.

  The afternoon for Castiel wore on slowly. He tried to go about his usual business, collecting branches to fix up his nest, eating some berries he found growing a few dozen yards away from his usual gathering grounds, but he found himself constantly loosing focus, drifting off into thoughts about wolves and defenseless, small creatures.

Truth be told, Castiel could barely even remember the last time he had seen a wolf. He had been very young then, just recently having taken his first flight. He remembered that it had been late, most of the daytime residents were bedding down for the evening.

The wolves had been a sudden and violent intrusion on the evening. Completely devoid of any humanoid features, the pack had been a snarling, howling mass of teeth and hunger, rushing down on an unfortunate elk who had strayed too far from its migrating herd. The poor animal had been done for in minutes, the vicious pack of canines lulling into hungered grumbles and snapping as they settled into their dinner.

Castiel and his siblings had watched the whole affair from the safety of their nest, high above the forest floor, scared, but free from danger. Castiel thought about the fawn. The child had no nest to hide in, and with his mother missing he was as vulnerable to predators as that lone elk had been.

Worry was starting to win over indifference and Castiel spent a good hour preening and fussing from a tall perch in his gathering grounds, unwilling to go back and check on an animal he had no real reason to worry about, yet unwilling as well to just fly home and abandon the young fawn completely.

A scream, followed by several short, yipping barks made up his mind for him. Without a thought —and with a strange, blind panic in his chest— Castiel launched himself through the trees, wings beating hard to bring himself to the fawn in time.

Bursting through the last of the tree cover into the general area in which he had left the fawn his eyes immediately sought out the boy.

There, at the far edge of the clearing. The boy sprang forward, unaware of Castiel’s presence as the fawn made an aborted attempt to get away from his attacker. An over-sized fox made its move as the fawn tried to escape, biting at the boy’s flanks. The fox obviously thought that it could risk the usually powerful kicks of a deer if the specimen was one as small as this fawn. The meal must have looked too tempting to avoid.

Furious, Castiel dropped from the sky, slamming into the fox with his full weight. With a pained yelp the creature released the fawn, who took the opportunity to deliver one hard kick with his back legs before he scrambled to hide behind Castiel, who was picking himself menacingly up from his landing spot. The crow flared his wings, tucking the fawn safely behind them.

The fox scrambled up from where the fawn’s strike had knocked it, shaking itself off and snapping at the pair with a yip. Castiel puffed up further, taking one step towards the animal, who decided it had had enough fighting for the day and turned tail in retreat. The pair watched the fox lope off into the forest before turning to each other with relief.

“Cas..Casteel…” the fawn exhaled shakily.

“It’s Castiel,” The crow corrected automatically as he reached out, hands roaming over the fawn, checking his wounds, which were thankfully minor except for the bite on his left hind leg. It was bleeding sluggishly, several puncture marks from the fox’s teeth shining red in the light of the clearing. “Let me see that,” Castiel said awkwardly, reaching out to feel the leg the fox had been worrying at.

“Casstl...Cas,”

“What?” He replied, slightly annoyed now that he had a moment to realize what had just occurred. He had to have gone flying off to save this little creature—had barely been in time to save him. The fawn however just shook his head, ducking his chin in to look at the ground as Castiel finished checking the leg. It would be fine, just some superficial bleeding and slight bruising if they got it cleaned up soon.

Something occurred to Castiel. “What are you called, fawn?”

The fawn continued to stare up at the crow, eyes wide and trusting, only blinking when Castiel scowled and tilted his head at him expectantly.

“I’m Dean,” the boy said, shyly grabbing at his ears again as Castiel straightened back up, absently wiping his blood covered fingers on his pants. They should definitely find a stream soon and get that wound washed out. Castiel paused, movement stilling as he realized that he was considering—no, that he had decided to stay with the fawn, or at least take Dean with him.

“Well,” Cas said awkwardly. “I suppose we should find somewhere safe to sleep for the night.” The fawn’s ears flicked up in surprise. Embarrassed, Cas started off into the forest.

Chapter 1. In Which Castiel Finds Something...Noisy.

