And though scary is exciting...

[demonicbeauty]

Who: Ariadne, Castiel, and Evelyn
What: Tea and conspiracy theories
When: Backdated slightly to mid-September, following Sam Winchester's visit to the orchard
Where: Ariadne's home, in the Willful Machine

Content Warnings: Discussion of sex.

The second floor of Ariadne's home was exactly as it had been in Deerington. Complete with a kitchen she'd never used. Even the dust on the cooking surfaces seemed the same. Which was a good thing. Ariadne was a menace in the kitchen and had been rightly banned from the kitchens back at North Castle.

In her defense, it had only been a small fire.

Fortunately, there was one singular ability that Ariadne did possess when it came to the culinary arts and that was the ability to boil water. Even, so she watched the teapot like a hawk, prepared at any second to douse unexpected flames. There were none. But Ariadne credited that mostly to her vigilance. Soon enough she had a boiling pot and filled it with herbs, preparing tea the way she'd learned back in Valeria, when tea suddenly and unexpectedly entered her life. Once she put out the flames on the stove, she assembled three mismatched cups and set them out on her little table, along with a bowl of fresh fruit from her orchard and some cinnamon bark.

It occurred to her that she'd never really had guests before. Oh, she'd had Orpheus over on occasion. Or Dean once or twice when she was picking up supplies. But this was different somehow. She had invited people over, offered hospitality. And she realized that she didn't entirely know how to do that, especially not for earthlings.

Well, she could only hope they'd be forgiving. And much more focused on the problem at hand. The problem being that something was strangely amiss with Sam Winchester.

Comments

[demonicbeauty]

Her eyes flitted to Cas, grateful for the clarification. After all, she knw that Sam wasn't an evil person. Still, there was the other half of the explanation to work out. "So Sam died?"

Which was upsetting, but within the scope of reality, she supposed.

Good people--and good fighters--died. Unfortunate. But also very true.

She continued to work it out in her head, setting down her tea so she could make a few vague gestures with her fingers, connecting the pieces as best possible. "He died and came back...broken. Missing a soul." She looked between the two of them. "I'm not terribly familiar with resurrections," she admitted. "But is that how it always happens? That when someone comes back, they come back wrong?"

A pause.

"Because I don't think that's how it worked in Deerington." When someone died, they came back. Whole. Intact.

...which had a horrifying implication for one way to fix Sam. Not that she would ever say that out loud.

sorry for the delay y'all

[egyptologist]

Well, you know. 'Evil' is subjective really, depending on who you ask. She's spitting biblical rhetoric, not always to be taken literally.

"I've only seen someone come back twice - though he, ah, had to sort of...suck the life force out of humans to become whole again. I don't think that's what is happening with Sam, though, and I don't think it's something he plans on doing."

Hopefully. That would be dreadful to deal with again.

[foolintherain]

Oh, that's nice. Steal someone else's soul, essentially. Maybe it would work. Cas has no idea, and even less idea what Sam would or wouldn't do if he really is sans one soul. He cups both hands around his mug and sips his tea before answering, "Well, if we find any empty shells of what used to be people, and Sam returns to how he was before, then we'll know why."

What else can they do? There are rituals Cas remembers, vaguely, because he isn't wasted enough to forget them, but considering where they are, and where Sam's soul may be... Would it even work, pulling it through another dimension? And what has Sam done, really, except loosen up a bit? He didn't push Ariadne or Evelyn into anything they didn't want, seems like, and he passed back instead of hogging the joint Cas shared with him, so... Cas's eyebrows lift and he shrugs. "I don't think it'll come to that. He's still Sam."

And surely Sam, smart boy that he is, has made no bad decisions in his life, ever.

[demonicbeauty]

Perhaps he still was Sam, perhaps he wasn't. It as hard to tell. But Ariadne wasn't the sort of person who was comfortable sitting back to see what happened. Especially if someone could get hurt because of it.

Her concerns etched themselves out on her face.

For once, she didn't bother to obfuscate.

"Wouldn't Sam want his soul back?" she asked softly. Ariadne was sure she would, if there was a piece of her missing.

Then again, she was missing part of herself, really. And the scars on her back ached at the thought of it.