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kakodaimon...
Mar. 13th, 2005 06:33 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
eye_of_a_catSo, um, there was a fic I was working on ages ago that was an AU for Atonement and afterwards, which got put on indefinite hold after the first few chapters last year. Sorry to anyone who was reading it. It wasn't actually forgotten, but every time I tried to write the next chapter it wouldn't work; when I came back to it a couple of weeks ago, I changed the premise a little bit to see what would happen, and now it seems to be going okay. Well, see what you think. Still draft-ish for now.
Rating currently somewhere around PG, no specific warnings, Delenn, Sheridan, Lennier and Atonement stuff. (Chapter 2 done and will be posted later today/tomorrow.)
---
The first time she heard Starkiller's name, she vowed to kill him. Those who brought the news bowed and said it was just; only barbarians, only monsters, would think to do what this man had done gladly. The Black Star was responding to a distress signal, thinking it sent by a Minbari ship. She wept for the dead, and she raged at their murderers, but beneath her sorrow and fury was a cold, iron certainty: one day he would die at her command.
This was before.
---
The journey back had never seemed so long. There was no work to complete, no stacks of familiar papers to lose herself in, nothing she need do and nothing she wished to. Her neck ached from hours staring into the endless red and black of hyperspace. This was no rest, this brought its own exhaustion. Her mind would not clear long enough for sleep or meditation, and she would have chosen neither if it had; too many thoughts were jostling to be heard again, and Lennier, who could not be far away, had seen too much of her true face recently.
She turned her attention back to the swirls of cloud outside, smoothed invisible creases out of her robe, cooled her palms against metal walls. It no longer served as a distraction. Lennier had been distant since before they left Minbar, and while she could tell herself for a while that he had work to finish, it was neither his duties nor her imagination keeping him away now.
She found him praying. His voice was quiet, yet still somehow filling the room with the sound of chants she learnt in childhood, and she stopped in the doorway and hoped he would not notice. She watched in silence, never moving; but soon his eyes flicked from the candle to her, his voice stilled, and it was gone.
A glance down and away as she laid a hand on his shoulder. "I meant to prepare us something to eat before you woke."
"I was not sleeping," she said. "But perhaps you should. This has been a difficult journey for both of us, I imagine."
The brace of muscles beneath her fingers was there and gone in a heartbeat, replaced with a smile he half-tried to hide. "Of all the things I never expected to do, I think fighting the Grey Council's guards has been the most - surprising."
"Well, they should have trained you better in Temple. I am sure I requested an aide with experience in such matters." When she knelt beside him, the flare of her sleeves cast long shadows on his arms. "I'm sorry, Lennier. I should have warned you the archives would be so well guarded. The Grey Council has always considered understanding to be one of the greatest dangers."
His smile faltered and broke.
She could lift his hand easily, press it between her own until he looked at her. "And you?"
"No." His voice was dry, dragged out of him like fevered breath. "The humans did not understand our gesture of respect, and we did not understand their actions. The true danger lies only in allowing such mistakes to be made."
"A mistake," and she could feel the pulse in his palm. "But I could have sought to understand, and instead I ordered war. It could all have been ended."
"It was ended," he said. And they spoke no more on the matter until the currents of hyperspace brought them home.
---
Mid-evening the docking bays were always the same, filled with voices and stale air and the clatter and thud of a hundred footsteps. She almost missed seeing John waiting for her beyond the last barrier, until Lennier bowed, and stepped back, and said he would see to their bags.
The hands were lighter on her shoulders than she imagined. His fingertips only touched fabric, and his thumb never once moved to caress her neck. But his smile was the same, and even in the chaos of the docking bay she could have closed her eyes and felt it warm like sunlight on her face. "It's good to see you," he said.
He was tired, which she would have known without seeing him, and there were so many things to trouble him that she never thought to look for one more. There was so much to do, and so many matters that needed to be discussed or worried over or agreed upon, and they were almost back at her quarters before his voice took on a new awkwardness she could not miss. "So, you, uh, you finished everything you needed to do back on Minbar?"
