Hey guys been on a hiatus-writing *a lot* but not posting as I had some medical things happen. I know it's been a dark read lately, hoping to inject some um...light squish soonish. (Fingers crossed.) In lieu of the squish, I'm trying to keep the music that's inspiring me on a lighter/relaxing note, cuz 'reasons'. (I say this but Shelter isn't exactly the most upbeat. My bad fam.) I sure hope your new year is going better than mine. Good luck out there.

I'm a hurrican

I'm a freight train

Ain't the right way

But it's the only way I know

So when my bones come tumblin' in

I did it to myself

Will you still let me in

… … …

Will you give me shelter

… … ...

From myself

-Shelter, Dorothy

Hunnigan

"I've already received Chris Redfield's report," She glanced over the rims of her glasses at the young woman standing in the shadowy doorway of her office. The weak grey winter daylight oozed in through the windows-windows that were nearly covered in snow. The cold was leaking through the glass. Generators were running but fuel was limited. Until the sun set, the geni room would remain mostly silent. Those few who'd volunteered for manual labor were taking shifts cranking the handle on the manual generators hooked up to the labs. Most of delta two were either working or hanging out in the commons room with its natural light. Or they were fortunate enough to have hoarded candles and could use them as their own leisure in the privacy of their own rooms. Those few candles made from animal fat of the unlucky butchered game from the summer stank to high heaven and were used sparingly for heat.

Hunnigan's nose was tipped in red and she'd ditched the button down shirts and sleek suit pants for heavy military issued wear. Somehow she still managed to keep her calm, intellectual and collected nature as she continued to track food stores having long switched from her personal electronic device to paper and pen. The long sleeved black pull over was zipped up to her chin, which she buried into its collar as she squinted in the weak light to continue writing. Shadows fell long over the smallish office as the day ground slowly to a close. The pen in her hand never stilled as Hunnigan looked away from the woman back to the legal pad in front of her. "I assume you have a good excuse for arriving nearly a day late for a briefing?" Sarah fidgeted, her finger tips twitching as she toyed with the sea line of her jeans, studying the older woman, before entering the room.

"Close the door behind you," Hunningan said, looking down at the paperwork on her desk. The writing had stopped and the spartan office-which had been stripped for materials before winter had fallen, felt oppressive. She waited as the young woman took a seat at the desk in front of the desk in a waiting folding chair.

"Well," Hunnigan leaned back in her chair, watching Sarah expectantly. Without much preamble, Sarah said the first thing that came to mind.

"She can't sleep." Hunnigan raised an eyebrow, disbelief on her face. She waited. Only silence greeted Hunnigan.

"And, the rest of your report? You watched her physically assault not one, but three men." Sarah sighed, shifting her weight.

"If you already have Chris's report-"

"I don't have your's," Hunnigan interrupted her, curt. "What happened?"

"I came in for a regular scheduled check in, she was cutting her hair so i suggested she get it trimmed."

"It was your idea to take her out of the medical ward." Hunnigan's mouth was a hard line.

"You gave her permission last week," Sarah retorted.

"To leave the ward, yes, not to mingle with civilians." Reaching forward, Hunnigan began to make notes on the legal pad in front of her ignoring the expression of distaste on Sarah's face. "Continue."

"Not that there's any place without civilians, but She needed a haircut," Sarah repeated, her nose still wrinkled from the distinct smell of the situation. "So we went to the warehouse. She got her hair cut by Maria-" Hunnigan cut her off with a pointed look. "The hairstylist," Sarah clarified, "she came in around October with the group of six. Her name is Maria. She got one good look at Lauren, heard her name, and wanted nothing to do with us."

"And?"

"We made a move to get out. People i didn't even know where staring at us. Four soldiers stopped us at the door then the fight happened." Hunnigan once more looked at Sarah over the rims of her glasses. Sarah braced herself for the questions.

"Who started it?"

"They did. Lauren said she didn't want to fight."

"And yet she did."

"I would've too. They were pulling her hair and that guy punched her in the face. What was she supposed to do?"

"Not be there in the first place," Hunnigan retorted flatly, still writing on the legal pad. "With a lack of trained personnel we've had to recruit civilians for most basic maintenance at the facility. More and more information is being circulated to the general public and it's becoming a problem." Hunnigan sighed. "You were assigned to her for a reason."

"You said it was my job to observe and keep my mouth shut," Sarah retorted. "I did that."

"So you let her assault three men?"

"I don't let her do anything," Sarah replied hotly, her hands gripping her knees. "I don't see you jumping in to do this." That earned the young woman a look of consideration.

"True," Hunnigan sat back in her chair, crossing her legs. "And that's because she doesn't trust me. Could I get an honest answer from her, I would. However, even drugged, her otherkin healing kicked in enough that she was able to discern what was happening. She is far more trusting of Chris than she is of me."

"I mean you did drug her. From what I know, every fey who did the same is either dead or was never heard from again."

