(no subject)
AN: This was written in random chunks so please excuse it if the consistancy is off.
Disclaimer: I don't give a frak, RDM can suck it.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Kara is aware she doesn’t look like the rest of her tribe. When she looks down at her hands they are too large, too light colored, and practically hairless. She has a special friend; a little boy who would be called Jiba if he or anyone around him had thought to attach sounds to his person. When she and Jiba go to catch fish or drink from one of the streams she always looks at their reflections. They look similar enough, she decides, his reflection and hers pulling faces at each other in the water, but she can’t help feeling a little jealous all the same when they return to camp and she stands out again. Kara doesn't know where she came from like Jiba does, and although he’s very young he’s been there longer than she has.
When Kara tries to remember being as small as he is, all she comes up with are vague, blurred images of stars, and strange rhythmic sounds that once lulled her to sleep. Kara is unlike anyone she’s ever seen, until the new creatures come.
Jiba is the first to spot them, and he runs back to get her immediately. Kara stares with wonder-could this be her family? But the creatures are covered in strange garments and make unfamiliar sounds at one another, which they alone seem to understand. Put off by the enormous, loud animals they seem to be riding inside of Kara hangs back and sticks with her own tribe, which seems unbothered by her semblance to the newcomers.
~~~~
One day after the new creatures arrive, Kara is stalking birds along the shoreline. Peeking out over top of a small hill she is shocked by what she sees: her reflection has climbed up out of the water!
It's wearing strange clothes and looks almost sad, but it's clearly her reflection nonetheless. Their eyes lock suddenly and her reflection’s mouth falls open slightly. Kara’s hand goes up instinctively to see if her own jaw has fallen, and her reflection grins suddenly and widely, before turning on her heel and running off into the distance.
Now Kara cannot help herself but follow these new people, hunting her reflection most of all. She sees it interact with two males and a female, the last of which seems very old and sickly. Then one day something changes.
Kara has watched her reflection walk off with her smaller pack and, reasoning that she might soon be intruding on a burial, has not followed. All at once she feels different, more solid than ever before and she knows, without being able to explain why, that she will never see her reflection walking around again.
~~~~
The new creatures begin to split into smaller groups and spread out. Kara spends more and more time abandoning her own tribe to follow them instead. She is still wary of approaching one of the larger packs, but is discovered one evening by a child with dark hair.
Because of the child’s small stature Kara is not intimidated by the large stick she holds or her attempts at challenging Kara by waving one of her hands about, but Kara does run away when she hears the child’s father approaching. He shouts “Kara! Kara!” after her as she runs away and she never once considers turning back, though it occurs to her much later that he didn’t sound very angry at all.
~~~~
It is with great excitement that Kara discovers the younger male that her reflection once consorted with has not chosen a large pack to follow. He walks and walks, hunting and exploring from what she can tell, and Kara follows, her tribe all but forgotten, watching him.
He’s beautiful, she’s decided; strong and intelligent, with quick reflexes too. She longs to race him through the plains. She also longs to run her fingers though his hair, which looks soft like hers.
~~~~
One evening, after a long day of stalking the younger male, Kara is drinking from a small pool at the base of a great mountain. She looks down smugly at her reflection in the water, and bares her teeth in victory when it is forced to mimic her.
With a small start she sees the male’s reflection in there too, and perhaps she secretly wanted to be caught, or perhaps she simply got too much sun that day, but Kara hesitates. She watches his reflection notice hers, go white, and come slowly closer, before she has the presence of mind to look up at its solid companion.
He makes the same “Kara, Kara” sound that the child’s father made, but it sounds different in his voice. Kara is tempted, but runs.
~~~~
Lee has been exploring for weeks now, and has been trying every day to take time for a meditation of sorts. He simply sits and looks at the living world around him, and practices opening his mind; pushing out things like odds and statistics, and letting in things like nature, higher powers and chance.
In the days after he first discovers Kara, Lee has to do this a lot.
