Chapter Text
When he was a young cub, Castiel believed that the word familiar came from the noun family: people designated to care for each other, by blood or by magic. As he grew up, he understood that familiar bore another meaning for him: something one is used to.
So he got used to the idea of being taught and tamed to cater to the needs of the powerful witch who took him as her familiar, approved by his family, envied by peers to have such a good start on his life. He served.
In the first couple of years he was even enthusiastic about it. In the next few, he pretended to be. The years that followed blurred into a mess of abuse and strain on his magic, forcing him to do Naomi’s bidding, too exhausted and disgusted to pretend any longer. Familiar. As in used to it.
The collar around his neck, whether in human form or as a fox, was familiar too. It tugged slightly on better days but choked him cruelly whenever Castiel’s power refused to participate in the darker and darker designs of his witch master. This last season Naomi gave up all pretenses, stopped monologuing about the greater good and the necessities of nature. She plain and simple went after anyone questioning her methods or goals.
And this time it was the whole village. Her revenge boiled in a huge cauldron, smelling cloyingly sweet and rotten at the same time. Poison for the wells, illness to young and old, human and cattle, ruin for the soil and crops. Misery. Misery was Castiel’s familiar too.
When his magic refused to extend his own misery to a whole innocent village, even he was surprised. Naomi stared in disbelief too, giving her order again and again, Castiel’s collar burning and tugging at him menacingly.
And yet his magic wouldn’t budge. Naomi got more and more hysterical, as they began running out of time. The spell sizzled and boiled, evil and rotten. Naomi chanted and dragged Castiel’s collared neck closer to it, as if proximity would coax his magic out. And he was grateful for this failure. He was also fairly sure that this is how and when he died, but at least he would not be responsible for such meaningless destruction.
Until a red flash of lightning ripped through the air, a whip of power, and lashed onto him, slicing his back into strips of agony. He screamed. His magic flared silver and white, and the cauldron flew and splashed the curse everywhere as it hit the wall. Naomi screamed, covered in her own vile and Castiel gagged, as his hands uselessly teared at the collar, now burning him, malicious and desperate.
And now.
Now, Castiel staggers out of the house, choked and dazed. His nails dig into the wooden beams of the porch, and he falls on his knees on the middle step, his bond to his witch not letting him leave. He tries to collect his strength, to call forth the power within that refused to be part of this ongoing evil, to ask for its help and protection.
Something surges inside him, but it aches and makes him nauseous, which, added to the burning strangling collar, is not a feeling he can endure much longer. He crawls on hands and knees and his palms touch warm dirt, then his knees sink into blessed, cool soil too.
That inside tug rejoices at that and pumps an unexpected boost of energy into his limbs. He tries to free himself of his collar again, because he feels, he knows he could just get away without it. He digs his fingers deep underneath the leather strap and thinks of all the strength he has, as a familiar.
He pulls.
The collar doesn’t snap, but it creaks and loosens enough to shove something in. Something sharp. He looks around and lays eyes on a pitchfork, carelessly thrown to the side of the garden gate. He drags himself toward it and wrestles with his collar, which now burns like inferno around the sensitive skin of his collarbones and under his ears.
He knows this is not a great idea, but it’s the only idea he has, so he forces one tine of the pitchfork under the collar. It scratches his skin immediately but that isn’t important now: the important thing is that Castiel has leverage, and holding on tight to the shaft, he flexes the leather. He concentrates on the thought of freedom, of dispelling something harmful and cancerous. It hurts and it hurts and it hurts.
Then, there’s a sickening sound as something snaps and pops and then, he isn’t suffocating anymore. Instead warmth runs down his throat and, when he reaches, his fingers come up red and sticky with blood. But his bond, the coercion tying Castiel, the familiar, to the witch Naomi, is gone. Maybe he’s not meant to survive it. It’s likely he won’t. But he is free now at least.
It would feel so good to collapse and rest. Savor the feeling without moving, just lying on that warm ground and not act, not think. His magic urges him to flee though. It’s not safe yet to rest. Castiel is unsure if it ever will be. Naomi is unconscious for now,knocked out by the whiplash of resistance, but there’s no way she’s not going to go after him as soon as she’s able to. Her wrath is a terrible thing. Castiel has endured it enough times and seen it destroy any being that dares go against her wishes. He wonders if he has ever seen anyone survive that vengeance. Probably not.
So first he crawls, then tries to straighten up, using the pitchfork as a staff to lean on. It works but gods, it is slow going. He’s bleeding freely, his shirt soaked with his blood and he’s weak and light headed. He looks around to figure out an easy path to struggle through, to find shelter in the forest nearby.
He may be hallucinating but the branches seem to part between two ancient oak trees, like nature itself is showing him a way to escape. He’s got nothing to lose, so he follows that delirious trail. He enters the woods between the oaks and finds a small path leading East. No fallen trunks, no ditches or inclines to make passage difficult. Brown dirt, soft on his feet, solid tree trunks to lean on for assistance. The forest is helping him, leading him, and he follows gratefully.
He doesn’t know how long he wanders like this, but even with nature as his ally his strength drains fast. He’s on his knees again, forced to abandon the pitchfork, to drag himself on, pawing at the path. If only he had magic left to switch into his fox form, to run like a shadow, fast and agile through the forest. Be the creature that belongs to the woods. Have warm fur protecting his shivering limbs. He wishes and wishes hard. The emancipated power inside him hums and the air crackles, and tears run down his face with the effort to concentrate on the familiar shape.
He runs. Darts and leaps, the air a hush of wind at his sides, his eyes glinting into the night, seeing all the turns and corners better. He sniffs, and knows what trees are around him and that there’s a stream somewhere to his left and herbs that could sustain him and fend off the infection of his injury. He path dances under his paws and soon moonlight peeks through the branches. He reaches a clearing. There’s light and water and distance enough and Castiel collapses, a high whine leaving his throat as everything goes dark and blessedly numb.