Creatures of Flight

[deancasbigbang]

Title: Under The Midnight Sun

Author: Northern Sparrow

Artist: Delicious Irony

Rating: Explicit

Length: 224,527 words

Pairings: Dean/Castiel (minor Sam/Ruby)

Warnings: Canon-Typical Violence, Hypothermia

Summary: Dean Winchester’s been camp manager of a science research station on the Alaskan tundra for thirteen years. Dean likes his job; fixing the camp trucks, troubleshooting the snow machines, keeping clueless undergrads and NSF bigwigs from walking into grizzly bears or getting lost in snowstorms — it’s all in a day’s work. So it’s really not any of Dean’s business when some weirdo antisocial ornithologist sets up a tent a few miles away, a dark-haired blue-eyed guy who’s doing a “very long-term” study on birds or wings or something, and who never, ever takes off his big lumpy backpack. But then the new guy starts dropping by camp for coffee and… well, he’s not officially part of camp; he’s not Dean’s responsibility; he’s really not Dean’s problem at all, but when a blizzard comes rolling in, Dean gets worried and goes to check. Thing is, Dean’s spent years in the sweeping vistas of the Arctic. He knows all about the midnight sun and the northern lights, the ice caves and avalanches, the rough-and-ready Haul Road truckers and the even rougher-and-readier wild animals. But even so, what he finds is much more than he bargained for. 

Link to Fic

Link to Art

[northern-sparrow]

look it’s done it’s done it’s done 

[northern-sparrow]

my new DCBB fic is up!!

TWENTY-SEVEN YEARS IN THE MAKING 

NINE MONTHS OF WRITING

TWO HUNDRED AND THIRTY-TWO THOUSAND WORDS

FIVE HUNDRED HOURS OF WRITING TIME - ok that’s a guesstimate

plus THIRTY-NINE, count ‘em, THIRTY-NINE PIECES OF AMAZING ART by DELICIOUS IRONY

Presented for your consideration: 

Under The Midnight Sun

[northern-sparrow]

yeah but WHAT IF, what if there were another timeline once, one where you met the love of your life and fell passionately madly in love, and there was a fulfillment, a companionship, the look in their eyes, the feel of their hair, the feel of them lying in the night beside you - BUT something terrible happened. Something bad. Aliens invaded or demons burst out of the gates of hell or the great plague struck or maybe you just got cancer, and you were suffering and dying, and the love of your life found a way to save you: shunt the universe to an alternate timeline where the love of your life was never born and the aliens never invaded and the demons never burst out of the gates of hell and the great plague never struck and the cancer never happened. “She’s better off without me,” thought the love of your of life, “she’ll find someone else. She’ll live. She’ll live. This is better.” - and they flipped the switch.

Now you have a peaceful life. Birds sing, the sun shines, rain falls, years pass, and you’re not unhappy, but the years just keep passing, and you keep thinking you’ll meet someone, but you never do. You have little flings; they don’t last. You never marry. You pass 30. You pass 40. You pass 50. You grow old. One day you realize it has been more than a decade since anybody has embraced you and slowly you realize you’re going to age and die alone. And it’s really not so bad, your job’s cool, you have a cute house, with a cute garden, with a cute cat or maybe a dog, you travel the world; there is beauty, there are flowers and art and music and even friends, and really it’s not so bad. Every day is pretty good. You are aging alone and soon you will die alone, but it’s fine really. But you never meet anyone, and sometimes just before you fall asleep you feel like there ought to be someone there beside you; there really ought to be; something is wrong with the universe, something is not right; but these thoughts are only a dream, and you go on alone, never knowing that your entire life, and the sun and the rain and the flowers and the music and your quiet life, were, and are, a gift to you, the last gift of all, from someone who loved you, and loves you, more than life itself.

[northern-sparrow]

Seeking excellent wing artist

I can write. But I can’t draw. I’m seeking a fantastic wing/bird/angel artist who knows bird wing anatomy as well as human anatomy and can do “scientific style” illustrations for a faux-scientific fantasy book I’m working on. (like, outstretched angel wing w feathers labeled - diagrams of wings in flight - that sort of thing) Can pay a fair price per piece. I know there are some great artists out there - their art has flitted past on tumblr and twitter - but I failed to save their names! If any of you know anybody who might be interested in this sort of thing, let me know! :)  

[violue]

Fa lala lala la la la la~

[northern-sparrow]

Dean: “The Grand Canyon! Got you here at last, Cas! Hey, Sam, take a pic, would ya?”

Cas: “Wait, Sam should be in the pic too.”

Dean: “Yeah, it would help though if Sparrow actually owned a Sam funko pop. Till she gets one, Sam’s gonna have to take all the pics.”

Cas: “Hey, look, this trail has Angel in the name! Why, I remember a mere hundred and twenty years ago when I came here on a quick little mission... in fact, come to think of it, it was around then that they gave the trail this name.”

