zg_shadows | An old Sunshine piece

There had been no explosions in Lyndhurst. In fact, there had been no explosions, no riots, and the only sign that something was really wrong was that the bus service seemed to have stopped running and the electricity was being very patchy. It still worked, in places. Sunshine wasn’t overly worried by the lack of it. She’d set up a generator in the woodshed two years ago, in case of something like this. The supermarket was looking a bit thin on stock right now, but Acres Down Farm Shop apparently had a back log of stock which might or might not make it to its intended buyers, and in the meantime it was quietly doing very well as people poured in to buy its goods.

In general, Sunshine felt quietly satisfied.

She was keeping Mary at home this week. She was fairly sure that Brinkburn Abbey was as safe a place as anywhere, but she felt a bit better knowing that her daughter was a long way from any potential sectarian violence. Mary, in the meantime, had been out with the horses every single morning, and was treating the whole thing as an additional holiday.

Of course, there were things to worry about. The basic essentials of life Sunshine was fairly sure she had under control. She had a vegetable garden, a small orchard, and had already quietly begun to look into acquiring a goat (ideally already impregnated) and maybe a pregnant sheep or two. She had considered purchasing them, but was quite happy to settle for theft. They would fit quite nicely in the two fields at the back of the cottage.

Sunshine had this vague suspicion that she should be doing something to participate in this grand battle for the end of the world. She just wasn’t sure what to do. She had considered trying to redeem Scythe from despair, following the loss of his tribe, but she suspected that the only thing that would really cheer him up would be the messy death of Riklish and she couldn’t do that on her own.

Sunshine sighed.

What else could she do? Working with the Garou had never really been her style, and lately she had felt rather at a loss as to what she could do with the Amenti. She had infiltrated every society she felt the need to infiltrate, and in the current situation she didn’t think there was really much of a need for stealth and subtlety.

So, what was there to do?

She was unsure. She was also unsure if she felt safe doing anything right now, with Ashriel on a pack link to her, possibly whilst engaging in unsavoury sexual activities with the King of Hell. She didn’t really morally object to Ashriel’s choice of partner, because Sunshine rarely morally objected to anything. People made their choices. She made her choices, and felt little guilt about what she did as a response to their choices. What she did worry about, quite a lot, was the security risk that Ashriel now posed.

Riklish was dangerous. She could see that. Sunshine had spent the vast majority of her life around extremely dangerous and powerful men, who were normally evil. She had an Elder Tzimisce as a grandfather figure, a peculiar emotional bond to something that used to be an Elder Lasombra, and her first relationship had been with an infernal hedge mage who was twenty years older than her. Well, unless you counted the lesbian affair at school with the Zantosa revenant, in which case the point still stood. Sunshine was good at recognising evil, and (which was more important) evil and dangerous.

Riklish was both.

Sunshine sighed.

The situation was complicated, and she really did not know what to do.

She quietly wrote everything she knew about the situation down in a full report. She would send that to the corax at the Tower. She would hand a copy to de Xue, as Lantern of the sentai. And she would keep a copy for herself, and possibly have another set up to be sent to every Elder of the Garou Nation and a couple of other shifters as well in case something happened to her.

Sunshine might not be a corax anymore, but increasingly she was coming to the conclusion that the role she had performed as a corax was still necessary, and a Legend of the Kitsune, and the most powerful of the Proto-Shifters falling to the Wyrm was a matter of a great deal of concern. That was a secret which needed to be got out, and as quickly as possible.

Then she locked the report away, and went to play with her daughter in the snow.