Determined to avoid both Zorin and the laboratory, Winkle headed to drills, as usual, the following evening. The men greeted her with silent glances and stiff salutes. She hadn't led them yesterday, too busy dealing with Zorin's awful illusion. Still, they followed her directions to the letter.

When midnight neared, she dropped the troops off at the dining hall and stayed far away from the entrance, not able to stomach the sight of Zorin yet. Besides, she had another goal: get an audience with The Major. If leaving the lab was going to be a reality, she needed another way to feed.

It was possible she could get transferred to the mess crew. Although the task of fetching meals was beneath her regarding difficulty, the troops often clamored over the job because it allowed them to leave the ship regularly. She jogged down the hallway towards the Major's quarters but slowed when she saw the two soldiers stations outside the opulent white double doors.

"Papers," one of the soldiers ordered, holding out his hand expectantly.

"Aww, so serious," Winkle teased, poking him in the cheek instead. The vampire's eye ticked. "I just want to say hi, I need The Major's opinion."

"Not without papers," the second deadpanned. "Fill out the proper request, and you'll be — "

"Come'on~, just this once?" She pushed with a pout. Without missing a beat, both guards shoot her a flat look. For years, she'd shown up at The Major's quarters unannounced, playfully demanding new records to be purchased in bursts of operatic joy. But it seemed the guards were fed up with her pestering. Sometimes, The Major heard her through the door and allowed an unscheduled audience. It was worth a try. "Fine, then I'll just have to ask you two~! Which song should I play during training tomorrow? I was thinking — " she took a deep breath and the guards grimaced in unison " —Viktoria! Viktoria! Der Meister soll leben, Der wacker dem Sternlein den Rest hat gegeben~!"

She sang with abandon until the intercom crackled. With a gasp, she stopped and glanced up toward the sound.

"Obersturmführer van Winkle," The Major's voice began, and she drew an excited breath. Finally, things were going to work in her favor. "Report to your scheduled assignment. That'll be all."

Heartbroken, her mouth slacked in disappointment. There was a snort beside her. Winkle glared daggers at the laughing guard, but he offered only indifference in return. The Major's order was absolute. She had to obey.

Teeth clenched, Winkle drew herself to her full height and left. The show lasted until she turned the corner and deflated with a slump. A request had to be submitted to see him now, and it was hard to know when The Major would respond. If it weren't soon, she'd start to be underfed again. Deciding to start the dreaded paperwork, Winkle began to head for her room. Bumping into a hard, green-clad wall, she back peddled and found Günsche blocking the hallway. Dead icy eyes stared down.

"Yes?" Winkle asked. The Captain offered no reply. "…Were you sent for me?"

Ever the good dog, it wasn't uncommon for Günsche to track down those The Major wanted to see. Perhaps the Führer wanted to speak with her after all?

She grew antsy when Günsche continued staring like a corpse. Finally, his lips pursed ever so slightly, and he pointed at her chest. Shaking his head back and forth once, he motioned downward before drawing a cross in the air. The gist was easy enough to catch: you are not supposed to be here. Oh no, had he been sent to escort her?

She shrugged and said, "I'm back on regular duty."

Head cocking to the side, he gestured downward a second time.

"I'm not needed in the lab anymore," she tried again and sighed forcefully. "Come on, Hans. When have I ever lied to you?"

Cold, dead eyes narrowed a fraction. Winkle swallowed. Without further warning, The Captain lunged forward. He didn't belie–SHIT!

Winkle gave a start and tried to leap away, but he was too fast. Günsche snared her around the middle with a muscled arm. Although she clawed at him, raking finger-length tears across his uniform front, he threw her over his shoulder in a single motion like a sack of potatoes. Stiff as a statue, he turned and headed toward the stairwell that led to the lower level.

She fought back, but kicks to the stomach were met with soft grunts, nothing more. No matter how hard she pounded on his back in hollow rhythm, he wouldn't put her down. Letting out a cry of desperation, she fisted the fabric of his coat.

"Do not make me go down there! I can't stand it!" She moaned, tears filling her eyes. He did not stop walking down the hall. She twisted her body to look at him and tried again in a softer voice. "Dok is impossible. I can't work for him anymore, please don't make me!" Günsche kept going, but his shaggy white head turned a little. One dull blue eye looked back at her. That was her cue. Winkle blinked, forcing a single bloody tear to roll down a freckled cheek. "Please, Hans," she murmured.

A small sigh emitted from him. Günsche stopped, pivoted on his heel, and resumed walking in the opposite direction of the medical facility. Winkle turned her head back around as a devious smile cut her face. The act had worked! In silence, The Captain carried her down Deck B and appeared to be heading for the Command Room. Thankfully, it was feeding time; no one saw them pass by in such an embarrassing fashion.

