eye_of_a_cat (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
eye_of_a_cat) wrote2022-09-08 04:56 pm
eye_of_a_cat) wrote2022-09-08 04:56 pm
Babylon 5 fanfic scratchpad
A few weeks ago selenak mentioned in her Babylon 5 rewatch that it would be great to read an AU where Sheridan stays dead on Z'Ha'Dum, Ivanova gets his civil war storyline, and the Minbari civil war ends with an arranged marriage between Delenn and Neroon. And I thought, AH-HA I sort of wrote that! Except I didn't really write it as a whole story, so much as write bits and pieces of stories set in a similar AU, in which Sheridan finds out - via Anna - that Delenn started the Earth/Minbari war, Earth takes back the station, Ivanova ends up in a Psi Corps prison and the Minbari civil war ends with an arranged marriage between Delenn and Neroon. I couldn't quite make it work as a whole coherent universe but it was really good fun to write bits and pieces from as a sort of fanfic scratch-pad when I was stuck in writing other things.
Aaaaaaanyway, I have dusted some of that out and polished it up a bit. Here's a Delenn/Neroon section from what was going to be a list of Minbari marriage rituals:
“No,” Neroon says once she gets to the meditation ritual. He is reading reports from a sector where nothing is happening - which he does not need to be doing now, which is surely only to make a point - and he does not even look up before dismissing her suggestion out of hand.
Patience, she reminds herself. “You agreed we would do this properly.”
“And you agreed that wouldn’t mean doing everything the Religious caste way by default.” He looks up at her now, not quite smiling. “At least, I assume that’s what you meant. Wasn’t it.”
She takes a seat at the table opposite him. He looks annoyed about this, although does her the courtesy of clearing aside his papers and facing her properly. “My caste has more marriage rituals than yours,” she reminds him. “If we simply ignore the ones you don’t like, we will never reach a compromise acceptable to both.” Not that we have yet found any you do like, she could have added.
“This is your idea of an acceptable compromise?”
“Not mine. Our scholars have worked without sleep for days to produce the best compromise between my caste’s traditions and yours.”
“Oh well,” he says, “in that case.”
Anger prickles beneath her skin. How can you, she thinks, how can you after all we’ve agreed. And he’d done more than agree! The marriage had been his idea, that day after he’d challenged Shakiri for caste leadership and won, and the fighting paused, and the peace she’d always taken for granted lurched and tottered and seemed on the brink of collapse again at any moment. He’d been as afraid of that as she was.
Maybe that was what motivated him now: not fear, but resentment she’d seen it. Or maybe regret that there hadn’t been another way.
“You agreed to work with me,” she says.
“With you, not with your scholars! How in the name of -“ He stops, and calms himself, palms flat on the table before him. “You think I object because I don’t like it,” he says. ”You think I would be so petty as to jeopardise this peace because I don’t like it.”
“Wouldn’t you?” she says, and regrets it the instant she’s spoken, not because it insults him - although it does - but because he wouldn’t and they both know it. “I apologise,” she says. “That was unfair.”
“Yes, it was.” He looks down at his hands. “But I suppose I’ve not behaved much better. All right. In the common cause that we both share, in recognition that this must be made to work somehow even if it kills us both in the process - can we begin this conversation again?”
“Yes,” she says, and waits.
He takes a while to speak, considering his words more than she’s ever known him do before. “I can’t agree to your list,” he says. “Your scholars might well believe it’s a perfect compromise. But if my side thinks we’re being slighted, they will not be placated with a footnote and three volumes of philosophical argument. My own position in my caste is - more precarious than it used to be. And many of our clan leaders will be looking very carefully at how I behave, and what I agree to, and whether it sounds like a decision I would make without your caste instructing me to do it.”
This has the feel of truth to it. She already knows even his connection to Branmer, once unassailable, compromises him in some eyes now. Still… “You refused a standard meditation ritual,” she says. “Why would they see that as an issue?”
“They’ve met me,” he says.
“Ah.” She folds her arms. “In other words, you don’t like it.”
He grins like she’s an old friend, or perhaps like she’s prey. Sometimes it’s hard to tell. “It’s six hours of meditation, Delenn.”
“And do your caste not use meditation in training?”