Dean: “You flew in all dramatic and glowy, didn’t you?”

Cas: “Um... I, uh, might have....”

Cas: “C’mon, Dean, get in the picture too. Hey, looks like my trail gets hazardous sometimes, huh?”

Dean: “Not gonna joke about the Rim Trail... not gonna joke, I swear....”

Dean: “... but I’ll just say, crampons aren’t essential. You just gotta hold on tight, you know, when things get... slippery.”

Cas: “Hurry up and take the picture, Sam.”

Cas: “This is an okay close-up, huh? Hey, do you think that actor guy who looks a little like me would sign a print of this?”

Sam: “I really doubt he’d be able to stop laughing about the Rim Trail long enough to sign anything.”

Dean: “He’d be like ‘Take the right fork, Castiel, live a little!’”

Cas: “Wait, wait, this new spot we’re at here on Bright Angel Trail seems familiar....Are we where I think we are? Turn around, Dean--”

Cas: “Yes - that beautiful view! This is the stone bench where we sat together, in that fic of Sparrow’s, Dean, remember? On that day when the raven flew past? That was such a great day! When, uh, I passed out right here and nearly died.”  

Dean: “I’m never forgiving Sparrow for that.”

Cas: “It is a nice view, though.”

Dean: “It is. I’m STILL never forgiving Sparrow, though.”

[elnawen]

This is @yesmiladywrites‘s commission, three illustrations for Flight as a gift to the author, NorthernSparrow ! 

[yesmiladywrites]

I commissioned this beautiful artwork from the lovely @elnawen as a gift to @northern-sparrow .

NS, I hope you like it and thank you so much for writing so many amazing stories!  

[northern-sparrow]

Just a couple Grand Canyon pix for readers of my fic You Can Keep Holding On, which wraps tonight after a year and a half of writing (52 chapters... 334K words...and it’s finally done). Top photo - in the fic, this is where Sam took the photo of Dean and Cas. 2nd photo is from Bright Angel Trail itself, just barely down the beginning of the trail, only about 50 feet from Bright Angel Lodge. The stone bench right there in the foreground is the place where (in the fic) Dean and Cas sat together, to catch their breath, when the raven flew over them. Yes, you can sit there and catch your breath and look out at the view. And this is the view that keeps recurring in Dean’s dreams.

[northern-sparrow]

My Jensen & Misha photo from JIBCon 2017. The version that’s been circulating is a bad iphone photo of the pic - I finally had a chance to scan the pic itself. 

(yes, I’ve been traveling that much, ever since May, that I haven’t been able to scan it yet. Finally had to ask our fantastic lab manager to scan it at work: "It’s work related. Please don’t ask any questions.” She was like: “yeeeppppppp surrrrrre it’s work related, riiiiiiight” - she said, as she scanned it.  thanks DD, you’re the best!)

[timetraveldean]

x

[wifihunters]

“No. I want to live”

[wifihunters]

9x06 made me immeasurably proud of Cas for being so lost and pained  that Ephraim heard him for miles, but he didn’t take the easy offer of death over life as a human ;u; 

[northern-sparrow]

yessss

[persephoneshadow-deactivated202]

I really hope we'll see the "Everyone you love, they could be long dead. Everyone except me." scene then switch to the scene where Dean looking up to the sky while he kneels next to Castiel's dead vessel on the Then/Now sequence for the first episode. Just to, y'know, fuck with my feelings.

that would be horrible and awful and if the first few minutes of season 13 aren’t a heart breaking montage of DeanCas moments I’ll be sorely disappointed.

[violue]

Finally finished this one. <3

[on redbubble]

[abovethemists]

Fandom is such a weird place. Like I watched a tv show and thought “wow, these two nerds have a lot of chemistry and I’d like to dedicate a large chunk of my life to thinking about them” so I went in search of other people who also thought these two nerds had a lot of chemistry and then it turned out that a shit ton of people were talking about these two nerds having a lot of chemistry and now it’s 4 years later and we write each other porn on holidays.

[northern-sparrow]

In the “Gloriously Long Titles Of The Past” category - Galileo’s title for his little 1610 book describing the discovery of Jupiter’s moons:

SIDEREAL (heavenly)

MESSAGE

unfolding great and very wonderful sights

and displaying to the gaze of everyone,

but especially 

PHILOSOPHERS, and ASTRONOMERS, by

GALILEO GALILEI

Florentine patrician

University of Padua, Public Mathematician, 

by a SPYGLASS

recently devised by him,

about the face of the Moon, countless fixed stars,

the Milky Way, nebulous stars,

but especially about

FOUR PLANETS

flying about the star of Jupiter at unequal intervals

and periods with wonderful swiftness;

which, unknown by anyone until this day,

the first author detected recently

and decided to name

MEDICEAN STARS

---

... clocking in at a solid 75 words in the original Latin. woo!

