Title: Prophecy

Author/Seer: Derry

Disclaimer: Winchesters? I don't think I actually mentioned any Winchesters, except the city in England which scarcely counts. But if I did mention any people called Winchester, then I wouldn't claim to own them. Here endeth the disclaimer.

Spoilers: Probably spoilers for just about EVERYTHING, if you read between the lines. Maybe even some speculation about things yet to come - well, such is the nature of prophecy, isn't it?

Rating: It could probably score a K+ since there's not really anything to corrupt children. Confuse them, perhaps. Corrupt them, no.

Author's notes: Okay, I seriously don't know where this came from. I had a vague idea to write a ficlet for Supernatural but I was thinking more along the lines of a light and humorous prank-playing vignette. Then yesterday I found myself musing about how this show hasn't (so far) really delved into the idea of archaic prophecies as shows of the genre often do. And for some reason I then got the Sybilline verses from the first chapter of I, Claudius stuck in my head. And then for the past two days, these little rhyming phrases kept popping into my head (and distracting me at work) and so I've been jotting them down (in between trying to do my job -sigh-). And I confess that I'm minorly freaked because I don't think I've felt the need to write semi-poetical rhyming stuff since I was a teenager (and you can all stop sniggering now!). But this stuff just kept hijacking my brain! Yes, what follows really are the ravings of a madwoman. That aspect is not entirely fabricated. Oh, and BTW, before any scholarly types might feel the need to point it out, I don't for a moment believe that this in any way represents accurate Middle English. It's merely the quasi-poetic mutterings of my strange mind. I think I might have even thrown some limericks in there...

Being the words of Mary Goodchild
excommunicated and burned at the stake for heresy and witchcraft
before the Cathedral in Winchester
this Second day of November in the Year of Our Lord 1483.

In the countless days a-coming
All things will end and begin
All is observed and accounted
And the World must pay for its sins

Mothers will burn
Fathers will weep
Flames will consume where the Children sleep

None will know aught
And all be a-feared
Until the eyes of one father are cleared

His children will be spared the damnation
His children will be spared not at all
He will see the worst of the darkness
And know what soon must befall

And Innocence willingly suffers
Sacrificed for sins none of theirs
Two souls bound in pain and forged in the flame
The World comes as close as it dares

To the Firstborn, a burden of love in his arms
To the Younger, a burden of pain in his heart
With their father, they travel the darkest of roads
The journey will tear them apart

Seeking only the shadows and darkness
One will continue the Fight
Reaching out for hope and redemption
One will fall in his search for the Light

A Trickster's cunning
A Warrior's heart
True innocent devotion with a Sinner's smile

A Scholar's learning
A Prophet's eyes
The doubt of the Stricken with the faith of a child

On roads where the faithless are lost
Faith will be kindled anew
What was forgot will then be remembered
One and One will be again Two

Innocence drawn from deep water
The guilty with blood in their eyes
Shape for the shapeless
Creatures of Earth
Devils that fall from the Sky

The Righteous will hunt for their blood
Evil will give them its name
All of their deeds unknown to the world
Which unknowing, continues the same

Death comes to the doorway and is turned away
Another takes Death by the hand
Death comes to the doorway and chooses to stay
In the still beating heart of a man

And death of the Father binds more than life
That death holds both souls in its thrall
The soul of the Younger is bound to the Path
The Firstborn one step from the Fall

The danger comes not from the Doubt
The peril comes not from the Fear
True menace comes from Children and Faith
And Whispers no other souls hear

Called to the Legion of Children
Summoned by eyes of bright flame
None stand alone
Darkness calls One of Two
Beckoned by blood and his name

Sacrifice must not be made blindly
Such gifts are for cowards and churls
In the stead of the One, Two must stand firm
Therein lies the Fate of the World

The outcome for all remains clouded
None know whether Justice will be
The face of the World after battle is done
Is what only the victors will see

But all the Two are must be given
Nothing held back from the Fight
What endures through pain, through the Darkness
Must endure for love, for the Light

The Fate of the World to be lost or won
In battles of Blood, Words and Dreams
Brother to Brother, Father to Son
The Unbound cannot know what this means