Ao3

There was a strange sound in the forest today. Castiel fidgeted, one large, black wing twitching and smacking him on the jaw. He scowled at it, pushing the appendage aside with his human arms. It was common enough for fledgling crow to have trouble with fine motor control of their crow parts. Wings especially tended to react strongly to emotions. But Castiel was a crow on the cusp of adulthood, and having his now mature wings act out with minds of their own was a bit embarrassing.

The high, distressed noise echoed through the trees again. It reminded Castiel of the time Gabriel had flown too far from the nest as a fledgling, although this noise was softer than the high pitched peeping that the frantic nestling had been emitting when their parents had finally found him. This wasn’t a panicked sound, but it was scared.

The air was crisp today, earthy after the storm that had passed through a few days ago. Raising his face to the breeze, Castiel listened for the sound. With a smooth jump, he launched from his perch, winging off to investigate. Crows are curious birds after all, and while Castiel might have told himself he just wanted to find the noise and stop the noise so that he could get back to his afternoon in peace, in truth he was just being nosey.

Flying carefully between the  branches and bodies of trees, Castiel sought out the noise. It kept breaking off, forcing him to circle an area for a time before the sound would pick up again. Eventually he reached a grassy area which was mostly clear of trees, although it wasn’t large enough to call a meadow. Perching on a branch he scanned the area. Sure enough, the sad calling noise started up again, coming somewhere from the grass.

When Castiel was sure he had located the sound’s source he hopped lightly down from his branch, the noise of his landing causing the creature’s cries to cease abruptly as it became aware of his presence.

There. A small brown patch of fur poked out of the grass and shrubs, doubtless hidden well enough to have escaped the notice of most creatures - were it not for the pitiful sound emanating from the small patch.

Cautiously, Cas stepped toward the thing.

Wide, green eyes peered up at him through tear-covered lashes, tan skin sloping down to merge with forelegs and hindquarters. It was a fawn, a boy, young enough to still be sporting baby spots of white along his flanks.

“Mommy?”

“Uhh... no,” Castiel felt his wings puffing up behind him. The fawn’s face fell, and he shrank down into the grass again, wide eyes peering up at the crow mournfully.

“Please don’t eat me,” the fawn said, hands reaching up to pull down on his ears nervously.

“Why would I eat you?” Cas asked, baffled, crouching down slightly. He had never eaten anyone before.

“Momma said if I left the nest the wolves would eat me and I know I was bad but the storm broked the nest and momma hasn’t come home in a long time so I left but I can’t find her and you’re really big and black and scary looking and momma said wolves are black and scary and you sneaked up on me!” Castiel blinked as the fawn gulped in a deep breath, chest heaving. They stared at each other.

The fawn wrinkled his nose, giving Castiel an unimpressed look. “…Are you a wolf?”

Castiel bristled, feathers fluffing in offence. “Do I look like a wolf to you?”

The fawn drooped a little at the crow’s annoyance, his ears flattening against his golden curls as he tugged at them. Mutely he stared up at the crow.

Castiel felt his stomach drop. He had scared the little thing. His annoyance left him in a guilty huff, the action only causing the fawn to flinch a little. “I’m not a wolf. Wolves have pointy ears, furry tails, and sharp teeth. I’m Castiel, I mean- I’m a crow, see?” He turned, giving the fawn a better view of his wings, which contrarily pulled in closer as the young boy raised up to get a better look.  “I have wings, and crows wings are always black, sometimes a bit green or blue, like mine are at the edges. Anyway,” Castiel said, scowling at his uncooperative appendages. “I’m not a wolf, but your mother is right. Wolves are dangerous and you should stop making all that noise or they might come eat you.”

The fawn gave him a miserable look, pressing back into the grass again as he hugged himself. The sight made Castiel’s chest clench uncomfortably, and he wondered if he should do something. He had the ridiculous urge to reach out and snuggle the fawn, to rub his back and murmur happy things to him, anything to stop the new flood of tears now shining in the boy’s huge eyes.

He shook himself. What a strange idea. He wasn’t here to play mother hen to strange animals. He just wanted quiet in his forest again, that’s all.

Stepping back, he stretched his wings to their full length. “So…be quiet now, ok? I’m sure your mother is around here somewhere.”