Disclaimer: I do not own these characters (except for Anz'a since I made her up). No copyright infringement is intended and no profit is made from this story. Kripke owns the Winchesters and Whedon owns Illyria.


See You In Your Dreams


They weren’t bad - for boys.

Yes, the shorter one only wanted to play with her toy cars and her set of Alliance soldiers, but the big one played tea party and that made him fun. He even played dress-up and wore Miss Flora’s big pink hat and gloves. The other one laughed at him, but she kicked him in the kneecap once and now he wore a hat and gloves, too, just like real tea party ladies should.

The shorter one - Dean she thought he said his name was, but it was so hard to remember when she was awake and she was such a little girl…Daddy told her so, and that meant it was true – was funny, even though she didn’t understand all of his jokes. He talked about things like a pants-wearing sponge and Scabby…dues? Like on the letters Daddy sometimes left out with the big PAYMENT DUE stamped in red on the paper.

She gave him The Look Daddy sometimes gave her when she was being bad, but that only made the big one – Sam? – laugh at Dean for his outdated references. Dean wondered what Sam expected when he’d been dead for so long, but Sam would make a funny face and tell him not to scare their little s-i-s-t-e-r and Dean would shut up about the dead thing.

She was a good speller. She wasn’t even in kindergarten and could spell w-e-r-e-w-o-l-f and p-o-l-t-e-r-g-e-i-s-t, though Mommy said that was German. Daddy told her that meant she could spell in two languages, three if she counted Chinese, and that made her super-special smart. Anz’a already knew she was super-special, but it was nice of Daddy to say that so everyone else knew, too.

She told Sam and Dean that ghosts didn’t scare her and that Daddy and Mommy killed ghosts all the time and one day she would, too. She wasn’t sure if that’s because she was super-special or not, but she knew she could do it. She already knew how to kill people - that was easy - because they were c-o-r-p-o-r-e-a-l, but Mommy suggested she wait until she was older because it would disappoint Daddy.

She never wanted to disappoint Daddy. He was so human about some things. Mommy understood, though, that sometimes Billy Kilerman was a pain and deserved to get his neck broken, though Anz’a behaved herself and only broke his hand. She told Daddy it was an accident.

It wasn’t. But what Daddy didn’t know couldn’t disappoint him, as Mommy said.

Sam and Dean always looked worried when she told them those stories. Sure, they’d laughed when she told them about how she beat Daddy at training, but they didn’t like hearing about things like Billy Kilerman. She began to think she’d better not disappoint them, either, or they might go away for good.

It was already hard for Dean to stay very long – he flickered in and out; he didn’t project strong like Sam. Sam offered to hold his hand sometimes to keep him there longer, but Dean always told him he wasn’t a girl and to keep his hands to himself.

Dean tried to teach her things, things he said Daddy wasn’t cool enough to teach her – like the lyrics to Renegade or how to open a beer bottle with her ring. Sam would make another face at him and ask him how opening a beer bottle was useful for a four year old. Sam tried to tell her about boring things like philosophy and the soul. She usually fell asleep if Sam talked too much and wasn’t wearing Miss Flora’s hat. She forgave him, though, because he was very, very good at proper tea party conversation and knew how many cookies to take, unlike Dean who always took them all.

She once asked Daddy for a dog so she could name it Zeppelin. Daddy wanted to know where she heard that name, but she couldn’t tell him because what if it were one of those disappointing things like breaking Billy Kilerman’s hand or the time she used Sally Rinser for target practice - not to hit her, but to not hit her. Sally got a few bruises, but that just meant Anz’a needed even more practice, right?

She told Daddy it was because Zeppelin rules, and she did the fist pump thing Dean always did when he said that – or when he talked about girls, but she thought the girl thing was weird – and Daddy got that funny, shiny look he got when he’d leave the room and come back smelling like whiskey.

Mommy said it was a human coping mechanism and not to worry, like the time Daddy camped out in her room on her sixth month birthday and she and Mommy just sat in his lap in the rocking chair as he stared at the ceiling all night. She didn’t understand that, either, and had fallen asleep in Daddy’s lap, but Daddy spent the whole next day in his room and smelled like whiskey then, too, so she knew what Mommy meant.

