Fic: A Root in the Soil, A Leaf in the Stars (Farscape, Zhaan)
Title: A Root in the Soil, A Leaf in the Stars
Author: AstroGirl
Author on LJ: astrogirl2
Fandom: Farscape
Character: Zhaan
Rating: G
Warnings/Spoilers: None
Summary: Zhaan is grateful for her captivity, even as she hates it.
Author's notes: This is set pre-series. The prompt was "familial roots." Given the character, it was, of course, impossible not to take this somewhat literally.
A ROOT IN THE SOIL, A LEAF IN THE STARS
Zhaan is grateful for her captivity, even as she hates it.
The isolation of her cell has given her the stillness necessary to hear the gentle, whispering voice of the Goddess, and every day she spends at the thin and paltry mercy of the Peacekeepers has taught her more of humility and patience. The experience has transfigured her soul, and she gives sincere thanks for this, every day. She has even come to accept her punishment as just in the eyes of a higher authority than the Peacekeepers, as the beginning of a penance she knows she may continue to pay for the rest of her life.
But she does not forgive the Peacekeepers for what they have done, nor does she accept it as her destiny to live and die in their keeping. And so she spends her days now waiting, as patiently and humbly as she is able, for the Goddess to send her a means of escape. To bring her home again.
She can see Delvia so clearly when she closes her eyes: The graceful, sweeping arches of her mother's home. The low blue hills of her family's land, speckled with bright kedala blooms in the spring, or fragrant fala-leaf stems at the height of summer. Between her fingers, she can almost feel the dark, moist soil of Clan Zotoh's sacred birth-fields, where she, like so many before her, spent the first cycles of her life, barely sentient, a child of the soil and the sun. Her mother always liked to say that while the body may lose its infant roots, they remain attached forever to the soul. In her heedless youth, Zhaan laughed at her taste for sentimental platitudes, a memory that grieves her now.
As does the fact that when she pictures her mother's face she can only see it set in lines of sorrow, as it was when the Peacekeepers took Zhaan's father away. Though she was permitted to see no one after her own arrest, she knows she must have brought that expression to her mother's face again that day. Or a worse one, perhaps; the loss of a daughter on top of the loss of a mate is far too much for anyone to be asked to bear. She yearns for the chance to tell her mother that she has come to understand this, to beg her forgiveness. To touch her face as she smiles.
She imagines being surrounded again by family: her mother's sisters, her clan-cousins, the elders and the children. The companions of her past, the links to her future. The poignancy of the thought is almost painful. It's been too long since she felt such a connection to anyone but her Goddess, and now more than anything, more than freedom, or justice, or inner peace, Zhaan finds herself longing for the company of people she loves. Whatever happens to her from here, whatever the Goddess has in store for her, she knows one thing for certain. She will not die here on this Leviathan alone.
Author: AstroGirl
Author on LJ: astrogirl2
Fandom: Farscape
Character: Zhaan
Rating: G
Warnings/Spoilers: None
Summary: Zhaan is grateful for her captivity, even as she hates it.
Author's notes: This is set pre-series. The prompt was "familial roots." Given the character, it was, of course, impossible not to take this somewhat literally.
A ROOT IN THE SOIL, A LEAF IN THE STARS
Zhaan is grateful for her captivity, even as she hates it.
The isolation of her cell has given her the stillness necessary to hear the gentle, whispering voice of the Goddess, and every day she spends at the thin and paltry mercy of the Peacekeepers has taught her more of humility and patience. The experience has transfigured her soul, and she gives sincere thanks for this, every day. She has even come to accept her punishment as just in the eyes of a higher authority than the Peacekeepers, as the beginning of a penance she knows she may continue to pay for the rest of her life.
But she does not forgive the Peacekeepers for what they have done, nor does she accept it as her destiny to live and die in their keeping. And so she spends her days now waiting, as patiently and humbly as she is able, for the Goddess to send her a means of escape. To bring her home again.
She can see Delvia so clearly when she closes her eyes: The graceful, sweeping arches of her mother's home. The low blue hills of her family's land, speckled with bright kedala blooms in the spring, or fragrant fala-leaf stems at the height of summer. Between her fingers, she can almost feel the dark, moist soil of Clan Zotoh's sacred birth-fields, where she, like so many before her, spent the first cycles of her life, barely sentient, a child of the soil and the sun. Her mother always liked to say that while the body may lose its infant roots, they remain attached forever to the soul. In her heedless youth, Zhaan laughed at her taste for sentimental platitudes, a memory that grieves her now.
As does the fact that when she pictures her mother's face she can only see it set in lines of sorrow, as it was when the Peacekeepers took Zhaan's father away. Though she was permitted to see no one after her own arrest, she knows she must have brought that expression to her mother's face again that day. Or a worse one, perhaps; the loss of a daughter on top of the loss of a mate is far too much for anyone to be asked to bear. She yearns for the chance to tell her mother that she has come to understand this, to beg her forgiveness. To touch her face as she smiles.
She imagines being surrounded again by family: her mother's sisters, her clan-cousins, the elders and the children. The companions of her past, the links to her future. The poignancy of the thought is almost painful. It's been too long since she felt such a connection to anyone but her Goddess, and now more than anything, more than freedom, or justice, or inner peace, Zhaan finds herself longing for the company of people she loves. Whatever happens to her from here, whatever the Goddess has in store for her, she knows one thing for certain. She will not die here on this Leviathan alone.