"Fey that we didn't know existed until recently. Ergo, that story is less than credible as rumor." Hunnigan sighed. It was her job to collect and analyze facts. Not gossip. Sarah shook her head, rolling her eyes. "What isn't rumor is the fact that we have video evidence that she enabled an enemy of the state wanted for crimes against humanity."

"What isn't rumor is that she literally murdered several fey royalty by iron siding them in water," Sarah snapped. "I was there when she dragged their blacked and burned bodies through the court to lay them at the feet of the Court Queen." Hunnigan tilted her head to the side, raising an eyebrow.

" 'Ironsiding'?" Hunnigan echoed. Sarah sighed.

"You put iron shavings in two inches of water, stir the water up so the iron moves around in it, then hold a fey's head under the water. When they can't hold their breath any more they suck in the water and the iron shavings." Sarah grit her jaw. "Iron burns the fey, inside and out, I've already told you that. You can imagine the rest."

"I already know Lauren has a history of violence," Hunngian started, playing with the pen in her hand.

"Like duh," Sarah snapped. "But there's a difference between willingly participating in something and...not. It wasn't uncommon in the fey courts for the royalty to place orders-heavy binding-"

"Word magick," Hunnigan supplied.

"Word magick," Sarah agreed, nodding. "If you owe the fey, they own you until you pay your debt. The fey owned Lauren. She might be violent, but," Sarah shrugged, the heat leaving her as she melted into the chair. "I don't know what I'm trying to say. All I know is what I don't know. She doesn't talk about the bioweapon. She doesn't whisper a hint of it." Again Sarah shrugged. "She isn't sleeping, that's all I do know." At that Hunnigan raised an eyebrow, shaking her head dismissively.

"She was prescribed heavy sedatives. If she's not sleeping, it's by choice."

"What sedatives?" Sarah was incredulous, her face wrinkled with disbelief once again. At that Hunnigan paused, the pen still in her hand, as she looked at Sarah. "Seriously, she was never given sedatives. There was nothing but hair in her wastebasket. If they'd given her a sedative it would have come in those sterile pill packaging things right? I checked every day. No pill wrappers. I thought it was important."

"Even if that's the case," Hunnigan spoke slowly, her pen flying on the legal pad, "Nurses palming a few meds for a profit is hardly a primary concern."

"Excuse me?" Sarah asked, both eyebrows perking up. She leaned forward, staring hard at Hunnigan. "You're not worried about people lying to you? People you're supposed to trust?"

"Once again, lies are a luxury humans regularly indulge in. You should try it," Hunnigan said dryly. "We've had this conversation on relative societal norms before." For her part, Hunnigan's head stayed bowed as she wrote on her legal pad. She missed the younger woman's look of disgust.

"No thanks."

"That's your admirable prerogative," Hunnigan replied. She paused, her pen flying over the paper. "We have bigger issues."

"We do?" Sarah demanded. Hunnigan pinned Sarah with a stern look as she leaned back into her seat. Carefully, she set the pen down.

"Yes, Sarah, you do."

Lauren

The color has been washed from the world and a hazy murky fog has settled upon the ground. Sharp edges are blurred by the damp familiar coldness. I stare at my sleeping body, my gaze drifting to Vergil who is studying his hand. I step away from the small room, letting the oppressive gloom envelop me. It feels like I stumble a few steps before the ground beneath my feet becomes uneven and crackles under my heel. Prickly death blackened grass and dried, thirst cracked ground leads to the looming, slanted building. The dirt path is a crooked one, with more than one worn down stone along the way, still the building rises like a mausoleum in the darkness. It stands as an effigy to those fallen things and for all intents and purposes, acts as the burial chamber of the world. A dilapidated church set in a dead field, the few dead twisted remains of trees lurk around the crumbling stone walls of the building. The black, pock marked door looms in front of me after a few steps. Really, travel is a tricky thing here. I put a hand on the iron barred door, feeling the damp worm eaten against my palm. I take a breath of the heavy foul fog before I push it open.

It swings open silently, which considering the state of the derelict place, I find surprising. Cracked uneven black marble flooring greets me. The grey haze outside clings to the floor, leaching into the deeper shadows that cling to the walls and pillars here. Here and there some of the weeds from outside have intruded, and a stray vine will curl around a decaying pillar. The ceiling has several gaps in the ceiling and overhead I can see the cold stars, those distant, hateful things.

"Humans are far more frail than I gave them credit for," she comments, her eyes glimmering in the shade like amethyst gems as I step inside. "Even humans with gifts such as yours." Shadows sweep the broken, craggy floor as a cold moon looms overhead in a sky heavy with clouds. The momentary light filters through the collapsing building as the vine-eaten church creaks in a sour wind, half ready to fall down. Nothing changes here, yet I could swear the wind wasn't nearly so sour last time. I sigh as the doors close silently behind me.

"A gift or a curse?" I demand, recalling my conversation with Vergil. Medusa wasn't given a gift so much as a curse. Two sides, same coin he said. Except that he might be right. Sometimes a coin will land on its edge. For a time.

