Fic: Movement and Stillness (Imperial Radch, Rated Teen)
Title: Movement and Stillness
Characters/Pairing: Breq/Seivarden unrequited
Fandom/Universe: Imperial Radch
Rating and Content Notes: Teen
Word count: 1760
Notes: Thanks to
st_aurafina 2017.
Summary: Seivarden feels like she is still in stasis while Breq rushes onward, but there are two sides to every coin.
It was ridiculous and impious to throw a daily cast with only one coin, but Seivarden had traded the others for local cash or the more widely recognised shen chits and then, inevitably, for kef. The only reason she still had this one was that it had become dull over time and nobody wanted it.
"A genuine antique," Seivarden muttered and cast it anyway. It came up Issa, Movement, but of course it meant nothing without the others to make a pattern. She scooped it up and shoved it back in her pocket. Movement it was, then.
Seivarden, daughter of the Vendaai, Captain of the Sword of Nathtas, had spent the previous night in a pen of long-haired, moss-chewing bov. It was warm and, despite the strangely acidic smell of their waste, the bov were non-judgemental companions. Normally, she wouldn't give a thought to the judgement or otherwise of animals, but Seivardan's limbs were beginning to shake and her throat starting to clench on its own dry walls. She needed kef.
She stayed low to keep below the shoulder-height of the bov, wary of being spotted. The Nilters let their herds roam when they hadn't brought them into town to sell, and yet knew the location of every single one of them and did not take kindly to interference. Seivarden didn't understand these people at all, free of civilising influences; though really the lack of civilising influence was probably the only reason the people of Nilt were able to remain true to their annoying customs and simple lifestyle at all.
One thing she did know was that the decorative halter that they put on the dominant female bov was unique to each family, so stealing one was futile. Pulling out the precious metal threads, though, that was untraceable, and the bov were too placid to know they were being robbed.
With several gleaming threads wrapped around her wrist under her heavy, coarse gloves, Seivarden headed into the miserable township where she had found herself after the last buy of kef had run out. It was an ugly trading post, dull pre-fabricated buildings barely distinguishable from the mounds of dirty snow at the sides of the road, but the population was always in flux, the con artists on the move, and the bars full, so Seivarden was barely noticeable in the mix, even with her Radchaai accent and inability to speak more than twenty words in the local dialect.
With the kef wearing off, Seivarden was glad of that. The first emotion to creep back was always irritation, closely followed by an excruciating shame. The anonymity of this place was the only thing that kept her upright; that and the knowledge that the feeling would only last until her next dose. She took a deep breath to squash it down and ventured into the currency exchange, joining the long queue of Nilters and a couple of foreigners who had been dealing or winning gems or off-world coins and jewellery the night before. No Radchaai, of course, and Seivarden felt foolish for even checking, but her slowly unfolding shame kept her alert for them. The line shuffled forward slowly with only one analysis device and one analyst on duty, with several security guards at her side, but nobody complained or even struck up a conversation. This was the queue of the morning after, and no-one was at their best. Seivarden didn't stand out at all.
The Nilter in front of her walked away swearing quietly under his breath and rattling raw gemstones in his hand, then it was Seivarden's turn.
"Next?" The analyst said something unintelligible then, "Please?" Seivarden pushed the precious metal threads across the counter and they were passed through the analysis device.
They must have been worth more than Seivarden thought, because although the analyst's stolid expression did not change for a moment, she pushed a good seven hundred shen across the counter. It would be an undervaluing, obviously, but Seivarden didn't care. Soon, she wouldn't care about anything. Soon, she would have excised all pain.
***
She'd tried once before to bury her extreme dislocation with work, but it had only occupied her body, not her mind. Almost six months of that had left her free of the kef physically, but that was all it had done, and not long afterwards she had ended up on Nilt selling everything she could lay her gloves on.
This time, she had something to keep her mind occupied: the mystery of Breq. Breq, who had not come to retrieve Seivarden but had met her by coincidence. Breq, who carried an invisible Garseddai weapon and talked about ships' emotions. Breq, who had saved Seivarden over and over and didn't even like her.
Seivarden had thought for a while that perhaps Breq held all life sacred, that the blood she spilled in her god's bowl was some kind of oath of protection or payment for lives lost. That would explain why she would throw herself off a bridge after Seivarden with little chance of survival. On the second day of their journey, though, Seivarden was returning from the sanitary facilities to their cramped cabin and saw Breq holding a young Ki girl against the wall by the upper part of her segmented throat.
