nymeria_dw (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
nymeria_dw) wrote2010-10-04 09:30 pm
nymeria_dw) wrote2010-10-04 09:30 pm
Entry tags:
AERYN'S JOURNEY #29 - PRAYER
AERYN'S JOURNEY - PRAYER
(a Farscape Fanfiction)
Author: Nymeria
Disclaimer: the Farscape universe and its characters do not belong to me - I'm just borrowing them for a little while.
Rating: PG
Setting: Season 4 Episode 18
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Aeryn, wake up. Wake up Aeryn.
Go away, Xhalax.
Wake up Aeryn.
Leave me alone. I'm tired. It's so hot in here.
You must wake up. Now.
"Feeling better?"
Not the crèche aboard the carrier. Not my cot. And definitely not Xhalax sharing her secrets with me. This is now and the secrets are mine, not to be shared but guarded at all costs.
"I'll tell Captain Jenek you're ready for another interrogation."
There is no waking up from this.
I don't know how long I've been here - days, weekens. Somehow it doesn't seem to matter anymore. All I care about is holding out against heat probes and torture. Battling against the fear that I will not be strong enough to resist until–
Until what? Until someone–
John.
Until John comes for me. I would never leave you. Words from another time, another life. I wrap them around me like armor, grit my teeth and endure.
For how long?
As long as it takes.
I have faked ignorance, tried defiance, even toyed with prayers to a goddess I don't believe in - everything I could think of to withstand the relentless questions, the heat and the pain, but I fear they won't be enough to sustain me.
I fear I am doomed to succumb, because the secret I carry, the life I'm trying to protect, makes me vulnerable.
I often think about Xhalax and her terrible revelation, the choice she was forced to make, and I wonder if I will eventually have to face a similar one myself, if I will have to do what I must and face the consequences.
Until now this child - I have taken to thinking about it as she, like a whimsical mirror-image of my younger self - has been little more than a vague idea, a concept both alien and frightening in its significance. Suddenly she has become much more than that, an innocent to protect and - more important - something that I feel fiercely mine.
And this gives me the strength I so desperately need.
My secret is out.
That despicable creature, the complacent servant of ruthless masters, has found my weakness and laid it bare for them to exploit, just as I'm lying bound and defenseless, unable to fight back.
He would use you, and the baby, and I will not be able to stop him.
How tangible that kind of danger looks now, when I think of what these monsters would do to my child.
"Djanka-Bru, let him know where I am so he can find me." Before it's too late. Before the little thread of hope I'm hanging from breaks under the strain.
"I didn't think Peacekeepers had gods." A voice startles me out of the drug- and heat-induced stupor I keep getting in and out of. I'm not alone, there are others as restrained and helpless as I am.
Or maybe not. The quick intimacy of the one next to me feels out of place here, as do her nonstop flood of words or the stress on the hopelessness of our situation.
"You should talk to me. In here, talk's all you've got."
So they want to play games with me? Let's indulge them. It will give me the focus I need to control fear and despair before they overwhelm me.
"Of course I'd lie to you, you stupid bitch!"
The words are wrenched out of me, breaking through the painstaking façade of lies I'm struggling to use as a shield.
Acid heat courses through my veins, exploding in a painful blaze behind the eyes: sight is distorted, images wavering and twisted. Above all there's this terrible pressure, like a relentless wind battering against my barriers.
"Whose child is it? Is it John Crichton's?"
"I don't kn– know! I don't–" Truth again. What I know and what I feel, deep down, are different enough that I can use the former to mask the latter, even if it's becoming increasingly difficult, like straining under a terrible weight. Not much of a weapon, but it's all I have. "There was another man. Velorek."
Again, enough of a truth that it can fight against the dren that wretched creature keeps pumping into me.
"This Velorek - where is he now?"
"He's– he's dead. I betrayed him." And now I'm doing it again, to protect someone else. Forgive me, Velorek.
As the needle plunges once more into my arm, I feel like I'm drowning in liquid fire, swept by a decompression wave that steals breath and thought and strength.
"This Velorek, is he the father of your child?"
I try to hang on to the lie, only to feel it slip through my nerveless fingers.
"No."
When unconsciousness claims me, I embrace it like an old friend.
"It's a pattern the memory banks have never catalogued so it could be half human."
The proof of what I'd come to believe - of what I hoped - brings no joy or relief: this means my child is in even greater danger. Trying to think clearly is becoming more and more difficult, but the frantic urgency of the moment cuts a path through the fuzzy jumble of thoughts.
"If I tell you?"
"Your pain will end."
"When I was off Moya…I had another job." Focus on it, remember it all. The desperate need to detach yourself from the unbearable, the urgency to drive away unwanted thoughts by doing what you were best at. Protect the innocent. "There was a man named Lechna. He was my contact." Also a cheat and a traitor. No! Forget about that, concentrate on the memory, believe in it. Give them what they want. "But he was also my lover. It is most likely his conception."
