be my shelter, valoel

Something like waiting for such a thing would have been incredibly hard, surely. Human lives were much, much shorter than that of an angel. The time was hardly comparable. Even so, their perspectives were much, much different. That was something that had become more than obvious. She could only imagine what such a thing was life. These things were so different, so hard to compare. Valoel knew that she couldn't understand, that even now at the moment she was completely incapable of understanding it. She didn't know what it was like to be human, and she didn't know what it was like to have to feel those kind of emotions. It was really nothing more than guess work on her own part, and she didn't entirely know how she was supposed to understand it. Valoel loved humans, she did, and there wasn't going to be anyone who knew her to really doubt that. There wasn't a part of her that didn't love them, and she loved every bit of them, their flaws included. They were unique creatures, and there wasn't a doubt. But she wasn't one. That was always going to be that one thing - she wasn't one, and she didn't know how she was supposed to truly understand. She wanted to, though, and that was one thing that she would continue to be stubborn about. Maybe it was one human trait that she had managed to grab without even recognizing it, but either way, it was very much there. Despite her current inability to, Valoel did want to understand about it. She believed that she could one day, or at least, she hoped to. And that kind of hope was one that she would at least hold onto, because she knew that it was going to happen soon. She really was that optimistic.

It seemed only appropriate for Valoel to feel optimistic for this kind of woman as well. Valoel put faith in humanity, a tremendous amount of faith in them as a whole, and some of those humans were rather easy to put faith into as well. The faith that Ella seemed to display as well, made it rather easy for her to want to put some faith into. Seeing someone like this, she truly did wish the best of luck to this woman and the search for her fiancee. She seemed like someone who deserved good things from what she had suffered, but Valoel knew that her Father worked in mysterious ways. It was mentioned numerous times no doubt, and would only continue to be with how confusing these times had been. This woman surely was able to clearly recognize that idea, even if she had chosen to put more faith into that of her fiancee as opposed to her Father. It wasn't something that Valoel would choose to linger on, however. She watched Ella for a moment, and while for most that could have been perhaps perceived as weird or abnormal, but with the angel it was done in a way that was almost naive. And it was, truly, for the lack of grace (in modern terms) that she seemed to have around humans. She was... awkward, more or less, and out of date with what seemed to be socially acceptable and not. Hopefully revealing what she was, though, would make her more at ease with it. "Yes," She confirmed, curious as to why the woman seemed so unsure about it. It was a church, after all - perhaps, shouldn't it have been expected, out of every other place? "I am here." She confirmed a second time, giving a nod of the head.

Ella had been relatively certain that she knew what was out there. She might not have done all that long ago, but five years was more than enough time to feel like a lifetime, especially when you were no longer something that was human. Becoming a werewolf had opened Ella's eyes to the rest of the world, and it wasn't like she'd had encounters with a lot of the creatures out there, but she knew of them, at least, how to recognise them or what to do if she encountered one, because there were undoubtedly some who were a hell of a lot stronger than she would ever be. But she tended to keep her contact with were-animals, people like herself who were the same as everyone else, twenty-seven nights of the month, and then turned into something else for the last one. Not all of them were wolves, like she was, although they had the pack mentality in a way that other animals didn't, so it made sense that she knew more wolves through her packs than she did other animals. And yeah, okay, so she wasn't exactly average in human form, anymore. She was stronger, faster, she healed quicker, her senses of smell and hearing in particular were amazing...she really, really needed meat, and had had to abandon vegetarianism because of that, but Ella knew that she was a person, still, not a monster. She chained herself up so that she wasn't a monster, and she hated it, the wolf hated it, but it had to be done, because she couldn't risk hurting people. She was a healer, not someone who did that. She had thought she'd known, though, everything that was out there, and she'd not doubted the existence of angels, she'd just...never imagined that one would be talking to her, or that she'd look human.

