#verse. . .⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀𝙽𝙴𝙸𝚃𝙷𝙴𝚁 𝙳𝙴𝙰𝚃𝙷 𝙽𝙾𝚁 𝙻𝙸𝙵𝙴⠀:⠀laura lee

[enslaughts]

laura lee has to hold the yellowjackets at arms length post - rescue in order to maintain their innocence,  because it's just as fair as it is un - fair to advocate their victimhood in what happened out there.     she refuses to look at the past too closely,  to even truly face it  ;  it's the only way she can hold her own guilt and the others' innocence at the same time.     she believes so strongly that they all deserve to heal even if she's living proof it's so much easier said than done.     she firmly stands by their ability to recover and forgive themselves,  but she only can because she can't do the same for herself.     she would never think of it so linearly,  but she's never gotten past the bargaining stage of her grief.     she never got past the christian moralizing of her youth,  even if she got past its god.     she can't let go of the fact that they were kids and they were innocent and they deserved to be saved and that her faith wasn't enough for them to be,  but she also believes that what happened out there was evil.     it wasn't right,  and it wasn't fair,  but she has to blame someone for it,  and she's chosen both god and herself.     if she holds herself to it when she doesn't believe even god holds himself to this holy standard of moral responsibility,  then the others don't have to.     if she's damned,  then her teammates don't have to be.

except,  that only worked when jesus did it.     only a sacrifice innocent of any sin can take on the sins of others and have it mean something.     she has to both insist on her damnation and deny it.

when she learns not only of travis' death but that all evidence points to him having done it himself,  she balls her eyes out.     she goes to church to pray instead of to serve for the first time in years,  and she prays for his soul,  but she doesn't ask god for anything.     not a single thing.     she tells him.     she doesn't care what the bible says,  she doesn't even care what travis himself believed ; he will find the same resting place that his brother did all those years ago.     his story can't end any other way.     as if she has any say in the matter,  any power.     what is bargaining,  if not an extension of denial ?     she's suspended in this state of insisting on her own control over their innocence,  their goodness,  denying her powerlessness and accepting the subsequent responsibility,  because if she doesn't have any power over this. . .     she doesn't know where else any good in the world is supposed to come from.     a part of her psyche is still a teenage girl encountering a reality in which she is so alone facing a cruelty that has no one to blame,  and it's too lonely,  a universe that doesn't defend this for her,  and she doesn't know how to live in that reality.     she doesn't want to live in that reality.     and so she does what they always did out there  ;  what she has to in order to survive,  and she denies.     she saw first hand that there's no inherent good looking out for like kind in the universe,  not unless you make it yourself.     she realized there was no son of god come to save them,  not their bodies or their souls,  so she'll do it herself.     she's both god and jesus,  the righteous judge and the martyr facing judgment.     and she is peter,  denying culpability in crucifixion,  and therefore denying any forgiveness of it.

[enslaughts]

@huntalie. . . liked for a starter.

life had stopped making sense to laura lee the moment their plane plummeted from the sky. glimpses, maybe, here and there, shapes in her periphery, but by the second plane raining fire and brimstone upon them, she'd only kept on falling. head over heels far after she'd already hit the water. o thou of little faith. wherefore didst thou doubt ? maybe it was the moment you let us fucking sink. and yet, there is no other word for it but faith, this hellfire reflection in her eye. it devours the cabin, their home, like a lion, leaving nothing but skin and bone to pick through, blacker than black. at least it's warm. it'll be warmer in hell, something certain in her whispers, a root taking hold. a certainty of the un - seen, made seen before their very eyes. faith. the only thing that's made sense to her since the moment their plane plummeted from the sky ; this is judgment. righteous, holy fire for the blasphemers.

but the innocent were always damned with the guilty. firstborns swallowed in the plague. travis didn't deserve to lose his only home now that his brother was dead. lottie didn't deserve it either, akilah, gen, melissa, natalie. they were already suffering, half frozen, half starved, half dead. what more could it want from them, what more could it take ? what more could they give ? a home. their only home, for their only meal. maybe it was a fair trade after all. but no. no, it's only fair the taste of javi is forever turned to ash in their mouths, but not for all of them. travis, natalie— natalie tried. she was going to feed them all, despite lottie's offering, despite their heresy against it, she was going to feed them. heed the altar call and lie down upon it, and now look at her. ram in the thicket made archangel, forged in fire to light their path forward, chosen by the cards, the wilderness, lottie. who was laura lee to question it ?