"You are my fragment, an extension of my considerable reach." She pauses, those eyes never blinking. "You are a creature born of my house and as such you may field the expanse of death and life," she paused. "Should you choose to master your gifts-your curse-accordingly."

"Have you ever watched someone eat your arm?" I ask flatly, shooting her a look. She is impassive as she rises from her seat at the altar. Her throne is made of old bone and here and there I can make out a skull or two. It makes me wonder what their owners did to anger the literal angel of death. Her wings fan outward, as if it's been ages since she's moved, the silver trinkets twisted into the feathers softly glinting in the moonlight. Her long nails look almost talon-like as they grip the arm rest as she straightens her back. I'm not sure where Lokiel starts and the dark misty haze of her church begins. She seems taller, looming in murk like a monster under the bed.

"Makes it hard to focus sometimes," I add quietly, stepping into the center of the church, "remembering everything between life and….that blackness." It's not an excuse. I have spent time trying to wrap my head around it. Little by little I unpack the hurt. Strange, but it's easier to do that here. Probably because here doesn't look anything remotely similar to there. Something about this place makes you forget. You forget the sharp details, the things that cut down your spirit and hack at your heart strings. It might be intentional, the dulling of the raw jagged edges of memories. Something to lend perspective maybe? It's easy to look at pain, when you aren't reliving it in all of its body rendering madness.

"Balance," her soft voice is as ancient as her church and just as breathy as it is feminine. It isn't so much as she speaks, as whispers softly, but here it echoes. It's as if the very walls carry the sound, amplifying it until it's unclear who spoke: her or the building itself. It's creepy as fuck.

" 'Angels are meant to serve'," she continues, "but we are not tools to be crudely abused before being tossed aside. We decided eons ago, that we deserved better. Yet even us-or especially our kind-are bound as the hands of god." At that I swallow a groan. She sounds so similar to ASH…and yet not. She doesn't ever make sense and at the same time, if I don't think too hard about her words, they make the most sense. Her footfalls are noiseless as she regards me, circling me from the shadows of her church.

"Let us begin, Lauriel. We must strengthen your mind and your body. That begins now. Continue to breathe." She pauses, a shadow at my back. Her hands are ice cold as they skim up my arms and I stiffen. Skeleton like with their fierce grip she molds my arms, bringing them upwards. With a foot she taps my inner leg, widening my stance.

"First form," she breathes. "Northward stance. Hold it and take three breaths." When I've done so, she moves my arms, sweeping them down to my thighs and crossing my wrists. A hand at my hip, she shifts my weight.

"Second form. Southward stance. Two breaths." In this way she instructs me through five more forms to make a complete set of seven. One stance for each direction: north, south, east and west. Three additional stances that Loki calls Genesis, Terminus, and Vitalis. The beginning, end and the in between or life, I think. It's been years since I had any Latin.

"Repeat them," she instructs me. I do as she tells me, starting with the first form and holding it for three breaths before moving onto the southern stance. She circles, watching me with sharp eyes.

"Seven is the holy number," she says from the shadows. "Six was given to my mother, the bearer of all sins. Six is a weak number. It may be cut in half, just as she was. BrokeN by choice for my brother. However, Seven may not be divided so evenly. Four directions and three for the holy trinity: the ghost, the father and the child. More accurately described as life, death and rebirth." She pauses, watching as I switch to third form. nodding she continues. "Humans have long fought wars over beliefs. They have used their convictions to justify the degradation of their own moral codes. One's convictions are the only thing that should guide one's actions and therefore the degradation of your convictions are and always have been tempered through experience. In times of war, this degradation of gods holy words sharply increased. You humans couldn't lower your own convictions faster than you violated them. It pleased god to no end."

More crazy Loki rambling. She never makes sense. Still I let her words and voice wash over me as I repeat the long form of the seven stances combined. This is nothing new to me. I have done long forms in martial arts before. Again and again I do this, the shadows sweeping across the black, aged floor, as Loki talks. I listen with half an ear. I don't really care much about what she says, but there's a quality to her voice that makes it compelling to listen to. I guess the angel of death has a few tricks up her sleeve though, because everything she says, sticks. Like the dust of time slowly shifting through a keyhole, she speaks of things that have been, things that were, things that could never be. Mostly she recounts history, both human and that of other stories I've only heard of in old story books. She speaks of eternal creatures gifted with power, how time and time again they grew to become corrupted with base human needs and wants. Or to become victims of their enemies once they succumbed to the charities of life: kindness, compassion, love. She talks about how such eternal beings-after so much time avoiding her embrace-would come to grovel at her feet begging for more. Demands for more time, requests for more company on the journey forward, pleas for protection of the ones they left behind. Always, they were denied. It really is true, the only thing fair in life is death. Except she's played favorites. Exactly three times by my count. Of all the things Loki talks about-of all the hundreds of millions of gods, goddesses, fey, vampires, monsters and humans who've crossed the floor of her church that she talks about-there are two topics she avoids:

The future and why she made those three exceptions.