Daddy rarely ever did it so she didn’t worry. Mommy said having offspring tore open old wounds, but Anz’a never saw any band-aids. But that was OK because Daddy was Daddy and he was only human, after all. Humans were weak.

Mommy always gave her THE LOOK - and Mommy’s LOOK had Daddy’s Look beat cold - when she heard that, and she remembered it was rude to say things where mortals might hear them, especially Daddy, because Daddy might be only human, but he was Daddy and she loved him.

Even Mommy loved him in her own way, and if Daddy could make Mommy love him, that meant he was something super-special, too, ‘cause Mommy ruled the universe once (or, at least, parts of it) so that kind of made Daddy the King of the Universe.

Mommy said that made him King’s Consort, not King, and to remember that for the future when she ruled in her own stead.

Anz’a never told Daddy about ruling the universe. That was another thing that made Daddy disappointed, but she knew she could, if she wanted to. She knew she could do anything she wanted, if she tried hard enough. Daddy told her so, and something in her head told her that, too.

Sam and Dean didn’t like hearing that, either. She began to think they weren’t as fun as they had been at first with the tea parties and soldier games. Sam told her all the time that with great power came great responsibility. Dean laughed at him and said if they were going to quote movies, Sam might as well have said don’t go to the Dark Side, Luke.

She didn’t know who Luke was, but hoped he wasn’t going to show up and tell her more boring stories about the soul and faith and Doing Good - and she hoped he wouldn’t eat all the tea party cookies like Dean did. She felt she was very good all the time – Daddy always told her what a good girl she was and Daddy never lied to her.

Sam and Dean told her they couldn’t visit anymore, said she was getting too strong for them to break in. She had been training with Mommy and Daddy so she knew she was really strong for her age, but they said it wasn’t that kind of strong. They said they wouldn’t be around to protect her anymore and to remember what they taught her. She showed them she could open a bottle with her ring and Dean laughed, but Sam made his face and grumbled at Dean for spoiling things. Dean got serious and told her to stay strong, not to give in to temptation and to not be afraid to just be human.

She was too big to be afraid, she told them. She was a big girl and could take care of herself. She thought they were silly - of course she was human, but she knew she was also more than human and that made her super-special just like spelling in three languages did because only she could be human and more-than-human at the same time.

She didn’t tell them about the others that came to her, recounting different, darker things, because that was something disappointing that she knew she couldn’t tell them. If they got mad at the Billy Kilerman thing – who totally deserved to have his hand broken – then they would get mad at the ones who gave her the idea.

She didn’t admit that she was scared, sometimes, because the other ones didn’t play tea party and didn’t teach her the lyrics to Renegade and didn’t tell her stories with happy endings and didn’t give her hugs before tucking her back into bed. The stories the others told gave her nightmares, sometimes.

But sometimes the stories excited her, told her what life might be like when she ruled the universe (or, at least, parts of it) like Mommy did once. Then she could break Billy Kilerman’s neck if she wanted to and no one could get her into trouble.

She thought she might like ruling the universe if she could do whatever she wanted, but then she’d see in their stories that Daddy was disappointed, and Mommy didn’t look very pleased, either, but it was harder to tell with her. She’d see that Daddy and Mommy fought her, and the stories always ended with Daddy dying over and over again.

She knew Daddy couldn’t die forever, but they whispered ways that would keep him sort of dead for a long, long time. They hinted that she could win by killing the loci, but she didn’t know what a loci was – something about the center of a circle - and didn’t understand when they tried to tell her. She didn’t really want to understand.

She didn’t like those stories very much. She loved Daddy and Mommy and didn’t want them hurt, even if Daddy were only human.

But even when the others stopped visiting, she still remembered the stories. She remembered what it was like to be able to do whatever she wanted – stay up late, eat what she liked, and break Billy Kilerman’s neck. Sometimes she remembered how much she liked that feeling - so much power for the taking. It felt like Christmas morning and her birthday and the first time Daddy let her steer the ship all at once.

Then Daddy would kiss her goodnight, and she’d try to forget, at least for a little while. She didn’t want to disappoint Daddy.



Author's Note: Thanks to tigriswolf, lyonie17, and hakirby for beta-ing. It's important to remember that Anz'a aged quickly so she would be about 3 years-old on her 6 month birthday. This is based on a request that Anz'a meet her brothers, which was difficult to do since they are dead.