faith

Marron doesn't walk into churches anymore. Like an American franchise, they advertise themselves so plainly that she can simply note the gothic flowing stone and walk calmly past. A part of her (tiny but unforgivable) wants to instead rail at the gates, at this god that would ask so much of her for so little.

When she was younger, she dreamt of someone else. Of a girl whip thin but full of faith. Marron had faith too. But it shattered like a china doll and she cut herself trying to fix it. She is still bleeding.

Mostly, she cannot bear to see the cherubs, lined up and grinning down at her with vacant marble eyes. Little wings and half smiles that are echoed in Finn but do not bring up any fondness. She cannot bear it— these houses of god and mercy. She has seen angels, fallen and falling. There is no mercy to it.

In every dream she is burning.

Like ghosts they slip past the corner of her eye. Demons. Before they possess and become something corporal, something twisted and ugly, she sees them as they were. Bloody and beaten. The tips of wings and ethereal grace.

And naïve young Marron had mistaken her fear for the girl's own. She sees the error of it now. Jeanne was happy to die, happier to raise phoenix like from the ashes, closer to her God.

When Finn speaks of God, of his plan, there is no reverence in it. Only a twitching at her lips and a vacancy to her eyes. Not like Jeanne. Not like Jeanne at all.

And Marron knows, Finn doesn't have far to fall.

author note: just another romp into dark AU, trying to figure out how Marron would deal with any suspicion she had about Finn. maybe the beginnings of a longer fic.