(PS “Medicean Stars” didn’t stick. They’re now called the “Galilean” moons of Jupiter)

(Translation adapted from Albert Van Helden)

[northern-sparrow]

This is not our fate

Been seeing a lot of speculation that we might have seen the alternate universe’s Castiel at some point in the S12 finale, and that he might even have been the one who got stabbed. I don’t personally think this is exactly what happened (though YMMV of course!) but I started wondering: why would alternate-Castiel have gotten involved, why would he be wearing the shorter trench coat & striped tie, and most of all... what would he be like? I started rewriting the last half of the episode from alt-Cas’s POV. I was thinking originally that this would be a fun way to lighten my grief, but soon became convinced that either way, it’s still a tragedy. Full text here (on AO3), excerpt below.

--

excerpt from This Is Not Our Fate:

Castiel's grace felt sufficiently recharged now; he tested his wings, flexing them slightly from their position in next-door etheric plane. They felt fine now, despite that battering from the unexplained power surge and then the flight from Asia, but just the same he began striding up the little hillside on foot. He needed a better view of his surroundings, but found it was almost pleasant to take a moment to walk upon the Earth, so he decided he would walk on foot to the top. Maybe he was still a bit weary from the flight; or, maybe it was just a bit of weariness at heart, from the five-month-long Himalayan battle.

All battles these days dragged on for months. Or years. The Apocalypse had already lasted much longer than he'd originally expected. The toll among the angels was climbing disturbingly high, and the toll on the battered Earth had been absolutely appalling.

But, of course, one must bear in mind that the Earth does not matter, Castiel reminded himself, as he walked up the hill. All this was temporary, in the bigger picture; all this would pass.

And he still had complete faith in the rightness of the fight, he further reminded himself. Complete faith. In the rightness and justice of the actions of Heaven, and in the inevitability of the Heavenly triumph that would soon surely come. My faith remains unshakeable, he told himself.

Though it did seem these days that Castiel was having to remind himself increasingly often of how unshakeable his faith was.

Reaching the top of the ridge he surveyed a small stretch of barren ground on the other side. It looked fairly normal - which is to say, it looked like a desolate wasteland. It had once been a peaceful tract of woods, to judge from the burned-out stumps that were still visible here and there. But the trees had long ago been burned to the ground, during the repeated waves of apocalyptic destruction that had been visited upon North America, and all the Earth, in the last seven years. Castiel took in the depressingly familiar scene: the earth denuded of vegetation; five or six hellspires scattered around (Class B hellspires, medium height, Castiel thought, assessing them automatically); a burned-out and smoking stone foundation of what might have once been a pleasant little house; the usual set of corpses scattered here and there. And a few humans improbably still alive (though doubtless not for long) who were dashing fruitlessly here and there. Darkly menacing clouds overhead boiled with flashes of hellfire as aerial battles unfolded above. Castiel spared a tired glance overhead; from the frequency of red hellfire bolts and crashes of thunder he estimated approximately three coveys of winged demons were in the clouds above, all of them engaged in battle with the local angels of the Great Lakes garrison.

But he noted, with more interest, that he could hear all the battle dispatches perfectly clearly. There was no sign of the etheric interference that had drawn him here.

A few more steps brought some more of the mortals into view: two men crouching behind a boulder, desperately working at a last-ditch attempt at a spell. Another two rolled on the ground nearby embroiled in a violent fist-fight.

Scorched earth, hellspires, corpses, aerial battles overhead, and a few desperate survivors battling for their lives. In other words, everything looked normal.

--

Click here for more (link to AO3). A little gift for you all. Thanks for reading!

[northern-sparrow]

My Jensen-Misha photo from jibcon8 this morning. I posted this already from the @fandomnatural account I was livetweeting from but thought I would stick it here too. As soon as I can scan a high res version I will do that too. Background: All I said was, mostly speaking to Jensen, "Given the events of the finale, could you [JA] just give this guy [MC] a hug?" I added to clarify "Like you just got your best friend back." I didn't say anything about expressions or how to stand. I actually had been picturing more just a big ol' happy smooshy hug w both of them smiling, but what they actually did blew me away. What was interesting was seeing them both silently settle on the pose & expression in almost slow motion, like they were both thinking about it. Jensen kept adjusting his face & head angle. That tragic sad frown appeared kinda like he clicked it on, and he then literally adjusted it twice, like "This frown? This one? No, this one," and his head also started dropping down, and meanwhile Misha was like slowly tilting his head against Jensen's (which I also had not asked for) and arranging his face into that incredibly touching mournful/resigned look. Misha kept looking at the camera but in Jensen's final adjustment he dropped his eyes. (Good lord these guys are pros.) So every nuance of expression & pose is from Jensen & Misha. I think this is Jensen's real take on how Dean would look if he got to grab onto Cas again. (and I ended up with this weird certainty in my gut that Jensen had just given me a preview of S13)