footsteps follow, down through the hollow sound
Characters: c-zacatechichi and you (open :: see HERE)
Date: March 31st
Summary: Fela is walking the Garden's dreams.
Warnings: To be updated as any appear!
( I was waiting down at the ancient gate... )
Date: March 31st
Summary: Fela is walking the Garden's dreams.
Warnings: To be updated as any appear!
( I was waiting down at the ancient gate... )
This used to be Caprica City, and one can almost see it even though half of the high-rises in the distance are crumbling, windows blown out, glass and metal melted or shattered. The city was leveled, numerous missile strikes and a fifty megaton nuclear detonation. Clearly, the intent was to leave no survivors.
Caprica is standing in the area that used to be the Riverwalk, across from the reflecting pool. The attack scorched permanent shadows into the pavement here, things, people, caught in the moment of the blast. Sometimes she can catch snippets of voices, sounds, carried on the wind scented with death and decay, but when she looks there is no one there ( ... )
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She does not notice the dreamer immediately, is distracted by the pool for a moment, wondering how it would have looked when it was full. Lovely, she thinks, not so sad and forgotten, empty. Her gaze falls on Caprica then, her dark eyes are curious, and they are circled darker still by the soñando stains around them. There is a third mark on her forehead in the shape of a thumbprint, as distinct as in the waking world, but then this woman would have no reason to imagine Fela differently.]
Hello.
[It is not a voice heard, maybe it is imagined, for it is as insubstantial as smoke. Fela smiles slightly, the expression faint and somewhat sad. There is ( ... )
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What are you doing here?
[ The question isn't harsh or abrasive; it's only barely curious. Mostly she sounds worn, tired. Like so many months of dreaming this place have taken their toll on her. Her guilt is still there, invisible, yet it stains the feel of the air around her like smoke or blood. Caprica doesn't seem to terribly mind the intrusion. This is a dream, and as far as she knows this woman is a figment of her imagination. Or she is like the version of Gaius she only saw in her mind, back in her world. Either way, she is already aware of Caprica's guilt and why she feels it, or so she thinks. ]
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Imagining when the pool was full.
[She knows that is not, precisely, what she was asked, but that is the answer she gives, her true voice moving past rosy lips. The smell of the soñando follows her like a perfume as she draws closer, a burst of burning flowers at the site of a silent grave.
She tilts her head curiously.]
Why are you here?
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At the question, she almost laughs bitterly. ]
You should know.
Remembering the dead.
[ The seven million dead of Caprica City are nothing in comparison to more than twenty billion, all over the Colonies. Their blood on her hands, a sin for which she cannot be sure there will ever be absolution.
She looks across the pool, to the half-shattered remnants of a building on the other side, where the flag of Aerilon still hangs from what's left of the awning, tattered and burned. Her mouth twists into an unsteady line and her hands clench at her sides. ]
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Fela's attention returns, as if that small shift of tension catches her eye unexpectedly. She reaches out in concern, her hand warm and gentle against the dreamer's cheek.]
You keep them here with you?
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I have to.
[ She keeps her guilt, even in her dreams, because if she allows herself to forget, then she runs the risk of going back to what she used to be before the attacks. Going back to being the same woman who did this, who seduced a man for his access to the defense grid, shut the entire thing down and left it wide open for her brothers and sisters to rain death and destruction on billions of God's children who did not deserve to be murdered. ]
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For how long?
[Fela could not imagine holding to such a thing. She could not imagine such a weight, she was destined to leave it all behind.]
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The question gives her pause, and she draws in a slow breath, inhaling air fragrant with that heavy floral scent that surrounds Fela; it is better than breathing in the stale air of the dead city. ]
I don't know. [ A pause. ] As long as I need to.
[ She is very still for a moment, turning her eyes away from Fela's again, before she says, ] I don't expect forgiveness.
[ It's stated simply, like the truth that it is. She doesn't expect forgiveness and she won't ask for it. Certainly the ones who have survived this will never forgive her her sins. All she can do is work to make things right, little by little, in her own way. ]
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It had pleased her to see the woman accepting her touch, but the sense of pain continues, prickling through Fela with a sudden insistence when Caprica looks away from her. Fela tenses, briefly startled, and a great gust of wind sighs through the open courtyard, bringing with it a clattering like off-balanced wind chimes.
Fela ducks her head, collecting in her hair with a sheepish expression. When things have quieted once more, she collects one of Caprica's hands next, pulling gently like an excited child.]
Will you fill it for me?
[She is leading her dreamer towards the pool.]
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She lets Fela pull on her hand, leading her forward. There is a stone walkway that bisects the pool about a third of the way along its length, and she pauses at the edge of it. The pool is empty, all the water that was in it evaporated by the nuclear strike whose hypocenter was not far from this place, in relative terms. Caprica remembers what it used to look like; she'd come here before, with Gaius or by herself, more times than she could count. But to remember that too fully would be to forget this, this moment in time of her own making, and she is not entirely sure she can. Not entirely sure she should. ]
I don't know if I can.
[ There is so little that frightens Caprica, but in those few words she almost, very nearly sounds afraid. ]
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You could not keep your grief in this pool instead, and let the rest heal?
[Whether or not she comes from Caprica's mind or beyond it, they both know this place is painful. It is meant to be, and that is terribly sad to Fela. For those with life to live, dreams should be hopeful and vibrant. There was beauty even in sorrow, but this...
What use was there in being weighted to the past? ]
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She sighs, a short exhalation of breath, and closes her eyes for a few moments. Caprica is beginning to realize Fela doesn't really understand. And since this is a dream, she doesn't hesitate to tell her like she would in the waking world. ]
I did this.
[ It's not just grief, it's guilt, remorse. Things her brothers and sisters would have boxed her for, if she hadn't shown them this genocide was a sin. ]
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This is a great deal of destruction to be attributed to one woman.
[She notes this quietly, moving from Caprica's side to step out onto the open air of the empty hollow, brightly colored skirts swaying with her steps.
She has her hands crossed at her lower back, head down, an almost solemn procession.]
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No. [ Her expression tightens. ] But I... made it possible for this to happen.
[ She drops to one knee in the middle of the walkway, touches her fingers to the inside wall of the pool, just lightly. Her gaze flicks up, to where there used to be a grassy lawn on the other side, trees, bushes, flowers. Now there's nothing but dust. It used to be so beautiful. ]
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And she does not, at this moment, do more than look over her shoulder, eyes smoldering dark.]
Why?
[Who did such a thing and then kept the decayed world in their mind as a prize?]
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