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whiskeycoffee2006-09-30 07:07 pm
mjules.livejournal.com) wrote in whiskeycoffee2006-09-30 07:07 pm
"The Stars of Her Twilight, Darkening" (Firefly, Gen, 1/1)
Title: The Stars of Her Twilight, Darkening
author: m.jules
Fandom: Firefly
Pairing: Mal/River (and others)
Rating: PG, I think
Word Count: 800
Summary: "Let the stars of its twilight be darkened; let it wait for light but have none; and let it not see the breaking dawn."
Author's Notes: This is for![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
mollita who asked for something that she is not getting, exactly, but close to. Summary quote (and title) comes from the Biblical book of Job, third chapter. Thanks to artemis2050 for proofreading and helping with the title.
Prompt:85, "She"
Warnings: Character Death.
There’s nothing left when she reaches for him; nothing but the memory of his warmth against her, lambskin molding to his back as he stared out the windshield into the black. She sighs, and it shudders through her entire body, rattling her pieces and shaking her from the core out.
She remembers the way he moved through her, gentle and rough all at once, and can’t seem to escape the dark mourning that creeps into her heart, dulling the shine and slowing her pulse until she’s listing, just a little, in the immeasurable sea beyond all shores. She sees strange hands on the steering column and closes her eyes.
He’s gone.
But she remembers love and laughter, remembers the way he looked and sounded and smelled sometimes, all sweaty and rumpled and, God forbid, happy, and steadies herself on the memories.
She tastes his blood, sometimes, spilling through her nightmares, because she’s sure she tasted it before. She hates that she loves it. She does not love what it means -- God, she wishes his blood were still running through his veins -- but it is better than the time she swallowed a fly and tasted that blood. This... this still tastes of love.
The others are gone, too, and she misses them. Misses the feeling of home they brought to her; the comfort of family and of care. She misses the way the mechanic touched her, as if her hands could heal by skin alone. Skin and love. She misses the courtesan’s smooth glide of silk and the way that beauty soothed her, calmed her. She misses the mercenary, even, sometimes; he liked things that worked, pieces that fit well together, and even though she feels like she has more patchwork than original skin, he came to appreciate her well enough.
She misses the doctor; he liked being a caregiver. It was only appropriate that he and the mechanic should have found each other. She misses the first mate, whose matter-of-factness couldn’t completely hide a nurturing heart. She misses the pilot with a deep ache that cannot be sated (the stake went through her heart as surely as it did through his). The shepherd was gone long before the others, but she misses him, too. He loved her on first sight.
But most of all, more than any of the rest, she misses him, her captain, who cannot be replaced.
There are others who command her now; generations have passed since she held him. Wars have been fought and tamed. Men and women have died and she has watched them all. He was not her first and was not her last, but he was the only one who loved her the way he did. He and the crazy dancing girl who loved him, who spoke to her in the night when the war raged all around and inside her until it finally burned them all out.
They were the last two to remain, and she remembers how the girl cradled him, hiding her wounds so he would think he was going on without her. He swore that girl would live to fight the war and win it the way he hadn’t been able to. But she hadn’t. She’d been a living weapon -- a maiden named death, she whispered once to the listening walls of the ship -- but death had died just the same as the rest.
Now there is a new mechanic on board who goes up to tell the captain that something’s wrong with the ship, but he doesn’t know what.
“Can’t figure where all them weird sighin’ sounds is comin’ from,” he says, scratching his head. “Everythin’ looks all right, but swear t’God, sounds like the thingamajiggy done gone and got a crack in the linin’, like the hydraulics is all leakin’.”
The new captain doesn’t say anything, and the man turns and walks back to the engine room, muttering under his breath, “S’what ya get fer diggin’ a second-hand Firefly out of a gorram trash heap at the army consignment store. Buncha ruttin’ Browncoats; no wonder they lost both wars, flyin’ around in this luh-su.”
Serenity hears and shudders again, keening in her heart so loudly the mechanic pales and rains down curses on her, sure that she’s about to drop out of the sky. And why shouldn’t she? Love was what kept her flying in the first place and now love is just a ghost that rattles through her halls. It wasn’t her fault they died; that’s what he said with his last breath and she fights to believe it.
"It wasn’t your fault, old girl. You were the best.”