“We’re also trained to resist torture. I wouldn’t choose six hours of that either. But this isn’t my point. I propose we decide, you and I, for each ritual. Then whatever agreement we make, at least we know it is acceptable to both of us, and you can take it to your scholars and they can find whatever justification they want. Do you agree?”
She could object, easily and strongly, to the suggestion that her caste’s scholars were in the habit of finding retrospective justifications for things. Or she could point out that her own position in her caste was not so much less precarious than his, or that his plan would only turn one large dispute into dozens of smaller ones, or make any number of other objections that would turn this back in to an argument and then drag it out for days and months and years as things resumed falling apart.
“I agree,” she says.
“Good,” he says. “That’s progress, maybe.” And then lifts her hand, oddly carefully, and presses her palm to his. “Here. This is how we make a pact in my caste.”
Progress. Maybe.
—-
agreement on children
“No children.”
“No. Agreed.”
She nods, and that’s settled. He tries not to look too obviously relieved, but it’s a good start, at least, that they’re in agreement this far.
“I doubt it would even be possible,” she says.
“No. Well.” He doesn’t want to think too much about exactly what her transformation has done to her. “It doesn’t matter, anyway.”
—-
face colours
He sifts the powder through his fingertips, presses it against the sides of the bowl, feels it clump and crumble. It wouldn't be accurate to say he'd dreamed of this the way the old poems said. There had been others in his past, and the earlier rituals in their time then, but not the rituals that were for marriage alone, not even close to that. Really, he'd not thought much about it before today.
She, on the other hand, looks as though she’s been dreading this for years. Even though it’s not her caste’s ritual, even though it shouldn’t mean a thing to her, even though it’s hardly arduous.
None of the old poems he remembers touched on the idea that anyone would find it so, well, miserable. In the older days when peace pact marriages happened it had been a visible claim of victory for the winning clan, yes, and given their current situation there was something of that… but it had been a normal marriage ritual for hundreds upon hundreds of years. It was supposed to be intimate and meaningful. She wasn’t supposed to hate it. But she was Religious caste, so she wouldn’t know and she wouldn’t care.
“Why are you waiting?” she mutters, too quietly for the witnesses to hear. (There are six, three from each caste, negotiated down from the Religious caste’s usual demand to bring half a battalion’s worth. His are old friends he can trust; of hers, on the other side of the room, he only recognises Lennier. He didn’t bother to ask who the other two were and now wonders if he should have done.) From their view there should be little hint of impatience or anger to see in her body language, this quiet, small figure kneeling there in a black and silver robe with her hands neatly folded in her lap.
“I wasn’t aware we were in such a great hurry.” But he lifts his hand to her face anyway, and smooths the first smudge of dark blue across her cheekbone. She flinches. “What is it?”
“Nothing,” she says. “Carry on.”
Her skin is smooth and soft and cooler than he would have expected. It feels entirely Minbari. Even the newly alien shape of the bone around her eyes seems reassuringly, disconcertingly, normal. “Close your eyes,” he says, and brushes the blue pigment over her eyelids, as lightly as he can.
She flinches, again, and he waits, again. She opens her eyes and glares at him. “This will take all day if you keep stopping,” she whispers.
The poems talked about wanting this to last forever. The poems were not written with her in mind. “You had plenty of opportunity to object to this before,” he mutters.
He hadn't expected an answer, but she gives one anyway. “I don’t object,” she says. “But this is your custom. Not ours. And it is a very visible custom." She almost snarls it.
“No-one is going to mistake you for Warrior caste with hair, Delenn, if that’s what troubles you.”
“A creature you do not recognise,” she says. “A foot in both worlds.”
His own words, but he keeps his sigh to himself. “We don’t have time for this.” And braces himself for a fight regardless but she lets it drop, as though it was only a halfhearted swipe at him in passing after all.
He’s almost done with the blue. It looks odd around the edges of her face, fading into her hair, highlighting the strange placement of her ears and headcrest, but if he avoids noticing that then maybe - yes - she almost could look Warrior caste. Unlikely that would be much consolation to her, of course.
She pulls away again when he reaches the edge of her jaw, and in the edge of his vision he can see one of her witnesses shift. “Stop behaving as if I’m torturing you,” he whispers in exasperation. “It isn’t supposed to hurt.”
