#this one is a bit messier but. wow shannon lilith you wreck me!

[appleciders]

@explosionshark​

"Lilith, stop. You're going to hurt yourself."

Lilith grins, teeth bloody. "You think that matters? Still, Shannon?"

"Lilith."

"Don't play naive. We both know how this ends, for both of us."

Shannon swallows, presses her eyes closed. Her life is all that stands between Lilith and the Halo—all that stands between legacy's lamb and the slaughter.

(It would be a more meaningful shield, if she weren't already branded herself.)

"I do," she says. "You know I do."

The evenness of her voice draws a pause, for a moment. Lilith's dark eyes find hers, hold.

All of Lilith is holding, actually. She hasn't moved since Shannon told her to stop.

Disobey me, Shannon wants to demand. Disobey all of us. For once, disobey, and leave, and live.

The irony—only to those words, Lilith would.

"It's the best for the mission," Lilith says, and there's a slight question, now, in the nocked arrow of her tone. "Unless you have no faith?"

"My faith in you has never been in question," not true, but she'll confess the lie to Vincent, who will understand.

"Just your faith in God, then."

Shannon lets the blow glance off her. "How will you protect your sisters if you're hurt, Lilith?"

"I'm protecting them through the advancement of the mission, so that they should not have to do it themselves." Obviously, Shannon hears, beneath. "So that you don't have to."

When she trains Lilith to be the next, they talk of temperance, patience, mercy. When you learn these things, I know you will be ready.

In truth, Lilith is too ready to become Warrior Nun.

But Lilith loves Shannon, loves her in a vicious, jagged, bony way.

These two facts sit inside each of them, pressed into the meat of their kidneys and livers—one the only thing that could ever stave off the other.

It won't be enough, though. Shannon knows it because for as long as Lilith obeys, she will be right—there's two ways this ends, and they are both the same—one ends with Lilith dead with a molten loop tearing out of her skin and the other ends with her dead, her back bare.

Shannon refuses to live to see the second.

"As your Warrior Nun, I'm telling you to fall back. We'll try again tomorrow."

Lilith wipes the back of her wrist against her bloody philtrum. "You cannot be serious. We're so close, Shannon.” Her tone sharpens. “Maybe I was right to question your faith."

But Shannon is serious, and she is faithful, and Lilith knows both. This is just a step, for Lilith to work herself down. To sheathe a weapon when it's yourself is no safe thing.

"We need to find Beatrice and Mary," Shannon says, instead of answering. She'll pay the dig back when they're safe in Cat's Cradle, and the retaliation can come with mirth.

Lilith’s face flickers. Beatrice. Mary. “Alright,” she says. “Let’s go.”