She tensed for a moment, back in the cold of the Dreaming, hearing her voice once again scream out that order while the only part of her left conscious could do nothing but watch - but she was here, John's arm around her waist. "Yes," she said. "It's all done."
"Good." He pulled her closer, just long enough to feel the warmth of his body against hers. "That's good."
And he would never need to know of her trial or her clan's decision. He had no interest in Minbari history. All that mattered to him was here and now, and when she curled up beside him with her head on his shoulder, everything else in the universe would wait.
---
His days here always began the same. On this morning he woke early, as he had done the day before and would do the day after; he blinked sleep back from his eyes, completed the sunrise rituals with the usual flicker of discomfort that no sun was rising, and dressed quickly while the rest of the station slept.
When he first arrived here he left the computer set to receive all messages as they arrived, but after months of being woken several times a night by traders and diplomats who never seemed to sleep, he conceded that some matters must wait until morning. Now, a blinking light in the corner of the vidscreen reminded him that he already had work to begin. Demands, requests, instructions for meetings to be moved and rearranged, and in all likeliness - yes, there, an irate message from a Drazi attache - at least one complaint that the Minbari government was not cooperating on any number of matters to another world's satisfaction. Most of this could be answered without needing to trouble Delenn, but her schedule was always ready when she woke, and so he must confirm any alterations now.
His notes were neat, plain blocks of text on translucent sheets. He missed the ink and paper in Temple, where each letter of each word had to be drawn with the care and precision he learnt to apply to his thoughts. Everything here was so rushed. There was never time. And now that he was serving Delenn, then all his studies had always been preparing him for this. Still, it often seemed that he missed the rustle of paper and the sharp smell of ink more than he missed Minbar itself.
One meeting cancelled, another postponed. He considered reorganising a later appointment to fill the gap, but decided against it; she would not mind half a morning free. The task of arranging her day always felt easier than he knew it should. He could cancel all her meetings with a few spoken words, move anything that might trouble her far into the future with a touch of his hand on the screen. He understood the necessity of repetition, but it troubled him that this could become so easy, and he no longer thought so poorly of the young aide who stood before this screen three years ago too terrified to change a thing.
He left the computer scrolling through records of disputes over shipping lanes, and called Delenn with the news that her schedule was ready. On some mornings he still brought it himself, but this seemed less and less appropriate with each day she grew closer to Sheridan, and he took little time in deciding against it today.
The memories of forced smiles and long silences in Sheridan's company faded against the sharp angles of her frown. His own voice trailed into nothing after a handful of words. "Could we not have discussed this over breakfast, Lennier?", she said, and disappointment curled in his chest. "I have seen so little of you since we returned that I find myself wondering whether you are to busy to eat at all."
But she was smiling now, and he tried to smile with her. "I have not yet prepared for the sundown rituals. Perhaps -"
"Then I will see you this evening."
And there was nothing to do but nod when she did, safe in the conviction that it would be as she said.
An hour later, he brought her schedule to the garden. She was not waiting by the stones she once liked to watch, but in the bright almost-human clothes she was never difficult to find. She sat alone, seeming somehow smaller.
He waited as her eyes scanned the paper. "What happened to the meeting with the Gaim ministers?"
"A problem with their travel documents last night. Since their holy days begin tomorrow, I arranged the appointment for ten days later."
An odd twist of a half-smile. "What would I do without you, Lennier?"
He ducked his head a fraction in thanks, no more than was warranted. "It was only a matter of finding transport times."
"But such details are important." Her hand brushed a silver-green leaf growing against the stone of the bench, turned it, pulled it through her fingers. "You remembered to tell Captain Sheridan when our ship would be arriving back from Minbar, did you not?"
"Yes, but my duties -"
"Require you to know such things. The name of the ship, the route it would take, the time of arrival. This is what you told him?"
"Yes."
"Nothing more?"