She wasn't entirely sure what she was meant to say, really; now that she looked at her more closely, Valoel didn't seem quite human, whatever she looked like. She held herself differently the people that Ella knew, she had slightly different turns of phrase, and of course there had been the part where she'd known Ella's name without her ever having mentioned it. Ella frowned a little, and maybe she could sense the power; she smelt more human than anything else, not like vampires who stank to high heaven, but there was something there. Ella couldn't quite lay her finger on what it was, but she didn't think that Valoel was joking, that this was some elaborate prank to the woman who was hurting, right now. Someone would have had to be incredibly cruel to do that, especially in a church. She inclined her head in a show of respect, for a moment, like she would to the alpha of the pack, but she was still not sure what to say. What did one say to an angel? No, really, it wasn't rhetorical; Ella could have done with some guidance right now, because she suddenly felt as though the things she'd been saying before had to be entirely inconsequential to this woman. Were they? She didn't know. It wasn't like she'd spoken to an angel before, or even to someone else who'd done that, or at least not one who'd mentioned it. “Why?” she asked, and it wasn't harsh, or judgemental, merely curious; Ella didn't see why an angel would want to talk to her. She was just another werewolf, after all. “I mean no disrespect but...don't you have Heaven to protect?” That was what angels did, right?

The shock that people seemed to have under recognition of what she as was honestly something that Valoel found to be a bit surprising. She was unsure whether or not it was a lack of faith or something else. She had taken great notice of the fact that vampires had come to public about their existence, so she would have assumed if anything that they would have been more expectant of other things to reveal themselves at this point. Valoel had never had an issue with informing people of what she was. So few seemed to believe it without any sort of proof, and often from what she had read and seen, those who spoke about angels were often deemed as some sort of religious nut. It was ridiculous almost that they didn't seem to believe such things. Still. It seemed even more likely in this particular case that Ella would have been most believing of there being more than the publicly known out there, considering what she herself was. Valoel wasn't ignorant nor unobservant, it was easy for her to tell that this woman was not simply a human, but what she was didn't irk her. As long as she wasn't hurting others (and even though she never really knew for sure, she was just constantly optimistic on such a thing), then she would be more than alright with her. That was how it should have been for everyone, she thought - that you could just accept and love and cherish people for who they were, that the what behind it didn't need to matter. It was more than easy enough to do with Ella, this little interaction being more than enough solid proof.

Still, it was evident that Ella did seem to be rather displaced by the received information. It was not the most surprising of impressions based off of what she had already seen from some who learned of what she was. The question seemed to further the impression. Valoel's lips tightened into a thin line for a brief moment, listening to her elaborate and taking a brief moment to think on it. Humans needn't be aware of the civil war and all of the other stress factors in Heaven without a doubt. She was not one who condoned of dishonesty, though, which could make little questions like that particularly hard for her to answer. Bending the truth wasn't her favorite thing either, but she knew that she had to be careful with some of her words in the first place - and that seemed to be the most reasonable of things to do under such a question. "Heaven is protected." That at least answered the part that she had detailed. There was the war going on it that she was unaware of, but even so, there were still more than enough angels up there protecting it. Angels were meant to be warriors of God, after all, and most humans perhaps wouldn't have realized that they were not meant to be quite as soft as she was. "I was stationed onto Earth by my superiors." Angels still had hierarchy, after all, and there were still people that she to listen up to. She was just extremely fortunate that she hadn't been given anything to do in regards to the civil war. That was all that she could really hope for.