He’s aware that she’s following him now, and gathers from her behavior that she isn’t as she once was. She doesn’t remember him, nor does she seem to understand what he says to her, but Lee understands now that time and life are too precious to spend time worrying about ‘how’ and ‘why’, and that things should just be enjoyed and cherished instead.
He attempts to make contact with the new, primitive Kara and is struck by how similar she is to the Kara he knew. She follows him stubbornly, even when she is tired and the terrain is rough, she never once tries to slow him down. She spooks easily, sometimes more by his lack of aggression than by anything he would consider threatening. One morning she joins his hunting, and they work together with such perfect accord in execution that he almost feels they are flying again.
Aside from the hunting she has been persistently standoffish, and Lee is disappointed and slightly annoyed to see her return to this pattern immediately afterwards. In a sudden burst of impulse he races off down the side of the mountain they’ve been climbing, and grins like sunrise when he hears her following behind. Suddenly, in his moment of triumph, a large blond thing bowls him over and into a clearing. Of course it’s Kara; she’s outrun and outsmarted him, just like she always could and Lee, pinned underneath her, lets out wild barks of laughter that seem to shake his very heart. Above him, Kara looks intrigued, and tries to imitate the noises he’s making, which are obviously meant to express glee, by clenching her stomach and letting out bursts of air.
Her first attempts are marred by her already jagged breathing, but her grunt-like tries seem to delight him and they are soon giggling together like a couple of mad monkeys. Laughing feels good, and when Lee indicates gently that it’s okay to get off him anytime, Kara decides that sitting on top of him feels good too, and that she should do both much more often.
From then on, the two are once again inseparable; Lee teaches Kara his name, and Kara teaches Lee how he’s been doing everything wrong. They hunt and eat and explore together, and every night Kara finds herself inching a little bit closer to where he’s sleeping, aware that he’s holding himself back and not completely sure why.
One night they lie next to each other, looking up at the millions of stars above them, and Lee doesn’t try to explain anything with words. When she catches him staring at her instead of the stars he simply leans in and presses his lips gently against her own. Kara decides she likes this too.
~~~~
“Food.” says Lee, gesturing to the fruits laid out in front of them, and the meat spitting over the fire. Kara repeats the gesture wordlessly.
“Food.” Lee repeats.
“Oood.” Kara mimics with an exaggerated vowel and widened eyes to show that she finds the whole affair silly.
“No, ‘food’, with a ‘ffffffff’ sound.” Lee draws his teeth up over his lower lip to show her how it’s done and Kara laughs. Kara has decided she likes laughing, and tries to do it as often as possible in the direction of Lee.
When Lee finally begins to look defeated she pops a berry into his mouth, kisses his nose and says “Lee.” firmly and simply. Judging by the way he kisses her back, this has sufficed.
~~~~
Kara’s mind is clearly suited to a spoken language, much more than the other natives, and she easily picks up words like “shit” and “frak” that stumble out of Lee’s mouth when he falls, burns himself cooking, or is simply too overcome by her motions to say much of anything else. Kara treasures things like this, noises he makes without thinking and which make him smile when she announces them loudly, proudly, and completely out of context. Everything else though, she could do without. Sometimes she gets so confused trying to pick out words she knows from what he’s saying that she stops really looking at his face or his gestures. She stops thinking altogether about what he might be saying and ends up with nothing. Kara sometimes thinks he talks just to keep from saying anything.
She’s getting better at keeping him quiet though.
~~~~
After a while Lee and Kara both notice that Kara’s getting bigger around the middle, and though Kara worries at first that she might be sick, Lee’s many attempts at explaining pregnancy, including an unfortunate run in with a very angry mother bird, cheer and comfort her. Lee, for his part, feels a twinge of anxiety when he thinks about all the doctors and classes and medications that were involved in childbirth on the colonies and has to remind himself that women gave birth for centuries before the first medicine man, and that Kara is a fighter who isn’t going to give up easy.