"I don't -" But his throat tightened, choking confusion with it. "No. No, of course not. I would never betray your confidence, Delenn, not if every voice in the universe demanded it of me."
Her hand was light on his face, its palm stained green with crushed leaf that smelled like spices. "Then we will speak no more of this."
Rating currently somewhere around PG, no specific warnings, Delenn, Sheridan, Lennier and Atonement stuff. (Chapter 2 done and will be posted later today/tomorrow.)
---
The first time she heard Starkiller's name, she vowed to kill him. Those who brought the news bowed and said it was just; only barbarians, only monsters, would think to do what this man had done gladly. The Black Star was responding to a distress signal, thinking it sent by a Minbari ship. She wept for the dead, and she raged at their murderers, but beneath her sorrow and fury was a cold, iron certainty: one day he would die at her command.
This was before.
The journey back had never seemed so long. There was no work to complete, no stacks of familiar papers to lose herself in, nothing she need do and nothing she wished to. Her neck ached from hours staring into the endless red and black of hyperspace. This was no rest, this brought its own exhaustion. Her mind would not clear long enough for sleep or meditation, and she would have chosen neither if it had; too many thoughts were jostling to be heard again, and Lennier, who could not be far away, had seen too much of her true face recently.
She turned her attention back to the swirls of cloud outside, smoothed invisible creases out of her robe, cooled her palms against metal walls. It no longer served as a distraction. Lennier had been distant since before they left Minbar, and while she could tell herself for a while that he had work to finish, it was neither his duties nor her imagination keeping him away now.
She found him praying. His voice was quiet, yet still somehow filling the room with the sound of chants she learnt in childhood, and she stopped in the doorway and hoped he would not notice. She watched in silence, never moving; but soon his eyes flicked from the candle to her, his voice stilled, and it was gone.
A glance down and away as she laid a hand on his shoulder. "I meant to prepare us something to eat before you woke."
"I was not sleeping," she said. "But perhaps you should. This has been a difficult journey for both of us, I imagine."
The brace of muscles beneath her fingers was there and gone in a heartbeat, replaced with a smile he half-tried to hide. "Of all the things I never expected to do, I think fighting the Grey Council's guards has been the most - surprising."
"Well, they should have trained you better in Temple. I am sure I requested an aide with experience in such matters." When she knelt beside him, the flare of her sleeves cast long shadows on his arms. "I'm sorry, Lennier. I should have warned you the archives would be so well guarded. The Grey Council has always considered understanding to be one of the greatest dangers."
His smile faltered and broke.
She could lift his hand easily, press it between her own until he looked at her. "And you?"
"No." His voice was dry, dragged out of him like fevered breath. "The humans did not understand our gesture of respect, and we did not understand their actions. The true danger lies only in allowing such mistakes to be made."
"A mistake," and she could feel the pulse in his palm. "But I could have sought to understand, and instead I ordered war. It could all have been ended."
"It was ended," he said. And they spoke no more on the matter until the currents of hyperspace brought them home.
Mid-evening the docking bays were always the same, filled with voices and stale air and the clatter and thud of a hundred footsteps. She almost missed seeing John waiting for her beyond the last barrier, until Lennier bowed, and stepped back, and said he would see to their bags.
The hands were lighter on her shoulders than she imagined. His fingertips only touched fabric, and his thumb never once moved to caress her neck. But his smile was the same, and even in the chaos of the docking bay she could have closed her eyes and felt it warm like sunlight on her face. "It's good to see you," he said.
He was tired, which she would have known without seeing him, and there were so many things to trouble him that she never thought to look for one more. There was so much to do, and so many matters that needed to be discussed or worried over or agreed upon, and they were almost back at her quarters before his voice took on a new awkwardness she could not miss. "So, you, uh, you finished everything you needed to do back on Minbar?"
She tensed for a moment, back in the cold of the Dreaming, hearing her voice once again scream out that order while the only part of her left conscious could do nothing but watch - but she was here, John's arm around her waist. "Yes," she said. "It's all done."
