fanfic tiem: Echo/Narcissus
Before I pop off to the library, have some (short) fanfic. I swear I am addicted to writing Leoben - probably because he is so easy to make poetic, being such a weirdo. I'm sad he didn't get much screentime in 4.5.
I had actually written most of this before I got the Echo/Narcissus inspiration. I hadn't quite realised I'd written a very similar story. Good old Ovid is obviously just the Roman equivalent of Bob Dylan, right?
Title: Echo/Narcissus
Rating: PG
Word count: 558
Pairing/Character: Leoben, Leoben/Kara, Leoben/Six
Summary: Leoben sits by the river and watches.
Spoilers: Daybreak II.
He went to the water’s edge so often, dipping his fingers into the cool river and looking through the glassy current to the bottom, where light beams played across dark stones and the reeds waved. On a sunny day he’d see a reflection of himself, which was comforting. Two twos. Two no longer, but a single man, with a Six in his bed every night who cried out for him by name, not number. He called her Leah.
Now without a hybrid’s poetry in his ears he was free to make his own interpretations. The way that birds tracked across the sky, the shape of clouds and the colour of the sunset: these were the new prophecies that spoke of days filled with rain and scented with churned earth and a damp home; of the herd moving across the river where the humans cut them down; of the ground shifting beneath his feet. The water chattered to him too, in bubbling laughter, of its journey - no less than his own. From the mountains to the sea. From the sea to the sky. From the sky to the mountains. It will happen again. That was one reason why he went there.
And in those glancing eddies he saw her, at last. Little pieces of her, a flash of blonde hair or the light glinting off her eyes. In the voice of the stream she said, you were right. She said I should have listened. You tried to warn me. And if he wondered if he was dreaming, sometimes, she’d say, ah, Leoben, why do you doubt me? He put his hands into the water to catch her. She was always too fast.
In bed he put those hands around Leah’s throat. He liked to feel the sinews and the veins under his tanned and roughening fingers. He pressed his mouth to her jawbone and she would twist under him and mewl like a cat. Say you love me, he would beg her. She would always comply - too easily. I love you. Not like that. He should never have chosen a Six.
In time he drifted away. He built a hut by the riverbank in mud and stone, so he could hear her voice in the night time. Ah, Leoben. You were right. When he saw himself now he was older, greyer at the temples, thin. But she was still young, as always, lying in the undulating reeds in the shadows of the pebbles. He walked in to catch her but she was still too fast for him. Some things never change.
Before he left Leah had asked what he was waiting for. He said he didn’t know. He lied. He was waiting for the day that he would see her, not in the water, but on the other side; he’d say Kara and she’d say it’s time. He would cross to her, and the stench of life would be washed from his body.
From the river to the sea. From the sea to the sky. From the sky to the river again, and there would no longer be Leoben upon the Earth. Just a flower on the bank where he sat day in, day out, nodding its head in silent prayer, and the breeze soft as a woman’s voice, touching the surface of the river as it flew.
I had actually written most of this before I got the Echo/Narcissus inspiration. I hadn't quite realised I'd written a very similar story. Good old Ovid is obviously just the Roman equivalent of Bob Dylan, right?
Title: Echo/Narcissus
Rating: PG
Word count: 558
Pairing/Character: Leoben, Leoben/Kara, Leoben/Six
Summary: Leoben sits by the river and watches.
Spoilers: Daybreak II.
He went to the water’s edge so often, dipping his fingers into the cool river and looking through the glassy current to the bottom, where light beams played across dark stones and the reeds waved. On a sunny day he’d see a reflection of himself, which was comforting. Two twos. Two no longer, but a single man, with a Six in his bed every night who cried out for him by name, not number. He called her Leah.
Now without a hybrid’s poetry in his ears he was free to make his own interpretations. The way that birds tracked across the sky, the shape of clouds and the colour of the sunset: these were the new prophecies that spoke of days filled with rain and scented with churned earth and a damp home; of the herd moving across the river where the humans cut them down; of the ground shifting beneath his feet. The water chattered to him too, in bubbling laughter, of its journey - no less than his own. From the mountains to the sea. From the sea to the sky. From the sky to the mountains. It will happen again. That was one reason why he went there.
And in those glancing eddies he saw her, at last. Little pieces of her, a flash of blonde hair or the light glinting off her eyes. In the voice of the stream she said, you were right. She said I should have listened. You tried to warn me. And if he wondered if he was dreaming, sometimes, she’d say, ah, Leoben, why do you doubt me? He put his hands into the water to catch her. She was always too fast.
In bed he put those hands around Leah’s throat. He liked to feel the sinews and the veins under his tanned and roughening fingers. He pressed his mouth to her jawbone and she would twist under him and mewl like a cat. Say you love me, he would beg her. She would always comply - too easily. I love you. Not like that. He should never have chosen a Six.
In time he drifted away. He built a hut by the riverbank in mud and stone, so he could hear her voice in the night time. Ah, Leoben. You were right. When he saw himself now he was older, greyer at the temples, thin. But she was still young, as always, lying in the undulating reeds in the shadows of the pebbles. He walked in to catch her but she was still too fast for him. Some things never change.
Before he left Leah had asked what he was waiting for. He said he didn’t know. He lied. He was waiting for the day that he would see her, not in the water, but on the other side; he’d say Kara and she’d say it’s time. He would cross to her, and the stench of life would be washed from his body.
From the river to the sea. From the sea to the sky. From the sky to the river again, and there would no longer be Leoben upon the Earth. Just a flower on the bank where he sat day in, day out, nodding its head in silent prayer, and the breeze soft as a woman’s voice, touching the surface of the river as it flew.