"If you try to enter my cabin again, I will kill you and destroy your body so thoroughly that your mother will never find it." Her voice was emotionless, but her ungloved grip was strong.
The Ki girl shook her head vigorously and Breq let her go, but something about the way Breq's gaze followed her brought up a hazy memory of the Nilters who tried to rob them after the flier had broken down. Breq had tracked and killed them all with the same swift and passionless movements. Not one to worship life, then.
The transport ship they were on carried no other Radchaai, so Seivarden could have done whatever she wanted without fear of being identified: the "servant" designation with which she had boarded meant nothing. Their nearest neighbour seemed to be spending her entire journey catching up on an extremely long and complicated entertainment; Seivarden wouldn't noticed except that it was a historical epic and she kept hearing snatches of familiar words and speech patterns, only to realise the context and wish again for the numbness of kef. She wasn't even sure that she would have taken it, because then she wouldn't feel anything about Breq, either.
At first, she had talked herself into serving Breq by comparing their relationship to a lieutenant and a captain - there was no shame in cultivating a useful connection with someone higher in rank - even though her duties were those of a common soldier. She brought meals from the storage bay and heated them. She made tea, which was initially terrible, but with practice she managed to improve it to mildly unpleasant. Breq drank it anyway, and said nothing. Seivarden managed to ruin two of Breq's three shirts by setting the sonic cleaner incorrectly, and Breq merely looked at the scorched fabric and handed it back. Seivarden briefly considered that perhaps Breq was on kef herself, but there was no possibility that someone on kef would have cared enough to slap Seivarden in the face, or leap off the bridge to save her. No, the only explanation was that Breq was disappointed in her, and there again was the shame that dragged at Seivarden like a station's artificial gravity set too high.
Seivardan sat on her heels in the corridor outside their cabin, fiddling with the ugly seam she had made trying to repair her better pair of gloves. It was difficult to avoid Breq on such a small ship, but more difficult to be near her, wondering all the time what she was thinking, how Breq kept a straight face with someone as pathetic as Seivarden in front of her. Although the door was closed it didn't properly seal, and she could hear Breq singing on the other side. It was a song Seivarden knew, a popular hit from an otherwise dreary opera based on the Emanations, and she was strangely delighted that the song had survived so long. Breq's croaky voice wasn't best performance she had ever heard, but the tune hadn't changed in a thousand years.
"My daughter grasps, grasps for the stars
Though the stars, stars orbit around her,
The attendant in the temple waits, waits for the cast
And she spins, spins forward to her fate.
Issa, Issa,
The stars rush away.
Inu, Inu,
The reflection in a temple mirror."
Seivarden wrapped her arms around herself, hunching over in an attempt to supress harsh tears. Her one remaining coin always cast Issa because it was damaged, not because Seivarden had moved one single step forward from the destruction of her past. Here she was, still locked in stasis, while Breq moved on and the universe with her.
"Seivarden." Breq took hold of Seivarden's upper arm to stop her tipping sideways. Seivarden let out a single, choked sound and slid to the floor, her arm burning where Breq touched her. Breq started to pull back, but Seivarden grabbed her hand so swiftly that she startled even Breq. It was only then that Seivarden realised that she was touching Breq's bare skin.
She still didn't let go. She couldn't have let go.
Breq did not move away, but crouched down beside Seivarden. "What do you need?"
"I don't know," Seivarden gasped, "Please." She held onto Breq like a tether to a ship, like an act of worship, clutching her hand close. "You're all I have."
"That's true." Breq was as blunt as ever, but she still didn't move away.
"Don't you ever need to touch someone? A thousand years in stasis didn't cure me of that." Seivarden couldn't stop talking, Breq's skin warm in her grip.
Breq shook her head. "It's different for me." She didn't seem sad about that, or smug. It was only fact. "I didn't realise that you - I'm not trying to leave you."
"Why do you protect me? I know you don't love me."
"Because I know you."
Breq's emphasis on "know" was all Seivarden needed. She bowed over Breq's hand, a gesture of submission from a forgotten time, and Breq's low sigh drifted over her scalp like the blessing of a temple priest. Breq might not return Seivarden's desperate love, but nor did she release her. Seivarden was finally breaking free from her stasis, and as much as it hurt, she would not go back.
Also at AO3
This entry was originally posted at https://lilacsigil.dreamwidth.org/100193.html - comments are welcome at either location.