"Good." He pulled her closer, just long enough to feel the warmth of his body against hers. "That's good."
And he would never need to know of her trial or her clan's decision. He had no interest in Minbari history. All that mattered to him was here and now, and when she curled up beside him with her head on his shoulder, everything else in the universe would wait.
His days here always began the same. On this morning he woke early, as he had done the day before and would do the day after; he blinked sleep back from his eyes, completed the sunrise rituals with the usual flicker of discomfort that no sun was rising, and dressed quickly while the rest of the station slept.
When he first arrived here he left the computer set to receive all messages as they arrived, but after months of being woken several times a night by traders and diplomats who never seemed to sleep, he conceded that some matters must wait until morning. Now, a blinking light in the corner of the vidscreen reminded him that he already had work to begin. Demands, requests, instructions for meetings to be moved and rearranged, and in all likeliness - yes, there, an irate message from a Drazi attache - at least one complaint that the Minbari government was not cooperating on any number of matters to another world's satisfaction. Most of this could be answered without needing to trouble Delenn, but her schedule was always ready when she woke, and so he must confirm any alterations now.
His notes were neat, plain blocks of text on translucent sheets. He missed the ink and paper in Temple, where each letter of each word had to be drawn with the care and precision he learnt to apply to his thoughts. Everything here was so rushed. There was never time. And now that he was serving Delenn, then all his studies had always been preparing him for this. Still, it often seemed that he missed the rustle of paper and the sharp smell of ink more than he missed Minbar itself.
One meeting cancelled, another postponed. He considered reorganising a later appointment to fill the gap, but decided against it; she would not mind half a morning free. The task of arranging her day always felt easier than he knew it should. He could cancel all her meetings with a few spoken words, move anything that might trouble her far into the future with a touch of his hand on the screen. He understood the necessity of repetition, but it troubled him that this could become so easy, and he no longer thought so poorly of the young aide who stood before this screen three years ago too terrified to change a thing.
He left the computer scrolling through records of disputes over shipping lanes, and called Delenn with the news that her schedule was ready. On some mornings he still brought it himself, but this seemed less and less appropriate with each day she grew closer to Sheridan, and he took little time in deciding against it today.
The memories of forced smiles and long silences in Sheridan's company faded against the sharp angles of her frown. His own voice trailed into nothing after a handful of words. "Could we not have discussed this over breakfast, Lennier?", she said, and disappointment curled in his chest. "I have seen so little of you since we returned that I find myself wondering whether you are to busy to eat at all."
But she was smiling now, and he tried to smile with her. "I have not yet prepared for the sundown rituals. Perhaps -"
"Then I will see you this evening."
And there was nothing to do but nod when she did, safe in the conviction that it would be as she said.
An hour later, he brought her schedule to the garden. She was not waiting by the stones she once liked to watch, but in the bright almost-human clothes she was never difficult to find. She sat alone, seeming somehow smaller.
He waited as her eyes scanned the paper. "What happened to the meeting with the Gaim ministers?"
"A problem with their travel documents last night. Since their holy days begin tomorrow, I arranged the appointment for ten days later."
An odd twist of a half-smile. "What would I do without you, Lennier?"
He ducked his head a fraction in thanks, no more than was warranted. "It was only a matter of finding transport times."
"But such details are important." Her hand brushed a silver-green leaf growing against the stone of the bench, turned it, pulled it through her fingers. "You remembered to tell Captain Sheridan when our ship would be arriving back from Minbar, did you not?"
"Yes, but my duties -"
"Require you to know such things. The name of the ship, the route it would take, the time of arrival. This is what you told him?"
"Yes."
"Nothing more?"
"I don't -" But his throat tightened, choking confusion with it. "No. No, of course not. I would never betray your confidence, Delenn, not if every voice in the universe demanded it of me."
Her hand was light on his face, its palm stained green with crushed leaf that smelled like spices. "Then we will speak no more of this."