All the same, he feels the instinctive urge to pull together with other humans, and when their child kicks for the very first time Lee’s mind is made up. Together they descend from the mountains they’ve exploring day after day, month after month, and find in the space between, two very old acquaintances.
Gaius Baltar is not who Lee would have picked to introduce to Kara as her first not-Lee human, in fact he was very low on the list. Lee finds however that Baltar is not the raging ego maniac he once was. Perhaps it’s Caprica Six’s demanding affection, perhaps it’s the constant fresh air and exercise, but Lee suspects it is rather to do with the tiny, wailing bundle which Caprica unveils to him with shining eyes and trembling hands.
After several sleepless nights of seemingly pointless shrieking, Kara decides she does not like human babies, and that Lee can have his when it comes out.
~~~~
Visitors often include their small settlement as a short stop in migration, as with extra hands around especially, there is usually plenty of food to go around. Even Jiba, all grown up, visits and returns once or twice to Kara’s very great delight. Their son has been with them for nearly seven winters however, before Lee sees the three faces he’s been waiting for.
Kara has been having dreams since her son (who she did eventually, if begrudgingly, forgive for crying all night) was born. She remembers things from her old life and suddenly understands why Lee, Gaius and Caprica enjoy verbal communication. It’s nice to sit with Lee and know they share the feelings of quiet heartache that such memories bring up, but Kara much prefers to hear and share stories about happier times with the people she’s beginning to remember. She remembers Zak being the first person to ever tell her he loved her, and asks Lee for stories about the man they named their son for. She asks Lee for stories about the Old Man, and to identify countless pilots who she can see clear as day in her dreams but can’t name. When she asks about Sharon and Karl Lee doesn’t have many stories, and none of them are terribly happy. That’s why he’s glad when they can finally meet face to face; and they can make their own stories.
Kara recognizes Hera from what seems like a lifetime ago, and is happy to meet Hera’s new little sister, who is around Zak’s age.
I think it's pretty obvious and in fact almost inescapably certain that these pilot!babies will grow up to have pilot!grandbabies, so let's just leave it at that, shall we? :)
Disclaimer: I don't give a frak, RDM can suck it.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Kara is aware she doesn’t look like the rest of her tribe. When she looks down at her hands they are too large, too light colored, and practically hairless. She has a special friend; a little boy who would be called Jiba if he or anyone around him had thought to attach sounds to his person. When she and Jiba go to catch fish or drink from one of the streams she always looks at their reflections. They look similar enough, she decides, his reflection and hers pulling faces at each other in the water, but she can’t help feeling a little jealous all the same when they return to camp and she stands out again. Kara doesn't know where she came from like Jiba does, and although he’s very young he’s been there longer than she has.
When Kara tries to remember being as small as he is, all she comes up with are vague, blurred images of stars, and strange rhythmic sounds that once lulled her to sleep. Kara is unlike anyone she’s ever seen, until the new creatures come.
Jiba is the first to spot them, and he runs back to get her immediately. Kara stares with wonder-could this be her family? But the creatures are covered in strange garments and make unfamiliar sounds at one another, which they alone seem to understand. Put off by the enormous, loud animals they seem to be riding inside of Kara hangs back and sticks with her own tribe, which seems unbothered by her semblance to the newcomers.
~~~~
One day after the new creatures arrive, Kara is stalking birds along the shoreline. Peeking out over top of a small hill she is shocked by what she sees: her reflection has climbed up out of the water!
It's wearing strange clothes and looks almost sad, but it's clearly her reflection nonetheless. Their eyes lock suddenly and her reflection’s mouth falls open slightly. Kara’s hand goes up instinctively to see if her own jaw has fallen, and her reflection grins suddenly and widely, before turning on her heel and running off into the distance.
Now Kara cannot help herself but follow these new people, hunting her reflection most of all. She sees it interact with two males and a female, the last of which seems very old and sickly. Then one day something changes.
Kara has watched her reflection walk off with her smaller pack and, reasoning that she might soon be intruding on a burial, has not followed. All at once she feels different, more solid than ever before and she knows, without being able to explain why, that she will never see her reflection walking around again.
