Chuck hated it here. He couldn’t leave, he didn’t have all his powers, Castiel was way outta line, and Amara wanted to kill him. He was stressed. He needed some time, to create, to build, to just be alone and do his thing without Dean Winchester heckling him or Lilith complaining.
So, he teleported to the woods, out in the middle of nowhere, to think. It was too early in the morning for anyone else to be there, so he got down to unfettered creation, as Metatron had put it. Of course, he couldn’t do anything he wanted. What he needed, more than anything else, was a new world, to take his mind of all this. New creatures, new lives, new… everything. But he couldn’t build a world here. The same way this place stunted the Darkness’s destructive powers, it limited his creative abilities too. He could conjure things, make things out of thin air, but he couldn’t just start from scratch. It was infuriating.
He exhaled slowly, trying to calm down, and started to build. It was impossible to explain, in human terms, exactly what he did. There were simply things, where there had been none. The Bible might’ve been lost in translation, but some of it was pretty accurate. Let there be light: and there was light. He conjured an oak tree, tall and imposing, with cracked, gnarled, bark and dark green leaves. He didn’t want to make anything alive, nothing human. He was sick of humans.
With a wave of his hand, he discarded it. The Darkness wasn’t the only one who could destroy. On a whim, he built something else. A car, a black ’67 Impala, exact copy of the Winchester’s car, down to the initials carved into the paint. He decided to take his time with this one, slowly adding tiny details to it – the toy soldier stuck inside it, the exact tape in the stereo, He was so focused on what he was doing, that he didn’t pay any attention to the girl approaching him.
Running through the forest during a full moon was exhilarating. All of Ruby’s senses were heightened in her wolf form — sight, smell, sound — and the predatory instinct took over. She could hear the cracking of branches beneath deer hooves. She could smell the raccoon hiding in the greenery, miles away from her. Hunting them filled her with excitement. She almost loved the thrill of the chase more than the kill.
Muddy, and now bloody paws trudged towards the clothes she’d left out for herself. She sniffed them once, then lay down on top of them, waiting for sunrise. Transforming back into a human was always so painless, and Ruby wondered why. She’d heard awful tales about werewolves, and how painful it was for them to turn. Maybe magic had something to do with it. With a groan, she stood up and stretched her limbs, trying to get used to them again. She bent down to pick up her clothes, rolling her eyes when she noticed the dirty, crimson stains on them. Wolf Ruby was an idiot.
As she walked through the forest, trying to get her bearings, Ruby caught a man’s scent. There was someone else wandering around in the early hours, and she wondered why. He definitely wasn’t another wolf, she’d be able to smell that. Curiosity got the better of her, and she followed her nose, stopping dead in her tracks when she saw him. He was using magic. Was he from Storybrooke? No, he couldn’t be. She knew practically everyone that lived there, and he wasn’t one of them.
“Hey,” she called out, trying to get his attention. “Nice car.” Ruby kept her distance, she didn’t want him to see the state of her clothes. “D’you make a habit of conjuring vehicles in forests? You might ruin those tyres on terrain like this,” she said, looking down at the ground. “And there’s a lot of wildlife around,” she added, smiling awkwardly. Did he know how dangerous magic like his was? And, more importantly, did he know that it always came with a price?