Characters/Pairing: Breq/Seivarden unrequited
Fandom/Universe: Imperial Radch
Rating and Content Notes: Teen
Word count: 1760
Notes: Thanks to
st_aurafina 2017.
Summary: Seivarden feels like she is still in stasis while Breq rushes onward, but there are two sides to every coin.
It was ridiculous and impious to throw a daily cast with only one coin, but Seivarden had traded the others for local cash or the more widely recognised shen chits and then, inevitably, for kef. The only reason she still had this one was that it had become dull over time and nobody wanted it.
"A genuine antique," Seivarden muttered and cast it anyway. It came up Issa, Movement, but of course it meant nothing without the others to make a pattern. She scooped it up and shoved it back in her pocket. Movement it was, then.
Seivarden, daughter of the Vendaai, Captain of the Sword of Nathtas, had spent the previous night in a pen of long-haired, moss-chewing bov. It was warm and, despite the strangely acidic smell of their waste, the bov were non-judgemental companions. Normally, she wouldn't give a thought to the judgement or otherwise of animals, but Seivardan's limbs were beginning to shake and her throat starting to clench on its own dry walls. She needed kef.
She stayed low to keep below the shoulder-height of the bov, wary of being spotted. The Nilters let their herds roam when they hadn't brought them into town to sell, and yet knew the location of every single one of them and did not take kindly to interference. Seivarden didn't understand these people at all, free of civilising influences; though really the lack of civilising influence was probably the only reason the people of Nilt were able to remain true to their annoying customs and simple lifestyle at all.
One thing she did know was that the decorative halter that they put on the dominant female bov was unique to each family, so stealing one was futile. Pulling out the precious metal threads, though, that was untraceable, and the bov were too placid to know they were being robbed.
With several gleaming threads wrapped around her wrist under her heavy, coarse gloves, Seivarden headed into the miserable township where she had found herself after the last buy of kef had run out. It was an ugly trading post, dull pre-fabricated buildings barely distinguishable from the mounds of dirty snow at the sides of the road, but the population was always in flux, the con artists on the move, and the bars full, so Seivarden was barely noticeable in the mix, even with her Radchaai accent and inability to speak more than twenty words in the local dialect.
With the kef wearing off, Seivarden was glad of that. The first emotion to creep back was always irritation, closely followed by an excruciating shame. The anonymity of this place was the only thing that kept her upright; that and the knowledge that the feeling would only last until her next dose. She took a deep breath to squash it down and ventured into the currency exchange, joining the long queue of Nilters and a couple of foreigners who had been dealing or winning gems or off-world coins and jewellery the night before. No Radchaai, of course, and Seivarden felt foolish for even checking, but her slowly unfolding shame kept her alert for them. The line shuffled forward slowly with only one analysis device and one analyst on duty, with several security guards at her side, but nobody complained or even struck up a conversation. This was the queue of the morning after, and no-one was at their best. Seivarden didn't stand out at all.
The Nilter in front of her walked away swearing quietly under his breath and rattling raw gemstones in his hand, then it was Seivarden's turn.
"Next?" The analyst said something unintelligible then, "Please?" Seivarden pushed the precious metal threads across the counter and they were passed through the analysis device.
They must have been worth more than Seivarden thought, because although the analyst's stolid expression did not change for a moment, she pushed a good seven hundred shen across the counter. It would be an undervaluing, obviously, but Seivarden didn't care. Soon, she wouldn't care about anything. Soon, she would have excised all pain.
***
She'd tried once before to bury her extreme dislocation with work, but it had only occupied her body, not her mind. Almost six months of that had left her free of the kef physically, but that was all it had done, and not long afterwards she had ended up on Nilt selling everything she could lay her gloves on.
This time, she had something to keep her mind occupied: the mystery of Breq. Breq, who had not come to retrieve Seivarden but had met her by coincidence. Breq, who carried an invisible Garseddai weapon and talked about ships' emotions. Breq, who had saved Seivarden over and over and didn't even like her.
Seivarden had thought for a while that perhaps Breq held all life sacred, that the blood she spilled in her god's bowl was some kind of oath of protection or payment for lives lost. That would explain why she would throw herself off a bridge after Seivarden with little chance of survival. On the second day of their journey, though, Seivarden was returning from the sanitary facilities to their cramped cabin and saw Breq holding a young Ki girl against the wall by the upper part of her segmented throat.