"She was,” the other dying girl had said, her bloodied hand falling to the grating, meaning to soothe but having no strength left to do so. "You were.”
She remembers.
The End
author: m.jules
Fandom: Firefly
Pairing: Mal/River (and others)
Rating: PG, I think
Word Count: 800
Summary: "Let the stars of its twilight be darkened; let it wait for light but have none; and let it not see the breaking dawn."
Author's Notes: This is for
mollita who asked for something that she is not getting, exactly, but close to. Summary quote (and title) comes from the Biblical book of Job, third chapter. Thanks to artemis2050 for proofreading and helping with the title. Prompt:85, "She"
Warnings: Character Death.
There’s nothing left when she reaches for him; nothing but the memory of his warmth against her, lambskin molding to his back as he stared out the windshield into the black. She sighs, and it shudders through her entire body, rattling her pieces and shaking her from the core out.
She remembers the way he moved through her, gentle and rough all at once, and can’t seem to escape the dark mourning that creeps into her heart, dulling the shine and slowing her pulse until she’s listing, just a little, in the immeasurable sea beyond all shores. She sees strange hands on the steering column and closes her eyes.
He’s gone.
But she remembers love and laughter, remembers the way he looked and sounded and smelled sometimes, all sweaty and rumpled and, God forbid, happy, and steadies herself on the memories.
She tastes his blood, sometimes, spilling through her nightmares, because she’s sure she tasted it before. She hates that she loves it. She does not love what it means -- God, she wishes his blood were still running through his veins -- but it is better than the time she swallowed a fly and tasted that blood. This... this still tastes of love.
The others are gone, too, and she misses them. Misses the feeling of home they brought to her; the comfort of family and of care. She misses the way the mechanic touched her, as if her hands could heal by skin alone. Skin and love. She misses the courtesan’s smooth glide of silk and the way that beauty soothed her, calmed her. She misses the mercenary, even, sometimes; he liked things that worked, pieces that fit well together, and even though she feels like she has more patchwork than original skin, he came to appreciate her well enough.
She misses the doctor; he liked being a caregiver. It was only appropriate that he and the mechanic should have found each other. She misses the first mate, whose matter-of-factness couldn’t completely hide a nurturing heart. She misses the pilot with a deep ache that cannot be sated (the stake went through her heart as surely as it did through his). The shepherd was gone long before the others, but she misses him, too. He loved her on first sight.
But most of all, more than any of the rest, she misses him, her captain, who cannot be replaced.
There are others who command her now; generations have passed since she held him. Wars have been fought and tamed. Men and women have died and she has watched them all. He was not her first and was not her last, but he was the only one who loved her the way he did. He and the crazy dancing girl who loved him, who spoke to her in the night when the war raged all around and inside her until it finally burned them all out.
They were the last two to remain, and she remembers how the girl cradled him, hiding her wounds so he would think he was going on without her. He swore that girl would live to fight the war and win it the way he hadn’t been able to. But she hadn’t. She’d been a living weapon -- a maiden named death, she whispered once to the listening walls of the ship -- but death had died just the same as the rest.
Now there is a new mechanic on board who goes up to tell the captain that something’s wrong with the ship, but he doesn’t know what.
“Can’t figure where all them weird sighin’ sounds is comin’ from,” he says, scratching his head. “Everythin’ looks all right, but swear t’God, sounds like the thingamajiggy done gone and got a crack in the linin’, like the hydraulics is all leakin’.”
The new captain doesn’t say anything, and the man turns and walks back to the engine room, muttering under his breath, “S’what ya get fer diggin’ a second-hand Firefly out of a gorram trash heap at the army consignment store. Buncha ruttin’ Browncoats; no wonder they lost both wars, flyin’ around in this luh-su.”
Serenity hears and shudders again, keening in her heart so loudly the mechanic pales and rains down curses on her, sure that she’s about to drop out of the sky. And why shouldn’t she? Love was what kept her flying in the first place and now love is just a ghost that rattles through her halls. It wasn’t her fault they died; that’s what he said with his last breath and she fights to believe it.
"It wasn’t your fault, old girl. You were the best.”
"She was,” the other dying girl had said, her bloodied hand falling to the grating, meaning to soothe but having no strength left to do so. "You were.”
She remembers.
The End