With a foot, he nudged the door open and walked into the cavernous, dim Command Room. Save for the two of them not a soul was inside. Once beyond the entrance, he dipped his shoulder and let her slip to the ground. Her eyes darted toward the closing door and watched the waning sliver of light from the hallway. Winkle paused, thought better of escaping, and then trailed after Günsche as he continued toward The Major's command chair in the center of the room. The dark screens distorted their images like in a hall of mirrors as they passed, their reflections looked bulbous and inhuman.

Günsche neared the chair and pressed one of the many buttons on the arm. A slit-like compartment opened along the metal back of the chair, and he removed a whiteboard and marker from within. Her eyebrows rose in shock. She knew Günsche often had meetings with The Major. So writing was how he communicated at length? She hadn't known that. Removing the marker cap with his teeth, he began to write in squeaky strokes, then turned the board around for her to see.

"Disobedience = dishonor," read the board. Her lips pursed at the bold black words. Eyes sinking to the floor briefly, she opened her mouth to offer a defense, but Günsche raised a finger to quiet her. Quickly, he erased the words with his sleeve before writing again. "Unlike you."

"I know," Winkle muttered, unable to look him. Being confronted with words rather than physically forced to go to the medical facility made her feel terribly guilty.

Flip. Erase. Scribble. Flip.

"Your assignment = no change," read the board. It wasn't a question. Blue eyes rolled, but she still nodded and acknowledged the earlier lie. He nodded once and erased the words before adding. "Report for duty."

"But Dok's the worst!" Winkle fumed. "I thought he was helping me when he was just using me!"

Flip. Erase. Scribble. Flip.

"Help with?"

"Nothing, never mind," she said quickly. He underlined the question with a squeak and pointed to it. Dead eyes stared unnervingly. Winkle moaned and clawed at her face in exasperation, but he only motioned to the question again. With a huff, she stomped her foot and caved. "Okay! But don't tell anyone." Nothing if not sincere, he nodded solemnly in reply. Winkle decided to trust him. "Zorin and I got into an argument; she won't let me in the mess hall now. So, I made a deal with Dok for blood packs. I thought it was working in my favor, but he just made things worse between Zorin and me for…well, for the sake of science, I guess."

Günsche's gaze remained steady and dull. Winkle wasn't sure he'd heard her until he gave another slight nod. After a pause, he wrote another message and turned the board around.

"A deal is a deal."

Her stomach dropped at the words.

"Hans, please," she tried.

"A deal is a deal," he underlined in response.

She bit her lip and shook her head. At the defiance, his brow lowered. Capping the marker with his teeth, Günsche let both it and the board drop back into the compartment with a clang. No more words. He strode toward her with measured steps. Shit. She should have lied.

"Wait!" she pleaded, backing away. "I'll go, I promise!"

He shook his head back and forth in reply.

"I swear! Cross my heart!" She begged, making an X on her chest before pressing hands together in a plea. "Give me 10 minutes! If I don't leave this room by then, you can escort me there, okay? I just…"

With a wince, she cowered and stopped speaking as his long shadow fell over her. Oh no. The words hadn't been enough. He was going to drag she down there. How humiliating.

When the footsteps stopped, she anxiously glanced up with watery eyes to find Günsche glaring down. Jaw tense, he flashed five fingers in her face before tapping his wrist as through a watch face were there. Jabbing her in the chest, the same finger then slowly rose to her eye level. The mimed message was clear: you've got 10 minutes to get yourself together, or else. Winkle nodded. Giving a snort, Günsche brushed past and left the Command Room. The door closed with an echoing clang.

Winkle let out a grateful sigh. Tears worked but only for so long. Günsche was stern and would not go back on his word or a direct order, ever. Not only were there less than ten minutes to figure out a way to escape the Command Room unnoticed, she now had to avoid both Günsche and Zorin and still get an audience with The Major, an almost impossible task. Panic knotted in her chest. No. Focus. First, she had to find a way to get out of this room without The Captain seeing.

Figuring she was already in trouble, Winkle quickly felt along the metal arms of the command chair and pressed the largest button. Several monitors fizzled to life in the center of the matrix of black screens on the wall, displaying one video feed. A gray, pixelated view of an empty hallway came into focus: Deck B. The rest of the troops must still be feeding. Good, she could make her way down the hall without witness.

She flipped through the video feeds and shots of the zeppelin interior clipped across the monitor. When the Command Room doors came into view, she paused. The entrance appeared empty. Eyes growing wide, she quickly fumbled for the camera controls. No way! The front door was unguarded? She tilted the camera angle down. Had Günsche really—big, dull eyes filled the bottom of the screen. Winkle yelped at the suddenness and quickly clicked to the next channel. No, still there.