Becoming something that wasn't human kind of made one more open to the idea that there were creatures out there that would once have belonged in some book. Before she'd triggered the curse, Ella hadn't believed in anything like that; she'd been a logical, rational person, she favoured science, and sure, she'd always had her faith – and whatever atheists claimed, it was possible to be a scientist and a Christian – but that was different to believing in vampires, or werewolves. It had taken becoming a werewolf herself for Ella to realise that there was a lot more to this world than she had ever thought possible, and sure, that had been a little hard to swallow, but it wasn't as though she'd been able to deny it, either. She'd noticed that she was stronger, that she craved red meat desperately, after she'd triggered the curse but before her first transformation, and she hadn't really understood what that meant, only that her vegetarianism was something that she had to let go, because she needed the meat, and she'd considered that she might be pregnant, that might have explained the cravings, but it hadn't given her a reason for being strong, or having better hearing, or any of the other things that came with being a werewolf. It had taken being found by Luke for Ella to have more of an idea what was going on; he'd found her in the park, naked and dirty and bruised, and he'd given her something to wear, he'd taken her home and explained to her what had happened. Ella guessed that she'd been so confused that it had to have been her first transformation, or something. She didn't know, but it had introduced her to the man she'd come to love, the man she wanted to spend her life with, so how was that a bad thing?

Transforming was no fun, she'd accept that, but the pros outweighed the cons, generally speaking, and Ella was proud of being a werewolf. Five years in, and it had absolutely become a part of it, it was something that was never going to change. Better a werewolf than a vampire, always, and she was absolutely glad that she couldn't be changed, because she happened to like what she was. Werewolves were harmless, as long as they chained themselves up. Vampires were not, and they were monsters – and it was a good thing that most of them stayed the hell away from werewolves, because Ella loathed them. It was practically inbuilt. But she knew of them, of demons and the monsters that lurked around; it had been a slow process, getting to grips with what really existed, but she'd read some books, she'd listened to Luke, and then once she'd opened the clinic, she had hunters' stories to help her, as well, and she'd always been curious. If they wanted to tell her what they'd been hunting, then she would listen, because the more information she got about what really existed, the better. Except now it seemed to solely be vampires that they were hunting. That was good, because the bastards needed to die, but she couldn't help but wonder what had happened to them fighting the other monsters. Did they just not exist, anymore? Ella doubted that. What was it, with this world, that there always seemed to be more questions? It would have been nice if that wasn't the case. “That's good,” she replied with a smile; she didn't exactly know much about Heaven, but hey if angels were okay with being here then who was she to question that? She was pretty sure that they were miles above werewolves on the hierarchy of which creatures were most powerful. If nothing else, they were soldiers of God, they deserved respect, and Valoel seemed nice enough. She wasn't terrifying, or anything, at the very least. “So have you been here long?” Maybe it was a little awkward, but Ella was still uncertain about what she was meant to say. She'd never made small talk with an angel before.

To Valoel, it would have seemed more logical if anything else for people to ope up their eyes further and recognize the existence of things much, much bigger than vampires. If one existed, it seemed only natural that curiosity would have grasped them immediately into exploring into the aspects of other things going ‘bump’ in the night as so many seemed to put it. The signs were there and evident when you were previously aware of their existence, hunters were absolutely sufficient at their job in the aspect of when it came to finding new jobs to hunt down all of the atypical violent occurrences. It just seemed strange to her that so few were aware of other things outside of vampires. Ella of course, well, it was easy for Valoel to come to the assumption knew more than an average citizen would about it due to her own being one of those very things. How much of that she knew of course was up in the air for guessing, but she was curious what the woman could have also known about what was going on out there. Valoel’s own curiosity had always been one of her things that drove her around when it came to her existence in general - and it was easily much more prominent the more and more time that she was allowed to spend on Earth. It was interesting like nothing else, so unlike waiting in the Heavens above, and it seemed only like a natural response for her to be so curious about it. It would have been odd not to, surely, considering all of the vast differences and really, just the humans themselves. They were among the most unique and curious things of all of the things here.