~~~~
The new creatures begin to split into smaller groups and spread out. Kara spends more and more time abandoning her own tribe to follow them instead. She is still wary of approaching one of the larger packs, but is discovered one evening by a child with dark hair.
Because of the child’s small stature Kara is not intimidated by the large stick she holds or her attempts at challenging Kara by waving one of her hands about, but Kara does run away when she hears the child’s father approaching. He shouts “Kara! Kara!” after her as she runs away and she never once considers turning back, though it occurs to her much later that he didn’t sound very angry at all.
~~~~
It is with great excitement that Kara discovers the younger male that her reflection once consorted with has not chosen a large pack to follow. He walks and walks, hunting and exploring from what she can tell, and Kara follows, her tribe all but forgotten, watching him.
He’s beautiful, she’s decided; strong and intelligent, with quick reflexes too. She longs to race him through the plains. She also longs to run her fingers though his hair, which looks soft like hers.
~~~~
One evening, after a long day of stalking the younger male, Kara is drinking from a small pool at the base of a great mountain. She looks down smugly at her reflection in the water, and bares her teeth in victory when it is forced to mimic her.
With a small start she sees the male’s reflection in there too, and perhaps she secretly wanted to be caught, or perhaps she simply got too much sun that day, but Kara hesitates. She watches his reflection notice hers, go white, and come slowly closer, before she has the presence of mind to look up at its solid companion.
He makes the same “Kara, Kara” sound that the child’s father made, but it sounds different in his voice. Kara is tempted, but runs.
~~~~
Lee has been exploring for weeks now, and has been trying every day to take time for a meditation of sorts. He simply sits and looks at the living world around him, and practices opening his mind; pushing out things like odds and statistics, and letting in things like nature, higher powers and chance.
In the days after he first discovers Kara, Lee has to do this a lot.
He’s aware that she’s following him now, and gathers from her behavior that she isn’t as she once was. She doesn’t remember him, nor does she seem to understand what he says to her, but Lee understands now that time and life are too precious to spend time worrying about ‘how’ and ‘why’, and that things should just be enjoyed and cherished instead.
He attempts to make contact with the new, primitive Kara and is struck by how similar she is to the Kara he knew. She follows him stubbornly, even when she is tired and the terrain is rough, she never once tries to slow him down. She spooks easily, sometimes more by his lack of aggression than by anything he would consider threatening. One morning she joins his hunting, and they work together with such perfect accord in execution that he almost feels they are flying again.
Aside from the hunting she has been persistently standoffish, and Lee is disappointed and slightly annoyed to see her return to this pattern immediately afterwards. In a sudden burst of impulse he races off down the side of the mountain they’ve been climbing, and grins like sunrise when he hears her following behind. Suddenly, in his moment of triumph, a large blond thing bowls him over and into a clearing. Of course it’s Kara; she’s outrun and outsmarted him, just like she always could and Lee, pinned underneath her, lets out wild barks of laughter that seem to shake his very heart. Above him, Kara looks intrigued, and tries to imitate the noises he’s making, which are obviously meant to express glee, by clenching her stomach and letting out bursts of air.
Her first attempts are marred by her already jagged breathing, but her grunt-like tries seem to delight him and they are soon giggling together like a couple of mad monkeys. Laughing feels good, and when Lee indicates gently that it’s okay to get off him anytime, Kara decides that sitting on top of him feels good too, and that she should do both much more often.
From then on, the two are once again inseparable; Lee teaches Kara his name, and Kara teaches Lee how he’s been doing everything wrong. They hunt and eat and explore together, and every night Kara finds herself inching a little bit closer to where he’s sleeping, aware that he’s holding himself back and not completely sure why.
One night they lie next to each other, looking up at the millions of stars above them, and Lee doesn’t try to explain anything with words. When she catches him staring at her instead of the stars he simply leans in and presses his lips gently against her own. Kara decides she likes this too.