“It doesn’t hurt.” He watches her gather herself in a few calm breaths.
He leans closer, enough that it would be hard for anyone but her even to read his lips. “Tell your witnesses that, then, because I fear Lennier is going to throw something heavy at me in a moment.”
She smiles at that and it feels like more of a victory than any other part of this has. Then she lifts his fingers back to her face. “Not so light,” she says. “It tickles.”
“It tickles.”
“It does.”
“This is one of our oldest rituals,” he says. “We have done this for thousands of years and I have never once heard anyone claim that it tickles.”
“Perhaps you’re doing it wrong,” she suggests sweetly.
“I am not.” But this time he turns his hand slightly on the next stroke so that his knuckles brush against her throat, and yes, there, she ducks her chin and bites down a laugh.
And then grabs his hand, surprisingly strong. She holds it still against her chest as if he were Religious caste, in a gesture that must have looked benevolent to those sitting too far away to hear her or notice the strength of her grip. “Do that again and I will tell Lennier to throw anything he likes at you,” she warns. But she’s smiling all the same, still, he can watch it in her eyes.
With his free hand he takes some of the paler grey powder and draws a diagonal line across her face, a second, a third. Thankfully Star Riders have one of the simplest symbols for this. “Done,” he says. And thinks about the old poems, and wishes he’d read more of them.
selenak mentioned in her Babylon 5 rewatch that it would be great to read an AU where Sheridan stays dead on Z'Ha'Dum, Ivanova gets his civil war storyline, and the Minbari civil war ends with an arranged marriage between Delenn and Neroon. And I thought, AH-HA I sort of wrote that! Except I didn't really write it as a whole story, so much as write bits and pieces of stories set in a similar AU, in which Sheridan finds out - via Anna - that Delenn started the Earth/Minbari war, Earth takes back the station, Ivanova ends up in a Psi Corps prison and the Minbari civil war ends with an arranged marriage between Delenn and Neroon. I couldn't quite make it work as a whole coherent universe but it was really good fun to write bits and pieces from as a sort of fanfic scratch-pad when I was stuck in writing other things. Aaaaaaanyway, I have dusted some of that out and polished it up a bit. Here's a Delenn/Neroon section from what was going to be a list of Minbari marriage rituals:
“No,” Neroon says once she gets to the meditation ritual. He is reading reports from a sector where nothing is happening - which he does not need to be doing now, which is surely only to make a point - and he does not even look up before dismissing her suggestion out of hand.
Patience, she reminds herself. “You agreed we would do this properly.”
“And you agreed that wouldn’t mean doing everything the Religious caste way by default.” He looks up at her now, not quite smiling. “At least, I assume that’s what you meant. Wasn’t it.”
She takes a seat at the table opposite him. He looks annoyed about this, although does her the courtesy of clearing aside his papers and facing her properly. “My caste has more marriage rituals than yours,” she reminds him. “If we simply ignore the ones you don’t like, we will never reach a compromise acceptable to both.” Not that we have yet found any you do like, she could have added.
“This is your idea of an acceptable compromise?”
“Not mine. Our scholars have worked without sleep for days to produce the best compromise between my caste’s traditions and yours.”
“Oh well,” he says, “in that case.”
Anger prickles beneath her skin. How can you, she thinks, how can you after all we’ve agreed. And he’d done more than agree! The marriage had been his idea, that day after he’d challenged Shakiri for caste leadership and won, and the fighting paused, and the peace she’d always taken for granted lurched and tottered and seemed on the brink of collapse again at any moment. He’d been as afraid of that as she was.
Maybe that was what motivated him now: not fear, but resentment she’d seen it. Or maybe regret that there hadn’t been another way.
“You agreed to work with me,” she says.
“With you, not with your scholars! How in the name of -“ He stops, and calms himself, palms flat on the table before him. “You think I object because I don’t like it,” he says. ”You think I would be so petty as to jeopardise this peace because I don’t like it.”
“Wouldn’t you?” she says, and regrets it the instant she’s spoken, not because it insults him - although it does - but because he wouldn’t and they both know it. “I apologise,” she says. “That was unfair.”
“Yes, it was.” He looks down at his hands. “But I suppose I’ve not behaved much better. All right. In the common cause that we both share, in recognition that this must be made to work somehow even if it kills us both in the process - can we begin this conversation again?”