Cursing under her breath, she flipped through the video feeds until The Major's still guarded door came into view. Cringing as her predicament remained the same, she resumed clicking through the channels. The many blood-slicked long tables that filled the mess hall flashed across the screen. Winkle backtracked to watch the feeding soldiers, stomach growling. Eyes narrowing, she searched their faces. Zorin wasn't among them.Goddamn it! The one time she could've entered the mess hall without incident.

Cheeks puffing out at the unfairness, Winkle resumed rapidly searching. Images of the hallway clipped by showing the interior the engine room first, then long rooms filled with rows of bunk beds. Wait. She slowed down and flicked through the live feeds of the vacant bedrooms: the soldiers' private quarters. Why would anyone ever need to see this? Suddenly, a streak of red hair flashed across the screen. Winkle paused. Immediately forgetting her last train of thought, she backtracked to the last feed.

The strong woman had indeed skipped the midnight meal; the monitor showed Zorin working at the desk in her private quarters. The room seemed to be the same size and layout as her's, which made sense given their shared rank. A coffin laid on the floor to the left and a desk stood against to the wall to the right. Zorin's room was incredibly spartan: there were no collections of dried bouquets, bags of gunpowder, old playbills, stacks of records or anything fun.

In fact, the strong woman only kept a few personal items. The giant, black and white scythe leaned against the wall in the right-hand corner. A few sepia pictures of nude women were tacked above her desk. Lastly, a shelf hung on the wall above the head of her coffin holding only three items: a snuffed black candle, a bowl of what looked like dried blood, and the stone statue of a woman. Winke couldn't help but stare at the stone idol. The figure was nude, and her body divided down the middle: the right was whole and beautiful, but the left was skeletal with scraps of flesh dangling from protruding bones.

The idol was certainly strange, and the symbols etched into on the wall behind the statue only made it more foreboding. Scratched into the metal plating behind the statue were lines of illegible text. Three bold symbols dominated the bottom line. Winkle squinted at the strange inscription, trying to understand it:

Deyr fé,

deyja frændr,

deyr sjálfr et sama;

ek veit einn,

at aldri deyr:

dómr um dauðan hvern

The script meant nothing to her, but the symbols, especially the last two, looked familiar: one was the swastika, and the other looked like half of the Schutzstaffel, emblems used proudly by the Nazi Party. Now that she considered it, the symbols also sort of resembled the intricate runic tattoos covering half of Zorin's body. Weird. She didn't know what to make of it.

Winkle's gaze returned to the strong woman. The other seemed to be constructing something on the desk, but the way broad, muscled shoulders hunched over the table in concentration made it difficult to see what occupied Zorin. Winkle knew the woman was handy, and often helped to upkeep the armored cars, Panzers, and BMW R75s housed the Zeppelin's underbelly. Doing such greasy work in her personal quarters seemed strange, though.

Winkle squinted at the screen, but couldn't understand what the other was fixing so seriously. Zorin only moved to reach into the metal box beside her to change tools. Growing bored and running out of time, Winkle searched through the video feeds again. The inside of medical ward came into view. Her brown knitted at the sight. Just how many cameras were placed on the ship?

The medical ward looked like a war-zone, even though it had only been a day since she'd quit. Papers lay discarded on the tiled floor. A gurney, the one she'd been examined on, had been flipped over and forgotten in the center of the room. She clicked to the next fed. A birdseye view of the stained dividers sectioning off the laboratory showed on the monitor. The camera angle permitted a slanted glimpse inside of each cubicle. In the furthest room stood the Doktor.

"Shut UP!" he angrily mouthed to a large glass case in the corner. The container was taller than him and seemed to be filled to the brim with a noxious yellow liquid: the same yellow, molasses-like ooze that preserved all the other specimen. Suspended in the case was a figure, but the camera angle only allowed a peek of what looked like the back of a bony head. She had never seen inside this cubicle in the lab and didn't understand with whom he was speaking. Winkle turned up the volume.

"Stop looking at me like that!" He hissed, jabbing a finger at the glass. "Trust?! Bah–she's a little viper! There are no doll-eyed innocents here. She's a soldier first and foremost. I–" he paused suddenly, as though someone had interrupted. Winkle heard nothing through the speakers. The thing inside the glass case didn't move. He sputtered in anger. "Guilty? That's preposterous! This is bigger than mere feelings. If she truly thought that, then she's a fool. Trust is a tool! There are always strings attached." He paused again. There was no audible response, but Dok's teeth clenched and his face colored red with rage. "Exactly–look where it landed you!"