Even this does not work for long, that poor excuse for a leader proving to be useless as a decoy as well, and the onslaught of questions and drugs resumes once again, the poison running like acid under my skin, making it crawl and itch and burn, nausea and pain battling for supremacy.
My determination to remain strong, no matter what, collapses under that weight and I hear myself begging - too wrung out and exhausted to even feel contempt for my own weakness.
"There is no Lechna!"
"There - is - Lechna!" Try to picture him, make him real - make it all real! If I squeeze my eyes closed tightly enough…. Make them believe. "As soon as I left, I went straight back to Lechna!" Give them more, flesh it out. "I have never - ever - loved John Crichton. I've never loved him."
And this hurts more than the physical pain.
The tears streaming down my face are for this ultimate betrayal, for the denial of what I came to accept after so much struggle, for the desperate need forcing me to reject what I fought so long, what we fought so long to make true.
And all for nothing.
"Who - is - the - father?" The heat is so intense that I feel, I know that the ever thinning shield I'm hiding behind is going up in smoke, yet I try to cling to the lie with my last dregs of strength and desperation.
"On Vendrall…I met a man…" But the face, that loathsome face, turns into a different one and I finally let go, drowning in a wash of sorrow and hopelessness and love. "There is no Lechna. I made him up. Just Crichton. Only ever...Cri– Crichton. Just him."
Xhalax's face looks down at me in sadness and understanding, before being swallowed by the blackness.
"We've set a course for Katratzi."
"They've been informed of your condition and there is a surgeon on hand."
The short-lived satisfaction of taking back control, if only for a moment -Then I orphan no one! - provides a too fragile barrier for the wave of despair threatening to engulf me.
"Now Djanka-Bru, you haven't listened and you haven't helped. And I'm running out of time." Anger used to be an ally, once. Maybe it's the only one I've left now, because I'm alone and helpless.
Protecting this child will probably end my life.
I know that whatever hope of rescue I might have had has turned into an impossible dream, so I must concentrate on what I can do, without relying on external help. Of any kind.
"So I'm gonna forget about you. I am now willing to make a deal with anyone - with anything - to save my child."
You were conceived in love. It makes you special. This child was conceived in love too, and it's up to me to do all that is in my power to protect her. "Not because I can - but because I have to."
(a Farscape Fanfiction)
Author: Nymeria
Disclaimer: the Farscape universe and its characters do not belong to me - I'm just borrowing them for a little while.
Rating: PG
Setting: Season 4 Episode 18
=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*
Aeryn, wake up. Wake up Aeryn.
Go away, Xhalax.
Wake up Aeryn.
Leave me alone. I'm tired. It's so hot in here.
You must wake up. Now.
"Feeling better?"
Not the crèche aboard the carrier. Not my cot. And definitely not Xhalax sharing her secrets with me. This is now and the secrets are mine, not to be shared but guarded at all costs.
"I'll tell Captain Jenek you're ready for another interrogation."
There is no waking up from this.
I don't know how long I've been here - days, weekens. Somehow it doesn't seem to matter anymore. All I care about is holding out against heat probes and torture. Battling against the fear that I will not be strong enough to resist until–
Until what? Until someone–
John.
Until John comes for me. I would never leave you. Words from another time, another life. I wrap them around me like armor, grit my teeth and endure.
For how long?
As long as it takes.
I have faked ignorance, tried defiance, even toyed with prayers to a goddess I don't believe in - everything I could think of to withstand the relentless questions, the heat and the pain, but I fear they won't be enough to sustain me.
I fear I am doomed to succumb, because the secret I carry, the life I'm trying to protect, makes me vulnerable.
I often think about Xhalax and her terrible revelation, the choice she was forced to make, and I wonder if I will eventually have to face a similar one myself, if I will have to do what I must and face the consequences.
Until now this child - I have taken to thinking about it as she, like a whimsical mirror-image of my younger self - has been little more than a vague idea, a concept both alien and frightening in its significance. Suddenly she has become much more than that, an innocent to protect and - more important - something that I feel fiercely mine.
And this gives me the strength I so desperately need.
My secret is out.
That despicable creature, the complacent servant of ruthless masters, has found my weakness and laid it bare for them to exploit, just as I'm lying bound and defenseless, unable to fight back.
He would use you, and the baby, and I will not be able to stop him.
How tangible that kind of danger looks now, when I think of what these monsters would do to my child.
"Djanka-Bru, let him know where I am so he can find me." Before it's too late. Before the little thread of hope I'm hanging from breaks under the strain.
"I didn't think Peacekeepers had gods." A voice startles me out of the drug- and heat-induced stupor I keep getting in and out of. I'm not alone, there are others as restrained and helpless as I am.