“Yes,” she says, and waits.
He takes a while to speak, considering his words more than she’s ever known him do before. “I can’t agree to your list,” he says. “Your scholars might well believe it’s a perfect compromise. But if my side thinks we’re being slighted, they will not be placated with a footnote and three volumes of philosophical argument. My own position in my caste is - more precarious than it used to be. And many of our clan leaders will be looking very carefully at how I behave, and what I agree to, and whether it sounds like a decision I would make without your caste instructing me to do it.”
This has the feel of truth to it. She already knows even his connection to Branmer, once unassailable, compromises him in some eyes now. Still… “You refused a standard meditation ritual,” she says. “Why would they see that as an issue?”
“They’ve met me,” he says.
“Ah.” She folds her arms. “In other words, you don’t like it.”
He grins like she’s an old friend, or perhaps like she’s prey. Sometimes it’s hard to tell. “It’s six hours of meditation, Delenn.”
“And do your caste not use meditation in training?”
“We’re also trained to resist torture. I wouldn’t choose six hours of that either. But this isn’t my point. I propose we decide, you and I, for each ritual. Then whatever agreement we make, at least we know it is acceptable to both of us, and you can take it to your scholars and they can find whatever justification they want. Do you agree?”
She could object, easily and strongly, to the suggestion that her caste’s scholars were in the habit of finding retrospective justifications for things. Or she could point out that her own position in her caste was not so much less precarious than his, or that his plan would only turn one large dispute into dozens of smaller ones, or make any number of other objections that would turn this back in to an argument and then drag it out for days and months and years as things resumed falling apart.
“I agree,” she says.
“Good,” he says. “That’s progress, maybe.” And then lifts her hand, oddly carefully, and presses her palm to his. “Here. This is how we make a pact in my caste.”
Progress. Maybe.
—-
agreement on children
“No children.”
“No. Agreed.”
She nods, and that’s settled. He tries not to look too obviously relieved, but it’s a good start, at least, that they’re in agreement this far.
“I doubt it would even be possible,” she says.
“No. Well.” He doesn’t want to think too much about exactly what her transformation has done to her. “It doesn’t matter, anyway.”
—-
face colours
He sifts the powder through his fingertips, presses it against the sides of the bowl, feels it clump and crumble. It wouldn't be accurate to say he'd dreamed of this the way the old poems said. There had been others in his past, and the earlier rituals in their time then, but not the rituals that were for marriage alone, not even close to that. Really, he'd not thought much about it before today.
She, on the other hand, looks as though she’s been dreading this for years. Even though it’s not her caste’s ritual, even though it shouldn’t mean a thing to her, even though it’s hardly arduous.
None of the old poems he remembers touched on the idea that anyone would find it so, well, miserable. In the older days when peace pact marriages happened it had been a visible claim of victory for the winning clan, yes, and given their current situation there was something of that… but it had been a normal marriage ritual for hundreds upon hundreds of years. It was supposed to be intimate and meaningful. She wasn’t supposed to hate it. But she was Religious caste, so she wouldn’t know and she wouldn’t care.
“Why are you waiting?” she mutters, too quietly for the witnesses to hear. (There are six, three from each caste, negotiated down from the Religious caste’s usual demand to bring half a battalion’s worth. His are old friends he can trust; of hers, on the other side of the room, he only recognises Lennier. He didn’t bother to ask who the other two were and now wonders if he should have done.) From their view there should be little hint of impatience or anger to see in her body language, this quiet, small figure kneeling there in a black and silver robe with her hands neatly folded in her lap.
“I wasn’t aware we were in such a great hurry.” But he lifts his hand to her face anyway, and smooths the first smudge of dark blue across her cheekbone. She flinches. “What is it?”
“Nothing,” she says. “Carry on.”
Her skin is smooth and soft and cooler than he would have expected. It feels entirely Minbari. Even the newly alien shape of the bone around her eyes seems reassuringly, disconcertingly, normal. “Close your eyes,” he says, and brushes the blue pigment over her eyelids, as lightly as he can.
She flinches, again, and he waits, again. She opens her eyes and glares at him. “This will take all day if you keep stopping,” she whispers.