~~~~
“Food.” says Lee, gesturing to the fruits laid out in front of them, and the meat spitting over the fire. Kara repeats the gesture wordlessly.
“Food.” Lee repeats.
“Oood.” Kara mimics with an exaggerated vowel and widened eyes to show that she finds the whole affair silly.
“No, ‘food’, with a ‘ffffffff’ sound.” Lee draws his teeth up over his lower lip to show her how it’s done and Kara laughs. Kara has decided she likes laughing, and tries to do it as often as possible in the direction of Lee.
When Lee finally begins to look defeated she pops a berry into his mouth, kisses his nose and says “Lee.” firmly and simply. Judging by the way he kisses her back, this has sufficed.
~~~~
Kara’s mind is clearly suited to a spoken language, much more than the other natives, and she easily picks up words like “shit” and “frak” that stumble out of Lee’s mouth when he falls, burns himself cooking, or is simply too overcome by her motions to say much of anything else. Kara treasures things like this, noises he makes without thinking and which make him smile when she announces them loudly, proudly, and completely out of context. Everything else though, she could do without. Sometimes she gets so confused trying to pick out words she knows from what he’s saying that she stops really looking at his face or his gestures. She stops thinking altogether about what he might be saying and ends up with nothing. Kara sometimes thinks he talks just to keep from saying anything.
She’s getting better at keeping him quiet though.
~~~~
After a while Lee and Kara both notice that Kara’s getting bigger around the middle, and though Kara worries at first that she might be sick, Lee’s many attempts at explaining pregnancy, including an unfortunate run in with a very angry mother bird, cheer and comfort her. Lee, for his part, feels a twinge of anxiety when he thinks about all the doctors and classes and medications that were involved in childbirth on the colonies and has to remind himself that women gave birth for centuries before the first medicine man, and that Kara is a fighter who isn’t going to give up easy.
All the same, he feels the instinctive urge to pull together with other humans, and when their child kicks for the very first time Lee’s mind is made up. Together they descend from the mountains they’ve exploring day after day, month after month, and find in the space between, two very old acquaintances.
Gaius Baltar is not who Lee would have picked to introduce to Kara as her first not-Lee human, in fact he was very low on the list. Lee finds however that Baltar is not the raging ego maniac he once was. Perhaps it’s Caprica Six’s demanding affection, perhaps it’s the constant fresh air and exercise, but Lee suspects it is rather to do with the tiny, wailing bundle which Caprica unveils to him with shining eyes and trembling hands.
After several sleepless nights of seemingly pointless shrieking, Kara decides she does not like human babies, and that Lee can have his when it comes out.
~~~~
Visitors often include their small settlement as a short stop in migration, as with extra hands around especially, there is usually plenty of food to go around. Even Jiba, all grown up, visits and returns once or twice to Kara’s very great delight. Their son has been with them for nearly seven winters however, before Lee sees the three faces he’s been waiting for.
Kara has been having dreams since her son (who she did eventually, if begrudgingly, forgive for crying all night) was born. She remembers things from her old life and suddenly understands why Lee, Gaius and Caprica enjoy verbal communication. It’s nice to sit with Lee and know they share the feelings of quiet heartache that such memories bring up, but Kara much prefers to hear and share stories about happier times with the people she’s beginning to remember. She remembers Zak being the first person to ever tell her he loved her, and asks Lee for stories about the man they named their son for. She asks Lee for stories about the Old Man, and to identify countless pilots who she can see clear as day in her dreams but can’t name. When she asks about Sharon and Karl Lee doesn’t have many stories, and none of them are terribly happy. That’s why he’s glad when they can finally meet face to face; and they can make their own stories.
Kara recognizes Hera from what seems like a lifetime ago, and is happy to meet Hera’s new little sister, who is around Zak’s age.
I think it's pretty obvious and in fact almost inescapably certain that these pilot!babies will grow up to have pilot!grandbabies, so let's just leave it at that, shall we? :)