"If you try to enter my cabin again, I will kill you and destroy your body so thoroughly that your mother will never find it." Her voice was emotionless, but her ungloved grip was strong.
The Ki girl shook her head vigorously and Breq let her go, but something about the way Breq's gaze followed her brought up a hazy memory of the Nilters who tried to rob them after the flier had broken down. Breq had tracked and killed them all with the same swift and passionless movements. Not one to worship life, then.
The transport ship they were on carried no other Radchaai, so Seivarden could have done whatever she wanted without fear of being identified: the "servant" designation with which she had boarded meant nothing. Their nearest neighbour seemed to be spending her entire journey catching up on an extremely long and complicated entertainment; Seivarden wouldn't noticed except that it was a historical epic and she kept hearing snatches of familiar words and speech patterns, only to realise the context and wish again for the numbness of kef. She wasn't even sure that she would have taken it, because then she wouldn't feel anything about Breq, either.
At first, she had talked herself into serving Breq by comparing their relationship to a lieutenant and a captain - there was no shame in cultivating a useful connection with someone higher in rank - even though her duties were those of a common soldier. She brought meals from the storage bay and heated them. She made tea, which was initially terrible, but with practice she managed to improve it to mildly unpleasant. Breq drank it anyway, and said nothing. Seivarden managed to ruin two of Breq's three shirts by setting the sonic cleaner incorrectly, and Breq merely looked at the scorched fabric and handed it back. Seivarden briefly considered that perhaps Breq was on kef herself, but there was no possibility that someone on kef would have cared enough to slap Seivarden in the face, or leap off the bridge to save her. No, the only explanation was that Breq was disappointed in her, and there again was the shame that dragged at Seivarden like a station's artificial gravity set too high.
Seivardan sat on her heels in the corridor outside their cabin, fiddling with the ugly seam she had made trying to repair her better pair of gloves. It was difficult to avoid Breq on such a small ship, but more difficult to be near her, wondering all the time what she was thinking, how Breq kept a straight face with someone as pathetic as Seivarden in front of her. Although the door was closed it didn't properly seal, and she could hear Breq singing on the other side. It was a song Seivarden knew, a popular hit from an otherwise dreary opera based on the Emanations, and she was strangely delighted that the song had survived so long. Breq's croaky voice wasn't best performance she had ever heard, but the tune hadn't changed in a thousand years.
"My daughter grasps, grasps for the stars
Though the stars, stars orbit around her,
The attendant in the temple waits, waits for the cast
And she spins, spins forward to her fate.
Issa, Issa,
The stars rush away.
Inu, Inu,
The reflection in a temple mirror."
Seivarden wrapped her arms around herself, hunching over in an attempt to supress harsh tears. Her one remaining coin always cast Issa because it was damaged, not because Seivarden had moved one single step forward from the destruction of her past. Here she was, still locked in stasis, while Breq moved on and the universe with her.
"Seivarden." Breq took hold of Seivarden's upper arm to stop her tipping sideways. Seivarden let out a single, choked sound and slid to the floor, her arm burning where Breq touched her. Breq started to pull back, but Seivarden grabbed her hand so swiftly that she startled even Breq. It was only then that Seivarden realised that she was touching Breq's bare skin.
She still didn't let go. She couldn't have let go.
Breq did not move away, but crouched down beside Seivarden. "What do you need?"
"I don't know," Seivarden gasped, "Please." She held onto Breq like a tether to a ship, like an act of worship, clutching her hand close. "You're all I have."
"That's true." Breq was as blunt as ever, but she still didn't move away.
"Don't you ever need to touch someone? A thousand years in stasis didn't cure me of that." Seivarden couldn't stop talking, Breq's skin warm in her grip.
Breq shook her head. "It's different for me." She didn't seem sad about that, or smug. It was only fact. "I didn't realise that you - I'm not trying to leave you."
"Why do you protect me? I know you don't love me."
"Because I know you."
Breq's emphasis on "know" was all Seivarden needed. She bowed over Breq's hand, a gesture of submission from a forgotten time, and Breq's low sigh drifted over her scalp like the blessing of a temple priest. Breq might not return Seivarden's desperate love, but nor did she release her. Seivarden was finally breaking free from her stasis, and as much as it hurt, she would not go back.
Also at AO3
This entry was originally posted at https://lilacsigil.dreamwidth.org/100193.html - comments are welcome at either location.