After snarling at the encased specimen, he bent over to grabbed a piece of cloth from the floor and threw it over the glass. Then, strange, unforgiving hands fisted his long blonde hair as Dok curled in on himself. The weight of his misery crushed him until he resembled a sulking hunchback. After bringing a hand to his mouth, teeth bit into a gloved finger.

Winkle frowned. Before she knew what to think of his actions, the door to the Command Room burst open. Time was up. Quickly, she clicked off the monitor and turned around. Dead eyes locked onto her face as Günsche strode toward her. Winkle gulped and held her hands up in surrender.

"I'll go. I swear."

Günsche's neared her, face impassive as his hand darted out and grabbed her by the shoulder before Winkle could blink. Strong, thick fingers dug into the hollow of her collarbone, intent on dragging her. He didn't believe her. Despite the pain, she clutched his hand. Making no attempt to pry his grip off, Winkle held onto The Captain's hand as though he were giving her friendly pat.

"Hans, thank you for talking to me and giving me time," she said as sincerely as possible. "I promise I'll go. You can even escort me the proper way! Just…" and she gave his wrist a tug.

His brow gathered, apparently not anticipating acceptance. After a long pause, talon-like fingers released their death grip on her shoulder. Beaming a smile in thanks, she immediately looped an arm around his own and gave it a squeeze.

"Much better, don't you think?" Winkle asked cheerfully.

Brown still creased, his dead eyes stared down at her. He raised a hand, and she offered her palm after a beat. His finger traced the number 180° on the flat of her hand before tapping her once on the forehead. Wha–oh, ha! She snickered and lightly hit his shoulder. And some of the soldiers swore Günsche didn't have a sense of humor at all.

"Pfft, come on," she teased and tugged on his arm.

He shook his head but began to walk with her. Together, they headed down to the infirmary, Winkle chattering excitedly all the while as she hung onto him. Given what the monitor had shown, returning to the lab might not be such an awful plan; she could make things work in her favor.


Notes:

To me, Günsche is 100% mute and has figured out some ways to communicate with the others. He is also kinda nice in his super serious, dead-eyed, silent-as-the-grave way.

Major's more willing to talk to his subordinates, Winkle is given a hard time because (that's the theme of the fic) she kept bust'n in and pestering him to use their piles of Nazi gold budget to buy Der Freischütz memorabilia, opera recordings, and other shit. Even the guards are done.

Dok talks to, you probably guess it, Mina! What, you don't talk to your skeletons for comfort? Sometimes, it's easier to rant to an inanimate object than deal with how shitty of a person you are.

About the whole 'trust' thing Dok yells at Mina. Presumably (read: headcanon), she trusted Jonathan and van Helsing with her life to help them defeat Dracula. When Dracula's curse isn't reversed (because he doesn't die) Mina remains in a fledgling vampire state: pale and moody with a wafer-mark on her forehead. Jonathan and van Helsing failed to save her. Blah blah blah. It's hard to fit into Victorian society when you look like death and thirst for blood. She's a monster and that shit's suspicious. Mina is bound and sealed away (probably by Helsing) and Millennium digs up her remains before WW2 when Nazi occultists were looking for holy hocus-pocus artifacts and locations (like the spear of destiny, or whatever conspiracy flavor of the month y'all like). And here is where I'd source more of that information –finish DAWN, Hirano!

Zorin has a shrine to the goddess Hel in her room. Initially, I considered Freyja (because she's a boss bitch and there's no argument over her goddess status) but I think Hel, daughter of Loki and ruler of Niflheim works better for Zorin. I like her odd lineage and Hel's dominion over the dead (the old and sick tho, not warriors) loosely matches Zorin's whole "I'm the grim reaper, now scream" vibe. Also, Hel's either described as an ooger/troll-woman or as half flesh and half black (decaying), kind of like how Zorin is half tatted and half clean. Some argue that no true pagan would pray to a half Jötunn whelp, so idk. Not pagan. I went with the goddess/deity/giantess I thought matched Zorin's personality and traits the closest.

The runes on Zorin's wall (and her tattoos) are Armanen runes (and I used this site for the meanings) because the Nazis were super into that shit. Here's look'n at you Himmler. Clearly Zorin's into some runic magic, just like the actual Nazis. Once again, not pagan and everything I've read about Armanen runes just makes my skin crawl (because it's so steeped in 19th-century occultism and white supremacy), so I've probably used them 'wrong', but I don't really care.

The poem on Zorin's wall is from the last stanza in the Gestaþáttr section of the Hávamál from the Poetic Edda. It seems right up her alley. Translated, the Icelandic means:

Cattle die,
kinsmen die
you yourself die;
I know one thing
which never dies:
the judgment of a dead man's life

On tumblr and A03 the inscription has symbols at the bottom but ff is weird and doesn't allow links or images. Sorry.