Stark and Cohen Go Together Surprisingly Well. It's Gotta Be All the Mysticism and Angst.
They extended the Leonard Cohen challenge over on farscapefriday for another week, so I no longer had any excuse not to give in and write this, damn it. Once again, this fic is really based around the lyrics rather than the title, but at least it fits them better than the last one. And geez, for an athiest, I sure write about religion and stuff a lot, but I suppose it makes some sort of sense. Being the science fiction fan that I am, I've always been interested in alien mindsets.
So. A bit under 400 words. Angsty gen. Spoilers through early season 3.
Lover Lover Lover
Stark prays. He prays to the Delvian Goddess, whose face Zhaan taught him to see, and he prays to the wider, more nebulous Banik concept of divinity: the light of creation that lies beyond the darkness of the universe.
He does not pray in words. There are chants, yes, but they are meaningless syllables, meant to focus the mind. His true prayers are spoken in the language of wordless longing.
To pray, say the Banik mystics, is to become one with the light. Stark remembers being light, remembers the terrifying, exuberant freedom of it, of being open to the universe until all boundaries are erased and the self threatens to dissolve into nothing. No, not into nothing. Into everything. It terrified him then. Now he yearns for it.
He no longer wants to be Stark. His physical form is like an anchor, tying him to this plane of existence as he slowly drowns under the weight of reality. He had hoped, vaguely, that when he returned to corporeality, it would be a sort of renewal. A rebirth. That he would reinvent himself as something better. Instead, he returned still wounded in mind and body. More wounded. Damage, damage, damage... What good has corporeality ever done him? He has had so much suffering in this body, has inflicted so much on others. And if he has also had moments of beauty and pleasure while wrapped in this flesh, where are they now? There is no one left who will touch him, no one left for him to touch.
Zhaan has dissolved into light. He envies her that. But, though it shames him to know it, he would pull her back to share this prison of a physical world with him if he could.
And so he prays. For answers, for release, for another chance to start over and be new. For her. For anything.
He never gets an answer, not to the things he asks for. But sometimes, when he can truly bring his soul to stillness, he can feel the touch of the light, and he knows she is there. That whatever it is he is praying to is there.
And when, inevitably, he rises again to his unchanged corporeal feet, the prayer remains. Somehow, it seems to help.
So. A bit under 400 words. Angsty gen. Spoilers through early season 3.
Lover Lover Lover
Stark prays. He prays to the Delvian Goddess, whose face Zhaan taught him to see, and he prays to the wider, more nebulous Banik concept of divinity: the light of creation that lies beyond the darkness of the universe.
He does not pray in words. There are chants, yes, but they are meaningless syllables, meant to focus the mind. His true prayers are spoken in the language of wordless longing.
To pray, say the Banik mystics, is to become one with the light. Stark remembers being light, remembers the terrifying, exuberant freedom of it, of being open to the universe until all boundaries are erased and the self threatens to dissolve into nothing. No, not into nothing. Into everything. It terrified him then. Now he yearns for it.
He no longer wants to be Stark. His physical form is like an anchor, tying him to this plane of existence as he slowly drowns under the weight of reality. He had hoped, vaguely, that when he returned to corporeality, it would be a sort of renewal. A rebirth. That he would reinvent himself as something better. Instead, he returned still wounded in mind and body. More wounded. Damage, damage, damage... What good has corporeality ever done him? He has had so much suffering in this body, has inflicted so much on others. And if he has also had moments of beauty and pleasure while wrapped in this flesh, where are they now? There is no one left who will touch him, no one left for him to touch.
Zhaan has dissolved into light. He envies her that. But, though it shames him to know it, he would pull her back to share this prison of a physical world with him if he could.
And so he prays. For answers, for release, for another chance to start over and be new. For her. For anything.
He never gets an answer, not to the things he asks for. But sometimes, when he can truly bring his soul to stillness, he can feel the touch of the light, and he knows she is there. That whatever it is he is praying to is there.
And when, inevitably, he rises again to his unchanged corporeal feet, the prayer remains. Somehow, it seems to help.