Title: On the threshold
Fandom: Warrior Nun
Characters: One for each drabble: sisters Beatrice, Lilith, Camila; Jillian Salvius, Mother Superion, Yasmine Amunet, Ava Silva.
Rating: T
Length: 700 words (a series of 7 drabbles)
Notes: Using challenge 430, Looking Back, for amnesty.
Summary: They each have experienced tribulation; they each must carry on with the lessons learned. These seven women can only look forwards by looking back first.


She had walked out of the convent but not a step Beatrice took led her too far off; her posture, her tendency to observe, even her sober clothing in whites, greys, blacks or blues were all part of a lingering habit.

Even her compass, directing her towards her future, was nothing if not a voice, a promise from the past — Beatrice could not know when or if she’d see Ava again, but Ava had wanted her to live.

And moving forwards with a hopeful eye towards the new, memories of Ava unerringly guiding her along the way, live she would.




It’s all a jumble, a violent stream dragging her across the sharp, deadly stones of the riverbed of remembrance.

A hateful mother. A demon’s claw melded with her flesh. Ava whimpering, Ava’s hot blood on her hands. Mary’s smile, Mary’s absence. Shannon pierced by shards, Adriel shredded by devils. The cross. The fire. The solitude.

Lilith can’t remember anything in order, but Lilith can do nothing but remember.

The past is a pit, the past is a prison, but her wings can’t seem to carry her away from it; she just dives and drowns in its depths, alone, alone, alone.




Camila had gone from rookie to veteran in only a couple of months; it wasn’t something she quite grasped yet.

Rising in Mother’s opinion, training the few new recruits the OCS received in this time of crisis, leading missions herself… All a testament to her skill. Yet talent couldn’t erase hollowness — she could not forget wanting to follow Beatrice out or amuse a recovering Lilith or admire a sharp Mary or soak in Ava’s light.

She had gained new companions but she might lose them as she did their predecessors…

In order to keep going, Camila lived only the now.




Her sleepless nights only revived other sleepless nights — Jillian thought back to time spent on research and formulae, scheming and bribing… Nights spent away from her dying son in trying to keep him from dying.

Dust effortlessly blown away, failures in every victory... She couldn’t even remember the years of Michael’s growth, stolen from both of them.

How strange it was to hold Abraham’s knife — bloodied! —, to trade a son for Heaven’s gift in the form of those nuns…

They were all she had left.

She had forged a future once; it lay in ruins.

Another must take its place.




She stood beside Camila, Dora, Yasmine… And, without their knowing, she stood up to all her ghosts.

Mother Superion had a whole cemetery’s worth of them — greatest of all that which haunted her own empty grave.

But with the scars went the shame and no longer was her spirit as disfigured as her back and face had so long been; out of the dust of her own remains, Ava had pulled her up. She had risen again.

The past was past. Superion mourned, but Suzanne lived.

With her girls, with the scientist beside them, the past could only lead forwards.




Thinking of what had been was always strange.

It was impossible not to, given how completely different it was to her present life amongst OCS ranks, but Yasmine found she knew more about the Order’s own history than she did her own

She had had other sisters, a family, a routine, but all she had read and studied overpowered it all — her memories all carried echoes of Areala, the Cruciform Sword, Popes, cardinals, sermons, crusades…

Perhaps her own life had not seemed worth documenting with so much else to know instead.

Perhaps now, here, with them, it finally would.




From years upon a bed to a beach to a church… The only constant element to it all was nuns.

But she had been unfair about them before and she knew better now. Sister Frances didn’t represent them all — Camila, Mother Superion, Yasmine were all their own women, as was Beatrice.

She had sparked the change in her views.

She was the last thing she had viewed.

Nothing could make her happier, knowing she was now following her own path.

“I love you too.”

But a hand pulled Ava from her reverie.

“Come,” Reya said. “Let us build the future, now.”