The poems talked about wanting this to last forever. The poems were not written with her in mind. “You had plenty of opportunity to object to this before,” he mutters.
He hadn't expected an answer, but she gives one anyway. “I don’t object,” she says. “But this is your custom. Not ours. And it is a very visible custom." She almost snarls it.
“No-one is going to mistake you for Warrior caste with hair, Delenn, if that’s what troubles you.”
“A creature you do not recognise,” she says. “A foot in both worlds.”
His own words, but he keeps his sigh to himself. “We don’t have time for this.” And braces himself for a fight regardless but she lets it drop, as though it was only a halfhearted swipe at him in passing after all.
He’s almost done with the blue. It looks odd around the edges of her face, fading into her hair, highlighting the strange placement of her ears and headcrest, but if he avoids noticing that then maybe - yes - she almost could look Warrior caste. Unlikely that would be much consolation to her, of course.
She pulls away again when he reaches the edge of her jaw, and in the edge of his vision he can see one of her witnesses shift. “Stop behaving as if I’m torturing you,” he whispers in exasperation. “It isn’t supposed to hurt.”
“It doesn’t hurt.” He watches her gather herself in a few calm breaths.
He leans closer, enough that it would be hard for anyone but her even to read his lips. “Tell your witnesses that, then, because I fear Lennier is going to throw something heavy at me in a moment.”
She smiles at that and it feels like more of a victory than any other part of this has. Then she lifts his fingers back to her face. “Not so light,” she says. “It tickles.”
“It tickles.”
“It does.”
“This is one of our oldest rituals,” he says. “We have done this for thousands of years and I have never once heard anyone claim that it tickles.”
“Perhaps you’re doing it wrong,” she suggests sweetly.
“I am not.” But this time he turns his hand slightly on the next stroke so that his knuckles brush against her throat, and yes, there, she ducks her chin and bites down a laugh.
And then grabs his hand, surprisingly strong. She holds it still against her chest as if he were Religious caste, in a gesture that must have looked benevolent to those sitting too far away to hear her or notice the strength of her grip. “Do that again and I will tell Lennier to throw anything he likes at you,” she warns. But she’s smiling all the same, still, he can watch it in her eyes.
With his free hand he takes some of the paler grey powder and draws a diagonal line across her face, a second, a third. Thankfully Star Riders have one of the simplest symbols for this. “Done,” he says. And thinks about the old poems, and wishes he’d read more of them.
no subject
Also I love the plot point in your AU where Sheridan breaks up with Delenn. I could not believe that we found out Delenn started the war and then she just... never... told Sheridan... and that was okay??
“Wouldn’t you?” she says, and regrets it the instant she’s spoken, not because it insults him - although it does - but because he wouldn’t and they both know it. “I apologise,” she says. “That was unfair.”
“Yes, it was.” He looks down at his hands. “But I suppose I’ve not behaved much better. All right. In the common cause that we both share, in recognition that this must be made to work somehow even if it kills us both in the process - can we begin this conversation again?”
GOSH I love your Delenn and Neroon so much. I love how they both want this to work so much and... yet... it's just a LOT. For both of them. Totally expectedly, and they're both very strong personalities, and there's a sense in which I felt like the way JMS dealt with that in Delenn/Sheridan is by sort of papering it over by just being like, well, guess they don't really understand each other because cultural differences, or Sheridan just gives in to Delenn or vice versa without them talking through it at all. Which won't work with Delenn and Neroon because it means something in their culture.
And also I love that Neroon really wouldn't, and Delenn really does understand that.
The poems talked about wanting this to last forever. The poems were not written with her in mind.
lolololol <333333 Oh Neroon, oh Delenn. I love how baffled and pragmatic he is <3
I just love your worldbuilding and all the different rituals and how the rituals are different for the different castes, and how the warrior caste has POETRY! and how the castes really do kind of make themselves into these separate worlds. It's just great.
just so you know I am requesting Neroon and probably Branmer and maybe Delenn/Neroon for ToTno subject
RIGHT? And I suppose it is not exactly out of character for her to not tell him stuff, but still! Especially when the only plausible character and narrative reason not to is "she knows he wouldn't be able to forgive her for it".