so she doesn't. she has faith in lottie, and lottie put her faith in natalie. and god saw the light, that it was good : and god divided the light from the darkness. laura lee knows this, if nothing else : natalie is good. and because she's good, she will doubt herself, just as lottie did, and this is why they're good, why they're chosen. their home is in each other. “   you're not alone in this,   ” she whispers, fierce, forcing the glow in her gaze to shine on natalie's. what a way to start a reign. but light will always shine brighter in the dark. “   have faith in lottie. in yourself. we've made it this far.   ” what more could they lose ? where could they go now but up, after they'd already walked through the gates of hell ? doesn't that depend on which way you're going : out, or further in ? “   you got us this far.   ” not only your skill, but your kindness, “   you've been a faithful servant, natalie. now it's our turn. we just have to give it. . . more of the same.   ” here, cold hands find another's, slow, wary as an animal, but holding tight. “   more faith in it. trust, in each other.   ”

[enslaughts]

modern - day laura lee's religious beliefs are sooo all over the place.     it's like she's discarded the god of the bible while still holding to its tenets.     the same sense of justice within her that demanded god save them from the wilderness if he truly was the savior of the innocent all those years ago,  the sense of justice that set itself on fire when he didn't,  a righteous judgment cast on god himself she never learned to let go of even decades later.     she does volunteer work at a local non - evangelical,  affirming church,  involved in fundraisers and festivals without ever believing in the god praised from the pulpit.     and yet,  at the same time,  she believes beyond a shadow of a doubt that her soul is damned.     the same sense of justice within her that called even god unjust,  that deemed her and her friends stranded in the wilderness holy and innocent and deserving of being saved,  can't not also judge herself as irredeemable for the things they did.

hypocritically,  she doesn't believe the same of the rest of the team,  not completely,  because that judgment deemed them the victims of the original sin  ;  god's indifference to their plight.     she keeps her distance,  though,  cuts active contact with everyone but lottie  [ depending on plotting ],  who even still,  she mostly keeps tabs on the well - being of after she's institutionalized and the time throughout.     she doesn't open up dialogue for heart to hearts unless it's one - way,  keeping hers locked tight and close to her chest.

she is out among the people she knows,  though she never speaks of it unless spoken to,  and she never allows herself a partner.     throughout the decades,  she's had flings in fits of loneliness at its heaviest,  but she never commits herself to anyone.     how can she,  when she knows where she's headed ?

[enslaughts]

verse. . . 𝙽𝙴𝙸𝚃𝙷𝙴𝚁 𝙳𝙴𝙰𝚃𝙷 𝙽𝙾𝚁 𝙻𝙸𝙵𝙴.

re : doomcoming.

instead of clutching at her cross necklace, laura lee grabs at the door handle. later, she'll blame it on how old and decrepit the plane was rather than the same thing that set leonard on fire. she goes from yanking on the door to elbowing the window until it shatters in a single motion. choking on smoke, she throws herself from the seat moments before the explosion, hits the water hard enough to choke on air too, but it's cool, and dark amid a flash of orange and yellow, and she is alive. leonard, on the other hand. . .

she's been here before ; underwater and bleeding. but nobody saves her this time. nobody saves any of them.

the first crash cracked at her faith— only a little, tiny fissures she could neatly stitch back together, especially with lottie to inspire. others leaning on her faith has always made it seem stronger. but the second crash breaks every last stitch she painstakingly sewed together as if it was never there to begin with. it's the nature of it ; fire from thin air, just as she dared to hope. it's cruel, it's demonic, satanic, to her, which blends fairly easily with her worldview. it's easy to blame her suffering on the source of all evil, but she's devout. she's tried to be good, and kind, and endlessly so, so why isn't god defending them ? not leonard, not her, not any of them. god isn't saving any of them from this darkness ; why ? do they deserve it ? no. laura lee refuses to believe that. she can't think of anyone, not a single soul, who would deserve this.

doomcoming hits her like ripple in the ocean. it isn't much of anything but a meal. she eats, she drinks, and she stares quietly at the fire. she's never been mad at god before. and she's furious, and devastated, and she doesn't have the heart to tell lottie, not after she baptized her herself. moralizing is hardwired to her ; the crash, the food, the lack of it, it all has meaning. it's not an apathetic planet spinning on its axis, without love or hate alike. it's an apathetic god, watching her and her young, innocent friends die slow. watching satan pluck them from the sky like they belong to him instead of god. after she gave herself to him, he doesn't lift a finger.

psychedelic mushrooms don't help with a crisis of religion, turns out ! laura lee is as much of a follower as a leader. she can stand up to their coach if she thinks she has her teammates support, if she thinks it will help them. she's a servant, a purpose waiting to be fulfilled, and she just lost her's. oh, but lottie. lottie's just gained it. laura lee can't hear god anymore, a part of her doesn't want to, but lottie can, so effortlessly certain of it, a candle in the dark, so bright and strong and beautiful. what can laura lee do but follow ?

[enslaughts]

also upon being rescued laura lee absolutely shaves her entire head