While naturally, Ella was no means human - the vast majority of the month, she was still very much so, and it was easy for Valoel to put her in almost the same category. She conducted herself as nothing but, entirely polite and kind-worded, even with her mournful tale of the man that she so obviously loved. Her inner strength in her faith and her lover were among some of the unique things about her, and Valoel appreciated it. It seemed to be refreshing from some of the other unfortunate things that she’d seen, some of the other people who came out of hard times and seemed to turn up on the opposite end of the spectrum. Those were given the upmost sympathy and pity that Valoel could truly give as she was still awkward with her emotions, but it seemed like Ella was strong enough to need none of that. Admirable, really. Her lips were tight as she smiled back in response, and it no doubt appeared slightly forced - but she was actually happy to have met this woman. It was interesting. ”Only a few months. It is the first time I have been allowed down on Earth since my creation. It’s... very different from what I’m used to, but I do enjoy it. Though it is very difficult to keep up with all of the customs.” That much, well, it was blatantly obvious. She’d always had difficulty fitting in just among her siblings because of all of her peaceful talk and methods, and fitting in on Earth had certainly been no easier. She didn’t let it get her down or bother her, though, as she did truly enjoy it. ”I am curious, though. With the vampires coming out, and of course yourself being a werewolf, how much are you aware of in regards to the supernatural?”

Ella's discovery of the supernatural had been a shockingly fast one, as she'd woken up one morning to find herself naked in the park, unaware of what had happened the night before, and not the kind of blacking out that would have come from a little too much drinking, either. Being told that she was a werewolf, that she wasn't a human any longer, had been hard to take in, and she hadn't believed it at first, except that she had the improved senses, the speed and strength, the desire for the rarest steak she could possibly lay her hands on, after twenty-odd years of vegetarianism. It had been a difficult thing to come to grips with, that was without a doubt, but learning about everything else had come at a much slower pace, after that initial shock, because it hadn't been something that she'd needed to know straight away. She was a werewolf, and she'd had to come to terms with that before being told about vampires and how they were the enemy, monsters in a way that she never would be, as long as she remembered to chain herself up tightly. She learned about demons and magic and all kinds of things, and she might never have been actively involved in those areas of the supernatural, but she sure as hell knew about them. In more recent years, having her clinic had helped her learn, too, because hunters came in from fighting all kinds of creatures, and sometimes they were more than happy to tell the story of their hunt. She was sure that some of it was embellished, but she was interested to hear—as long as they hadn't been hunting werewolves. She didn't approve of that at all; if a were was out killing on the full moon, the chances were that they were simply new, unaware of what they were, and they hadn't been taught how to manage the problem yet. Given the chance, next month would be good, and they wouldn't hurt anybody at all, and they didn't deserve to die for that, in her mind.

There were those who abused it, of course there were, but Ella liked to think that they were few in number, that the majority of her kind were like her, and wanted to just fit into society without hurting a soul. She was a doctor, for Christ's sake, she wanted the exact opposite of that! The wolf inside her wanted to roam free, of course it did, but Ella knew for a fact that that was never going to happen. She could be in the middle of the desert and she still wouldn't let it run, because she never knew if a person might be out there, somewhere, if the place wasn't as deserted as she might have hoped it would be. It was a small sacrifice to pay for retaining her humanity, she thought, and it wasn't something that was going to be changing any time soon. She wasn't human, but she didn't hurt anybody either, and that meant that she wasn't a monster. She didn't ever want to be a monster. She nodded, briefly wondering how old the angel had to be, but figuring that it was probably rude to ask; societal customs kept her from asking, at any rate, even if the whole thing about never asking a woman her age probably applied less when it came to creatures that weren't human at all. She didn't know; not like she had the protocols for talking to an angel, or anything. “I imagine it's different to Heaven,” she agreed; not that Ella knew what Heaven was like, never having been there, but it had to be different to this, because there was no way that this world could have been called perfect. She frowned at the question, glancing round to make sure nobody had heard, because she didn't exactly want her werewolf status publicised; Ella wasn't ashamed of it, she was proud of being a wolf, in fact, but she knew that some of the hunters she knew wouldn't have hesitated to try and kill her, or at least not trust her anymore, and she didn't want that. “A fair bit. I know about demons, witches, the monsters with unpronounceable names.” She shrugged. “I speak to a lot of hunters, they tell me things.”