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“No, what are you?” Dean asked, blinking the sleep out of his eyes, “And how do we gank you guys?”
“I’m a zanna!” Sully explained happily before registering the last part. “And you don’t kill us, look, Sam remembers me, I just need a favour, one of my friends-”
“Woah woah woah, a what?” Dean held up a hand, “A zanna? That can’t be right.”
“Dean.” Sam bit out through gritted teeth.
“Hang on, I’m calling Cas for this,” his brother left the room to find his phone in the library, calling out to them, “there’s no way that name’s right. It’s missing a couple accents or something.”
Sam followed begrudgingly, Sully right behind him. They found Dean hunched over the map table, his phone dialing, a couple books cracked open. He was still in his grey bathrobe but he seemed more awake. He audibly sighed when the phone picked up.
“Cas, Cas! I need your help with something, you free?”
“If you are asking about my disponibility for me to aid you, then yes. I’m currently in a motel in Texas, searching for Amara. I just got here.”
“Okay, because this thing showed up in the bunker, says he’s a zanna or whatever, he knows Sam, but-”
“You kill it with any sharp household object engraved with witch sigils through where the heart is, roughly the same place as a human’s. They have the same internal anatomy,” Cas responded.
“No, ugh,” Dean facepalmed, but didn’t go further, “Isn’t the name weird? Because I swear zanna shouldn’t be said like that.”
“I’ll look into it.”
“Dean, it’s Sully’s species, do you really think he wouldn’t know who to pronounce it?” Sam questioned, like it was obvious.
“Sammy, and I don’t mean this in a rude way, but while you were learning about what to do if a truck going 300 miles per hour crosses a red light and runs over a kindergarten class, I was looking at monsters from around the world, trying to find out what that Azazel douche really was. I know that this so-called ‘imaginary friend’ name crap sounds fishy to you too, because I know that brain of yours’ not just for numbers.”
“You actually read mythology books?” Sam stuck on that, incredulous.
“Well duh, how do you think I knew about djinn? Dad always thought they preferred ‘genie’, but they find it highly offensive because of-”
“Okay, I think I get it,” Sam raised his hands in surrender, because while he wanted to know more, Sully was close to hyperventilating next to him.
“If I’m not a zanna, then what am I? Was there a civil war between us?…No, we’re all pacifists. B-but what if we’re dyslexic? What if I’m dyslexic?”
“Sully,” Sam put a hand on the zanna’s shoulder, snapping him out of his spiral, “You’re gonna be fine. Dean…Dean probably confused something.”
“Dean, I have found the classification of your creature,” Cas’ voice came over the phone speaker a bit staticky, with sounds like pages turning.
“Did you…go find a book?” Dean asked, gesturing for the others to come closer.
“Yes, I keep an array of monster books in my suitcase while I travel in case you come to me for help, from the most obscure libraries, I even got some from Alexandria.”
Sam furrowed his eyebrows, looking at Dean, who just shrugged. “So what’s it called?”
“Well, it says that a lot of western-based creatures have forgone the original pronunciation to make it easier for the rare adult mortals they encounter to say it. There have been misunderstandings in the past in certain parts of Europe because of this-”
“Cas, the point.”
“Oh, yes. While not much is documented on them, we know for sure that they originate from Romania, where they were called zâne, singular being zână. It means ‘fairy’ in English and describes a lot of magical woodland creatures that look similar to humans and have wings. However, the important books and culturalists seem to agree, though, that a zână predominantly appears under the form of a humanoid being that is only seen by children and those with imaginative minds, and thus, takes on an appealing appearance in order to allure the person away from their responsibilities so they may have fun, or in some cases, a meal.
Zâne are commonly associated with mushroom circles, where time passes differently. They used to lure children inside these circles to tap into their life force and leave an empty husk, the energy transferred to the zână. However, they abandoned their more cruel ways and became bent on helping human younglings after a very bloody period of their history, when a zâniță proclaimed themselves emperor and declared war on neighbouring encampments of zâne in countries such as Bulgaria, Ungaria, and modern-day Kosovo. Many zâne perished, their numbers dwindling rapidly in the decade-long battle that took place a couple centuries before Napoleon would rise to power.
Since then, the remaining fairies swore an oath to never harm one another, nor any other living creature, as it was the emperor’s lust for power and youth that drove them mad. Afterwards, encounters between these fairies and humans slowed, and the fairies began to settle down in one spot, no longer traveling the country like they used to. The zâne mostly kept to themselves, and slowly disappeared from the minds of believers. A few of them, led by the self-proclaimed ‘King’ Oberon left for an adjacent world to continue feeding off of humans like the olden days. To avoid being associated with these fairies, zânele have forgone translating their name into other languages, sticking with the original Romanian spelling, from their birth country. Over time, most of their later history was lost and it is unknown whether they are still present,” Cas finished reading and paused. “But it seems that is not the case. I would like to hear about what they have gotten up to today.”
“Uh yeah, sure thing Cas, I’ll write to you later. And thanks, I-” Dean looked over at Sam, who was smiling fondly, then back to his phone, “ We appreciate it, so yeah.”
Dean nearly dropped the phone in his haste to end the call but pretended as if it didn’t happen. He breathed in sharply then relaxed. “So I was right. Don’t see that everyday.”
“Barely,” Sam commented, “Is the spelling of a name that important?”
“Guys, can we please stop fighting? My friend was murdered!” Sully cried.
“So did something break the sacred oath, now we have zână-on-zână violence?” Dean asked.
“No way, none of us could be capable of doing such a horrible thing. Sparkles…” the zână shivered, “it’s terrible!”
“Let’s go see for ourselves,” Sam pulled out his own phone from his pocket, “Where was he?”
“Dean, be straight with me,” Sam sat down at the bunker’s table and interlinked his hands, “Do you know how to speak Romanian?”
“Sugi-mi pula, Sam,” Dean swore, “I don’t have to tell you jack squat. Don’t you know Spanish?”
“Dean. My first roommate at Stanford was Spanish. I picked up on some phrases. That’s not a lot to brag about. If you learned how to speak another language from books on monsters, that’s impressive.”
“No it’s not. I just memorized it.”
Sam sighed. He was getting nowhere trying to convince Dean that he wasn’t the only smart one tonight. But he would not let it slide next time. “Dean?”
“Yeah?” Dean put his unopened beer bottle on the table.
“Why were you even researching about zâne when I was at Stanford?”
“Dad was following a lead on some vamp that had let slip that Yellow-eyes was going international, and that he was somewhere in Europe.”
“Wait, how did a vampire know this?”
“I asked Dad the same thing. He said it ‘felt right’, ‘made sense’, ‘shouldn’t worry about it’ or whatever, and I knew there was something else from the way he said it…but I didn’t call him out on it. He went to Romania first, since it’s Vamp central or something, but I stayed here.”
“Planes.” Sam remembered.
“Flying death traps,” Dean corrected, “So while he was off doing whatever, because he never told me whether he found anything, I was looking at what monsters lurked in there in case he found some. Turns out he did, some baubau that almost killed him. He never left the country after that. Didn’t talk about either, getting real dodgy whenever I asked.”
“Maybe he didn’t find anything. Or maybe the opposite. We could go see for ourselves though.”
“Someday, Sam. Someday when the dust settles.”