That said, it also does feel sometimes as if Sheridan avoids trying to find out much about her past, compared to Sinclair who is already looking up what "Satai" means and piecing things together before he gets sent off the station. So I could buy that Sheridan has worked out enough to realise that she must have had some fairly important position on her world beyond ambassador, and might have been involved in the war to some extent, and he'd rather just not know the details. But even so I feel like her actually starting the war is not something he'd suspect, and really something he needs to know about at least before they get married!
there's a sense in which I felt like the way JMS dealt with that in Delenn/Sheridan is by sort of papering it over by just being like, well, guess they don't really understand each other because cultural differences, or Sheridan just gives in to Delenn or vice versa without them talking through it at all
And it sometimes comes across like "ah well but the main thing is they're so much in love that none of the rest of this matters past the odd comedy misunderstanding!", which I get is supposed to be sweet but, er, is not really how people work. So in this AU I did like playing around with the idea of what would happen if you were trying to negotiate a very ritualised approach to marriage where you did actually have to negotiate as if it really mattered, and couldn't be like "this is a deeply important ritual for my people but you just sit there and we'll work around you" like she does with Sheridan.
I am really glad you liked it! I do like writing bits of this one.
just so you know I am requesting Neroon and probably Branmer and maybe Delenn/Neroon for ToT
ahhhhhh what is this how do I sign up?
no subject
RIGHT! How... do you marry someone with a secret that large, that affects both of you, hanging over your heads?? After watching "Atonement," I was sure that it would come out at some point, and was shocked and dismayed when
And it sometimes comes across like "ah well but the main thing is they're so much in love that none of the rest of this matters past the odd comedy misunderstanding!", which I get is supposed to be sweet but, er, is not really how people work. So in this AU I did like playing around with the idea of what would happen if you were trying to negotiate a very ritualised approach to marriage where you did actually have to negotiate as if it really mattered
YES! THIS! Love does not actually (by itself) conquer deep cultural differences, as it turns out! And I really like that in this AU they do have to negotiate and actually talk through their differences. (I will admit my headcanon was not that they'd have different rituals -- I sort of got the idea that the Religious Caste handled all that stuff, and while as another caste you might be agnostic to whether you really "needed" to do all those rituals, you sort of had that shared ritual background (like, in teh US, an individual non-religious couple might choose not to have a church wedding, but everyone kind of knows how it goes and a lot of people do have a church wedding anyway if they're not actively atheistic... that would be interesting too, thinking about Minbari atheists... but I digress). But I really dig your society with the way you've come up with ways they've diverged and there's a richness to it that I love a lot, and of course the great thing is that there are lots of ways to imagine Minbari society.)
ahhhhhh what is this how do I sign up?
:DD It's the Trick or Treat exchange, a fic exchange that runs around Halloween, allows any nominations (doesn't have to be rare fandoms like Yuletide -- which is why I'm taking advantage of it to ask for B5), 300-words minimum so a low commitment. Yes please come play!! :D If you sign up I'll definitely request Neroon/Delenn, and I may have talked
Nominations actually have ended, but I've nominated a bunch of characters/ships from B5, including Neroon/Delenn, Neroon, Branmer (this is 100% your fault for writing about him so interestingly, I wouldn't have thought of it before reading your fic), Lennier/Delenn, and Lennier/Delenn/Sheridan. And some non-Minbari too -- Vir, Londo, Bester, Ivanova, in various combinations. And if you don't sign up you can treat, I'm just saying ;) (B5 isn't showing up in the tag set yet because mods haven't gotten to them.) Signups start on the 11th!
no subject
In my headcanon the Religious caste has more rituals and just a more ritualistic approach to life in general, and it's broadly their job to look after that aspect of their society, but also the Warrior caste has its own traditions and its own ideas about Valen-the-warrior.
It is
convenientinteresting to me that canon is a bit all over the place on exactly how their society works, and you can handwave away at least half of what is stated because it's coming from the humans (or others sometimes) talking about them. I can't remember the episode but I'm sure Sheridan works out someone's in the Grey Council at one point because there are Religious and Warrior caste Minbari talking to each other and he says they otherwise don't, but eh, how would he know? (and also: does this not raise a couple of questions for him about how many Minbari of all castes his girlfriend knows? Apparently not!):DD It's the Trick or Treat exchange
I will be signing up for this!