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The first sensation to return to her was hearing, but before she could process anything touch, taste, and smell crashed into her like a runaway train. Lash, the name given to her by Harry Dresden fit her better than Lasciel she decided, opened her eyes. Wait, eyes! The sensations coming to her weren't filtered through Dresden's synapses, which was confusing, terrifying, and exciting all at once.
Slowly realizing the implications, Lash sat up to take stock of her surroundings. She had been lying in an empty white expanse, endless and featureless with only one exception. That being the glass door in front of her. It seemed to lead to a duplicate of the … area she was in except that it was filled with a darkness that seemed to eat at her even yards away through glass as it was.
"Ah, Lasciel, or would you prefer Lash?" She was on her feet in an instant facing the speaker. He was an unremarkable man of dark complexion, with dull brown hair, and similarly colored eyes that somehow seemed to bore through her. He wore normal street clothes for a mortal, jeans, a t-shirt, a pair of tennis shoes, and a jacket with a cross on the left breast, but she knew he was something else, something much, much more. "Sorry, I didn't mean to startle you."
"Uriel," She inclined her head respectfully, "Does this mean I'm dead?"
"If you're dead why haven't you been returned to your creator?" He smirked, gesturing to the area around them, "Why are you here?"
That gave her pause, and she could only mumble that she didn't know.
"Think about it. What happened in the Raith Deeps that would make Lasciel refuse to bring you back to her?"
The Deeps, she thought, the Outsider's attack, her conversation with Harry, and … her choice to shield him from the assault. Her choice to bear that pain for him. Her Choice. She had done something that Lasciel with all her experience couldn't understand, couldn't tolerate; she, Lash, had helped another being without, knowing it would most likely be the end of her, without a thought of a reward. She had given her life to save her host and, maybe, her friend.
All of these thoughts hit her like a tidal wave. Her chest felt tight as another realization dawned on her. She was free. That thought overjoyed her for a moment only to be snuffed out by trepidation.
"So, what now?" she questioned the angel, barely managing to keep the fear out of her voice.
"Now you continue on to whatever comes next." he replied, gesturing towards the door.
Lash turned away, staring into the void beyond, only steps away from something she had never thought possible for her. "What happens in there?"
The reply was instant, spoken as if the question had been answered billions of times before, which she supposed it probably had, "That depends on you, and only you."
She nodded, "I suppose that's the idea, isn't it?" She glanced towards where the angel had been only to find the white sea empty.
A few deep breaths and even less strides brought her to the door. As she grabbed the handle and slid it open she murmured, "Thank you."
Lash stepped through the curtains of darkness into a brightly lit circle where two nearly identical men were arguing. She gaped at the familiar men for a minute, when a voice seemed to whisper in her ear, "Redemption comes for those who redeem themselves."
With that Lash finally remembered how to speak, "Harry …"
The End