Or maybe not. The quick intimacy of the one next to me feels out of place here, as do her nonstop flood of words or the stress on the hopelessness of our situation.
"You should talk to me. In here, talk's all you've got."
So they want to play games with me? Let's indulge them. It will give me the focus I need to control fear and despair before they overwhelm me.
"Of course I'd lie to you, you stupid bitch!"
The words are wrenched out of me, breaking through the painstaking façade of lies I'm struggling to use as a shield.
Acid heat courses through my veins, exploding in a painful blaze behind the eyes: sight is distorted, images wavering and twisted. Above all there's this terrible pressure, like a relentless wind battering against my barriers.
"Whose child is it? Is it John Crichton's?"
"I don't kn– know! I don't–" Truth again. What I know and what I feel, deep down, are different enough that I can use the former to mask the latter, even if it's becoming increasingly difficult, like straining under a terrible weight. Not much of a weapon, but it's all I have. "There was another man. Velorek."
Again, enough of a truth that it can fight against the dren that wretched creature keeps pumping into me.
"This Velorek - where is he now?"
"He's– he's dead. I betrayed him." And now I'm doing it again, to protect someone else. Forgive me, Velorek.
As the needle plunges once more into my arm, I feel like I'm drowning in liquid fire, swept by a decompression wave that steals breath and thought and strength.
"This Velorek, is he the father of your child?"
I try to hang on to the lie, only to feel it slip through my nerveless fingers.
"No."
When unconsciousness claims me, I embrace it like an old friend.
"It's a pattern the memory banks have never catalogued so it could be half human."
The proof of what I'd come to believe - of what I hoped - brings no joy or relief: this means my child is in even greater danger. Trying to think clearly is becoming more and more difficult, but the frantic urgency of the moment cuts a path through the fuzzy jumble of thoughts.
"If I tell you?"
"Your pain will end."
"When I was off Moya…I had another job." Focus on it, remember it all. The desperate need to detach yourself from the unbearable, the urgency to drive away unwanted thoughts by doing what you were best at. Protect the innocent. "There was a man named Lechna. He was my contact." Also a cheat and a traitor. No! Forget about that, concentrate on the memory, believe in it. Give them what they want. "But he was also my lover. It is most likely his conception."
Even this does not work for long, that poor excuse for a leader proving to be useless as a decoy as well, and the onslaught of questions and drugs resumes once again, the poison running like acid under my skin, making it crawl and itch and burn, nausea and pain battling for supremacy.
My determination to remain strong, no matter what, collapses under that weight and I hear myself begging - too wrung out and exhausted to even feel contempt for my own weakness.
"There is no Lechna!"
"There - is - Lechna!" Try to picture him, make him real - make it all real! If I squeeze my eyes closed tightly enough…. Make them believe. "As soon as I left, I went straight back to Lechna!" Give them more, flesh it out. "I have never - ever - loved John Crichton. I've never loved him."
And this hurts more than the physical pain.
The tears streaming down my face are for this ultimate betrayal, for the denial of what I came to accept after so much struggle, for the desperate need forcing me to reject what I fought so long, what we fought so long to make true.
And all for nothing.
"Who - is - the - father?" The heat is so intense that I feel, I know that the ever thinning shield I'm hiding behind is going up in smoke, yet I try to cling to the lie with my last dregs of strength and desperation.
"On Vendrall…I met a man…" But the face, that loathsome face, turns into a different one and I finally let go, drowning in a wash of sorrow and hopelessness and love. "There is no Lechna. I made him up. Just Crichton. Only ever...Cri– Crichton. Just him."
Xhalax's face looks down at me in sadness and understanding, before being swallowed by the blackness.
"We've set a course for Katratzi."
"They've been informed of your condition and there is a surgeon on hand."
The short-lived satisfaction of taking back control, if only for a moment -Then I orphan no one! - provides a too fragile barrier for the wave of despair threatening to engulf me.
"Now Djanka-Bru, you haven't listened and you haven't helped. And I'm running out of time." Anger used to be an ally, once. Maybe it's the only one I've left now, because I'm alone and helpless.
Protecting this child will probably end my life.
I know that whatever hope of rescue I might have had has turned into an impossible dream, so I must concentrate on what I can do, without relying on external help. Of any kind.
"So I'm gonna forget about you. I am now willing to make a deal with anyone - with anything - to save my child."
You were conceived in love. It makes you special. This child was conceived in love too, and it's up to me to do all that is in my power to protect her. "Not because I can - but because I have to."
no subject
Aeryn seeing her mother...now that makes me teary. :)
(no subject)
no subject
I like the thought that Aeryn is thinking about her child as a girl, seeing parallels between her and Zhalax fate, afraid of being forced to make the same decision. She didn't have a lot of points to refer herself to when it came to family and relationships...
Again great introspective piece, Nym!
(no subject)